Developer's Log

[CraigStern]

--The game now has a Feedback visual effect in-game and implemented!

--NPC villager sprites now all have walk animations, and are useable in-game.

I've updated the game's installer online.

(Note: parts of the official single player campaign, The Vengeance of Emma Strider, are playable in this build. They are not by any means in their final form! Among other things, the scene in the town of Adelbrae is currently incomplete, as is the subsequent battle with Gunther Lathe. I'll be working on all of that over the coming week or two.)

[CraigStern]

I've created little numerical icons corresponding to hotkeys 0-9 for the game's attacks; these icons are now loaded into the game's attack buttons.

[CraigStern]

I've added one final attribute to characters and objects: tags. This doesn't do anything just yet, but the plan is to let you add special modifiers to specific characters that can affect their behavior in the game. You'll be seeing a use of this new feature very shortly. ;)

[CraigStern]

I've extended the female Pyrokineticist "cast" animation from 13 frames to 20. This makes it so they attack animation no longer cuts weirdly short of the impact of the attack. (I'll take care of the male variant tomorrow.)

Also, here's a screenshot of the new attack button hotkey icons in action!

[CraigStern]

All right! New tag functionality is here. This is a two-parter:

• new tag, Passive -- this is an AI tag that tells the game to leave the tagged character in place unless a character wanders into attack range. I expect I'll mainly be using this for boss battles and fights where the enemy is occupying strong defensive positions.


• you can now assign tags on a per-character basis within battles in the exact same way you assign triggers--namely, you stick a tag="" attribute within the character's <Unit> tag, then fill it in. Tags assigned this way should be delimited by forward slashes, and each should have two properties delimited by commas: the action to perform (as of right now, this would be Add or Remove) and the name of the tag to be added or removed.

So, for example, let's say that in a particular battle, you want to give a particular character the Passive tag and remove a second tag called SomethingOrOther. Here is how you'd do that. Open up the map file for the appropriate battle in a text editor, then add the following to the character's <Unit> tag:

<Unit tag="Add,Passive/Remove,SomethingOrOther">0,1,Gunther/Lathe,0,16,Down,None</Unit>

That'll do it!

I will be adding in support for more tags as needed as I proceed with development. :)

[CraigStern]

You know that new lighting attribute I added into CharClasses.xml last month? You can now assign lighting on a per-character basis within battles in the exact same way you assign triggers and tags--by placing a lighting="" attribute within the character or object's <Unit> tag, then filling it in with RGB values delimited by commas. This should be especially useful for lighting different destructible objects around the map differently.

We now have a sweet-looking Dark Vortex sprite effect animation.

The male Bandit's Axe attack animation is completed in all four directions.

[CraigStern]

Oh, also: we have two new portraits, for characters Phoebe Wittler and Rebecca Flare. ;)

[CraigStern]

Fixed some bugs.

Added missing documentation about the -Y-, -X-, -NAME-, -LNAME-, and -FNAME- placeholders to the manual.

New dialog action: KillCharAt. It works just like KillChar, but it affects whatever character happens to be at the specified coordinates (i.e. it doesn't require a unique named character to work). Two parameters: Y coordinate and X coordinate.

Used all of this in concert with the new Passive tag to create the battle where the player first meets Gunther Lathe. Gunther hangs out at the top of the map with a posse of protectors, then retreats from the battle once the player kills four bandits.

[CraigStern]

New Condition: Go First. Takes one parameter, army number: this army goes first in this battle.

Single-player only.

[CraigStern]

Okay! More stuff.

--The first fight with Gunther Lathe is now finished, pending a couple of tweaks for polish later on.
--Fixed a bug that was preventing certain actions from behaving properly when triggered by an OnCharDeath trigger.
--Split the Dark Vortex effect animation into three sheets and extended its length by almost 50% in order to make it match the attack's traditional length from the previous games.
--Corresponded with artists
--Fixed a bug where the item sacks from random item drops showed up lit pitch black

[CraigStern]

Made a little promo video showing off the new, tweaked Dark Vortex animation: http://youtu.be/9xc6URRJjxE

[CraigStern]

--Map editor updated so it now preserves triggers, tags and lighting attributes within <Unit> tags in maps.
--I've added in some failsafes so the game no longer freezes if you accidentally use a MoveChar script action with a character that doesn't exist on the battlefield.

The game installers and the map editor installers have both been updated online.

[CraigStern]

--elongated male pyrokineticist cast animation from 13 frames to 20 to match the female pyrokineticist (whose animation I extended a little over a week ago.)
--new character portrait: Meridian the black spriggat.

[CraigStern]

--new optional attribute added to VFX: forward/back and left/right offsets. These are integers delimited by one of these things: |

The first tells the game how many pixels in front of the attacker to offset the effect animation; the second tells the game how many pixels to the right of the attacker to offset the effect animation. (A negative front offset value results in it being offset toward the rear of the attacker; a negative right offset results in it being offset to the attacker's left.)

How is this useful? Well, let's say that you don't want the Pyro Blast animation beginning right on top of the character; let's say you want it to begin about 20 pixels in front of the caster instead. You can now change this

     VFX[PyroBlast_1:OnSelf:12],VFX[PyroBlast_2:TowardTargets:60],VFX[PyroBlast_3:OnTargets:75]

to this!

     VFX[PyroBlast_1:OnSelf:12:20|0],VFX[PyroBlast_2:TowardTargets:60:20|0],VFX[PyroBlast_3:OnTargets:75]

[CraigStern]

Fixed up the cast animation some more; the down-facing part, in particular, looks much nicer now!