2012/09/28

September 28, 2012

Flare v0.17 Released!

Flare is charging through the remaining Alpha engine work, taking us to this latest and greatest v0.17 release.

Release Highlights

• All menus now easy to mod/reskin!
• New Powers tree with traditional tabs and spendable points
• Shared Stash! Collect epics, hoard resist gear, or buff your new characters
• Warp Zone -- fast-travel map to get around the alpha demo campaign

Video

Screenshots

Extended Release Notes

• Code Features
  • Menu for showing buffs/debuffs (Justin Jacobs)
  • Add Texture Quality option (Justin Jacobs)
  • Add item categories for loot tables (Stefan Beller)
  • Refactor HP, MP, XP into generic stat bar class (Justin Jacobs)
  • Convert remaining arrays to vectors where possible (Stefan Beller)
  • Various refactoring, optimization, cleanup (Stefan Beller)
  • Move menu options and layouts to config file (Justin Jacobs, Igor Paliychuk, Stefan Beller)
  • Move various magic numbers to config file (everyone)
  • Refactor Powers Menu to tab/tree/points style (Igor Paliychuk)
  • "I shouldn't be coding at 3:30 AM" (Clint Bellanger)
  • Refactor menus to use base class for placement/size/etc (Justin Jacobs)
  • Powers that spawn multiple enemies (Matthew Krohn)
  • Add Shared Stash (Justin Jacobs)
  • Add a Buyback tab to vendors (Justin Jacobs)
  • Allow NPCs to heal the hero during dialog (Igor Paliychuk)
  • Configurable font colors (Justin Jacobs)
  • Allow enemies to wander in an area (Justin Jacobs)
  • Enable scroll wheel in some widgets (Justin Jacobs)
  • Add on_load map event type
  • Don't load sound/music if the volume is 0 (Stefan Beller)
  • Added pixel-precision to clickable tiles (Justin Jacobs)
  • Made equipment slots configurable (Igor Paliychuk)
  • Made bonuses work on any item type/slot
  • Map Rendering optimizations (Stefan Beller)
  • Animation refactoring (Stefan Beller)
  • Sprite sheet packing and utility (Stefan Beller)
  • Add support for item sets (Igor Paliychuk)
  • Add optional Fringe and Foreground tile layers (Matthew Krohn)
  • Add load screen to map transitions (Justin Jacobs)
  • FPS display option (Igor Paliychuk and Justin Jacobs)
  • Configurable buff/debuff animations (Justin Jacobs)
  • Split flare into two repos: flare-engine for core upstream dev, flare-game for the actual game
  • Support multi-line text in our GetText implementation (Gallaecio)
  • Updates to GetText data extractor (Chris Oelmueller, Justin Jacobs, Igor Paliychuk)
  • Remove corpses after a fixed amount of time, for performance (Justin Jacobs)
  • Optimize text display in several places (Justin Jacobs)
• Art Features
  • Use full alpha transparency for the hero art
  • Updated Tiled files to use v0.9 features
  • Added spike traps
  • Added double doors, stairs, and bones to the Dungeon tile set
  • Added ambient sound near braziers
  • New 320x240 downscale mod
  • Added a default mod (engine translations and barebones UI)
  • Added Teleporter art and a warp zone map
  • Added a lifesteal melee attack, a manasteal magic attack, and a rapid fire bow attack
  • Updated floors on all the old dungeon maps
  • Updated Liberation Sans font to 2.0
• Translations
  • Greek - Yannis Anthymidis
  • Italian - Giovanni Dalla Torre
  • Dutch - Bas Doodeman
  • German - Chris Oelmueller
  • Galician - Gallaecio
  • Russian - Sergey Basalaev
  • Finnish - Timo Sievänen
  • French - Morgan Strauss

Download (v0.17.1)

• Windows
• OSX
• Linux (sources with cmake)

In the News

• Flare Released on Desura (Desura)
• Flare: a Free Open Source RPG with Tons of Potential (PC Gamer)
• Flare is a Free, Open-Source RPG for the PC (Kotaku)

Thanks

Huge thanks to the core programming crew for v0.17 - Igor Paliychuk, Justin Jacobs, Stefan Beller. These guys are all the momentum behind the project right now.

Thanks to Thane Brimhall and Matt Krohn, who have helped Flare's engine tremendously with their total-conversion Polymorphable which was made for the Liberated Pixel Cup

Special thanks to all the bugfixers, bugfinders, translators, and players for making this possible.

Like where Flare is going? Help us create Flare or donate to commission more open art!