This one may be incoherent because I've been sick for the past week and my brain is still cooked.
Demo v2 Release Window
I am making the executive decision to move the v2 demo release back a bit to better align with the Southern Fried Gaming Convention on the 19th of July. This means we will probably drop the demo update the week of July 15th.
Iron Pineapple Played Our Demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwtnfxkFzQE
We appeared in this episode of Steam Dumpster Diving, and to be honest it could have gone way worse. I think it's an honor that Iron Pineapple chose to cover our game and it shows us that we have potential. It was also somewhat frustrating because he played an old version of the game.(The currently available demo is about 150 commits out of date).
The silver lining is that we have either addressed or are were already in the process of addressing many of the problems he found. There are some broader design issues we are still working on, but in general, the new tutorial zone is shaping up and the game feels much stronger now than it was in the old demo.
Since then we've received a big bump in publicity, and we're currently at about 1/3rd of our minimum wishlist goal. (Our marketing budget is currently $0).
Broader Design Concerns
The most important thing that still needs to be fleshed out is the core experience of leveling up and progressing your character. The second most important thing is refining the cooperative experience. These two things are related, as good character progression in a multiplayer RPG involves choosing options that directly benefit yourself vs options that benefit your group as a whole.
Leveling Up
Leveling up in MycoRelic right now is extremely boring and placeholder. The *experience* of filling up an XP bar to get a talent point to put into a skill tree is played out and leaves much to be desired. We drastically need a more souls-like solution, but I also feel like just copying other games isn't going to work for MycoRelic.
To recap, here are the pillars of the souls-like *XP* experience:
- Getting incremental exp/currency from everything you kill
- Dropping this exp on death
- Having one chance to pick up this exp before it is lost forever
- Spending it on attribute upgrades at any checkpoint
- Trading it to buy items/upgrade gear at special vendors
It is an extremely simple system at face value but it works so well because it is so integrated into the gameplay loop. Your risk increases the further you get into a level. There's nothing stopping you from farming forever (besides the logarithmic max level curve).
Here are some design pillars of MycoRelic that provide a contrast:
- Discrete chunks and tangible upgrades
- Your body is made up of robotic parts and should be upgraded as such
- Your mind is potentially completely fungal, so your abilities should be flavored this way
At this time I do not have some unifying design doodle or strong solution to this, but I do think the direction we are headed involves having a "body upgrade currency" and a "mind upgrade currency."
The Cooperative Experience
It is difficult to make a game that plays well in both solo and cooperative configurations. We don't want to just spawn more enemies or make enemies have more health in coop. Ideally there are mechanical changes that make cooperation rewarding and challenging.
Something that we think is working for us is having a "downed" state in coop, where you can be picked up by your team mates. When everyone in an encounter has been downed, the group should wipe and the encounter should reset. This keeps groups together and on the same page.
The other mechanic that is not hitting perfectly right now is the threat system. I come from an MMO background where there is a defined tank role. I don't think this directly translates to our style of animation driven combat, but I do have a desire to flesh out a tank role within MycoRelic. That being said, there is a kind of narcissistic harm done to a player when they backstab an enemy and it just stands there, staring at the "tank" who is 30 meters away.
I think cooperation will become more focused as we add content, but we need to stabilize the basic downed state, threat, and poise/stagger systems before we start to add wild abilities. If done right, I think we will hit a healthy balance between a souls like game and a group dungeon/raid in an MMO like WoW or Destiny.
Bonus GIFs
Jon has been blending in the mines and has cooked up some jump attacks. We're going with an aerial and a ground attack approach, at least for hand to hand, maybe some weapons will break this pattern up.
https://i.imgur.com/XytA4k0.mp4
https://i.imgur.com/KTIaLHE.mp4
(Idk what Steam has against embedding mp4).