Hey there, Billies!

There is a new There Will Be Ink update out today, featuring mostly some quality-of-life updates. I was going to hold off until beta 5.1, which will feature Act II of the campaign (8 more missions), but I got a bit carried away and just about every new level has a new mechanic or unique feature, so it is taking a bit of time. So, in the meantime, here are some new things!

Sights Update

The player GUI, showing ammo, rank, etc, is presently up on the top of the screen, but it can be a pain to glance up there just to check on ammo levels. No more! I’ve added a an indicator directly below the sight to show how many clips and rounds are remaining, like such:

It is a subtle effect but so far proving to be handy. It is essentially three overlapping bars: one full bar, the colour of the player highlight, one partial bar indicating magazines (or rounds, for single round weapons) remaining, and a third overlapping bar for rounds remaining. It also fills up when the unit is reloading.

Counter Countdown

It is now much more obvious in countdown-style missions that the time is counting down. To achieve this I’ve made the counter much larger in such cases, and it displays below weather info. In addition to that, it starts of red and fades to orange, then yellow, then green as it nears zero/victory.

AZERTY?

That’s right! I’ve added AZERTY keyboard support for any friends rolling with that keyboard layout. Keyboard layout can be changed from the Options page.

Other Thangs

There are several other changes and enhancements, like the player GUI items becoming transparent when blocking a player unit, a slightly re-worked destroyed/destroyed as end-of-battle stats page, floating crates, new terrain objects and art here and there, and slightly less hateful heavy machine gunners. Check out the full list below if you’d like. Now, back to working on that tank prototype!

Changelog

New Features & Content

• Added bar indicator below sight indicating how many rounds/magazines the player has and whether they’re reloading
• Added new terrain objects to Map Editor: River 6, rock 4, rock 5, log 3, log 4, skull sign, cactus 2
• Added AZERTY keyboard support to Options page

Changes & Enhancements

• Player GUI items on top of screen now draw at half opacity when covering a player-controlled unit
• On countdown missions, timer is now displayed large and down below weather/wind
  • Timer text fades in and starts off red, transitions to yellow and then green upon victory
  • Added game option to disable weather/timer HUD or to show timer only
• Added “burnt out” sprites for cacti
• On Barracks page, locked units no longer show unit name or icon (new “?” icon is shown instead)
• End-of-battle stats (pg3) now display rows darker or lighter depending on how many units of that type were destroyed or destroyed as
• Crates now float in deep water
• AI: HMG units no longer fire while moving to cover
• Added new sprites for RPG smoke (and randomized angle for greater variety)
• Crater puddles now only put out fires if they are big enough (40% full and up)
• Map Editor item lists are now cleared out upon exiting (to free memory)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug where incapacitated units would become controllable after victory
• Fixed bug where cargo plane would sometimes fly vertically when making drops
• Game no longer pauses when the Steam overlay is brought up if the battle is over