In this patch we added a lot of new features such as Twitch Mode, Narration and Game Records! We used some of the community suggestions to help improve aspects like UI, gameplay, and visual feedback of card cooldowns and enemy behavior. We also made some changes and balance adjustments to some of the blue and yellow cards.
New Features
Twitch Mode (Content Creators Build Only)
Twitch Integration is a feature focused on streamers, giving them a lot of room and tools for direct interactions with their audiences. It allows them to play the game in a unique way that can only be experienced while streaming the game.
The chat of the streamer can interact with the game through:
- Lele Mode: One viewer is picked from the chat, being granted the power to control Lele. This allows them to use skills, spells and spawn enemies.
- All Chat Interactions: During the streamer’s run, there will be many interactions that Twitch chat can vote on to decide what will happen in the game. Like deciding which kind of card the streamer will receive as reward and which level they should go to next.
Narrator
Throughout the game, Lele will comment on Ace's actions and interact with him through a wide variety of voice lines.
Dialogues
We added a new dialogue system with all of the NPCs, bosses and tutorials. In addition to some new UI for it, now all of the characters have their own unique art and voices.
Game Records
We added an interactable mirror at the entrance to each level. With it, players can check their:
- Unlockable information: Most used cards, trinkets and permanent upgrades. As well as which items the player has already unlocked.
- Progression information: How many times they died, beat the game and their best times on each level.
- Enemy information: How many times the player has killed or been killed by each enemy.
(Community Suggestion) Cooldown Feedback
We heard players complain about not really knowing when their skills are off cooldown and having to look at their skill bar, averting their focus from the gameplay, and potentially putting them in danger while doing so. To help with this issue, we implemented the following changes based on feedback regarding skill cooldowns:
- Yellow Card's icons briefly appear above Ace when the skill gets off cooldown.
- Added visual feedback on all cards to show when a card is still on cooldown (on skill bar HUD).
- Added visual feedback on all cards to show when a card gets off cooldown (on skill bar HUD).
- Added audio feedback on cards with longer cooldown to indicate when a card is still on cooldown.
Tooltip System
We noticed some important mechanics of the game weren’t being easily understood and used as quickly as we wanted players to use them. To help players understand them a bit better, we added a simple tooltip system that is triggered when cards are equipped in a certain order.
Changes & Balancing
Blue Cards
- Reduced all of the dash and blink cooldowns and adjusted the damage accordingly.
Yellow Cards
- Reduced the overall cooldown of Yellow Cards and adjusted the damage accordingly.
Difficulty
(Community Feedback) Entrance Hall reduction: We heard a lot of new players talking about the length of the first level and that it took longer than it should. We agreed that as an introductory level it didn’t need to be that long. So we removed some rooms and rearranged the map to make it shorter.
Cupcake drop: On every level, cupcakes would drop 2 to 3 times. We have increased the drop rate to make sure that 3 cupcakes will spawn on each level.
(Community Feedback) Initial Pink Card: We felt that for new players the constant change in skills for their first few attempts could be a bit too difficult. To improve that we made the starter pink card always be Five of a Kind (similarly with how the start blue card is always Dashing Dash). Once players get to the Banquet Hall for the first time, they can unlock a cheap upgrade that will expand the number of starter pink cards the player can receive.
(Community Feedback) Card Gold Prices: We updated the shop’s Card prices, making them more accessible.
(Community Feedback) Enemy Attack Feedback
We improved the feedback that indicates when an enemy will be making an attack. This makes it a lot easier to predict and react to the various attacks enemies have. To get to this result we did a few things:
- Enemies grow bigger before attacking
- Enemies glow in white for longer before attacking
- Floating Damage numbers from Ace’s attacks were made a bit smaller and spread out more to make it easier for players to see the enemies while damaging them
- Now there is no overlap between feedback on enemies. Before this change, enemies would glow in white before attacking, but would get overlapped by a red glow when they got hit by Ace
And we addressed and fixed several bugs
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