RPGWatch Feature: Indie Interview with Laurens Lafebre

Dhruin

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Fresh from his comprehensive roguelike series over at the Rampant Coyote, Skavenhorde chats with Laurens Lafebre - the indie developer behind the Dark Disciples series:
Let's start the ball rolling with some background on you and your company Dodgysoft. How did it all start?

When I was a kid, my parents came home one day with a c64 and my life-long love of computer games began. I also used to play Dungeons & Dragons (the pen & paper game) with friends so naturally CRPGs were of particular interest. I think my first ever CRPG experience was a ‘Dark Dungeons’. Anyone remember that? J I decided pretty early on that I wanted to write my own CRPG game and learnt some basic programming on the c64. I discovered Dark Dungeons was written in basic and poured over the code for clues on how to program games. I eventually went on to study business programming at Uni and always secretly hoped I’d somehow find my way into a games development / programming career. When that didn’t happen, I decided to write my game own anyway.
Read it all here.
More information.
 
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These freeware games are better than a lot of indie games I have paid for. The puzzles are the best I have seen in ANY RPG.
 
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Agreed. I had a blast with these freeware games and would have paid for these games without thinking about it twice. The art isn't good, but it does the job.

The differences between DD1 and DD2 are huge. It's just amazing to me that this guy poured so much love into these two games and did it for free.
 
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Guess he wasn't aware how many nutjobs like us there are that would gladly pay him...
 
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Any ideas how to get the first one to run smooth on windows 7? It runs like ass in loading new areas....:(
 
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Just got killed by telling a kid to ask his mom what a prostitute is :p
 
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no on else having performance issues under win 7? I can't find anything on the net.
 
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Did you try the fix that was on the website for WinXP? http://www.dodgysoft.com/help.html

I'll load it up again, but I didn't encounter any problems last time I played.

Also try sending him an email if that directdraw thing doesn't work.
 
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Did you try the fix that was on the website for WinXP? http://www.dodgysoft.com/help.html

I'll load it up again, but I didn't encounter any problems last time I played.

Also try sending him an email if that directdraw thing doesn't work.

I can't disable direct draw on windows 7 for some reason...I've tried.
 
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Anybody know where the saved games are stored? I can't seem to locate them and I like backing up my saves. His forum requires a 3 minute wait between each action and I just can't stand that type of shite.
 
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Which one? Dark Disciples 2 is in the savegame folder of wherever you extracted the game to: DD2/mod/savegame

Not sure where the first one is, but I would assume it's similar. Look in the folders. If not then do a search for save0.sav
 
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Thanks, ratdude. I've been messing with the 2nd game for the last few hours. It kinda harkens back to the simplistic games of the early 90s.
 
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Been playing this several days now, but I'm stuck:

Anybody finish this? It's got some extremely obscure puzzles that basically require unlimited patience or cheats.

Spoilers:






I'm in a land where I'm trying to hunt down a shaman named Star Gazer. It seems like I need two head-sized objects to continue. I found a vampire head but I have no idea what else I'm looking for. The forum for the game is down about 90% of the time; since I've been playing at least. I killed a shaman nowhere near the quest spot and that got me the first head. Some of the solutions to quests make you backtrack to the beginning areas of the game. The game has some nice stuff too, but the "puzzles" are daunting.
 
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star gazer

@crpgnut:

i've tried to figure this out for hours, but couldn't make it. i then end up using the cheating windows (ctrl u) and teleporting to the end of the bridge: when you stand between the two piles just go into the cheating window and teleport to y=0. then you can step forward onto the next map, just like you've been using the bridge.
from then on the game continues without any problems...
 
There are two vampire heads, but I never found the 2nd one either. I just gave myself a 2nd head with the editor. I got bored with the game shortly after that, and moved on. I had fun with it for quite a while first though.
 
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