For the past two weeks I've spent a lot of time working on a variety of spells for the player to cast, both useful and not-so useful. As usual there's also a lot of other additions near the bottom of this post.

Trailer

The biggest thing of this weeks post is the new trailer I made and published earlier this week. It doesn't represent all the things you can do in the game, but it should give a decent idea of what's going on. I hope you like it. I am planning to make more videos in the time ahead, hopefully with better editing.

More magic

I've added 8 new spells that you can cast, some of which are more useful than others. Below are some highlights:

• Blink - instantly teleport a small distance in whatever direction you're facing.
• Bend Time - Slows down time 50%, but still allowing you to move at the same speed. Attacking cancels the effect.
• Sense Living - Adds a glow around living characters, such as people or animals
• Candlelight - Spawns a glowing light orb above your head that lights up around you for around a minute.

There should be a video demonstrating the magic in not too long.

Public beta in TWO weeks!

Tales has been in development for a while now, and it's almost time to enter beta! The beta is planned to start on June 9 over at Itch.io. During this time the game will be available for free, with optional purchase for those who want to support further development.

Once the beta is ready I will make another blog post annoucing it, including a download link and some instructions on how to report bugs/errors/glitches/feature requests(within reason). I'm very excited to have strangers play it and not just friends and get some feedback on what is currently in the game. No time frame has been set for how long the beta will last.

Other changes/additions

• Started work on replacing the current dialogue boxes with new ones. The new system features such things as
  • Animated portraits.
    • Facial animations for mouth based on dialogue length
    • Facial expressions
  • Camera panning to the speaking character
  • Choice timer (random choice if time runs out (Not used everywhere, don't worry))
  • Name of the speaking character at the top of the box instead of being in the dialogue text

New dialogue screen preview. Please excuse the prototype art.

Old dialogue box

This is a consideriable amount of work, as each dialogue box has to be manually replaced. I have no estimate for how long it will take to update them all, but the current goal is to have most of it done by the time of beta.

• Finally done with replacing trees
• Finally got save/load game to work properly in general and fixed issues with party members not spawning properly.
• Shop owners will now throw out the player if they are inside their shop at closing hours.
• Added space telescope for exploration of constellations and the Astya night sky.
• Added more camp sites and roads throughout the overworld maps
• Populated the swamp area with enemies

That's it for the past two weeks, hope you enjoyed. Next post will mostly be dealing with the beta and some instructions related to reporting bugs and all that. So long!