Weekly Report (Dec. 11th)

Okay, first things first, I'll now officially start releasing weekly updates on Mondays. It's already the 11th here (past 1am, actually), and I've only just finished testing and building. Practice shows time and time again that I'm unable to consistently release weekly reports on Sundays. And since I'm taking rests from CoFI on Mondays anyway, I figured it'd be better to dedicate Sundays to doing whatever needs to be done to release a build, and then, after a good night's sleep, playtest the changes and release the build.

Now, back to things that actually matter (it's not like anyone waits for those releases anyway lol), aka the last week's progress:

- Added the values of combat rates to the Character Window [C] – now, the player can actually see them;

- Also, introduced the option to override all the rates to those I need regardless of the character’s stats – this will be useful for finetuning enemies. In theory, I could've used it on Gaspar during the back alley fight (he tends to deliver a bit too much damage - that is because he has a weapon, and having a weapon makes even weak characters do some heavy blows, definitely heavier that the protagonist or even the husband), but decided against it;

- Adjusted the internal logic for reacting to player party victory/defeat in combat – previously, I had problems with the follow-up scenarios (Test Forest’s wolf encounters, namely), but now I should have a wider variety of available reactions. I just need to plan ahead what happens after each fight, so that the transitions between game modes looked alright;

- Had to overhaul the Party Composition Window [P] – aside from generally refactoring the functionality code, I also had to change the structure of the character portrait objects to support masking (previously, they didn’t have a mask, so the portraits that were not the coloured circles would stick out of the frame -- like small portraits in combat currently do, which you'll see if you pay attention during the husband fight), beside that I made sure that only the potential party members were present in the list of available companions (essentially, if I need to add an additional companion who has to be present in the player party, but not in the Party Composition party members list [to make it impossible to remove them from the party, for example], now it is possible);

- Though I first debated with myself whether I really needed this feature in the game, I still decided to add the functionality to the tiles that changes the location’s name and description – I was reluctant to introduce such functionality to avoid having to write a bazillion names and descriptions, but as I was testing, the game appeared too static, so hopefully, changing these strings will liven things up;

- Added the currently displayed location name and description to the save file – you wouldn’t want to always have the same predetermined set of name/description strings on every save game loading;

- Since I was already on the mission to add new location names and descriptions, I added the location name/description change during the dialogue with Marianne - once you complete the Place dialogue branch, the change should take effect;

- Still on that same topic, made the location description window dynamic – the height of the window now depends on the number of lines there are in the description on window opening or string change;

- Made it impossible to save outside traverse mode - it's simply a fail-safe. I'm not developing a Baldur's Gate 3, so I didn't even plan to support remembering what dialogue was played at the time of saving and what nod index the player was at. I mean, it's not impossible to implement, but as of right now, I would rather avoid undertaking anything like that;

- Built a new location - it, well, exists. The new location doesn't even have any flavour strings as of right now, so it's basically exactly what Outside Church was on initial release - simply a map you can walk around without any added functionality. All you can do is teleport to the test area when the option appears as you reach the tavern building entrance tile;

- Revised and added six new encyclopedia entries - to flesh out the in-game lore a bit. I've finished translating them into Russian today, and only finished revising the English versions yesterday, so the texts may be rough around the edges;

- The reason I failed to upload the build on the 10th is because I found a bug in the test area that took some time to fix. This bug may have been present for at least a week. The gist is that you couldn't continue the initial Berserk/Archer dialogue branch, because it only had 1 nod, and in the refactored code from 1-2 weeks ago, the code only marked the branch as read when the final nod was played, but since that branch only had 1 nod, it was recognised as the starting not, not the finishing nod;

Yes, I didn't find the time to go through the back alley dialogues. I risk leaving them as they are, because I need to keep going forward. So, no self-aimed promises for the next week. I'll see what I can do. I'll likely add flavour strings and a dialogue for entering the tavern. I also need to work on the art. I've prepared background pictures already, but not the character portraits, and there are two new characters making their appearance in the tavern.

So, yeah, see y'all next week.