Ver 0.954a patchnotes
[ GAMEPLAY ]
Sprint's upgrade has also been slightly altered, it was previously bugged.
Sapphire Stun received a moderate debuff.
Old: Forge Sapphire: Stun all enemies
New: Forge Sapphire: Stun one random non-boss enemy
The upgrade and handle were also changed. New Sapphire Stun handle is the old Sapphire Blessing handle: Forge Sapphire: Drop 2 charge stones. [Name of handle will be changed in next patch.]
New Sapphire Blessing handle is more in line with others. Drop Sapphire: Drop Gold Coin.
Silver Fall also received a moderate debuff:
Old: Drop Silver: Gain 4 shield and drop 2 poison.
New: Drop Silver: Gain 2 shield and drop 1 poison.
Handle and upgrade were also changed. Old handle was Drop Silver: Gain 2 shield, drop 1 poison, is now "Drop Silver: Gain 1 shield, drop 1 cursed stone."
Beetle Bane Shield received a slight buff, depending on your preferences. It now drops 4 cursed stones instead of 4 poison vials.
(The upgrade as well drops cursed stones instead of poison vials.)
Sorry the text runs over a little bit, will polish it.
Several "Drop Gem X" style shovels got a slight buff in their base forms:
Penny Rock's rocks now have a 5% chance to be charge stones.
Geode Cache now also drops 3 rocks and 1 gold nugget when you drop a geode.
Ruby Shine now also gives 2 shield when you drop a ruby.
Emerald Glow now also gives +30 poison to random enemy when dropping emerald. (Upgrade also boosted slightly.)
Sapphire Fire now also drops 1 charge stone when dropping sapphire.
[ BUGS ]
[Important] Mid-Run loading and saving should now work properly again. My apologies for any runs disrupted.
Sometimes an attack would cause the crate to suddenly drop everything out. I contemplated turning this bug into a game feature called "QUANTUM OCCURRENCE" but I think I solved the bug so . . .
Diamond Wave handle and Geode Shatter shovel interaction were bugged, with the gems getting slightly bigger.
Get Steam Achievement for finishing a run before the game even starts, should now be fixed. (I believe the Ante Up achievement should now be possible too.)
Furious battle modifier was getting bosses angry too. (Should be only non-boss waves).
When leaving shop, quest handles were "auto-selling" for 3 gold if you hadn't already sold them. Now fixed (should be 0).
Red Cape and it's upgrade ignored duplicates, that is, multiple red capes acted as only 1 red cape.
Red Cape and upgrade would not give any shield in the case all enemies were defeated. Now it will still give the default shield even if all enemies are defeated (but not the "if enemies angry" extra shield)
[Visual Bug] Enemies should fall back down now after chest is unlocked.
[Visual Bug] At start of first round, the default preview gem (a green emerald) was showing up, should be fixed now
[Visual bug] Modifier text for Merchant boss was running over. Now fixed.
[ FEEDBACK ]
Thank you everyone for trying the game and sharing both what you found enjoyable and what you didn't!
"The Ante up achievement seems broken :/".
Thank you for letting me know! I think it should now work, but please let me know if not! (Thank you to other players who also flagged this.
"More effect".
I wasn't 100% sure how to take this, but I'll think of it as sort of a bit like "I want more animations / monster effects", since the "More Items" option wasn't tagged on the survey.
"Everything felt so much more visually clear, weighty, and understandable than last time!
Only complaint left is that the monster interraction/health felt a little easy to ignore. Might just be since there is a lot going on with the screen.
Still, making a build felt good!"
Thank you for the kind words! I will try experimenting tonight locally with a build with reduced waves and increased health, as maybe fewer waves could be one direction to take the game. At one point I tried making the monsters more "reactive" to what you are doing, but in general the user feedback was less positive. One thing I've programmed and am looking forward to implementing is monsters shielding other monsters. There's quite a few enemies I have in various stages not yet in the demo, but I'm sure the full launch will need some week 1 balancing.
"Battles either happen instantly or are a slog. Unlocking chests feels like chance rather than strategy"
I'm sorry the experience wasn't that pleasant. I will probably try experimenting with a build with fewer waves, but the enemies last longer. I will keep reflecting on this, thank you.
hard to distinguish shovels and handles. hard to tell what gets discarded/lost when replacing shovels/handles. nearly impossible to assess (first game) affect and value of each shovel/handle. need clearer directive of what is good vs bad in coins, potions, enemy attacks. mechanics and tutorials need to be more detailed and more clear.
Thank you for the heads up. One or two things I hope to include will be an extension of the tutorial so that the first time a poison falls in the crate, Treasure Bear lets the player know. (In the mean time, right clicking on stuff in the crate can sometimes help, or mousing over the banner on the monsters.)
Another thing I hope to add is a way for the shovels + handles to visually animate + expand when mousing over them in the shop. This might help remind the user which is which, and also help with readability.
I will also think about a tooltip that warns the user when selling an item that has added something to the coffer. Thank you for raising your issues clearly and letting me know. :)
this game crashed and reset me to the begining. freaking loving this game btw
Thank you for your generous spirit. I'm truly sorry for the trouble. It was unacceptable for the game to crash -- but it might be related to the "Quantum Occurrence" bug that I now hope is fixed. However, it's even worse for it to have reset you to the beginning. This helped me uncover a load-game bug introduced around the time of localization, which is now fixed. My sincere apologies.
The unevenness and "sharpness" of the fonts makes it a bit harder to read.
Thank you for the feedback. I will double check if the anti-aliasing is on or off for the fonts, but separately, I hope to do 2 things:
1. Make it so relevant stuff enlarges on mouse over (shovels / handles in shop or equipped), so that even if the font is the same, the size is easier to read. This should (hopefully) also Steam Deck users.
2. Give an UI option to allow English users to use a more readable font (likely NotoSans). However, I'm not sure if this will break the purple tags on the equipment.
Needs more cats. Also a color blind mode/toggle. CHANGE THE WORM BOSS. Oh and Music select.
I will keep the cats in mind! There's one boss that's slightly cat like...
If any users with colorblindness could shoot me a message on discord or via Steam Discussion board, I'd love to hear where the major problems are for colorblind users. I of course want to improve accessibility.
Regarding the Worm boss, it has gone through some iterations, so I'm curious if you could clarify what was least enjoyable / which aspect you felt needed changing the most. Was the shield system frustrating, rather than fun? Were the attacks annoying?
For music select, I'm considering a toggle to allow the user to use compressed music (may help with fps drops potentially) and/or to play "pure random". (Right now it plays certain songs in certain areas.). But if there's a lot of demand, it might be fun to have a music player system in the game or toggles for each song (i.e. if there are a few songs the player doesn't like).
Thank you everyone!