Developer's Log

[CraigStern]

You can now set character starting Energy on a team-by-team basis using the new Fatigue condition.

Fatigue take two parameters: army number and starting fatigue level. Starting fatigue level is a number between 0 and 1, and represents the percentage of a character's energy that will be missing at the start of a battle. 0 is 0% fatigue; 1 is 100% fatigue; 0.5 is 50% fatigue; and so on.

So, for example, this would make the player (army 0)'s characters start off with no Energy:

Code Select Expand

<Condition>Fatigue,0,1</Condition>

This would make the enemy (army 1) start off with its characters at half Energy:

Code Select Expand

<Condition>Fatigue,1,0.5</Condition>

(By default, the game starts all armies with a fatigue of 0.65, meaning that characters spawn with 35% of their maximum energy.)

[CraigStern]

Fixed a bug where the game wasn't parsing scripts defined in individual levels.

Fixed a bug where all script actions were getting lumped together as if they were a single action.

Fixed a bug where using SetStat to increase a character's damage or drain amounts would sometimes send their health or energy into the negatives.

Added scripting documentation to the manual.


The installers have been updated online.

[CraigStern]

I've updated the map editor with a slew of bug fixes! There are no longer issues with loading or saving maps, and problems relating to loading the game's tilesets, objects and character classes have been resolved.

I've updated the map editor installers online; Map Editor Tier backers should download and replace their installs. (Note: you must also update your copy of the game itself if you want the updated map editor to work properly!)

[CraigStern]

You can now hold down Shift and mouse around the battlefield to get a description of whatever tiles the mouse cursor passes over, including tile type, damage, element, space bonuses, and current elevation.

Tiles now have a desc attribute describing the type of tile it is (Water, Grass, Dirt, Rock, Lava, etc.) This is displayed in the tile description pop-up.

I've finished adding in all the attributes for the new Cave tiles, and have given every tile in the game a description!

I've given certain tiles bonus / penalty properties as well. Water tiles now give limited heat resistance, as do snow and ice tiles. Ice tiles reduce a character's dodge and accuracy stats.

Also: as sort of an experiment, I've changed the Dawbry battlefield a bit to see if people like it better. This one has elevation effects, and is a little bit trickier to navigate.

Finally, we now have a bunch of awesome new destructible object graphics from Lorne Whiting, but I haven't added them into the game just yet. That's on the to-do list for tomorrow!


The installers have been updated online.

[CraigStern]

A couple of tweaks to the map editor:

  - the map editor now supports elevations from 0 to 99 (previously, it was 0 to 9);

  - the dialog editor now supports additional characters in its parameter text boxes.


The map editor installers have been updated.

[CraigStern]

I've been integrating a ton of new destructible objects into the game. Here is a screenshot showing a sampling of the new goodies we'll soon have available to play with. :)

[CraigStern]

I've just made it so you can trigger OnTalk dialog with enemies as well as allies.

I've just integrated a bunch of new door graphics into the game.

I've coded in support for opening and closing doors. Characters can move after opening or closing a door, but the action counts as an attack, so the character won't be able to attack afterwards.

[CraigStern]

Here are some more of the new object graphics, as well as a shot in the middle of me testing door opening / closing. :)

[CraigStern]

I've updated the installers online. ;)

[CraigStern]

Doors now have a third state in addition to open and closed: locked! Locked doors cannot be opened without a key.

The game determines whether your character has a key in its inventory by looking for an item with useableWith="key"; if a character tries to open a locked door and the game finds a key in that character's inventory, the game will tell you that the door is locked and ask if you want to use a key. You can then use a key to open the door, or save your key for later.

If you have no key, the game simply won't let you open the door, and you'll have to either find a key or try bashing the door down.

[CraigStern]

New dialog actions: Lock and Unlock.

Lock/6,0 will lock the door at coordinates 6 , 0.

Unlock/6,0 will unlock the door at coordinates 6 , 0.

[CraigStern]

Well, I took care of a bunch of administrative nonsense today, as well as designing and ordering a standing banner for use at conventions.

I've also made some headway in drafting advanced "promotion" classes. My original plan was to give the player a choice of multiple promoted classes upon promotion, a la the GBA Fire Emblem games, but it's becoming obvious that there's no way I can make that happen in a reasonable time frame. The sheer number of them would make balancing extremely difficult, and there are still too many character animations left for the regular classes as it is. So I'm going to handle this more like Shining Force / the more recent Fire Emblems: one promotion type per class (though I might consolidate a couple).

Here's what I have so far:

Whisper (Assassin Promotion) – Difficult to hit, incredibly mobile assassins. Can use Daggers and Throwing Knives. Gains +25% Dodge and +1 Speed.  Learns Vanish (for the rest of the turn, makes it so the Whisper simply escapes the battlefield unharmed if reduced to zero health).

Duelist (Swordsman Promotion) – Fast, good at going toe-to-toe with powerful physical enemies. Can use Swords, Main Gauches and Rapiers. Gains +15% Dodge, +10% Accuracy and +10% Pierce Resistance.  Learns Feint, Disarm.

Halberdier (Spearman Promotion) – A versatile soldier with multiple weapon masteries. Can wear heavy armor and use large shields; can use Axes, Spears. Gains +1 Strength and +5 Health.

Machinist (Engineer / Crossbowman Promotion) – A medium-tier fighter with Golem-specific support skills. Learns Oil, Repair and Engine Boost. Can use Wrenches, Crossbows. Gains +1 Strength, +3 Energy and +1 Health.

Caduceus (Psy Healer Promotion) – The caduceus is a master of shields. Learns Static Shield, Solid State Shield, Far Shield. Can use the Indigo Orb. Gains +1 Psy Defense and +4 Energy.

Deathspeaker (Skiakineticist Promotion) – The deathspeaker is skilled in all things concerning negative emotion. Learns Feedback, Dark Vortex and Vengeance. Gains +2 Psy Power.

Nightstalker (Shadowling Promotion) – The nightstalker is a devious fighter, able to teleport around the battlefield and delude enemies into seeing false copies of itself. Learns Shadowport, Hallucination. Gains +2 Health and +2 Energy.

[CraigStern]

Frozen characters now appear visibly frozen on the battlefield.

[CraigStern]

Similarly to how Frozen characters turn blue, Burning characters now turn reddish-orange.

[CraigStern]

I'm now working on adding triggers to destructible objects.

There will be two types: Pressure and Switch. Objects with Pressure triggers will activate the moment a land-based character or other object occupies its same space; Switch triggers will require the character to deliberately activate the object.

In addition to a type parameter, object triggers will have a second parameter: the name of the script to run when the item is triggered. Nice and simple. ;)