Knights of the Chalice 2 Update - Version 1.18 Available

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Written by ValH on September 29th, 2021

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Heroic Fantasy Games' CRPG Knights of the Chalice II seems to be nearing its proper commercial release, what with the to-do list continuing to shrink and the latest backer-exclusive update adding a bunch of fresh content and more of pretty much everything. So, here's what's available now and what's still to come:

Hello everyone! Version 1.18 of KotC 2 Augury of Chaos is now available for download here for both Windows and macOS. The main addition to the game is new village content including new optional quests, new monsters, new NPC dialogues, two new underground maps and a dice game.

The next most important changes are the addition of 1,350 new tokens for characters and monsters, 24 new dialogue icons and 13 new sound effects.

When conducting tests, I used a Cleric with the Aberration domain. The creature that Aberration Clerics can summon packs a punch. It can really help with tough battles in the early game.

List Of New Features In KotC 2 Version 1.18

• For the village content upgrade, 104 new scripts were added and 41 existing scripts were updated. Augury of Chaos now has 711 scripts while the Tutorial Adventure has 156 scripts.
• Three of the new village quests take place in the night-time version of the Finchbury map.
• Two new maps were added, the Green Cave and the Red Cave.
• You can now play a unique game of dice with one of the NPCs in the village.
• The new content also includes an awesome Bardic poem created by Timothy Brett. Thank you so much for this great contribution to the game, Timothy!!
• Added new buttons in the character-creation interface to allow players to select any token or sprite. Previously, during character creation, you could only select from the folders Graphics/Tokens/PlayerCharacter and Graphics/Sprites/PlayerCharacter.
• The Character Sheet will now display the character's Touch Armour Class and you can click on it to display the list of modifiers affecting Touch AC.
• Changed the token and appearance of the companions Asharzaelle, Erzimon and Pizarra.
• Increased the Strength score of Asharzaelle by two points, as I've heard that she's a bit too weak.
• When the player recruits Asharzaelle, Erzimon, or Pizarra, if the avatar has more Experience Points than the new companion, the companion will start with the same amount of XPs as the avatar.
• You can now change the token and sprite of recruited companions, even temporary ones.
• The option to add spell picks to the Quickbar automatically will also work for spells that you selected during character creation. This means that all of the level-1 spells and psionic powers that you select during character creation will now appear in the Quickbar from the beginning of the adventure.
• Improved the in-game item description of all magic scrolls, all magic wands, and healing potions. Now you can quickly display the item's caster class and spell level.
• Added new links in the help entries for spells. The links allow you to display the list of spells of the same caster class and spell level. For example, in the description of the spell Fireball, there's a link to the list of level-three Wizard spells.
• Added 1,350 new 64 x 64 tokens based on PVG assets. We now have a total of 2,054 tokens for characters and monsters. Also fixed a problem of transparent pixels in the edge of 29 existing tokens.
• Added 24 new dialogue icons, increasing the total to 1,295. Most of the new icons are for male and female hooded spellcasters.
• Added 13 new sound effects, increasing the total to 185. The new sound effects are: Night Crickets, Broom Sweeping, Rat Squeaking, Rat Gnawing, Wolf Howling, Werewolf Snarling, Giant Bee Buzzing, Cat Meowing, Dog Barking 1, Dog Barking 2, Dog Barking 3, Deer Grunting 1 and Deer Grunting 2.
• In the Module Editor, added Night Crickets to the menu of ambient sound sources that you can place on a night-time map. Also created a new ogg music file using the Night Crickets sound effect.
• In the Module Editor, in the Edit Map Data screen, added the map colour selection box. The selection box gives you the following options: Normal, Night-time, Evening, Morning and Rainy. Each option is associated with a Red-Green-Blue (RGB) setting and you can fine-tune the RGB setting using three text input boxes, one for the red component from 0 to 255, one for the green component from 0 to 255 and one for the blue component from 0 to 255. The values for the normal setting are 255, 255, 255. Finally, I've added a new script command allowing you to change the RGB setting of a map at any time.
• In the Script Editor, added the button 'Process selected answers'. Select a number of 'Add dialog answer' script lines before clicking on this button. When you click, the game will create 'If selected answer' and 'End if' lines automatically for each of the selected dialogue answers. This feature can save you a lot of time when creating dialogue scripts with many possible answers. Side note: the game will lose track of the selected answer if you have some things happening (e.g. a new creature appearing) between the moment the player clicks on an answer and the moment the answers are being reviewed. In that case, instead of using the 'If selected answer' command, you need to record the selected answer into a variable and then compare that variable to the various possible answers.
• In the Script Editor, added three new buttons that are displayed whenever you set the value of a variable. The buttons are 'true', 'false' and 'nothing'. True and false are very frequent variable values, so using these buttons can save you some time when creating variables for use in scripts.
• In the Module Editor, you can now set a creature to be standing on a position not centred on any square. To do so, set 'Allow out-of-square position' to 1 in the creature's AI settings. See the dwarves inside the inn of Finchbury for an example. Remember to reset the setting back to 0 if, at some point, you want the creature to move using a script.
• You can now use the 'Set character data in variable' script command to get some information about a weapon or item. For example, you can check if a weapon that the player is offering to a monster as a bribe is a magic weapon. See the Sharkmen for an example.

List Of Bug Fixes In KotC 2 Version 1.18

• Fixed a bug that occurred when creatures got knocked out while falling down.
• Fixed a bug in the Formation Screen allowing you to exceed the module's limit for active party members. That limit is eight characters in Augury of Chaos. Note: temporary companions do not count towards the limit.
• Fixed a bug when right-clicking on an item in the Party Items box when the box is displaying a number of items contained within containers.
• Fixed an issue with the V and I keyboard shortcuts when mousing over someone in the initiative list during combat.
• Fixed an issue with the buttons for tokens and sprites in the first page of the character-creation interface, and other issues affecting the first page of the character-creation interface.
• Fixed a source of crashes in the Module Editor when you're placing sound sources and then loading a different map.

Next Steps for Knights of the Chalice 2

The coming steps are:

• See if I can add encounters with the Giant Spider Prince and the Lich Xadriphar.
• See if I can add a visit to the village after escaping from the sewers in order to get some supplies, see what happened to the NPCs, and complete any pending quests. In that case, I could either create a ruined version of Finchbury, or use the same map, or use the same map but with a different RGB colour, or simply have the party appear directly inside the inn. All suggestions are welcome. :-)
• See if I can add a new dialogue option 'Skip to the end of the dialogue' in order to accelerate the initial encounter with Yanos in the Chapel of Chaos when you just want to try the battle again.
• See if I can add a new dialogue option to save the game at some point during the initial goblin attack on the village, considering the number of battles that you have to go through without saving.
• Add a new section in the PDF Guidebook on How to Create a New Module.
• Add the names of Kickstarter backers to the Credits Screen.
• Prepare the Steam and GOG Achievements. Prepare the Steam page.
• See if I can add a few new Magic Items like the Prismatic Helmet and the Amulet of the Second Spell. These were mentioned in the Kickstarter update about magic items.

As always, if you find bugs or if you have any feedback, thoughts and suggestions, please feel free to let me know here, or in the forums, or by email at enquiries [at] heroicfantasygames.com.

Thank You For Your Awesome Support, Fearless Warriors and Noble Paladins!! Enjoy! :-)

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