Update to Version 1.0 (build 68)

I have been very busy tweaking many aspects of the game. Some of these are in preparation for the new world ... The Swampy Isles... that I am furiously making progress on (have 33 distinct monsters so far). But many of these are things that I've added to improve the game. Here's a list of the bigger ones. As always, the complete list is here: https://www.infinitedungeoncrawler.com/release-notes/.

The first thing you'll immediately notice when you enter combat is I've added red and green place-markers that help to highlight exactly what square someone is in. This can be very handy especially if the creatures are flying (or swimming in the new world) or are in the middle of an obscuring effect like FOG CLOUD or something. They're on by default but you can toggle them on or off anytime during combat by tapping on the button that is up near the top between the time of day and the ZOOM button. So if you don't like it, you can easily turn it off.

Its a little thing, but characters now blink. I had turned this off at one point (not sure if on purpose or accident), but put it back in. Also, characters and monsters that are STUNNED or CONFUSED will blink rapidly, and SLEEPING or BLIND will have their eyes closed. Honestly, I added this as a visual cue as to their status when swimming because its hard to animate the distinct statuses when all you can see is the character from about the armpits up. So the eyes help to signal status effects.

You can now zoom in on inventory items by tapping on the thumbnail that is displayed on INVENTORY or at the Merchant's.

I darkened the text color for SHOCK damage to make it more visible in the COMBAT LOG.

Some PALADIN abilities now require you to have prayed within the last 4 months to use them. Not all of them, but a good number. You'll see these as requiring the "Devout" status. You wouldn't want to anger the Old Gods now, would you? Just pray at the Abbey and you'll receive it (you'll see it listed in your SKILLS). Also, the guards at the Gate will nag you if you forget or it has expired.

I went through and tweaked my routines that center creatures in their squares. This had been problematic and I finally went through and re-wrote the code to apply it more consistently, so most creatures should now line up pretty much in the middle of their square left to right. If you find any that seem off, let me know in the discussion forum or use the CONTACT ME form on the web site.

I further refined torch handling and how they automatically use torches in non-combat and drop them (to be a light source) when combat starts. There were some issues on this for dual-wielders. I also tweaked both their idle and walk animations when holding torches to look more realistic.

Previously, if there were two monster dens fairly close to each other and you got both groups in the same battle, the monsters would consider both you and the opposing group as enemies. It does make for some entertainment to stand back and watch monster groups fight each other. But I tweaked it to be more realistic. Now, creatures of the same MONSTER TYPE won't fight each other but will ally against you. So, for example, GOBLINOIDS are ok with each other, INSECT/ARACHNIDS are ok with each other, BEASTS, UNDEAD, etc.. But spiders will still fight wolves, skeletons will fight ants, etc.. There are some specific exceptions (mostly in the new world like where sahuagins and sharks are allies).

A small tweak. In all honesty, I didn't intend to do this but something I coded did it and I kind of liked it so left it in. When you initially start combat, only creatures that actually see you are in the list and get their turns. However, once the first round ends, every creature in that monster group is cued up for combat. I left it in because I feel like it gives a little advantage against outlying creatures if you stumble on them away from the main group and can get at least one attack in before the whole group joins in.

Some monsters' AI have a larger probability to attack the weakest player. This used to be based solely on HP percentage, but I tweaked this to now include status effects. So, for example, if someone is at 75% HP and is BLIND they would be a preferred target over someone with 65% HP. Roughly any negative status effect that affects someone's defensive capabilities (e.g., BLIND, IMMOBILE, DOWN, SLEEPING, STUNNED, etc.) counts the same as a 25% HP reduction.

One last note: Steam is good about automatically updating game content, but if you ever see an update notice and your build # (down in the lower-left corner of most screens) doesn't match, check your settings for the game in Steam and make sure updates are turned on. One trick I've found to force it to update is to go to the game listing, then MANAGE, then GAME PROPERTIES. Under LOCAL FILES click on the button for VERIFY INTEGRITY OF GAME FILES... I've found that that will force the update to the latest.