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Enter an ever-changing RPG where your options are wide open. With randomly-generated dungeons, multiple classes and races to choose from, and an open-ended interface allowing players to try just about anything, Scara makes each adventure unique and exciting.
So you picked a rogue for the new RPG you bought and your campaign turned out to be fighting shadows? So much for your backstabbing skills. Or picked a saintly cleric and were forced to join a thieves guild to start your adventure? Not with Scara. Scara builds the gameworld with the player in mind. And adapts itself. You will use your skills, find quests designed with your alignment, class, and level in mind, and still be challenged by randomly generated areas that don't play nice with your abilities.
Graphics are tile-based, gameplay is turn-based. Commands are entered through an in-game command-line which allows for fast development of content and a high level of interaction flexibility. For example, any item you can pick up can be thrown. Spells that can be cast on multiple types of targets can be aimed at those types of targets (items, monsters, etc).
Realism is another focus. Items that are lit can be dropped so that you can equip other items, and the dropped light will still light the area. Wooden items can be burnt, including wooden weapons. All items, including coins, have weight. Choosing a smaller race may mean you'll need to swim water that taller races can wade through. Electrical attacks can inflict damage to anyone wearing metal armor.
Check out the home page for recent updates
-Scara is still in development but you can download a playable demo:
10/30/2011
Just in time for Halloween, a new release is here. I discovered a bug a few months ago that caused PC teleportation and some dirt rooms appearing where they should not be. The issue wasn't fixed until this weekend as it took a long time to figure out. Until today, I couldn't determine if it was a glitch with the tile engine, a bug with the view from the player's point of view, or a mapping glitch. I added some QA controls and finally determined there were several bugs with the new mapping system.
The level 2 barbarian quest is mostly coded but not implemented. Now that the game-breaking mapping glitch is fixed, I will bring it back in and playtest after figuring out when/how it should be brought in the game. Add it to the map after player levels up by replacing a previously walled-off section? Or have it built when the game initializes?
8/29/2011
In development-new quest for level 2 barbarians. It's slightly more complex and involves tougher monster. More quests will be developed for other classes. Caves will be more complex and look like tunnels and caverns as opposed to empty rooms with walls.
7/21/2011
Ability damage heals over time. Improved sleep handling (faster processing). Fixed bugs that occurred while levelling up.
3/27/2011
Added wizard quest. Added voice-activated effects. Fixed bug where selecting a tile during spell-casting would not properly target the right tile under certain conditions.
1/29/2011
Improved lighting dynamics. Updated fighter quest.
1/23/2011
Added a small fighter quest. Lighting is still being worked out, this version will show black squares in areas you can't see, including lit areas where someone is blocking your line of sight. Costs are displayed in values of certain coins rather than decimal system. Fixed a combat bug where a smaller creature in combat would get their size modifier bonus doubled.
11/10/2010
Interesting effect with lighting: I found that when playing the game with the updated system, entire areas would be black and suddenly be lit upon movement, and then go black again if I moved back. Oddly enough, it's perfect: what's happening is that I'm seeing the character's POV of the lit area from a top-down perspective. When I move into a lit area, say in a lamp's lighting area, I should be able to see everything within that lit area. When I move outside that area, I shouldn't be able to see anything. Ideally I'd add a dim-lighting effect for when you're within the "shadowy" areas-maybe a feature I'll add later. In most top-down RPG's you could hold be inside a dark area and see a couple dark squares further into a lighted area. That's not accurate because if you can't see one square in front of you, you shouldn't be able to see two or more squares further. So the new system is accurate as it represents the character's POV, and there's more testing to do and the wizard quest needs to be completed before the next release.
11/8/2010
Two major features have been delaying the release. In my new quest for wizards there have been several upgrades to get the kind of effects I'm looking for: voice-activated items/barriers, a reading system that accounts for pictures, text in any language, and magical scrawlings.
The lighting system is going through a major revision. Old system figured everything was light unless programatically- or magically-darkened. New system takes into account sunshine and the character's point of view in addition to torches and other lights. That means that caverns that had no light source are now dark. Same with anything indoors, meaning that shops and caverns now have to have light sources added by some means. All that in turn means adding lights to places that previously did not have it.
9/9/2010
Quick update: Lots of small updates coming in the next release. Already in place are turning undead ability, more quests for more classes, more spells, more treasure, more monsters, more feats, more skills...more everything, including bug fixes.
7/24/2010
Added quests based on player class. Your class now determines where you start. Fixed some combat bugs, (re)added rage ability for barbarians and smite evil ability for paladins. You can now use both ends of a dual-weapon for attack or stick with one end-default use depends on your class. You can also now wait a turn by pressing 5.
LOTS more items added-clothes, junk, treasures, and tons of dungeon decor. Dungeons have much more randomization.
You may now search the area in front of you. You never know, you might find hidden items.
Items now consist of materials, meaning that items consisting of darkwood, mithral, etc. have special qualities. Items made of wood or cloth are flammable, and items made of metal are conductive.
5/14/2010
It's been a while since there's been a new version of Scara. I have several major changes being implemented, they're mostly done but there's a few bugs to kill before I release the next version. What's in the next version?
1.Traps! Yes, now it's possible to stumble upon a trap.
2.Each entity has it's own perception of the world around it. For now this basically means that you may not know the location of a trap but enemies might. And by "entity" I do mean more than creatures-each projectile, object, etc, will have an inbuilt perception of what is surrounding it. This is to make coding for sentient objects easier in the future.
3.Class-based starting locations and quests. If you're a barbarian, you'll start in a tribe; if you're a druid, you'll start in a grove, etc. For now there's a set starting quest for each class and location but that will be expanded.
4.New view of your surroundings. In the past you would start in a 10x10 grid. Since a 10x10 grid doesn't have a center, your position was offset. That meant that you could see 5 squares in one direction and 4 in the opposite direction. You'll now be in the center of an 11x11 grid, meaning you can see 5 squares in any direction.
5.Creatures are now smart enough to cast spells and shoot with their missile weapons.
6.New edge-of-map boundaries. In the past when you reached the edge of a map, you'd see black tiles past the stone wall boundary. Now you'll see impassable mounds of dirt, at least until I can customize boundaries a bit more.
1/18/2010
Trying a new feature out in Scara:spreadable rumors. It's not in the current version but is planned for next release. The dialog selection process is based first on quests, then class-specific dialogs, and now rumors. Residents will have a basic understanding of the city and will have that as their starting rumor selection. Certain residents will have rumors specific to quests, nearby cities, local creatures, or helpful tips. Each time a resident runs into another resident, a random rumor will be passed along. It would certainly be awesome to have dynamically generated cities complete with residents who can pass on dynamically generated rumors.
The challenges that I've run into so far: 1.Ensuring that the same rumor is not added to resident's rumor repertoire if resident already has heard it. That's easy to handle. 2.Ensuring that only rumors are passed along. For example, making sure that if a resident talks to a shopkeeper, that resident doesn't pass on shop prices etc. I'm handling this by adding a boolean value to whether the message is a rumor. 3.Dynamically cancelling outdated rumors. For example, if a quest is solved for a resident, then other residents who heard about the quest should their previous quest message updated if not canceled. Residents who have not heard the updated rumor will still spread the old rumor. I'm thinking of handling this by having rumor messages have an ID attached to them, and when a resident passes along an update, the new message can update/cancel the old message in the listener's rumor base.
The dialog system is set up so that messages can be spoken in the language of the giver no matter what language the old message was in. For example, an elf could spread a rumor in elven to another elf who could pass that along to a human in common.
Ideally, I'd like residents to be able to pass along observations-witnessing a crime, observing a newcomer to the city, seeing nearby creatures in the wild. That's pretty complex and I don't know if it's a challenge I want to take on yet but it will stay in the back of my mind.
