version 0.58 should be out during the week

As you can see in the screenshot, destructible terrain is now included, as the ability to target a specific tile instead of a NPC. This version should have been released yesterday, but I am encountering some minor problems when modifying the user interface code to incorporate the ability to attack a specific tile without adding another keyboard shortcut. Rushing the issue would only lead to a buggy release, so a little patience is needed here.

Feature-wise, hit chance calculations have been sightly modified. When a shot is missed, instead of doing nothing, it will hit a nearby tile with all the consequences such an action could have, like killing a friendly target (or even yourself when using an area of effect weapon). Weapons and tiles have a piercing/material strength setting used to determine if a specific weapon can destroy a wall or not. Also the DeanApocalypse theme become the default one and the other is removed from the release as maintaining both will double the time wasted on creating tiles. And, as mentioned in the first paragraph, the combat related user interface will be altered. Pressing the attack key will select the last/nearest target, using the keypad or the mouse will allow to select another target, and pressing the attack key again will validate the shot. In a similar fashion that ToME4 currently does. The middle mouse button will be used to directly attack any tile or target without a confirmation click.

The way citizen and police officers react to fights will also be improved in this release. Policemen and gang members won't ignore the fact that you are gunning down friendlies right under there nose as much as they do now.

Update monday/tuesday

Hey !

I'll publish a new version Monday or Tuesday. It will feature real smoke (natural spread, block vision, reduced accuracy  according to smoke level) and fire (here again it will spread in a relatively realistic fashion). Throw weapons will be available too (Smoke / HE grenades, Cocktail Molotov). The user interface has been improved and a full screen mode (sort of) has been added. Code-wise a few steps have been written toward a destructible terrain and pushable objects.

Regarding the mission system, and other stuff delayed by my leave. As I said in the last post, I want to focus on the pure gameplay / engine first. Currently the fighting and interaction mechanisms are way too basic for my taste. So, for a while I am going to expand those areas (so the player can sneak around enemies, destroy buildings with explosives and so on). I don't have an ETA for when it's going to be done, calendars are my worst enemies. But it shouldn't take too long. Meanwhile NPC and City-Sim stuff will still be added.

Current Progress (and other stuff)

A corner street, with the Deonapocalypse skin from Deon

Well, as said in the previous post, next release should be available during the weekend (Sunday is the most probable day). I am done with the initial part of the new city generator. A basic grammar system is included allowing different kind  of N/S, E/W, crossroads and corners roads. It's already possible for the modder to change how those roads will look and add/remove variants using the provided files.

New Map Generator Progress and Future Plans

Randomly Generated Road Network

I am still working on the new City Map Generator. I am done with the basics and i have a working map where I can move around, but NPCs and factions have been temporarily disabled as I need to review their respective AI. I had to rewrite the zone editor, and it's only temporary as it will be replaced by a building editor that will allow to set multiple levels, select specific walls/floor types and other features. Here are a few work-in-progress screenshots and comments to give you a hint about what's going on:

Grand Rogue Auto 0.3.8 Released !

Behold, Grand Rogue Auto 0.3.8 !

Why not 0.4, you may ask? Because I have to work on the faction and combat stuff some more before being able to switch to the mission system. This said, this new release introduces major changes regarding the controls and the combat system. As usual, this article gives detailed information regarding the update and what I am going to work on next.

Grand Rogue Auto 0.3.5 Released !

Hi there,
 
No, I'm not dead ! Sorry for the lack of recent content, but when I have to choose between writing code and writing on the blog because of a busy IRL schedule, I usually choose coding. I will check the comments later, but for now, here is the 0.3.5 version of GRA. This is a very large update. A ton of improvements and bug-fixes have been included, large parts of the faction tree are in place, the GUI has been somewhat improved and a lot of the code behind the scene has been rewritten. Oh, and a basic savegame (sort of) system is in place too.

I'll details the additions and change in this article, and it's going to be a fairly long one.

EDIT: Download links updated. Sorry for the little delay.

Dev Update: OMG Zombies !

Yeah, zombies! I added a new game-mode to demonstrate the flexibility of my little engine (only 30-50 additional lines of code required to include the option). As you can see in the screenshot above, it's a zombie apocalypse scenario. 5% of the population spawn as zombies. People killed by zombies immediately respawn as another mindless undead. They are very tough, and regenerate health quickly. Your starting pistol is no match against them and you'll have to get a shotgun or rifle quickly as they will definitively conquer the whole city in a few hundred turns. On the bright side, money will be laying pretty much everywhere by that time. Before you ask, no I am not gonna do a Rogue Survivor 2.0, it's just a dumb fun survival scenario. It also allowed me to test the combat routines at a large scale and fix a rather large amount of potential bugs which would have arisen with the 'faction' tree of the roadmap.

But that's not all, many other changes were made.
And I have an approximate release date for the next version.

Dev Update : GUI and Industrial Districts

A lot of progress was made today, 'thanks' to the lack of real work this week. I added a vertical button list to the left part of the screen. They link to the most common commands like reload, use, open the map or the inventory. Moreover, five of those buttons are configurable (like the quick-bar in Diablo'likes and MMOs). You can link those to any useable item from your inventory. It's also now possible to lock the aspect ratio of the game so the image doesn't look stretched (especially on 16/9 screens).

Dev Update : AI and a new sector type

I'm done with the "City Center" sector type. It doesn't scale very well when using custom sector dimensions, but it's sufficient for now (sector size will probably be hardcoded in the public release anyway). The first screenshot is a map of such a sector. The central blue region will always contain a park and 4 office buildings. The two green regions will contain service buildings like hospitals, police stations,  restaurants, and the mayor office. The four outer red regions are either housing blocks or large parks. Remaining buildings are randomized. The second screenshot is a game representation of a restaurant. It's rough, and more objects (chairs and such) will be added as soon as I find a good and automated way of putting things into buildings.

Now, about the AI :)

Shopping and Modding

As you can see in this screenshot, shopping has been implemented. I still need to add some kind of distinctive sign outside shops, though, as it's a pain in the ass to locate them otherwise. For now, only weapon stores are in place, food stuff, pawn shops, and so on will come later. Available weaponry is randomly selected from the pool of ingame weapons.

Blood for the Blood God !

Here's another development update! As you can see, the killings and blood has been implemented. The rest of this post will explain what has been added recently, and what still need to be added before i can decently post a first official release.

More Screenshots and dev update

GRA is progressing fast. The city map creation is mostly done, only missing a few types of zones (commercial / industrial districts). I've tried very large cities with several thousands of NPC, without bumping into memory leaks or abnormal consumption of CPU. Regions and NPC are randomly named. I am now implementing the "shoot and killing people" part as you'll see in the screenshot below.

A few screenshots