Hi folks,
We just deployed a major update for DemonCrawl!
This patch contains a number of exciting changes, including:
- Proper gamepad support. Enable "Controller Mode" in the settings and you will be able to navigate through the game and various menus using directional keys. Even if you don't have a gamepad, it's pretty fun to try out "Controller Mode" on a keyboard - though maybe not as practical as a mouse! We have plans to continue improving this feature over time.
- Extra keybindings, better keybinding support. Players who rely on their keyboard to open/flag cells no longer have to swap to the mouse to perform inputs in other menus.
- Massive performance improvements. We have overhauled many parts of the DemonCrawl engine to great effect. These improvements will be most noticeable in large stages, or on old computers. Depending on your GPU, you might see up to 3-4x increase in FPS while idling in a large stage. Hopefully, we didn't break too many things in the process. 😊
- New holiday content. There are 15 Christmas missions this year, a new secret stage called Igloo, and more! Check out our companion post for all the details.
- Spawner rework. Sealing an inventory slot to spawn a stranger never felt very fun. Now, you can spawn the stranger for free. However, if you use a spawner too much, it will eventually break, killing all visible strangers of its type.
Full patch notes for v1.82 are available below. Enjoy!
Christmas Event
- Santa's back! Don't get on his bad side
- Every quest now has a special Igloo - home to Mrs. Claus
- Complete new holiday missions to earn 4 new avatars and a new inventory skin
- Expanded holiday questline, 15 in total: you can now complete missions from previous years to earn the original rewards, or tokens if you completed them before
- Some of the older holiday missions have been tweaked and rearranged for better flow
- Added 3 new avatars to Christmas Prizeboxes
New Features
- Added gamepad support
- Menus now support the "Open Cell" keybind in place of left click
- Menus now support the "Flag Cell" keybind in place of right click
- Added setting: Camera Speed - "The speed at which the camera moves from certain effects. Default: 10"
- Added setting: Gamepad Camera Boundary - "The distance in cells from your gamepad cursor to the edge of the screen before the camera follows."
- Added setting: Gamepad Rapidfire Delay - "The amount of time in steps you must hold a direction on your gamepad before the input will auto-repeat. Default: 30"
- Added setting: Gamepad Rapidfire Rate - "The interval in steps between the input auto-repeat. Default: 10"
- Added setting: Gamepad Menu Toggle - "Swaps the gamepad cursor between the stage board and HUD elements."
- Added setting: Zoom In Keybind
- Added setting: Zoom Out Keybind
- Added alternative keybinds for panning controls
- Added setting: Escape Menu Keybind
- New consumable item: Milk - "Gain 1 defense. For the next 300 turns, you can powerchord Sanctified cells."
Quality of Life
- Effects that pan the board, e.g. Novice III, will do so in a smoother fashion
- Added active state for "play quest" button as requested by the speedrun community
- Added blue version of the selector sprite to indicate that it's piloted by the AI (for the Arena or Tutorial)
- Optimized script that checks if an object is outside of view - it now applies to nearly all kinds of board objects
- Improved cell performance
- Improved performance of UI group engine
- Improved monster count UI performances
- Minor optimizations for UI scrollbar elements
- Improved performance of player HUD
- Optimized stage creation script
- Improved panning performance
- Improved cell performance
- Improved orb performance
- Minor improvements to numeric abbreviation script
- Minor optimizations for the script that handles holographic effects
- Added error sound effect to certain notifications
- Added simple gamepad button images in the Options screen
- Updated credits
- Minor adjustment to the appearance of text input elements
- Updated GameMaker runtime to the latest version
Balance Changes
- Spawner rework: "Spawn [stranger type]. Has a chance to break instead, killing all visible strangers of this type."
- Bubble Solution buff: "Trap all visible objects on numbered cells in bubbles, then restore 1 life for each object trapped this way."
- Pufferfish buff: reduced mana cost from 200 to 160
- Binoculars buff: increased the rate of spawning Minions by 25%
- Regift nerf: increased the price from 10 to 12 coins
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a rare crash related to dying in a Misty stage
- Fixed an issue with hybrid stage skins that was causing the empty cell sprite to load on a much larger surface than necessary
- Fixed an issue related to a change in "is_real" behavior in new GameMaker runtime