Cyclopean News

[h3]Fixes[/h3]
Dredging Hook Unrecognized:
In the last build I also accidentally disabled the dredging hook. Should be working again...

[h3]Features[/h3]
Scan Lines:
You can now deactivate the CRT style scan line effect in the game. To do so, go to "C:\Users\-Your Username-\AppData\Local\Cyclopean" and open "Options_3.cfg"

Change the last line:

HIDE SCAN LINES,0

to...

HIDE SCAN LINES,1

And you should no longer see those very attractive lines anymore.



Nightgaunt Allies:
Nightgaunt allies will now do the same kind of attacks as they do when they are enemies, namely, they will grab your opponent and drag them away into the darkness. The nightgaunt will not be dismissed as an ally, but they will go back to your camp. So you would need to back to the camp to re-recruit them.

Key Levels:
Tougher dungeons will now require more rare keys. The Crag of the Ghouls is the only dungeon not effected by this change. Other dungeons will start requiring silver, gold and even onyx keys at lower (or higher) levels. I am thinking of adding more kinds of keys, so each dungeon might still evolve in this way.

Hit Details:
Just like calculating damage, your swing is also broken down in this latest update. It will show your "roll" and the number you need to beat in order to hit an enemy. Currently, this number only depends on the one attacking, using their strength or skill (whichever is lowest), their weapon's quality, and any skill bonus supplied by allies to lower the target amount.

Currently, I do not give enemies or players any kind of dodging bonus. Although that would improve realism, I think it would end up just making combat take longer needlessly. Instead, your skill and strength just help reduce the amount of damage from a hit.

I guess it could balance out if I removed the skill bonus from damage, and added it to a dodge system. I will leave it as is, unless someone gives me a really compelling reason to change it.

Just to clarify, I came up with these systems before I thought about actually showing them to the player. Now that it's out in the open, I feel the need to justify my decisions. If you have any strong opinions about how this stuff should work, I am open to listening, but will probably be reluctant to make major changes without really good reasons.

[h3]Fixes[/h3]
Shovel Unrecognized:
In the last build I accidentally disabled the shovel. Should be working again...

Inquiries Bug:
Two entries in the Inquiries menu were not saving to file, and so they would return to the default "off" state every time you loaded a game. They should be saving properly from now on.

[h3]Features[/h3]
Stranded:
It was possible to get stuck on an island. This should no longer be the case.

This is another big update with some major changes to both the interface design as well as the gameplay.

[h3]FIXES[/h3]
[h3]Mouse Issue[/h3]
The game now works in window mode without having to lock the mouse in the window. I had to do some really challenging stuff to get this to work, but I will spare you the details. Now the mouse should transition nicely between your game window and the windows desktop without problems.

You an still tweak the mouse speed if you want.

To do so, go to "C:\Users\-your username-\AppData\Local\Cyclopean" and open "Options_3.cfg" to edit the settings. On the bottom, change:

MOUSE SPEED FACTOR, 0.5

to

MOUSE SPEED FACTOR, * any number between 0.1 and 1*

Save the file and start your game.

[h3]Aligning Bug[/h3]
Some NPCs who you could not align with would give the wrong message. This should be fixed.

[h3]Aligning Bug #2[/h3]
Allies who could not fit in your party would still take their gift out of your inventory.

[h3]Targeting Bug[/h3]
Sometimes enemies would target your ally even if you attacked with your main character.

[h3]Trade Bug[/h3]
When using a controller, the trade menu did not respond to input if you accessed it through the allies menu.

[h3]FEATURES[/h3]
[h3]Allies at Camp![/h3]
You can now dismiss your allies, and they will return to your camp. You can dismiss them anywhere, but to get them back you will have to return to your camp. This does not change the number of allies you can have at a given time. If you want to permanently remove an ally, you have to go to "Examine > Resign" and they will be permanently removed from your group.



[h3]Examine Screen[/h3]
When examining allies, you can now see all the bonuses they grant you, as well as any sanity drain or healing they perform while in your presence. Note, allies who have been dismissed to camp will not grant their bonuses or their sanity (wits) effects either.

[h3]Wits Absorbtion[/h3]
Some allies damage your wits, and some (actually just cats) can heal them. However a new feature has been added. Men of Leng and Ghouls will now serve as a kind of buffer between you and other ally types. Men of Leng will absorb wit drainage by Moon Beasts, and Ghouls will absorb wit drainage from Nightgaunts. (In the later case, ghouls still perform their own wit damage)

[h3]Further Alliances[/h3]
In seeking to use the Lovecraft story as inspiration I have also created two new alliances. Now if you are allied with Ghouls, Nightgaunts will not be hostile, and vice versa. Also, Men of Leng will keep you safe from Moon Beasts. However if you betrayed them, this will not help you.

Okay this is still in the initial phases and I am not ready to subject everyone to what is happening here. However, I think it's a major change that may effect the way the game works.

A lot of people complained about the mouse being stuck in the game window. I understand this, it can be frustrating. Add to that, the fact that I had to slow down the mouse because I was scaling the game window, it made many other problems. The reason I did this was to preserve the "pixel perfect" nature of this low resolution game. I really think it adds to the charm of it.

But I also hear you. I get that not everyone may care about this aspect of the game as much as I do. So I am trying a new system. This one does not scale the game window, it just scales the menus and fonts so they fit into the game window. The major difference is visible when you are moving, especially inside the dungeons.

The benefit is that I no longer have to lock the mouse pointer in the game window and there is no longer any need to slow it down. You can drag the mouse right over the game window and out the other side, and nothing will stop you! The negative side is that the game is no longer pixel perfect ... something I will cry about at night when I am alone.



If you zoom in, you can see the 3D areas are rendered in 1920 x 1080 resolution, and only the menus are 640 x 360. Another benefit to this is that movement is a lot smoother and does not flicker as much. I think it will be easier on the eyes for players, so I think this is probably the best option.

[h3]What's Missing?[/h3]
So far I have it more or less working. However, I still have to figure out full-screen mode, which is currently disabled in this build. If you have a 1920 x 1080 monitor (or anything in 16:9 aspect ration, you will not even notice this. But if you have an ultrawide, or 4:3 monitor, you will be able to see your desktop around the game window for now.

I played around with the map to make it a bit more visible. You can see the mini map is hard to see, and the lines are now very thin. In the map menu (press "m") you can see that I have brightened it up and enhanced it to make it more visible. But the mini map is currently defying my efforts to make it look the same.

I will be working on these issues for the next few days. Until then, I will leave the default branch alone...

[h3]Try it Out![/h3]
I would love to hear your thought on this. Is it an improvement? Does it take away the game's charm? I am still ambivalent about the whole thing. This is a major shift, but I want to make something that works for the majority of players.

Go to "Cyclopean>Properties>Betas" and select the "testing" branch from the drop-down menu.

Other Fixes
There are some creatures that will never join your party. Previously, the game did not have a way to handle that, and it would produce a wrong message telling you that you don't have an alliance with (insert random creature name or just the letter S here). Now it will tell you that an alliance is not possible.

Also, if you picked an ally to fight an enemy, but changed your mind and decided to attack them yourself, the game would sometimes have the enemy attack the ally. If you had cancelled by clicking the "close" button, it would work as intended. But if you hit "escape" to close that window, the game still thought you had chosen an ally to fight with.

These are fixed in the testing branch.

This update has a lot of small changes as well as some fundamental changes to the way the game functions, specifically the window size and mouse speed issues. You may notice you mouse moving very fast. If you do not like this, read further to see how to set it back to the way it was, but take not of the reasons for the change.

[h3]FIXES[/h3]
[h3]Mouse Speed[/h3]
What I have done in this update is to turn off the script that slows down the mouse. This script accessed your Windows settings and seems to have triggered some anti-virus software reactions. It would also permanently change your mouse speed settings if the game crashed.

The script is still there, so if you think the mouse is too fast, you can turn it back on.

To do so, go to "C:\Users\-your username-\AppData\Local\Cyclopean" and open "Options_2.cfg" to edit the settings. On the bottom, change:

ACTIVATE MOUSE SPEED,0

to

ACTIVATE MOUSE SPEED,1

Save the file and start your game. If you do this, it will slow the mouse when the game screen is set larger than 640 x 360. It may still cause the problems mentioned above. My plan is to come up with a better way to control the mouse speed without having to access Windows settings.

[h3]Menu Bug[/h3]
While rolling a new character, it was possible to open all the in-game menus like inventory, allies, and captives, which was just silly.

[h3]Torch Bug[/h3]
If you died with the torch burning, and started a new game, the game would think your torch was already burning and would not allow you to start it again. This should work fine now.

[h3]Darkness Bug[/h3]
Darkness gives you a stealth advantage in dungeons. However, the game was giving the same advantage in the overworld as long as your torch was not active. This was not intended, and has been corrected.

[h3]Corpse Bug[/h3]
Searching corpses would incorrectly display "Trader Gold: ###" with the amount from the most recent trade displayed. This made players think there was extra gold to be looted, but they were unable to do so, leading to confusion. The bug has been fixed, and it should just show "Corpse:" in the menu. Getting gold from fallen enemies happens automatically, but know that some enemies do not carry gold.

[h3]FEATURES[/h3]
[h3]Full Screen[/h3]
The game no longer starts in full screen by default. I may change it back, please let me know whether you prefer your game to start in full screen or in a window.

[h3]Window Size[/h3]
The game used to start in full screen mode, but if you turned that off, it would shrink to a tiny 640 x 360 window, making it hard to read. Now the game starts in window mode, and should automatically scale to *almost* your full screen resolution.

[h3]Torch Tutorial[/h3]
This is a very simple idea I want to introduce throughout the game. When you enter a dungeon, if you do not already have an active torch, the game's action log (on the bottom) will prompt players to access the supplies page in their inventory to light a torch. It's not really a step by step tutorial, but it should allow new players to become aware of how the game works and what sorts of things to look for in the menus.

[h3]Detailed Log Entries[/h3]
The game now provides a much more in-depth look at what is happening in combat. Did a Level 5 Gug just murder your Ghoul Ally? Well now you can see exactly what happened and maybe learn how to prepare for future encounters. I want to add details to all the kinds of interactions, like stealth, dialogue and doors...

[h3]Log Scrolling[/h3]
You can now scroll through the action log with either Page Up/Down, or by using the mouse scroll wheel, as well as clicking the up down arrows shown on the left side of the log. I will eventually add these commands to the key-binding menu, but I am going to wait until I am sure there are no other keys/buttons to add.

[h3]Enemy & Ally Stats[/h3]
The game now standardizes the way allies and enemies gain levels and stats, and also how much damage and defense they can do. It will display an enemy's stats right in the combat menu, so you can see what you are facing. On gaining a level, your allies will also gain stats in the same way as enemies do. Previously it worked a bit differently for allies than for enemies, so enemies ended up being very inconsistent, and could do too much damage (or too little).

Stats for enemies and allies have also been a bit suppressed so they don't scale quite as much. This should all add up to making the game a bit easier IF you are paying attention to stats, combat logs and such things.