Dec 21, 2021

Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Liam

Hello, Liam here.

Welcome to day 1 of the next beta balance patch cycle.

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
As you know, we’ve been providing fairly frequent updates over the past couple of months. However, in light of the holidays, the next update likely won’t occur until late January. Thanks for your patience!

This first update focuses on the changes that are likely to be the most contentious, to give players more time to adapt and discuss these changes. Since Annie is the newest complete character, she will be the focus for this update. Expect other changes in the future!

Also, to make some of these changes easier to read for existing players, we'll be using some community nomenclature instead of some in-game terms for mechanics. (Blockbuster → Super, etc)

UMBRELLA

Just bug fixes for now! There are more outstanding bugs and tuning that still need be made in the new year.

Fixed a bug where Bobblin' Bubble's bobble jump was not possible.
Fixed a bug where Cutie Ptooie's butterfly eating was increasing fullness even as an assist.
Adjusted trip and wallsplat hurtboxes to fix some combos not working on Umbrella.

ANNIE

Annie is a great all rounder, but some of her tools and mechanics go a bit beyond their intended strengths. Annie's gameplan and the range of things that she's capable of should more or less be unchanged, but the effectiveness that she these things has been toned down.

Remember that new characters usually receive a lot of tuning in the first update after their release, with Annie being no exception:

North Knuckle
- As an assist, Annie will no longer perform the follow-up slam on block, unless it's the L version.
- Hitstop and blockstun reductions for all North Knuckle punches, and follow up slams.
- Increased recovery of North Knuckle (H) slam. (.. Yes this impacts corner combos)
- As an assist, the first punch of North Knuckle applies 1 extra hit of damage scaling, like Big Band's similarly hard hitting Brass Knuckles (H) assist.
Pillar of Creation
- Moved 250 damage from the first hit to the second hit. (750 → 500, 1000 → 1250)
- On DHC only, the first hit scales to 70%. (The second hit continues to scale to 70% on point just as it did before.)
- Reduced active frames on the first hit.
- Increased start up before Super Flash freezes time.
- Increased recovery, and recovery is increased further if the opponent blocks it. Advantage on block reduced.
- On DHC, the Super Flash freeze ends slightly earlier, giving the opponent a bit more time to recover or act.
  (... Note, hitstop was never applied on DHC, but hitstop from the previous super could sometimes carry over. This change makes that less likely.)
- Second hit has had its hitstop reduced and velocity adjusted.
Reduced Meteor Strike hitstop if the opponent is not in hitstun, reducing the extreme range that the opponent is completely unable to act before Annie hits them. Combos and conversions should be unchanged.
Sagan Beam (air version) goes into a vulnerable (but not counter hit) falling state if the opponent blocks it, much like Big Band's Tympany Drive. If the opponent is hit after blocking, she can still act.
JHP hitbox has been normalized to be more in line with other arcing swing hitboxes like Parasoul, Valentine, etc.
JHP only spawns stars during Star Power once per jump.
Reduced JMP hitstun.
Reduced sMP hitbox to match the art shown during active frames.
cHP damage adjusted: 1300 → 1200.
sHP [2nd Hit] damage adjusted: 700 → 600.
s.F+HP damage adjusted: 1500 → 1300.
s.F+HP step forward before swinging slightly reduced. (~20%)
Slightly reduced movement during dash start up, and reduced second phase dash speed by 5%.
QOL - s.F+MP no longer produces a star during Star Power, allowing her to get the Stagger.
QOL - cHK in Star Power now has a buffer into sLP, making the link much easier.
Re Entry has slightly less hitstop than before.
(... Mostly intended to speed up her Re Entry combos slightly)
Fixed a bug where Destruction Pillar VFX could show up in the wrong location for a moment when Annie is thrown.
Fixed a bug where Annie couldn't cancel cLP into itself during the active frames of the first punch, like every other self repeating normal.
Fixed an issue where Annie's Destruction Pillar blockstun and hitstop values were not adjusted correctly as an assist, like all other DP assists (Updo, Napalm Pillar, etc). Blockstun and hitstop is reduced across all versions as an assist.

ROBO-FORTUNE

Slightly reducing the effectiveness of pressure and mix up speed during Systemic Circuit Breaker, and a long outstanding "H Beam" experiment.

Increased Instant Air Dash (IAD) lockout from 5 frames to 8 during Systemic Circuit Breaker.
Reduced Air Theonite Beam (M) bonus recovery speed from Systemic Circuit Breaker. (8F > 5F)
Reduced knockback on Theonite Beam (M) during Systemic Circuit Breaker, for both air and ground versions.
Theonite Beam (H), as an assist, will now remain on camera as Robo-Fortune is firing, instead of hiding off camera firing from off-screen if the point character is moving forward quickly.

PEACOCK

Continuing with a few more changes from the last beta balance changes that didn't have enough time to be completed and tested - this is likely the full list of Peacock changes.

Adjusted "The Hole Idea" (H), AKA "H Teleport"
- H Teleport will become M Teleport if an assist is being called and has not landed, just as before.
- However, H Teleport will also now become M Teleport up until:
  - The assist attacks the enemy point character and puts them into blockstun or hitstun. An assist hitting armor does not count.
  - The assist performs their assist taunt and begins to leave.
  - The assist enters hitstun.
  (.. This allows Peacock to switch sides, escape, or combo using the blockstun or hitstun of her assists, but does not allow it before the assist makes contact, outside of a few telegraphed set ups with projectiles.)
Boxcar George appears 5 frames later into the summoning animation.
George at the Airshow appears 1 frame later into the summoning animation.
(.. These last two changes revert Peacock's M and H George start up back to what they were during Robo-Fortune initial's release patch.)
If Peacock goes into hitstun at any point during L, M or H George travelling, that George now forces follow-up damage scaling to 70%.
Shadow of Impending Doom (level 2 charge) lasts for 20 additional frames before Peacock can perform the special move again.

MS. FORTUNE

Changes to make Ms. Fortune slightly easier to hit, especially when jumping away. Providing another option to beat her main meterless reversal. Light tweaks to the range of JLK, and how contestable it is.

Fiber Uppercut (all versions) are now strike invulnerable, and can be thrown.
Fiber Uppercut (all versions) has no invulnerability when headless.
JLK - Adjusted animation timing so that Ms. Fortune's leg is stretched out for longer immediately before and after the active frames. Frame data completely unchanged.
JLK - Adjusted hurtbox to fill in the empty space between her legs.
JLK - Removed hitbox from the tip of her toes.
(.. Ms. Fortune's ever oppressive JLK should hopefully feel slightly easier to contest.)
Expanded Ms. Fortune's jumping hurtbox while she is tucked into a ball.
Added hurtbox around her tail below her for the first few frames after jumping off the ground.

(Build version 3.3.16)

Dec 21, 2021

Devlog #1: Game Structure Overview

Escape The Mad Empire - XperimentalZ Games

Devlog #1: Game Structure Overview

Welcome to the first development log for Escape the Mad Empire! The game is a roguelike party-based tactical RPG upcoming on Steam. In this development log, we will give a general overview of the game structure. More specifically, we will cover the core game loop, the combat system, the story, the meta-game progression and the game modes.

Dungeon Crawl

The core of the game is wrapped around a traditional dungeon crawling experience. It features roguelike elements like perma-death, procedural generation, random monster and item spawns, etc.

One aspect we’re really focusing on is the diversity of effects associated with magic items. Apart from increasing replayability, having a great diversity of mechanics really helps to create emergent gameplay; mechanics interactions, player strategies and behaviors that were not specifically designed for. Emergent gameplay is a strong aspect of traditional roguelikes and roguelites like Spelunky, Binding of Isaac, etc.

The dungeons will also include all sorts of special rooms like boss battles, challenge rooms, village zones, shops, event rooms, traps, etc.

Combat System

We won't dive too much in details about the combat system because it will be the subject of our next development log. Just to cover the essential, it is worth mentioning that the key aspects of it are the party-based and real-time with instant-actions on pause elements, which distinguish the game quite a lot.

In terms of how the game plays, the best comparisons are games like old Baldur’s Gate, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder or Divinity. The mention of a turn-based game among real-time games is voluntary. The principle of instant-actions on pause (without casting delays) really gives another dimension to the game, which bridges the gap between real-time and turn-based RPGs. The references also imply that the game also features a spells & skills system that feels quite ‘CRPG’.

There’s also tons of tactical aspects to the game that increase the combat depth but again, another devlog will be written about this subject!

Epic Runs Mode

This game mode is closer to traditional roguelike games. Each game has its unique random seed that determines the dungeon structure, the monster and item spawns and so on (such that a player can replay exactly the same setup if he wishes to). The party is rolled randomly to encourage playing with various combinations. Dungeon runs can be played over a configurable number of floors. The loot is powerful and affects the player’s game in significant ways. The game has perma-death, which means that a dead character is lost (rare revive scrolls exceptions) and upon party death, a new game has to be created from scratch.

As the story evolves, new environments, monsters and items will be introduced in dungeon runs. In other words, playing the career mode will also make the Epic Runs mode evolve.

Meta-Game and Story

The meta-game is a way of adding a sense of progression between dungeon runs. Evolving story content and the addition of a career mode will serve that purpose.

The story is about an underground empire that discovered and mined incredibly powerful magic crystals they used to create abominations and mad experiments. Those doomsday devices ultimately backfired and created apocalypses across multiple dimensions.

As the game progresses, the player will reveal and discover those apocalypses. Apart from structuring the story content, those apocalypses will also serve as ‘content unlocks’ on which new visual thematics, monsters and items will be attached. In other words, the world will evolve with progression and dungeon runs will feel different.

Apocalypse themes also offer the perfect format for adding future content since those new episodes will be added seamlessly.

The game will also feature a quests system with main quests linked to story progression and secondary quests linked to rewards or mechanics unlocks.

Career Mode

The career mode adds a whole new gameplay layer to the game by introducing teams management and base-building elements. In this game mode, dungeon runs become ‘missions’ that can be completed for resources, game mechanic unlocks and story progression. This mode also allows the player to play in shorter sessions compared to the Epic Runs mode for which games can take several hours at a time.

Between missions, the player will go back to his base HUB where can manage his characters, shop for items, craft and upgrade his base. Those upgrades will in turn be used to develop new party teams more efficiently.

Missions will be structured by apocalypse themes and their related chapters. Each apocalypse will feature several chapters with their own mini-story and each chapter will be linked to a series of missions to be completed in a semi-random structure (with optional reset for replayability).

Progression in career mode will ‘remain’, meaning that losing in a mission or even losing a whole party won’t affect the general progression. The player will have to recruit new characters, develop and equip them in order to fully recover. The whole career mode structure has a lot of similarities with games like Darkest Dungeon I.

That’s it for the first development log! The next time we will probably cover the basics for the combat system.

Dec 21, 2021

Christmas Event

Bird's Eye - Apple Dash

So much for the "several planned content, polish and bug-fixing updates", right? But anyway, Bird's Eye received its first big event -- Christmas Event. It includes a bunch of Christmas-themed cards, a special set of rules (which isn't locked to this event and can be toggled at any time) and small bug-fixes and small improvements to various parts of the game.

Oh, and Linux support.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas Event:
- Added a Christmas Event which will run for the duration of the Steam Winter Sale. It includes different background music and decorations across various parts of the game;
- Added a Christmas Special game rules:
- More base experience points;
- Bigger victory bonus;
- Players get more cards and tokens per turn (4 and 2, instead of 3 and 1 respectively).
- Added 7 Christmas-themed cards:
- Christmas Reindeer;
- Penguin;
- Robin;
- Turkey;
- Polar Bear;
- Donkey;
- Ox;
- Sheep;

General:
- Added Linux support;
- Replaced a UI blur shader with the one that doesn't kill the performance.
- Adjusted the layout of the playing field;
- Card hands are now centered properly;
- Fixed an issue which prevented cards from scrolling on the results screen;
- Fixed a typo in the popup message inviting player to complete a tutorial the first time they launch the game;
- Added a "Cooking Turkey" achievement;

Editor:
- Fixed a bug which crashed the editor when saving a mod that doesn't add any new cards or tokens.