Mar 23, 2016
Catacomb Kids - FourbitFriday
Fellow humans,

Behold, 0.0.14! Numerous changes in this one. If you missed the status update and are wondering where 0.1.0 is with The Anticropolis and Co-op, please check out the post I made on that subject right here. Long story short; they're a-comin'! Just need some more love and carressin', ya know?

In the meantime, peep this healthy changelog!

Fixes Regeneration doesn't restore limbs if you have Overheal Teleport always takes spell charges, even when Energized Can't back away from ledges while shielding Can't descend ledges while backing up with a shield Slow fall while casting empty spell Wrong coloration for some corpse's heads Twins flee fights (legit fixed this time) Grumbul Orb-Bearers can flee the floor Having Incantation and Overload causes Vampirism and Haste to rapidly cast multiple times Frozen food doesn't thaw over fire Spiked equipment descriptions are wrong Wanderers only hate hammers Ghost spawns underwater Bug drawing helms in ui when picking them up Can't break fallen ceiling blocks in collapsing tunnels with weapons Gamepad stops working on main menu sometimes (fixed??) Hidden spikes often appear under gas traps Grumbul Tank sometimes gets stuck behind the intro wall Enemies can escape through barred exits New Stuff New Trait: Hungry New Trait: Unstable Caster New Trap: ████████████ New shopkeeper menu New ghost menu New class select menu Changes Improved stats of Claymores Heavy Bat input changed to sprint+attack (same as Dagger Storm) Ghost dialog box redone Shopkeeper dialog box redone Spinning attacks deal less damage per hit Numerous changes to Weapon Skills: Backswipe is now Flourish -- moved to tier 2 Axe Primary Parry is a tier 4 weapon skill for Hammers and Swords Spin Cleave removed from axes Increased hitbox on Downward Thrust and The Drop Numerous changes to Traits Traits no longer occupy Skill Grid space Positive and negative traits no longer paired Loud is louder and increases the range of other noises Hunger no longer universal: Moved to new trait Hated weapons now behave like normal carried objects Weapon hatred cannot be unlearned Lucky Boots no longer a starting item Significantly reduced range of Teleport Leveling up INT increases efficacy of class abilities: Bully gains more Power Orbs from taunt Wanderer's Vision ability reaches further Poet Tomes have more charges Teleporting into walls will now kill you Collapsing tunnels will destroy fallen crush traps and boulders -of Removal weapons blink enemies further away, respecting knockback direction Using items interrupts blocking with shields Dropping through platforms requires less horizontal pixel precision Added telefragging Began adding Unstable spell effects: Heal, Raise Dead, Blink, Magic Blast, Teleport, Infernus, Chain Lightning Boulders and Crush Traps break spikes Potions of Extra Regeneration last longer Frozen potion shards have grace period before becoming dangerous Reduced potency of "--of Light" Added descriptions for footwear Can sell items to shopkeepers Killing a shopkeeper will return spent money Humanoid AI dodges slightly less aggressively Decreased LUC requirement for spiked armor to appear, and increased its frequency in general Break made slightly more effective Wanderer's "Vision" ability improved Newest tracked object carries between levels Can target items to be tracked Pathfinder improved Changes to Grumbul Tank No longer jumps when player is in combat with summoned grumbuls (excepting the rider) Tank Legs are no longer impervious to physical damage Added more visual and audio cues for attacks Removed time limit from chasing escaped enemies Added indicator to exits when enemies escape Next Build TO-DO Leaderboards, Co-op, Anticropolis???
Mar 23, 2016
Catacomb Kids - FourbitFriday
Fellow humans,

Behold, 0.0.14! Numerous changes in this one. If you missed the status update and are wondering where 0.1.0 is with The Anticropolis and Co-op, please check out the post I made on that subject right here. Long story short; they're a-comin'! Just need some more love and carressin', ya know?

In the meantime, peep this healthy changelog!

Fixes Regeneration doesn't restore limbs if you have Overheal Teleport always takes spell charges, even when Energized Can't back away from ledges while shielding Can't descend ledges while backing up with a shield Slow fall while casting empty spell Wrong coloration for some corpse's heads Twins flee fights (legit fixed this time) Grumbul Orb-Bearers can flee the floor Having Incantation and Overload causes Vampirism and Haste to rapidly cast multiple times Frozen food doesn't thaw over fire Spiked equipment descriptions are wrong Wanderers only hate hammers Ghost spawns underwater Bug drawing helms in ui when picking them up Can't break fallen ceiling blocks in collapsing tunnels with weapons Gamepad stops working on main menu sometimes (fixed??) Hidden spikes often appear under gas traps Grumbul Tank sometimes gets stuck behind the intro wall Enemies can escape through barred exits New Stuff New Trait: Hungry New Trait: Unstable Caster New Trap: ████████████ New shopkeeper menu New ghost menu New class select menu Changes Improved stats of Claymores Heavy Bat input changed to sprint+attack (same as Dagger Storm) Ghost dialog box redone Shopkeeper dialog box redone Spinning attacks deal less damage per hit Numerous changes to Weapon Skills: Backswipe is now Flourish -- moved to tier 2 Axe Primary Parry is a tier 4 weapon skill for Hammers and Swords Spin Cleave removed from axes Increased hitbox on Downward Thrust and The Drop Numerous changes to Traits Traits no longer occupy Skill Grid space Positive and negative traits no longer paired Loud is louder and increases the range of other noises Hunger no longer universal: Moved to new trait Hated weapons now behave like normal carried objects Weapon hatred cannot be unlearned Lucky Boots no longer a starting item Significantly reduced range of Teleport Leveling up INT increases efficacy of class abilities: Bully gains more Power Orbs from taunt Wanderer's Vision ability reaches further Poet Tomes have more charges Teleporting into walls will now kill you Collapsing tunnels will destroy fallen crush traps and boulders -of Removal weapons blink enemies further away, respecting knockback direction Using items interrupts blocking with shields Dropping through platforms requires less horizontal pixel precision Added telefragging Began adding Unstable spell effects: Heal, Raise Dead, Blink, Magic Blast, Teleport, Infernus, Chain Lightning Boulders and Crush Traps break spikes Potions of Extra Regeneration last longer Frozen potion shards have grace period before becoming dangerous Reduced potency of "--of Light" Added descriptions for footwear Can sell items to shopkeepers Killing a shopkeeper will return spent money Humanoid AI dodges slightly less aggressively Decreased LUC requirement for spiked armor to appear, and increased its frequency in general Break made slightly more effective Wanderer's "Vision" ability improved Newest tracked object carries between levels Can target items to be tracked Pathfinder improved Changes to Grumbul Tank No longer jumps when player is in combat with summoned grumbuls (excepting the rider) Tank Legs are no longer impervious to physical damage Added more visual and audio cues for attacks Removed time limit from chasing escaped enemies Added indicator to exits when enemies escape Next Build TO-DO Leaderboards, Co-op, Anticropolis???
Jan 7, 2016
Catacomb Kids - FourbitFriday
Fixing bugs! Back on that YYC for Windows, no more black fullscreen for Linux, and you can have your soup and eat it, too.

Fixes 0.0.13b Fullscreen is black Crash when drinking soups Byat meal bonus doesn't always wear off Spicy foods aren't indicated as such in food queue Twins can flee from the fight Crashes with AI in reaper fight Shopkeepers are listed as "Other Things" in the end-of-run kill list Frequent spawning in walls Changes 0.0.13b Added indicator beneath hunger queue to indicate currently active meal effects Spicy meals made more effective Added new soup type Improved mechanics of hot potatoes Can use grapple on Reaper Completing a meal shows its final components
Jan 7, 2016
Catacomb Kids - FourbitFriday
Fixing bugs! Back on that YYC for Windows, no more black fullscreen for Linux, and you can have your soup and eat it, too.

Fixes 0.0.13b Fullscreen is black Crash when drinking soups Byat meal bonus doesn't always wear off Spicy foods aren't indicated as such in food queue Twins can flee from the fight Crashes with AI in reaper fight Shopkeepers are listed as "Other Things" in the end-of-run kill list Frequent spawning in walls Changes 0.0.13b Added indicator beneath hunger queue to indicate currently active meal effects Spicy meals made more effective Added new soup type Improved mechanics of hot potatoes Can use grapple on Reaper Completing a meal shows its final components
Jan 3, 2016
Catacomb Kids - FourbitFriday
A new year, a new build!

Sorry it's a couple weeks late, mostly due to issues actually building the game and not content stuff. Which I suppose goes for the build itself as well: not too much new stuff, but it's now compiled using Game Maker's YYC (YoYo Compiler), which should hopefully help improve performance a not insignificant amount [crosses fingers]. [REDACTED] Unfortunately, said issues building affected osx the most and haven't yet been satisfactorily overcome, so the Mac version is still built without the YYC and as such won't see any performance changes for the better this time around.

Most of this past month was spent getting the YYC working nicely, working on Anticropolis stuff, reordering and the optimizing level generator, and an embarrassing amount of time being sad on holidays. Hopefully finally gettin' this build out will lift my spirits a bit though!

The main visible features in this build are soups - which can be made by boiling bottles of non-slime corpses with water in them - and spices, which are sometimes found on tables and can be used to improve food. Neither soup nor spice stuff is nearly finished yet, but it's a start and will hopefully prove an interesting addition that grows over time. Really I just didn't want to put out a build with nothing new to play with in it, after so much work doing invisible backend stuff. At the moment there are four 'spices'. What they do is up to you to find out.

Also relevant: I've hired an animator to help lighten the load on me and speed up the production of all the new frosty enemies that'll be coming to the icy depths of the Anticropolis (and beyond!) His name is John and he's rad. Everybody say "Hi, John!"

You can check out some of his other work here: http://imgur.com/a/HNtO7
and follow him on twitter at @bigbooty2dcutie

EDIT: Temporarily went back to a non-YYC build for Windows, hoping to fix an issue where the game is just a black-screen. Unfortunately this means the game won't have the performance improvements I had hoped using YYC would impart.

Fixes Humanoid enemies no longer use potions or eat potatoes Crash upon throwing bottled charge stars Crash upon throwing charge stars dropped by grumbul tank guards Grumbul Tank guards causing repeated non-fatal crashes Undead followers sometimes appear at the wrong position when going to the next floor Loudness of byat wings unaffected by sound volume setting Loudness of boulders rolling unaffected by sound volume setting Bottled mushrooms still burn and give off gas Several pathfinding-related crashes New Stuff Make Soup! Spices! (WIP) Now compiled with YYC, which should give a significant performance improvement Two new status effects New music in ceiling trap transitional stage Changes Made a couple reputations slightly easier to achieve Byat meals wear off after 2 floors, rather than lasting forever Food queue gradually empties after a period of not eating anything Removed COMBO input mode for class abilities Wizard throw better aligns enemies to the tiles when grabbed Next Build TO-DO Leaderboards?
Jan 3, 2016
Catacomb Kids - FourbitFriday
A new year, a new build!

Sorry it's a couple weeks late, mostly due to issues actually building the game and not content stuff. Which I suppose goes for the build itself as well: not too much new stuff, but it's now compiled using Game Maker's YYC (YoYo Compiler), which should hopefully help improve performance a not insignificant amount [crosses fingers]. [REDACTED] Unfortunately, said issues building affected osx the most and haven't yet been satisfactorily overcome, so the Mac version is still built without the YYC and as such won't see any performance changes for the better this time around.

Most of this past month was spent getting the YYC working nicely, working on Anticropolis stuff, reordering and the optimizing level generator, and an embarrassing amount of time being sad on holidays. Hopefully finally gettin' this build out will lift my spirits a bit though!

The main visible features in this build are soups - which can be made by boiling bottles of non-slime corpses with water in them - and spices, which are sometimes found on tables and can be used to improve food. Neither soup nor spice stuff is nearly finished yet, but it's a start and will hopefully prove an interesting addition that grows over time. Really I just didn't want to put out a build with nothing new to play with in it, after so much work doing invisible backend stuff. At the moment there are four 'spices'. What they do is up to you to find out.

Also relevant: I've hired an animator to help lighten the load on me and speed up the production of all the new frosty enemies that'll be coming to the icy depths of the Anticropolis (and beyond!) His name is John and he's rad. Everybody say "Hi, John!"

You can check out some of his other work here: http://imgur.com/a/HNtO7
and follow him on twitter at @bigbooty2dcutie

EDIT: Temporarily went back to a non-YYC build for Windows, hoping to fix an issue where the game is just a black-screen. Unfortunately this means the game won't have the performance improvements I had hoped using YYC would impart.

Fixes Humanoid enemies no longer use potions or eat potatoes Crash upon throwing bottled charge stars Crash upon throwing charge stars dropped by grumbul tank guards Grumbul Tank guards causing repeated non-fatal crashes Undead followers sometimes appear at the wrong position when going to the next floor Loudness of byat wings unaffected by sound volume setting Loudness of boulders rolling unaffected by sound volume setting Bottled mushrooms still burn and give off gas Several pathfinding-related crashes New Stuff Make Soup! Spices! (WIP) Now compiled with YYC, which should give a significant performance improvement Two new status effects New music in ceiling trap transitional stage Changes Made a couple reputations slightly easier to achieve Byat meals wear off after 2 floors, rather than lasting forever Food queue gradually empties after a period of not eating anything Removed COMBO input mode for class abilities Wizard throw better aligns enemies to the tiles when grabbed Next Build TO-DO Leaderboards?
Nov 22, 2015
Catacomb Kids - FourbitFriday
Build 0.0.12 time! Woo!

Golly this one took a while, and then a while again. In case you ever needed confirmation, implementing pathfinding for very mobile platformer characters through procedurally generated levels is tough. But I did it! Mostly! There are still some quirks and hiccups here and there, but I think this new AI, much like the level generation itself, will be the sort of thing that's constantly getting tweaked and improved as development continues.

However, this AI update now marks the last "Large Feature" I needed to get done before the Anticropolis + Co-op build. Does that mean the big chunky Anticroppy update is gonna be next? Well, unfortunately not. As I'm sure you've noticed this last one took way longer than I was anticipating and so I'm a fair bit behind schedule. As such, the next few updates will probably be -- if more timely -- a bit lighter on new features, as I'll be focusing almost entirely on Anticropolis and Co-op stuff. Stevie and I have also been making progress on the leaderboards, so expect those before long as well.

The 'smaller features' that I'll be working on in the meantime will be things like; more meals and food items, further additions and improvements to the new AI, more transitional stages, changes to the way traits are obtained and improved, and, as always, fixing crashes and improving performance.

Lastly, I'll be streaming some gameplay today on twitch.tv/fourbitfriday in about an hour (4pm PST), so if you wanna come by and talk about things feel free.

Without further ado, changelog below:

Fixes Can interrupt Execute with Kick Crash when bottling a charge star Crash when throwing pure cracked force star Can learn spells without the space for them Crash in VS mode upon round end if one player's stick has burned away Fishahna are unaffected by slow, pause, and haste Horizontally held enemies sometimes push the carrier backwards Byats grabbed with Heavy Lifting sometimes get stuck in walls Crash upon casting overloaded Wizard Throw New Stuff New Humanoid AI Enemies will now pathfind to their goals [to the player, to allies, to water when on fire, etc] Other tweaks to minimize their dying in idiotic ways It's not perfect! New STR Boon -- Grapple Headgear now shows in character portraits! Changes Floor spikes are more forgiving when landing at low speeds; can be safely stepped on from corpses Revised STR Boons: Removed Overwhelming and Duelist Pounce is a tier 1 STR boon rather than part of the default moveset Focus Strike is a tier 2 STR boon, and more attacks can be focused Can no longer shield-bash 0-hp enemies Fixes and modifications to Heavy Lifting Can climb while heavy lifting enemies Much more maneuverable when holding small enemies Descend while holding byats by holding down Creatures hastened by taunt no longer gain Haste's evasion bonus F1-F3 now toggle different information If weird non-crash stuff happens you can turn on these layers to provide more info to help me fix things! But don't be a cheater 'Overcharge' renamed to 'Energized' to be more different from Overload Next Build TO-DO More Traits and Meals
Nov 22, 2015
Catacomb Kids - FourbitFriday
Build 0.0.12 time! Woo!

Golly this one took a while, and then a while again. In case you ever needed confirmation, implementing pathfinding for very mobile platformer characters through procedurally generated levels is tough. But I did it! Mostly! There are still some quirks and hiccups here and there, but I think this new AI, much like the level generation itself, will be the sort of thing that's constantly getting tweaked and improved as development continues.

However, this AI update now marks the last "Large Feature" I needed to get done before the Anticropolis + Co-op build. Does that mean the big chunky Anticroppy update is gonna be next? Well, unfortunately not. As I'm sure you've noticed this last one took way longer than I was anticipating and so I'm a fair bit behind schedule. As such, the next few updates will probably be -- if more timely -- a bit lighter on new features, as I'll be focusing almost entirely on Anticropolis and Co-op stuff. Stevie and I have also been making progress on the leaderboards, so expect those before long as well.

The 'smaller features' that I'll be working on in the meantime will be things like; more meals and food items, further additions and improvements to the new AI, more transitional stages, changes to the way traits are obtained and improved, and, as always, fixing crashes and improving performance.

Lastly, I'll be streaming some gameplay today on twitch.tv/fourbitfriday in about an hour (4pm PST), so if you wanna come by and talk about things feel free.

Without further ado, changelog below:

Fixes Can interrupt Execute with Kick Crash when bottling a charge star Crash when throwing pure cracked force star Can learn spells without the space for them Crash in VS mode upon round end if one player's stick has burned away Fishahna are unaffected by slow, pause, and haste Horizontally held enemies sometimes push the carrier backwards Byats grabbed with Heavy Lifting sometimes get stuck in walls Crash upon casting overloaded Wizard Throw New Stuff New Humanoid AI Enemies will now pathfind to their goals [to the player, to allies, to water when on fire, etc] Other tweaks to minimize their dying in idiotic ways It's not perfect! New STR Boon -- Grapple Headgear now shows in character portraits! Changes Floor spikes are more forgiving when landing at low speeds; can be safely stepped on from corpses Revised STR Boons: Removed Overwhelming and Duelist Pounce is a tier 1 STR boon rather than part of the default moveset Focus Strike is a tier 2 STR boon, and more attacks can be focused Can no longer shield-bash 0-hp enemies Fixes and modifications to Heavy Lifting Can climb while heavy lifting enemies Much more maneuverable when holding small enemies Descend while holding byats by holding down Creatures hastened by taunt no longer gain Haste's evasion bonus F1-F3 now toggle different information If weird non-crash stuff happens you can turn on these layers to provide more info to help me fix things! But don't be a cheater 'Overcharge' renamed to 'Energized' to be more different from Overload Next Build TO-DO More Traits and Meals
Sep 20, 2015
Catacomb Kids - FourbitFriday
Sproing! Just a couple bugfixes. Literally two.

Fixes 0.0.11b Game crashes when bottling corpses Completing meals of +0hp with messy eater deals damage
Sep 20, 2015
Catacomb Kids - FourbitFriday
Sproing! Just a couple bugfixes. Literally two.

Fixes 0.0.11b Game crashes when bottling corpses Completing meals of +0hp with messy eater deals damage
...