Developer's Log

[CraigStern]

The game now has a little "equipped" symbol to let you know which items are equipped when you're in your inventory.

Also, here are some screenies of the new info box graphics.

[CraigStern]

Fixed a bug where you could skip past dialog branches while character attacks were still playing, causing syncing problems (and in some cases, making it so the attacker's turn would not end).

[CraigStern]

Added a new dialog script option: PlayLoop. This plays a sound loop seamlessly in the background of the level; to be used for ambiance. This action takes one parameter: the name of the loop. Right now there are only two loops available: Crickets and Crowd. To silence a loop that is already playing, run PlayLoop with the parameter None.

Fixed a bug where the game wouldn't consider a team defeated if they lost one of multiple characters they had to protect during the battle. (To wit: where you have multiple characters to protect via Protect Char conditions, losing any one of them will now lose you the battle, as intended.)

[CraigStern]

New interface nicety: we now have custom cursors in-game! Aside from looking swank, the fact that I can swap these out at will means that I'll be able to make it super intuitive when things can be grabbed and dragged, or else just clicked. (This is kinda important for newer players, but I could see it being helpful for veterans as well.)

[CraigStern]

I've now added hooks into the code governing when the cursor changes into a hand versus an arrow; it's working quite well, I must say. :)

Just for fun, here is another pic showing off some of the latest interface goodies.

[CraigStern]

A small update to the map editor--it now formats XML files better so it's easier to distinguish between different map elements. It now also puts spaces in between different conversations so it's easier to edit them by hand (if you ever have the need to do so).

I've updated the map editor build online.

[CraigStern]

Updates!

--New portraits!

--Wrote new scenes and characters!

--We've finalized a bunch of the music for the game. There are less than half a dozen tracks left to compose at this point.

--Attack icon revisions are now complete.

--The Deployment screen now has a button that open the Common Inventory so you can manage your army's inventory before the battle starts.

--Extended cursor logic so it turns into an arrow during dialog, and when mousing over interactive tiles (move tiles, attack tiles, use tiles, give item tiles, etc.)

--Fixed a bug that would cause the character to start animating its attack before the effect animation loaded if the attack animation loaded first.

[CraigStern]

--Walk animations are in for 5 NPC sprites (all of the villagers except for the little girl).

--We now have an effect animation for Big Shield!

[CraigStern]

--Fixed a bug that caused effect animations with frames not sized at 128 x 128 to be misaligned when they played on the battlefield.

[CraigStern]

--Created a new battle in-game.

--New portrait: Gavrielle Hashmal.

[CraigStern]

Telepath Tactics now supports two more VFX spawn locations: OnCenter, which is basically for large area-of-effect animations (e.g. Dark Vortex, Pyro Hail, etc.); and TowardCenter, which is for projectiles that will end in an OnCenter effect (e.g. Light Bomb).

While OnTargets will spawn a copy of the visual effect on every character targeted by a skill, and OnSelf will spawn a single copy of the effect over the character using the skill, OnCenter will spawn a single copy of the effect centered over the attack tile the player clicked when launching the attack.

TowardCenter, in turn, spawns the effect at the OnSelf location and moves it to the OnCenter location over time.

[CraigStern]

I was feeling the need to come up with some new, purely mental skills, so here's a new shadowling attack: Decoy. The shadowling causes the enemy to hallucinate a false copy of itself. ;)

(This one is going to be purely for single player, since the decoy will "fool" the AI in a way that it would presumably not fool an actual player.)

New Photokineticist attack: Blinding Cloak. This blankets the target in blinding light, making them harder to hit. (Raises Dodge.)

Two other new attacks have been created for the Bandit class: Throw Axe and Armor Rend. Throw Axe is basically a ranged attack that you get when you equip throwing axes, while Armor Rend has a chance to make the target Softened (substantially reducing physical attack resistance).

[CraigStern]

New thing: when an attack with an unusual atkAffects attribute hits, it'll now name the stat being affected in the little "damage" pop-up.

So, for instance: Blindng Cloak does not affect Health or Energy; it affects Dodge (because atkAffects = "Dodge" in its entry in Attacks.xml). So now the numerical pop-up will say, for instance, "+9 Dodge" instead of just "+9" when the attack lands.

[CraigStern]

--putting "Either" for a character's gender will now randomize the character's gender even if that character has a non-random name. (Basically, this allows the game to now randomize the gender of enemies in single player.)

--created an Axe attack sound effect.

--continuing work on the battle at Adelbrae and the scenes leading up to it (see screenshot below).

[CraigStern]

I had a playtesting party last night, which resulted in us finding about two dozen bugs (some of them rather serious). I spent all day today fixing as many as I could. Among other things, I fixed the following:

--satchel charges now explode properly once more
--the Tutorial is now fixed and working once again
--alliances now work properly again
--movement bonuses weren't ending when they were supposed to; that's now fixed
--the turn timer no longer interferes with your ability to select stuff beneath it in multiplayer
--characters no longer end up with 4.22 million movement points after scripted movement during dialog
--the game no longer freezes when trying to start a new campaign or local match after playing the Tutorial
--the game no longer freezes when hitting the cancel button on the confirmation screen for attacking an ally
--the game now plays the right animation for Powder Bolt with the male crossbowman
--it is no longer mathematically possible to be killed while sparring with Silithis during the single player training battle

Also, I haven't confirmed this one yet, but the computer should no longer continue moving and attacking during a level-up sequence (as was happening when one of your characters leveled up from a counterattack during the CPU player's turn in single player mode).
--female lizardmen can now receive randomly generated names