Added a help dialogue box that triggers based on player actions rather than level progression to teach new players about more complex parts of the game. Because more information is presented in a direct and graphic way, there's less that needs to be explicitly stated in help text (though the encyclopedia is available for anyone who wants to read about every mechanic in detail). 

I still need to do some testing once I finish implementing it, and I want to add a few new enemies. But the vast majority of the work is done, so I'm probably releasing this update (1.1.0) tomorrow!

Update v1.1.0

I finally released the update just now. Unfortunately it was delayed due to hard-to-replicate bugs and IRL stuff. I need to go to bed right now as it’s almost midnight where I am now and I need to wake up early tomorrow. I’ll post more thoughts once I have time.

See the changelog for more details.

Sorry for two weeks of radio silence. I’m back now and ready to put more work into the game.

Currently playthroughs are still a bit tedious, the Touchtyper (medium) difficulty especially so, but it’s less of an issue now. I obviously want to fix that, but I plan to refactor code first. After that I want to add the ability to see records of your past games and the shortest completion time for each difficulty. I’ll use MessagePack to save and retrieve data as it appears to be a fast and space-efficient tool for C#.

I’ll probably release a small update this weekend.

Released a small update with some bug fixes. Nothing exciting to show on that front yet, but I’m still working on saving and loading player data.

I’ve realized the importance of continuous feedback during the development process, as I only have a narrow and biased perspective on the game’s playability and what needs to be improved. Therefore, I’ve added a link to the rating form (drhippo.itch.io/grid-of-yendor/rate) to the game’s main menu. The changelog is now also available directly from there as well.

I experimented with messagepack and it turns out it does not work well with Unity at all. I switched to using Json.NET and implemented saving and reading records of past games. I still need to display those records, that will be when I have pictures to show.

Here’s the new game records UI. Of course, this is not the final version, but the basics are done now. I should be able to release the update within the next few days if everything goes well.

Update v1.2.0

The game now saves statistics about previous games (completion time, score, etc.), and displays them in a neat table.

This update took a bunch of experimenting and backtracking. Most of the work isn’t visible to the player, but it’s still essential for making sure the saves are displayed properly.

Oh, and I fixed a bug with the “average WPM” in fact showing the rolling average WPM. It has been in the game since I implemented WPM calculations, so about a year now. I’m kind of embarrassed I didn’t notice it for so long, but no one else did either, so…

In other news, I’m participating in GMTK (again!); that’s why I was so keen to release this update before it starts. Will pause development on this game for a few weeks to focus on the jam.