Dungeons of Dredmor Message Board

Imagine if so much of the bullshit Peter Molyneux has talked over the years was actually in a game. A simulation game where each tiny human lived their own lives, had their own thoughts and feelings and memories, and behaved accordingly. It’s a claim we’ve heard so often that it’s hard not to dismiss it out of hand. So much so that when Dungeons Of Dredmor developers Gaslamp Games were claiming it, I demanded they stop and prove it to me… They did. Clockwork Empires, a colonial village building sim (of sorts) pulls you in with the cult monster worship, but you stay for the extraordinary AI.

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While the main Humble Bundle is diverting itself from gaming with a really quite splendid collection of audiobooks, it seems to have snuck out one of the best collections of games so far in its Weekly Bundle. Rather than showcasing games from one studio, this week it’s a collection of Roguelikes. (Everyone who wants to have a fight about the terminology, please do so here.) That’s Paranautical Activity, Dungeons Of Dredmor Complete, Hack Slash Loot, The Binding Of Isaac + DLC, Teleglitch Die More Edition, and Sword Of The Stars: The Pit Gold. Cor.

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Clockwork Empires, the next game from Dungeons of Dredmor developer Gaslamp Games, appears to be a typical, steampunk-themed bureaucracy simulator, with one major twist: Instead of ordinary catastrophes like floods or fires, your biggest concern are attacks by squamous, unknowable Elder Gods.

If it helps, imagine a less militant Age of Empires as written by H.P. Lovecraft. The cities you create, while arguably typical, always hold an air of malice, even before your citizens burst into flame or are driven mad by obscene geometries. "Build mighty colonies populated by foppish aristocrats, ambitious middle-class artisans and clerks, and the toiling lower-classes who labor in your magnificent factories, scientific laboratories, lavishly decorated houses, farms, cathedrals, pubs and more," reads the game's official description. "But be careful - every character in your society has its own personality, motivation, and (sometimes deadly) secrets."

That would be concerning if it weren't for the game's extradimensional horrors. If your society declines or succeeds in certain ways, you may earn a visit from one of Cthulhu's poker buddies. Fortunately, how your society evolves is entirely up to you.

"Ultimately the creation and outcome of this incredibly nuanced world is dictated by the player, but as developers we've steered clear of directing the actual outcome of each society players will create," stated Gaslamp Games CTO Nicholas Vining. "The outcomes can vary so greatly it was important to design the game to be as shareable as possible. From building to strategizing, exploring and the emergent player-to-player shared content, no two games will be alike. That's the gruesome and wonderful nature of Clockwork Empires."

Clockwork Empires will debut on the PC, Mac and Linux platforms at some point during 2014.

If you place some kind of weird one-trailer-per-day restriction on yourself and are currently fretting about finding Mr or Ms Right: The Extremely Brief Videogame Preview, then look no further. Clockwork Empires, the latest ball of bits and bytes from Dungeons of Dredmor developer Gaslamp Games, just got its first trailer, and it’s sending RPS’ hyper-sensitive Delight-O-Meter into a tizzy. The game is a 19th century steampunk colony builder, but the trailer reveals that it’s so very much more than the staid stew of trite aesthetic cliches that description seems to imply. Somehow, it manages to prompt tearfloods of both uproarious laughter and bitter sadness within the span of, like, a minute. Also, there are giant squid monsters. Enough of my blathering. Watch.

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I went back to Dungeons Of Dredmor recently, having realised it had expanded twice since I’d last played. The good news is it’s still as brilliant as ever. The bad news is, I’m still just as terrible at it. The brilliant news is, Kieron’s still just as cross that we’re all playing Rogue-likes now, after having ignored him about them for years. And the news news is, there’s to be another update “hastily named” Conquest Of The Wizardlands, due out soon. It’ll be adding not only new realms, but sneakiness and at last some weapon and armour augmentation crafting.

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Suicidally deciding to launch during E3 – don’t they realise we have to post all the trailers, until such time as we are dead? – is a free expansion for the lovely (if divisive) Dungeons of Dredmor. Despite the devs coming up with all manner of “new items, enemies, rooms, skills, and things to generally make your life Better and/or More Full of Death”, the one thing they couldn’t force their tired brains to do was devise a title for the new content. Hence, it is simply “You Have To Name The Expansion Pack.” I’m going to call mine Dungeons of Dredmor: George Osborne Is A Pasty-Faced Spawn Of An Earwig With A Weeping Sore Where His Soul Should Be. How about you?(more…)

I’d gladly welcome another expansion pack for Dungeons of Dredmor and I gladly shall when the next one arrives in the near future. To add to the glad, it’ll be free as well, having been constructed with “the cooperation of a handful of the Dredmor community’s top modders”. It’s not slight and full details of the contents are below. Not content with welcoming the mod community into their home, Gaslamp Games are also serving tea and biscuits, or at least that’s how I interpret the news that modding will now be integrated with the Steam Workshop. Mods for all, mods of all stripes, and also biscuits for those who would like them.

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CHANGELOG:

- FIXED: Save game compatibility with 1.0.8 save games.
- FIXED: Save game issues on levels > level 2.
- FIXED: crash looking at bookshelves containing a wand recipe
- FIXED: hordes spawning off screen causing crash in script code. (This was the Moustache Fighting League. Again. Not even kidding.)
- FIXED: primary and secondary stat buffs not loading in mods.
- Redrew minimap icons so that they are beautiful.
- Additional wandcrafting recipes.

CHANGELOG:

- FIXED: n-dimensional lathe was, in fact, a giant game-crashing exploding bomb
- FIXED: wandcrafting recipes being lost after load/save
- FIXED: crafting tool output not displaying
- FIXED: some crossbows not working [RotDG]
- FIXED: some mittens not working [RotDG]
- FIXED: Axe of Dinglenit was worth 0 zorkmids [RotDG]
- FIXED: Gloriously Regal Belt using description from Bullet Belt
- FIXED: That blasted lever room will only show up once per level. It was getting to be a bit of an issue.
- FIXED: "Cat Ears" helmet was using the wrong art [RotDG]
- FIXED: "Runes" showing up in gem transmutation
- FIXED: Diggle plague just being all kinds of nasty
- FIXED: Chest/helm tooltips switched on character panel
- FIXED: Skills that give primary stats, wouldn't give the correct stats
- FIXED: Mustache Fighting League room would fill with infinite mustaches
- FIXED: very rarely, scripts would spawn an entire horde of monsters off of the bottom of the map.
- FIXED: tutorials showing up twice
- FIXED: took out more broken tutorials
- FIXED: game crashing at start new game screen on Mac OS X 10.5.8.
(Probably.)
- FIXED: Heal-over-Time (HoT) effects being resisted (Fairywodger; Knit Tissue; etc.)
- FIXED: Mysterious portal crashes. [RotDG]
- FIXED: Steam achievements now trigger for expansion skills.
- FIXED: mods will now correctly load rooms.xml and text.xml
- FIXED: last skills in modded-in-skill-tree would crash the game
- FIXED: the amazing exponentially-multiplying Diggle Egg Stacking bug.
- Minor tweaks, balances, etc.
- Corrupted Shrines are now mildly more interesting.
- Better decor on Diggle God Shrines. [RotDG]

It was announced in the recently expired month of November and now, on what should be the day before release, Dungeons of Dredmor’s first expansion has been trailerised. As well as containing graphic closeups of the most formidable eyebrows in gaming, the video provides details on the contents of Realm of the Diggle Gods. New enemies, areas and equipment are present, as one would expect, but did you expect a Werediggle skill line? I didn’t because my imagination is clearly limited and limp. How about eye lasers and the ability to create a character who is a “Vampiric Pirate Hunter-Vegan that dabbles in Demonology”? Oh, and belts! Sounds good. Watch below.

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Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, the gang from Gaslamp Games explain the hilariously time-consuming adventure of indie development with Dungeons of Dredmor.
What's your game called and what's it about?

David Baumgart: Our game is called Dungeons of Dredmor. It's a humorous, graphical, roguelike-inspired dungeon crawling RPG. The setup is the archetypal hero descending into the dungeon to defeat an evil dark lord -- that's Lord Dredmor -- by fighting, casting spells, collecting loot and experience, and generally being bothersome.

This is no sure process, for the dungeon is filled with traps, monsters, and bottles of acid. Everyone will die at some point. If a player has selected the traditional permadeath option, then upon death the player's character is dead forever and the player must start again with a new hero at the beginning of the game. It's more fun that way.

CHANGELOG for 1.0.6:
FIXED: Map zoom is now saved between gameplay sessions
FIXED: a broken room defintion that would always lead to a gargoyle trap spawning behind a food dispenser.
FIXED: Items held in the players hand are no longer lost on save/load.
FIXED: Rod charging no longer prevents priming items after use.
FIXED: The game now realizes that you are in a shop after you load the game… and are in a shop.
FIXED: Food vending machines now have correct tooltips.
FIXED: Items from the ground can no longer be used as active skills.
FIXED: Overridden equipment during the start of the character creation process will give you permanent Mystery Bonuses.
FIXED: Monsters will now check to make sure the player isnt standing on a corpse before they bring it back to life.
FIXED: After you steal things from Brax, you can now use them as items.
FIXED: The DIGEST button will now halt if you see an enemy or get attacked by one.
FIXED: Uberchest lock state no longer resets after save and load.
FIXED: Blink Batties now Blink. (So does Lord D.)
FIXED: Various broken Steam achievements (Monsters with Omelettes, The Critic, anything else with a counter)
FIXED: digging ray crash.
FIXED: misaligned close button in Quest window.
FIXED: Unarmed damage bonuses are no longer applied to range attacks, or thrown attacks.
FIXED: Unskilled weapon wielding penalties no longer affect thrown, or crossbow, attacks.
FIXED: Unarmed bonuses now apply even if you wield a crossbow.
FIXED: Vandalized Dredmor Statues now save their obstruction state correctly.
FIXED: WASD now breaks statues, lets you run into some other things and use them
GAMEPLAY: The resistance statistic now gives you a roll to block corruption attacks.
GAMEPLAY: Mace and Axe skill trees have been revamped and enhanced.
GAMEPLAY: Lord Dredmor can no longer be stunned or charmed.
GAMEPLAY: Reworked Necronomiconomics.
GAMEPLAY: Smithing is now a Warrior archetype.
GAMEPLAY: Sneakiness has a -20 modifier.
GAMEPLAY: Elemental Weapons now have some Elemental Resistances. Or something.
GAMEPLAY: Added a bunch more items, including a keytar.
GAMEPLAY: Some crafts are now unhidden by default.
GAMEPLAY: Added the Mosolov Cocktail! Dont drink it all at once.
GAMEPLAY: The 2X bottom bar is now implemented. Well do the rest next patch.
COSMETIC: Monster spellcasting now shows up on the text ticker.
COSMETIC: More minimap icons!
INTERNAL: Hidden Fun Stuff to make it so we can turn on the mod support without breaking everybodys save games. (That said, we have to put it in the patch before the mod support so that… well, so that it doesnt break everybodys save games.)
INTERNAL: Hidden Fun Stuff, related to the Other Hidden Fun Stuff.

• FIXED: Game not correctly processing some right clicking mouse clicks.
  
• FIXED: Lag due to blood splatters.
  
• FIXED: Dual wielding was not working, in particular the last skill.
  
• FIXED: Shield bearer skills were not correctly granting passive attributes.
  
• FIXED: A number of screwed up achievements in the "skill set" categories.
  
• FIXED: Warrior health (and other things) were not being calculated correctly.
  
• FIXED: various spells not working due to having incorrectly set sight buffs.
  
• FIXED: primary skill buffs were not passing their bonuses through to secondary skill calculations.
  
• FIXED: Item duplication bug when hitting "0".
  
• FIXED: incorrect item values for Cybertronic Amulet.
  
• FIXED: incorrect item values for Dark Orb.
  
• FIXED: being able to save and quit the game after your death.
  
• FIXED: nightmare curse not actually putting monsters to sleep (or correctly triggering the DOT)
  
• FIXED: narcosomantic induction not always putting monsters to sleep.
  
• FIXED: SHIFT-Click mode, when turned on, doesnt correctly handle SHIFT-Clicking as regular clicking.
  
• FIXED: unliving walls do not become permanent blockers after saving and re-loading the game.
  
• FIXED: stacked necronomiconomics penalties prevent the player from disabling his other buffs.
  
• FIXED: right-clicking, off turn, causes left-clicking behaviours..
  
• FIXED: infinitely long Diggle health bars.
  
• FIXED: monsters not dying when affected by buffs that reduce their HP (acid burn, etc.)
  
• FIXED: monsters who are stunned or asleep can no longer dodge, block, or counter-attack.
  
• FIXED: blank pedestal spawning in the Tomb of the Unknown Hero.
  
• FIXED: certain weapon powers from Krong never activated
  
• FIXED: various ways in which the player could abuse the shopping system
  
• FIXED: some items becoming stackable after you put them in crafting tools.
  
• FIXED: potion stacking stops working after you save, reload, and put it in a craft tool.
  
• FIXED: vampirism causing haywire (or crit buffs); normal spellcasting NOT haywiring
  
• FIXED: bad text in wand, potions tutorials
  
• FIXED: KRONG text no longer mentions crafting skill
  
• FIXED: starting part of Monster Zoo music wasn't playing
  
• FIXED: This Translation Is All Wrong! wasn't clearing damage effects on weapons, causing massive damage stacks
  
• FIXED: a number of spells were not correctly applying blasting damage (Thor's Fulminaric Bolt, for instance.)
  
• FIXED: Vampires are no longer told to "eat food to regain health."
  (Now they must dreeenk blaht.)
  
• FIXED: double "bad weapon" penalties.
  
• FIXED: a bunch of monster inheritance issues.
  
• FIXED: crash on fullscreen with OS X 10.7
  
• FIXED: crash while SHIFT-clicking with an object that you have just auto-looted, with auto-loot enabled.
  
• FIXED: various other issues with the auto-loot.
  
• FIXED: Various issues with WASD move-to-open.
  
• FIXED: Lutefisk cube behaviour is now consistent with regards to stacks versus individual units.
  
• FIXED: game crash when using non-standard characters in character names.
  
• FIXED: empty tiles appearing in room definitions.
  
• FIXED: dual wield and counter chance..
  
• FIXED: mysteriously appearing broken doors.
  
• FIXED: buffs that cannot be dismissed.
  
• FIXED: auto-looting for lockpicks.
  
• FIXED: multiple on-hit triggers on corpses.
  
• FIXED: items get deleted when clicking in inventory and holding down CTRL.
  
• FIXED: don't let the game run in resolutions with y resolution < 600.
  
• FIXED: Dying at the hands of Lord Dredmor no longer gives you the "Thrusty" achievement.
  
• FIXED: the Thrusty achievement now works.
  
• FIXED: Mark of Chthon and Magic Steel now correctly buff in a way that scales with magic power.
  
• FIXED: traps triggered by monsters applying buffs to the players.
  
• FIXED: pets give you XP when you kill them.
  
• FIXED: curses on monster stacks cause madness.
  
• FIXED: game launcher uses 100% CPU
  
• FIXED: Fine Bronze Cuirass has incorrect stats.
  
• FIXED: issues with ALT-TAB and SDL causing certain things (quicksell, stack split) to stop working after leaving and returning to the game.
  
• FIXED: bolt recovery now works for crossbow users on all hits, not just death.
  
• FIXED: thrown item recovery now works for all thrown items on all hits, not just death.
  
• NERF: Using a wand now disables invisibility effects.
  
• NERF: The Obvious Fireball has been Nerfed more obviously than the last un-obvious Nerf.
  
• NERF: This Translation Is All Wrong! now enacts a Terrible Price.
  Also, we got to make another Marcus Brody joke.
  
• NERF: added some more resistances throughout levels to require you to use at least two spells to beat the game.
  
• NERF: Hand of Belimawr is no longer stackable.
  
• NERF: Alchemy, in various small, cruel ways.
  
• NERF: "This Translation is All Wrong" saps magic from items, occasionally.
  
• BUFF: Psionics gets magic resistance.
  
• GAMEPLAY: Nerfed, then buffed, Vampirism. It's sort of about the same, really.
  
• GAMEPLAY: More fire resistance on Level 9 monsters.
  
• GAMEPLAY: Black Pearls can now be ground into chalk. Interestingly, this is not a flight of fancy but is based on Science.
  
• GAMEPLAY: Heavy armour gives greater magic penalties, but offers more piercing resistance.
  
• GAMEPLAY: Heavy armour also reduces nimbleness.
  
• GAMEPLAY: the Jingly Jangly Staff of Crystals now requires alchemy instead of smithing.
  
• GAMEPLAY: Lutefisk balancing changes.
  
• GAMEPLAY: Tinkerers can now make Black Powder.
  
• GAMEPLAY: Robots now do electrical damage. Because, you know, they're robots.
  
• GAMEPLAY: Blobbies now leave Acid Pools.
  
• UI: Kill the Tutorial Pop-up at the start of the game if you've seen it once.
  
• Monsters have an expanded vocabulary.
  
• The Bony Wand is now not quite as awful.
  
• Lord Dredmor is now nastier.
  
• Added a new, fun monster to Level 10.
  
• Added craftable thrown weapons.
  
• Added slightly more informative vending machine tool text.
  
• Game renders all text using UTF-8 internally, for the Japanese Translation teams. (Ganbatte!)
  
• Upped Pyrokinesis damage.
  
• Made acid traps marginally less deadly.
  
• Fixed zorkmid scaling drop rate.
  
• Changed graveyard text so people no longer think their scores are negative.
  
• Weapon and armour stats have been given some more love.
  
• Elven Ingot Grinder is now affected by alchemy, not smithing or tinkering.
  
• Alchemists now start with an Ingot Grinder, giving them more rubbish than any other class.
  
• Adjacent monsters now display health bars consistently.
  
• Trap outlines are now drawn on top of walls when they are obscured.
  
• ALT-click will now split stacks in the inventory.
  
• Added a new minimap interface, and some minimap icons for Lutefisk Shrines, quest statues, Anvils, etc.
  
• Added some more rooms of Fun.
  
• Added some rings and amulets that give Necromantic Resistance, for those days when you need Necromantic Resistance.
  
• Pet AI improvements; your Moustache Golem now longer has the intelligence of a protozoa. (We're now at "easily frightened wombat")
  
• Added more achievements.
  
• New throwing item recipes.
  
• Added a reward for clearing a Monster Zoo.
  
• Autoloot toggle moved to config screen.
  
• Added "DIGEST" button for automatic digestion of foods.
  
• New "Random Skills" icon.
  

Intrigued by Alec’s review, John got hold of Dungeons Of Dredmor too, and found himself finally clicking with a roguelike. Alec and John sat down at either end of the RPS banquet table to discuss the game, and their experiences while playing it.

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In all my years as an avid cartographer of dangerous virtual catacombs, I've never seen dark, nefarious corridors so well stocked with fancy cheeses, spiced meats, and assorted inebriating spirits as the ones in Dungeons of Dredmor. It's rather funny, really, that this indie roguelike is more bounti...