Dev Log

[CraigStern]

-- balance tweak: moved the pyrokineticist in Rescuing Meridian back one space on the non-hard difficulties, reduced their level by 2 to help counterbalance how much more damage Burning does now.

-- replaced the hacky camera height fix from last week with a more robust fix. Turns out, the camera height was shifting while panning forwards and backwards because the angle of the camera pointer object had not been adjusted to counteract the new angle of the main camera back when it was rotated from 60 degrees to 70 degrees!

-- fixed: a mistake in item drop logic was causing non-permadead, player-controlled characters to drop a copy of their inventory whenever they fell in battle.

[CraigStern]

More marketing.

-- new dialogue trigger added: OnUse. Triggers dialogue when a character uses an item. Same parameters as OnDrop and OnGrab.

-- in Training, the game now removes the text overlay telling you how to use Bandages when Emma uses bandages.

-- fixed: the game would inappropriately cause text overlays to reappear after ending dialogue in which RemoveTextOverlay was called.

[CraigStern]

-- fixed some null errors that crept into the Reserve Supplies screen while I was making changes to render it usable with the gamepad.

-- fixed a graphical glitch that appeared with certain text tooltips in the Reserve Supplies screen while I was making changes to render it usable with the gamepad.

-- fixed: some MoveCam targets in a handful of scenes were no longer accurate after fixing the camera y-movement bug.

[CraigStern]

-- added a tutorial to Caravan Battle explaining to new players that a character turning blue means they can now be controlled directly.

-- improved the elevation tutorial in Rescuing Meridian.

-- fixed: the dialogue when picking up Meridian in Rescuing Meridian was lacking an associated facial expression.

-- fixed: some of Gulch's dialogue in Rescuing Meridian could be triggered twice: once by picking up Meridian, and again by virtue of the turn count.

-- fixed: the text overlay instructing the player to get to the escape point in Rescuing Meridian would appear over the dialogue.

-- fixed: more MoveCam targets were off by one on the y axis.

[CraigStern]

-- got the unique character sprites for Teresa Dayo into the game! (This involved editing the new Ability animation, which didn't exist in the original game, to sport Teresa's head.)

-- fixed some graphical mistakes on the Wrench animation spritesheets.

-- nerfed the Burning status effect a little bit, reducing damage per turn from 25% of max health to 20%. (It was just a little too lethal at 25%.)

-- hitting the cancel button (Esc on the keyboard) when the options menu is open now closes it.

-- hitting the cancel button when it would otherwise do nothing at all during a human player turn now opens the options menu (but only as part of a separate press; if the cancel button is actively being held down, it won't auto-toggle the Options Screen on and off over and over).

-- fixed: a TargetPreference tag that caused enemies to preferentially target Lakshmi Bana was not getting removed upon recruiting her in Caravan Battle.

-- fixed: there was a missing Recover condition in the Bandit Fortress Outer Wall scene, resulting in Emma carrying over any wounds and lost energy from Defending the Camp into the bandit fortress area.

-- fixed: activating a Use Once trigger by clicking on an object instead of clicking the Use button would result in the trigger remaining active on that object in perpetuity, allowing it to be used without limit.

-- fixed: Fera and the Coria Dogs Dastard were each still using "Fencer" as their class despite the fact that this class was since renamed to "Blade Dancer." This caused an incorrect class description to show up when mousing over it in their character screens.

-- fixed: more MoveCam targets were off by one on the y axis.

[CraigStern]

-- got the unique character sprites for Harriet Glaive into the game! (This involved editing the new Ability animation, which didn't exist in the original game, to sport Harriet's head.)

-- got the unique character sprites for Lakshmi Bana into the game! (This involved editing the new Ability animation, which didn't exist in the original game, to sport Lakshmi's head.)

-- fixed some graphical mistakes on the crossbowman and spearman walk animations.

-- added the Ability animation for Crossbowmen into the game, which I had neglected to do before for some reason.

[CraigStern]

-- removed the animated victory banner, as I could not seem to get Unity to display it in a consistent spot on different monitors for some reason. Replaced it with a banner that unfurls and then remains static.

-- shops now stock proc gen swords instead of talwars.

-- fixed: proc gen weapon prices were not proportionate to ordinary weapon prices in the main campaign.

-- fixed: AI enemy turns could overlap one another on certain occasions.

-- fixed: sometimes, the game would resume the AI's thinking and executing routines before the concludeAttack() coroutine had triggered, resulting in the AI incorrectly treating units (especially Bowmen) as having not yet moved and/or attacked when they had.

[CraigStern]

-- wrote alternate "death monologues" for all of the characters for when they fall under non-permadeath rules, all of which involve them retreating. Added it to the game.

[CraigStern]

-- new script action: LevelUp. This is the script action equivalent to the LevelUp and LevelTo unit tags; it will caused the specified character to quietly gain the specified number of levels. Three parameters: Character Name, Levels To Gain (integer), and Level To (integer -- optional). If you supply a Level To value greater than the character's level, the character will gain the difference in levels.

-- further reduced the difficulty of Rescuing Meridian for players on lower difficulties.

-- further pulled back the default zoom level for the battle camera.

-- increased item quality for proc gen weapons in the merchant scenes.

-- boosted the Psy stat for proc gen psy healer characters to better match premade units in the Vengeance of Emma Strider campaign.

-- boosted the Health stat for proc gen axefighters, swordsmen, barudit, spearman, and crossbowman characters to better match premade units in the Vengeance of Emma Strider campaign.

-- updated awkward wording in the battle primer item descriptions.

-- fixed: the AI was not accounting for self-targeting when evaluating skill effects for moves in which the current character moved to a new space; this caused healers to not heal themselves after running away from the enemy.

-- fixed: custom campaigns were using outdated portrait data for unique characters.

-- fixed: when purchasing unlimited-stock items, the shop interface wasn't updating to red-out items that became too expensive for the player to afford.

-- fixed: OnCharDeath dialogue wasn't triggering when characters died of damage from non-character sources (e.g. traps, status effects, or environmental hazard damage).

-- fixed: some of the tutorial text in Rescuing Meridian was inappropriately appearing during enemy turns instead of player turns.

-- fixed: when the game asked the player to confirm if they wanted to end their turn despite there still being a character who hadn't moved or acted, the game would not necessarily select that particular character if the player hit "no"; instead, it would select a more-or-less random character who could still move, rotate, or take actions.

-- fixed: the game was treating objects with Flying passability as though they were flying characters for purposes of enforcing elevation changes when they were moved between spaces of differing elevation by a skill with knockback, resulting in weird glitches like a chest being pulled from water to land simply embedding itself in the land.

-- fixed: characters could say a Heal bark when solely healing non-allied characters.

[CraigStern]

-- new script actions: IfPresentGoTo and IfPresentRun. These are the inverse of IfGoneGoTo and IfGoneRun, with the exact same parameters: they go to a specified branch or run a specified script if the named character is present on the battlefield.

-- the camera now auto-pans to follow unit movement in exploration mode.

-- fixed loads of little alignment issues remaining in some of the unit sprite animations, most noticeably the walk animations for spirits and stone golems.

-- edited, imported, and formatted dozens of Hurt sprite sheets created by Sean Hayden for use in the game.

-- created working animations for 15 of these sprite sheet sets.

-- coded Hurt animation triggers into the game for when characters are struck by an attack.

[CraigStern]

-- created working Hurt animations for a bunch more classes.

-- added a global "AI handicap" value to the game. Level 1: AI does not consider the effects of knockback. Level 2: AI does not consider the relative danger of various destination spaces in short-term movement. Level 3: AI does not give an extra score bonus to backstab attacks. Level 4: AI does not weight lethal attacks much more heavily than non-lethal attacks. Level 5: the AI doesn't distinguish between attack targets in terms of who will take a larger proportion of their health in damage (meaning that it will no longer deliberately pile up attacks on already-wounded characters).

-- new script action: AIHandicap. Sets the AI handicap level globally throughout the game.

-- the Observer and Recruit difficulty settings now set an AI handicap of 5, making the AI decidedly stupid; the Soldier, Veteran, and Tactician difficulty settings leave the AI fully un-handicapped.

-- added a "bravery in numbers" factor to the game's danger evaluation algorithm; the more allies they have nearby their move destination, the more that AI characters will now disregard the danger posed by enemies near that destination.

-- increased the Dodge boost from the Shining status effect to 30 to make it more useful.

-- made Observer difficulty even easier, adding 1.5x experience scaling and further stat buffs from Plot Armor (4 counterattacks, a bunch of reflexes, and increased strength) that render Emma and Sabrina enemy phase powerhouses.

-- fixed Meridian's facial expressions in the Camp scene.

-- the spearman in the Bandit Fortress Entrance battle now drops an Iron Spear when killed, just in case you forgot to give Harriet the spear from the scene before.

-- fixed: the game was unable to evaluate knockback into a Blank tile, resulting in it freezing when this happened. (It now treats this eventuality like getting knocked into a wall.)

-- fixed the timing of the movement speed setting tutorial in Rescuing Meridian.

-- fixed: you could not inspect the table with the map more than once in Fera's room in the bandit fortress.

-- fixed some incorrect MoveCam values in Bandit Fortress Outer Wall.

-- fixed: references to the Rest sprites for villagers and the senator got deleted from their animations somehow.

-- fixed: characters killed by script actions while selected (e.g. by walking into a campfire) would remain displayed in the actions bar.

-- fixed: a null error could occur when characters were killed by script actions while selected.

-- fixed: characters killed by DamageChar and DamageCharAt would not say death monologues.

[CraigStern]

-- finished created working Hurt animations for all playable classes, unique characters, and NPCs.

-- fixed some alignment discrepancies in some of the Bowman sprite sheets.

[CraigStern]

-- fixed some incorrect reply parameters in the updated character death monologues.

-- fixed a visual glitch in which the reticles camera would create a duplicate "after image" of unit/object graphics poking up above the top of the level.

-- fixed: the final fix from Feb. 13th introduced a new bug in which characters receiving damage (or self-healing!) from any source other than another character would have their OnCharDeath dialogues triggered.

-- fixed: a null error would occur when opening the console in battle due to the canvas being turned off and TextMeshPro trying to reference the canvas scale.

-- fixed: typing in the console could trigger hotkey shortcuts and cause the battle camera to pan around.

-- fixed: units controlled by a greedy AI profile would never make short-range moves solely to grab item sacks.

-- fixed: units controlled by a greedy AI profile would value enemy characters as attack targets *way* too highly based on the items they were carrying.

-- fixed: the AI was using the wrong function to identify item sacks on destination spaces.

-- fixed: the AI was including the character itself as a nearby ally for purposes of the "bravery in numbers" factor.

-- fixed: the way that the AI scored backstab attacks resulted in low-aggression AI profiles actively avoiding backstabbing.

-- fixed: the OnReachingArea, OnGrab, OnDrop, and OnUse triggers would not function correctly without the (optional) army value supplied.

-- fixed: the "escaping with loot" dialogue triggered by thieves grabbing item sacks in Battle with Gunther, Hills of Coria, and Clash at the Mines Entrance were still using a deprecated version of the EndTurn script action.

[CraigStern]

-- increased Aravel's power (it now offers +1 reflexes) and increased its buy/sell value to better reflect how good it is.

-- added some extra enemies to the Bandit Fortress Outer Wall Battle on Tactician difficulty.

-- adjusted the angle of fog of war tiles to better align with the current in-battle camera angle.

-- the game now marks Unlimited skills used by an AI character so they don't just spam them over and over in the same turn.

-- fixed a typo in Rescuing Sarn Kamina.

-- fixed some more camera pan targets.

-- fixed: if RemoveItem was used on reserve supplies for a roster without established reserve supplies, it would produce an error.

[CraigStern]

More marketing work. (Not the least of which was sending out the first wave of review copies!)

-- new unit tag supported: ModSkillAccuracy. Behaves the same as the other ModSkill tags, but affects the accuracy of the named skill for the tagged character.

-- fixed: the game was not allowing Parabolic or Teleport move abilities to let non-flying characters land on top of destructible objects ordinarily passable only to flying characters (e.g. boulders and trees).

-- fixed: during an attack sequence, a character dodging and counterattacking would result in the Dodge animation being cut off midway through by the counterattack.

-- fixed a bit of logic in the damage calculations code that would cause ModSkillPower, ModSkillRange, and ModSkillCost tags to inappropriately apply to other skills if the intended target of the ModSkillPower tag did not have a dependsUpon skill. (For instance, the Thoughteater's ModSkillPower tag for Mind Shock would end up also inappropriately boosting the power of Mind Blast, Mind Shield, etc.)