Since developing Millenipede years and years ago I find that my method of coding hasn’t really changed all that much. I’m sort of surprised, but then I guess it’s like handwriting – although it may vary slightly over time, the basic style will stay the same. Because of this, I’m still programming myself into the same old corners by rushing to get something working instead of planning it out. Though I am acutely aware of its necessity, planning scares me because it’s dull, and dull things have made me abandon projects in the past.

Anyhow, the Unnamed Dejenol Demake Project has reached its second milestone and was considerably more work than I expected – I hope this doesn’t set a trend! As the project is still moving forward steadily enough I want to spend a little more time blogging about my progress than I’ve done with my other projects in the past. Yet this is also a slightly scary event, considering I can’t guarantee the project will ever see the light of day, and I’m wary of getting people’s hopes up (even the whole 2 of you who may be at all interested in this ). Maybe the aura of disappointment I spun at the cancellation of Return to Dejenol – nngh, there, I said it – has made me too cautious…

Ultimately, though, what’s the point of hobby-coding if you can’t gush enthusiastically to the world about what puny triumphs you’ve made? It’s about time I started dishing the dirt on what this project might become, and based on past experience and my current level of experience, what features it will and will not have.

Click through the break and let us begin a journey through a +1 wall of text!

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Okay, so here’s how things are standing with the project-with-no-name – after using some industrial trussing-up code, I’ve finally gotten an ancient and embarrassingly simple bug in the dungeon editor to stop making everything else fall down repeatedly! Friendly advice from one coder to another: Don’t save values as signed Integers and then load them into an unsigned Byte variable. Just don’t. The number formerly saved as -1 is not amused at such shenanigans.

I’m nearly done with Milestone 2, and possibly might have had it nailed today were it not for the aforementioned editor malfunction. Tomorrow I intend to finish defining debug monsters for each of the 18 spawn types – as close as I am to nearly being able to list all of the categories off the top of my head, I’ll spare you the detail – and then, I can crosswire the now-properly-loading dungeon spawn area IDs into the part which keeps track of all the monster spawning, and finally the dungeon will be rid of the Random Monster army!

And after that? A change of pace. Items! And a way to look at how awesome they are! And perhaps if I use enough exclamation marks in this sentence, I can persuade myself that interface design is fun after all! Yeeaah… no. Not happening.

Indeed, I think the new trend in games should be not naming your monsters at all, and instead giving them descriptive labels like what are in this ‘ere clump of pixels.

What? You don’t think it’ll catch on? BAH. I’d argue the point but a whole flock of Strange Creature 73 has just flown up my trouser leg, so do excuse me a moment…

To elaborate on what’s done today: A decent amount, yet not as much as I hoped. I spent far too long iterating the layout of what I am calling the “encounter panel”, but I think this present design uses space nicely enough for the time being. As you can see, I’m using the Oryx tileset (otherwise known as the retro coder’s best friend) since it’s just so easy to work with and is pretty much the best free set of graphics out there right now. I don’t mind that they’ve been used in so many other things – they can be replaced later if needed and it’s way better than looking at dull placeholder squares. Oh, and I know it doesn’t have chests yet; they’re in a later Milestone.

All that remains before Milestone 2 is complete is to finish getting the spawn areas to randomly populate – by which I mean they won’t take account of what monster spawn types (humanoid, insect, devil, etc.) the dungeon file says should actually appear in any given location. Then it’s just a case of actually feeding that “real” data to the encounter panel. Easy! Except it probably won’t be.

To temper my own excitement as well as any you, dear reader, might be feeling, I should say that I’ll update as often as I feel there’s something interesting to mention. With Christmas around the corner, updates may be less regular, but we’ll see how it pans out.

I have made the occasional tweet in the past about being involved in some flash-in-the pan project for this and that (Ho-Hum Piano Dungeon, anyone? Lordy, what the deuce was I thinking…), and they’ve always somehow petered out before they became interesting. Or they just failed to be interesting in the first place. Just to give you fair warning: This could well be just another project. But this is one is far closer to my heart than pretty much anything I’ve coded in the last few years – it is, in fact, a return (*coff*) to a project I abandoned in the days of Firestorm Productions, never to be mentioned again…

This video should instantly tell you what game I mean!

Yes, it is of course an attempt at an 8-bit “demake” of the often-overlooked Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol, released in 1995 by David Allen and now owned and marketed by Decklin over in Decklin’s Demise. What the video shows is the program’s completed first milestone: It can load a dungeon using the file format of the old game, and have a “party” of one character move around and explore, respecting walls correctly. For the next milestone I will add an interface to displays monsters and get the spawn areas (i.e. rooms) to individually populate.

Ten milestones are planned to take this idea far enough for it to be a playable game engine, some bigger and more involved than others, with one further milestone required to add the final content and make it playable. Any and all feedback is much appreciated to keep the motivation at its current high level!

On a related note, if you’ve played Demise, the strangely-titled rough diamond that was the sequel to the first game, you might be interested to know that Demise: Ascension – an update that includes even more content and the ability to run natively on Windows Vista and 7 – has recently gone into a public testing phase. You need only put your money down to order it from the Decklin’s Demise page above and you’ll receive access to all current and future versions. If you’re into retro RPGs with many, many hours of playability, you really should check it out!

What the deuce has happened in the past month? There’s been a sudden explosion of indie-related bundles from places on the internet that you never thought existed! Anyone would think it was nearly Christmas or something.

A little while ago it was the Indie Music Bundle to titillate your ears with fantastic vibes, but right now you have a choice of not one, or even two… but four different game bundles to check out – and they’re all asking you to pay as little or as much as you like! One is even completely free to download!

Since a couple of them are also supporting charity, now is a great time if you’re just starting to dip in to the world of indie games and are looking to snag some great deals at the same time as helping a good cause. While it’s possible to take the dimmer view that it’s an easy way for an organiser to make a quick buck, that would be pretty unfair – if you believe in the charitable roots behind a couple of these bundles then they’re doing a lot of good at a time of year when it matters the most. Even if a bundle doesn’t donate part of its proceeds to charity, it’s still a good way to get some games you might otherwise have overlooked for an excellent price. Stocking fillers ahoy!

Read on to see all of the currently running bundles that are clamouring for your attention…

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Cave Story+, the PC port of a Mac port of a WiiWare port of a PC freeware game, has apparently come full circle and is now available on Steam. I am a huge fan of Cave Story and, I like to hope, a reasonable person. Like many others I admire “Pixel“ - Daisuke Amaya - for creating the original version and releasing it back in 2004. Aeon Genesis deserve some credit as well for the English translation patch. It is a charming game that has done a great service in boosting the indie gaming scene. That said, I will most certainly not be buying into this thinly disguised cash-in – and I’m actually shocked and quite disappointed that Nicalis had the cheek to go so far down this road.

So here’s the story: After a chain of poorly-communicated delays spanning through 2009, the $12 / £10 WiiWare release of the game in North America last year was deservedly well-received but expensive and somewhat glitchy. It included one particularly annoying bug with music playback when the original music tracks were selected instead of the default remixed tracks (which some people – including myself – didn’t like). Not only did it take eight months to get these problems patched out but it took ten months after the NA release for the game to get to Europe. Meh. So far, so mediocre.

Then there was the DSiWare release for portable gamers to enjoy Quote’s adventures. Cool. But a year on from the Japanese and North American releases last November, it still isn’t available in Europe, despite a suggestion from Joystiq it would be out around Q2 of this year. It seems likely that Euro gamers will now never see that version due to the incoming Cave Story 3D for the 3DS (which – who’d have guessed? – has also been delayed). Based on their track record, who knows when the 3DS incarnation will arrive in Euroland…

Surely things can’t get any more ridiculous. But wait! Yes they do!

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Some people say that random levels suck. I say: You’re wrong. Be a good chap / chapess and toddle off back to playing <insert console FPS here>, would you? And don’t bother arguing about it because Forget-Me-Not will kick some proper indie-fuelled sense into you every time.

Once again it was The Gnome’s Lair that enlightened me with the knowledge of this particularly sparkly treasure, and I can safely say the game’s creator nyarlu labs (also known as brandon and, on Twitter, @cucumberoneye) has played an absolute blinder with this one.

This game is nuttier than an almond nutcake with cashew and pecan topping. For an unrelated sidenote, forget about the whole game aspect, it’s great fun to just leave running in the background for amusement purposes since it provides an excellent audio accompaniment to whatever you may be typing: As I write this, I am being serenaded by a beautifully bonkers selection of 8-bit noises upon each cursor key tap and each press of the WASD keys…

But, erm, yes. Read on after the break for some words that actually pertain to the gameplay!

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‘Tis something of a story to explain the route I travelled to discover this and one which I will no doubt mention in a future post, but for now I simply have to share my delight at finding such a promising remake.

The Gnome’s Lair led me to Reprisal, an in-development Flash game that oozes style and promise. If, like me, you spent many a happy hour conjuring swamps, earthquakes and pillars of fire whilst directing your lemming-like followers towards crushing those of the opposing god in Populous, you’ll seriously want to check it out - hopefully a certain big company’s lawyers won’t leap at it and drag it off into some dimension of copyright hell.

Even at this early stage the gameplay is compulsive and there’s plenty of time for it to improve further. Follow its evolution through the dev blog and be sure to give the developer, Electrolyte, some support!