[ UPDATE V20 ] Achievements!! and more!
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.
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!
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.
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
51 Achievements have been added!
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
