The demo for Crossing The Sands has been updated. The main focus for this update has been getting the game ready for release (tomorrow!). The demo only includes approximately the first third of the game, so much of the new late-game content won't be visible, but there are still a lot of good game-wide content additions included in this update. If you want to play the demo and then move on to the full game later, your saved games are stored in the Steam cloud and will carry over to the full release version.
Changes since last release:
- Game controller support has been added. It should be considered "beta" for now due to the limited amount of testing (I don't have a bunch of controllers to test with).
- Added the "Damage" value to the character sheet. This will show the average amount of damage a character does per hit, which will be helpful for comparing weapons.
- Added more monsters and reworked the random encounter tables to match the area/level difficulty better.
- Added a bunch more items and reworked the random loot drop tables to match the area level/difficulty better.
- Added a bunch of Steam achievements to the game.
- Added a bunch more quests to the game.
- When leveling up, characters will be notified if they gain new spells.
- There is now a confirmation popup asking you if you're sure you want to quit to the desktop or menu because losing your progress due to an accidental click on the wrong menu item is no fun.
- Sound effects and music can now be turned on and off independently of each other, and many spells now have accompanying sound effects.
- Improvements to the quest log, including saving and loading quests that are in progress.
- Shamans and Healers now get a slight bonus to healing if they have high wisdom scores (+4% with a Wisdom of 19, for example). There are also a few items in the game that will increase a character's healing power, but you'll have to discover them through observation.
- Items can now give initiative bonuses to make a character act faster in combat, and a bug with how initiative was calculated has been fixed. You'll find that a hidden character's "Late Attack" skill is much more useful now.
- Poison resistance now makes a character take poison damage more slowly. Before this change, it would only reduce their chance of initially becoming poisoned. This means that the Resist Poison spell is more useful now.
- Added the Magic Spikes spell for Wizard classes. It's about the same as Force Bolt, but it's a different damage type option.
- A huge amount of translation improvements for Spanish, Portuguese, and German versions of the game.
- Reworked the character sheet and various parts of the UI so that text fits better in non-English translations.
- Added a lot more music for various zones.
- Added more plants, trees, and other terrain throughout the desert zones.
- Rearranged the Forgotten City ruins.
- Replaced a bunch of road textures.
- Improvements to minimap and overview map icons.
- Redesigned the hidden bandit stash cave.
- Added a fur trader shop to the Nomad Camp.
- Added a shield shop to the Grand City bazaar.
- The PDF manual has been updated.