Flare 1.01 is now available for download! It includes many bug & crash fixes, as well as a few game play changes based on player feedback.
Downloads
Windows
- Installer (Engine + Game) (130.3 MB)
- Engine + Game (130.4 MB)
- Engine (6.4 MB)
Linux
- Engine (x86_64) + Game (130.6 MB)
- Engine source (5.6 MB)
- Game (146.1 MB)
Mac OS
- The Mac OS version is still having issues, so a new version is not available at the moment.
Changelog
Engine features
- Add “Renderer” option to the Video section of the Configuration menu. (Justin Jacobs)
- Support loading some hard-coded Configuration menu values from menus/config.txt. (Justin Jacobs)
- Add WidgetSettings class for loading previously hard-coded properties of some Widgets. (Justin Jacobs)
- Add support for changing the buyback price after the player leaves the map. (Justin Jacobs)
- Add ability for certain classes to open a specific tab of the Powers menu automatically. (Justin Jacobs)
- Add ‘respec’ Event component for resetting XP/stats/powers. (Justin Jacobs)
- Add ‘no_aggro’ Power attribute. (Justin Jacobs)
Engine fixes
- Fix bug where if minions were blocking the player, they couldn’t be moved out of the way. Minions are now forced to move out of the way if the player is close enough. (Justin Jacobs)
- Fix bug where removing a primary stat bonus would break passive powers that relied upon said bonus. (Justin Jacobs)
- Fix crash on exit when using the sdl_hardware renderer on some systems. (Justin Jacobs)
- Fix disappearing text caused be resizing the window in some cases. (Justin Jacobs)
- Fix a regression in button and checkbox logic that prevented them from working with keyboard and controller input. (Justin Jacobs)
- Fix rendering of tabs when individual tabs are too short or too long. (Justin Jacobs)
- Adjust gamma slider range so that the default value is in the middle. (Justin Jacobs)
- Clean up error messages that are displayed when the stash hasn’t been created. (Justin Jacobs)
- Prevent the same key from getting bound to multiple actions. (Justin Jacobs)
- Prevent editing joystick bindings when joystick is not in use. (Justin Jacobs)
- Don’t try to send items to buyback when using SELL_WITHOUT_VENDOR. (Justin Jacobs)
- Fix named Effects not showing up in Power menu tooltips. (Justin Jacobs)
- Fix passive powers not respecting some power usage requirements. (Justin Jacobs)
- Fix some events being activated when they shouldn’t if the player was inside of their location rect. (Justin Jacobs)
- Fix Power attribute pre_power not working for AI creatures. (Justin Jacobs)
- WidgetScrollBox now scrolls in 5% increments based on the size of its contents, as opposed to a hard-coded pixel amount. (Justin Jacobs)
- Fix memory leaks in GameSlotPreview, LootManager, PowerManager, and ModManager. (Justin Jacobs)
- Fix incorrect dimensions of SVG icon. (Alexander Wilms)
- Fix Windows installer not using the correct working directory for launching Flare after install. (Justin Jacobs)
Documentation
- Add documentation for creating Mac OS build. (Thomas Leavitt)
Translation Updates
- Scottish Gaelic (gd) update (GunChleoc)
Game changes
- Redesign final Fort Nasu puzzle, in response to the frustrations of many players. (Justin Jacobs)
- Increase elemental ring bonuses by 10%. (Justin Jacobs)
- Tweak slingshot stone graphics to make it more visible on some maps. (Justin Jacobs)
- Add appdata.xml for use with various package managers. (Alexander Wilms)
Flare 1.01
Aww. I actually thought that puzzle people complained about was fantastic. It actually challenged my brain a little and felt like an accomplishment when I figured it out.
Also, it’s not *that* hard. The book there pretty much tells you everything you need to know; it’s obvious looking at the map that the other room is a “reflection” of the main room, and then you see markings on the floor exactly where the levers were in the corresponding areas of the main room, and then you note that since it’s a reflection, it’s the *opposite* of what you want to do with the levers.
Now it’s quite simplistic. Ah, well. It’s still a great game regardless. I guess some people just don’t like challenging puzzles.
Being Flare’s flagship game, I wanted to keep the Empyrean Campaign’s game play as accessible as possible. Even though I was doing most of the development towards the end, this was still a community project. So I wanted to keep my design influences to a minimum. I have plans to make my own game with Flare, which will allow me to take more liberties with difficulty, art style, themes, etc.
But as for the puzzle in question, I still think it was flawed. I wrote a bit about this in a Reddit comment, which I’ve inserted below:
The thing with puzzle design in games is that you want to introduce the player to one new concept at a time. The problem with the old puzzle is that it introduced too much at once:
– More switches
– Switches and floor tiles were in separate rooms
– The two rooms were mirrored, or “reflected”
By removing two of these, the difficulty ramp from the previous puzzle in the map is smoothed out.