v0.17 Release

[clintbellanger]

I think we're close to being wrapped up for v0.17. Here's a list of remaining tasks.

Code

• I don't know of any engine-level work still required for v0.17.

Mod Cleanup

• I'd like to combine 320x240 into minicore (done)
• I'd like to combine frontier, averguard, and living_bones into one "alpha_demo" mod (done)
• remove wipcore and hud_alt (done)

Art/Data

• Add the teleporter art to the Cave tile set (I'll actually wait and do this after the v0.17 release. Doesn't affect much because we don't have any cave teleporters anyway)
• Add the stairs art to the Dungeon tile set (done)
• Add teleporters to Averguard Atrium and Brothers Atrium (done)
• Update floors and doors on all Dungeon maps (done)

If it sounds reasonable, I'd like to call a String Freeze for Friday, Sept 21.

Then we'll be looking at releasing v0.17 on Friday, Sept 28.

The demo itself won't have much in the way of new content -- just the teleporter map mainly, and a handful of spike traps in one map. That'll be okay -- these last few Alpha releases will not be very exciting for players, as it's mostly about making things mod-friendly.

[dorkster]

One thing that will touch flare-engine is engine string translations (since flare-engine has the default mod). There's quite a few new engine strings, so we'll have to regenerate engine.pot for our translators. Then when all the translations are in, we can send those changes upstream to flare-engine.

In terms of content, don't forget we have the stash now. I think player's will appreciate being able to swap items across saves (I know I do).

[igorko]

I don't like the idea of removing hud_alt. Maybe we could somehow use globe styled HUD? Or we can move globes and large xp bar to art_src and use it later for double scaled game.

Also I think "alpha_demo" is not the best name. We could call it somehow to avoid folder renaming in future when the Game will be released.

[clintbellanger]

If we get a UI artist to create good globe art, we can add the globe style hud back. For now it's just not up to quality standards.

I thought of the name "alpha_demo" because we actually don't plan to release that data in the final game. It's a barebones demo showing some alpha features, and not representative of the final quality of the game.

[pennomi]

I'm actually not a fan of globe-style huds; they are just too close to Diablo for my taste. Maybe we could instead have a concept artist put together a unique UI for Flare? It should be really easy to implement once we had a design spec (and the art, of course).

[stefanbeller]

Personally I'd let the user choose which of the HUDs suits them best. So we should offer a globe style HUD, but not necessarily as default.

I really like the current hud.

[pennomi]

@stefanbeller Hey, why not? We have a great mod framework, so I'd definitely agree with giving the option through the mods interface.

[dorkster]

My only major gripe with the current hud is that the HP/MP/XP display is shoved up in the top left corner. This requires quite a bit of eye travel from the player's avatar to their most important stats, especially on widescreen displays. I think they should be aligned bottom center around the action bar. I'm all for doing something that isn't globes, so maybe horizontal bars above/below the action bar would look good and keep all the critical information in one spot.

Also, this would fix a very minor bug. Since SDL starts the mouse cursor at (0,0), the HP bar starts in a "mouse-over" state until the mouse is moved elsewhere in the screen area.

[clintbellanger]

Another task:

• Update the Credits

Especially you guys that have been working hard on things (igorko, stefanbeller, dorkster), let me know how you would like your updated Credits entry to look. Usually we try to list the major highlights of what someone's contributed.

Besides that, we need to comb through all the updates since 0.16 to find any new artists or coders that need attribution.

[clintbellanger]

Probable task:

• Replace previous dungeon exit markers with double doors

Looks like something I'll have to handle. The old maps (averguard and living bones) don't have new Tiled maps so it's not as simple as just exporting a new map.

[igorko]

Maybe @pennomi could give us Tiled versions of living bones maps?

[igorko]

@clintbellanger don't we have Tiled versions of averguard maps? They are just in tiled/ and maybe should be moved to separate subfolder.

[clintbellanger]

@igorko We have the averguard maps but just as tile layers. In other words they contain no enemies or events. Also I need to add the extra Tiled tilesets in correct order so that the doors will get the correct tile indexes.

[stefanbeller]

Looks like something I'll have to handle. The old maps (averguard and living bones) don't have new Tiled maps so it's not as simple as just exporting a new map.

You can try to add a tileset section, so tiled can recognize it as a flare importable map.

[stefanbeller]

However, when importing to tiled and exporting back into flare txt file format, be sure to review what has changed. some comments in the flare file get interpreted by the tiled plugin as the objects name. Other comments will be dropped.

[pennomi]

How good is the tiled importer? If it works really well, I'd suggest we use that to add the dungeon doors in. Note that we don't have any tmx files for the Living Bones areas, and even if we did, those were created with the same problem the old Averguard maps have - they only contain layer data.

I would suggest possibly waiting on adding in the new doors until we work on Flare (the game), since we are probably not planning on keeping the current set of maps at all.

[stefanbeller]

@pennomi The only known limitation as of now is the missing support for multiple entries named the same (specially mapmod happens often in one event in older maps.)

tmxfiles of the living bones stuff can be found at https://github.com/stefanbeller/flare-game/tree/master/tiled/living_bones

[pennomi]

@stefanbeller Ah, very nice. :)

[igorko]

I have sent pull request, that updates all maps we currently have. Tiled and Flare compatibility is not 100% yet, but it's almost such. Mainly bugs are present in tmx maps, generated by importer.

[igorko]

@stefanbeller Most noticable problems with map importer (you can check yourself by importing and exporting txt and compare with master) are:

• [header] location=* was not imported in some cases
• object types can be mixed (I guess in case if object name is empty)

Exporting works well now. except not attached comments. All current maps are exported from tmx.

[clintbellanger]

header location is probably obsolete. I used that before to test loading directly into individual maps.

Stefan uploaded a fix that corrected the object type error (see the latest Windows build).

[clintbellanger]

Looks like all the tmx files are created. Thanks to stefan and igorko for all the help!

I'll be touching up the Dungeon maps with new features: double door exits, new broken floor tiles, and scattered bones.

A note to self, possible data touch-ups to do before release:

• Make the teleporter art spin slower and the opposite direction? (done)
• Move most of those Offense powers down one requirement level? (done)

[clintbellanger]

All the dungeon maps are updated. Now with more interesting floors and scattered bones! That's probably enough for map updates for v0.17 -- I'll keep working on the dungeon tile set updates to include in v0.18 and beyond.

At this point, please playtest all the maps extensively! We'll try to release tomorrow, and we want it to be as clean as possible.

[pennomi]

I just ran through the whole game (and for the record, it took 1 hour 44 minutes) and I didn't see any bugs, other than the pathfinding issue which has already been resolved. Good work all!

[clintbellanger]

All known gameplay bugs are fixed.

I spent about 3 hours on a full playthrough. Everything seems to be in good shape now.

I'll let it simmer for a while before officially making a v0.17 tag and branch.