First off...
Dread.
GTTOD is my first game, so I have never really experienced a whole lot of aspects when it comes to game dev. Like for instance, I have never released a game, so that's like a WHOLE aspect of game dev I just have absolutely zero knowledge on or experience in. Even worse, for the last NEARLY 8 years I have worked on GTTOD, I haven't really even gotten close before. I always would restart lol
Well, I learned something recently. When you get towards the end of a development, you get this absolutely insane burst of energy and determination; like a second wind. I am getting that wind right now, and it has been one of the most insane experiences of my life. I've never worked so hard, proficiently, and consistently in my life. It's like someone's micro dosing me Adderall each time I blink or sneeze, shit's bonkers.
SO, without further ado, I'm just gonna jump right into it so I can get back to work lol HERE WE GO WISH ME LUCK HAHA 24 PAGES
Bro what, we're starting this off so strong. Apparently the first thing I did after the last post was to make something known as "The Wall of Attunements". It was basically this method through which I could create alternate MODES, but actually ended up turning into a really cool user-selected run modifier system. You'll see that later.
Around this time I finished up The Blade Sentinel and gave him a fancy arena. Nothing super crazy here, other than a big more polish and thought put into how he fought (but not enough, as you'll ALSO see later)
Krev remade the LMG model
I made an item that lets you portal back to the HUB
I became a Jedi while explaining an animation during a meeting
I made a new thing called the "Trial Cave" which is the housing for the BABE. You now have to challenge a trail stone in order to access the BABE. Pretty neat.
K8! was born! This is our shopkeep character who watches over your shop items and dolls out the weapons from Gear Cards.
I started working on the style for the next Act (AKA Altitude) in GTTOD. It's a cold, rainy place with giant basalt and purple bands of energy rippling across the sky.
STOMP
I then made the Alpha Cache, which is pretty much a speedrun box (or at least it is now). How it works is that the price of the crate depends on how long you have been in a run, BUT they only exist in Altitude 2. That means you gotta hustle a bit.
I spent like 6 hours streaming all of GTTOD and made a tier list of every version of the game. This is basically where it landed.
I spent some time improving the main menu a bit, adding in a seed system so you can save runs (which to this day I do not believe anyone has done), and then made sub menus for the options (which I now have to go and fix lol).
We played out very first game of GupBall in Discord. Gup won.
POV: You're a camera strapped to an enemy's shoulder
I began implementing mod tools and people started to play around with them.
So we're in, I'm pretty sure May at this point. After the mod support was implemented and people started testing it, I had a month or two where I just could not do ANYTHING. I had a cancer scare, I was super duper depressed, SUPER lonely, you name it. I moved out to a camper in the middle of the woods to be alone, and shit just started going kinda downhill in my real life. It was ROUGH, and during that time I didn't get much done. Luckily I had help from others to not only keep progress on the game going smoothly, but to also help me out of that rut in my life. One of those things were a whole new addition to the game in the form of Elite Enemies:
Elite Enemies are basically just bigger badder better versions of their generic counterparts, with certain new abilities or aspects altered to make them more challenging to fight. Some can even be minibosses against the player, like the Elite Golem. These guys can both gain and lose prominent weaknesses, and I BELIEVE the first of these fellas starts spawning around threat level 40.
During this time, I also was poking at more Altitude 2 levels and seeing what did and didn't work with the new geometry.
I am not even kidding you that this is pretty much all I worked on for two months if Announcements is to be believed. We pretty much jump from late may to early July with the next few entries, and most of that is just The Exclusion Zone. It was REALLY sparse leading up to the launch of the previous update.
After literally like a year in nine months from the start of its concept phase, The Exclusion Zone finally made it into GTTOD. The new tutorial is a way smoother way to introduce mainline mechanics into GTTOD, and even now is still being altered and expanded.
And lastly, I did a FULL rework of Dungeons. Same exact concept, just far better design.
ALRIGHT THIS IS WHERE IT STARTS GETTING KINDA CRAZY
We are now at the end of June, and I start getting this realization kicking in that...holy shit...with The Prologue in, we're nearly done with GTTOD. Act 2 and Act 3, and then obviously lots of love and care for bug fixing and polish, and BOOM. Content wise that'd be it. OF COURSE that's not how the last month has gone even in the slightest, which you will see, but at the time it was still very much the truth.
There ARE a bunch of things I'm gonna skip since I wanna get to work and finish this next update off sooner rather than later, BUT I will hit the important points:
And what could be more important than a fishing minigame?
We kept moving ahead with Elite Enemies
The first BIG change was the complete rework of the Static status effect. Now, it is a stacking damage that charges as you proc it. Basically, once Static has been proced on an enemy, each successive hit of the same damage type (static) will increase the damage for when the stack is released. That makes Fire Damage a AOE, and Static Damage a boss melter. They each serve their rules exactly.
One of the biggest mixups to GTTOD's gameplay loops is the new Leyline Offerings. These are end level rewards you are able to choose from every time you progress through a dungeon OR a level. Different rewards have different rarities as well, so you won't get SUPER loaded up too frequently. The rewards are as follows:
- +10 Jade Vines
- +1500 Shards
- +Card Pack
- +Harbor Scroll
- Full Heal
- Max Ammo
- +3 Keys
- +Extra Life
- +5 Health
- +5 Shield
- +5 Overshield
- Blessing
- Curse
A COMPLETE REWORK OF LIKE 75% OF THE BLESSINGS AND CURSES as well as four new ones. I just sat back with the Discord and tried to address every boring or lame or annoying blessing or curse in the game, and I went to extreme lengths to rectify them. For instance, I think the coolest change out of any of these is The Devil. I don't remember what it did before, but now it summons two fiery companions to blow your enemies........up.
I took some time to improve the arena that the BABE sits in. Now it's this super cramped area FILLED with enemies, and is genuinely one of the most challenging aspects of the game at the moment. You want big guns? You gotta fight for 'em.
Next I reworked how you gain shards and health, and overall simplified the loot system a tad. Now, shards are dropped from enemies, items are dropped from interactables, and EVERYTHING has a pickup. Everything has some kind of THING that you SEE with your EYES. So health comes out and bounces around on the ground, shards break off enemies and suck into your little stomach black hole thing idk that's not real lore I just made that up. Regardless, this rule has made looting and interacting within GTTOD feel far more realized and consistent.
The Cyclops was introduced, which is a brand new character to GTTOD (which is something we haven't seen in a while since new enemies are usually just remakes of their older counterparts lmao). He shoots lasers from his eyes, stomps around when he gets damaged too much, catches himself on fire like a fucking MORON, and also has a shield during his tantrums. He's a big tall scary baby and you're gonna kill him you're gonna kill a baby.
Not only does The Blade Sentinel get a new arena, but The Legion Sentinel is introduced as the boss of Act 2 with a new arena as well! We saw this guy earlier, but he has since got a bit of an upgrade. He's also an absolute menace. Complete asshole.
Next on the kill list was the Wall of Attunements, which got a complete rework. Now, instead of a mode selection, it's a modifier selection. You can pick and choose between anything in the list, and some of them even have symmetry together. This allows you to customize your run better than ever before.
I started my work on equipment, creating the Shuriken - a fast rapid fire throwing star that procs static. And then...............
The grappling hook. GOD it's so fun. It has a nice balance between swinging and pulling, and can be fairly easily controlled with your air acceleration. It's just a great addition to the equipment arsenal.
I created a new save system that allows for mid-run saves. Still not sure how I'll implement it, but I'm putting this here to warn you that your saves are all getting deleted (but that it's really easy to cheat your way back in place now).
The Slumbering Spring got a bit of a rework along with the run generation system, and it now functions as a rest level AFTER The Blade Sentinel. It has been significantly nerfed, however.
Finally, the time came to start working on the final Act of GTTOD - Altitude 3, AKA The Summit. I started with the safe level following The Legion Sentinel - a level titled "The Tavern in the Veil of Distant Woes". The music and atmosphere here are working wonders man. I am listening to the piano play right now, actually lol
There's also this guy there
I started adding in miniboss enemies and hiding them everywhere around The Shatter. Here's Mother Mantis...a big fucking Mantis that spawns buffed Manti....Mantises? Whichever. Not original, but very fun.
I added in the Scriptorium so I can write out a bunch of lore entries for those who are wanting to try and piece together the history of the universe that GTTOD takes place within OR to try and figure out where the universe is going...
I drastically improved the options settings, adding in sliders and more settings and options for all sorts of gameplay and keybind things.
That leads us to the final big change of the last six months...a complete rework of the Upgrades and progression system. You will now be unlocking categories known as "ASPECTS" that pertain to a specific part of your build. As you unlock new abilities and progress your character, you will also be unlocking things in the real world or within your builds. Things like new curses and blessings, aspects, areas in the HUB, and plenty more.
Welp, that about wraps up the last 6 months
I imagine I will only ever be doing one more of these before launch...that's an odd feeling after nearly 8 years.
Either way, I gotta get to work finishing up the new upgrades system, and then I'm off to rework the equipment and workbench systems. After that, Ultimates...and then after that? Finish the rest of the game lmao
Oh also join the Discord / Newsletter so that we may keep each other warm in the coming nuclear winter.