The Gemstone of Balance and Other Stories (GGame Engine)

by Gary Arndt


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WARNING
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This is a patch, NOT the game install itself.

For those who may be unfamiliar with patches, a patch typically includes only a subset of files that are needed to run a program and is intended to be installed on top of an existing install.  A patch is not intended to be used by itself.

Trying to use the patch without the base game installed will not result in a valid install.  In other words, you must first have the game installed before you can install a patch.  If you already have the game installed, then you may install this patch (even if you have installed an older patch, although to be clear, having any older patches installed is NOT necessary since the new patch includes all of their content).


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What is this?
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This document explains the purpose of this patch (what it fixes and/or improves), when to install it, and how it should be installed.


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Patch notes
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This patch is intended for version 240210 (or the parallel 240209, which is a patched older version) or newer versions 240311 or 240224 (recent patches).  If you want to be sure which version you currently have installed, your current version can be found in the "version.txt" file in that install's root directory.

The changes are described in the main (new) readme in this patch (GGame2\README.txt), but briefly:

The following problems have been addressed:

- The desert dungeon is no longer incomplete
- A new command has been added to move NPC's in case they are in the way (Control-M, "Move NPC")


The following enhancement has been implemented:

- Inventory is now displayed in a more logical order for both display and selection purposes.  Further, it can now also be rearranged.


A wide variety of other, more minor improvements have also been made


When this patch is applied to version 240210 (or 240209, or a previously patched version 240311 or 240224) it will apply all of these changes.  Note that this patch includes the content of previous newer patches 240311 and 240224; it is NOT necessary to apply those patches prior to applying this one (although having one or more of them already applied is fine).

WARNING: DO NOT apply this patch to any versions other than those mentioned above

A special clarification related to version 240209 (this is NOT an issue with version 240210 or newer): Installing this patch over version 240209 is correct.  Version 240209 is itself a patch that can be applied to a number of older versions.  However, this patch does NOT include the changes included in 240209.  Therefore, do NOT install this patch directly over versions older than 240209; the older changes are assumed to have already been installed via patch 240209.  In any case, this will not NOT be a problem if you install this patch over only the specified versions (which includes 240209).  If you have an older version supported by patch 240209 (such as 230624, 240131, etc.) then you will have to install that patch first before installing this newer patch.

To install this patch, simply copy all files from the GGame2 directory of this zip file over the existing files in your install (make sure your copy process includes the subdirectory structure so the files all end up in the corresponding places).  That said, you may optionally want to consider first backing up or renaming the older versions of the files to be updated.  If you choose to leave the older versions of those files in place then be aware that the copy process will likely warn you that you are about to overwrite those files.  Doing so is correct; the new versions need to replace the old versions.

Note that this patch includes a new version.txt file; applying this patch updates your install to the new version specified in that file.

Further, the new GGame2\README.txt file (not to be confused with the file you are currently reading) contains more details about this new version and the related issues/changes.
