Together in Battle Dev Log

[CraigStern]

Worked on the proc gen battle algorithm!

-- the game now gives unnamed proc gen enemies names based on class and army name.

-- the game now places enemies in proc gen maps with much greater sensitivity to the pacing of these battles. Based on aggressiveness setting and how many enemies there are relative to the number of player characters, the game now places a certain proportion of enemies further away from the player spawns and automatically tags them with Passive, Pursue, and AggroGroup.

-- added an aggressiveness field to the proc gen map window in the map editor. The game now saves and loads the aggressiveness value range for each proc gen map.

-- added a fourth group of objects to the "Select Objects" portion of the proc gen map window in the map editor.

[CraigStern]

-- the game now serves up 100% proc gen arena league battles post-qualifier when the player opts out of tutorials.

-- balanced proc gen arena league battles for the correct difficulty.

-- nearly doubled the speed of the "fade out" animation for menus, making it much much harder to notice individual character portrait elements going transparent during the fade.

-- characters can no longer receive a wound level greater than 9.

-- began finally writing the Festival of the Ascendant Lights plot event.

[CraigStern]

-- created a Crowd Booing sound effect.

-- the game now actually plays a booing sound effect when you take too long in arena fights.

-- wrote a rough draft of the game credits.

-- removed Battle at Grabber's Grove (which simply wasn't as fun as the other early arena fights, in my opinion) and folded its tutorial on opening chests into Battle at the Oasis.

[CraigStern]

-- added a time limit to the league 1 qualifier battle.

-- added the booing sound to all demo fights as well.

[CraigStern]

-- added long grass to the proc gen arena battles.

-- the game can now generate distinct battle names for each instance of a proc gen battle, taking into account the most predominant tileset used in the map.

-- the game can now store scene names distinct from the file name of the current scene, and will default to displaying those player-facing names in the main game interface when they differ from the file name.

-- tweaked some of the AI's move-valuing formulas to further cut down on instances where the game thinks it's a good idea to have characters randomly attack bits of scenery.

-- fixed: the game was attaching TreatAsArmy tags to low-health destructible objects on proc gen battle maps.

-- fixed: the text overlay for the "double-click to auto-attack" tutorial was too long.

-- fixed: the game would delete the player's saved game after losing a battle in ironman mode even if the battle lost had a "defeat scene" specified.

[CraigStern]

-- made Battle at the Dry Mounds the last tutorial battle in the main campaign.

-- further increased the fade out speed of closed menus.

-- fixed inconsistent spelling of "maharaja" in some game events.

-- fixed MoveCam coordinates for the "grabbing item sacks" tutorial dialogue in Battle at the Oasis.

-- fixed: non-golem characters were able to get the physical traits Sturdy and Corroded.

-- fixed: the pessimistic practice camp activity narration had a variant that used "her" instead of the placeholder pronoun "hiser."

-- fixed: the game was overwriting generated map names upon reloading proc gen maps.

-- fixed: proc gen deployment barks broke during an upgrade to the character dialogue storage-and-retrieval system some months back.

-- removed a few Kind deployment lines that didn't fit the context of Arena battles.

[CraigStern]

Capturing footage for a new trailer! In the meantime:

-- fixed: levitating characters moving onto a fly-only object, then moving off of it after Levitate wore off would sink into the ground. Flying characters now display above fly-only objects when they move onto the same space as them, the same as non-flying characters.

-- fixed: an outdated version of a character name was showing up in a plot-related cut scene.

-- fixed: the game was detecting forced seeds on proc gen maps even where none were specified, forcing all such maps to generate using the same seed.

-- bumped up the knockback on Kinetic Gale to 3; created a new kineticist skill called Kinetic Wind with knockback 2 to replace it, and learned earlier on.

[CraigStern]

-- fixed: the proc gen map name function was producing null errors when used without a biome specified for the map name generation.

[CraigStern]

Got the new trailer up and released the demo for Steam Next Fest!

-- added 1 space of knockback to Trueshaft and slightly lowered damage.

-- added a specific sound effect that plays when small plants are destroyed.

-- added a specific sound effect that plays when objects made of stone are destroyed.

-- added a specific sound effect that plays when trees and objects made of wood are destroyed.

-- fixed: the game wasn't saving or loading unit-specific particle effect settings. (This wasn't a problem before, as they weren't being used for anything--but now they're used to determine which destructible objects should make the above sound upon being destroyed.)

-- fixed: bonus damage from colliding with a damaging object (e.g. Spiked Barricades) was not being applied when the character had been knocked back multiple spaces due to the game checking the wrong space for purposes of "counterattack" range.

-- fixed: Together in Battle was connecting to Steam as Telepath Tactics Liberated.

-- fixed: the game was creating cosmetic connectors on land tiles for bridges being built at elevations above the land.

[CraigStern]

-- laid some groundwork for an in-engine card-based minigame.

-- added a new Stone Golem skill: Hurl. It's basically Throw, but it goes 4 spaces and deals twice as much damage.

-- adjusted Stone Golem skill progression so they start with Shove at level 1 and gain Toss or Throw in the early levels following.

-- fixed: the tooltips for the item buttons for individual character inventories within the Reserve Supplies screen were formatted slightly differently than the tooltips for item buttons everywhere else in the game, causing them to not display the third line of text for longer item descriptions.

-- fixed: you could get a character to learn Book of Power Mastery very, very early via the "skill advice" event. The event now prevents Book of Power Mastery from appearing among the options for what the character should learn next.

[CraigStern]

-- came up with the names and core principles of the religions attached to the world's various deities.

-- religion is now a bio detail created when proc gen characters are generated.

-- improved the religious "practice" camp narration variations by adding in references to a character's specific god and religion.

-- wrote new religious "pray" camp narration variations for each specific religion.

-- differentiated the religious death monologues by character religion.

-- the game now makes a note of hometown size when generating background dialogue for characters.

-- added a new location characters can be from: Screwtown, the shantytown located outside the Psy Academy walls.

-- wrote more proc gen background dialogue variants.

-- wrote a new nicknaming dialogue variant for serious characters.

-- wrote a new "weapon warning" camp activity variant for vindictive characters.

-- wrote a new secret dialogue variant for kind characters.

-- wrote some new compulsive "cleaning" camp narration variations.

-- fixed a typo in one of the religious "practice" camp narration variations.

-- rewrote a rather awkward "like" line.

[CraigStern]

-- religious characters can now spend the evening searching for--and, once they find one, visiting--a temple to their deity in town. (Characters who worship deities native to Dese will have a much easier time finding a temple.)

-- added an "associated feeling" parameter to the NPCsToList action, allowing the game to narrow NPCs by whether a character associates happiness, sadness, or anger with them.

-- added an "associated feeling" parameter to the -NPC:X- special character, allowing the game to narrow NPCs by whether a character associates happiness, sadness, or anger with them.

-- the game can now take a character's relationships with members of their family into account when procedurally generating dialogue and barks.

-- proc gen character dialogue about their family background now changes based on how the character feels about the people who raised them.

-- substantially expanded the pool of proc gen character dialogue about family backgrounds.

[CraigStern]

-- finished up the basic set of family background dialogue variants.

-- changed the Avalanche prestige class for Stone Golems; instead of getting Charge, they now get to use Toss without ending the turn and get 50% off the energy cost of Throw.

-- adjusted spriggat portrait size to more accurately reflect their scale.

[CraigStern]

-- fixed: the game wasn't tracking league progress from beating proc gen arena battles, and wouldn't trigger related plot events.

-- fixed: sound loops from proc gen battles weren't being stopped upon return to camp.

-- removed the "howling wind" sound loop from storms during proc gen battles, as it was overly loud.

-- fixed: the game was no longer correctly referencing activity narration for the solo gambling camp activity.

-- fixed: elevated spaces in proc gen battlefields weren't having their flyer elevation set, resulting in flying characters and fly-only objects sinking into elevated terrain.

[CraigStern]

-- altered the very first proc gen arena battle to align with the organizer's dialogue (i.e. it's easier and you mostly fight engineers).

-- arena battles now start to scale in difficulty a bit the further along you get in a league.

-- fixed: fruit trees in proc gen arena battles weren't dropping fruit when destroyed.