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A new engine!

Started by CraigStern, June 05, 2016, 05:39:11 PM

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CraigStern

-- wrote a new random event: a character spies a deal in town on a particular type of consumable item. You can send them back to town to get you 1 or 2 of that item at a discount; if you do, they'll be gone for the rest of the evening.

CraigStern

#691
Artist feedback! The game's key art is proceeding apace, and is already looking amazing. :D

-- the Action Bar now supports multiple "pages" of character skills, for units who have more than 9 skills. There are little buttons on either side of the skills buttons to allow paging through for units with more than 9 skills (the buttons do not appear when characters with fewer skills are selected).

-- new script action: LikesToList. Creates a list of the named character's likes. Four parameters, the latter two of which are optional; (1) character name, (2) list name, (3) exclude hobby (true or false), and (4) exclude misc. (true or false).

-- new attribute conditional type supported in UnitsToList: Likes. Winnows the list by units who like the specified thing (or, if a non-match is specified, it's narrowed by units who don't have the thing listed among their likes).

-- new stat conditional types supported in UnitsToList: Familiarity, Friendship, and Romance. Winnows the list by units to only those who meet the specified stat conditional relative to a specified other character. To specify the other character, simply put a space after the stat conditional type and then put the character's name. This, for instance, collects the names of all units in roster 0 who possess a romance score greater than 0 for the character Willow Heavenbeak:

UnitsToList/UnitsWhoAreIntoWillow,0,Romance Willow Heavenbeak:g:0,

-- fixed: saving characters without bio details in the character creator was producing a null error.

CraigStern

-- new stat conditional types supported in IfStatGoTo and IfStatRun: Familiarity, Friendship, and Romance. This checks the specified stat conditional relative to another character. Just as in UnitsToList, to specify the other character, simply put a space after the stat conditional type and then put the character's name.

This, for example, checks to see if Alice has a Romance value of less than 1 for Bob; if she does, then the dialogue tree proceeds to the branch named Get Turned Down (in which Bob is presumably turned down for, like, a date or something):

<Action>IfStatGoTo/Alice,Romance Bob,l,1,BRANCH[Get Turned Down]</Action>

-- added a new, optional boolean parameter to the IfListHasGoTo and IfListHasRun script actions: Contains Match. If set to true, the game will not check the list for an exact match with the supplied value, but rather, will check to see if any entries in the list contain that value as a substring (e.g.: a list containing Alice's Lance, Bob's Sword, and Craig's Bow would return true for the value Bob instead of rejecting it as an inexact match with Bob's Sword).

-- new script action: MatchesToList. Searches an existing list for entries containing the specified value as a substring; a destination list is set containing each entry that contains the value. Three parameters: (1) list name, (2) value, (3) destination list name. Has a fourth, optional boolean parameter: reverse match, which if true, will populate the destination list exclusively with entries that don't contain the value as a substring.

-- new script action: CullListToSize. Culls entries from the end of a list until it contains only the specified number of entries. Three parameters: (1) list name, (2) list size, and (3) cull from beginning (an optional boolean parameter; if set to true, all excess entries will be culled from the start of the list instead of being clipped off the end).

-- new event that uses all of the above (and a bunch of yesterday's additions) for its scripting: characters will now occasionally go to you for advice on gifts to get other characters! Answer correctly, and those characters will grow closer. :)

CraigStern

-- Engineers now start out with both Build Wood Bridge and Build Wood Barricade at level 1. (They simply weren't versatile enough to be worth using without both.)

-- evened out the impact of materials on helms, boots and shields in the procedural item generator; all have higher base values and lower material multipliers, making them each more useful even when generated with poor materials.

-- the shop interface now asks for confirmation before you buy any item.

CraigStern

#694
-- reduced the size of caravan wagon objects somewhat to avoid clipping into adjacent spaces.

-- updated the name of the My Games subdirectory where custom content goes from Telepath Tourney to Together in Battle.

-- increased the size of the page selector in the recruitment interface and gave it a drop shadow to make the presence of multiple pages of recruits harder to miss.

-- fixed: status effects symbols above characters could sometimes clip into 3D objects directly above the characters.

-- fixed: during deployment, swapping the position of two units could cause the game to miscount the number of deployed characters and inappropriately display a warning about having more characters to deploy.

-- fixed: it was possible to initiate a "give item" operation, click the giver, and move the giver--and the give tiles would remain onscreen on the spot they'd moved away from, still clickable to finish giving away the item. Give tiles now vanish if you click a unit to move.

-- fixed: you could use a skill granted by an equipped item, and then unequip, drop, or give away the item. This led to anomalous situations like Hovering using a Steamthopter or Sprinting using Runner's Cleats that you could then immediately pass to another character to use, on and on, until your whole team was flying with the same, single Steamthopter or running using the selfsame pair of cleats. You now cannot unequip, give, or drop an equipped item in the same turn you've used a skill granted by that equipment.

-- fixed: the Decoy ability was referencing an old name for the Decoy object (and thus, not creating anything when used).

-- fixed a null error that could occur when ending a battle.

-- finally fixed a thorny range error that could occur in camp activities due to the game pulling characters from one list when checking for viable two-character activity narrations, and another when actually assigning the activity partner. (Oops.)

-- fixed: a check designed to keep characters from accidentally using skills they don't have was preventing units in water or lava from swimming.

CraigStern

#695
-- fixed: Levitating characters weren't losing the Flying move type until the round after Levitation wore off. When a flying character loses flying, they now visibly drop into whatever liquid they were previously hovering above and get the Swimming move type.

-- fixed: same, but with flying characters afflicted with Heavy status when over liquid.

-- fixed: in both battle and in the map editor, flying characters spawning on hazard tiles would appear to spawn in the water, lava, chasm, etc. instead of above it.

-- fixed: flying characters who moved over bridge tiles above liquid would have their height adjusted upwards twice, resulting in them appearing to be in the space above their actual space.

CraigStern

Artist feedback! Getting very close to complete on the title art. :)

-- used the game's bespoke 2D particle system to add support for weather effects in cut scenes using the Weather condition! All weather types supported in battle are now supported in cut scenes: Rain, Heavy Rain, Storm, Snow, Heavy Snow, Blizzard, and Ash.

-- improved the performance of the game's bespoke 2D particle system.

-- fixed: it was possible for the game to produce a null error when parsing cut scene narration for dialogue or background data.

CraigStern

-- the cut scene editor now saves the conditions in loaded scenes.

-- there is now a conditions sub-window in the cut scene editor's scene settings window to add, edit, and remove cut scene conditions.

-- the cut scene editor now displays weather effects in the cut scene preview whenever it loads a cut scene with a Weather condition, and updates the weather preview based on changes made in the Conditions window.

CraigStern

-- received final box art for the game, integrated it into the title screen!

-- received new portrait art for Ishita Svaamee. Generated portrait data, integrated her into the game.

-- the AddCondition and RemoveCondition script actions can now be used to alter weather effects dynamically in cut scenes.

And now, I'm on my way to Seattle to volunteer for the Indie MEGABOOTH! Gonna see if I can drum up some interest among my fellow devs and/or obtain some feedback while I'm out there--work will resume next week.

CraigStern

I have returned! Unfortunately, I'm so tired that I couldn't focus on much today.

-- emailed an artist about designing the title logo for the game!

-- fixed a UI issue with the page picker in the save game screen.

-- fixed: while making cosmetic improvements to the game's save slot UI element, I inadvertently made it so you couldn't select unused save slots when starting a new game. (Oops.)

CraigStern

-- created a new proc gen dialogue type: individualized reaction dialogue to like and background lines! Wrote a ton of reaction lines in that vein with numerous internal variants, began laying the groundwork to incorporate them into character generation.

-- fixed: due to a typo, the game was never choosing individualized inter-character dialogue with the Talk activity at Camp, instead opting for narrated summaries.

-- fixed: the numbering on the save slots for New Game and Load Game menus on the title screen somehow got messed up, resulting in the game sometimes thinking you'd chosen the wrong slot.

-- fixed: if you copy-pasted a saved game file with a new slot filename, the game would still display the save file as being in the old numerical slot when you went to load it (or overwrite it with a new saved game).

CraigStern

#701
-- wrote out individualized reaction lines for most remaining personality types, and created a generic catch-all for the few I haven't done yet.

-- generated characters are now assigned a reaction line upon generation. Reaction lines are now added to character dialogue about their likes and background.

-- fixed: it was possible for characters to be generated with only a single greeting response, and if the game chose the second greeting response for that character in greeting camp activity dialogue, it would throw an error.

CraigStern

#702
-- wrote a few "reacting to friend's death" lines for characters.

-- characters are now generated with a line for reacting to a friend's death.

-- if a character falls in combat and the death rules are neither Back at Full nor Back at 1, the other character on the fallen character's army who is closest to them will say their death-reaction line immediately following the fallen character's death monologue. (If no character has a positive friendship level or romance level with the fallen character, however, then no one will give their reaction line.)

CraigStern

-- character death barks are now regenerated after each use, ensuring that characters don't just give the same reaction line over and over.

-- religious character lines referencing "god" now instead use the name of the particular deity worshipped by that character.

CraigStern

-- edited Battle at Grabber's Grove to make it easier for newer players to maneuver around.

-- added some dialogue before the Battle at Grabber's Grove presaging the changing weather.

-- gave the end-of-battle victory box some proper pop in and fade out animations.

-- fixed: it was possible for the game to freeze when a character leveled up after delivering a fatal counterattack to the last enemy on the battlefield during the enemy turn.

-- fixed: it was still possible for the game to throw an error with characters possessing only a single greeting response (apparently).

-- fixed a typo in one of the event lists that caused the game to try to load a non-existent dialogue tree.

-- fixed: a unit's focus gain was carried over from the last turn of a battle to the first turn of the subsequent battle (e.g. if they rested on the last turn of the previous battle, they'd gain 4 energy at the start of the next one).