So it’s not a joke - there isn’t a patch this weekend :(
I’ve been super busy getting this one going and I want to give it another week to get things tested and fleshed out a bit more. It’s exciting - let me explain... (this will probably be wordy).
One of the things I’m quickly learning with this whole “game development” thing (still have to quotation mark that as I still feel like an imposter haha), is that there are two lists.
- List of “Things I Think I’m Going To Work On”
- List of “Things That I Actually Work On”
I’ve been pretty transparent with this. If you look at the roadmap - (which I really need to fixup this week!), you’ll notice that the 4th class should have been out by now. The only reason it isn’t is because I shifted focus. Whilst I thought the 4th class was the next thing to be added after launching back in Nov, I had a lot of feedback come my way about UI issues, small text, boring card design etc etc. It became apparent pretty quickly that I needed to fix this - so I jumped over and switched focus. A lot of the feedback was “There's plenty of content here for now! Just present it a touch better please!”
That was the first case of the two lists clashing. Player feedback won that battle - and always will. I try to pride myself on responding as quickly as possible to feedback, bugs etc where I can.
So when this week started, I was keen to get into a meeting with Card Council about new Daughter cards, look at some new card artwork and then implement the new Void fight... (uh - spoiler tag?). But one piece of feedback has been showing up often enough, and that is :
Vault is a super fun game to play! But it’s not great to stream.
First time I heard this I thought, and rightfully so, it was because of the UI. I’ve reworked that a great deal back in December and the feedback has been super positive. But the truth is, Vault still lacks that little bit of “punch”, that zap that keeps things interesting when watching someone play. It’s different when you’re behind the cards, because planning your path, card play order and combo searching is pretty satisfying. And if you understand the game - watching someone do that is also satisfying. But if you’re new - Vault definitely lacks that sparkle that draws you in, and makes you want to learn the game.
This is due to a number of things. The enemies being cards probably doesn’t help. But it's also due to a lack of special effects, particles, sound effects and movement during battle. So this week, I rolled up the sleeves and got cracking on things.
At this point - I’m pretty much hand auditing every fight. I’ve added new sound effects and overlays for Vulnerable, Weak, Slow, Fortitude gain - even breaking an enemies Fortitude now plays a special sound and overlay effect!
There's also a bunch of new stuff for each class. The Daughter has nice little particles shoot out each time she gains corruption, and motes of energy that suck into her Corruption globe as it grows, and then fire out at the enemy when she Unleashes. Same treatment with the Enlightened and the Hidden - new sound effects when Blades are summoned. Bleeding an enemy will cause blood particles to fly out in every direction.
Oh, and the enemies now move? Neat.
(I’m totally underplaying that - I LOVE this new effect).
Going through each spell, each attack, each ability etc is just taking some time however. Which is why I’m going to leave it for another week to try and make sure I get everything. Not to mention, I’ll need to now profile this build on lower end machines to ensure all the new shiny stuff doesn’t bottleneck anything. The process of getting all the enemies moving is going to take a touch longer, however I’m happy to drip feed those in over the span of a few weeks. The animator is working hard (and doing an amazing job!)
So that leaves me here - empty handed. Sorry I wasn’t able to get something out but I’d rather save all this and drop it in one nice big patch next weekend.
So until next week - thank you all again for the positive reviews and excellent feedback and bug reporting. Closing in on 200 reviews which is so exciting! I’ll be sure to show more on the Discord and on Twitter as things progress! Look forward to releasing things soon!
All for now.
Josh
F's in chat.
