Beta 5 is more than half-complete at this point, and will be out with the next couple weeks. Still plenty more little features to work on, but all the major stuff is out of the way!
All the ColorsThe bulk of this week was spent on a new system of render filters to enable players with specific needs to make visual adjustments to aspects including brightness, saturation, and contrast.
They can do things like create a low-contrast effect, e.g. this one called "Sleepy"
Some ASCII combat in Sleepy mode:
UI interaction in another low-contrast mode, "Autumn"
Of course filters might just be for fun as well. Unless some of you would like to seriously switch over to "swap mode" which reverses the foreground colors for a very different look:
Swap mode in action:
I think swap mode looks even better when combined with one of the low-contrast filters:
Over on the blog this week I covered this system in more detail, including additional demo images and an overview of its implementation. Check out the full article: "
Color Customization."
Edge CaseI've also added an option to show the map borders. For now it's off by default however, and only available in the advanced options, because although experienced players can and do figure out invisible map bounds indirectly via other UI features (you may have seen me do this on stream before...), there are a few cases where knowing the bounds can be somewhat spoilery for new players who haven't yet discovered certain areas before.
I also went ahead and created a different style specifically for when the the swap filter is active:
WikiRaine has been doing a great job of importing all our item export data into the
wiki. Of course everyone has access to their own item gallery and data exports, including HTML and CSV formats, but the wiki will be good for linking, its sortable tables, attaching public discussion to particular parts, and maybe eventually a bot in the chat channels.
Anyone who doesn't mind can now spoil themselves silly with data, browsing hundreds upon hundreds of items... for example this subset of energy guns:
Each item type has its own box that includes relevant fields for that category.
7DRLRemember that Cogmind
originated as a 7DRL, and still lots of people play that free version as well. One of Cogmind's best players, GJ, went back and legitimately beat it, becoming one of only two known players to do so, and the only one to do it without the old cheesy mining tactic
The 7DRL version wasn't all that balanced towards the end, so if you can kick modern Cogmind's butt and want a different kind of challenge as well as a chance to see a lot of today's items and concepts at their fledgling stages, check it out.
While we're on the topic of 7DRLs,
this year's challenge is just around the corner! Any of you participating? Every year I want to, and have tons of ideas piled up from false starts that didn't make it beyond the planning stages because I'm too busy, but I'm hoping this year will be different
Since a lot of the relevant SITREP discussion happens on Steam rather than in the forums, for reference here's a link to this same news on Steam. But feel free to post replies here, too 
