Dweller

Dweller
Stable game
Developer	Bjorn Ritzl (formerly Bergstrom)
Theme	Fantasy
Influences	Angband, Crawl
Released	Aug 13, 2003 (?)
Updated	See Change log ()
Licensing	Freeware, Closed Source
P. Language	Java Micro edition (J2ME) and Standard edition (J2SE)
Platforms	J2ME MIDP2.0 enabled handsets, J2SE enabled computers, Google Android 1.5+ enabled handsets
Interface	Tiles, Keypad, Stylus, Mouse
Game Length	1 hour
[This is the Official site of Dweller]

Dweller is the first roguelike created for java enabled cellphones. The project was announced and a first alpha version was released on the 12th of August 2003.

Description

Dweller is a fantasy roguelike for Java enabled cellphones. A version for desktop computers also exist, but the main focus of development is for mobile platforms. Some of its features are:

• Three player classes, the Warrior, the Wizard and the Ranger
• A simple end goal, kill the Goblin king!
• Random dungeons (with optional persistence)
• Several different monsters (Goblins, Orcs, Trolls, Oozes, Vampires, Rats, Bats, Skeletons and so on) with simple AI
• Items, item enchants and named artifact items
• Merchant to buy and sell items from/to
• Inventory and equipment
• Spells and ranged weapons
• FOV
• Save/Load
• Old school pixel graphics and animations
• Touch screen support

Dweller is designed to run on any MIDP2 or Android OS 1.5+ enabled handset. Older versions also work on MIDP1 handsets, but in 2009 MIDP1 support was abandoned.

Download and Installation instructions

Android version

Dweller for Android can be downloaded for free from the Android Market. Do a search for 'Dweller' to find it or use this market link:

market://search?q=pname:org.roguelikedevelopment.dweller.android

Mobile version (J2ME)

The easiest way to get Dweller installed on your phone is to point your handsets browser to the Dweller WML page at http://www.roguelikedevelopment.org/dweller/index.wml

You can also download the JAR and JAD files required to install the game here:

• Dweller JAR
• Dweller JAD

Old versions of the game can be downloaded from

http://www.roguelikedevelopment.org/dweller/old

Desktop version (J2SE)

Download the Dweller J2SE JAR here. Run it by opening a command prompt and type

 java -jar DwellerJ2SE.jar

You can also start the game straight away from your browser using Java Web Start. Click here to play now!

Donate

Dweller is free to download and play, but it is also a one-man effort to bring a full featured roguelike to cellphones and other mobile devices. If you like the game please consider sending a donation:

Make a PayPal donation!

Screenshots

How to Play

Note: All keys can be redefined within the game to better suit your handset. Since mobile phones have a somewhat limited set of input options Dweller also has a rather simplistic interface and way of game play. The game offers the following set of commands:

• Movement (one command for each direction)
• Interact (pick something up, open a chest, ranged attack on a targeted monster, descend stairs etc)
• Targeting (look around on the map and target distant monsters)
• Cycle target (only while in targeting mode)
• Exit/Cancel (closes a menu or leaves targeting mode)
• Inventory
• Main Menu

Movement

Use the Movement commands to move. If you have a touch screen enabled handset just tap on the screen in the direction you wish to move. Note: Orthogonal and diagonal moves take the same amount of time.

Combat

Move into monsters to attack them. Use targeting mode to attack with ranged weapons.

Doors

Move into doors to open them. Use targeting mode to close them.

Interact with items on the ground

Use the Interact command to stand still and search, pickup items, open chests and ascend/descend stairs. If you have a touch screen enabled handset just tap on the player character to interact with something on the ground below you.

Targeting

Use the Targeting command to switch to Targeting mode. While in Targeting mode you can use the Movement commands to move a cursor around on the map.

Press the Targeting command multiple times to cycle between equipment or plain inspection mode. If you have a touch screen enabled handset tap and hold for half a second to cycle equipment.

Use the Cycle Target command to cycle between visible targets.

Use the Interact command to interact with selected target using the selected equipment (or no equipment to inpsect a monster/item or close a door). If you have a touch screen enabled handset just tap on a target to immediately Interact with it.

Use the Exit command to go back to movement mode again. If you have a touch screen enabled handset tap the bottom of the screen to go back to movement mode again.

Menu

Use Menu command to bring up the game menu (inventory, character info, new game, save/load etc). If you have a touch screen enabled handset simply tap the bottom of the screen to open the menu.

Use the Menu command again to cancel/go back from the current menu. If you have a touch screen enabled handset drag left to cancel/go back from the current menu.

Inventory

You can access the Inventory from the main menu or by using the Inventory command. Touch screen uses have to go via the main menu to access the inventory.

Character stats

Your character has four attributes; Attack, Defense, Magic and Speed. When displayed ingame the are shown as Attack/Defence/Magic/Speed.

• Attack determines chance of doing damage in combat and the amount of damage that can be done in melee combat. Attack can be increased by using weapons and other items found in the dungeon.

• Defense determines your chance of negating incoming damage.

• Magic determines your ability to use magic items and deal damage with spell. It also increases your chances of resisting magic attacks.

• Speed determines the speed by which you act, allowing you to attack and move more often than your opponents.

Besides the four attributes your character has Hit Points (Magic Points was removed in a recent version). When Hit Points reach 0 you die and have to start over.

Inventory and Equipment

The inventory shows all carried and equiped items. Available equipment slots are:

• Melee Weapon
• Missile Weapon and ammo
• Armour
• Shield
• Helmet
• Boots
• Ring
• Amulet
• Cloak
• Trinket (wand or similar)
• Spell book

Use your inventory to equip/remove/drop/examine items you are carrying. Some weapons require both hands to use, thus preventing the use of a shield.

Testimonies and reviews

"This game takes me back to when I was a kid, keep up the great work!" - wezman

"Just started playing Dweller on my new phone and it seems like a pretty nifty game :) Simple enough to pick up quickly and easy to control despite the lack of keys available." - daniel andersen

"I really love to play roguelikes and I think that dweller is a superb idea THX for all those who developed dweller for making it and working on it. If I can help just let me know ;)" - haloocyn

"Awesome game!!! I've been playing your game since your very first version and i always check your site for new version. It rocks!" - Ethaniel

"IT ROXX!!!" - mastaG

"Far more addictive than the all singing/dancing multi-coloured "Bomberman" that I spent ????5 on downloading. Well found. :)" - www.stumbleupon.com

"I think is the best Java Game I have ever seen, so addictive, so beautiful, and free." - Roberto

"Dweller is surely the best cellular game i've seen; really good job!! Thanks!" - Ci00rix

DroidGamers review http://www.droidgamers.com/index.php/game-news/android-game-news/383-dweller-rpg

Article on Dweller at AtomicMPC http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/article.asp?CIID=24903

And of course Rhialto's Dweller fanpage (thanks!) http://www.rhialto.com/Dweller/

Blog

Follow Dweller development on my blog:

http://peeksandpokes.blogspot.com/search/label/dweller

RSS Feed with Dweller related posts:

http://peeksandpokes.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/dweller

Known handset issues

• On some handsets the key names for joypad and similar non numeric keys aren't shown when using Defined Keys and Show Commands
• 2009-09: On HTC Dash handsets the player is rendered at the bottom of the screen. Probably caused by the handset reporting an incorrect(?) screen height

Todo list

User experience

• Add more in-game help
• Make Dweller translatable

Bugs

• It should be possible to disarm traps even if there is an item on the map cell where the trap is.

Character progression

• Sometimes give passive abilities on level up. The Warrior has a chance to knock-back enemies. The Ranger has a chance to temporarily pin enemies to the ground using arrows (effectively a stun). The Wizard has a chance to drain life from a killed monster.
• Achievements (kill n monsters, kill n monsters of a certain type, accumulate x gold etc). Give in-game benefits or add to final score.
• Add the option to name the player character

Death/Win

• Improve "game over" screen
• Possibly add an item (soulwell, soulgem or similar) that when dead will be consumed and return you to life on the surface with your equipment (and possible with a small loss of stats).

Gameplay

• Possibly add difficulty levels (Easy, Normal, Hard). Maybe prevent use of stairs up on Hard or something? No starting inventory? Separate highscore tables (or a single one with a score bonus depending on difficulty).

Inventory

• No suggestions at the moment

Items

• Other lightsources (fires, torches)
• More items for the ranger. Elven bow (higher firing speed), Crossbow (higher damage, slower firing speed), Concussive arrows (stuns opponent), Explosive arrows (knockback)

Map

• Perhaps add several stairs up/down, possibly to different branches ("You see a staircase leading down to the sewers", "You see a staircase leading down to a dungeon")
• Sewers: Add junk that can be searched for items (can spawn monsters and/or cause disease)
• New map type: Catacombs. Undead monsters mostly. Coffins that can be opened for loot/monsters
• New map elements: Altar (sacrifice items to gain favors), Teleporter, Fountain (healing, antidote, mutation, poison)
• Minimap

Merchant

• No suggestions at the moment

Monsters

• Add some kind of danger assessment to monsters (Harmless, Weak, Even, Dangerous, Deadly etc)
• Named monsters (mini bosses)
• Immobile monsters: Statues, Deadly plants
• More monsters!
• Monsters should avoid undiscovered traps (they already avoid discovered traps)

Performance

• Screen flickers on some handsets due to too frequent redraws of too much of the screen (ex. Nokia N97Mini)

Quests

• Add mini quests

Social Networking and External systems

• Add Facebook support (post Dweller highscores to a users FB page, when finding an artifact weapon and so on
• Char dump to SMS/Mail/Webpage/Social Media Site

Spells

• Curse (decreases chance of attacking/casting spells or maybe preventing items from being removed)
• Acid (damages inventory and/or equipment)

SUGGESTIONS AND IDEAS THAT HAVE BEEN DISCARDED

• Place stairs further apart. Note: There is nothing wrong with having stairs close. The player does not need to be forced to explore the whole dungeon as it in many aspects already is a necessity to survive and gear up before going deeper.
• Investigate if a Rest command should be added (regain HP with the risk of monsters ambushing). Note: There is no real need for this anymore as you have the merchant on the first level to buy healing potions from. Even with the risk of being ambushed when resting it would make the game too easy.

Change log

Next release
NEW Trap doors that will make you fall to the level below
NEW Added action buttons on the map UI for touchscreen devices to simplify targeting and menu access
NEW Removed the statusbar at the bottom of the map UI and added proper unit frames for the player and the current target
CHANGE The merchant's inventory should get pruned and updated in a better way
CHANGE Fog of war ghosts of monsters have been removed. They were more of a nuisance than a help.
FIX Potions can no longer become enchanted by the world generator when generated from a predefined spawn point
FIX Saved games are no longer deleted when loaded at startup. The save game is kept until the game is ended to reduce the risk of losing a game to an application crash

2010-08-28 v.1.3.0
NEW Added an option to Use All (for instance use 3 Mushrooms of healing in one go, without having to go in to the menu between each use)
NEW Added Potion of Mutation
NEW Pushable stones
NEW Some rooms within the dungeon have predefined spawn points for items and monsters when the map is generated
CHANGE Game is now saved when moving between levels. This will prevent complete loss of your character if the game crashes
FIX Floating damage text was not shown correctly for ranged attacks
FIX J2ME and J2SE - Floating damage text was clipped
FIX Almost insta-death by draning bug solved (Vampire bats were lethal)
FIX Android - Crash bug on app exit
FIX Android - Cupcake was not supported afterall due to an incorrect minimum SDK version

2010-08-24 v.1.2.1
NEW Added a Buy all/Sell all command
NEW A message is shown when you do not have enough money to buy an item
NEW Added a low hitpoint warning message
CHANGE Adjusted font height to work better in both landscape and portrait mode
FIX Android - Floating damage text was clipped

2010-08-23 v.1.2.0
NEW Version check at startup to avoid loading invalid saved data
NEW Floating text animations above monsters and player when taking damage and upon xp gain
NEW Added some stat gain potions
NEW Amount of gold shown in the bottom status bar when interacting with the merchant
CHANGE Added some extra info to the saved scores (char level and max depth)
CHANGE Chests, stairs and traps will no longer be created in water
CHANGE Updated the splash screen logo
CHANGE Improved scrolling in menues, especially when using a touch screen
FIX J2ME - Exiting the app in any other way than from the game menu did not save any ongoing game
FIX J2ME - Some of the default keybindings for navigation conflicted with keybindings for inventory and main menu on some handsets (SE C702 among others)
FIX Worg graphics was still incorrect - doh!
FIX The game over screen was shown multiple times which caused weird behaviour and multiple score entries
FIX When enchanting a wielded weapon it gets unwielded but not wielded again. This was unintentional and has been solved.
FIX When enchanting an item you have more than one of the whole stack got enchanted. Only stacks of ammo can get enchanted now
FIX It is no longer possible to enchant a quiver of normal arrows as those are of unlimited supply
FIX On really rare occasions the game crashed when entering a new level
FIX Infrequent crash bug when dying

2008-08-13 v.1.1.4
FIX Android - save/load code issue solved

2008-08-13 v.1.1.3
NEW Monster descriptions are shown upon first encounter
CHANGE Underlying floor tile rendered for traps, doors and chests
CHANGE Android - save/load code reworked. Should work on 2.2 devices now
CHANGE When selling an equipped item you have more than one of you no longer un-equip the item first
FIX Solved a recently introduced bug with the map generator that could cause disconnected levels

2008-08-10 v.1.1.2
NEW Water animations
FIX Selling an equipped item did not remove it first (causing stat gain/loss to become permanent)
FIX Vampire graphics was off index
FIX Buying/selling did not work

2010-08-10 v.1.1
NEW The merchant will be named after player who have contributed to the game by submitting bug reports or giving feedback
CHANGE Adjusted item prices. No more arrows being worth thousands of gold.
CHANGE When you sell something to the merchant you won't get paid the full price of the item
FIX There was an issue with Scrolls of Recall that left a player ghost on the level you travelled from
FIX Game over crash bug
FIX Crash bug when redefining keys
FIX Some monster graphics were wrong
FIX Traps and secret doors in the caves are no longer clearly visible even when not found
FIX Android - Cycle Target set to Menu key
FIX Going back from the Buy/Sell item list takes you to the correct screen
FIX Improved touch screen srolling in menues
FIX It was possible to kill the merchant with ranged attacks

2010-07-26 v.1.0
NEW Brand new graphics
NEW Simple idle animations
NEW Merchant on the surface to buy and sell from
NEW Scroll of Recall to move between surface and deepest dungeon level visited
CHANGE ASCII mode removed
FIX Null pointer on rare occasion when switching level
FIX Null pointer when viewing an empty inventory/ability category
FIX Runetime exception when restarting the game after it has been halted (Android)

2010-06-29 v.0.15.2
NEW Android support!
NEW All text now has a small drop shadow
CHANGE Locked the navigation keys completely from being redefined as it risks screwing things up if redefined the wrong way
CHANGE Added left/right commands as valid ways of navigating back and forth in menues (this used to work in old versions and is now back on player request)

2010-04-30 v.0.15.1
NEW Dweller Desktop now properly resize the drawing area when the window is resized
NEW Greatly improved the error handling when loading/saving data
NEW Added a loader/progress screen when starting Dweller to give feedback while waiting for the game to start
CHANGE The bottom bar is now hidden when showing item categories
CHANGE Additional drops from dead monsters favor the cell the monster was in if it is empty, instead of spreading it to adjacent cells
FIX Some key codes on some handset models did not show correct key names in the Commands menu
FIX It was not possible to close an opened gate
FIX The Dweller Mobile code to properly resize when the canvas was resized (not sure if/when that ever happens) did not work

2010-04-14 v.0.15.0
NEW Desktop J2SE support
NEW Improved feedback from charmed monsters
NEW Added a monster kill tracker to the character menu. First time kills reward double the amount of xp
NEW All items now have a value in gold, in preparation for features to come...
NEW Monsters, primarily humanoids, now drop gold in addition to other loot
CHANGE Made targeting a bit more intelligent. If no previous target exists it is always the closest one that gets picked first
CHANGE Some keys are now locked so they can't be redefined. This is to prevent a user from redefining keys and completely block navigation within menues
FIX Targeting no longer incorrectly cycles through items when it isn't supposed to
FIX It is now possible to exit the hiscore and game over screen by pressing center/select, not only menu and exit
FIX Selecting an inventory category other than ALL sometimes caused the incorrect category of items to show

2010-03-30 v.0.14.0
NEW Door type: Gate. Blocks movement but not line of sight
NEW Added an About & Credits screen to the main menu
NEW Added a couple of items that increase the light radius
NEW Only intelligent monsters can open doors and pick locks. Stupid monsters need to rely on brute force to get passed a closed door.
NEW Added two handed weapons that prevent the use of a shield
NEW Added items of better or worse than average quality, prefixed "Fine", "Worn", "Strong" and so on
NEW Introduced weapon speed to allow for different playstyles using either hard hitting and slow weapons or fast weapons that hit for less
NEW Some monsters can now be generated in packs
NEW Improved fleeing and pursuing AI behavior
NEW Monsters no longer step on known traps
NEW Flying monsters (bat, wraith and beholders) are no longer affected by traps on the ground
CHANGE Bashing open a door varies in difficulty depending on if the door is locked, jammed, or if it is a gate
CHANGE The ranger has an increased light radius
CHANGE Hitpoints are always increased by 1 when gaining a level
CHANGE Visibility in the starting forest is no longer limited by the player's light radius
CHANGE Weapons with an added effect (Fire, Poison etc) no longer rely on the player's Magic stat when determining effect
CHANGE The bottom stats bar area is no longer taking up screen space on views that doesn't use it
CHANGE The damage from attacks and spells is now determined using a slightly skewed gaussian distribution instead of a linear
CHANGE Wands now have a limited number of charges. There is currently no means of recharging a wand
CHANGE Items are now ignored when cycling through targets
CHANGE When having an item with a beneficial effect selected in targeting mode only friendly creatures will be cycling through targets
CHANGE When having an item with a harmful effect selected in targeting mode a hostile creature is selected by default instead of starting centered at the player
CHANGE Targeting mode automatically targets an enemy if none is already targeted (previously the player was targeted)
CHANGE Minor change to the Drop one/all menu. If a single item is selected the Drop one/all will be replaced by a simple Drop command
CHANGE Improved touchscreen support, especially when moving around on the map
FIX Proper feedback is now given if the player tries to enchant an item that can't be enchanted
FIX Solved a fatal bug in monster movement code that could move the monster out from the map (and crash the game)
FIX Ammo with a limited amount is no longer kept equipped when depelted
FIX Removed double "You are no longer poisoned" messages when leveling up while poisoned
FIX Removed double death messages when killing a creature with a ranged weapon using enchanted ammo
FIX Made sure that tiled levels (the dungeon and sewer) are surrounded by an impassable border of wall tiles
FIX It is no longer possible to go back to a finished game after killing the Goblin King
FIX You will now get a proper win if you return to a saved map with the Goblin King on it and you kill him
FIX Solved the problem with text flooding the bottom edge of a text box
FIX Damage done and taken is no longer linear. There is less probability to do max damage.
FIX Solved a crash bug when explicitly saving a game with persistent maps, leaving the level, coming back and loading again
FIX You can no longer save scum chests. A chest will always contain the same item, no matter when you open it
FIX You can no longer save scum scrolls of enchants. The result of a particular scroll of enchant applied to a particular item will always give the same result
FIX Solved a potential problem when dropping parts of a stack of items or when cloning a monster
FIX It is no longer possible to resist magic cast by yourself on yourself (for instance resisting own teleports)
FIX Damage caused by displacement/knockbacks no longer reduce max hitpoints

Older changes can be reviewed here.