v1.41 (2024-10-14)

• fixed: bug where fullscreen mode wasn't working well if the operating system (windows) had set a scaling factor (DPI) other than 100%. Although the game is DPI-aware, a few functions were called in wrong order returning instead a scaled resolution and not the real / native one (thanks @elenda*******, @covr)

v1.4 (2024-10-12)

• fixed: bug where items couldn't be placed on / taken from ground if there was a text banner in front of party. In that case, the text banner was taking full control, even when the player didn't clicked on it to read the text, not allowing item handling
• fixed: bug where the game window's camera perspective was always taking the current desktop resolution to compute its aspect ratio, leading to graphics output with great differences across different setups and also causing issues with cursor mapping. Now, a fixed ratio is always used, regardless the current resolution
• fixed: bug where a leather armor couldn't be equipped by a wizard, even though the character was allowed training in leather armor skill. Turned out that leather armor skill was needed the fix, to disable training for wizards, updated '7.5 List' on RULEBOOK.pdf as well (thanks @Dennis). In addition, a couple other cases were fixed as well (not allowing shield training/use for wizards etc.)
• fixed: bug where a warning shown that a door couldn't be opened during combat, but without actually clicking on lever / keyhole, just by hovering. Now a clicking is required to show that warning during combat, and also cursor is properly set to hand above the door's lever / keyhole area.
• fixed: bug where a character's advanced level caused the affected stats (level, hitpoints) to always showing up (brownish colors), even after player opening his character's stats screen. Issue was only shown when player was opening character's stats through clicking its portrait and 'toggled' again the same character by clicking the portrait again.
• fixed: bug where the racial languages (i.e. dwarvish) were shown in 'Skills' page for choosing, during character creation, although they would still be provided in the end (languages known). This also caused some confusing overwriting in the added skills, at least graphically, since skill insertion order is not preserved. Now, the racially added skills are only shown *after* character creation and not during character creation.
• fixed: bug where quest items could be sold in a general shop, breaking the game in most of times i.e. quests couldn't be completed. Now these items have a flag on them so the shop recognize them and wont show them on 'Sell' page.
• fixed: bug in game's engine (jolt3d!) that was crushing the game if bogus resolutions were given through the settings, for example bigger than desktop ones. Now, the game gracefully exits in such a case, along with an error in log.txt
• fixed: bug in game's engine (jolt3d!) where some animations (i.e. title string in game's menu) or entire content (credits/attributions) weren't working / showing up at all. Reason was that 'scissoring' (the functionality that hide/shows specific regions of pixels) wasn't working well in windowed/letterbox modes
• fixed: bug where 'morning star' and 'flail' weapons weren't usable by 'cleric' profession at all, regardless their 'bludgeon' expertise
• added: a demo is now available in the store, showing the first two areas of the game
• added: additional content for 'Prelude' mode (early access content), 3 maps in total, following the events on 'Tomb of the Dreamer'. Be sure to restart the game as a number of things changed in save.dat file as well. (NOTE: content wasn't the focus on this update)
• added: window builds are now aware of DPI settings (i.e. 125% scaling) and won't be scaled if there's such a settings, not getting pixelated / blurred at all (playing at 100%, not scaled at all)
• added: small graphical improvements (gauntlets / helmets on ground)
• added: ability modifier is now showing up on computed ability scores (through hover/left click) on 'character creation' page
• added: race 'Elf' is now added to available races. In addition, the new language skill 'Elvish' was added, as well as 'Book of Elvish' to get trained on the skill. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: race 'Half-Elf' is now added to available races. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: race 'Giant' is now added to available races. In addition, the new language skill 'Giantish' was added, as well as 'Book of Giantish' to get trained on the skill. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: race 'Gnome' is now added to available races. In addition, the new language skill 'Gnomish' was added, as well as 'Book of Gnomish' to get trained on the skill. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: a new page in character creation, namely 'Choose a Subrace'. This new page allows the selection of a sub-race, including the base race, from the base race previously selected. Sub-races are further defining a given race with some extra traits, like in D&D.
• added: a new mechanic to increase abilities per advanced level, through racial bonus abilities. This will make sure that chosen races / subraces will end up statistically similar, with the intended characteristics raised up. More in '4.3 Abilities increase per level' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: updated the hit points formula for each profession, adding more balance overall and making professions even more distinct in that department, a requirement for the coming professions. More in '5.1. Hit points'
• added: profession 'Barbarian' is now added to available professions. More in '5. Professions' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: profession 'Ranger' is now added to available professions. More in '5. Professions' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: removed one ability from 'Strong Abilities' (shown in character creation), responsible to raising a bit the ability scores when a character is created. Now only one strong ability and one weak ability is provided per profession (for balance). More in '5.3 Strong / weak abilities' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: 'Light' spell now has an effect duration of 100 turns (rather 40), which should allow exploring a good portion of a dungeon and perhaps a round trip, if needed
• added: fixed some color imbalancing in both character creation and character pages in-game. In short, a number of labels were kinda yellowish, now turned completely white for better contrast, everywhere
• added: color highlighting for 'Melee' damage in character pages, based on current melee damage. Melee damage can be modified by various ways (monster actions, spells etc.), so this now shows either white (normal), yellowish (higher) or red (lower), similar to how ability scores behave
• added: an additional entry 'Languages:' on race / subrace description, showing the additional language for the selected race / subrace, which counts as a free skill
• added: removed the 'advancement type' of skills. In short, all skills require 'multiple trainers', each one teaching a specific expertise. Previously, there was one more type, namely 'binary', which allowed skills to be learned instantly to 'Grandmaster' expertise (i.e. languages). More on '7.5. List' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: profession 'Paladin' is now added to available professions. A few spells have also been added for this profession (more are coming). More in '5. Professions' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: spell 'Valiance' for the profession 'Paladin'. More in '14.6. List' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: spell 'Thunderclap' for the profession 'Paladin'. More in '14.6. List' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: subrace 'Stone Dwarf' for the base race 'Dwarf'. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: subrace 'Mystic Elf' for the base race 'Elf'. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: subrace 'Fire Giant' for the base race 'Giant'. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: subrace 'Cloud Giant' for the base race 'Giant'. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: subrace 'Storm Giant' for the base race 'Giant'. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: subrace 'Earth Giant' for the base race 'Giant'. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: subrace 'Forest Gnome' for the base race 'Gnome'. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: subrace 'Sacred Half-Elf' for the base race 'Half-Elf'. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: subrace 'Tribal Human' for the base race 'Human'. More in '4. Races' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: monster 'Mummy'. More in '11.6. List' of RULEBOOK.pdf
• added: animated trap 'Axe blade' that cause physical damage and occupy a full square (like the ones in M&M 3-5)
• added: stable from 'Amphill' leading to 'Crimson Bay' (the second large city) and vice versa. However, you need to complete a quest first before the route becomes available
• added: unique attacking sounds for each monster, with a few shares though, instead of the usual 'grunt', adding more to immersion level
• added: shops are now creating items with more variance, not allowing more than 2 items of the same variance (except on cases where the variants are too few i.e. helmets) and reduced likelikehood of basic/useless items. This also allows the creation of more magical items per variant
• added: pinpoints on local maps can now be added and saved, so player can remember his places of interest. These pinpoins are blinking to look more distinct to the other map symbols and can also be infinite in number. Finally, already placed pinpoints can be removed by clicking them again
• added: shop and skill trainer symbols on local maps are now shown, in front of their doortown where they can be reached, after the party visiting the relevant squares. Each shop / trainer have their own mini symbol on map, making it quite easy to revisit specific shops or a trainer in a town
• added: scrolling (panning) on world map, with either mouse (by clicking on relevant scrolling symbols) or through keyboard (by clicking the relevant scrolling keys). Four (4) new keys were added on 'Action Mapping' (on 'Options', search for 'Map Scroll XXX' actions) to be used on map scrolling and by default are the WASD
• added: more skill trainers in villages and towns. This increased from 2,4 (per village/town) to 4,8 (per village/town), effectively doubling down the available skill trainers per settlement type to cover more ground, especially on upcoming skills. Updated all current settlements to match this change i.e. Silkmoor now has 2 extra skill trainers
• added: for skills that require another skill to be learned first (i.e. 'long blade' requires 'short blade' to be learned), the expertise needed for required skill is now downgraded to 'apprentice' (level 5, 500g) rather 'adept' (level 10, 2000g). This will make the process of learning skills requiring other skills, much faster and cheaper
• added: gaining skill xp process was changed, allowing the entire party to passively gain skill xp, based on their equipped items (hands, chest), when a monster is killed. This fixes a couple of reported issues like training in-frequently used skills like 'leather armor', when a monster had to hit a specific character or when slow-to-act characters never had a chance to attack. This change allows a balanced allocation of skill xp across the party, in a way the regular character xp training does. More in '7.7. Character progression in skills'
• added: item description block feature was overhauled and improved in many ways. More details are now showing (item/spell names) and usability by characters (useful feedback by @elenda*******), useful when buying items from shops. In addition, an item in hand (mouse) can also be shown on shops, providing some kind of comparison against the highlighted shop item. A few more things can still be made though.

v1.3 (2024-06-02)

• fixed: bug when side quest recruitable NPCs (i.e. not hired NPCs, like Lisandro's quest) were replaced in their initial map position, after completing their quest, allowing the side quest to be replayed. Only hired NPCs should do that, when they're dismissed from the party.
• fixed: bug in sound system where sound volume wasn't getting respected some times. The sound volume code was decoupled in more appropriate places to fix that.
• fixed: bug where an elemental symbol was shown from non-elemental damages taken (a case being equipping the 'souldrain' ring that monastery devil is leaving behind). In addition, no elemental symbol was shown on damages caused by a condition (flamed, poisoned).
• fixed: bug with randomisation, shown on previous version (2024-03-20) which caused the creation of the same items and gold pieces in chests and probably in other areas as well. Fixed once and for all.
• fixed: bug in monster system where some non-legit monster entries could be created, potentially causing a number of issues while the game was on. This may also have fixed the known "invinsible monsters" issue and being stuck on 0,0 position (north-west) on open maps i.e. dry plains.
• fixed: bug where the 'Explore' skill was kept increasing on already explored squares. Now, its only increasing on non-explored squares. In addition, the skill is increased only 50% of the time, keeping it in control as its a passive skill.
• fixed: bug where armors using a dynamic ability score to compute i.e. Leather armor (4 + TechniqueMod) or Mage hat (0 + IntelligenceMod) were converted to a protection of < 0, undermining the total protection (by all items) because an ability score was too low. Now, the total protection of the item simply converts to 0 instead of getting negative, simply not providing a protection.
• fixed: bug where characters having the poisoned / flamed conditions would cause an issue on 'full rest', as the game could hang trying to cause both damage (by condition) and also increase their HP (by resting). Now both conditions are considered 'restless' i.e. no hp/sp are gained while having these conditions, so no race condition will ever encountered. In addition, a character with a cursed item that negates hitpoints, won't be able to rest as well.
• fixed: bug where shield/armor skills were trained if the character had a condition that caused an elemental damage (i.e. poisoned/flamed). Now, the type of damage is considered. In addition, no skill training for shield/armor is done if the damage comes from other sources such as cursed items.
• fixed: bug where making the party 'wait here' (through 'Rest' options) would update the last date rested, effectively never triggering 'Exhaustion' condition by excessively passing the time through 'wait here'.
• fixed: bug where party couldn't rest / wait in an area, warning about nearby monsters, although none were showing.
• fixed: bug where the 'necromancer' on dry plains wont show up after midnight. The bug only shows up after you save/load the game, because monster visibility-by-time isn't saved properly and thus, not passed properly also on loading the game. In addition, since saving format was updated slightly, you need to restart with fresh saves since these details are associated with level initialisation (once).
• fixed: bug where the party would be stuck on upper-left square of an open man (i.e. dry plains). This is/was a symptom of another bug, causing sometimes the creation of non-legit monsters at upper-left square of such maps, yet invincible and unmovable, however causing trouble to a party reaching that square.
• fixed: bug where the voice set of new created characters (not prebuilt ones) was not generated correctly, which became apparent when the character died in combat and no sound was heard, in addition of producing some errors in log file. However, to properly fix that, new characters need to be created so voicer set will be computed normally and pass to save.dat file.
• fixed: bug where sometimes an empty hand (non equipped with some item) would show number of charges i.e. like a wand or features like being cursed.
• fixed: bug where the dungeon features (barrels, vazes, banners etc.) weren't shown at all when some criteria were met.
• fixed: bug where walls with updated statuses (shown/hidden) weren't shown correctly after save/load (texcode was not correctly saved), although the walls kept their status mechanically (they were acting as obstacles/not).
• fixed: bug where the exhausted condition was applied way earlier to party's characters, after excessive time without resting (this time is set to 24 hours, see 2.5 Traveling on rulebook) and under certain situations. Bug was found to be in time functionality so the main logic of it was rewritten, fixing a couple of bugs more.
• fixed: bug where some monsters, mostly bosses (ones that have their hp / damage output modified, like the devil in monastery) had their hp / damage amped way more than predefined, under certain situations. In that case, multipliers were working on current values, not the base ones (the correct ones to start with).
• fixed: bug where the hitpoints restored per turn on resting were sometimes zero (0), making resting a way slower process than usual. Restoring computations were fixed for both hp / sp and also balanced against maximum ability levels (see 2.7 Resting on rulebook)
• fixed: bug where a triggered event would still move the monsters in obstacle / minimap level (incorrectly) but would not in rendering / game window level (correctly). This led to all kinds of symptoms i.e. invinsible monsters being obstacles and sometimes attacking the party. Now, triggered events correctly reset / disable monster movement (monsters are not moving when a party lands on a triggered event)
• fixed: bug where the casting of spells that require a target (i.e. Cure) through chargable items (i.e. Wand) were consuming a use / charge before the actual cast (i.e. selecting a target); furthermore, the player could just cancel the spell but with the charge still used. Now, the item is charged a use after the actual spell cast.
• fixed: bug where would be possible for a character to train in more than 8 skills per skill group (i.e. Misc), which would result on overflowing the character's skill window. In fact, there's a hard-limit of 8 skills per group per character (see 7.7 Capped number of skills). In addition, skill trainers wont train you a specific skill of a group where you have already this many of skills.
• fixed: bug where the game was crashing, infrequently, and for apparently no reason. A well hidden bug that couldn't be replicated easily, related to internal XML engine used by game's engine (pugixml), which tried to use objects that were alive no more.
• added: minor fixes to hard mud -> grass transitions which shown some glitches / non-constistent transition previously.
• added: now logo/intro sequence flags are updated into save.dat, after they've been watched and not when the player saves his game. However, the player will get a 'skip this..' opportunity from the first time these sequences are been watched, so they can be skipped.
• added: based on above sound volume issues fix, some misc sounds/music are now respecting the sound volume settings (save.dat), for example logo, title, intro sounds etc.
• added: fixed a minor, hard to see graphical glitch on character block.
• added: additional 64 characters in prebuilt mode in characters creation, reaching 128 total.
• added: characters with a stat/condition affection i.e. "Flamed" condition, wont get damaged all at the same turn. Randomiser is run again for every affected character and 50% of the time will damage him/her. More in rulebook, chapter 10. Conditions.
• added: alt+tab support for Windows, for fullscreen, windowed and letterbox modes. Alt+tab support will be followed on Linux sometime later.
• added: a skill trainer teaching the 'Awareness' skill, on 'Initiate' expertise, in the south-east area of Amphill. Added as an additional opportunity to get a skill that is able to reveal hidden content early on.
• added: spell casting training is now more balanced vs melee training, providing +2 XP skill training on spell casting (instead of +1 XP), due to finite nature of spells. This will help training magic skills more efficiently.
• added: spell slot allocation was improved to allow more spells in early intelligence levels, while getting more balanced in the later intelligence levels. In short, a starting party will be able to cast more spells with the same intelligence points, further fixing some magic skill imbalance issues.
• added: show item details, on character screens and game window, when an item is hold on mouse. In addition, item details are shown on shops as well, when an item is highlighted (selected). Finally, each spell details can be shown when the 'view' icon (an eye), on an opened 'spell window', is clicked.
• added: the ability modifiers are now shown on character 'Stats' page, next to each ability's name, which will help finding out how high/low the particular ability scores are, especially with the addition of item description blocks.
• added: some items such as Leather armor provide a protection based on character's ability score i.e. 4 + TechMod. However, this will quickly cause an imbalance as the character keeps adding more Technique, for example at Technique 100 (+40), this will provide a 4 + 40 = 44 (!) protection for such a simple item. To balance things out on such items, a maximum capped bonus of +15 added (see 13.6 Capped effect by ability bonus).
• added: now spells that use the magic skill expertise for magic output (i.e. Firebolt), will be slighly 'capped' so as to not rival the strongest spells on highest expertise, while being lower expertise spells and having a lot more spell slots this way. Check the new magic outputs per spell on spell list and also read '14.4 Capped effect by expertise' on rulebook.
• added: stone floor tiles, along with the already hard mud and snow mud floor tiles. These tiles will be used on now large / multifloor cities to increase the immersion on such cities.
• added: hourglass info on UI now shows the current time, in hh:mm format, rather the current year, which should be found through 'Rest' anyway. Useful on harsh environments where the time runs way faster.
• added: fixed some graphical glitches on intro sequence and improved it overall.
• added: graphical improvement on the character's inventory page.
• added: graphical improvement on the map, both full and minimap.
• added: graphical improvement on the 'skull & bones' dungeon item.
• added: various graphical improvements and additions on features: shackles, barrels, potions, vases
• added: balancing on shop items and their frequency. Specifcally, added 2 additional pages on 'weapon shops', balancing on their larger number of item types. In addition, dropped a page on most item types such as shields, boots, helmets, rings etc. due to their small number of different types. That led to creation of a lot more magical items, defeating the rarity concept, or a lot of duplicated base items.
• added: slighly increased color contrast on character pages (darkening the character's marbled texture a bit).
• added: a graphical hint / clue (a painting) on a puzzle found on 'Cult of Wizards, Hideout', that some players missed even reaching (moving to a particular square was needed to trigger the event). Missing this event leads to a non-completed map (i.e. not 100%), given the puzzle reveals a small area. This caused some confusion, since players were wondering what they've missed.
• added: extra dialogue and an opportunity for skill learning on 'Retrieve the Bow' quest (thanks @strangecat0)
• added: extra quest on 'cult of wizards, hideout', to return the bones to monastery for proper burial (thanks @strangecat0)