What’s Changed

Everything below arrived after the first alpha went out. Newest first. Starred lines are the big ones.

This is still a playtest: numbers are unbalanced on purpose, and some of what you find has no mechanic behind it yet.

October 4 beta 1

• Ashes of the Forgotten, Chapter 1 — Whispers Beneath Caerwyn — can be played from beginning to end. Lots of copywriting and image generation over the past few weeks to get it to this point, which is not really enumerated in the changelog.
• The playtest is open to anyone: no sign-up, nothing to install
• The five characters a new game hands you have been tweaked.
• A new party starts with 600 silver and nothing else. Nobody is armed and nobody is carrying a light. Go shopping

October 3

• Hover over a merchant’s ware to read its card. Click one of your party and whatever they cannot use turns red; click again to open their sheet
• The campaign is the game now. Removed a few lingering artifacts from the prototype stages.
• Fixed: the game decides where your party is standing, not your browser. Walk away from a merchant by any road and the sale is over
• Fixed: an answer that was meant to send you somewhere now does

October 2

• A title page. Continue, New Game or Load Game — and New Game goes straight into the game
• Shrines. One PC kneels at a time.
• Buying works like looting, with a price: ask a merchant what they sell and the wares are set out; drag one onto whoever should carry it. Selling happens from your own sheet, while you stand in the shop
• A merchant buys what their trade would want, and has an opinion about the rest
• [N] in a conversation writes the line in front of you into the journal, with room for your own words
• A long speech turns pages instead of scrolling
• What wanders depends on which part of a dungeon you are standing in. Some of it comes in packs. Some corners are quiet

October 1

• Fixed: Loot piles authored on encounters merge with mob loot.
• Rations found as loot go into the party’s supplies, whoever picks them up
• Fixed: Stackable items in loot piles stack.
• Fixed: a key lifted from a pile could reach your pack as a key that opened nothing

September 30

• Caerwyn is a real town: Gate Road, the forge, the Guildhall and the Flagon, the high street, the Poor Quarter. A new game begins in the Guildhall
• Made dungeon-to-dungeon transfers authorable (i.e., stairs)
• Rope mechanics
• Configuring your party is an NPC action.
• The prototype menu is retired

September 26

• The journal has a page for every place you have been — the town, and each dungeon. [{] and [}] turn pages; [[] and []] turn sheets
• The town’s page has no map, only what you chose to write down. [J] and [N] work on a street the way they do underground
• Running away is running. A party that flees a fight underground bolts several squares, and does not choose the route
• NPCs can talk before a fight starts

September 25

• The Game Menu, from [Esc] anywhere: start a new game, load another, or read your save code. One code holds as many games as you like, and they share nothing
• Stone Sense works. It finds what the stone is hiding — including what a search already missed
• [Esc] opens a menu in town as well as underground

September 24

• Some streets reward standing still. Look and listen — you will not always like what you get
• Caerwyn’s streets have been repainted, one picture to a street

September 21

• A key opens the lock it was cut for, not every lock that looks like it

September 20

• No more signing up. Name your party and play; a save code brings the game back on another machine
• Merchants are people. You buy and sell by talking to them
• The game has a name: Ashes of the Forgotten

September 19

• Caerwyn can be walked — street to street and door to door, each one a painted scene
• The people of Caerwyn talk, and they remember what you have done
• Raising the dead and mending the living are things you can ask NPCs for
• A party that falls wakes in the temple. Healing services cost silver if the party can afford it
• Healing and mana potions: worn where you can reach them, and drunk in a fight or out of one
• Stairs up come out on the street they belong to

September 17

• Racial abilities reworked. The Dwarf’s Ward and the Elf’s Riposte are bought once and hold for the whole fight; Ward soaks blows with the Dwarf’s mana rather than his blood, and each of the Elf’s counters costs a point of hers
• The Half-Orc’s Bloodrage is a flurry now, and it lifts the whole party — but it burns mana every round, and ends when the mana does
• A Halfling who Fades leaves a shadow behind for something to waste its turn on
• Fixed: a hidden Halfling could still be hit by anything with a long enough reach
• Inspect is a real attempt. An uncommon item gives up only what the one studying it can work out; a sharper eye may find more, and what the party has learned stays learned.
• Fixed: Combat reach mechanics were off in certain situations
• Reworked what the parchment displays while in the dungeon - it's not longer a running list. Used toasts more liberally and reserved the parchment for important messages.

September 16

• A caster can reach past their training. Past that line the spell may not hold — and the mana is spent either way

September 15

• Mobs can use magic (using the same mechanics as PCs)
• The item card was redrawn: what a thing does, what it asks of you, and what you are missing
• Some of what an item gives has to be earned. A buckler’s armor protects anybody; its parry belongs to someone trained to make it
• Spell effects that are meant to last now do, and wear off on their own

September 14

• The journal was rebuilt as one screen. Pick a square, then act on it: mark it, write on it, or strike a line you no longer want
• When the dungeon moves you without saying where, the journal starts a new sheet. Working out how the sheets join is your job — pin one, turn another, drag them together, merge
• Requirements gate use, not wearing. Put on anything you like; what you cannot use is outlined in red and does you no good, and a sword you cannot swing hits like a fist
• Armor takes a share of every blow instead of a flat bite out of it, so a strong hit always gets something through.

September 13 alpha 3

• Several kinds of special cell — the dungeon itself can now do things to you, and keep things from you, square by square. Walk carefully
• A party that falls is no longer stranded. There is a way back from a wipeout.
• Fighting with no light costs you — every roll is a die short until somebody strikes a torch
• [X] searches the square you are standing on. You get one look
• Lucky characters get a quiet second chance at a roll that would otherwise have come up with nothing at all. (Accidentally left off the last release).
• Creatures have additional fighting methods.
• An [i] in the corner of the log opens the menu, so the keys are no longer a secret
• Fixed: walking into a fight was quietly handing everyone their stamina back on the way in, which made arriving tired mean nothing
• Fixed: finishing a fight underground could offer you a door straight out to town that should never have been there — and taking it walked away from the whole expedition. A fight that starts in a corridor now ends in that corridor, every time
• Fixed: writing a note could leave you with no way out of it — clicking [Enter] did nothing, and once you had clicked anywhere the keys stopped answering as well. Both work now, and so does clicking either line
• A wiki, at /wiki — how the dice work, what your numbers buy you, and what everything costs

September 12

• Dungeons are served from the server, and each keeps its own map — leave one, walk into another, come back, and both are as you left them
• The Journal — [J] opens the map you have drawn by walking it, and [N] writes a note on the square you are standing on
• The minimap turns as you turn, so forward is always up
• Every dungeon decides for itself what wanders its halls, how many arrive at once, and how often anything finds you
• The parchment that prints as you explore is the log; the map and notes you keep are the journal. Two different things, and they are named that way everywhere now

September 11

• Spend your experience — the guild will train attributes, skills, and things worth knowing that a skill alone will not teach you
• Opening a skill you have never had costs considerably more than the next dot, and needs a real attribute behind it
• Training that raises a pool raises what is currently in it, on the spot — you do not have to rest to feel it
• A character who has spent so much as a single point can no longer be rebuilt
• Added hotkey for users without "escape" key (primarily Mac, I think)

September 10

• The game stopped handing your browser the full list of everything in it. You are told about what you have actually met
• Rewrote dungeon viewport in HTML5 canvas (previously used DOM) -- much faster! Built a new pipeline to convert DOM assets as needed for canvas.
• Authoring tools created/updated. Maps, mobs, etc.

September 9 alpha 2

• Items tell you about themselves — hover one for a quick look, Inspect to pin the full readout
• The Wooden Buckler now actually protects you (+1 armor)
• Rowan starts out knowing Flare Bolt and Mending Current — the rest are yours to find
• The character sheet refuses to change anything mid-round in a fight or a camp
• The victory screen reads cleanly and closes with [D]
• The cast menu shows the spell code as you type it; [Enter] casts
• Every order now shows what it will cost before you commit
• Using an item in a fight or a camp costs 1 stamina, flat
• Make Camp and Rest moved to [T], matching Rest in combat

September 8

• Camp orders — step through the party before each turn at the fire, and review the whole slate before it happens
• Fixed: leaving a fight unfinished used to stop random encounters happening at all, silently, until the server restarted
• Containers are real — a quiver holds arrows, a pack holds things, and capacity means something
• Implemented "toasts" (notices) instead of shoving the page around to tell you things
• Health, stamina and mana bars carry marks at a quarter and a half; hover for the numbers
• When something refuses to equip, it says why
• Rations cap at 50

September 7

• Random encounters — the corridors are dangerous now, whether you walk them or stand still in them
• Running is a real gamble: a Perception and Survival check, and failing it costs you the round
• The dungeon remembers — your map survives a fight, and survives going home and coming back
• Cast spells while exploring, not just in a fight — [C]
• Implemented Sunspot spell effect
• Click any portrait, anywhere, to open that character without leaving the screen — or press [1]–[5]
• A Grimoire tab on the character sheet listing what each caster knows
• Loot after a victory: drag the spoils onto whoever should carry them
• The Dwarf’s Ward reworked — your ally defends first and the Dwarf absorbs what got through; two Dwarves take turns rather than stacking
• Ward and Riposte are only offered when you’ve chosen to Unleash
• You can no longer cast a spell your character never learned
• The dungeon starts dark and lights up to what you’re carrying

September 6

• Light became real — carry nothing lit and you see nothing at all
• Candle, torch and lantern each cost you something different: vision, silver, or the ability to put it out again
• Light sources burn down as you walk, and a fight burns ten turns of one
• In the dark, the map fills in by touch — one bumped wall at a time
• Use an item without leaving the dungeon
• Sign back in from any browser with your username and character ID

September 5

• Camping — pitch camp underground, rest as many turns as you dare, and break camp before something finds you
• A camp costs one ration each and can be ambushed; how well you set it up decides the odds
• Anyone below half health is hurt past what a night by a fire can mend
• The Escape menu — a pause screen that also does things, so no key is a secret

September 4

• Your silver shows on the character sheet
• Moving between places zooms and fades instead of cutting

September 3

• The minimap no longer draws walls you haven’t actually seen
• Signing up asks for a username rather than an email
• Tidier web addresses throughout

September 2

• Mana rebalanced — much larger pools, and every casting skill you invest in raises them, not just Focus
• Racial abilities cost mana as well as stamina, and a held stance costs it every round
• Choose your starting spells while making a character — one per skill dot
• A minimap, and a way to ask where you are
• Stairs out of the dungeon and back to town
• The journal survives moving between screens instead of starting over
• Floors and ceilings render properly down a corridor
• Rebuilding a character returns their equipment to the pack, since the new build may not support it

September 1 alpha 1

• Where this all started: character creation, a party, a town with a guildhall, one hand-carved dungeon to walk, and a combat simulator (without saving PC state).