Telepath Tactics Liberated News

We're now sitting a month and a half after release. Telepath Tactics Liberated has had a lot of changes since our last big update, currently sitting on 23 patches full of features, improvements, and bug fixes.

In today's update, version 1.0.23, we've got one big new feature to announce: online multiplayer! As of today, Telepath Tactics Liberated now lets you play downloadable multiplayer campaigns like Multiplayer and The PVP of Emma Strider with your Steam friends over the internet using Steam's Remote Play Together. Just open the game, hit Shift+Tab, and invite them to play with you.

That's not all, though. Starting a couple of updates back, I began implementing changes to improve the game's graphics in battle. You may have noticed that the game's terrain suddenly looks a lot more consistent with the character sprites and vegetation, that character drop shadows are a whole lot more noticeable, and that the game's colors just feel more vivid. It isn't your imagination!

Here's the old look:



And here's the new, improved look:



The past three weeks have seen numerous AI improvements, the addition of graphics quality settings, code optimization, and loads of little quality-of-life features added to the campaign creation suite. That's all been covered in previous update posts, though. What's new in version 1.0.23 other than online multiplayer?

-- the Stunned status effect now drops a unit's drowning resistance by 100, effectively doubling drowning damage for most characters.

-- skills which depend upon a weapon but do no damage (such as Feint) no longer degrade the weapon when used.

-- tamped down the strength of the back cover modifier in the AI somewhat.

-- the back cover modifier is no longer applied for moves where the user can continue moving after using their skill.

-- incorporated back cover considerations into the AI's retreat routine.

-- updated the auto-loot wording on the victory screen to help distinguish it from sacks grabbed manually.

-- within the creation suite's dialogue editor, you can now browse and edit an unlimited number of actions per branch in the Edit Branch window. (Previously, users were limited to only 6 actions per branch.)

-- new script action: SaveChar. This tells the game to mark a particular character for saving even if that character is not recruited to the player's army. This allows you to have the game remember the condition of allied or enemy units between maps, and lets you create persistent proc gen characters who don't join the player's roster.

-- fixed: using the mouse wheel to zoom in or out in the dialogue editor while within the map editor would also zoom the camera within the map editor.

-- fixed: the materials and quality parameters for generated equipment in the GenerateUnit and GenerateUnique script actions weren't being passed through to the character generator, resulting in all generated equipment for proc gen units being of uniformly poor quality.

-- fixed an issue that was causing the skills learned at each level to be learned in reverse order.

-- fixed a range error in the code caused by using a knockback skill on a unit subject to a Hold.

-- fixed a null error when player-controlled characters tried to move out of a Hold space created by a character of another army.

-- altered graphics for the Wildflower and WildflowerAlt objects to make them look better with the new, deeper drop shadows.

-- fixed: chests and other destructible objects shoved or pulled into water/lava would disappear below the waterline, then reappear inside the ground if pulled back out.

-- fixed: chests and other destructible objects shoved or pulled into water/lava were not spraying water or lava particles, as the game was detecting those objects already present on the space and incorrectly assuming that they were landing on top of themselves.

-- fixed: the game was double-playing the "thud" sound upon units swimming onto land/being pulled out of water.

-- fixed: in some instances, it was possible for character portraits in the reserve supplies screen to remain shaded based on their desire for an item even after the item was no longer moused over.

That about covers it for this update. As always, thanks for playing! If you're enjoying the game, please don't forget to leave a review and help spread the word! I'm just one guy with a day job and a $0 marketing budget, after all--your help means a lot. :)


Yours in tactics,

Craig

In today's update, we have a nice little improvement to the game's graphics, some AI improvements, a few new quality-of-life features in the campaign creation suite, and a handful of minor bug fixes! Here they all are:

-- improved the positioning and visibility of blob shadows under characters and destructible objects, helping to visually anchor 2D characters and objects in the scene.

-- the AI now considers the presence of cover to guard its back when weighing different locations it can attack from. (The more defensive the AI profile, the more it will care about this.)

-- changed values for the Defensive AI profile to make it care more about danger relative to the rewards of attack opportunities.

-- fixed a scripting error in Five Guardians.

-- buffed the base Psy of all proc gen psy users in the main campaign to bring their utility closer to that of premade characters.

-- fixed an off-by-1 error in the custom cut scene menu code that would cause page selectors to show up when there was a single full page of buttons.

-- fixed: the game was not saving proc gen characters added to the player's roster during battle.

-- fixed: the game was not parsing tags using operations properly within the context of the GenerateUnit and GenerateUnique script actions.

And finally, we have a few long-awaited improvements to the campaign creator:

-- the map editor now supports placing multiple characters on the same space and offers a way to easily switch between them in the unit properties window! This should make placing and editing multiple waves of reinforcements from the same spot a breeze.

-- added a sort button for scenes in the campaign editor! This allows you to toggle between the default alphabetical sorting and a new "scene order" sort in which the game does its best to guess the intended order of scenes in the campaign based upon the "next scene" attribute contained in each scene. (Needless to say, this will work a whole lot better if you specify the next scene for each map and cut scene than if you don't.)

-- new special character supported: PICKFROMLIST{}. Allows you to specify a custom list variable by name; the game will then automatically pick a random entry from that list and display it.

Today's update sees a much-awaited improvement to the game's terrain and visuals, some AI improvements, a couple of quality-of-life improvements, and a handful of bug fixes for good measure!

-- swapped in the grass and dirt textures from the original game and found--to my delight--that they actually work really well on the new 3D terrain! I decided to run with it and swapped in old (and in some cases, modified new) terrain textures that better fit the pixel-art aesthetic of the character sprites and vegetation. I think the battles look much nicer this way.

-- tweaked post-processing settings to boost the vividness of color and bloom effects in battle while toning down the intensity of bloom effects on lava tiles for greater readability.

-- vastly improved the AI algorithm for planning long-range moves (i.e. those that would not result in a skill usage this turn, but which bring the character closer to a desired target).

-- fixed: the AI profile for Crypt Diving was not set properly.

-- did a bit of optimization in the AI code.

-- the game's trap warning will now trigger if the destination space you click on (not just the path leading up to it) is covered by an ally's trap.

-- the game no longer loads all saved game data for every slot in one go when opening the save or load menus; instead, it now loads just the data for the current page and loads more when the page is changed. This addresses the long load times players faced when going to save or load the game with dozens of save slots filled.

-- reduced the difficulty of Out of Food Battle by de-linking the aggro group for enemies in the bottom-right of the map from enemies elsewhere on the right side of the map, then reduced it further for Soldier difficulty (and massively so for Observer and Recruit) by reducing the number of enemies present and increasing the number of apples yielded by fruit trees.

-- added support for impassable, black "Blank" terrain tiles to the map editor.

-- fixed: the DamageUnit and DamageUnitAtCoords script actions would not trigger on-death attacks if a unit died from them. (Since these are how traps deal damage, this meant that traps were not triggering on-death attacks either.)

-- when mousing over sheer cliff faces and clicking, the game's select-the-tile-below behavior now works with move tiles, attack tiles, and so on.

-- fixed: the behavior to select the space below a sheer cliff face was only working in battle; when clicking a sheer cliff face in the map editor, the game would throw a null error.

-- fixed: materials for certain cliff faces had somehow gotten specular highlights turned on somehow.

-- fixed a position error in the Photokurios cast animation.

-- fixed wobble in the Big Shield visual effect.

-- improved the 64 x 64 and smaller executable icons for the game.

-- fixed: achievements in the Bandit Fortress Outer Wall Battle had been turned off.

-- fixed: testing levels in the campaign editor would cause the game to detect an out-of-bounds save slot as the last loaded save when opening the Load Game screen in the main menu on the title screen.

Today we have yet more fixes and improvements!

-- new bowman skill added to the engine: Aim. Boosts user strength by 25% for the turn.

-- created the Aim skill graphic, added it to usable assets.

-- fixed: game music would stop upon surrendering or being defeated in battle.

-- fixed: changes to the game's reinforcement spawn code in version 1.0.18 resulted in item sacks dropped into water no longer spawning on the nearest land or bridge tile if the elevation difference between them was greater than one--and with no valid space on which to spawn the sack, the game would then throw a null error.

-- the item editor now has a Copy Item function to match the skill editor's Copy Skill!

-- fixed: spawning a shop in the cut scene editor without specifying available materials would result in a null error due to the game searching for item materials and not finding them. (The game now just assumes that all materials are available within the cut scene editor.)

-- fixed: using EndConvImmediately in a cut scene with only one narration frame could result in a range error when viewing the scene within the cut scene editor.

-- fixed: the "Number to Spawn" field in the shop stock subwindow in the cut scene editor wasn't accepting ranges.

-- fixed: values passed to number pickers were not immediately being constrained to the allowed range upon passing.

-- fixed: altering available money using SetAura in a test script would not be reflected in the shop interface until changing categories or opening reserve supplies.

-- fixed: in some circumstances, forcing the end of dialogue after spawning the shop would result in the shop interface remaining onscreen instead of being dismissed alongside the dialogue interface.

-- fixed: editing an existing shop and validating its stock could result in the game inappropriately duplicating the shop.

-- add a "generated claw" graphic to the game.

We've got one really significant new feature for 1.0.19 and a smattering of bug fixes; let's start with the feature:

-- you can now reduce visual quality in the game settings menu to boost performance! There are five supported levels of graphical fidelity reflecting steady gradations of quality as you step through: High, Medium, Med-Low, Low, and Potato.

• High: sub-pixel morphological anti-aliasing, full texture resolution, and post-processing effects on.
  
• Medium: quick and dirty anti-aliasing, full texture resolution, and post-processing effects on.
  
• Med-Low: quick and dirty anti-aliasing, half texture resolution, and post-processing effects on.
  
• Low: no anti-aliasing, half texture resolution, and post-processing effects off.
  
• Potato: no anti-aliasing, 1/4 texture resolution, and post-processing effects off.
  

The game defaults to "High," which reflects the visuals in all versions prior to 1.0.19. Needless to say, the game looks much worse on the lowest settings, but hopefully these options should help folks experiencing performance issues on their machines.

-- cleaned up the golden "gleam" texture used on the title screen logo animation.

-- fixed: the shop interface could bug out if asked to load reserve supplies for a roster without any reserve supplies saved.

-- fixed: it was possible for the game to throw a null error when generating hobbies for the proc gen characters who join you after the caravan battle.

-- fixed: game AI would treat enemy counterattacks as dangerous when weighing moves with skills that prevent enemies from counterattacking.

-- fixed: it was possible for a character's on-death skill to become null, leading to a null error when the AI tried to evaluate it.

-- updated gamepad support for cut scene menus to account for multiple pages of buttons.

-- updated gamepad support for new settings on the settings screen.

-- fixed: hitting the cancel button on a gamepad during dialogue or when interacting with the new turn box would lock up the game.