v1.0.8 Release

It's been 3 weeks since v1.0.7! If you've read my last devlog, then you know roughly what to expect from this one. I've got new features, and a few bug fixes.

New in this update:

Bug Fixes

• Fixed softlock where drawing when the discard was empty would prevent drawing from working for the rest of the battle.
• Fixed bug where skills with <Discard> or <Remove> notetags that also targeted multiple enemies would perform neither action correctly. Card Actions now execute at the end of an action
  

Now, that last fix is important because it changes just enough structurally that it might mess with compatibility with other plugins. We try to be thorough but there's no way for me to know what other plugins people are going to use. All that to say, if you notice a compatibility issue, especially one that wasn't there in 1.0.7, please let me know, either in the comments of this devlog or in the other places outlined in our help docs.

New Features

This is the part to get excited about.

• <Remove X> and <Remove Until X> Card actions
• <Remove this> notetag

It's now possible and easy to remove a card from play until the end of the battle! <Remove X> works like <Discard X>, where you select cards to be removed, while <Remove this> removes the card with that notetag after playing it instead of sending it to the discard pile.

• Removal comes with 2 animations - Burn and Fade

This is the Burn animation for a card removed from play. The Fade animation involves the card becoming more transparent until it disappears entirely. You can choose which animation you prefer for your project.

• Added new damage formula variable cardsInPlay. 

This variable measures the current number of cards in play for that actor, adding up cards in hand, deck, and discard. It does not include any cards that have been Removed.

• Added Highlight and Discard Highlight sprites to cards

Now there is a visual indicator that a card can or cannot be played, something vanilla RMMV/MZ already displays with skills. In our sample project these sprites take the form of a glowing outline the way most card games handle it. Notably, this sprite appears in front of the card, so you can add some transparent effect if you like.

When discarding or removing cards, the Discard Highlight sprite becomes visible, as a clear indicator of what you are selecting for.

And that's it for this update's new features! We're actually coming to the end of v1.0, barring any quick fixes. Which brings me to...

What to look forward to:

The next big planned update will bring us to v1.1.0.  It will add some more features, and involve a major structural change that will probably break a few things for a little bit. This next feature I want to implement soon, because it's going to be a complete overhaul of the notetag system, and if that means old notetags no longer work, I want to get this done before users have hundreds of skills worth of notetags to redo. I'l try to make sure that doesn't happen though!

Enough lead-up... Here's the new planned feature:

Card Action Execution Order

As you may have noticed, the card actions always execute in the same order - draw, then discard, then shuffle. Currently, that's hard-coded in. In v1.1, I would like to create a new system where the user creates an opening tag called <Card Actions>, inputs all the actions in the order they'd like, and then closes the tag with </Card Actions>. For example:

<Card Actions>
Discard 3
Shuffle Deck
Draw 5
</Card Actions>

Will this break notetags that have already been written? I am not currently sure. I will try to preserve them, but long-term I'd like to phase out the current notetag system, which means rewriting that section of the help doc.

Card Passives

Right now, <Remove this> feels weirdly out of place with the rest of the Card Actions, and that's because it isn't a Card Action. It'd more accurately be described as a Card Passive, and there are several more passives that can be implemented.

Some potential card passives include:

• A way to remove a card if it is not used by the end of the turn
• Force the card at the top of the deck at the start of battle, so it is always in the starting hand.
• A way to require that the actor's hand size is large enough before the card can be played. This is useful for cards with Discard actions.

Final Thoughts

My big goal with this update is to increase the utility of cards interacting with other cards - after all, that's ultimately the advantage card games have over RPGs. There are about a thousand different features I want to add to this plugin, but I'm trying to prioritize them by what's most vital to a card game plugin.

-Isiah (@IsiahGames) 
 MythAtelier