Feels like ages since we first mentioned it (over three months, you make the call), but finally Activision has revealed some prudent details on the half-million dollar indie competition CEO Bobby Kotick mentioned off the cuff at this year’s DICE summit.

The contest will apparently be held in two phases, with the first phase now accepting submissions going through August 31, with cash prizes of $175,000 for first and $75,000 for second place winners announced in October. You’ll note that this is half of the original promised amount, well the second phase–which currently has no details–will apparently carry the other $250,000 for the top winner(s) in March 2011. A little different than maybe what was expected, but still a ton of dough up for grabs for an independent games competition.

Unfortunately for both the many potential foreign entries and the event itself, the competition is limited to developers located in the U.S only. From the full press release:

Activision(R) Announces Call for Submissions for the Activision Independent Games Competition

Activision to Award $500,000 in Support of Independent Game Development

SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 2, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX News Network/ — Great games come from great ideas – but those ideas need support to reach their full potential. To help foster creativity and innovation from the rising talent in the independent game development community, Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced the call for submissions for the inaugural Activision Independent Games Competition – the first competition of its kind from a major third-party publisher.

The Activision Independent Games Competition is open to all independent developers located in the United States, either individuals or teams, and for completed or in-development games (including game concepts/proposals). The competition will be conducted in two phases – round one of the competition will take place from today through October 2010 with first and second place winners chosen. The first place winner will receive a cash prize of $175,000 with the second place winner receiving $75,000 to assist with the development of their game. Details of the second round of the competition will be announced at a later date.

“This competition underscores our commitment to supporting the creative spirit and innovation of developers,” said Dave Stohl, Executive Vice President of Studios at Activision. “I started my career as a software developer, so this opportunity is something I’m personally very proud to offer to the industry’s young visionaries.”

Submissions for the first round of the competition will be accepted now through August 31, 2010. Winners will be announced in October, 2010.

For more information about the Activision Independent Games Competition, including official rules and submission instructions, please visit http://www.activision.com/IndependentGamesCompetition.

Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Publishing, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products.

Activision Publishing maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, South Korea, China and the region of Taiwan. More information about Activision and its products can be found on the company’s website, www.activision.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements: Information in this press release that involves Activision Publishing’s expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Activision Publishing generally uses words such as “outlook,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “might,” “remains,” “to be,” “plans,” “believes,” “may,” “expects,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “estimate,” “future,” “plan,” “positioned,” “potential,” “project,” “remain,” “scheduled,” “set to,” “subject to,” “upcoming” and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause Activision Publishing’s actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements set forth in this release include, but are not limited to, sales levels of Activision Publishing’s titles, shifts in consumer spending trends, the impact of the current macroeconomic environment, the seasonal and cyclical nature of the interactive game market, Activision Publishing’s ability to predict consumer preferences among competing hardware platforms, declines in software pricing, product returns and price protection, product delays, retail acceptance of Activision Publishing’s products, competition from the used game market, adoption rate and availability of new hardware (including peripherals) and related software, industry competition and competition from other forms of entertainment, rapid changes in technology, industry standards and consumer preferences, including interest in specific genres such as music, first-person action and massively multiplayer online games, protection of proprietary rights, litigation against Activision Publishing, maintenance of relationships with key personnel, customers, licensees, licensors, vendors and third-party developers, including the ability to attract, retain and develop key personnel and developers which can create high quality “hit” titles, counterparty risks relating to customers, licensees, licensors and manufacturers, domestic and international economic, financial and political conditions and policies, foreign exchange rates and tax rates, and the identification of suitable future acquisition opportunities, and the other factors identified in the risk factors section of Activision Blizzard’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this release are based upon information available to Activision Publishing and Activision Blizzard as of the date of this release, and neither Activision Publishing nor Activision Blizzard assumes any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements believed to be true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These statements are not guarantees of the future performance of Activision Publishing or Activision Blizzard and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond its control and may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.

SOURCE Activision Publishing, Inc.

Copyright (C) 2010 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

Garry’s back, updating his titular game Garry’s Mod with a new patch now available to download for owners of the game on the Steam client.

The update fixes players not being able to join non-English servers, along with an improved datapack. The patch also brings a list of bug fixes to the title including band-aids for several crash issues, and the addition of three new entities as well.

From the change log:

Garry’s Mod

Fixed not being able to join servers with non-English steam language

Fixed issues with datapack

Fixed Lua errors in animation system

Fixed particle crash

Fixed EP2 Hunter crash

Fixed Floor Turret crash

Fixed rare VPhysics crash

Fixed Weapon:DefaultReload crash

Added Entity:SequenceDuration( int )

Added Entity:SelectWeightedSequenceSeeded( int, int )

Added Entity:GetSequenceName GetSequenceActivity GetSequenceActivityName

Basilisk Games has released a new update for its old-school RPG Eschalon Book II, now available for download both automatically on Impulse and manually via the game’s official site.

The v1.03 patch brings several bug fixes (including odd little ones), tweaks and overall improvements to the role-playing sequel. Highlights include a higher resolution world map and a fix to the way HP and MP were calculated at level up.

The demo version of the title reflects the changes as well. From the change log:

Eschalon Book II v1.03

- Fixed several more typos and grammar problems.

- Fixed a rare condition that sometimes caused a crash on map loads (this includes Quick Traveling).

- Fixed an issue where player effect durations over 256 turns long were not beings saved properly.

- Fixed stat display issue on the final score screen, and improved screen layout.

- Encumbrance updated properly after you dump torches.

- Avatar graphics are updated properly if you overcharge an item and destroy it.

- A higher resolution world map is now included with downloadable game.

- Rare crash that happens when your player is facing NW and dies.

- Triggering trap while trying to pick lock properly fails True Thief Challenge.

- Fixed a miscalculation with the way MP and HP are gained at level-up.

- Fixed an odd little bug involving the swapping of rings when multiples of the same kind are involved.

- Updated the premade characters as the previous versions were saved under an old format, causing errors.

This week we had to scour every corner of the web to dig up enough sales, but as it turns out, those discounts we did find are heavy. Starting from 50% off and up to a name your price option, were in the high rollers room tonight.

Most of the offers end before the weekend so we’ll be back then to update on the new offerings on Friday.

Sales

The Lunar Pack almost ‘pay what you want’ sale offers up Boss Baddie title’s Wake and Lunnye Devitsy for any price you want as long as it’s at least £1 GBP (around $1.20), Geoff touches on it in more detail.

Both of Neocore’s titles Crusaders: Thy Kingdom Come and King Arthur – The Role-Playing Wargame (plus all DLC) are 66% off on Steam through Thursday at 4 PM PT. Plenty of RailWorks DLC still discounted as well.

Both PC and Mac versions of Emberwind are 50% off on GamersGate through the week. The same for Bob Came in Pieces and as a bonus the distributor bundles both PC and Mac copies together at no extra cost. Strategy title Imperii is just $2.50 as well.

Pre-Order Discounts

Team 17′s Alien Breed: Impact has been listed on Steam at 10% off its $15 price, you can check out the demo on the Steam page as well. The title releases this Thursday, June 3 though so hurry if you want to grab the game for a bit cheaper.

Keeping with their Humble Indie Bundle promise, Cryptic Sea has released the source code for their award winning platformer Gish, which can be downloaded here.

The dev notes “Most of this code was hacked in in the last 3 or 4 months of development, so it’s not very clean,” but that shouldn’t hold modders back from jumping in and coming up with some interesting alterations.

Four of the developers participating in the HIB agreed to release their game’s source code if the goal of $1 million in sales was reached, when the dust finally settled $1.27 million was the figure and the devs have been following through one by one since. So far, Lugaru and Penumbra Overture have already gone open source and now with the release of Gish’s code we’re just waiting on the excellent Aquaria’s release which should be soon.

Unknown Worlds has revealed that its upcoming shooter Natural Selection 2 will tote those oh so wonderful vertical movement-enhancing jetpacks when the game (eventually…someday) arrives. On a sort of related note I think it’s safe to say jetpacks are the new zombies.

The devices are used by the Marines faction as a high level upgrade, allowing players to fly for short distances, get into vents and stay off the ground, and away from the snapping jaws of the enemy.

An engine test for the game has been released, but so far no playable build yet much to the chagrin of the thousands of pre-orders which will gain instant access once alpha and beta builds arrive.

Riot Games has announced that they will be bringing their multiplayer free-to-play action-RTS game League of Legends to Mac, revealing that the fantasy themed title will become available for the OS this summer.

The great news is that Mac players will be able to play with/against their PC buddies as the game will be cross compatible for multiplayer. The port will be handled by Transgaming’s Cider engine tools.

LoL is also expected to launch its official competitive phase this summer, urging both Mac and PC players to participate if their stuff is good enough. From the full press release:

Riot Games and TransGaming to Launch “League of Legends” for Mac

Acclaimed Indie Video Game Developer and Publisher to Bring Its Award-Winning Online Multiplayer to Millions of Mac Gamers This Summer

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA and TORONTO, ONTARIO — May 27, 2010 Riot Games, a leading independent developer and publisher of premium online video games, announced that they are working with TransGaming Inc. (TSX-V: TNG) to expand their debut title, League of Legends™, and releasing a version for the Mac that will be available for download this summer. The new Mac version of the online multiplayer strategy game, powered by TransGaming’s Cider™ Portability Engine, will bring millions of Mac owners the same fast-paced gaming action that more than one million PC gamers have enjoyed since the game launched in October, 2009.

“Millions of gamers across the world are accessing their gaming content on Macs but until now they have not been able to play League of Legends,” said Brandon Beck, co-founder and CEO of Riot Games. “The first competitive phase of the game will be kicking off this summer, and we’re excited that Mac gamers will also be able to participate and have a chance to vie for top prizes.”

With TransGaming’s Cider Engine, the Mac version of League of Legends will have all the same game features as its award-winning PC counterpart. Players can download the game for free from www.leagueoflegends.com and, after a short installation, begin playing instantly. Artwork, graphics, in-game items and controls will remain the same in the Mac version, giving both PC and Mac gamers equal opportunity to compete in the game at high levels for free.

“League of Legends is an outstanding game and one that will be thoroughly enjoyed by Mac gamers everywhere who have been waiting for a premium free-to-play release,” commented Vikas Gupta, CEO & President of TransGaming Inc. “League of Legends represents TransGaming’s commitment to bring a breadth of exceptional video gaming entertainment to the Mac community.”

League of Legends, Riot Games’ debut title, launched on Oct. 27, 2009 in North America and Europe. It is a session-based, multiplayer online game where rival teams compete for victory. Built by a veteran development team and the original creators of Defense of the Ancients, one of the world’s most popular player-made mods, League of Legends combines elements of the role-playing and strategy genres with addictive competitive action.

League of Legends is rated “T” for Teen and now available for free via download at www.leagueoflegends.com.

For more information about League of Legends, visit www.leagueoflegends.com.

When hitting the web for free gaming, players generally accept that for the most part they’ll be pulling from a large library of bite-sized, casual titles; rarely does anyone expect to come across a flash game to grab them by the collar and really evoke an emotional response on some level. Twofold Secret is out to change that, with their goal to break the stereotype of the ‘play fast and forget’ style tied to the browser genre.

Recently, I had a chance to chat with TFS founders Chris Klimas and Joel Haddock about their work developing deep and engaging flash titles including the mysterious island adventure game Where We Remain, and their upcoming project Sanctuary (pictured).

DIYGamer: Indie studios come in all shapes in sizes, so first, tell us a bit about yourselves. You guys got day jobs? How many hours do you put in a week for development?

Chris Klimas: We both live in the Baltimore area — I have a day job as a Web developer. As for hours per week, I’d guess between five and ten? It’s tough to quantify because this is still very much a spare-time venture for us, so it depends on what is going on in our lives week to week.

Joel Haddock: By day I do Web Marketing/Content Management for a publishing company. The development hours are pretty flexible from week to week, but I’d say five to ten is a good estimate.

DIY: Chris you mentioned previously you had a bit of a development background before Where We Remain, what kind of games and projects were you working on prior to forming Twofold Secret? And, how did the dynamic duo come together?

Chris: I first got into games by creating a few text adventures. I enjoyed that a lot, but I was pretty terrible at designing puzzles, which are arguably essential to that genre, so eventually I drifted away from that. From there I tried writing hypertext — subtracting the puzzles from interactive fiction and focusing on just the writing. And that was a lot of fun, too, but I got burned out on it after a point. I just ran out of ideas that could take advantage of the medium.

There has been a long gap between when I was thinking about interactive fiction and when I started working on our current games, but more and more I’ve noticed how IF has influenced my design sensibilities. Well, first of all, I lean pretty heavily towards text when I’m trying to give a world depth, but it also relates to interaction design. The best IF gives the player a wide variety of possible actions and provides good responses to nearly anything a player will try — if only to tell him why what he wants to do isn’t allowed. So I certainly see that level of depth as a goal.

Joel: I’ve been fascinated by game design since I was in middle school, and I’ve been tinkering with it ever since. I am, to put it politely, a crap programmer, so most of my projects were usually with tools created by others; things like RPG Maker or GameMaker. Now, I know people can do amazing things with those tools, but I was using them at their simplest, “novice” programmer level, so I never was really able to get my designs to the full potential I envisioned. To give myself a little richer outlet, I’ve done a lot of board game design work, and spent a lot of time developing my own pen-and-paper RPG system.

I very much enjoy creating systems and mechanics for players to explore, and finding ways to harmonize those with narrative in ways that feel appropriate. I find that games with elegant mechanics meshed with wonderful stories are the games I enjoy the most, so that’s something I strive for.

Chris and I started designing games together back in college, actually, though our ideas far outstripped our abilities at the time. We had a lot of projects on paper, but not much to show for it when it was all said and done. After college, we kept bouncing around ideas now and again together, even as we each worked on separate projects. Once Chris became familiar with Flixel, we decided to scale down our goals and work on really seeing a project through to completion, and thus WWR came to be.

DIY: You certainly don’t come across free flash games with the depth Where We Remain has all the time, randomized cave entrances, multiple endings, plenty of storyline revealed in the dropped letters. I guess my question is what’s the motivation to make such deep games with high replay value for an area of the industry that’s mostly popular for its casual and bite sized products?

Chris: Thanks! Two things come to mind. First, the motto on Anna Anthropy’s blog: “We must make the games we wish to play in the world.” I want to have a longer relationship with a game than a few minutes. Ironically, though, by the time Where We Remain was ready for release, I was pretty sick of it from constantly playtesting each revision.

The other part of it is, I’d like to think there are the seeds of a backlash against superdisposable content on the Web. I was really excited, for example, to see longform.org launched recently. So I’d like to help that along if I can.

Joel: To echo Chris: we want to make the kinds of games we would enjoy. Short, bite-sized games can be a momentary diversion, but I’d much rather play something with some meat on the bones.

DIY: The goal of the game is fairly easy to grasp after a run through, but the relationship it revolves around is anything but simple. Letters of encouragement from your supposed love, mixed with your own poetry to her, mixed with other more alarming notes that piece together earlier struggles–even certain items that give the player a sharper perspective (glasses = the truth?). I almost want to ask if there were any girl troubles during the conception of the story…

Has the relationship portion itself produced any unexpected responses from players?–especially considering there seems to be no perfect ending.

Chris: Ha! — I can say for the record that there were no girl problems going on during the game’s conception. I wanted the protagonist’s messages to come off as lovesick, even cloyingly so. I wanted people to think at least a little that he was an idiot — sort of that experience where you discover an old love letter from when you had a high school crush on someone, when everything seemed like it was the end of the world, and you cringe.

What threw me off was that some people felt the game was misogynistic. We ended up tackling the question on our blog, and certainly I see their point of view. But, all the same, it’s pretty horrifying to feel like something you created espouses a viewpoint like that.

Joel: I was also a little taken aback by the misogyny angle, but in retrospect I could see where some people were coming from. Every player is going to bring something different with them when they sit down to play a game, but you can’t let that prevent you from trying to tell the story you want to tell.

DIY: Regardless of whether they played through once or several times, was there any particular thing you wanted the player to take away from the game?

Chris: Hmm. That’s a tough one. I think one of the key parts of the game is the question of identity. Obviously there are a ton of games out there where the protagonist lost his memory before the game starts, and he turns out to be a hero. And there are also a ton of games (but maybe fewer than the first category?) where he lost his memory, turns out to be a villain, and then gets to choose whether to redeem himself. But, I’d like to think there are not very many where the player has to decide whether the protagonist was a hero, a villain, or neither based on sketchy evidence — and what the “good” thing to do is, going forward. Or, I don’t know, if the “bad” thing is more appropriate either to the story or the character.

A friend of mind said to me while we were beta-testing, about one of the tablets she found: “Is this about me? Because if so, I’m a JERK.” I think that’s the most succinct way to put it.

Joel: I really wanted people to just freak the hell out when Notus or Boreas first showed up. I’d like to think we achieved that.

DIY: So you guys are entering beta on a new game which looks to be quite a bit different from WWR. From the screenshots you’ve passed along it appears to be a puzzle shooter of some sort, let’s get some details! What’s it all about? Does it happen to have a title, and when can we expect a release?

Joel: Our current project, which is in beta right now with our incredibly helpful playtesters is called “Sanctuary,” and it started as an homage to one of my favorite childhood games, but at this point I think has grown into something much more. It’s a little more arcade-oriented than WWR, with a lot of cat-and-mouse action with mankind’s oldest nemesis, robots. Still, like WWR, we’ve tried to create a deeper story for the player to discover, and some richer gameplay experiences that they can keep coming back to. We’re hoping to release within the next few weeks, and we certainly hope people will enjoy it!

DIY: Is there any other projects or games that are in the works that you guys can or want to mention?

Joel: We’ve already begun some groundwork for our next project, but we’d like to get Sanctuary out the door before we let ourselves get too distracted!

Chris: One of the best parts of working with Joel, actually, has been that there’s never been a sense of “Well, what next?” We’ve been sharing a Google doc of game ideas that we want to eventually pursue, and it’s become rather gargantuan.

DIY: Sounds great! Can’t wait to check out Sanctuary in the coming weeks and look forward to seeing what you guys offer up in the future!

You can play Where We Remain now for free via Twofold Secret’s website.

Indie Links present themselves, one-by-one to make the day better. Whether it be through gaining new knowledge, a different perspective, or just a break from the trudges. Whatever button you push on the soda machine, there’s something here for everyone’s taste–and we’re not even sold out of root beer. Nope. No orange light of disappointment today.

Where Are The Road Games? (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
“And I don’t mean games of The Road – that’s an entirely different kettle of misplaced licensing. I mean this: the road movie is a fruitful, interesting genre for film, and even TV, but what is it’s equivalent in gaming? Could it have one? Or are all linear games basically just that classic story-as-journey? Are shooters our road movies? Maybe, but perhaps there’s something in the nature of travel in videogames that makes it difficult to execute something authentically “road”.”

The Rise of Indie (gamesdammit!)
“It used to be most indie games ended up on PC. But now with PSN, iPhone, and mainly XBLA and Xbox LIVE’s Indie section, you can find the indie community’s “noise” on most platforms. Developers such as Behemoth, Ska Studios, and PLAYDEAD are making quality affordable games; affordable being the keyword. There’s a new economy in the video game industry, whether it be $1 games on the iPhone, 10 bucks for something on XBLA, or even free flash games, there’s a market for indie studios to prosper.”

Two More Gaming Documentaries: Infinite Lives, Video Craze (GameSetWatch)
“It seems like video game-themed documentaries are popping up everywhere recently, like Pixel Kombat, Indie Game: The Movie, and Pixels: A Pixel Art Documentary, just to name a few. And here are two more to keep an eye out for!”

Interviews: Nifflas, Playdead, Copenhagen Game Collective (IndieGames)
“Here’s a couple of interviews from the Nordic Game 2010 event in Sweden last month, starting with Nicklas Nygren talking about FiNCK, Saira, and the upcoming WiiWare release NightSky. Interviews with Mads Wibroe of Playdead (Limbo), Cockroach Inc. (The Dream Machine) and The Copenhagen Game Collective are all in the extended.”

Great Expectations: Hegemony Interview (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
“After giving some first impressions of Hegemony: Phillip Of Macedon I started interviewing Longbow Games’ Rob McConnell. Now, with the game just appearing on Impulse and being available for a tenner over this weekend’s bank-holiday sale, I suspect it’s time to present the results. In the form of an interview. Like so…”

COLUMN: Battle Klaxon: Plain Sight, the Deadliest Dance Party (GameSetWatch)
“Battle Klaxon’ is a monthly GameSetWatch-exclusive column where traveling games journalist Quintin Smith fights to win a bit of glory for the beautiful, brave but overlooked games that people are missing in their lives. This month: robot ballet in PC indie multiplayer game Plain Sight.”

The Origins Of Canabalt: Typing Tutor (GameSetWatch)
“A few weeks ago, Adam “Atomic” Saltsman revealed a Typing Tutor edition of his popular Flash/iPhone game Canabalt, adapting its one-button controls so that a random letter is assigned as the jump button after one or two hops. He didn’t give much explanation for the release, so I assumed it was produced for a local school interested in an educational version of the title. It turns out that the educational game came at the request of Charles Watson who runs a computer project dedicated to providing computers with low power consumption parts to schools in developing counties.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Run, J-Stache Run (Joystiq)
“Being a giant, beloved video game blog has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we’re giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with Tavit Geudelekian of Primary Wave Games about the studio’s first release, Run, J-Stache Run for iPhone. Tavit previously served as a producer at Atari (N+, Ghostbusters) and worked in pre-production on Mizuguchi’s unreleased QJ for Wii.”

The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Super Shock Football (Joystiq)
“This week we talk with Adam Meyer of Steamroller Studios to learn how his passion for art lead him to the digital gridiron of Super Shock Football.”

Review: Beat Hazard (BigDownload)
“Music games, specifically ones that generate their gameplay based on dynamic music interpretation, have been growing vastly in popularity. Games like Audiosurf or Raycatcher, which act as visualizers as well as games with virtually infinite replayability. After all, with new levels for every track, your entire music collection becomes the game. Beat Hazard is the latest entry into this expanding sub-genre, and like other games of its ilk, it’s an arcade game. However, this is not a bad thing, and Beat Hazard brings a refreshing new look to the music genre while building upon the work of earlier games such as Geometry Wars.”

Soldak Entertainment has announced the full version release of the v1.001 update for its action RPG Din’s Curse, now available for download. The patch brings a list of bug fixes, additions, improvements, lots of gameplay tweaks and more.

The developer has also announced the beta release of the v1.002 update for those interested in checking out, and hopefully testing and reporting, upcoming potential changes and fixes being brought forth to the game. The beta patch brings a long list of new items and balance adjustments as well.

Both updates are available to download manually via Soldak’s site, from the change logs:

Din’s Curse v1.001

—–

updated some credits

now have to have more of an attribute than the curse on an item to equip it (iligiann)

fixed mana regen from an item doesn’t change mana regen stat (TheRani/Kruztee)

added Please Start a Server to No Servers Found message

can now pause in a multiplayer game if only person in the game (graffen69)

fixed masteries not working with shockbolt & flaming arrow (Magitek)

no longer get experience for destroying cave-ins

gas leaks no longer get destroyed from frost novas (Valgor)

fixed PerceptionTrapText (Valgor)

rearranged character damage numbers slightly (Valgor)

fixed if you like ‘em blunt typo (Valgor)

fixed has been built to serve missing word (Aet)

fixed suspicious typo (Valgor)

fixed wars modifier description (Annalisa)

rewrote shatter description a bit to make when different damages happen more clear (elsol69)

fixed Demon5bUnique (Kruztee)

bags, food, drinks, and potions now display a different color (graffen69)

fixed chests going over max level (sammage)

fixed blank kidnap quest (Caal)

fixed a town attack saving issue

fixed hunters going missing sometimes (Caal/Kruztee)

fixed scouts & assassins going missing sometimes

added din status to player title on character menu (Valgor)

fixed some issues with rain (Annalisa)

fixed an issue where lighting would cause crazy colors sometimes (Annalisa/Cadfan)

cave-ins can no longer be eaten by scavengers (Valgor)

fixed alpha issue on naga priest headpiece (Valgor)

changed conjuror anims on character creation screen to be more representative (Valgor)

fixed choose specialty screen on non-widescreen resolutions (Valgor)

aligned scrollbar on solve quest menu better (Valgor)

fixed showing duplicates in screen frequency drop down box (Valgor)

added some more text to berserk skill since it’s damage relative to a normal attack is confusing (Martin)

fixed She ain’t for sale typo (udm)

fixed cave-ins going into respawn pool (sammage)

canRespawn is now saved/loaded in actor

now quest monsters that can walk through walls wander around so they never get stuck in an area the player can’t get to (TheRani/incognoscente)

renegades can no longer be accidently created based off of monsters (Valgor)

fixed cleave at skill level 3 not showing damage (fishejim)

fixed whirlwind at skill level 4 not showing damage

stealth and escape notice no longer work on hidden enemies

now changing from main stats to other stats doesn’t have a pause blip (Valgor)

plague now spreads even if above your level (udm)

now can mark quests to keep spawning new events even after completing but before solved

now show player level on main screen next to player name (henryke)

doors trap also locks nearby doors now

changed stunning blow from +2% to +base*1.1 each level to be more consistent (Cadfan)

fixed fog sometimes transparent instead of additive

now save actor hasDiedBefore

no longer print death messages for npcs if they die more than once (udm)

no longer get double xp when you have escorts

now final Din quest reward chests always have at least one artifact or better item (udm)

petrified npcs can no longer try to solve quests (TheRani)

now worlds lower than level 7 have less initial quests

now worlds higher than level 20 have more initial quests

overrides mod stuff now works with lists of things like StartingItem (The_Dajaw)

added a way to mod the UI without over writing an entire UI file (mergeWith command)

can now add loose trn files so that mods can add or override text without over writing an entire trn file (The_Dajaw)

1.002

—–

changed item glow to match item colors (Valgor)

now build.cfg controls whether or not manual link appears

get info on mac now shows version correctly (Aet)

treasure quests no longer tell you about any reputation gain (Caal)

respecing skills with status effects now works better (TheRani)

can now select other players with F1 – F8 (Aganazer)

fixed key select background

fixed duplicate input background

now only show hotkey on use slots if hotkey name is one character long

added a Ways Back to Town help topic

added Ways Back to Town to manual

stunned monsters (and others that can’t move) can no longer block, dodge, evade, etc. (Heinosity)

fixed Egg Sac spelling (Roswitha)

Dark Elf Wizards should no longer be able to cast Ice Storms through walls (Heinosity)

now npcs in town look towards the center of town

townspeople now look towards danger in town (Framistan)

decreased shatter & bone shatter damage

spells like frost nova can no longer go through walls

fire elemental now has a 2 minute reuse time, but is now much more powerful

hidden creatures can see through stealth a little better now

fixed a way that a summoned creature could attack player (Teddy)

fixed liches not following the leader correctly (Roswitha)

fixed looking for some steel wording (Roswitha)

added deadly poison icon (Valgor)

increased area heal mana a little, but heal a lot (Jorlen)

fixed some trap names (Kruztee/Roswitha)

made town attack ending a bit more full proof (Roswitha)

quest monsters can no longer get upgraded (Roswitha)

changed protocol version

added advanced Ego mode (half xp for achievements below your level)

added advanced Unlucky mode (-50 magic find to start off)

added advanced Poverty mode (-50 item find and -50 money find to start off)

added advanced Honorable Death mode (losing the town kills you)

added advanced Fragile mode (half health)

changed skill power needed to a float for a bit more control (Magitek)

chaos lord summons no longer use the earthquake skill (a little safer for the player)

summoned chaos lords no long make stomping noises

increased health/damage of summoned chaos lord (iligiann)

increased mana on block/parry for defender & paladin from 0.5 to 2.0 (elsol69)

fixed getting unique monsters in monster quest (Annalisa)

changed personal gift chests from basically small to large chests (Kruztee)

monsters that give quests and other neutral monsters will no longer attack pets (Kruztee)

crushing blow item magic modifier now applies to magic crushing blow also (Stardusts)

critical hit item magic modifier now applies to magic critical hit also

made holy fire a bit more powerful (iligiann)

fixed gabardine spelling (Roswitha)

can now walk through ghosts that have revenge quests (Marcin)

mini-volcanos no longer show dot on mini-map (Valgor)

totems are now considered inanimate, no longer break stealth (viper34j)

quest monsters can no longer fall down pit traps (Aganazer)

names for keys, flaming oil, and ice bombs are now white to see them a little easier (graffen69)

added some grass to town centers

fixed yellow crystals not glowing

each crystal color now glows at a different speed

added a little bit more clutter to some of the dungeons

skulls no longer have collision

set, unique, artifact, and legendary items now get better automatic damage/armor bonuses