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???
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???
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
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
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?
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?
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
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