Announce: Nethack 0.51

[Dzz]

SLASH'EM is nice, but what Add-ons are included in this current port, aside from the gui? also, are there any other tile downloads available?

It's a port of NetHack version 3.4.3.

The gui comes with ten different tile sets. If you have a favorite for NetHack that I have not included please point me at it.

 

[DaveN]

Some bugs:

• Drawing character sprites everywhere and moving in Farlook mode

So, in this bug, the yellow rectangle of the farlook mode remains around the character while he moves, and the sprites of the character rest at his positions.To recreate it, follow those instructions:

Hold L. Press X once (still hold L). Press a direction (still hold L).

Now there's a message saying:

Unknown direction: '^H' (aborted)
Done

The 'H' changes to a 'K' or a 'L' if you choose right or up. If you'll choose down the message just says 'done'.

After that, the thigns descripted above will happen. Nothing to big, but can be annoying.

​

• 'Back' in the menus

Not a big thing. Pressing 'Y' while choosing the race, gender and alignment will bring you back to the race selection screen. It will be more comfortable if it will bring you back to the last dialog instead of the first one.

​

Oh, and please change the keyboard back to 'abcd', 'qwerty' may be better if you type it with the hands, but that isn't the same as using a joystick.

Thanks a lot for this good port,
Dave

PS: Looking forward to the next release

​

 

[Dzz]

Thanks for the bug report!

I'll start working on the next release in the next day or so.

 

[DaveN]

Another thing I just found:

I tried to recreate this bug and so I was on the first level and turned the gp2x off ( without quitting nethack ). The next time I was trying to start it, it just freezed at the start. There was the white information bar on the top and the rest of the screen was black. I tried it another time and then it worked.
After that I just did the same and got the same problem again. In both cases I just ran nethack without doing anything else on the gp2x before.

I don't know if it matters since I wasn't in the game at this time, but I've got the 1lock.0, 1lock.1 and the backup.sav files in a zipped archive. As soon as I've figured out how to attach files to the post, I'll up them.

 

[Dzz]

Another thing I just found:

I tried to recreate this bug and so I was on the first level and turned the gp2x off ( without quitting nethack ). The next time I was trying to start it, it just freezed at the start. There was the white information bar on the top and the rest of the screen was black. I tried it another time and then it worked.
After that I just did the same and got the same problem again. In both cases I just ran nethack without doing anything else on the gp2x before.

I don't know if it matters since I wasn't in the game at this time, but I've got the 1lock.0, 1lock.1 and the backup.sav files in a zipped archive. As soon as I've figured out how to attach files to the post, I'll up them.

Thanks! you could also email them to dzz@gp2xgamer.com and I'll get them that way.

PS: Looking forward to the next release

What are you looking forward to the most?

I have a big list of possibilities for the next couple releases but haven't done much as far as priority sorting.

 

[Daid]

Post your list of possiblities?

'Small' suggestion, make the keyboard layout configurable. Not only the button layout, but also the size. Some people rather have a QWERTY keyboard, others rather have an ABCDE. But with some messing around and testing I think other layouts might even work better. (Someone suggested a very wierd layout of an 5x6 box, but I cannot find it)

 

[Dzz]

Post your list of possiblities?

'Small' suggestion, make the keyboard layout configurable. Not only the button layout, but also the size. Some people rather have a QWERTY keyboard, others rather have an ABCDE. But with some messing around and testing I think other layouts might even work better. (Someone suggested a very wierd layout of an 5x6 box, but I cannot find it)

I will at least make the letter order configurable for 0.6. Going beyond that could be a lot of effort.

I got a few requests in my Vektar game for configurable controls so I spent a bunch of time building a completely configurable control scheme for 1.0 of that program. Since then not a single person has ever mentioned that they used that feature regularly, and even those who did probably just did minor changes.

Let's talk about the inadquacies of the keyboard after 0.6 which I think should make most people happy (if most people are ever happy )

 

[Dzz]

Post your list of possiblities?

Ok at I'll post my list later. Usually if somebody says "Looking forward to the next release" within a week of the last release, they have something specific in mind that they are hoping for.

 

[DaveN]

For me it's especially the button layout. It takes so much longer to use the qwerty one. And also last time I played the bug I wrote above happened like all the time because I always left my finger on the L-Button. Pretty anoying I think.

Something that would be nice to see is also an other way to load savestates. Maybe a dialog that will pop-up as soon as you start nethack.

All in all I'm just looking forward to see a completly playable nethack without any bug that will affect gameplay ( like the one with not beeing able to throw things ). I think that will be done in the 0.6 or 0.7 at least.

PS: I asked about it would be possible to recompile Slash'Em with this engine. I haven't played it very much, but it would be a nice extra.


EDIT: Save state was the wrong word. I meant just the normal saves you are using now.

EDIT2: typos..

 

[Dzz]

For me it's especially the button layout. It takes so much longer to use the qwerty one. And also last time I played the bug I wrote above happened like all the time because I always left my finger on the L-Button. Pretty anoying I think.

Something that would be nice to see is also an other way to load savestates. Maybe a dialog that will pop-up as soon as you start nethack.

All in all I'm just looking forward to see a completly playable nethack without any bug that will affect gameplay ( like the one with not beeing able to throw things ). I think that will be done in the 0.6 or 0.7 at least.

PS: I asked about it would be possible to recompile Slash'Em with this engine. I haven't played it very much, but it would be a nice extra.

Yup, I definitely want to get bugs that interfere with gameplay ironed out as the top priority. Thanks to you and others for bringing them to my attention! Special thanks for explaining how to reproduce the tile drawing bug which I'd seen a few times but wasn't sure how to attack.

If by "an other way to load savestates" you mean asking whether to recover from a crash or to not bother I could see doing that. Except for pausing the game you're playing, Nethack is not supposed to have "savestates" at all (part of its charm is that you're not supposed to be able to restart from an arbitrary save point). Some people have come up with techniques for cheating this intent but I'm not too eager to include those cheats as program features.

As to Slash'Em, my opinion right now is "one game at a time". Once Nethack is perfect (or close enough to perfect that I stop working on it), I'll think about Nethack variants.

 

[Tobriand]

Idd, I'd just like to add that I've been pleasantly surprised by the qwerty layout of the keyboard... I do, surprisingly, find it faster than ABC - this is depite the fact that it is designed with the idea in mind that each letter is supposed to be furthest possible away from the letter that's most likely to come before or after!

 

[Dzz]

Ok, as promised here is my current To Do list. Not all of this will make it in 0.6 of course, and I may add more things to it depending on what you all report to me.

A) Bug: "Throw" if there is no default-throwable item
B ) Bug: Messed-up tile drawing
C) Bug: Freezing on crash recovery sometimes
D) Bug (actually a bad feature): Behavior when leaving a multi-select menu when not on selected item
E) Bug: Text wrapping in very long menus
F) Options menu. I want to keep the options to a minimum, one could go crazy implementing obscure things that people think they want but never actually use. So far I am planning two or three for 0.6: Which keyboard layout to use, whether the crash recovery file generation is enabled, and MAYBE autopickup mode.
G) ABCDEF and QWERTY kbds
H) Make the actions on some buttons customizable, particularly to make playing certain classes easier.
I) Message shown when teleport trap activated
J) Remember 'Random' choice as 'Random' instead of the thing that was randomly chosen
K) Don't show 'Loot' in the context menu if your pet is the seemingly-lootable thing
L) Move 'Ride' to the Action menu instead of putting it in the context-specific menu
M) Look into engraving with fingers
N) Look into a multi-selection Drop command. Will not be easy.
O) Add "Chat" to context-specific menu if NPC is adjacent (shopkeeper, oracle, etc)
P) More consistent use of the START button during startup
Q) Y during character creation should move to previous menu instead of starting over
R) Better High Scores display
S) Better RIP screen
T) Creation of new tileset based on IBM color graphic font

Anything important that I missed?

 

[deanolium]

Anything important that I missed?

I'd quite like it to be able to handle a usb keyboard (via breakout box) - so then I can play nethack with my mini tiny keyboard - that'll be hella cool.

But I understand if it's not a pressing issue right now (if at all!) - just thanks for the game!

 

[Kannibaal]

Ok, as promised here is my current To Do list. Not all of this will make it in 0.6 of course, and I may add more things to it depending on what you all report to me.

H) Make the actions on some buttons customizable, particularly to make playing certain classes easier.

Anything important that I missed?

Nope, maybe one small suggestion from me, instead of making the buttons customizable make them classes selectable.

So you choose wizard, hotkeys are zap and cast spell.
You choose Barbarian hotkeys are .... and ....
You choose Valkyrie hotkest are ... and ....

And a small niggle.

Some options do not use the original nethack names: i.e. list skills could be: list skills / enhance.
And ammunition should probably be Quiver or Ammunition/Quiver (you ready things in your quiver)

Auto-pickup for everything is not a good option, auto-pickup should only be used for gold. (this can be set up in nethack)

My goal is to finish the game at least once on the GP2X, give me one year and I will succeed

 

[DaveN]

I'll think autopickup options should be 'Off' And 'Gold'. Maybe you could add a 'All' option, but I don't really see any sense in that.
[Edit: Somehow I haven't read that in the post above mine. I'm sorry for the repeat.]

Oh, something that would be totally great since it is really annoying me and it just uses unnecessary much time.

If you're over a corpse and select 'Eat' it will ask you about you wan't to eat the corpse that's lying on the floor. Fantastic thing. Now it would be really nice if you could do that with other actions, especially with 'Apply'. Everytime I see a box on the floor, I'll have to go through the following things:
1) Try to 'Force' it open.
2) Pick it up. (And mostly get a message that you're burdened now)
3) 'Apply' it and take the items out of it.
4) Drop it.

And that takes too much time. You should be able to do it just like that:
1) If necessary, 'Force' the box.
2) 'Apply' it while it's still lying on the floor and take out the items.


​

That's the last thing that should be changed and that isn't on your list in my opinion. Have you got an exact idea how the highscore table should look like?

Thanks for your work,
Dave

 

[Dzz]

I'll think autopickup options should be 'Off' And 'Gold'. Maybe you could add a 'All' option, but I don't really see any sense in that.
[Edit: Somehow I haven't read that in the post above mine. I'm sorry for the repeat.]

Oh, something that would be totally great since it is really annoying me and it just uses unnecessary much time.

If you're over a corpse and select 'Eat' it will ask you about you wan't to eat the corpse that's lying on the floor. Fantastic thing. Now it would be really nice if you could do that with other actions, especially with 'Apply'. Everytime I see a box on the floor, I'll have to go through the following things:
1) Try to 'Force' it open.
2) Pick it up. (And mostly get a message that you're burdened now)
3) 'Apply' it and take the items out of it.
4) Drop it.

And that takes too much time. You should be able to do it just like that:
1) If necessary, 'Force' the box.
2) 'Apply' it while it's still lying on the floor and take out the items.


​

That's the last thing that should be changed and that isn't on your list in my opinion. Have you got an exact idea how the highscore table should look like?

Thanks for your work,
Dave

I think you can just "Loot" the box intead of picking it up and applying it. Loot should appear in the context-specific menu. The menu set that follows (asking if you'd like to take something out or put something in, then asking what type of items, etc) is highly annoying but I am scared to get rid of it because I don't know if there's a good reason to put things into boxes.

Af for the high score table, I do not have a clear idea yet. I just know that the current format is ugly. I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Daid]

"Loot" is for taking stuff out of boxes, and I think it worked on stuff on the floor...

EDIT: Same time posting :S

 

[DaveN]

Thanks. Once tried it, and it was just a trap box, and since I really am not to good in english, I thought that was a not as brute alternative to the "Force" command.

Maybe you could do some kind of linking at the highscore table. Like there's just the most important things showing up there ( score, name etc. ) and the user could select one entry and after that he will get even more detailed information than the one the current highscore table is giving.

 

[Kannibaal]

I think you can just "Loot" the box intead of picking it up and applying it. Loot should appear in the context-specific menu. The menu set that follows (asking if you'd like to take something out or put something in, then asking what type of items, etc) is highly annoying but I am scared to get rid of it because I don't know if there's a good reason to put things into boxes.

Af for the high score table, I do not have a clear idea yet. I just know that the current format is ugly. I'm open to suggestions.

When you open a box (not forcing it) you can lock it. You can put all your stuff in it together with an engraving at the stairs that you have your stash there.

This way you can have different boxes on different levels and you will not be burdened for carrying to much.

If you find a store you'll be able to retrace your steps and pick up the items you want to sell.

As for the highscore table, I'm not complaining, it's functional. Maybe a gravestone image in the background?

Marco

 

[Dzz]

Thanks!

What mechanism do you use to lock a box? (Just want to make sure that this port hasn't accidentally made it impossible)...