Raise the Dead update! (v20230312-01)

The "Actual Content Update" Update

I've been spending the past few weeks building systems upon systems upon systems, but I am finally comfortable moving forward and adding some new things to the game! Two new monster types were added to the game, adding depth to the Bones and Flesh tile types.

There is still a lot to do, but building a dynamic and flexible back-end system to manage all the monster types and special abilities is a massive step toward making more tile and monster types in the future.

Patch Notes

• Added two new tile types: Sinew and Eyes
  • The bone evolution chain now goes Bone -> Sinew -> Skull
  • The flesh evolution chain now goes Flesh -> Eye -> Blood
• Adjusted the prices to unlock these tiles to make them more accessible to try out and have fun with
• Sinew summons a skeleton archer, who travels slowly and fires a salvo of arrows into the opponent's army
• Eyes summon the Stalker, a weird mutated eyeball that shoots lasers at nearby enemies when it gets hit
• Special abilities have been added to vampires and the bone spirit
  • Vampires now heal your entire army a little bit every time they deal damage
  • Bone Spirits generate an aura of damage reduction around them
• A small summon delay was added so that monsters you summon aren't clumped up so much. It shouldn't affect gameplay at all, but it will look much nicer
• Tons and TONS of invisible back-end systems to assist with content generation in the future.

Bug Fixes

• Some monsters were double hitting on certain frames
• Fixed the bug where monsters always spawned as a skeleton for a frame

I think the next big thing is to make the UI and game look a bit nicer. I really want to start work on the campaign progress and seeing if I can get something going there, even if it's just a bunch of escalating battles until a boss fight or something. I'd love to get a "win" state in the game.

Another big thing I want to introduce again is coins and stone. These will be unlockable upgrades that allow you to evolve your dirt and gravestones, respectively. You can then collect coins and stone and spend them like mana. Except that you can use coins to hire mercenaries and stone to animate gargoyles and the like. This will again increase the depth of the game and the decisions you need to make. If you unlock everything, your board will get overloaded and you won't be able to summon powerful monsters to defend yourself. You need to upgrade into a certain build.

That's the theory anyway. Looking forward to giving it a try!