Together in Battle Dev Log

[CraigStern]

- the game's procedural map generator can now generate bridges across large stretches of hazard tiles, not just one-tile gaps.

- created the first two types of proc gen puzzle encounters for the exploration area of the cavern.

- new portrait added to the game: Generic/Specter.

- fixed: clicking on a bridge or on stairs while moving in exploration mode would cause the selected character to move adjacent to (rather than onto) the clicked object.

- fixed: when ending dialogue in exploration mode, the game would select the next character in the army rather than re-selecting the last selected character.

- fixed: the land movement sprite had become misconfigured in movement tiles during Exploration Mode.

[CraigStern]

- created the third type of proc gen puzzle encounter for the exploration area of the cavern.

- added a new sound effect to the game: Button Click.

- floor buttons now play Button Click when stepped upon rather than the more aggressive Stone Block Move sound effect.

- you can now talk to Explorers while on a Cavern Exploration job.

- you can now talk to Caravan Guards while on a Caravan Guarding job.

- increased the difficulty of caravan guard battles slightly.

- added a couple of kitten name variants.

- when calling LoadConv, the new conversation keeps the existing trigger character and secondary character of the prior dialogue or script by default.

- new tag used to affect randomized battlefield placement: AvoidOwnArmy. This causes the game to weight placement of the tagged unit so that members of the unit's own army are treated as enemies, enforcing minimum distance rules.

- new tag used to affect randomized battlefield placement: AvoidArmyObjects. This causes the game to weight placement of the tagged unit so that destructible objects belonging to various armies are treated as characters, including them when calculating minimum distances.

- fixed alignment on the floor button destructible object.

- fixed: shoving an object while in exploration mode could result in the game displaying that object as the current selected unit in the actions bar.

- fixed a null error that could occur when clicking to Use a triggerable object when in exploration mode.

- fixed a range error that could occur when generating spawn positions for destructible objects in proc gen maps.

[CraigStern]

Gave more artist feedback.

- the game's procedural map generator can now generate bridges across gaps between cliffs.

- switched the game's internal operate() function over from if-else statements to a switch statement for increased performance.

- added animations to the portraits of characters reacting to the player's choices during the Beggar event.

- fixed a few awkwardly worded dialogue variants where characters talk about their life backgrounds.

- fixed: when shown in battle, the info bar was layering on top of UI elements that should have taken priority over it.

- fixed: when shown in battle, particle effect velocity for the info bar was not scaled properly.

- fixed: due to a typo, the game was unable to grab the item template for Fur-Lined Cloaks.

[CraigStern]

- wrote a new random event: Birthday Fan.

- received new cut scene background, integrated it into the game: Tavern_Dingy.

- updated the backgrounds for the Dusht random event and the gambling camp activity.

- updated AssetNames.xml with the Tavern_Dingy background and Button Click sound effect.

[CraigStern]

- finished up the Birthday Fan event, added it to the hopper of events the player can get.

- updated the Mustebeast Tent event so you can now pick a bunkmate from among everyone else in the roster, not just a selection of 4 random characters.

- corrected an error in the description for Medicated Bandages.

- cleaned up the "Grab" sound effect a bit.

[CraigStern]

- began working on a new, multi-part arena event.

- you can now leave the name parameter blank in the AddNPC script action, and so long as the NPC being added is a relative of some kind, the game will generate a name for them (as well as procedurally filling in all the other parameters you left blank).

[CraigStern]

Updated the Together in Battle store page a bit, downplaying the proc gen aspects of the game (which don't seem to be exciting players as much as I'd thought they might).

- worked on the new event; finished the narrative portion, created a rough draft of an associated battle.

- new tileset added to the game: Castle Sandstone! It's the same as the Castle tileset, but sandstone-colored.

- new sound effect loop added to the game: Running Water.

- the game now supports Species as an alternative to Race among string stats.

- fixed: using RemoveTag to strip a unit of its scriptID would remove the tag, but not the associated scriptID marker used to find it by the game.

- fixed: one variant of one of the hot-tempered victory barks was ungrammatical.

[CraigStern]

- scripted the new event battle.

- wrote a different background dialogue for pickpockets, burglars, and bounty hunters. (Previously, they shared the same background dialogue as gamblers, which could produce odd results.)

- for moves smashing an enemy up against the edge of the map, the collision damage preview now displays the collision just off the edge of the map instead of layering it under the ordinary damage reticle.

- new script action: KnockbackUnit. Pushes the unit in a specified direction for a specified number of spaces, as if they'd been shoved or subjected to a kinetic gust. Three parameters: unit name, direction, and number of spaces.

- fixed in the new long-bridge generation algorithm: on rare occasions, the game could produce bridges with an internal elevation of 99, rendering them impassable to non-flyers.

- fixed: on rare occasions, the proc gen map algorithm could generate more than one bridge tile on the same space.

- fixed: using the StopMusic script action and then resuming the track that was playing prior to StopMusic with PlayMusic would not work, as the game would think that track was already playing.

- fixed: character dialogue would animate, with accompanying babble sounds, even as a report covered the dialogue menu onscreen. In a branch with a ShowReport action, the game now initiates dialogue animation and babble sounds only after the report is closed.

[CraigStern]

- finished scripting Battle in the Northern Stepwell.

- new script action: ReactToDeath. Causes all characters in the specified roster(s) to behave as though the named character died while in their roster. They will suffer a morale penalty based on the strength of their Friendship and Romance with the named unit, will gain a memory of the event, and may become depressed or go into mourning for a period of time. Two parameters: character name, roster number(s).

- new script action: SetStringByClosestCharacter. Sets a string variable equal to the name of the character in the specified army (if used in battle) or roster (if used in a cut scene) who scores as closest with the named character: 1 pt per Familiarity level, 15 pts per Friendship level, 20 pts per Romance level. Parameters: Variable Name, Army or Roster Number, Character Name, Exclude Characters In List (optional).

- fixed: the AI could have characters inflicted with Immobilized status use Swim when in water or lava.

- fixed: localization-related changes to the code over the past few months caused the game to stop displaying the name of the status effect in "[Status effect] wore off" pop-up messages.

[CraigStern]

Gave artist feedback.

- new skill: Quick Twirl. Behaves just like Twirl, but the character can both move and use other skills afterward. Costs 2 energy.

- characters generated with the dancer background will now be set to learn Quick Twirl when they reach high levels.

- added Black as a battle background for dark spaces (like caverns and such).

- increased the consistency of physical trait effects on character stat growths.

- increased the maximum number of life skills and personality traits the game will track over the course of a playthrough to avoid duplicates from 12 to 18.

- when tracking life skills with alternate names (e.g. author/novelist, farmer/gardener, lawyer/judge, etc.), the game now accounts for all variants, not just the variant chosen, thus foreclosing the other variant from being chosen by another character.

- added a commonality attribute to various life skills so that ones with duplicative effects (like historians, professors, lawyers, and judges) are now collectively no more likely to be chosen than any other.

- fixed: flyers who were dunked into water or lava by virtue of being Heavy would, upon swimming to an adjacent tile of liquid terrain after Heavy status wore off, immediately resume flying. Such units must now swim back to land (or a bridge tile) to recover Flying movement.

- fixed: it was possible (albeit mathematically unlikely) for a character's NPCs to be generated sharing that character's same first name.

- added parameter count error-checking to a bunch more script actions.

[CraigStern]

- new skill: Create Fire. Creates Fire on an open space within 2 tiles of the character. Costs 8 energy.

- new skill: Create Ice. Creates Ice Spikes on an open space within 2 tiles of the character. Costs 6 energy.

- Pyrokineticists now learn Create Fire later on in their skill progression.

- Cryokineticists now learn Create Ice earlier on in their skill progression.

[CraigStern]

- adapted pixel art visual effects from Pyro Blast and Cryo Blast to serve Create Fire and Create Ice.

- made Ice Spikes a bit more durable and dangerous and made Fire a bit easier to extinguish.

- it is now possible for a character activity to involve a second character without that character showing up or having their own activity used up.

- characters who have a crush on someone now gain a potential camp activity where they spend the evening fantasizing about their crush.

- reduced the daily chance of a character with -10 morale resigning from 35% to 25%.

- fixed: characters undergoing the second Lost Kitten event were not gaining the new Play with Kitten camp activity as intended due to a scripting error.

- improved in-game documentation of AddCampActivity and LearnCampActivity to better distinguish them.

[CraigStern]

Gave more artist feedback. Also:

- new item: Flower Garland. Worn on the neck; boosts morale by 1.

- if you choose to people watch during the Festival of the Ascendant Lights, you will now have an opportunity to buy a Flower Garland for 5 aura.

- you can now ask Rohit for a more in-depth explanation of the Psy Clash rules during the Festival of the Ascendant Lights if you opt to play games.

[CraigStern]

- began work on a virtual keyboard to allow text input when playing with a gamepad.

- created several new UI sprites for the virtual keyboard, including new text sprite symbols: Backspace, Confirm, and Arrow White L.

- added some animated portraits to the narration before meeting Gurdeep in the Festival of the Ascendant Lights.

- received new cut scenes backgrounds: Funeral, Funeral_Alt, and Temple Exterior. Integrated these into the game.

- the Temple Exterior background is now used when camp activities involve a character discovering or going to a temple.

- the Funeral background now appears when the funeral event occurs.

- fixed: the Crickets and CricketsAlt loops were not looping cleanly.

[CraigStern]

Gave artist feedback; began drafting the update post for next week's patch.

- fixed a formatting issue in the keyboard layout, adjusted text field formatting.

- added the number of the current save slot to generated log files.

- fixed: the game was sometimes overwriting proc gen equipment materials values for Together in Battle with old placeholder values, resulting the game not loading material names correctly and therefore failing to generate the correct names for weapon and armor images.