Normally I'm not going to be concerned with pushing out chunky patches to the game during Early Access and then rapidly adapting to feedback. However, in circumstances like these, I'm going to utilize the "Preview" branch to test major gameplay changes and large upcoming content updates.
In this particular case, there's 3 really important gameplay changes coming with the aim of increasing player agency and reducing the number of runs that lose purely to bad RNG. As such, I'm launching 0.4.2 first on the Preview branch and will do a ton of playtesting myself over the next 1-2 days while taking in as much feedback as possible before pushing it to the live branch.
Please check out the update with the current patch notes below and let me know your thoughts here on Steam or in the Discord.
To opt-in to the Preview branch, select RogueFlip in your Steam library, right-click and go to Properties. Then go to Game Versions & Betas and select "preview".
v0.4.2
Please Note: Saved runs from prior versions will likely not work with this update.
New Content
Please note that all new content is only available in the full Early Access version of RogueFlip. The Demo version will not receive any new content.
Added 1 new Uncommon Trinket (Stock Market)
Normally I would not be adding new content in a patch version, but I had made this artwork and ended up not using it and decided to just throw it in this update with a neat effect.
Core Gameplay Changes
This patch brings with it 3 major systems changes aimed at increasing player agency and reducing the likelihood that a run loses simply due to bad RNG. These changes might turn out to be in the wrong direction, but part of Early Access is to experiment and find what's right for the game before locking it in for 1.0. Any and all feedback about these changes will be heard, but please play it for yourself before judging the changes.
Shop rerolling no longer costs Gold. Instead, each run starts with 5 rerolls and gains 1 additional reroll each time the Grid size increases (so in rounds 5, 9, 13, and 17) meaning each run will earn a total of 9 rerolls by default, and can gain more through the effects of Ticket and Fuzzy Dice.
This change is aimed at increasing player agency and reducing RNG in the Shop.
Previously, it just felt like you had to waste Gold if the Shop had nothing good for you, reducing your buying power and likely setting your run up for failure.
With this change, the hope is that you're given just enough rerolls to be able to combat bad RNG, but not so many rerolls that you can min/max your Shop visits without picking up bonus rerolls via Ticket or Fuzzy Dice
Full Clear no longer gives bonus Gold. Instead, it now gives Score equal to 10% (rounded down) of the current Score Threshold.
Base Gold Income has been raised from 4 -> 6 to compensate, and Cash Register has been moved to Common rarity and now gives +2 Gold Income
I'm aware that 4 -> 6 is still -1 gold from base + Full Clear before. This is intentional. 6 Gold allows buying 1 Common Sticker and 1 Common Card Upgrade, but you require 1 additional Gold (usually from Earth (3) bonus) to be able to purchase a Trinket.
This change has many goals, but the 2 primary goals are: Reducing the impact of bad RNG by ensuring everyone gets similar base gold income, and helping to ensure that players who always take the risk and go for full clears are less likely to miss the Score Threshold than they were before.
One of the most common complaints about the game is that it feels bad to full clear every board but lose to Score. While I don't currently intend to make it impossible to lose if you're good at the puzzle aspect of the game, I do think this change helps close that gap slightly.
By removing the economic incentive (that always felt mandatory) and replacing it by a score incentive (that becomes optional if you've already met the threshold), and combined with the change to allow players to more easily see what cards remain unflipped, the hope is that full clearing feels good because you flipped all your cards and helped you not lose to score, but doesn't immediately put you ahead of the curve economically.
I will be closely monitoring the balance of Bombs after this change because it may warrant raising the stakes for gambling on full clears.
Grid Growth now happens sooner, ensuring your entire deck will always be present in the grid
The only exception is if you duplicate a card, you might go past the grid size in a few rounds
The grid will now grow in rounds 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18 up to a new maximum size of 8x7. In addition, bombs are more spread throughout the rounds, with bombs being added in rounds 3, 6, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19.
Score thresholds have been adjusted to have a smoother progression and reach a higher peak in Round 20 given that more cards can be available in the grid
The goal of this change is to remove one of the worst RNG offenders: when your best Card isn't present in the grid. Ninja and Trick Deck were sort of band-aids on the problem, but it didn't help the majority of runs.
This does mean that most rounds have holes in the grid and I will be monitoring feedback on this change very closely.
Ninja has been reworked: It now does "On Round Start -> Flip this card, it gives 0.5x points"
Trick Deck has been reworked: It now does "At grid generation time, if there is at least 1 hole in the grid, adds a randomly-generated card to the grid"
Improvements/Changes
Added a How to Play button to the in-game menu so you no longer have to exit to the Main Menu to access the How to Play information.
When the Shop is locked, the button will now be Yellow to make it more obvious at a glance that it's locked. Unlocked Shop remains white.
Added 2 hotkeys: Escape closes most active dialogs and Space ends the current round. These are not currently remappable
Added a new option (off by default): "Automatically End Round on Full Clear", which will make it to where you are no longer required to click End Round after a Full Clear (since there's no more player actions you can take anyway)
Added a new option (on by default): "Automatically Unlock Shop on Enter", which will unlock the shop when you enter it if it's locked. This helps prevent accidentally leaving the shop locked after buying the one item you had left it locked for.
Added a button below the grid to clear all Card flags which will remove all the yellow/red markings on all cards. This also has a hotkey of Delete (not Backspace).
Added a toggle to the Deck Display dialog for "Hide Flipped Cards". This is valuable information that you could previously do yourself but why not remove the mental burden, there's enough math already!
The Deck Display dialog now saves your Grouping and Hide Flipped Cards selection so next time you open it, it will default to what you previously had selected
Bug Fixes
Fixed Hoard's description to say "score" instead of "points" since points refers to the points each card gives but Score is the round score.
Fixed a handful of Score vs Points verbiage usages in the How to Play.
Balance
Trinkets
Rabbit's Foot: Rarity changed Common -> Uncommon
This is how it was meant to be, and it was a mistake for it to be Common
Sea Urchin: No longer gives +1 point to odd value cards.
Ship: Chance to re-flip per visible prime number decreased 10% -> 3%
Stickers
Soda: Now starts at 10 -> 12 points before decrementing
YinYang: Now has a 50% chance to give 8 -> 10 points
Other
Gaining Max HP now heals for the same amount
This was previously an intentional design decision but very consistent player feedback about this being both confusing and underpowered has led to deciding to change it for the better.