Together in Battle News

One month until version 1.0!

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 few fixes and improvements

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

Version 0.9.60: Old friends/lovers, glossary, special orders and release date!

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...

✨ I'm pleased to announce the official, final release date for Together in Battle: May 6th, 2025! ✨

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

Version 0.9.30: custom character dialogue, relationships screen, and more!

Greetings, tactics fans! I'm dropping this month's update super early because--on the day I'd usually push the monthly update--I will instead be moving (and probably not have internet, or my computer set up, or even a bed put together). And I've got to get ready for that move.

This update contains a new event, a new character class, a new skill, UI improvements, and so on--but there are a couple of marquee features in particular, those being customizable character dialogue and a proper relationships screen! Let's start with that first one:

[h3]You can now customize dialogue for your custom characters![/h3]

You heard that right: you can now write out what your custom characters will say under most common circumstances during the game!

when creating a custom character on the title screen, there is now a separate page you can access full of buttons to write or edit the following types of customized lines:
- greeting lines, spoken when this character first introduces themselves to an ally (up to 3);
- greeting response lines, spoken in response to another character's greeting lines (up to 3);
- deployment lines, spoken when a battle begins with this character on the field (up to 3);
- attack lines, spoken sometimes when about to attack an enemy (up to 3);
- victory lines, spoken sometimes when defeating an enemy (up to 3);
- heal lines, spoken sometimes when about to heal an ally (up to 3);
- build lines, spoken sometimes when about to create an object or place a trap (up to 3);
- friendly fire reaction lines, spoken when hit by an ally's attack (up to 2);
- ally defeat reaction lines, spoken when someone this character is close to falls in battle (up to 2);
- a defeat monologue, spoken falling in battle themselves; and
- a secret--a line spoken in confidence to a good friend, only once per playthrough.
the dialogue editing window includes a facial expression selector so you can customize the facial expression attached to each individual line.
this feature has full gamepad support, so you can dream up and edit custom character dialogue even while playing on Steamdeck or using a USB gamepad!

Pretty cool, huh? Now let's move on to that second marquee feature I mentioned before: the character relationships screen!

[h3]Your characters now have a screen laying out their friendships and feuds with other characters![/h3]

When in the character screen for folks on your team, you may notice something different: a big, shiny new relationships button. Click it, and the game will open up a new sub-window listing every other unique allied character they have interacted with!

These other characters will be listed roughly in descending order of how well your character knows them (and secondarily, how much they like them), with a short label describing how your character thinks of them.

And before anyone asks: no, this isn't like social ranks in Fire Emblem. Here, these values can (and often will) be asymmetrical! Below, you can see that at this moment in time, Dipali views Vijay as a friend even though he only sees her as an acquaintance:

With the granular way that Together in Battle models social interactions, this screen makes it much easier to keep track of relationships between your characters. This can help you decide who to pick for certain events--and to predict who could be rendered unhappy by certain personnel decisions you might make...

[h3]On top of this, we have a selection of miscellaneous improvements and bits of new content![/h3]

There's a brand new engineer promotion path, a new random event, more polish in Psy Clash, improved threat-range checking in battle, and more--here's the full list:

when checking threat ranges for enemies, the game now ignores other enemies of the same army who are temporarily blocking their movement, allowing you to see what their full threat range will be once they're no longer hemmed in. This avoids situations where the game displays a misleadingly small threat range simply because other enemies are temporarily in the way.
new random event: Shipping! Two characters bond over a fan theory one of them overheard.
new promoted class for engineers: Machinist! Machinists learn Tune Up, a skill they can use to support golem allies.
skills that only affect targets with specific attributes are now supported.
new skill: Tune Up. Heals the target golem and grants it +25% Strength for one turn. Only affects golems.
AI optimization: the game now checks boolean values instead of strings for a couple more variables when calculating moveable spaces, speeding up processing times.
the game now supports custom relationship labels (i.e. those that can't be determined purely from familiarity, friendship, and romance values) for unique named characters vis-a-vis other unique named characters.
when a unique character is generated from another character's NPCs and they happen to be relatives, the game now automatically updates both characters with appropriate relationship labels (e.g. Brother, Sister, Father, Mother, etc.)
the wedding proposal event now updates the characters with a "Betrothed" relationship label if accepted.
simplified the game's collision damage formula and exposed it in a new early-game tutorial. Before, base collision damage was the skill's inherent damage plus the attacker's base Strength or base Psy, to a maximum of 33% of the target's max health and with a minimum damage of 6. This, then, would be multiplied by the number of spaces the unit was prevented from moving by the collision. Now, collision damage is much more straightforward: the base damage is simply the attacker's base Strength or base Psy (with a minimum of 6); this damage is now increased by 50% for each space of movement prevented beyond the first.

For example: a stone golem with base Strength of 10 will now deal 10 damage using Shove on someone against the edge of the map; 15 using Toss; 20 using Throw; or 25 using Hurl. (Previously, those damage amounts could have been capped by the target's maximum health, and would have increased much more dramatically with each extra space of knockback. Against a target with 24 maximum health, for instance, Shove would have had its damage capped at 8, Toss would have done 16, Throw would have done 24, and Hurl would have done 32--but against a target with 30 maximum health, they would have done 10, 20, 30, and 40 damage respectively.)

I'm especially curious to know how folks like this particular change, so please do leave me your thoughts once you've had a chance to try it out!
reorganized the character screen a bit to make better use of space. Equipment masteries now appear right above the inventory, where they logically ought to; skills have been moved up into the very top-right, and physical traits now sit below skills.
when playing with gamepad, if you select a healing skill, the game now goes out of its way to position the selector on a tile containing an ally who's actually been damaged.
when playing with gamepad, if the game automatically selects a skill to target an enemy multiple spaces away, the game now auto-adjusts the camera to try to keep both the target and the selected character visible onscreen.
finished creating the Dese Palace tile (and associated fill tile) and getting them working in-engine as a prerequisite for designing the final battles.
there is now a chance for character friendships to increase when they practice together.
characters can now only be the subject of an Ally Gift event if they've spoken about their miscellaneous like at some point in the past.
wrote a new ally-defeat response line specifically for Hot-tempered characters.
increased the size of the particle effects in Psy Clash to make hits feel more satisfying.
minions in Psy Clash now have distinct sound effects for when their attacks land (i.e. they no longer all sound like they're attacking with swords).
minions in Psy Clash no longer produce an attack sound effect during combat exchanges if they have a power of 0.
in Psy Clash, if the AI player plays the same card multiple times in a row, the messages now fade out in between each to make it clearer that there are multiple instances of the card being played.

[h3]Next, we have bug fixes:[/h3]

fixed: after switching the character screen to an enthralled enemy using the mouse wheel, subsequent switching via the mousewheel would show other units in the enthralled character's normal army instead of the army which currently had them enthralled.
fixed: when playing with gamepad, the behavior to automatically select a skill if an enemy was in skill range after moving a character could sometimes fail if multiple enemies were within the skill's range in theory but not all of them were actually targetable in practice.
fixed: when playing with gamepad, in some scenarios, the game could throw a null error when searching for targets in range after moving a character.
fixed: when playing with gamepad, there was an error in the scripting for the tutorial dialogue tree teaching auto-move-and-attack preventing the player from exiting the dialogue tree.
fixed: the code for pulling a character's nickname during dialogue inappropriately reversed the roles of the two speakers.
fixed: adding a character nickname during dialogue would not update the character's nickname for purposes of the remainder of that same dialogue tree.
fixed: in Psy Clash, if the AI opponent was left with only Focus in their deck, they could end up in an infinite loop of just playing Focus over and over again. The game now counts how many times an AI player has played the same card in any given turn and will rule it out as a possibility after playing it 5 times.
fixed: due to a change in the Psy Clash code, it had become possible to fill up your lanes with minions, then repeatedly click a minion card in your hand possessing an "on played" effect (such as a gasul) to receive the effect over and over without ever actually clicking a minion to replace.
fixed: in Psy Clash, the Gasul sprite would not show up when the AI played the Gasul card.
fixed: in Psy Clash, a discrepancy between two different algorithms the AI used to evaluate moves could, in rare circumstances, cause the AI to get caught in an endless loop of thinking it had a valid move with a card and then rejecting that move, ad infinitum.
fixed: when in deployment and playing with gamepad, it was not possible to open a character's details screen with the Y button.
fixed: the gamepad cursor was not aligned correctly to the physical trait buttons in the character details screen.
fixed: the gamepad cursor was not aligned correctly to the item buttons in the character details screen.
fixed: when selecting a character for a one-on-one in camp, the game would show a message about right-clicking characters to see their stats in detail even if the player was playing with a gamepad.
fixed a small timing issue where the victory screen waited too long to show the aura won.
fixed: custom portrait clothes assigned in the custom character editor would not reappear upon reloading the character in the editor later.
fixed: the custom character creator was overriding a character's chosen default facial expression upon saving the character.
fixed: if, upon opening the game, the very first thing the player did was go to edit an existing custom character rather than creating a new one (or playing a campaign), the game would fail to load the necessary data from XML and would freeze.
fixed: a few of the buttons in the custom character creator were missing sound effects for being clicked.
fixed a typo in one of the variants for one of the response lines for pessimistic characters upon being told sad information about an ally's background.

[h3]And finally, we have new goodies for people making their own custom campaigns:[/h3]

new sound effects: Hammering Fast and Ratcheting.
new skill button graphic: Tune Up.
new script action: SetRelationshipLabel. Sets a custom relationship label between two unique characters. Three parameters: character name, second character name, and the relationship label. Optional fourth parameter: is mutual. If true, the label will be applied to both characters; if false, only to the first. (By default, relationship labels are mutual.)
new script action: RemoveRelationshipLabel. Removes the custom relationship label from a unique character. Two parameters: character name and second character name. Optionally, the third parameter can be a relationship label--if the first character's relationship label for the second character doesn't match this parameter, then nothing happens.
new attribute type supported for the UnitsToList script action: Spoke. Narrows down by characters who've spoken a particular type of generated dialogue in the past (Greeting, Like, Hobby, Background Where, Background What, Background Family, Nickname, Secret, etc.)
updated in-game documentation to discuss the effect of character nicknames on special characters like -NAME- and -CHAR2-.
the engine now has the groundwork laid to support Fire Emblem-style movement rules (i.e. where characters in the same army can walk through one another); expect the option to turn this on in a future update!

And that's it for January!

[h3]What's next![/h3]

So, where does this leave us? I've now plucked all of the low-hanging-fruit from my wishlist and laid the groundwork for designing the final battle and the scenes that lead up to it; next up will be actually writing those scenes, designing that battle, and writing the ending, polishing and fixing any remaining bugs as I go.

I also have some m...muh...ahem. Excuse me for a moment while I gag. 😫 I have some...marketing...to do. (You know: capturing screenshots, editing video footage, posting to social media, sending emails--all of the relentlessly dull, soul-crushing tasks necessary to ensure that people actually know this game exists.)

We're getting close, folks! I'll be announcing Together in Battle's actual, version 1.0 release date soon; keep an eye open for it! 😉

Tactically yours,

Craig

Version 0.9.10: battle MVPs, Steamdeck improvements, bug fixes and more!

Happy holidays, tactics fans! As I predicted last month, this month was extremely busy for me with real-life stuff--and I wanted to get this latest patch out before the year-end holidays hit so that players trying out the game for the first time could enjoy it in the most stable, complete state possible.

As a result of all that, this update was pushed out on a tighter time frame than usual; as such, it is on the smaller side. Still, there's some good stuff in here--follow along as I regale you with all the cool new thingies!

First up, we've got a couple of big items that I've had on my personal wishlist for the game for some time now...

[h3]...combat performance tracking and post-fight MVP awards![/h3]

I know this goes against my past declaration that I'd be focusing on content and polish rather than new features, but I realized I could fit this in with only a day or so of work, and it really adds an extra jolt of "heck yeah" to the victory screen while simultaneously providing another vector for connecting with your characters. Seemed like a bit of a no-brainer! So here are the details:

the game now tracks battle performance stats on a per-character basis, both for the current battle and cumulatively across the whole game. The new battle performance stats tracked include:
- total damage dealt,
- total enemies defeated,
- total enemies debuffed,
- total collision damage dealt to enemies,
- total falling damage dealt to enemies,
- total healing provided,
- total energy provided,
- total allies buffed,
- total damage taken,
- total damage dodged,
- total damage blocked,
- total sacks grabbed,
- total traps placed,
- total objects created,
- total characters summoned,
- total number of times they've held spaces,
- total number of times deployed, and
- total number of times defeated.
the game now hands out little "MVP" awards on the victory screen at the end of each battle based on how much (and in what way) the characters left on your team contributed! Up to 8 different awards can be handed out at the end of each battle, with the categories depending in part on what your characters did during the fight.

Now, you may be wondering: can these new features later be harnessed as grist for post-fight character interactions and random events? You bet! And will I eventually do that? Mayyyybe... 😉

[h3]I also spent time this month focused on adding a bunch of fixes and improvements for folks playing on Steamdeck or with a gamepad![/h3]

when using gamepad controls, the gamepad cursor now properly disappears from the screen when transitioning to a new scene.
when using gamepad controls, after moving a character with a knockback skill, if there is not a direct-damage skill available, the game now auto-selects the knockback skill for use on an enemy who can currently be damaged by being knocked into an object or character, off of elevation, or into an environmental hazard. (This makes it much easier and more enjoyable to play with kineticists when playing with gamepad controls.)
fixed: when using gamepad controls, after moving a character with a healing skill, the game would not auto-select a Shield skill for use on a damaged ally in range unless the ally belonged to a different army.
fixed: when playing on Steamdeck, the gamepad cursor was not aligned quite right on item options buttons (Use, Give, Drop, Cancel, etc.)
fixed: when playing on Steamdeck, the gamepad cursor was not aligned correctly to the item buttons in the character inventory inspection window in the reserve supplies screen.
fixed: when playing on Steamdeck, the gamepad cursor was not aligned correctly for the day cells in the calendar screen.
fixed: when using gamepad controls, after exiting the game settings menu in a cutscene, the game would inappropriately return gamepad focus to the underlying scene rather than the main options menu (which remained open onscreen).
fixed: when using gamepad controls, the B button would behave like the A button during dialogue even in contexts where this made no sense.
fixed: when using gamepad controls and selecting from a list of units in dialogue, if the dialogue tree returned to the list of units, the tooltip for the last selected character would still be showing onscreen.
fixed: when hiring out characters, the game would show a message about right-clicking characters to see their stats in detail even if the player was playing with a gamepad.
fixed: the Together in Battle demo was not defaulting to gamepad controls on Steamdeck as intended.

[h3]Next up, we have a bunch of other miscellaneous improvements![/h3]

My favorite of this bunch are the new random physical traits characters can get, wherein characters have special reactions to certain types of food. (I've had allergies on my list of traits to add to this game since all the way back in 2011, when I first created the design document for this game!)

new physical trait characters can be generated with: Fruit Allergy. Gains the Sick status effect upon eating mangos or apples.
new physical trait characters can be generated with: Sugar Fiend. Gains the Move Bonus status effect upon eating Cake, Cookies, or Pie.
during the blacksmith rescue mission, there is now alternative dialogue for Dhatuu Dil if you speak to him with a golem or a spirit.
you can now back out of the recruiter without losing a time point if you click it by mistake.
reworked the pixel art a bit for puddles: reduced their size so they don't visibly hang over the edge of elevated terrain tiles, and improved the animation for them. (I have an artist working to make them look even nicer, but we will have to wait for that to be completed.)
the game now auto-updates glow values for spirits from older versions of the game.
added scripting to mark objectives reached for characters who take down an enemy idol or inspirational leader in the arena, or who recruit their sibling there.
added scripting to mark objectives reached for characters who achieve certain objectives in the monkey league qualifier, battle in the dissidents' den, blacksmith rescue fight, golem attack, revenge quest battle, and battle in the northern stepwell.

[h3]And as usual, we have miscellaneous bug fixes aplenty (special thanks to this month's top bug hunter, Tacitus)![/h3]

Oh and by the way, before we get to those bugs: some of you might recognize Tacitus as the creator of the extremely cool custom campaign Fate of the Wayward. If you want a new adventure to play while waiting for Together in Battle to be completed, why not go download Fate of the Wayward from the New Game menu? Trust me, it's worth your time!

All right, now on to the bug fixes:

fixed: when generating a spriggat without a proper spriggat class name, the game could throw a null error upon attempting to update the spriggat's portrait palette.
fixed: the logic used by the danger displayer had ceased counting knockback skills as attack skills, causing the displayed move-and-attack range of enemy kineticists to appear misleadingly small.
fixed: because the Kill-All Victory condition was turned off for army 0 in Attack the Idol matches, destroying the idol would not actually cause the player to win after it resulted in army 1 being wiped out.
fixed: if, during a Psy Clash match, you had multiple minions with free-targeting (e.g. bowmen or crossbowmen) in play and the opponent ran out of minions for you to target in the middle of free-targeting, the game would softlock.
fixed: if, during a Psy Clash match, the AI opponent had multiple minions with free-targeting (e.g. bowmen or crossbowmen) in play and you ran out of minions for them to target in the middle of free-targeting, the game would freeze.
fixed: during a Psy Clash match, if the enemy AI chose to play a card that both affects one or more minions and a player but minions of the appropriate type did not exist in play, the game would recognize this as a valid move but would then get caught in a loop upon trying (and failing) to find a minion to target.
fixed: during a Psy Clash match, you could click a card in your hand during the opponent's turn and the card would be played (and would behave as if the opponent had played it).
fixed: receiving a Psy Clash deck from Rohit during the Festival of the Ascendant Lights would cause the game to overwrite whatever assorted Psy Clash cards the player may have accumulated up to that point.
fixed: the icons for food and aura would sometimes fail to appear in the info bar, particularly when playing on Steamdeck.
fixed: in proc gen battles where the player's characters auto-deploy and the final character in the roster had a wound level greater than 1, the game could throw an out-of-range error when queuing up the characters to spawn.
fixed: during the free-roaming bits of cavern exploration, the introductory text had ceased to coexist peacefully with the free-roaming tutorial text.
fixed: defeating all enemies on the first floor of a cavern would send the player back to camp instead of down to the second floor.
fixed: the file containing the data for the Poison Needles skill had gone missing from the game.
fixed: during recruitment, the little portrait frame that normally appears on the current selected character had stopped showing up.
fixed: when reporting to Manbir Raksha following the attack on the royal guard informant, if the informant was not saved, certain dialogue replies led to the wrong part of the dialogue tree, causing the conversation to proceed as though the player was speaking to Prince Ajit.
fixed: during the interrogation with Malatose about Dayaan, it was possible to navigate the dialogue tree's branches in such an order that you could end up in a spot with no available replies, forcing the scene to end prematurely.
fixed: in the blacksmith, attempting to exit when choosing a weapon for engraving would still direct the player to the dialogue branch where they pick a name to engrave rather than canceling out. (Note for modders: this now requires dialogue trees ensconcing the blacksmith to have a branch for canceling the engraving process named "Cancel Naming"; otherwise, exiting out will return the player to branch 0 of the dialogue.)
fixed: typing words with 'L' in them in the dialogue input field would cause the game to inadvertently save log files.
fixed: during the Stat Advice camp event, if one of the stat possibilities was Counter Limit, the game would fail to display the correct icon alongside it.
fixed: one of the greeting line variants for Imaginative characters was missing a period.
fixed in version 0.9.10a: the confirmation button for leaving the Shop screen had become unlinked from its function, trapping players in the shop screen.
fixed in version 0.9.10b: non-skill red action tiles in combat (e.g. for Talk, Give, and so on) had broken due to a different fix from last month.
fixed in version 0.9.10b: item sacks and bridges had become impassable due to an optimization in the game's pathing logic combined with the game failing to save a boolean "isCharacter" flag correctly.
fixed in version 0.9.10c: traps had broken again due to me once again accidentally overwriting the file that contains their scripts. (Sigh.)

[h3]And finally, what would an update be without some new improvements for folks making their own custom campaigns in the campaign creation suite?[/h3]

new script action: ReplaceInList. Systematically goes through a custom list and, upon finding a particular entry value, replaces it with a different value. Three parameters: List Name, Entry Value, and New Value. Optional fourth parameter: Allow "Contains" Matches. (If this last parameter is set to true, the game will count any value containing the Entry Value as a match.)
new script action: MarkObjectivesReached. Sets a special internal stat for the named character of the type "Objectives Reached," stored alongside other battle stats and used in the algorithm for determining MVPs at the end of a victorious fight. Two parameters: Character Name and, optionally, Amount.
new optional parameter for DamageUnit, DamageUnitAtCoords, DamageCharAtCoords: Attacker ID. Allows you to supply the unique ID of a unit and have the game treat that unit as the one producing the damage.
new unit tag supported: ModItemSFX. The tagged character gets a specific status effect whenever they use an item of the named type.
fixed: shops in the cutscene editor had broken, throwing a null error when displayed.

That's all for this month, folks! Enjoy the holidays to come and I'll have more for you soon! Just FYI, I'm going to be moving in January, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to squeeze in, but my plan is to focus less on QOL stuff and more on creating endgame content.

We'll see what I can make happen. Until next time...

Tactically yours,

Craig