Merry Prankster Games

Here’s the trailer for Accursed Crown of the Giant King!

I’m currently playing through Accursed Crown of the Giant King as part of final testing. It’s pretty fun!

However, today I ran into an interesting bug. Check out this level:

There’s no way to get to the stairs up!

It turns out in certain levels, it is possible for the random number generator to spit out just the right values, and a staircase can get completely blocked off! It only happens in a pretty rare set of levels, and very rarely even then. To create the level above I had to result to changing the random results in the debugger. However, I did run into it in my playthrough, so it can happen in the wild!

My fix is a little janky, but I _think_ it’s OK. In the situation where we create stairs pointing at a corner, I just flip the direction of the stairs around. That _should_ make it always possible for the dungeon generator to create a path to the stairs.

I should get through my initial testing next week, and start to work on getting some other beta testers.

Check it out! It’s the map for chapter 4 of Accursed Crown of the Giant King!

That’s the last major piece of content for the game. On to testing and getting the installers going etc.

Guild quests are done (Accursed Crown of the Giant King)! I just wrapped up the Natural Philosopher’s quest. Here’s a screenshot after you join the Philosopher’s guild, skipping right to the highest rank by doing the advanced quest:

I ran into a few bugs while testing but I think I got them ironed out. More next week!

Working on the last chapter of Accursed Crown of the Giant King. One of the last things for me to work on are the guild quests. If you want to join or advance in guild ranks at a high level, there is a quest for you to do. The four “in-game” guilds (factions, whatever) all need this.

I just wrapped up the quest for the Skalds (bard guild, basically):

I’ve got one more guild to go (the Natural Philosophers), and then on to the next task. I’m in the home stretch, but still much to do.

Next week on vacation so probably no post, but more later.

Check out this interesting bug in Accursed Crown of the Giant King. As part of generating some levels, I create a structure with some stairs in the middle. Working on something else, I noticed that in some circumstances, the stairs would get a wall created right in front of them! See this screenshot:

Note that in this screenshot, the bug is the little half-wall in front of the stairs. In this case there is actually space for the player to get through the wall to the stairs, but with the bug, it is possible to completely block the stairs. There is also a full-wall in front of the stairs that is not a bug, but rather a secret door. Ignore that for now.

This bug happened because I created the structure just a little larger than usual, to match the rest of the level. Then, in this case, I failed to clear out enough of the wall in front of the stairs. The fix is easy enough; just extend the clear space by a couple of squares (depending on the size of the structure):

All fixed! Almost a one-liner, but took awhile to figure out just what the problem was.

So, progress on Accursed Crown of the Giant King has been slow. Vacations, some personal issues, etc, etc. But I’m trying to get back on that horse.

I’ve just been wrapping up the companions and their quests for Chapter 4. Here’s a screenshot:

Still some distractions (pleasant and otherwise) in the next few months, but I will try to continue progress. Stay tuned!

The Accursed Crown of the Giant King is an old school role-playing game, single player, party based. It will be released in 2021 for Windows, Mac, and iOS. ACotGK is by Merry Prankster Games, and you can get more information at https://prankster.com/acotgk.

The game is now winnable! There is still some stuff go back in fill in, to finish up all the content for chapter 4, but this is a big step.

I’m working on the final dungeon for The Accursed Crown of the Giant King (https://prankster.com/acotgk). “The Hall of the Ancestors”, where the final boss has established his dark realm.

The dungeon has a tomb layout, but with some new creepy statues and arcane writings on the wall. Here’s a screenshot from the level editor:

I think it looks pretty good! I need to fill in all of the details for the last dungeon, and then go back and fill in a bunch of missing pieces from Chapter 4. And then testing. Lot’s to do, but I’m getting there.