Build 14.1.19 Live!
In the last week we've been able to make 46 lovely fixes. We intend to do updates on thursdays, but introduced 3 major bugs and needed to fix them today before getting the build out.
(I seem to have forgotten to increment the build number - whatever, i'm not going to make a new build just for that)
With these above fixes we reached our goal of "Zero Critical Bugs". Sure more came in, but only 10ish, which is manageable.
[h2]Problem:[/h2]
It is a systems based, data driven, simulator game. Meaning an error in town can affect behavior of levers in a dungeon. Crazy, I know. Unity by default hides errors from the player, which usually makes sense, but is brutal for this kind of game. So when we get a bug report about combat it could be due to an error in conversation with an NPC on the road. Really gnarly stuff to troubleshoot and slows us down.
Even worse, something terrible can happen which will invalidate your game, but you keep playing along for another 20+ minutes only to find out it crashes AND your save is corrupted.
[h2]Solution:[/h2]
We now inform you when an error occurs so you know if your game world state is potentially invalid. This at least saves you from putting more time into a game that may be corrupted.
Obviously this doesn't FIX the corruption issue, but at least lets you know something is wrong. You can then decide to play at your own risk.
[h2]How it works:[/h2]
Clicking the error allows you to immediately submit it with your player log and we can see what happened. We have enhanced our player logs to be much more verbose so in theory we can find issues faster and resolve them.
We have two classifications for bugs. Really bad ones will tell you you should probably not continue playing. Sorry. I don't know what else to do here.
Not so bad errors we warn you but tell you you can probably continue playing and it should be ok. Should being the operative word.
This is a necessary step to improving quality and reducing bug fix times. Some people will hate it and that's ok, you can turn it off in options and go right back to playing the game as it was before.
Possibly interesting note: When we playtest the game we always see the error prompts even if turned off in options. This means when non-programmer people test the game they can raise the issue immediately. This is how we were missing some issues. Hopefully we'll catch more now internally.
(I seem to have forgotten to increment the build number - whatever, i'm not going to make a new build just for that)
- Added a new "There was an error" prompt to the game so you know if something potentially bad happened. See notes below.
- Fixed massive issue with autosaving which broke the game (oops) and made bad saves (double oops)
- Fixed saving of Quest data to save nonrepeatable quest triggers that have already been triggered: like fighting the goblins, or the renegade conversation
- Fixed Frozen creatures freezing combat (ironic)
- Fixed losing spell upgrades on loading the game
- Fixed dungeon exit teleport
- Fixed dungeon cannot interact with trapped items, some levers, and some objects
- Fixed stuck in dungeon (light issue but no prompt said so)
- Fixed crash following a monster to their lair
- Fixed phantom towns, where once you got there there was no town (there is no spoon!)
- Fixed bad town directions. No one found it realistic and funny. (Because it wasn't, it was a bug.)
- Greatly improved player logging to help us see what happened before a bug
- Fixed items having wrong icons (or changing icons) as you play
- Fixed unable to sell items to market
- Fixed unable to equip a helmet
- Fixed dragging items to toolbar deleting it
- Fixed dungeon generating only one room on second floor
- Fixed disappearing text issue in menus
- Updated demo quest text: it said someone was in a chapel but they were usually in in inn or wandering around town
- Fixed an issue where household members being empty caused getting wealth level to fail, resulting in broken UI.
- Fixed a bug where the guards in a boss fight were being generated with broken characters.
- Fix bugs with Hex Map icons and loading into the Hex Map
- Disabled Polymorph spell, it isn't implemented fully and created lots of problems
- Fixed bugs with Hex Map display not loading properly if you start the game there (duplicate icons, missing player icon)
- Fixes an issue that prevented quest npcs from being removed when they die.
- Fixed mage tower inventory not saving, losing your gold. Your precious precious gold!
- Fixed quests picking towns over 40 hexes away
- Fixed when booking passage the destination town not having a port so you couldn't return
- Fixed Wellbeing not showing decimal value
- Removed armor and trait buffs from showing on the buff bar
- Fixed buffs not showing after a load
- Fixed saving for player notes in the Notes tab
- Fixed duration on Drunk and Hangover buffs, now 24 HOURS not 24 DAYS
- Fixed quest final quest non-interactable
- Fixed potential issues with empty treasure chests
- Combat: Added back row to valid places to use Force Push
- Updated missing status icons like prone, stuck, and injuries like eye loss
- Adjusted position of event log, so it's readable and text doesn't get cut off
- Fixed item duplication error in enchanting window
- Prevent ability to add same item to multiple inventory slots
- Fixed autoeat attempting to eat the same food more times than the quantity of the food in the inventory.
- Improved combat logic for determining turn end for the player and for enemies
- Fixed error entering towns
- Fixed torch initialize properly
- Fixed various loading issues
- Various combat fixes
With these above fixes we reached our goal of "Zero Critical Bugs". Sure more came in, but only 10ish, which is manageable.
About the New Error Popup
I'm sure this new feature will annoy some players so I want to start off by saying you can turn it off in the options.[h2]Problem:[/h2]
It is a systems based, data driven, simulator game. Meaning an error in town can affect behavior of levers in a dungeon. Crazy, I know. Unity by default hides errors from the player, which usually makes sense, but is brutal for this kind of game. So when we get a bug report about combat it could be due to an error in conversation with an NPC on the road. Really gnarly stuff to troubleshoot and slows us down.
Even worse, something terrible can happen which will invalidate your game, but you keep playing along for another 20+ minutes only to find out it crashes AND your save is corrupted.
[h2]Solution:[/h2]
We now inform you when an error occurs so you know if your game world state is potentially invalid. This at least saves you from putting more time into a game that may be corrupted.
Obviously this doesn't FIX the corruption issue, but at least lets you know something is wrong. You can then decide to play at your own risk.
[h2]How it works:[/h2]
Clicking the error allows you to immediately submit it with your player log and we can see what happened. We have enhanced our player logs to be much more verbose so in theory we can find issues faster and resolve them.
We have two classifications for bugs. Really bad ones will tell you you should probably not continue playing. Sorry. I don't know what else to do here.
Not so bad errors we warn you but tell you you can probably continue playing and it should be ok. Should being the operative word.
This is a necessary step to improving quality and reducing bug fix times. Some people will hate it and that's ok, you can turn it off in options and go right back to playing the game as it was before.
Possibly interesting note: When we playtest the game we always see the error prompts even if turned off in options. This means when non-programmer people test the game they can raise the issue immediately. This is how we were missing some issues. Hopefully we'll catch more now internally.