Islands of the Caliph News

Lots of fixes, here is a summary:

• Digging hole on the same tile will no longer allow finding new stuff
  
• Some tiles were not diggable
  
• Dug objects should no longer intersect with bushes/grass
  
• Potential crash if you mash keys while training or sleeping seems fixed
  
• Torch no longer respawns in desert ruins
  
• Player hands now react to light and dark
  
• Tent no longer shows damage when hit
  
• Enemies will no longer block the bottom stair
  
• Some levels were tweaked and things moved around
  
• Bug that prevented pitching tent fixed
  
• Bug that caused clouds to remain dark or light after training/sleeping fixed
  
• Campfire light should no longer work through walls
  

Spiders and other enemies were behaving poorly ... they were not attacking the player when they should have, and occasionally they had the audacity to move off grid!

So the two problems turned out to be linked. There was a bug that allowed enemies to move slightly off the 16x16 unit grid by a unit of 1. This was not obvious at all visually so it went unnoticed for a long time.

Also, if the player was not spending a lot of time exploring, the bug would not always manifest itself, so tests failed to reproduce the issue until I spent a lot of time just wandering around.

Well being off the grid slightly also caused the enemies to fail the distance check against the player, and if the player was standing at certain positions compared to the enemy, they would not even attack, though it appeared they were in position to do so.

Fixing the grid bug appears to have also fixed the attack bug, so I hope players can enjoy the game more without encountering this.

Some nice new bugs were introduced in the last update, but I managed to squish all of them fairly easily.

[h3]Enemies Attack through Floor[/h3]
Somehow enemies no longer recognized being on a different floor and were able to attack the player from below. This was due to a change I made in the combat system. It should be resolved now...

[h3]Approve Key not Updating in Dialogue[/h3]
The actual key was changed and worked correctly, but I had hard-coded the "y" into some dialogues.

[h3]Stunning Enemies too Easy[/h3]
I updated the stun system, and made it happen (accidentally) every time you attack an enemy. Now it should work as before. Stunning effects are based on the type of weapon used.

[h3]Coin and Worm Pickup[/h3]
Somehow, unlike every other item, coins and worms would only be picked up if you were facing them.

[h3]Digging Slopes[/h3]
The player was somehow able to dig holes in a sloped area, but since they cannot be passed over, there was no way to pick up the stuff that was dug up.

[h3]Realms Deep 2023[/h3]
Islands of the Caliph is slotted to be featured at Realms Deep on September 30th, with a special announcement and new trailer! Don't miss this exclusive event hosted by 3D Realms, New Blood, In the Keep and other cool names!



[h3]What's New?[/h3]
I am mainly finalizing the content of the full game, but in this update quite a bit has changed in the demo as well.

[h3]Venom:[/h3]
I think the biggest gameplay change is with venom. If you are attacked by a venomous enemy, you will still receive damage like before, however now that damage will stop after a while. The damage you take from venom is different than regular, physical damage, so it will permanently lower your maximum health until you find the right antidote. This last bit has not actually changed in terms of the game's mechanics, however a new visual element has been added to show this health drain as seen in this screenshot...



I hope this serves to make fighting venomous enemies somewhat less tedious, while keeping some of the intended tension.

[h3]Blocking Venom:[/h3]
Related but different, I had always intended for venom to only effect the player if they failed to block an attack. However, after reviewing my script, it turned out that only blocking with a shield would prevent the player from getting envenomed. Now any kind of successful block will prevent this. There is still only a chance of getting envenomed even if you are hit. And this chance can be reduced further by increasing your stamina, and through fasting in Ramadan, once you reach that point in the story.

[h3]Bow and Arrow:[/h3]
This will most likely not appear in the demo, as it is a higher level weapon, but for the beta testers this will be a game changer. A bow and arrow has been added to the game for fighting enemies at a distance. Arrows are limited in quantity so you may find it prudent to save them for the more dangerous adversaries.



[h3]Options Menu and More:[/h3]
A new, in-game, options menu has been added so you no longer have to open the config file to change your preferences.



New music has been added to the game. Some of the prayer timings and moon phases have been updated to be more realistic (though the game does not claim to be scientifically accurate). Some new environmental sounds and effects have been added, like seagulls and splashes when fishing.

[h3]Lot's of Bug Fixes:[/h3]
A lot of players also provided valuable feedback, and many bugs were tracked down and fixed.

• Torches burned out while the game was paused
  
• Missing geometry on some levels
  
• Item name would revert to "club" when unequipped
  
• It was possible to lose the money spent on a boat ticket if you exited the dialogue prematurely
  
• Some quest characters remained incorrectly active after the quest was completed
  
• Some footstep sound effects were wrong on certain surfaces
  
• Fasting would start outside of Ramadan
  
• and more...
  

I am making a lot of progress on the game. Only some of that will be noticeable in the demo as much of it has to do with the later gameplay. However, a recent fix seems important enough to mention here.

[h3]Enemy Attacks[/h3]
Previously it was possible for enemies to attack you diagonally, while the player could only attack at right angles. I wanted this feature to work, but pretty much everyone who noticed it assumed it was a bug and felt it was unfair. Well I am listening, and I get it. It does seem unfair, so I have changed it.



In the above images if you faced two scorpions like this, both could attack you. Now the scorpion on the left will attempt to move forward to be directly to your left, and then attack you.