Greetings to our IndieDB viewers! Welcome to the positively enormous news update for version 0.99 of "The Testament of the White Cypress." The alpha is now available for free on Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux (see download links below). This is our first official IndieDB news update since version 0.95—I've been so busy bringing you new builds of the game, that all the news has built up into this massive quadruple-size news article.
About half of Cypress's main quest is now implemented in version 0.99, with new code and dialogue bringing the SLOCCOUNT total to over 5,000 lines of Common Lisp. This is a significant milestone in production; what remains is programming the rest of the written story, incorporating the pre-painted characters and objects, rendering the design into dialogue and Lisp code in order to finish the game.
Perhaps the most significant new development is the ability to save your quest progress at specified points in the wilderness called Waystones. With the Stone of Remembrance in the game's opening scene, you can quickly resume your saved quest any number of times. There is only one save slot, and it will be overwritten if you save again.
With the use of ancient gears, Geoffrey can now unlock the mountainside caves and reveal more of the story, as well as gain useful items. But be careful which you try to open!
There are several new characters for you to talk to, and new dangers to encounter. A new note at Alonso's may lead you to a mysterious Owl. The Dire Wolves that Arturo warned you about are now present in the game. There are more instances of Cryptghasts, grave hags are now more aggressive, and dangerous ice-cracks now only appear when nearby. Watch where you step, when in icy areas!
There is a new musical instrument to find and play, and additional music cues have been added to the mix.
In the special effects department, the new magic spell "Hold Creature" paralyzes the nearest enemy for a short period, and adds a ghostly glow to the victim:
The magic potion system has been reworked. There are now three types of Elixirs, with colorful new graphics. The Red elixirs heal injury, the green ones satisfy hunger, and the blue ones fully restore Magic points.
Conversation is now a bit easier to read; a larger layout is now used, meaning there are fewer pages to flip during dialogue.
There are numerous other bugfixes and improvements since the 0.95 release:
- Geoffrey's verbal messages about cold and hunger have been reduced.
- Firewood is slightly more plentiful.
- Hunger, Inury, and Cold conditions are displayed on the status line when no other messages are present.
- You can now drag and drop items directly into sub-containers from their container's inventory view icon.
- Ginseng is now less common; travel makes you colder and hungrier than in the last build of the game.
- Geoffrey will now tell you when his stomach is full.
- There is now a stone well in the town near Arturo's house.
- An object-duplication bug has been fixed.
- Additional music cues have been added to the mix.
- There are new creatures to discover and new sounds to hear. Try talking to Lucius before you leave Nothbehem.
- The resistance of the woolen clothing has been lowered slightly.
- Fixed crash when attempting to visit current map square.
- Now, visiting the current map square cancels travel, and you resume in the spot you were standing.
- You can now exit from basements and caves using the crumbling stairwells you find. (If you can't find it in the dark, just use the Travel spell to leave.)
- The window scrolling has been sped up a bit to prevent lagging.
- Fixed "full-inventory" error when placing items that should stack
- Clarified Lucius' dialogue in the opening scene with respect to Travel spell.
Here are the download links for Windows, Mac, and Linux:
Cypress v0.99 for Windows: Indiedb.com
Cypress v0.99 for Mac OSX: Indiedb.com
Cypress v0.99 for Linux: Indiedb.com
Stay tuned to IndieDB for more updates! Beta testing begins July 1st; in the meantime, feel free to download and enjoy these alpha builds of Cypress. I hope you will have fun, and provide feedback and suggestions!
