I know this is a long time coming because as usual I’ve been quiet for the last year. Anyway we are heading for the Spring Equinox release 2.0.9, and although we seem to be dropping in to a habit of one annual release, I figure that’s better than nothing at all; so I thought I’d take a moment to give a brief overview of what to expect.
- Axmol port
- #246 fix crash when recruiting soldiers from depleted stronghold
- #238 Balance safe area on the horizontal
- #237 Adjust think terrain position on phone
- #220 DDR character slain by a lords object is not displayed correctly
- #244 DDR guidance potentially showing info on dead lords
- #253 LOM Dreams open up fey
- #252 refactor for tunnels
- LoM Novel Scenario
So the big one here is the Axmol port. That has taken some work. Firstly thanks to the team at Axmol for giving me all the assistance needed. And also to Francisco Rosa who is becoming an essential right arm for me. He has taken care of all the Windows builds and installers for some time now, makes sure any code changes I make still work on windows, and created the Windows Axmol project for me this time around.
Moving to Axmol is huge. The las SDK cocos2dx still hasn’t been updated in over 4 years so was becoming very stale with no bug fixes or improvements. This new engine, which is a fork from Cocos2dx being everything up to date, and hopefully secures a few more years of continuous development allowing me to keep up to date with Apple’s and Google’s requirements.
A number of bug fixes. A bit of a nasty crash when recruiting soldiers from a stronghold. Some minor screen adjustments. A fix for not displaying who killed a lord, or how he was killed in DDR. A fix for Shareth keep showing up in guidance even though she is dead!
#253 – Dreams open up the Fey, is a new gameplay rule, thanks to Franciso Ross, that is eyeing the Novel scenario. Basically you can choose to play the game without the ability to recruit the fey, or you can only recruit them once Dreams is recruited. This is experimental as we have no real idea how it will affect game play.
#252 Refactor DDR for tunnels – this is connected to the LoM Novel scenario and is about decoupling the tunnels feature from DDR so that it can be available in other scenarios. See this post here about it.
LoM Novel Scenario will be a work in progress as there is still a lot of work to do. But currently tunnels are supported and impassible mountains around the Plains of Doom. Basically you can’t get the Ice Crown without using the tunnels. You can follow progress here #171 should you be inclined.
Great to read your latest update, and future proofing the code based by moving to Axmol. The game is still a joy to play 40 years later- thanks to your efforts.
As a kid in the 80s and having ‘completed’ DDR, I was always on the lookout in the Spectrum magazines for news on the third installment (Eye of the Moon)….but it was never to be.
Is there any chance you will look to create this one day?
I’m on record as saying no to EotM and instead would like a 2d landscaping version of The Citadel. I also presume you’ve read the Docs on this blog for the story Mike left behind?
As we now have some indication of where Mike finally wants to take it, Drew and I have factored these in to the novels. We will start thinking about The Citadel as a novel soon and the EotM after that. So maybe after the novel I would have enough info to consider a game.
I would love to see The Citadel in 2d landscaping! I bought the original and played it for about an hour before giving up lol
My Goodness, Still working on it!
Your commitment is impressive.
Still play a LOM and DDR playthrough at least once a year on the iPad.
Thanks
when will be able to recruit the ghost in the forest of dreams? and why is there no saving allowed as was the case in the original version?
Midnight is a none recruitable character. The reason for no save game was the choice of Mike’s – everything is so accessible now that he felt just loading a saving made it even easier than it is. There are undos as a compromise and you get more undos depending on difficult.
Great to see lords still supported my 1st strategy game got me hooked????
Looks like a really interesting update. I’m just rereading the Novel – any plans to make Utarg more difficult to recruit?
Thanks for keeping this up to date Chirs
Yes on utarg. Just don’t know how yet. There is no point in it being a straight swicheroo like in the novel, there needs to be a way of keeping him onside… unless.. etc.
Thank you for your ongoing commitment to the project, it is very much appreciated.
It’s great to see you’re still supporting this Chris. LoM is one of my old favourites and definitely the one that left the longest lasting impression. I like the Fey/Dreams recruitment option, it would go well if the CPU lords had their own AI to move them around, or would that be a change too far?
Years ago I wrote a dubious version of LoM where the Free and Fey were separate sides with hot-seat play, it was a race against time to recruit them before they ended up killing each other. A fun mechanic but probably not for the purists.
Brilliant work Chris!