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Dark Gates - Release 0.4.1

New release is mainly a bugfix one. Two major bugs has been squashed. One is a non QWERTY keyboard support. For every one who is not using QWERTY setup, latest game features has been not accessible. This is now fixed and you should be able to play Dark Gates on any keyboard. Second major bug was affecting Windows version only, were some tiles had wrong names which end up in game crash if tile has been selected. Lastly, in this release Windows version has been shipped with debug console. If you still experiencing game crashes, please run Dark Gates from command line and debug console  will show errors in event of sudden crash. Please report any problems to me.

When updating to 0.4.1 I strongly advise to uninstall last version and do a fresh install. To preserve your team layouts and save games please do a backup for savegame dir:

Linux: ~/desura/common/dark-gates/savegame/

Windows: C:\Program Files\Desura\commom\dark-gates\savegame

Release 0.4.1 alpha
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New: hero All Zebest
bugfix: non QWERTY keyboard layouts support
bugfix: more corrections to English,French & Polish translations
bugfix: Windows version - some tile names were wrong resulting in game crash

Dark Gates - Release 0.4.0

With 0.4.0 release, the most requested feature is finally here. From now on, you can save your game and come back to your exploration of labyrinth later. Save and Quit feature comes with an extra functionality where you can spend your treasure on upgrades. When one of  your heroes fall in battle, you can fill the gaps in your party by adding new heroes before returning to the game. But this is not all, Dark Gates is now fully translated to French. Hopefully this is the beginning of greater initiative to translate DG into more languages.Let's take closer look on new features:

Save & Quit

Game allows to save a progress of your adventure. You are able to do so if you are not in battle. When you decide to end current game session, press ESC and choose option "Save & quit" from menu. You will be greeted with save game menu, where you can save your game into one of four available slots. In order to return to your saved game, all you need is to choose "Continue" from main menu and load your saved game. Game will start from party selection menu, where you can upgrade and restock. There is no obligation to have 6 party members after you loaded the game if you choose not to. After you are done with your party you can resume your game. When you re-enter the labyrinth all monster that has been befriended or bribed are hostile again.

Upgrade

From release 0.3.1 heroes are able to earn experience points. With 0.4.0 release, they can be spend on upgrades. When you save your game and come back to it later, in party selection menu you can use your gold and experience points to improve heroes stats. First upgrade level start on 100 gold and 100 experience points per ability. Each hero can have maximum three upgrades per each ability.

French translation and text tidy up

Dark Gates are now fully translated to French language, which has been done by Patrick David (Twitter @MrHyeron). Patrick did a fine job and hopefully we can expand our language files further. If you would like to see Dark Gates in your native language, please contact me on Desura, via dfourgames.com website, Facebook or Twitter.

and the smaller things

A new icon is now in the UI of the game. Dark Gates indicator is located in the top centre of the screen. When you find your first mirror, this icon will remind you on which level Dark Gates are situated. An additional confirmation screen has been added before entering the game, so now if you not entirely ready to enter the game, you can come back to party selection menu.

Sale for special occasion

If  you are still reading and not purchased a game yet, then you are in luck. This April is the third anniversary of Dark Gates development. Game is only developed in my spare time and it came a long way. On this occasion till the end of April game is 30% off. I would like to give a massive thank you to John von Draugr (you know who you are). His support, advise and bug finding are just the thing that any indie dev could wish for.

Plans for future releases

As this release includes the last of planned features, next ones will be finally catching up with missing art, polish and tuning. As I mentioned in previous news I still have plans for more features like gamepad support and static maps along with editor but finishing game art is now a priority.

 

Full changelog for release 0.4.0 alpha
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New: Avatar for Dierdra
New: Save/Load game system
New: Dark Gates level icon in main main game window
New: Heroes stats upgrades and ability to 'restock' the party
New: Confirmation screen before leaving party selection menu
New: French translation
Bugfix: corrections to English and Polish translations
Bugfix: While exploring trap door, ESC will brake the game

Again there is no OSX release, sorry.

Dark Gates - Release 0.3.1

Today release 0.3.1 is out. This is a small release mostly with art updates and small bug fixes. There is one new feature -  Experience points. From now on, each fight or trap in the doors will contribute to experience counter of each hero. That update is a small step towards save system which is the next milestone. Possibly there will be more releases in 0.3.x branch but this will not affect work on 0.4 one. Enjoy.

Changelog :

New: Avatars for : Ravon-tith, Weldron, Sliggoth

New: Hero : Ravon-tith

New: Experience points

Change: Currency sign replaces 'Cost' in descriptions

Change: Balance tweaks in normal difficulty mode

Bugfix: Polish language - spells descriptions don't go out the parchment frame

Bugfix: In Fight - Spells menu selection is not just a grey rectangle

 

See more on - http://darkgates.dfourgames.com/

PS. To all Mac users. There is no update 0.3.x update yet. I lost access to my build machine and possibly there will be big delays or no update for now. Sorry for inconvenience.

Dark Gates - Release 0.3.0

          New Dark Gates release is out. So what's new ? With 0.3.0 release now you can save your teams loadouts. You got your favorite team ? now you can save it before you start the game. Next time when you want to use same party, it will be waiting for you ready to load and play.

          Also 0.3.0 release brings difficulty levels. You can choose from easy,normal & hard. There is maybe some balance issues but this is were you step in. I need players feedback to adjust difficulty levels. Game also brings load screens. I do not regard it as a feature (who want's loading screens in the game ? ) but this indicate progress while loading game assets on slower machines. Please enjoy the new version an do give feedback as you can shape this way future of Dark Gates.

Dark Gates 0.3.0 alpha Changelog

New: Avatars for : Braqoon, Gilith, Corran, Draugr, Almuryk, Zuryk
New: Team Loadouts load/save system
New: Difficulty levels : easy,normal & hard
New: Loading screens (to show progress in loading between modules of the game)
New: Spell 'Fear' - can be learned while exploring an altar
Change: Draugr is stepping in for Glade.
Change: Small changes to in-game descriptions.
Bugfix: Game breaks while demon Asmoday gives spell that was not there while exploring an altar
Bugfix: Music from fight sequence not stops and overlaps with main game music when spell Peace is used
Bugfix: When going back from party selection menu into main menu, main music in BG starts to play again and overlaps with existing loop
Bugfix: In Fight when player is selected pressing 'f' will skip the hero without need to unselect hero
Bugfix: Navigation in menus with WSAD
Bugfix: Spell 'Peace' or 'Fear' can't be used against Unnamed
Bugfix: If monsters are found while exploring an item or bribe ends in failure then monsters starting the fight first.

Prototyping team loadouts

While works towards next release continues, opinion of gamers does matters so i want to share what I'm currently working on. This is kind of a dev diary as I would like to show what I'm currently working on. So as I promised a "save system" with the new release, you can see one part of it below. Next release will feature a loadout menu for teams. You will be able to load and save defined teams to save yourself a time.

As you can see I have decided so far to have 4 slots and loadouts don't have to be complete. I have still not decided on final layout and exactly what info should be on the "slot". Idea is to keep it simple but with enough information. Loading from this menu will just populate party selection menu so You can always adjust any layout before game will start. This menu will be accessible from party selection menu and this is completely separate to save while in the game.

Please bare in mind this is still in development so art and/or layout can be changed.

Dark Gates 0.2.1 release heads up

New release 0.2.1 is near. There is a good number of bug fixes and lots of art updates and hey Dark Gates will finally have some animations. There is no new features planned hence only a 0.2.1 which is focusing mainly on improvements. There is still missing 'save system' but please bear with me as this is not just simple save & load. There is more to it and hopefully it will be out with 0.3.0 release, which will make  on that point Dark Gates feature complete (all my original design). After that I have already planned a lots of new features like gamepad support, static maps and even map editor (separate program).

One more thing. With 0.2.1 release I would like to also introduce a limited edition purchase of DG. If you decide to support Dark Gates by purchasing Limited Edition you can become a hero in Dark Gates complete with your avatar for all to see.  More info to come so stay tuned.

Dark Gates Release 0.2.0

Finally release 0.2.0 is here. This is a last free alpha release. Next versions of the game will be available via Desura as part of the alpha funding project. I would like to thank you all for your support and hopefully 0.2.0 will convince you to support future development at Desura.

Alpha funding is there to make sure that Dark Gates can be finally released and provide a quality content. So what to expect in near future from DG ?

  • I have planned a "save system", static maps support and with static maps support maybe some online leaderboards,
  • Map editor for fully and semi static maps, "save team" - where you can choose previously assembled teams and more,
  • Support for more languages
  • Finishing, refining all the missing art and animations.

Bare in mind that those are plans and please don't take them for granted but still this is the stuff that i want to include in this game either as a part of the official release or some post release DLC.

Now what's new :

New: Art for Skeleton, Black Knight, Socrcerer, Phantom, Medusa, Gargoyle
New: Defensive spells while in fight (Heal, Blessing, Magic Armour, Strenght, Magic Shield)
New: Spells for Monsters (Unnamed, Socrerer)
New: Background music for menu, main game & battle
New: Sound effects
New: In fight phase indicator(text)
Change: Credits menu.
Bugfix: Damage animation taken from traps is more constant.
Bugfix: Selection in team stats menu is being cleared on re-entry.
Bugfix: Screen is not being redrawn after a fight with a 'friendly' monster
Bugfix: Game now will finally play without a sound card or when sound somehow is broken in the system

Dark Gates also now how a cover art :

RaspberryPI Testing

I had a chance to test Dark Gates on RaspberryPI and happy to announce that game runs a ok. It will needs some tweaks to make to make it a fluent experience but it looks good. When mine RaspberryPI will arrive finally then i do some more testing.

Check out video from testing on https://vimeo.com/43205057

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