Developer's Log

[CraigStern]

--created new, more powerful versions of existing equipment

--created new graphics for the Duoterre Axe, Duoterre Lance and Duoterre Spear

[CraigStern]

--new attacks added to the game for promoted Cavaliers (i.e. Mantis Knights); Halberd and Charge. I made a video showing Charge in action, and created some unique animations for the attack as well (attached below).

--because Charge involves both moving the attacker and damaging / knocking back a second target, I couldn't just rely on the Move element to make the attacker move here; I had to code some new functionality into the combat engine. Luckily, this proved easier to accomplish than I had feared it would.

To create an attack where the attack moves toward the target, you may now give the attack a moveType of ToTarget:X, where X is the number of frames by which to delay moving toward the target. Charge, for example, has moveType="ToTarget:18" because the Charge animation has 6 animation frames of wind-up (and thus, it takes 6 x 3 = 18 in-game frames before the character ought to start moving toward the enemy). Note that you won't see the delay represented in the video, as I created the video before coding the delay feature.

[CraigStern]

The monthly update has been posted! ;)


--new script action, ItemDrop. This drops a single item sack onto a randomly chosen space on the battlefield. This action is primarily for use with OnLoaded triggers for purposes of helping to randomize the battlefield (although it can obviously be used partway through single player battles, if you don't mind the sudden, nonsensical appearance of item sacks from out of nowhere).

Has one or more parameters: the Name(s) of the Item(s) contained within the item sack.

Just as with item drops which occur in multiplayer, the game will be more likely to choose spaces that are closer to being midway between the armies' spawn locations, and will not use spaces within a certain minimum distance of any character's spawn point. If no suitable spaces exist, the item drop will not occur.

[CraigStern]

--new optional fifth parameter for the OnGrab dialog trigger: Item Name. This makes it so that the dialog is triggered only if the item sack contained the item named.

Thus:

Code Select Expand

OnGrab/-ANY-,0,-1,-1

will trigger the associated dialog as soon as any unit from army 0 grabs an item sack located anywhere on the battlefield, while

Code Select Expand

OnGrab/-ANY-,0,-1,-1,Sword of Light

will trigger the associated dialog only when a unit from army 0 grabs an item sack containing the Sword of Light.

--updated the manual with documentation on the OnGrab dialog trigger.

[CraigStern]

--the game now has a procedurally generated battle in the woods to gather supplies and ward off starvation when your group starts running low on food. You have to gather a certain number of apples to win the battle. Monthly battles progress: 1 out of 10 complete!

--new destructible object: the apple tree. Chop it down, and it drops apples! ;)

--new special character meant to be used in concert with the OnGrab trigger: -GRABBEDNUM-. This is a stand-in for the number of items that you grabbed which matched the item name parameter in the OnGrab trigger. Thus, if you want to collect a certain number of a certain type of item, you can use -GRABBEDNUM- to keep track of the actual number of that item you've collected. (Needless to say, I use this during the apple-gathering mission; it's particularly important there since certain item sacks drop with multiple apples in them.)

--fixed a bug in the common inventory that displayed one character portrait too many in the first row of character at the bottom of the screen.

--the random level generator now accepts a CorridorWidth setting of 0, in case you don't want it to generate connecting corridors on your level. (Note: if you do this, you need to set the RoomsDensity high enough to ensure that all rooms connect, or else you're likely to end up with unreachable rooms!)

[CraigStern]

--fixed a few gaps in the Grass tileset; there are now both grass and dirt transition versions of 1-square chasm and water tiles.

--polished the cut scene where you meet Teresa and Phoebe a bit

[CraigStern]

--drafted a rough version of a battle against a pyrokineticist, cryokineticist, skiakineticist, photokineticist, and a psy healer with her stone golem servant, guarding a pass that Emma and the gang need to pass through. Not gonna lie--I'm looking forward to playtesting this one. ;)

[CraigStern]

--Create attacks now earn the creator 18 experience per usage. (This will make leveling up Engineers way the heck easier.)

[CraigStern]

--attacks that move other characters around now give the attacker 10 experience points even if they don't deal damage

--created a new merchant scene where he sells a steamthopter as his special deal of the day ;)

[CraigStern]

--you now get experience for healing any allied unit, not just characters on the same team.

--experience points now get a boost based on the cost of the attack used to garner the experience. An attack costing 4 energy will get a +4 to experience points gained; attack costing 12 energy will get a +12 to experience points gained; an attack costing 0 will get +0; and so on. (Note: these bonuses apply after scaling, not before.)

This should help characters with very energy-intensive attacks (e.g. psy fighters) to keep up in the leveling with non psy user characters (e.g. swordsmen).

[CraigStern]

Bug fixes:

--you can now launch melee attacks across large elevation differences if the attacker is standing on a bridge tile. (This prevents weird situations where you have bridges spanning chasms and characters at the bottom edge of the bridge can't attack downward.)

--the game no longer plays "dunking" sound effects or spawns splash particles when a character is pushed onto a water or lava tile that is covered by a bridge.

--fixed a bug where swimming characters could swim onto wall or cliff tiles rising out of the water / lava.

--fixed a bug where character sprites did not display properly while swimming.

--fixed a bug where the pop-up info over the Swim button did not display properly, and would causing flickering of the preview reticles onscreen.

[CraigStern]

--created a rough draft of an new battle: the Hills of Coria ;)

--fixed the bug in Fera's room reported here

I've updated the game's installers online! :D

[CraigStern]

--further refined The Hills of Coria. I think it's good to go for now, pending further changes after playtesting later in the month. That's 3 out of 10 battles created; on to number 4!

[CraigStern]

--fixed a bug

--tweaked The Hills of Coria a bit

--tweaked the Telepath Tactics AI to encourage it to shove your characters into water more often

--added some expository character dialog to the last couple of battles

--fixed a bug where an item sack dropping on the same space as a character would cause the game to temporarily think that that character could be walked through by other characters

--animated the promoted variation of the cryokineticist cast animation

[CraigStern]

--added treasure chests, an enemy stone golem to the Hills of Coria battle

--new advanced weapon type created: the Steam Crossbow