As we've touched on before, our goal has always been to maintain the feel of what made Soda Dungeon 1 enjoyable while adding to it and improving on it in any way possible. AKA "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
While this has been a guiding principle of ours, it also doesn't mean we wanted to copy Soda Dungeon 1 verbatim. We've talked before about brand new features and mechanics for the game like crafting, quests, and custom battle commands (Soda Script). But I also wanted to cover some of the smaller changes we've made to the mechanics moving forward into part 2.
You can hire six team members
There was always room for six, why not let players make use of it?
There is now a separate "Status Resist" stat
In SD1 you either had protection from status effects, or you didn't. Now there is a percentage chance depending what class you're using and what items you have equipped. We still have unique items to outright prevent certain effects on your character, but you can no longer "prevent all negative effects" like you could in SD1.
There is now a "Speed" stat
Some enemies can slow down your team's turn order, and some also have natural speed boosts that let them attack before you (or even twice in a row!). We tried not to get carried away here, because manipulation of the speed stat can result in wildly different outcomes at different dungeon levels.
There are no more "one use per battle" items
In SD1 special items (such as the heal stone) could be used once per battle, per character. This didn't seem incredibly intuitive, so now all abilities that your character has (whether granted innately or by an item) consume MP and can be used as long as MP remains. As an exception there are a couple of abilities that "exhaust" your character (instead of consuming MP) so the "cost" is that character losing their next turn.
Alternate "paths" have been replaced with portals and keys
SD1 would occasionally spawn paths that gave you a 50/50 shot of something good or bad. In SD2 they are now a set of three portals: One bad and two good, but one of the good ones is locked and tells you what is behind it. As you go through the dungeon there is a chance that minibosses and bosses will drop keys that can be used to unlock these portals.
Ambushes and "bad portals" can't be prevented (yet)
In SD1, the Knight prevented ambushes and bad paths. In SD2, the Huntress class can reduce their frequency but not completely prevent them. We tried to move away from "one size fits all" team compositions. This can also have a big impact on endgame, so we'll monitor the effect it has and see if we need to tweak it.
More ways to equip your character
Just to mix it up we tried out some new equipping mechanics: One class can equip two weapons but no shield, and another class can equip three items but no armor.
The Blacksmith now carries a dynamic inventory
In SD1 the Blacksmith always had a fixed set of items available to purchase. Now, after each run, he will feature an additional set of items that could have been found around the level you last ended at. There's even a small chance he could stock something rare, but it will cost a lot!
No more "Tavern Reputation"
One source of confusion from the original game was the "Tavern Reputation" stat. You could purchase a certain soda to attract a new class to the tavern, but it was possible they still wouldn't show up if you didn't have a high enough reputation. This didn't really seem to enhance the gameplay experience so we made it simple: If you buy a soda for a certain class, that class can now spawn. And instead of requiring you to purchase "decor" upgrades to boost your reputation, you can now just purchase individual cosmetics (new stools, tables, floor, etc) to customize the tavern to your liking.
Characters now have "Masteries"
Characters now accumulate XP while fighting in the dungeon, which translates into "Mastery" levels. Each level grants a small bonus, like +2 hp or +1 atk. Level 25 gives each character a new skill, and Level 50 gives each character a special "class relic" that you can use to boost their stats. We plan to expand mastery levels and bonuses in the future.
... and I think that covers it! There's probably a few extra things I could tack on but this already ended up longer than expected. Besides, some things have to be a surprise, right? Before I finish up I wanted to mention one last important thing: Soda Dungeon 2 Comes To Android Early Access In Late May! We're looking to consolidate our testing and feedback onto one platform during this final phase, which will benefit all platforms when we launch in full. For more information, please see our post on reddit. More big updates are coming down the pipeline soon!