Update to Version 1.0 (build 72)

This update is to put in place some final things for the new DLC ... The Swampy Isles. I will be releasing that shortly.

The Swampy Isles is a very different environment than the other worlds that are currently available. The most obvious difference is that much of the world is water that you can walk or swim through. There is typically as much water as land in given a world. There are also shipwrecks, floating loot, sandy beaches, palm trees, ancient ruins, and lots of vegetation (that many monsters like to hide in).

Regarding the water, it comes in three depths: shallow, medium and deep. Shallow water is light blue and comes up to about your calves. This will take a little bit more stamina to traverse through and act in, but only marginally. For the most part, everyone can walk through shallow water very similar to dry land (some creatures, like sharks, can't leave the water and some prefer the water).

Deep water is dark blue and requires swimming to move through. Swimming consumes quite a bit of stamina and characters generally cannot fight or use abilities in deep water (there are a few exceptions, like the ability to use SHOVE). However, some monsters have no problems moving, fighting, or acting in deep water. So it can be a very vulnerable position for you to be in while swimming. But sometimes you're going to have to swim to another spot. In addition, many abilities cannot target anyone in deep water. Some can, but many can't (like most of the Alchemist's FLASK-type abilities because the glass won't break on the surface of water).

There's also medium-depth water, which is a transition between deep and shallow. That comes up to your waist and consumes more stamina to act in, but you can still pretty much act as you normally would --- fighting, using abilities, etc.. Unless you're a dwarf. Then you must swim in medium-depth water.

As far as the game itself, there were a handful of bug fixes and tweaks, including one fixing an issue with music not looping properly and getting stuck on certain songs. I also improved player/npc movement so that they will try to avoid "bad" squares (like lava) if they can and prefer roads over land, land over water, and shallower water over deeper. The full list can be seen in the release notes: https://www.infinitedungeoncrawler.com/release-notes/

I am really excited about the new world. I have personally been play-testing it quite a bit and I find the monsters to be challenging and fun to fight. I also think the new world just looks visually interesting as well. I like how my world-generation routines turned out and how sometimes you get big land masses and other times you get smaller islands.

One thing I do want to mention is that I had to do quite a few changes to how things were drawn on the screen to accommodate the water. There are a lot of overlays that are drawn over characters and scenery to simulate looking like things are standing in water or swimming in water. Not all of it is perfect. There are some wonky things that can happen, especially when a group is clustered close together in varying water depths. Sometimes there is a "flicker" as you move between depths. I will continue to work on these in the long-term. Right now they're just small distractions that don't interfere with gameplay but not 100% where I'd like them to be.

I do have plans to adjust how you interact with water in the other worlds, for example by making rivers wider but allowing you to swim through them (I may put in "rapids" that can't be crossed), and to make the narrower steams fordable. But for now, the other worlds stay as they've been where water isn't crossable unless there's a bridge, fallen tree, or rock path.

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.