Hi folks!
Today we're pleased to offer up our first update to Bo since launch, it's been a hectic few weeks but we're pleased to be in a position where we can respond to feedback.
In this update, our aim was to tackle a few high priorities issues that were relatively easy to implement for a first patch. We wanted to push out this patch as soon as possible with the limited resources we have right now due to a lack of previous publisher support.
There are still many things that we are working on, including some strange bugs that seem to be edge cases, but we think that these initial changes alone will greatly reduce the frustrations a lot of players have been experiencing so far in their playthroughs.
We apologize we could not get to every bug that was reported in this update as some of them are very fresh and unreproducible on our end.
Thank for being patient with us, and thank you for your ongoing support.
Much love,
The Squid Shock Studios Team
Version 1.0.7 Patch Notes
Checkpoints
The overwhelming negative criticism that we received from the game that seemed to sour the entire experience was the penultimate boss battle in the game, the Asahi Chase sequence.
Players were frustrated due to the lack of checkpoints during the fight. We totally hear you and agree with this criticism as designers. To all the people that trudged through that section, seriously kudos, your sacrifice and tolerance for challenge will not be forgotten.
- Saving Shrines were added to the beginning of each room of the Asahi Chase Sequence in the Imperial Castle area.
We will be closely monitoring other sections of the game where issues arise.
Quality of Life
There were a few things that we wanted to have for release and which a few of you have asked for. We're pleased we are able to add them now, but we do understand some features should have been in for launch.
Cloud Saves
- The game now supports Steam Cloud saving for game save files and the settings file.
Map
- The names of each area now appear on the map once the player enters the main entrance of the area for the first time.
- “Bunny Blossom” map icons have now been added to the map if you have encountered them in your playthrough. Keep in mind that these might need to refresh for some players depending on when you encountered them.
- “Tree of Blessing” Map icons have now been added to the map if you have encountered them in your playthrough. Keep in mind that these might need to refresh for some players depending on when you encountered them.
- Intuition Map Icons added for the 3 new hidden chests in the Imperial Castle.
- The default zoom level for the map is now wider.
- 2 wider zoom levels have been added to the map.
Design Tweaks
Fragile Egg Quest
- A Saving Shrine has been added to the right of the spawn point of the fragile egg in the Western Column of the Ice Caverns. This shrine was added to mitigate backtracking as much as possible when players crack the egg.
We will be keeping a close eye on this quest as we understand its causing player frustration.
Sumo Pagoda Tournament
- A small number of players have reached this area without obtaining the intended grapple ability from Midori Forest first. Two pogo bounce pads have been added to each of the two stages in order to aid the player in reaching the center of the ring without the grapple ability.
Misc
- Deactivated an unnecessary checkpoint in Kitsune Burrows that would cause a player to spawn in an unsafe location and begin an infinite damage loop after hitting thorn hazards.
Economy
We received feedback from players regarding the grinding for currency that is necessary to 100% the game. We made the following changes in order to scale Fox Fire/Kitsunebi rewards higher in the mid to late game, while keeping the earlier game relatively the same.
A small amount of grinding might still be necessary for players who tend to not farm enemies naturally, but it should be considerably minimized compared to the release version. No shop prices have changed.
Mainly boss rewards are changed with the largest increase given to Kitsura, a difficult optional early game boss that players should be rewarded handsomely for defeating early (100 fox fire for each of those pesky tails).
Economy Changes - Critical Path
- Hashihime Boss fox fire reward increased from 100 to 200
- Kabuto Yokozuna Boss fox fire reward increased from 250 to 300
- Tengu Trio Boss fox fire reward increased from 333 to 700
- Jorogumo Boss fox fire reward increased from 300 to 700
- Gashadokuro Boss fox fire reward increased from 500 to 800
- Asahi Boss fox fire reward increased from 900 to 1000
- Enemy Arena fox fire rewards increased from 100 to 150 per room.
Economy Changes - Optional
- 3 Chests containing 100 fox fire each are now hidden in the Imperial Castle.
- The fox fire reward for completing the sumo target mini game in Sakura City increased from 50 to 300.
- Kitsura Boss fox fire reward increased from 300 to 900
Bosses
Kiri Kiri Bozu
- The slam hurtbox for the Kiri Kiri Bozu was reduced in size to better reflect the visual representation of the associated particle effect.
Hashihime
- The vertical chochin are playable from the start and no longer on fire at the start of the boss fight. Upon reviewing feedback, it’s apparent this only presents a frustrating inconvenience rather than an interesting challenge in the fight.
- Candle health is nerfed across each phase Phase 1 candles HP decreased from 15 to 13 for a total of 26 HP Phase 2 Candles HP decreased from 15 to 13 for a total of 26 HP Phase 3 Candle HP decreased from 25 to 22 for a total of 22 total HP
Dev Note: A problem that we saw throughout the first week is that players did not realize that they could hit Hashihime’s candles for staff damage and instead were waiting for the water orb battable object phase in order to deal damage.
This made the fight seem incredibly long with a lot of waiting. We thought that training players to hit candles throughout the entire level would be enough to enforce this mechanic but we were wrong. We are currently thinking of ways to make this clearer in a future update.
Kitsura
- The fireballs that eject from Kitsura’s tails are now red instead of blue. This change was made in order to provide more contrast from the background as well as to differentiate them from Bo's character color. Furthermore, changing the color also further clarifies that the fireballs are not battable objects.
Dev Note: Many players have noticed the intense difficulty spike for Kitsura. This difficulty spike was intentional as Kitsura is an optional boss in the game. Despite this we were surprised at how many players threw themselves at her in a masochistic manner and were saddened when they could not pet her after the battle. In a future update we hope to further clarify naturally that it may be a good idea for the player to return to the boss once they have become stronger.
Asahi
- A save shrine has been added to the second and third room of the Asahi boss fight. This is to reduce the amount of frustration caused by starting from the very beginning of this boss fight when dying in room two and room three. This also gives the player an option to heal completely before engaging in the boss battle after reaching another room in the fight.
Sakura Shogun
- Lanterns were added in the background of the Ice Caverns illusion phase with the intention of having greater clarity and contrast between the background and the player character.
Dev Note: We have more changes coming for this boss battle to better pace some of the phases as well as add additional ways to reduce player frustration. Specifically we want to give more options for the player to ascend and deal damage to the shogun when out of reach. These design changes however still need to be tested further and were not within the scope of this patch milestone.
Achievements
- Fixed an issue where the “Exorciser” (Kiri Kiri Bozu Boss defeated) and “Beast Tamer” (Particularly Unmanageable Armakillo Boss defeated) achievements did not trigger if a player was playing from a Next Fest demo save file.
- The “Prosperous” achievement conditions have changed from “having 8000 fox fire currently in your inventory” to “having overall accumulated 8000 Fox Fire over time”. This will not affect players who already have the achievement, but for everyone else the achievement will start from 0 fox fire on Steam, since it is now a stat-based achievement with no previous record of total fox fire on Steam. We apologize for the inconvenience.
- Fixed an issue where the “Particularly Unmanageable Armakillo” achievement would trigger at a 34 hit combo instead of the intended 33 hit combo