Telepath Tactics Liberated News

Hey folks! Just a small update on versions 1.0.45a through 1.0.45e here. I've been uploading these sub-versions as I run into and fix a few unusual edge cases with gamepad controls (almost all of them involving hitting the Start button to call up the main battle menu at unexpected times).

As a consequence of continued development on Together in Battle, some other improvements to the game engine accompany these gamepad fixes:

- golems now have a short "Stomp" animation that is used for self-targeting skills like Engine Boost and Self Repair. This speeds up the use of these skills considerably.

- gasul now have dedicated Shove and Pull animations, with shove doubling as a casting animation for most psy skills.

- TTL now supports looping pixel art animations for destructible objects! As the (so far, one and only) example of this used in the engine, TTL now has an animated Fire destructible object. Walking into (or more likely, being shoved or thrown into) fire causes 15 heat damage; attacking fire from melee causes the attacker to receive a 10 burn damage. (Note that Fire isn't used in the main campaign; it's purely a new toy for player-created campaigns.)

- improved the appearance of lit tent objects.

- fixed: tall grass objects did not actually apply a dodge bonus to units standing in them.

- various improvements to fog of war: the game no longer displays the names of skills being used under fog of war; the blinking status effect displayer no longer appears when the corresponding unit is under fog of war; impact sparks, static visual effects, pop-up text and animated health/energy bars no longer appear over spaces covered by fog of war when the AI attacks scenery or another army. In general, fog of war now legitimately obscures everything about AI character actions except for the sounds, allowing you to guess based on audio cues.

- the LightBackground action now works for backgrounds in battle as well.

- created a new Crowd Murmuring sound effect.

- reduced the volume on the Rain and Wind sound loops, preserving the old high-amplitude versions as Rain Loud and Wind Loud.

- fixed: characters changing classes did not adopt the default skill animation of their new class's sprite set.

- fixed: the game would not trigger OnVictory dialogue for any army that was not player-controlled.

- fixed: surrendering would not trigger OnVictory dialogue for any enemy armies.

- fixed: item button menus for the rightmost items in the reserve supplies screen had their positions reset, requiring me to once again go in and reposition them by hand so they wouldn't go offscreen.

- fixed: music volume would reset to a level multiple times higher than the global music volume level under some circumstances.

- fixed: units would sometimes fail to become tinted when spawning after deployment under alternate global lighting conditions.

- added an invariantculture argument to game's various float.Parse() calls to avoid issues with the game failing to parse decimals for European users.

Greetings, tactics fans! February may be the shortest month, but as you'll soon observe, I've been incredibly busy racking up a ton of welcome changes to Telepath Tactics Liberated.

This month sees lots of small graphical improvements; a lot of fixes and improvements relating to the UI (with a special focus on gamepad support); new AI capabilities; miscellaneous bug fixes; an improved Disarmed status effect; and lots of new tools for campaign creators. Let's get into all the changes!

First up, we have graphical improvements, equipment usage by the AI, and more:

-- adjusted the height of the Pyro, Cryo, Shadow, and Light Blast explosion animations to properly align with their projectiles.

-- fixed a graphical glitch involving the left- and right-facing visual effect animations for Light Breath and Light Breath 2.

-- cleaned up the graphic for the 2D particle "Sparkle."

-- finally fixed that annoying bug where stray 2D particles could end up "stuck" at the top-left corner of the battlefield.



-- improved the look of the game's rain particles in battle.

-- fixed: it was sometimes possible to see the "corners" of the weather particle emitter box in battle under certain conditions.

-- improved the shop tutorial; it is now nicer-looking, spread across two pages, and provides more relevant information.

-- the game now remembers if you've completed the shop tutorial and won't show it automatically on subsequent playthroughs.

-- fixed: things which caused a character to be instantly placed on a specific space in battle (e.g. undoing) could sometimes mess up that character's z-sorting.

-- the AI will now equip weapons, armor, and other items if its characters (a) have something equippable in their inventories and (b) they have the relevant equipment slot unused.

-- successfully switched the cut scene backgrounds over to an asset bundle streaming system. This sort of thing is supposed to reduce build times, and can theoretically help with memory management on more resource-limited systems.

-- improved background image compression; converted the background asset bundle to use chunk compression.

-- fixed: the Escape button would not act as a click on the report screen in cut scenes.

-- fixed: in the character screen in battle, you could start the process of giving an item to an adjacent character by selecting Give for an item, then immediately reopen the character screen, use or drop the item, and finally return to the battlefield and click the red give tile to give a pristine copy of that item to an ally.


There are a lot of gamepad improvements and fixes:

-- created sprites for the A, B, X, and Y gamepad buttons; integrated them into the engine as text sprites.

-- updated the game's various tutorials to now use gamepad button glyphs and instruct the player on gamepad-specific controls if it detects the player is using a gamepad (or playing on Steamdeck).

-- the game now uses "Press (A)" instead of "Click" for continue prompts in the dialogue menu and cut scene narration box when the player is using a gamepad.

-- fixed: the gamepad cursor was misaligned for the screenshake adjustment buttons in the settings menu while on the title screen or in battle.

-- fixed: the gamepad cursor had become misaligned for character screen elements while in cut scenes.

-- fixed: after using the start button to open the main menu in cut scenes, the game incorrectly treated game settings as the current menu for purposes of gamepad navigation.

-- fixed: the gamepad cursor could navigate to the "switch page" buttons in the reserve supplies screen even when they were invisible.

-- fixed undesirable gamepad cursor behavior when switching between dialogue branches with multiple replies and those without multiple replies within dialogue trees.

-- added gamepad controls for the options menu and settings screen in cut scenes.

-- added gamepad support to the info bar.

-- fixed: in cut scenes, gamepad focus would not be restored to custom menus when backing out of other gamepad menus.

-- made the options button selectable with the gamepad when in a custom menu.

-- fixed: the game treated invisible custom menu elements as selectable with the gamepad cursor.

-- fixed: gamepad controls for the report screen did not function properly in cut scenes.

-- fixed: upon returning to the title screen from a game, remaining on the screen in a submenu for the length of the intro movie while using gamepad controls would result in the game inappropriately pulling gamepad focus onto the main menu.


And finally, we have more goodies for campaign creators, including an overhaul of the Disarmed status effect:

-- the NewBackground script action now allows you to load backgrounds in battle! They will appear behind the battlefield.

-- new background added: Arena_Interior.

-- prettied up heart portrait particles.

-- the Run reply type now supports passing multiple parameters.

-- new script action: LevelUpArmy. Works like LevelUp, but it affects an entire army at once instead of just one character.

-- the skill editor now has a checkbox that can be used to toggle whether a skill is considered a weapon skill by the game for purposes of the Disarmed status effect.

-- the game can now distinguish between weapon-based skills and non-weapon-based skills, and will now prevent characters from counterattacking with weapon-based skills while subject to the Disarmed status effect even if they don't have a weapon explicitly in their inventory.

-- created a Disarmed icon; the game now displays the Disarmed status effect for the rest of the turn when an enemy is disarmed.

-- changed the Disarm skill's element from Mental to Slash, increased the base chance of success to 100%, changed the cost to 4 and made it end the turn.

-- new skill: Disarming Strike. Deals basic sword damage with a 60% chance to disarm the target; can be used once per turn and doesn't end the turn, but it costs 6 energy.

-- the spirit's Possess skill now causes the user to become Hidden until their next turn.

-- fixed: the game would strip Hidden status from attackers at the conclusion of an attack even if the skill they attacked with was the thing that gave them Hidden status to begin with.

-- fixed: the -ATTACKER- special character was inappropriately referencing the attack target instead of the attacker when used in skill scripts.

-- in skill scripts, the skill target is now treated as the triggering character and the user of the skill is now the secondary character.

-- new special character: -ROSTERNUM-. Gets changed to whatever the number of the current roster is.

-- fixed: head 12 in lissit portraits was missing data for mouth 8.

-- improved documentation of the LoadConv reply type.

-- fixed some outdated info in the in-game documentation relating to generate unit-type actions, specifically with respect to the first salary parameter.

-- fixed: a Wait action queued up after a WaitForDialogue action would cause the wait timer to run concurrently with the wait-for-dialogue condition; and if the wait timer counted down to zero before the dialogue finished animating, the game would proceed with executing actions anyway! The game now waits for dialogue to conclude if a WaitForDialogue action was executed before commencing the countdown for a subsequent wait timer.

-- fixed: SkillProgToList would not always generate the list in ascending numerical order of the level the skills are learned.

-- fixed: the game was not recognizing when a dialogue branch was marked for input text within PersistentDialogue.xml.

-- new script action: GenerateItemName. Causes the game to randomly generate a (hopefully) cool-sounding name for a unique weapon, then sets custom string _UniqueItemName with the name generated.

-- greatly improved documentation for the CreateUniqueItem script action.

-- fixed: a typo in the logic for CreateUniqueItem was causing it to disregard mandatory tags.

-- new script actions: ShowCalendarButton and HideCalendarButton, which can be used to toggle visibility on a button the player can use to examine the in-game calendar during cut scenes.

-- you can now scroll through characters in the character screen while within the army overview screen using the mouse wheel (or, if in gamepad mode, the shoulder buttons).

-- fixed: the reverse match method in CullListByList was not working properly.


Annnnd that's about all for now when it comes to TTL! I've been working extremely hard getting Together in Battle ready for its April 25th launch, as it has to be ready to go out to reviewers next month. It's been a real whirlwind of rounding up things that I've been putting off completing and then getting them good and done.

I really think you all are going to love Together in Battle; it has nearly everything that makes Telepath Tactics Liberated special, plus a much more open structure with a lot of latitude for player choice and (gasp) actual role-playing. This time, we've got loads of character customization via the in-game trainer, and tons of replayability via the...well, everything.

You see a lot of "strategy roguelikes" these days, but they're mostly just card games focused on short "runs." It's rare to get one that leans into providing a true long-form role-playing adventure, and pretty much unheard of to get one that's also a deep SRPG at its core. I think that makes TIB pretty special.

Anyway, enough of my blabbering--I have a game to prepare! See you all in a month or two. 😉


Tactically yours,

Craig

Greetings, tactics fans! Over this past month, I've made some further improvements to the engine, prettying up some more aspects of the game's visual presentation and adding a variety of other improvements to boot.

Perhaps the biggest graphical change this patch is a fix to something that was holding back 2D particle effects: namely, shader settings for different particles were transferring between particle materials, leading to inconsistent (and sometimes glaringly incorrect) emissive lighting. This was the culprit behind victory screen fireworks abruptly not glowing anymore partway through the animation, as well as spark particles during level-ups not glowing as intended. If it moves and glows and it's part of the UI, it now looks much nicer!



Apart from that, I added a new setting to tone down (or turn off) screenshake for players who dislike that effect, made a few more balance improvements, added some further graphical flourishes, and fixed a few obscure bugs. Here's the list of changes:

-- added a new setting to the Settings screen that lets you halve the strength of the game's screen shake effects (if you prefer them to be subtler) or to just turn them off entirely.

-- toned down the magnitude of default screen shake for some of the heavier attacks.

-- level scaling now works more aggressively in favor of characters who are behind the level curve, making it easier to train up underleveled characters. (Characters who are overleveled compared to their opponents still get a 10% penalty per point of level difference, but characters who are underleveled now get a much higher 15% experience boost per level that the opponent has over them.)

-- raised the cap for each instance of scaled experience to 300% of unscaled experience. (For instance: if a move would have granted the character 45 experience normally, experience scaling can now cause it to grant as much as 135 experience.)

-- massively increased the power of Defiant Stance: it now gives +100% strength until the user's next turn, making it much more viable as an alternative to simply attacking.

-- increased the base chance of applying Frozen status with Cryo Cross from 50% to 75%, making it less dangerous (and more beneficial!) to use near large groups of enemies.

-- boosted the spread of sparkle particle effects on the supplies button upon acquiring a new item in the shop interface, making it harder to miss.

-- reduced the speed of the "spending money" animation in the info bar so it's more satisfying (and harder to miss).

-- fixed: the game would default the gamepad cursor to the dialogue box on branches with multiple replies.

-- fixed: members of army 99 (i.e. most destructible objects) with status effects, upon reloading a mid-battle save, would inappropriately step their status effects an additional time.

-- fixed: a character receiving both non-Shield damage and Shield damage (typically, healing) from multiple sources simultaneously would cause the game to lock up. (For instance: at the start of the turn, a character with both Burning and Regenerating status effects active at once would make the game throw an error.)

-- fixed: the level-up screen was keeping "None" onscreen as part of equipment mastery text even after first learning an equipment mastery.

-- fixed: tooltips for physical attributes in the character screen were not displaying correctly when playing in gamepad mode.

-- fixed: it was possible for custom list data to bleed over from a saved game when starting a new game.


That covers the changes that impact the main campaign, but there are some treats here specifically for custom campaign creators as well!

-- new script action: InterfaceArmyColor. Lets you change the default army color used in cut scene interface elements like the recruitment screen or the reserve supplies screen from Blue to any other supported color.

-- the game now supports creating arbitrary stats for characters using the SetStat action! These won't appear in the UI, but they can be used to invisibly store integers specific to each character (e.g. enemies they've slain, days they've been on the team, etc.) These, in turn, can then be referenced by other script actions.

-- now supported: a reply UI for dialogue where instead of showing text options, the game displays a list of the player's characters by portrait. Clicking a character will immediately set them as the trigger character for the dialogue going forward, then register a click on "reply 0" for dialogue tree navigation purposes. (To make use of this, use the special character -ShowUnits- as the text of the first reply in the dialogue branch where you want this special reply UI to appear.)

-- Run (and all IfXRun-type script actions that support passing script parameters) can now take an unlimited number of script parameters; just keep adding more name-value pairs onto the end until you're done!

-- added support for passing script parameters to IfItemRun.

-- added support for a new dialogue trigger type: OnPanCam. This triggers dialogue as soon as the player pans the battlefield camera using the mouse or keyboard and releases the relevant mouse button/key. One optional parameter: turn number.

-- added Species to the attributes supported by the IfAttribute script actions.

-- the game now processes special characters in the warning messages for custom menu buttons.

-- created a new "WhistleDown" sound effect that's intended to signal a character's worsening emotional state (rather than signal a character falling down a bottomless chasm).

-- new skill available to use: Trade. It's essentially Twirl, but it only works with allied characters (whereas Twirl can be used on enemies).

That's all for TTL this month, folks. In other news, I just announced Together in Battle's release date yesterday: it's coming to Steam April 25th, so mark your calendars. It's gonna be a doozy! 😉

Until next time...


Yours in tactics,

Craig

Hey there, tactics fans! I'm back with another update adding a bit of extra graphical polish, fixing a few bugs, and even including a few presents for people making their own campaigns. (It is that time of year, after all!)

Here is what's new in version 1.0.43:

-- a massively improved water and lava shader. Liquid terrain now undulates!



-- the level-up screen is now animated, with stat changes and new skills appearing sequentially instead of just being there all at once when the screen opens. (Clicking will skip the sequence and display everything all at once.) Each change is accompanied with a new sound effect and some nifty particle effects!

-- fixed: the game camera was cropping out important information when zoomed in to combat exchanges occurring on the bottom row of the battlefield.

-- fixed: rotating a unit while an attack tile for a self-use skill with an asymmetrical AOE pattern (like Hold) would result in the character rotating but the AOE pattern not rotating to match.

-- fixed: the game was determining facing incorrectly for AI-controlled characters using 0-range skills with asymmetrical AOE patterns (e.g. Hold).

-- fixed: the game would sometimes initiate babble speech for the first branch of tutorial or event text even though no "speaker" character existed.

-- fixed: when reloading a mid-battle save with holds active on the field, the holds would be placed but would not be visible to the player.

-- updated the end credits with additional sound effect credits.

-- new in 1.0.43a: the game now displays new masteries upon level-up in the same progressive fashion as new stats and skills.

-- fixed in 1.0.43a: there was a typo in some of Umber Gnawbone's dialogue in the Coria Dogs Basement fight.

-- fixed in 1.0.43a: the game was displaying new masteries and new stat values in the level-up screen prior to the animation, undermining the effect of the change.


We also have miscellaneous goodies for campaign creators, including a bunch of fixes specifically with respect to proc gen maps:

-- improved the visuals for Twirl: added a character animation, improved the skill timing, and made the swapping occur visually (rather than via an instantaneous teleportation a la Juxtapose).

-- new script action: SwapUnitPositions. This causes two named characters to visually swap positions on the battlefield as described above for Twirl.

-- new parameter added to SpawnFloatingText and SpawnFloatingTextAt script actions: word wrap. Set to false to force pop-up text to remain single-line.

-- improved the backup routines for placing faraway enemy units in proc gen battles so they're less likely to end up being placed completely at random.

-- fixed: there could sometimes be range errors when setting distance values in proc gen maps.

-- fixed: the game would sometimes fail to overwrite the scene display name upon loading a proc gen map, leading to it not generating a random name for the map.

-- fixed: the game wasn't correctly applying phase, particle, and impact sound properties to spaces in proc gen maps.

-- fixed: the game was not saving and reapplying the map seed for proc gen maps to mid-battle saves correctly.

-- fixed: the "random drop" spawn algorithm wasn't playing nice with proc gen maps, resulting in units placed via the GenerateUnit and GenerateUnique script actions with coordinates of -1, -1 sometimes not spawning at all.

-- fixed: the ItemDrop script action wasn't functioning properly on proc gen maps.

-- fixed: the game was keeping the map seed for a proc gen battle in memory after beating that battle, meaning that any subsequent return to that proc gen map would reproduce the same battle from the saved seed.


That's all we've got for this update--all the other work I've been doing this month is secret work on Together in Battle. As always, thanks for your support! And if you haven't left a review yet, please consider dropping one: positive reviews help a lot.


Yours in tactics,

Craig

Greetings, tactics fans! Some of you know the story behind Telepath Tactics Liberated, but I imagine that many of you don't.

I started working on Telepath Tactics all the way back in 2011 as an experiment in creating my "dream combat engine" as I put the finishing touches on Telepath RPG: Servants of God. Once TRPG:SoG released, I went through two separate Kickstarter campaigns to get Telepath Tactics funded--one failed, one successful--and then spent years more finishing the game even as I continued working a full-time job.

I finally released Telepath Tactics in 2015, only to realize that the game had some major flaws baked into the engine. I spent roughly half a year laboring day and night trying to fix all of the issues, but some were just too difficult for me to pin down.

I wasn't satisfied leaving things like that. So I began to remake Telepath Tactics from the ground up in a brand-new engine.

This March, just shy of 7 years after the release of the original Telepath Tactics, I released Telepath Tactics Liberated. I gave the remake away for free to all owners of the original game, too. In the eight months since, I've continued to push dozens of free updates to TTL, adding new skills, new items, two full new game modes, gamepad support, Steam Deck support, AI improvements, and loads of quality-of-life features.

"Fine, Craig," you might say, "that's great that you worked hard for many years to make this game reach its full potential: but what does this have to do with the Steam Awards?" Good question! I happened to take a look at the Steam Awards categories earlier and noticed that there is one called "Labor of Love," described as follows:

"This game has been out for a while. The team is well past the debut of their creative baby, but being the good parents they are, these devs continue to nurture and support their creation. This game, to this day, is still getting new content after all these years."

Well! That sure does sound a bit like Telepath Tactics, doesn't it? I'll leave it up to you whether you think Telepath Tactics Liberated deserves the nom--but if you do, I'd certainly be honored if you chose to nominate it for an award. Thanks for reading, and have a great Thanksgiving (or regional equivalent, if any)!


Yours in tactics,

Craig