STLD Redux: Episode 02 News

Hey there, I've been trying to find time whenever I can to get the next update out to you guys. Players have been asking me about making some changes and tweaks so I've been doing my best to hammer some of that stuff out and simultaneously work on the Custom Controls feature, it's almost there.

Sorry it's taking so long, programming custom controls is kind of a tedious process.

Unfortunately this following update might not be too exciting for veteran players of the game, as it will consist of a lot of fixes and features to make the game more approachable to new players. The Update should be ready and out of the way by next week, and it will include the following additions/changes:

• The Main Menu will be updated and newly arranged to accompany all the recent features, including the Custom Controls and the Slots minigame.. So you will be able to gamble from the first screen and not just when you die.
  
  
• The Lemat Revolver's alternate fire feature will work a little differently. Multiple people have complained about the confusing nature of using this gun and the user Drugon had a good suggestion on a way to remedy that. I'll explain how it works in the actual update.
  
  
• The Death Screen will do a better job of explaining what the Slot rewards are when you win them. And it will also attempt to tell the player that these rewards are temporary, as there has been some confusion there.
  
  
• There will be a 6 minute "Dry run" feature at the cost of a token. This will allow newer players to explore and investigate the level without the threat of zombies.
  
  
  
• Throwing the rock from the second story will kill a cultist if it lands on their head.
  
  
  
• Custom Controls, obviously being the biggest change in this update. This will make the keys customizable to whatever the player prefers.
  
  
• A pause button on the keyboard.
  
  

Just a heads up! I'm still working on the Inquisitor as well. Here's [Work in progress] his walking animation in all it's pixelated glory.



Have a great weekend guys, I'll see you soon!

Hey there, just stopping in for a sec. I uploaded a newer version of the game with the following fixes/changes:

• The Player will now actually recieve the Skeleton Keys they win in the Slots game. ( Sorry about that )ːsteamfacepalmː
  
• The Priest Cultist will now appear later on in the game in 18 minute mode. ( he won't just run away early on and never return. )
  
• The Chainsaw and the Ogre which both have idling sound effects do not make said sound effects after the character has dropped the gun or been bitten (etc)
  

Here's a quick spellcast anim I've been working on for The Inquisitor, he's just about there! Still gotta program him once he's animated, I don't expect many hiccups though as a template has been established already.

Here's also a glimpse of the Weapon Compendium I'm working on. Which will be an in-game list of all the weapons and how they work. The player will be able to purchase the compendium with tokens they earn from winning. (it'll cost 3 )


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A bonus Let's play!

If anyone is still on the ropes or curious what gameplay and progressing through STLD 02 actually looks like, look no further. This video by youtuber Hadriex shows what it's like starting out in the game , dying , getting better, and then finally kicking some serious ass. Stop by and check it out!

https://youtu.be/Kamfbi_VYW4?t=4623


I'll be working on the next update, custom controls are still coming too. Thank you all for the nice emails and message board interactions. Take care and have a great weekend!

Hey there, so I didn't really go over yesterdays big update I just made for Steams Summer sale. Here's most of the big additions in a little more detail.


The death screen has been changed a bit. You'll notice there's now a selection that says "Gamble" and one near the bottom that's greyed out that says "Weapon Compendium". I'll go over the compendium a little later. For now we're talking about gambling some tokens!


somebody just won Double Ammo next round.


Gambling costs the player one token. Tokens are earned from playing the game, the better you play, the more you earn. Even if you die, you still earn tokens.

When you gamble you typically win one temporary item or buff. This means it lasts ONLY for your next playthrough. These rewards won't stack either, so you basically get a burn card for next round.

Now you're probably asking ... "what can I win? Why are you so excited about this dumb update? " Well my friends, there's all kinds of neat stuff. For starters 8 new weapons have been added! Let's check them out and what they do.

WEAPON SPOILERS AHEAD


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My new favorite, and a long time coming.. Who am I to deny the immortal romance between chainsaws and zombies? The Chainsaw has been overhauled completely since the first game I made all those years ago. This new weapon has a 3 hit combination attack with 45% chance on contact for critical damage.
Every critical hit generates Amber a PWR orb, and with 3 PWR orbs you can perform the devastating Cleave attack. You're going to wish you had more enemies to keep the combos and cleaves rolling.


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This is a new shotgun with an extremely fast rate of fire. Shotgun blasts from close range have a chance to completely and critically destroy a zombies upper body. Yuck.


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This was another heavy weapon from the original game that has been overhauled and re-polished. Great for clearing spaces or just about anything death related. The Ogre can be charged up automatically (which takes about 2 seconds) or pre-charged manually by holding down the SPRINT key first. This doesn't actually conflict with sprinting as Amber cannot run with the Ogre in her hands.



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This is an extremely fast pistol with high damage and the bonus ability to take Precision Shots.
Much like the Sailfish Repeater, Holding down the "Sprint" button while Amber is not moving will cause her to focus fire the Vyper Twenty Forty. The aiming is relaxed on the Vyper making it easier to score critical hits in quick succession. Failing a precision shot does not cost Amber anything, so practice precision shots when you can !

This guns name comes from one of the most wonderful fans a creator could ever ask for, always stopping in and bringing the positivity levels to maximum. Thanks so much for being a player and part of STLD Vyper2040! It's always a pleasure.



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A newly revived and re-designed rocket launcher. Nothing in the game hits harder than this weapon. It holds 4 shots so if you win this gun make them all count!



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Noticing a theme yet? All of these weapons are either extremely fast, or strong, or both. The Dragon Fang is no different. This gun has high a damage output even at maximum range, and rapid fire speed to boot.
There is one caveat to the Dragon Fang, each shot costs Amber %15 of her Stamina. Stamina is important to have with this gun because the higher your Stamina is the higher chance she has of scoring critical hits.

So in a nutshell. Firing fast and wildly will not always be the best approach with the Dragon Fang.


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Previously only available in within the tutorial, the Goblin makes its triumphant return to the real battleground... This time with a few tweaks.

The Goblin is fully automatic with an extremely high rate of fire. It's weapon damage is dictated by how close you are to the enemy. Trying to pull down a group of zombies from across the stage may be more costly on ammo rather than letting them get close for focus fire. The goblins light weight makes it easy on Stamina usage and ideal for running and gunning.



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The Arctic Hawk is a fun little magnum pistol that can be extremely devastating if used correctly. The gun alone has a 25% chance of scoring a critical hit, each critical hit scored with the Arctic Hawk grants Amber a PWR orb. .. Now the cool part is if you hold down the SPRINT key and fire the weapon you can force critical hits at the cost of 1 PWR orb. If you're smart you can utilize those PWR orbs for some serious and consistent damage.

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There's even more fun stuff you can win in the slots system! I'm not going to visually go over it all, but let's just say there's things like Blazing Speed, Explosive grapple breaks, all kinds of random and fun shit.





Here's a quick slots key that puts a name to each icon.




If you're still reading this than kudos to you. Maybe now it makes a bit more sense why I was so excited about this update. And hopefully it will make you excited to know I'm still working on one more big content update that will hopefully be available very soon! The final boss is about 80% animated. And I really can't wait to get him into the game, I think its gonna be a really fun fight for experienced players.

I still plan to add custom controls, and make slots available on the main menu so you don't have to die to access them so expect that soon.

Lastly the Weapon compendium will basically go over every weapon in the game and act as a guide or key for the players to consult when they have questions or want to know how to best utilize their guns/knives/chainsaws for zombie killing.

That's all I've got for you now. Please if you can tell a friend or anyone you'd think might enjoy this game, or just give it a shout out that would be amazing. The game is on sale right now at 75% ( less than $1.25 ) so I'm really just trying to get it into more players hands. Thank you so much for reading and playing.

cheers,

Hey there.. literally cutting this one down to the minute. I finally added in a big update adding 8 new weapons and a bunch of new features throughout the SLOTS system. I'll mention also this is the first of about 3 (I think ) very big updates. I was actually trying to have it all ready by this date but couldn't quite squeeze it in.

I'm gonna keep this one brief for now and come back later with more information. A LOT has been added and changed. Here's a quick screen grab I did of all the slot results. The weapons are shown there. I put a lot of effort into making these new weapons fun to use and unique. The zombies have new death animations to accompany them. Please enjoy.





The Slots Menu appears after you die, as it's main intention is to encourage players to jump back in. Possibly with exploding fists this time around, or blazing speed.. maybe a chainsaw or a rocket launcher, it all depends on your luck and tokens. I'm going to add the slots feature to the main menu as well soon, so you won't have to die just to access it. I apologize I just did not have as much time as I had hoped when getting this all ready.


More news incoming very soon.

Very much love.

Hey there! I hope everybody out there is doing well. It's finally time for another update... This time our main focus is.. you guessed it!






I spent a large portion of this week personally play testing and making sure all these achievements pop off when necessary, which isn't as easy or fun as it might sound. But then again this actually was fun, and it was really great to be able to dive back into work on STLD again. These were such a long time coming and I hope you guys enjoy !



That's right, the game now looks a heck of a lot smoother. Thanks to some great guidance and advice from Matt Lucas at Esperware interactive, the game now performs at a better rate, the camera scrolling code has been improved and redesigned and all in game weapons are slightly faster! woot.

The Magic Charm is now a permanent item!

I had always planned to do this but only as of late designed a way to make it work in game. The Magic Charm now becomes an Artifact, which basically means that once you dig it up and discover it will always be in Amber's inventory!



In future rounds if the player goes back to dig at that same spot where the Charm used to be you will discover a brand new item I've just added in this update called the Power Bar . Well 2 of them actually..



Power Bars are consumables that instantly give Amber 3 PWR orbs
(the things she uses to break zombie attacks and perform special attacks of her own with the melee weapons)

As a little side not these bars don't count against the play as "Aids used" when they are graded at the end of the round. Just a heads up!

Inventory not as cluttering as before.

Because keys discovered aren't actually usable items, they have been removed from the inventory cycle, so now there is less the player needs to look through when messing around down in the corner of the screen. Rest assured she still has the Keys and they work the same when interacting with the environment. And, I'm going to re-add the keys in a different spot on the interface in a later update.

Enemies now flash to indicate they've been damaged and show critical hit text.

I'm often trying to see what works or what can be tweaked to improve the visual gameplay, I really like the way the damage flash effect looks in some games ( SOTN had something similar ) but there are many others. Anyway there's been a few changes made to STLD in that regard.

I think that's about it for now guys, I'll likely be tackling the SLOTS feature next and maybe some more inquisitor animations to get that guy ready for action.

Have a great weekend.


-Pyro