Hello to everyone following the FreedroidRPG project! 2013 just rolled in, and the team would like to wish you all a happy new year, free from the influence of nasty robots that want to kill everything. We wave goodbye to 2012, remembering it as a good year full of positive development. Here's just a short outline of the major changes that marked the closing of 2012:

  • Matthias Krüger implemented the possibility to "sacrifice" a hacked bot and add its health to that of the player, if the player can win the hacking game again.
  • Chandra, the town sage, is a little old, but Raymond Jennings helped restore some of his wisdom; he now detects properly whether or not the player is escorted by the Red Guard, and chooses his words accordingly.
  • After the player teleports into town, it is now possible to reverse the teleportation cost-free by simply stepping into the town's refurbished teleporter room. The teleportation cloud turns blue when this service is available. Thanks to Xenux.
  • Many levels were tweaked and improved iteratively by Matthias Krüger.
  • Nick "Nario" Hagman has created a new music track for the game, and it can be heard in the Shelter level where Will Gapes can be found.
  • Samuel Pitoiset improved and streamlined the code used for player input and rendering fonts and lighting.
  • Xenux and Matthias Krüger worked to improve the numerous dialogs in the game both over and under the hood; from typos through grammatical or continuity errors and on to underlying Lua code.
  • Miles McCammon added a tongue-in-cheek title screen that accompanies losing the game.
  • Karol has set up shop inside the bowels of the Hell Fortress; Karol specializes in items related to crafting and building bots. Thanks to Matthias Krüger.
  • Jeniffer, a new character, has been added, as well as an item associated with her. By Matthias Krüger.
  • If a non-player character that is key for completion of the game is under threat of dying, and thus making the game unwinnable, the player is now notified through an event. Thanks to Miles McCammon.
  • The game icon (the Paraicon) has been refreshed and now reflects the new model used by the player character. Thanks to Matthias Krüger.
  • The dialog interface has been widgetized, which means it can be displayed faster and more aesthetically on larger screen resolutions, through much work by fluzz.
  • A new Lua function has been added to the dialogs that allows timed events to occur after a number of seconds, and is used in Michelangelo's dialog. By Xenux.
  • Michael Mendelson found and fixed a memory leak, and consequentially made the art of debugging a little easier.

That closed 2012, and now this is the team's New Year's Resolution for 2013:

  • Make the most super mega awesome free open-source game the world has ever seen
  • Try really hard not to cause a robot apocalypse in the process

And so, as always, we want to thank every contributor for their work, and alongside wishes of a year filled with peace and joy and friendship and fun playing FreedroidRPG, we ask everyone who wants to improve the game, whether you have a patch, a suggestion or just an idea, to talk to us about it, to make an official ticket or to do it yourself with a patch. We are currently in need of someone proficient in C to work with fluzz on the engine code, as well as to review and give the OK to the patches submitted on ReviewBoard. Who knows, you may find your name here on this list in the future!

-The FreeDroidRPG Team