Dancing with Dragons
I would lie if I said I wasn’t grinning like a fool when I opened the package. And I’m around halfway through by now. Still, even after waiting for so long, this pretty much sucks since reading it feels a bit awkward, just like you aren’t actually allowed to do it. And you miss all the fun whilst avoiding spoilers; no forums (or today: social networks), locking yourself in somewhere, running away covering your ears in case someone you know who reads the book as well comes into sight – just like the rest of the world.
Amazon Germany screwed up big time and started shipping A DANCE WITH DRAGONS before they were supposed to. I am told that about 180 copies got out before they were made aware of their mistake and shut down shipping. ( Source )
But excuse me for now, back to reading *cough*.
Version: 0.3.3.5 (Feb 08 2011)
Latest Bugfix release – now comes a Launcher, which allows to modify the Game’s Options.
Download:
http://static.gatewayheaven.com/files/arcomage/alpha/0.3.3.5/Arcomage-Tribute-Alpha-0.3.3.5-win32.zip (Windows, x86)
Launcher
- A very early preview version of a Launcher is available, where you can actually change Game Options.
Deck Editor
- Fixed Bug #24 (Card Preview Rendering Issues), Previewing Cards after changing Projects should now work properly.
General
- Cards with the flag to prompt the user to discard a card now function properly.
- All Card scripts should now function properly.
- Added two new Script Functions:
- resetPlayerAttribute(name, value) – sets the given Player Attribute to exactly <value>
- resetEnemyAttribute(name, value) – sets the given Enemy Attribute to exactly <value>
- These are convenience functions, since setAttribute is intended to add <value> to its existing value.
- Compressed some music further to reduce the overall archive size.
- Selection Menu: It is now possible to list (and scroll through) more than five decks.
- Main Menu: The “Options” Button is gone for good, Options can be set using the launcher
- Configuration File: Two new Configuration values have been added:
<effects volume=”<percentage 0-100>” />
<music volume=”<percentage 0-100>” /> - To mute either music or sound effects, set the respective volume to 0%.
- To disable all audio, set audio enabled to 0.
Arcomage Tribute 0.3.3.0 released
Version: 0.3.3.0 (Jan 22 2011)
A Maintenance release, now ships with a Deck Editor.
Download:
http://static.gatewayheaven.com/files/arcomage/alpha/0.3.3.0/Arcomage-Tribute-Alpha-0.3.3.0.zip
Changelog
Deck Editor
- The Deck Editor has arrived. You can import, edit and export decks.
- Please note: Some features, such as Projects, Workspaces and Tempalate/Script Editing are currently disabled.
General
- Switched SDL to 1.3 Beta. Rendering is now hardware accelerated, but expect issues and bugs.
- Animations should be a lot smoother now.
- Doubled card Animation speed: 0.5 sec (playing) 0.3 sec (discarding).
- After playing a card, applying its changes is now delayed until the animation finishes.
- Added a DeckManager using FNV-Hashes for faster loading times.
- Changed loading/caching behaviour to speed up things even further.
- Music does no longer fade out.
- Added support for individual card scripts for decks.
- Added a Main Menu button to the Credits screen.
- Added several sound effects.
- Switched to better readable fonts and decreased font size in general to make room for more information.
- Discarding a card now actually plays an animation.
- Reduced music volume to 50%.
- Renamed several cards to better match the original M&M decks.
- Changed the background image of the Game Creation screen.
Bug Fixes
- Cards should no longer reduce Resource modifers to zero below their minimum value of 1.
- Cards should no longer be displayed in the game over screen.
- Fixed the following cards: Slicer, Ogre, Terrain, Mother Lode, Quartz
- Fixed time based animation issues
- Increased timer resolution to double precision
- Selecting different decks should no longer cause crashes or mix cards up
- Fixed some memory leaks related to image allocation
- Fixed filepath issues on Linux/Mac OS
- Animations for enemy turns now properly animate for the first and last card slot.
- The Black game over screen should be gone for good.
Winter…
… is here, at least here in Germany. And I caught a cold. And it began to snow last night. Sigh. I hate winter.
But on the other hand, I can’t wait for a special winter to come:
There’s a new Game of Thrones Teaser (#3) – the adaption looks promising, I expect it to be most awesome or I have to sue HBO 
. I’m currently re-reading the books/listening to the audiobooks and it gets even better on the second run. If you haven’t read A Song of Ice and Fire yet and like non-mainstream fantasy, read them. Now. But a word of warning: After reading the books, other novels and series will feel utterly boring and poorly written, since they’re that good. Trust me I’m a doctor literature nerd with many books read to date *cough*, no really, just do it 
.
In the meantime…
.. I’ll be posting a few pictures I took a week ago (Schwetzingen Castle gardens, which happen to be 10 minutes away from my place, lucky me):
Since I forgot my digital camera at home I had to take the pictures with my mobile phone, but the quality isn’t as bad as I suspected.
In other news:
As you (can’t) see, libRocket now powers the UI, but I have to port all User Interface definitions to RML, which will take some time. But there are some cool features (besides the new UI) coming as well, so stay tuned. I’m also assembling CMakeFiles for the projects’ cross platform build process, which requires some tinkering and cranking here and there because some libraries I use don’t come with build modules, but the basic build process already works on linux/mac os x. So the next release will (most likely) include a Mac Version with the obligatory diy-linux sources.