IT-HE RPG Engine / News: Recent posts

This is to announce the new (and somewhat late) release of the IT-HE Roleplaying Engine (IRE) and associated toolset.

Its primary purpose is to power the Ultima-inspired adventure 'Reign of the Just', but it is also intended for people to use to create their own adventures. A simple (but unfinished) demo world 'The Flat' is provided.

This version has the following enhancements and fixes:

* Switched to Allegro 4.2.0... read more

Reign of the Just Demo 2 is now available, for both Windows and Linux. It is powered by IRE 0.92 (released on 25th July 2004) and is full of wonders.

Go see the changelog for more details.

This final release is identical to Release Candidate 3,
so if you've already got that, don't bother to upgrade.

05-05-2004 - Release 9.1 is available.
Release 9 (0.91) is basically a minor update. It does however affect compatability with previous versions (chairs may not work correctly).

These are the highlights (see the Status page for details):

* Improvements to frame-locking, especially with mouse control
* More pathfinder fixes
* Numerous optimisations
* Editor displays radius for trigger objects
* Editor now handles invalid objects intelligently again and asks the user what to do
* PNG image file support (from Michael Lefebvre)
* SDL audio support for Linux/UNIX (doesn't work in Windows, though)
* Triggers should now work correctly on large objects.
* Proper GNU configure script (from Michael Lefebvre)
* Various bug fixes

Release 9 is a fairly major update. It breaks compatability with previous game packages (dropping support for .rar files), so Reign of the Just will need to be repackaged to support this new engine.

These are the highlights (see the News page, or the Status page for excruciating detail):

-The game and editor are now frame-locked and will not run at insane speeds on very fast machines when the map is nearly empty.... read more

A problem has been found with the 'The Flat' demo data in 0.81.. the command window doesn't work. This blatant error went unnoticed in the rush to release Reign of the Just.

The new file 'data081a.zip' should fix the problem.

Alexandre Pineau has once again kindly made a Debian package of the game.

The editor is still not available yet, but there is also now a package for Reign of the Just.

Thanks to the help of Michaelle Febvre, a new version of the Linux binary is available which should work on other distributions than just Mandrake.

A replacement base081L.zip has been uploaded but may take a while for the mirrors to sync. An update containing just the new executables is also available.

This is just a change in the way the program was linked, so there are no source updates, and this does not affect the Windows version.

The game IRE was invented for is finally released, albeit in demo form.
Reign of the Just - The False Messiah is available at http://rotj.it-he.org - it is not complete but should provide a good few hours of entertainment.

Binaries are available for Windows and Linux, approximately 10MB each.

Release 8.1 (0.81) is a point update for the Reign of the Just project, which will be released imminently.

These are the highlights (see the Status page for details):

* Menu support.
* Ability to start the game from a saved position instead of beginning a new game and then reloading
* Allogg support under Linux (Free-speech music playback)
* Savegame support has been rewritten and hopefully works more reliably
* A bunch of (esoteric) new features to the script
* Video mode selection in Windows finally looks as good as other platforms
* Room blanking fixes
* LHS support under Linux
* Lots of miscellaneous bugfixes
* DOS version is not working reliably but I don't know why. I'm hoping to have working DOS support again by the next release.

The Debian release has highlighted a few bugs in the datafiles.
It is advisable to download the new version of the data08.zip file.
The revised edition is 2230198 bytes long and contains a changelog file 'update1.txt'.

It may take a while for the mirrors to sync up. Get it from the web page (ire.sf.net) if unsure.

Similarly, a packaging error was discovered in the Linux binary that prevented the editor from working. Hence there is also a new base08L.zip file.

Alexandre Pineau has kindly made a Debian package of the game engine. Apparently the editor will be added too at a future point in time.

The package can be found here:
http://alexandre.pineau.free.fr/ire_debian.htm

Release 0.8 is now available.
The demo world is largely a point release, to make it compatible with the changes in the engine. It does make use of a few new features, however.

Major changes in the new release are:

-Mouse support, including regular point'n'click and the ability to move the player by holding down the right mouse button and dragging.

-When browsing a container inside the player's pocket, you can now go back up to the object it is inside.... read more

The Windows version has a DLL problem: a new version has been uploaded (and the source has been updated too).

Make sure IRE.EXE has a time of 19:45 or it may not work.

Release 0.7 is now available on the web page and also on the Sourceforge file list for IRE.

The major features of this release are:

* Multiple map support
* Room blanking much improved
* SEER code replaced with PEscript
* Duplicate object support (for trees etc)
* User-defined lookup tables
* Upgraded to Allegro 4.0

The 'Game Modules' page, which has been broken
for a long time, is now up. It contains info about the two game projects, The Flat and The False Messiah, and now includes screenshots of the latter.

Release 0.68 is now available in source and binary form, for all supported platforms (Linux x86, DOS, BeOS and Win32).

Full list of of changes is on the NEWS section of the IRE web page.