The Necromancer's Tale News

[p]Still working away here, adding quality-of-life features, small narrative additions, and bug fixes. Thanks so much for your continued support and reviews- they really help and it's amazing to see how much people are enjoying the narrative! :-)[/p][p]

Patch Notes 1.185-1.186[/p]

• [p]Minions can now carry bodies (this is a bit complex so hopefully no bugs)[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug with the Animate ritual[/p]
• [p]Added an extra hint that the chapter 8 double-date is in the North Gate Tavern, not Garnet’s[/p]
• [p]Made skillchecks in the picnic a bit easier[/p]
• [p]Added automatic data on any errors that happened leading up to a bug report being sent in-game– hopefully this will assist diagnosing some issues
  [/p]

[p]Patch Notes 1.187 [/p]

• [p]Added wall torches in your basement and crypt, that can be turned on/off[/p]
• [p]Added wilderness map labels (added as you discover important locations) and wilderness fast travel (but only from chapter 14- there’s too many trigger spots prior to that, so teleporting around wouldn’t be a good idea).[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug that was occasionally breaking the final scene in the throne room in chapter 16
  [/p]

[p]Patch Notes 1.188 [/p]

• [p]Fixed some places where zombies might inadvertently walk off into the city and get captured  while following you around the perimeter wall[/p]
• [p]Stopped the player from accidentally leaving the barracks too soon while doing their evil thing there[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug with the “Sometimes, Dead is Better” plot (Sybil)[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug when switching an unloaded missile weapon from inventory to equipped during combat - military benefit was not being applied to reload APs[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug whereby you could talk to the guards at the Grim before meeting them[/p]
• [p]Added an extra hint about how to use Dominion of Phobos[/p]
• [p]Cleaned up Rosario’s woodland allies after the chapter 13 combat[/p]
• [p]Cleaned up some inconsistencies in Fen’s conversation if Varenth has left[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug that sometimes had NPCs not pause walking while talking to you, which could cause knock-on-problems with e.g. hugging animations[/p]
• [p]Fixed invisible text in the save-game renaming window[/p][p][/p]

[p]Patch Notes 1.189 [/p]

• [p]Added the option to change your mind about refusing Gustav’s offer for the paintings. If you refused to even let Balaban look at them, though, there’s still no way back.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug where cancelling a ‘save as new file’ would save anyway (into your current slot)[/p]
• [p]Your known battle spells are now listed on your character sheet[/p]

[p][/p][p]The game also got officially "verified" for the Steam Deck by Valve this week. Awesome![/p]

[p]We're delighted to announce that Valve has now certified The Necromancer's Tale as "verified" on the Steam Deck! As big fans of the Steam Deck, we put a lot of work into this so it's great to get through this rigorous review process.[/p][p][/p][p]Controls[/p][p]The schematic below shows the game controls for the Steam Deck. You can play the game entirely using the two joysticks and buttons.[/p][p][/p][p]The joysticks move your character and virtual mouse pointer. During normal play the D-Pad is used for cycling through nearby hotspots (and you can use A to interact with one and automatically walk up to it). The D-Pad cycles through your chat choices during conversation, and through menu buttons etc. The triggers and bumpers do a variety of camera controls and other in-game things that you would normally do with the mouse buttons/wheel. [/p][p][/p][p]Virtual Mouse[/p][p]The right stick controls the mouse pointer. We have found this to be a very good replacement for mouse/touchscreen, and it's generally only needed during combat, inventory management, and on the settings window (when the D-Pad is a bit too limiting). In general, ‘A’ is equivalent to clicking the left mouse button, and ‘B’ is equivalent to pressing Escape. [/p][p][/p][p]Keyboard [/p][p]An onscreen keyboard appears when you need to enter text (which is rare- it’s generally just at the start when naming your character, when renaming a save file, or when making entries in your journal). You can use the virtual mouse (or of course the touchscreen) to type. [/p][p][/p][p]Steam Cloud [/p][p]The game saves to Steam Cloud so you can move seamlessly between Deck and PC play. [/p][p][/p][p]Touchscreen [/p][p]The Deck's touchscreen works just fine, of course, if you wish to use it, but the game plays perfectly without it.[/p][p][/p][p]X Box Controller[/p][p]If you're playing on PC, all of the above should work on your X Box controller too.[/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[p]This post gathers together the patch notes from the last week.[/p][p]Since the spoiler tag doesn't seem to work here, I'll refer you to the Steam forums in a few places. You'll see more details on some of the specific patches there, marked as spoilers.[/p][p][/p][p]Patch notes, 1.177 - 1.178[/p]

• [p]Fixed a bug with the new (SPOILER-see Forums) sequence in chapter 13[/p]
• [p]You can now rename your minions[/p]
• [p]Made it so you can’t save your game if a court case is scheduled (as this could be a soft lock if you are (SPOILER-see Forums) following the court case)[/p]
• [p]Added a reminder to bring your (SPOILER-see Forums) in chapter 13, if it’s not in your possession.[/p]
• [p]Added a setting  to show all icons all of the time (rather than having to hold RMB to see some the less important ones)[/p]
• [p]Made it so that double-click/shift-click on a weapon does
• not* equip it as it normally would if you’re currently trading with a merchant. This is to avoid accidental Trust depletion.[/p]
• [p]Added scaling buttons to resize the Control Bar at bottom centre of screen (synchronises with scaling of Equipment/Inventory windows and Magic Bar)
  [/p]

[p]Patch notes, 1.179[/p]

• [p]Chapter 16: Added extra end-game narrative in two places (SPOILER-see Forums) [/p]
• [p]Expanded the Chapter 11 (SPOILER-see Forums) [/p]
• [p]Improved the wording in a couple of quests, for better clarity[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug with the new “show all icons” option[/p]
• [p]Reduced size of character stats at side of screen in prologue on 16:10 aspect ratio so they don’t overlap the book
  [/p]

[p]Patch notes, 1.180[/p]

• [p]Fixed bug when removing suspicious items/weapons for safekeeping while you are in hospital[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug that would block you from saving if there is a court case scheduled but (SPOILER-see Forums) [/p]
• [p]A bunch of work on Steam Deck compatibility (we’re in the review process at the moment)
  [/p]

[p]Patch notes, 1.181[/p]

• [p]Improved the spell failed sounds[/p]
• [p]Fixed minions getting stuck on the basement stairs at home[/p]
• [p]Made combat easier to win in Story Mode (it’s important that you still need to build up your minions, as that’s core to the narrative, so we can’t remove all combat calculations and auto-win them)[/p]
• [p]Allows the camera to get a little lower (always) and a little high (in combat)[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug that had some NPCs visit the cemetery after dark[/p]
• [p]Added a note in conversation that NPCs whose hair (SPOILER-see Forums) [/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug caused by two overlapping cutscenes being possible at home in chapter 5[/p]
• [p]Added some extra wording in chapter 4 (SPOILER-see Forums) [/p]
• [p]Improved Albrecht’s explanation around the sale of items[/p]
• [p]You can now combine the strange trinket (with the skull design on) with silk or string to make a necklace[/p]
• [p]Added a full-detail information panel in shop container windows, so you can see weapon stats before buying them, etc.[/p]
• [p]Removed an exploit where you could sell items from a shop to itself and earn money. Jokob’s onto your little game![/p]

[p][/p][p]Patch notes, 1.182-1.183[/p]

• [p]Fixed a bug that could stop nausea from ever clearing[/p]
• [p]Made CTRL/RMB (see all icons) ignore camera angle/visibility of objects while showing icons- to help see occluded objects[/p]
• [p]Removed the ‘all interaction icons on’ setting for now due to bugs with it[/p]
• [p]Fixed doors so they open properly rather than go invisible when someone walks through them
  [/p]

[p]Patch notes, 1.184[/p]

• [p]Sent the kids back to class after hide and seek in chapter 7[/p]
• [p]Made the number of save slots visible in the save window unlimited[/p]
• [p]Added a hotspot for (SPOILER-see Forums) , in chapter 9[/p]
• [p]Fixed two places in the chapter 9 (SPOILER-see Forums) where clicking too fast through dialogue could break the cutscene[/p]
• [p]Added options to use (SPOILER-see Forums) to bypass some strength checks[/p]
• [p]Improved some logic around the chapter 13 combats[/p]

[p]It's great to be adding new features now, rather than just fixing bugs. Thanks to everyone for the nice comments - it's amazing to hear how many of you are enjoying the game! Thanks also for the bug reports - these are really important so we appreciate you taking the time to send them.[/p][p][/p][p]This is a summary of the last 5 patches, since we last did an announcement.[/p][p][/p][p]Patch notes, 1.172[/p]

• [p]Load a game without exiting to main menu[/p]
• [p]F8 now saves into a dedicated quicksave slot rather than over-writing the current ‘main’ save file[/p]
• [p]You can now save over another save slot rather than having to save as new slot then delete old slot[/p]
• [p]Added a label to draw attention to player-notes feature in journal[/p]
• [p]You can now milk goats even if your character doesn’t specifically need goats milk right now[/p]
• [p]Labelled the keyboard remapping controls more clearly[/p]
• [p]Fixed the issue with the hole into the fever ward being gone in subsequent playthroughs
  [/p]

[p]Patch notes, 1.173[/p]

• [p]Fixed a bug that had dead Robyn taking part in the hide-and-seek game[/p]
• [p]Added a door so that the guard at the east (slums) gate can let you through when the gate is locked (from chapter 3)[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug that was causing various objects to be absent from the world on subsequent playthroughs (note: if you are currently playing a game with this problem already saved in its file, this won’t fix it- the bug was when a new game was started after exiting to menu from a previous game). If anyone is in a playthru and needs their save file fixing, please contact me in our Discord.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Patch Notes, 1.174[/p]

• [p]Added a wilderness map[/p]
• [p]Separated Load from Save in the escape menu[/p]
• [p]Fixed Ramón in the “Breached!” docker plot
  [/p]

[p]Patch Notes, 1.175[/p]

• [p]Fixed a potential softlock in the grand ball[/p]
• [p]Fixed a problem that was stopping minions from following you out of the small north-east cave after chapter 14[/p]
• [p]Added new narrative content for Barbara and Janez- an opportunity to find out more about Zelig, if you’re willing to kiss and tell a little.
  [/p]

[p]Patch Notes, 1.176[/p]

• [p]Added a better sequence around chapter 13's big events[/p]
• [p]Made another small improvement to how Sofia tracks you down in chapter 8 for the thing in the North Gate tavern[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug that was making dead bodies sometimes disappear from where you had stashed them, when you re-loaded a save file [/p]
• [p]You can now reload from the current save slot as well as other slots, while in-game[/p]
• [p]Added space for more save slots in the load/save window[/p]
• [p]Added F9 to quickload from the (F8) quicksave slot [/p]
• [p]Put in a safeguard to stop you taking an item multiple times by spam-clicking it[/p]
• [p]Put in a safeguard to make sure all combat mugshots are cleared out after a combat[/p]
• [p]Fixed an occasional bug with the Rejuvenate and Repair rituals which would leave the player unable to move[/p]
• [p]Fixed an error with Ilona’s audio[/p]

[p]Here's a round-up of the tweaks and fixes from the 2nd half of the week since we launched. Was it just a week ago? Oh my.[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Fixed two glitches with protection rituals (Grave Myst, Dominion of Phobos) at the cemetery - they weren’t stopping the Animate ritual paraphernalia from being discovered when you forward time, nor were they protecting any minions you had left standing around the cemetery.[/p]
• [p]Improved the explanation and logic around the two core combats of chapter 13, to better justify plot progression.[/p]
• [p]Added trust ratings in your character sheet.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a few little bugs including one where the spacebar (to end turn in combat) would stop you reloading.[/p]
• [p]Improved flow and wording around Clarence Pew prior to chapter 6[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug in the final chapter that was blocking you from completing the final ritual in some cases[/p]
• [p]Improved the wording of grave myst to make it more benign – rather than an unreasonably-early detour into serious black magic, it should now seem more reasonable[/p]
• [p]Fixed the wording in a few places in some sidequests, generally to improve their clarity and avoid confusion[/p]
• [p]And of course a few small bug fixes.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Thanks again everyone for your awesome messages and bug reports. It's amazing to hear players' opinions and analysis of the gothic story trajectory, and to see how people really get what we were trying to achieve with it.[/p][p]I haven't managed to deal with all the bugs yet but have been ranking them by priority as they arrive. [/p][p][/p][p][/p]