[p]Hello everyone! A quick turn around on this one compared to the last few updates. I feel like I'm really starting to get into that 'last year' gear in terms of just grinding down 'the list'. A little bit of everything in this update but a big focus on User Interface. The new targeting/bounds system is pretty fantastic. A big thanks to everyone who chimed in on Discord…. some time ago… when we hammered out the design for this thing.

The plan for the next update is probably similar to this one. I'll just keep knocking things off my list and trying to get as much animation and level assets as possible into the game. Possibly considering tackling the combat log as well. [/p][p][/p]

Graphics and Animation:

• [p]Block: Block, Reflect and Damage-Shield animations now fade out rather than instantly disappearing.[/p]
• [p]Block: Block animation no longer pauses gameplay.[/p]
• [p]Charge: Removed hit and knockback particles as they just overlap a lot with the action.[/p]
• [p]Charge: Added the same animation as Trample when you hit your target.[/p]
• [p]Fire Ball: Added the same sparks and glowing beam as Fire-Projectiles[/p]
• [p]Life-Spike: Added the same sparks and glowing beam as Toxic-Projectiles[/p]
• [p]Berserk: Added a new, unique animation to Berserk and War-Cry[/p]
• [p]Flash-Freeze: Now uses the same freeze animation as the ability Freeze.[/p]
• [p]Flash-Freeze: expands out in a 'wave' from the player with an expanding ring animation.[/p]
• [p]Hell-Fire: expands out in a 'wave' from the player.[/p]
• [p]Freeze: Tuned the lighting and delayed the appearance of the Ice to sync with animation.[/p]
• [p]Summon-Monsters: Added a slight delay when summoning multiple monsters (looks cool).[/p]
• [p]Summon-Monsters: Summon-Piranhas and Summon-Sharks now use same animation as the standard Summon-Monsters.[/p]
• [p]Jump Animation: Lunge, Disengage and Charge now have a little jump when performing the action.[/p]
• [p]NPC Death Pop: a white sprite that lingers for a few frames with a slight scale 'pop'.[/p]
• [p]Freezing Ice: When an ability freezes water we now set the Ice frames correctly.[/p]
• [p]NPC Facing: NPCs like the merchant and librarian will now turn and face the player when talking.[/p]
• [p]NPC Idle: Idle enemies will now occasionally shift their facing so they look like they are looking around.[/p]
• [p]Lava Particles: occasional little particle 'pops' coming out of lava.[/p]
• [p]Levitate Bob: A slight bobbing on the player when he is levitating.[/p]

[p][/p]

Game Mechanics:

• [p]Flaming-Clouds now count as a light source in Palace-of-Shadow dark levels.[/p]
• [p]Doors now close automatically after 5 turns. I think this is actually a great little way to add a bit more terrain interaction to combat. We already have doors everywhere and until now they only ever mattered until they were first opened. Now they can block the player for an extra turn when he is fleeing, or block enemies that you are kiting backwards for a turn. Not game changing but its nice that a common element in the game now has a bit more functionality.[/p]
• [p]Enemies will now path through portals if it is the only route to the player.[/p]
• [p]Players and NPCs now actually step on portals to use them (it looks better)[/p]
• [p]Rotate-Projectile-Attack (think ballistas) now have the 4 'facings' share diagonal edges. Previous implementation was very strange with say the upward facing direction including the left diagonal edge but not the right diagonal edge.[/p]
• [p]Slow-Projectiles will no longer eat mushrooms or trigger traps.[/p]
• [p]Hell-Portals (Boss Warlock + Normal Warlock): Destroying the portal will NOT poof the imps (you MUST prioritize killing it).[/p]
• [p]Hell-Portals (Boss Warlock + Normal Warlock): Destroying the actual Warlock will NOT poof the portal (you MUST prioritize killing it)[/p]
• [p]Removed the 'Deafened' status effect and replaced with 'Confusion'. It doesn't make sense to me to have two nearly identical status-effects. [/p]
• [p]The 'Power' effect now simply raises damage by 50% for both the player and NPCs. I intend to use this effect more often on NPC abilities and the previous implementation was quite messy. We lose a few edge cases with the old 50% ability power but I think its worth it for the clarity and consistency.[/p]
• [p]NPC-Shout has been simplified to now use just a 6 tile noise flood. Previously it had both a 4 tile noise flood (that can go around corners), and also a 6 tile LoS check. [/p]
• [p]NPC-Shout now passes under doors with a -1 noise cost. So its now possible for a fight to agro enemies behind a door if you are close enough.[/p]
• [p]Totem-of-Healing, Tome-of-Arcane-Power and other Buff-Source type summons will now also apply their buff to the caster.[/p][p][/p]

User Interface (Game):

• [p]You are now prevented from Auto-Exploring when starving (a popup is shown).[/p]
• [p]You are now prevented from Fast-Traveling when starving or if nearby enemies (a popup is shown).[/p]
• [p]You are now prevented from resting if starving (a popup is shown).[/p]
• [p]When using the Goto-Fountain hotkey a popup will be shown if 'No Fountain'.[/p]
• [p]Picking up items now has a small popup animation showing the item.[/p]
• [p]We now show NPC block points on mouse over description (including temp block points).[/p]
• [p]Status effect text is now colored green for beneficial, red for detrimental, white for neutral.[/p]
• [p]Characters now hide their status text (above their heads) for a few frames when animations are playing. This just makes it a bit cleaner to see the animation.[/p]
• [p]Added custom death messages for: Reflection, Toxic-Waste, NPC-Lunge, Slow-Charge, Fast-Charge, Rocket-Punch, Extendo Punch, Flaming-Cloud, Freezing-Cloud, Tornado-Suck.[/p][p][/p]

User Interface (Targeting Bounds):

[p]This ones huge and has been on 'the list' for ages since we hammered out the details in a long Discord thread (thanks guys!). Spent a bunch of time getting the actual sub-system working behind the scenes and ended up using it all over the place. I took the system that was pulsing bard songs and just totally generalized so that I can pass any list of tiles and have a bounding box (more of a blob) drawn around them.[/p]

• [p]View-NPC-Targeting: holding the View-Target key (default is V) you can now hover over any NPC and see the range/bounds of all of his abilities. The abilities are color coded in the text desc and the colors correspond to the bounding boxes. Most of the healing and buffing abilities have been left out of this system for clarity.[/p]
• [p]Ability-Targeting: this one is optional (you can turn it on/off in options), but if on then whenever you select an ability to use the same system is used to display the valid range/bounds of the ability.[/p]
• [p]Range-Attack-Targeting: if the player tries to use a range attack and is out of range or blocked in some way then we pulse the range/bounds of the valid targets.[/p][p][/p]

User Interface (Targeting Bound Pulse):

[p]Since I now have this easy to use system I figured I'd use it for any NPC abilities that might have slightly unclear targeting. This is just a way to continuously 'remind' the player how these abilities are targeted. [/p]

• [p]Pulse the targeting/path of Fast-Charge, Rocket-Punch, and Swoop just as they fire.[/p]
• [p]Pulse the targeting of Rocket-Punch just as it fires.[/p]
• [p]Pulse the AoE of Tornados each time they do their Suck ability.[/p]
• [p]Whenever a stationary totem casts, it pulses its AoE to make the range and bounds obvious.[/p]

[p][/p]

User Interface (Menus):

• [p]Now allow holding back space to delete seeds.[/p]
• [p]Enabled num pad keys for entering seeds[/p]
• [p]Color coordinated wins/losses in game records as green/red (easier to spot streaks)[/p]
• [p]The librarian now uses the standard text menu rather than her own wonky custom menu.[/p]
• [p]Added Goto option for Tome-of-Knowledge.[/p]
• [p]Goto option for Tome-of-Knowledge now shows what talents it has.[/p]
• [p]Goto option for Librarian now shows which talents she has.[/p]

[p][/p]

Items, Equipment and Talents:

• [p]Speed Points: Reduced many items that had 2SP to 1SP. I think Speed Points should be harder to stack up, similar to Block Points. Based on my own testing this mostly just means that characters that previously would hit 7-8SP now end up with something like 5-6SP which is still plenty.[/p]
• [p]Slippers of Swift Thought: Can now be enchanted to increase the MP gained when sprinting.[/p]
• [p]Phantom-Bow: 7DMG => 6DMG. Every time I get this bow it still feels OP lol.[/p]
• [p]Athletics: 2SP => 1SP on the base talent. Similar to the change to items I feel it should not be so easy to stack a ton of SP.[/p][p][/p]

Monsters:

• [p]Skeletons in Sunless desert now leave behind bodies just like skeletons in The Crypt.[/p]
• [p]Salamander-Pyromancer: 2 Wisps => 3 Wisps.[/p]
• [p]Summoners now summon their monsters adjacent to themselves (but on the player side). Corrupted-Ent, Entling-Elder and Fungus-King still have the old 2 range.[/p]
• [p]Power Aura: I want to introduce the concept of 'Auras' earlier in the game rather than having them show up just in Vault-of-Yendor. I think they are a great way to make the combat more spatial. I'll be looking for more places to put them in future updates. Power-Aura replaces Inspire on: Goblin-Captain, Bojack-The-Berserker, Captain-Danarr, Centaur-Knight, Orc-Captain, Skeleton-Captain.[/p]
• [p]Healing Aura: replaces Group-Heal on: Dervish-Minstrel, Pirate-Minstrel, Dark-Elf-Chorister, Orc-Drummer.[/p]
• [p]Dark-Elf-School-Master => Dark-Elf-Force-Mage: Force-Shield and Wall-of-Force[/p]
• [p]Dark-Elf-Librarian: Summon-Spectral-Tomes and Summon-Arcane-Tome (she's taking the Arcane-Tome from the School-Master).[/p][p][/p]

Level Generation and Assets:

• [p]A variant of caves would often generate as an almost complete ring. The generator now searches for this condition and cuts a small tunnel so that the cave is not purely linear.[/p]
• [p]Added maxOffset to items that appear on tables (paper, cups, books etc.) so that they can place themselves with a bit of random offset.[/p]
• [p]The Sunless Desert: added 5 Vase variants[/p]
• [p]The Crypt: added fire braziers to the top of walls, alcoves full of skulls in walls, flags to platform walls.[/p]
• [p]The Palace of Shadow: added candles, towels, 5 potted plant variants, shelves with potions (or possibly shampoos and oils in the spa), small tables, paper on tables, book shelf variants.[/p]
• [p]The Palace of Shadow: added a new 'Spa' generator.[/p]
• [p]The Palace of Shadow: converted an older generator (just a bunch of water) to also be a 'Spa' variant.[/p]