Mac Users:
Trying to get this update working for you guys. The game was hard crashing on startup so I've patched it to disable the Danger School and allow the game to run while I get it working.
Hello everyone!
I was all excited to start pushing out some content with this update but a lengthy discussion on Discord convinced me to embark on a quick easy side quest first. Narrator: "it was neither quick nor easy".
The Vision:
I've talked before about how I want to have a game mode that I'm calling Rodneys Danger School. This will combine the games basic tutorial with some more advanced lessons while also opening up the possibility of including dozens (potentially hundreds) of challenging little scenarios.
Think of these like chess problems. You've got your character with very specific stats, talents and equipment placed amongst a bunch of very carefully chosen and positioned enemies and terrain. These would be like the hardest moments of an entire run distilled into a format where you can just immediately retry if you die.
I also want to make this whole thing really easy for players to create scenarios for and share them with the community. With permission I plan to then include the better ones in the final game and we can have a whole library of little challenges alongside the default tutorial stuff that I'll make myself. The plan was to leave all this until the 3rd and final year of development.
The Side Quest:
I can't remember what sparked off the Discord discussion but we ended up going over all the ways we might be able to smooth out the new player learning experience. We can keep making the base game easier but there are some really fundamental things players need to understand just to 'play' the game. For example, I've read many comments from players that got 10+ hours into the game before realizing how sprinting works.
We eventually settled on the idea that even a really bare bones tutorial of 2-3 minutes that covered the basics could drastically improve the new player experience. I figured I could knock this out in a few days and go back to content creation. The plan was to return to it next year and flesh it out more fully.
What Actually Happened:
Well, as often happens, once I got into it, I got a little carried away and ended up implementing pretty much the entire thing. This includes the relatively easy system for creating and sharing custom challenges. Of course the whole thing is still really just a rough draft and I still plan to leave the bulk of the work until the 3rd year but... yeah... I guess this is now a thing we have.
Rodneys Danger School
- A separate game mode in which you can play custom scenarios (currently called lessons) which are grouped as courses. I might end up changing the wording to be more general to reflect the idea that some of these are tutorials while others are challenges.
- Course 1: Tutorial covers the basic controls of the game. A new player starting the game will get a dialog popup suggesting they start with this. This has 10 lessons and though I might refine and polish it, I'd like to keep it very short and concise.
- Course 2: Advanced Tactics covers a bunch of really common tactics and mechanics that are pretty essential to survival. A big thank you to everyone in Discord for suggestions in this area! There are currently 10 lessons but I think this could be greatly expanded in the future as there are just so many little 'tricks' to cover. We could also possibly group these into separate courses each covering a general theme.
- Custom Courses: A new directory is created in the users local files to contain any custom courses. This is the same place as your game records and save data are stored and this means that if you are working on a custom course or have downloaded some from another player they will not get deleted whenever the game updates. This folder can be easily accessed via a button in the Danger School menu.
- Adding Custom Courses: should be as simple as downloading 2 files (code + map) and dropping them into the custom courses directory. Obviously don't put anything in here from people you don't trust and if you can't scan the code yourself maybe just wait until I verify and add these courses to the base game.
- Creating Custom Courses: I've created a short document here: documentation that describes the basics of creating courses. I'll be updating this document over time based on whatever questions people send my way. So please feel free to message me on Discord or post here on Steam about any questions you may have and I'll be sure to include my answers in the document.
Game Settings:
Another thing that came up during Discord discussions was various game settings to help make the default game easier for new players. I think this is also totally valid for experienced players when you just want to crack a beer and listen to a podcast while slaughtering orcs. There is a ton of stuff that can eventually go into this system but that will probably have to wait until year 3. Eventually the goal is to allow players to totally customize the difficulty of the default game making it either easier or harder. Ranked Mode of course will not include these options.
- 25% Damage Reduction. I think this is the cleanest way of just making the game globally easier without totally wrecking the balance.
- 1 Free Respawn. This is another way of making the game a lot less punishing. Even experienced players often misclick when playing fast and furious. Dan R on Discord has suggested a 1-turn rewind option as well which I think would work really well here, though that will take a lot more work.
Misc Stuff:
The main menu was getting kind of messy so I've merged the Options and Controls menus and also the Records and Tables menus. I've also placed the Continue Game button at the top of the screen and made it green to hopefully make it more noticeable. The whole UI eventually needs an overhaul so this is just keeping things as tidy as possible in the meantime.
Lightning Bolt:
Some changes from our Discord discussion thread.
- Extended: 10DMG, 5Range => 6Range
- Short-Damage: 12DMG, 3Range, Crit at Tip
- Stun: 10DMG, 4Range, 1T Stun at Tip, 3T Cool-Down
- Charging: 4Range, 5DMG, 10DMG, 15DMG, 20DMG. A variation on a suggestion by BrightShadow that highly incentivizes maintaining a very specific 4 tile distance. I haven't had a chance to play with this properly yet.
Conclusion:
So yeah! Side quest complete! Looking forward to seeing what sorts of crazy challenges you guys can come up with. Besides bug fixes and adding any interesting user made challenges, I'll be moving on from the Danger School. We'l let it cook for awhile and return to it in the final year. Next update should definitely be some sort of content. The current plan is to totally overhaul the 2 existing Core bosses, add a 3rd one and make proper sub-zones leading up to each of them.