TSC 2.1.0-beta1 released

Written by quintus on 2019-12-23.

First beta version of 2.1.0 has been released.

The TSC team is pleased to announce that after years of development, the first beta version of the upcoming 2.1.0 release is available for download now. The release has been tagged on the Git repository as v2.1.0-beta1 and has been uploaded to our web server.

Why did this take so long?

TSC is a project entirely driven by volunteers in their free time. We all know that free time is scarce. TSC has a massive code base written in C++ over a course of now more than 10 years, as it builds upon the original codebase of Secret Maryo Chronicles (SMC). The inherited code’s quality is rather poor and it is difficult to work with this inherited code.

What has changed?

Our last stable release was version 2.0.0 in 2015. Since then, lots of improvements have been made to the game. A detailed listing can be found in the file CHANGELOG in the source tarball, and even that listing does not include all the improvements. These are the highlights:

  • Several new background music tracks
  • Switched some SMC graphics for original TSC ones
  • New enemies: Larry and Doom Larry, which fuse and ultimately explode if hit
  • Improvements to level scripting
  • Editor UI overhauled
  • Levels load much faster compared to 2.0.0
  • Secret Area markers are available in the editor
  • New in-game scripting console on pressing [F7]
  • Several bugfixes
  • Upgrade CEGUI dependency from 0.7.9 to 0.8.7
  • Support for and requirement of a C++11-capable C++ compiler

The CEGUI upgrade deserves a separate mention. CEGUI 0.8.x broke their API and as more and more people do not have access to the outdated CEGUI 0.7.9, it was necessary to conduct this upgrade. This upgrade however bound so many of TSC’s team resources that the 2.1.0 release ultimately ended up with fewer new features than it was originally intended. Now that the upgrade has been done it should be much easier to compile TSC on modern Linux distributions than it was the case with the old 2.0.0 stable release.

A feature that will sadly not make it into 2.1.0 is a story. We have adopted a final story draft for the future of the game, though.

When can we expect the final release?

The current plan is to release the final 2.1.0 version early in 2020.

What happens in the Beta phase?

The beta phase is intended to polish the rough edges of TSC. No new features are introduced into the game anymore, but any bugs found will be fixed. Additionally, the following changes can happen:

  • Addition of new static assets, namely of music and static images
  • Addition of translations
  • Addition of new levels
  • Fine-tuning of the build system (this is not a user-visible aspect)

We reserve the right to make other changes as required if an urgent need arises.

Can I help TSC as a user now?

Yes, you can! Please set yourself into possession of a copy of TSC and play the game. Report any bugs found either on the mailinglist, on the forum, or directly on our bug tracker (requires a GitHub account).

Please make levels and submit them for inclusion into TSC 2.1.0 on the forum or mailinglist. As of now, the levelsets of TSC 2.1.0 and 2.0.0 are nearly identical. The TSC team depends on the submission of levels by users as the work on the C++ code does not leave much time for the creation of new levels. The TSC team especially welcomes work on levels that implement parts of the aforementioned story draft.

Download

Source Code

Binary Downloads

Windows

Linux

quintus
On behalf of the TSC team.