[Announce] POWDER 050 Released.

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.announce,rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Hi,

I am pleased to make a general announcement about a new version of
the roguelike POWDER.

POWDER has been designed from the ground up for play on the Gameboy
Advance handheld console. While that is still the ideal platform, SDL
ports to Windows and Linux allow people on those platforms to use
their full keyboard in a traditional roguelike manner.

The design goals in POWDER are:

Fast Gameplay
A session should be quick to start up. One should be able to
accomplish a lot in a short play time. This has resulted in a
focus on hack and slash. There are also no character creation
choices - relevant choices are only needed if the character lives
long enough. This has also kept the play quite linear: the player
always has an obvious next target.

Complicated Interactions
Different items in the world should interact in expected fashions.
The goal is to allow the player to find different solutions to
problems depending on their current equipment.

Ergonomically Friendly
Because the target platform is the Gameboy Advance which is rather
limitted in control interfaces, it is important to maximize those
that are present. POWDER thus supports remappable buttons,
context sensitive menus, and extensive "Do what I mean" built into
the movement system.

The Windows and Linux ports are able to bypass the context
sensitive menus by directly pressing the correct key. (ie: 'r'
when the cursor is on a book will read the book)

Replayability via a Changing World
Like most roguelikes, POWDER aims to provide a new play experience
in every adventure by randomizing most of the world creation.

It is a full-graphic roguelike with 16x16 tiles and no character mode
option.

The release of POWDER 050 marks precisely half way to POWDER 100. It
is yet unknown if POWDER 100 will be anything special.

You may find the latest version of POWDER and ongoing news of its
development at:

http://www.zincland.com/powder

Thank you for your time,
Jeff Lait