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News18.Sep.2010 And now the last update in a long time as everything looks good and there's no need for a hotfix. The only small reported flaws are just cosmetic impurities and are listed on the downloads page. This is good. Also, my statistics show that the game is faring well. Like all the previous versions before, this one broke the record of most downloads in a week, which is the release week, of course. A notable thanks for this goes to Reddit, which supplied a steady stream of visitors this time. It is true, however, what the older devs once told me. You get the most feedback early on in the development, when the game is still new. This is why I have a small request: if you have gotten to around 35th floor or deeper and don't mind spending a moment, I'd really like to hear your thoughts on the balance, difficulty curve, fun factor, annoyances and whatever else comes to your mind. I wish I could watch more people playing the game, but since I can't, this is the only way to know what you guys think of it, I hope it's not too much to ask. And naturally you can send me feeback without getting deep first as well, but your thoughts of balance might be a bit biased. The contact page is quick and easy to use, I welcome you to it. And with that I sink back to my slumber. Have a cold winter! 30.Aug.2010 Here I am again after another slight delay, now with the final 1.04 release for Macintosh as well. Thankfully the beta version was surprisingly bug free, not much was needed to get it to the final shape. The version info serves you if you want specifics of what was changed, or if you didn't check the beta release, here. One addition I'll mention though: quick run works now with shift+direction with numpad directions. However, this might not work on all terminals, Windows works, but at least not all Linux terminals work. I'll look into that more next time, but at the moment I've drained my programming juices and it's not vacation anymore so I can't be bothered. Feedback is always, always, always accepted with great appreciation, so if you like the game and would like to see 1.05 some day, drop me some text. The preferred way is the contact page since Hotmail drops mails into bit-nothingness sometimes, but if you want to risk the small chance, I'll gladly accept emailed feedback as well. The next version won't be coming out anytime soon, not surprisingly. A year, maybe more, I'll have to think of some game changingly cool feature for next time I think. For now I wish you luck in the depths and let you head to the downloads page, see you! 20.Aug.2010 Another quick note. The beta is extended until I finish the changes for the final release. Not a lot of work thankfully, but might get delayed till next week. Depends a bit on how hard compiling on Mac is, I'll try to do that myself. Also, Hotmail is crappy. That is to say, if you've sent me feedback directly via email and have not gotten a response, I didn't get your mail. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If this is the case, please resend your feedback. I don't even know if my mails get to you. Unfortunately I forgot this when I wrote the beta release posts, but from now on, use the contact page to be sure your message gets to me. Nothing else, carry on. 7.Aug.2010 Good news everyone! The two-week beta is now here. Alpha testing took a bit longer than I expected, but many balance problems were weeded out already then, so you'll have a bit more challenging beta. I suppose I should introduce some of the new features in this version, though you can also check the full list of changes here. First off, the one that took the most work, I've handcrafted 50 special floors for you to explore. 5 of these will be picked everytime to the dungeon, between the bosses, and they hold out of depth loot, guarded by superior monsters and an evil level design at times. Second, there's a new level up screen with a new advancement option. Some stat calculations have been modified to balance this addition and many stats have diminishing returns too, if you get them game-breakingly high now. Monster damage has also been overhauled, the tall difficulty spike at ~20th floor is gone and the end shouldn't be a breeze anymore. Veteran players are probably pleased to hear that you can finally skip the first 10 easier floors and get to the challenge a lot quicker (or immediately, the starting equipment isn't very good). You can also pick your starting weaponry now. Archers will enjoy the new targeting system, which should also make using skills while shooting faster. New items, skills, monster specials, prefixes etc. were added. I made some things less obscure, like praying to uncurse, and added things that make playing easier and faster, like a new button for cycling quick skill and the quick move following corridors now. A huge load of balancing. And one of my favorites: a better and more dangerous monster AI. And of course a whole lot more. This is indeed the biggest version to date, so I won't list every change here, feel free to either check the list of changes or find by playing. Now about the beta. This is meant to weed out the last bugs and balance problems that might lurk under an iceblock. This is the best possible time for you to help make this game better for the coming years. Play it. If you find anything that seems out of place, better ask me than be quiet about it. If something feels out of balance, it may very well be. Send me a message. If you have a suggestion for feature or something similar, I'd be happy to hear it out. If it's really tempting, I'll even add it to the full release. Of course I'll happily read feedback after the beta too, but now is the opportunity to contribute the most. This beta version has everything the final one has, except for the final balancing and debugging, and extremely tempting suggestions. That should do it for the beta. It's available for Windows and Linux on the download page, so go have fun. After the ~two weeks I'll post the final version, for the Mac as well. See you then, keep sending the feedback and be careful in the depths! 18.Jul.2010 Hello again, a quick snippet of news this time, not the actual release yet. Development is going even smoother than I dared to hope, all the major features, changes and additions are in place. The to-do list only has a bit more content left to finish off, for instance a few new skills and monster abilities and then it's playtesting and balancing time. I'll do the alpha balancing and testing myself, but after that I've decided to release a two-week beta to the public to find the last probable bugs. This version has again the most changes compared to all the previous releases, and most of the previous releases needed a quick-fix release after a week or two when people found some more critical bugs, so might as well make it a public beta. Besides, my time is limited and the developer isn't always the best one to playtest the game. Of course no one forces you to take part in the beta and help, you can wait two more weeks for the actual polished release, but this beta is the best possible time if you want to contribute and make Frozen Depths a better game, with suggestions, feedback and other statistics I plan to ask. After the two weeks, I'll polish 1.04 for its final release based on your feedback and at last release it. I'd estimate this beta release will hit the web and RGRD somewhere near the very end of July or early August depending on the number of surprise bugs I find during alpha testing. The beta is probably only for Windows and Linux, but for the final release I'll hopefully find a kind soul to compile it for Macintosh as well. That's about all for this quick snippet, more info to come when the beta starts. Start searching for your warmer clothes, since winter is coming! 13.Jun.2010 Hello people. Just letting you know that there's a chance of 1.04 being released later this summer. A chance, not promising anything. I've been working toward the release a bit here and there, but there's still a lot on the to-do list and I'm not releasing it before the list is mostly clear. Plus, I'm busier than I'd like these days, having picked up a few new hobbies, and then there's the ever-looming real life... But there's hope. Most likely I'll hot (cold?) drop it on you when it's finished without any notice, or perhaps I'll call out for beta testers on RGRD if I don't have enough time to thoroughly playtest it myself. We'll see. Until then, have a good summer. 7.Feb.2010 Not dead, just hibernating... for a while longer still. Edit 9.Feb.2010: Someone finally complained about the Comic Sans font I had been using for way too long. That little nudge got me around changing it at last. 19.Jul.2009 So I managed to hurt my hands again. Either I'm an unlucky bastard or just plain retarded. Bah. Either way it has an unfortunate impact on the development. Not happy. I was looking forward to releasing 1.04 around now, but that clearly won't happen, sorry folks. I'll get back to it as soon as I can, but I have absolutely no idea when it's ready for release since my studies at the university begin in autumn and that most likely slows the development further. But I promise there's going to be good stuff in the next version, whenever I can get back to finishing it. Until then, see you around. 4.Apr.2009 ...slow progress... 8.Feb.2009 Hey, it's update time. The game went to very rapid development after the previous update since I didn't have any big time sinks like work, studies or a very addicting game yet. The VersionInfo.txt got as many as 45 new entries during this time, not bad at all, even though most of them were smaller changes or additions. I've managed to clear all small changes from the to-do list and many of the medium changes, though I didn't touch the large additions yet, so the to-do list is a lot shorter now, but the remaining changes need more time to implement. Now after the previous month of rapid development, the development speed drops a lot, because now I have a big time sink, work. But that was expected, I wasn't even planning to release the next version in just a few months. I'll probably start adding about one medium or large change per week from now on. Slow, but steady. And I won't be working forever anyway, just a few months and then I'll get more than enough free time for the development again before my studies begin. Though I'm planning to release it before the studies begin if nothing unexpected happens. With this I wish you again a good day, see you next time! 12.Jan.2009 Heeello everyone, it's been a while. First off, a bit late "Happy New Year!". Now that's off the way and I can bring the good news: my military service has ended since I was lucky to get away with half a year. And you know what that means! Frozen Depths goes into development mode again. The to-do list got rather long, too, during this a-bit-more-than-half-a-year. You can expect new features and changes to the current ones to make them deeper. One bigger new feature should make the first 10 floors, along with the deeper floors, a bit more interesting too, I know that for more experienced players those floors feel too easy and unsurprising. There will be new nuances in the character development as well. All in all this version won't change things just under the hood, actually it might add more noticeable changes than any other version before this one. Needless to say, I'm excited to get this improvement under way as it will enhance the game a lot. That's really the only piece of news at the moment, though it's an important one. The regular semi-monthly updates should start from this point as well, now that there are some news to tell about the development. With this I wish you all a great year 2009! Old news |