Game Update: Return to the Forest!

Presenting MagicMaker Alpha v0.7.2: Return to the Forest!

The Cavern Zone and Art Rework is not yet complete, but since our last game update there have been so many new features and improvements that we can't just keep to ourselves! Keep on reading below for the patch notes, and as always the new client can be found on the Download Page.

If you would like to discuss the new version of MagicMaker, we now have Official Forums! Everyone at Tasty Stewdios will be keeping an eye on the boards and replying to questions and feedback. Some members of the community have also started a MagicMaker Wikia! Feel free to contribute to help create the definitive online database for wizards everywhere!

Content:

• Five new materials:
• Sundial
• Caustic Ichor
• Harpy Feather
• Siren's Seafoam
• Chaos Butterfly
• New Artifact: Tipsy's Mysterious Flask

Features:

• The first half of the art rework has been implemented! The player character, as well as the Forest Zone have been updated to the new look.
• NPCs, menus, as well as the Castle and Desert zones have been unaffected, and will be improved in a future update.
• The icons for the new materials are representative of the new art style. Older material icons will also be updated in a later update.
• Cosmetic items have been disabled while we update the player animations. All accessory-related quests have also been disabled.
• Alchemy has been reworked to use Essences and Stones to synthesize materials
• Essences and stones can be found by defeating monsters in addition to their normal loot drops
• The inventory screen has been reworked for increased readability and clarity
• Sorting by alchemy color or type will now highlight the border of the material to quickly indicate these properties
• KNOWN ISSUE: The "Artifact" and "Quest Item" tabs currently do not function.
• You can now save your wand, spell, and robe material configurations as recipes to quickly access them later
• MagicMaker now supports up to three separate save files
• Saves are now conveniently stored in a "..\saves" directory.
• If you continue to experience issues saving the game, check administration settings to ensure the MagicMaker directory has write-access.
• WARNING: please be careful to not delete the directories. MagicMaker cannot currently recreate directories.
• Tutorial and Hubworld music has been updated
• New music tracks have been added to the Desert (Bachelor's) and Castle (Master's) zones
• Improved camera shaking effects
• The HUD has been upgraded to present important information more clearly
• KNOWN ISSUE: Wands/spells overlap on tiny resolutions (800 width)

Gameplay Changes:

• The player can now move while crouching at reduced speed
• All distances are now measured in terms of "magicmeters".
• 1 magicmeter = 1 map tile
• Loot is now instantly pulled directly to the player instead of obeying gravity and other push/pull forces
• This is most noticeable on Vacuum Cleaner robes.
• Monsters now drop gold in addition their material and essence drops
• The value of materials in the shop has been adjusted to balance the economy.
• Removed Alchemist's tutorial quest and removed it as a requirement for several quests

Levels:

• The tutorial now has its own treasure room
• The portal to this treasure room's description no longer talks about the forest boss.
• Reduced the speed of the forest boss's flies
• Increased the number of enemy spawns in the Castle Zone

Materials:

• Many materials have had values tweaked to make low grade materials much more useful. Materials that were difficult to utilize at low ranks or without stacking have had their power normalized, while some high-end materials were brought down.
• If you find any materials hard to justify using at a low grades, please let us know.
• Several materials had their alchemy properties changed for consistency
• Dark Essence has been renamed to Shade Spirit to avoid confusion with alchemy components
• Rainbow Prism now boosts spellpower in addition to illuminating.
• Quicksilver Gear no longer boosts spellpower
• Ninja sword now only increased damage on spells, not spellpower.
• Fairy Wing no longer reduces the mana cost of spells
• Diamond's robe effect now grants 100% knockback reduction while standing still in addition to its always-on knockback reduction.
• Vacuum Cleaner spells will now instantly pull loot to the player in addition to their normal effects.
• Magic Boomerang spells now have more reliable behavior. They return directly towards the player after a certain amount of time, instead of constantly homing in on the player.
• Their return timer is now controlled by material grade. Higher grade materials have a shorter return timer.
• Soul Contract now triggers on-damage effects such as Seashell robes.
• Soul Contract now removes mana cost completely, instead drawing from health.
• Diamond spells can now hit the same target multiple times in concert with Slime Heart and Magic Boomerang
• Illusion Dust robe effect capped at 0 spellcasts (every cast is copied)
• Mana crystals dropped by monsters now blink before vanishing
• Vampire Tooth spells now only heal on-kill

Misc:

• Added a very small window of horizontal movement on Jharni's Socks of Jumping so the effect isn't accidentally lost when moving and jumping at the same time
• Jharni's Socks of Jumping channel time reduced to 0.5 seconds
• Lantern of the Mist Banshee's cooldown reduced to 30 seconds
• Reduced the number of students you need to talk to in the "Pst! Have you heard?" quest
• An optional reminder quest has been added to the start of the game to encourage players to customize their spells and robes before heading out
• Key Binds menu is now less colorful
• Spell damage can no longer drop below 1 unless it is an enchantment

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where some treasure rooms were not awarding newer materials
• Active robe effects (i.e. Ninja Sword) are now disabled while silenced
• Fixed a bug where the game would stop responding if the player moved at extremely high velocities
• The second wand slot has been removed from the Artist's customization menu
• Slime Heart's robe elasticity has been capped at 95%
• Only the vulnerable parts of the Desert boss will now display health bars
• Players are now invulnerable while going through portals
• Hubworld portals are no longer disabled by the presence of loot.
• Fixed a bug where the bolts fired from the creepy paintings in the Castle Zone would deal no damage
• Fixed a bug where some enemies did not count for avoiding damage quest objectives
• Seashell Laser spells split properly once again
• Magic Boomerang robes no longer store charges beyond their maximum
• Movement speed and jump reduction effects can no longer make values negative and invert controls
• The doors in the Vault of Silence now immediately lose collision upon being unlocked
• Desert Zone portal is now themed properly
• Guillotine Blade spells now function properly on enemies with damage reduction.

Under the Hood:

• Fixed a problem where some GPUs would display the game at low frame rates due to vsync issues.
• Lighting calculations are now more efficient
• Collecting a large amount of loot very quickly will no longer cause framerate issues
• Optimized memory allocation
• Levels now generate faster
• Removed many, many memory leaks