Earlier today on #rgrd, Ido “tametick” Yehieli posted this link to the TIGForum thread for ASCIIPaint, a Flash-based tool to do just that: paint with ASCII. The thread features some amazing ASCII art, many of which are roguelike concept screens, put together by TIGSource community members.

The goals for the Dance of Death v0.6 release revolve predominantly around world generation, wilderness generation, and integrating these radically new features into the existing game. No small task, by any means, which is why I have devoted an entire version to this set of features, and also why I have made the decision to scale back on three non-essential items:

With version 0.5.102, Dance of Death reached a stable point and is ready for its next major features: the world map and wilderness. I definitely have my work cut out for me for 0.6, and though the goals list below is short, it is a meaty one.

In addition to wilderness generation, v0.6 will begin to reflect the results of a recent discussion in r.g.r.d. regarding gender bonuses and the social responsibilities of game developers at large.

Announcing the Dance of Death v0.5.102 release, playable in your browser at www.nolithius.com/dod!

This development cycle was focused towards introducing an animation system and tidying up some loose ends with ranged combat and other recently added features.

The iterative development process has been a real blessing for the health of Dance of Death. Releasing early and often has allowed me to keep the project’s momentum going, as well as make tough decisions about what gets done for each section, and how.

One of these such decisions has been to move what was once the #1 item on this list, wilderness generation, to the next release after 0.5.

Announcing the release of Dance of Death v0.4.89!

Among the features for this version you’ll find custom keyboard mapping, international keyboard support, ranged combat, and game saving and loading.

Recently, I have been posting near-daily Dance of Death development updates through @Nolithius, on Twitter. Feel free to follow me to catch a glimpse of how the game progresses from day to day!

In the past few months, Dance of Death has seen rocky progress. Development momentum came to a crawl while I took a brief break after work got particularly busy with an Oracle/Ironman 2 project that completely tapped my AS3 mana reserves for a few weeks.

Recently, however, I’ve made slow but steady progress, and am down to the last two features for version 0.4!

Normally, in regaining momentum for a project, I’ll pick it back up and work on small-ticket items just to get into the groove again, then work my way into the larger items. Though this time I have done the opposite, I finally have a handle on one of the larger features for version 0.4: custom keymapping.

In lieu of a particularly busy last few weeks at work, I’ve taken a quick break from programming for a bit. I can honestly say that I have seen code in my dreams in the past, and that’s something I’d like to avoid in the present!

So for the most part, I’ve been kicking back and playing plenty of games.

Now that Dance of Death has moved into alpha stage, some critical features need to be tied up. Save/Load, world permanence, custom keybindings, ranged combat, international keyboard support, and a few interface changes are among the items which I’ll be working on for version 0.4.

It’s finally here! Dance of Death has officially entered into alpha territory, with version 0.3.60— playable and winnable.

This has been the largest iteration to date, and also the most feature-packed one, with a good number of engine, interface, and content updates.

Back in my university days, I fondly recall when our professor for Structured Computer Organization, a seasoned computer scientist who worked on the EDSAC 1 back in the days of yore, asked, “Have any of you worked with Assembly?”. Having had the odd run-in with some flavors Assembly in previous microprogramming classes, I raised my hand.

In these early stages of development of Dance of Death, I definitely have my work cut out for me. I’m also grateful to have received such great feedback from the roguelike community, much of which has helped me determine development priorities.

Announcing the latest release of Dance of Death, version 0.2.23! This release continues to build up the main engine, and has at its core the new Character Creation system.

At this point, the game is still in a “tech demo” stage, insofar as not having a winning condition, and a number of incomplete or unimplemented features.

Development of Dance of Death is alive and well! This past week, I’ve been spending time in the roguelike community, playing games in development to get inspiration, and checking off items on my To-Do list for the upcoming release. Most of the items have been straightforward and painless, and I have left the best (and toughest) for last: character creation.

Although I have worked on two (albeit short-lived) roguelikes prior to Dance of Death, this is the first to feature a dungeon generation algorithm. While it relies greatly on brute force searches, especially for connectivity, I am quite happy with it, and it definitely gets the job done!

Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone who has taken the time to tinker with the first release of Dance of Death.

Although I’ve been able to get away with some major oversights given the fact that it is an early tech demo, I appreciate that you have pointed out potential areas for advancements and some items I entirely missed.

I am proud to announce the first playable release of Dance of Death! It requires Flash 10 to run, and, for the time being, a decent size screen.

Since I am taking the “release early, release often” approach, you’ll find with this release is a very early build of the engine, featuring basic dungeon generation, FOV, monster generation, item generation, and very basic combat.

The driving force behind the Dance of Death title and concept was a popular and often resurrected discussion on r.g.r.d.: how to make the warrior class something more interesting than a close-range mage.

In other words, is there a way to differentiate the way a fighter interacts with the world from that of a mage’s?

With the relaunch of this site as a blog comes a piece of great news: I am currently working on a Flash ActionScript 3.0-based roguelike game tentatively titled Dance of Death.

This time I am keeping it simple, staying away from the over-ambitious trap that bogs down so many indie games’ development.