itch.io

Thanks for your support. <3

Indeed, I am currently tackling the very last bullet point on my toDo list, and that's the presentation of the introduction story. Expect a final Demo Build VERY soon! Before full release I will still need some time to test and tweak things, though, and also need to assemble a trailer (a.k.a. marketing). 

I am curious: where do you see the price? I added it recently, you got that right. Default price will probably be $7.99, but with a 2-weeks discount following release. Does that sound like a fair deal?

This is REALLY helpful feedback. It means that I have succeeded in teaching the mechanics - some of them are definetely weird and stem from ancient design paradigms (which I carefully tried to fix, or at least mitigate, so they're a better fit for this century).

Most of my players come from the background, that they grew up in germany, having played the original KALAWAUM game from early 90s, and already knew their way around core mechanics.

Thanks a lot, and super-glad you liked it. <3

Was on a month long hiatus, cuz I coded myself into a corner and got off on the deep end to preserve my sanity. Back at it now, though, Key Bindings are finally a WRAP! Also fixed some dire technical issues: game now runs flawlessly in 3 different subsystems (DirectX9, DirectX11, OpenGL). Thanks a lot for bearing with me!

Best way to support me? Probably just tell people you had a good time in "The Ruins of Calaworm", and link them to either here, or my Bluesky (for more regular devLog updates): :-)

https://bsky.app/profile/erdbeerscherge.bsky.social

New Demo will drop, as soon as I am finished; getting this thing golden is my top priority now. And then it will still take some time before release, cuz testing, marketing (a.k.a. memes on Bluesky), a trailer would be cool, maybe a couple more maps ...

FYI, I decided to complete the game first, get that thing golden is my top priority now.

Next I need to playtest the Demo build 1-2 times, to ensure that nothing is broken. Then the presumably final Demo Build will drop.

After that it will still take some time until release, cuz more testing, maybe add some more content (e.g. Maps), and make a trailer a.k.a. marketing.

I just completed work on the custom Key Binding functionality - that thing was a bitch to code (pardon my french), and I got myself into a corner HARD, so I went off on the deep on for about a month; that explains my lengthy hiatus.

Seeing people be excited for the thing I'm making is the best kind of reward I could ask for. Your name is included in the "Thank You"-section of the Credits, btw. just for kicking my idle ass when I most needed it. <3

Yes, I'm back at it. Have a constant look out on my Bluesky account - updates will be more frequent now, I dare say, daily even! And just today I learnt, that the bug I mentioned earlier, has finally been fixed: https://www.purebasic.fr/english/viewtopic.php?p=645181#p645181

Just curious: how far did you get in the Demo? Were you able to beat it?

Thank you for believing in me. <3

I haven't uploaded another build yet, since there's one persistent bug with the DirectX9-Subsystem, rooted in the compiler backend. Nothing I can do about, but still pretty confident that eventually it will be fixed. So, being honest here, I took that as an excuse for taking a break and pursuing other hobbies. And then there's also my daytime job, of course (working at a hospital) ...

Eventually I resumed working on it, regardless; finalising the credits as I am writing this. Will soon be posting updates on my Bluesky, however, the plan is to "reopen" with a Bang, as soon as I got some serious progress to show off. That's gonna be a first look at the Menu.

So sorry to keep you waiting ...

Considering all circumstances, expect a fresh build to hit Itch Servers within the next week. Will also add some of the freshly build maps into the rotation as an apology for my long hiatus. :-)

Need to complete a flawless test run through the Demo first, though, to make sure there are no blatant bugs left over from the language refactor.

Thank you! <3

I've been on a coding hiatus for 2 months straight now, caused by an unfortunate update of Pure Basic (the game's programming language) that introduced lots of bugs and graphical glitches. As of late, these issues have been resolved - however, I needed to refactor huge chunks of my code in order to make them compatible with the updated framework, which ultimately drove me close to a burnout situation, so I pulled the emergency break and went out to touch some grass.

However, "The Ruins of Calaworm" are in a splendid state - almost finished that is. All is not lost. In the recent week I managed to build some additional maps, and just today I fired up my code again to work on the Credits (penultimate stop before tackling the Menu).

So sorry to keep you waiting, but thank you for believing in me - feedback like yours' is what keeps me going!

Hey, thanks for your patience. And I couldn't be more happy knowing that someone is out there, itching to play the full game. :-)

There's been some technical issues with PureBasic (the language this game is coded in) - thing is, I tried out a current Beta Build, only to be greeted by a ton of issues, like transparency not working, game crashing, and what not. Scared the hell out of me, tbh. So I started to file in reports on the offical forum and wrote tons of example snippets to document the issues.

Now, 4 Beta Builds later, everything looks stable again! I had to refactor some stuff, though, the way how sprites are rendered. Was a ton of work, but with a happy end, after all. Still, this whole episode was kinda emotionally draining, so I allowed myself some time off, to gather my marbles and touch some grass.

Will resume work at the start of next week - check out my Bluesky, will be posting updates there again.

Thanks so much for your patience! And also for chiming in, and reminding me of my duties! "The Ruins of Calaworm" are in a splendid state, the game as such is a wrap, but I need to create some more Maps, and also work on the Menu.

Okay thanks for the insight and all the answers. I just tried typing something in Microsoft Edge, and that indeed seems to resolve the issue for now.

And when typing in firefox, copy/pasting the text into a nother black form (like online notepad), then pasting it back also seems to get rid of the nbsp-tags.

Never thought it was a Firefox issue, oh well .... <3

Thanks all!

Some acknowledgement of this problem would be nice, because the problem persists.

Here is how the text "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" looks like on itch.io, when I activate HTML view:

Had to screenshot that, lol, cuz the editor assimilates the &-tag, even when using the "code"-tag. ;-)

I can manually delete the &-tag from my own posts in devLogs, but I can not activate HTML-view on regular comments, and the & n b s p - tag is causing all the problems with formatting. Also tried with different browsers and on another PC.

Thank you!

Thank you for trying the Demo, nonetheless! <3

What I can promise, however, that final game will have a convenient menu-option to customize key binding.

Dear itch-team,

Since some time I have a huge problem with formatting in my posts wherever on itch.io. Like, some lines consist only of one word, then there would be an automatic line-break, or words seperated randomly. Then I noticed, at least in my gameEditingPage, where I could activate html-view, that the code has been riddled with the & n b s p  tag - manually removing that would fix things. But it's still present in regular comment posts, where I can't simply access the html-view.

Any way I can fix this? Or are there some hidden settings I'm missing?

Thanks!

Hey, thanks for trying out my little game.

Unfortunately Mouse controls won't be a thing. Maybe for the menu, not decided on that yet. But ingame there's a certain mechanic (maybe you've already encountered "corruption"?) which wouldn't work at all with Mouse Controls, or at the very least would require fundamental refactoring of base mechanics, which I'm just not willing to tackle that late in development (aiming for a release some time this year).

Thanks a lot for your interest in my little game -  happy you like it!

Unfortunately I don't think I can provide you with dedicated releases for other systems than Windows - I mean, technically it would be possible, but since I have a pretty taxing "daytime" job in healthcare, and this is just a hobby project, I simply can't find myself raising resources for that. Sorry to disappoint. :(

However - I will absolutely give my best to ensure, that the game will run fine on these systems, when using emulators. I'll be closely monitoring bug reports or any weird edge-case issues that might occur, and then try to fix those within the source code. <3

Thanks, great idea!

Kinda heard about VI-keys before, but never gave them much thought. Providing an additional preset to select in the menu would be easy to implement, though.

I'm from germany, working with QWERTZ layout instead of the english QWERTY. Gotta keep that in mind, lol.

For a friend, who didn't have NumPad either, I once suggested Arrow Keys for orthogonal navigation, and something like UI/JK for diagonal (operated with the other hand), which - after a short training period -worked out surprisingly well ...

The [5]-Key isn't really used in tactical navigation, since there's no option to wait in spot. You're always on the move - however, it is used for other actions, like a Stealth-option, or in some Minigames.

Thanks for chiming in!

I'm not using any specific engine. The game is coded from scratch in Pure Basic (a hybrid tool blending classic BASIC paradigms with functionality from the C-language).

Great fun, had a blast!

Once I actually got stuck cuz I didn't notice the #spoiler# next to the #spoiler#. After a good night's sleep, I managed to progress, tho. Love getting stuck momentarily, then figuring it out eventually! Hunting for pixels you can interact with, is half the fun in classic adventure games.

Very nostalgic trip, loved everything about this. You 100% the nailed the humor of classic Point and Click-Adventures from LucasArts, and such. Would play a full game, lol.

Thank you so much! <3

This is undoubtely one of the nicest things anyone has said about my game, ever! I'm close to tears now! :')

Be confident, that I'm in the final stages of game development. Probably there won't be another big update before release, but as soon as I've wrapped everything up and entering the final stretch of play testing and creating content (Maps, that is), I will update the Demo, pushing the various fixes and polish-stuff listed in the "Known Issues"-Post.

Thanks a lot, glad you like it!

Working hard to finish this. Not a long road ahead, anymore, I'm getting there!

Hey suhwee,

Thanks for your interest in my little game.

You can customize your own layout (full game will also have a convenient menu to do just that). After starting the game for the 1st time (you can just quit out directly after via ESC), the game will create a "CustomControls.txt"-file in the main game folder. You can just edit that, it's pretty straightforward (pick the respective codes from the list and copy/paste them to the respective action, while retaining order of entries).

Mind that the game features diagonal tile movement, so playing with NumPad is really the optimal way, but in case you have to make do, sth. like WER/SDF/XCV might work for you ...

Thank you for playing! <3

Actually, this can happen. If you use keys in the wrong sequence, or accidentally waste them, you can totally softlock yourself.

Later you'll find Sprints, collect Arcane Resonance, can use Kicks, and also buy Respawn Points to mitigate some of that. As long as you don't reroll the World Seed, the World also stays persistent. So restarting, trying something different, and finding your way around eventually, may be inevitable (it's an old game xD).

The first 2 Regions are procGenerated, afterwards the game picks from a pool of handcrafted Maps, and connects them to a World for you to explore. Full release will also include the Editor, where you can design your own Maps, and thrown 'em into the mix.

I'm going to upload a patch in the next couple days, with some bugfixes, also nerfing the overworld Water-tiles (they won't be deadly anymore), and supporting widescreen.

In all honesty, that's one of the nicest thing anyone has said about my game yet. <3

And apparently I'm the only one that gave it a thumb up. Still primarily aiming for a itch-release, tho, then see how actual reception turns out. Steam is a super-daunting place for first-timers like me, especially for a weird niche game like mine.

Thank you!

Thank you for playing! <3

Full game will let you freely configure keys, however, NumPad for these kinds of roguelikes with diagonal movement are actually optimal; might take a while to get used to it, but it's not so bad.

MouseControls will unfortunately not be a thing, sorry. There's a certain mechanic in the game, which is teased at on Map 3 in the Demo, which wouldn't work at all with MouseControls.

The insta-kill tiles (pits and spikes) are a left-over from the original game "Die Gemäuer von Kalawaum", which this is based on. Mind, that I nerfed a lot about them, e.g. a first time warning, and an successive survival roll for a chance to escape unscathed. :) However, they will stay the way they are ... I like the sense of danger and the stakes the bring with them, when exploring unknown grounds.

Have a nice week, cheers!

CHERRY SHIFT

Thank you for the kind words! <3

Glad you like it. I have a couple more ideas for the final release!

I have just released a Demo for CHERRY SHIFT, a coding sideproject that within just a couple of days grew into a full-fledged polished game, which I am now excited to share with you. Full game will probably release some time in July.

CHERRY SHIFT  is a lean & mean Retro Arcade Space Shooter, inspired by 1988's "Megaroids" for ATARI ST.

Nicole Marie T wrote a Killer Synthwave Soundtrack for it (final release will feature 2 more tracks).

SHIFT, SHOOT, CATCH THE CHERRY

Hey dear itch.io staff,

Is there any way (or plans) for assigning selective permissions to admin roles? Right now there only seems to be an all-or-nothing option, which is kinda suboptimal. I would like to selectively grant access to edit text, write devLogs, view stats, but maybe not disable/enable downloads, adding/removing files, or generating gameKeys.

Thanks!

CHERRY SHIFT

(No itch.io page yet, but will come soon)

Hey pavementz,

Thanks so much for checking out my game, and the kind words! <3

It's a roguelike featuring diagonal movement, so NumPad is kinda really the optimal way to play, but you can absolutely customize keybindings to something more of your liking!

Mouse Controls, however, will unfortunately never be a thing ...

Full game will of course have a convenient menu - for now you'll have to "hack" the "customControls.ini"-file, which the game automatically creates for you on startup. It's just a textfile, and actually pretty easy and straightforward to edit: just copy the respective commands from the list next to the action you want to customize. Spaces do not matter, however, absolutely keep the order of things!

Maybe sth. like QWE ASD YXC (ZXC for non-german layouts) might work for you. Or use Arrow Keys for orthogonal movement, and sth. like QW AS for diagonal directions?

Some default keys will always work in certain occasions, like Arrow Keys, Return or ESCAPE.

Hope that was helpful! <3

The Ruins of Calaworm

Ok, apparently that was a misunderstanding of the mechanics on my part. Thanks for explaining. Will try again! <3

Another tiny bug: the Boar(?)-Card is labelled as "Dwarf". ;-)

There is potential for a softlock that I think I've discovered:

The game seems to check every turn, if you have adjacent tiles to go to, and if there are none, it prompts a gameover. However, if all adjacent tiles are treasure chests, but you don't have a key, the game doesn't recognize that it's effectively a gameOver and you have to refresh the page to restart.

Love this!

Could totally imagine this as a physical board/cardgame. Have yet to beat it but I'm determined to make it. Made it to the Witch once, already.

Hey, love the concept, but somehow the crippling strike never seems to work. I have all the correct dice available (1,2,3,4,5), also the respective button highlights, but nothing happens when I click on it. This result also somehow seems to softlock the game, also the Wait-Button to the right is now unresponsive. I can just select and deselect dice.

Hey Lamoot,

Thanks so much for playing, and for taking the time to provide all that feedback. Really appreciate that. <3

About stepping into water: This might come as a shocker now, but I agree! It's an overly punishing mechanic, especially so early in the game. Later on, in the full release, you'll encounter icy patches on the Plateau of Leng, where I definitely wanna keep that mechanic, as it makes thematic sense there. I do not intend to push another Demo Patch any time soon, though, but for the final release I'm definitely gonna do address the Water situation. Thanks for bringing that up!

About Bashing Doors: apparently that's a bug, the game shouldn't be telling you there are perfect odds, before you've unlocked Kicks in the first place. You'll be unlocking Kicks on the 3rd stage, shortly after meeting Wisteria Widdershin. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, will add it to the "Known Issues"-Tab.

About that Door Locking Mechanic: Sorry you're having a bad experience, but this is a legacy feature from the original game "Die Gemäuer von Kalawaum", that "Calaworm" is based on. I agree that it's a bit gamey, but it is also the prime source of many puzzle situations in the handcrafted stages, which will become relevant after first two Tutorial Stages: you'll be thinking and planning on how to bring certain Keys to another place without losing them before. The whole game revolves around memorizing layouts and remembering which Keys to use where, as to not waste them.

Mind, that I nerfed A LOT about this, compared with the original, which was utterly merciless in enforcing that mechanic:

• In "Calaworm" there's the odd random bonus Key created on every stage.

• After bashing a Door that you accidentally locked yourself, there's a chance to retrieve the lost Key.

• I added the Warning-prompt.

• Kicks weren't a thing in the Original.

• Other mechanics like the Echoing Recall may aid you, in case you accidentally locked yourself in.

• Then there are Provisions and the Sprinting-mechanic (and a mysterious Ember Rift-mechanic in the full release), which also bring tons of utility in that regard.

So, yeah, this is going to stay. :-)

I really hope that clears up a bit and will put you at ease for now. Thanks again for your thoughts. <3 Will do my best to improve the experience, based on your concerns. I do indeed consider every piece of criticism carefully, take it to heart even, as the game wouldn't be in its current state without player's providing valuable feedback.

The Ruins of Calaworm

The Ruins of Calaworm