Hello!
I'm Tony back once again, slightly later in the month than usual but with the same big wodge of development news..
Weapons Reworked
Another aspect of the game that we weren't super happy with in the demo is how weapons are given to the player.
Into the Restless Ruins is never meant to be a full-on action game in a Vampire Survivors style, and we always want the cards that you play to be important to your survival rather than allowing players to build an arsenal big enough that they can dodge roll their way to success.
So we hid new weapons away in late-stage fog rooms, and made it so that you can only carry one at a time. This had two unintended consequences: firstly it meant often players just wouldn't see them as they would have explore a lot; and secondly it meant that all weapons had to be useful in the same set of situations - it was no good having a weapon that only worked at range (good against the Warden) as you'd invariably die to much lower level mobs on the way there.
We've now completely reworked the weapon system to fix these issues.
- The player can now carry two weapons – a Primary (these are mainly melee) and Secondary (mainly ranged).
- Weapon shrines (that you find in late-stage fog rooms) now only present you with brand new weapons you’ve never used before – making them more attractive to find.
- Upgraded Armouries now also have a slot where you can pick up a previously-found weapon. This randomises each night, so players can get much more use out of the weapons that they've found, and also more opportunity for switching weapons based on their current situation and goals.
While we were there we also added four new primary and four new secondary weapons, including my favourite - firebombs!
New Levels
We've added a couple of extra levels this month, bookending the ones we already had.
First is a much shorter location that acts as a kind of tutorial to the game's systems (or a faster blast through if you only have a very short amount of play time) with just two seals to claim before you face the Warden. And as you can see in this screenshot you also have a much reduced deck to start with.
And at the other end is a more sprawling and messy ruin that will require you to change direction a few times during your run. (Also check out this image from our level creating tools - this is how we mark out zones and also where seals can exist!)
We've made a few other tweaks to the levels as well to further increase randomness and replayability, the most noticeable being that rocks can exist in the middle of the grid, forcing you to come up with new paths each run.
Compendium
Something we got asked for quite a lot is a screen that collects all of your progress and what things you have seen. So now we have the Compedium to do just that.
I feel like I should write more here, but there is very little else to say. Look, it shows you which cards and things you have held, and which ones you haven't unlocked yet (as well as how to unlock them). I'll stop padding this section.
New Store Art
You might have already spotted that Rachel did a complete re-work of the promotional artwork this month! We liked the old blue "stick salesman walks towards cave" (as one Reddit user put it), but as the game's development has gone on we felt it didn't really capture the vibe we wanted. And most importantly was completely missing the Maiden.
Here's a cool little progression showing how we worked from sketches through various iterations as we tried out different stuff.
Another packed month! And I haven't even gone in to the new rooms we've added, or the changes we've made to the existing ones (giving you more control over the results of using the Training Room, for example, or the way the Altar now adds an injury card in to your hand... and that we have injury cards!)
As always, if you'd like to chat more, you can use the Steam forums here, or join us on our Discord!
We'll be back next month with more updates (I'm not going to try and guess, since I got it 50% wrong last month)
Cheers,
James, Rachel & Tony.