Together in Battle News

Greetings, tactics fans! Today is the one-year anniversary of Together in Battle being out in Early Access. What a difference a year makes!



[h2]What Changed Over This Year[/h2]

I went through and counted: over the past 11 months, I pushed 19 updates to Together in Battle (21, if you want to count the hotfixes). These updates included:

• a flexible time points system for daytime actions;
  
• loads of balance improvements (including much more forgiving rules surrounding broken weapons, payroll shortfalls, and camp cleaning);
  
• two new arena leagues (Snow Leopard and Tiger Leagues), each with their own "biomes" and hand-made qualifier battles;
  
• the arena championship fight (with its own accompanying events);
  
• a variety of new arena battle conditions (such as 4-on-4 and Defend the Idol);
  
• twenty new random events (most with multiple outcomes and many with associated hand-designed battles);
  
• eight more "palace intrigue" main plot events, including five witness interrogations and three hand-designed plot battles;
  
• the first of the game's endings;
  
• numerous user interface improvements (such as pre-visualizing knockback effects and previewing the benefits of each piece of equipment for characters within the shop);
  
• countless improvements to the AI;
  
• two new difficulty levels, including a custom difficulty mode;
  
• full gamepad and SteamDeck support;
  
• a card-collecting mini-game (Psy Clash!) with a dedicated deck management screen;
  
• a jobs board with four types of jobs (manual labor, proc gen caravan guarding missions, proc gen cavern exploration missions, and proc gen card tournaments);
  
• an infirmary where you can send wounded characters to recover;
  
• a blacksmith where you can repair items;
  
• character renaming;
  
• weapon renaming;
  
• the ability to give characters bonuses or send them on vacation for a morale boost;
  
• a variety of new skills (including Create Fire, Create Ice, Quick Twirl, Kinetic Surge, Mega Charge, Shield Bash, Fire Breath 3, Frost Breath 3, Dark Breath 3, and Light Breath 3);
  
• a ton of new items, including weapon-modifying consumables, permanent stat boosters, and weapon repair kits;
  
• new equipment modifiers (such as Stylish, Beautiful, Gorgeous, Visored, and Calming);
  
• new environmental conditions, such as heat waves and rain storms that spawn puddles around the battlefield;
  
• new weather effects (such as fireflies, falling leaves, and flower petals);
  
• new skill visual effects (such as overheat and spike trap);
  
• new battlefield objects like ice spikes, exploding trees, puddles, trapped chests, rugs, jugs, and planters;
  
• additional character portrait variety;
  
• lots of additional character dialogue;
  
• additional narrated character camp activities;
  
• the ability to make characters' relatives appear in-game as full-fledged characters themselves;
  
• new character sprites;
  
• new battlefield backgrounds;
  
• new cut scene backgrounds;
  
• gorgeous new music (such as "Drawing Blades" and "Contest of Blood");
  
• tons of new features, functionality, and assets for the campaign creation suite;
  
• the ability to download and play other players' custom campaigns right in-game;
  
• approximately one zillion bug fixes; and
  
• more stuff I probably missed.

And that's only 11 months worth of changes--I haven't even talked about the changes I made for this month's update yet! So let's get to that now...

[h2]Update #20: Version 0.6.20![/h2]

This month's update includes new random events, new battles, new special conditions that can appear during matches in the arena, a long-requested new feature in the mid-battle save system, the ability to auto-generate your starting team, and more! Let's get right into it.

[h3]More battle variety![/h3]

The primary focus of this month's update has been adding yet more to the game's battle variety, with four new hand-designed, scripted battles tied to random events and two new "fan request" conditions for the game's arena battles:

• new event: a second nighttime thief attack battle (much larger in scale than the first)!
  
• two new "inter-team sparring" events, each with an associated battle sporting a special (and unusual) victory condition!
  
• a new "revenge quest" event chain, plus a new associated battle!
  
  
  
  
• new arena fight condition: Skill Request. A fan requests that you use a specific skill (known by at least one of your deployed characters) during the battle; if you use that skill a certain number of times and go on to win the fight, you'll gain an extra reward! (This condition can appear beginning in Monkey League.)
  
• new arena fight condition: Skill Avoid Request. A fan requests that you avoid using a specific skill (known by at least one of your deployed characters) during the battle; if you do not use that skill at all and still go on to win the fight, you'll gain an extra reward! (This condition can appear beginning in Monkey League.)

By my count, this brings the game to 22 hand-designed fights accompanying the bevy of proc gen battles--and with more still to come!

[h3]We have a variety of other improvements as well![/h3]

• a much-requested feature is now in-game: when playing with manual saves, you can now create a mid-battle save right after deployment but before taking your first turn!
  
• you can now have the recruiter auto-generate a balanced starting team for you on Day 0! This lets players jump into the game quickly without having to make sense of the recruitment screen (especially helpful for new players who haven't experienced combat yet).
  
  
  
  
• improved recruitment UI behavior when mousing over other recruits with a different recruit selected: you can mouse over other recruits normally, but the selected recruit will pop back up upon mousing off of them for ease of comparison.
  
• AI improvement: the AI now does a much better job of appropriately balancing the value of reaching a preferred area versus the value of moving toward a character it would like to attack (but cannot yet reach).
  
• AI improvement: the AI now imposes an internal scoring penalty for any move that would take a character who is already inside their preferred area outside of said area.
  
• AI improvement: reduced the minimum calculated value of usage before enemies will use items, avoiding situations where enemies won't use bandages even though it's optimal to do so.
  
• AI improvement: AI-controlled units now value Defending status proportionally more as they become more injured, and more based on their ability to counterattack.
  
• wrote new tutorial text about fruit trees, explaining why AI-controlled enemies sometimes attack them. (Because they drop health-restoring fruit when destroyed.)
  
• reduced the odds of a late event occurring on any given night.
  
• further boosted the likelihood of characters who are already friends or romantically interested in one another choosing to interact with each other over other characters.
  
• added two new "life background" dialogue variants.
  
• character dialogue can now be made available (or excluded) for a character based on their family's socioeconomic class.
  
• new mood added to the game: Determined.
  
• particular proc gen character lines can now be assigned greater likelihood of selection.
  
• the game now accounts for characters temporarily off working, training, in the infirmary, or on vacation when spawning the number of tents in the thief attack battles.
  
• shifted the timing of the Brother Leader Revenge event chain; it can now no longer occur until Gharial League at the earliest.
  
• updated the "tent looted" conversation in the thief attack battles so the game shows you the info bar with the money being lost.
  
• updated the Strikebreaking event so the game shows you the info bar with the money being added if you complete the job.
  
• completing Jiti Sone's job now has a downside: spriggats will refuse to appear in recruitment, and any spriggats actively on the team when the job is done will suffer a huge morale hit.
  
• added portrait animations to the "ignore" options for the Ishita Svaamee events.
  
• added a portrait animation to the first traveling merchant event.
  
• the game can now process custom strings used as part of a scene's display name.
  
• laid the groundwork for the engine to support looking at specific aspects of the skills that characters are using as parameters for dialogue triggers.
  
• the Together in Battle Steam demo has been updated! (The demo was last updated in August 2023, so this was long overdue.)
  
• added in version 0.6.20a: the game now displays gameplay tips on the loading screen when transitioning scenes.
  
• added in version 0.6.20a: when playing with the gamepad, switching to the actions bar with 'X' now defaults to selecting the first available skill.
  
• added in version 0.6.20c: increased the number of loading screen tips to 43.
  
• added in version 0.6.20c: the game now tracks the last 20 loading screen tips displayed to avoid having repeats too often.

[h3]A whole bunch of bug fixes![/h3]

• I pushed a small "hotfix" update at the start of the month, so part of my bug-fixing progress for April is chronicled there. As for the rest...
  
• fixed: bridges below the level of the terrain could cause the game to use the bridge's elevation instead of the ground's for purposes of calculating movement and elevation bonuses.
  
• fixed: bridges below the level of the terrain could cause the game to use the bridge's elevation instead of the ground's for purposes of calculating which spaces are moveable for a non-flying unit.
  
• fixed: under some circumstances where the AI had a character move and use a non-turn-ending skill, the AI could queue up further actions for the character where they moved and used a skill, but then fail to execute the "actually moving" part, resulting in the character attacking outside their normal range.
  
• fixed: if an army in a battle was completely neutral by way of being allied to every other army, the game would treat them as having vanquished all enemies and immediately end the battle with them as the victor.
  
• AI fix: the retreat AI algorithm was not accounting for area preference or patrol tags, causing characters with no usable skills to retreat without regard for the areas they were supposed to be moving towards.
  
• fixed: if any of an AI-controlled unit's skills could affect a target worth affecting, all of that unit's skills would be marked as worth using as part of short-range moves toward a preferred area, leading to the unit potentially inappropriately attacking scenery.
  
• fixed: changes to the code made it so generalized character death barks could again get queued in addition to specific OnCharDeath dialogue for the same character upon falling in battle.
  
• fixed: proc gen battle map names were not being saved in the "battle start" save files used when restarting a battle, resulting in the map's internal file name displaying instead.
  
• fixed: the "force species" attribute could be used to create proc gen characters of a species not compatible with the chosen class, resulting in issues like missing portraits and sprites.
  
• fixed: door-affecting script actions such as Lock could trigger OnDoor dialogue when used in OnLoaded dialogue.
  
• fixed: mousing over a unit and then immediately mousing over the deployment window thereafter without ever mousing off the unit could cause the unit's mouseover tooltip to become "stuck" onscreen for a time.
  
• fixed: it was possible for cavaliers to charge across a path with an elevation difference of 2 or greater, just so long as they effectively charged off of the cliff rather than up it.
  
• fixed: in some circumstances, the game could save (and reload) past instances of generic templated units in a way that would reintroduce tags placed onto those unit types in past battles.
  
• fixed: a misformatted script action parameter in the event where a character asks the player for money to gamble with resulted in the event proceeding even if the player lacked the minimum amount of money to gamble with.
  
• fixed in version 0.6.20a: on certain buttons, selecting them with the gamepad could double-invoke their methods, leading to errors (up to and including the game freezing).
  
• fixed in version 0.6.20a: when playing with gamepad, at the very start of battle, the selector was spawning in the very top-left of the map instead of over someone in the player's army.
  
• fixed in version 0.6.20a: actions bar button tooltips were displaying strangely in gamepad mode.
  
• fixed in version 0.6.20a: the virtual cursor was not visible when choosing between yes or no in any in-battle warning pop-up windows.
  
• fixed in version 0.6.20b: in some circumstances, the "avoid skill" arena battle condition would turn out blank.
  
• fixed in version 0.6.20b: if you got the bad ending while having a character possessing the "serious" personality trait among the first 7 units of your team, the scene on the docks would get stuck in an endless loop of character reactions.
  
• fixed in version 0.6.20c: a couple of typos were present in the loading screen tips.
  
• fixed in version 0.6.20c: if you managed to kill every enemy on the blacksmith rescue map, the battle would end prematurely and not give you the blacksmith option going forward.
  
• fixed in version 0.6.20c: the blacksmith would show duplicates of weapons in reserve supplies when showing potential items to rename or repair.
  
• fixed in version 0.6.20c: when shoving a unit onto a space with an ornamental bridge tile below the terrain, the game would use the bridge for the destination elevation instead of the terrain, sometimes inappropriately causing the target to take damage and/or become stunned.
  
• fixed in version 0.6.20c: during the initial meeting with Manbir Raksha, his dialogue was still incorrectly referring to the attack "last night."
  
• fixed in version 0.6.20c: a visual issue with the spot where the necks meet the ears in most of the male "NPC" portrait clothing sets.

[h3]Improvements to the campaign creation suite![/h3]

This month, we have no fewer than 7 new script actions(!), a new dialogue trigger type, a new tag type, and fixes to bugs in the map editor that had been bugging me for years now--and more! The details:

• the final two army palettes that were supported in the original Telepath Tactics (Orange and Pink) have now been added to the engine!
  
• new script action: AddNickname. Gives a character a new nickname to be used by a second character (or by every other character) in dialogue.
  
• new script action: HideDialogueBox. Allows you to manually hide the dialogue box during dialogue.
  
• new script action: ShowDialogueBox. Causes a hidden dialogue box to reappear.
  
• new script action: HideActionsMenu. Allows you to manually hide the actions bar during battle.
  
• new script action: ShowActionsMenu. Causes a hidden actions bar to reappear.
  
• new script action: StripItemsFromUnit. Removes all items from the named character's inventory and places them directly into a roster's reserve supplies.
  
• new script action: AddTriggerCharPortrait. Adds the portrait of whatever character triggered the dialogue, without regard to whether their name is used as speaker for the current branch. Has the same parameters as AddSpeakerPortrait.
  
• new dialogue trigger type: OnSkillUsed. Triggers dialogue when a given skill is used. To satisfy the trigger, the skill usage must be effective in some way (i.e. not just attacking an ally or healing an enemy). Parameters: skill name, user army, and user name.
  
• new tag: RemoveAll. This tells the game to remove all existing tags from the unit.
  
• new condition: Drop Items On Death. Lets you set a particular army to not drop items when a character in that army dies. Parameters: army number, drops items (boolean value--true by default).
  
• three new special string stats are supported for SetStringByStat: First Name, Last Name, and Nickname. (These are read-only, so don't try using them as a parameter with SetStat.)
  
• added last name as a supported attribute value for the SetStringByNPC script action.
  
• the LevelUpArmy script action now works in cut scenes.
  
• new option for the IfInArea script actions: you can now use an army in the Character Name parameter (e.g. "Army 0", Army 1", and so on) and the game will check for any character belonging to that specific army.
  
• TargetPreference tags now support the use of custom string variables for their target name parameter.
  
• changed the runScript attribute in CampActivities.xml to runScripts to make it consistent with the rest of the game.
  
• updated in-game documentation for the IfBioDetail-type script actions and the -BIO:X- special character with the default bio detail types.
  
• fixed: the Delete Row and Delete Column algorithms in the Map Editor were faulty, with their use potentially causing the game to lose track of where units should be until the map was reloaded.
  
• fixed: in the Map Editor, adding a new column to the very rightmost edge of a map would secretly cause the game to add a second column, invisibly offsetting mouseover coordinates and making the selector appear in the wrong spot when mousing over units.
  
• fixed: in-game documentation for the AddNPC script action was missing the tenth parameter, Blood Relative.
  
• fixed: in-game documentation for the SetStringByNPC script action was missing blood relative among the supported attribute values listed.
  
• fixed: getting a unit's load ID via the SetStringByStat script action would return an empty string for proc gen characters. (It now returns the unit's name, which can stand in for its load ID in virtually every use case.)
  
• fixed: bridges below the level of the terrain would cause the map editor to set the cursor elevation (and the elevation of further objects placed on the space) to the bridge's elevation instead of the ground's.

And that wraps up everything new and improved in this month's update. For next month's update, I'm going to be focused on main plot stuff: at a minimum, one more interrogation scene and one more main plot battle. More to come!

[h2]How can you help?[/h2]

As I continue to move the game toward completion, here's a little reminder that if you're enjoying Together in Battle, leaving a nice review would do a lot to help the game out! More reviews means Steam's algorithm shows Together in Battle to more people; more people seeing Together in Battle means more sales; and more sales mean more of a budget for me to commission new art.

Also: if you happen to follow any cool streamers who enjoy SRPGs and tactics games, feel free to suggest Together in Battle to them! Anything that helps spread the word about this game, really, would be most helpful.

All right, enough of that. I'll be back with our next update in May! 😉


Yours in tactics,

Craig

Hey all! Just a small update here to push a few bug fixes (including one critical one that can break the game in rare instances). Here's the change list:

• fixed: the AI would get locked into an infinite loop when swimming with proc gen units generated with the Swimmer trait.
  
• fixed: the counterattacks icon did not display correctly when providing in-shop explanations for why characters wanted Vengeful weapons.
  
• fixed: a range error occurred when a stone golem threw a flying character.
  
• completely overhauled the way the game deals with parabolic movement to improve performance on slower systems (and to thereby avoid weird issues with assassin Leap arcs visibly lagging behind everything else).
  
• overhauled the game's dodge animations so that they, like the new parabola animations, are driven purely by code and math, and so perform much better on older machines.
  
• rewrote the way that the game times combat sequences to end after zooming out the combat camera so as to avoid issues arising from the slowdown in Unity animations on lower-end machines.
  
• cleaned up the timing on character "hop" animations when changing elevation.
  
• received a revised smile for the blacksmith portrait. (The original was just too awkward to use.)
  
• balance change: reduced the number of green allied caravan guards that spawn during caravan defense missions from 4 to 3.
  
• balance change: reduced the chance of a Whetstone appearing in the shop during a given visit from 33% to 10%.
  
• fixed for version 0.6.11a: due to recent changes in the AI code, the game would throw a null error if an enemy drowned to death at the start of the AI's turn.
  
• fixed for version 0.6.11b: it was possible for an AI-controlled character with a preferred area tag and no viable moves to remain on the "calculate a move" list forever despite having no viable moves, thereby preventing the computer from ever ending its turn.
  

I'll be focused on creating new battles for the update proper near the end of the month. Until then!


--Craig

Greetings, tactics fans! After a minor surprise update one week into the month, I've spent the last three weeks working hard to pack in as many goodies as I could for this, the monthly update proper. (I won't recap the additions from the mini-update, but the gist is that I added in new events, skills, and items; you can find details on that here.)

As for this update I've just pushed, read on!

[h3]Let's start with the biggest changes and additions this month:[/h3]

• new investigation scene: interrogation of the palace armorer!
  
• new side investigation: find the blacksmith!
  
• new prison rescue mission!
  
  
  
  
• new daytime option: Blacksmith! If you can find him, the blacksmith will become available as a way to reliably repair your weapons. The blacksmith lets you rename your weapons, too! (He may even comment on your choice of names, depending on what you pick. 😉)
  
• new battlefield object: puddles! Puddles visibly and audibly splash when characters walk through them, and drop dodge and cold resistance while slightly raising heat resistance for anyone standing in them. During battles with a rain weather effect, the game will now progressively spawn puddles randomly around the battlefield. (The harder it is raining, the more frequently puddles will appear.)
  
  
  
  
• the game now has a bunch of new weapon-modifying items! These are consumables which permanently improve a weapon in one fashion or another. These include counterweights (permanent +5 accuracy), reinforcing spines (+5 to the weapon's maximum uses), poison sheaths (+1 poison damage and a chance to poison), and oil-filled sheaths (+1 heat damage and a chance to set an enemy on fire).
  
• whetstones are now a weapon-modifying consumable: instead of providing a character +1 Strength for the rest of the battle, they permanently add +1 Strength to the user's current equipped weapon. To compensate for this buff, they can now only be used once and both rarer and more expensive than before.
  
• the game now has built-in bug reporting! Simply press the Report an Issue button in the main menu during a battle or cut scene to open up a window where you can submit a report; the game will automatically generate a log and send it to me along with other relevant info so I can start tracking down the bug as soon as possible. (Special thanks to Ross Przybylski for his help troubleshooting the PHP back-end!)
  

[h3]We've got UI improvements and polish:[/h3]

• added icons to the main daytime menu options in Kalkerapur.
  
• added icons to the main evening menu options in Camp, and to the main dialogue options during a one-on-one.
  
• reduced the height on the pop-up text animation to aid readability.
  
• right-clicking rugs and other objects set to be treated as floor no longer opens the character screen.
  
• you can now check your calendar and army overview during league match and qualifier scheduling scenes.
  
• cleaned up the shop interface a bit: the text that notes when you've bought or sold something can no longer overlap with the page-swapping buttons, and is now far less likely to end up truncated.
  
• when using the virtual keyboard, the game now displays a flashing caret in the associated input text box as if the box were actually selected.
  

[h3]Miscellaneous other additions and improvements:[/h3]

• tall grasses now make rustling noises when characters walk onto or through them.
  
• improved the weather visual effects for rain.
  
• added a chance of Pocket Sand appearing for sale in the shop.
  
• added a new skin tone that can appear in character portraits: Ruddy Brown.
  
• added three new eye colors that can appear in character portraits: Aqua, Red, and Violet.
  
• characters can now gossip about other teams in the arena when they talk in the evening.
  
• reduced the likelihood that characters will talk about the weather when they talk at camp.
  
• personality-specific rest narrations are now much more likely to be chosen when a character chooses to rest in the evening.
  
• the jobs board now supports cooldown periods of more than just than 1 day before a taken job has a chance of appearing again. There is now a 2-day cooldown on the Caravan Guard job and a 5-day cooldown on Cavern Exploration.
  
  
  
  
• added a brand-new visual effect for Overheat!
  
• created a new sound effect for Overheat.
  
• increased the power scaling on Overheat from 1.25 to 1.5 and gave it +50 default accuracy.
  
• increased the power scaling on Drain from 1.5 to 1.75.
  
• buffed the Specter promoted class a bit: they now get +5 power to Drain in addition to the range and cost improvements.
  
• buffed the Sentinel class: they now gain a 75% chance to block with Defensive Stance instead of the normal 50% chance.
  
• the Defending status effect can now stack in its power and is hard-coded to disappear when a unit gains a new turn or becomes Enthralled.
  
• reworked Engine Boost: it is now usable only once per turn, increasing maximum movement by 67% (i.e. by 2 for most golems) at the cost of 5 energy.
  
• toned down the power scaling on Self-Repair: it now restores health equal to 1.5x Strength instead of 2.5x Strength.
  
• adjusted Battle in the Northern Stepwell so the rescuee's remaining health is never enough to survive more than 5 rounds of drowning.
  
• added portrait animations to the Shadowling Grandpa event.
  
• added auto-looting to the Save Grandpa battle.
  
• the combat camera now pans over to attacks even if combat zoom is turned off, reducing graphical artifacts from visual effect layering.
  
• new portraits for the blacksmith (and a second character whose identity I am not going to reveal here 😉.)
  
• added a variant mood called "Heat Sick" with its own distinct narration to make it clear when a character is feeling sick due to working during a heat wave.
  
• the game no longer counts it as friendly fire if a character attacks an ally while Enthralled.
  
• dialogue branches now support an attribute called "show single replies." This forces the game to show reply buttons on this dialogue branch even if only a single reply remains--useful for moments when the player says or does one particular thing that someone will react to.
  
• status effect tooltips now display the actual power of the status effect conferred, not just the default value for that status effect.
  
• repositioned status effect tooltips within the character screen so the mouse cursor doesn't obscure any of the text.
  
• wrote a little tutorial blurb about rain and puddles in Battle at the Dry Mounds.
  
• updated Make Weapon camp activity narrations to make use of the new Blacksmith background.
  
• wrote a second "you have no characters" camp narration variant.
  
• reworded the bit in the introductory scene where the game asks if you want to enable manual saving so that people who think "roguelite" means "a game where you get a choice of 3 upgrades sometimes and also there's vertical progression" don't get confused.
  
• refactored aspects of the game's movement code to make adding to (and changing things in) character movement much easier.
  
• in version 0.6.10a: the game now warns you if you're about to embark on the Find the Blacksmith quest with a roster of less than 8 characters, or a roster with an average level below 17.
  
• in version 0.6.10a: swapped the eye palette numbers for violet and red eyes.
  
• in version 0.6.10a: characters will no longer be generated with creepy red eyes in recruitment; that option is now exclusive to the character creator in the campaign editor.
  
  

[h3]Bug fixes aplenty:[/h3]

• fixed: loading a saved game mid-scene, stairs could end up counting themselves for purposes of determining base elevation, thereby raising themselves up higher than the terrain calls for (and potentially making themselves untraversable).
  
• fixed: sometimes, the tooltip for an item's Give button wouldn't show up upon mousing over it.
  
• fixed: under certain circumstances, dummy attack tiles shown upon mousing over an attack button could inappropriately vanish (or fail to appear at all).
  
• fixed: if you beat Battle in the Northern Stepwell without ever having someone speak to the kidnapped character, they would never return to your roster.
  
• fixed: you could trigger the Northern Stepwell event sequence more than once per playthrough.
  
• fixed: hiring out a character as a laborer during a heat wave could throw a range error and cause the game to lock up.
  
• fixed: a null error could occur in camp under very specific circumstances.
  
• fixed: smashing an enemy up against the edge of the map could only ever deal a single tile's worth of collision damage even if using a skill with multiple tiles worth of extra knockback.
  
• fixed: battle AI was not set to recalculate moves upon removing Inactive tags from a CPU-controlled units mid-turn.
  
• fixed: battle AI could disregard a valid move onto an AreaPreference space if no valid skill targets existed within range of the destination.
  
• fixed: due to an oversight when implementing the new move-tracking code, the computer could fail to clear its internal list of viable moves when an enemy's attack slew a character and triggered a death monologue, which in rare cases could result in the AI proceeding with the second-ranked move without recalculating based on the updated state of the battlefield.
  
• fixed: if a new turn belongs to an army with no units remaining, the game would skip to the next turn without triggering any OnTurn or BeforeTurn dialogue set to trigger on that turn.
  
• fixed: you could click an enemy to show their moveable spaces under fog of war.
  
• fixed: if a character was moved via a Teleport-type skill (such as Shadowport or Juxtapose), the game would not check to see if it should drop them into water, lava, or a chasm upon reaching their new position.
  
• fixed: the Blizzard weather effect was no longer displaying properly.
  
• fixed: you could undo after using a Move skill that also moves a second character (like Trade or Juxtapose).
  
• fixed: the tag granting the Kinetokurios the ability to inflict Weakened status via Kinetic Constriction was misformatted.
  
• fixed mouseover zones for status effect icons in the character screen.
  
• fixed: gamepad focus on the virtual keyboard would get overridden by the underlying dialogue tree when input text was enabled in the very first branch of dialogue.
  
• fixed: the dialogue interface's virtual keyboard gamepad navigation was not working as intended when used in battles.
  
• fixed: height was set incorrectly for the promoted cavalier lance and charge animations.
  
• fixed a typo in the default CharAttributes file that would cause the character creator to throw a range error when trying to randomly generate character dialogue.
  
• fixed: if a character had a camp activity and the character right after them in order fantasized about them, the first character's portrait would stick around inappropriately.
  
• fixed: the logic to prevent the same job (other than laboring) from showing up multiple days in a row on the jobs board was faulty.
  
• fixed: selecting Investigate when no more investigation scenes exist would kick the player straight to camp instead of returning them to the main menu in Kalkerapur.
  
• fixed: Create skills would not function on spaces containing rugs or other objects with a true "treatAsFloor" attribute.
  
• fixed: the "force name" feature for characters in proc gen map army groups was not being applied to units drawn from PremadeUnits.xml, only to units procedurally generated from scratch, resulting in the Dacoit Leader not being named as such in Caravan Defense maps.
  
• fixed: camp music was not returning to normal after receiving Prince Ajit's letter.
  
• fixed: the order of the Combat Zoom setting options was switched in the localization file, causing 'Attacks Only' to be interpreted as 'Off' and vice versa.
  
• fixed: a character portrait added to the left edge of the screen and that same portrait walking to the left edge of the screen would end up in positions about 5 pixels off from each other, occasionally leading to awkward transitions in camp.
  
• fixed: the game made the "weapon breaking" noise when non-weapon equipment (such as Pocket Sand, Snare Kit or a Satchel Charge) went to zero uses.
  
• fixed: the in-battle pop up text showing experience gain from using a battle primer would scale the displayed experience against the resulting level rather than the level at the time of use, frequently resulting in it announcing less experience than was actually gained.
  
• fixed: certain text sprites (such as Regenerating, Strength, or Talkable) had faint lines appear near the edges of the image due to trilinear filtering bleed from adjacent icons in the spritesheet.
  
• fixed: certain messages in the shop interface were missing localization support.
  
• fixed: the "no one is in camp" narration text was missing localization support.
  
• fixed: one of the character responses to being renamed slightly exceeded the available space for text.
  
• fixed: placing traps, bridges, and barricades had begun spawning spark particles after the last update.
  
• fixed: the deployment window's starting text was being overwritten by default localization values.
  
• fixed wording on a few personality-specific rest narrations.
  
• fixed the wording on a bit of Prince Ajit's interrogation dialogue.
  
• fixed in version 0.6.10a: losing the Blacksmith Rescue mission while playing on roguelike mode would be treated like an ironman loss and cause deletion of the save file.
  

[h3]New goodies for campaign creators:[/h3]

• the character creator now allows you to manually set the clothing used by character portraits.
  
• the character creator now allows you to manually set the scale for character portraits when they appear in dialogue (from 50% up to 125% of normal size).
  
• improved click detection for portrait accessory and clothing buttons in their respective character creator submenus.
  
• new AI tag type supported: Patrol. This works like AreaPreference, but acts upon a looping sequence of areas for the character to move toward. Once the character reaches the first area in the sequence, their preference shifts to the next one, and so on. Paired with a Passive tag, characters will simply walk through the sequence while ignoring enemies outside their move-and-attack range.
  
• new script action: ShowBlacksmith. This calls up the shop interface in "blacksmith mode", displaying weapons possessed by the group which are below their maximum uses left. Clicking a weapon in this mode causes it to be repaired in exchange for the repair cost (equal to the proportion of max uses to be repaired times the weapon's original sale price).
  
• new dialogue trigger supported: OnUnitAttacked. This works just like OnCharAttacked, except that the unit attacked does not have to be a character to trigger the dialogue. (Someone attacking a specified object, for instance, can trigger OnUnitAttacked dialogue.)
  
• new script action: AddTagToGroup. This works just like AddTagToArmy, but instead of specifying an army number, you specify an AggroGroup number. Every unit in the specified AggroGroup will receive the new tag you provide.
  
• new script action: RemoveTagFromGroup. This works just like RemoveTagFromArmy, but instead of specifying an army number, you specify an AggroGroup number. Every unit in the specified AggroGroup will lose whatever tag you provide.
  
• added support for enabling "show single replies" in dialogue branches within the game's dialogue editor. The map and cut scene editors now load and save these attributes correctly.
  
• new optional parameter in the Deployment battle condition: maximum characters. This allows additional deployment spots to be placed on the battlefield without increasing the maximum number of deployable characters for the battle.
  
• new trigger type added to the game: Move Over. These behave like Pressure triggers, except that they don't interrupt unit movement or clear the undo stack upon triggering. As such, they are intended for small, non-mechanics-related effects (particle effects, audio cues, etc.) when walking over certain spaces.
  
• new special character added to the game: -ATKMOVETYPE-. Lets you check whether the current skill's move type is Normal, Parabolic, Teleport, ToTarget, WithTarget, or Special.
  
• new 3D particle effect supported: WaterSmall. A small splash for moving through shallow water (as opposed to the preexisting big splash used when falling into deep water).
  
• new sound effect added to the game: Water Splash Light. A much lighter splash sound than the existing Water Splash.
  
• new sound effect: Hammering.
  
• new sound effect added: Plant Rustle.
  
• new sound effect: Overheat.
  
• new optional parameter added to the PlaySound script action: pitch range. Accepts a range of positive decimal values, where 1.0 is the sound's normal pitch, values below 1.0 deepen the pitch, and values above 1.0 raise the pitch. If the pitch range parameter is used, the game will randomly choose a pitch value from within the supplied range when playing the sound effect.
  
  
  
  
• new cutscene background added to the game: Blacksmith.
  
• new skill button graphic: Clothing.
  
• added support for Max Uses, Name, and Tag as Attributes to Alter in the item editor within the campaign creation suite.
  
• updated the item editor's built-in guides to include Max Uses and Tag (with added explanation on how to use the latter).
  
• it is now possible to alter a piece of equipment's name via an equipment-altering consumable using Name as the attribute to alter.
  
• received new clothing for female human portraits: RoyalDese.
  
• received new clothing for male human portraits: Blacksmith.
  
• updated the item editor's built-in guides to include Name.
  
• new destructible object set added to the game: Sandstone castle walls.
  
• renamed the StairsLimestone destructible object set to StairsSandstone for the sake of consistency.
  
• fixed: in some circumstances, displaying dialogue in the cut scene editor could cause a null error due to the game attempting to call the gamepad menu navigator component.
  
• fixed: in some circumstances, adding a row to a map could produce a null error.
  
• fixed: the map editor was spawning Blank game objects whenever new units were placed on the map.
  
• fixed: with the introduction of differing portrait scales for proc gen characters, the character creator could start to progressively shrink the preview portrait when cycling through different features.
  
• fixed: deprecated palette code could sometimes cause null errors to pop up when adding certain accessories to portraits for certain characters in the character creator.
  
• fixed: the Jwalaa item graphic was misnamed in AssetNames, and was therefore not showing up in the item graphics browser.
  
• fixed: the character creator could list duplicates in the class selection window.
  
• added in version 0.6.10a: new custom menu button gray-out/warning type: avgLvl. Calculates the average level of the characters in the current roster and grays out the button or pops up a warning if their average level falls outside the specified range.
  

And that about covers it for this update! As always, thanks for your support--making a game this complex as a solo developer is long, lonely, and difficult work, let alone doing it in my free time with no outside financing. Your support is what makes it possible for me to keep doing this.

If you're enjoying Together in Battle, I encourage you to leave a review; it matters a lot! What's more, I want to hear your feedback; come join us on the Sinister Design Discord and let me know what you're liking and what new things you'd like to see changed or added.

Until next month!


Tactically yours,

Craig

Greetings, tactics fans: I have another, surprise update for you! To be honest, I was planning to save this stuff for the next monthly update--but given that I just found and fixed a pretty bad bug, I decided that you're simply getting all of this right now! Two updates in one month; not too shabby, eh? 😉

Here are the changes, starting with new events, items, and skills:

• new event: Clown For A Day.
  
• new event: A Nice Bath.
  
• new item: Anatomical Treatise. Permanently boosts the user's Accuracy stat by 5.
  
• new item: Spring Shoes. Grants Jump. Limited to 3 uses.
  
• new skill: Jump. Same as Leap, but has an after-attack behavior of Can Move instead of being unlimited. Conferred by Spring Shoes.
  
• new item: Pocket Sand. Grants Pocket Sand. Limited to 1 use.
  
• new skill: Pocket Sand. Has a 75% chance to cause Blinded for 2 rounds. Doesn't end the turn.
  

Other changes:

• further improved the shop explanation for why characters want equipment: when the reason a character wants something is stat-related, the game now lists as many as 3 stats the equipment will improve (not just 1), making it easier to compare the benefits from upgraded armor at a glance.
  
• camp activities can now affect the health of everyone present in camp.
  
• revised the doctor's Treat Wounds activity so that it serves a purpose when not playing on Challenging or Challenging+ difficulty. In addition to its existing effect of curing 1 wound level for wounded characters, it now also restores 15% of missing health for all non-wounded characters in camp.
  
• when a character first gets a crush on another character, their activity that evening will now always be to fantasize.
  
• refactored the code for determining nighttime character activities to avoid unwanted behaviors when multiple characters have activities that reference (but do not include) a second character.
  
• created ability, casting, hurt, and shove animations for Praetor Nero.
  
• created ability, axe, hurt, shield bash, and shove animations for Manbir Raksha.
  

Bug fixes:

• fixed: there were a few lines of code I had been using for testing that turned almost every character Sensitive (lines which I forgot to turn off afterwards).
  
• fixed: height was set incorrectly for the promoted shadowling cast animation.
  
• fixed: camp activities like Fantasize were still plucking the characters being thought about out of the activity order for free rein.
  
• fixed for 0.6.01a: it was possible for characters chosen for the events A Crush or A Nice Bath to become romantically interested in characters they were already had a crush on (or were romantically involved with).
  
• fixed for 0.6.01a: some of the scripting for Battle in the Dissident's Den was not working as intended.
  

New stuff usable in the campaign creator:

• created new item graphic: Pouch.
  
• created new skill button graphic: Pocket Sand.
  
• created new sound effect: PoofCloud.
  
• new sound effect: Boing.
  
• created new item graphic: Book White.
  
• created new item graphic: Spring Shoes.
  
• new mood type: Embarrassed. Narrates that a character feels embarrassed.
  
• new mood type: EmbarrassedAbout. Narrates that a character feels embarrassed about their interaction with a specified second character.
  
• received sunset and nighttime variants of the new Riverbank cutscene background; added them into the game.
  
• updated AssetNames.xml to make the most recent batch of cutscene backgrounds selectable in the cut scene editor.
  
• new in 0.6.01a: IfGoneGoTo and IfGoneRun can now find objects by their load ID.
  
• fixed for 0.6.01a: the in-game documentation for SocialUnitsToList was missing the last parameter (amount).
  

And that's about all for this one; see you in March!


Tactically yours,

Craig

Greetings, tactics enthusiasts! February may be the shortest month, but I sure didn't let that stop me from adding in a ton of cool stuff to the game.

[h3]The biggest changes this month:[/h3]

• the game now has a virtual keyboard, allowing text input when playing with a gamepad! With this change, Together in Battle now fully supports gamepad--and along with it, SteamDeck. 🙂
  
  
  
  
• in the shop, when mousing over equipment, the game now immediately clues you in to the biggest reason why each character who wants that piece of equipment wants it. If the reason is an increase in a particular stat, the game will display the stat change the new equipment would produce:
  
  
  
  
• improved auto-move-and-attack behavior: when double-clicking or shift-clicking an enemy, the game now heavily favors skills for which the target is already in range. (If the character moves, it will generally be because there is no skill that's in range, or because there is a much more effective skill that requires the character to move.)
  
• caverns now have a second floor with free exploration that can be accessed by finding the stairs down! (Characters don't regain energy or recover from being Stunned while in free exploration mode, making the navigation a bit of a puzzle.) Cavern depths are generated with one of three different puzzle types, each of which leads to a big treasure if solved.
  
• the funeral scene is now complete, with new cutscene art to match!
  
• new random event sequence that begins in the arena, has multiple cut scenes, capped off with a dramatic hand-designed battle.
  
• new random event: Birthday Fan. This one can play out a variety of different ways depending on the personality of the character you select to participate in it.
  
• new skill: Create Fire. Creates Fire on an open space within 2 tiles of the character. Pyrokineticists now learn Create Fire later on in their skill progression.
  
  
  
  
• new skill: Create Ice. Creates Ice Spikes on an open space within 2 tiles of the character. Cryokineticists now learn Create Ice early on in their skill progression.
  
• new skill: Quick Twirl. Behaves just like Twirl, but the character can both move and use other skills afterward. Costs 2 energy. Characters generated with the dancer background are now set to learn Quick Twirl when they reach high levels.
  
• new item: Flower Garland. Worn on the neck; boosts morale by 1.
  

[h3]Miscellaneous improvements[/h3]

Next up, we have new dialogue, new portrait art, new NPC sprites, improvements to character generation, improvements to procedural battle map generation, combat UI improvements, and more!

• incorporated new sprites for Dese civilians into the game, replacing the placeholder sprites used in Save the Travelers.
  
  
  
  
• proc gen characters are now created with some natural variability in their portrait size--some larger and some smaller--with human women on average a bit smaller than human men.
  
• increased the consistency of physical trait effects on character stat growths.
  
• increased the maximum number of life skills and personality traits the game will track over the course of a playthrough to avoid duplicates from 12 to 18.
  
• when tracking life skills with alternate names (e.g. author/novelist, farmer/gardener, lawyer/judge, etc.), the game now accounts for all variants, not just the variant chosen, thus foreclosing the other variant from being chosen by another character.
  
• added a commonality attribute to various life skills so that ones with duplicative effects (like historians, professors, lawyers, and judges) are now collectively no more likely to be chosen than any other.
  
• wrote new background dialogue for pickpockets, burglars, and bounty hunters. (Previously, they shared the same background dialogue as gamblers.)
  
• it is now possible for a camp activity to involve a second character without that character physically showing up (or having their own activity used up).
  
• characters who have a crush on someone now gain a potential camp activity where they spend the evening fantasizing about their crush.
  
• artistic characters with a crush on another character can now sketch drawings of their crush at night.
  
• reduced the daily chance of a character with -10 morale resigning from 35% to 25%.
  
• updated the Mustebeast Tent event so you can now pick a bunkmate from among everyone else in the roster, not just a selection of 4 random characters.
  
• the engine now supports changing character clothing within unit portraits (as well as disrobing).
  
• new portrait added to the game: town crier.
  
• new portrait added to the game: Specter.
  
  
  
  
• UI improvement: for moves smashing an enemy up against the edge of the map, the collision damage preview now displays the collision just off the edge of the map instead of layering it under the ordinary damage reticle.
  
• UI improvement: removed the "you have already done this today" warning from the Jobs Board button in Kalkerapur, as it is now commonplace to get multiple job opportunities in a given day.
  
• you can now talk to Explorers while on a Cavern Exploration job.
  
• you can now talk to Caravan Guards while on a Caravan Guarding job.
  
• increased the difficulty of caravan guard battles slightly.
  
• made Ice Spikes a bit more dangerous and durable, and made Fire a bit easier to extinguish.
  
• if you choose to people watch during the Festival of the Ascendant Lights, Gurdeep now has a bit more dialogue and you will now have an opportunity to buy a Flower Garland for 5 aura.
  
• you can now ask Rohit for a more in-depth explanation of the Psy Clash rules during the Festival of the Ascendant Lights if you opt to play games.
  
• added some animated portraits to the narration before meeting Gurdeep during the Festival of the Ascendant Lights.
  
• added Black as a battle background for dark spaces (like caverns and such).
  
• new background art for camp activities involve a character discovering or going to a temple!
  
• new background art for the riverbank!
  
  
  
  
• new background art for the Dusht random event and the gambling camp activity!
  
  
  
  
• did a bit of code optimization for when the game checks for whether spaces are solid land.
  
• optimized the game's internal operate() function for increased performance.
  
• the game's procedural map generator can now generate bridges across large stretches of hazard tiles, not just one-tile gaps.
  
• the game's procedural map generator can now generate bridges across gaps between cliffs.
  
• characters and objects can now be forced to spawn within a specific range of distances from the player in proc gen maps.
  
• the game now properly supports stairs which appear to lead down below the map; there is a now a "StairsDown" variant of all existing stairs objects.
  
• improved proc gen map logic for placing stairs (they can now only be placed at elevation 1, and not adjacent to environmental hazards).
  
• status effect immunity messages now only pop up if the target is a character. (The player doesn't really need to hear about how boulders and trees are immune to, say, Blinded or Enthralled status.)
  
• removed the log and one of the bushes from Battle at the Overgrown Garden to make movement around the map less restrictive.
  
• wrote another variant for narration during rainstorms.
  
• added a couple of kitten name variants.
  
• added animations to the portraits of characters reacting to the player's choices during the Beggar event.
  
• improved the sound effect made by floor buttons when they are stepped upon.
  
• cleaned up the "Grab" sound effect a bit.
  
• added the number of the current save slot to generated log files.
  

[h3]Bug fixes[/h3]

• fixed: characters returning from cavern exploration would inappropriately remain on the cavern exploration roster going forward, allowing them to participate in cavern exploration while also remaining available for everything else.
  
• fixed: clicking on a bridge or on stairs while moving in exploration mode would cause the selected character to move adjacent to (rather than onto) the clicked object.
  
• fixed: when ending dialogue in exploration mode, the game would select the next character in the army rather than re-selecting the last selected character.
  
• fixed: the land movement sprite had become misconfigured in movement tiles during Exploration Mode due to (what else) changes to the code made when adding localization support.
  
• fixed: shoving an object while in exploration mode could result in the game displaying that object as the current selected unit in the actions bar.
  
• fixed a null error that could occur when clicking to Use a triggerable object when in exploration mode.
  
• fixed: in the deck viewer, you could accidentally click on cards by clicking in the empty area below them.
  
• fixed: triggering an on-death attack for a destructible object (such as Explode) would not grant experience to the character who destroyed the object and triggered the attack.
  
• fixed: due to a typo, the game was unable to grab the item template for Fur-Lined Cloaks.
  
• fixed: the game was sometimes overwriting proc gen equipment materials values for Together in Battle with old placeholder values, resulting the game not loading material names correctly and therefore failing to generate the correct names for weapon and armor images.
  
• fixed: when shown in battle, the info bar was layering on top of UI elements that should have taken priority over it.
  
• fixed: AI-controlled characters would not open a closed door during their move onto the door's space if that space happened to be the last space in their move.
  
• fixed: flyers who were dunked into water or lava by virtue of being Heavy would, upon swimming to an adjacent tile of liquid terrain after Heavy status wore off, immediately resume flying. Such units must now swim back to land (or a bridge tile) to recover Flying movement.
  
• fixed: the AI could use Swim with characters suffering from Immobilized status when in water or lava.
  
• fixed: when switching months in the calendar, the game ceased to display the current day correctly.
  
• fixed: it was possible (albeit mathematically unlikely) for one or more of a character's NPCs to be generated sharing that character's same first name.
  
• fixed: the Poltergeist promotion for the Spirit effectively nerfed Juxtapose by changing it from an after-attack behavior of Use Once to Can Move.
  
• fixed: narrowing down a tag by its parameters for RemoveTag was only working in cut scenes, not battles.
  
• fixed: when talking to Caravan Guards in a caravan battle, the game referred to them as Explorers.
  
• fixed: on rare occasions, the proc gen map algorithm could generate more than one bridge tile on the same space.
  
• fixed a range error that could occur when generating spawn positions for destructible objects in proc gen maps.
  
• fixed: the gamepad navigator code could sometimes fail to enable navigation to some of the reply buttons in dialogue branches with multiple responses once the reply options finished fading in.
  
• fixed: using the StopMusic script action and then resuming the track that was playing prior to StopMusic with PlayMusic would not work, as the game would think that track was already playing.
  
• fixed: characters undergoing the second Lost Kitten event were not gaining the new Play with Kitten camp activity as intended due to a scripting error.
  
• fixed: character dialogue would animate, with accompanying babble sounds, even as a report covered the dialogue menu onscreen. In a branch with a ShowReport action, the game now initiates dialogue animation and babble sounds only after the report is closed.
  
• fixed: one of the "talk" camp activity variants for hot-tempered characters was not setting character facial expressions appropriately.
  
• fixed alignment on the floor button object.
  
• fixed: the Crickets and CricketsAlt loops were not looping cleanly.
  
• fixed: localization-related changes to the code over the past few months caused the game to stop displaying the name of the status effect in "[Status effect] wore off" pop-up messages.
  
• corrected an error in the description for Medicated Bandages.
  
• fixed: Create skills with particle effects did not produce their particle effects as intended.
  
• fixed a few awkwardly worded dialogue variants where characters talk about their life backgrounds.
  
• fixed: when shown in battle, particle effect velocity for the info bar was not scaled properly.
  
• fixed: one variant of one of the hot-tempered victory barks was ungrammatical.
  

[h3]Campaign creation suite improvements[/h3]

Finally, we have a ton of improvements to the campaign creation suite, including a brand-new tileset, improved battle map generation, support for editing proc gen equipment materials, multiple new script actions, and more!

• new tileset added to the map editor: Castle Sandstone! It's the same as the Castle tileset, but sandstone-colored (and thus more appropriate to sandy or arid environs).
  
• you can now edit the properties of different materials used in procedurally generating weapons and armor in a custom campaign! When creating a new custom campaign, the game now saves a copy of Materials.xml, which you can manually edit to alter the effects of different equipment being made of--for instance--Steel instead of Bronze, or Boiled Leather instead of Leather.
  
• new script action: KnockbackUnit. Pushes the unit in a specified direction for a specified number of spaces, as if they'd been shoved or subjected to a kinetic gust. Three parameters: unit name, direction, and number of spaces.
  
• new script action: ChangeClothing. This works like ChangeExpression, but instead of changing facial expression, it changes the body graphic being used in an existing character portrait. Supports all base classes usable by characters of that species. Optional third parameter: if set to true, this will permanently change the clothing used in the named character's portrait wherever it appears throughout the game.
  
• commissioned new clothing for human proc gen character portraits, settable with ChangeClothing: Villager, VillagerDese, VillagerDese2, Merchant, MerchantDese, RoyalGuard, Slave, and None.
  
• new script action: ReactToDeath. Causes all characters in the specified roster(s) to behave as though the named character died while in their roster. They will suffer a morale penalty based on the strength of their Friendship and Romance with the named unit, will gain a memory of the event, and may become depressed or go into mourning for a period of time. Two parameters: character name, roster number(s).
  
• new script action: SetStringByClosestCharacter. This grabs characters based on how close they are in a relationship sense. Sets a string variable equal to the name of the character in the specified army (if used in battle) or roster (if used in a cut scene) who scores as "closest" with the named character: 1 pt per Familiarity level, 15 pts per Friendship level, 20 pts per Romance level. Parameters: Variable Name, Army or Roster Number, Character Name, Exclude Characters In List (optional).
  
• when calling LoadConv, the new conversation now keeps the existing trigger character and secondary character of the prior dialogue or script by default for easier scripting.
  
• you can now leave the name parameter blank in the AddNPC script action, and so long as the NPC being added is a relative of some kind, the game will auto-generate a name for them (as well as procedurally filling in all the other parameters you left blank).
  
• new tag used to affect randomized battlefield placement: AvoidOwnArmy. This causes the game to weight placement of the tagged unit so that members of the unit's own army are treated as enemies, enforcing minimum distance rules.
  
• new tag used to affect randomized battlefield placement: AvoidArmyObjects. This causes the game to weight placement of the tagged unit so that destructible objects belonging to various armies are treated as characters, including them when calculating minimum distances.
  
• new sound effect: Button Click.
  
• new sound effect loop: Running Water.
  
• new combat visual effects: CryoCast and PyroCast (used in the new Create Ice and Create Fire skills and adapted from existing visual effects for Cryo Blast and Pyro Blast).
  
• new text sprite symbols: Backspace, Confirm, and Arrow White L.
  
• the map editor successfully loads and saves the "forced spawn distance from the player" attribute of army groups in proc gen maps.
  
• reorganized the army group fields in the Generate Map window of the map editor, added fields for specifying forced spawn distance from the player.
  
• within the Generate Map window of the map editor, shifted the player deployment options over to the leftmost column to make better use of space.
  
• created a 5th set of object fields in the Generate Map window of the map editor.
  
• the map editor will now let you select more than just 2 terrain tilesets, and more than just 1 hazard tileset. (It will still pick only 2 tilesets and 1 hazard set at a time when it generates an instance of the proc gen map, but those will be will pulled from every possible tileset you selected.)
  
• added "force spawn distance from player" fields for destructible objects to the Generate Map window of the map editor.
  
• the map editor successfully loads and saves the "forced spawn distance from the player" attribute of objects in proc gen maps.
  
• improved the game's detection of premade unit load IDs (as opposed to actual class names) for army group units in proc gen maps.
  
• added parameter count error-checking to a bunch more script actions.
  
• improved in-game documentation of AddCampActivity and LearnCampActivity to better distinguish them.
  
• the game now supports Species as an alternative to Race among string stats.
  
• fixed: using RemoveTag to strip a unit of its scriptID would remove the tag, but not the associated scriptID marker used to find it by the game.
  
• fixed: upon loading proc gen maps, the map editor would strip out colons from any premade unit load IDs within army groups.
  
• fixed: the map editor was not setting terrain check boxes correctly within the Generate Map window of the map editor to match the sets used by existing proc gen maps upon loading them.
  

And that's about the size of it!

[h2]So where are we now?[/h2]

This update brings the game up to version 0.6.00, meaning that I now regard the game as being more than halfway done! I numbered our last update 0.4.500 mainly because the funeral scene wasn't complete yet--but with that now finished and everything else that's been added alongside, I feel comfortable saying that we're now 60% of the way to a version 1.0 release.

I'm very happy with how the game's systems have come together to create a rich and replayable core game loop. By my count, Together in Battle is now up to 176 character skills, 4 job types on the jobs board, and 57 random events (not counting guaranteed plot events, investigation scenes and battles, events exclusive to the arena, or systems-driven character activities and interactions in camp). This is already quite a lot of content--more than you'll find in many games at version 1.0!

Remaining tasks consist largely of adding plot scenes, hand-designed plot battles, and endings. I also have a wish list of new random events I want to write, time permitting. This is a self-financed game, so I've had to be very judicious about what art assets I invest in. I would dearly like to add proper rest animations and hair/skin palette swapping to character sprites, but this would involve a big financial outlay on my part. We'll see about that one.

In summary: the path to version 1.0 is clearer than ever. I want to thank everyone who has been here and walking this path with me: your feedback, bug reports, and general encouragement have been more helpful than you know!

[h2]Reviews and the Discord[/h2]

Leaving feedback isn't the only way you can help: if you're enjoying the game, I do hope you'll leave a review as well. That makes a huge difference to a solo developer like myself! Getting to 50 reviews, in particular, will really boost the game's discoverability. (You see, 50 reviews is the point where Steam stops describing a game's reception as just "Positive" and starts describing it as "Very Positive" or "Overwhelmingly Positive.")

In addition, make sure to come follow along on social media! The Sinister Design Discord is small but friendly, filled with the sort of people who love to discuss tactics, debate which classes are best, or just give helpful advice. If you're here, I'd love to have you as part of our community.

That's all I've got, friends. Until next month!


Tactically yours,

Craig