RPG in a Box News

New Features/Changes:

• Added "Box of Colors" palette to the Voxel Editor (the new default/official palette of RPG in a Box, created by community member andysphinx)
  
• Added cooldown setting for specifying a skill's real-time cooldown in seconds (zero if none), updated skill slot to darken and show timer when cooldown is active
  
• Added mouse sensitivity setting to the in-game options menu for adjusting the mouse sensitivity when looking around in first-person mode
  
• Added ability to directly reference a character's behavior via script (e.g. entity["some_npc"].behavior returns a codex of their behavior properties)
  
• Added ability to modify individual behavior settings for a character via script (e.g. entity["some_npc"].behavior["move_direction"] = NORTH)
  
• Added ability to modify or remove a storage/quick slot's item via script (e.g. widget["my_widget"].element["0001"].item = "ITEM_0001")
  
• Added ability to modify the stack size of a storage slot's item via script (e.g. widget["my_widget"].element["0001"].count += 1)
  
• Added ability to modify the scale of billboard sprites in the Map Editor (X/Y/Z values will be locked together)
  
• Added ability to stop the currently playing animation in the Voxel Editor by pressing the ESC key
  
• Increased maximum widget size in the Widget Editor to 64 columns by 36 rows (will allow a widget to cover the entire screen at 1920x1080)
  
• Updated Bauxite syntax to allow direct references to a character's inventory, which returns an array of codexes or null if a slot is empty (e.g. player.inventory)
  

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed issue in the default example game where console errors would display after taking the coins then returning to the chest to open/close it again
  
• Fixed issue with "Go To" dialogue node not jumping to the correct node in some cases when using the "Go To Node" option
  
• Fixed issue where null was being returned when getting the entity ID of an entity when stored in a variable (e.g. $my_entity.id)
  
• Fixed issue with accessing properties of "front_tile" and other related references not being accepted as valid syntax (e.g. player.front_tile.id)
  
• Fixed issue with the height of the default inventory widget being one row too large when displayed in the Widget Editor
  

Not sure where to start with RPG in a Box? Subscribe to the official YouTube channel for Stumpy the Squirrel's upcoming "How to Make a Game with RPG in a Box" tutorial series! (🔊 SOUND ON 👇)

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Official YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RPGinaBoxOfficial

But can RPG in a Box run DOOM? Kind of... 😂 DOOM was one of my most played games growing up, so this had to be done eventually!

If you're on Twitter, please go retweet it there! Let's make it explode!
https://twitter.com/rpginabox/status/1573663853984059392

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Hi everyone! Thank you so much for all of the positivity and encouragement regarding the free movement announcement, I'm really happy you're looking forward to it! Now that it's known that I've started working on free movement, I wanted to provide a bit of info to help answer some questions. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know and I'll try to answer!

1. I just started working on free movement several days ago, so there's still quite a ways to go for full support. At this time I don't have an ETA for the initial release. I wanted to go ahead and announce it now so I can include the community in the process and share each bit of progress as I go.
   
   
2. Currently I have a few basic things working, as seen in the video: freedom to move around within tiles that are walkable, locked mouse so you can freely look around without holding the right mouse button down, interaction with objects on adjacent tiles, and a setting in the options menu for mouse sensitivity.
   
   
3. Grid-based movement will remain the default system and will not be affected in any way by free movement being added. I'll also be continuing to build out the skill system and other existing features in parallel with this, as well as begin the transition to Godot 4.0 now that the beta stage has been reached.
   
   
4. The initial release will likely be first-person only and will use the current navigation system to determine which tiles the player can walk on and the objects that can be interacted with from those tiles. While I do plan for further flexibility in the future (e.g. with the use of custom collision boxes) this will simplify things a lot up front.
   

I'm really happy with what I already have so far - it feels great just to be able to explore more freely within each tile's square, in particular in smaller, cramped areas like inside the example house. I'm excited to share more as I go! 😄

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