The "not as exciting as 1.0" release. Changes:

• New maps: Bed Desert, Bervenia Volcano, Lenalia Plateau, Inside of Lionel Castle, and Lost Sacred Precincts.
• Fixed some Berserk edge cases. (Thanks to formerdeathcorps of FFH for clearing these up.)
• Fixed the Mimic/Elemental interaction: Mimes now use the tile they're standing on to determine the attack instead of mimicking the actual action.
• Fixed messaging for draining attacks.
• Fixed a bug that caused all attacks from Frogs to drain health.
• Adjusted AI priorities slightly. Among other changes, AI units will be more reluctant to use low-speed actions.

Bervenia Volcano looks so sweet, you don't even know.

Today, after four years of sporadic development, Mega Tact receives its first major version bump and loses the letter a. Please indulge me for a minute while I tell a little story.

The history of Mega Tact has its roots in the GameFAQs forum for Final Fantasy Tactics. I've never been huge on the GameFAQs community, but I visited it occasionally in 2008, and in one particular discussion, I got the idea into my head that I could create an online, multiplayer interface for the game. Heck, it probably wouldn't take me more than a couple months of dedicated effort.

Well, there were a few roadbumps. The first one occurred when I accidentally deleted the entire codebase for Mega Tact. Almost none of it was recoverable, and I nearly gave up when that happened.

But I didn't, and eventually Mega Tact managed to find its way to the humble 0.1a release. For a few weeks after that, Mega Tact received heavy updates – mostly bugfixes – until it just... stopped. Maybe the players were tired of dealing with such an incredibly buggy product. Maybe the novelty had worn off. Maybe I was just tired. For one reason or another, interest in Mega Tact vanished. And so it remained for the next four years.

The rebirth of Mega Tact was indirectly a result of the death of Super Tact. Maybe Final Fantasy Tactics doesn't have the largest fanbase, but it has one of the most dedicated: there aren't many video games of this level of complexity that fans will play by hand. The difficulty of executing the game by hand is part of the motivation behind Mega Tact, and the Super Tact community was fairly supportive when I was developing Mega Tact in 2009. A month and a half ago, one of the members of the now-defunct Super Tact community resurfaced on Slime Salad and encouraged me to resume development. Kajitani-Eizan is responsible in large part for Mega Tact making it to this point, and his playtesting and bug reports have been invaluable.

A month and a half of dedicated effort accomplished what the four intervening years could not. That time was not completely wasted, though: I barely knew what I was doing when it came to web development four years ago. The Mega Tact of 2013 is a much more polished product than would have been possible for me in 2009, and the difference really shows.

Mega Tact is officially in beta now. The full changelist for this release follows.

• You can now use special Jobs, monsters, demons, and Lucavi. In related news, Secret Hunt, Train, and Monster Skill are now implemented. (Please bear in mind that despite what the description implies, Monster Skill actually only has a range of a single tile. You could change this in a custom ruleset if you were so inclined.)
• New maps: Bariaus Valley, Fovoham Plains, Gariland Magic City, Germinas Peak, At the Gate of Riovanes Castle, Inside of Riovanes Castle, Chapel of St. Murond Temple, and Windmill Shed.
• Battles now support up to four teams. Random maps and most larger maps have spaces for a third and fourth team, though you can still run two-player battles on these maps. Many smaller maps still only have two team slots.
• If an opponent hasn't moved for over two days, you can force the current unit to take its turn under AI control. This means you can (eventually) finish battles that your opponent has abandoned.
• The UI flow has been greatly improved across the board, providing for a much smoother experience.
• A new button on the Battle screen allows you to change to a wide view, which rearranges the display to fit more information on wider monitors. Mega Tact will remember your preference.
• Your 3D map setting is also remembered.
• Tiles now use textured backgrounds, and the coloring has been adjusted to show better contrast for differing tile heights and deep water.
• Don't like what you're wearing? You can change it mid-battle with Equip Change.
• The AI has figured out how to use Math Skill. (You have to carry the one.)
• You know that "subscribe" feature that's been on the interface since 0.1? Yeah, it works now. You can subscribe to a battle to have it appear on your battle dashboard. It will stay there permanently or until you unsubscribe. Subscription may eventually send out PMs, but that's all it does for now.
• When you register a team containing units with illegal equipment, Mega Tact will try to find a substitute for that equipment slot instead of leaving it empty.
• The terrain in randomly-generated maps is now substantially less bumpy.
• AI-controlled teams now display in a different color on the battle dashboard.

Major bugfixes in 1.0:

• Fixed a bug that was preventing unit movement from being reported on the battle log.
• Abilities that choose randomly from a set of status effects (e.g. Nameless Dance) were inflicting quantum status effects.
• Corrected results reporting for battles that ended on an AI-controlled unit's turn.
• Corrected several errors in the AI that caused it to be excessively passive.
• Corrected a critical error that could cause your battle to disappear if the game went on too long.
• Line-effect abilities (e.g. Earth Slash) were calculating height based on the panel you targeted instead of the attacker's height.
• Units with Teleport were not able to move to tiles that contained permadead (e.g. crystallized) units.
• When registering for a battle where you control multiple teams, you now register first-to-last instead of last-to-first.
• Targeting fixed for reflectable area-of-effect spells that include units with Reflect in their effect radius.
• The game now checks for victory at the end of an action, preventing the odd case where you execute a killing blow and are still prompted to continue your turn.
• Dead units now register a line on the AT log for the turn on which they crystallize, and undead units are now always assumed to crystallize for purposes of the AT log. (The behavior was previously random: sometimes the unit would appear to revive, and sometimes it would appear to crystallize.)

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the game!

Well, I didn't really plan on this, but Mega Tact now features a working AI opponent. I had to build it out to support Charm, and once it's already there, why not let you play with it? Here's the full feature list:

• When creating a battle, there is now an option to place a team under AI control.
• AI-controlled statuses (Charm, Berserk, Confusion, Chicken) now work properly: the afflicted unit is controlled by the game and will act appropriately (or inappropriately, as appropriate).
• You should now be able to challenge yourself to a battle. (Previously, you were able to initiate a challenge against yourself, but you were blocked from registering both teams.)
• Spellcasting items (e.g. Lightning Bow, Poison Rod) now cast their spells on 25% of all attacks.
• Line-of-sight is now implemented: crossbows, dictionaries, longbows, and certain specific attacks will now check for a path to the target.
• Knockback is now implemented: units struck by Dash, Throw Stone, or a critical hit may be shoved back a tile, taking damage if they fall farther than their Jump score.
• You can now collect crystals from crystallized units to recover health and magic. (In case you're wondering, I have no plans to support crystal ability learning.)

Major bugfixes for this release:

• HP Restore and other Critical-induced reactions can no longer trigger when the unit would die from the attack, and they now appropriately trigger when the unit reaches critical (previously, they only triggered if the unit was at critical at the start of the attack). Similarly, damage-induced reactions now correctly check if the unit will die from the damage.
• Statuses that make the afflicted unit immune to themselves (e.g. Death Sentence, Invitation) no longer instantly unapply themselves.
• Mimes no longer mimic reaction abilities.

Please note that the AI does not currently use Math Skill. That gap will be addressed in the next release.

Today's release is a massive one, easily the biggest since Mega Tact v0.1a. Here's what's new:

• Custom rulesets! You can now create your own version of Mega Tact, redefining almost any of the game's abilities, items, unit types, skillsets, and status effects. This feature is not for the faint of heart, but it does come with a certain amount of documentation. Check out the Custom tab to start tinkering, or take a look at the rulesets other people have made via the Reference tab.
• Unit editing has been streamlined: the "Refresh" button will indicate when you should press it, and doing so is less obtrusive than before. Additionally, many changes are reflected in the info panel without needing to refresh.
• When creating a new unit, it defaults to Lv 99 and 97 Brave (was Lv 1, 50 Brave).
• The action preview now generates a warning for abilities for which the unit lacks enough Mp. (Did you know: You can still attempt to cast the spell as long as it's not an instant ability such as Beowulf's Magic Sword. The cost is checked when the ability resolves.)
• Slight visual makeover for form elements.
• Mega Tact now has an actual development environment. That means the game will not crash to a halt when I forget a parenthesis, though it also means non-critical bugfixes and new features will only go out with a release.

Major bugfixes:

• Several reaction abilities were working incorrectly (notably, Counter and Counter Flood).
• You can no longer target yourself with Attack or Battle Skill.
• Life Drain and Spell Absorb now work properly instead of donating Hp/Mp to the target.
• Fixed several interactions with the Undead status (e.g. Item).
• Fixed several interactions with Defending status, mostly relating to how you lose it.
• Units struck dead by an attack can no longer react to it.
• Units afflicted with Don't Act during a charge or performance will no longer continue to resolve the ability.
• Priests couldn't wear hats.
• Fixed the Mega Tact logo for old, terrible versions of Internet Explorer.

Lots of goodies in this release. New features:

• Units are no longer excluded from participating in a battle when they don't meet format restrictions. Instead, they will be automatically adjusted to meet the restrictions.
• The unit icon has changed slightly, placing it more towards the center of the tile. Unit icon team colors have also changed slightly, making them a bit brighter. More obviously, unit icons have a smaller icon indicating the unit's Job. (Thanks to Kajitani-Eizan for contributing most of these.)
• Action preview is more consistent now (for example, it will no longer occasionally display critical damage). Cancel success rate is listed as 0 if the target doesn't have the status in question.
• Items Reference layout updated; Speed now shows up as a column, and Move and Jump show up in the detail pane.
• Performing a full wait now generates a line in the battle log.

Major bugs fixed:

• Any ability with a dead unit in its AOE was failing silently.
• Abilities that were supposed to increase stats (e.g. Cure, Ether, Praise) didn't work.
• If more than one ability resolved between units' turns, the second ability would inherit the targets of the first (and so on).

It is now generally safe to set all of your units to level 99. Have fun!