Angband

Angband Releases: 4.0.0

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Background

Soon before the release of 3.5.0, a community discussion had led to Nick McConnell becoming maintainer, with the intent of co-ordinating a major rewrite of the codebase and a mantra of "no gameplay changes until after the restructure". After a lengthy period of beta-testing, Angband 4.0.0 was released on Monday 29 June 2015.

Summary of Changes

Core-UI split

  • split the game into core and UI, and stop anything in the core from depending on anything in the UI

Modifiability

  • put many of the game constants in a text file rather than being compiled in, so they are user alterable
  • text data files cleaned up and documented
  • help file for modifying added - lib/help/modifying.txt

Dungeon generation

  • allow saving of dungeon levels and the town
  • allow generation of dungeon levels piece by piece
  • generalise level generation algorithms
  • allow more control over monster generation for thematic purposes
  • allow regions where restrictions apply (eg no ESP or no mapping)
  • there is a 'squares' array containing the terrain, locality info, traps, objects, flow info and monster on each grid

Player knowledge

  • duplicate the dungeon level "cave" struct, so that there is a reality version and a player version

Objects

  • replace pvals (aside from fuel, food etc) by an array of values
  • separate resistances, immunities etc from flags to allow for more values of resistance
  • separate brands and slays from flags to allow more variablilty
  • remove hard-coding of object tvals and svals, so objects can be safely added and moved around in object.txt
  • handle special artifacts straight from artifact.txt, so an unrecognised object kind (like Phial) automatically has a new object kind defined for it
  • put artifact activations in a text file
  • put objects in linked lists tied to the grid, store, monster or player that holds them, rather than indexed in a level-wide list

Inventory, quiver, equipment

  • make ordering of the inventory and quiver a UI construct only
  • use a Poschengband-style equipment template to specify equipment slots (so there is a standard player body, but more could be added)

Monster memory

  • make this a separate file, with full memory obtainable by copying monster.txt

Terrain/traps

  • multiple gameplay-identical terrain types now handled by temporary flags during generation
  • a full terrain flag system to allow easier addition/removal of terrain types
  • make traps separate entities, not terrain
  • make locked/jammed doors just closed doors with a trap
  • remove code reliance on the numerical value of terrain types

Squelch->Ignoring

  • remove all references to 'squelch', replace with 'ignore'
  • add ignore by ego type
  • emphasise the philosophy that the items are still there, just ignored

ID

  • have a separate field for every learnable property of an item
  • remove the IDENT_* flags

Effects

  • have all effects performed by a single function, and definable from text files

Monster attacks

  • put elemental spell effects back in the projection code rather than the spellcasting code
  • put blow effects into seprate handler functions

Player spells

  • generalise to make it easier to introduce new realms, classes, etc
  • have all spell info defined by a text data file

Projection

  • have separate functions to handle effects on terrain, objects, player, monsters
  • clarify different types of projection
  • allow for cone-shaped breaths
  • allow for a wider variety of effects (eg player/monsters pushed by force)

Stats, power, etc

  • refine and generalise stats where possible
  • attempt to clarify all the (frankly) fudge factors so they can more easily be seen and adjusted

General code stuff

  • rename files to be more sensible, or create new ones where needed
  • update debug commands to reflect the current game
  • move data into list-*.h files or edit files where appropriate
  • remove archaic stuff
  • document!