As part of the thankful season, we're thankful for all of the feedback, bug reports and support for Another Crab's Treasure you guys have given us! It's been one month since we took the demo down, and we've been using this time to implement a variety of changes for the final game.
Why did we take the demo down, you ask? Firstly, with all these big changes we made in the last month, we didn't want an old stinky version of the game out in the wild. On top of that, while it's been an incredible opportunity to hear your thoughts and feedback, it can be quite mentally taxing for the team!! Keeping on top of your comments while in the final stretch of development is a lot, so you'll just have to trust us that this is for the best.
That being said, the feedback came to good use. Here's some updates that we've made within the past month. And there's more to come!
COMBAT
The main gist of your combat complaints was that it felt a bit slippery or unpredictable.
- Kril now has a new 4-hit-combo. It's a little slower because we want to encourage methodical play instead of players just button mashing (it's me, I'm Players).
- Attacks now have more of a rhythm to them to make it more predictable.
- It is also now smoother to combo these attacks into one of your adaptations or shell spells.
- Players were getting stuck in their attack animation quite a lot - so we made it easier to escape with a block or a dodge.
- You can now dodge roll in mid-air (or, mid float I guess).
- Lunging during attacks no longer feels slippery. When you attack now you don't fly and get sent as far forward. Each attack lets you come to a complete stop.
- There's now a visual poise meter. When the bar is charged, hit them with a strong attack so you can literally kick ‘em while they're down.
These changes are so you, the player, can have more expression in combat—so you can do what you intend to do, when you want to. If you would like to hear a full video explaining it, we made some TikToks about the changes (PART 1 and PART 2)
SHELLS
Shell stat balancing has been tough since we don't want players ONLY dodging and never blocking. Both have to FEEL good though!
- Heavy Shell health has been dramatically nerfed.
- Dodging sucks less (we've made it smoother for the player to use during combat and in general).
- Some players really wanted to hold on to their beloved shells. There's a new ability in our skill tree that lets you regain shell health by attacking enemies and it feels a lot better. You only have a short window of time to regain it, so be aggro!
PLATFORMING
A lot of you are raving about the platforming, to the point where there's demand for more! Admittedly, we've put more focus into depth in our combat system but we can confirm that there's plenty of platforming in the mix! It's more for vibes than a core skill for you to master.
Some folks have said the platforming is slippery, we're still working on improving that so it should be in a better place by launch!
ACCESSIBILITY
- Controller remapping - we're continuing to refine our controller remapping to allow more accessibility to players, but we've also added an option to use a separate button for sprint.
This is just a (crab) pinch of all the new changes! It's been a busy year for Aggro Crab. We're sleepy, we're excited. Keep an eye out for our last dev log of the year, rounding up everything we achieved with Another Crab's Treasure.
- Paige (Community Manager)