Tabletop Simulator

Tabletop Simulator

Dark Tower
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Update: Mar 5, 2023 @ 2:55pm

Changed odds of initial Haggle success: should be 12/16, was 11/16

Update: May 8, 2022 @ 11:25am

Fixed bug where only one food was being subtracted from a player's inventory per turn regardless of army size.

Update: Apr 5, 2022 @ 4:01pm

Here we go! THE ALGORITHM UPDATE!

A couple of years ago, a fellow named Sean Riddle actually ripped the Texas Instruments TMS-1400 chip in a Dark Tower to a software file:
https://seanriddle.com/tms1400.html

Another chap by the name of Brett Wyer disassembled the code and exposed it online:
https://github.com/ratsputin/Dark-Tower/blob/master/darktower.asm

I took the code, taught myself some TMS1000-series assembly, and worked out the real, actual algorithm from the tabletop game. My process was documented here:
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1087086/anyone-know-chance-event-happening

Many of the odds in this mod were off... some a little, some a lot. All of those odds are now correct. The algorithm basically got a top-to-bottom overhaul in this update.

Also included in this version: the actual physical size of the game was shrunk down. When I originally developed this mod a few years ago, there was no measure tool, so it didn't really matter how big the game was. Technically, it still doesn't, but I've been doing some playtesting in VR, and the game was noticeably larger than reality. The tower should now be 10" tall, the board 24" in diameter, and everything else scaled down at the same ratio. It was tricky to do without disturbing the joins that connect the picture wheel and the LCDs to the Tower unit, but some direct editing in a save game file seems to have done the trick.

By popular demand, Blindfold Mode defaults to off. The only exception, ironically, is the Black player. The Black player can see everything, without exception... including the blindfold shield!!!

I've updated the buttons in the UI to remind players that, in-between turns, the HAGGLE button toggles the colors between the original game colors and the seat colors, and the CLEAR button toggles Blindfold Mode.

Finally, I've given the Dark Tower model a more complete collider mesh. It's still hollow, so it won't send the blinker screen flying, but it's a lot more "C" shaped. The upshot is that the Tower unit should be much more easily hovered over, handled, picked up, rotated, etc. Again, my recommendation is to simply hover over the Tower and press the Q or E key if you want to rotate it.

A full list of patch notes is below:

ODDS
Adjusted odds of MOVE results to match original game.
Adjusted TOMB/RUIN contents odds to match original game.
Dragon always has a minimum of 2 warriors and 6 gold, matching the original game.
Adjust ranges of random amounts given at a Sanctuary, matching original game.

BAZAAR
Adjusted randomized BAZAAR prices to match original game.
Adjusted HAGGLE odds to match original game.
Minimum haggle price reduced to 1 to match original game.

BATTLES
Adjusted number of starting BRIGANDS to match original game.
Revamped battle odds algorithm to match original game.

TREASURE
Bypassed random chance of getting no treasure at all to match original game.
Adjusted amount of gold rewarded on battle win or unguarded tomb/ruin to match original game.
Adjusted odds of additional magic items rewarded as treasure to match original game.

VICTORY
Final score calculation revamped to match original game.

COLOR SWITCHING
Game will no longer try to change the color of a deleted token.

UI
Updated HAGGLE UI button to reflect color switching capabilities
Updated CLEAR button to reflect its ability to turn blindfold mode on or off

OBJECTS
Updated tower object with a new hollow collider mesh. The tower should be a lot easier to pick up and interact with.
Entire game has been scaled down to be accurate with the line tool and within VR.

OTHER
Blindfold mode is now off by default.

=============

WISH LIST

* A complete remaster of the sound block with sound effects ripped from the MAME emulation.
* Make the game function properly in TTS Hotseat Mode.
* Begin to divorce the Tower from needing to juggle seat colors and occupancy and instead revert to the "blind" P1-P4 of the original game
* Enable the ability to load and save the game state. May require storing a "game has started" variable elsewhere, and having the Tower skip it's variable init phase if it's true but the game is loaded.

Update: Sep 5, 2020 @ 1:10pm

Finally: THE TOKEN UPDATE.

The four game pawns have now been modeled in Blender and added to the game as OBJ meshes, replacing the "Clue" style tokens. Like the buildings, they can be toggled between their IRL colors and the player-seat colors by hitting the HAGGLE button any time other than during a BAZAAR game phase.

Objects have been added for the center pedestal and for the board clamps.

The default background has been changed to the in-game "Museum" background for lower overhead.

Update: Aug 31, 2020 @ 4:54pm

Quick fix: apparently custom token objects always have a rectangular collision box, even when round. This was causing objects on the outer rim of the new game board to fall through the board and onto the table below. The invisible plane has been raised up to be equal to the game board on the Y axis, providing a surface for objects out on the edge of the board.

Update: Aug 31, 2020 @ 4:24pm

A couple of cosmetic changes:

• The base of the Tower is now its old craggy self! The mesh was taken from Daniel "Stinkevil" Southerland's dice tower:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4025000

The dice tower mesh is shared through the Creative Commons ShareAlike license:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
It was modified down to only the base shell. That modified mesh is also subject to ShareAlike.

• The board has been replaced with a custom token object, with the board graphic taken from Bill Smith's Dark Tower Deluxe project on BoardGameGeek:
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2088122/dark-tower-deluxe-project-my-rebuild-complete-play

Update: Aug 30, 2020 @ 1:10pm

Finally fixed the "bug" where using the Q and E keys to rotate the tower would send it sinking into the table and dislodging all of the components attached to it. Tinkering with the physics settings (including adding a Rigidbody setting to the blindfold) seems to have finally put the Tower and its children in a state of harmony.

Because it wasn't necessary, part of this process including detaching the sound effects AssetBundle from the tower body. It now resides just below the table.

The invisible plane extending outwards to the player banners has returned. This allows the scorecards to hover in front of the players in their "hands" instead of taking up any precious real estate on the table.

The "Changes" section of the Notebook has been revised with today's earlier changes to the Clear button (toggling Blindfold Mode at the beginning of a player's turn). An on-screen Note directs seasoned players of the board game to the Notebook; jumping right in with the changes to how the Tower refers to players, etc, could be confusing.

An attempt was made to replace the OBJ mesh for the Tower body with a Unity AssetBundle. It introduced more problems (as its rotation is "correct"; the mesh is actually incorrectly rotated 90° on one axis and compensated for with the location of its children and UI elements, mea culpa), and didn't produce any discernible advantage.

Update: Aug 30, 2020 @ 9:14am

The big change here is that a player may press the CLEAR button at the beginning of their turn to toggle "blindfold mode" on and off. "Blindfold mode" restricts players from seeing each other's displays, in the spirit of the original game. There have been a lot of requests for the ability to turn this off, especially when teaching the game. Players should be aware that the Riddle of the Keys is the same for all players, and a player may want to turn blindfold mode at least when attempting to solve the riddle.

Bug fixes include a reversal of the Blue and Green players' Pegasus buttons (a holdover from the very first version of the game where those two players were seated in the wrong places, mea cupla) and a fix for the Wizard curse bug (shout out to @hep22!)

Update: Jun 12, 2020 @ 12:15pm

Completed process of transferring all assets to Steam Cloud.

Update: Apr 11, 2020 @ 10:53am

Uploaded manual to Steam Cloud.