Update 0.3.0

As it turns out it’s a rather busy day today as not only does the first ported version of Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm come out, an achievement I was starting to think wasn’t actually possible. But the 0.3.0 update is also ready for Rise and based on the changelog there’s a fair bit for me to go over.

So without further ado I’ll start going over some of the changes you can expect to see in this update. To begin with as this is still an early version much of this update was focused on adding to and refining more of the current features enough to allow me to start adding more substantial content. To this end this update includes an array of improvements to the quest, event and dialog systems. Including support for conditional dialog, conditional object interactions and notifications for when you complete either a quest or a quest objective. Furthermore this update also includes the first non placeholder quest and accompanying events. Which should help you to get a better understanding of the general layout of the first area, the slums of Aderith.

Continuing on from this, I’ve also added some more life to the game in the form of motion. In particular enemies are now able to move about the map in either a roaming or patrolling pattern and will additionally provide an extra challenge when engaged in battle thanks to their now auto generated stats. Speaking of battles they also got an overhaul with support for attack animations, item effects and the ability to defend to reduce the damage from the next attack. To go along with these changes character stats now also play a bigger role in battle with strength affecting the amount of damage dealt and agility affecting both the calculated turn order and the player's chance to run from the battle.

Finally I should also mention the visual changes included in this update such as the new quest notifications mentioned before. The updated visuals for gold, silver and copper currencies. The new rolling time banner to better help you tell the current in game time. As well as what I currently consider a placeholder theme which while not perfect, at least adds some colour to the background panels and buttons to hopefully help Rise look less like a hastily thrown together side project.

Overall there was a pretty wide range of additions and changes in this update, a theme I’ll no doubt continue well into the future. At the very least though, through this update and the two prior much of the needed framework is now almost in place and so I’m hoping that within the next couple of updates I’ll be able to start moving towards a more content focused development cycle. Including new quests, items, areas and characters.

With all that said I’ll end this devlog here.

As always if you have any questions or queries then don’t hesitate to ask and similarly if you have any feedback for existing systems. Or indeed if you have any ideas, features or changes you would like to see implemented then also don’t hesitate to let me know.

Now then for those of you who want a more detailed look at what’s changed in this version you can find a full list of the additions, updates and changes pertaining to this update below while a full list of changes from every other previous version can be found in the game:

• Added icons for the instant thirst and instant hunger item effects
• Added icons for equipment slots which don't contain any equipment
• Added icons for displaying gold, silver and copper currency
• Added support for inventory refreshing
• Added support for automatically generating enemy stats based on their level
• Added support for patrolling enemies
• Added support for roaming enemies
• Added support for using items during a battle
• Added support for changing equipment during a battle
• Added support for effects taking effect during a battle
• Added support for attack animations during a battle
• Added support for defending during a battle
• Added support for equipped equipment with a defence value to reduce damage during a battle
• Added support for conditions to map objects. As a result you may now need have to have completed a quest or seen an event before being able to access said object
• Added support for conditions to character dialogs. As a result you may now need have to have completed a quest or seen an event before being able to access specific dialog
• Added support for background colours to maps for after the tile map ends
• Added support for changing the current sound effects volume to the settings GUI
• Added a theme for use by all the in game GUI elements
• Added a movement delay to enemies after you flee from battle, allowing you to escape before another battle is triggered
• Added a notification for when you gain a new quest, complete an existing quest or complete a quest objective
• Added a new quest to the slums, the lay of the land
• Added a new sound effect for attacking during a battle
• Added a new event to the slums where your character takes in their surroundings for the first time
• Added a new event to the slums where your character observes the city entrance for the first time
• Added a new event to the slums where your character observes the exit to the forest for the first time
• Added a new event to the slums where your character observes the well for the first time
• Added a looping animation to the transition point map object
• Added a wood floor tile to the slums
• Removed the example quest and example event from the slums
• Updated the look of the ground tiles in the slums
• Updated the look of the ground tiles in the forest
• Updated the current time to be displayed using a rolling texture instead of a label
• Updated the message container to no longer span the entire bottom half of the screen
• Updated the message container to display the current message in bold to distinguish it from the previous text
• Updated the message container to instantly complete the current message if the mouse is clicked while within the message container
• Updated the dialog options box to sit on the right side of the message container instead of at the bottom
• Updated the dialog options box to use buttons for dialog options instead of clickable text
• Updated the inventory GUI and equipment GUI to also show item information when the mouse is placed over an item button
• Updated the inventory GUI and equipment GUI to show item information using a popup when hovering over an item
• Updated the inventory GUI and equipment GUI to deselect the current item if the mouse is not pressed on either a button or an equipment slot
• Updated the inventory GUI and trade GUI currency amounts to use the same colour coding as the trade result label
• Updated the inventory GUI to keep an item type selected after use if the character has more than one of that item
• Updated the battle GUI to type out messages instead of displaying them instantly
• Updated the battle GUI to highlight the corresponding character container when the mouse is placed over a characters image in the turn order
• Updated the battle GUI to take into account character agility when calculating the turn order
• Updated the battle GUI to take into account character agility when calculating the chance to run from a battle
• Updated the battle GUI to only advance to the next turn once the attack of the previous turn has been completed and the character containers have been updated
• Updated the post battle GUI to show which items will be collected by displaying them in a different container
• Updated the post battle GUI to show item information for the selected or highlighted item
• Updated the post battle GUI to print out a message with all items you chose to collect when it is closed
• Updated the post battle GUI to show the gained experince using an animated experince bar
• Updated the character container to show the current level of the attached character
• Updated the character container to show the blocking status of the attached character
• Updated the character container to appear greyed out in battle if the corresponding character has been defeated
• Updated the character container health, hunger and thirst bars to have their own colours and for the colour of the health bar to change depending on its current value
• Updated the player hunger and thirst values to increase as time passes instead of only when the player sleeps
• Updated the settings GUI to apply changes as they happen instead of only when the apply button is pressed
• Updated weapon damage to be affected by character strength
• Updated highlighted objects to also display their name when the highlight objects key is pressed
• Updated sleeping to recover health based on the players hunger and thirst values
• Updated save files to include any active effects characters may or may not have
• Updated save files to include any generated stats for enemies who have not yet been defeated
• Updated save files to include any party characters
• Updated enemies to support having a delay between each movement
• Fixed a bug where equipping an item to an occupied equipment slot would result in the old item being deleted instead of it being unequipped
• Fixed a bug where instant item effects would be applied to characters as if they were a timed item effect
• Fixed a bug where the player path movement would be stopped if you selected an invalid destination while already moving along a path
• Fixed a bug where the player path movement would try to navigate around event triggers after they had already been removed
• Fixed a bug where respawn timers would be reset if you re-entered a map before the object or character had respawned
• Fixed a bug where moving to a map would be seen as causing the day to advance for objects and characters which were waiting to respawn
• Fixed a bug where the player could still move while in the middle of dialog
• Fixed a bug where the enter key couldn't be used to advance through dialog if the dialog was triggered by an event
• Fixed a bug where the position of enemies was not properly updated when reloading a saved game
• Fixed a bug where the movement of a character could become offset when reloading a saved game
• Fixed a bug where an enemies position and health wouldn't be reset when the enemy was respawned
• Fixed a bug where moving to a tile at the same moment as an enemy wouldn't result in a battle
• Fixed a bug where quest completion was still checked for quests that had already been completed
• Fixed a bug where the inventory GUI and equipment GUI popup would sometimes be displayed offscreen
• Fixed a bug where the area name label would display in front of the transition layer when entering a new area