Chronicles of Vaeltaja Unleashed update will arrive in a day or two, and it brings so much improvements and new features it feels like the game will turn into an Enhanced Edition. I have already revealed the Hardcore Mode, but the other big feature is the optional Free Movement mode with full camera control. There are lots of people who enjoy party-based 1st person crpgs, but dislike the grid-based movement. Chronicles of Vaeltaja will always be first and foremost a grid-based game, but it plays very well with Might and Magic VI-IX style free movement.
Performance will get a huge improvement, because I finally found the reason behind the performance issues. It was caused by a 3rd party plugin, which is very good, but didn’t suit for this game, because it also added very heavy constant processing for features that I didn’t use and couldn’t disable. I only used the plugin for a one small mechanic, so I designed a much lighter plugin without any constant processing for the job. Before that I had already replaced all the heaviest plugins with much lighter ones, and the new performance gain gave me an opportunity to add new visual effects, such as fireflies, dungeon particles, small insects, birds, fallen leaves, not to forget the tufts of grass, flowers and mushrooms on the ground.
User interface and overworld map are improved in many ways; they are lighter and every UI element can be turned turned off in the Options menu, alongside with the new visual effects. Toolbar can be positioned in the bottom-left corner, and its position can be even fine-tuned, minimap position can be adjusted too. Overworld map has two display modes, and a proper ‘fog of war’, which makes the exploration even more exciting. A new radial menu finalizes the full controller support. Options menu has been organized, and it includes four tabs of settings to adjust the game to your liking.
The new version number may be only 0.8.9, but it feels like 2.0!
Chronicles of Vaeltaja will participate in Party-Based RPG Festival at Steam on Monday, and the update will be released before the event begins. Full list of changes will be available when the update goes live.
