Relentless demo 0.4.1 is a huge update! Although there’s still some imperfections, this version is much closer to our final vision of a sidescrolling roguelite RPG. You can see a quick 10 minute stream of us playing it in the Steam trailers.
Below are what's new:
*** LOTS MORE CONTENT ***
0.4.1 has three complete adventures: 2 main story and 1 side quest. Plus new enemies, items, and NPCs. It should be an hour or more of gameplay, depending on how many ranger restarts you need.
Only 1 adventure is unlocked at the beginning. Unlock the other two adventure locations by fulfilling certain conditions.
*** WORLD MAP CAMPAIGN FEATURE ***
In this new update, you can select different adventures on the world map. Each adventure consists of one or more stages with NPC town areas in between.
Thinking back to oldies like Adventure of Link or even Final Fantasy 1, I’ve always liked how in those games you can explore a huge world with unique locations containing different adventures. Or if you compare to tabletop RPGs, the world map is your campaign while the locations each represent separate adventure modules.
*** IMPROVED ARTS ***
We improved the arts and hopefully made them more fun and useful. Try them out and see how you like them.
A word on Art controls. Currently, you can activate an art on the controller by holding down LT+X, Y, or B. The idea is that eventually the ranger can use up to 6 arts at a time. So LT+XYB covers 3, and RT+XYB covers the other 3. In this case, the keyboard controls are actually much more convenient (A,S,D,F,G,H) as they use only 1 key. We’re…not sure about these controls and would like feedback on this. One alternative possiblity is allowing only 2 arts at a time keyed to LT and RT, with the option to swap different sets of arts with maybe the dpad.
*** BELT AND BAG ITEMS ***
There’s always been Bag items, which are quest items you can’t directly use. We’ve put in Belt items, which can be active or passive. Active Belt Items such as daggers or potions can be used during combat with the B button while Passive Belt Items boost your stats simply by existing in your inventory.
Currently, you can equip them via the main menu. We plan to allow you to swap the items during gameplay in a future update.
*** PRISONER RESCUE MECHANIC ***
Rescue prisoners during your adventures to unlock new items, arts, and buildings in town.
Prisoner Rescue is one part of the survival management mechanic, where you unlock power ups and new items for future rangers, becoming more powerful with each run.