Monstrous Megapack (monsters/items/rooms) 1.2.2 released

07-20-2014 UPDATE: New version 1.2.2 is now available
(the file name is the same, so you can overwrite the existing zip file if you already have it) or just subscribe to the version on Steam to get future updates automatically.
This version includes the Toupee, Kobro, Goop, Roamer, and Skull Golem monsters, 7 optional mini-basses, and over 120 new rooms and items.

Background: The Monstrous Megapack is one man's attempt to create an entirely user-designed ubermod that introduces a whole slew of monsters, items, artifacts, and specially designed rooms/objects to the game. My goal is to create something as close to an official expansion pack as possible.

I'll be using this thread to post status updates, collect ideas and feedback, and plead for help whenever I get stuck. I'm also hoping I can convince several of you to help me playtest the early versions of this mod as they become available, since making monsters and keeping everything balanced is probably going to take some trial and error.

Now, without further adieu, lets meet the stars of your modpack:

Monsters:

#1 Toupee

Making use of the halo effect, this creature has two states-- Head-down has higher defense/lower attack, eyeball-out has higher attack/lower defense. Since the halo effect doesn't pay attention to which way the monster is facing, and doesn't use the same pallet tinting, I've had to make the eyeball constantly rotate so it looks the same regardless of which way it's facing.



#2 Kobro

As you can plainly see, this is a snake creature. Different subspecies will have different abilities.



#3 Egger

Scrapped because it was causing crashes. The original plan was to have an immovable egg enemy that took a couple of turns to hatch and spawn a Kobro... assuming you didn't destroy the egg first. I'm not quite sure what the game didn't like about this particular monster, but I'm guessing it was the 100% cast percentage that I was using to keep it immobile. I've subsequently reused the artwork for a custombreakable Kobro Egg object in 1.0.6.


#3 Skull Golem
A lumbering skull golem thing that occasionally lobs smaller skull creatures at you.
This is basically a missile attack with animation that looks exactly like the snapping skull that casts summonmonster upon impact.


#4 Snapping Skull
These are the "offspring" of the skull golem, spawned after a successful hit by its skull "missile."
They aren't too powerful, roughly the same toughness as a 1st floor diggle, and I've got a limit in place so that no more than 4 of them can be spawned at any time, since I'd hate for the player to get mobbed. As of right now, the same "basic" skull spawns, regardless of what level you're on. I may go back and tweak that later, so they still pose a slight threat to high level characters.


#5 Goop
Goops are slimy blobs of ectoplasm that leave behind sticky slime trails when they move. (which causes a minor debuff to the player if he/she steps in it) Like their more famous big brother from the Steve McQueen movie, they primarily do asphyxiative damage, and are vulnerable to hyperborean and blasting damage.
I mainly created these guys because I wanted to create a special "Pac Man" themed room, which would still be playable for characters who didn't have Wights from the first expansion pack. (The edible Power Pellet item I created now works on both Goops and Wights) I tried to make them looks superficially like the Pac Man ghosts, but still distinct enough that it'll come as a surprise when the player encounters the special room on level 4 and spots a Red, Cyan, Pink, and Orange one lurking in the center of the maze.



#6 Roamer
A floating boxy robot that patrols the dungeon, vaporizing all imperfections. Vulnerable to existential damage. It has a high spell percentage and aggression, meaning that it will happily sit there and blast the player with ranged spells, given the opportunity.


#7+ Elemental Vortex, Mimic, ???
Now that the core group of new monsters are done, I may end up creating a few more, depending on how much of a bitch it is to animate, code, and/or balance them. Since the animation is the most time consuming part, if I do any others, they'll probably be simpler designs, like a sentient elemental vortex (just a big swirly funnel cloud that looks the same from each side), a mimic that uses the existing chest animation, or a Fantasia-style walking broom (because hey... evil broom).

I'm still open to any suggestions, but are far more likely to take on ones which don't seem like they'll require that much work to pull off.

New Dungeon Rooms, Midbosses & Event Rooms
I'm currently in the process of expanding the dungeon itself, as well as creating a number of special Event Rooms, some of which provide unique artifacts or challenges, and others which would essentially be optional midbosses (though there's no way to guarantee a 100% show rate on their assigned level.)

Currently in implementation are:

All Floors - Bathrooms/Washrooms - Contain one-time use sinks that can clean away debuffs.

Multiple Floors - Kobro Hatcheries - Contain breakable eggs that may contain enemy Kobros or a tasty omelet treat.

Floor 1 - Raiders Trap Room - Someone left this golden idol just laying around in an empty unguarded room. What's the worst that can happen?


Floors 3 & 13 - Mad Computer Room (Optional Midboss) - Insert the program disks in the right order and the computer blows up revealing a unique artifact. Insert them in the wrong order, and the disks get spit out and a horde of pissed off AI are summoned. The combo is randomized with each playthrough, so no cheating!



Floor 3 - Pac Man room - I couldn't get single gold coins to work, so the smaller pellets simply restore 1HP. The larger power pellets are a consumable that causes a short-lived fear reaction in all nearby goops and wights, and allows you to kill them in 1 hit, provided you can corner them.


Multiple floors - Mine Cart Rooms - There are currently 3 versions in rotation. Use the lever and the mine cart will rocket down the track, damaging (and temporarily stunning) anything in it's path.


Floor 6 & 14 - Stink Gardens - Fenced in patches of dirt that slowly grow mushrooms, but are also plagued with random plumes of noxious gasses. Players must weigh the risks of taking damage and suffering a negative debuff in exchange for wading in far enough to grab a few handfuls of useful fungi.



The Dredmor Family, four optional mini-bosses, each with a uniquely themed room and secret access point (so you won't randomly stumble onto them and get your ass kicked). Defeat them, and gain fabulously powerful artifacts:

• Dredmom - Torture Room
• Dadmor - Stench Garden
• Dredmiss - Dojo
• Dratmor - Zoo
  

Floor 11 optional mini-boss: Vitriol the Dredmorian (A haunted painting that curses you, and then summons slimes from a grate in the floor)

Monster Bedrooms and Barracks (with the all important bunk beds and closets) Early bedroom iterations have the same number of monsters spawned as beds, while the late game monster barracks have multiple hordes (but a chance for useful items if you can fight your way through to the closet).


Lots of new Statues and Fountains, (keepin' the dungeon classy)

Wizard Galleries (I've created 74 new wizard portraits so far, and angled passageways in which to display them. As of 1.0.6 there are unique variants for every single dungeon level)

Curtains, Banners, Tapestries (these are tearable, and useful for making a room more ostentatious... and occasionally hiding secret passageways)

Ambush sites (If you see a suspiciously empty room with a narrow bridge spanning a river, watch out. You may get jumped.)

Wheelbarrows (The conveyance of choice for intoxicated wizards)

Lord Dredmor's secret lab. (with obligatory Interocitor)


Wizard's Pubs 4 so far, but there will likely be at least 6. Each with a different layout and theme.

 

Items and Artifacts:
I've started randomly creating new items as I think them up, though I am trying to squeeze them in to existing level gaps (so if there's level 1, 3, 4, and 5 boots in the game, I'll try to make my object a level 2 or 6) or at least not duplicate existing items.

As of v1.0.5 I've passed my original goal of 100 new item limit, so hopefully I'll be somewhere around 125 or 150 by the time the final version gets published. As always, I welcome suggestions from the crowd, as long as it's understood that I can't give everybody individual credits for their ideas, and I won't necessarily implement all of them. Here's what I've got so far:

Implemented (as of v1.0.3):
(Note, v1.0.4 items aren't listed because I don't have the character space):
WEAPONS:
Grate Sword [Artifact Sword] [Level 5]
7 1
[Has a chance to produce grated cheese upon impact]
"A classic example of why it's always important to spell check your requisition form before submitting it to the dwarven artificer."

Fire Axe [Axe] [ Level 5]
4 4
"Rather disappointingly this axe contains no fire whatsoever."

Headsman's Axe [Axe] [ Level 9]
10 4
"Just take a little off the top."

Vibro Blade [Dagger] [ Level 10]
9 9
"A fiendish mechanical device devised by ancient wizards for the ritualistic rending of flesh during large family dinners."
[5% chance for bleed and 5% chance for bleed + spawning of a Fresh Steak when attacking animals]

Diggle Prod [Mace] [Level 6]
1 3
4 8
[25% chance for knockback and 12.5% chance for stun]
"It's less about prodding, and more about flinging across the room with 15,000 volts."

Bear Mace [Mace] [ Level 4]
4 3
"That's not what I originally had in mind, but I guess it works."

Cricket Bat [Mace] [Level 2]
4
1
"I say! Those must be some jolly massive crickets! Eh, wot?"

Crowbar [Mace] [ Level 5]
6 2
[Inflicts additional bleed status on members of the raven taxa]
"Especially effective against members of the corvid family"

10ft. Pole [Polearm] [ Level 1]
3
-1 1
"You call that a weapon? I wouldn't touch it with a..."

Boat Hook [Polearm] [ Level 2]
3 1
2 -1
"Someone must have been hitting the rum pretty hard for this to end up all the way down here."


Manos Staff [Artifact Staff] [Level 11]
7 7 6 6
3
-2 -6
"Used to take care of the place while the master is away."

The Nega-sword [Artifact Sword] [Level 6]
1 1 1
-1 -1
"A sword so bad, it becomes good again?"
[Does minimal damage, but has a chance to inflict knock, sleep, paralyze, bleed, or confuse. ]

Sadly, my original idea to have a sword that negated damage from other items, but then inflicted spell damage scaled on your Warrior/Rogue/Wizard levels didn't pan out. This new version is pretty much only useful if you want to dual wield.


THROWN WEAPONS:
Lava Lamp [Thrown Weapon] [Level 9]
5 3 [+ 10 to anything standing in one of the pools of lava it spawns]
"This lamp probably doesn't contain real lava, but it sure gets hot!"
[Creates an impassible volcano object on impact that leaves pools of molten lava in the 4 cardinal squares around it for 7 turns.]

Pokey Ball [Thrown Weapon] [Level 6]
2
"A fiendish example of trans-dimensional quantum engineering. Careless wizards have been known to put their right foot in and pull their left foot out."
[Casts removemonster, then summons a friendly Hunting Diggle, Squiddy, Ice Wyrm, or Thermoblobby in it's place]


WANDS/RAY GUNS:
[Spud Gun] [Level 2]
[Fires a missile that does 4 +.25 per rogue level. Also inflicts an additional 2 + .25F and 3 turns of fear for vegetable taxa monsters only.]
"Let the vegetable-fueled carnage begin!"

[Wand of Poking] [Level 3]
[Casts confuse on a specific monster for 2 turns, followed by 3 turns of shout.] (which is vaguely useful for pulling individual monsters out of a crowd or if you've got one chasing you and need just a couple of turns breathing room)
"Tap. Tap. Who's that behind you?"

[Solo Blaster] [Level 2]
[fires a missile that does 4 and 4 scaled on ability ]
"The preferred weapon for cocky smugglers who always shoot first."

[Atomic Blaster] [Level 4]
[fires a missile that does 6 6 and 4 scaled on ability ]
"A devastatingly effective weapon, though you have to make the 'pew pew' noises yourself."


SHIELDS/ORBS/TOMES/OTHER (overrideClassName Shields):
Shield of Focusing [Shield] [Level 7]
2 1 -1 2 6
[10% chance to cause a small ignition point when fighting enemies]
"It looks like somebody stuck a handle on a great big magnifying lens. Perhaps they used it to intimidate giant ants."

Library Card [Library Card] [Level 1]
1
1
[2% chance on kill to learn a random recipe and cast the Reading Rainbow buff]
"This card might be able to give you a shallow paper cut, but it's your ticket to a magical world of discovery and adventure."

The Guide [Tome] [Level 5]
3
3
[15% to cast "Mostly Harmless" on hit, which causes a non-stackable -42 for 4 turns (essentially, meaning they can't critically hit you at all while the spell is in effect)]
"Don't Panic."

Stone Tablet [Tome] [Level 6]
4
4
[10% to cast "Righteous Smite" on hit, which does 6 + 0.2F)]
"You feel so commanding holding this."


Magic Infinity-Ball [Orb] [Level 4]
2 4 1 -1
1
2 1
"This orb harnesses the awesome power of uncertainty."


HELMETS:
Red Bandana [Helmet] [Level 2]
1 1 1 1
"For some reason, this bandana makes you feel like a one-man army."

Novelty Arrow Hat [Artifact Helmet] [Level 3]
1 1
1
"Nobody's laughing."

Toupee [Helmet] [Level 3]
1 1
-1
[Has a slight chance to charm nearby Toupee monsters for 1 turn]
"I think I just saw it move."

Pith Helmet [Helmet] [Level 4]
2 2 1
"You feel pithy. Oh so pithy."

Heavy Metal Top Hat [Artifact Helmet] [Level 4]
1 4 -1
3
2
"This hat makes you want to Slash something."

Energy Dome [Helmet] [Level 5]
1 5 2 2
1
1
"When a problem comes along, you must whip it."

Tricorne Hat [Helmet] [Level 5]
1 1 1
1
"The advantage of this hat is that it doesn't roll away when the wind knocks it off your head."

X-Ray Specs [Helmet] [Level 6]
2 3 -2
"Lets you see through ladies' armor!"

Helm of the Hyneman [Artifact Helmet] [Level 8]
1 1 1 1 2
3
"This beret is woven from the finest walrus hair and strengthened by years of alchemical experimentation."

Blue Energy Dome [Artifact Helmet] [Level 9]
2 10 3 3
2
2
"This blue energy dome is so fresh!"

Helm of Nonflammability [Helmet] [Level 9]
-2 1 3 2 -4
6
"You kinda like it in here. It's private."

Helm of The Stig [Artifact Helmet] [Level 11]
7 7 6 -4 -2 -1
8
"Some say he has six sets of eyelids and his helmet tastes like childhood. All we know is he's called The Stig."


NECK:
Boy Detective Kerchief [Necklace] [Level 2]
1 1
1
"Come on gang! There must be some clues to the secret of the haunted amusement park around here somewhere!"

Stethoscope [Necklace] [Level 4]
1 1 1
"You're not a real doctor, but now you can play one on TV."

Capricious Chronometer [Necklace] [Level 6]
2 3 3 -3
"The dungeon's on-call emergency response service is a joke!"

Pity Chains [Necklace] [Level 8]
4 4
-3 2 1
"Some would say wearing 23lbs of gold chain around your neck is foolish, but you pity such people."

 

Items and Artifacts (continued)


CHEST ARMOR:
Frilly Apron [Chest Armor] [Level 1]
1
1 1
"Just like mom used to wear."

Dashiki [Chest Armor] [Level 2]
1 2 2
"This traditional West Dredmorian garment has been known to cause irreparable damage to the visual cortex of unsuspecting onlookers. It is often worn at weddings."

Cowboy Vest [Chest Armor] [Level 3]
3 1 2
"The fringed edges make you look tough."

Sheep Skin Vest [Chest Armor] [Level 5]
3 3
2
"Keeps you nice and warm and smelling of ungulates."

Padded Training Suit [Chest Armor] [Level 5]
8 10
-8 -8 -8 -3
4 2
"It's hard to imagine ever getting hurt wearing this suit!"
[A suit which can soak up a ton of crushing damage but you can forget about attacking anyone while wearing it.]

Lead Apron [Chest Armor] [Level 8]
12 3
-3 -2 -2
4
"Helps protect the boys downstairs from stray thaumaturgons."

Legs:
Chaps [Legs] [Level 4]
2 1 1 1
"If only there was an inventory slot to wear these *over* your pants."

Fighting Trousers [Legs] [Level 5]
1 1 1 2 2
"We'll see who strikes the loudest!"

Hip Waders [Legs] [Level 8]
1 2
6 2 4
"Trust me. It's what all the cool kids are wearing this year."

Disturbing Codpiece [Artifact Legs] [Level 6]
2 2 2 1
1
"I WILL KILL HIM!!"


GLOVES:
Sock Puppet [Gloves] [Level 2]
1 1
"It's great that you can express yourself through the power of puppetry."
[Has a 6% chance on dodge to cast Talk to the Hand, which pacifies nearby enemies]

Power Glove [Artifact Gloves] [Level 3]
1 2 2
2
"It's so bad."

Hulking Fists [Artifact Gloves] [Level 6]
1 2 2
2
"These novelty plastic fists are a smashing success."



WAIST:
Bracers of Bracing [Waist] [Level 4]
4 2
2
"These straps of elastic help shore up more than your sagging waistband."


RINGS:
Pull-Top Ring [Ring] [Level 1]
1
"This shouldn't even count as a ring."

Secret Decoder Ring [Ring] [Level 6]
1 6
1
"Let's see.... D R I N K Y O U R D I G G L E N O G."

Green Lightbulb Power Ring [Ring] [Level 6]
2 2 1
-1
"It's powered by pure imagination, and made out of cheap moulded plastic."

Ring of Bling [Ring]
1 2
1
"You have so much gold adorning your digits that it almost seems like it's multiplying."
[10% chance to spawn a small amount of gold when the player gets hit (not a Midas effect)]


BOOTS:
League Boots [Feet] [Level 3]
1
"Not to be confused with the mythical seven-league boots, these shoes merely enhance the wearer's likelihood of picking up a 7-10 split."

Gumboots [Feet] [Level 4]
3 1 -1
2 1
"Don't bother, they don't taste anything like gum."

Go-go Boots [Feet] [Level 5]
2 1 1
"These boots make you want to go go go!"

Wheeled Boots of Momentum [Feet] [Level 6]
1 2 3 -6
"I can't stop, I don't know how it works!"

Moon Boots [Feet] [Level 7]
4 2 -1
1 1
"These boots don't come from the moon, but they do smell an awful lot like green cheese."

Elevator Shoes [Feet] [Level 7]
1 5 2 -1
"Whoever designed these things obviously didn't stop at your floor."

Future Shoes [Artifact Feet] [Level 13]
2 3 3
4
"These incredible shoes fell through a time warp from the distant year 2015!"

CONSUMABLE:
Power Pellet [Consumable]
"It's a strange yellow pill dropped by an earlier adventurer"
[Gives a Pac Man themed buff for 5 turns that causes a taxa-specific fear effect on all wights in a 5-square radius, which also allows you to pretty much one-hit kill them if you manage to corner one before the buff wears off.]

Kobro Oil [Potion]
"Good for what ails you... usually."
[Occasionally dropped by Kobros or found like regular potions, this potion has one of 5 random effects: Krunktastic- which recharges mana and causes drunkenness for 5 turns
Home Brewed Disaster- which causes temporary blindness for 5 turns
You Got Snaked- which causes a minor 2 dot effect over 5 turns
Stimulating Elixir- which resets cooldowns and gives a minor 3 2 buff for 5 turns
and Medicinal Value- which removes negative status effects and gives a 2 buff for 5 turns
The negative status effect removal also works on the other kobro oil effects, so it's probably a good idea to wait until you have a stack of them before drinking one]

 

Items (still in progress)

Happy Fun Ball [Thrown Weapon]
"Warning: Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball."
[results in one of several randomized bounce patterns on impact]


Rooms and Dungeon Objects:
Nothing yet, but in conjunction with the Egger monster, I'd like to create a special hatchery room that's filled with a bunch of the little smeggers.

Fruit Machine room -- Still not sure if this is possible, but I'd like to create some sort of fruit machine (or slot machine for American folks) that takes X number of dollars when you pull the lever and then based on a triggerfromlist changes three impassible wall objects into your typical 3-in-a-row slot machine choices, resulting in the player either getting 3 of a specific kind of fruit, 3 gold bars, 3 monsters summoned, or a buttload of cash.

Stock ticker -- If the fruit machine room doesn't work out, I'm also thinking of a stock ticker object (one of those big glass dome things that spits paper), which rather simply tells you that your investments have done well (gives you money) really well (lots of money) poorly (takes money) or terribly (takes a bunch of money). There may also be some status effects involved.

 

That Magic Infinity Ball is crazy powerful for a 4th floor item.

 

Thanks. There's a pretty big gap in power between the level 3 Naturey Orb, and Level 5 Dark Orb (which gives 3 7 5 1 -1 2) so I was trying to go for something in the middle, but I scaled it back a bit to be closer to the lower end of the spectrum. (I'd rather be underpowered than overpowered any day)

 

I'm putting the finishing touches on the toupee monster's artwork. Hopefully that means I'll have an early testable mod later this weekend.

 

I'd advise against this. Think, as a player, how much you appreciate the tradeoffs of something "a little underpowered" vs "a little overpowered". If everything you add is underpowered you're not adding anything interesting or overly useful to the game and thus just filling people's inventory space up, better to err on the side of overpowered and then nerf as needed. Lccorp2-like extremes are not needed.

Also the naturey orb is often actually more useful than the dark orb, due to the fact that it buffs health regen and poison resistance, two incredibly useful stats.

As it is, your magic infinity ball is probably worse than the naturey orb, honestly

 

Monster artwork is done, (I wish I'd know beforehand that you can only specify one animation for casting) but I'm still working out some annoying kinks on v1.0.1. Hopefully a testable version will be up within a day or two.
In the meantime, a logistical question....
What happens if the exact same item appears in two mod packs?

Does the game recognize them as two separate items (meaning they'll show up twice as often, appear on the crafting recipe list twice, not stack for stackable items, etc...) pick whichever one was loaded first/last, or crash because you can't have two items with an identical name?

I've got a few items I already created for the Bowiemancy and Drama Queen skill mods, and a few more I was planning on using for Fashionista and Mimecraft, that I'd love to throw into this megapack, but only if it doesn't mean making my mods incompatible or flooding the dungeon with feather boas.

 

Extremely early version 1.0.1 is now available for anybody who wants to help me test it.


The toupee monsters appear to be working just fine now, and I haven't run into any game-breaking glitches... yet.
If anybody wants to help me test this sucker under natural gameplay conditions, I'd be extremely grateful.

 

Another quick question, is there any debug command that will let you spawn a specific item or artifact?

I've got a crap-ton of items that need testing and balancing, but they're very hard to test just hoping that they'll show up randomly or appear in shops.
About the only way around this I can think of is creating a quick and dirty ability set which gives you a bunch of items as loadout, and spawns even more (specifically the thrown and consumable ones) as a starting ability.

 

I think that two of the same items from different mods cause two different instances of the item to appear cause I remember getting some food items that won't stack together.

 

That was my suspicion, and seemed the most logical outcome. It's a bit annoying, but less annoying than crashing or arbitrarily choosing one item over another.

I suppose I'll just hold off on the Fashionista and Mimecraft items, since I can always add them in later, if I decide not to run in either of those two directions.

I'm thinking I might also hold back on the fruit machines (assuming they're even feasible), since I've been toying with the idea of a High Roller ability tree, whose skills would mainly revolve around gambling/luck/betting, and allowing the hero to get slightly better results from playing the slots seems like a natural starting ability, along the same lines as Burglary's ability to steal items from vending machines.

In the meantime, time to get my head down and focus on the task at hand. I spent most of the afternoon creating the artwork for a bunch of new items (22 of them) that I plan on adding to the next update, plus the initial artwork for the Egger. (which was easy, since it doesn't actually move) Now back to the not-so-fun coding part.

 

I love the art on Kobro. It reminds me of the Cobrats from Super Mario 2 / Doki Doki Panic. Might I suggest a throwable item that looks like the pots that the Cobrats usually called home? When it hits, it could spawn a few friendly Kobros.

 

An interesting idea, though I think I may end up running with that in a slightly different direction, and create a level 8 or higher single-stack "pokéball" type thrown weapon which has a 50/50% chance to either removemonster or summon a random friendly monster on impact. (I've already got the Lava Lamp and Happy Fun Ball, but one of the things I want to do with the items side of this mod is to expand the list of thrown weaponry to include a few more single use items that lean towards tactical advantage rather than direct damage, especially during the latter half of the game)

Getting back to Cobros though, I'm working on the dying animation now (which I'm finding to be the most annoying and difficult of the lot), but once I finally get that out of the way, I plan on spending a few more days working on items and tweaking code, and hopefully I'll have a version 1.0.2 up for testing some time before Easter weekend.

 

Oh joy... an insta-crash error. Those are so fun to track down.

While I'm pulling out my hair over that little task, another question: is there any way to make a creature not spawn as a boss due to a Inconsequentia quest, but still spawn regularly as a dungeon monster?

One problem I didn't think of with my eggers is that they (theoretically) self-destruct 4 turns after noticing the player, which I could see wreaking all sorts of havoc in "kill the leader" quests by either dying prematurely and causing an instant win, an uncompletable quest, or some other unforseen problem.

The only other way around it I can think of would be to possibly make all eggers unique monsters, and then only have them spawn in specific hatchery rooms. (again, I haven't looked into rooms much, but there's obviously something similar in place for diggle nests already)

 

Still tracking down the elusive insta-crash error. I've gone over my code pretty thoroughly, and fixed several minor issues (recipes that don't exist yet, RGB png's that should have been index, spells calling spells that were physically below them in the spellDB.xml file), but nothing to explain or fix the error, which means my next step is to start ripping bits out and see how far I have to go before it starts working. My suspicion is that it's probably something to do with the eggers, since creating an enemy that automatically spawns another enemy and then kills itself may not be possible. Worse case scenario, I may turn them into a pseudo-vase like object that when smashed, has an opportunity to provide you with either omelets or kobros.

In the meantime, I added a few new items, and drew the artwork for several more.
I've also decided to implement an entire new category of item: the RAY GUN:.

Ray guns will simply be overrideClassName wands, with a pre-set number of charges, however, each ray gun will have a different blast range, power, and firing pattern. Plus there are so many cool lasers/ray guns/blasters out there, that I should have no trouble creating 5 to 10 different types.

So far, I've already done the artwork for the Squareness Gun (from Doctor Who. I'm hoping to create something that when targeted, can tell whether it's pointed at a wall or a floor, and will either remove a single block of wall or create a spellmine "hole" that can cause enemies to disapperer), the Solo Blaster (perfect for the rogue smugger who always shoots first), and the Ray Gun. I'm also thinking of doing a freeze ray (allows you to stop the world), a ice beam (totally different than the freeze ray), a laser beam, the Lassiter, etc...

I'd also love to do a Dredmorian Stormtrooper weapon which never causes damage to what you aim at, but uses a template to hit exactly one space to the left or right. It would be mostly useless, except for those instances where you want to be able to shoot around a corner, however, I'm not quite sure how to change the animation so it's obvious what it happening.

 

If you get overrideClassName to work for wands, please let me know how you did it. I couldn't get it to work. But I could have just had a derp moment.

 

Okay, I found the source of my insta-crash error. For some crazy reason you can't set a custom monster's level to 15. I checked every other possible variable, but this is definintely what was causing my error. <monster name="Kobro Commander" level="14"> is fine, <monster name="Kobro Commander" level="15"> and the game insta-crashes. Bizarre.

Now that I've got that cleared up, I'm doing some preliminary testing, but three test runs have resulted in three seemingly random crashes around level 2 to 4, which I'm worried may be directly related to the eggers.
My latest crash occurred the moment I stepped onto a Level 0 transporter, one was from using the debug mode teleport, and another just from trying to walk into a room. It'll take a few more tests, but right now my hunch is that the game doesn't like spawning at least one of my creations, or freaks out when I enter the sight cone of an egger.

EDIT: Yeah, it's definitely the eggers which are causing all the problems. I chopped them out of the MonDB.xml file completely, and I haven't had a crash yet. (though I'm still looking for a level 0 portal just to be safe)

Sadly, I'm running into the exact same problem. I wonder if it's because it has a specific animation associated with it, the same way the various types of weapons do. That sucks because I was planning on incorporating a whole bunch of them. It's too bad there isn't any way to create a new object type from scratch, since I'd be willing to create a few extra frames of male/female player animation, if it meant I could add in ray guns and a few interesting one-time use objects that aren't food/liquid/mushrooms/scrolls.

 

Eggers are now gone, but I'm tentatively planning on adding them back in as a smashable dungeon item (one that will have a 50/50% chance of spawning a Kobro or dropping a delicious omelet once they're destroyed)

I've implemented nearly all of the items that I've already done artwork for, and created a few secret bonuses spells for a couple of them.