Flare 1.15

Flare is back with a new look! Let’s dive right into what’s new:

New Graphics

Version 1.15 introduces remastered graphics that are intended to look best on screens between 1080p and 1440p. Everything, from the characters, to the map tilesets, to the UI, has been revamped. The process involved a lot of work to migrate the workflow to use EEVEE in modern versions of Blender. Just about everything needed to be re-textured, and several models needed mesh and animation tweaks. Replacements were also created for assets that we did not have the source models for.

To celebrate the occasion, I’ve created a new trailer that revisits the scenes from the 1.0 trailer.

Iron Labyrinth

The next biggest addition to version 1.15 is procedural generation of maps and items. To showcase these new abilities in the engine, the Empyrean Campaign now includes a new side dungeon, the Iron Labyrinth. Delve beneath Perdition Harbor and explore a series of ruins that are scaled to the player’s level. The dungeon can be tackled at any point after completing the Krolan’s Missing quest.

Within the Iron Labyrinth are plenty of opportunities to find Mastite items. These are special pieces of gear with randomized stats, and are usually very powerful. Lucky players might even find Mastite items outside of the Iron Labyrinth as rewards for tough battles.

Power Tree Updates

All three player power trees in the Empyrean Campaign have been re-balanced. Full change notes are below, but the overall goal was to increase the gained effectiveness from each upgrade level. We also wanted to make the MP curve more gradual as player’s level up powers.

Each power tree also gets three new powers; two active and one passive. See the change notes below for details.
To better accommodate the extra powers, players now get 2 power points per level to spend instead of 1.

 Windows

 Linux

 Mac OS (Intel 64-bit)

Android

Sources

Changelog

Engine features

  • Events
    • Events can now use ‘book=close’ to close the active book.
    • Added ‘intermap_id’ property to Events.
    • Added ‘power_level’ and ‘power_stats’ properties to Events.
    • Added ‘requires_tile’ and ‘requires_not_tile’ properties to Events.
    • Added ‘spawn_level’ property to Events.
    • Added ‘class_tip’ and ‘show_class_tip’ properties to new game menu config.
    • Added ‘show_frame_background’ property to configuration, new game, and load game menu configs.
    • Added ‘mapmod_toggle’ property to Events.
  • Items
    • Add scaling based on item level/player level/primary stats to several Item attributes, such as ‘bonus’ and ‘price’.
    • Add ‘loot_drops_max’ property to Items for limiting the number of drops in a single loot event.
    • Added randomized items. Items can now be spawned with random level, quality, and bonus attributes.
    • Added ‘auto_actionbar’ property to items/types.txt config.
  • Powers
    • Added support for more than one of each chain power (pre_power/post_power/wall_power) to be attached to a single power.
    • Added ‘post_hazards_skip_target’ to Powers.
    • Powers that deal non-elemental damage will now apply additional elemental damage based on the damage stats for said elements.
    • Power ‘trait_elemental’ now works with all damage types (despite the name). Any additional damage bonuses for the specified damage type will apply on top of the converted damage.
    • Added ‘percent_exact’ to requires_hpmp_state and requires_resource_stat_state in Powers.
    • Added ‘on_active_power’ to passive_trigger property and ‘can_trigger_passives’ property for Powers.
    • Added ‘passive_effects_persist’ property to Powers.
    • Added ‘expire_power’ Power property.
    • Added ‘hero_level’ / ‘source_level’ and ‘hero_stat’ / ‘source_stat’ modes to map enemy & power ‘spawn_level’ properties. They take a single value as a multiplier and are intended to replace the ‘level’ and ‘stat’ modes.
    • Added ‘state_hold_mode’ property to Powers.
    • Added ‘ignore_resist’ property to powers/effects.txt config.
    • Added ‘spawn_requires_unlocked_power’ property to Powers.
  • Maps
    • Added procedural map generation.
    • Add wander_radius and waypoints support for map NPCs
  • UI
    • Horizontal list widgets can now display 2 or fewer options at once
    • Added ‘default_zoom_level’ property to menu/minimap.txt config.
    • Added support for developer mode command shortcuts.
    • Added ‘powers_overlap_slots’ to menu/actionbar.txt config.
    • Added ‘background_offset’ to menu/config.txt config.
    • Added a game filter for the inactive mods list in the Configuration menu.
    • Added ‘inactivemods_filter’ to menu/config.txt config.
    • Added ‘preview_enabled’ and ‘preview_pos’ to menus/inventory.txt config.
    • Added ‘font’ property to engine/combat_text.txt config.
    • Stats on the character page are now organized by categories: Core, Offense, Defense, and Misc.
    • Speed and Attack Speed are now able to be shown in the Character menu.
    • Added ‘tab.text_padding’ to engine/widget_settings.txt config.
    • Added ‘enabled’ property to Char/Inv/Pow/Log menus for modders that wish to prevent the player from opening those menus.
    • Added ‘upgrade_button_offset’ property to menu/powers.txt config.
    • Added auto-loot configuration option.
    • Dynamically-sized dev console with new config file.
    • Added prompt for language on first launch.
    • Added ‘show_permadeath’ option to menus/gamenew.txt config.
    • Added ‘log.padding’ property to engine/widget_settings.txt config.
    • Added ‘sound.activate’ property to engine/widget_settings.txt config.
    • Added tooltip text for items that prevent use of other equip slots.
    • Added ‘enable_gamepad_nav’ property to menus/actionbar.txt config.
    • Added cinematic map title display, configured via menus/region_title.txt.
    • Added ‘sort_stock_buy’ property to menus/vendor.txt config.
    • Added optional sort button to inventory and stash for sorting by type, quality, level, and sell price.
    • Added tooltips for stat and power upgrade buttons.
    • The “Play Game” button on the title screen now goes directly to character creation if no saved games exist.
    • Added ‘wrap_before’ property to menus/activeeffects.txt config.
  • Input
    • New mouse movment behavior. Click once to move the player to a target and, if applicable, interact with it.
    • Added game controller rumble option.
    • Added “in combat” LED effect for supported game controllers (i.e. Dual Shock 4).
    • Support using gamepad during initial launch menus.
    • Added ‘cycle_menus’ keybinding to quickly open Char/Inv and Log/Pow menus.
    • Support navigating “multi-page” books with left/right inputs when possible.
    • Android: Enabled use of external input devices (gamepads, keyboards, mice)
  • Misc
    • Damage Types and Elements have been combined. engine/elements.txt is still supported, but new mods should use engine/damage_types.txt.
    • Added ‘offscreen_enemy_encounters’ property to engine/combat.txt config.
    • Added backwards compatiblity option ‘passive_trigger_effect_stacking’ to engine/misc.txt.
    • Added ‘equipment_set’ property to engine/classes.txt config.
    • Added ‘fade_wall_alpha’ property to engine/misc.txt config.
    • Added ‘active_sub_frame’ property to animation definitions.

Engine fixes

  • Crashes & Memory Issues
    • Fix potential crash in WidgetTabControl when trying to set an active tab when there is no tab already active.
    • Fix potential crash when tileset image can’t be loaded.
    • Fix leaked effect animations when an effect’s animation property was redefined.
    • Fix invalid memory access when consuming a corpse after a map change
    • Fix crash when a book has a blank text item
    • Fix memory leak from dropped loot
    • Fix memory leak when a power’s animation property was redefined.
    • Fix leaked animation when Power entire power was redefined.
    • Fixed crash in Power tooltips when base_damage was not defined.
    • Fixed infinite INCLUDE recursion in FileParser.
    • Fixed a crash when action bar slots weren’t defined.
    • Fixed potential crash if a hazard was created before the map loaded.
    • Fixed infinite loop caused by trying to move an entity before the map loaded.
    • Fixed crash in action bar when less than 12 slots were defined.
    • Fixed divide-by-zero crash when using NPC dialog groups.
  • Exploits
    • Fixed bug where closing the game with the “Enter Amount” dialog open allowed for item duplication.
    • Fixed item duplication when mouse dragging an item while “Do not use mouse” is set.
  • Gameplay
    • Fix bonuses to primary stats being incorrectly assigned when arbitrary resource stats are used.
    • Fix power.target_neighbor not using the starting_pos as the origin point.
    • Fixed behavior of target_neighbor when a Power wasn’t using ‘starting_pos=source’.
    • Fixed Power target validity not respecting the ‘movement_type’ property.
    • Fixed the origin point of post powers in some cases that would have them incorrectly use the caster’s position otherwise.
    • Fixed the direction of moving powers when the origin and target are the same point.
    • Fixed cooldowns not applying to the base power when using replace_by_effect.
    • Fixed replace_by_effect changing the active AI power mid-animation.
    • Fix regression that caused save_onload=false to have no effect.
    • Fix being able to talk to NPC allies after they die.
    • Prevent summons with zero base speed from teleporting with their summoner.
    • Added validation to player XP table parsing to ensure that XP thresholds are not less than those for previous levels.
    • Fix “resist_all” status effect causing unintended resource stat stealing.
    • Fix passive post powers activating even when their parent passive power is not active.
    • Fixed ‘ground’ movement type hazards not colliding with pits and small objects.
    • Fixed entities not entering death state when negative HP regen reduced their HP to 0.
    • Fixed corpses not disappearing into pits when killed with a critical strike.
    • Fixed incorrect speed of repeater powers when using a non-60 FPS cap.
    • Fixed incorrect activation of passive powers on death.
    • Fix unintended stacking in active effects display for effects that don’t have the same icon.
    • XP gain is now prevented after the initial death frame. This still allows for the player to revive if they die and level up on the same frame.
    • Fix bug where new saves were the wrong class and couldn’t attack when using a controller.
    • Fixed repeater powers having no effect if the first hazard hit a wall.
    • Fixed incorrect max summon limits when a power was unlocked/locked.
    • Fixed off-screen enemies not realizing they were dead until the player got close enough.
    • Non-stacking effects of the same magnitude are now ignored if the duration is shorter than the time remaining on the existing effect.
    • Fixed power ‘speed_variance’ behavior being dependent on max FPS.
    • Fixed ‘event.loot_count’ not working correctly when used in multiple events during the same frame.
  • UI
    • Fixed equipment not being visible on the load game menu in cases where an item is shared across multiple equipment sets.
    • Display min/max damage and absorb stats on single lines in the Character menu
    • Show power base damage type in tooltips if no damage modifier is set
    • Fix incorrect power level being shown in the action bar tooltips for upgraded powers.
    • Fixed a case where tooltip graphics showed an incorrect right border when the text area was too wide.
    • A fallback language is now selected when the desired language is not available in engine/languages.txt.
    • Fixed cases where parts of WidgetSlider were being drawn outside the visible area.
    • Power tree backgrounds now align to the tab area if they are not the same size as the menu.
    • Fix not being able to pick up loot with the mouse if the loot animation was looped.
    • Fix invisible icons in Powers menu when using gamepad/touch controls.
    • The text for dialog options now respects the ‘font_dialog’ property in menus/talker.txt.
    • Fixed books not closing properly when trying to load another book with an invalid filename.
    • Fixed combat text being shown for zero damage reflect.
    • Primary stat upgrade buttons are now hidden in the Character menu if the cooresponding label is hidden.
    • Fixed single-line text having the top/bottom “cut off” with certain fonts.
    • Fixed delete save dialog being shown underneath buttons on load screen.
    • Fixed case where stash tabs could be switched while dragging an item.
    • Statbars (including the enemy HP bar) now position the numeric text relative to the fill graphics.
    • Improved the behavior of determining which enemy health bar to show when several enemies are in close proximity.
    • Fixed the height calculation of the NPC dialog text box with several actions/topics.
    • Removed the gamma setting from the configuration UI (it can still be changed via the config file, for now)
    • Reduced spam of identical combat text messages.
    • Fixed a case where replaced powers were not being enabled when switching equipment sets.
    • Item quantity menu now wraps around when using the increment/decrement buttons.
    • Fixed HUD log blocking clicks when an overlayed message expires due to time.
    • Android: Added a dialog to direct the player to the wiki page for installing if no game data is found.
  • Animations
    • Fixed attempt to load default ‘male’ animations initially, even if they would be replaced by engine/hero_options.txt.
    • Removed 1-frame delay between when the player activates a power and when they change animation state.
    • Fix single-frame “back_forth” animations taking an extra frame to complete.
    • Attempt to fall back to default values if base/head graphics don’t exist for a hero option.
  • Sound
    • Increase default audio playback samplerate to 44100Hz from 22050Hz. This can now be adjusted in the user’s settings.txt file.
    • Fix case where sounds may be unloaded prematurely if they were playing during certain sitations.
    • Fixed volume of power and entity sounds not being attenuated based on distance.
  • Input
    • Fix input state not being correctly reset after using a gamepad analog control
    • Fixed mod-specific default keybindings not loading when user resets configuration to default.
  • Performance
    • Implemented caching for event scripts to avoid repeated loading from disk.
    • Added threaded image loading to speed up load times. Can be turned off in the Video options if there are any issues.
  • System
    • Fix unintended file appending when loading mod metadata
    • Errors in saved fog-of-war data no longer causes a forced exit & mod reset.
    • Android: Fix ‘Flare’ directory not being automatically created.

Game updates

  • New, higher resolution art work:
    • Map tilesets (including new “Ruins” tileset)
    • Character, enemy, and NPC animations
    • Power animations
    • User interface
  • Limited the number of “unique” items that can drop from a boss to 1 per kill.
  • Rebalanced damage types to be less reliant on weapon stats. Players start with 15-20 damage and gain 2 per level. To compensate, weapons now have 10 base damage with an additional 3 per item level.
  • Increased starting MP and MP per level by 5x. Increased starting MP regen by 5x.
  • Changed MP regen per level to 1 and MP regen per Mental to 3.
  • Changed starting damage for Melee/Ranged/Mental to 15-20, with an additional 2-2 per level.
  • Raised the number of power points granted per level to 2.
  • Only require the first level of any given power that’s required to unlock another power/upgrade.
  • Lowered stat requirements for all active powers. Requirements start at 2 or 3 and increase by 3 for each upgrade level.
  • New item: ‘Tome of Second Chances’. Used to reset the player’s stat and power points. Can be purchased from Florin.
  • Wooden figurines now grant +15 to their respective primary stats instead of a damage/absorb bonus.
  • More gradual MP cost slopes for all active powers
  • Rebalance Warrior active powers
    • Shield Bash: Reduced crit chance to 25%. Added 25% chance to stun for half a second. Damage starts at higher at 115% and increases 15pp per level
    • Blood Strike: Damage starts at higher at 130% and increases 5pp per level. Bleed effect now increases 2pp per level.
    • Warcry: Raised overall MP cost, but effect lasts longer. Starts at 30s and increases 5s per level. Flat cooldown of 10s after the effect expires.
    • Throw Knife: Damage starts lower at 75% and increases 5pp per level. Accuracy bonus added, starting at 130% and increasing 5pp per level. Critical bonus added, starting at 40% and increasing 5pp per level.
    • Cleave: Damage starts lower at 75%, but still increases by 15pp per level.
    • Quake: Damage starts lower at 75% and increases 10pp per level. Knockback is now a constant 15. Stun chance is now 75% and increases 500ms per level.
  • Rebalance Ranger active powers
    • Haste: Raised overall MP cost, but effect lasts longer. Starts at 30s and increases 5s per level. Flat cooldown of 10s after the effect expires.
    • Piercing Shot: Damage now increases by 15pp per level.
    • Multishot: Instead of increasing damage per level, the number of projectiles now increases per level. Level 1 starts with 2, and increases by 1 for each level. The size of the arc has been reduced, and some angle/speed variance has been added.
    • Rapid Fire: Damage starts higher at 50% and increases 10pp per level. There is now a flat 80% accuracy modifier.
    • Caltrops: Lifetime increased to 60 seconds. Can now hit multiple targets. Damage starts lower at 55%, but gains 10pp per level. Slow effect duration starts higher at 5s, and each level now grants an extra 500ms.
    • Bear Trap: Lifetime increased to 60 seconds. Damage starts higher at 140%, but still increases by 15pp per level. There is now a 25% chance to inflict bleeding (5% damage-over-time for 5 seconds).
    • Ember Shot: Damage now increases by 3pp per level. Now inflicts -75% to the targets’ fire resistance.
  • Rebalance Mage active powers
    • 800ms cooldown for Burn, Freeze, and Thunderstrike
    • Fireball: Damage starts at 130% and increases by 15pp per level.
    • Ice Bolt: Damage starts at 110% and increases by 10pp per level. Slow duration increases by 1s per level.
    • Shock: Damage starts at 120% and increases by 10pp per level.
    • Burn: Damage starts at 80% and increases by 10pp per level. Add chance to inflict fire weakness for 5s. Chance increases per level.
    • Freeze: Increased speed and number of shards. Damage starts at 80% and increases by 10pp per level. Slow duration increases by 1s per level. Add a chance to inflict ice weakness to nearby enemies for 5s.
    • Thunderstrike: Increased target range. Damage starts at 90% and increases by 10pp per level. Spawns 6 projectiles that have a chance to stun.
    • Shield: Increased overall MP cost
  • Rebalanced passive powers:
    • Stone Wall: Initial HP bonus raised from 25 to 100. Each level now grants 50 instead of 25.
    • Wolf’s Eye: Crit chance per level decreased from 3pp to 2pp. Accuracy per level raised from 10pp to 15pp.
    • Energy Flow: Initial MP regen bonus raised from 15 to 75. Each level now grants 50 instead of 15.
  • New Warrior powers:
    • Vampirism: Grants a temporary buff to the HP Steal stat
    • Rupture: Creates a fissure that debuffs avoidance, absorb, and poise.
    • Enchanted Blade (passive): Bonus dark damage
  • New Ranger powers:
    • Charged Shot: Slower firing, but more damage and knockback. Can immobilize and has a chance of a crit on slowed targets.
    • Poison Shot: Shoots a weak arrow that makes a poison cloud on impact. Damage over time is weak, but long lasting.
    • Scavenger (passive): Bonus gold and item find
  • New Magician powers:
    • Mystic Blast: Dark damage projectile. Applies increased dark resistance in exchange for a weakness to other elemental damage on the target. Can stack 3 times.
    • Summon Skeleton: Summon up to 5 skeletons (number of skeletons is based on power level). Each skeleton summoned reduces the player’s MP pool.
    • Barrier (passive): Bonus elemental resistance
  • New procedurally generated dungeon: Iron Labyrinth
  • New item rarity: Mastite. These are powerful items with randomized stat bonuses.

Translation updates

  • German (de) update (Iwan Gabovitch)
  • Spanish (es) update (Jacobo Feijóo, Julvenzor, Eugenio Martínez Seguín, Gi0n)
  • Finnish (fi) update (Jaakko Muilu)
  • French (fr) update (Emile Jeannin)
  • Scottish Gaelic (gd) update (GunChleoc)
  • Hindi (India) (hi_IN) by Ansh Mishra
  • Korean (ko) update (ks k)
  • Polish (pl) update (Marcin Serwin)
  • Russian (ru) update (berry)
  • Slovak (sk) update (Eliška Žillová)
  • Swedish (sv) update (Kevin Setterborn)
  • Thai (Thailand) (th_TH) by Pattaraporn Tripiyaratana
  • Vietnamese (vi) update (Đoàn Mỹ)
  • Chinese (Taiwan) (zh_TW) by Benson

Flare 1.14

Just in time for the holidays, Flare 1.14 is now available for download!

For players

The Fireball and Ice Bolt scrolls will now grant players with a buff that replaces their standard attacks (Swing / Shoot / Channel) with the magic projectiles for a brief period. This will hopefully make these scrolls worth their price, especially for Brute characters that lack options for ranged attacks.

Also, Lezaith is no longer completely immune to slow and stun effects. This should help players whose builds rely heavily on those effects.

For modders

This is the meat of the update. The engine’s handling of gameplay-related numbers has been overhauled. Values that were integer-only in the past are now stored as floating point numbers, allowing for fractional values. This gives modders a lot more granular control over how they balance their game’s progression. This change also enabled us to implement support for multiplier stat bonuses (e.g. “1.5x Max HP”), allowing for more potential variation in loot.

Also new in this version is support for defining arbitrary “MP-like” resources. This allows modders to have more than one resource pool. It also allows modders to create resources that are a better thematic fit, as opposed to the “fantasy-style” MP/Mana.

 Windows

 Linux

 Mac OS

Android

Sources

Changelog

Engine features

  • Added ‘loot.requires_status’ and ‘status_loot’ properties to loot table definitions.
  • Support ‘/’ as shorthand for ‘exec’ in the dev console. A space is not required after the slash.
  • Added ‘spawn_level’ property to map enemies. This follows the same syntax as the Power property of the same name.
  • Add XP scaling tables for scaling enemy reward XP based on enemy level.
  • Replace ‘immunity’ effects with percentage-based resistances.
  • Added ‘mouse_move_deadzone’ property to engine/misc.txt to help alleviate erratic mouse-move behavior when the cursor is near the player.
  • Alternative tab UI for when tabs exceed the available space.
  • Added keybind for cycling equipment sets in reverse.
  • Refactored stats and stat bonuses to use floats for fractional values.
  • Support fractional values in the following:
    • Combat text: ‘speed’
    • Engine (combat): ‘absorb_percent’, ‘resist_percent’, ‘block_percent’, ‘avoidance_percent’, ‘miss_damage_percent’, ‘crit_damage_percent’, ‘overhit_damage_percent’
    • Engine (misc): ‘party_exp_percentage’
    • Events: ‘power_damage’, ‘chance_exec’
    • Death penalty: ‘currency’, ‘xp_total’, ‘xp_current_level’
    • Item: ‘dmg’, ‘abs’, ‘bonus’
    • Map: ‘enemygroup.chance’
    • Power: ‘requires_mp’, ‘requires_hp’, ‘requires_hpmp_state’, ‘attack_speed’, ‘hp_steal’, ‘mp_steal’, ‘missile_angle’, ‘angle_variance’, ‘post_effect’, ‘post_effect_src’, ‘pre_power’, ‘modifier_accuracy’, ‘modifier_damage’, ‘modifier_critical’
    • StatBlock: ‘stat’, ‘stat_per_level’, ‘stat_per_primary’, ‘vulnerable’, ‘chance_pursue’, ‘chance_flee’
  • Added engine/number_format.txt. This file defines the number of digits to print after the decimal point for fractional values under different contexts.
  • Add support for multiplicative stat bonuses. For example, an item bonus of 1.5x Max HP, which would be defined as ‘bonus=hp,150%’.
    • As such, the ‘hp_percent’ and ‘mp_percent’ stat bonuses are considered deprecated.
  • Players are directed to the Mods configuration menu via a dialog box when no core mod is enabled. (kr4ft3r)
    • Core mods are now labeled as such in their tooltips on the Mods configuration menu.
  • Added ‘resource_round_method’ property to engine/combat.txt.
  • Support arbitrary “MP-like” resources:
    • Configuration file: engine/resource_stats.txt
    • Added ‘requires_resource_stat’ and ‘resource_steal’ properties to Powers.
    • Added ‘requires_resource_stat_state’ and ‘requires_resource_stat_state_mode’ properties to Powers.
  • Added ‘enabled’ property to MenuStatBar definitions.

Engine fixes

  • Fixed set item tooltips showing incorrect number of equipped items if a set item was on an inactive loadout.
  • Fixed dev console commands not working if they were preceded by whitespace.
  • Fixed spawning entities not counting towards summoned entity count.
  • Fix broken gamepad navigation after closing Powers menu while on a non-default tab.
  • Removed hard-coded minimum values for HP/MP steal and damage return.
  • Fixed “activate” message incorrectly showing in MenuPowers tooltips.
  • Fix some cases where ‘min’ damage/absorb could be greater than the cooresponding ‘max’ value.
  • Fixed text input issues with deleting text on Android.

Game updates

  • Fireball and Ice Bolt scrolls now give the player a 10 second period in which their basic attacks (Swing, Shoot, Channel) are replaced with the scroll power.
  • Fixed the naming of scroll damage as it appears in power description tooltips.
  • Lowered Lezaith’s slow resistance to 50%, down from 100%
  • Lowered Lezaith’s stun resistance to 90%, down from 100%

Translation updates

  • German (de) update (Wuzzy2)
  • Scottish Gaelic (gd) update (GunChleoc)
  • Indonesian (id) update (Kirim Saja)
  • Italian (it) update (Riccardi Unix)
  • Japanese (ja) update (Sato Hayato)
  • Korean (ko) update (ks k, YooJin919)
  • Polish (pl) update (Pawonashi)
  • Russian (ru) update (berry)
  • Chinese (zh) update (Issac Zhang)

Flare 1.14 Release Candidate 1

The release candidate for Flare 1.14 is now available. For a list of changes, see the release notes.

Translating 1.14

If you’re interested in helping with translations, be sure to read over the Translations page on the wiki. The string freeze begins today, Nov 17, and ends on Dec 3.

Downloads

Malicious link on Android wiki page

I apologize for being so late on noticing this, but it appears that someone (a bot?) changed the download link on the Android wiki page on March 27. It has now been fixed.

The user who made the change no longer exists. To prevent such things in the future, I have locked wiki editing on both flare-engine and flare-game to only those with push access. If you are not in this group and have a change or addition you’d like to make on the wiki, I encourage you to post it on the discussion forum for review.

I Love Free Software Day 2022 Presentation

Last week, I gave a brief presentation about Flare for the FSFE‘s I Love Free Software Day event. The talk was written with the expectation that a sizable chunk of the audience would be people with little-to-no knowledge of games. So there’s nothing too ground-breaking here. Nonetheless, I think it is a nice summary of what we’ve accomplished over the years.

And be sure to check out the other talks on Godot Wild Jams, Vassal, and Veloren.

Flare 1.13.04

Flare version 1.13.04, a small bugfix release for 1.13, is now available for download. Most importantly, this fixes a bug where passive powers wouldn’t activate again after the player had died.

 Windows

 Linux

 Mac OS

Android

Sources

Changelog

Engine features

  • Added ‘bar_gfx’ property to menus/enemy.txt for setting the “fill” image

Engine fixes

  • Fix crash when trying to read a non-existent file with INCLUDE
  • Fix passive powers not being correctly re-applied after death
  • Improve performance of WidgetListBox by caching all items instead of just the visible ones

Flare 1.13

Update: Bug-fix release 1.13.04 is available, so grab that instead.

Flare 1.13 is now available for download. There’s lots of new stuff in this release, so let’s dive in.

Better gamepad behavior

Gamepad functionality has been given an overhaul. We’ve moved from using the SDL_Joystick API to using the SDL_GameController API. Instead of trying to map actions to arbitrary buttons and axes, we can now map them to the common XBox 360 controller layout. And thanks to SDL_GameController, these mappings will match up logically for non-360 controllers (e.g. XBox “B” matches Playstation “Circle”). We also fixed some bugs with the analog deadzone setting, including setting a minimum value of 8000. This should prevent players from accidentally setting their deadzone at too low of a value.

The new default mappings are as follows:

  • Left stick & D-Pad: Move player/Navigate menus
  • Right stick: Aim (change direction without moving)
  • A: Accept/Confirm
  • B: Cancel
  • X: Menu activate (use selected item/power)
  • Y: Open the Inventory menu
  • Start: Pause the game
  • Back: Toggle focus on the action bar
  • L1/R1: Navigate menu tab pages
  • Right trigger: Use primary (Main1) attack/power
  • Left trigger: Use secondary (Main2) attack/power
  • L3: Use the first action bar slot (Bar1) attack/power
  • R3: Use the second action bar slot (Bar2) attack/power

Navigating menus with a gamepad is also much improved. One of the most notable changes is the addition of an “action picker” dialog box. When a player presses the Accept action on a selected item or power, the dialog will pop up with a list of all the available actions. Previous to this change, performing some of these actions with a gamepad was either difficult or outright impossible (i.e. dropping items on the ground). And it’s not just better for gamepads. Mobile/touchscreen users will also be able to take advantage of the action picker when interacting with items and powers.

Secondary equipment set

A contributor who goes by r-a-cristian-93 on Github added support for multiple equipment loadouts. We now provide players with two sets of equipment slots in their inventory. By pressing the arrow buttons in the inventory (or the default key, Tab), players can quickly swap between different loadouts of equipped items. For example, players may want a loadout for farming that focuses on XP gain and item drop rate and a loadout for fighting bosses that focuses on physical and magic defenses.

Fog-of-war

Another contribution by r-a-cristian-93. The fog-of-war feature can be used to draw dark fog over unexplored tiles, and light fog over tiles outside the player’s range of vision. It’s been a requested feature for a while now, but it wasn’t something I particularly wanted to use for the Empyrean Campaign game. What made the feature more attractive to me was the secondary feature: fog-of-war for the minimap. Now, only the areas where the player has explored will be revealed on the minimap.

Improved font rendering

Text was sometimes hard to read, especially when it involved small font sizes or complex glyphs. By blending text with a copy of itself, I was able to get a much clearer looking result. The effect is subtle, but these comparisons should illustrate the difference:

Gameplay improvements

Health and Mana potions now have Super and Ultra variants that can be crafted through the alchemy system. The Goblin Thief and Alchemist’s Skirt have also been updated to work with all of the available kinds of potions.

The Adept class’ Shield power has been modified to be more useful to players of all classes. Instead of just Mental Damage, the shield’s power is determined by a combination of player level, the Mental stat, and the Defense stat. Of course, Adepts will still be the best when it comes to effectively using the power.

Platform-specific changes

Several problems have been fixed for players on Android. Most importantly, Flare should now work properly on Android 10 or greater.

We also updated some of the packages that we distribute. The Windows version now includes a 64-bit executable by default. The 32-bit executable is still included as a optional extra. We’ve also replaced the x86_64 tarball for Linux users with an AppImage.

 Windows

 Linux

 Mac OS

Android

Sources

Changelog

Engine features

  • Added additional requirement properties (requires_status, requires_item, etc) to enemy and NPC map objects. The properties now match what is available for map events.
  • When ‘mouse aim’ is disabled, the Shift key can now be used with the direction keys to change the player’s orientation without moving.
  • Added optional ‘fog-of-war’ feature (r-a-cristian-93)
  • Added support for multiple sets/loadouts of equipped items (r-a-cristian-93)
  • Added random_status attribute to Events for setting/unsetting a random status from a list.
  • Reworked gamepad handling using the SDL_GameController API.
  • Several new key bindings, many of which will benefit gamepad users.
  • Added an “action picker” for interacting with items/powers when using a gamepad or a touchscreen.
  • Added misc.selection_rect_corner_size to engine/widget_settings.txt. This allows for a nicer “targeting reticle” appearance when selecting widgets without a mouse.
  • Added ‘background’ property for all menus. Menus will fall back to the existing hard-coded filenames if this property is omitted.
  • Added ‘close’, ‘label_title’, and ‘action_list’ properties to MenuConfirm configuration.
  • Added ‘render_layers’ section to StatBlock definitions. It has the same syntax and functionality as engine/hero_layers.txt, so that file is now considered deprecated.
  • Added ‘animation_slots’ section to StatBlock definitions. This allows for multiple animation layers on non-player entities that don’t have an inventory like the player.
  • Added a ‘direction’ property to map NPCs, indentical to the property of the same name for map enemies.
  • Added ‘vendor_ratio_buy’, ‘vendor_ratio_sell’, and ‘vendor_ratio_sell_old’ properties to engine/loot.txt. These deprecate ‘vendor_ratio’ and ‘vendor_ratio_buyback’.
  • Added ‘vendor_ratio_buy’, ‘vendor_ratio_sell’, and ‘vendor_ratio_sell_old’ properties to NPCs. These can be used to override the global settings in engine/loot.txt.
  • Added ‘tooltip_visible_max’ to engine/tootlips.txt to control the maximum number of visible floating tooltips.

Engine fixes

  • Fix enemies not being able to target NPC followers
  • Fix loot and sound effects being cleared in StatBlock files with multiple sections
  • Fix potential crash when removing summons that would be out-of-bounds on the next map.
  • Fix bug where a damage type with no name could be removed if another damage type was defined after it.
  • Don’t show hidden stats under ‘Related Stats’ section of tooltips of Character menu.
  • Fix bug where negative regen wouldn’t work if the resource was 100% full.
  • Fix bug where negative regen would overflow after reaching zero.
  • Fix bug that caused built-in effect types to be ignored by Power post_effect.
  • Fix disappearing sprites due to render priority overflow.
  • Fading of corpses is now correctly disabled when corpse_timeout=0 is used in engine/misc.txt.
  • Fix cast animation not playing when using an inventory item that is not instant.
  • Fixed a bug on Android where loading the default settings would exit fullscreen mode.
  • Fixed crash in NPC dialog when using gamepad.
  • Fixed several small bugs with navigating UI elements with a gamepad.
  • Fixed incorrect handling of gamepad stick/trigger deadzone.
  • Fixed fullscreen setting being turned off when loading configuration defaults on Android.
  • Fixed input hint for item tooltips when using a touchscreen.
  • Improved file access handling on Android versions 10 and up. This fixes the infinite cutscene loop when starting a new game.
  • Fixed memory leak when loading NPCs.
  • Entity animations will now fall back to the ‘die’ animation when ‘critdie’ isn’t defined.
  • Improved text rendering by blending text with a copy of itself.
  • Fix infinite loop that could occur when setting unlocked powers.
  • Elemental resistances can now be used with ‘stat’, ‘stat_per_level’, and ‘stat_per_primary’ in StatBlock definitions.

Game updates

  • New formula for the ‘Shield’ power. Instead of Mental Damage, it is now based off a combination of player level, Mental stat, and Defense stat. This should increase its usefulness on mixed builds.
  • Added ‘Super’ and ‘Ultra’ variants of Health and Mana potions. They can be obtained through the Alchemy system.
  • New icons for Health and Mana potions variants.
  • Fixed Alchemist’s Skirt so that it works with all potions.
  • Prevent the player from damaging Mez before being trapped.
  • Made Lezaith immune to slow/stun effects.
  • Goblin Thief can now steal all available kinds of potions. Its drop table has also been expanded to make it easier to replenish lost potions.
  • Improved contrast for “highlight” state of red square buttons (“close” and “plus”).
  • The minimap is now gradually revealed as the player explores.
  • Added icon artwork to the equipment slots on the Inventory menu.

Translation updates

  • Basque (eu) update (aitzkora)
  • Scottish Gaelic (gd) update (GunChleoc)
  • Norwegian Bokmal (nb) update (Elias Nykrem)
  • Polish (pl) update (Pawonashi)
  • Russian (ru) update (Igor Polyakov)

Flare 1.13 Release Candidate 2

The second release candidate for Flare 1.13 is now available. For a list of changes since the previous release candidate, see the release notes.

Submissions for translation updates are still open until Jan 30. See the Translations page on the wiki if you’re interested.

Downloads

Flare 1.13 Release Candidate 1

The first (and possibly only) release candidate for Flare 1.13 is now available. For a list of changes, see the release notes.

Translating 1.13

If you’re interested in helping with translations, be sure to read over the Translations page on the wiki. The string freeze begins today, Jan 9, and ends on Jan 23 Jan 30.

Downloads