Devlogs
Update Alpha 6: Content Update
Posted October 15, 2022 by NRFB
Major:
- Meta-progression:
- The game now has a system to allow progress between multiple playthroughs!
- Every event in the game now gives a certain amount of Knowledge Points (KP)
- After losing the game OR completing 10 floors, New Game+ (NG+) will be unlocked
- The game now stops after 10 floors, rather than continuing on indefinitely.
- Consider this the demo length for now, until more content is added to fill up more than 10 floors.
- NG+ begins with a menu which allows you to buy various boons up to your KP total.
- One option within the NG+ menu is to allow you to keep the scenes that you saw in the previous run, which effectively means you will keep your KP total.
- However, further KP can then only be gained by seeing NEW scenes.
- There is not currently enough KP in all of the game's events to buy out the store, but KP numbers will continue to be adjusted as time goes on and more things are added.
- In addition, there are a couple of options added to the NG+ store that make the next run MORE difficult in exchange for even more bonus KP. This will be expanded on in the future as well.
- Timed Status Rework:
- In doing my own play testing and getting feedback from others it's quickly become apparent that a lot of status effects are not changing up gameplay in the intended way.
- The most common response (and honestly the smart response) to negative timed statuses is to simply wait them out in cleared rooms rather than taking on threats while having lowered stats.
- By the same token, positive timed statuses can swing wildly between extremely useful and entirely useless, causing them to be less desirable than non-timed buffs.
- So as a solution, I have termed "Action" as any non-movement thing that a character can do which uses their turn. The majority of previously time based effects now only decrease their durations when an Action is taken.
- Status Effects Affected: Addled, Cooperator, Deeply Wounded, Dodgy 1, Exposed, Fatigued, First Aid, Gooey, Let's GOOOOOO, Shaken, Weakened, Weal and Woe, Wounded Pride
- Currently the only Actions in the game are: Attacking, Disarming, Resting, and Interacting with others (waking another character up, etc.)
- In addition and for similar reasons, the cooldown time for the Scry spell also only decreases on an ally performing an Action.
- Defending Stats:
- I don't know if this qualifies as major, but I felt it should be put here because it is fairly important to note for how you approach threats.
- Monsters/Traps are able to target different stats than the default
- (Health vs Monster Attack, Reflex vs Trap Accuracy, Willpower vs Trap Complexity).
- Most do not, and it is usually safe to assume the default.
- The UI will do so, with a ? to indicate if you haven't confirmed the stat yet.
- All defending stats against a threat are confirmed by reaching research level 1 for that threat.
Minor:
- Choosing a dialogue option now advances the dialogue text.
- The main menu Credits page now has links to all relevant social media for the game (and any I develop in the future).
- Termed "Corruption Break" as the concept of "hitting 100 in a negative stat" for better effect descriptions.
- Changed the spell granted by the Witch if you choose to bring her in for questioning from Signposting to a new spell. (Signposting still has the same function and is still in the pool of spells the Witch can sell to you.)
- Fixed a bug where one of the Pink Slime monster's events would not display.
- Fixed a bug where Researching Curses did nothing.
- Fixed a bug where the Tentacle Hole trap would sometimes do nothing on hit.
- Turn Count now starts at 1 instead of 0.
- Clicking on the ally portrait in the Turn Count ui box now opens that ally's stat page.
- Changed how status effect information is displayed on the full stat page in order to prevent the popup from being cut off by small resolutions.
- Changed Constitution skill icon and particle (no changes to the skill's function)
- Added a listing of current status effects for the current turn ally in the turn count box.
- Fixed a bug where changing the text of status/skill/curse popup windows between text that needed a scroll bar and text that didn't (or vice versa) could break the text's vertical alignment.
- Increased the amount of variance between a monster/trap/witch den option being common and being rare.
- Essentially rare spawns will now be more rare and common spawns will now be more common.
- Cut several lines of text from the intro to hopefully make it flow a bit better in the beginning.
- Changed floor generation logic to no longer create walls in the Safe Room, hopefully making that room more accessible and giving more exploration options at the start of a floor.
- Increased pathfinding weighting to further disincentivize allies going through unexplored/dark/known threat rooms while pathing to somewhere else.
- Increased the average distance to the Stairs Room location during floor generation.
- Fixed a bug with the Wired spell where it would not properly prevent manually sleeping.
- Updated camp tiredness messages while the Wired spell is active.
- Fixed a bug where being Dazed would allow allies to wander through walls.
- Clicking anywhere on the skill rank indicator now serves the same function as clicking the level up skill + button (so you don't have to be as exact on where you're clicking).
- Clicking outside of dialogs/windows that are currently in the process of collapsing/closing will no longer make a noise indicating that it is trying to close the dialog/window again.
- Added a visual effect when clicking to select an ally that cannot be selected.
- Monsters/Traps can now only be researched if they were defeated in a room that is not obscured by darkness at least once.
- The base values of Working Stats in the full stat page now have tooltips showing what Base Stats combine in order to get those values.
- (In case you forget or didn't know that Physique = Strength + Dexterity, etc.)
- Added connectors between adjacent rooms to make it a bit easier to tell what rooms are separated by walls at a glance.
- Fixed an issue where event scripts would look at the current state of an ally when evaluating conditions rather than the state of the ally when the event occurred.
- Fixed a bug where researching curses would not reveal the curse on other allies that had it but hadn't had it activate yet.
Balance:
- Changes to Status Durations due to Timed Status Rework:
- Various monsters/traps now apply different durations of the affected status effects.
- Skills:
- Cooperator: When an ally defeats an enemy in the same room, grants a Morale Bonus of [3/3/3] to that ally's Willpower and Health for their next [3/4/5] actions.
- Let's GOOOOOO: Grants a Morale Bonus of [3/4/5] to all working stats for [6/6/6] actions at the start of each floor.
- First Aid: On taking Injury damage, heals back [25%/50%/75%] of the damage taken after [3/4/5] actions. This effect is cancelled on taking more Injury damage.
- Dodgy: After dodging a trap, grants a bonus of [20%/20%] of base Reflex to Health for [5 actions OR until damage is taken from an event/ until damage is taken from an event].
- Curses:
- Weal and Woe: When losing a Morale Bonus, grants a Morale Penalty of 2 to all working stats for 3 actions.
- Pride: When leaving a monster room without defeating the enemy inside, deals 1 Corruption and a Morale Penalty of 3 to all working stats for 5 actions. Double the number of actions if another ally is in the room.
- Changed Aphrodisiac status:
- (Buff) Every tick of Aphrodisiac now adds 1 to a compulsion to Masturbate. (Stacks with the Idle Hands curse and any other masturbation compulsion)
- (Nerf) Most sources or Aphrodisiac now apply fewer turns of the status.
- Buffed Exhibitionism Curse:
- Now deals 5 Lust whenever Exposed is gained from ANY source.
- Nerfed Purity:
- Purity's ability to entirely negate the permanent corruption gain at the end of a floor felt like it made the skill into the most powerful one in the game, which is funny because I just buffed it a couple patches ago and that wasn't even the thing that I changed...
- No longer reduces Permanent Corruption gain.
- Now has a max rank of 3, up from 2.
- Rank [1/2/3]: Heals [2/4/6] Temporary Corruption on gaining Well Rested.
- Changed Blessed Up:
- 25% Lust reduction is stupidly strong, even though this skill requires a fairly decent investment to get that part. This skill can now cover the effect that Purity used to have with more consistency while NOT making dispelling curses entirely free.
- Now has a max rank of 2, down from 3.
- Removed Purity from learn requirements.
- Added any skill that gives a Morale Bonus to learn requirements.
- Rank 1: While under the effect of any Morale Bonus, this character gains immunity to becoming Shaken
- Rank 2: While under the effect of any Morale Bonus, this character gains immunity to becoming Shaken and Permanent Corruption gained from any Corruption Break is reduced by 25%
- Also this skill now has a better particle effect on activation because the old one was ugly
- Changed Patience:
- Rather than encouraging you to spend MORE time sitting in the safe room, this skill can now be used more proactively. Essentially, the Patience status effect is now a consumable buff which heals negative stats if you spend a certain amount of turns without taking an action or moving.
- The difference here is that the status doesn't go away, instead it merely waits, allowing you to decide when to use it.
- The numbers on the skill stay the same. Rank[1/2/3]: [2 Injury 6 Exhaustion 2 Lust/3 Injury 10 Exhaustion 3 Lust/4 Injury 15 Exhaustion 4 Lust] after waiting [2/3/4] turns.
- Nerfed Bulwark:
- Grouping up is already probably too strong. This skill just makes it even better. For the moment, I'm just lowering the numbers on it. In the future, I may try to make it a little less convenient of a tool for making a Knight death ball while still functioning as a skill for supporting others.
- Rank [1/2/3]: Provides allies in the same room a Health bonus of [2/3/5]. Down from [3/5/7].
- Changed Clarify:
- Renamed to "Clarification"
- Expanded to change the durations of more status effects: "The durations of the Dazed, Addled, and Trance status effects are reduced by 25%. The duration of Clarity is increased by 1."
- Increased mana cost from 1 to 2.
- Nerfed Dazed, Sleep, and Masturbation:
- These statuses (as well as any others that force a character to act a specific way) now give a single turn of Clarity (immunity to further action dictating status effects) whenever they expire naturally.
- This is to hopefully prevent stun locking by some threats which inflict these effects.
- Note that "natural" expiration for Masturbation is a Lust based Corruption Break.
- Unrelated, but also a nerf to Sleep: Sleep no longer causes monsters to attack with a 50% attack bonus.
- This was an effect that was conveyed nowhere in the game, and even I forgot it was a thing. Hilariously, Tactical Retreat did in fact negate it, meaning that an ally with that skill was so good at avoiding being vulnerable while running away that they could do it in their sleep.