RPG in a Box News

Hello again, everyone! Now that the demo version is up and running on Steam, I've updated it to the newest build as it was a bit behind the version on Itch.io. Check out the release notes below for what's new!

Release Notes for v0.5.2

• Fixed issue with translation IDs not evaluating properly within the "Display Message" scripting function (e.g. display_message("%ID1%"))
  
• Fixed issue where editor settings for "recent games list" and "last changelog viewed" would initially result in console errors on first-time installations
  
• Fixed issue with enemy details components not being properly updated after deleting an enemy from a battle in the Combat Editor
  
• Fixed issue where deleting enemies from a battle in the Combat Editor would not actually remove them from the underlying combat data
  
• Fixed issue where health bars were improperly showing for enemies outside the camera's field of view while in first-person combat
  

Release Notes for v0.5.1

• Added initial minimap functionality with a game configuration setting to enable/disable (press "M" to show in-game, NPCs are shown as cyan dots and real-time enemies are red dots)
  
• Added "Show Player Health" game configuration setting for showing the player's health bar outside of combat
  
• Added logic to handle player's death when outside of combat (for now, a message is displayed then the game is either restarted from the beginning or the Main Menu is displayed if enabled)
  
• Added "restart" command to debug console for restarting a game from the beginning
  
• Added damage sound effects for when the player is damaged via the "Damage Entity" scripting function
  
• Added support for directional override animations for "attack" ("attack_north", "attack_west", etc.) that will be used if defined
  
• Added check to prevent tiles, objects, and characters from being renamed while any maps using that resource are currently opened
  
• Added Steam rich presence logic for Main Menu Editor and Credits Editor
  
• Fixed issue with not being able to change initial value of Boolean properties in the Game Configuration dialog (left-clicking will now toggle between true and false)
  

Hi everyone! I'm happy to announce that the demo version of RPG in a Box is now available on Steam! If you'd like to give the software a try, click the "Download Demo" button on the right-hand side of the store page. For the moment, Windows and MacOS are the only supported platforms until I can get some issues worked out with the Linux builds (hopefully in the near future). I truly appreciate everyone's patience and support so far!


Please keep in mind that RPG in a Box is still early in development and many features are incomplete or yet to be implemented. I'll be using the Early Access period to implement and build out the remaining core RPG features like combat, leveling, quests, currency/merchants, etc. and to polish/expand existing features. In addition to these, I have many other exciting ideas in mind for the engine! For anyone interested, you can track my development progress in real-time on my Trello board and see what all is planned for the future of RPG in a Box.

Trello Board: https://trello.com/b/DOouCUhR

I've also included a link below to the official RPG in a Box Discord server. It's currently the best way to get in touch to ask questions, report bugs, suggest features, etc. It's also a great place for sharing screenshots and general discussion about your games. I always love getting to see what the community is creating!

Discord Server: https://discord.gg/zXqqqPj

Have fun creating! I look forward to growing the community and hopefully bringing everyone's game ideas to life! :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/498310/RPG_in_a_Box/

Hello everyone! I just wanted to quickly cover a few of the many things I've been working on over the past month as I continue to build out the new game engine and polish the editors for v0.5.

NPC behavior was implemented in-game to handle the existing settings migrated over from v0.4. This is to allow movement behavior for your characters, which defines how they will move around the scene and interact with obstacles. It's nice seeing some life in the test dungeon!



By combining a set movement area for a character and an appropriate obstacle reaction (in this case, "turn right"), you can create simple patrol routes for NPCs!



In v0.5, I'd like for the engine to support characters that occupy multiple tiles, so I've started adding some basic functionality to allow for this. In the example below, the mother slime and its children are a 32x32 character in a map using 16x16 tiles, therefore it requires a space of 2x2 tiles when moving around.



I also added a basic pause menu similar to the existing one in v0.4, with some slight tweaks to the appearance. The menu can now be navigated via keyboard or gamepad controls as well! Going forward, I'd like to make the control type options more flexible to allow for more varied types of gameplay.



To help with performance in the Map Editor and in-game, I made some improvements to the mesh generation so the resulting meshes that are created when saving your models are more optimized.



I'm really excited about v0.5 since it will bring a lot of usability improvements and new features! There's still a long journey ahead after its release, but it will be a nice step forward. :)


In regards to the Demo Game Hub for RPG in a Box, I finally took the time to update it with my desert racing minigame! As with the other demo games, you can access it from the main hub area by talking to the corresponding NPC. I've also made the project source files available for anyone interested in checking out the games to see how any of the logic is handled. Feel free to use any of the included resources or gameplay in your own RPG in a Box games!

You can download the Demo Game Hub and project source files on Itch.io here: Zeromatrix.itch.io





Thank you so much for reading and for your continued support! Don't forget to check out the Trello board for RPG in a Box to follow my development progress in real-time!

If you'd like to find out more about RPG in a Box or try out the free demo version, check out my Itch.io page here. Thanks again! :)

Hello again, everyone! I'm happy to say I've returned from my vacation feeling refreshed and very motivated to continue working on RPG in a Box! This past week I focused on getting the new script parser implementation mostly finished up, but (as I mentioned prior to my break) I still have some leftover updates to share from before.


I'd like for v0.5 to support item stacking in the player's inventory and item containers, so I started adding some initial functionality in preparation for this. In its current state, you can specify if an item is stackable (and its stack limit) from the Item Editor.




I've also continued to implement and test various scripting functions into the new game engine for v0.5. The GIF below shows a script being triggered to test the "while" loop, "Give Item", and "Wait" functions by giving an item to the player every half second.



As another example, the GIF below shows the "Set Group Light Color" function being tested by changing the color of the torches's light sources. This makes use of the grouping functionality available in the Map Editor to group multiple entities together.




In the Map Editor, I made a small update so that objects and navigation paths will now automatically adjust up/down when a tile is replaced with another of differing height.



Also, the scripting language and visual editor was updated to support local variables! This should make it easier to store and manipulate values that are only needed within the scope of a script.



Lastly, I went through and added helpful error messages that will display in the new debug console. For example, if you attempt to use the "Add Tile" function but specify an invalid tile name, an error message will display to indicate this.



Thank you so much for reading and for your continued support! Over the coming several months I plan to put a lot of focus on the game engine/gameplay side of things. I'll also be polishing the editors and implementing any remaining functionality still needed for the v0.5 release. Don't forget to check out the Trello board for RPG in a Box to follow my development progress in real-time!

If you'd like to find out more about RPG in a Box or try out the free demo version, check out my Itch.io page here. Thanks again! :)