It's been almost two months since the last patch came out, and during that time I've been working full time on bringing you Alpha 28. At this point I'm done with adding major new features, and will work on finishing everything up and turning it into something that can be released. Here's a rundown of what you can expect. Tighten your seat belts!
- New, fully modable, spells and spell schools. You can add new spells using the same effect system that is used for potions, special weapons, etc. Spells are grouped together into spell schools, and every creature can have a custom set of schools that they study in the library. Alpha 28 will likely feature the following spell schools to start with: evocation, shaman, healing, fire, illusion, and possibly necromancy. In addition, the same system is used to give abilities to fighter classes, such as shoving, swapping positions, intimidation, etc. I've also added more effects, for example custom area effects, fire, and teleportation.
- New, general spell/effect AI, which works with custom effects. For example, knowing that blindness is a good offensive effect, it will try to cast any spell or throw any potion that causes it at an enemy. If a mod adds an area blindness spell, for whatever reason, the AI will try to cast it in such a way that only enemies are harmed by it. Similarly, area healing would only be cast at wounded allies. My aim is that the AI knows how to use most effects in the game, even ones added in mods.
- Furniture modding. This includes all static objects that are found on maps or can be built in dungeons. I was able to add double-tile gates using just mods, so it works pretty well. I also added the possibility of adding custom effects to floors, eg. floor of magic cancellation or insanity (every creature that stands on the floor gets the effect). The result is a bit crazy and OP, but I'm sure modders will find some good use for them. You can also add new traps.
- Custom sprites. Finally you can add your own sprites to the game! They can be used for both furniture and creatures. I've also added custom color variants for existing sprites, which lets you recolor them without having to edit the sprites themselves.
- Modding has caused some issues with the dungeon retiring system, but I've made it so that any mods that don't add new sprites are contained in the dungeon file itself, so the only time you need to share your mod is when you've added custom sprites. The retired dungeons list will warn about requiring mods to load a dungeon. In the future mod sharing will be built into the game, so you won't have to worry about all of this.
- Some of the current game modes will be merged. I noticed that very few players play the free play and endless modes, admittedly because they are pretty hidden in the menus. This is very bad, because sharing retired dungeons is a major feature of KeeperRL. Because of this, I will merge the main campaign mode with free play and endless modes, and this will become the main mode that everyone will play. I also want to improve the experience of downloading retired dungeons by adding ratings and better search. This may be added in later patches though.