Greetings folks,
there are a good number of updates for the month, but there's one that I don't want to be hidden. Steam stats.
I bring this up because it is a form of data collection, so I want to be as transparent as possible with it.
The stats will only be used to gauge falloff points in the demo (I've listed them at the bottom of this update).
By gathering these, I can determine where friction points are in the demo and work to fix them, ultimately making the game better for you all.
If you have any qualms with this, please let me know. I want to ensure Self Recurse is a wonderful experience and the last thing I want to worry players.
I also want to note that Steam stats are essentially the demo's version of achievements (if you need something to compare it to).
Tech updates
> Feature work
Icon UX UMG: this handy graphic will animate for effects that have confused players with the interactions (e.g., Hades Cauldron results, Reach into the Bag die rolls, the Chance spellbook) and this feature is meant to alleviate that by displaying the cause and effect of an item. It might look something like Hades Cauldron and Energy Damage, then slide towards the enemy. This gives a quick hint into what just happened and you'll also get the floating text that player's requested to have a better battlefield read
a new cursor has been added that more accurately reflects the game theme
stats are being used to determine when players are dropping off of the demo. This will eventually evolve into achievements when the full-release comes along, but Steam recommends starting with stats as to not frustrate players who played both the demo and full-release.
a banner system was put in place which should make the following explicitly called out:
player/enemy turn
boss phase changes
battle complete
tutorial complete
improved tooltip housing UX because tooltips could cover too much of the hovered item
added card noise for: draw, draw multiple, hover, and shuffle
ensured the players starting deck contains at least one die roll card after getting feedback that more dice synergies are needed
more music tracks were added by a group of wonderful, real artists
added better tooltip text support for smaller screens (below 1080p)
tooltip header better handles long text
support changed to techSupport as it was misleading to some that this meant donations
player healing in battle now has a better UX with particles and sound effects
the player status box is now dynamically placed depending on how many enemies are present
card rules text was improved by adding in keyword icons next to the rules text on the card
additional settings enabled for tweaking: particle effects, foliage, and shading. This can cause an auto-detect to run when entering the settings, which will last up to 10s which might seem like a frozen game. Don't panic; this is just grabbing what your machine can handle and adjusting the settings to this. If you already have adjusted settings, you will need to adjust them again (sorry!)
> Bug fixes
fixed Reach into the Bag die rolls being treated like a die phase roll (this caused unwanted interactions with rewards when the recur status effect triggered)
shuffleInInfections now shuffles the battle deck properly once the cards have been added
shuffleInStrikes is now fully supported and the effect doesn't whiff
card scaling had some bad overlap/opacity states that have been fixed, which will make card hovering look better
entered a run and having turning off your machine without exiting the game (edge-case, I know) then rebooting the game and continuing no longer causes a soft-lock
opening the run deck and selecting a card, while in a shop, no longer removes money
fixed bypassing the card removal event if the player opened the run deck while in a success state. This led to no cards being removed, the player returning to the exact same node in the map, and the event being marked as complete
fixed status buffs, like dex, inappropriately animating for many cards, like mental caltrops, when they shouldn't have been
fixed upkeep status effects animating when they shouldn't have
truly fixed vampirism, preventing it from animating for both the player and the enemies when both held the effect
the correct status and action effects were not showing on free cards. They are now
> Balancing
Hades Cauldron: magnitude of effects on the target has been bumped up from 1 to 2 to provide a higher risk/reward (which balanced the damage it could do)
Chromatic Spray energy cost changed from 2 => 1, making it more of a competitive play (potentially playing 3 cards per turn if the deck was built around energy cards)
> Tech Debt
removal of references of churn statuses v1 to ensure old behavior doesn't cause undesired behavior for the player
removed cascade effects from FAB pack which should free some memory up (they were un-performant)
the music system did not scale well and was not readable so I fixed both of those problems and the new setup will allow for the quicker addition of tracks
cleanup up unused sound effects
> Other
players gave feedback to reduce the lighting present in the second area, so a reduction of ~40% was applied. I don't know that this is a bug fix, but it
> Stat List
All of these are booleans except for the abandoned runs, meaning it just captures a true value if the event occurred
start tutorial
end tutorial
first run start
first elite encountered
first elite defeated
waltz act 1 boss encountered
waltz act 1 boss defeated
number of runs abandoned (accumulates)
main volume change