Together in Battle Dev Log

[CraigStern]

-- new destructible object added to the game: Rug.

-- added a new attribute to units: hasShadow. Can be set to true or false (unless found and set to false, this defaults to true).

-- added a new attribute to units: laysFlat. Can be set to true or false (unless found and set to true, this defaults to false).

-- fixed some jankiness in the way Spike Trap objects are displayed; removed the shadow from them and set them to lay flat.

-- set certain other objects to lay flat, including floor buttons, rubble, snare traps, iron jaw traps, and caltrops.

-- removed shadows from certain other objects whose bases are both visible and intended to blend in with the grass below (mainly flowers and reeds).

[CraigStern]

-- Psy Clash now supports "on turn" card effects that trigger every time your turn starts.

-- created new Bakery, Library, and Steam Engine minions; none of these can attack, but they give their owner +1 health, +1 card, and +1 energy, respectively, at the start of their turn each round.

-- created a new Iron Jaw Trap minion; cannot attack, but is guaranteed to deal 3 damage to an enemy minion it intercepts.

-- within Psy Clash, persistent effects on minions are now displayed in a blinking status effects icon that lists all of the active effects upon mouseover.

-- created a new Cryokineticist minion that permanently drops the opposing minion's power by 2 whenever they intercept or are intercepted.

-- created a new Photokineticist minion that can't be targeted by enemy direct effects; changed the Assassin's special ability to "switches lanes when intercepting an enemy minion."

-- placeholder minion card art can now be drawn from destructible object sprites as well as character sprites.

[CraigStern]

-- added support for the card minigame to battles as well as cut scenes! This way, it can be used in exploration mode.

[CraigStern]

-- started adding gamepad support for the card minigame...

[CraigStern]

-- finished adding gamepad support for the card minigame!

-- fixed: in cut scenes in gamepad mode, the Options button would sometimes inappropriately gain focus and open the options menu when selecting something else onscreen.

-- fixed: in Psy Clash, the player could directly target enemy minions with the "untargetable" trait.

-- added checks to the Psy Clash AI so it won't play effect cards on minions where that effect is already active (for instance, playing Terror on a unit that already can't attack).

[CraigStern]

-- finished creating 3D versions of the basic table, table with food, and table with beer (both regular and alt versions) that do not warp with camera perspective.

-- fixed: the Psy Clash AI could inappropriately double-play cards that grant energy or cards that summon minions in certain circumstances.

[CraigStern]

-- finished creating 3D versions of the table with dice, table with books, table with map, and table with papers that do not warp with camera perspective.

[CraigStern]

Hired a new pixel artist to help me produce new character sprites specific to TiB! Here's a sample of what he's produced so far:

[CraigStern]

-- received final sprites in all directions, integrated them into the game.

[CraigStern]

Hired an animator to create animations for the new sprites, negotiated for some further animations with a second animator.

-- fixed: there could sometimes be range errors when setting distance values in proc gen maps.

-- fixed: the game would sometimes fail to overwrite the scene display name upon loading a proc gen map, leading to it not generating a random name for the map.

-- fixed: the game wasn't correctly applying phase, particle, and impact sound properties to spaces in proc gen maps.

-- fixed: the game was not saving and reapplying the map seed for proc gen maps to mid-battle saves correctly.

-- fixed a dumb typo in the difficulty selection menus.

[CraigStern]

-- fixed: the game was determining facing incorrectly for AI-controlled characters using 0-range skills with asymmetrical AOE patterns (e.g. Hold).

-- fixed: the game was keeping the map seed for a proc gen battle in memory after beating that battle, meaning that any subsequent return to that proc gen map would reproduce the same battle from the saved seed.

-- fixed: when reloading a mid-battle save with holds active on the field, the holds would be placed but would not be visible to the player.

-- fixed: due to a typo, mood narration related to a specific character would display a placeholder phrase instead of the relevant character's name.

[CraigStern]

-- the enemy teams in arena matches now have procedurally generated names.

-- improved the backup routines for placing faraway enemy units in proc gen battles so they're less likely to end up being placed completely at random.

-- fixed: the "random drop" spawn algorithm wasn't playing nice with proc gen maps, resulting in units placed via the GenerateUnit and GenerateUnique script actions with coordinates of -1, -1 sometimes not spawning at all.

-- fixed: the ItemDrop script action wasn't functioning properly on proc gen maps.

-- fixed: the game was using the wrong name for league 0 proc gen maps if the player chose the tutorial track, leading to the game locking up after the handmade tutorial fights.

[CraigStern]

-- automated pop-up text about alterations to familiarity, friendship, or romance on the battlefield are now always locked to one line.

-- new parameter added to SpawnFloatingText and SpawnFloatingTextAt script actions: word wrap. Set to false to force pop-up text to remain single-line.

-- fixed: the game camera was cropping out important information when zoomed in to combat exchanges occurring on the bottom row of the battlefield.

[CraigStern]

-- when the player attacks a qualifier opponent in the qualifier tutorial map before destroying all of the dummies, the tutorial now skips ahead and activates the qualifier opponents.

-- when the player right-clicks a character and opens the character screen in Battle at the Overgrown Garden, the text overlay instructing the player to right0click a character now goes away.

-- added in a new proc gen arena map variant to League 0.

-- removed Battle at the Oasis from the tutorial rotation to get the player into proc gen maps faster, put some of the tutorial text from there into Battle at the Dry Mounds.

[CraigStern]

-- massively improved the water/lava shader; liquid terrain now undulates!

-- improved the visuals for Twirl: added a character animation, improved the skill timing, and made the swapping occur visually (rather than via an instantaneous teleportation a la Juxtapose).

-- added a new script action: SwapUnitPositions. This causes two named characters to visually swap positions on the battlefield as described above for Twirl. Two parameters: character 1's name and character 2's name.