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Dark Gates - 0.4.0

RPG game inspired by "Death Maze/ Labirynt Smierci"


Bartosz Debski
(braqoon)
Game inspired by paper RPG tiled game "Death Maze" or "Labirynt Smierci" released in Poland long time ago. Game will feature random generated maze (while you playing), monsters, treasures, etc. Aim of the game is to find Dark Gates and kill Unnamed in order to destory Dark Gates.


Play Dark Gates

Changes

With 0.4.0 release, the most requested feature is finally here. From now on, you can save your game and come back to your exploration of labyrinth later. Save and Quit feature comes with an extra functionality where you can spend your treasure on upgrades. When one of  your heroes fall in battle, you can fill the gaps in your party by adding new heroes before returning to the game. But this is not all, Dark Gates is now fully translated to French. Hopefully this is the beginning of greater initiative to translate DG into more languages.Let's take closer look on new features:

Save & Quit

Game allows to save a progress of your adventure. You are able to do so if you are not in battle. When you decide to end current game session, press ESC and choose option "Save & quit" from menu. You will be greeted with save game menu, where you can save your game into one of four available slots. In order to return to your saved game, all you need is to choose "Continue" from main menu and load your saved game. Game will start from party selection menu, where you can upgrade and restock. There is no obligation to have 6 party members after you loaded the game if you choose not to. After you are done with your party you can resume your game. When you re-enter the labyrinth all monster that has been befriended or bribed are hostile again.

 

Continue

Upgrade

From release 0.3.1 heroes are able to earn experience points. With 0.4.0 release, they can be spend on upgrades. When you save your game and come back to it later, in party selection menu you can use your gold and experience points to improve heroes stats. First upgrade level start on 100 gold and 100 experience points per ability. Each hero can have maximum three upgrades per each ability.

 

Upgrade

French translation and text tidy up

Dark Gates are now fully translated to French language, which has been done by Patrick David (Twitter @MrHyeron). Patrick did a fine job and hopefully we can expand our language files further. If you would like to see Dark Gates in your native language, please contact me on Desura, via dfourgames.com website, Facebook or Twitter.

 

and the smaller things

A new icon is now in the UI of the game. Dark Gates indicator is located in the top centre of the screen. When you find your first mirror, this icon will remind you on which level Dark Gates are situated. An additional confirmation screen has been added before entering the game, so now if you not entirely ready to enter the game, you can come back to party selection menu.

Sale for special occasion

If  you are still reading and not purchased a game yet, then you are in luck. This April is the third anniversary of Dark Gates development. Game is only developed in my spare time and it came a long way. On this occasion till the end of April game is 30% off. I would like to give a massive thank you to John von Draugr (you know who you are). His support, advise and bug finding are just the thing that any indie dev could wish for.

Plans for future releases

As this release includes the last of planned features, next ones will be finally catching up with missing art, polish and tuning. As I mentioned in previous news I still have plans for more features like gamepad support and static maps along with editor but finishing game art is now a priority.

 

Full changelog for release 0.4.0 alpha
----------------------------------------------------------------------
New: Avatar for Dierdra
New: Save/Load game system
New: Dark Gates level icon in main main game window
New: Heroes stats upgrades and ability to 'restock' the party
New: Confirmation screen before leaving party selection menu
New: French translation
Bugfix: corrections to English and Polish translations
Bugfix: While exploring trap door, ESC will brake the game

Again there is no OSX release, sorry.

Play Dark Gates on Desura

pygame 844 2d 783 game 397 rpg 118 random 19 commercial 7 tiles 4

Links

Home Page
http://darkgates.dfourgames.com/
Source
http://darkgates.dfourgames.com
Windows
http://darkgates.dfourgames.com
Mac
http://darkgates.dfourgames.com

Releases

Dark Gates 0.1.1 alpha — 12 Jan, 2012

Dark Gates 0.1 alpha — 8 Jan, 2012

Dark Gates 1.1 — 3 Apr, 2015

Dark Gates 0.1.2 alpha — 31 Jan, 2012

Dark Gates 0.1.3 alpha — 24 Feb, 2012

Dark Gates 0.2.0 alpha — 30 Jul, 2012

Dark Gates 0.01 — 7 Jun, 2010

Dark Gates 0.1a — 26 Jul, 2010

Dark Gates 0.4.0 — 5 Apr, 2013

Dark Gates 0.2.1 alpha — 29 Oct, 2012

Dark Gates 0.3.0 — 21 Jan, 2013

Dark Gates 0.3.1 — 6 Feb, 2013

Dark Gates 0.4.1 — 26 Apr, 2013

Dark Gates 0.5.0 — 29 Oct, 2013

Dark Gates 0.6.0 — 27 Dec, 2013

Dark Gates 0.4.2 — 11 Jul, 2013

Dark Gates 0.9 — 26 Aug, 2014

Dark Gates 0.7 — 9 Apr, 2014

Dark Gates 1.0 — 7 Jan, 2015

Dark Gates 0.8.0 — 10 Jun, 2014

Pygame.org account Comments

  • matrix090 2012-02-05 09:06

    you can add better oss or alsa audio support for linux `cuz on linux, game can`t detect the sound card

    Braqoon 2012-02-13 22:41

    At the moment there is no sound in the game, but when I tested I had no problem with sound under ALSA.

  • John 2012-02-25 02:29

    Cool project!  One suggestion: I would have liked the map movements and other transitions to go faster - it feels a little sluggish as is.  I look forward to seeing this develop .

    Braqoon 2012-02-25 21:35

    Thanks for feedback. I will think about it.

  • Ian 2012-06-05 14:19

    How do I get a character to casr a spell please?

    Braqoon 2012-06-15 11:21

    Spells can be only used while character is in second line while in fight. Third icon in weapon selection is magic. Sorry for late reply, just spotted it.

  • renesd 2012-07-31 11:56

    Hello,

    Just finished watching your video... and it's looking great!

    Braqoon 2012-07-31 12:02

    Thanks for the kind word :)

  • Mekire 2012-10-29 09:01

    A little disappointed that you have decided to ask for money for this already. Was looking forward to seeing what improvements you had made.

    Braqoon 2012-10-29 10:05

    Hey. i will be posting some videos and tutorials soon based on 0.2.1 release. Maybe then i can convince you to support . Anyway you can have a chance for a code redeemable on Desura. Just follow @dfourgames on Twitter.

  • Kaliber64 2012-11-11 11:07

    The movement does look a little sluggish. But looks really cool. I love random. I also love games that never end but can remain fun and always evolving. Games that basically make their own content as you go. Really hard to balance though.

    Braqoon 2012-11-12 09:38

    Thanks for your thoughts. Latest version has speed tweaked so it is more dynamic in movement and in fight. As for balancing, yes you are quite right. I will introduce static maps as well so i hope i can keep anyone happy.

  • Margaruga 2013-03-03 10:47

    Great, I like it

  • CaptainGlitter 2013-03-04 20:07

    could you make the game interact with your choices like the walking dead

    Braqoon 2013-03-05 06:56

    Technically yes, but not sure what do you want to achieve by such mechanics in my game.

  • Your MOM! 2013-04-07 07:55

    You should make a demo version. Or a cutoff without payment. I mean Its obvious that you put a lot of work into it, but that doesnt mean its worth 10 bucks to me (or even 7 on sale). A demo version might get me hooked and wanting more, willling to sacrifice 10 bucks just to check it out. I mean currently as is, i would fork over 2-3 bucks to check it out, but with only a video to watch, i wouldnt go higher. I mean you just recently added a save feature to it. This game looks like it has potential, and thus the only reason i wrote this comment. Just giving my two cents.

    Braqoon 2013-04-14 15:37

    Hi, thanks for your comment. Yes, there will be a demo in near feature when I will finish all the art. There is a full version 0.2 in meantime if you want to see how it works. core mechanics are there but bugs as well :).

    Forgot to mention, Dark Gates are now on sale till the end of April.

    John 2013-05-09 11:53

    in linux, trying to extract it, only gets error as if it was corrupted

    tar -zxvf DarkGates_alpha_0.2.0.tar.gz

    gzip: stdin: not in gzip format
    tar: Child returned status 1
    tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

    Braqoon 2013-05-09 14:08

    it works with :
    tar xf DarkGates_alpha_0.2.0.tar.gz

    John 2013-11-23 00:57

    Oh whoops sorry

  • metulburr 2013-12-29 05:40

    As much as i disagree with the price, i voted for it to get on steam. Maybe if it gets on steam you would consider a reduced price for a deal at that point.

    Braqoon 2013-12-30 00:53

    Hi, thanks for your vote. I will definitely consider that. On that point I often give a 50% or 30% off on various sales, so price is not that scary if you are not 100% convinced.

  • Peter R. 2015-01-08 20:57

    Incredible work. Looks very good and around 8 Euro is a fair price.

    Braqoon 2015-01-08 22:54

    Thanks, appreciated.