Greetings, esteemed collaborators!
After some more work designing more things in the background, we've got a cool new update for all of you, and of course you've been spoiled by the title of this post: it's our first Major Update!
But wait, there's more!
We're participating in Steam's Bullet Fest! And that means discounts!
That's right, we'll be 20% off for the duration of the event, so don't miss your chance to pay less to work more!
First of all we'd like to thank you all for your patience and feeback. It's thanks to your contribution and help that we've reached this first development milestone! While there are even more things that we want to and will implement in future patches, we are confident that this one is filled to the brim with goodies for everyone!
While we know we already spoiled some of the major points in a previous point to keep you on top of your seats, we'll still give you a better look upon them, and a couple of extra things now. And as always, you can read all about all the changes at the changelog at the end of the post!
Meet The Designer!
The most fashionable employee is here! The Designer is ready to return to work, provided you assist her in retrieving her weapon from its icy prison on the cold northern plains. Speak with Morti and he will tell you the details of your first official Re:Quest! (PS: that's not at all the feature's name, I just wanted to make that word play)
New Stage! - Whitegrave Citadel
The northern plains were once home to an ancient kingdom, now in ruins after it was ravaged by the unforgiving cold. Still, Whitegrave Citadel endures as the north's last bastion of ... [checks notes] hope? It says "hope", but I'm not really sure what they're defending against. Grass, maybe? In any case, it serves as the headquarters to a decaying order of knights, and of course, the northern-branch of our beloved (yes, sarcasm) Adventurers Guild.
New Hero!
The Citadel's knights come in all sorts of designs and colors (seriously, someone clearly exagerated in their pallete). However, none compare to that towering menace they call Sir Dean. Our own R&D department has long pondered over the question of "how can something so massive spin so fast"?
New Spells!
100% certified as "balanced" by our R&D team, and absolutely not at all added in a hurry to meet corporate-defined content quota for this release!
Revamped Boon Level Indicator
You might have seen this one in our previous posts, but here it is again! Our boons received a small revamp to improve clarity on their current and total levels. The old tiny level number was replaced by some visually striking... rotated... square-things... made by the Designer herself. Small screen users rejoice!
Small Talk and Quests
Following a revision in our internal policies, all employees must greet fellow workers with a first time dialogue, as well as engage in useful small talk. In addition to this new delightfully forced decision, Quests are now available for individual completion, and every employee is required to either give out or complete at least one new quest every 90 business days. Fun!
Item Bag Randomizer
While you may have seen this one in its WIP state, it's now very much done and it looks gorgeous!
The Item Bags found during your runs are no longer standing targets for your weapons. In fact, you don't need to shoot them at all now! Just move through an item bag and collect its rewards in a nicely randomized way. It works similar to before, but now you can experience the thrill of actually seeing the options you could have gotten instead of a generic milk carton. You're welcome!
New Weather - Strong Winds
It's unclear what was preventing such Strong Winds (title card drops!) from appearing before, but now they are most definitely here. You might encounter this new weather while checking the world map, so get ready to experience what it's like to swim against the current! Even if that current is a wind current and you're actually walking instead of swimming.
Endless Mode Reworked
After our seemingly intense runs of forceful hiring across multiple locations, our security is reporting new activity within company grounds. That's right, enemies from other stages will now appear in the Salaryman's Graveyard once you clear their stage for the first time, increasing the base run time of the graveyard's Endless Mode.
Starting from your first clear of Stage 02 (The Hidden Mines), the Endless Mode will change to a 10min timer until a Hero appears, with new enemies and heroes appearing every 10 minutes after (according to each stage you have successfully cleared).
And those are just some of the cool new things added or updated! If you want to check every detail, the changelog is available as an extensive and well-designed bullet list below:
Changelog v0.2.0 - Major Update
Changes
New Character! - The Designer
Unlock her by completing the new Quest available in the Inhuman Resources office (unlocked after you clear the fourth stage of the Business Growth)
Added Quests!
NPCs in the Lobby can now give you quests, which will not only progress the narrative, but will help you unlock new content!
Quest availability and unlock conditions might vary!
New Stage! - Stage 03 - Whitegrave Citadel
Unlock it as part of the quest to unlock The Designer
Reworked Level Design for Stages 01 & 02
The Boaring Village and The Hidden Mines were both revamped to improve movement and avoid situations where you could get easily stuck
Also, ALL objects' colliders have been reworked to also help in this regard
Turbo Mode!
A new Modifier, called "Turbo Mode", can now be unlocked for each Stage once you complete that stage at 3 Bounty Stars
Turbo Mode will speed up the game by 1.5x!
Defense Piercing Reworked!
The Defense Piercing stat has been reworked and propely implemented
Defense Piercing will now ignore X amount of an enemy's armor and apply that value directly as damage (you might think of it as a form of "true strike" if it helps. If it doesn't, forget I mentioned it)
Also, 10% of your Defense Piercing stat's value will be permanently reduced from the enemy's defense on a hit, meaning continuous hits can shred the enemy's armor all the way down to 0! Enemy's armor can't go negative from this effect
2 New Artifacts
2 New Talents
Bag & Items Rework!
You no longer need to shoot the bags found during a run. Simply walking over them will grant you whatever random item is inside them
A new UI animation will play above the player's head displaying which item was found inside the bag
There are also new items inside bags now, which can grant temporary buffs upon pick up
This is still a work in progress, and more items will be added in the near future
Endless Mode Rework!
The Graveyard has been reworked and improved. Now, whenever you clear a new stage, that stage's enemies will start appearing in the Graveyard as well
Starting once you clear Stage 02 (The Hidden Mines), Heroes will spawn in 10min intervals instead of 15min
This change affects only the Heroes that spawn in the Graveyard! Heroes spawned in other stages will still spawn at their normal time frames
Free Dash For Everyone!
Dash is now unlocked since the very beginning, no longer needing you to unlock it through talents
All playable character outfits now have 1 Dash Charge by default
The regular dash charges talent will still increase your dash charges as normal
Added a soft cap for weapons/spells acquired during a run
The target was always a max of 8, but previous systems design allowed you to acquire all weapons/spells in a same run, which made it impossible to balance Endless Mode and obliterated any sense of having a build (as you could have literally every option at once)
Minimum damage no longer goes below 1 by default in most cases
Slightly reworked and improved Boris's (Stage 01 - The Boaring Village's Hero) Jump Animation
Balancing
Arcane Affinity talent is now cheaper!
Dash-related Boons no longer require you to have the dash charges talent unlocked / at level 1
Fixes
Fixed an issue where the game would default to English when returning to the main menu
Fixed a returning issue where every boss might spawn with the name Boris, The Destroyer
Fixed the short movement lock that could happen immediately after collecting a chest and selecting an artifact
Fixed Projectile Piercing stat not adding piercing to weapons / spells correctly
Fixed missing player stats on Current Stats & Side Info Panels screens
Fixed localization in the quick teleport menu's UI in the lobby
Fixed the timer not stopping while the game is paused after a boss is defeated in the Graveyard stage
Fixed Dark Gravastar's projectiles not spawning correctly
Multiple fixes to localization for all languages
Several performance fixes and improvements
Countless minor fixes
That's it for our first Major Update. Once again, thanks for your support. Now go back to work!
E-Lich Corp - "We value your life. And death. Seriously."