ASSIGNMENT ANYA: Version 1.6 is out now!

Beautiful artwork by KY! (@ky_rodil)

ASSIGNMENT ANYA

Dead Estate's penultimate content update is finally out! Feels weird saying that after working on it for about nine months. In the time it took to complete this update, we could've made a whole 'nother game -- and that's pretty much exactly what we ended up doing with this update and then some. While Assignment Anya shares a lot of DNA with the main game, I think that most players will find it to be a VERY different experience from Dead Estate. I hope everyone enjoys Assignment Anya and all of the new challenge modes!

NEW STUFF, CHANGES, AND FIXES

• Assignment Anya

  A whole new campaign accessible from the get-go, inspired by classic survival horror games and set prior to the events of the main game. Play as Anya, a fledgling actress who finds herself helplessly lost in the mansion after her film crew is attacked by the undead. Abandoned by her leading man and left alone with nothing but a mask to disguise herself with, Anya must escape the increasingly warped and deadly estate all on her own. (Takes roughly 2-4 hours on first attempts)

• Challenges

  In addition to the update's main attraction, we also added eleven (twelve, counting Assignment Anya) brand new challenge modes to the game! Each challenge requires you to use a different character and work around a unique gimmick, usually including a set of items given to you at the start of the run. I won't go into detail about each individual challenge here, but they're accessible once you've cleared the game as both Jules and Jeff, so get that done if you haven't!

• 12 new curses

  This update also includes twelve new curses that are applicable to EVERY character in the game! Each new curse is unlocked by completing a corresponding challenge. Again, not gonna list each individual one, but have fun unlocking them and potentially breaking the game by using all twelve at once!

• Small additions, balance changes, and adjustments

  - Killed the weapon swap/no reload exploit. Sorry, speedrunners. If you wanna continue using this exploit for speedruns or anything, a separate Steam branch has been made which will permanently be on version 1.5. You can access this branch under the beta section of the game’s Steam properties. - Level generation
  - Made some internal changes that should significantly speed up level generation. - Certain rooms can now spawn adjacent to each other: treasure rooms, weapon rooms, secret rooms, key rooms, and teleport crystal rooms.

  - Golden Mask

  - Added a short period of time to the Golden Mask’s grounded state where it’s guaranteed to stay down. - Golden Mask now attacks faster, with its attack speed increasing as the fight progresses.

  - Completely overhauled the game’s text rendering system. This might’ve introduced a fair number of potential visual bugs, so if you spot anything strange about the text in-game lemme know!!
  - Updated the text in Cordelia’s normal ending.
  - Updated some art in Cordelia’s intro cutscene.
  - Updated the third title screen artwork.
  - Added some missing tracks to the music player.
  - Added Axel’s unique bedroom on floor 2.
  - Increased poison effect tick rate from once every 30 frames to once every 25 frames
  - Increased poison effect damage by ~15%
  - Buffed the following weapons:

  - Paddleball: increased damage by ~50%. - Tennis Ball: increased damage by ~50%. - Basketball: increased damage by ~20%. - Pogo Stick: increased damage by ~50% + increased range + now destroys projectiles when jumped on. - Billiard Ball: increased damage by ~20%. - Poison Apple: increased damage by ~15%. - Bowling Ball: increased shot speed by ~20% + increased damage by ~6%. - Pepper Spray: increased fire rate by ~20%. - Poison Potions: increased damage by ~15%. - Thumbtacks: increased damage by ~20% + increased lifespan by a second. - Green Candle: increased damage by ~20%. - Blue Candle: increased damage by ~20%. - Magnet Staff: increased damage by ~15% + increased shot speed by ~10% + increased pulling power. - Rotten Tomato: increased damage by ~10% + now poisons enemies. - Chest Scaffolding: increased damage by ~20% - Rhetoric Staff: increased damage by ~10% + increased shot speed by ~10% + increased fire rate by ~15%. - Bone: increased fire rate by ~15% + increased ammo count by 50 + increased damage by ~10%. - Marching Drum: increased beat bonus + increased damage by ~15%. - Blood Staff: increased damage by ~25%. - Wind Staff: increased push force by ~25% + increased damage by ~20% - Quacks: increased shot speed by ~20% + increased damage by ~20% - Trumpet: increased fire rate by ~25% - Bomb: increased damage by ~25% - Broom: increased shot speed by ~25% + increased damage by ~15%

WHAT'S NEXT?

I originally planned to have the final update out by now and I wanted Assignment Anya out back in July. Five months later, you can see how that went. Work on the final update has been underway for about a month now (on my part, at least), and while I can't say with any amount of certainty when that update is gonna be out (beyond sometime in 2024), I can say that it's without a doubt the update I've been most excited to work on, and that it'll definitely require the most work out of any of these updates.

Just look at this list of stuff we gotta get done!!

That doesn't necessarily mean that it will take as long to make update #6 as it did to make this update, as I think I'll have more free time than before in the coming months (although I am gonna be going into my final semester of college), but we'll see. Regardless, it's gonna be out next year and I'm really giddy to finally be making all these ideas we've had into a reality. I'm even more excited for what we're gonna do after that, but I'll save talking about that for later. Probably a lot later. Thanks for reading all this stuff, enjoy the update!

- Jack