Yearly Update

I was going to wait for the 'olds' to be a year old... and now I have.

Sorry... Yes, we really should update more. While major development has progressed on and off this past year (as with most open-source projects, when RealLife[tm] permits), we *have* continued working. We tend to focus the time we can spend on Nuvie on actual code work (and sometimes idle chat), neglecting the website until there is quite a bit to report. All changes to the source can still be reviewed in detail from the ChangeLog link on the menu to the left.

As for new additions since the last report, the majority has been Eric's work on scripting. Nuvie is now powered by a Lua scripting engine, the result being that all magic spells (and eventually object Usecode, perhaps more) can be written quickly in scripts, without having to recompile the main program.
This was done in a separate code branch, so you don't see any mention of it until 2007-08-02. Here's a quick rundown of the new additions from the scripting branch:

• New Magic! As mentioned above, the magic system has been rewritten. We already placeholders written for all spells, and quite a few of them already completely functional.
• Spells that are working at least somewhat:
  Create Food - (imy) Detect Trap - (wj) Douse - (af) Harm - (am) Heal - (im) Ignite - (if) Poison - (inp) Telekinesis - (opy) Trap - (ij) Unlock Magic - (ep) Untrap - (aj) Dispel Field - (ag) Magic Lock - (ap) Fire Field - (ifg) Locate - (iw) Poison Field - (ing) Sleep Field - (izg) Energy Field - (isg) Kill - (ic) Eclipse - (val) Resurrect - (imc) Summon - (kxc) Tremor - (vpy)
  (Note: magic target location is currently hard coded for the tile directly above the avatar.)
• Fixed torch and powder keg usecode. Explode kegs over actor or container holding them, and don't allow equipping a torch from a container (for now)
• The game now looks inside held containers for items. This enables Talk to find actors carried in a container by a party member, if you - for example - stuff Dupre's body in a backpack and forget where it is when you go to resurrect him.
• Some random blood is added at the actor's current position when they die. Still need to do some work on "blood handling" in Nuvie.
• Did some work on how the avatar respawns at Lord British's castle after dying.
• Added the ability to search desks.
• Moved the Party roster and sun/moon locations by a few pixels. We're aware that this introduced a slight display glitch during sunrise and sunset, and will fix that soon.
• Lots of work on how objects are managed by the engine, and making them accessible to Lua scripts.
• Eric added dithered EGA and CGA mode simulations, using the original palette-conversion tables from your U6 data, for nostalgia purposes. You can activate it with <dither_mode>cga|ega|none</dither_mode> in nuvie.cfg.

Besides that, we've accomplished a bit more since last August. A summary of other work done:

• Started on Blue Moongate support
• Moongates don't (dis)appear yet based if there are(n't) any moons in the sky, but they do work now, since their usecode is in. Try the permanent moongate at the Spirituality shrine.
• Moonstone usecode needs fine tuning but basic functionality is there. You can bury the moonstones somewhere else and the destination/burial table is updated.
• Added Tangle Vines and some vine dropping code. Initializing new tangle vines is still very broken.
• Added tangle vines to list of damaging objects, and added damaging tiles lava and swamp, which doesn't poison the party while wearing swamp boots.
• Sleep fields make the actor fall asleep.
• Now you can use the plus and minus keys on the numpad to change which party member's inventory is shown. This was possible in U6. Keys 1 through 9 can now be used to select party members for certain actions, like Talk.
• Musical instruments (play_instrument) now take key input.
• Can use keypad keys to browse through inventory.
• Can no longer talk to party members offscreen.
• Can now only Get objects that are on the ground, to prevent it being called for objects in inventory.
• Changed newly-spawned silver serpent length from 5-9 to 4-8.
• Actors with the "converse" worktype now change to "wander" after talking to the player.
• Prints a message when player's glass sword breaks while attacking.
• Don't try to play ultima6 native music when loading martian dreams or savage empire.
• Small improvement to thrown weapon support
• SE/MD portrait support. Functional (barely) but needs work.
• MD/SE dialogue gets loaded and used. Basic support, but probably needs further work to make it fully compatible.
• Mouse pointer is now set to crosshairs when getting input.
• Fixed a bug in the spellbook, which was showing itself in the equipment list twice when used. You're not really supposed to be able to Use it.
• Fixed bug [1766551] Killing party member crash.
• Fixed memory leak in Converse with script not being freed on stop()
• Fixed crash when quitting caused by bad obj handling in EggManager.
• Fixed up some Obj container functionality.
• Fixed a few bugs with torches.
• Several subtle bug-fixes, likely replaced with more subtle bugs. (gotta keep it interesting)

We realize there was more that could have been done so far, however. So we are continuing to work on the engine core and add new features. The input system is being improved right now (including key-binding support), and advanced monster combat behaviors and dropped loot will be added soon. Expect Ultima VI to be completely playable, and completable from beginning to end by the time the next news report is posted.
Now I have to go update the Development Progress pages.
See you next year!
(just kidding)

(...or am I?)

It's Alive

I was going to wait for the 'olds' to be a year old, but with all the recent work going on, I figured we might as well have the date here be a little more current.

As per usual, here is a brief summary of what we have been working on. The ChangeLog (which is now linked from the panel to the left) will have the latest on this, this is just a selection of highlights.

• A magic system was added to Nuvie. It still needs work, but it's a start
• Portrait dumper utility for MD and SE in the tools section.
• Alignment support was worked on.
• Fish are now edible.
• Silver serpents are supported.
• Party formation was improved.
• Lots of improvement in combat and the way turns are allocated to actors.
• The peer/gem/alt-213 effect is in.
• Map wrapping is much improved, you can fly around the world properly now.
• Use code for the Amulet of Submission, the Black potion and Rings is in.
• Some item stacking issues are fixed. We're still not sure how the original knew which items to stack though.
• Added Resting/camping and sleep/wake related things.
• Improvements to saving and loading your game.
• Added the ability to learn Gargish and to get drunk.
• Nuvie has weather (eclipses, wind-direction) now.
• The eclipse spell is in.
• The log saw now hurts you if you walk into it.
• Container improvements; although you can't move items into them yet, you can get something from the floor into a container you've opened in your inventory.
• Missiles and thrown objects are animated.
• A couple of lighting issues have been fixed.
• We've added the orange potion (sleep).
• The balloon is better supported, although it should still tie into the wind direction.
• We think we've figured out what all but one of the original U6 Tile Flags do, which should make it possible to improve our map drawing.
• To make tracking of development progress on Nuvie even easier for our loyal fans, there's now a new tracking system. (links in the 'Development Progress' box on the left)

News Time.

Ok so we've been a little quiet on the news front. (What's new) We've finally got started on the combat system. It is now possible to attack npcs but don't expect them to fight back just yet. :)

As per usual, here is a brief summary of what we have been working on.

• Configuration tags are now case insensitive.
• Added fading mapwindow effects. Eg stepping into a moon gate.
• Added sun & moons with correct phase changes to sky display above the party roster.
• Added Ctrl-L to load latest save.
• Fixed the FM-Towns audio sample rate, so voices sound normal. (No more Mickey mouse voices.) The audio is up-sampled before being played.
• Rewrote the mouse-movement and use-object code. Double-click can now be disabled in the configuration file.
• Added X-Ray view mapwindow effect.
• Added support for poisoning. Poisoned actors will take damage at random intervals until they either die or get cured. (Note walking on swamp doesn't poison actors at the moment.)
• Started work on combat. You can attack actors with the weapons that are readied in your inventory. It is also possible to attack with your bare hands.
• Actors will defend attacks based on their armour class. This is derived from the defence values of their readied inventory items.
• Added support for spikes and traps. Actors take damage when stepping on either object. Traps are invisible until stepped on.
• Fixed palette green palette cycling. Poison fields display correctly now.
• Temp Actors are given stats when created. We have a list of base stats for each type of actor but we still need to randomise the stats when creating a temp actor.
• Added cure poison operator into the converse interpreter. NPCs can now cure actors in their talk scripts. (most notably Lord British.) :)
• Added is_poisoned check instruction into the converse interpreter.
• Fixed avatar death sequence. The party is now healed when the avatar dies and the avatar as their inventory unreadied, as per the original.
• Added support for creating Mac OS X Nuvie snapshots out of XCode. Please try the new OS X snapshots and let us know of any issues.
• Added use:campfire, use:trap and use:potions(Red,Yellow,Green,White)
• Added scroll arrows to the Party Roster.
• Added the command icons that go under the mapwindow.
• Added Fedora build files.
• The party roster now shows the actors status in different colours depending on whether they are poisoned or critically low on HP. Poisoned actors show green, < 10 HP is shown in red.

What are we doing next.

Well, we've got more combat functionality in the pipeline. Including temp actor inventory and combat pathfinding Eg monsters run toward/away from the party. We are also working on a better more faithful party movement system and a new scriptable magic system.

Nuvie3D!

Reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated. (just don't look at our SF activity percentile)

There have been some new developments since the previous report.

• Added arrows to the party roster, allowing you to scroll up and down the list when the party-size is over five.

• Savegame format has changed. Any Nuvie savegames from September or earlier will not work.

• Use Fishing Rod. Not sure how well it works.

• Use Vortex Cube. Some more game code has been added, but don't expect to complete the game yet. Use it to store your precious moonstones.

• Animation improvements. Try firing a cannon or tossing a chair around. The visual effect is much better looking than before.

• Fixed: Empty inventories don't crash the game.
• Fixed: Savegame names display correctly, and the input box is Unicode-enabled.
• Fixed: You can always scroll-to-end-of-msgscroll with the mouse, without accidentally selecting keywords. The left mousebutton will select keywords when scrolled to the end of the buffer.
• Fixed: One red moongate destination was off by 5 spaces, and has been corrected.
• Fixed: Cannons can again be turned to face any direction, even if that direction happens to be blocked to normal movement.
• And the game window is no longer resizable.

Combat? What else is new?

This is being worked on. More (if not all) of the original visual effects will be added. We also plan to have a scriptable magic system. Explanation of this will have to wait until the next update! (which might even coincide with an actual release) :-)

More News