Posted January 20, 2020 by puddledockgames
The first update of 2020!!!
Over the holiday break I was able to put a decent chunk of time into adding new content into Astrominer. Mostly small things, but hopefully it all adds up to something that introduces a good bit more gameplay value to the game.
Being that it was the start of a new year, I also spent some time thinking about the future of the game and how I want to proceed with development. I'm still having an absolute blast working on Astrominer, but wanting to avoid some of the self-imposed stress that I put on myself worrying I'm not getting enough gamedev done, I've come to a conclusion. Or a resolution if you will. My goal for 2020 is to just focus on getting 1 feature complete each month. So the way I will look at is is this: "If I get (insert feature name) complete, it will be a good month".
This way rather than worrying that I'm not making enough headway each week, and scrambling to add as much as possible, I can focus on a single end goal. Ideally that means each month I can put out an updated build--which is what I've been doing since September already. But depending on the feature I choose to work on for the month, it may not be feasible. I have a list of possible features to choose from so I'm not scrambling at the start of each month trying to figure out what to work on next. Though none of it is written in stone as I want to be able to pivot to whatever sounds interesting at the time. Also the goal is to work on "big win" features--things that drastically add to the game rather than piddling around working on back-end stuff that nobody will ever notice or see. I do expect of course I will need to take some time to address bugs here and there, or do general tuning, which may add up to a month's worth of work all said and done.
But I digress...
Let's talk about the new features in this build!
First off, I've added a Daily Goals system to the game. Each day (UTC time) the game will present the player with 3 challenges to accomplish that result in grap rewards. The idea here is to have a way to get the player to leave their comfort zone and go out to look for the enemies, or crafting components, etc. and potentially even introduce things to the player that they didn't even know were in the game. It's also a fun way to earn some easy graps.
Next up is what I've been referring to as "The Ever Changing Mine". This is a new mine that I've added to the overworld that behaves differently from all the rest. Firstly, it regenerates every time you go into it, so it's never the same twice. If you see something in there that you want, you better grab it before you leave! Secondly, this mine does not obey the normal mine biome rules that the others do. Enemies, traps, and items from all biomes can appear inside this mine all at the same time. Thirdly, there's no mig to rescue in this mine. You can go in and start mining straight away if you want. Though, be careful because the difficulty level of this mine is as hard as it gets.
The next big change is the addition of the Graveyard Biome. Unlike other biomes, this one appears in small chunks littered throughout the overworld. This introduces 3 new enemies, and a new craftable sword. The Artifact Dungeon has now been converted to a Daily Dungeon, meaning the player must now unlock it each day if they want to go through it. The key for the dungeon can be acquired via the Graveyard Biome...tho I won't say exactly how ;)
And lastly, the boss fight received a bit of love too. The boss health bar now appears at the top of the screen like a proper boss, and shows the boss' name. Most importantly, the bar now shows how many lives the boss has remaining. Because one of the things I want to add more of in 2020 is boss fights, I figured it was important to get this change in now so as not to lose time later on it.
As always, be sure to delete your previous save files as this update touched a little bit of everything (inventory, crafting, world objects, etc.). If you run into any bugs, please don't hesitate to reach out on Discord.
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