Gameplay Update & Immediate Plans

Hey there! It’s been a while again, this time a lot of work has been done in under the hood for future updates, we’ll get into those in a bit. This is foremost a slight gameplay, and feel alteration update. It may not be as big of an update as last year’s UNIDOS, but between the no-show updates, and new additions, hopefully, this can give a glimpse of the near future, which we’ll cover in a bit.

First Off, I’d like to give my heartfelt, many, many, thanks to the folks at the Puerto Rico Game Developer’s Association, for allowing me to be part of their games made in Puerto Rico, as well as allowing me to demo this game in the recent Gaming Island, where the game was exposed to a younger audience, and they were nice to give me plenty of feedback. The game had a target age and audience, but input from multiple perspective is always good, specially when

So without a further ado, let’s get to the change log.

Performance:

Last time I touched on performance, bullets became a singular object, bullet sprites became billboards, and particles were simplified, most things were under a texture atlas, except for enemies. All of this is still the case, but now;

• Particles have been overall reduced, only a few shots and spells have particles for their bullets.
  • I intend to work on a simpler way to implement them in a way that all bullets are the same but with possible, pooled extras. (In other words, a possible second PoolMaster)
• Job System for the bullets is in the works, this will provide the bullet system, multi-threading support.

Boss Battles

• Cedric is now Elm, following the Goblina theme of having notable characters be named after Programming Languages and Frameworks.
• For the nerds; Elm is a purely functional programming language for creating web interfaces. It is also known for the Elm Architecture, and has influenced Redux and Vue.
• Elm’s difficulty has been increased to reflect the higher skill requirement that is expected.
  • Note that this is still the Fluke shot version. It is purely an anxiety challenge, there are still plenty of Safe Zones, but there are plenty of patterns that will require you to move..
  • Yes, you can still beat it at level one. If you get frustrated, there is no shame in using Rea and EM Dash. They are available in the Skill selection.
  • If you manage a No Damage run of Elm, PLEASE do tag me on Twitter (@solazdev), a video is highly appreciated!!

Mazes

• Mazes can now vary in size. Currently, Forgotten Garden and Goblina E31 have a size range of 5-7 cells.
• 3 New Enemies! Which includes the return of StoneKnight from the old version! (another is on it’s way)
• A Non-Nerf’d Stratum has been added! This is a larger (8-10 size range) stratum with the original version of all the enemies. (Forgotten Garden and Goblina have the nerf’d variants for regulars) This is intended for players who either want to experiment, or feel comfortable and want a challenge.
• CryptoRandom is back!! CryptoRandom is a RNG that uses Cryptography instead of a seed. This means that the generated numeric values will always be different. This ultimately means, it is a lot more random.
  • Enemies now have higher chances of appearing. What was a double value check (random(0,5)>2 || random(0,10)>2) is now “simplified” to (cryptoRandom.nextDouble()>.15). This may seem unbalanced now, but it is still the core maze generation limits this. So…
  • Core Maze Generation will soon have a second cell check run to allow things to spread a bit more evenly, instead of having them in usually-closed cells.

Gameplay & UI/UX

• Ice, Water, Wind and Rock shots are now available! You can select them in the Skills Selection.
• Skills now have a ring to indicate their cooldown. This will be inverted in the future where the cooldown ring will only deplete instead of fill, to indicate cooldown.
• FEEL Feedback Library was added, and there are some experimental feedbacks thrown in, notably.
  • Aggregate Damage will be displayed a-la Cave Story.
  • Player Healthbar now has a slight delay when taking damage or healing.
  • If no other uses are found, Library will be removed and these changes will be re-implemented manually.
• Control hints now appear in the loading screen when loading to a Maze or Stage
  • In the future, Skills and their descriptions may also appear loading screen.
• The Core Leveling Up & Character Growth system, though taking its sweet time, is almost complete, and might be ready a future update.
  • Per-Stage Performance Tracking is in order. Which rewards players for their particular play style.
  • Per-Save Performance Tracking is in progress, this can help in earning particular skills based on play style.
  • Please bear in mind, this is pretty significant and can alter the game as some of you may play it, as there would be no Level Selection, and Skills would be earned. Meaning…
    • Current Status of Game could be turned to a “Quickplay Mode”.

TL;DR What’s coming soon

In case you skipped through sections.

• The Core Leveling Up & Character Growth system, though taking its sweet time, is almost complete, and might be ready a future update.
  • Per-Stage Performance Tracking is in order. Which rewards players for their particular play style.
  • Per-Save Performance Tracking is in progress, this can help in earning particular skills based on play style.
  • Please bear in mind, this is pretty significant and can alter the game as some of you may play it, as there would be no Level Selection, and Skills would be earned. Meaning…
    • Current Status of Game could be turned to a “Quickplay Mode”.
• Core Maze Generation will soon have a second cell check run to allow things to spread a bit more evenly, instead of having them in usually-closed cells.
• I intend to work on a simpler way to implement them in a way that all bullets are the same but with possible, pooled extras. (In other words, a possible second PoolMaster)
• Job System for the bullets is in the works, this will provide the bullet system, multi-threading support.

I currently aim for the next update to be around October, though it will be accompanied by a lot of work. So here’s hoping the first 3 Strata are complete, and core systems (excluding Character growth, for event-demo reasons) are updated and fully implemented!