Tell me what ails thee

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Rorthron

ddr_c64 Version 1.3 has now been pushed out on all formats. You will start to see it coming live over the next 7 days. As usual, Android will be first ( probably already is live ), with iOS and OSX being last. If you have a Windows or OSX version directly from this site, or through GoG, you should see an UPDATE menu option appear on the main menu. GoG.com will also go live with the update in their time.

There are a embarrassingly large number of bug fixes in this version. Thanks to a number of very eagle eyed players, in particular Mark Wright, I have been able to fix up many specific differences between the initial release version and the original 1985 release. I also spent a large amount of time pouring over the original code, looking for anything that might alter the way the game played in a way that I might not have foreseen.

doomdrk1 On the whole, I think we have most of them, but there is always a chance that there are a few differences still. In particular, the remake is based on the original ZX Spectrum version, and there are definite differences between the Spectrum and the C64 version. So, if you were a C64 player, then the game will not being playing quite as you remember it.

The last few weeks has really made me understand the intricacies of the original game to a level that I never fully appreciated before. It’s quite amazing the small amount of time that the original game was developed and tested in, that said, it’s because of that that you understand why the original had more problems than Lords of Midnight ever did.

There are a number of bugs or oddities that I have chosen not to fix, these are because they are in the original. To players coming to the game anew, or even returning to the game without the same outlook of 30 years ago, some of the AI logic might not make a great deal of sense. I intend to address these issues in a later version by adding different playing modes.

The intention is to have the following playing modes, Original Spectrum, Intended Spectrum, Original C64, Updated.

Intended Spectrum will fix a couple of obvious bugs inherent in the original release, the main one being movement. There are some movement values that would change the way certain races move across particular terrain, for example giants and mountains, but these were never applied in the original due to a bug that referenced the wrong table.

The Original C64 will apply a couple of AI differences to the Spectrum version, namely the aforementioned movement issue. In C64 the functionality was added, but the terrains are different than the Spectrum Intended version. The other change would be that recruited lords start at dawn in the C64 version I believe. Please feel free to call out any other known differences ( apart from the sun 🙂 )

Updated will allow me to make a number of slight AI changes.

Firstly I will change the behaviour of fighting critters. I think it’s wrong that a lord with an army can be killed by a critter, especially on not much more than a flip of a coin. Currently a Lord’s army takes damage from the critter, which should remain, but a lord should not engage the critter until the army is wiped out.

Secondly, I will add some changes to make it less likely that a lord that you attack just continues on with their objectives and completely avoids a battle. I think that if they start the night in a location with an enemy army, there should be a large chance that they remain there and engage in battle. If they are near a location with an enemy army, there should also be a smaller chance that they will attack.

Midnight Status Update

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Rorthron

This week has seen The Lords of Midnight finally get the 1.12 update across all the stores. That means that OSX and Blackberry players can now enjoy the features that other users have had for nearly 4 months. Sorry about that, the OSX issue came about because I could no longer submit to the App Store, and it has taken this long for Marmalade to fix the issue, and Blackberry was just an oversight – never noticed that I had not updated it.

Doomdark’s Revenge has now hit version 1.2 across all stores. This resolves a number of early issues and brings the remake more inline with the original. There is still some work to do on that, and version 1.3 should be pushed out later this week which will hopefully close off the remaining problematic areas. You can see a full list of upcoming changes here.

I’ll be honest, it has taken me by surprise at the number of issues that crept through the testing process. Looking at it with hindsight, not enough testing occurred that compared it to the original. I have spent a large amount of the last two weeks pouring over the original code looking for subtle things that I had previously missed, in order to try and explain the variances. For example, Shareth’s stronghold is Imiriel, but for the routing AI it get overridden as Glireon. Morkin is actually and AI lord which means he moves. And, Characters will not attempt to recruit another character while at a stronghold.

The OSX version of Midnight and Revenge both have a problem with Mac Book Pro Retina screens. I shall be looking into that. As a work around, place you laptop in one of the smaller virtual resolutions, start the app and then change it to Large Window mode in the options. The change you desktop resolution back.

I thought the War was lost and Midnight doomed.

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Rorthron

I’ve been working my way through the outstanding bug list. One of the areas that seems to cause contention, is battles.

It causes me some problems because the original is actually pretty haphazard where battles are concerned. So I’m going to talk about the battles in a little more depth, just so that you can get an understanding as to why certain things seem to be happening.

Firstly, night processing goes like this…

1. Reset all characters at dawn
2. Give all AI characters their turn
3. Process Battles
4. Place things on map
5. Move Mists
6. Remove things from map at location’s where characters are
7. Check if characters can recruit soldiers from strongholds
8. Re-spawn armies at strongholds
9. Check for important deaths

Secondly, the interesting point here is, characters are given a chance to move BEFORE battles take place. So, if you attack a character, there is a good chance he will move and thus a battle will not take place.

To understand that a little more, let’s look at the AI turn.

The AI character must decide what to do every night. Each character will react to a number of objectives.

1. Goto Liege
2. Goto Foe
3. Goto Object
4. Goto Home
5. Do nothing

If they have a liege, and that liege’s objectives are 1 or 2, then this characters objective also become 1 or 2.

Otherwise, we pick a new objective

When picking a new objective we pick a random number between 1 and 16. If we choose 1 to 5, then these are our objective. Otherwise we continue with our current objective.

So as you can see, there is a 68% chance that we will just continue on with what were we previously doing. Which means that unless you are at a characters stronghold, and his current objective is to go home, then the likelihood, he is moving away from you.

There is only a 6% chance that the character will stay at his current location.

Personally, I am very surprised at these stats, because it makes battles bloody difficult. Unlike The Lords of Midnight where a nearby army would drop everything to attack, or an attacked army would stay until the death, in Doomdark’s Revenge, everything apart from battle seems to be of more interest.