Diary Entries — Threads of Fate by Richard

[richard @ 23:13 ] I got a lot done, but it's not finished

Sadly I got sidetracked by other things and couldn't put the final polish on the game before the deadline. A lot of the user interface has seen significant improvements. The AI is much better. The code internally is much nicer in many places.

This final release moves forward in a few areas: the AI is again improved and there's the very nice new user action interface which mostly just uses left-mouse clicks (the action menu is only needed in rare situations).

Unfortunately I also changed the way the tile mapping is done in preparation of using a new tile set ... which didn't end up making it into the game. I'd still like to put a new tile-set in.

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[richard @ 00:02 ] Small update

I've not forgotten about this project ;)

I've been hard at work cleaning up another project: Bruce, the Presentation Tool.

I am holding off releasing the final pyggy version of Threads because I really want to re-do all the tile art. I'm not sure I'll actually get that done, but I'm hopeful. We'll see...

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[richard @ 02:19 ] New release soon...

I've still been working on the game. I've added the much-requested simple command control. When you hover over an enemy a potential attack type is highlighted over them (eg. sword, bow or energy bolt). If you left-click at this point your character will attempt that attack. Speeds things up considerably.

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[richard @ 02:18 ] More improvements

Download here: threads-of-fate-2.2.zip. The list of changes since 2.1 follows.
Note: the game still hasn't been tested beyond the first dungeon following all these changes :)

• Add command-line ability to grant party XP and coin.
• Add some testing of combat outcomes. This includes some balancing and tweaking of the combat algorithms.
• Add zooming of display using scroll wheel.
• Add drag-grabbing to scroll map around.
• Add grab-hand feedback in generic UI.
• Visually indicate when an attack misses.
• Characters now informed when an attack on them misses.
• Spells are able to alter difficulty based on circumstance.
• NPCs now communicate and use their memory of PC locations.
• Optimisations in NPC path generation.
• Use GL_NEAREST when scaling up weapon sprites.
• Fix menu styling across board, including scaling.
• Fix bug introduced into assigning experience.
• Fix broken bashing action.
• Fix save/load of abilities.
• Some additional code cleanup removing out-of-date dags.

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[richard @ 03:04 ] First post-PyWeek public release

Download here: threads-of-fate-2.1.zip. The complete list of changes follows. The big stuff is bolded.
Note: the game hasn't been tested beyond the first dungeon following all these changes :)

• Add in light mapping - currently characters have the only light sources.
• Use lighting in attack chance calculations.
• Fix display sorting of player info background image.
• Line Of Sight remembers an "obscurity" amount used in combat and lighting.
• Fix Line Of Sight in certain cases (around corners, through walls).
• Better feedback during battle displaying amount of damage dealt/received (or healed).
• Scaling of interface fonts to fit smaller/larger screens.
• Fixed the visual offset sometimes seen when rendering attack animations.
• Add clicking of character in map to activate.
• Add a simple first-run help message when entering the tactical game.
• Fix blocking check for adjacent actions.
• Allow diagonal movement and adjacent actions.
• Add green box highlighting currently-active character.
• Clean up the cobble tiles a little.
• Lots of graphical glitches removed.
• NPC turn feedback.
• NPC brains sped up considerably.
• Make NPCs remember what they were doing at a basic level (ie. who they were attacking and where the target was) so they don't get lost along the way.
• Some game balancing with the NPCs so they're not such a walkover now.
• Better NPC turn handling so their animations play completely, giving the player better feedback.
• Added initial code to detect off-screen NPCs. Not used.
• Grant all characters some basic level of brawling skill.
• Add character abilities including the first one - Super Strike.
• Added character traits - first one is LowLightVision (not actually granted yet).
• Add a whole new (generic) user interface implementation:
  • Includes vertical / horizontal layouts
  • Labels and Buttons (both with text and/or image)
  • Text Input (including focusing)
  • Styling controls, including "skinning"
  • Drag-n-drop support
  • Has some tests
  • UI elements may be animated using Cocos actions (color, position, etc.)
  • Re-implemented all game user interfaces to use the new code.
• New font for inventory and shopping screens.
• New font for title menu.
• Add in better command-line option handling.
• Refactor out the music player to a single point to detect ability and also command-line --nomusic override.
• Add command-line control over fullscreen / window sizing.
• Fix resource snafu with finding save game files.
• Allow immediate selection of arbitrary levels from command-line for testing.
• Fixed a bunch of other bugs.

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[richard @ 05:18 ] Nicer lighting

Added some code to smooth out the lighting. Nicer now :)

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[richard @ 01:21 ] Development continues (part 3)

Still hacking away. Took a bit of a break for a while there but am back into it now.
Stuff I've achieved:

• Added a new nice font to the inventory/shopping screens.
• Sped up NPC code considerably and made them plan a little.
• Fixed some bugs in the Line Of Sight code (seeing through walls).
• Return more information from Line Of Sight test (obscurity, distance).
• Added some initial code to detect visible off-screen NPCs.
  • Some more UI code work:
  • Added text input widget, including concept of focus.
  • Pass all details of mouse click to on_click handlers.
  • Worked on styling, including fixing the rect rendering.
  • Added some more tests.
• Added character abilities, including the first one "Super Strike".
• Added light mapping (needs optimisation).

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