Jul 1, 2022

Lumencraft - tupiindyk

Scouts!

One month ago there were 105 maps in Lumencraft’s Steam Workshop. .

You submitted another 14 of them and now there are 119 fully playable Lumencraft maps in Steam Workshop 🤯. Thank you!

It means that the community still experiments with the gameplay and doesn’t play by the developers' rules. It should be this way, so everything's fine 💗. Meanwhile, our team patch the Early Access build and get rid of the bugs that some of you report to us.

Once again - thank you for posting your maps and info about them in #share-your-map channel on our Discord server. This time we selected three maps for you guys. Two of them are fast-paced, and the third one is 100% story-focused 🏃‍♂️.

Without further delay…
Let the Maps Shootout #3 begins!

Just a reminder - the order does not matter - we’re just sharing maps that we find especially interesting 🧐.

Map name: Madness
Author: Xmaster13
Direct link

To quote Xmaster13: “A chill, relaxing, intense, challenging, fun, insane map from the mind of a lumencrafter. 10 waves - ez pz. Stick around & Explore!”
Our thoughts: very funny, man. This is a “survive at all costs” type of map. After the third wave (out of ten!) all you get is about a minute for preparation before the fourth wave begins. Did we say that the fifth wave is a boss wave? Yes, it is. Also, it’s really easy to make a mistake very early in the game - even after 5-10 minutes! There are no clones, so death is permanent.

Map name: Bullets Required
Author: thelurpy1
Direct link

To quote thelurpy1: “Starting area is "safe"... Get your machine gun factory online asap. Watch out for large bug traps. There is only one entrance to your starting zone, funnel the bugs and defend yourself.”

Our thoughts: that’s the story-driven map mentioned above. We highly appreciate all the notes left for the scout and the scraps left for the Scout. In the first minutes, you’ve got to get as much metal as possible to activate the mine and the machine gun factory that will help you progress. Watch out for the Swarm - it’s easy to be surrounded by a bunch of enemies, so it’s better to drill narrow tunnels.

Map name: THE FORTRESS
Author: STUNTMAN JAY
Direct link

To quote STUNTMAN JAY: “You have been gifted by the gods, enjoy!”
Our thoughts: pretty chill map. You’ve got to fight the wave after 25 minutes - during the wait, you’ll be able to upgrade your drill to level 5 to gather Lumen. You'll get the metal from miners, the 8 huge chunks are located on the left side of the base. Build a defense system suitable for your playstyle and fight more than 130 monsters.

Wait a minute - there’s a new meme for ya:

Maps Shootouts will be published once a month.
Every map can be featured. Let’s see how many fantastic maps you'll publish. See you at the end of July 👋.

Maps Shootout #1
Maps Shootout #2

If you enjoy Lumencraft, please share your opinion with others. How should you do it? It does not matter - the choice is yours. It’s just a friendly request - nonetheless, we will be grateful.

Remember: to help us check out fantastic maps submitted to Steam Workshop, give us a “follow” on Steam⚙️, join our Discord 🎧 server and follow us on Facebook 👍 and Twitter 🐦

Try these maps during the weekend, see you soon,
2Dynamic Games

Jul 1, 2022

Development Update #18

Crab Champions - Noisestorm

Please note that all visuals shown in this update WILL be improved / replaced, this is the last feature heavy update and I expect to show much more polished and refined visuals in future updates. It's been frustrating to have to stick with placeholder everything while designing how the game works but that's just part of development. I wanted to cram as many pending and quality of life features into this update as possible before switching gears into content creation mode in the next week or two. With that said, let's get into it!

New Lobby System

Previously, the game had a standard main menu that ended up feeling archaic and unnecessary. If you were in a multiplayer game and and wanted to equip a new cosmetic or view progress on a challenge, you'd have to leave the game, go back to the main menu, check it there and then start the whole multiplayer inviting / joining new lobby process all over again. The main menu was also just a roadblock between loading screens as the 99% of the time when you boot up the game, you tend to want to jump straight into a new run. With this in mind I decided to create a lobby or hub area which acts as a kind of physical main menu but without any of the drawbacks mentioned above (players can now stay in multiplayer parties while changing cosmetics or checking out challenges). In addition to this, when you launch the game you are now right beside a portal to start a new run (this takes about 5 seconds on my test machine).

The lobby consists of several interactables, all located nearby for easy access.

New Run Portal: Jump in to instantly start a new run
Autosave Portal: Resume your previous run (if an autosave exists)
Cosmetics Totem: Equip crab and weapon skins as well as view all challenges to be completed in order to unlock more skins!
Difficulty Totem: Choose one of the 4 difficulty options for your next run
Leaderboards Totem: View friend and global leaderboards for the currently selected difficulty
Multiplayer Totem: Join a random session with the Quickplay option or host your own game and invite friends
Key Totem: Dispense keys (the currency that persists after runs end) to permanently unlock new weapons, weapon mods, grenade mods and perks, adding more content to the game over time
Stats Pedestal: See stats for all players in the lobby including things like the current win streak or the percentage of challenges completed
Tutorial Portal: Replay the tutorial as many times as you need to (you can set record times for completing it quickly)

All of these changes mean that everything that you previously did before in different parts of the main menu are now all in one place in the lobby! Equip skins while waiting for others to join, unlock new permanent loot in between each run: everything is much more accessible and convenient. It also acts as a nice social hub area which I plan on improving with easter eggs in the future. Racing time trials and a 1v1 duel pit will likely be added as part of this lobby in a future update, allowing players to take a break between runs.

Challenges And Progression

Let's first go over the current list of 50 achievements that'll be available to complete from day one of the beta. I tried to avoid grindy challenges that just take time to complete and aren't an actual achievement (like get 100K total eliminations or travel for 50 miles total across all of your runs).

All skin visuals will be improved, these are a proof of concept to give you an idea of what to expect.

Crab Skin Challenges

Flawless: Get a win on Normal difficulty without taking any damage
Frugal: Get a win on Normal difficulty with 5 or less shop purchases
Millionaire: Get a win with over 1M unspent crystals in your inventory
Unstoppable: Get a win with over 1000 eliminations
Speedrun I: Reach island 30 in 20 minutes or less
Speedrun II: Reach island 50 in 40 minutes or less
Speedrun III: Reach island 100 in 60 minutes or less
Claws Of Fury I: Eliminate 500 enemies in a single run
Claws Of Fury II: Eliminate 2500 enemies in a single run
Claws Of Fury III: Eliminate 10000 enemies in a single run
Outplayed: Defeat a boss on Ultra Chaos difficulty without taking any damage
Bulletproof: Complete the first biome on Nightmare difficulty without taking any damage
Big Spender: Make 100 purchases at shops in a single run
Playing With Power: Level up a mod or perk to level 20 in a single run
EZ: Defeat a boss in under 10 seconds
Marathon: Survive until island 200
Slice And Dice: Survive until island 15 without firing your weapon
Close Call: Defeat a boss when you have 1 health remaining
Ultra Damage: Deal over 100K damage in a single shot
Maxed Out: Fill all mod and perk slots in your inventory during a single run
Solid Gold: Fill all weapon mod slots with legendary weapon mods
Recycler: Salvage 50 pickups in a single run
Greedy: Defeat a boss with at least 5 greed perks in your inventory
Crab Champion I: Get a win on any difficulty
Crab Champion II: Get a win on Nightmare difficulty
Crab Champion III: Get a win on Ultra Chaos difficulty
Skilled: Get 3 wins in a row on any difficulty
Pro: Get 3 wins in a row on Nightmare difficulty
Master: Get 3 wins in a row on Ultra Chaos difficulty
Looper: Get a win after looping at least once
Crab Legend: Complete all challenges

Weapon Skin Challenges

Auto Rifle Master I: Get a win with the Auto Rifle on any difficulty
Auto Rifle Master II: Get a win with the Auto Rifle on Nightmare difficulty
Auto Rifle Master III: Get a win with the Auto Rifle on Ultra Chaos difficulty
Pump Shotgun Master I: Get a win with the Pump Shotgun on any difficulty
Pump Shotgun Master II: Get a win with the Pump Shotgun on Nightmare difficulty
Pump Shotgun Master III: Get a win with the Pump Shotgun on Ultra Chaos difficulty
Burst Rifle Master I: Get a win with the Burst Rifle on any difficulty
Burst Rifle Master II: Get a win with the Burst Rifle on Nightmare difficulty
Burst Rifle Master III: Get a win with the Burst Rifle on Ultra Chaos difficulty
Sniper Master I: Get a win with the Sniper on any difficulty
Sniper Master II: Get a win with the Sniper on Nightmare difficulty
Sniper Master III: Get a win with the Sniper on Ultra Chaos difficulty
Crossbow Master I: Get a win with the Crossbow on any difficulty
Crossbow Master II: Get a win with the Crossbow on Nightmare difficulty
Crossbow Master III: Get a win with the Crossbow on Ultra Chaos difficulty
Rocket Launcher Master I: Get a win with the Rocket Launcher on any difficulty
Rocket Launcher Master II: Get a win with the Rocket Launcher on Nightmare difficulty
Rocket Launcher Master III: Get a win with the Rocket Launcher on Ultra Chaos difficulty
Gunslinger: Get a win with all weapons in the game

Players will see what they have unlocked in the Game Over UI.

You may have noticed that there are only 6 weapons: while there were more weapons in the game before, I wanted to ensure that the game launches with a smaller number of distinct weapon archetypes before adding more. Since weapon mods are far more important than the weapons themselves, it's not a huge deal for so few weapons to be in a game designed to be replayed. You'll need to approach each weapon differently when making effective build combos of mods and perks in order to complete all mastery challenges and it's interesting to see how the same mod can be extremely effective on one type of weapon and next to useless on another.

Next, let's talk about meta progression. I'm a big fan of keeping the difficulty of the game the same regardless of how long you have played it (no extra lives, damage boosts or anything similar through grindy meta progression skill trees). That said, it's fun to work toward unlocking new loot to freshen up future playthroughs. As briefly mentioned earlier in this post, players can interact with the Key Totem found in the lobby to permanently unlock a new piece of loot that both will appear in future runs and stay in your inventory when starting your next run. I believe this design is rewarding without giving the player permanent buffs. This all of course means that only a selection of mods and perks are unlocked for your first playthrough and as you unlock more, the loot pool will increase greatly in variety. There is a cap of 15 keys that can be held at once with each unlock at the Key Totem costing 10 keys. This means that only one unlock can be granted per run but there are other ways to put keys to use, even after all content has been unlocked.

Gameplay Improvements

Better Rewards + More Variety
After a lot of playtesting this month, I realized that some island rewards (mainly keys and armor plates) just didn't feel worth it after working hard to narrowly clear an island. Because of this, there will now always be a choice between 2 portals when moving to new islands: an easy portal with a much shorter and less intense wave of enemies for a lower tier reward (like a heart or a crystal bundle) and a hard portal with much more challenging encounters which guarantee a high value reward (like a weapon mod or perk). This creates a nice dynamic where you can get greedy and keep going for the better rewards (and harder portals) but end up ruining the run. The pacing and distribution of rewards is something that I'm always tweaking and will continue to do so during the beta.

I've also focused on variety with multiple new types of Shop and Treasure islands that players can encounter on their runs. Health Shops / Key Shops allow players to purchase loot using health / keys rather than crystals. Treasure islands now have a wide variety of different layouts including some that are Greed focused (one of the only ways to get Greed perks), some that offer multiple pathways to choose from and some that are simply a huge area full of crystal rocks to destroy!
Improved Loot FX:

Loot now visually jumps out of chests with new FX and nice staggered timing before the loot is revealed: much more interesting than before. Unique sounds also play for each rarity.
Flawless Island Clear Changes
Previously, flawless island clears rewarded crystals which felt "invisible" a lot of the time when playtesting: if you weren't already looking out for the bonus, it was easy to miss it being awarded. In addition to this, simply getting more crystals after an island didn't feel rewarding enough.

You now get an additional reward chest after each flawless island clear which really adds up if you manage to do it multiple times in a biome. This also scales with the Performance Bonus perk (a chance to get an ADDITIONAL reward chest when getting a flawless island clear) which can lead to crazy amounts of loot in the hands of a skilled player!
Improved Pacing
Entering a flow state of clearing islands with an "all gameplay no downtime" design is something that I've worked hard to try and achieve. Ideally there'll be a point where the game clicks for players and even a clearing the first island on a new run will feel skillful and satisfying.

Rather than having to clear 15 islands per biome (which could take up to 20 minutes if playing slowly), I've reduced the number of islands per biome to 10 for a more focused experience. In addition, many issues with how enemies scale as you progress have been fixed to avoid tediously long islands when looping in the late game. Ideally each island is intense and action packed but never feels too long.
More Ways For Enemies To Attack

Enemies can now attack from multiple locations at once: like this skull firing projectiles from both eyes (the eyes even now light up when firing, very important feature!)
Better Boss Loot:
Bosses now physically drop loot pickups when defeated (in addition to the Epic rarity chests that are spawned), making the process of beating a boss much more rewarding.
Challenge Crystal Loot
Challenge Crystals (destructibles that spawn a bunch of hard enemies when destroyed) now drop a random pickup as a reward, making them much more worth the risk of losing health.
Limitless Shop Pedestals
Loot purchased from a shop pedestal can now be repeatedly purchased over and over (provided you can pay the price each time), allowing for some rapid scaling in late game loops where you have a lot of crystals at hand!
Final Difficulty Options

While there has been a lot of back and forth on how difficulty should be handled in the game, I've landed on the realization that it's best to let players learn the mechanics of the game on an easier difficulty and give them the option to up the challenge when ready rather than not having difficulty options and seeing people stop playing out of frustration. For the beta there will be 4 difficulties:
- Easy: Fewer enemies with less health that deal less damage and attack slower. You start with 250 max health instead of 100.
- Normal: All values are untouched, a well rounded experience for new players.
- Nightmare: More enemies with more health that deal more damage and attack faster.
- Ultra Chaos: Everything cranked up to insane values for the ultimate challenge. Only very experienced players that have mastered the mechanics will be able to survive here- a punishing difficulty for those looking for that kind of gameplay!
Multiplayer Loot Ownership:
A common question that has come up: "can other players steal my loot or does everyone get local loot?"

Since players should be able to be able to view what others are getting from chests, I've made chest loot be protected until the owning player picks it up. They can then freely drop the loot from their inventory for others to pick up if they wish. This prevents people from stealing your loot while allowing them to still see what you got!
Multiplayer Portal Voting:
On a related note, rather than letting the first player to pick a portal determine what the next island will be (potentially while others are still choosing their loot), I've added a system that allows everyone to vote for the portal that they want to go next with a 10 second countdown to allow players to finish looting before moving on to the next island. If all players vote, the countdown ends instantly and the next island portal is chosen without wasting any more time.
Loot Pool Improvements:
Some loot is now unique to certain biomes, making it easier to target specific build options (choosing to go to the Snow biome while going for an ice build will greatly increase your chances of finding ice themed loot).
New Chest Animations

Reward chests now slam down after clearing an island, way cooler than just appearing!
Consumable Loot Rarities
As consumable loot is the least fun to get (hearts, armor, keys and crystal bundles), I've added the chance to get higher rarity variants (Quad Key, Large Crystal Bundle etc.) when opening a consumable chest.
Homing Thorns Challenge Modifier
A new challenge modifier has been added: enemies spawn homing thorns when eliminated that seek you out- keep your distance!
Ultrawide Support

Something that has been frequently asked is if ultrawide monitors will be supported properly: I've been working to ensure that all UI elements will be aligned correctly on ultrawide monitors with no black bars or cropped visuals! All future versions of the game will also be tested with an ultrawide monitor to ensure compatibility.
Inventory Quality Of Life Improvements
You now have the option to drop anything in your inventory to share with teammates or to salvage. Salvaging loot for crystals now requires a 1 second button hold time to prevent accidentally selling something that you didn't mean to.
Weapon Movement Speed Changes
Weapons now affect movement speed with -20% movement speed when using the LMG and Rocket Launcher and +20% movement speed when using the lightweight SMG.
Fail Of The Month: First Person Sniper Scope

Another frequently asked question is if snipers will have scopes: I tried it out but since the game is all about high mobility action, being so zoomed in with tunnel vision just didn't feel good! I may revisit this in the future but for now all weapons will aim in third person without scopes.
Improved Armor UI Visuals

Each armor plate is now represented by a separate blue segment above the main health bar.

Thanks for reading the update this month!

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