4-10-2025 / 4-11-2025:
Accessibility: A new "Macro" system has been introduced. While this system is an accessibility feature, it could also be identified as a poweruser feature. It is intended to speed up combat for users who have patterns of abilities they commonly stick to, offering an alternative to reduce the number of keystrokes compared to what is normally required by the menu system. This feature requires the editing of text files to setup for use in-game. Further instructions should be provided in the game's documentation. Due to the complexity of the menus that would be required to do so, there are no plans to make this feature configurable from within the game itself.
Accessibility: The narrative mini-log should now report when an action has failed.
Accessibility: Certain key-bindings that change the combat screen in relatively subtle ways now announce when changes were made. This includes feedback for enemy/ally lock-on switching, timestamp toggling, UI layout toggling, and combat-log filter toggling.
Accessibility: A new option has been added which, if enabled, allows automatic saving of the game when it is gracefully shutdown in areas outside the town menu. This feature requires both the "Spiral Settings Menu" and the addition of the "Logout" option in the menu system, both of which should already be present if initializing the game from pre-configured accessibility launchers. The new option is disabled by default.
Lore: The rudimentary story system for the maps has been implemented. Time was necessary to work through how this would be integrated in a way that still allows player customization for their own maps. This system is entirely based on map navigation, and does not include or necessitate fight sequences. Events are set to trigger based on what sort of terrain/landmarks the player is currently on/near, with some amount of branching paths and chance occurrences possible. Some very short story sequences related to the home-world map have been added, as well as a "shared" group of events which focus on random chance minigames and random flavor text to increase the liveliness of all maps. Future and more complex story sequences may require the player to travel multiple worlds, and the extent to which this system will be expanded has not yet been decided.
Audio: A new sound effect has been added to accompany popups that may occur via the map-based-story events.
Combat: A setting has been added which can turn the standard battle system into a time-limited system. This system introduces a countdown that the player must act within during combat phases - otherwise they perform a simple idle action instead. This is intended to pair with the new macro features in order to completely change the feel of combat for those who wish for more reactive forms of play. The countdown is signified by both a sound playing in the background and a visual numeric countdown in the four corners of the graphical terminal mode. For players who have difficulty hearing the countdown sounds, please note that the visual countdown is NOT available in the system-terminal modes of play. Players can set custom times by replacing the .wav files with their own custom duration files (the filenames must remain the same) even if the changes are not reflected in the settings menu itself. Due to the way this was implemented, the button click sounds in psuedo-coop mode are disabled when countdowns are in progress. The expanded soundscape's menu "bump" sound denoting that an action is unable to be made in a menu is also disabled in combat for the same reason.
Customization: Walking sim mode has been expanded with augmentations for a new "Sidestory" mode. This system reads from the GAME_DATA/MODS/SIDESTORY folder instead of the normal map folder (so it does not interfere much with the main game); settings are adjusted to allow development of mini-scenarios that do not entail battles. A walkthrough example of how such scenarios can be created should be available.
Controls: A new gamepad configuration wizard has been added. This wizard is not intended to fully replace manual gamepad configuration - it is only intended to get the game up and running with the minimum necessary controller buttons with the least amount of fuss possible. Windows users may find this new configuration wizard unnecessary or counterproductive relative to default configurations, so please check if controls work properly before utilizing it.
Save-System: Save files will now be accompanied by a ".fallback" version. This should prevent the majority of the rare instances where save files may become corrupted. These file corruptions were only really encountered in testing on hardware with very slow disk write speeds and the game being forcibly closed at specific times. Please note and keep in mind that these changes may make manually editing save files more prone to automatically reverting to a previously working state during editing phases. This change should not adversely affect existing save files.
Documentation: updated to include more information about configuring controllers.
Documentation: updated to include more information about macros.
Documentation: a brief comment was added to the "READ THIS FIRST" file for users of NVDA screen reader.
Documentation: the game settings reference html file has been updated with a new setting option related to saving the game on graceful exit.
Documentation: the game settings reference html file has been updated with a new setting option related to timed battles.
Documentation: the game settings reference html file has been updated with a new setting options related to the map story events.
Gameplay: A new consumable item has been added as a freebie in some of the fights scattered around the main world map. This item is granted at battle entry, unlike most items which are granted at battle end.
Gameplay: A new misfit encounter has been added.
Interface: The automatic enemy lock-on system has been improved for situations of interpersonal combat (this change does not affect gameplay directly – it only affects the visual representation of information on the screen).
System: The “paper airplane” system is now disabled by default in favor of a more simple internal music queue. The paper airplane system was intended to provide players with a way to better access the current state of the game by intercepting messages in transit as they were temporarily saved to the hard disk before being processed. The old system can still be enabled via a script edit, but it was presenting some issues with music de-synchronization and of course the fact that it increases the amount of disk writes.
Interface: The default font has been changed for the graphical tileset mode when a new game is created.
Bugfix: The stationary object tab-targeting system during map exploration had odd tendencies when cycling in non-tileset versions of the game. This was a non-critical bug and there were ways to work around it.
Bugfix: The Onium system was incorrectly assessing level differences.
Bugfix: Random encounters should be fully functional again (this was a side-effect of map optimizations).
Bugfix: Weaken Overpowered Foes Endowment no longer triggers affinity weaknesses to accomplish its level down effect.
Bugfix: Restorative abilities may not have been properly registered to world memory system (only affected certain character classes)
Bugfix: An issue with the combat menu not properly updating when using items has been corrected (this was a side-effect of the hyperize additions).
Bugfix: Sight point visual cursor should now be fully functional in walking sim mode.
Optimization: An additional small boost to map segment speed has been implemented for tileset version of game.
Other: Some hardware changes were made to development platforms. Some time was spent on research & development in general.
Known Issue: It has become more difficult to fully replicate some of the issues that the html portal had when dealing with screen readers... The plan was to restructure the html interface in a way that better interacts with screen readers, but the major browser vendors may be undergoing changes which could affect how this is best implemented in the future.
Known Issue: Starting the game for the first time in Sidestory mode may produce a sluggish menu at first, this seems related to the project bundling method used and should only affect the first run of the application... it is just more pronounced in Sidestory mode.
Known Issue: Some extra punctuation (specifically extra periods) are being inserted into the text-to-speech output in some instances. This was intentional for certain segments of the game, but may cause issues for players using screenreaders set to report all punctuation. An option to disable this feature should be added in the future, and it should also then be disabled by default in segments of the game where it was not intended.
Under Consideration: Misfit encounter rates may be adjusted to be more frequent at lower difficulties in the future.