Apologies for taking a bit longer to get back to the Beneath Preview posts since the recent detour to add custom character texture support to the Level Editor, but since completing those updates we've been continuing to make a lot of progress towards completing Beneath.
Testing both environmental content and combat scenarios had been a bit time consuming since with a Rogue-Lite game with randomly generated levels it can take some time to see certain environment configurations or combat scenarios that you might need to see. One of the first things we worked on after completing the last update was to setup specific testing environments for both Beneath environments and combat. This has greatly accelerated testing and improving the new environmental variety and the enemy AI and stats and different player class powers.
While there are 6 distinct areas in Beneath, only 3 are on the primary path and our focus is on completing everything for those areas so that section of the game is completely playable. We expect this to be complete in around 2 weeks, but we will wait for all of Beneath to be complete before adding it to the build for the first time. With this section of the game complete though we'll be able to show gameplay and content much more easily in these preview posts.
Teleporter Enemy
The Teleporter is one of the strongest enemies you'll encounter deeper into Beneath. With powerful ranged and close quarters attacks, the Teleporter is difficult to attack effectively. Like many of the other new enemies in Beneath, their movement also differs significantly from the standard human enemies. Instead of coming towards the player, the Teleporter will try to keep a distance from them. Due to their ability to levitate they can continue to face their target to continue to attack and defend themselves.
Their ultimate power though, as the name implies, is the ability to teleport to somewhere else nearby. If you're fighting other enemies and lose track of a Teleporter's location, you are at great risk of being hit by an unexpected ranged attack.
Of course there are many ways to deal with the enemies in Beneath. If you're a class like the Warlock that is capable of turning enemies against each other you might find the Teleporter is no match for the blast of a Crystal Crab.
Or perhaps you'll play as a Spectre and out-teleport the Teleporter...
Custom Music Update
The recent updates for Paint the Town Red which added Custom Texture support to the Workshop/Level Editor has been working well and opens an avenue to supporting custom music using similar menus and systems. Since most of the backend work required to support this sort of content is now complete, we'll likely take a couple of days off from working on Beneath to add Custom Music support in an update soon.
Another feature that's often requested for the Level Editor we'll be adding in the next update is the ability to have invisible walls which we'll accommodate with an invisible paint option for rooms and platforms.
Since the last update post we had a number of minor updates primarily focused on bug fixes which are below. The most recent update also included the ability to create 'Prefabs' in the Level Editor so those of you that create elaborate objects using multiple props can now save those for reuse in future levels.
Patch Info
Version 0.8.357
- Level Editor: Added the ability to create a reusable Prefab from a selection of props
Version 0.8.356
- Certain weapons and enemies now knock the player around
- Fixed impact animations on enemies not playing
Version 0.8.355
- Custom Textures will now show in levels when you have some, but not all packs downloaded
- Updating levels will now remove old unused Texture Pack tags from Workshop
- Added additional Body Template example texture created by map creator phenom Kersher
Version 0.8.354
- Fixed bug with making mug and pot props with liquid static
- Fixed not being able to properly remove textures from custom appearances
- Fixed not being able to just use custom body textures with fallback heads
Version 0.8.353
- Fixed colliding with dead enemies
- Fixed arm cut reaction animation not playing
Version 0.8.352
- Texture Pack dropdowns in the Level Editor now update to show newly downloaded packs
- Allow loading of JPG custom textures
- Serialize to JPG instead of PNG if smaller (to allow for smaller texture pack sizes)
- Allow 1024x1024 textures for Body and Head textures
- Display error information in Texture Pack Creator
Version 0.8.351
- Fixed player spawn locations being reset to 0,0,0 in Level Editor
Community Discord Server
If you're not aware there is a community Discord server for Paint the Town Red that is quite active and I try to regularly respond to questions posted in the appropriate channel there. If you're interested in more information on PTTR development and have any questions you can join it here: https://discord.gg/9vug3Tb