2013/03/31 – Flare

Flare v0.18 Released

Release Summary

10 Equipment Slots, up from 4 (and easily configurable)
Starting “Class” choice (beginner’s power/item kit)
Environmental/Ambient Sounds on maps
Much improved handling of Animations, Effects, and Sounds
New Powers: Stealth, Traps, Thrown Weapons
New Item Bonuses: XP gain, Gold Find, Item Find, and more
Improved support for various input devices
Two new starting quests

Screenshots

Engine Updates

Implement avatar layer composition and configurable slots (Igor Paliychuk)
Allow low quality (no alpha) textures for gameplay art (Igor Paliychuk)
Add support for font styles (Justin Jacobs)
Introduce AnimationManager and use it for existing animations (Stefan Beller)
Make buyback price the same as sell price (Justin Jacobs)
Remove many warnings from static code analysis (Stefan Beller)
New starting class system (Justin Jacobs)
Allow assigning titles based on xp, primary stats, or campaign status (Matthew Krohn)
Powers can require HP and optionally kill the caster (Matthew Krohn)
Add on-hit, half dead, and dead power triggers (Justin Jacobs)
New EffectsManager to handle buffs and debuffs (Justin Jacobs)
Add support for Passive Powers (Justin Jacobs)
Add “XP Gain”, “Gold Find”, “Item Find” bonuses (Justin Jacobs)
Support granting multiple stat/power points per level (Justin Jacobs)
Standardize init lists for classes (Stefan Beller)
Add on_clear map event type (Justin Jacobs)
Add flavor text option for item tooltips (Clint Bellanger)
Convert MenuCharacter to stat listbox (Justin Jacobs)
Allow bonus max HP/MP percentages (Matthew Krohn)
Implement per-enemy loot tables (Justin Jacobs)
Add Stealth bonus effect (Justin Jacobs)
Standardize sound effect loading function (Stefan Beller)
Add internal utility functions (Piotrrak)
Support NPC and map events based on hero level (Stefan Beller)
Allow Accept key to interact with the environment instead of clicking (Justin Jacobs)
Mouse emulation mode (Justin Jacobs)
Add default names for portraits to help keyboardless systems (Justin Jacobs)
Add –game_dataflag for setting a user-defined PATH_DATA (Justin Jacobs)
Introduce SoundManager for centralized sound handling (Henrik Andersson)
Add game_prefix to segregate save games and config files for mods (Henrik Andersson)
Add NPC Action Menu for NPCs with multiple discussion topics (Henrik Andersson)
Add location-based sound volume (Henrik Andersson)
Implement enemy style loot tables for map events (Justin Jacobs)
Make the local data folder prevail over installed ones (Yohann Ferreira)
Rendering optimizations (Stefan Beller)
Allow config file durations to be specified in frames, ms, or seconds (Henrik Andersson)
Fix LMB ignoring locks in some situations (Joseph Bleau)
Add cooldown_hit duration to prevent stunlock (Joseph Bleau)
Add status-based trader stock (Justin Jacobs)
Allow equipment bonuses to be applied while transformed (Justin Jacobs)
Handle fuzzy matching in translation files (Henrik Andersson)
Add item count ranges for loot tables (Clint Bellanger)
Don’t allow dead hero to trigger map events (Justin Jacobs)
Add additional cppcheck flags to the .travis.yml file (Hans Joachim)
Clean up BOM from the languages.txt file (Hans Joachim)

Game Updates

Updated equipment from 4 slots (weapon, offhand, body, artifact) to 10 slots (head, body, hands, legs, feet, weapon, offhand, ring, ring, artifact)
Added chainmail and mage armor (Clint Bellanger)
Clothes icon paintings (Ben at CrowLine Studio)
Mage, Leather, Chain, Plate icon paintings (Justin Nichol)
Ring art (Clint Bellanger)
Iron Buckler shield (Clint Bellanger)
Animal Figurines (Clint Bellanger)
Abandoned Tower art and quest line (Stefan Beller)
Mineshaft Longsword quest line (Justin Jacobs)
Beginning of new item list (Clint Bellanger)
Environmental Sounds on existing maps (Henrik Andersson)
New powers: Stealth, Caltrops, Bear Trap, Dagger Throw, Axe Throw (Clint Bellanger)

New Translations

Czech by Nikita Vanku (Zaraka)
Norwegian Bokmal by Hans Joachim Desserud
Polish by Pawel Puszczynski
Many thanks to the other translators who sent in updates

Credits

Flare v0.18 Credits List.

Flare is made by a lot of great people. Tremendous thanks to everyone who makes it possible. It’s hard to keep track of everyone with a project of this size. If you have been accidentally omitted from the credits list, let me know and I’ll add you right away!

A Note on Save Files

Note that Flare v0.18 isn’t set up to load save files from previous versions. With the armor slots changing so drastically it required recreating most items. You still may want to back up your existing save files if you’re attached to those characters. But we expect players to start new characters in v0.18.

Downloads courtesy of SourceForge

v0.18 Gameplay Video

Have a tour of the new v0.18 features while you download. Turn on annotations to see my developer notes. Watch at 720p!

2013/03/31