Greetings!
As the summer is gently coming around in the south France, the heat is not stopping us and we
keep improving the game and fixing bugs.
Today, we bring you the first major update since the official release of the game!
It has been difficult for me to read all the reviews and decide what I wanted to change. I aspire for Noreya to remain a “simple to pick up” game, and I understand that some people would like to have “everything from the start,” but that’s not my vision of a good video game.
In any case, this update should please many people!
Revamp of the Giant Worm
In my opinion, this is the biggest failure of Noreya, as this boss was supposed to have a very “puzzle” aspect. In the end, it became a hit point sponge mixed with a platforming marathon. Despite this, I didn’t think it would be judged as so hard and unfair, since there are many torches that allow you to rest and explore the area in ghost form to prepare your path.
So, we have reworked it to offer several options to defeat it.
- there is now only one layer of destructible blocks, reducing the random aspect and allowing better memorization of the locations
- there are ghost tiles to create a “reminder” that this functionality exists, and that exploring in ghost form prevents you from being chased
- if you complete all the lights, the Worm will take a certain amount of damage relative to the difficulty level (30% on easy)
- touching the Worm will remove 6 hearts, allowing you to survive more than once (unless you arrive here with less than 6 hearts, but it’s not easy so the Worm shouldn’t be a problem)
- the Boss’s health bar indicates that you can deal damage to it, thus avoiding running in circles
All these modifications should allow you to better understand what is happening and to overcome it, either by attacking it, by lighting all the lights, or a mix of both (the most interesting in my opinion). This will also make the “perfection” achievement more accessible.
We have also worked on performance improvements specific to this fight.
Map Markers
This is something we wanted to do from the start, but due to time constraints and bugs, it was somewhat forgotten.
You can now place 50 markers on the map as you wish!
Add a "next statue" button on the Map
Thanks to a player idea, we added this small but nice feature in the "World Map" menu.
Just press a button and it will select automatically the next statue.
You can still move around and select by hand the statue you want, but in case you are lost or just prefer to use a simple button, you now have the choice! ^-^
Changes regarding the time to heal and immune, and other minor things.
It's the kind of changes which are quite risky and that's why we do not change it right after the first review, we take the time to analyze, test and look at player's videos and streams.
So we decided to reduce a little bit the time to heal. And to increase a little bit the immune duration after being hit.
Also, the contrast setting value is now by default at 50 (not for the old saves).
Finally, we adjusted some platforms tones in the assets, to make it more visible/readable.
Boss Health Bars
This was something that was discussed within the team and wasn’t implemented initially. No one knew if it was “good or not,” as many games we draw inspiration from do not use this feature.
But the Giant Worm is one of the bosses for which having a visible health bar allows players to know that they need to deal damage to it. It also allows players to “hold on” when there’s little health left, providing a visible sense of progress on the screen.
I believe that nowadays, a health bar on bosses is something all games should have, as many players get frustrated and don’t retry even though they were almost successful.
I admit I was badly influenced as a designer by many titles that inspired me.
You can also note that the health bars of each boss in the game indicate the different phases if there are any.
We hope this new addition will be welcome and help you hold on against the terrible worm from hell ^-^!
Change to the True Ending - More Teleportation Statues
Obtaining the true ending is intentionally tedious in Noreya. If it were enough to teleport to all the statues, it would be too easy; we might as well offer it directly when acquiring the items.
However, once acquired, we are limited in terms of teleportation choices, and I agree that it is tedious for no reason.
We have therefore decided to transform all destroyed statues into Aleph statues, but only once the true ending is unlocked!
Controller Vibration
This is something I felt was really missing in the game. We have now added vibration to the controller. It’s the kind of little thing you underestimate as a designer, and you realize how much it enhances the game once it’s integrated.
Next Stream Date!
It’s not easy to find a date when you have children and many passions, ahah, but I’ve decided. It will be Thursday, July 25th, starting at 6 PM!
We will meet on the Studio’s channel, talk a bit about development, Kickstarter rewards, console porting, and then I will start a new game ^-^ This will be an opportunity for a Q&A session in a relaxed atmosphere.
Dreamirl Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/dreamirl
That’s all for the major changes in this patch. We still need to add the ability to configure controller buttons, which isn’t simple, but it will be available in the next patch, I hope!
Here is the detailed list.
Improvements/Changes:
- Boss life bar
- Giant worm rework + performance optimizations
- Add markers on the world map
- Gamepad vibrations
- You now must hold the button to destroy a statue and forge the hammer
- Retake on many rooms in the Ruins of Lemia to add some dark background behind the spikes (lack of readability)
- A few level-art fix
- Add a specific sound to the running zombie
- Gamepad disconnect trigger the pause menu
- Aleph statues will replace the destroyed ones after the true ending is unlocked
- Shortcut button to select automatically the next statue
- Add a "save lost" warning when quitting the game
- Add a "die" option on the menu to force our character death
Bugs:
- attack damage up to 18000
- Golden Widow camera lock if it dies to quickly and in some other situations
- Hit Flash reveals secret zones
- Sword Master can go through the walls while dashing
- Destroyed statue sound replay when entering the room
- Game crash if opening the world map while changing a room at a specific timing
- Ghost monsters do not display as a Ghost if they spawn while we are already in a Ghost form
- Giant Worm going through Halo / stuck
- Final Boss projectiles sounds bug
- optimization in menus
- fix some maps with a wrong layer contrast
- fix many small spiders wrong offset/direction on init
- fix player being able to open map and skillTree during a cutscene