Evening!
TL;DR for today's patch: New item unlock and difficulty systems! Acquire Soul Nuts in game to unlock awesome stuff that can then be found in-game. Activate Skulls to make your journeys into the Network that much more harrowing.
(Our Skulls art is placeholder, and our character select capsule is work in progress.)
For next time: Lots of stuff to clean up before we go to PAX East!
As always, let us know if anything's busted or if we missed some changes.
BIG CHANGES:
- NEW DIFFICULTY SYSTEM: Carry the weight of your forebears. Activate Skulls before you play that radically modify the game when activated! The currently implemented Skulls are:
- Marathon: All levels are longer.
- Lightning: The game runs at 150% speed.
- Famine: No health items drop.
- Bankrupt: No nuts drop. No stores or vending machines.
- Rock: Spikes and pits deal 99999 damage (instant death).
- Purist: No dash, speed, or jump upgrades spawn. (Aerial Stabilizer/Airdash still spawns.)
- Toxin: The bonus timer is replaced by the Toxin timer. When it runs out, you'll take one damage every five seconds until the level is complete or you are complete.
- Swarm: More enemies spawn.
- Furor: Enemies have haste. (Move/attackspeed +50%)
- Undying: Enemies have more health.
- Wrath: Enemies deal double damage.
- Final Destination: No items. Fox only. (That last part is a joke.)
- Skulls can be toggled on and off at the Safehouse (where you once again start the game).
- Most Skulls are unlocked now, but will need to be unlocked by the player later in development. The art for the Skulls is placeholder.
- NEW UNLOCK SYSTEM: Stand on the shoulders of your past selves. Many great powers lie locked in the recesses of your technology; unlock them using glorious Soul Nuts, acquired from Soul Foes during play.
- Blue-glowing enemies within levels are Soul Foes - they have increased health and are more aggressive.
- Defeating them will award some Soul Nuts, which can be spent after your inevitable demise at the Safehouse.
- The Shopkeep in the Safehouse takes Soul Nuts for his items; once purchased in the Safehouse, you can find the items in game.
- When you leave the Safehouse, your Soul Nuts are lost.
- A new foe, the forgotten Forest Spirit, enters the fray. (For now, it shows up sometimes in Vaculab.)
- A new power, Splinterfrost, is now available (once unlocked for 5 soul nuts).
- You should no longer see enemies "reset" while you're anywhere near them. (Previously, enemies that wandered too far from their home would just really want to go home. We've decreased their homesickness parameter by 100%.)
- Some changes have been made to the physics engine to perform better under low frame rates.
SMALL CHANGES:
- The Pickup Display (the thing that pops up at the bottom of the screen) now appears when you are touching the item, instead of only appearing once picked up.
- Ace's Plasma Blender charges faster (0.5 seconds) and his Rippling Axe charges more slowly (4 seconds, and it still might be OP).
- In-game menus now loop. (You can scroll from the bottom to the top by pressing down, etc.)
- Ace's Sharp Sharp Spear now deals 20% less damage.
- Added lots of new graphical effects for various items.
- Blood Magic has been redesigned. It now gives a chance to grant health when killing an enemy with a Power.
- Shadespur has been slightly reworked. It now inherits the player's velocity when you fire it (instead of being perfectly still).
- The Gold Stud has been redesigned. On using a Power, it now grants a 30% chance to refund the energy spent on that Power. (Over time, this is very similar to "powers cost 30% less", but it feels better.)
- Enemies that remain inactive until the player gets within a certain distance of them also now activate upon taking damage.
BUG FIXES:
- Fixed a hideous Eridu you-instantly-die bug.
- Fixed some collision issues with the new invisible-wall-less levels.
- Fixed a bug preventing some passive items from appearing in Gold Chests.
- Fixed a bug preventing the Steam Overlay from activating. (If you still have this problem, tell us!)
- Finally figured out the cause of a Frostor visual glitch (where one of the light-up blocks draws really weirdly across the screen). If you see it, take a screenshot and tell us!
- Improved some resolution-detection code. If you previously couldn't change resolution, you probably can now!
Thanks for reading!