ACK Downloads, News and Updates

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:11 pm

Hello everyone,

This thread will be used to announce new patches (or upcoming major changes) to the Adventure Creation Kit software.

You may want to subscribe to this thread, so you will be notified whenever a new version or patch is made available.

When new patches are announced, they can be downloaded at this link: http://www.80sgaming.org/ack

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:21 pm

Hi everyone,

v3.200 has been released and is now available for download at http://www.mozomedia.com/ack/download.html

If you were using an ACK version prior to 3.1 (3.03 and earlier) then you will need to replace your entire ACK installation. Rename your old "Adventure Creation Kit" folder, copy in the new one, and move any games you were working on from the old ACK\GAMES folder to the new one. Then delete your old copy of the program.

As new patches for 3.2 are released, I will announce them here. You will be able to download (or check for) these patches at http://www.80sgaming.org/ack -- just compare the version number on the page to the version number at the top of your ACK\UPDATES.TXT file.

Enjoy the new version!

- Chris

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 12:49 am

v2.301 is now available -- minor bug fix to the new TUTORIAL adventure, and the old SPACE demo is now back again. There's a PATCH.DAT posted for those of you who have already installed v3.200.

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:36 pm

v3.202 is now available. Some room data corruption bugs have been addressed, and the "room delete" option in the room layout editor has been re-enabled. The delete option now does a "sanity check" on your region data. Try it out on the "ROME" region in the CARAVAN adventure (try to delete a room, then press ESC when it asks which room), it will catch a few errors.

Until some more testing can be done on the room editor to verify that these bugs are indeed fixed, I would encourage people to back up their adventure folder frequently (and especially before deleting a room) just in case!

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:39 pm

A new version of Josh's ACK Launcher is now available at http://www.80sgaming.org/ack/launcher.zip -- the new launcher has a button to open your adventure folder, which is extremely handy for dropping in custom content, backing up files, etc. The new launcher can't be updated with a patch.dat, so you'll have to drop it in manually. Just replace your old "ACK Launcher.exe" file with the one you can download.

The new launcher is bundled with the full download of v3.202, so if you downloaded that version (or later), you already have the new launcher.

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 7:48 pm

Sorry to spam you with patch updates, but there's now a v3.203 patch with more fixes to the room map editor. This time the "add room" tool got a complete rewrite. Several bugs were fixed, and the tool was generally improved (you can now place any corner first).

It also no longer displays the wall borders in cyan -- a vestigal remnant from the CGA version of ACK, if you can believe it. :)

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 11:31 pm

Another day, another PATCH.DAT -- v3.204 adds some new features that were easy enough to add, and should be very useful:

* Actions can run dialogues
* Improvement to the macro "IF" command
* Addition of macro "GETADJ" command
* Improvement to the action selector in the object editor

Check the UPDATES.TXT for a full description of the changes.

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 11:06 am

There's a PATCH.DAT for v3.205, fixing a bug introduced in the last patch -- if you downloaded the 3.204 patch, please grab this one right away!

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:16 am

There's a patch for v3.206 available now, with bug fixes to the "drop" command, the "look" command, and some macro issues.

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 12:27 pm

There is a PATCH.DAT up for v3.207, fixing the bugs mentioned on the forums over the weekend, including those with the "Look" command reporting seeing "nothing" or not processing actions properly.

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 4:22 pm

There's now a PATCH.DAT for 3.208, fixing a problem with "using" an object that calls a teleporting macro from a room map. 3.208 also allows you to have up to 999 short messages, although the high-numbered ones (above 255) are only usable from macros.

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 7:28 pm

There's a v3.209 patch posted -- I hadn't quite fixed everything with teleport macros in the 3.208 patch. Now, it should be all set. Enjoy!

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 11:45 am

There's a new patch for v3.210. Nothing major in this patch:

* When placing a portal to a worldmap region, you now see the minimap when choosing the destination.
* Volume levels for the Ultima music tracks are more uniform (the quiet songs were resampled to be louder).

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:44 pm

There's a 3.211 patch up now, fixing a few dialogue bugs (including the display bug when they scroll).

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 10:37 pm

Quick follow-up patch -- the latest version is now 3.212. There was still a bug with the (HELLO) dialogue topic feature, it wasn't working properly through game saves/loads. Fixed now.

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Thu Aug 21, 2008 11:27 am

Hi everyone, v3.213 is now up. This one makes some improvements to the ITEM-TAKE dialogue command: if taking money, you can now specify the amount.

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:04 pm

v3.214 is now available: the handling of the "death macro" has been improved somewhat, allowing a death macro to transport you to another place and resurrect you, if you want.

Also a new "passable to" setting for terrain, that allows you to use any variable (not just A-D) to determine if terrain is/isn't passable.

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 1:58 pm

v3.215 is now up -- I found a few bugs that I didn't want to wait to fix. Bugs with the (BEGINQ) and (ENDQ) dialogue topics have been fixed. I've finally done some more extensive testing on them, and everything seems OK now. There was also a bug with the map-editing macro commands on worldmaps (X or Y positions evenly divisible by 16 weren't working) and they're now fixed.

There's one new feature in this version: you can create "NO DROP" items that the player can't drop, destroy, or sell. If you have an irreplaceable plot item that you don't want the player accidentally junking, set the weight to "00" (instead of just "0") and it will make it no-drop. No drop items always have 0 weight.

(Somehow I've been entering the last couple updates as v2.3 instead of 3.2 -- not sure why the numbers were getting jumbled in my head, but rest assured that it all has indeed been 3.2!)

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 10:51 am

Hi everyone,

v3.216 is up -- with a bug-fix to the macro editor, so this is an important update if you're writing macros. The copy/paste feature in the macro editor could cause lines to get dropped from the macro. This patch fixes that bug.

It also fixes a bug with the macro map editing commands -- they didn't have the range they should have had. Now they do.

Chris H · Post by **Chris H** » Sun Nov 23, 2008 12:48 am

I've mainly been working on a new adventure (time permitting) but I've managed to put a couple more updates together, so I'm releasing it as 3.217. It's just a couple of minor additions:

New variable, LASTMOV: indicates the last direction the player moved in. Lets you have a portal send you to somewhere different depending on which direction you approached from, for example.

The Inventory screen has also been overhauled, it now shows item icons, weapon damage, and item descriptions (the "examine" short message of an item, if set.)

ACK Downloads, News and Updates

ACK Downloads, News and Updates

v3.200 released!

3.217 patch