Hello nubblies, nubblings, and nubblers!
Whoa, it's been a while! Perhaps a little more than a week. Despite the misleading title, I'm gonna keep calling this blog "Weekly Nubby News" for old time's sake I guess.
In all seriousness, apologies for the wait on this one. When I take more time than usual to release a news post, it's usually not because I'm forgetting to write or feeling too lazy - typically it's due to a lack of things to write about. I hope this edition of WNN serves to quell the recent concerns that I've died or abandoned nubby. It has officially been 2 years since I started work on the game, and Nubby continues to pop the pegs of my heart :-)
Now, on to the news!
(But first, look at the canonized nubby biology, credits to @maionese on discord)
V1.4 Progress:
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Progress on V1.4 persists! I faced a number of major hiccups that slowed production in mid-August, but I've hit some big milestones recently, so that's been encouraging!
Among other aspects of V1.4, I'm coming close to finishing up work on the final nubby challenge. Well - technically the final 5 challenges. I'll talk about that now!
The Nubby Trials:
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The ultimate test of your nubbing abilities has an official name: "The Nubby Trials".
A long time ago I mentioned that I wanted to add a sort of "end-game" challenge to nubby that would give those who complete the challenges in the current version of nubby some extra stuff to work on. After a lot of prototyping, I finally landed on the nubby trials.
Basically, the nubby trials are a set of 5 challenges, with each challenge containing 5 mini-challenges for you to complete in a single run.
The nubby trials are going to be a lot easier to grasp once you see them in-game, so I'll show you!
(Image of nubby trials menu gui below, specifics of the level shown are subject to change by release)
You'll notice in the screenshot that the letters N,U,B,B, and Y are important in the nubby trials. Your goal in each level of the nubby trials is to spell the word "NUBBY". If you obtain all the letters, you win and unlock the next level of the nubby trials! There are 5 levels that increase in difficulty.
When you've selected a nubby trials level to play on, you start the run without any letters. One by one, you obtain letters by completing tasks by their required rounds (the tasks are referred to as trials). This is why I referred to each level of the nubby trials as a collection of 5 mini challenges.
The image above shows all the tasks required to obtain each letter for level 1 of the nubby trials. The 5 trials you must complete to win vary from level to level. You're currently seeing the tasks for level 1.
Some trials depend on you limiting yourself in some way over the course of many rounds. In the picture above, examples of this are the first trial (red letter "N") and the second trial (orange letter "U"). In the case of the red letter "N", you will obtain this letter after beating round 33, under the condition that you have only used 1 or less items at a time from rounds 1 through 33. Once you've obtained the letter "N", you're free to use as many items as you want. However, now you have to worry about the task for completing the letter "U".
Other trials are impossible to fail, and serve more as an obstacle for you to overcome, rather than a trial. An example of this is the third trial (the yellow letter "B"). You'll automatically obtain this letter at round 53, at the cost of all of your money.
Another type of trial is shown in the fourth trial (the green letter "B"). This kind of trial requires you to do complete a task once, as long as you do it by the required round. Although, like I previously mentioned, letters are obtained one by one; meaning that trial 4 can only be attempted once you've obtained the yellow letter "B" on round 53.
Because each level of the nubby trials can only be beaten if you spell the whole word, "NUBBY", failure to complete any of the 5 trials in a level will result in an immediate game over. Each level of the nubby trials requires you to come up with a strategy to beat it. You won't be able to use the same strategy twice from one level to another.
Here's an image of what the nubby trials gui looks like in a run :)
If you're dedicated enough to attempt the nubby trials, your victories will be rewarded with nubby cosmetic skins that can only be unlocked by beating the nubby trials! A new nubby cosmetic will be rewarded for beating each level of the nubby trials. See the previous edition of weekly nubby news for sneak peaks at what some of those cosmetics look like :]
Note: Not all nubby cosmetics are unlocked via beating nubby trials, most of them are unlocked with stars. You'll finally be able to spend all those stars you've been hoarding!
The Final Supervisor - "Dwarf Tony":
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I haven't talked a lot about what I'm going to do with the final supervisor named "Dwarf Tony". This was a community-made supervisor, created back when I ran a contest on the community discord server. I chose this fan made entry out of the hundreds that I received during the contest because something about it spoke to me spiritually.. and it still does..
Over the past 3-4 months I've been thinking a lot about what I'm going to do with dwarf tony and i think I've finally landed on it. My plan as of now is to lean into the idea of gems.. or stones? Because he's a dwarf and dwarves mine stuff? (idk I'm not a dwarf-head)
I thought it would be cool to add around 5 new stone/gem themed pegs that appear on the board and have their own special effects to help you out in your dwarf tony runs. Maybe even adding in a few negative effect stone/gem themed pegs to balance out the good with the evil. I have a list of brainstormed ideas for special gem/stone themed pegs (for both helpful and hurtful ones). Still in the middle of developing this supervisor's gimmick, but this should give you a general idea of the direction I'm heading with this.
As always, I'm listening to community ideas so if you've got a really cool idea that came to mind when I mentioned stone/gem themed peg go ahead and comment here or on the discord about your idea!
In Conclusion: ========== Thanks for keeping up with the nubby news! Everything is still going swell on my end. Nubby mobile is progressing at a constant rate, just like progress on V1.4 is. As of now, I cannot tell if V1.4 will release before nubby mobile, or vice versa. Maybe they'll release at the same time and it will be nubby's second coming. Who knows!
I appreciate you reading to the end, and I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the progress. More news posts are still yet to come!
Until next time, ~Mog