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Ultima Ratio Regum is a middle-ground between roguelikes, RPGs and strategy games. It has no fantasy elements and seeks instead to be closer to a realistic history simulator, and a strategy/4x game which just happens to be in ASCII. Combat is rare and deadly - whilst these mechanics are modeled in detail, exploration, trade and diplomacy factors will have just as much effort put into them. URR aims to eventually be a fusion of roguelike and strategy two genres - rather than a strategy game where you command with omniscience (even in ancient eras), you instead command as an individual character also in the game. Orders must be issued in person; you can lose contact with distant armies; but the same mechanics affect the AI players who also lack omniscience and depend upon the knowledge of situations they themselves can garner. Worlds can be generated over a vast array of sizes, climates and types, but all ultimately with no fixed objective but a world full of civilizations and factions to be allied with or battled against. It aims for depth in character development and world events, but with much in the 'middle' - constructing buildings, city growth, resource management - abstracted out (as other games exist which handle those well). Political and social dynamics will be modeled via a complex system that aims to generate both a history for the world, and the current state of political affairs when your game begins.
0 comments by UltimaRatioRegum on Mar 5th, 2013
Things are progressing further for 0.3, the first URR release with some actual gameplay! I've created about half a dozen new block designs, and I've started the level generation for ziggurats. The current situation is that you can find your way from the bottom floor, to the top, via a number of procedurally generated riddles and puzzles, which have a selection of blocks, pressure pads, gates, clues inscribed on the wall, and the puzzles get tougher and tougher as you go upwards. The gate-pad-block triumvirate is coded fully, and can be expanded to any potential puzzle. Currently only the easiest levels of puzzle generate (2-4 blocks), but I'll be working on tougher ones in the near future.
Naturally, in the future there will be much more there, but each thing would require new mechanics. If I want treasure rooms, I need an inventory system; if I want bosses, I need an NPC system; etc. You get the idea. So, for now, they will be puzzle-focused, but completing specific ziggurats will give you... let's be vague... a component of a clue, and when you have enough of the components, then there will be some hints towards what later versions will hold. That's vague enough for now. There will be things to "accomplish" this release, but many will hint towards later offerings.
For those who don't follow on Facebook or Twitter, I'm aiming for the summer of this year for this release (probably/hopefully the most new content yet), to coincide with a talk I'll be giving at the International Roguelike Developers Conference. I'm not sure what exactly will be in 0.3 yet in gameplay, but there will at least be puzzles to ponder, and something snazzy to find on the top floors of the ziggurats. In the mean time, here's a picture of the "skull" block. I can't recall how many different procedural variations of this image are possible, but it's probably around a dozen:

You can keep up to date on my devblog, Facebook page, or Twitter feed. The devblog is updated weekly or fortnightly on Mondays, Facebook a few times a week, and the Twitter roughly daily. Any thoughts, please leave them in the comments! Version 0.3.0 is now in the works, and will generate languages, myths, histories, coats of arms, flags, and entire civilizations. It'll be a big one, but I'm hoping to keep the updates coming regularly. Stay tuned...
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It crashes very often. Mostly when you reach a place that game needs to load, after pressing Enter game crashes without log or error.This makes game almost unplayable. Another annoying crashes are ones during combat like:
"NameError: global name 'self' is not defined
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60819, in <module>
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53606, in place_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 41588, in options_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53612, in place_menu"
Also Quitting doesn't work.
You'll have to give more info than that on the crash; that doesn't show the actual crash. Also, I've never had issues on Loading screens, and nobody else has reported any. Does it still happen in 0.1.2 (just uploaded)? If so, I'll need more information, as nobody else is getting loading problems.
Yes it still happens on 0.1.2. During this loading screens with tips and quotes and with ones with "Saving/loading chunks" or something like this. It happens like 10% of time. The combat crashes occured twice. Once while fighting a cyclop, i think i cut his leg off or at least broke ant then choosed to attack his torso, then game crashed and that was in the log. The second time was when i started the game near the dragon and he killed me. Instant crash after pressing Esc. Without logs or something. In this verision hovewer I've experienced this:
"Assertion failed!
Program: D:\alphatime.exe
File: src/console_c.c
Line: 220
Expression: dat != ((void *)0) &&(unsigned)(x) < (unsigned)dat -> w && (unsigned)(y) <(unsigned)dat -> h"
Also I've noticed there are far too many equipment just lying around in this new version.
Alpha is good so far, I take it most of the skills are currently useless?
Just crashed after trying to press enter on an oasis, could not get the crash log.
Yes to your first question (they are going to be *seriously* reworked in the not-too-distant future), and huh - that's a new one. Give me a shout if it happens again!
Will we be able to build ships
In the long term, yes, absolutely, and they will take up multiple squares (like large creatures do).
awesome, what will the control scheme be(amount of buttons etc.) and will the edge of the world loop?(e.g go far enough west and come out on the east side of the map) that would be cool. sounds like I'll have something to do on long plane trips then maybe. can't wait to see this game released!
I'm not sure how it would work on phone... can you get a virtual keyboard up for games? I know exactly 0 about releasing for a phone, as Windows/Linux/Mac is proving tricky enough! The edge of the map doesn't currently loop, but I have toyed with making it do so at some later point. Well, tomorrow's the day!