Hello everyone!
Welcome to the new year! I hope everyone’s year is off to a great start. As for me, I’ve been catching all sorts of sick ever since Christmas 〒▽〒. Because of that, I haven’t had much energy to work on the planned features from the previous post.
Instead, I’ve decided to focus on a smaller update based on your feedback! This New Year’s special post will be divided into three parts:
- Changes in version 1.8
- Survey results for the year
- A look back at the game’s earlier versions to see how far we’ve come 🎉
Let’s dive in!
Patch notes
Endless Mode
Let’s start with a request from one of you in the Steam Community forums. I intended to add this feature eventually, and since someone voiced their interest, I decided to get to work!
To enable Endless Mode, head to the revamped game settings screen:
It now matches the style of other menus, which is a nice improvement. However, I may revisit it again in the future.
Once enabled, Endless Mode removes the usual 30-minute (or other) time limit.
Here’s how it works:
- After the predefined waves are completed, enemies will spawn in random waves. This means any enemy can appear, including those from other maps.
- Every minute, enemies’ health, damage, and speed will increase, and they will reward more EXP.
- The game continues until you’re defeated.
You might ask, “But won’t it get boring? How can I keep getting stronger?” That brings us to our next feature!
Components
Components are available in both normal gameplay and Endless Mode. Think of them as gameplay-enhancing runes with a twist.
Here’s how they work:
- Components appear after you’ve leveled up and maxed out all weapons and items.
- Each component can enhance a specific weapon (based on its element), a character, or all equipped weapons, regardless of their element.
There are currently two types of components:
- Flat Increase - These provide straightforward, fixed bonuses, similar to runes.
- Conditional Increase - These require you to own a certain number of weapons of the same type or element. If you meet the criteria, you’ll gain significantly better buffs!
In the future, I plan to add more component types that go beyond simple stat boosts. Stay tuned!
Rune Menu
Another patch brings another set of improvements to the rune screen’s UI!
Based on survey feedback, there was still some room for improvement, and I think these changes will be quite helpful.
You can now filter runes by multiple stats:
While sorting options were requested, I thought this filtering system would be equally useful. However, if sorting is still needed, please let me know!
Another interface change can be seen on the rune list itself:
Runes no longer disappear from the list when equipped. Instead, they’ll remain visible with a small icon indicating which character is currently using them.
This makes it much easier to transfer runes between characters without navigating through multiple menus. You can even upgrade a rune for one character directly from another character’s page! If you prefer, you can also filter out equipped runes so they don’t clutter the list.
Achievements Menu
The Achievement Gallery has received a complete overhaul:
You can now filter achievements by multiple types and the maps where they can be obtained. This should make tracking your progress much easier!
Additionally, the new layout is more streamlined and consistent with the rest of the game’s interface.
As always, I’d love to hear your feedback!
Tutorials
In response to feedback that the game’s mechanics were confusing to some, I’ve added tutorials for most menus:
These tutorials explain the basics, as well as some less obvious options and clickable areas.
When you first launch the game, you’ll be prompted to view these tutorials. If you skip them, you can always access them later by clicking the question mark icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
Weapons and Items
I’ve spent an absurd amount of time refactoring most of the code behind the weapon and projectile systems. The work is finally done!
While I’ve tested most of the weapons, some bugs or inconsistencies may still appear. As I mentioned in my previous post, the refactor was necessary because creating new weapons was a huge pain. With this update, the process should now be much smoother.
This change also opens the door to potential modding support in the future!
To test the new system, I’ve added one new weapon and one new item:
- Sacred Fire: A weapon that summons pillars of flame on nearby random enemies.
- Cursed Mask: An item that lowers your max health but increases your damage.
CO-OP Networking
Networking in co-op often struggles when large numbers of enemies spawn, especially with players firing numerous projectiles. To address this, I’ve worked on reducing network traffic:
- Players will now only see their own damage numbers, as this was a significant source of traffic.
- The number of packets sent to handle individual damage instances has also been reduced.
Hopefully, these changes improve performance during co-op gameplay!
Download Size
I’ve finally figured out how to optimize Steam updates! Starting with this version, only the changed parts of the game will be updated, resulting in smaller download sizes.
This should make frequent updates less taxing on your bandwidth. However, the overall game size may have increased slightly in the process.
Minor Changes and Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug causing Yami-no-Tokiya's ultimate to prevent joining players from attacking for the rest of the game
- Removed Static Discharge upgrade from Tornado
- Interaction prompts will now display keybinds instead
- Fixed incorrectly displayed skin price after clicking on buy
- Recollection will now gurantee one of the boosted characters every 10 pulls instead of a random character
- Added missing revive shrines to Northern Tundra
- Added background music to Northern Tundra
Survey Results
Thank you to everyone who participated in the last version’s survey, especially those who took the time to write detailed feedback. I’ve read all your responses, and you can expect to see many of your suggestions implemented soon if they haven't been already!
Here’s a summary of the survey results:
- Overall Satisfaction: Average rating is 6/10, indicating plenty of room for improvement.
- Game Difficulty: Most players feel the difficulty is well-balanced.
- UI Feedback: Some users find the UI lacking; I hope the new tutorials help. Let me know how I can further improve it!
- AI Assets: While some players are critical of AI-generated assets, many are willing to overlook it, which I deeply appreciate.
- Updates: Players prefer faster updates, though the current pace seems acceptable.
- More Runes: This was the most popular request!
- Character Design: Most agree that characters feel unique, which is fantastic to hear.
- Recollection System: Opinions are divided. I believe it’s a fair gacha mechanic, but I’m open to suggestions.
- Story: I was surprised to learn how much interest there is in the story! Expect more narrative development in future updates, that includes revisiting character shard stories!
- Expectations: Players want more characters, weapons, and maps. While it’s challenging as a solo dev, I’m doing my best to deliver!
- Game Identity: Requiem For a Lost World doesn’t stand out enough compared to similar games. I hope that it can be changed in the future.
- Events: Players support adding more themed content, which I was initially hesitant about. I’m excited to explore this idea further!
Here are some specific requests I can address right now:
- Map or Minimap: It’s coming! The feature existed previously but caused performance issues. I’ll revisit it soon.
- Rune Combining: This is already in progress and should be ready for the next patch.
- Story Mode: This is a big ask, but I will be starting my research to make it a reality at some point.
Old Stuff
To celebrate the end of 2024, let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at how far Requiem For a Lost World has come!
Behold the old character selection screen/main menu!
With the new achievement screen you can now compare the old one with the brand new one!
An abandoned character perk system - it got replaced with runes (●'◡'●)
And an old gameplay, to be honest it doesn't look much different
I even have a very, very old build of Requiem For a Lost World (version 0.1). If anyone is interested, I can release it for nostalgia’s sake!
Afterword
That’s it for today! Once again, I wish you and the game an amazing 2025 filled with successes and excitement!
I won’t list plans for the next version since the previous ones still apply, so…
See you next time!