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[Craig Stern]

I was testing the game on my netbook, and noticed a very slight (but still noticeable) pause between steps when characters moved on maps with a lot of other characters.

I attribute this to the fact that the game currently sorts the depth of every character and object on the battlefield with each step. You wouldn't see the pause on anything like a decent modern computer, but I want this to run smoothly even on low-end netbooks, so I've been writing a more efficient depth-sorting method to use during character movement. I just finished a build where it seems to be working; now, to test it on the netbook and see if it eliminates the pause.

[Craig Stern]

Confirmed: I just tested a big map with 132 characters on my netbook, and movement is once again silky smooth. Stuttering eliminated!

[Craig Stern]

I should have known that would be too easy. Just spent the evening working out bugs in the new depth-sorting system; am going to try to get it done before tomorrow's playtesting party.

In the meantime, I've changed the fog of war tile graphics once more to make the fog tiles easier to see, and increased the size of the font used in pop-up info to aid legibility. Neither of these changes is final--they're just stopgaps until I settle on final designs.

[Craig Stern]

Phew! More bug fixes!

I just fixed an AI issue where Mentalists would sometimes altruistically rescue enemy characters stranded in water or lava. (The algorithm was designed to weed out zero-damage attacks, but the game saw those as negative-damage attacks; adding a single less-than symbol fixed that one.)

I also fixed most of the issues with the depth-sorting; there's still one really rare instance where it sticks the character in the wrong index position, but I'm having trouble reproducing it. Maybe someone will have a chance to catch it during the playtesting tonight.

Speaking of which, toodle-oo for now: I have guests to wait for!

[Craig Stern]

Last night's playtest party was awesome! There were only a few bugs to speak of, and I got a ton of useful feedback on the UI.

There are so many good ideas here, I think I'll be busy improving the game for a while. One thing lots of people wanted--and which I have now successfully added into the game with little difficulty--is a "cancel out of each menu" hotkey. The Esc key now holds that distinction. More to come!

[Craig Stern]

Another improvement: when the game presents a pop-up notification that the player has to click to continue, the player can now click anywhere on the screen instead of having to actually click on the box. (That might sound dumb, but you'd be amazed how many people had a hard time with that.)

I've also restructured the way menu navigation works a bit, made it so the option to see a character's inventory appears only if they have items, and fixed a nasty little bug that had crept into capture the flag games.

[Craig Stern]

Some other interface improvements, suggested by folks at the party, have been implemented:

--attacks that cost too much for a character to use are now ghosted out;
--mousing over attacks now displays their range on the battlefield; and
--clicking a ghosted out button now immediately triggers the "Not enough energy" pop-up while still in the attacks menu.

These weren't hard to add, and I can already feel a significant difference in the convenience of the attack-choosing portion of the interface. If it's that dramatic for me, the guy who knows every attack in the game by heart, I imagine this is going to save a ton of time for newer players trying to figure out their attack options.

[Moczan]

Any plans for online beta?

[Craig Stern]

Once I feel it's ready, I'll definitely be holding a closed beta. When that happens depends on the speed of progress in (1) getting the character animations done and working and (2) getting asynchronous multiplayer finished and working.

[Craig Stern]

Telepath Tactics now has a functioning sound engine!

I've added in a couple of looping tracks (one for the menu, and another for battle) on a temporary basis until I have a proper soundtrack to work with. I've also added in GUI sound effects pulled from Telepath RPG: Servants of God. They still work pretty well, so I'm not sure if I'm going to replace those or not.

Sound effects for the characters are going to have to wait until their animations are done--I'll need to sync them up to the animations anyway, after all.

[Craig Stern]

Fixed some bugs, laid the groundwork for independent global volume controls for sound effects and music. (Volume levels are hard-coded right now; in a future update, I'll be adding a Sound Options menu with volume sliders and a choice of different tracks to play during matches.)

[Craig Stern]

Sound control sliders are up and running!

[Craig Stern]

Didn't have a ton of time to get anything major done today, so I've contented myself with a couple of small improvements:

--the volume controls now display volume percentage, from 0% to 100%.
--you can now summon the audio mixer options in battle using the F1 key.

[Craig Stern]

New animations! This time, it's for the pyrokineticist.

   

[Craig Stern]

Fixed: an obscure bug wherein the computer would sometimes stack units in games where ally pass-through was turned on and it was using long-range planning algorithms for moving the units. (Unit stacking is not a thing in Telepath Tactics, so naturally this would cause all manner of problems.)