August 5, 2015

Telepath Tactics v. 1.04 patch

Hey folks! Telepath Tactics got an important patch today. Here are the fixes and improvements:

– first and foremost, a fix which addresses one of the game’s biggest, long-running criticisms: how zoomed out it appears to be on large monitors. When in fullscreen mode, the game now actively upscales so that everything that’s visible on the screen appears as large as it would be if you were playing with 1280 x 720 screen resolution. This includes the game’s text, which means that it should remain legible even on 4K monitors.

– to keep the game’s pixel art from looking absolutely terrible when scaled up to an arbitrary resolution, all bitmap images now have a smoothing algorithm applied to them when the game is scaling.

– the fullscreen title screen graphics are now smoothed so that they are no longer jagged and janky-looking when stretched to fit monitor dimensions in fullscreen.

– in the Settings menu, I replaced custom font size functionality with an option to toggle fullscreen scaling off for people with weird monitor dimensions (or who simply prefer the practicality of having a zoomed-out view of the battlefield).

– implemented XML-based saving and loading in place of SOL files. This means that going forward, saved game files will be easy to locate, be human-readable, and be subject to easy editing in case bugs cause characters or attacks to duplicate (or otherwise get messed up). The new XML saved game files will be located in Documents > My Games > Telepath Tactics > Saved Games.

– added a “Convert Save Files” button to the title menu; if you press it, it will automatically generate XML saved game files based on your old SOL saved game files. This way, you can continue playing your saved games from pre-1.04 versions of Telepath Tactics.

– fixed a bug in which one could not swap reserve characters onto the battlefield after moving the Characters in Reserve window around.

– fixed a bug in which weather effects would stop animating mid-battle.

– talking, interacting with doors, giving inventory items, and using objects with a Use trigger now require the interacting character to either be flying, or have an elevation difference no greater than 1 with the target.

– fixed tutorial message not displaying midway through the Meridian rescue mission.

There are some big changes in here, and while I tested them on my computers, I’m expecting there to be some bugs I didn’t catch. Turn off fullscreen scaling in Settings if it’s giving you problems, and make sure to report any issues in the Sinister Design forums so I can resolve them!