Alpha 3 Released & Enhanced Change Log

Alpha 3 is officially released, you can download it here or from this post.  As I stated in the previous devlog, the next release, Alpha 4, will be the last release in quite a while, as I work on story details.

Alpha 3 was a big update, and our biggest update so far.  The binary for the game gained 50 MB.

Furthermore, take this comparison: Alpha 2 changed 152 files, 9905 code additions, and 395 deletions.

Alpha 3 on the other hand, had 211 files changed, a whopping 16892 code additions, and 4417 deletions.

The most interesting part though is that both of these milestones had similar amount of tasks in each one - Alpha 3 was actually smaller than Alpha 2 with 94 vs 90!

So please enjoy!  This was a major update.

And here is a changelist.  This is slightly different from the CHANGES file you'll find in the download, as it's been enhanced with developer commentary, which is in bold.

• major changes
  • this game is now known as "Runeseeker".  For short, and for most purposes, it'll be known as "Runeseeker".
    • This was a decision made because a lot of names already involved the name "Tower of Babel" and unfortunately, it was too similar to another title that was copyright which I believe was a never-released Square Enix game that they are still holding the copyright too.
  • default resolution is 1920x1080
    • when using full screen, you'll get a border around the game.
  • overhauled how the game handles actions.
    • this allows us to write little independent modules for each action, passive, trait, and status ailment, meaning they can be very creative or advanced in what they do. As a result, existing action, changes, passives and traits have been overhauled and re-examined. Many changes to this were made, that are not listed here
      • Many of these changes actually made the actions much more complex, as well as changed their power.  You'll also notice that the descriptions for all of the actions have changed, using a the phrase "potency of damage/healing" a lot.
  • battle system overhaul
    • The battle system was overhauled twice.  The first time, everything was user input based - battle wouldn't progress without a click.  However, I found it to be very awkward to use, so this was changed back to using timers like in Alpha 2, but still using the main system added in the first overhaul.  
  • added the Jester, Mystic Knight, Monk, Chirugeon & Astrologist classes
    • Jester class is a status ailment class, Mystic Knight has everchanging defenses and uses physical-magic spells, Monk can imbue themselves with power to do a lot of damage, Chirurgeon is the best healer in the game, and Astrologist uses the power of the stars and uses exclusively light & dark potencies.
    • fun fact: the Jester class was supposed to be in the last release, but removed last minute due to design issues in regards to the skills.  The skills were more bombastic in nature, which involved changing ailments, and even changing actual action effects permamently.
    • The Jester class was also one big Kefka from Final Fantasy VI reference and that was removed because Kefka wasn't a jester but a very powerful magitek knight.
  • traits are overhauled
    • There are 114 new traits.  Traits have been redesigned to fit within certain niches, with range of traits within each niche.  traits no longer have any effect during dungeon events except for charisma checks
      • This was a bitter pill to swallow, mainly because there was no good framework in place to handle such traits, and the code would've been very spaghetti, to put it bluntly.  As a result, only party member-central traits were handled in such a manner, with most player change only changing certain stats.
    • a separate system called "Player Skills" will be designed and developed at a later date for various different checks.
      • To be honest, this probably won't happen.  Right now the plan is for dungeon checks to be mainly stat based, mainly on the leader of your party.
  • added consumable items
    • you can use items on the field through the item menu, or in battle (they will be added to your deck).
  • added equipment
    • weapons will add attack, intelligence, agility
    • body equipment will add defense and maybe intelligence
  • added relics
    • think Final Fantasy VI style relics.  They can change your stats, and even give you new skills.
    • you can equip up to 3 on any party member.
  • you can store items, equipments and relics in your home.
  • added an item menu and an equip menu in the dungeon to manage these.
  • items that steal or morph enemies have been implemented.
    • each enemy can have two items you can steal from.  You can steal multiple times from a single enemy, but your chance of successfully stealing is lowered per successful attempts.
    • Morphing enemies is now a Smithy class skill, and works similar to Final Fantasy 7- it does a bit of damage, and if the enemy dies, then it gets morphed into a special and rare item.
  • get exp, gold and items from battles
  • level is set to 1 at the start of game.  There is a new debug option to increase level to 99.
    • Originally the level was set to level 99 in Alpha 2.  This was changed to get an idea for the progression of the game.  The exp algorithm will be tweaked in the next alpha.
  • added a marketplace
    • crafting and smithing on demand will be added in the next release.
    • I'm proud of the marketplace.  
  • you can buy items from the tavern
    • tavern items is alcohol (which heals but has status effects), and meals which can be plant/meat/both based, which always heal based on a percentage of HP.  There are traits that'll make these more effective, depending on whether it's plant or meal based.
  • removed random characters, now the characters you get have been pre-designed with their own backstories and personality.
    • as the idea of the game became more focused on the story and story telling, a lot of rogue-lite elements were removed.
  • dungeon events can have checks based on stats
    • as mentioned above, this was a result of the changes to traits.
• minor changes
  • aspect vulnerabilities have changed slightly, now the type of action is dependent.  Furthermore, a mechanic similar to Pokemon's "STAB Damage" has been added, where an action that shares an alignment with its user will do slightly more damage.
    • hopefully this will make battle more strategic (although more changes to that will come next alpha.) and once again, I forgot to include a vulnerability chart in the readme - basically it's a bit obvious (light & dark beat each other, fire beats water, ice beats fire, water beats earth, neutral doesn't beat anyone, etc.)
  • ui tweaks to font size & image size across the board.  This combined with the new resolution is known as "Dragon UI", a step up in terms of the game UI
    • dragon UI is going away in next alpha.  It was always a going to be step up, and paved away to an infrastructure where "Modern UI" can be created.
  • action, passives and traits are rewritten to use potency when talking about damage.  
  • Gladiator's Heavy Strike now increases enmity.
    • Gladiator is now a tank class.
  • added heavy status to some enemies, meaning certain actions & status ailments won't work on them
    • this is essentially a boss status
  • a lot of tech debt repaid.  most things should be not seen, but there might be bugs and issues from a couple of items. 
    • the reason why this was released two weeks late was because of all the tech debt.  Alpha 4 has significantly less, albeit one major tech debt, which is automated testing.
  • added tile art for the dungeon map
    • I love the way the dungeon screen looks like.
  • the travel to screen has been changed to be more obvious to use - click the dungeon, and click the go to dungeon button to actually go to the dungeon (as opposed to hovering and clicking).
    • originally it was hover over the dungeon to see its stats, and then click the button to go to it.  Now it's more inline with the rest of the UI.
  • reorganized battle screen, especially how text and health appears over each enemy.
  • changed some terms
    • amplification is now elemental offense
    • deamplification is now elemental defense
      • this makes it so much easier to understand the elemental offense/defense process
  • changed Witch's "Witch's Mix" to be a  self-buff
    
  • changed Smithy's "Synthesis" to be "Morph".  Now, the plan is to do synthesis in town or at camp (with a full-level smithy)
    • these two changes were to make it so that you no longer had random mixes, and now can decide what to do craft outside of battle.
  • changed coming soon screen's credits
    • RIP the dragon's garden
  • gold and exp are displayed on the UI.
  • added new fonts in some locations
    • this will be used for the modern UI
  • events can no be locked, and events can also provide switches (untested)
    • this was mainly going to be used for the next alpha and the betas, and mainly just provides such a framework.  As a result, it's untested, since Alpha Dungeon will always be randomly generated.
  • redesigned the existing dungeon events.
    • mainly in text and removing the old way we handled pronouns.  For instance, in the Tavern event, all of your party members will pipe up, if you ahd the base characters in your party, in their unique ways.
• fixes
  • configuration screen doesn't default to debug options
  • guild screen has a background
  • added background for the travel screen.
    
    • now all screens have a background
  • fix issue where game crashes when you leave the dungeon
    • fun part of alpha builds...
    • yes, I didn't test Alpha 2 before I released it.  However, Alpha 3 was tested so that the basic gameplay loop succeeds.
  • party bar disappears when viewing the party status screen and vice versa
    • it was redundant to have both at screen at once.
  • not necessarily a fix, more like a design change, but battles are not fought again after stepping over the space.
  • before, elemental offense and defense were not calculated correctly.  this was changed so that elemental offense & defense are calculated like any other stat.
  • fixed not clearing enemy and enemy stats after battle
  • fixed typos regarding the Idealism trait
  • reworded the dungeon tutorial text 
    • the pop up message wil go away probably in the first beta, as I introduce an actual tutorial.
  • possibly fixed an issue where game crashes when doing an event or battle after hitting two double spaces. 
    • this was a hard issue to track down, and I believe it's been fixed, BUT it's possible there's a very niche edge case involving this.
  • possibly fixed weirdness when running away
  • fixed enemies attacking dead members.
  • fixed timing issues with battle screen
    • this was the main reason for that "battle screen overhaul" at least the second one.
  • fixed party result labels not lining up with their boxes.
    • this would be damage done or healing done to the party member.
  • added a debug escape button to return to the start.
    • will be removed in the betas
  • if an error occurs, you'll see an error message.  (Note: not all errors will have this and some will still crash the game.)
  • leave house button in "your house" will take you back to the hub world.
    • it used to not do anything.
  • fixed issue where player won't get their first turn in.
  • Intelligence buff/debuff reflected on the party bar.
  • made it so that there's always a result if an action missed.
    • i.e. you won't get "null" on the battle screen.  This might not have been an issue in Alpha 2, due to the way the battle system worked there.
  • fixed Heal's description to fit it's result.
  • changed party bar status labels to accurately reflect results.
    • this is more about the ailments and buffs they receive.
  • clear enemy status labels if they die.
  • fix issue where battle crashes after an auto enemy attacks.
  • changed how auto characters get actions.
    
    • im considering removing these status effects altogether or changing what they are.
  • clear out text labels in the hand component after play.
  • possibly fixed a rare issue where an action gets null and get pushed into the hand component.
    • another hard issue to track down and resolve, but I think ti's fixed.  But it's rare enough as it is.