RPG in a Box News

Release Notes for v0.5.5.1

Added initial implementation of animating a model's light source by allowing the parameters to be set per frame by enabling the "Animated" setting
Added ability to use coordinates for the "Add Character" scripting function to place a character by tile coordinate in addition to entity ID
Added eyedropper tool for picking colors as a separate tool mode to the Voxel Editor (can still hold Alt in other modes to pick as well)
Added "Remove surfaces along grid boundaries" to Voxel Editor to allow for better tiling of models with transparency, e.g. water tiles that border each other
Added search functionality to the built-in documentation
Added undo/redo actions for toggling of the "Light Source" setting in the Voxel Editor
Added "Party Member" as an option to the Entity Expression Builder dialog in the Script Editor
Added initial implementation of a noise generator for creating flat tiles from a randomly generated noise texture (accessed via Voxel Editor toolbar)
Added Table of Contents section to the documentation viewer for quickly jumping to major sections within a page
Added warning dialog that's displayed when attempting to open a model in the Voxel Editor or place it in a map when it's not located in the correct project folder based on its type (tile/object/character)
Implemented "camera override" functionality to use specified camera type when maps are loaded (or game's default camera if none specified), added "First-Person" as option to dropdown
Implemented "player override" functionality to use specified character model when maps are loaded (or game's default character if none specified)
Documentation: Updated Documentation tab to initially show the Tutorials page by default
Documentation: Brought the built-in "Voxel Editor" documentation up to date for any changes from v0.4 to v0.5
Fixed issue where combat would get stuck when attempting to launch a battle from within a dialogue
Fixed issue where the primary player's health would not be restored to half if they died during combat but the remaining party members won the battle
Fixed issue with the undo action for frame insertion/duplication in the Voxel Editor not working properly when the model initially had only one frame
Fixed issue where characters placed with the "Add Character" scripting function were not being assigned their default behavior, if defined
Fixed issue where battles could fail to start if defined in the Combat Editor and then launched in-game without first using the dropdown to select a battle map
Fixed issue where documentation pages with videos in them were failing to open properly
Fixed issue where the default item ID ("ITEM_0001") was not enclosed in double quotes when dragging the "Give Item" function into a script in the Quick Script Builder
Fixed issue with Combat Editor not resetting completely (asterisk on tab and toolbar buttons) when exiting to the Game Manager with unsaved changes
Fixed issue where battles would fail to load when "Set Entity Model" was previously used to replace the main player's model
Fixed issue where tactical combat would sometimes get stuck when enemies were using directional attack animations ("attack_north", "attack_east", etc.)
Fixed incorrect tooltip text for "First Frame" button on the Voxel Editor's animation toolbar

Release Notes for v0.5.5

Added basic party system functionality (See related scripting functions below - for initial testing purposes these are only available from quick scripts. Visual script nodes coming soon!)
Added new scripting function "Add Party Member" which adds a character to the player's party: add_party_member("character_model", "member_id")
Added new scripting function "Remove Party Member" which removes a character from the player's party: remove_party_member("member_id")
Added new scripting function "Restore Party Member" which returns a previously removed character back to the party: restore_party_member("member_id")
Added new scripting function "Hide Inventory" to close the player's inventory if it's visible: hide_inventory()
Added "party.member" identifier to scripting language's supported entity references for accessing a party member by ID, e.g. heal_entity(party.member["id_of_member"], 5)
Added new scripting function "Execute Script" which launches another script in parallel with the currently running one
Added ability to access the X/Y/Z values of coordinates within scripts, e.g. player.coord.x, self.coord.y, entity["some_id"].coord.z, etc.
Added ability to use coordinates within arithemtic expressions, for example to subtract or add two coordinates together, multiply a coordinate by a number, etc.
Added ability to use coordinates for the "Add Object" scripting function to place an object by tile coordinate in addition to entity ID
Changed icon for "Show Inventory" function in the Script Editor to be more unique
Updated buttons in the Voxel Editor viewport (upper right) for rotating the model to become disabled when the model's grid width and depth aren't equal
Added informational dialog with terminal command to run (similar to that of Quick Play's) that is displayed after exporting your game on Linux or MacOS (if the game executable is updated)
Increased camera zoom max value from 120 to 200 in the Game Configuration dialog's gameplay section
Added Ultima themed assets (from Iolo's Hut map created for Demo Game Hub) to the Asset Library (tagged with "ultima")
Fixed issue where moving selected voxels in the Voxel Editor then undoing the action would not properly restore any overwritten voxels
Fixed issue where rotating selected voxels in the Voxel Editor then undoing the action would not properly restore any overwritten voxels
Fixed issue where the ESC key would inadvertently pause the loading screen until pressed again while loading a map
Fixed issue with localization credits not showing properly in the About dialog
Fixed issue where Alt+Tabbing out of the Voxel Editor while editing with the left mouse button pressed could result in unexpected behavior when returning to the editor
Fixed issue where the Sound FX Generator could potentially fail to play or save sound effects in rare cases
Fixed a few issues related to the IDs of newly added dialogue nodes when localization is enabled in the Dialogue Editor
Fixed some in-game errors that would display in the console when moving the mouse over tiles while the player was on a moving platform
Fixed issue with variable names within scripts not being properly parsed
Fixed issue where strings starting with "property" could not be used in some places within scripts
Fixed issue where the "Create a New Game" folder browser dialog wouldn't automatically navigate to the currently entered game path if it had been manually typed in
Localization: Added German translations for in-game UI text (menus, inventory interface, etc.)
Localization: Added Russian translations for both editor and in-game UI text and option to select it in the Editor Settings dialog
Localization: Fixed issue with special credits text in the About dialog being cut off in the German translation

Release Notes for v0.5.4.6

Updated Map Editor's free camera and first-person camera controls to prevent "D" from deleting navigation nodes
Update Voxel Editor's "Rotate Model Clockwise" button on the Model Tools panel to rotate around the current camera view's vertical axis
Added buttons to the Voxel Editor viewport (in panel with "Move" buttons) for rotating selected voxels clockwise or counterclockwise (or entire model if none are selected)
Updated logic for caching and loading model previews (should result in noticeably shorter load times when re-opening a game project after the cache has been created the first time)
Fixed issue where scripts were not properly resuming after a dialogue within that script had finished
Fixed issue where some invalid navigation data was potentially causing maps to not load in-game
Fixed console error that would occur upon game startup when the configured Main Menu background map didn't exist
Fixed issue where surface edges were not being recalculated properly when decreasing grid dimensions in the Voxel Editor then undoing the change
Fixed issue where voxels outside of the grid in frames other than the current one were not being properly removed when resizing the grid, then undoing and redoing the change
Fixed issue where a large number of error messages would sometimes display when opening a game project
Fixed "signal is already connected" console errors that would occur when right-clicking folders in the Game Explorer
Localization: Fixed issue with tile/object/character filter boxes not showing translated placeholder text properly
Localization: Updated translations to officially include support for Brazilian Portuguese

Release Notes for v0.5.4.5

Added ability to import palettes from an external file (PNG images (1x) or .HEX files from lospec.com)
Added ability to define tags for items in the Item Editor (in preparation for future uses)
Updated "New Palette", "Duplicate Palette", and "Rename Palette" dialogs to display appropriate titlebar icon instead of default question mark icon
Decreased height of description box below list of scripting functions
Slightly increased default brightness of ambient light in newly created maps
Updated slime characters in the Asset Library to fix "invalid sound effect" error displayed in the debug console
Updated stats of slime characters in the Asset Library to be different from each other and more balanced relative to Justin's stats
Fixed issue with adding new palettes not working properly when at least one custom palette already existed
Fixed issue with decreasing then increasing an object's grid width in the Voxel Editor causing undeleted voxels' positioning to be incorrect
Added buttons to the About dialog for RPG in a Box's Itch.io page and Steam Community hub
Updated About dialog with German localization credits
Updated real-time enemies so they will attempt to attack if the player character is adjacent (still experimental so may be buggy)
Localization: Fixed issue with the window width of the "Sound FX Generator" popup dialog
Localization: Fixed issue with the window width of the "Create a New Game" popup dialog
Localization: Fixed issue with the window width of the "Edit Tags" popup dialog

Early Access is Here!

Hi everyone! I'm happy to announce that Early Access for RPG in a Box has started! To celebrate the launch, there will be a 10% discount for the first week. It's a bit overwhelming and hard to believe that I've finally made it to this point! There's still a long journey ahead, though, and I have a lot of cool and exciting things planned for the future! I'll be posting changelogs and development updates here, on Itch.io, and on my Discord server going forward. Thanks so much for your support! I look forward to working together with everyone and growing the community! :)