@camlorn 50
Thanks for the bug report, I've been doing my best to find a cause but have been struggling. At the very least I should be able to fix log.txt not getting the stack trace for the next version- that was due to me misunderstanding how Java handles those.

I think this might actually be an out of bounds exception without a message, so I print 'null' to indicate it doesn't have a message. The index being 8 and size being 2 is the format typically used by these errors.
Did this occur when you tried inputting the number 9 to back out? You might have hit 8 by accident and it crashed. The only reason I think of this is that used to be a bug, but it got fixed a long time ago- but I might have missed something.
I scoured the Inn code and menu ingame to try to find a lead, both on current version and the version you're on, but didn't find anything. There's likely a bug in code the Inn calls considering it also happened elsewhere, but without a stack trace or common crash points it won't be possible to narrow it down.
You could try updating to the beta branch to see if it stops happening? I could have made a fix and forgot about it.

Here's a full trace.  This is in an inn's backroom:

4                                                                                                                       
------------                                                                                                            
1 Accept Quest: Kill harpies for Margaret SoulWhisperer                                                                 
2 Accept Quest: Tyler TinTamer's key                                                                                    
3 Accept Quest: Sarah BronzeTamer's totem                                                                               
Error Stacktrace:                                                                                                       
java.lang.NullPointerException                                                                                          
        at trawel.quests.BasicSideQuest$10.getName(BasicSideQuest.java:467)                                             
        at trawel.quests.QRMenuItem.title(QRMenuItem.java:20)                                                           
        at trawel.extra.menuGo(extra.java:801)                                                                          
        at trawel.towns.services.Inn.backroom(Inn.java:219)                                                             
        at trawel.towns.services.Inn.access$4(Inn.java:217)                                                             
        at trawel.towns.services.Inn$1$4.go(Inn.java:174)                                                               
        at trawel.extra.menuGo(extra.java:819)                                                                          
        at trawel.towns.services.Inn.go(Inn.java:121)                                                                   
        at trawel.towns.Feature.enter(Feature.java:177)                                                                 
        at derg.menus.MenuSelectFeature.go(MenuSelectFeature.java:26)                                                   
        at trawel.extra.menuGo(extra.java:819)                                                                          
        at trawel.towns.Town.atTown(Town.java:339)                                                                      
        at trawel.mainGame.adventureBody(mainGame.java:1790)                                                            
        at trawel.mainGame$1$2.go(mainGame.java:242)                                                                    
        at trawel.extra.menuGo(extra.java:819)                                                                          
        at trawel.mainGame.mainMenu(mainGame.java:192)                                                                  
        at trawel.mainGame.main(mainGame.java:1429)                                                                     
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)                                                  
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)                                                  
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)                                              
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)                                                              
        at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.jarinjarloader.JarRsrcLoader.main(JarRsrcLoader.java:61)                            
Trawel has encountered an exception. Please report to realDragon. More details can be found in log.txt.                 
Error was fatal. Press enter to close.                                                                                  
 

I didn't actually hit anything, as you can see.  It printed the menu and crashed. I do think it's also possible to hit this by entering an invalid number, but in general that validates so it would presumably be a specific menu that's not.

The log is literally one line, "null".

For what it's worth I did also crash this once in a grove. Not able to quickly retry that however, and the game was somehow able to autorecover in that case.

I might look at getting the beta working but my bandwidth is limited and mostly what pushed me over the line was hey click a few things in Steam and it'll handle autoupdates and whatnot. Just had dental surgery so my patience is currently minimal.

No by bandwidth I mean amount of stuff I can take on.  I have gigabit internet lol.

I didn't realize I could just switch to the beta in Steam? I thought you were asking me to copy jars into place or something?  If so I'll press the button there, no problem.

Huh, interesting. I didn't know Steam did that.  I just thought everyone did betas outside it.

That's the correct date for 8b9, yeah. I got sick after that and haven't been able to put together a full update since, only started back up a week or two ago.
It's usually more annoying to use the branches for games because you'll have to update all the files when you switch off of the beta, but Trawel has all the gameplay packaged into a single small file. Some developers use a separate appid which lets you have both the beta and the main game installed at the same time.
It also used to be more uncommon, which made it less useful to tell players about it since they wouldn't know how to switch branches and you'd have to link to a steam guide as the 'most official' source to tell them how to do it.

What platform did you download it from?
On Itch you'll need to open RunTrawel.bat after unzipping the contents of the file to a folder somewhere. Do note you'll have to keep everything in the same folder, since it'll run Trawel.jar using the JRE in the windows_jre folder.
On Steam you should select the 'Accessibility Mode' launch option in the full version or just run it normally with the Demo.
On Github you could do java -jar Trawel.jar, but this would require you having the correct version of Java installed, so this is the least preferred way to download it, although you could paste the jar over the other versions.

@camlorn 64
Steam has a set of launch options, which only apply when opening it from the library, not from clicking the shortcut. You're also SUPPOSED to be able to edit them from some menu, but I can't find it on the screen it should be in, under properties->general.
This launch option sets a command line argument called 'noguiinput' (and also 'autoconnect', but the other one does that as well).
You can add the noguiinput command line argument yourself which might fix the scrolling problem, but steam also lets you avoid having to retype this or edit files, also under properties->general. I have the batch file set up to copy all the arguments provided under "launch options" there to the game.

Level 10 isn't quite the end right now, but the game does slow down as time goes on. The first world's towns go from level 1 to 10, but the things in them can go a bit higher- for example the Blasted Palace in Quen starts at level 12 and in this test world I just made goes to level 16, because it has 32 nodes.
Level 10 used to be the realistic end of the game before I fleshed out the second world a bit and added the Epan island in the south of the world 1 map.
Since the xp requirement scales exponentially but the xp given scales linearly, levels in world 2 slow down a bit. It goes from 10 to 17, but the areas stop having content at around level 15.
Teleporting to other worlds isn't much different than teleporting around within a world, at least from a player perspective. The main difference will be they use different currency there and there's different NPCs following you.

If you're having trouble beating stuff, compare the level of yourself and your equipment. If it's much lower you're going to have a lot of trouble. You're also not expected to beat every enemy you come across, some are more optional obstacles (wolf packs, going through every single checkpoint in a dungeon with 2 paths), others will just roll really good equipment which presents an opportunity- spend a lot of time overcoming them to take the equipment for yourself, or continue past them so the equipment isn't beyond you anymore.

I'll look into implementing an auto travel system, the menu for any town is actually pretty new so I haven't had much chance to try stuff like that. I'll need to pull out the travel code so I can run it directly, but that shouldn't be too hard.
The Docks do a similar thing with far flung sailing, but I just force an encounter and add the total time, which is a bit lame.

The scrolling thing is possibly rare and also something that can happen in theory if you're handling scrolling without actually writing everything to the terminal. There's some ways to "trick" screen readers into skipping text, and it was happening in some tutorials.  I wouldn't worry about it right now.  I'm a coder; I understand the importance of a repro; I don't have one.

I did find the Steam thing.  I changed it to accessibility mode but the thing it launches there just says it can't connect in a loop and doesn't try to load the graphical component.

Here are instructions for Windows users for the most accessible experience, at least post Windows 10 and with NVDA (sorry Windows 7 Jaws users, I cannot help you...).  You can drop these somewhere if you want.

1.  Get the steam version. Steam then handles updates for you.
2. If you want to use the beta you have to fiddle around in Steam properties. Use NVDA mouse routing to right click on the Trawel entry in the library. After that enter on clickables works. Think it's hit properties, hit updates, and then switch it in there.
3. Everyone gets up in arms about terminal scrolling. This can be fixed. Get Windows Terminal from the appstore. Open it, go into settings, there's a combobox to set the default terminal app for Windows. Flip that to Windows Terminal instead of "let Windows decide". Note to coders: this is global, even though it's not in a global settings dialog, and will change your other terminals.
4. Open explorer.  Go to c:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\trawel
5. In there, find runtrawel.bat.
6. Hit applications key. Go to send to. Send to desktop.
7.  Go to desktop,. Find runtrawel.bat -shortcut. If the name bothers you, hit f2. Type trawel. Hit enter.
8 That should work.  If not go into properties for the shortcut and make sure "start in" is right as "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Trawel"  You must quote the value here, that is keep the "" around the path in that textbox.  It was right for me.  It should be right for you.  But who knows.

Hoping we can get compatible saves eventually so that being on the bleeding edge doesn't wipe things out (protip: Google Protocol Buffers solves problems, if you need a thing).  For anyone still with us on this thread my understanding is that version bumps take out saves at this time, but it also seems that games here are quite short ALA Slay the Spire, so that's probably not really a big deal.

There are some occasional things that don't seem to have legends particularly around comparing equipment, and indeed it's also unclear why eq level matters other than the raw stats.  It's also unclear sometimes whether or not a number in the combat screens is modified or not, e.g. buffs to hit rate.

That said I don't think I've seen something with mechanics as deep as this can get since Slay the Spire.  Obviously there are things out there but blindness means that I don't, well, see them.  If you bring it together into a cohesive experience with some sort of central quest or goal or something, and make sure that things are clearer as to how stuff interacts rather than just sorta hoping people stumble into it, I think you've got something that could be quite popular.  Right now you kinda have to have a coder mindset to get this working and figure it out.

Wow, Proton actually managed to get the game working when I ran it to download the windows files... I'm honestly shocked. But, the Terminal Only launch option should launch JUST the terminal, without setting it to autoconnect.
I'll have to see what's up with the connection on the other launch setting, it works for me but there's so many ways it could go wrong.

Skill Configurations (including magic) have a level. This level is dependent on what attributes the attack uses, and can be anywhere from 4 levels lower than your character level to four levels higher. Most magic scales off of Clarity.
On the screen that lets you set up what skills you're using to attack with, it'll also list the 'expected level' of those skills. You'll also want to get the Archmage archetype so you can roll 2 magic attacks instead of just one if you're trying to make a magic-centric build.
However, magic builds don't need to neglect melee- and some of the magic feats also boost melee attacks! For example, Flamewarden, Frostwarden, and Shock-Savant share a skill (Elementalist) that increases elemental skill damage by 10%. (This does not stack, no skills do.) But they also each grant a skill that replaces 'Grazed' wounds with elemental wounds, letting your melee attacks that don't roll a wound to inflict elemental debuffs instead, with the chance of it happening scaling per x-omantic skill you have.

You increase your attributes by selecting feats and archetypes- if you don't pick skills that match your attacks, the attacks won't keep scaling. They'll also stop being able to scale after you select all the feats and archetypes for that stat, which is a problem if you're 10+ in level until I make more feats.
The benefit is supposed to be it scales instantly without you having to find better equipment- but this is also a downside, since killing 20 different guys means you got to pick the best melee weapon out of 21 sets of equipment.
EDIT: The current max attributes without Perks are 197 strength, 214 dexterity, and 239 clarity. The base stat in each is 100 at level 1 and the game expects 10 per level.

for those of you that have the game on steam, does it work and how so?