Tidalis:0.902 Beta Release

New & Updated Levels

• Adventure levels 88-99, and 106 have been added. Levels 81, 83, 87, and 93 have been updated.
  • Adventure level 7 has been updated to now include a tip about the important new handicaps that can make the game easier or harder than default.

• Adventure cutscenes 78, 81, and 85 have been added.

New & Updated Art/Music/Sound

• The following themes have had visual updates: Fishing Village, Fishing Village Night, Cavern.

Gameplay Additions

• The Handicaps that can be configured in the Player Preferences window now actually function, in single and multiplayer.
  • The handicap for each board is shown next to the board score header.
  • Handicaps have no effect whatsoever in Puzzle levels, and aren't applied to Puzzle boards at all.
  • Positive handicaps reduce the score received by an equivalent amount, but there is not an equivalent score bonus for negative handicaps.
    • When levels have a score objective, the score objective is reduced by the equivalent amount to the score reduction from this effect.
  • Positive handicaps reduce the speed of block appearance at the top of the well, negative handicaps increase it.
  • Positive handicaps increase the chance of white blocks, negative handicaps reduce the chance.

• Co-Op Items have been added to the game.
  • The following co-op items have been added (all duplicates of non-co-op versions): Can 'O Beans, Extend, Rainbow, Flood, Color Popper, Fence, Hourglass, Insta-Streams, Crystal.
  • These only show up in co-op multiplayer modes, and can be turned off per-player in the Player Preferences window.
  • These appear at 3x the frequency of white blocks (not counting any specially-defined white block frequencies in the level editor -- referring to the base underlying white block frequency from the the difficulty level).
    • Handicaps also don't have any effect on the frequency of these items.

Misc

• Networking changes:
  • Network games are now kept closer to being "in time" with one another. The game makes efforts to keep each game within 512ms of one another, which makes the game vulnerable to lag spikes, but which also removes a lot of potential exploits and a lot of potential confusion with games getting several seconds out of sync in the past.
    • This may need to be tuned some more during testing to get the optimum smoothness of gameplay, but this is an excellent start.
  • Pause/unpause was already properly syncing across the network in past versions, but now it also properly syncs the display and hiding of menus on the remote machine.
  • The "Network Player Name" is now just the name of the "left player" from the players screen, rather than being a separate setting. It can still be updated through the Network interface, though.
  • It is now only possible to be either a host or a client with the network in this game, never both. It now shuts off the server when becoming a client, and vice-versa, as needed, to avoid issues.
  • A message is now shown when the connection to either a remote client or a remote host has been lost.
    • In general, the disconnection process is a lot more robust now, and drops clients to the multiplayer menu, etc.
  • The "players" button at the bottom of the screen is now properly self-altering during network play.
    • Other small updates have also been made to this screen.
  • There is now a confirmation popup when disconnecting from another player across the network.
  • Chat messages are now fully implemented and actually get sent across the network.
    • Just hit Enter to send a chat message at any time when in the menu system (not during gameplay).
  • It is no longer possible for players to edit their network settings while connected across the network.
  • Game Overs (wins and losses) are now properly synced over the network.
  • The error message shown when an error happens during networking no longer always claims to be a desync. It now identifies whether it was a desync or a general error in the message.
    • Errors of this sort also now tell the player where the error logs may be found.
  • The "Change Name" button on the multiplayer menu now opens the player preferences window.
  • Player preferences are now synced across the network.
  • Handicaps and Trial Status are now shown on the bar at the bottom of the game that shows network connection status.
    • Player names can now only be a maximum of 20 characters long.
  • Trial mode players are able to play via direct connection or Find LAN Game with other trial players or other full version players.
    • When a trial mode player plays with a full version player, the game acts as trial mode for both until the trial mode player disconnects.
  • The "Connected To" button at the bottom of the screen now shows what handicap percentage the other player is at, and if the other player is in trial mode, .
  • There is now an opt-out message that allows players to cancel the connection when a trial player tries to connect to them, or when a player tries to connect to them with a positive handicap. This message also shows when a player tries to connect to a host that is in trial mode or which has a positive handicap.
    • This opt-out message is also shown after the connection has already been made if the player increases their handicap to a positive value (or a greater positive value) after the fact. This prevents players from sneakily trying to increase their handicap without their opponent knowing.

• The master server list has had some server-side updates and moved locations.
  • The first successful tests of the master server list to facilitate a game start have been made.
  • The master server list is not available for trial players, only full.

• The visual styling of the Confirm dialog has been updated to be the "darkness" style of window, and that window has also been updated to use our new "interrupt window" logic, which automatically preserves the state of any windows underneath it unless clicking OK or Cancel specifically is set to do otherwise.
  • The visual styling of the general Popup dialog has also been updated to match.

• There is now a new game over screen tooltip that tells about handicaps as an option for making the game easier or harder.

• The first run minimum settings, and the license key entry screens, are both now the darkness windows.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that was causing cutscene voices not to play the second time through if the same cutscene was viewed consecutively without closing the cutscene index history list.

• Fixed a desync bug with FF and UFF use during network play.

• Previously, uv animation was not able to work with the keyframe scripting. Fixed.

• Previously, uv animation was not able to work with the base sprite rotations. Fixed.

• Fixed several bugs with the cutscene index display, one of which was relating to the Plushies cutscene being shown and others of which were relating to positioning and the topmost item being cut off from display.

• Fixed a bug that often caused the first item in a scrollable area to be cut off.

• Previously, sometimes the Revive buttons were showing up outside of puzzle modes. Fixed.

• In the last version or two, the before-level screen was popping up after the Revive button was used. Fixed.

• Previously, windows were often not centering correctly when told to if they had already been displayed. Fixed.

• Fixed several bugs with RawText drawing at incorrect times.

Internal Programming Notes

Tidalis