With great thanks to all the beta testers, I am proud to announce version 1.4 of WazHack.
This release adds new items, new monsters, and a whole new side-dungeon to celebrate 10 years since WazHack was first released. I won't spoil the details except to say you'll find the new dungeon pretty early in the game.
Modding is now officially supported! Check out the workshop for new playable classes from the wonderful WazHack player community.
Many old bugs have been fixed and the UI polished up. Some of the bugs enabled some crazy tricks by expert players so along with every fix to these... tactics... I've put in a fairly equivalent but bug-free trick for you to discover.
Under the hood this version was a massive effort, porting the entire codebase from 10% to 100% C#, which allowed switching to the latest engine version to support all modern hardware and operating systems and allow higher quality rendering.
I hope you enjoy this fresh new release, and I look forward to continuing WazHack development!
-- Waz
WazHack 1.4 Public Beta now Available
New Side Quest
This new version adds a new side-quest near to the top of the dungeon, so even new players will get to play it, or at least walk in and get eaten by a grue!
Joining the Beta
To play the beta, go into the Properties/Beta settings in Steam for WazHack, and choose the beta:
There has been a not-so-secret private alpha running since April, and so it's now stabilized into a build for everyone to play.
Upgraded Underlying Game Engine
The previous modding beta was put on hold as engine incompatibilities made upgrades challenging, but all that is now in the past with 100,000 lines of pristine ported code. While this doesn't make much change to the game, beyond a few visual improvements, the big gain is that it's now easier than ever to add more to the game (for the technical: it's written in C# on Unity 2020).
Reporting Bugs
Quite a few bugs were fixed in the porting process, and about half the bugs fixed during the alpha have been pre-existing bugs from the old version. But as always, this is a beta, so there will be more bugs to squish.
Always try to use the in-game bug reporter to report bugs - it sends a copy of your game file to me so I can try to repeat the problem.
Other Versions
This is a beta. The default branch remains the one from 2016, unless you opt-in to the beta. There is always a "previous" build that is a recent but previous build, in case some catastrophic bug shows up in a build and you really want to keep playing.
If you were on the old modding beta, that is now closed; if you need to finish a game, use the "2017" branch.
If you also have the mobile version of WazHack, that won't be updated yet, but will be looked at during the beta. Note though that when the game is ported to iOS and Android, it will target much more modern devices that the old Samsung Galaxy Nexus that was the minimal-spec in 2015, so better graphics (a more direct port of the PC version), but more demanding on performance.
Save files are not compatible between major versions. They should not change during the beta, but if essential, the "previous" branch can be used so you can finish your current game before updating.
Detailed Change List
(not)
It's a game of discovery, so I'm not going to go into too much detail here. Most things should be entirely familiar, but a few things have been tweaked, and a few bugs that could give undesirable... and desirable... results have been fixed.
Enjoy!
-- Waz
1.4 alpha build 2248
This build finally implements most of the Steamworks stuff, including Multiplayer. This is a complete rewrite of the Steam code, so anything unexpected is likely a new bug.
Also in this release:
- Allow getting armour in sizes for your pets. - Add another use for oil, remove an abuse for lamps - Pixie spawn fix - Tweaks of visuals of powerstone, golden items, gnomethrone, danger frame,
1.4 alpha build 2211
Only minor bug fixes will be visible until about June 25.
You can finish up games from previous version using the alpha-previous branch.
1.4 alpha build 2181
The red Danger Frame is back - red particles when you're below 30% HP.
Also:
a usability improvement for Portal Stones (press F while standing near one).
two buffs to the Sorcerer/Sorceress: a little starting food, and a big benefit in the new area.
Coin bug fix?
Possible fix for coin-merging bug.
Update to 1.4 alpha
Note that this update breaks save file compatibility. The game will tell you to use an old version - if you need to, there's a "alpha-previous" branch that has the previous-incompatible version.
