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Aura of Worlds News

Update set 0.77.x: Character skins system, new music 🎵 and more...

Character Skins

We don't judge people by their attire, race, background or... (and neither will the monsters...).
Now you can choose your clothes and set your skin tone (which will otherwise be set randomly each run)!

The options available this will be expanded even further as development progresses. Also unlike world shortcuts, gear blueprints and character backgrounds; skins can currently be accessed for free!

🎼 New Music

Players have said they were looking for something more heroic for the first area so...
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s4siCIcjQbgIyTTRwTPFM2p5juTxyxKd

GUI
  • Confirm dialogues
  • Skins menu
  • Some internal tools such as a tilesheet editor (this should help us to get more content in each update set).


Graphical Improvements
  • Numerous additional sprites, including:
  • Grotto has been given additional parallax depth, including randomized light beams

    (Note: as these beams are randomly placed they appear in world rather than infinitely scrolling Splash menu)

  • Garden background recolored slightly to improve readability.




Improved Fullscreen support

We added an alternative fullscreen mode to accommodate moore computer setups.
The new mode will use your native desktop resolution when deciding what modal to scale up; whilst the legacy fullscreen mode will continue to scale up the lowest resolution.

☁ Steam Cloud Synchronization:

All your most crucial files are shared between your computers.
  • game.progression: keeps track of your achievements, gear, character background and world unlocks.
  • Player.customization: 'cause style is important!




Bugs fixes
  • Numerous in menu texts readjusted.
  • Fixed bug with vases from different areas sometimes appearing in the temple.
  • Fixed bug with infinite jump using High jump background.
  • Prevention of accidental clicks from unintentially closing the menu/game.
  • Multi-jump is no longer a starting item; though it's possible to find it in shops or chests.
  • Usual rebalancing and squashing smaller bugs.
Bugs detected (27th of April):
  • ̶ J̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶c̶o̶v̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶u̶g̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶d̶o̶u̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶c̶l̶i̶c̶k̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶l̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶p̶ ̶m̶e̶n̶u̶ ̶(̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶i̶n̶g̶l̶e̶ ̶c̶l̶i̶c̶k̶)̶.̶ ̶
  • F̶o̶r̶c̶e̶f̶i̶e̶l̶d̶ ̶a̶b̶i̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶d̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶e̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶b̶u̶r̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶v̶i̶c̶t̶i̶m̶.̶.̶.̶ ̶A̶i̶m̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶c̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶m̶o̶r̶r̶o̶w̶.̶
Fixed, 28th April


Behind the scenes

The above isn't all we worked on.
Besides some internal tool enhancements that should make the process faster; we've still been chipping away at the ice world behind the scenes (though that's for another update set...).

Have fun!

Update set 0.75.x: Character backgrounds, polish & more...



With this new system comes 9 different player trait/passive ability sets which allow for further customization of play-style.

These range from increased defence to gaining double jump & infinite wall vault.

Beware that the perks they offer are not without trade-offs.
One of our favorite is bloodthirsty which will gradually drain your health but allow you to heal from injured enemies (with a number of other augments to your damage).


Achievements
  • 5 New achievements
  • Redesigns of 2 previous achievements.
  • Steam stat integration.
  • Tracking of multiple new player metrics behind the scenes for future unlocks.


Player Damage Overhaul

Getting hit carries more impact and taking heavy damage (particularly from ranged, melee or explosions) can stun you for a split second.

This makes running through encounters a fair bit more challenging...

Graphics & Options
  • Much better widescreen support.
    E.g.
    • Shadow sight target markers scale properly.
    • Multiple menu/hud elements reworked to resize with larger resolutions.
  • New graphics for character background sets and unlockable items menus.
  • Mouse locking now available (See Options->Other).
  • Cleaned up player HUD of many extraneous details.




Other Key Changes

  • Level generation for the Grotto is much more varied.
  • New Sound effects for picking up items.
  • Skeletal warriors move more predictably when fighting.
  • Multiple medium and high tier enemies have a much greater chance of dropping coins or other items.
  • Now all the bosses have enraged phases. For example the bronze knight now becomes considerable faster and more aggressive below a certain HP.
  • Damage and knockback adjusted to take into account how player damage has been reworked. Health potions also heal for a little extra.
  • Made dodge rolling faster and longer range.
  • Multiple other balancing changes.


Bug Fixes



  • Fixed rare issue of 2 textures disappearing from the multi-thread rendering
  • Disabled buttons are now faded out.
  • Fixed bugs with enduring and resourceful achievements triggering without meeting the conditions.
  • You can no longer pick up and carry temporal fields.
  • Numerous title and description texts fixed.
  • Multiple other.



***Update 0.75.7 (24th February)***
  • Updated all status/collectable/helper prompt text in game to scale with the resolution (previously they were blitted onto a render texture which was scaled); though testers have told us they've found this much smoother.
  • Various tweaks including:
    • Most enemies in the grotto have lower health on normal difficulty.
    • Dodge rolling works against skeletons on hard mode.
    • updated a couple of icons:

    • Aquatic enemy pools are a bit less crowded.
    • Fixed mouse detection for weapon wheel at different resolutions.





***Patch 0.75.10 (3rd March)***
  • Adjusted enemy health scaling for temple and grotto enemies.
  • Aquatic pools have less enemies during pursuing toxic pollen.
  • Pursuing toxic pollen is slightly slower on moderate difficulty.
  • Ceiling lickers retract with their catch more slowly.
  • Fixed glitch with Chakram unlock.
  • Added more knockback resistance when the player is hit under water.
  • Several other adjustments.


If you have any feedback or suggestions; please let us know in the forum or comments!



Enjoy :D!

Merry Christmas/Happy 2019! Here's some 🎁s!

Update 0.73.5 introduces Achievements, new abilities & more!


New Abilities
  • Enthral:

    Turn your opponents into temporary allies.
    Side Note: lighting was disabled for this GIF.


Frost:

Wrap your opponents in ice.




New parallax backgrounds for the grotto


Other mechanics
  • 2 New status effects.
  • Reworked knockback physics of all melee weapons.
  • Chakram is much more versatile now:

    • Can stun unaware opponents.
    • Can hit more often
    • Can travel under water
  • The targeting system has been vastly reworked to accommodate how quickly alliances can change...


Bug fixes and optimization

  • Substantial rework of Gnarled Gardens plants for much better performance.
  • Fixed bug where continuous sounds could loop indefinitely; if played at the same time as an identical non-continuous sound.
  • Fixed bug where using quick swap with a given item didn't deactivate the shield (thanks Rubenmenton for flagging that)
  • Fixed weird bug where the player's equipped item would appear to be stabbing them at an awkward angle; after being knocked from a ledge they were holding.
  • The item order is now consistent on the weapon wheel
  • Adjustments to some item descriptions.
  • Fixed bug with dart traps not triggering.


Other
  • Multiple new sound effects 🔉
  • New particle animations
  • ...


W.I.P. stuff

We're still working on the ice world in the background (though want it to have more polish before putting it out)

Here's some (slightly older) artwork


*** Happy New Year's Patch (0.73.11)! ***
  • Added 1 achievement.
  • Poison flowers in the garden can be picked up and thrown.
  • Fixed bug with dragon fly rebounding off and immediately dealing when knocked against a wall with force.
  • A lot of polishing work with how Grotto's background tiles generate.
  • Added much more randomisation to the grotto of guidance parallax.


Last patch of this update: 2nd January 2019

*** So when's the next major update??? ***

We're pretty close now...
There's a lot of new features coming in mid-February...

Update 0.71.x

New Abilities:
  • Dashing:
  • Sap of Weakness: The fluid derived from a rare plant can be used to lower the defence of your opponents.



Mechanics:
  • New Status effect.
  • Chests can be carried to block projectiles.
  • Lucky dip for unlockables: Optionally spend tokens on a random item at a lower cost.
  • Temporal field: now properly slows down special level threats such as pursuing pollen. You can also expand it by holding down the control.
  • ...


Rebalancing work:
  • Bronze Knight's arena now has semi-destructable floors; with a couple of alternative ways to fight em'.
  • Rush level themes (lava, poison etc.) have longer levels.
  • Flooded corridors are longer.
  • Traps take longer to reset (spears, dart traps etc.; following feedback from PAX players)
  • Nerfed giant bat (following feedback from PAX).
  • Cost of unlockables has increased as has the max level.
  • Several parts of the 2nd tutorial, were remade to be much more forgiving and instructive (following feedback from PAX players)


Optimization:
  • New algorithm for tile-render allows caching of the entire map's terrain rather than one chunk at a time.
  • Rewrote multiple collision and physics routines to use less processing power.
  • Fixed several issues with flickering framerate with vsync on older systems.


Controls:


  • Weapon wheel and grid inventory controls have been rewritten slightly to be more intuitive. e.g. you can override which slot certain items go to with just the right/left triggers. You can also instantly consume potions/execute most powers with a single button instead of having to equip them.
  • Multi-jump ability can still be used even if it's not in the hotbar.


Graphics/Menu:
  • New Weapon wheel graphics
  • Some minor bug fixes with humanoid arms.
  • Particle and HUD elements for new abilities.
  • Larger mini map
  • ...


-----**--- PATCH 0.71.4 ---**-----

- 21st of November
  • Cleaned up HUD by removing debug variable display.
  • Removed links to unfinished editors.
  • Other:

    • You now recover more health before entering the knight's arena.
    • Adjustment to laser traps in the tutorial.
    • Updated controller prompt icon.


Thanks to everyone who saw us at PAX / joined our community

It was an insanely busy 3-day weekend; during our 4th and final year at PAX Australia



Having the time to meet with developers, journalists and gamers like you was fantastic!







We've been taking notes from the convention after watching hundreds of players navigate their way through the deadly labyrinths. We will be integrating the feedback/suggestions for new content over the next couple of updates....