Hands of Necromancy [Full game released!]

[Emmanuelexe]

Announcement: New update of the game, it fixes the last important stuff and some details.

_Map02 The Farmhouse: Fixed deactivated enemies.
_Lord Gargoyle and Undead Dragon are now immune to rip damage from Ring of Ice.
_Raised some platforms to not allow skip passage in some maps by jumping (or it should be much harder)
_Map08 The Forest: Added a platform in one of the secret.
_Added more enemies/items in some areas of some maps.
_Added description of the attacks of the transformations when taking a morph pickup item (primary and alt fire).
_and others

If you want to keep the previous version to use your saves, use the beta branch option on steam:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1898610/ ... 360410047/

[peewee_RotA]

Yay! New version. I especially appreciate that Map08 fix. I got stuck in that first play through. Also supper happy to see the hotfix turn into a mapfix. That was a weird section in the zscript file includes.

Thanks for all the hard work everyone.

[Rachael]

It's what we had to do in order to not break saves for that version.

[RKD]

Great work! Seeing more updates is very much appreciated

[RKD]

Not sure if someone has reported this somewhere else but I've noticed sometimes (or quite regularly, perhaps) monsters lose track of the player if the latter morphs in and out of a transformation. The places where I've noticed this behaviour more consistently are in ambushes behind walls (like the undead rooms in the catacombs or this corridor with cultists hiding, to give examples). I think it maybe has to do with a monster in its chase state and the player morphing outside of the line of sight of said monster. As if there were a break in there. More often than not, not only they stop chasing the player but also turn 180 degrees, giving their back to NecroGuy. I haven't played v1.4 yet but this become noticeable since v1.3, at least on my playthroughs.

On another note, would there be any chance to add "sector light mode" option to the simple version of the display options in HoN, just like in GZDoom? I feel this could make the game more friendly to configure for non-GZDoom users or new players not used to the engine:

[Caligari87]

TBH I disagree on that one. People not familiar with GZDoom will have no idea what sector light mode is supposed to do, to say nothing of the fact that the available settings for it are cryptically-named (some would say almost misleading) and inconsistent in effect. It basically lets players "break" the intended visual style for the maps. Contrary to how it often gets abused, it's not supposed to be a monitor calibration adjustment; that's what gamma, brightness, contrast, and saturation are for.

[RKD]

People not familiar with GZDoom will have no idea what sector light mode is supposed to do

I would argue that if a setting is unintuitive on sight, modders/devs have the option to add a brief or detailed explanation of what it does. It has been done countless times, so let me give a few examples:

---

- DamNums:

- JP HUD Health Bar:

- Walpurgis:

- Angelic Aviary:

Just a plain "Change this to Software/Standard/Bright/whatever if you feel some places are too dark for you" should suffice for any inexperienced user, imo. Just a suggestion, tho.

[wildweasel]

Just a plain "Change this to Software/Standard/Bright/whatever if you feel some places are too dark for you" should suffice for any inexperienced user, imo. Just a suggestion, tho.

Or they could implement a brightness/contrast slider, if one doesn't already exist.

[peewee_RotA]

There are a generous amount of torches in the game. I thought that was a really good aspect of the item balance. I felt like I had the tools for the job, and I felt rewarded for finding the right places to use them.

...then again, I used them under water a lot.... as a transformation that doesn't even have hands.

[Graf Zahl]

TBH I disagree on that one. People not familiar with GZDoom will have no idea what sector light mode is supposed to do, to say nothing of the fact that the available settings for it are cryptically-named (some would say almost misleading) and inconsistent in effect. It basically lets players "break" the intended visual style for the maps. Contrary to how it often gets abused, it's not supposed to be a monitor calibration adjustment; that's what gamma, brightness, contrast, and saturation are for.

Indeed. The light mode is not really meant for calibrating the game for the monitor. The option is mainly there so that modders can test the modes to find the optimal one and to switch between some of them for performance reasons, as the shader based software lighting emulations can be quite expensive on older hardware.

[peewee_RotA]

Indeed. The light mode is not really meant for calibrating the game for the monitor. The option is mainly there so that modders can test the modes to find the optimal one and to switch between some of them for performance reasons, as the shader based software lighting emulations can be quite expensive on older hardware.

FWIW I've had the crypts and the earthen depths cause a lot of glitchy visuals. The latter crashed in my mod after enough things spawned. I think just knowing this is an option to prevent choppiness, is a big step.

[Rachael]

I thought I responded to this - so I'm gonna put this to rest.

We are not offering the sector light mode in the mod options menu. It's still in the GZDoom menu and is searchable, we won't block people from using it, but we don't want people using that.

If your monitor is truly bad, use "vid_gamma" in the console to correct it - that's the reason why it was there in the first place. Yes - it can be used to cheat, but I'd rather have the game accessible for people than to try to block a potential cheat like that. But changing the sector light mode alters the game to appear in a way that is far different from what is intended.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I have made it to the Farmhouse level and I am a bit confused about the level's name: it starts inside a church and then it is mostly ravines, stone walls and gates.

Where exactly is the Farmhouse?

[Emmanuelexe]

later in the map.

[Rachael]

v1.5 is going into Beta soon - Important Information here!
The following changes will be introduced:
• Introducing Map Markers for Key Doors and Portals
• Fix for the switch of one of the map13 lifts
• Pull fixes from GZDoom, post-4.8.2
• New movement code - the player starts and stops moving a lot quicker, less "sliding" - this change will be optional
• New Special item: Hand of Necromancy (It raises the dead)
• "Classic" mode - which removes the new Hand of Necromancy and makes the gameplay more similar to what it was before this update

Important Information - Please Read!
The development team is going to need to be able to push rapid changes to this branch, if things aren't properly working. As such, please don't start any long-term play-throughs with saves you intend to keep - please keep using the release branches for that. When this version is released we will, as always, make a branch for those who save on the release version. We will *NOT* be introducing savegame compatibility for the beta branch! The beta will also only be on Steam!

(Update: The beta is now live)