Happy Birthday, Pandemonium!
That’s right, House of Pandemonium turns one year old today. The first release of the game was uploaded on January 16th, 2016 at 30 minutes to midnight, so this counts as its birthday. In fact, development actually began on October 13th, 2015 as a throwaway idea I had. Who would have thought it’d go this far?
The first release of HoP:Remastered got a staggering 3203 downloads, a feat unrivaled by all the other versions. The next-nearest was release 0.95a (2177) and 1.00a (2172), with 0.60a (2048) being the only other release over 2000 downloads. Version 1.80a does not count since I’m pretty sure a lot of people accidentally downloaded the OSX versions and then downloaded the windows version.
Since then, there have been a paltry 37 commits to the bitbucket (I didn’t back up my code very much during early development) and the project is currently at 324 C++ files containing 7102 lines of code and 2865 lines of comments – a 2.5 ratio which is pretty impressive considering the standards of most coders.
In terms of script files, we have 697 scripts weighing 38 MB in sheer ASCII text. Some of that is duplicates due to Corrupter Mode, but that’s still a boatload of lua.
The engine I built the game on, named the Starlight Engine, received its first repository upload in April of 2014 and had begun development sometime in 2013 (though the raw baseline is even older, probably dating back to 2011). I’ve made a lot of improvements, particularly to the low-level rendering engine, due to feedback from the community and my own diligent research. It’s all thanks to this game!
Over its first year of development, we went from a game that looks like this:
with clunky, slow-rendering text, an inability to use anything but the most basic of items, slow gameplay, and weird rendering artifacts, to this:
with animated icons and damage, a robust UI and options system, faster-than-ever logic speeds, a complex and powerful scripting base, OSX Sierra support, and a from-scratch 3D renderer. This is not to forget the entire new game mode, addition of components missing from the original or dummied out, and the new addition of Enhanced Mode which will be coming out in 2017.
Plans for the Future
So that’s what happened during the first year of development, what about the second?
Well, I’m going to be launching a Patreon in February to fund further additions to the game’s content. There will be new monsters and possibly new characters (no promises on that front, adding characters takes a loooooot of art) for Classic and Corrupter Mode, as well as the development of the all-new Adventure Mode.
Exactly when these various features will be released depends on you, the public. When the Patreon launches, the amount of funding we get will determine how many artists I can hire. We already have fan-favourite and alleged superhero Rune MFB on board, but I have 3 character artists, an environment artist, and a spriter I’ve managed to rope into working on the project – assuming the funding comes through, that is.
If all goes well, Adventure Mode will be seeing its first releases sometime in March or (worst case) April. Corrupter Mode is about 80% done and should be completed before February, though I will still be patching it and improving the UI or gameplay based on community suggestions. The 2.00 release will signify feature-complete states for both 3D Mode and Corrupter Mode, but not necessarily bug-free states for the same.
Where to from here?
You should go look at release 1.90a’s post and go get that version if you haven’t already. You should also definitely go to the forums and start giving me ideas for Patreon rewards and bug reports if you’re in the playtesting mood.
As usual, I’ll see you every Monday for further updates. Your support over the last year is what kept me going in addition to the food, water, and unrelenting, brutal violence that is what drives every Canadian forward.
Thanks, and I look forward to writing the 2018 two-year post in 365 days assuming we’re not all living in a post-apocalyptic Mad Max scenario.
‘Til next time!
Pandemonium Development 