There's rumors, there's reagents and there's new spells

First off, I just saw the date on the last post, and didn't realize it's been that long between updates. I've been quite busy, apparently too busy to post updates.

So, here's the skinny:

I discovered a bit of a big logic gap in creature abilities, namely in all my testing, I'd really just had creatures using abilities through melee strikes, as in legging it over and slogging a character, but also using an ability at the same time. Brilliant, happy days. All that. Right up until I dropped in a Goblin Shaman, gave him spellcasting abilities and then sat there scratching my head at why he was trying to ruin up and hit people with his spell.

So, updating the code for that took the best part of five days, creating a downright handful of new code that looks after that sort of action from creatures. The good news is that now, creatures happily cast spells as expected (technically, they're casting instant spells, still need to check this code with spells/abilities that have casting time but I'm taking the wins where I can get them.

Next up, I did a whole bunch of work around creating appropriate "tick messages" for effects on characters or monsters. So, if someone has an effect on them (like the characters in the screenshot) the messages will show appropriately to that effect and/or ability. As you can see, abilities also have their own lighting, that's just an aside, but a good one.

Right, also. The game has always meant to have possible reagents in it - basically, you can cast a spell, and it will do it's spell thing - but you can also cast that same spell, and use particular ingredients, and that spell will do it's spell thing, only much better. So you know, a fireball is a fireball, unless you happen to use a pinch of sulphur with it when you cast - in which case it will be a bigger, better fireball. It'll use up the sulphur, so reagents are best used for those important moments, when you're combat success is on a knife-edge, or when you're trying to punch above your weight in what you're picking fights with. So, I've always meant to have this in the game, and I created placeholders for it to be there in menus you can see, but I've never implemented it properly. So up until now, it's been a button that crashes the app, and I've had more than one tester berate me with it. So, while reagents aren't fully implemented right now, the buttons no longer cause the app to crash, and I'm much closer to having them functioning in the app. A big part of this was working out just how they'll function, but I've got that sketched out nicely in a scrap book which I always keep on the desk.

So, there's a lot here, and these updates probably should have been a few posts along the way. But there's one more thing. Probably something I'll be posting more frequently in the future, a rumour mill:

There's reports that the goblin shamans in the caves under the Floren Isles have learned a new spell that conjures up the foulest stenches from deep bogs. Adventurers are warned of this new conjuration, but also informed that perhaps one of the Goblin Shamans may have a scroll on their person that will teach this ability to others.