I will not betray my dream
4 December 2005
It is probably 10 years since I started to work on GenRogue. Since that time, many many times I started completely anew. The game became almost legendary because of that in the roguelike development world. But no code was published. And none seems to be published in the near future.
What is GenRogue? It is my dream. My dream of a game that will encompass all I wanted to see in a cRPG. My dream that represents also who I want to be, and what I want to do. I stopped playing cRPGs a few years ago – couldn’t take the idea that I have to look at them with my dream unfulfiled.
GenRogue is not a roguelike. truthfully said it never realy was one. I only took upon the medium of ASCII because I thought that if I do that everything will become simple. It didn’t.
My dream is unfulfiled, and my life is passing. I know that with every day the chances of completion are growing smaller – the older I get, the less time I will have available for it. The more time passes, the higher the standards of the game will need to be. With each day, GenRogue is dying just a little bit. Bit by bit my dream dies.
But I will not betray my dream.
My code grows tentacles
30 November 2005
Oh my, this is scary. My code grows tentacles. No, seriously. I was browsing the DoomRL forum, when my eyes set on a recent message by an Anonymous user. It read:
When I press the comma key, the game prompts me on the direction to run but it never seems to work. How do you run?
My first reaction was — “Silly, the run command isn’t implemented yet!”. Then I recalled, that Ilya was always asking me about a run command in DoomRL. Then it struck me — “Great idea! I’ll implement that in the next version! That can’t be too hard…”. Satisfied I noted that in my ToDo list.
Some time afterwards I launched DoomRL. Lead by some unseen force I looked at the help screen. Suddenly my face went pale — a run command. With shaking hands I issued the key, and direction. It worked. Hell, it worked.
There is only one explanation. My code grows tentacles. Who knows what it will grow next? I am afraid, very afraid…
Kill all enemies and I shall reward thee
27 November 2005
Recognize the title? If so, that prooves you’re a die-hard DoomRL player.
A couple weeks ago, Malek from the DoomRL forum came up with an idea to set up a DoomRL wiki to help documenting (and spoiling) the game. He even set up a wiki on a free site for that. Unfortunately the provider realy sucked (as all free php/mySQL providers…), so I decided to help him and taking advantage of my new home, host it on chaosforge.org.
I even spent half an hour modifying the standard MediaBook theme to a more “doomish” feel. I’m quite proud of the result, especialy given such short time to achieve it.
Well, without further ado, I announce DoomRL Wiki!
A new home
26 November 2005
Well, as you probably noticed, I finally recieved the server, and more importantly got my requested domain chaosforge.org. I feel like I would literally aquire a new home — plenty of ideas for new furnishings, brushing up the old things and placing them how I like to see them. Well, this house has much more space in it, and definitively I can start thinking about furniture that up to day was out of my reach.
Spam me, baby
24 November 2005
Hell, some things make me mad. I just checked my e-mail’s provider website, and noticed the spam folder. Browsing through those 1700 messages I discovered about 30 DoomRL-related e-mails! Moreover I found a couple gearhead-dev messages by Joseph Hewitt! And that was just the spam from 30 days (older spam is trashed)…
Considering the fact that I havn’t checked that folder for about a half a year, estimatedly 150 DoomRL fanmail got trashed. I wanted to know why.
Well it turned out that my e-mail provider is completely Poland-centric and reports as spam ALL e-mail from sites like yahoo, hotmail, mail.ru, etc. I need a new e-mail provider. Or I’ll turn spam-cheking and let Thunderbird handle it — for it handles Spam a lot better…
What a pain.