Equin: The Lantern News

Hello!

We are coming up on almost a year since I started to make Equin: The Lantern's sequel, "Equin 2: The Warren Peace". Why is it in quotation marks? Nobody knows!

Here today though I want to show a few screenshots of what I've been working on this past month (when I can), as my fourth child was just born a couple weeks ago so the goings have been slow.





It might not seem like much (and it just might not be) but I've added a small help option the player can access through pressing.... H.. For help. Wow, how innovative! Anyhow you can get a small rundown of some topics from here at any time while playing the game. Here for example is some more detailed information about the Strength attribute, including some behind the scenes crap like how it influences critical hits and attack power.

To make room for this option to show on the main screen I just got rid of the "CONTROLS" label, which was kind of redundant anyhow.





So far we have three different types of buildings you'll come across while playing, but there will for sure be more later, as I figured out a cool way to add these without having to contact NASA for mathematical assistance.

In addition to the Shops, there are Guilds (pictured), and a Casino where you can gamble away your worldly possessions.





And every single time I go to work on the game for anything I'm adding new gear to it. The last thing is this warrior-only Halberd, which is a huge-ass axe / spear class weapon that requires two hands (that's what she said!). Other recent additions off the top of my head include:

• Set of crocodile armor that lets the player submerge in water (all non-water enemies won't detect you or move to intercept while underwater)
  
  
• A weathervane staff weapon that gains an electrical attack whenever it's raining outside.
  
  
• A Heroic Amulet that lets you equip any gear, regardless of class.
  
  
• One magic necklace that heals a % of your HP every time you score a critical hit.
  
  
• Minor demons can potentially drop a nice shield which you can use to bash enemies and has a chance to burn them too.
  

There's just way way more than this but I don't want to spoil everything because that'd suck. In fact later tonight I'm planning on adding a new ring that helps extend effect duration.

That's all for today, have a good week!

Dave / Del_Duio

Lot of stuff this week!

• Made the official title public. I love me some puns.
  
  
• Started (and basically finished) the 3rd playable dungeon area, a crypt of all things. Undead are SCARY.
  
  
• The Crypt's floors have a high chance to be in complete darkness. Additionally there's a ~20% or so chance for that floor's water supply to be polluted right off the bat.
  
  
• New enemy ability to heal themselves. Luckily not every enemy can do this.
  
  
• New enemy "blood bat", which can morph into a vampire in mid-battle. These guys are super strong if they change form. They have a unique battle option called bloodlust where (if active) they will heal 25% of their max HP whenever they touch and damage you. Vampires came out great. Tweening animation and everything, and it doesn't look like shit to boot!
  
  
• Lots of new mundane items like the Painted Shield and Studded Leather armor. The armor has some flavor text about everyone's favorite movie bar, of course:
  
  [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
  
  
• Vampires can now potentially drop their fangs. These can be used to give you their bloodlust effect for yourself!
  
  
• A couple new rares including a Bloody Chain (necklace) which protects you vs. that vampire's draining attack. As a true roguelike fuck you to the player this will also nullify the effect of a Vampire's Fang if you go to use it on yourself while the chain is equipped. So don't do that.
  
  
• Spazz Weed is back! However this time it has only one effect. It'll make you super paranoid, which raises your Hit and Evade % by a ton, at the cost of potentially bugging out in battle (and losing your turn). Unlike other consumables, you'll need a torch in your pack to burn it in order to work.
  
  
• Old campfires can be restarted by using up a torch as well, and dumping a bottle of Fire Water will do the same thing. More examples of how a single item can have more than a single usage.
  
  
• I'm bringing back ETL's Time Bomb floor events only this time I'm tying it to an enemy of sorts. So you can still try and escape the floor before the bomb goes off and kills you OR you can locate the actual bomb itself and attempt to disarm it in battle. Each round that passes where you don't disarm it makes the bomb more and more unstable, which may explode and kill you earlier than expected. But overall I like this new mechanic a lot. Choices, am I right??
  

There is certainly more, but I can't remember. It's coming along pretty great!

I don't have screenshots of any of this stuff right now, you will have to take my word for it.

EDIT: Yeah I do!

A timebomb event in action

This cleric fears not the Crypt! Well, maybe a tad. He still has his starter wooden club.

Thanks!

Dave / Del_Duio

Hello!

I have a small but important update for you all today, the first in almost an entire year (gasp!) As some of you may already know I've been hard at work on this game's sequel, but that doesn't mean ol' ETL can't get any love still.

Here are the changes:

• Some starting Bonuses were improved- XP went from +15% to +20%, Gold earned from +25% to +30%, MDEF went from +3 to +4. Attack +2 and all stats +1 remain unchanged because that's pretty good as they were.
  
• Regular chest spawns were SLIGHTLY reduced, from 20% to 12%. In the sequel game I have less chests but made them more impactful. So that's what I'm doing here as well, because...
  
• Gold chest chance was increased kind of a lot.
  
• Shadow chest chance was also inceased kind of a lot, and a TON during Graveyard / Treasure / and Champion floor events.
  
• The game's title page has little sparklie doos over "Equin: The Lantern"
  
• The sequel's water came out so good, that this game's water puddles sort of embarass me lol. To SORT of make amends, I've redone the graphics a bit for said water puddles.
  
• Touching an Equin Statue now no longer has a chance to lose max HP and Stamina! To compensate, the odds that you'll be healed were increased. Also the odds that a random item in your pack gets changed went up too.
  
• Touching an Equin Statue now gives larger permanent stat gains, should it roll that way. Permanent STR / MAG / DEX / and CON will be raised +1-3 points now. It used to be +1-2 before.
  
• XP gains from touching an Equin statue were increased by another 50% (went from 'Dungeon Floor' x 100 to 'Dungeon Floor' x 150)
  
• Change the date! Since it's now 2021, the appropriate changes have been made there of course.
  

Well that's all for today, I have to run!

Have a great weekend and remember if you like the game please consider dropping a review on the store page. I have lots of competition out here, you see!

-Dave / Del_Duio

Hello!

I'm working on making some random events for the Equin sequel, and have several that are pretty funny / unique. How it works is you'd enter a special door (may or not appear on any given floor) and it randomly chooses from X amount of events to display.

Further, there can be either 2 or 3 different actions the player can choose this time around (vs. the simple "yes" or "no" in Equin: The Lantern). What's cool is that I can tie the possible choices to stat checks or even player class now, since it's been built from the ground-up.

Some examples:

• You find a locked golden chest w/ an especially dangerous trap. You can either leave it alone or attempt to disarm it (uses DEX x 5%) If you disarm it you'll get a random piece of rare gear that's either pre-upgraded +1 or +2. Failure to pick the lock may very well kill you, but at least you'll get the choice for either.
  
  
• A confused wizard is here with two types of potions. He says that one is a healing potion while the other is undoubtedly a deadly poison. He wants you to choose which is the healing potion with the caveat that you have to take the first sip. - Now what makes this one kind of cool is the game checks to see if you yourself are also a Wizard character and if so your choices make it very obvious which is which. If you're NOT a wizard on the other hand you have to make one of two blind guesses, as well as have an option to leave the room and not risk it.
  
  
• The book of Curiosities makes a triumphant return! You can either choose to read a page or not, however if you do decide to read a page many different things can happen like swapping your STR and DEX stats around and etc. The good thing here is that each volume of these books is tied to a specific alteration- So you might want to purposely read Volume 4 if you know that it will swap your CON and MAG around and need more CON.
  

There are more, but I can't spoil them all here because that would suck.

So.. ah, anyone have any interesting ideas that might be fun I could add? Example: "You walk into a room and there's a pie sitting on the ground with a wick sticking out. It could be very delicious, but then again it could be an EXPLODING PIE. What will you do?" Then the options might be to 'leave it alone', 'take a bite', or 'poke it with a long stick'. and etc.

I'm going to have at least 30 of these in the game so things don't get too boring.

Merry Christmas, all!

'Tis my yearly reminder about Equin: The Lantern's special ultra-rare Christmas Tree weapon! If you're new, this thing will be available at the start of any new run all day tomorrow Dec 25th! (There's some other odds and ends you'll get too but the tree is the big one)

Christmas Tree

• One-Handed Magical Spear
  
• Equippable by: Everyone, huzzah!
  
• ATK +10
  
• STR +2
  
• MAG +2
  
• DEX +2
  
• CON +2
  
• Crit Chance +2%
  
• Fire Prone
  
• Battle Options: POKE, SPARK (minor electric spell), RECOUP (recover stamina)
  

Equip it, and steamroll the early floors like Santa run amok! However keep in mind since it's y'know A TREE and all it'll get destroyed if hit by fire!

See this bat? He slept on the Christmas Tree. Know what happened next? He died, Jill.

In sequel news, progress on the game's desert area is really coming along! Aside from new scorpion enemies there's also a chance to get floorwide Firestorms now (kind of like ETL's Inferno floors, but with much less chance of fire tiles... And with a different name). New uniques and rares were added, and I'm working on adding a way to view your skills and skill descriptions out of combat. Almost like a real game!

If you thought killer scorpions and buzzards were something to fear, wait 'til you get sand in your shoe.

That's all for today, have a safe & happy & COVID-FREE holiday!! ːsteamhappyː