There is quite an amount of changes in this new release, as you can see below. Overall the game should be more stable, as lots of memory leaks have been solved, and some critical bugs have been corrected. I was also expecting it to be faster, but unfortunately some of the features and checks that have been added add some slowness when there are a lot of cards on the screen. Hopefully I’ll find a way to solve that in next release.

Trample is now broken, oh well… you can find the complete list of known bugs here. I’ll also update this list in the days to come, with reports I got from the beta testers.

Here’s a small video showing a few AI vs AI games. Nothing fancy, as there’s not that much graphical changes since version 0.1.0 (but you’ve got to check the deck editor !)

Changelog

General

• Deck Editor easier to navigate (shows the number of occurences of a given card rather than all the occurences, cards sorted by alphabetical order, other improvements)
• (bug fix) Less crashes in the Deck Editor and the shop (fixed some memory leaks and other bugs)
• (AI) : The AI can now play cards that have hybrid mana in their cost
• (AI): AI doesn’t hangs up at damage resolution step anymore
• Spells that target stuff in the stack, such as lifeforce, Cancel, counterspell, etc… should now work !!
• added around 30 new cards, including Relentless Rats, Icy manipulator, Boomerang
• Cards navigation improved in the game
• (internal) Test suite can now target objects in the stack
• Added a new keyword for _cards.dat : draw
• Improved some keywords for _cards.dat. Now some cards can have changing targets (to code abilities such as prodigal sorcerer)
• Small improvements to the AI
• You can display/hide the ingame big cards by pressing the triangle button

Rules Fixes

• (bug fix) Legendary should now work
• (bug fix) Persist should now half work
• Added Flash (untested)
• (bug fix) Summoning sickness fixed
• (bug fix) An attacking creature with protection from … cannot be blocked by cards with the quality
• Library cannot be seen anymore
• A player that needs to draw but has no card in his/her library loses the game

Cards

Bugs where fixed on the following cards:

• Animate Dead
• Armageddon clock
• Benalish Knight
• Cancel
• Castle
• Counterspell
• Force of Nature
• Helm of Chtazuk
• Hurkyll’s Recall
• Hypnotic specter 10E
• Kormus Bell, Living Lands (AI crash)
• Kudzu
• Lifeforce
• Obelisk of Bant
• Resurrection
• Roc of Kher Ridges

Download here

As usual, this game has been extensively tested on my PSP, but if you find anything that prevents it from running correctly, please let me know. Especially, if you plan to talk about the release on a blog or a news website, please make sure the game works on your own psp before making any announcement, thanks

Also, make sure to check the forums, for extra contents kindly provided by the members (decks, new cards, avatars,…)

Note that if you’re desperately looking for new cards, we have a small but very active community on the forums, and around a hundred new cards are already available !

In the end, of course, the decision is mine. Adding new cards adds bugs and maintenance, so it’s less important than improving the engine itself, but it’s generally more fun for me

I now have to wait until the 3000 is hacked so I can start working on network features for Wagic.

I’m not a hacker, so I can’t help much here, but I’ll send 50% of the donations received through Wagic until Day X to the team or individual who publicly releases an affordable (not an expensive modchip) and relatively secure (not too high percentage of bricks) way of running homebrews on the PSP 3000.

• This includes the donations I’ve received so far
• Day X is the day where the “method” to enable homebrews is publicly released.
• If several teams contribute to this, I’ll choose the one I’ll send the money to.
• The promise is over if I get enough donations to buy a second hand phat or slim psp (and I hope this does NOT happen)

This announcement is definitely not going to speed up the process, or even give motivation to the hackers working on that, but that’ll be my way to thank them whenever that happens.

Let’s cross fingers, now !

http://wololo.net/forum

That’s a fresh and very basic install. We’ll set up rules, moderation and all these boring things  if/when the forum grows.

To all the people who sent card files and other files that can help, please post the links again on the forums, that would be great !

http://sceners.org/index.php?itemid=16

Edit: This has been confirmed by Alek on dark-alex.org

Edit: F#ck ! Some bots have bought all the preorders on amazon.co.jp >.< Now I’m gonna have to wait to get one

Edit: got my preorder, but that was tough !

Wagic is a highly customizable game. Like most psp homebrews, the graphics are not encrypted or protected whatsoever, so as I already said in a previous post, you can customize lots of things.

One area that I didn’t speak much about are the cards themselves. Even if you’re not a programmer, you can add custom cards to the game. I describe how to do it in this article. If someone could come up with new sets in the days to come, that would be great (of course, you cannot expect to add entire Magic sets without coding, but still…)

Some cards can be added to the game without recompiling it

There’s one another interesting thing: decks. If you’ve tried the game, you probably have cool decks that you want to share, or deck ideas for the IA. Hell, the latest release has 438 cards, and the IA is still using a limited pool of less than 150 cards, because that stupid WilLoW forgot to update the decks !

So if you have any cool ideas for decks that the IA can actually use (creatures, simple lands, spells with 1 or no target…, targets must be cards or players), start creating them : go to the Res/ai/baka folder. you will see some files named deck*.txt (deck1.txt .. deck6.txt)

The IA randomly picks one deck between deck1 to deck*.txt, so you can either delete all deck files and create your own “deck1.txt” so that the AI always play with it, or alternatively, create a “deck7.txt”, “deck8.txt”, and the AI will randomly pick them.

If you think you’ve created a cool Deck for the AI, please post it here, or host the txt file wherever you can and post a link!  I think the AI could have some cool cards that are not only from Revised, and, of course, more cool spells such as auras ! I’ll let you figure out which cards don’t work well with the AI !

Someone also mentionned some beginner’s decks, for people who want to play as soon as they install the game rather than constructing their own deck…if you have cool decks for that, that work with wagic, go ahead.

I worked for many months on that project, it’s time I get some sleep and fix some bugs while the blog readers are hard at work, making Wagic a better game

Since the beta version was released, the following bugs have been solved:

• Mana abilities of special lands such as Cascade Bluffs
• Problems when Ascendant Evincar and Goblin King are in play at the same time
• Problems with wither sending a creatures to the graveyard several times
• Volcanic Eruption
• Mana ability for creatures such as Llanowar elves or bird of paradise is now subject to summoning sickness
• Shop bug when buying a booster/starter after playing

Plus, of course, compared to the initial alpha, the changes that were already mentionned in the beta release:

• The AI can now use a few spells with one target, such as lightning bolt, or a few auras, etc…
• Some graphical improvements in the game screen (shadows, background, targetting…)
• Added between 150 and 200 new cards from 10th Edition, Eventide, and Shards of Alara (ok, I’m cheating, some of these cards are just available in Revised with a different design)
• Improved the _cards.dat configuration files, allows a bit more scripting without recompiling (destroy, bury, damage,…)
• Added new card abilities : Persist(untested),haste,Exalted,Legendary(Untested), Wither
• Now possible to play without the card pictures (I plan to do releases without the pictures in the future, for bandwidth and legal reasons)
• You can now sell cards in the deck editor with the X button (not extensively tested). Do not forget to save before going back to the main menu, even if you didn’t update your deck.
• The shop now shows you the contents of the booster/starter you just bought (not very usable yet). Click X to close it !
• (Internal/windows version): Added a small test suite for automated tests
• Hybrid Mana cost
• (Internal): Counters system. No cool graphical representation yet.
• Bug Fixes:

• • Auras should now go to the graveyard if their target goes to the graveyard
  • First strike/double strike should now work correctly
  • Activated abilities : can’t use activated abilities with a Tap symbol for creatures that have summoning sickness (except in some specific cases where the bug remains, such as mana producers)
  • Birds of Paradise: can now add green mana
  • Animate Dead
  • Drain Life
  • Goblin Balloon Brigade now doesn’t have automatic flying
  • Keldon Warlord’s power/toughness decrease if a creature is put into a graveyard
  • Paralyze is now put into the graveyard if its target is put into a graveyard

Enjoy a few screenshots:

new cards

the shop

the deck

choosing targets for a spell is easier

Wanna try Shards of Alara ?

If you post some news regarding this release on a website, please make sure that the game works on your psp before announcing anything.
If the game doesn’t work for some reason, please post a comment here.

DOWNLOAD

*I think my donators-only beta got a bit misunderstood, mostly by people who never tried the game, and got news that some evil guy was trying to sell copyrighted content with his crappy homebrew. My initial goal was to thank people who donate, not to make the others feel they were “less important”. I still feel insulted that people who complained were only people who didn’t even play the game once, but hey, that’s the internet, I guess.
I’ll think of something better for the next beta test, finding a way to thank donators but also people who help in other ways.
Please feel free to give your opinion on that matter, by the way.

I you donated, you should receive a link by email to download the file today. If that’s not the case, please drop me a line (my email is available in the paypal transaction, I think), and I’ll reply ASAP.

If you donate before the version is publicly released, I’ll of course send you a link to download (note that I am away on most weekends), this is not limited to people who donated in the past

If you can’t or don’t want to donate, don’t worry, the file should be publicly available in the weeks to come.

This is more a way to thank people who donated, rather than a message that says “please donate or I won’t give you the game”, I hope it is clear that Wagic is open source and freeware.

So What does this new version bring ?

Although it does not bring much, there are a few improvements from here and there that I’m sure you’ll like:

• The AI can now use a few spells with one target, such as lightning bolt, or a few auras, etc…
• Some graphical improvements in the game screen (shadows, background, targetting…)
• Added between 150 and 200 new cards from 10th Edition, Eventide, and Shards of Alara (ok, I’m cheating, some of these cards are just available in Revised with a different design)
• Improved the _cards.dat configuration files, allows a bit more scripting without recompiling (destroy, bury, damage,…)
• Added new card abilities : Persist(untested),haste,Exalted,Legendary(Untested), Wither
• Now possible to play without the card pictures (I plan to do releases without the pictures in the future, for bandwidth and legal reasons)
• You can now sell cards in the deck editor with the X button (not extensively tested). Do not forget to save before going back to the main menu, even if you didn’t update your deck.
• The shop now shows you the contents of the booster/starter you just bought (not very usable yet). Click X to close it !
• (Internal/windows version): Added a small test suite for automated tests
• Hybrid Mana cost
• (Internal): Counters system. No cool graphical representation yet.
• Bug Fixes:

• • Auras should now go to the graveyard if their target goes to the graveyard
  • First strike/double strike should now work correctly
  • Activated abilities : can’t use activated abilities with a Tap symbol for creatures that have summoning sickness (except in some specific cases where the bug remains, such as mana producers)
  • Birds of Paradise: can now add green mana
  • Animate Dead
  • Drain Life
  • Goblin Balloon Brigade now doesn’t have automatic flying
  • Keldon Warlord’s power/toughness decrease if a creature is put into a graveyard
  • Paralyze is now put into the graveyard if its target is put into a graveyard

Enjoy a few screenshots:

new cards

the shop

the deck

choosing targets for a spell is easier

Wanna try Shards of Alara ?

(Oh, and please remember, although you probably know about it, that donating doesn’t give you any right…)