MnemonicRL

MnemonicRL
Alpha Project
Developer	Da-Breegster
Theme	Steampunk, Surreal
Influences
Released	Jun 21 2009 (alpha)
Updated	{{{updated}}}
Licensing	Open Source
P. Language	Perl
Platforms	Linux, Windows
Interface	ASCII, Keyboard
Game Length
[There is no Official site of MnemonicRL]

MnemonicRL is an ambitious 2009 project by Da-Breegster. Its notable features include ASCII art sprites for the static town, animation (snow, fire, smoke, etc), and its multiplayer capabilities. It has an increasingly intricate plot; players arrive in Cyphen, the Land of Nowhere, a purgatory where they await their memories in the river. However, the factories seem to be affecting this process somehow, and it is up to the entire community to decide what to do.

Alpha Demo

Released June 21, 2009. This'll have some significance in about half a year.

Note: The server will be down from Thursday morning till Sunday night; I won't be around to run it. Sorry. See this page for updates

Linux/source release: http://jigstar.ath.cx:1024/files/mnemonicrl-src.tgz Please be forgiving of my slow server, home-hosted; it may go down on occasion. You'll need Perl (5.8 or later) and 2 perl modules, POE and Curses, to run this; instructions are within. Note that you need to build the Curses perl module with panels support; perl Makefile.PL PANELS if you're building from source.

Windows release: http://rapidshare.com/files/247217252/mnemonicrl-win.zip It's a one-time download of about 26MB, which I can't host on my line. If you've already got cygwin set up on your system, use the source release, because this will probably clobber it. Instructions included, pretty much you run installer.bat, click next a couple of times, then run play.bat.

Please note that this is strictly an alpha tech demo. There is no gameplay yet; monsters and items exist, but the combat is still buggy, let alone balanced. Play around in Cyphen, explore the dungeon if you're brave, and be patient. I'm adding stuff every day; if the server cuts off, I'm restarting it. Please send me all feedback and bug reports.

Multiplayer

MnemonicRL's base engine, PerlRL, supports both a singleplayer and multiplayer mode. Players will congregate in Cyphen, form parties, and enter a set of dungeons with a particular theme and rank. Nobody may join a party once it is created, but anybody can leave the dungeon and forfeit. Permadeath in a party dungeon is implemented by a severe penalty: losing a few levels and some significant items. The rest of the party may choose to help the weakened member level up again, or they may abandon them, leaving them to forfeit the party and go try an easier dungeon set. MnemonicRL will also feature a traditional singleplayer mode and a free-for-all area open to every player. PvP (Player-vs-Player) and PK (Player-killing) will be allowed in controlled, segregated arenas.

Dungeons

Party games will occur in a set of dungeons that have a specific rank/level of monsters and also a theme. Everything except for the puzzle set would be randomly generated. Ideas thus far:

• Factory with a sewer system of pipes, machinery, conveyor belts. I might be able to try out some experimental 3D dungeon stuff for overlapping pipes or catwalks.
• Puzzle set - A friend of mine draws extremely elaborate mazes in various shapes. If I scan these in and convert them to ASCII, they'd make for some great levels.
• A celestial area. I'm not sure what role heaven and hell play relative to the purgatory Cyphen, yet. But a focus on the Chinese zodiac is a must -- they constitute a sizable chunk of the monster populus, currently.
• Snowy wilderness - tough to pull off and make it interesting. Dunno yet.
• Traditional room/hallway mazes -- but with the river running through it. Again, a large point of the game is to track the river upstream and discover the source of the strange happenings in Cyphen. This is, of course, complicated by the fact that the river runs both ways depending on whether Cyphen or Uben dominates reality at the moment.
• Some sort of lush underground forest with bioluminescent lighting. The Vernian theme appeals, somehow.

Trailer

A cinematic trailer is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsQC9reFbdQ. Source quality can be found at http://rapidshare.com/files/240104738/mnemonicrl_trailer.avi.

Status

A full CHANGELOG is included with the code, but I wanted to keep people updated on what I'm working on.

• 6/6/09 - ~50 monster concepts finalized
• 6/7/09 - ~50 monsters coded with stats; nice stat # scaling and rank-based spawning
• 6/10/09 - leveling/experience bugfixes, projectile targeting+animation+attacks+chains
• 6/11/09 - items have same monster-like spawning code and tables, perfect FOV using shadowcasting
• 6/12/09 - conveyor belts, working on attack patterns
• 6/13/09 - 2 new "building" dungeon styles
• 6/15/09 - AI state machine, misc fixes, speed (realtime game != mash-fest)
• 6/16/09 - names & messages much better, range attack improvements, player abilities
• 6/17/09 - random content and proper tile layer system, which also fixes the name banner issue
• 6/18/09 - tabulated items and attacks (monsters were already done) and scaled numbers (making gameplay balance a matter of fiddling with overall ratios and individual stuff's properties)
• 6/19/09 - configurable keymap, affinity system to replace skills for now, choosing a default melee attack, attack system overhaul
• 6/21/09 - cross-platform alpha release
• 6/22/09 - chat key fixes, /me commands, who's online command (press /), name banners show up longer on cyphen, client errors sent for debugging
• 6/23/09 - all reproducible bugs so far fixed, put a level with conveyor belts before the dungeon for people to play with

Currently:

• Fixing the damage/experience formulas, and the corresponding numbers of monsters/weapons/etc
• Alpha-testing to get it to a playable state.