The Shifting Strikes Update v0.28
greetings and well met, friends
today is a fine day, for it is patch day! this one had a lot of focus on making the demo feel representative of what the finished game should look and play like. to that end i attempted to polish up a few things that were lingering in my to-do list for many moons. it's also about time to discuss where the full game stands and what one can expect.
firstly, the update for the demo contains as follows:
Update v0.28:
General:
-Changed how attacking while standing still works. Attacks will now be issued properly when you attempt to attack a target that is out of reach or that has their path blocked by any obstacle.
Previously, attempting to attack a moused-over target that is out of reach while holding the "Prevent Movement" key (Left-Shift by default) would not do anything since the desired target could not be reached. This happened often if the player was sitting in a doorframe and attempted to hit an enemy that was obscured by an invalid target. Now the player will conduct an attack no matter what, and the attack will deal damage to the first valid target in front of the player.
-Fixed a bunch of player animations, namely for Two-Handed weapons, bows and crossbows.
-Many changes to how long the Taking Damage / On Hit animations last and how often they occur. It should feel less clunky to use Two-handed weapons.
-Added a couple of new sounds for items.
-Added two new Combat Arts: Mighty Slam for Two-handers, and Concentrate for One-handers.
-Added 5 new Unique items.
-Added small visual effect on Level-up.
-Added 4 new Item modifiers.
-Reduced the rate +Hp and +Mana modifiers appear in items
-Added visuals for a few Spells and Combat Arts which had none previously.
-Enemy effects such as Acid are now properly removed when loading saves while under their effects.
-Mousing over the Spell Wheel stat description will display a tooltip with the required Intelligence for the next Spell Wheel slot.
-Added an Armor stat for Summons, which reduces incoming damage from enemies. Enemies with high armor-piercing values ignore armor. Summons will survive longer on average.
-Added more player statistics on death.
Enemies:
-Many slower enemies will finish their attack animation instead of cancelling when the player is out of range.
-Improved animation and behavior of Bloodsoaked Guard a bit.
-Ranged enemies will no longer follow player movements if they lose sight of them - they will finish their attack and aim it at the last position they had vision of the player.
-Changed colliders for Flaming Skulls to be slightly larger and to fit their shape better.
Bugfixes and Misc. Changes:
-Fixed issues with having an attack be interrupted by a Taking Damage animation sometimes preventing future attacks.
-Enemy projectiles no longer go through staircases.
-Fixed switching equipment while slowed not properly applying the slowed animation speed.
-Fixed Attack Rating and Damage Multipliers sometimes being incorrectly calculated on attacking.
-Fixed UI issues where some items will slightly change the collision size of the equipped character item slots.
-Fixed issue where selecting the "ESC to close Minimap" option would permanently disable the minimap when pressing ESC.
-Fixed inventory UI issues where incorrect inventory slots would be highlighted after completing an item swap.
-Fixed clipping issues with the Robes armor type.
-Fixed issue where enemies invisible to the player could be targeted.
-Fixed clouds in Halls of Pain disappearing if the player moved to the edge of certain rooms.
-Fixed textboxes sometimes being the wrong size or not properly displaying text.
-Fixed some issues with the Shopkeeper's UI.
-Fixed issues with the Hotbar collider being slightly bigger than the visuals
-Improved interactions with mouse-over being interrupted by the UI. Things behind the UI will no longer be highlighted or described in the text-box.
-Fixed issues with Combat Art icons in Hotbar sometimes incorrectly being red tinted when they are able to be cast.
-Clicking the Ability icon in the Hotbar will open the spellbook if the icon was a spell, or the Combat Arts page if the icon was a Combat Art.
-Fixed the Charge Combat Art being interrupted by small obstacles, such as the Dead Paladins.
-Swapping weapons after casting a Combat Arts that modifies the next attack (such as piercing shot) will now remove the Combat Art effect.
-Fixed broken name for the Ratman's Rags unique armor.
-Fixed issue with incorrect weapon particle sizes after loading or dying multiple times.
-Fixed rare bug with lifesteal and manasteal not properly stacking if you have multiple sources of the effect.
-Fixed issues with debuff length when an enemy is both Slowed and Blinded.
-Fixed rare case of unequipping spear switching to an incorrect animation group.
-Fixed collision on certain crates not matching the visuals.
that's it for all the changes visible in the demo. now for a brief status report on where the game is currently.
things are moving forward at a good pace, and i am still working hard to get the game at a state fit for release in 2024.
currently, the game contains 30 unique enemy types (11 are in the demo), not counting bosses and recolors. there are 3 more enemies currently in the works, at which point i will consider the bestiary ready. the game also currently consists of 15 levels, with another 4 currently in development and one secret level. there are also 20 spells and 40 unique items.
one of the enemies currently being worked on
a single run of the game should take about a dozen hours. with that, i am aiming to include a difficulty system as is standard for this genre, where beating the game on the normal difficulty allows you to enter a higher difficulty with your character. it will take a great feat of effort to beat the game on the harder difficulty, especially on Ironman or with the Despair difficulty enabled. of course, there will be steam achievements to commemorate those few who are able to pull it off.
while this update might not be bursting at the seams with content, rest assured that progress is being made daily behind the scenes
as always, thank you for reading and for playing the demo. your feedback and bug reports help me develop the game faster. as the game is growing in scale every day, it is often troublesome to catch pesky bugs, so i encourage you to report any issues, ideas, suggestions, feedback and anything in between by posting here on the steam community page, or by writing to me directly to kalemonvo@gmail, or on twitter. you are also invited to join the game's discord to see changes as they happen here, should that be of interest.
until next time!
today is a fine day, for it is patch day! this one had a lot of focus on making the demo feel representative of what the finished game should look and play like. to that end i attempted to polish up a few things that were lingering in my to-do list for many moons. it's also about time to discuss where the full game stands and what one can expect.
firstly, the update for the demo contains as follows:
Update v0.28:
General:
-Changed how attacking while standing still works. Attacks will now be issued properly when you attempt to attack a target that is out of reach or that has their path blocked by any obstacle.
Previously, attempting to attack a moused-over target that is out of reach while holding the "Prevent Movement" key (Left-Shift by default) would not do anything since the desired target could not be reached. This happened often if the player was sitting in a doorframe and attempted to hit an enemy that was obscured by an invalid target. Now the player will conduct an attack no matter what, and the attack will deal damage to the first valid target in front of the player.
-Fixed a bunch of player animations, namely for Two-Handed weapons, bows and crossbows.
-Many changes to how long the Taking Damage / On Hit animations last and how often they occur. It should feel less clunky to use Two-handed weapons.
-Added a couple of new sounds for items.
-Added two new Combat Arts: Mighty Slam for Two-handers, and Concentrate for One-handers.
-Added 5 new Unique items.
-Added small visual effect on Level-up.
-Added 4 new Item modifiers.
-Reduced the rate +Hp and +Mana modifiers appear in items
-Added visuals for a few Spells and Combat Arts which had none previously.
-Enemy effects such as Acid are now properly removed when loading saves while under their effects.
-Mousing over the Spell Wheel stat description will display a tooltip with the required Intelligence for the next Spell Wheel slot.
-Added an Armor stat for Summons, which reduces incoming damage from enemies. Enemies with high armor-piercing values ignore armor. Summons will survive longer on average.
-Added more player statistics on death.
Enemies:
-Many slower enemies will finish their attack animation instead of cancelling when the player is out of range.
-Improved animation and behavior of Bloodsoaked Guard a bit.
-Ranged enemies will no longer follow player movements if they lose sight of them - they will finish their attack and aim it at the last position they had vision of the player.
-Changed colliders for Flaming Skulls to be slightly larger and to fit their shape better.
Bugfixes and Misc. Changes:
-Fixed issues with having an attack be interrupted by a Taking Damage animation sometimes preventing future attacks.
-Enemy projectiles no longer go through staircases.
-Fixed switching equipment while slowed not properly applying the slowed animation speed.
-Fixed Attack Rating and Damage Multipliers sometimes being incorrectly calculated on attacking.
-Fixed UI issues where some items will slightly change the collision size of the equipped character item slots.
-Fixed issue where selecting the "ESC to close Minimap" option would permanently disable the minimap when pressing ESC.
-Fixed inventory UI issues where incorrect inventory slots would be highlighted after completing an item swap.
-Fixed clipping issues with the Robes armor type.
-Fixed issue where enemies invisible to the player could be targeted.
-Fixed clouds in Halls of Pain disappearing if the player moved to the edge of certain rooms.
-Fixed textboxes sometimes being the wrong size or not properly displaying text.
-Fixed some issues with the Shopkeeper's UI.
-Fixed issues with the Hotbar collider being slightly bigger than the visuals
-Improved interactions with mouse-over being interrupted by the UI. Things behind the UI will no longer be highlighted or described in the text-box.
-Fixed issues with Combat Art icons in Hotbar sometimes incorrectly being red tinted when they are able to be cast.
-Clicking the Ability icon in the Hotbar will open the spellbook if the icon was a spell, or the Combat Arts page if the icon was a Combat Art.
-Fixed the Charge Combat Art being interrupted by small obstacles, such as the Dead Paladins.
-Swapping weapons after casting a Combat Arts that modifies the next attack (such as piercing shot) will now remove the Combat Art effect.
-Fixed broken name for the Ratman's Rags unique armor.
-Fixed issue with incorrect weapon particle sizes after loading or dying multiple times.
-Fixed rare bug with lifesteal and manasteal not properly stacking if you have multiple sources of the effect.
-Fixed issues with debuff length when an enemy is both Slowed and Blinded.
-Fixed rare case of unequipping spear switching to an incorrect animation group.
-Fixed collision on certain crates not matching the visuals.
that's it for all the changes visible in the demo. now for a brief status report on where the game is currently.
things are moving forward at a good pace, and i am still working hard to get the game at a state fit for release in 2024.
currently, the game contains 30 unique enemy types (11 are in the demo), not counting bosses and recolors. there are 3 more enemies currently in the works, at which point i will consider the bestiary ready. the game also currently consists of 15 levels, with another 4 currently in development and one secret level. there are also 20 spells and 40 unique items.
one of the enemies currently being worked ona single run of the game should take about a dozen hours. with that, i am aiming to include a difficulty system as is standard for this genre, where beating the game on the normal difficulty allows you to enter a higher difficulty with your character. it will take a great feat of effort to beat the game on the harder difficulty, especially on Ironman or with the Despair difficulty enabled. of course, there will be steam achievements to commemorate those few who are able to pull it off.
while this update might not be bursting at the seams with content, rest assured that progress is being made daily behind the scenes
as always, thank you for reading and for playing the demo. your feedback and bug reports help me develop the game faster. as the game is growing in scale every day, it is often troublesome to catch pesky bugs, so i encourage you to report any issues, ideas, suggestions, feedback and anything in between by posting here on the steam community page, or by writing to me directly to kalemonvo@gmail, or on twitter. you are also invited to join the game's discord to see changes as they happen here, should that be of interest.
until next time!