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4276

Ideas / Re: Hotkey to show all visible items

« on: May 21, 2015, 03:11:46 AM »

You mean this part?

how bad we are doing

While I'm too busy to even think about looking at them now, it's great to have those score sheets for several reasons:
-One is I'd like to have them automatically imported into a database that others can browse online.
-Another is we'll use the collected data to perhaps tweak the balance.
-And the third is we'll be able to use it for tournaments, so it's nice to see the system working .

All I've done so far is open the folder to see hundreds of games in there and get the idea that some people are playing quite a few runs, often with increasing scores but not always =p.

4277

General & Off-Topic / Re: Forum Feedback

« on: May 21, 2015, 02:30:53 AM »

I have some problems with the quote background. Maybe a bit lighter grey would make it more visible. Or maybe thicker borders would fix it.

You know, I totally agree with that. I was thinking the same thing . When I set it up I didn't see/test any quotes, and now that I've started seeing them I find them a bit hard to read myself. I'll fix them up!

The smileys are quite horrible, look badly cropped without an alpha channel and clash with the sleek forum design.

If only you had some sort of awesome pixel artist who excels at drawing tiny Cogmind-themed sprites...

We'll see.

Hehe. Now I check my email because Kacper has conveniently emailed me about this issue...

(The emoticons are made for the default SMF dark-on-light style, so they look pretty mediocre, but I didn't want to start off by messing with the defaults in case that would bother anyone who's used to them. We'll see what Kacper wants to do.)

4278

Support / Re: Any luck with Wine on OSX?

« on: May 21, 2015, 02:16:58 AM »

Thank you for the details. So aside from Mac owners being able to do this themselves, this is something I could also theoretically use to package Cogmind and distribute it as a one-step installer for OSX users?

I don't have a Mac, so I would have to set up a reliable OSX VM to take care of it. Sounds like a good possibility, though.

4279

Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: The mouse-killing Keyboard Mode persists through losing window focus

« on: May 20, 2015, 11:26:25 PM »

Ah, no wonder, I almost always use windowed since that's more convenient for alt-tabbing, and takes up less room . Yeah, that's an important detail. I'll look into it.

4280

Support / Re: Any luck with Wine on OSX?

« on: May 20, 2015, 11:23:50 PM »

For the record, I have reports that "Cogmind runs fairly well under PlayOnMac once you install the VC2010 redistributable" (referring to the one mentioned in the install instructions).

Edit: Another to add to the list. Apparently "with winbottler Cogmind works better than some natively ported games in OSX." Supposedly I could use this to package the game for OSX users? If that's the case then it's definitely something I will look into and provide.

4281

Support / Re: Cogmind on a 4K monitor

« on: May 20, 2015, 11:10:36 PM »

Wow, 4k. I haven't heard anyone playing above 2k yet. So, the solution here is to add another font. I never really envisioned resolutions above 2k so they aren't included with the game. Thank you for bringing it up. For now, download this file, and use its contents to overwrite the relevant files of your current game. It will enable 4k compatibility. (Update: See this post further below for a link to even more font options!)

Change your font to 36/Cogmind, set your map dimensions to 106x50, restart, and bam--you have 4k Cogmind

I'll add this to the game for next release.

4282

Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: The mouse-killing Keyboard Mode persists through losing window focus

« on: May 20, 2015, 10:45:49 PM »

What's your OS?

I use keyboard mode all the time and do a lot of alt-tabbing, but I've never had it lock the mouse on me. (I'm on Win7.)

We can resolve this by, as you say, manually making sure the mouse is unlocked on focus switch. Though focus detection in Windows is actually not all that straightforward, so we'll see how well it works... (this is why I didn't implement caps lock detection for text entry, as well--it doesn't play nice with alt-tabbing+SDL, the engine Cogmind runs on).

4283

Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Crash; shot by demolisher in the mines

« on: May 20, 2015, 10:41:03 PM »

Okay, that's something I need to fix as well, then. It's supposed to back up your progress on completed maps in case the game crashes. But I believe I built that system into the main complex transitions, before branches were even added, so I'll go back and make sure it works on all map transitions.

Thank you!

As soon as I can actually catch up with all the things happening simultaneously right now, we'll have a bug fix release that resolves most everything brought up so far.

4284

Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Weird lines appear on right log if you do some specific stuff

« on: May 20, 2015, 10:36:30 PM »

Thank you for the detailed explanation! I've seen this happen before, a case of the UI rendering being cut short so the lines don't disappear. I'll look into refining the scripts to make sure that can't happen.

4285

Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Repair console repairs the wrong item

« on: May 20, 2015, 10:34:03 PM »

Maurog is right, you can't repair items that are attached--they must be removed first. (I might change that, actually, but I'll have to go examine why I made that decision in the first place.)

It took the one from your inventory.

4286

Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Crash; shot by demolisher in the mines

« on: May 20, 2015, 10:32:02 PM »

Excellent, with your description and the trace from that log I should be able to track down and fix this easily.

To confirm: After the crash when you restarted you were able to continue your game from the same map, yes?

4287

Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Screen-shaking animation leaves leftover artifacts on the borders

« on: May 20, 2015, 10:27:38 PM »

Thanks for reporting it, I'll have that fixed.

4288

Support / Re: Game Resolution

« on: May 20, 2015, 10:19:12 PM »

50 is the minimum allowable map height (and width), because you can later see more of the map via sensors etc.

If you want to play windowed and make sure it fits on your screen, you'll have to lower the font size. Size 18 will be slightly too large for 1080p due to the application title bar. Use a size 16 font (changeable in options, or press Ctrl-PgDn while in the game).

4289

General & Off-Topic / Re: Introduce Yourself!

« on: May 20, 2015, 12:50:29 PM »

Your posts motivated me to get up and start making my own game 

Thanks for following and I'm very happy to hear that! I love spreading the roguelike development goodness, and if I can do it, so can you guys because I am in no way any kind of software engineer computer guy. I just problem solve and do whatever works.

I usually play rogue-lites and turn based games such as BoI, the freshly released Invisible Inc, Xcom and FTL. Most other RL were either to daunting or inaccessible for me. So I hope that changes with Cogmind!

The idea with Cogmind is to be both deep and accessible, so anything you don't find accessible you tell me about it and we'll see what we can do to improve it!

Hello everyone, I'm the artist behind Cogmind graphical tileset.

Before Cogmind I already knew a bit about rougelike genre but first time I really dived into one of the titles were when I found an Android Brogue port called Pixel Dungeon. It was merely a coincidence since I were looking for any pixel art game then but man, how lucky I were to bump into this one.
I played It for countless hours before moving on, after that I tried a bit of classic Brogue, Dwarf Fortress and more rougelike-like Red Rogue but at the moment none of them were able to make me stay for long.

I think It was Ben "Eigenbom" Porter that shared the tweet with a link to the job announcement on the Grid Sage Games blog. I still remember when I found that early in the morning and spend over 4h writing an e-mail, packing my best art and creating some tile samples that were required. After a few weeks of waiting, making more samples and dramatic turns we started the work.

Right now from rougelike genre I don't play any other game than Cogmind, It sounds like an advertisement but It's true.

From my other favorite games I'd list Dragon Age: Origins, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, inFamous I & II, Castlevania series for Nintendo DS (all three games) and pen'n'paper D&D 3.5 edition.

In the more serious parts of my life I make pixel art and learn programming. I'm quiet passionate about game development and I spend as much time as I can reading, watching videos and thinking about It.

And our artist arrives! Welcome Kacper, and we need to get you a badge. In fact, pixel your own and I'll assign it to you in the forums so everyone knows what you do and can thank you profusely for it (Something around the size of the current badges I've started adding, or a little smaller or bigger if you like. If you don't make one I'll be forced to do it for you! I guess it might also make sense if I gave you some text using the Cogmind font... well, your choice!)

Funny that you found roguelikes by some random art-related coincidence, as did I (albeit earlier). Ben did help me retweet that and I'm so happy that you decided to send in your ideas even though it was past the stated deadline =p

"Right now from roguelike genre I don't play any other game than Cogmind, It sounds like an advertisement but It's true. "
Thank you Kacper we'll use that in the advertising! (Then they compare the name to the credits and hmmmmm...)

I loved the Castlevania DS series! Played those when I still had time before my son was born. Got a DS for my wife and played it more than she ever did . Nice art, too, eh?

I've been waiting for you to open forums for this game for a while now so I can finally find a place where I can have proper discussions about Cogmind (I don't really like using reddit). Finally here, Hello!

I actually can't remember how I found Cogmind, but it was about 8 months ago. The screenshots caught my interest and I started following the dev blog, which has been very useful and entertaining. I don't play many 'pure' roguelikes (other than ADOM, which to this day is one of my favourite games) but I play roguelites, like FTL, BoI, Spelunky etc.

I play very different games but my favorites are usually deep in the RPG genre: Dark Souls, Dota 2, Baldur's Gate (1, not a huge fan of the second for some reason), to name a few. For me the most interesting aspect of cogmind is definitely the graphics, but I'm also curious to see how the mechanics turn out. This game will most likely require a lot of balancing.

My interests are tightly tied to gaming in one way or the other. I'm interested in game development in general, I follow a few indie projects (though none of them are getting regular updates anymore) and I tend to read articles and listen to speeches about game design. I also read books (Pratchett is(was ) one of the few writers I consistently like, usually I randomly pick up books other people recommend) and do random stuff.

Anyway, it's nice to be here. I don't think I'll buy into the alpha just yet, but I will buy the game at some point, at least at release. One of the most interesting game projects this year.

Hi Derman! I had the forums ready earlier, but decided it wouldn't be too meaningful to open them when there wasn't really anything to discuss except blog posts and speculation

And even if you don't play many 'pure' roguelikes, ADOM's as pure as they come

Hopefully the balance in Cogmind is pretty good, at least it's about where I want it for now, though it will take some getting used to for new players because there are a lot of different ways to make mistakes . Later on however it will quite probably need some rebalancing once we expand the mid/late-game into the branches. We need to make sure that both the main route and branch routes are viable, but neither can be too easy. The theory behind how it's all organized seems to hold up, but I can't talk about that bit!

Enjoy the forums!

4290

Everything REXPaint / Re: Show off your REXPAINT creations

« on: May 20, 2015, 08:30:15 AM »

So, of course most everyone has seen my own REXPaint ASCII art--certainly in the game! No sense in rehashing that stuff... instead I can show something else I made last year: a knight to defend ozymandias79's castle!



I've always wanted to have a thread like this . We'll gradually get more activity here as more REXPaint users show up. I've yet to announce that there's finally a dedicated forum area for it.

4291

Ideas / Re: Closing panels annoyance

« on: May 20, 2015, 08:23:13 AM »

This is becoming one of the more commonly requested features. It would require some new workaround/hack in the engine, but I think for mouse users this is definitely an important change to make. I developed mostly using keyboard or kb-mouse hybrid, so tended to use ESC; this is something it's good to have feedback on to see what other types of users prefer.

That's an interesting (and pretty cool!) second solution you pose, though it might make more sense for everyone if I just figured out a way to enable clicks anywhere. It might take longer to implement though because it doesn't fit into the existing architecture (which is why it doesn't do that already), and there are so many different UI window configurations that we'd have to make sure it didn't break something, or make something else less intuitive...

It's in the near-term TODO list!

4292

Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: options menu not saving preferences

« on: May 20, 2015, 05:54:02 AM »

Your antivirus is putting the game in quarantine/sandbox. You need to let it allow Cogmind to save files otherwise your config can't be recorded. In fact, it won't even save your game if you exit!

4293

Ideas / Re: Scavengers imba, nerf pl0x

« on: May 20, 2015, 05:47:18 AM »

Is there a movement animation option somewhere? It can get visually disorienting and I wouldn't mind sacrificing a little time to keep track of how things are moving.

I plan to attempt to add something like this for a near future version, though it will be implemented somewhat differently than you may be used to due to interface limitations. I have to test it and see (I was going to add it before launch, but it got pushed much further down--now probably back up again because a couple players have mentioned it).

I agree - super annoying, but they definitely add a dimension to the game that is worth preserving   They would be less bothersome if they dropped the items they had picked up, when destroyed.  The ideal nerf might be to limit their item carrying capacity to 1 (if it isn't already?) and then tune down the frequency of them appearing in the game world slightly.

They play well into the mechanics of combat, I think, and there will be some more options to deal with them in the future.

They do drop everything they pick up, unless they've taken it to a Recycling Unit. And they are limited in their carrying capacity by their storage unit's capacity. I could reduce it, but then when you take it it's not as useful to you...

I did already tone down their numbers and scope of activity (it was worse before!), but we'll look at this as a candidate for balancing. I want to add the other features first. You will be able to hack terminals to affect how recyclers operate

They're a huge pain, and unless that's an intended behaviour to reduce item access or something I don't see a point to it.

It is somewhat intended, yes. They're a "problem" you have to deal with, and I'll be adding more ways to do that. For now there are a few, one of which being taking a quick one-weapon pot shot at them if there's something lying around that you really want. Otherwise, if you can gauge how long a fight will take, the other possibility is to just track down and kill them. I like the dynamic, but we'll work on it!

There are additional strategies for dealing with Recyclers, and we'll be adding more and tweaking as necessary.

4294

Ideas / Re: Hotkey to show all visible items

« on: May 20, 2015, 05:27:45 AM »

Not stupid, there are a stupid number of commands and features . No one can be expected to learn them all so quickly. I do recommend when you have a minute to read the full list of commands in the help menu. Also the options menu, since there many customizable features!

4295

Strategies / Re: Wondering about stealthiness

« on: May 20, 2015, 05:25:36 AM »

They notice you as long as you are within their sight range (which is usually equal to your minimum/unmodified sight range), and if they take their turn while you are within that range.

So if you are moving very fast, their turn will come much later by comparison and you might be able to slip by/away if it's just a short distance. There is no specific indicator for this part--you'll have to get a feel for it (not knowing adds to the suspense!).

Know that when hostiles do spot you, their background glows for a bit to indicate that. I plan to add a tutorial message to the next version because the only place this very important mechanic/indicator is currently described is in the manual.

Similarly, is there a way to determine if having weapons unequipped vs equipped vs equipped & activated makes being noticed more likely?

Enemies don't care about what you have equipped or activated.

Stealthiness is best achieved by having the right utilities (which is even more important than being fast, but being fast helps). Things like various scanners and ECM. By the mid-game with the right build, if you're good you can avoid almost all confrontation. In the early game perfect stealth is more difficult to achieve, but it's less important because enemies are less dangerous.

4296

Support / Re: Game Resolution

« on: May 19, 2015, 10:38:53 PM »

Hey Robs, did Draxis' solution help you? It's somewhat inconvenient in that you have to exit the game to change your map size (which resizes the whole game), but the resolution is quite adjustable. I use 1920x1200 and it normally picks a size 20 font for me, which is quite large. It's not doing that for you? What Windows version are you using?

4297

Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: [Alpha 1][Crash] on Exiting Terminal

« on: May 19, 2015, 10:35:19 PM »

Okay, many thanks for the log! That's probably enough information to solve this--it'll be fixed for the next build. For now use ESC to exit, just in case. That will probably avoid whatever caused this.

I'll be investigating and fixing a few high-priority bugs this week and release an update soon.

4298

Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Cogmind isn't DPI-aware

« on: May 19, 2015, 10:24:25 PM »

Thank you for the help, guys .

Someone else reported a similar issue via Twitter, and another cause might be Win 8 settings that automatically scale all applications to make them larger. Cogmind is not aware of these options, so... chaos . Thanks for providing the workaround, and thanks for the help finding a fix. I'll correct that for the next release.

Note: Over the years I've so far attempted using many different methods Microsoft suggests to work around this issue, but none have been successful so far... For now the only way to correct for it is by changing the system setting.

4299

Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Showing black on Netbook w/sub-720p resolution

« on: May 19, 2015, 12:37:02 PM »

No, this is not normal, but I have a guess--are you running on a very small laptop? If so, press F3 and switch to ASCII mode. Tiles aren't supported below 720p. Only ASCII, but the game starts in tiles mode.

This is something I apparently screwed up when I made a change the DAY before launch, so it counts as a bug.

I'll have this fixed for next release, and thank you for reporting!

4300

Fixed Bugs & Non-Bugs / Re: Segfault - related to item inspection window?

« on: May 19, 2015, 09:51:35 AM »

Awesome, I just checked the server and you had it activated--I have a copy right here now . This bug will die a very swift death, indeed. Thank you!