Felterra: Tall Order 0.0.8

What's new

Bosses show the fight

• Every hit leaves its mark where it lands: rounds punch holes, blades cut, hammers and stones dent, fire scorches, and bolts, arrows and nails stay in.
• A machine smokes harder and darker as it fails, cracks its cab glass and catches fire, then breaks apart, its pieces lying where they land. A giant loses his hard hat once he's badly hurt.
• When a boss goes down, the world slows for a moment and the camera goes over to watch it fall, before the story starts.

The forest grows back

• Freeing an area no longer heals it on the spot. Its fires go out, and over the runs after, it grows back in patches, in from the jungle at its edges, until it's whole.

Going down

• Down, your cat is thrown, lands on his back, and the fight runs on in slow motion for a moment before the summary.
• Every run ends at home now: no more going straight back out from the summary.

The village

• Every rescued cat is housed once, however often you rescue them, and Granny Whiskers is home from the start.
• What a freed area teaches isn't told on the walk home any more: each lesson waits under a "!" with the cat who teaches it.
• The cast wear their own gear, so Uncle Anvil isn't just another black cat.
• Jogiboy goes round the houses to follow you, and runs to catch up.
• When there's news, Enter talks to whoever has it, not the door behind them.
• The weaver sells door curtains (batik, ikat or songket) and striped awnings for the village's houses.

Fighting

• Fireflies are ice blue, so they stand out from the grass.
• New gear: the bag of marbles, which draws fireflies and salvage from further off. A tuyul can't pass a marble.
• A blade in hand fends off part of every bite. A two-handed weapon's card says why no second weapon is offered.
• Every weapon is cat-sized: Uncle Anvil cuts down what the giants drop, and each weapon is the same length whichever way it's aimed.
• New cages turn up only out of sight, never in front of you.
• No more hitches facing the Handler and the machines.

The story

• Every run ends with something the old cats say: nine lives, landing on your feet, and more.
• Night comes on over the siege's opening, and the story says where everyone went.
• Narration sits on a strip of its own, easy to read on any ground.

Discord and privacy

• While Discord is running, your friends can see what you're playing (the village, the area you're freeing, or Endless, and your level), with a button to get the game. It goes only to the Discord app on your computer. Settings, Discord activity, turns it off.
• A new Privacy and terms page, under Settings, says everything the game keeps and sends, and how to turn each off. In full: privacy policy and terms.

Also

• The mouse pointer stays hidden unless you move the mouse.
• Things you don't have yet show how to get them instead of all their details.
• Story walks are no longer a crawl.

Full Changelog: v0.0.7...v0.0.8

Felterra: Tall Order 0.0.7

What's new

The story, through the company's own papers

• The opening says how the world works: the giants have lived beside the forest for as long as the cats have, and they have never once looked down.
• Each area the company holds has a paper lying in it: the Handler's list, a site board, a warning sign, a delivery note, the permit, the official's speech. Walk over it to take it home, win or lose.
• Granny Whiskers reads each one at her hut, and keeps a word from five of them. They're in the Elder's book too.
• With all five words before the airstrip, the cats write back in the giants' own letters, and the airstrip ends differently.

Endless gets harder the longer you last

• From four minutes in, what comes out of the jungle comes tougher, bites harder and is shoved less, more so each minute. Dog packs and the number of giants grow too.
• Levels take more past level 15, and adrenaline heals at most a little each second. A strong build now lasts past twenty minutes, but not forever.

Weapons

• Two weapons held together each keep their own pace: each gun flashes and kicks for its own rounds. A fast gun fires as often as it should, and a quick blade swings faster.
• A weapon's card says what it does, in numbers: how it's used, its reach, its damage, how often, and what sets it apart ("Swung, 0.6 m reach", "Trips 1.2 s"). Bonus cards say what they do to that weapon, and Tab explains each.
• The smithy shows the same numbers.

The map

• Endless's clearing is bigger (56 by 32 meters), with room for a crew of four. The groves are bigger too.
• It isn't a box any more: the jungle bulges in along each side and rounds the corners, and every run's clearing has its own shape.
• The jungle around it is a solid wall of trees and leaves, and the view never looks out past it into nothing.
• The ground has grass and pebbles to it, and burned peat looks burned.
• Freed areas each heal into a place of their own, with patches of flowers and young trees.
• The way into the village runs straight on from the forest path, and the shrine is built of stone.

Seeing the fight

• Held cards sit low on the screen and stand up in full while you hold Tab, so the horde coming from below stays in sight.
• Fireflies are yellow-green and outlined, so they stand out from the fallen.
• Your health shows under your cat once you're hurt. Buried in the horde, your cat shows through it with a marker over them.
• Giants and machines are shaded, and the machines have cab glass and hazard stripes. Each cat's portrait has its own eyes, and Jogiboy looks happy when he's happy.
• The tuyul and the smoke monkeys are redrawn, so they look like what they are.
• The siege comes at night, lit by the village's burning roofs.
• The title has a proper logo.

For playtesters

• A run log, off unless you turn it on under Gameplay. It keeps a line for each run on your computer: how it went, what you carried, what got you, and how smoothly the game ran. Nothing is sent; "Show the run log's folder" in the settings finds the file if you'd like to send it to us.

Also

• A big horde costs the game less to run, and the pause menu's backdrop is far cheaper to draw.
• The bee swarm no longer raises an error when it goes for a giant.

Full Changelog: v0.0.6...v0.0.7

Felterra: Tall Order 0.0.6

What's new

The story, rewritten

• Tompel was sent out of the forest to find out why it's dying, and came home with nothing: the trouble is inside. The Elder's book tells it from the start.
• Everyone has an English name now: Uncle Anvil (Hammer to the village), Granny Whiskers, Patch, Saffron, Coffee and Cream, Auntie Clove and Skipper. Your village keeps everything under the new names.
• Lines are said in the middle of fights, in bubbles over whoever says them. The humans only scribble: cats can't understand them.
• The Great Tiger of Cisewu has his own portrait, and the village a badly carved statue of him by the gate.
• Free the forest's edge and Uncle Anvil hands you his hammer, to keep it safe from himself.
• Tompel looks like himself: the patch by his left cheek, a red collar with white dots and a bell, a plumed tail, and black hind legs over white socks.

Endless, with a story

• A grove is cleansed by damming the three drains the rats dug: stand at each one to block it.
• The Keepers were never evil, only maddened by the smoke. Cleansed, they calm and walk off into the trees.
• The run goes on after cleansing, harder: the Free Float's rats and their torchbearers, whose fires burn only cats, foremen, a Rat Baron, and Green Promise Plantations' green-painted planters.
• Every grove you cleanse keeps a few more Keepers away from the next.

Experience as fireflies

• Whatever falls leaves its worth as a firefly. Walk near and it comes to you; whoever catches it, the whole crew gets it.
• They wait for you as long as the run lasts. Tuyul swallow them, but catch a tuyul and he gives them all back.
• Freeing an area or cleansing a grove calls every firefly in.

Your first weapon, and every weapon after

• A run starts with nothing. The first level comes in about two seconds, and its hand is three weapons drawn from your pack, with a free redraw.
• Every weapon evolves twice, after levels 4 and 9. Each time you choose a bonus, which earns it a nickname. Elements (burn, poison, slow, daze and bleed) come only from evolutions.

Reading the fight

• Each weapon's shot is drawn as what it is: bullets, pellets, nails, bolts, arrows, pebbles, darts, flares.
• Damage numbers, colored by how hard a hit lands (they can be turned off under Gameplay). Rats and dogs flash white when struck.
• "Damage dealt" in the pause menu, the top sources on the summary, and a history of your last 20 runs.
• Health reads full only when it's full, and a hit flashes it. Choose how health shows under Graphics.
• Things out of sight get an arrow, a badge and their distance at the screen's edge. Cages and levers show a ring for how close you need to be, and cages move each run.

The village

• News waits under a "!" until you go and hear it, with markers at the edge when it's out of sight.
• Jogiboy leads the way to the news, barks to hurry you along, and has plenty to say if you dawdle or walk off.
• Leave by the gate or the far end of the forest path. The map opens without a stall.
• The smithy and the pack show what you've chosen, on Tompel and on its own.

Also

• The title says when a newer version is out (turn it off with Check for updates). Nothing is downloaded.
• Playing together online sends less, and coming back from a dropped connection is checked more thoroughly.
• The Handler no longer gets stuck on trees, and a pounce pins what it lands on.

Full Changelog: v0.0.5...v0.0.6

Felterra: Tall Order 0.0.5

What's new

Play together, on one screen

• Up to four players in Endless. Press A on another gamepad to join as an ally, at the start of a run or partway through.
• Each ally picks their own coat and what they start with, a weapon forged at the smithy too. In a grove, each one has a cub of their own.
• The crew shares Nine Lives. Stand by a downed crewmate for three seconds to get them up; if nobody comes in time, a life is spent and they're back up beside you.
• A bigger crew draws a bigger horde. The camera keeps everyone on screen.
• Each ally's cards sit in a small panel at the side. Hold Back to see them in full.

Play together, online

• "Play together online" on the title. Host, and read your room's six-letter code to your friends; they type it in to join. On a home network, joining by the host's address works too.
• Everyone has their own screen and their own cards.
• Drop in at any time: you're dealt the cards the crew has already earned, so you don't start behind.
• If your connection drops, your cat waits off the field for a minute and your game finds the host again.
• Everyone needs the same version to play together. If you don't match, the game says who should update.

Shared rewards

• What a run earns goes home to every player's village: the cats rescued, the salvage and a grove's offerings.
• A crew's best run is kept apart from your best alone.

Full Changelog: v0.0.4...v0.0.5

Felterra: Tall Order 0.0.4

What's new

Every area has its own ground

• Layout: each Liberation area has its own size and its own trees, stumps, bushes, rocks, fallen trunks, log stacks, cabins and crates. Nothing walks through them: the horde finds its way around, rounds stop in them, and low things are leapt.
• The war map: the board and the map page show the forest as territories, in the cats' pink or the company's orange, with mist over what isn't found yet and arrows into what can be taken next.
• Villagers no longer get stuck against walls.

The forest's spirits

• After the airstrip is freed, the walk home brings the spirits to the village. Put out the burning roofs with water from the well, then face Inyiak Balang, the forest's grandfather.
• A new horde: ember wisps, tuyul who run off with salvage, charred saplings, smoke monkeys who hide in their own smoke, and pocong.
• After the truce, a shrine stands by the gate, and Endless goes through it to cleanse a grove.

The spirits' gift

• Home from the first grove, a tiger cub joins you in the groves. It walks at your heel and pounces on whatever comes close.
• Groves give offerings, one for each minute you last. Spend them at the shrine to rank the cub up, or to wake a new element: ember burns, smoke slows, root holds, river throws. It's a slow climb, on purpose.
• Cards level the cub during a run.

Runs lighter

• With a big horde on screen, the game holds 60 frames a second where it used to drop to the low 40s.
• A new setting, Fallen left lying, lets a slower machine keep fewer bodies on the ground.

Fixed

• Cages no longer hide under a tree's crown.

Full Changelog: v0.0.3...v0.0.4

Felterra: Tall Order 0.0.3

What's new

The village is a real village now

• Layout: it's twice as tall, and the camera follows you up and down. The houses stand at their own depths along worn footpaths, around a square with a well and a bench, among gardens, a woodpile, a washing line, rice drying in the sun and coconut palms.
• Doors: every door faces the road. A house below the road lifts its roof off while you're at its door, so you're never hidden behind it.
• Houses: redrawn the cartoon way, with chunky stilts, arched doors, round windows and puffy gold thatch.
• Leaving: the village no longer lines up at the gate when you leave. Whoever has a word for you comes over to say it.

In a run

• You take one dodge mutation a run, not three. More cards for it make it stronger.
• You can see the net drone's net fly, open and land over the rats it catches.
• The drones make sound now: rotors in flight, louder shots, and the net launching and tearing.
• The trees around each area have leafy crowns.

Runs cooler

• The game draws at most 60 frames a second and stops mixing music you can't hear, so laptops stay cooler.

Full Changelog: v0.0.2...v0.0.3

Felterra: Tall Order 0.0.2

A big one: the story arrives. More about the game on itrium.id/tall-order.

Meet Tompel

• Tompel is the hero: a white cat with black ears, a black crown, saddle and tail, and a mole by his nose.
• He walks on four legs. He holds one weapon in his mouth and another in his tail.
• The start: a choice between the nunchaku ("Go Chuck Purris style") and the handgun ("Go John Whisker style").
• Gear and stats: press I to see what he carries and every stat, without pausing.

Liberation: free the forest

• Seven areas, each a hand-made place with its own goal and its own boss: break the nests, free the caged, wreck the saws, hold the clearing, pull the levers, cut the power, cut the fuel lines.
• Wrecked, then healed: each area looks wrecked while the company holds it, and grows green again once it's free.
• Endless is still there for the score chase, on a fresh clearing every run.
• A goal you've finished stays done, even if the boss beats you.

The village and its people

• The village starts in ruins, and the story brings it back. Every area you free brings home a cat whose trade restores something:
  • the smith, the weaver and the carpenter
  • the watchtower, which shows each boss and how to beat it
  • the market, for trading salvage and cloth
  • the healer's hut, with a tonic for extra rerolls
• The Elder welcomes Tompel home. In cutscenes, everyone speaks beside their own portrait, in six moods.
• Jogiboy lives next door to the Elder and goes everywhere Tompel goes. He's the village's finder.
• Lessons at home: cats teach new dodge mutations when you walk back in, and a panel explains what's new.
• Freed cats talk as they go, each in their own way. Some throw firecrackers on the way out.

More to fight with

• Weapons first: you start with six weapons and five pieces of gear, and forge the rest at the smithy.
• Your pack chooses what your cards can offer.
• New content:
  • 11 new pieces of gear, 31 in all
  • 6 new dodge mutations, 13 in all
  • 3 new support: a bee swarm, an alarm drum and a snare
  • the nunchaku
• Stories: every weapon, piece of gear and trick has a story and a line on what it does.
• English by default: names are in English, and the stories keep their Indonesian roots.

Fixes

• Full health: it no longer reads as more than the maximum (it showed "42/41").
• Sounds: they're made while the game starts, not in the middle of a fight.
• Versions: the game shows its version on the title screen and in the settings.
• One download per system: each platform is a single file now.

Download

Unzip it and run the game inside. The builds aren't signed by a publisher yet, so your system asks you to confirm once. The README says how.

Saves: settings, records and the village from 0.0.1 still load.

Felterra: Tall Order 0.0.1

What's Changed

• Add the playable prototype in #1
• Let upgrades evolve and grow without limit, and add settings in #2
• Add sound effects, synthesized and driven by the simulation in #3
• Add adaptive placeholder music in #4
• Add the title, the run's summary and its records in #5
• Build for every platform, and release from a version tag in #6

Full Changelog: https://github.com/itriumid/felterra-tall-order/commits/v0.0.1