Powder Release 089 – Hack it Rogue-style on Nintendo DS

Coder Jeff Lait has “half-released” a newer version of POWDER, a homebrew game for the Nintendo DS. With custom-made, extended tile sets, a revamped tutorial mode, and a couple more bug fixes and typo-corrections, homebrew game POWDER Release 089 also comes with a new artpack in addition to the classic look and feel.

Not familiar with Roguelikes? Rogue was an all-time classic that took role-play and hack-and-slash and combined them together into an addictive adventure. No doubt Rogue was an arrangement of ASCII characters on screen, but the hack-and-slash dungeon crawl inspired much imagination and spawned tons of similar games, known as Roguelikes (think Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, for instance).

Aside from correcting typos and sorting out graphics issues (monsters actually looking like floor tiles, for instance), gameplay mechanic bugs were sorted out. Soul Suckers (nasty spellcasters) no longer utter spells if they don’t know you’re nearby, and Jeff Lait has also added new critters to sink your blades into: gold beetles. But between you and me, cave spider training is still a good idea, though.

Head to the full article for the full change list from Release 088.

Download: POWDER Release 089 for Nintendo DS

Coder Jeff Lait has “half-released” a newer version of POWDER, a homebrew game for the Nintendo DS. With custom-made, extended tile sets, a revamped tutorial mode, and a couple more bug fixes and typo-corrections, homebrew game POWDER Release 089 also comes with a new artpack in addition to the classic look and feel.

Not familiar with Roguelikes? Rogue was an all-time classic that took role-play and hack-and-slash and combined them together into an addictive adventure. No doubt Rogue was an arrangement of ASCII characters on screen, but the hack-and-slash dungeon crawl inspired much imagination and spawned tons of similar games, known as Roguelikes (think Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, for instance).

Aside from correcting typos and sorting out graphics issues (monsters actually looking like floor tiles, for instance), gameplay mechanic bugs were sorted out. Soul Suckers (nasty spellcasters) no longer utter spells if they don’t know you’re nearby, and Jeff Lait has also added new critters to sink your blades into: gold beetles. But between you and me, cave spider training is still a good idea, though. Lait’s full change list is as follows:

• From external testing, reworked tutorial to make it a bit more friendly.
• Dig no longer has force bolt as prereq, mana cost reduced to 10.
• Spell book of utility broken into book of force and book of earth.
• You see a scroll of READ ME now properly has the “a”.
• Character dump has skill and spell list. (R. Dan Henry)
• x, +, * sources used in character dump to show source of intrinsics/spells.
• Soul Suckers will no longer try to cast at people they can’t sense.
• Amnesia shows up in your intrinsic list and status line.
• You can no longer cast spells when suffering from amnesia.
• New mob, gold beetles.
• When a creature made of X attacks without a weapon in melee a creature vulnerable to X, extra damage is properly applied.
• Tamed creatures will not continue to attack newly tamed creatures. (hotpoo)
• Items of poison resistance can no longer be poisoned by dipping in a poison potion, you now get Nothing Happens.
• Creatures that random poly will not random poly into themselves. Specifically, this prevents chameleons from being poly-ed as chameleons. (Clare Boothby)
• I think the holes to bypass Belweir’s test have been plugged…
• I knew I’d scream when I hit the 256th tile. I was thus surprised when it (the signpost) worked so well. Needless to say the Soul Sucker showing up as a floor tile came as a surprise to me – I still had a bug with greater than 256 tile indices for items and monsters!
• Surprise now has two rs in three affected messages. (David Damerell)
• Fix a display issue where plain robes would report 5 AC when no skills were known. This should have been 3 AC, thereby avoiding the apparent reduction to 4 AC when a skill was learned. The actual effect was correct, just the display, and just the display of items with base ac of 1.
• The plural of Guide to Armour is no longer Guide to Armours but the correct Guides to Armour.
• Tlosh no longer gets upset at Reclaim Soul being cast. While it can be considered a type of healing (so discouraged), the method of healing is sufficiently grisly that Tlosh approves.
• The breathe command provides better results when one is strangled/submerged/breathless.
• One new room.

The DS version is provided below. Head on over to Lait’s site for more releases on the GBA, Linux and Microsoft Windows, or if you’d want to try the simultaneously-released artpack.

Download: POWDER Release 089 for Nintendo DS