Posted January 28, 2022 by Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone!
It has been a while since the release of the alpha version of Skycliffs. Today I am happy to release a free update to the alpha that contain many improvements and new game content. Also, the project now has a Steam page, please wishlist the game if you feel interested, it will be much appreciated!
That being said, let’s talk about the alpha update! First, I want to thank all people that gave precious feedback. I tried to address the major complaints as best as I could. In particular, I reworked the floor textures of Bluish forest and included more variations to have less noisy patterns.
I also made a couple of mechanics changes. First, I removed the bullet types. The very limited number of types made it quite shallow and interesting. Instead of adding more types, I decided to delete the types and reintroduce some of the effects in items.
Then, I removed the choice monoliths and the money earning base on room clearing. I was trying to make something a bit different than most other roguelike with this system. I liked the trade-off between choosing better production or better gear, but it also have some drawbacks. For instance, you get the same earning no matter the amount of enemies in the room. I now opted for a more classical approach: enemy drops and NPCs. Rooms with many monsters yield more money, and harder enemies have increased drops. The merchant NPC appears at each level. Depending on the generation, you may meet other NPCs that offer optional challenges.
Finally, I worked on improving the HUD and the UI, and I’m quite happy with how it looks now.
In addition to previous changes, I completed the second archipelago of Skycliffs, namely Lunar ridge. It now possesses its own unique set of enemies and traps. I also added 4 new weather events and 12 new items that you can encounter during a run, along with 2 new optional challenges. In the same vein as the racing challenge, they test your skills and offer risk/reward trade-offs. In some cases, you may simply waste some money, but in others, you way very well make the remainder of our run more dangerous…
Finally, I added one of my favorite features of roguelike such as Enter the Gungeon or Spelunky: secrets! This update includes a quest that allows to reach a secret level. I won’t spoil how it looks and what is contains, you’ll have to go there and see yourself!
This is all for major changes. You will find a detailed changelog of v0.6 at the end of this post.
Now that the Frost Update v0.6 is out, there still remains a few milestones before reaching version 1.0.
I am targeting a v1.0 release for Q1 2023, and I’ll do my best to keep the project on track to reach that goal and deliver a quality game.
Thank you for reading this post, and please share any thought or feedback, it helps me greatly to improve the game. See you next time!