Hello there!

Hot-fix time. Sadly version 1.2.9. contained some "glitches" :(


First and foremost please accept my apology for the bugs that I left in the game. Multiple discussions were started and you reached out to me with detailed descriptions and useful reproduction steps. I'm really thankful for having such an understanding and helping community. You are awesome!

Besides delivering the fixes I will do my best to minimize the occurrence of issues of any caliber in future updates.
That is a promise ;)


A glaring issue. I'm really sorry about it. I don't know how I could miss this. Originally (before the 1.2.9. update) when retrying or restarting the game on Nightmare difficulty, the new game would also start on Nightmare difficulty. I messed this up with the Nightmare and Treasury shuffling and changes in the Inn and it always switches back to Normal.



Now it's fixed and I wrote some new automated tests to make sure I never break this feature again!


An achievement (more specifically Nightmare achievements) related problem was described in a community discussion. I could not reproduce any related errors on my local build, but I did make changes to Nightmare and Treasury mode handling for update 1.2.9., so I decided to look into it. I haven't found any blatant mistakes, but I did put in some extra safety code changes.
Hopefully, if there was any bug in Nightmare achievements handling it is squashed now.


The new movement mode (teleport) seems to be very well received, which makes me super happy :)
On the other hand, I did manage to leave a bug in this feature as well :(



Not a show-stopper, but the path-(NOT-)finding and navigation systems do not handle broken chests correctly (the "Toolbelt" item allows you to break them).



Normally you should be able to plan your movement through the broken chests without a necessary stop.
Now it works as intended.


Progress is slower than expected on tying up the loose ends of the expansion pack. Steady, but a bit slow. I may change my mind in the end and release another smaller update beforehand. Will get back to you with the decision soon ;)

Thank you very much for your patience and understanding.
Until then, take care and stay tuned!

Hi everyone!

As the title suggests progress has been made, but I took a really bumpy road to get here. I'm done with a new update, but even though I mentioned around two weeks multiple times, it took more than a month :/


I wanted to release some of the new goodies of the planned expansion pack without spoiling the new content. Just new functionality. For this to happen I had to make a version of the game which is halfway between my current development build and the existing released builds, which took way more time than I originally expected. Silly me. Regardless of not featuring new content, it does bring lots of convenience features and quality of life changes ;)


There's a new mouse control mode in town: teleport!
If you play the game a lot and dislike waiting for the movement animations this will speed it up to be *instantaneous.



Path-finding is still the default option for mouse controls, but you can change your settings within the "Options" menu under the "Mouse" sub-menu using the "Control" entry.



* Only the tile-to-tile movement is changed to be lightning fast. Picking up stuff, fighting battles, or opening chests still animate the same way for the sake of clarity.


The game has been localized to Polish ( )! I'm hoping I Am Overburdened will be enjoyed by more players in Poland thanks to this. Ahoy from Hungary my dear friends :)

Special thanks to Daniel Oskar Moroz (MorDan) for his awesome work!



This build also includes a bunch of localization text fixes. Typos corrected, a few things renamed, some sentences re-worded, and such in multiple languages.

I would love to add even more supported languages, but at the moment the translation of the updated content is still ongoing. New translations will probably not happen in the near future. I did add support for non-Latin characters/languages (e.g.: Cyrillic or CJK) though, so strides have been made in this direction.
Maybe...




The game officially supports 8 languages already. For this to happen many people contributed and I wanted to honor their work more appropriately. Previously only the translators of the currently selected language were shown in the credits menu, but now there's a menu entry to cycle through the names of everyone who worked on the texts of the game.




There was a "discrepancy" between the Main Menu and the Inn area in the way the Treasury game variant and the Nightmare difficulty can be accessed. In the Inn, the Nightmare difficulty (goat-skull statue) worked as a difficulty toggle and the Treasury mode was a special trapdoor.



Personally, I liked the functionality of the Main Menu much better and it made more sense (to me at least). Nightmare being a different more vicious dungeon and Treasury is simply a game alteration toggle (like the Elite variant or the Stash items).



Now the Inn matches the Main Menu. There's a separate trapdoor for Nightmare difficulty and a toggle (golden lock) for the Treasury variant.




From now on Nightmare difficulty can be unlocked and accessed immediately (without completing a dungeon on Normal first). A present for those who are feeling a bit overconfident :P


Quite a few menu changes and fixes found their way into the game with this update.



I re-organized the Help menu screens to (better) describe all the inn entities.



For multiple menu entries, "page-turner" widgets were added for enhancing mouse support. These include the "Language" entry of the Options menu, the "Window" and "Scaling" entries within the Graphics menu, and the "Control" entry in the Mouse menu.



Multiple mouse right-click handling and mouse movement focus handling bugs were fixed (Start and Controls screens).


The change list for this update is, but the work on the big content patch is not yet. I know this must be tiring :( but it is really, really close though. In fact, I'm so close to finishing it, that I don't plan to publish more tiny updates beforehand.

It looks like the next one will be the one and only long-awaited expansion pack which I'm dubbing "The Encumbered Edition" :)

I still don't want to pick a date since I'm super bad with deadlines ( as you can see :D ), but I want to give some structure to its release. I will start preparing and posting more info (+screenshots and gifs) about it in the following days.

Stay tuned and take care!

Hello there!

Not much news on my front, but I'm doing game development (at least some, sort-of) and I'm still alive :)


I disappeared for a looong time from the online world and from I Am Overburdened development. I really wanted to continue releasing updates for the game, but I wasn't in a good place and my circumstances did not allow it. I hope you can understand and forgive the prolonged silence.


Not a Blue Cafe specifically, but I wish to finish my plans. I wasn't putting in many hours, but progress did happen bit by bit on the I Am Overburdened content update. I'm excited to return to it. I don't know if I'll be releasing it piece by piece or as a big package, but you can come with me if you are still interested in this journey ;)


Hold your horses (and your enthusiasm) just yet. This is a small update. Kind of a "first step" for me as well towards the release of the long-awaited expansion.




5 new assets were added for allowing the map generator to create even more varied levels. The game launched with 20, now reaching 40 with this update. These new ones were carefully balanced to fit into the difficulty range of the existing game well.


Many of the existing levels had balance "bugs". The underlying dungeon templates allowed the generator to create too easy setups, or just the opposite, quite grueling ones with too big of a chance. On a few levels you easily had to fight 3 or 4 enemies to open the way to the stairs, but sometimes 0 were put in your path.



9 dungeons from the existing ones were retouched to make these less frequent and/or less extreme.


I remembered that the "Van Helsing" achievement left some players confused or puzzled about the last monster. Now a tiny hint appears if you unlocked all the other monsters and met the one you are supposed to unlock, to "nudge" you in the right direction.




Yep, that is it and indeed it is not much. Regardless for me, it feels like a lot, since it means I still have the drive to release updates for this lovely project and hopefully the expansion pack will materialize.

To keep my momentum up and to not leave you waiting indefinitely again, I'm planning to write another post in about a week or so. Sort of like a follow-up to detail how and when this eluding expansion can happen.
Maybe it will be accompanied by another tiny update too ;)

Thanks for your relentless interest.
I really appreciated all your inquiries and kind words even if and when I had no strength in me to show it to you in any form!
Take care, talk to you soon.

No big updates this time, but I wanted to post an entry to wish everyone happy holidays, a fun-filled winter and most importantly an awesome new year :)
Plus I'm sharing some info nuggets about the upcoming Overburdened update.


Progress is steady on the development of the expansion pack. I've finalized all the new items (+17, totaling at 139) and I'm really proud of the results. Many became pretty extreme :D Hopefully with their inclusion fresh strategies will emerge.


Flying to safety


Knocking back your enemies


Combusting your surroundings



Let me know what you think.

Since we are close to the end of the year (and the decade :O) I'm going to spend most of my time with my family so I may become a bit dormant and disconnected, but I will check on the boards every now and then.

Thank you for being the awesome community you are and for being so supportive :)
Take care and again have a wonderful holiday!

I Am Overburdened, what is to come.

Hi there!

Been pretty much out of touch with the online world in the last few weeks. So I guess it is time to break the silence with an I Am Overburdened update and some news about the expansion :) ?!


Showcasing version 1.2.7. will be short as it is a refinement build. Nothing spectacularly, just a bunch of fixes and tunings.

DPI/mouse issue bug-fix

There was a problem limiting the mouse movement which occurred on non-default DPI settings and/or high desktop resolutions. Now it is fixed and there is no need for using the workaround posted on the community forums of the game.

Book of monsters enhancements



To fix the confusion around the monster unlocks I've added progress visualization. You just have to kill a single monster from a given kind and then you can check how much more of it you have to fight to successfully open detailed information about them. As a tiny addition mouse-wheel scrolling is also supported in the book (forgot to add it in the last update).

Treasury and stash upgrades



To make the item selection more streamlined in treasury mode I moved the "Random artifact" option to the first slot and implemented in-game inventory highlights based on the currently focused item. It works the same way as with other pickups (e.g.: in the shop).



Repositioned the random stash item selection too mainly for consistency.


It's almost at the finish line, but not properly baked yet. Let see what it already brings to the table!

Warning, spoilers ahead...

New boss fights

The original boss fight feels underwhelming to me mechanically. I like how the story, the characters, and the outcomes turned out, but the fight itself is a bit lame. More like a randomized stronger special enemy and less like a boss :|
I decided to introduce 3 new completely different scenarios, to keep you on your toes while battling the Buzzard wizard.



As you can imagine the new fights will not only make the conclusion of a run more varied, but new strategies will be possible and the value of many existing items will be altered.

New artifacts

More than a dozen new items will find their way into the expanded version. I haven't settled on the final number yet, but at the moment it is close to 140 artifacts total :O ! They will introduce new skills and allow way different strategies especially on the early levels (e.g.: stash choices) and in the end game (e.g.: boss fights).



Another goal with the new set is to introduce more synergies and heavier focus on "neglected" attributes (vitality and defense) too.

New monsters



All the 5 new creatures planed for the update pack are ready to be released. They will work as "variations" of certain enemies. Kind of like mobs in many other dungeon crawlers. In some runs you may encounter the "Leach", in others, you will have to fight the new "Ooze" in the sewers instead. Of course, you'll be able to unlock info about these variants the same way.
This system besides making the existing game more varied will be the foundation for adding even more monsters in the future ;)

New features



These changes are still a bit WIP and subject to change, but they are now in a shape where I can reveal them:

• Attribute redesign! "Defense" will get a bigger boost and both "Vitality" and "Speed" will receive a little reinforcement.
  
• The help menus will get more detailed information on certain topics (attributes & pickups).
  
• A new game mode affecting pickups is under development.
  
• Enhancements on the unlocks and statistics front.
  
• Re-balancing some of the existing items and obviously the boss battle(s).
  
• + A big secret I'm keeping to myself until release :P

All that is left is the when and how!
I really wanted to let this package loose this year as a Christmas present latest, but I'm not 100% sure I can do it. Will try my best and in the worst case, it will be an early new year's gift :)
I settled on the pricing though. Essentially it will be a free DLC. But! I'm going to charge more for the game once it is out in the wild. Only raising it by a few bucks, since charging 10$ for it would not be reasonable.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my post and thanks for your continued support.
Stay tuned!

Hello there!

Time for one last small update before I go into full promotion mode regarding the new I Am Overburdened expansion pack ;)


The new 1.2.6. version is more of a refinement over the existing stuff, but it packs a lovely change which I hope receives a warm welcome.

Screen transition

I've been fighting with level change for a long while to make it look good and readable. I always wanted to help the player instantly recognize where Joey is when entering a new dungeon floor. Finally what I have now feels really good :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juvf24hARWY

I should have looked into cartoons for inspiration long ago.

Bug-fixes

While testing the new content I made for the expansion I've stumbled into a few issues :(



A huge error found its way into the game code with the previous update. Wearing the "Wizard Hat" item could cause a crash in certain cases upon reaching a dungeon level with a number of hallucinations in it. Now it's fixed!
Please accept my apology if any of your runs came to an unexpected end due to this mistake. I'm really sorry.



As you can see on this gif some item combinations could mess up the boss fight scene. Not a major problem, but it looked pretty weird.

Bad karma (balance)

I constantly tweak difficulty related things with each update and this one is no exception. With luck and a few right choices early on you could become too overpowered and I tried to address this "problem". Now the game tries to push back a little if you are shredding everything in your path with ease. It isn't drastic but affects your luck and the pickup and chest spawn rates a bit.



The second half of the gameplay was affected mostly so the change focuses on later dungeon levels as well.

Upcoming

The time has come to start showing some real footage from the expansion pack!
The first official reveal is one (or two in this case?) of the new enemies: the Ooze.
You can expect the same level of functional diversity. All new beasts are going to have their own special "thing" ;)



The expansion will focus on replay value first and foremost and will NOT extend the story. The new monsters will be introduced as part of the existing dungeons as "variants" at certain sections, randomly selected for each run. That is why the Ooze is encountered in the caves.

I made good progress in the last month and it looks like I'm only going to release one more update before I complete the enhanced edition of the game. This also means I'm going to reveal a lot more details about the new stuff in the next few weeks!

Thanks for taking the time to read my post and thank you very much for your support.
Take care!

Hi everyone!

Here comes a not so spectacular, but hopefully funny update for I Am Overburdened. As the name suggest version 1.2.5. is way more swift than the previous one, plus it is equipped with a nasty new trick to terrorize artifact hunters ːsteammockingː


Please welcome "positive" hallucinations. Previously when you accidentally drank poison or a venomous creature attacked you, monster phantasms (non-existent hallucinated creatures) would be placed randomly on the following dungeon level.



This feature always felt fun, but a bit insignificant. Its impact was quite low because if you played a lot you could figure out in many cases which of the monsters are hallucinated and you never feared extra monsters when in a good shape (health and loot wise).



Now other entities (chests, pickup, etc...) can be hallucinated and their placements are influenced by the level templates and the dungeon generator. The new version is way more effective, a.k.a. confusing ːsteammockingː

If you have an existing save-game no worries. The new save files may be a tiny bit bigger (due to the more complex hallucinations), but the game is backward compatible.


A tiny ease of use feature. Now when opening your inventory while standing next to an item or opened chest the relevant item slot will be focused. The slot of the last picked up item still has priority though!




I keep saying that I Am Overburdened runs on a toaster, but what does this mean and is it really true? Well, for the most part, it IS true. I have a 10+ years old laptop on which I test the game from time to time (1st gen 1.5Ghz Atom CPU, 1Gb RAM :O for real) and the game is able to run at 60 fps (not that it matters a lot with a turn-based game ːsteamfacepalmː but still). My work desktop is also quite modest so a performance mistake surfaces easily. The more taxing parts where the real problems lie are switching between screens and launching the game.

Checking loot

Sadly the inventory screen had a blatantly unoptimized implementation. Opening it could cause almost a second long halt on my older machine. It was still my original prototype implementation. Silly me, sorry for the inconvenience. I simplified the layout data of the screen, remade the loading algorithm and voila. Now it can load within the same frame of the press/click even on a simple computer.


A bit slowed down recording of opening the inventory in the old and the new version for comparison.

Parts of these changes got into the previous version so you may have experienced the speedup to an extent already.

Startup



So on the before mentioned toaster, it took 5+ seconds to show the title screen after launching the game. This was mainly due to pre-loading almost all the assets and saved data so that handling the content while the game is running can be simple. I postponed tiny parts of this, but the logic largely stayed the same and instead I choose to simplify the majority of the game data to speed-up load times. Still not lightning fast, but I measured a hefty 40-50% win which is really nice :)


My hand is only a tiny bit better, but at least it is not killing me nowadays. I'm slowly and carefully working towards finishing the expansion for I Am Overburdened. Sorry for not sharing new details about it with this entry. To make up for it I'm going to post images and gifs showcasing some of the new monsters and items with the following update ːsteamhappyː For next time I'm planning to release another tiny graphical enhancement.

Thanks for reading my post and much love for your support.
Have fun in the dungeons and stay tuned!

Hello everyone!

This update is a tiny one with bug-fixes only. Life has interesting ways of slowing things down. If you stay till the end of the post and can put up with my whining I'll explain how come I could only make a hot-fix build in a whole month.


Some glaring issues have been discovered lately and I just managed to repair a few long-standing problems so version 1.2.4. contains important fixes.

Not saved



Sadly the path was not "ensured" (existence of directories) in all cases when saving the game. I estimate, that this could affect quite a few people theoretically, but not many reported it so far. I hope this means it worked for most people and not many run into it so far :S

If you did lose a save I'm really sorry. Please accept my apology and know that now "Save & Exit" is fixed and works as intended.

Hallucinated boss



Some items in the game are totally insane and their combinations, well let just say they can lead to weird outcomes :P
One of these is the "Carnival Mask" which can turn monsters into hallucinations. It cannot be triggered on the boss level, as there are no other monsters around the boss itself. Except when you have an item on you which can summon monsters in certain situations. Mix in some chemical X and bang! The boss can easily turn into a hallucination, preventing the completion of the run. Funny thing is that I already had a configuration coded for items to optionally disable them against certain enemy types (e.g.: the boss), but I probably thought this could not happen.
Fixed!

Left-handed



Due to the underlying technology I used the game could not support left-handed mouse usage (left and right buttons switched in the operating system). I swapped out parts of the tech and fixed this problem.
To all the left-handed people in the world who would have loved playing I Am Overburdened with a mouse: I'm sorry for not realizing this mistake before!

Focus on what you are doing!



There were some posts about the game occasionally capturing mouse input even if its window is not in focus. I tried fixing this before, but I never had the complete picture about what is going wrong. I'm still not sure if it is fully fixed, but I could reproduce a case when it occurred and with the input tech change, I could correct this problem too.

Special thanks to all the community members who reported and helped in the diagnostics of these issues.




Around a month ago severe cartilage damage and bone wear (arthrosis) was diagnosed in my right wrist-bone(s) :(

To sum it up: decades of programming, playing games and practicing art as a hobby took a toll on my right hand and it is totally busted. Permanently. It looks like I'm going to need surgery if I want to use it again for work...

Even though I'm right-handed (was?) and relatively fast at typing (was!) in the last 5 or so weeks I had to resort to my left hand only. That is how a tiny bug-fix update takes a month :D


This slowed me to a crawl (no pun intended), but there is no way I'm stopping game development :)
Besides making these fixes I was working on new features and content, so don't give up on me ;)
It will take some time getting used to my situation, so it is uncertain now how long it will take, but I will follow through my plans and deliver the content expansion pack for I Am Overburdened.

Thank you very much for reading my post and for all your support.
Have fun in the dungeons and take care!

Hi there!

So it came to pass, that only a tiny update gets completed within two weeks while working on another way bigger project :D
Hopefully, the user interface enhancements in version 1.2.3. will be appreciated still ;)


The biggest (albeit functionally neglectable) change is the new "Book of Monsters" layout. Now the unlocked monsters can be explored using a scrollable grid just like in the case of the "Tome of Artifacts". It looks much less crammed + this was a necessary change for the future ;)



Yep, this also means new monsters will join the party with the upcoming bigger content update (currently it looks like 4 to be more exact) and for this to happen the presentation had to be changed beforehand to accommodate.

Scroll madness

All the scroll-bars (not just the new monsters book one) were updated to handle up/down clicks too + screens where scrolling grids reacted to mouse movement (Stash, Treasury), were fixed since they could produce horrible noises with the quickly changing focused artifacts.




How could I forget about this feature?! The same thing was implemented for the "Tome of Artifacts" with nearby items long ago, but somehow I missed this one. Opening the "Book of Monsters" next to an enemy now selects it immediately.



Tome hot-keys

I also added hot-keys for accessing the tomes (Left Ctrl + A for the "Tome of Artifacts", Left Ctrl + M for the "Book of Monsters") with only one press as they may be opened semi-frequently during play. The input guide was updated to reflect these changes.




A real nemesis of mine. I could not find a good way to notify the player about nearby items so far. I tried multiple things in the past (some even made it into the game), but I was never satisfied.
I think I got it now? I really like the current version. Let me know what you think!




This is the first "teaser" update where changes related to the expansion pack crawled into the official build of the game and I shared tiny but concrete info about what is to come. Expect a few more updates like this in the upcoming weeks, but soon (hopefully really soon) I will unleash a bigger and better I Am Overburdened upon the world ːsteamhappyː

Thank you very much for reading my post and for all your support.
Stay tuned!

Hello everyone!

This time instead of launching new content or features I'm upgrading the graphics of the game a little.


This is the first update for I Am Overburdened focusing only on the visual aspect. If the response is good I may create another similar one :)
Let me know what you think!

Auto-Tiling

The biggest graphical improvement is the auto-tiling feature of the dungeon levels. In short, it is a technique to (dynamically) change tiles based on their neighbors to achieve a much less "blocky" look and to add depth to the scenes.



To me, the difference is night and day. It does make the grid structure of the levels less readable (functionally may be a bit of a downgrade), but it makes the dungeons feel much more claustrophobic so all in all, I feel like it is a big win :)

Crystal clear

The looks of the last episode in the game received some valid criticism. My original goal was to make the "Crystalline Cavern" a bit confusing. Almost like a place full of mirrors. I think I went a little overboard and visual clarity suffered a lot.



I've redrawn parts of the tile-set, recolored the rest and a new walking effect was introduced to preserve the reflecting and mirror-like feeling.

Rain

The ambient sounds in the inn just weren't doing it justice. I added some splash effects outside of the building to set a more convincing mood.




The fixes and optimizations are graphics related too. The biggest enhancement is the introduction of multiple (rendering) layers within the effect system and overall improved effect handling performance.

Effect layers

This problem probably did not bother many players, but some environment effects looked funny before the introduction of multi-layer spell effects.
Fixed!



Mouse control sprites

There was a tiny sprite state related bug which could only occur when controlling the game with the mouse. Not anymore.



Spell performance

Although the game could always run on a "toaster" hitches and frame-spikes during spell heavy moments weren't uncommon. This is now a thing of the past.




Work continues on I Am Overburdened. The planned content expansion pack is shaping up nicely. So far, I deliberately kept concrete info about it to the minimum since I'm still really bad at estimating the work left and I would like it to be a surprising and bigger release. This means the upcoming few updates will be similar to this and the last one (just a bunch of tiny changes), but I'm going to start teasing the new features in the following weeks ;)

Thanks for taking the time to read my post and have fun in the dungeons ːsteamhappyː
Take care!