Developer's Log

[CraigStern]

--Bandit pull animations, completed!

[CraigStern]

--new promoted unit graphics! Here are the latest drafts of the pyrokineticist, swordsman, mentalist and engineer.

[CraigStern]

--improved game behavior during exploration mode. It is no longer possible to not have a character selected when in exploration mode, and the game no longer displays blue movement tiles. Moreover, when in exploration mode, the arrow keys now move the selected character one space in the appropriate direction in lieu of panning the battlefield.

--the game now displays the hotkey for "Talk" when mousing over the Talk button

--the first room of Bloodbeard's Fortress is now complete, missing only the triggers to take the player to other rooms.

[CraigStern]

--new special character for scripts, conditions, and dialog: -SCENE-. The -SCENE- character will automatically be replaced by the name of the current battle or cut scene, as defined by the level's mapname attribute (i.e. not its file name).

--new optional parameter for AddTextOverlay: Number of Frames to keep the text overlay onscreen before making it automatically disappear. (Most self-disappearing text overlays in the game remain onscreen for 90 frames.)

--new stats that can be modified by SetStat: Y Coord and X Coord. These instantly place the affected character onto the new, modified coordinates. (Y Coord and X Coord can now also be used as parameters in IfStatGoTo, IfStatRun, and SetValByStat.) I am using this new functionality to place the character at the correct entrance when exploring a multi-screen area with different entrances, though it could also be used for teleporters or other things.

--updated the Actions and Replies parameter text fields in the dialog editor so they accept square brackets and hyphens

[CraigStern]

--created new room in the fortress with a bandit that you can gamble your money with! (And playing the exact same dice game as you played with Gamblin' Jack in Telepath RPG Chapter 1, no less.)

--you can now move seamlessly between the entrance area and the second floor.

--created a variant on the table destructible object graphic for games of dice.

--created a new sound effect for rolling dice.


I've updated the map editor installers online.

[CraigStern]

--new draft promoted unit sprites!

[CraigStern]

--created the beginnings of the basement / dungeon area in the bandit fortress

--WASD now behaves like the arrow keys in exploration mode; they move you around instead of panning the map

--you can now hold down arrow keys / WASD to keep moving when in exploration mode

--the "Player's Turn" notification no longer pops up when you load a scene in exploration mode

--when selecting Talk, Door, or Use, if there is only one thing adjacent to the character that can be interacted with in this way, the game now automatically interacts with it instead of making you click it

[CraigStern]

--fixed a map editor bug that was causing it to spawn all destructible objects with null triggers

--added a mezzanine to the first room of the fortress, accessible from the second floor

--gave feedback on another draft of the final boss music(!)

[CraigStern]

--created Fera's room

[CraigStern]

--new optional second parameter for AddSpeakerPortrait: character name. This lets you override the name of the speaker with a name of your choosing; this allows you to specify an individual generic character using an ID[] tag.

[CraigStern]

--new castle tile: wall with candle alcove

--new room created: barracks

--working on Fera's dialog tree now

[CraigStern]

--new dialog triggers: OnLockedDoor and OnUsing. The first is just like OnOpeningDoor, except that it's triggered by trying to open a locked door without having the necessary key; the second is triggered by using an object with a Use or UseOnce trigger on it. Both of these have two parameters, the Y Coordinate and X Coordinate of the door/object at issue.

--new reply type: LoseBattle. Causes the battle to end as soon as the player clicks, with army 1 victorious.

--new useableWith type for ItemClasses.xml: quest. Quest items are not useable in battle, and can only be dropped when within the common inventory. You can't permnantly get rid of them except through scripts; they're things you carry around with you for plot reasons, essentially.

[CraigStern]

--Fera's dialog tree in the fortress is now complete!

Due to some frustrations around the game's inability to handle scenes where you can talk to multiple different characters who have identical names, I've added ID[] support to more aspects of the dialog system:

  --you can now use ID[] special characters for OnTalk trigger parameters. This was much trickier and more time-consuming to program than I was hoping, unfortunately--but on the plus side, this now means that player-triggered conversations with generic characters are now much easier to accomplish!

  --you can now use an ID[] special character in lieu of the speaker name in dialog. This will not only use the correct name for the character, it will also cause the game to automatically highlight and focus the camera on the correct character even when the scene has multiple characters of the same name! (This eschews the need to rely on AssignSpeakerAtCoords, which obviously doesn't work very well if your characters move around during the scene.)

[CraigStern]

--further progress made on the bandit fortress area; I'm fitting in some actual role-playing stuff there, which is nice.

--new hotkey: 'O' is short for "open/close door"

--after opening, unlocking, or closing a door, or after using an object on the battlefield, the game now automatically reselects the current character for continued movement instead of making you click them again. (Just addressing a common annoyance there.)

[CraigStern]

--new dialog trigger: OnLoaded. Runs the dialog just as soon as the level loads, right before the loading screen is removed. This lets you make changes to the level via scripts before the player is able to see them happening onscreen.