--- canonical: https://darkpawns.org/docs/releases/v0-1-8/ title: "Dark Pawns v0.1.8" description: "Changes shipped in Dark Pawns v0.1.8, reproduced from the release notes used by the release workflow. Read fixes, operator changes and install details." type: release audience: developers verified: v0.1.8 sourcePath: "docs/releases/v0.1.8.md" --- Dark Pawns v0.1.8 is the one where the game starts to look and fight like the original. Most of the color the 1990s game had was never wired up in the port, and a long list of combat details ran in a slightly different order than the C code did. Both are fixed. If you play with color on, a lot of screens will look new. That's the original, not a new coat of paint. **What looks different** - **Color is back where the original had it:** damage messages, the bleeding line, score, the group listing, `report`, exits, room listings and the immortal `stat` screens (#2231, #2236, #2244, #2247, #2248, #2249, #2255, #2256). Use `color off`, `color sparse`, `color normal` or `color complete` to choose how much. The group listing and parts of `score` only color at `complete`, just like the original. - **With color off, `who` shows `&r` and `&y` on Wizard and Chosen lines.** That isn't a bug: the original printed those codes raw to anyone without color (#2248). - **Hidden characters** now appear in `who` and can be targeted, as in the original. Room listings and exits still hide them (#2239). - **Fireball** was checked against the original at every color level, and it matches (#2237). **Fights** - **Monsters fight back when your spell fails on them.** A mob that resists blindness, curse, sleep, charm or a few others now attacks you, and so does one you summon or poison. In the port that never happened (#2251, #2264). - **Bodies fall the way they did in the original.** Survivors keep swinging at a body that's about to drop, and a second death on the same body plays out in full (#2227, #2235). - **Skills hit like the original:** the pain line, the scream, the bleeding line and wimpy all run after a skill lands, and mob specials trigger wimpy too (#2236, #2243). - **Switcheroo** keeps the rest of the round's attacks on the new target (#2252). - **Spells and skills that change a monster's armor or aim now actually do.** Berserk, curse, poison, chill touch and the rest were applied to monsters but never counted in their fighting, so a berserk guard hit and dodged like a calm one (#2259). - Kill rewards, group experience with mixed parties, and mob regeneration now match the original (#2215, #2218, #2220, #2221). - Corpses, loot gold and attack types match the original (#2224, #2232). **Equipment and the world** - Equipment display and item effects match the original, including age, height and weight items and spell effects that wear off when you remove an item (#2216, #2219, #2242). - Your prompt comes back after a message arrives from elsewhere in the room (#2214). - Teleport's two refusals for monsters now work (#2239). - **Groups:** an immortal can `force` a monster to lead a group, as in the original. A sleeping leader now hears `group`'s answers, and a follower who is shadowing you can't be added by name (#2260, #2263). - Room object lists are padded the way the original's were (#2254). - Rooms with special details no longer put a stray space in front of the first character listed there (#2257, #2266). **For operators and contributors** - Release publishing fixes for Homebrew, Scoop, winget and Docker (#2212, #2213, #2217). - Background start and update on Windows are sturdier: a slow startup-task check or a file held briefly by a virus scanner now gets one retry, and a failure says why (#2258, #2261, #2262). - Immortals: `stat ` shows the age and creation date after age-changing gear, as the original did (#2265). - The build now fails if Go silently ignores a source file (#2245). - The front page, README and release notes invite players to Discord (#2226). - Docs groundwork: a style guide and a docs skill for writing pages (#2223). Every fix above was checked against the original C source. The release census ran 6,206 scenario runs against the original game across 13 seeds, with every random roll compared: all clean, no divergent draws. Install on macOS or Linux: ```sh curl -fsSL https://darkpawns.org/install.sh | bash ``` Existing installations can run `darkpawns update --check`, then `darkpawns update`, or update from **Admin → Updates**. Questions, war stories, and the live server's #gossip feed all live on the [Dark Pawns Discord](https://discord.gg/supVzU9yN).