POWDER is a roguelike game, which is not a port of an existing roguelike. It is built around replayability and long term ergonomics, not short term learning.
After 5 years the coder Jeff Laid pulls out the 100th release of Powder. The game is available for Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Linux, Windows and MacOS X.
Changes:
Remove flash when clicking on inventory items. (Richard Quirk)
Properly remove base item from inventory during drag. (Richard Quirk)
Creatures have only 30% chance of doing a last-ditch self-poly rather than always doing so. A bit less optimal from their point of view, but more playable from our point.
Dequipping items using drag-and-drop leaves the cursor at the source position, not the end position, as the end position isn’t where the item ends up anyways.
Verb List in the Command Menu now named Command Menu to be more clear. (Grothias)
Keybinding for the Command Menu, ‘V’, added, so you can restore your Command Menu if you drag it off without doing a full reset. (Grothias)
ActionBar settings should now be properly reset on every version upgrade, avoiding the embarassing bad settings seen in the 098->099 upgrade. (Richard Quirk)
FullScreen option changes to Windowed when you are already in Full Screen. (Kantaphon Tongmee)
Identify spell allows you to use the stylus to select an item.
Top row of ActionBar is mapped to F1-F15 on SDL platforms. (I don’t have a machine with F13-F15, so can’t confirm if they work) (David Damerell)
Top action bar shows up when in cast or command menu mode even if action bar is disabled. This is because it allows you to assign your F1-F15 keys.
Pressing F1-F15 during Command Menu or Zap screens will bind your current command/spell to the relevant slot, so there is no need to invoke your mouse.
Soul Suckers will properly target you when you are more than one square away.
When you look around with the stylus you will no longer replicate your original overlay icon. (Richard Quirk)
[DS] When I made [X] and [Y] remappable, I also accidentally swapped their meaning. Since the swap was done in the last month while the original meaning was around for 10 months, I’ve decided to swap them back. This means [X] is now Verb List, or [Start] equivalent, and [Y] is Inventory or [Select] alias. The rational is that the relative location of [X] and [Y] line up with [Start] and [Select] If you grew used to the swapped version, remember that you can remap them back by hitting [Select] in the Command Menu. (Matthew Rollins)
The Dip and Identify menus require you to chose a Checkbox or X button rather than just picking what you click on first. This allows you to explore your items with the stylus to figure out what you want to act on.
Moved the help icon to the top left which, thanks to the keyboard shortcuts, means hitting F1 gives you help.
Having a custom tileset will no longer cause you to revert to the classic tileset after ever load. (Matthew Rollins)
One new room.
Linux .tar.gz extracts into a powderXYZ directory rather than to the current directory, better matching the expectations of people on that platform.
Windows, DS, and GBA users now have a .zip format since .tar.gz can be hard to figure out on Windows platforms.
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