Jan 1, 2024

Total blade - moondol

After removing grand strategy and trying to create a game centered around storytelling, I realized that overworld exploration had no meaning. Also, the concept of the story was created, but it didn't make sense for the player, who plays the role of both invader and runaway, to wander the world for soldier leveling up. Here is the method I chose.

Just by looking at the interface, you can tell what style of game it is, and it is indeed played as expected. A unique feature is that each officer leads a unit, and this unit can be disbanded if not properly managed. The morale of the unit decreases as the number of deaths increases, and if the morale becomes 0 due to continuous battles, it will be disbanded.
While the morale of the unit can recover over time, the enemies will make sure the player cannot rest comfortably.

There is no limit to the number of units that can be dispatched to a single operation area, but if the appropriate number of units is exceeded, the detection gauge will increase.
The content of the game is to grow the ship and the unit as much as possible without being detected.

The TPS battle will be directly ported as it was previously created.
After the TPS battle version is completed, a turn-based battle version will be made as a separate game file.

In the turn-based battle version, the unit card system will disappear, and you will control one by one in turn. The death of an ally is a permanent death. The number of enemies is large, but to prevent time from being extended due to it being turn-based, they will be made to act all at once on a grid basis.

Given the game system, you need to defeat the enemies with as few troops as possible, so the importance of the player's role increases more than before, and accordingly, player fatigue also increases. To solve this problem, officers will have a fatigue system to prevent the player from participating in continuous battles.

Even outside of combat, when visiting cities for diplomatic purposes, players can move the player character in TPS mode.

Jan 1, 2024

January Hype Update - New Year, New Plans!

Clash: Blue Mirage - Sciaenops Ocellatus

wait, is that a NEW PICTURE being used for the announcement headers??? I ACTUALLY MADE SOME PROGRESS on the VISUALS???

I'm currently putting final touches on Chapter 4. Then I'm going to test what all I have and make sure it fits together. Then there's four more chapters planned - and these four chapters are where the branching occurs, so writing-and-development wise its more like ten or twelve more chapters I got to get made. And as you all know, my day job does not allow me to focus full-time on devwork (unless its weekends and certain holidays or breaks). Which means this one-year project is looking to be way longer. And I feel really bad that y'all have to wait on me.

So here is the deal. Once Chapter 4 is wrapped up and the game is relatively bug-free, I am releasing Chapters 1-4 into Early Access! You'll get to enjoy the story up through the advertised "Clash gets hacked" part, I'll get help finding any errors (spelling, grammar, or coding) that I missed, and we will all be entertained while I hammer out the rest of the chapters. :-)

I have an extremely tentative Early Access release date schedule. SUPER tentative. Like, when I actually start hammering out Early Access details I may have to redo this. So please don't get mad if the schedule changes later on because hey, I warned you:

Early Access 1 – Chapters 1 through 4 (January or February 2024)
Early Access 2 – adds in Chapter 5 (March 2024)
Early Access 3 – add in all four variations of Chapter 6 (June, July, or August 2024)
Early Access 4 – adds in all four variations of Chapter 7 (September, October, or November 2024)
Full – adds in all four variations of Chapter 8 + two bonus stories + behind the scenes trivia (December 2024, January or February 2025)

I guess this also means I can say the full game's release date is early 2025 at maximum. Providing no catastrophes. Which also means that it is a good thing I am doing Early Access because hoo boy, that's a ways off for a visual novel.

Thank you all for supporting Clash throughout the years. When I released the first version of the first game way back in 2021 (has it really already been two and a half years?), I didn't think I'd get ANY sort of response, let alone a positive one. But I have. You have no idea how happy it makes me when a piece of fanart shows up in my feed. When I get my own fridge I'm pinning those arts on it. The least I can do is give you guys a great sequel in return. :-)

That's about it from me. I hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed 20241

Jan 1, 2024

0.10.6 Patch Notes

Forsaken Isle - Smoodlez

Contains bug fixes and a fewer smaller changes.

Changes

Placeable items can now be placed by holding right click
Added additional keybind support
Slightly increased the time for tiles to naturally regrow
Grass can now be placed on tilled soil
Phantom knives now have a slight delay between each shot. Updated visuals
Frigid reaper now causes magic damage and requires mana

Fixes

Target dummy can now be picked up using an axe
Underground overgrown cave walls can now be destroyed
Crates in mine biomes now use the correct loot table
Fixed fire arrow visuals. Now correctly applies its status effect
Fixed poison arrow visuals. Now correctly applies its status effect
Tiles can now be placed on all carpet variants
Fixed map starting out of frame when opened with the GUI button
Fixed crash when applying status effects to enemies
Fixed tooltip update delay on crafting recipes
Fixed some mobs not applying status effects when hitting the player
Fixed armour sprites not rendering correctly while swimming

Jan 1, 2024

Update 1.1 is out!

Tunnet - puzzledsquid

Happy New Year Everyone!

Today is the first day of 2024 and it is also the one-month anniversary of Tunnet.

To celebrate, I just uploaded a new update to the project that mainly includes Quality-of-Life improvements based on the most recurring feedback I received since the game launched.

Those who have been playing on the beta branch should already be familiar with some of the new features listed here. A big thanks to them for all the great suggestions they shared after trying out these changes when I was still experimenting with them on the beta branch.

Manual Wiring

The automatic wiring performed when building a new device has been a source of frustration for many players when working in areas with limited space.

With this update, it is now possible to disconnect the devices by using middle click and manually rewire them by holding left click.

Automatic wiring can also be disabled by holding CTRL when building a new device.

Please also note that wires cannot be manually plugged from devices that are not owned by the technician (e.g. endpoints).

New Map

As the exploration happens in a 3D world, having a flat 2D map was sometimes a bit confusion and disorienting.

This new version slightly improves the map to represent each level individually to make it more readable. The displayed level can be changed using the mouse wheel.

A compass has also been added to display the direction currently faced by the technician and the DDOSed endpoints are now marked with warning signs.

Patching Tool

The vending machines also offer some new optional upgrades.

The first one is the patching tool. This comes as an upgrade to the drill and it can be used to fill holes in the tunnels. Note that it cannot be used inside the bunkers.

Scanner Upgrades

Both scanners can now be upgraded to provide more information about the targeted endpoint/mainframe.

The short-range scanner can display the connection status of the bunker:

When purchasing the long-range scanner upgrade, the list of peers will be displayed directly on the HUD when selecting a mainframe:

Revamped Tester

The testers have been completely revamped. By default, a tester is now only able to send ping packets and log the responses.

Upgrades can be purchased at the vending machines to make the tester:

behave like a dummy endpoint (spoof mode)
send ping packets repeatedly to a specific endpoint or to a whole subnetwork (repeat mode)
log any packet without consuming them (snoop mode)

The logging mechanisms has also been updated. Instead of displaying only the last eight packets received, the tester now categories the packets based on the source and destination addresses and displays a summary of all the packets captured:

Filter Upgrades

Packet collisions become a real problem when building complex networks.

An upgrade to the filter is now available to change the behavior of the device when a collision is detected.

Another upgrade has also been introduced to allow the filter to check more than one element of the address.

Miscellaneous

Port numbers are now always displayed on top of the 3D world.
Bridge in 0.2.1.0 doesn't return packets with TTL anymore.
Fixed a few typos in the handbook and dialogues.
Packets received by DDOSed endpoints now generate credits (half of what would be earned under normal conditions).
Tweaked the physics engine parameters to allow physics simulation steps to match framerate. This makes the animations run smoother on high refresh rate displays.
Hackers won't target mainframes anymore.
Disinfecting DDOSed endpoints is now rewarded with a few credits.
The respawn rate of the corruption in the final level has been decreased.
Digging costs have been decreased.
Spider AI has been slightly improved to run away from the lantern's light.

What's next?

I am incredibly thankful for all the feedback and suggestions I received so far and I wish I had time to respond to all of your messages. I do read all of them though!

I am aware that this update does not address all the issues that have been reported but I am already planning to work on another update.

Please do continue to let me know if you have any suggestions or if you find any issues/bugs.

I hope you will enjoy this new update.

Thank you!

--

Puzzled Squid