Hi everyone!
It's been a while since my last update.
I've been hard at work on the Early Access release, and I felt I couldn't keep updating the demo or I'd never get things done. This is also because I was keeping them as two different project files.
I realized this wasn't sustainable tho, and considering that I've added and changed MANY things in the past months, I felt the need to merge everything together into the same project file.
Now I'll be able to bug fix and push important updates to the demo too, in case it will be needed.
Here are the changes that I made to the game, that will now also be present in the demo:
- Added portal modifiers. You will sometimes see little "ghosts" over the portals, that will have an effect once you enter that portal. I decided to make this addition to spice things up, and make the portal choice less obvious. Portals now also look prettier than before.
- The firepit now has its own room, instead of being treated as an event.
- Most events now will require you to interact with them before you can access portals.
- Reworked the shop. I felt that it was one of the weakest elements of the gameplay loop, so I opted to go for a more classical solution. Interacting with the shop will now give you 4 things to buy (with variable prices depending on type and rarity), and you'll be able to reroll the goods a few times (before it gets angry). Together with this I also re balanced the amount of Monster Blood you get from enemies.
- The Map icon will now show an overview of the current level when interacted with. No more guessing when the boss or shop are going to come.
- There is now a map between levels (instead of automatically going to the next level). In Early Access I have planned one path with four levels, but the full game will have a total of 9 levels and branching paths. For the demo, you'll only be able to choose the 4 different "Lands" versions.
- Added a trail behind the cursor. I think it looks pretty, I hope it won't be too distracting. I added it mostly to help visualize the game when playing with a pad.
I made some changes to the overall game balance, including changes to some statuses. The 4 levels in the demo now also have a different structure between each other. The game may now be a little more difficult than before, especially during normal fights. It should be less forgiving, both in and out of fight. I haven't played this new version too many times, but the demo is still beatable.
To elaborate on the most important changes:
- The statuses "great strength" and "great defense" now cannot stack anymore. I felt it was too easy in some cases to simply become too powerful. Instead, the statuses will now only consider the highest (or lowest) value they receive. For example, if you have "great strength" x3 and then use a card that would give you x2, you will stay at x3. On the other hand, if you have x2 and next get x3, the result will be x3. Positive and negative values will cancel out.
- I added a new "Fragile" status. With this status, the entity will get double damage. This status doesn't stack.
- To account for these changes, I changed how the "Fire" status for the mage behaves when charged up. I will probably need to re balance this in the future.
Considering the many changes, and limited ability to test everything, please report if you find any bug!