Welcome screen. Working on a basic help screen and then version 0.1 will be complete!

Of course, version 0.2 is much much harder.

Merging version 0.1 and 0.2, attempting to use FogBugz to manage features (and bugs!):

VERSION 0.1

• Message Buffer w/ Scrollable message history screen
• Fix lighting bug
• Equipping weapons - sword, pistol
• Basic on-screen player status
• Welcome screen
• Save/Load
• Reloadable weapons
• Help Screen
• Player ship persistance

VERSION 0.2

• Basic Monster pathfinding
• Monster info stored in basic SQLite database (I'm attempting to keep as many things data-centric as possible)
• Basic equipping / unequipping (not just weapons)
• Basic stats structure (HP, Attack, Defense)
• Slightly more useful on-screen player status

VERSION 0.3

• Focus on "dungeon" (player-as-pirate) gameplay and mechanics:

VERSION 0.4

• Focus on "ocean" (player-as-ship) gameplay and mechanics

Various piles of loot on the deck of my ship. Added the ability to "visit" your own ship and walk around on it. I think the persistence will be nice; you could build up quite the stash below decks.

Evidence of wielding different weapons & shooting. The ability to shoot things is very important to a pirate.

Since entering and (barely) completing the 2010 Seven Day Roguelike (7DRL) Challenge contest, work on AarrrRL has been slow.

However, I would love to release a version of AarrrRL for the 2010 Annual Roguelike Release Party (ARRP), as discussed on rec.games.roguelike.development shortly after the 7DRL contest.

After receiving some help (thanks!) from the surprisingly-active (and aforementioned) roguelike developer's usenet group I've come up with a rough development roadmap for AarrrRL and been slogging away at it. I figure if I post something it will inspire me to stay on task. (Maybe)

VERSION 0.1

• Message Buffer w/ Scrollable message history screen
• Fix lighting bug
• Equipping weapons - sword, pistol
• Basic Monster pathfinding

VERSION 0.2

• Monster info stored in basic SQLite database (I'm attempting to keep as many things data-centric as possible)
  
• Basic on-screen player status
• Welcome screen
• Save/Load
• Reloadable weapons
• Help Screen

Piratey Must-Haves

• Braces of pistols - player should be able to carry around multiple loaded pistols and unleash them as necessary (long reloading time will be a tactical issue)
• Insults - Should function as low-level "spells" in other RL genres. Insults could temporarily unbalance an opponent or cause aggro
• Booty - Lots and lots and lots of treasure

Large Outstanding Questions

• How do the player-as-ship game and player-as-pirate game mesh?
  
• How much should the game focus on ship combat versus sword & pistols combat?
• What is the best way to work on a multi-player aspect (in the vein of bones files, not actual multiplayer). Maybe especially successful player pirates get passed around into other games as notorious enemies. Maybe especially successful player pirates can leave behind maps to ridiculously booby-trapped treasure troves. Other ideas?
  

Wish me luck!

Ok, so I swear this was a really nice post with my development roadmap on it. Then firefox crashed and ate my post. Oh well. More to come on the development map tomorrow.

So, after playing Spelunky for about a year I finally beat it. And when I say "beat" I mean "did the bare minimum to actually get to the end of the game". After a long period of inactivity, I spent lots of memorial day weekend grinding through the horrible ice levels. I played these 4 levels over and over until I had enough money to pay off the shortcut guy. Then I focused on the final four levels. (Basic strategy: get scepter, get to the end as fast as possible, SMB3 your way through the last boss)

Now I can visit the spelunky wiki and really relax and enjoy the game. I think there are a lot of secrets that I have yet to uncover.

More on what this means for AarrrRL in the next post.