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Hey guys, we've been cooking a new release for you, Sil-More beta 0.9. And it's a big one. SDL, blessings, songs and so much More.
1. SDL 3 (cool, right?)
We have implemented SDL library which gives us lots of new features and future opportunities.
1.1 Panes.
We render what were windows in previous releases in panes inside the main terminal. It provides you the ability to customize all your windows in one fullscreen (or windowed) app without any drag-and-drop pain (pun intended).
1.2 Different fonts.
Now we support not only monospaced font, but normal, nice fonts! We use it by default for storytelling and in different menus which we think work best with it (like inventory for example). But you can always switch back to monospaced for menus in options! We also found new fonts that we think suit our storytelling best (it's ttf now, btw).
1.3 You can change some settings directly through options and even more in our new JSON file! We have prepared the default settings for different resolutions, so you can just immediately jump into the game without any tinkering!
1.4 Support for CMake, no more Makefiles!
2. New death and blessings system.
2.1 We decided that previous system, where you have limited amount of deaths, was a little bit too punishing, and we decided to give you some dopamine. So, if you die, it's not in vain! We have redesigned the scoring system, and if you die before reaching the surface, and escaping the iron grip of Angband, you get your score added to the blessing pool of Valar (it IS a pool, you will see). Now you don't rage-break your PC when being killed by Morgoth on the 400 ft carrying 2 Silmarils (yes, Beren, I'm looking at you!). Because it's tactics! Your blessing pool just got a huge donation.
2.2 Your score changes depending on who you play and how many curses you carry at that time. For that we rated all heroes, so you have a new incentive to play less powerful heroes to get those top ratings, and lots of blessing points. The whole story score depends on those top scores you get.
2.3 With blessing points you can either get blessings or remove curses. So if you got a nasty curse by accident, just die a lot, and remove it. Easy!
2.4 New characters! To complement the new blessing systems we have added more characters, so you never run out of characters! Eol, Maglor, Aredhel and others are waiting for you!
3. New inventory system.
We thought that it's pretty stupid, that sometimes you have to throw away a piece of Lembas because you don't have enough space for a hauberk. Strange, right?
3.1 So we decided to implement new inventory restrictions. First, the number of items you can carry is restricted by a category. For example, you can carry either 1 two-handed weapon or 2 one-handed in your backpack. You can carry 2 pairs of gloves, but only one helmet (it's good enough to get your POTATOES boiled, mashed and stuck in a stew). Some items are restricted to carry in the backpack at all. You can only equip heavy armour or kite shield directly on you, and you can't carry them in the backpack.
3.2 We separated staves into 2 categories. Now you have gems, which are mostly utilitarian (Foes, Understanding, etc) that you can use anytime. And walking staves, which you need to equip in a slot to use. They are mostly of attacking style (Majesty, Dismay, etc).
3.3 Potions, herbs and gems are now in a new inventory part called supply! It occupies only 1 slot in inventory menu and allows you to carry maximum 25 lbs of supplies. So you can carry just one potion of Antidote for that Ancient spider.
4. New l-view function and other interface improvement.
4.1 We decided that view menu via 'l' was cool, but we can make it cooler, to make it provide more information directly on the screen. At first it could be a little overwhelming, but while you play it makes it so much easier to get information on the map faster.
4.2 Different new indicators like torch length, number of arrows and so on.
4.3 Health bar and more colours to be always aware of it.
4.4 Everything we could get our hands on is coloured and flavoured!
4.5 Artifacts have different colours, either a bright yellow or a shade of item category colour (can be changed in options).
5. New throwing system.
5.1 It seemed that throwing weapons didn't get same treatment as bows and arrows did and we decided to fix it. Now you can equip throwing items into quiver, and use them through f, as arrows. Moreover, your second quiver gives your items the ability to keep passive bonuses. So now you don't need to carry that dagger of Quivienen to show you the light of Varda in your hands, just put it onto your belt (at least that's how I imagine a quiver).
5.2 Hand axes are now throwables too, and we have a new skill for throwables! Isn't it fun? Also some abilities now work on throwables as well, like assassination.
6. New songs!
Songs were cool and really thematic, great job, but in our opinion they lacked some combat use (except slaying of course). So carefully studying lore, rereading Silmarillion for nth time we crafted new ones.
6.1 Song of Elveness. Remember how in duel with Sauron Finrod sang about birds and seas in Elvenland? Now, it's you time. It gives you bonus to grace and evasion so it can be a good pair to other songs in woven themes, same as Staying.
6.2 Song of Shattering. Most of the songs are inspired either by Luthien or Finrod. This one is not an exception. It resembles a moment when Luthien literally shattered the towers of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. And a hint of Gandalf from his duel with Balrog. This song has a chance to decrease dice sides for armour or damage, but only if a monster has actual weapon or armour.
6.3 Song of Revealing. This one is inspired by good old Sauron, when he tried to reveal Finrod. It works the same way as listen skill, showing foes and furthermore revealing treasures. If you are playing stealth bard, it will help you to make a choice if you really want to open that door into the vault (now you can see by the walls change, that it is indeed a vault).
6.4 Song of Disguise. This one is taken directly from the lore. It's the song that Finrod used to disguise him and his companions into orcs. You don't need stealth for this one. Even if a monster sees you, if you are good enough of a bard he will not attack you mistaking you for an orc. So you can try to sneak through some heavily guarded places.
And finally the big duo. We were discussing that we don't like that all the songs have area effects, and none of them targets a single monster. And we decided to search the lore for examples of more targeted songs, as for us the rule is lore is always first. We came up with 2 new songs. They work with a new stacking mechanic. You target a monster and every round there is a dice roll, where winner is decided. When you, or an opponent, reach a stack limit, an effect is appplied. There are limits and cooldowns to not make it too powerful.
6.5 Song of Lament. Song sung by Luthien to Mandos himself that moved even the Doomsman of the Valar. It's a target song, so you are throwing the dice each turn against a monster. Your song and will skill matters against monster will. When monster gets 3 stacks he is permanently debuffed to will, HP and damage. You can debuff one monster only once. When you are successful you get 1 grace drained, symbolizing exhaustion.
6.6 Song of Contest. Visualizing song contest between Finrod and Sauron. Now, both you and the target monster can get a stack. Whenever one of you get 3 stacks, he gets a debuff. Monster to will, stealth, evasion, and armour and you drain 1 random stat.
7. Multiple balance changes and bugfixes.
7.1 You were saying it's too easy? Now unique monsters are a bit tougher and constitution is nerfed. Also Silmaril stealing sequence has some small(or not) surprises.
7.2 You were saying it's too difficult? Some heroes ARE mighty, so use them first to get a grip on it. Ratings are mentioned in the character selection! There are different difficulty levels and you can tune your blessing to easy, so you can get more of them.
7.3 You are a newbie and you understand nothing but still want to play? Good luck! I mean, we got more help screens and hints for you!
7.4 You started a game but the only thing you see is a black screen? We fixed it already for you (and some other bugs)! Hopefully. Please send a bug report with log.txt if you experience it.
And in case you forgot, previous releases brought you:
8. Storytelling! You love Tolkien's lore? This game is for you. We got lot's of texts, don't skip them!
9. Visual storytelling! Every level is not the same! You will go through different biomes of Angband (at least how we see them) and get a real experience of being a 16 by 16 pixels character going to steal a Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown (and yes, now crown icon changes depending on the number of silmarils in it).
10. Real characters with unique abilities! You always wanted to play as Fingolfin or Feanor? You are welcome!
11. Quest system! Unique lore-friendly quests that give you access to new abilities and oaths!
12. And so much More in the future.
Anyway guys, I think you got the idea. Hopefully, you will get excited as we are and will try our game.
1. SDL 3 (cool, right?)
We have implemented SDL library which gives us lots of new features and future opportunities.
1.1 Panes.
We render what were windows in previous releases in panes inside the main terminal. It provides you the ability to customize all your windows in one fullscreen (or windowed) app without any drag-and-drop pain (pun intended).
1.2 Different fonts.
Now we support not only monospaced font, but normal, nice fonts! We use it by default for storytelling and in different menus which we think work best with it (like inventory for example). But you can always switch back to monospaced for menus in options! We also found new fonts that we think suit our storytelling best (it's ttf now, btw).
1.3 You can change some settings directly through options and even more in our new JSON file! We have prepared the default settings for different resolutions, so you can just immediately jump into the game without any tinkering!
1.4 Support for CMake, no more Makefiles!
2. New death and blessings system.
2.1 We decided that previous system, where you have limited amount of deaths, was a little bit too punishing, and we decided to give you some dopamine. So, if you die, it's not in vain! We have redesigned the scoring system, and if you die before reaching the surface, and escaping the iron grip of Angband, you get your score added to the blessing pool of Valar (it IS a pool, you will see). Now you don't rage-break your PC when being killed by Morgoth on the 400 ft carrying 2 Silmarils (yes, Beren, I'm looking at you!). Because it's tactics! Your blessing pool just got a huge donation.
2.2 Your score changes depending on who you play and how many curses you carry at that time. For that we rated all heroes, so you have a new incentive to play less powerful heroes to get those top ratings, and lots of blessing points. The whole story score depends on those top scores you get.
2.3 With blessing points you can either get blessings or remove curses. So if you got a nasty curse by accident, just die a lot, and remove it. Easy!
2.4 New characters! To complement the new blessing systems we have added more characters, so you never run out of characters! Eol, Maglor, Aredhel and others are waiting for you!
3. New inventory system.
We thought that it's pretty stupid, that sometimes you have to throw away a piece of Lembas because you don't have enough space for a hauberk. Strange, right?
3.1 So we decided to implement new inventory restrictions. First, the number of items you can carry is restricted by a category. For example, you can carry either 1 two-handed weapon or 2 one-handed in your backpack. You can carry 2 pairs of gloves, but only one helmet (it's good enough to get your POTATOES boiled, mashed and stuck in a stew). Some items are restricted to carry in the backpack at all. You can only equip heavy armour or kite shield directly on you, and you can't carry them in the backpack.
3.2 We separated staves into 2 categories. Now you have gems, which are mostly utilitarian (Foes, Understanding, etc) that you can use anytime. And walking staves, which you need to equip in a slot to use. They are mostly of attacking style (Majesty, Dismay, etc).
3.3 Potions, herbs and gems are now in a new inventory part called supply! It occupies only 1 slot in inventory menu and allows you to carry maximum 25 lbs of supplies. So you can carry just one potion of Antidote for that Ancient spider.
4. New l-view function and other interface improvement.
4.1 We decided that view menu via 'l' was cool, but we can make it cooler, to make it provide more information directly on the screen. At first it could be a little overwhelming, but while you play it makes it so much easier to get information on the map faster.
4.2 Different new indicators like torch length, number of arrows and so on.
4.3 Health bar and more colours to be always aware of it.
4.4 Everything we could get our hands on is coloured and flavoured!
4.5 Artifacts have different colours, either a bright yellow or a shade of item category colour (can be changed in options).
5. New throwing system.
5.1 It seemed that throwing weapons didn't get same treatment as bows and arrows did and we decided to fix it. Now you can equip throwing items into quiver, and use them through f, as arrows. Moreover, your second quiver gives your items the ability to keep passive bonuses. So now you don't need to carry that dagger of Quivienen to show you the light of Varda in your hands, just put it onto your belt (at least that's how I imagine a quiver).
5.2 Hand axes are now throwables too, and we have a new skill for throwables! Isn't it fun? Also some abilities now work on throwables as well, like assassination.
6. New songs!
Songs were cool and really thematic, great job, but in our opinion they lacked some combat use (except slaying of course). So carefully studying lore, rereading Silmarillion for nth time we crafted new ones.
6.1 Song of Elveness. Remember how in duel with Sauron Finrod sang about birds and seas in Elvenland? Now, it's you time. It gives you bonus to grace and evasion so it can be a good pair to other songs in woven themes, same as Staying.
6.2 Song of Shattering. Most of the songs are inspired either by Luthien or Finrod. This one is not an exception. It resembles a moment when Luthien literally shattered the towers of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. And a hint of Gandalf from his duel with Balrog. This song has a chance to decrease dice sides for armour or damage, but only if a monster has actual weapon or armour.
6.3 Song of Revealing. This one is inspired by good old Sauron, when he tried to reveal Finrod. It works the same way as listen skill, showing foes and furthermore revealing treasures. If you are playing stealth bard, it will help you to make a choice if you really want to open that door into the vault (now you can see by the walls change, that it is indeed a vault).
6.4 Song of Disguise. This one is taken directly from the lore. It's the song that Finrod used to disguise him and his companions into orcs. You don't need stealth for this one. Even if a monster sees you, if you are good enough of a bard he will not attack you mistaking you for an orc. So you can try to sneak through some heavily guarded places.
And finally the big duo. We were discussing that we don't like that all the songs have area effects, and none of them targets a single monster. And we decided to search the lore for examples of more targeted songs, as for us the rule is lore is always first. We came up with 2 new songs. They work with a new stacking mechanic. You target a monster and every round there is a dice roll, where winner is decided. When you, or an opponent, reach a stack limit, an effect is appplied. There are limits and cooldowns to not make it too powerful.
6.5 Song of Lament. Song sung by Luthien to Mandos himself that moved even the Doomsman of the Valar. It's a target song, so you are throwing the dice each turn against a monster. Your song and will skill matters against monster will. When monster gets 3 stacks he is permanently debuffed to will, HP and damage. You can debuff one monster only once. When you are successful you get 1 grace drained, symbolizing exhaustion.
6.6 Song of Contest. Visualizing song contest between Finrod and Sauron. Now, both you and the target monster can get a stack. Whenever one of you get 3 stacks, he gets a debuff. Monster to will, stealth, evasion, and armour and you drain 1 random stat.
7. Multiple balance changes and bugfixes.
7.1 You were saying it's too easy? Now unique monsters are a bit tougher and constitution is nerfed. Also Silmaril stealing sequence has some small(or not) surprises.
7.2 You were saying it's too difficult? Some heroes ARE mighty, so use them first to get a grip on it. Ratings are mentioned in the character selection! There are different difficulty levels and you can tune your blessing to easy, so you can get more of them.
7.3 You are a newbie and you understand nothing but still want to play? Good luck! I mean, we got more help screens and hints for you!
7.4 You started a game but the only thing you see is a black screen? We fixed it already for you (and some other bugs)! Hopefully. Please send a bug report with log.txt if you experience it.
And in case you forgot, previous releases brought you:
8. Storytelling! You love Tolkien's lore? This game is for you. We got lot's of texts, don't skip them!
9. Visual storytelling! Every level is not the same! You will go through different biomes of Angband (at least how we see them) and get a real experience of being a 16 by 16 pixels character going to steal a Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown (and yes, now crown icon changes depending on the number of silmarils in it).
10. Real characters with unique abilities! You always wanted to play as Fingolfin or Feanor? You are welcome!
11. Quest system! Unique lore-friendly quests that give you access to new abilities and oaths!
12. And so much More in the future.
Anyway guys, I think you got the idea. Hopefully, you will get excited as we are and will try our game.