Together in Battle News

Greetings, tactics fans! Lest you think I've been anything less than extremely busy following the launch of Together in Battle to version 1.0 these four days past, allow me to dispel the notion.

With an influx of new players has come an influx of new feedback (and an influx of bug reports), so I've been working quite hard to push out a quick initial update to address those bugs, tweak balance, and make some quick improvements. Let's get to the changes!

[h3]First, we have balance tweaks:[/h3]

• gave the Barudit class an additional early proficiency in Health or Dodge.
  
• Blackguards now gain +8 bonus Health instead of +5.
  
• Wyrms now gain +6 bonus Strength instead of +5.
  
• increased the Prophet's Dodge boost from +25 to +30, making them a bit more reliable at dodging attacks.
  
• Protectors now learn Far Shield in addition to their other bonuses, allowing them to fulfill their healer role while staying farther out of harm's way.
  
• the quality of item sacks thrown by fans in the crowd now gets better and better as the player advances up the leagues, making nabbing them a more worthwhile side objective.

[h3]Second, we have miscellaneous improvements:[/h3]

• item tooltips for weapons now always list the uses left out of the weapon's maximum uses, making it easier to decide which weapons to use repair kits on.
  
• AI improvement: the game now factors in space damage on all AI levels, not just the highest one, meaning that enemies will wander into damaging spaces less often on all difficulty levels.
  
• AI improvement: the game now considers Disarmed, Slowed, and Sick status effects less valuable when scoring moves.
  
• new loading screen tip: "Buy good armor for your characters; this will more than pay for itself in reduced casualties."
  
• new loading screen tip: "Golems are expensive to buy, but it's a one-time cost: they don't draw an ongoing salary."

[h3]Third and most importantly, we have bug fixes:[/h3]

• fixed: novelists and toymakers had a formatting mistake in their camp activities that caused the game to throw a fatal error when choosing them for a one-on-one in camp and giving them orders.
  
• fixed: when playing with gamepad, the recruitment menu was off by 1 when disabling character portraits upon recruitment, causing certain recruits to become unselectable.
  
• AI fix: the AI was not recognizing chasm tiles as potentially damaging units who moved over them (even while temporarily levitating).
  
• AI fix: if a unit moved after attacking, the unit would not rotate defensively to guard its back regardless of the AI handicap level.
  
• AI fix: the AI valued actions applying Disarmed status to targets who were already disarmed.
  
• fixed: in some circumstances in caravan defense missions, it was possible for caravan guards to spawn already submerged in water.
  
• fixed: golems and spirits could react to an ally cooking dinner.
  
• fixed: the dialogue upon destroying training dummies in the Qualifier was no longer firing due to continued use of OnCharDeath triggers instead of OnObjDeath.
  
• fixed: tutorial text on health and resistances in Battle in the Overgrown Garden had begun to exceed the available dialogue box area.
  
• fixed: a text overlay removed via script action could inappropriately reappear after closing a dialogue menu, provided that a text overlay had previously been hidden due to the objectives screen or another UI element temporarily hiding it.
  
• fixed: due to a scripting change, it had become possible to hire out guards or explorers more than once in a day.
  
• fixed: item tooltips could say "1 uses left."
  
• fixed: unique portraits with poseable mouths but no support for skin or hair hue-shifting could get their mouths "stained" in their Actions Bar portrait in battle if the last proc gen unit to be selected before them had a mouth-layer mask.
  
• fixed some graphical errors with hair layering for generic male kineticist, generic female cryokineticist, generic female psy healer, and generic assassin portraits.
  
• fixed a graphical error with the masking for generic female photokineticists.
  
• fixed: Secret line 17 could be generated in a variant too long for the dialogue box.
  
• fixed: unintended species could be generated with Secret line 03.

[h3]And last, an improvement for campaign creators:[/h3]

• when using script actions to spawn units within a randomized range of spaces, the game will now check ahead to ensure that an environmental hazard tile is not chosen for the spawn location. If it is, the game will shift to the closest non-hazard space to spawn the unit on.

And that's it! Not too shabby for a few days of work, eh? Now, then, on to a bit of news...

[h3]We're past 50 reviews! 🥳[/h3]

I want to give a shout-out here to all the lovely people who've left reviews for the game. Thanks to you all, we're now past the 50 review threshold! This means that Steam shows Together in Battle not just as "Positive," but "Very Positive"--which might sound small, but it's quite important to boosting discovery on Steam.

Our next milestone to reach is 500 reviews. If we can hit that, it'll really kick things into high gear and help ensure the game gets shown to a wide audience of players. If you've played Together in Battle and enjoyed yourself, please contribute your review--every little bit makes a big difference! 😃


[h3]Coverage![/h3]

I'd also like to call out some of the nice coverage the game has been getting: reviews from CSH Picone and Grid Commander; some great ongoing LPs from Bumpy McSquigums, Special Caesar, and White Falcon; and a frankly hilarious PVP tournament stream I did in collaboration with the Nihil channel. And I have it on good authority that there's more to come, too!


[h3]So what's next?[/h3]

I have some really fun ideas for ways to further expand upon Together in Battle: new skills, new portrait graphics, new random events, even an entirely new game mode...keep an ear to the ground. There's more to come!


Tactically yours,

Craig

After many years of hard work, it's finally done: Together in Battle is now out of early access and released to version 1.0!

I could wax poetic about how long I've been wanting to make this game--about how it's based on a design doc I wrote nearly 13 years ago, all the way back in 2012, and based on design principles I first wrote about all the way back in 2010(!)--but that's all academic. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as the saying goes--so let's eat!

Together in Battle is 20% off for this week only, so go get it while the getting's good! 😉


[h3]Changelog[/h3]

...oh. You're still here. You say you want to see all the changes since last month? Okay, fine, fine--I'll indulge you.

Here is what's changed since the last major Early Access version (version 0.9.80):

• made the final plot battle and the good ending accessible!
  
• received, implemented a special attack animation specific to the final plot battle.
  
• the shop now has its own dedicated music!
  
• updated the final boss music with a real life vocalist!
  
• there's a new condition that can appear in the lower levels when exploring caverns: a riddle! The player must collect the fragments of a riddle, then solve the riddle to unlock the big treasure.
  
• the army overview screen now lets you see characters who are currently off on jobs, at the infirmary, etc.! Their rows will be grayed out and they will be marked "Absent," but they can still be inspected.
  
• in combat, battle backgrounds can now be left-clicked to initiate drag-panning (or right-clicked to cancel character movement or skill target selection), the same as normal battle terrain.
  
• the game now shows character Dodge stats in the tooltips during deployment.
  
• all of the recurring "character advice" events no longer prevent throwing a gathering in camp.
  
• the AI now respects fog of war, and will not consider attack targets it cannot see.
  
• the AI now ignores treasure chests on Defend the Idol and Attack the Idol maps.
  
• added icons to the buttons in the main menu on the title screen.
  
• swapped the order of the Custom Characters and Campaign Editor buttons in the main menu on the title screen.
  
• cutscene menu buttons can now queue up multiple pop-up warnings, and will show them one after the other when the player clicks to proceed, only proceeding once all have been displayed.
  
• camp activity narrations can now have weather effects attached to them.
  
• golem and spirit activity narrations during rainstorms now actually show them outside in the rain.
  
• Imaginative characters now gain a bit of morale during rainstorms.
  
• caravan defense jobs are now somewhat more common.
  
• the most challenging conditions in caravan defense battles now cannot appear until a certain number of weeks into the campaign.
  
• fixed the level scaling for the Save the Travelers battle.
  
• in the Save the Travelers battle, the game now gives the player a bit of dialogue to signal the enemy discovering the son hidden in the trees.
  
• starting in Monkey League, thieves now spawn on Round 2 or 3 instead of Round 1 during arena matches where they appear.
  
• added a couple of new loading screen tips: one explaining energy drain roll-over damage, and one pointing players toward the Glossary.
  
• it is now possible for aura drop in battle to appear in amounts greater than 500.
  
• reduced the pay cut for 4-on-4s; increased the amount of aura gettable from chests during 4-on-4s in the upper leagues.
  
• increased the amount of aura gettable from chests in the upper leagues in general.
  
• new object type: sturdy chests. Intermediate between ordinary and royal chests.
  
• added way more loot to the blacksmith rescue mission.
  
• the minimum and maximum values of the potential prize for winning a card tournament now gradually grow as the game progresses.
  
• the monetary reward for solving the free-roaming section of cavern exploration now also scales upwards with total days passed in the campaign.
  
• boosted the base extra prize money awarded by scheduled league matches by a fixed amount per league.
  
• improved the treasure in the royal chests for the arena championship battle.
  
• increased the amount of the championship bribe.
  
• created a follow-up event, post-bribe.
  
• took out the extra 1.5 seconds of waiting before a character gets their skill from Teach dialogue; instead, characters now learn the new skill from Teach camp dialogue at the conclusion of their response.
  
• made Hari Rathore a unique character with his own distinct portrait and combat barks.
  
• added an extra enemy to the Dissident's Den battle when playing on Brutal difficulty.
  
• buffed the guard's survivability in the witness protection battle some more.
  
• gave Ansh a big boost to accuracy in the witness protection battle so his shield bash is more consistently effective.
  
• added some dialogue to the witness protection battle making it clear that attacking enemies on the stage activates them all.
  
• made it much harder to accidentally aggro all the units onstage in the witness protection battle.
  
• replaced the treasure onstage in the witness protection battle with something much more valuable.
  
• Jigna Lal's dialogue letting you know that stronger recruits are available now changes somewhat with each successive league.
  
• added more explanation about paradigm training to the trainer.
  
• added one more hobby line variant for hotheaded characters.
  
• the game now tracks the maximum romance value that characters have toward other characters for purposes of having dialogue specific to former love interests. (Corresponding special stat name: RomanceHistorical.)
  
• the game now tracks the maximum friendship value that characters have toward other characters for purposes of having dialogue specific to former friends. (Corresponding special stat name: FriendshipHistorical.)
  
• if a character gets asked out by their crush, the game now increases their morale and gives them a happy mood.
  
• if a Depressive character is in a romantic relationship, their partner may now come comfort them when they get depressed.
  
• characters now lose the Fantasize camp activity if they get into a romantic relationship.
  
• added a new romance relationship level before lovers: Dating.
  
• pushed back the earliest point at which a character can ask another character to marry them.
  
• 2 of the 3 "nothing happens" events are now stripped out of the evening events hopper as soon as the player reaches Duomensis, keeping interesting events coming at a higher rate.
  
• other than the spirit, free-roaming cavern exploration conditions will no longer repeat over the course of any given playthrough.
  
• moved the BPD Recruitment event up from Day 42 to Day 35.
  
• health proficiency now increases Health by 3 instead of 2.
  
• increased the psy boost effect of the Power Orb from 3 to 5.
  
• increased the health-boost effect of the Blood Orb from 10 to 16.
  
• increased the power of proc gen flails.
  
• increased the availability of Ladoo and Medicated Bandages in the shop.
  
• reduced the base salary modifier for shadowlings from 120% to 105%, making them much more affordable than before.
  
• characters can now continue moving after using the Unlock Door skill.
  
• stone golems are now generated with a base Dodge value of -10 (down from 0), making it more difficult to create "dodge tank" stone golems.
  
• boosted Mant Lancer Strength, Speed, and Energy to make it a more viable alternative to Mantis Knight.
  
• the Arbalist class now gets +1 max range to Grape Shot as well, not just Powder Bolt.
  
• the Drake promoted class now gains Small Shield mastery.
  
• the Wyrm promoted class now gains more Dodge and Health.
  
• the Caduceus class now gains +1 range to Mind Shield and Far Shield in addition to the various energy cost reductions.
  
• engineer braziers now scale their health relative to the creator's strength at a dramatically lower rate than barricades do, keeping them from just being strictly better than barricades in every respect.
  
• you can now create a custom background line for your custom characters (corresponding to the "Background What" dialogue type).
  
• when you change a custom character's name, species, or class, the game will now flag any non-custom dialogue lines assigned to the character to regenerate in order to account for references to the changed details (e.g. the character saying their own name or class in the dialogue).
  
• added gamepad support to the background selection buttons and background dialogue button in the custom character creator.
  
• when using the virtual keyboard with gamepad controls, the Y button now automatically acts as a shortcut for Space.
  
• wrote alternate response dialogue for characters who are the subject of a marriage proposal despite being already engaged.
  
• made some final tweaks to the ending and to the end credits.
  
• reduced the extent to which iron, steel, and duoterre materials increased the cost of weapons and--especially--armor.
  
• increased the amount of money lootable in the smuggler den event.
  
• the game now auto-displays the updated objectives when the crank is loosened in the smuggler's den battle.
  
• added extra safeguards to ensure that the game never clones a character when using Recruit-type script actions.
  
• added an Inspect Character reply option to the stat advice, sick parent, and family weapon events.
  
• buffed the Steam-powered Crossbow item.
  
• BPD events are now more common each week.
  
• you can now haggle a bit with Jiti Sone.
  
• added a new ending slide reflecting player choices during the strikebreaking event.
  
• wrote some extra dialogue for the event where a character returns with a unique family weapon.
  
• version 1.0.00a: halved the game's music volume by player request.

[h3]We have numerous bug fixes:[/h3]

• fixed: Manbir Raksha's eye and mouth positioning and scaling data had not been updated to match the increased base scaling of his portrait.
  
• fixed a typo in one of the Practice camp activity narrations for Suave characters.
  
• fixed: it was possible for characters to Fantasize about other characters they hadn't met yet.
  
• fixed: the algorithm the game uses to determine if a camp activity requires an available partner was not taking account of the "is partner present?" attribute, preventing characters from having activities thinking about other characters if those other characters weren't available.
  
• fixed: the game was inappropriately using character nicknames in lieu of character names during narration for Teach Response dialogue.
  
• fixed: one of the sound effects at the start of the Battle in the Dissidents' Den was mislabeled, causing it to not play.
  
• fixed: if a skill caused damage to a single ally from two or more separate sources (e.g. normal damage and falling damage), the game could queue up a friendly fire reaction twice in a row to it.
  
• fixed: the character screen was not incorporating the +20 accuracy boost for max morale characters when showing their stats.
  
• fixed: the game could sometimes inappropriately add extra bridge tiles over a nearby hazard space when building bridges.
  
• fixed: a scripting mistake in the BPD Recruitment event was causing the game to treat non-Desan human characters as natives of Dese.
  
• fixed: during the investigation scene following the witness protection battle, if talking to Manbir, it was possible to end up taking a path through the dialogue tree that didn't surface a certain important revelation.
  
• fixed: at the start of a new day, the game was failing to reset the flag indicating whether it had already performed a morning event check that day, leading to non-plot-specific morning events never triggering.
  
• fixed: the flags for whether the last player attacked or shot with a unit were not getting reset for subsequent games of Psy Clash after the first, almost always preventing whichever player went first from attacking on their first turn.
  
• fixed: if you sent characters out on a caravan protection mission, the second half of the payment due could get overwritten by subsequent hiring out via the jobs board.
  
• fixed: it was possible for the game to freeze if a character dodged a charge attack, counterattacked, and then leveled up from it all in one sequence.
  
• fixed: in the character screen, tooltips for character class appeared beneath the Relationships button.
  
• fixed: in the custom character maker, the game would throw a fatal error when trying to create a golem or spirit and getting to the part where you pick a character background.
  
• fixed: any time the game switched character roles around before a Talk activity in camp, neither character would remember the resulting conversation, nor would the effects of that conversation "stick."
  
• fixed: the SetWinAura and SetLossAura script actions were not updating the dialogue's internal victory aura and loss aura values for purposes of the -WINAURA- and -LOSSAURA- special characters, which was causing day logs to inaccurately record arena winnings for scheduled league matches.
  
• AI fix: the AI was treating prospective attackers as if they were still on their pre-movement space for purposes of determining if attacks would be counterattacked.
  
• AI fix: the AI was treating prospective attackers as if they were still on their pre-movement space for purposes of calculating character collision damage when scoring moves.
  
• AI fix: the game was not penalizing moves which dealt collision damage to an enemy by smashing them up against an ally, leading to green units smashing red units into the player's characters way too often.
  
• fixed: the "Stupid" AI profile would cause the game to make characters sit and do nothing until approached, ironically making them harder to deal with in many situations.
  
• fixed: proc gen recruits were being created without a load ID, allowing them to evade one of the game's core checks to prevent unintentional unit duplication.
  
• fixed: one of the Happy mood descriptors noticeably conflicted with one of the rest narration phrases.
  
• fixed a small scripting issue in the Trailing Malatose scene.
  
• fixed: the event where a character asks another character out on a date could occur even if the character being asked was wounded.
  
• fixed a bit of event dialogue where a character's nickname could appear in lower-case despite being at the start of a sentence.
  
• fixed a few small scripting mistakes in the event where a character returns after a long absence.
  
• fixed: the code which was preventing attacks from counting as skill uses in arena fights if not used against targets for whom the character would gain experience was also preventing loud skills from alerting enemies in the blacksmith rescue mission if used against destructible objects.
  
• fixed: the promoted shadowling's Shadowport animation was misaligned, causing the user to inappropriately pop up into the air during use.
  
• fixed: the skill Cut was missing the attribute that made it dependent upon having the skill Sword available.
  
• fixed: the game had begun duplicating bonus damage tags every time it displayed them in a skill tooltip.
  
• fixed: weapon bonus damage was being applied to non-damaging skills so long as they depended upon that weapon (e.g. bonus damage from a poisoned or burning sword being applied to Feint).
  
• fixed: in the Smuggler Den event, the character to be rescued remained in the list of characters you could send in to perform the rescue.
  
• fixed: when using an item in the character screen during battle that didn't close the character screen, the game was not updating the character screen to reflect changes.
  
• fixed: it was possible to screw up some of the game's logic tracking what in-game day it currently is by pressing the left or right arrow keys in the calendar screen.
  
• fixed: certain day logs relating to character death or wound recovery were missing periods.
  
• fixed: the day log window within the calendar screen was using outdated arrow graphics.
  
• fixed: the game was not loading Battle in the Print Shop correctly.
  
• fixed: the game would freeze if a campaign tried to go to a scene which doesn't exist.
  
• fixed: the game was not immediately updating fog of war when characters switched armies or became Enthralled.
  
• fixed: generic units were not being generated with status effect immunities, permitting enemy golems and spirits to get poisoned.
  
• fixed: the NextFrame script action was leaving actions in the queue from any dialogue the action skipped, resulting in those actions executing the next time cutscene dialogue appeared.
  
• fixed: the wording on Bowman and Crossbowman in Psy Clash inappropriately suggested that the player could choose to attack instead of damaging a minion.
  
• fixed: when defeated, the defeat box was showing the prize for winning instead of the consolation prize upon defeat.
  
• fixed: the game was failing to schedule a new league match after losing the Gharial, Snow Leopard, or Tiger League qualifier battles, blocking any further progress up the leagues.
  
• fixed: if you lost in the Monkey League qualifier, it was possible for the game to simply never let you retry it if you did pickup matches beforehand.
  
• fixed: if you lost in the Monkey League qualifier, the game would create a day log saying that you lost the Gharial League qualifier.
  
• fixed: when rescheduling a league qualifier match that the player had previously lost, the game was pulling the date of the earliest attempt rather than the new date for purposes of Gupt's dialogue.
  
• fixed: when quitting to the title screen while a voiceover is playing, the voiceover would continue.
  
• fixed: kineticist skills were dealing far less collision damage than intended.
  
• fixed: a small error in the game's algorithm for returning adjacent spaces on the battlefield meant that it would never acknowledge the existence of any space in the very topmost row of the battlefield as a valid space (for example, when generating character deployment spots for proc gen arena battles).
  
• fixed: certain newer types of data tracked by the game weren't being reset upon starting a new campaign.
  
• fixed: the left- and right-facing female frost spriggat rest poses had rogue position attributes still attached from the earliest days of experimenting with animations in the engine.
  
• fixed: the up-facing female barudit sprite had a rogue position attribute still attached that caused female barudit to disappear into stairs when facing upwards.
  
• fixed: the male frost spriggat and female red spriggat walk animations had rogue position attributes still attached.
  
• fixed: in the reserve supplies screen, you could use the mouse wheel while a confirmation window was onscreen (e.g. asking if you'd like to auto-equip a character), and it would cause the text in the screen to no longer match the effect of confirming.
  
• fixed: when the game cloned character portrait data, it was failing to include accessories, meaning that in some situations (most notably during dialogue), character accessories failed to appear.
  
• fixed: certain personality-specific Recognition Response lines were miscategorized as regular Recognition lines.
  
• fixed: the game wasn't parsing the -HOBBYVERB- special character (used in exactly one variant of one hobby line across the entire game).
  
• fixed: the depressive hobby line inappropriately referenced the character's miscellaneous like instead of their hobby.
  
• fixed: the game would not load more than one item with the same name even if they had different load IDs.
  
• fixed: Lead Ointment was not using its unique item graphic, and instead was sharing a graphic with Thermal Paste.
  
• fixed: the Book text sprite was misaligned.
  
• fixed: the custom character creator was trying to load life background options when editing previously created golems and spirits, then throwing an error.
  
• fixed: in the custom character creator, clicking a button the change a golem's gender after choosing its class would wipe out subsequent selections even though a golem's gender cannot change.
  
• fixed: when reloading a previously created custom character, the background selector would not default to showing the character's previously selected background.
  
• fixed: an incorrect delimiter was causing the game to deserialize custom character life backgrounds incorrectly.
  
• fixed: the facial expression chooser in the custom character creator had begun to obscure the portrait, preventing the player from previewing these expressions.
  
• fixed: the next page button was not connected properly in the custom character browser.
  
• fixed: the page buttons when selecting units in dialogue were not working.
  
• fixed: it was not possible to select the View Deck button in camp using gamepad controls.
  
• fixed: it was not possible to input custom character dialogue using gamepad controls.
  
• fixed: when playing with gamepad, the game would not show tooltips when moving the cursor over item sacks located on bridge tiles.
  
• fixed: when playing with gamepad and using an item within the reserve supplies screen, if the character screen popped open to show the results of the item usage, gamepad focus would not switch to the character screen.
  
• fixed: the gamepad cursor could appear misaligned to main menu buttons in the title screen.
  
• fixed: when playing with a gamepad during recruitment, the gamepad cursor could end up over elements on the left side of the screen even when those elements were not visible.
  
• fixed: when playing with a gamepad during cutscenes, the gamepad cursor could end up over the food and aura icons in the info bar even when the info bar was not visible.

[h3]And finally, changes and improvements for people using the custom campaign creation suite:[/h3]

• custom campaigns now permit the creation of custom AI profiles! When creating a new custom campaign, an AIProfiles.xml file is now created; edit it to create new AI profiles for use in the custom campaign.
  
• the weight given to moves based on how close characters will stay to their allies now has its own distinct property in AI profiles: clustering.
  
• the "Stupid" AI profile now enforces an army-specific AI handicap floor of 7, making it actually stupid.
  
• species-specific status effect immunities are no longer hard-coded, but are now instead assigned in the species XML file.
  
• the game now supports items that are readable books, letters, notes etc. When used, these items open the report screen and let the player read their contents.
  
• added four new "Paper Scrap" item graphics.
  
• new script action: RegenerateCharDialogue. Causes the game to reroll a character's dialogue. Two parameters, same as the first two parameters for RemoveCharDialogue.
  
• new special character: STRLENGTH[]. Gets replaced with the number of characters within a named custom string's value. (For instance: if the custom string CharacterName is set to Bob, then STRLENGTH[CharacterName] will be replaced with the numeral 3.)
  
• new special character:

  [lc][/lc]

  Causes whatever text is wrapped within it to be entirely lower-case.
  
• new special character:

  [CAP][/CAP]

  Causes whatever text is wrapped within it to have a capitalized first letter.
  
• updated the custom asset info file for the Backgrounds subfolder created when making a new custom campaign; it now explains how to create custom battle backgrounds.
  
• updated missing special character and script action documentation for the in-game guide.
  
• fixed: unadjusted growths were not being applied to characters created with the ShowCharCreator script action, resulting in the game throwing a null error when attempting to alter their growths.

There. That's everything!

[h3]Thank You[/h3]

I'd like to end this by saying thank you once again to everyone who's supported Together in Battle over the years, whether by buying Sinister Design games, by sending in bug reports, by leaving nice reviews, or by spreading the word on Reddits, forums, and Discords all over the interwebs. I am but a single guy--there is simply no way I would have been able to pull all this off on my own without your help. I am humbled by your continued support and my gratitude is immeasurable; I sincerely hope that this game meets your expectations!

All right folks, that's all I've got for now. Until next time!


Tactically yours,

Craig

Greetings, tactics fans! Today is April 6, 2025: and that means we are exactly one month away from Together in Battle's version 1.0 release!

I originally wanted to avoid doing a monthly update this month, but I found and fixed some rather nasty bugs and I just couldn't bring myself to leave you all hanging for 30 whole days. 😉 But before we get to the bug fixes...

[h3]...here are the changes, improvements, and new content in this update:[/h3]

• first, a huge and long-awaited UI improvement: when in the Reserve Supplies screen, if playing with a mouse and keyboard, you can now drag and drop items directly from reserve supplies onto specific characters! (And from character inventories back into the reserve supplies as well.) 😃
  
  
  
  
• a "Conclude Investigation" button now shows up in town after Malatose offers to help you investigate the summer palace; the player can choose to click it immediately or to continue pursuing leads in the investigation, at their discretion. (Note: this button is currently turned off pending the version 1.0 launch.)
  
• created the scenes leading up to the final battle. (Not yet accessible.)
  
• created the final battle. (Not yet accessible.)
  
• created the scenes following the final battle, including the good ending and a new, extra-bad ending. (Not yet accessible.)
  
• added a new, unique character spriteset to the game. (I'm not saying what it is because of spoilers.)
  
• created a final boss variant portrait for post-defeat.
  
• created a couple of new enemy types.
  
• new special terrain and skills added to the game (which I am being deliberately vague about for spoiler reasons).
  
• new items added to the game: Ladoo, Shahi Ladoo, and a handful of unique weapons and armor specific to certain named characters (which, again: spoilers).
  
• new battle background added to the game (also spoiler-y in nature).
  
• battle backgrounds now support an emissions layer, letting parts of them glow independent of the actual battle map.
  
• new difficulty: Challenging-. Combines the economic aspects of Relaxed with the tactical difficulty of Challenging.
  
• after a certain number of in-game days (200 in Relaxed difficulty, 140 in Challenging, and 100 in Brutal), if you haven't managed to address the fact that Praetor Nero is hunting you down, you'll now get a bad ending (for reasons that may be readily apparent). Don't worry: this timer is quite generous on every difficulty setting below Brutal--half of an in-game year or more. It's there more for immersion-preservation reasons than out of any expectation that players will actually run afoul of it.
  
• the time limit is now customizable for Custom Difficulty.
  
• finally got a unique animated visual effect for Vengeance; I must say, I think it looks pretty awesome! 🙂
  
  
  
  
• stat alterations caused by a character's current terrain are now noted in the character screen.
  
• you can now grab item sacks filled with money using Enthralled enemies and the money will be added to your total.
  
• the game now tracks whether you've met a variety of different NPCs in order to customize the ending based on your experience and choices.
  
• scripted capability for the game to permit the player to skip certain dialogue branches with the Escape key/Cancel button even if they contain multiple replies or would otherwise normally be unskippable. You can now use this to quickly skip through the first two plot events in the game (the flyer event and the camp visit event) even on dialogue branches where there are multiple reply options.
  
• wrote alternate dialogue for Nihal Agarwal if you visit the shop after a certain major, very bad event occurs.
  
• wrote a new evening event with Ishita Svaamee (Renaming Offer), plus character reactions that can occur in battle, post-event.
  
• if payday is tomorrow and the game detects that the player is short of the funds needed to meet payroll by a certain amount of aura, the game will now automatically try to queue up the next Ishita Svaamee event for that evening's camp event (assuming that any of those events have not yet occurred).
  
• the game now tracks how much your payroll comes to with the day log for each payday.
  
• if you fail to make payroll, the game now saves a separate day log recording how far short of payroll you fell.
  
• created a few new gradations for friend and enemy relationship labels, allowing a bit more granularity.
  
• characters with prior relationships can now join up already having nicknames for each other from when they met earlier in life.
  
• increased the chance of characters who talk in camp having a narrated conversation instead of specific dialogue from 40% to 50%.
  
• wrote new character gossip: characters who talk at camp may now discuss the Festival of the Ascendant Lights during the week and a half or so leading up to it.
  
• added day logs for choices made during the Festival of the Ascendant Lights.
  
• added missing sound effects to the dramatic climax of the Festival of the Ascendant Lights.
  
• created a map of Dese, now accessible within the glossary! (Speaking of which: the glossary can now display maps in lieu of a text description.)
  
  
  
  
• added glossary entries for the Exostose Mountains, Tavaar Mountains, and Hadi Desert.
  
• updated the Glossary entry for Thought Impressions.
  
• the glossary can now be accessed in battle.
  
• added alternate spirit and golem lines to the introductory dialogue at the start of the summer palace escape battle.
  
• added alternate dialogue to one of the bad endings if it triggers because the player took too long.
  
• added effects to the dialogue branch where you attempt to scan Dayaan during her visit to camp.
  
• edited scripting for the first Thief Attack event to make enemy levels scale more evenly with in-game time passed.
  
• reduced the salary of the recruitable kineticist in the Monkey League Qualifier.
  
• the enemy axefighter in the Monkey League Qualifier now only has throwing axes in Brutal difficulty.
  
• the game will no longer run late-night battle events on the same day that a league qualifier or championship match occurred.
  
• increased starting food from 100 to 105 to avoid outlier situations where the player could run out of food shortly after fighting the qualifier match.
  
• Ladoo now shows up in the consumables section of the shop upon reaching Monkey League.
  
• the shop now has a 1-in-3 chance of having a Claw in stock whenever you visit.
  
• characters with the Fruit Allergy trait are now precluded from being generated with fruit in their inventories.
  
• characters with the Sugar Fiend trait are now always generated with some manner of baked good in their inventories.
  
• characters with the Sugar Fiend trait are now generated with tags that give them Move Bonus status after eating Ladoo or Shahi Ladoo. (This change is not retroactive to characters created before the patch.)
  
• added a day log for when Nihal Agarwal asks the player to help restore his supply of steel armaments, and a second day log recording whether the player agreed or refused.
  
• added day logs for a variety of side quest battles (particularly those with multiple potential outcomes).
  
• replaced "aura" text in numerous dialogue replies for various events with the aura symbol.
  
• added a bit more texture to the new palette-swapping hair for the female axefighter sprites, improving their appearance.
  
• updated the lighting at the entrance to the Dissident's Den map using the new directional lighting.
  
  
  
  
• multiple new achievements added to the game. (Note that you can't actually get these until version 1.0, though 😅)
  
• updated the Jack of All Trades achievement to require promotion to all of the current 49 prestige classes (as opposed to the 48 prestige classes that existed prior to the addition of the Mechanist).
  
• official (i.e. not player-created) campaigns can now set special int variables readable globally in every campaign (called "internal vals"), usable to check if the player has yet encountered certain types of situations across playthroughs.
  
• new in version 0.9.80a: received, integrated new Whirlwind animations for additional sprites into the game.
  
• new in version 0.9.80a: renamed the glossary button to signal that it also contains maps.
  
• new in version 0.9.80a: scripted logic for the game in case the player fights in the tournament championship without first completing the main plot.
  
• new in version 0.9.80a: added arrow buttons to the day log viewer; you can now use these to browse through day logs without leaving the viewer.
  
• new in version 0.9.80a: the day log viewer now tells you the exact date of the log currently being displayed.
  
• new in version 0.9.80a: new element support in custom character creation: background. This lets you choose your character's life skill from before they joined up.
  
• new in version 0.9.80a: rearranged elements on the character creation screen to keep the explainer pop-up from obscuring the character portrait.
  
• new in version 0.9.80a: added about half a dozen new variants to possible Fantasize narrations.
  
• new in version 0.9.80b: added day logs to document the outcomes of various event battles, including Shadowling Grandpa, Strikebreaking, Save the Travelers, Duel in the Streets, Golem Attack, Thief Attack 1 and 2, both of the Heemank Ambani sparring battles, the Revenge Quest Battle, Battle in the Northern Stepwell, and Battle in the Smuggler Den.
  
• new in version 0.9.80b: boosted the scariness of the golem reinforcements in the Golem Attack battle.
  
• new in version 0.9.80c: added a bunch more day logs recording the outcome of various random events.
  
• new in version 0.9.80c: improved wording for the Ally Gift event; getting it right now improves the asker's morale by 2 in addition to improving their relationship with the other character.
  
• new in version 0.9.80c: added an extra 1.5 seconds of delay between the end of Teach dialogue animating onscreen and the new skill pop-up occurring.

[h3]Next, we have a variety of bug fixes:[/h3]

• fixed: the shop's 10% Weddingsday discount was being based solely off of the default shop price level from Challenging difficulty; it was not scaling to match the differing shop price levels of other difficulty settings, and so was not actually offering 10% off on those difficulties.
  
• fixed: defeating all enemies during the first floor of cavern exploration would take the player back to camp instead of down to the second floor.
  
• fixed a null error that could occur if an enemy burned to death from a Burning status effect applied from exploding charges.
  
• fixed a null error that could occur if lit charges exploded on their own and triggered a counterattack check.
  
• fixed a null error that could occur if lit charges exploded on their own and killed someone as the game tried to check for a friendly-fire bark trigger.
  
• fixed: the Together in Battle skills XML file had a formatting error that was keeping it from being loaded.
  
• fixed: bonus damage was not showing up in skill tooltips within the character screen, only in the Actions Bar.
  
• fixed a scripting error that was preventing the vindictive character quest event chain from ever initiating.
  
• fixed: when clicking on enemies, the game was not displaying danger tiles for skills that exclusively imposed certain status effects like Enthralled or Clouded (e.g. Mind Control).
  
• fixed: destructible objects were not taking heat damage over time while immersed in lava (meaning, absurdly, that you couldn't detonate charges by throwing them into lava).
  
• fixed: the game had ceased displaying mouseover tooltips for item sacks on top of bridges.
  
• fixed: the terrain inspector would not display healing effects associated with terrain tiles.
  
• fixed: cave walls could be set on fire by explosives despite having a Heat resistance of 100.
  
• fixed: when stats got into the triple digits, they could get cut off in the character screen.
  
• fixed: characters could react to friendly fire from generic units with a Friendly Fire bark.
  
• fixed: changes to the next scene made via SetNextScene and SetDefeatScene were not being saved in mid-battle saves.
  
• fixed: characters with prior relationships could end up nicknaming each other instead of recognizing each other when first approaching one another in camp.
  
• fixed: the last two MVP awards were showing up simultaneously on the victory screen at the end of a battle.
  
• fixed: due to a scripting error, the Monkey League Qualifier boss was not moving after the turn they were supposed to aggro.
  
• fixed: the code which looks ahead to see if a crucial character is going to immediately die from environmental damage after the turn starts (and, if so, shut off the mid-battle save function to prevent the player soft-locking themselves) had not been updated to account for destructible objects which add environmental damage to a space (such as fire).
  
• fixed: a scripting error could cause the Conclude Investigation button to show up in town even after being kicked off of the investigation.
  
• fixed: setting parameters using a Run reply type was only working in battles, not in cutscenes.
  
• fixed: a coding mistake had started causing the dialogue for late-night events to stop showing up.
  
• fixed: a scripting error was causing the caravaneer's guild to erroneously say you had no characters available to hire regardless of how many characters you had.
  
• fixed: the description for Partial Plate incorrectly labeled it as heavy armor instead of medium armor.
  
• fixed a few minor scripting errors for Battle with the Steel Bandits.
  
• fixed: defeating the Steel Bandits was adding steel weapons to Agarwal's, but not iron or steel armor.
  
• fixed: the code that triggered recognition dialogue could cause characters with sufficient familiarity but who had not actually spoken a normal Greeting line to each other to inappropriately use recognition lines when speaking dialogue to each other for the first time.
  
• fixed: a character who already had a nickname for someone could nonetheless get Nickname dialogue with them and overwrite their existing nickname.
  
• fixed: Pessimistic characters could mistakenly be assigned an Info Response line intended for Religious characters.
  
• fixed: it was possible for characters to talk about how battles have changed since the team got into the current league before the player ever actually fought a battle in that league.
  
• fixed a couple of typos in a few variations of the practice camp narration for characters with the Insomniac trait.
  
• fixed: one of the flirtatious "miscellaneous like" lines incorrectly referred to hobbies instead.
  
• fixed a typo in part of the scripting for the Lost Kitten event.
  
• fixed a typo in part of the scripting for one of the bad endings that could cause golems and spirits to offer dialogue inappropriate to their nature.
  
• fixed: the recruitment screen was not displaying salary and price text consistently between golems and non-golem characters, using text for most characters and the aura symbol for golems.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: it was possible for custom characters who had previously been recruited to show up again in recruitment, allowing the player to recruit a second copy of that character at level 1.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: red spriggats were getting much lower boosts to maximum health from promoting than every other spriggat type.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: scripting errors in some of the character chatter during the game's primary bad ending.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: there was a small graphical issue with NextScene replies during a late event in camp.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: the game was missing certain operations for float values (such as floor and ceiling), causing it to inappropriately set float values to 0 when encountering these operations in contexts such as the TargetPreference unit tag. This, in turn, was causing thieves to completely ignore chests in battle instead of prioritizing them.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: in some rare instances (such as where an AI unit ends its turn by swimming onto a land tile with reeds), the game could end up running a coroutine to execute the next move twice, resulting in the game running the next two AI moves concurrently.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: there was a minor scripting issue in the first interrogation of Malatose.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: data for hobbies and miscellaneous likes could get mixed up for custom characters.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: code intended to check what types of dialogue a unit had engaged in with any other unit was not working as intended.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: in rare instances, the battlefield generator could sometimes stop short of generating all of the required deployment spots for a battle.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: during the event A Nice Bath, the initial narration inappropriately uses a second character's nickname for the first character rather than the first character's name.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: campaign-specific camp activity narrations sharing the same ID as default narrations would not prevent the default ones from being loaded in the pool of available narrations.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: there were a couple of minor scripting issues in the Gharial League Qualifier battle.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: the game's prohibition against non-flyers launching melee attacks against targets on a space with an elevation difference of 2 or greater was not being applied to skills where the attacker moved to the target over a distance (such as Charge).
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: an XML formatting error was preventing the game from loading the dissident interrogation scene.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80a: Vengeance could be used through walls.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80b: there was a scripting error preventing the bandit fight from occurring during the second traveling merchant event.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80b: there was a scripting error preventing the fight from occurring during the blacksmith rescue event.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80b: the new code allowing skipping through certain early-game plot dialogue trees was causing a slew of null errors when activated.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80c: in a bunch of events, if a second character who has a nickname for the first character is cast as the secondary character for the event, the secondary character's chosen nickname could end up being used instead of the first character's actual name in event narration.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80c: there was no babble sound effect attending Malatose's dialogue if you spoke to her upon returning to the palace immediately following her initial interrogation.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80c: a number of branches during the initial interrogation of Prince Ajit where the player attempts to scan him are incorrectly formatted, causing the scene to reset.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80c: an XML formatting error was preventing the game from loading two other plot battles.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.80c: there was an error in how the game reads and records which dialogue a character has had with another character.

[h3]And finally, there's some cool new stuff for campaign creators:[/h3]

• when custom campaigns are created, they now come with a folder (and instructions, and an example map graphic) for adding custom maps to your campaign's glossary!
  
• new terrain stat modifier supported: RangeBonus. You can use this to have a battlefield object boost attack range for ranged skills!
  
• new script action: ChangeArmyColor. Two parameters: army number and color. Does exactly what it says on the box. 🙂
  
• new script action: ChangeArmyController. Changes an army from human-controlled to AI-controlled, or vice versa. Two parameters: army number and "is human" (a boolean that can be set to true or false).
  
• new script action: ShowObjectives. Brings up the animated objectives UI showing current objectives (handy for if you change objectives mid-battle and want the player to see them spelled out).
  
• new script action: ClearLights. Removes all point and directional lights from the battlefield.
  
• new script actions: IfInternalValGoTo and IfInternalValRun. These check for global integer values instead of the normal kind, then do the thing advertised in the action name if there's a match.
  
• new special character: -CONTROLLINGARMY-. Returns the army is currently controlling the character who triggered the dialogue (accounting for Enthralled status). If there is no such character, then the game instead returns the number of the army whose turn it currently is.
  
• new sound effects: Crowd Angry, Crowd Gasp, Crowd Gasp Male, Crowd Murmuring 2, and Wail Woman.
  
• fixed: the Transfer script action would add a character to the destination roster even if they no longer existed in the roster they were to be transferred from.
  
• fixed: the -ATKX- and -ATKY- special characters had started each returning 0 when using skill scripts regardless of where the attack was centered.
  
• new in version 0.9.80a: optional parameter for the PlayLoop action: volume percentage. Supply an integer from 1 to 99 to have the game play the loop at that percentage of its normal volume. (If you put 100, there's no reason to use the parameter to begin with; and if you use 0, you might as well not play the loop.)
  
• new in version 0.9.80c: new sound effect: Liquid Pour.
  
• new in version 0.9.80c: updated the assets list with new sound effects, loops, item graphics, and skill graphics.

Now, some of you may be wondering: what's up with all those "Not yet accessible" scenes? The short answer is, I'm waiting on a few assets from contractors to put the finishing touches on those scenes. Not to worry, though: they'll be ready in time for next month's launch! 😉

Speaking of which...


[h3]The game hits version 1.0 in exactly one month![/h3]

Game developers customarily send out review copies to reviewers a few weeks prior to version 1.0, a courtesy that gives those reviewers time to really dig in and produce comprehensive reviews in time for launch day. Which is to say, Together in Battle is actually going to be complete quite soon--within about a week-and-a-half, in fact.

"But if that's the case," you may ask, "then what are you going to do between then and May 6th?" Great question, astute reader! I'll be using those last few weeks before May 6th to (1) catch and fix any bugs that escaped my earlier sweep, (2) make any necessary last-minute balance tweaks, (3) create the launch trailer, and (4) prep miscellaneous marketing materials. (Marketing is important, after all: it would be less-than-ideal if I were to spend this many years making Together in battle only for it to launch to a world that doesn't know it exists. 😅)

To everyone who's been playing, offering feedback, and reporting bugs: I want to once again say thank you. I'm just one guy with a day job--I would never have gotten to this point without you. Also: I cannot wait for you all to experience the game's final battle and good ending. See you in one month!



Tactically yours,

Craig

A small update with some hotfixes and improvements, pushed now only due to a rather nasty bug reported by one of our players.

[h3]Miscellaneous improvements:[/h3]

• for all combat difficulty levels below Brutal, removed fog of war from potential arena fight conditions prior to Monkey League, as it was causing a big difficulty spike for so early in the game.
  
• wrote 3 new loading screen tips: one about the advisability of prioritizing enemy psy users, one about combining attacks with differing ranges to focus down an enemy, and one about the value of feeding kills to your level-one assassins.
  
• male pyrokineticist sprites and pyrokurios/pyrarch sprites are no longer bald; they now display character hair color correctly.
  
• cleaned up a frame in the right-facing human female photokineticist casting animation that was offset by a pixel.
  
• updated one of the lines in the dissident interrogation dialogue to make more sense.
  
• new unlockable glossary entries added: Dara Abhedy and Sandesh Andhera.
  
• added some new flags to various moments in player interrogations to give the game ways to recall if the player has gathered certain information.
  
• the engine now supports baking bonus damage of differing elements directly into a skill.
  
• further increased the base winnings for matches in the various arena leagues.
  

[h3]Bug fixes:[/h3]

• fixed: if the player surrendered a fight in the arena following the maharaja visit event and they hadn't won any arena battles in the interim, it would set the maharaja visit event to retrigger that evening.
  
• fixed: female axefighter sprites were not displaying their character hair palettes correctly; replaced their bandana with uncovered medium-length hair to make their hair color easier to see.
  
• fixed: human photokineticist sprites were displaying character hair color in a much darker shade than intended.
  
• fixed the offset on directional lights--they now appear to originate on the space where they are placed.
  
• fixed in the map editor: unit tooltips could show up over the top of the light properties window, obscuring it.
  
• fixed: the option to scan Prince Ajit during his interrogation was not leading to the correct dialogue branch.
  
• fixed: Nihal Agarwal was not informing the player that his mission wouldn't occur that same day until they'd already accepted it.
  
• fixed: in some instances, clicking to skip score tallying in the victory box could fail to end the "score tallying" sound loop, leaving it playing until the player quit to the title screen.
  
• fixed: under some circumstances, it was possible to access certain investigatory sub-activities from the town menu even after being removed from the investigation.
  
• fixed in version 0.9.60b: an XML formatting error had started keeping the game from loading Together in Battle-specific skills.
  

The endgame is underway--but obviously, not accessible just yet. Stay hyped for May 6th! 🙂


--Craig

Greetings, tactics fans! It is as I foretold: over this past month, I moved and had to spend a bunch of time both prepping for that and then, post-move, unpacking and setting things back up. But I'm back and I have some cool new stuff for you all!

I also have some big news--the final release date! Make sure to read to the end on this one. But first, let's go over all the new stuff now in the game:

[h3]Big improvement number one: characters can now have unexpected, preexisting relationships with your other characters straight out of recruitment![/h3]

• each newly recruited character now has a chance to know one of your other characters from back before they were recruited: as a childhood friend, as an old flame, or as an old rival. The chance of this happening starts out very low but gradually increases as the days pass in-game.
  
• characters are now generated with specialized lines for when they recognize a character from before the start of the game--both positive and negative--and lines responding to those recognition lines.
  
• characters who have a prior relationship are now given memories of having met years before the start of the game that they can potentially reference when reminiscing.
  
• when characters who have a prior relationship are recruited, a tag is now added so that one will try to talk to the other when they are in camp together.
  
• added both positive and negative recognition lines and recognition response lines to the custom dialogue page of the custom character creator.

[h3]Big improvement number two: there is now an in-game glossary![/h3]

• the glossary contains a whopping 234 entries discussing lore about the game setting; providing details about all of the world regions, cities, and towns that your characters can come from; discussing all of the world religions your characters can practice; talking about how Psy works; detailing every Psy Clash card; describing the game's variety of elements, stats, and status effects; and more!
  
• the bottom of every glossary entry contains clickable links to other, related glossary entries, making it much easier to learn about related subjects (and creating its own little TV Tropes-esque research rabbithole).
  
• the glossary tracks what topics you've navigated to since opening it, and has an unlimited "back" function so you can retrace your steps.
  
• some glossary entries start out hidden and unlock as you investigate the core conspiracy and meet unique and plot-relevant NPCs.
  
• the glossary can be accessed and browsed from the main menu at any time during non-combat scenes (including during the middle of character dialogue).

[h3]In response to complaints (well, okay, one complaint, but that's good enough given the sample size), I made further changes to render the mid-to-late-game economy even more lenient:[/h3]

• increased the monetary prize for winning the league qualifiers. The Monkey League Qualifier now awards 1900 aura instead of 1600; the Gharial League Qualifier now awards 2300 aura instead of 1900; the Snow Leopard League Qualifier now awards 2800 aura instead of 2250; and the Tiger League Qualifier now awards 3400 aura instead of 2600.
  
• doubled the number of coins held by the chest in the dissident's den battle.
  
• added 100 coins to one of the chests in the witness protection battle.
  
• doubled the number of coins held by the Silent Strangler in the summer palace escape fight.
  
• added extra loot to the chests in the smuggler's den battle.
  
• whenever the game generates a day log following a victory or loss in the arena, it now includes a note stating exactly how much aura you received as a reward for the fight. This creates a record you can reference to help plan out how much money you can expect to earn in the arena in the future.
  
• day logs now record how much aura you earn when you hire out characters as laborers; how much aura you earn when you participate in a card tournament; how much aura you're paid when you hire characters out as explorers; and also how much aura you earn when you hire out characters as guards (and how much extra aura they earn if and when they succeed in defending the caravan). This, too, should help with budgeting!
  
• new loading screen tip added: "Be careful not to overspend; you'll need money saved up in case things go wrong!"
  
• and in case all that wasn't enough, a new difficulty level has been added: Tactics Only. A blend of Brutal and Relaxed, this difficulty setting cranks the tactical challenge of the game's battles up to the maximum while simultaneously setting salaries and prices for food, training, and items to levels so low that they need hardly ever be considered.
  
  Now, you might ask: "Wouldn't setting prices so low ultimately end up trivializing the tactical challenge as well due to the player simply having way too much money to outfit and train their characters?" To this, I say: yeah, probably. Tactics Only difficulty is intended for veteran SRPG players who want a tactical challenge but just can't be bothered with things like budgeting (or, you know, pressing the "Custom Difficulty" button). If you intend to actually pay attention to the economic side of the game and manage your budget, then Challenging, Challenging +, and Brutal are still right there, waiting for you!

[h3]I made a couple of changes and additions to make the new Machinist advanced class for Engineers more appealing and tactically interesting:[/h3]

• new Machinist skill: Recharge. This restores a golem's energy and grants it Alert status for 1 round.
  
• boosted the health-restoring power of the Machinist's Tune Up (it now restores health equal to the Engineer's Strength rather than just 50% of the Engineer's Strength).

[h3]I also took some time to go back through all the Secret lines (which I hadn't touched in probably two years or more) to make sure they all still make sense given the way that characters have developed in the intervening time:[/h3]

• sad character Secret lines will now trigger the sad info response variant line instead of the default response.
  
• wrote a new Secret line for Narcissistic characters.
  
• reassigned one of the Secret lines for Narcissistic characters to Blunt characters instead, as it better fit that personality archetype.
  
• polished up the wording of a handful of character Secret lines.

[h3]Next, we have a variety of other, miscellaneous changes and improvements:[/h3]

• during one-on-ones in camp, you can now order characters to undertake special camp activities tied to their distinctive talents! Hunting for food, treating the wounded, lecturing, repairing weapons...as long as the character knows how to do it, they can be ordered to do it (with the sole exception of group morale-boosting activities such as joking, singing, and telling stories--these are off limits for obvious balance-preservation reasons.)
  
• Together in Battle now supports anime hair colors for custom character portraits: blue, light blue, green, purple, pink, and bright red. (To be clear, the game will never use these colors for proc gen units, but you can now select them for your OCs--or Legally Distinct Fire Emblem Character Look-alikes--if you desire.)
  
  
  
  
• commissioned a lovely new animated puddle graphic, incorporated it into the game.
  
• when in the reserve supplies screen during start-of-battle deployment, the game now marks the characters who've been chosen for deployment with a little star on their portraits.
  
• reduced the size of the character inventory window within the Reserve Supplies screen so it no longer obscures the fourth row of reserve supplies when open, then adjusted the layering and positioning of item tooltips to accommodate the layout change.
  
  
  
  
• prettied up the design of battlefield grid squares for when grid squares are turned on in the game settings.
  
  
  
  
• human characters from Dese now have last names generated from a completely separate pool of words better suited to their home region. The game can now generate well over 1,000 distinct Desan last names.
  
• created a new, unique "electrical blast" sound effect specifically for Mind Shock; the game now plays this when using the Mind Shock skill instead of just reusing the Mind Blast sound effect.
  
• when a fan requests that you not use one or more skills during an arena match, the game no longer counts automatic usage of those skills via counterattacks against you.
  
• reworded the blurb in the caravaneer's guild to remove any ambiguity about whether the characters you send out will have to fight. (Spoiler: they will.)
  
• the cave explorer job type no longer appears on the jobs board until the player has advanced to Monkey League.
  
• updated the "not enough characters" warnings for caravan guard and cave explorer jobs in the jobs board so they now pop up if there aren't enough characters available for the specific job type. (Previously, they only popped up if no characters at all were available in the roster.)
  
• wrote new Defeat lines for Awkward, Arrogant, Blunt, Cheerful, Depressive, Empirical, Friendly, Imaginative, Kind, Narcissistic, Natural Leader, and Serious characters (bringing all of them up to at least 3 variant Defeat lines to choose from).
  
• made it so that if a Religious character can possibly get a Defeat line customized to their particular religious tradition, they will always be generated with that instead of a more generic line.
  
• spriggats are now more likely to be generated as Dualists.
  
• new miscellaneous like added to the game: pies.
  
• characters who get certain variants of the Fantasize camp activity now increase the likelihood that they (or anyone else in camp with a crush) will ask another character out on a date.
  
• if a character with the Old Flame relationship label asks out the other character with the corresponding Old Flame label, they'll now get special dialogue acknowledging their prior romance.
  
• the game now displays the name of the current team when in the battle menu during a multiplayer fight.
  
• if the info bar is showing when the victory/defeat box appears at the conclusion of combat, it will now automatically fade out.

[h3]We have bug fixes, too![/h3]

• AI fix: the game could play the "Held!" message and sound effect for a unit repeatedly during its army's turn, applying the Immobilized status effect anew each time.
  
• fixed: OnCharDeath dialogue set to trigger upon the death of any characters in the player's army could also be triggered by the destruction of any player-created object, leading to potentially absurd consequences such as losing the duel in the Duel random event battle because the enemy wandered into your snare trap.
  
• fixed: the MVP code responsible for accounting for ties on various post-fight award metrics was missing a check to exclude scores of 0, which could in some instances cause a character with an internal battle stat of 0 to get an MVP award for it if a second character had that same battle stat also set at 0 and no one else had a higher value for it.
  
• fixed: if you clicked the victory box to skip the MVP award animations, the awards would not snap to their correct final locations.
  
• fixed: it was possible for dialogue boxes to pop up even after they initiated a change of scene and the screen began fading to black.
  
• fixed: deployment of multiple different armies on the same map was not functioning properly.
  
• fixed: the game's default nicknaming conversation had a coding error--it assigned the nickname within the wrong unit, ensuring that the character theoretically bestowing the nickname never actually used it.
  
• fixed: characters could be generated with apples as the miscellaneous thing that they like even if they had the Fruit Allergy physical trait.
  
• fixed: one of the Secret lines for Blunt characters referenced the person who raised them, and yet could be chosen even if the character had in fact been raised in an orphanage or grew up alone on the streets. (It also presented a uniformly negative picture of that person regardless of how the character actually felt about the NPC who raised them.)
  
• fixed: characters who were once bakers could get a Secret line about hating the taste of baked goods even if cookies, cakes, or pies were chosen as their miscellaneous thing that they like (leading to inconsistencies with the positive results of picking the thing they like in the Ally Gift event).
  
• fixed: characters could get a miscellaneous Secret line about how they despise picked flowers even if a type of flower was chosen as their miscellaneous thing that they like (leading to inconsistencies with their positive reaction to receiving picked flowers in the Ally Gift event).
  
• fixed: you could generate unwanted log files simply by typing the letter 'L' into an input field during dialogue.
  
• fixed: the game would not play turned off for AI-controlled teams during multiplayer battles.
  
• fixed: if the save game function was called multiple times during a cutscene, it would produce a duplicate of every character to save.
  
• fixed: the settings menu was cut off by the top and bottom of the screen for players with super-widescreen monitors, preventing them from switching to a properly supported resolution in-game.
  
• fixed: the generate inventory parameter for the GenerateUnit and GenerateUnique script actions was not being read.
  
• fixed: level music could only be set to a custom string as part of a PlayMusic script action, not just as part of the normal level parameters.
  
• fixed: surrendering did not work correctly in a multiplayer context.
  

[h3]And of course, we have new goodies for the campaign creation suite:[/h3]

• the game now generates a new placeholder glossary for editing whenever you create a new custom campaign. This glossary will be specific to your campaign!
  
• a new type of free-standing light is now supported in the map editor: Directional Light! Unlike the existing Point Light, these point in a clear direction, making them handy for simulating light coming through windows, doorways, and other openings to the outside.
  
  
  
  
• new sound effect available in the campaign creation suite: Mind Shock.
  
• new skill graphics available in the campaign creation suite: Tune Up, Recharge, Point Light Btn, and Directional Light Btn.
  
• new text sprite supported: Book.
  
• new script action: ClearRoster. Clears all characters from a single specified roster.
  
• new script action: CustomCharsToRoster. The game will load all of the player's custom characters and add them to the specified roster, where they can be accessed and used just as any other character might be. One parameter: roster number.
  
• new script action: CampActivitiesToList. Two parameters: character name and list name.
  
• two new script actions: CapitalizeString and DecapitalizeString. These alter an existing string variable so that the first character in the string is capitalized, or so every character in the string becomes lower case, respectively.
  
• new script action: UnlockGlossaryTopic. Unlocks a previously locked glossary entry so that it will appear in the player's glossary going forward. One parameter: Topic ID.
  
• new script action: SupplementGlossaryTopic. Allows the description in a glossary topic to be dynamically supplemented with additional information mid-playthrough. Two parameters: Topic ID and Supplemental Description.
  
• new script actions: IfRelationshipLabelGoTo and IfRelationshipLabelRun. These let you produce special dialogue or effects based on whether characters share a special type of relationship. The same as every other kind of If action, but the relevant parameters to check are Character 1, Character 2, and the relationship label to check for (concerning what label character 1 has for character 2, not vice versa).
  
• new optional parameter for the AddReply script action: Add at Position. This lets you pick a spot in which to insert the reply. (Without this, new replies created via AddReply always get added onto the end of the existing options.)
  
• if the branch parameter for AddReply is left blank and the Conv ID parameter is also blank, the game will now default to adding the reply to whatever the current branch of the current conversation is.
  
• created a new dialogue trigger specifically for the destruction of non-character units: OnObjDeath. Used when you want something to happen upon the destruction of an object, not a character.
  
• the OnSkillUsed dialogue trigger now has an additional, optional parameter: exclude counterattacks. If set to true, this causes the game to ignore skill usage for purposes of the trigger if the skill was not used actively by the player, but rather was used automatically as part of a counterattack.
  
• the game now supports custom campaigns starting out on a scene not named Introduction.
  
• the engine now supports custom variable values for the roster assigned to each army in a battle.
  
• custom integer values can now be pulled directly from custom lists in many more places in the engine.
  
• previously, the game's prohibitions against opening menus applied even when every single army on the field was AI-controlled, preventing the player from opening the main menu and exiting the fight, changing settings, reviewing the objectives, etc. Now, during a fight with 100% AI-controlled armies, you can now hit the Escape key to open the main menu and the game will pause while you mess around in there.
  
• Similarly, during a fight with 100% AI-controlled armies, you can now right-click characters to open their character screens and the game will pause while you look around.
  

And that's that! You might have noticed that a few of the fixes listed above seem to concern multiplayer. A multiplayer mode is not actually included in this update, buuuuut let's just say that I've been working on some other things which didn't make it into this update...

This is going to be the last monthly update until Together in Battle's version 1.0 release--that way, I can focus single-mindedly on getting all of the end-game content done and polished without having to keep temporarily walling things off for interim releases. But speaking of that big version 1.0 release...



Please go ahead and mark your calendars, folks; me and my whopping zero-dollar marketing budget are definitely going to need your help to get the word out. 😅

Until then, I'm always around listening to feedback and suggestions! Find the Sinister Design website here and the Sinister Design Discord right here. I hope to hear from you!


Yours in tactics,

Craig