Just wanted to give a quick update on the state of development. Pack #3 is about halfway complete! This pack will be centered around giving your units held food that persist between battles. I have 20 out of 35ish units complete, then just need to make sure the pack is balanced (and fun!)
Beyond that, I added a โMystery Spaceโ on the map that can be a boss battle, shop, item, or one of the new "Special Rooms". Hopefully that adds a bit more strategy to your route on the map!
As far as other additions that might make it in this update: I would like to add a few new enemy types with another 10+ battle formations per tier. I have a few new items in mind to implement as well! Pack #3 is my primary focus, but it's always nice to have backup projects when you run into coder's block.
My apologies for the gap in updates, life has been very busy lately. But I hope to make your patience worth the wait! Thank you as always for supporting Automoji!
Happy gaming, -Karl @AutomojiGame
Update 0.2.2.0
New Additions
๐ต Replaced all royalty-free music with custom tracks by the talented Vincent Colavita: the composer of Luck be a Landlord, Red Ronin, and many more great games! Big thank you to Vincent for all his hard work. Check out his website to see more of his portfolio!
โ Added "Mystery Pack" that is unlocked after winning a game with Pack #2. The Mystery Pack will be generated with random units from both packs at the start of each run. Have fun finding new combinations and strategies between the first two packs!
Added Gas Barrel unit to Pack 2, tier 4. 4/0. Sell-> Spawn xLV Gas Tank units with LV equal to this unit
Added effect to Golfer unit attack
Added effect to Bongo unit recoil
Added effect to Factory unit
Added effect to Tidal Wave unit attack
Added fancy crowns to pack buttons on the menu to show off if you've won a game on Difficulty 9
Added music-cued screen transitions when you enter the first battle after a shop or vice versa. Didn't want to add them on every battle/shop because it felt like it slowed down gameplay a little too much.
Added applause emojis that bounce around the bottom of the screen to celebrate winning a battle
Balance
No balance changes this update! :)
Bug Fixes/QOL
Changed music credits to Vincent's website
Replaced the text box that appeared when you copied a link with a quick text flash
Added a drop shadow to the "money gained" text when you win a battle, and also added a little rosette behind the number
Made it where the Level-Up sound would not stack on the coffee item or Teddy Bear unit. Hopefully now your eardrums won't explode if you level 3 units at once
Extra Thoughts Working with Vincent was a great experience, and I recommend him to any other developers who are looking for music for their games :) The new OST has one over-arcing motif and I'm very happy with how it turned out. If Automoji gets a little more traction, I would love to add a few more unique tracks in the future. But for now, I think the new OST really conveys the energetic and snappy gameplay of Automoji, without being too "busy?"... I'm not a musician, so hopefully that makes sense!
Beyond that, the Mystery Pack has been a lot of fun for me to play around with and I hope you all enjoy it as well! There are infinite combinations to test, so let me know if you notice any effects that don't work how you would presume. I appreciate the feedback as always!
What's next...? Well there are rumors of a sale coming up to celebrate the Summer (but you didn't hear that from me), so I hope to get Automoji in the hands of some new players. I would imagine a couple of balance updates coming soon as I fine-tune the difficulty. Besides that, I am starting to plan out Pack #3, but that is still a way out. Feel free to reach out with any mechanics you come up with (no matter how crazy) and I can play around with them as well.
Thank you as always for playing! Karl @AutomojiGame
Update 0.2.1.0
New Additions
Added in the "Emodjinn!" ๐ง Now at the start of each run, you have the choice between two items from a specific "genie pool". Some of these are new items and some are existing items, but all the items in the genie pool are meant to be a relatively impactful buff for each run.
Added Money Sack item to genie pool Start your run with 8 extra gold
Added Growing Heart item to genie pool Start your run with 3 extra HP
Added Key item to genie pool Shop unlock spaces cost 5 less gold
Added Falling Graph item to genie pool Shop tier upgrades cost 2 less gold
Added Credit Card item to genie pool Shop items cost 2 less gold
Added Slot Machine item to genie pool Shop cards cost 2 gold, but are hidden unit purchased
Added Snake item to genie pool Buy Unit-> Set the shop unit cost to a random number between 0 and 5
Added Syringe item to genie pool Enter Shop-> Gain 4 gold, and lose 1 HP
Added Socks item to pack #2 Start of Battle-> Apply 1 mark to 2 random enemies
Added Carrot item to pack #2 Bunnies-> Gain +LV damage at start of battle
Added Low Battery item to pack #2 Gas Pump-> Sell effect applies +1 additional stats
Balance
Made the Tidal Wave a tier 2 unit
Made the Slam Dunk Guy a 4/4 tier 5 unit
Changed tornado stats to 4/3
Bug Fixes/QOL
Fixed a bug where a shop space would stay frozen if it was the last available unit purchased
Fixed a bug where the 4-Leaf Clover item would not show up on pack #2, but the Magic Wand item would
Fixed a bug where some pack #2 units would not trigger the Pothole enemy's effect
Increased spacing between items on HUD
Lowered the item description text box a few pixels so it would be slightly more centered
Updated Steam screenshots
Extra Thoughts I wasn't expecting to make another semi-major content update right away, but the addition of the Emodjinn was on my mind for a while and now seemed as good of time as any to add them in! My main goal was to give the player a little boost each run, because I think Automoji could afford to be just a tiny bit easier overall. None of the genie pool items are going to win you the game on their own, but they all should make a small impact on how you approach each run. Hopefully this helps to give each run a little extra identity!
Beyond that, I wanted to add a few items to pack #2 just to make up for the 3 pack #1-specific items that are not in the pack #2 pool.
Hopefully you are enjoying pack #2! Let me know if any of the genie pool items feel useless or too over-powered. I might try to come up with a few more "monkey's paw" styled items to add to the genie pool, but as of right now the pool sits at about 15 items and it feels pretty good imo.
Enjoy your weekend and happy gaming! -Karl @AutomojiGame
Introducing Pack #2!!
The time is finally here! Thank you to all gamers who have supported Automoji during Early Access so far, your enjoyment of the game motivates me to keep at development.
โ Pack #2 adds 35 new units and a few new mechanics to play around with! The main new mechanic, MARKING is applied to enemies and can stack. Many new units will damage will target units with MARKS or deal extra damage while attacking MARKED enemies. You can decide whether to build your team to scale wide, or deal massive damage to a targeted foe.
๐ฐ With the introduction of MARKS to increase damage output, you will find there are a lot less ways to directly scale your damage. Instead many units focus on increasing base HP and scaling through level-ups. Another new way to scale your team now is to POWER UP YOUR SHOP! That's right, now the stats of your shop units can be increased directly. Remember- when you combine two units, you keep the higher stats between the two! Cycle though your units to trigger buy/sell effects. Many of the new units have effects on Level-Up too, so you can try your luck rerolling the shop to find that perfect purchase.
๐ง You can now FREEZE units in your shop! This will prevent them from rerolling when you click the dice. Use this to hold and power-up a unit in the shop until it is strong enough to release on your foes! A quick note- units do not remain frozen between shops. I experimented with persistent shops, and it was way too easy to cheese the shops. The freeze mechanic can be used in both packs by right-clicking a shop unit to toggle freezing.
๐ Players who have won a run before this release version should have Pack #2 unlocked by default. Otherwise, you will have to win a run with Pack #1 to unlock it! Each pack tracks your difficulty levels defeated separately, so the most hardcore players can attempt to complete difficulty 9 with BOTH packs...
๐ญ Now more than ever, I would love feedback on how the new pack feels to play! Is it too hard? Too easy? Too boring? Any and all feedback is extremely helpful while I fine-tune the difficulty. Please let me know if you encounter any bugs as well. This new pack should be stable, but you never know how all the new mechanics will interact.
๐Bug Fixes
Changed the font on the Blue Flame to match the rest of the units
Made the Fingergun enemy take 1 more turn to trigger a draw, just to ensure it has a chance to move to each row
Made it so Bacon, Plug, and Magic Wand items don't spawn on Pack #2
๐ฎ What's Next?? Well the most immediate updates will most likely address balancing pack #2 and adding in some Pack #2 specific items. As I balance the new units, I want to add in little animations to some attacks similar to Pack #1, so expect those to be snuck in with future updates. I plan on updating the Steam store page a little bit as well to reflect all the visual changes. Beyond all that, I do have a composer working on some new ๐ต MUSIC ๐ต for Automoji! You may know this very talented musician from some of their work on other indie games... But I'll leave that as a bit of a surprise for now ๐. The next BIG content update will most likely be a "Mystery Pack" that pulls cards randomly from Packs 1 and 2 each run. But that is a little way out, as I want to primarily focus on Pack #2 at the moment.
Thank you as always for your support. I hope you all enjoy Pack #2! If you feel the urge to write a Steam review, I always appreciate seeing what people have to say. Otherwise feel free to reach out on Twitter or the Steam discussion page.
Regards, Karl @AutomojiGame
Patch 0.1.2.5
Bug Fixes -Turned back on "minimum map spaces" so there are a guaranteed number of shops, items, etc. The maps might take a little longer to generate, but they will be more consistent! I must have turned that off at some point during testing, so my apologies if you had to reload your maps to get better runs.
Balance -Made the enemy health and damage buff on boss battles a little lower
Hope you are all enjoying Automoji! Pack #2 is coming along well :) and who knows... maybe there is some new music on the horizon?? ๐
Take care! -Karl @AutomojiGame
Patch 0.1.2.4
Bug Fixes -Fixed a bug where the Coffin and Queen Ant would summon their minions on damage instead of end of turn -fixed an exploit where you could get "false" level ups that triggered effects like the ice cream cone -the fuchsia stat increases and level up SFX don't pop up now unless you have actually increased a unit's level
First note is that I have new units in the game files- so don't panic when you see a big file size update for only two bug fixes! Lots of secrets stuff is being added in the game that can't be accessed yet ;)
The first bug was an quick fix- just overlooked when I added the ability for all enemies to get a shield in higher difficulties. The level up mechanic was changed as I was making units for the new pack, read below if you would like the detailed breakdown.
Pretty much a unit's level starts as a value of 0 for the purposes of stat checking. When you combine a unit with no level, it gains .333 level. When it reaches a whole number it counts as a level up. Originally if you had a unit that was 0.0 and put a 1+anything on it, it would count as a new level up. So you could just keep putting the higher leveled unit on a 0.0 to grant a level up trigger every time. Now it only triggers if the combined decimals in the level would be greater than 1 (thus actually increasing a level). So if you have two units that are at 1.0 and combine them to be at 2.0, you haven't actually added any new units to the total. Your level will still act as 2, but it doesn't count as a new level up. If you had a unit at 1.333+1.666, the .333 and .666 would combine to equal a new level- thus granting the trigger and bonus +2/2 to stats. Hopefully that all makes sense to anyone who wants the details!
Thank you as always for playing! -Karl
Patch 0.1.2.3
Bug Fixes -Fixed a bug where bats would spawn with 0 HP and immediately faint -Changed HP loss pop-up on round end to white text with black drop shadow
Sorry for the second update in one day! Who would've guessed I had so many little things tied to some UI??
Patch 0.1.2.2
Bug Fixes -Fixed a bug where your descriptions would not turn back on after toggling them off in the option menu.
Thank you to the community for the find! Seems like I accidentally swapped the order of the ON/OFF image when I made the new UI... Oops หsteamfacepalmห
Should be all sorted out now! -Karl
Update 0.1.2.1
Make sure to restart any current runs in progress to see the new changes!
New Additions
Changed all the menu buttons to a pretty orange color with a nice and clear font
Changed all units' stats to bold white text with a black outline for increased readability
Cleaned up the look of all unit and item descriptions
Changed most unit descriptions to be more "keyword" focused. For example, all your units are now "allies" and opposing units are "enemies". All stats changes that are permanent are now described as Base HP/Damage/Mana. All mentions of "HP" or "DAMAGE" that were typed out are now changed to symbols.
Gave the Bomb enemy a little wiggle animation.
Added Scale item Start of Boss Battle-> All ally units gain +1 HP and Damage
Added Coconut item Start of Battle->All allies in third column gain +3 HP and -1 Damage
Made a little teaser button on the pack view menu for Pack #2
Balance
Changed Bomb enemy behind the scenes to use "mana" as countdown instead of a separate timer. So it can be effected by items/units.
Made the Storm Cloud enemy not gain a random +1 damage, instead just flat scales a little faster. This is a slight nerf early game so one cloud can't wipe your whole team in the first few battles.
Made T1_17 a little easier
Bug Fixes/QOL
Rearranged shop UI
Extra Thoughts Hello! This update was a lot of work because (as you could guess) aesthetics aren't exactly my forte. I remade all the descriptions with uniformity in mind! I want players to see a symbol or keyword and immediately know what it means. Plus it was nice to go back to some of my early unit descriptions and change the wording to make it more accurate. Hopefully adding some color and polish to the UI gives the game less of a Microsoft Word look. I think the final product looks pretty sharp! I had to sneak a few new items into the update too so I can scratch that game design itch...
My next undertaking will probably be figuring out cloud saves as well as continuing to map out Pack #2. I want the game to be in a nice and stable state this week as I do some networking and reach out to new players.
Please let me know if there are any visual changes you would like to see (or if I made any typos in this last update). Thank you for playing!
-Karl
Update 0.1.2.0
Make sure to restart any current runs in progress to see the new changes!
New Additions
Added in difficulty settings! These are stacking debuffs that you unlock by winning a run. The game is still very much balanced around "Difficulty: 0" so I would very much appreciate feedback on how fair the settings feel. Right now you start with an extra +1 gold per difficulty level so you don't lose right away because of an bad shop.
Difficulty 1: Each battle starts with 2 rats that provide no gold
Difficulty 2: Fewer random presents spawn on the map
Difficulty 3: 2 random enemies start each battle with armor
Difficulty 4: No random rests will spawn on the map
Difficulty 5: Shops are more expensive
Difficulty 6: More boss fights spawn on the map
Difficulty 7: Rest sites only heal 3 HP
Difficulty 8: Rerolls cost 2 gold
Difficulty 9: Enemies have more HP and damage -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Added 4 new map players to unlock for defeating different difficulty levels
Added "Difficulty Level" to records
Made an animation for "Battle Draw" popup to make it more clear how HP lost is calculated
Added new Storm Cloud enemy- Deal ? to a random unit. Lose 1 HP.
Added 5 new room layouts to each tier to implement Storm Cloud
Added an animation for Storm Cloud item
Added an animation for Satellite unit
Added a coinflip animation to Overcharge spaces on map
Added an effect when you combine 2 units to level where one shrinks into the other and you get a little pink confetti pop!
Balance
Made the Mosquito into a 1/1 unit that faints after attack (Way too easy to abuse before)
Bug Fixes/QOL
Made text pop up once per run to tell players they can speed up battle by clicking during battle
Made the "space glow" when combining units a pink color to match the color scheme of all "LV" mechanics
When you hover over a unit that can be combined for LV, the unit not being held does a little shake animation
Made an arrow appear when you are hovering over a unit you can combine/swap. The arrow fills up to show that you can swap 2 of the same unit after a moment.
Made the "SELL:X" text on the shop a little bigger
Changed wording on Blowfish and Pothole from "Attacked" to "Damaged" with the introduction of enemy shields
Changed wording on the Imp map unlock
Fixed a bug that made the Diamond unit break infinitely on death and make an awful sound
Extra Thoughts This update goes out to the helpful players on gamedev forums and the Automoji Steam Discussion page! Thank you for all the feedback; I hope this update addresses most of the ideas you brought to my attention.
On top of that- I finally implemented a difficulty mode! I hope this gives players an extra reason to replay runs outside of unlocking new items with XP. I can't lie- I'm not sure if the higher difficulties are balanced yet. I have still been tailoring all my balance changes around the base level difficulty. Any balance feedback is appreciated! I think giving players the option to tailor runs to their preferred challenge level is important. It is by no means required, but I put an extra few unlocks in for the expert players that devote their time to winning those challenges.
For the next update, I think my goal is going to be touch up the UI to make it a little more visually appealing. Hopefully in that time, I plan to put Automoji on sale to get some extra players for a wider range of feedback. I expect to balance the difficulty modes over the next few updates as well.
I have been planning out pack 2 intermittently, so that may be on the horizon!
As always, thank you for playing! Take care! -Karl @ Automoji
