Today marks the third full week that the Castlemancy project has been available online, and thus total development time is fast approaching 3 months. To kick off the log, first lets go over a few fixes and changes that have been made since version 0.3:

The first major fix was a change in AI logic, where previously if an AI moved towards the party at the same time the party also moved, the AI would repeatedly attack. In some cases instantly killing the party. Now AI will wait until it is their turn to attack, fixing the problem.

The next most important fix is to consumable items. Previously items did consume checks when being returned to an inventory as a result of not being allowed to place the item in a given slot. Now consumables hook into a new OnConsume event, so they no longer get used by making mistakes in placing them in the wrong spots in the primary character inventory.

The remaining fixes are fairly minor, characters not being ale to heal if dead at temples has been fixed, as well as a bug in which a character added recovery time to the next character in order when they missed an attack instead of themselves. The last fix was an index error on checking item enchantment effect timers, where instead of checking the array of items we check the array of party members, leading to an index exception.

On to changes: 

Firstly, how many skill points a character gains at level up, and how many skill points required to rank up a given skill has been changed to reflect the information the game tells you. Next up is status conditions, so now a characters last status is recorded in the event that they fall unconsious or die and are later healed outside of a temple. Now characters are stuck with their conditions unless other special healing is applied to them. The next change was adding a small check on shops so they now only purchase and identify items that correspond to the kind of shop they are, no more selling spellbooks to the weaponsmith!

Now for the tasty new stuff:

In terms of new features, a new gold pile item has been added that directly adds to the parties gold when clicked, as well as a new item spawning system that is initialized when a TileMap initializes itself. This has been hooked into the Tilemap's respawn time, so in future an area will be able to regenerate itself after a predetermined amount of time has passed. A similar set up has been done with monster spawning, but I've left it out for this release because it still has a few obvious problems. 

Next up is adding some functionality to the swinging blade trap I've been playing around with. The blade now checks on each of its animation cycles to see if the party is in its tile, and if so does a small amount of damage. Since these are checked on a per frame basis the damage per cycle amount is low, but just standing in its way is still basically certain death. The last major feature additions then have been implementing status condition effects on enemy attacks, and a change to Turn Undead so that it instant kills very weak undead. The rest of the new  additions are all graphical:

The new chest model is much better than the old one, and actually looks like a chest. The texture is basic, and is the first attempt I've made at playing around with a cel/toon shaded look. I think it looks good for what the game is intended to be.

The door model has been replaced with a smoother one, which also has a few more vertices across the large flats, this is for future normal fidelity, though none are being used at present.

The old portcullis was born out of a desire to have something that worked, if not actually looked right. I figured that since there was already a new door and chest mesh, a new portcullis would make for a good new addition.

I've always loved pull chain type switches in video games. They feel very game-y and are just kinda cool. I think it's a shame they don't appear as often anymore, so I decided I wanted to add one to Castlemancy. This one is using a pretty basic solid color material, so there isn't any cool details yet. It's supposed to be a wolf, so in future it will reflect that better.

Both the Rat and Ghost models have been replaced, with new animations for idling, moving, attacking, and reacting to being hit. The rat was the first enemy with a model in Castlemancy, so having it breathe a little (artificial) life felt like it was past due.

There are a few new enemies I've modelled up, though only two have made it into this release. So far we have: Spider, Snake, Ghoul, Floating Eye. The spider, and the floating eye are the two new monsters in version 0.4, both having the same set of animations as the rat and ghost. Both the ghoul and snake have been proving more difficult in their animations, and as such didn't make the cut for this week, though I'm confident that they (along with a few others I've been considering) will be fully implemented within the next update.

There truly is nothing more classic in a dungeon crawler than a giant floating eye with magical powers. At present this one serves a role like a miniboss, and doesn't have any magic or eyestalks. Yet.

Thank you for reading, and if you want to try it out, the new release is up and ready to play. Consider giving me a follow, and adding Castlemancy to your collection, and if you like what I'm doing and want to help see this project to completion, consider donating. Good luck adventuring!