itch.io

Hey, finally figured out what was going on here. Turns out it was the system language setting. Just updated version 1.1 with a fix. Let me know if it works!

Hey, finally figured out what was going on here. Turns out it was the system language setting. Just updated version 1.1 with a fix. Let me know if it works!

Gotcha, thanks. A few others have reported the same issue. I'm making this in a new custom engine I'm working on, so must be some issue with that. I'll investigate over the weekend and let you know if I can find a solution.

Gotcha, thanks. A few others have reported the same issue. I'm making this in a new custom engine I'm working on, so must be some issue with that. I'll investigate over the weekend and let you know if I can find a solution.

Woah, never seen that bug before. What are the specs of the system you're running on? Might be some compatibility thing.

Woah, never seen that bug before. What are the specs of the system you're running on? Might be some compatibility thing.

Also sorry about the missing 1.1 version, should be fixed now.

Very fun demo! Ridin' a dinosaur is always cool 😎

Makes sense, always better to polish what you have than make more stuff that turns out half baked. Congrats on the great entry 👏🏼

Very cute concept! Trying to weave around golf balls to get to the golfer was exciting. Being able to eat golf balls right before they explode offers a cool risk/reward twist. It also rewards you for getting to the golfer quickly before they pick up their ball, adding another layer of strategy.

I did feel like it got repetitive after a while. Wish it had some sort of escalation, like a different enemy type (different club types, sand traps popping up, caddied driving by in golf carts, lots of thematic possibilities). Maybe there is more and I just didn't make it that far? IDK. Regardless, a clever and fun little game.

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Maybe I should've added a map, lol.

Really great game! I'll admit I was frustrated into almost quitting at first, but I'm glad I stuck with it. Runs where the luck just doesn't go your way were frustrating, but it just makes getting on a good run that much more tense. The ability to control your randomness via rerolling and replacing faces of your dice gives the game a different kind of strategy, more about hedging your bets than devising the perfect plan. I also really like how you could abuse encounters to farm health if you knew what you were doing. 

I will admit that I was only able to beat the game by abusing what I assume was a bug where you could reroll your number by pressing the button really quickly after the initial roll before it switches to the other die. However, I actually really like the bug and think it would make a good mechanic; it forces your to make a split second decision about whether the number is good enough, and you can potentially screw yourself over by getting a lower number.

 Also, for those curious, my final winning loadout was two defends, one attack, one attack all, one double attack, and the shield which gives you +3 to your defend rolls (no sword upgrades used)

Really great art and sound! The sonic-like spin attack when jumping on enemies was also cool. My main gripe is that the controls felt a bit slugish. The fact that you don't change your facing direction when turning around until your momentum has completely stopped makes it kinda frustrating to aim when there are enemies on either side of you. But, overall, a pretty fun game!

Wait, I thought the game was called "Sores and Sorcery". Why does it still say "Cloak'n Bad" on the menu screen?

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed the game. You can find the devlogs on the game's store page just under the download section, though they're mostly just patch notes with some design discussion.

MonoGame is great in terms of the amount of freedom it gives you to make what you want from scratch, but that also means you have to deal with some annoying technical stuff most engines would take care of for you. The default audio API in particular isn't very good, so it's recommended that you use some type of audio middleware.

If you need help getting started, I used GameFromScratch's tutorial series on YouTube. There's also plenty of documentation of the MonoGame website.

Sorry for the late response!

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I'm glad to hear it! Thanks for being patient as I fixed the game; most players wouldn't be so kinds as to submit multiple detailed bug reports. This experience has also been really enlightening. I never considered how foreign language computer settings could affect my game. I suppose this is what I get for using a custom game engine. Thanks again for your help!

Sure thing! Here's how it works:

• The environment is stored as a 2D array of pixel object, which each stores its current color (black pixels are just null, with no pixel object).
• When a blood drop hits a wall or passes over a pixel object in the background, the addColor(Color c) function is called on the pixel at that (x, y) coordinate.
• If the pixel's current color is not c, then its color gets changed to c, thus coloring it in.
• If the pixel's current color is already c, then addColor(Color c) gets called on all adjacent pixels, thus spreading the color.
• (Make sure to use a set of pixels to keep track of the ones you've already visited so you don't visit the same pixels multiple times).
• (You may also want to add a range to the maximum spread distance, or prevent color from spreading upwards depending on your needs).

That's the basic version of how it works. It gets more complicated if you want to add in color mixing like I have in Blood Pressure, but I'll leave that up to you to figure out. I should also mention that this system works well in Blood Pressure because of the simple, monochrome artstyle with a lot of negative space. IDK how well it would work with other artstyles, but feel free to experiment.

I made the engine myself using the MonoGame framework: https://www.monogame.net/

I find that having a custom engine gives me a greater degree of control, and I don't have to hunt down documentation when something goes wrong since it's all my own code. However, it can be pretty difficult building everything from scratch, so it isn't something I'd recommend for everyone.

Okay, thanks for the feedback!

Okay, thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed the game.

Sorry about the difficulty; balance is something I'm still tweaking.

If you could tell me what you got stuck on and what was giving you the most difficulty, that would help me balance the game.

Thanks again for playing!

You're right! This should be fixed in the version I just uploaded. Sorry for the hassle; I didn't realize that foreign language settings would mess with the in-game text like this.

(BTW, the "controls" menu will still display "?"s for some characters, but it shouldn't crash the game).

Hopefully that's the last of the crashes!

Okay, I figured it out. It's not the Turkish keyboard but rather the Turkish language setting. Apparently, the Turkish language setting on Windows autocorrects all of the lowercase i characters to Turkish ı characters which the game doesn't know how to handle. Since the game displays all text as uppercase anyway, I just manually changed all the text in the game to uppercase. The game shouldn't crash anymore in the version I just uploaded. Thanks for helping me fix this bug!

Ah, that make sense. Thanks for letting me know!

Thanks for the bug report! The Turkish keyboard is definitely the problem; I imagine it has characters not present in the game's font, hence it getting replaced by a "?". I hadn't considered international keyboards. The new version I just uploaded should stop the game from crashing when this happens. Although the character will still be displayed as "?", the game should function as normal. Let me know if it still doesn't work.

Thanks again for your helpful comment!

Okay, thanks for letting me know!

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you're enjoying it. 

Can you clarify what you mean by "this fix doesn't apply to windowed mode"? Is it still crashing for you in windowed mode?

Hey, I just solved the problem! Turns out it specifically happens when setting the jump input to a key which contains lowercase letters, like "Space", since the explosion effect on the main menu wasn't programmed to handle lowercase. The new version I just uploaded should fix this issue.

Thanks for the bug report! After reading your comment, I was finally able to fix the bug! As it turns out, it was being caused by the menu explosion effect when starting the game. If you assign jump to a button with lower case letters like "Space", the explosion effect isn't programmed to handle it. A simple one line fix. The fixed version will up shortly.

Also, thanks for suggesting an  easy mode. That's definitely something I'll be looking at for the full version.

Thanks for your help!

It's tiny, just 5KB, so I doubt storage is the problem. Sorry, I'm really not sure what causes that issue :(

Thanks for the tip, I'll look into it!

Yeah, I'm just saving to the game folder itself, so I guess it might not have permission depending on where you put the folder. Not sure how to get around that :/

Sorry to hear that. I haven't run into this issue myself, so I don't 100% know what's causing it. My guess is that an error is occurring when the game attempts to save, since hitting new game creates a new save file.

Try playing the new version I just uploaded. If I'm right, it should no longer crash, though saving won't work.

Sorry to hear about the save file. I've heard some other people having problems with that, but I'm not sure what causes the issue.  I cannot reproduce the bug on my end, which makes it difficult to fix.

When you go to the game folder, is there a "savedata" file? If so, what does it say inside when you open it with notepad?

Sorry to hear that :(

If you tell me where you were in the game, I can recreate your save and send it to you.

Thanks :)

Sure thing! Here's how it works:

• The environment is stored as a 2D array of pixel object, which each stores its current color (black pixels are just null, with no pixel object).
• When a blood drop hits a wall or passes over a pixel object in the background, the addColor(Color c) function is called on the pixel at that (x, y) coordinate.
• If the pixel's current color is not c, then its color gets changed to c, thus coloring it in.
• If the pixel's current color is already c, then addColor(Color c) gets called on all adjacent pixels, thus spreading the color.
• (Make sure to use a set of pixels to keep track of the ones you've already visited so you don't visit the same pixels multiple times).
• (You may also want to add a range to the maximum spread distance, or prevent color from spreading upwards depending on your needs).

That's the basic version of how it works. It gets more complicated if you want to add in color mixing like I have in Blood Pressure, but I'll leave that up to you to figure out. I should also mention that this system works well in Blood Pressure because of the simple, monochrome artstyle with a lot of negative space. IDK how well it would work with other artstyles, but feel free to experiment.

Thanks for the feedback! I'll check out that bug and see if I can fix it.

Mac and Linux builds are definitely something I want to do for the full release! Unfortunately, I'm a solo dev without access to Mac or Linux machines to build/test on, so they will have to wait for now. I'll let you know if/when builds are available for those systems.

Thanks for the question! The game is made with MonoGame. It's not an engine, but rather a framework which handles assets, inputs, etc. The rest is really just written by me from the ground up. I like it because it gives me a lot of freedom with how I program the game, although it does mean I have to program most of it from scratch.