Spring is almost here! Here are the updates for February:

Belfry and Boss Summoning

This was the major feature update for February. Each realm will have a godly boss the player must summon. In order to summon the boss the player must find two “belfry crystals” in the level. These crystals are in random areas each level and once the player finds one, they must wait (survive) near the crystal until it “attaches” to them. Once it is attached, the player must guide the crystal to the belfry so that it can then be placed into its sconce. Once the two crystals are in place inside the belfry, the player can then choose to summon the realm’s god.

I wanted to make this summoning process a player decision rather than a passive one that happens automatically after the player completes a certain amount of waves or kills all enemies. I want to give the player the freedom to either immediately rush the boss (if they are confident) or to wait, kill some enemies, level up, and then summon the boss.

Loading Screens

Up until now, when a player transitioned between major game states or levels the game would freeze for several seconds. In some playtests this led players to think the game was crashing. Now there are actual load screens! They are not pretty yet (I’ll polish these later in the cycle) but they do communicate to the player that the game is loading, please wait.

Enemy Collision Upgrade

I have updated the collision behavior between the player and enemies so that now the player is knocked back and takes a small amount of damage if they run into an enemy. I am still testing this and am looking forward to more playtesting with others to determine the right balance here. Initially I did not want the player to be penalized for running into enemies which would allow them greater movement throughout the level, however, it started feeling that the enemies lacked substance in that model – now that they react to colliding, the game is a bit more difficult though it comes at the cost of freer movement when the enemies become crowded. This will certainly require more balancing throughout this process.

Onward & Upward

Bobby @ Long Tooth Llama

Happy February! See below for details on what was accomplished in January.

Post-battle run summaries

After the player completes a run (whether they’ve been vanquished or they have defeated the god of the realm) they will be presented with a summary of their performance. I am planning to add a post-run reward system to this as well – if the player accomplishes certain things (enough kills, achieves a certain level, survives for a specific time) they will have a chance of winning a permanent reward…but that is still a work in progress!

Room metadata flyouts

I’ve added more UI to the Citadel. The player can now click on any room in their citadel and the flyout will display important information about that room or category of rooms. For instance, it may display how many gardens are currently in the citadel and how many disciples are working in those gardens alongside the vacant slots.

Deleting rooms

The player can now delete rooms at no cost to them, 100% refund. Once I get to balancing the game, this 100% refund may change depending on whether it feels too inconsequential.

Player damage

I’ve added a new animation for player damage. A big piece of feedback in the last playtest was that it was not clear the player was taking damage when hit by an enemy. The screen turns red briefly and a red damage number flies out, but beyond that it is difficult to discern for the player when the screen is filled with frenetic chaos.

Player poisoned

The player can now be poisoned! Watch out!

Anti-aliasing on text

Text on smaller displays has been an issue in the last playtest. I’ve tried smoothing this out via anti-aliasing but this is not a 100% fix, it is merely an enhancement. I will need to devote more time later to supporting smaller displays in the future.

Onward & upward

Bobby @ Long Tooth Llama