The Castle Doctrine - An online perma-death house robbing and defense simulator. - Games

When I meant wall hacks I mean being able to move through walls.

So, I make a clever simple trap to start off with using glass, cats, and a dog or two and log off for about seven hours. I log in to two recordings. Both people moved in place until the my wife came to the door, killed her, and then left. Really? So, I tried invading someone's house. Died immediately to tons of dogs. Kinda regretting the purchase, but I'll give it another try.

This game is great. I hate that feeling when you're sitting on a good house setup, and then get curious and try to rob someone's house, only to die.. and all your hard work is gone to waste. My house had a vault set up. It's a straight-shot as soon as you leave your house to the vault. It's a hallway surrounded by concrete walls, with steel walls on the top side. Above this hallway is another hallway, a "cat-run". As the player moves towards the vault, so does the cat toward a sticky pressure pad. The idea here is that the only way to solve my house is if you go STRAIGHT to the vault. If you take a few spaces to scout around, you get sealed in to this hall way, and the only means to escape is via two electrified panels that are blocking the exit.

Bumpin' with some info. First of all, there's an official wiki now, contribute if you can! Find it here: [url]http://thecastledoctrine.net/wiki/index.php/The_Castle_Doctrine[/url] Second, there's also been an official forum set up where I assume we'll be kept updated about the game and you'll more than likely get your questions answered. Find it here: [url]http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/[/url] Also, a few questions answered, including the plan for defeating combo locks: [quote]1) Why are combo locks allowed? There's not a good way to forbid them, algorithmically. I originally envisioned that people would figure out how to do this eventually, especially after some players rose to the top and became rich. I didn't realize that it would happen so quickly. In v6, buyable maps will help robbers deal with these kinds of houses. 2) How are we supposed to keep our family alive? This is a major weakness in the design of v5. Since they walk ceaselessly toward the door, the door is a pinch-point, and the robber can just wait there (creepy, yeah, but everyone is doing it). Dogs don't help either, because dead dogs block other dogs but not the family. I'm working on ways to fix this in v6 (probably by having the family pause whenever the robber is close to the front door, and start moving again whenever the robber moves away from the front door). 3) Why are concrete walls more expensive than steel but easier to destroy? These weren't strictly cost-power design decisions. There was also common sense involved (explosives are cheaper than torches). But also, concrete walls do no conduct electricity, so they are more useful in some situations. 4) Why do steel and wooden wired walls cost the same? This may need to be looked at again. Especially since so many people are now using steel walls AS wires. That wasn't really my intent, so maybe they will become non-conductive in v6. 5) WHY DO PEOPLE KILL THE CHILDREN! I'll let them answer for themselves on this one...[/quote] [quote]So, the buyable maps fix this. They'll only be available for houses that are rich and no one has yet been able to bypass (like, 50+ deaths or whatever). And, they'll be expensive (like, 25% of house value, maybe). So, they will coax the rich people back out into robbing (because only rich people will be able to afford them) and set a new goal for poor players (become slightly rich in order to take a crack at a top house). The map will only be viewable "offline", in your own house, in a static pan-around mode. You won't be able to walk through it or test it. So, a really good house design can still be tricky, even if you have seen the map. It will then be about designing real puzzles instead of stuff that can be brute-forced. [/quote] Sounds good to me.

Did he mention anything about source code alterations ?

Nope. I'm getting this info from the forum so go make a thread there, you don't even need an account to post. I'll jump in and express my concerns about it too.

He actually did make a mention of it, in that he wasn't sure what to do about it. [url=http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=33#p33][quote] Bottom line: there is NO WAY to prevent this from happening, whether or not the source code is available. Yeah, I could modify the client to check properties.txt at launch, but then someone would just re-modify the client to "fake" that check! Same with signing the client itself. Ask the DRM people how that's working for them... The only way to deal with this would be to do EVERYTHING on the server, like each and every robber step, and then only send the client what the robber can see after moving. As you can imagine, this wouldn't be practical for a bunch of reasons. So, the way that I'm dealing with this is by recording everything and closing accounts of cheaters (paid accounts). If someone is walking through walls, the cheat is pretty obvious and can easily be reported (maybe they'll even be a REPORT button in the client for this, and some way to collectively "judge" a given tape as being evidence of a cheat). If someone is simply turning the visibility shroud off, then it's a bit harder to prove that they're cheating. But I'm also tracking scouting counts, which helps with that. If someone breaks through a house on the first try without cutting anything or exploring, that's pretty suspicious. There are other, community-based ways of dealing with this. Web of trust, voting out cheaters, etc. This will be explored more in the future, as the community evolves. Could be an interesting meta game! [/quote][/url]

For some reason I can't get powered doors to start open aha

[QUOTE=home_wolf;40162997]He actually did make a mention of it, in that he wasn't sure what to do about it. [url=http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=33#p33][/url][/QUOTE] Yep - that was me who posted up the thread because I was curious of the answer.

[QUOTE=Nystical;40173969]For some reason I can't get powered doors to start open[/QUOTE] I cant get them to start closed and have then open if they step on a plate.

while I have the game closed, my family is "working" correct?

Yep.

Nope. They're dead. Their brains are staining the carpet. Edit: Just got this email with a few bits of info: [quote]Thanks for helping out with the alpha test of The Castle Doctrine. Here's a quick update about what's going on. [B]Most importantly: new community features are here. A wiki, forums, and a news blog. You can find all these things linked in the page header here:[/B] [url]http://thecastledoctrine.net/buy.php[/url] I was at GDC all last week, so I was a bit out of the loop. I'm back now, busily working on the game again. [B]We've got over 3000 players now[/B], so the game is humming along, and [B]it's clear that there are plenty of things that need to be fixed and adjusted, from impossible-to-beat houses to overly-vulnerable family members to outright cheating[/B]. I needed to get a large group of players interacting with each other before I could see how things played out, and I appreciate your patience while I iron out the rough spots. I just upgraded the database tables to a more robust engine that supports real locking (yeah, MySQL had InnoDB turned off before, and I didn't realize it). This fixed a bunch of mysterious server-side bugs, but created a bunch of new bugs, because deadlocks are now possible. I've fixed most of the new issues, but there might be a few more lurking in there. The good news is that the server should be both faster and more stable than it used to be. Anyway, if you EVER see "Unexpected response from server," this is a major problem that you should help me track down. Please quit the game IMMEDIATELY and send me your latest recordedGame file. Same goes for if you see "House check in failed" after a robbery. Some of these things cause the server to auto-kill you. Yeah, it's a huge problem, and really needs to be tracked down. Keep in mind that I just fixed a bunch of things on the server, so I'm really looking for errors that are still happening from here on out, not reports about stuff that happened a while ago. Before GDC, I had 300 emails from you folks. I've responded to about 200 so far. I know it's taking me a while, but I WILL get around to writing back to each of you, eventually. I really appreciate your understanding here: I'm just one guy doing everything. Hope you're all enjoying the game! Jason[/quote] [url]http://thecastledoctrine.net/news.php[/url]

So... just asking a horribly blunt question: is this game worth buying, in its present state? I'm in love with the idea, I just don't have the funds to just buy it if its not all that fun. Also, its not resource intensive, is it? Kinda trapped on a shite laptop for the moment.

[QUOTE=U-Lander;40187901]So... just asking a horribly blunt question: is this game worth buying, in its present state? I'm in love with the idea, I just don't have the funds to just buy it if its not all that fun. Also, its not resource intensive, is it? Kinda trapped on a shite laptop for the moment.[/QUOTE] It's not resource intensive at all. Not sure if I'm going to recommend buying it though. There is a lot of fun into the game, but you can never be too sure of when people are using hacks to rob your house. There are also a few impossible houses out there(literally impossible), but I suppose an update will be out soon to solve these issues.

[QUOTE=U-Lander;40187901]So... just asking a horribly blunt question: is this game worth buying, in its present state? I'm in love with the idea, I just don't have the funds to just buy it if its not all that fun. Also, its not resource intensive, is it? Kinda trapped on a shite laptop for the moment.[/QUOTE] I'd wait until a few updates comes out to see how it evolves first. Right now it's pretty much got itself into a cluster-fuck of unbreakable combination locks.

so when are the updates supossed to come anyway, is there a blog or something.

[QUOTE=Cheeseist;40189885]so when are the updates supossed to come anyway, is there a blog or something.[/QUOTE] few posts up [url]http://thecastledoctrine.net/news.php[/url]

[B]Version 6 has been released[/B] which introduces a few big changes to fix the main issues like bit-locks, cheating and waiting at the door for the family. Big changes: [quote] --Family members now wait in place until they spot the robber before they flee to the exit. This makes protecting them much more practical, since a determined robber cannot simply pace back and forth by the door until they come out. --Free blueprints are available for each and every house in the game. You can now study a house beforehand to plan your robbery or consult the blueprints during a robbery. Simple guessing-game houses (like the 16- and 24-bit combination locks) are no longer viable security strategies. Real puzzles are still viable, however. --Mod-based cheating has been thwarted by running a game client server-side to verify all submitted robberies and house self-tests. Cheats based on protocol sniffing (snatching the map of a house) has been thwarted through the availability of blueprints. --Smaller improvements include updated wiring, new indicator lights, control-click to eyedropper a tile while editing, multi-word name search, selling multiple items in one click, and more intelligent paging through house lists. [/quote] Full Changelog: [quote] --Fixed so that tools with reach cannot be used through unbroken windows (thanks Buddy Gorven). --Changed house menus to remember page position and search string (so you don't have to scroll through the high-value houses over and over to get to your houses of interest). Less clicking, less server load (thanks Michael Weber). --Fixed so that suicide on doorstep (first move) shows up on tape. --After login fails, client now re-asks reflector for server URL, in case user types different email second time that should bounce them to a different server (thanks Martijn van der Ven). --Fixed bug that caused %s to replace family names after death (thanks Stan Volchenok). --Fixed memory leak in robbery checkout. --Fixed wife path return behavior after child death (she used to return to the point from which she started searching for her dead child, and now she returns to her original location). --Fixed bug where family blocked in by other dead family members do not die permanently. --Fixed serial number ordering during request retry when other, later requests are waiting in the request queue. --Fixed bug in left-right power propagation triggering voltage-triggered switches immediately to the south. --Added new objects for horizontal-only and vertical-only wiring (thanks Gavin Delphia). --[Live server fix, May 8, 2013] Experimenting with salaries on server only being paid for houses that haven't been robbed since the last edit. --Crowbar now can open a wooden door without stepping through it. --Fixed encoding of emails to support (vaild) emails that contain '+'. --Fixed so that tools can't be used after death. --Fixed so that animals can never step onto the welcome mat spot. --[Live server fix, May 9, 2013] Now saves separate, pristine copy of house maps to go along with self-test move list, even after main house map has been changed by robbery. --Fixed bug in suicide tool tip lingering on Accept button after robber dies. --Added confirmation box for suicide button. --Changed family behavior to only head toward exit when they see the robber, making it possible to build structures that actually protect them (since robber can no longer just wait at the exit until the family comes out). --Added indicator light house object. --Name search filter now permits multiple words. --Improved view panning so that player is never closer than three grid squares from the edge of the screen, while also making the view movement less jumpy and more consistent. --You can now watch security tapes before re-editing and testing your house after your house has been robbed. --Added tool tip explaining keyboard shortcut for Undo (Ctrl-Z). --Control-click acts as "eyedropper" to select tile under mouse for placement. --Further improved wording on house self-test screen. --Mode for selling multiple items (half of items in slot with one click). --Fixed linking to wiki and forums and news from download pages. --Improved appearance of wired wooden walls (no internal, dead-end plugs). --Fixed visual glitches in pits when they cross northern view edge. --Fixed tool tip for mobile over empty floor (no longer describes floor). --Made all cross-wiring less visually noisy (all wiring fat, no skinny wire leads). --Free blueprints for all houses are now available. --Enabled panning with arrow keys (like blueprint panning) during tape replay when visibility shroud is toggled off (only works when replay paused). --Fixed bug when tool used on animal that is standing on another targetable tile (like a crowbar againsta a pit bull standing on a voltage-triggered switch). Now mobile is affected before underlying tile (thanks Jeremy Oertel). --Tool tips for house tiles now display properly during tape replay if shroud toggled off. --Fixed so that family standing on welcome mat can't be targeted (than Jeremy Oertel). --Added database column tracking time of last owner visit to each house. --Fixed server database size calculation to exclude tables in backup databases.[/quote] [url=http://thecastledoctrine.net/seedBlogs.php?action=display_post&post_id=jasonrohrer_1369437096_0&show_author=1&show_date=1]Link[/url]

This is better but I'm still noticing impossible to solve houses.

My biggest issue with this new update now is that it's extremely hard to make a house with $6000 that isn't rendered useless by someone looking at your houses blueprint.

Key for the cheap version of the game. First in first served. V7REL8FZHY

Here too. V7REL8EFFB

How do you use those? [editline]30th May 2013[/editline] I can't find a spot to create an account or input any keys or anything.

Is anyone's game bugged? I can't create walls or move my family/vault.

V7 is out by the way. Forgot to say in the thread. ^If you're playing an old version of the game I'd say it's possible that happens.

This is- more than a little bit interesting to me, especially after countermeasures to wife-beaters and bit-locks. What impedes me is a blatant and- somewhat shameful lack of money. $8 is, as much as I'm ashamed of it, out of my reach. I'd offer a trade, but I've got nothing to trade. I'll simply spectate, then. Thanks fr' the thread, PieClock.

You're not missing out on much lol, this was one of the worst $8 I spent. Literally played it twice, haven't touched it since.

[QUOTE=loopoo;40860894]You're not missing out on much lol, this was one of the worst $8 I spent. Literally played it twice, haven't touched it since.[/QUOTE] Good for you. I got a good 10 hours off it, and i'm not done with it. @Krinen, use one of those codes posted above. It'll knock it down to $5.

How'd you get 10 hours worth out of it? The monotony of having to repeatedly die to understand someone's house blueprints was ridiculous. Not even an option to save your house design either. Must have been 10 hours of torture.