Looking for testers for a new Mod

[Khollik]

Hello everyone !

Although I'm new at this forum, I'm a huge fan since... forever... of dungeon crawlers, and LoG 1 and 2 are definitively amongst my favourite (with Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back).

After having played some excellent mods of the community I decided to create my own and after a couple of months of hard work (and of reading many useful posts of this forum), it is quite ready to be played. I have tested it myself a couple of times and hopefully eliminated most of the bugs, but I would really appreciate some feedback from others testers, especially for the mispellings (english is not my native language) and the difficulty curve.

Being quite a newbie at LUA, don't expect original assets. I rather concentrated on what I appreciate myself in dungeon crawlers, that is to say a good balance between exploration, combat and puzzles.

The lost Power of Nadric

War rages in the realm of Andralak! The evil sorcerer Gandolf unleashed his army and brought desolation on the country. As the king's heir, you decided to take arms with your companions to confront your foe. But the minions of Gandolf set an ambush, and now you must escape from the prisons where you're trapped...
Over 20 levels and 40 secrets.
7 to 10 hours.
Difficulty normal or hard (better starting with a fresh party).
Don't expect original assets but some tricky puzzles, nasty fights and hopefully good balance between exploration, combat and riddle solving.
As easter eggs, I also used references to popular movies, books or songs I grew up with. Some are obvious, some are less. It will get you no xp, no reward, just for the fun. Will you manage to find them all?
Feedback warmly welcomed as it is my first mod.

Cheers
Khollik

[matuto]

Hi, Khollik. I am playing your mod and found only one bug until now: the game crashed to desktop when I pressed the round button in the ogre's cave in the Meadows. Generally I am satisfied. The haunted town and whereabouts are exciting. However, a lot of teleporting due to the lack of clues and near solutions. For instance the bridge to the library, the device in the earth essence cave, the note and the altar with the wisps at the Mystical Mountains (door closed to the living - I put a skull and bone club and nothing happened - am I supposed to die ?), the nine altars in the Meteore Shrine and 45 green gems, the alcoves in the library (different colous and no gems at that time), the "spirit of the forest", the "forest treasures" and so on. Many times the player hasn't the minimum idea what to do next or where to go. Right now I completely forgot my aim and what to collect and where to put it in order to get to the end. It just occur to me suggesting a new version with some more clues. I still have some fun only finding new maps and places and doing the routine (kill the monsters, get the herbs, look for secrets - I could not figure out how to close the pit to get the mage's hat). Hope that my comments come to help you to improve the mod. Anyway nice work. Thanks and best regards.

[matuto]

Hi again Khollic,
Well, at the shore, despite having walked against the sun, wasn't able to find the treasure. The point is where to follow the hollow to. It should be a shadow because at 2 pm the sun was south in the map. No way.
At the hills it occurred to me using the skeleton figure. Bingo ! But, in the inner sanctum, 2d or 3d main crossroad, the game crashed to desktop. I use an old machine (Windows XP sp3) to play Gimrock I and II and mods. This is the error log:
=== Software Failure ===
#script_entity_96.script:25: attempt to index a nil value
stack traceback:
[C]: in function 'error'
[string "ScriptInterface.lua"]: in function 'castSpell'
#script_entity_96.script:25: in function 'darknessStheino'
#script_entity_96.script:31: in function <#script_entity_96.script:30>
[string "Script.lua"]: in function 'sendMessage'
[string "Component.lua"]: in function 'triggerConnectors'
[string "Component.lua"]: in function 'callHook'
[string "FloorTrigger.lua"]: in function 'activate'
[string "FloorTrigger.lua"]: in function 'update'
[string "Map.lua"]: in function 'updateComponents'
[string "Map.lua"]: in function 'updateEntities'
[string "Dungeon.lua"]: in function 'updateLevels'
[string "GameMode.lua"]: in function 'update'
[string "Grimrock.lua"]: in function 'display'
[string "Grimrock.lua"]: in main chunk

I tried twice and still crashes. So I need some help and guidance. Best regards.

[Khollik]

Hi Matuto

Firstly, thanks a lot for your feedback! You might think that a couple of runs would be enough to spot all the bugs but apparently it isn't
The first one (in the Ogre's Cave) is not very important: it's a minor quest to gain a special item.
The second is far more annoying because the Inner Sanctum is part of the "main" quest. Unfortunately I'm away from Grimrock for a couple of days but hopefully I'll be able to check that this week-end. I would be interested if someone else stumbled on that bug.

I'm not very experienced in modding so I have a question for more seasoned modders: is there a way to update a mod whitout people having to restart it from scratch? Will just replacing the file be enough?

Regarding your other commentaries (again, very appreciated), I have to say that from my point of view, the most two difficult tasks as a Grimrock modder to make his work interesting is A/ the difficulty curve of the combats and B/ the degree of precision you shall give to players to solve puzzles. Maybe I under-estimated the fact that everyone doesn't think like me and what is obvious for someone is not for another one
I should also check that.

It's reminds me that one mod ("Journey to Justice" I think, not sure by the way) proposed a difficulty level to solve puzzles, according to the game mode (normal or hard). Since I only play hard, I didn't check how it works, but I guess it wouldn't be so hard to put notes and clues in "normal" mode that could be put off at the beginning of the game by checking the difficulty mode. Maybe I should try that for a future version

But to go back to your message, are you actually asking for some clues ?

Regarding the wisps at the Mystical Moutains:

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It should be more obvious now that you managed to go through the door "shut for the living"

Regarding the bridge to the library:

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Did you manage to enter the cave under the lake? Not the underwater one, the other near the bridge

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Maybe you have to dig your way down

Regarding the meteor shrine:

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3 rows, 3 columns, 45 greens gems... You could calculate how many gems are necessary for each row and each column

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It's a magical square. You need 15 gems each time

Regarding the alcoves in the library:

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A though one: you're in a magical library. Maybe there are some other items than gems you found there that is linked to the colours

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Try the spell scrolls

Regarding the mage's hat:

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Did you find a Poem/Riddle that would give you some clue about wisdom and knowledge?

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The Note is in the chest in the NW of the Mystical Moutains

Cheers
Khollik

[Khollik]

Hello again

I found some time to check the Inner Sanctum bug but unfortunately I didn't manage to reproduce it, whether in the dungeon editor or in the game once exported. With me, it just works fine (windows 7 SP1 although I doubt it to be relevant). I'm still trying to figure out what's going on

Meanwhile, if you're still interested in completing my mod, I suggest you to open the console editor within the game and copy/paste this script just before walking on the tile which makes the game crash:

Code: Select all

floor_trigger_153.floortrigger:disable()

It should deactivate the messy script and make the combat less fun, but at least you will be able to pursue your quest to Fame and Glory

Cheers
Hovig