Reki here. As promised, the Overhaul Update is here. My army of imps gave their lives to deliver this update. Every single one of them. But it was well worth it. Bsurf is in better shape than it ever has been. ... I mean, it should be after every update.
Check out the update trailer! https://youtu.be/HgYbVeDN8zI
The focus of today's patch is on combat, adjusting it to be easier to learn and less punishing. There is also a new tutorial that should make getting into the game a breeze. Of course, that's not all, there's lots of new content too. Among other things, every boss now drops a weapon and a gunner, perfect to test out the combat changes. One thing to note, bosses will be a bit harder because armor points are no longer a thing. I intend to add a few minion creatures to each boss that you can kill for health to resolve this.
Before today's patch, I would have been hesitant to recommend bsurf. "Wait until the Early Access is a little further on", I would've said. Now, I think it's reached that "further on" state. I really hope everyone has a good experience with it. Thanks to everyone who's supported the game and helped it improve.
Unless anything comes up, this will probably be the last update before final release. You can expect a big patch on that final release, adding the rest of the monster hearts, many more sound effects, any loose bits of content or polish, and the ending.
Please enjoy the update. There's still a bit more to come.
CONTENT:
- The tutorial has been redone for the fifth time.
- Added a main menu.
- All bosses now drop weapons, and Garden boss's weapon has been given improved sprites.
- Rewrote most of the nail message text in the game, and added new ones.
- Added unique insults to all spirits, and unique descriptions to all graves.
- Added background tiles to all areas.
- Added a new creature and its heart, shared between Cathedral and Mine.
- Curse Charges now make a sound when destroyed or used.
- There is now a sound for eating things.
- Added a few living wall spawns to all areas.
- Enabled boss music.
- Added a death sound.
- Added sound to Bloodsword projectile.
- Added gameplay tips to inventory.
- Added option for controller vibration.
- Added new secret passages to a few areas.
- Added an unused weapon to Belly.
- Added a new random event to Belly.
- Monsters now have a visual effect for healing.
- Added the Madman's Monument.
- Added a secret... Good luck finding it.
GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:
- Single weapon mode is now standard.
- Autoaim gunner mode is now standard, with improved accuracy.
- The cooldown for missing an attack has been removed. Weapon levels still allow you to attack a tidbit faster.
- Finishing moves no longer cost health. You can now simply hold the attack button to charge and release them.
- Blocking no longer costs health, and now has a shield animation. It has a cooldown if you use it and block nothing, however.
- Almost all enemies now drop health.
- There are no longer armor points. Health has been increased to 5.
- Light and dark modes are now triggered by regenerating health, or blocking.
- Stemmie Heart passive nerfed.
- The limbless skeleton's limbs are no longer restricted to appearing in October. They have been given a different, secret timing restriction.
- Fungused debuff now drops health for the player.
- Moved some pieces of content to different areas.
- Burning debuff can now only spread by contact to things that aren't already on fire.
- Nerfed Relic Sword swap attack movement abilities. It was fun, but too good for too little effort.
- Lowered Green Comet health.
- You can now choose not to chain stomp with Plonker Heart by holding down jump.
- Bellscum Heart trigger sleep gas is now stun gas instead.
- Pingpi Heart passive nerfed to only work with significant knockback.
FIXES:
- Fixed gamepad binds not saving properly.
- Fixed Pudon spike throw not doing any damage.
- Fixed Taraski Tooth displaying itself twice.
- Fixed a crash when dying.
- Fixed some bugs with the Wall boss split phase.
- Fixed that your first attack after dying wouldn't work.
- Gave Skungus Wilds creatures the white outlines that all creatures have.
Combat Overhaul and Other News
Reki here. While the update isn't quite ready yet, I wanted to jump in and give a quick report on the state of things.
Combat Overhaul
I've experimented with many ways of making the combat more intuitive, and gutted the tutorial, adding a better spaced out one that gives the player more freedom.
The changes relevant thus far are as follows:
- A new tutorial has been added.
- Single weapon mode is now standard.
- Autoaim gunner mode is now standard, with improved accuracy.
- The cooldown for missing an attack has been removed. Weapon levels still allow you to attack a tidbit faster.
- Finishing moves no longer cost health. You can now simply hold the attack button to charge and release them.
- Blocking no longer costs health, and now has a shield animation. It has a cooldown if you use it and block nothing, however.
- Almost all enemies now drop health.
- There are no longer armor points. Health has been increased to 5.
I believe these changes are the best I could achieve without destroying combat balance. I hope the game will click much better for new or returning players. It'll definitely be less painful to learn.
The Update
The update containing the combat overhaul and new tutorial is planned to launch next week. However, that's not all that'll be included. Look forward to many new weapons, new gunners, and more.
This upcoming update will be either the last or second to last Early Access update. I'll try to squeeze in as much content as possible. Of course, there are still a good amount of missing creature hearts, giga bosses with no extra moves, and other bits of content that will be developed before final release. Not to mention balance and polish. However, the more core features take priority, and at this stage of development, it is smoother and easier to deliver content en masse.
Thanks for the support, please look forward to next week's update!
Combat has been an issue in Blessed Surface, for a long time. It's a system that I was satisfied with, but is simply too unintuitive to teach new players. I believe it to be the number one thing holding back Blessed Surface from being enjoyed by many. After all, it doesn't matter how many new features, it doesn't matter how much fun stuff I add, if many players open the game and instantly despise the way combat works.
I want to save this game I've worked so hard on. I don't want people to regret spending even the cost of a lunch on it. I don't want to be worth that little.
Thanks much for taking the time to fill out my survey. After this, once I've made adjustments, I'll see where we're at, and if I need to make further changes.
Calamity Card Update
Reki here. I've been setting booby traps all over my house for the holiday season, but finished that in time to release an update here. It's been a while, but don't think for a second that I'm not working on the game, even if updates are no longer weekly. That decision was purely so I could deliver fatter updates like this one, that complete a feature.
Getting into it, the meat of this update is the completed Curse Card system. They are now called Calamity Cards, with each having a unique challenge to complete. Once that challenge is complete, you'll be able to toggle them on, activating a difficulty modifier and granting you a boost to your luck level.
Other than that... invasive species have been tweaked to make for a better late-game experience, there's a new monster heart, a few new random events, various polishing tweaks. The soundtrack is now in stereo, so the file size will be a lot bigger.
Please enjoy the new challenges. Plenty more content and balance to come before the game's end.
CONTENT:
- Added two additional Calamity Cards (formerly called curse cards) to every area for a total of 20 new unique challenges.
- Fossil's Basin boss now has some sound effects.
- There is now a different footstep sound for stepping on softer terrain.
- Holy Cathedral of Dust boss now drops a gunner.
- Added Fire-Puff Heart.
- Added new random event to Sootyhag Mine.
- Added new random event to Belly of the Comet God.
- Added new random event to Skungus Wilds.
GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:
- Calamity Cards now give you +5 luck when active.
- The soundtrack is now in stereo.
- Invasive species now have a chance to overwrite each other when the area's monster species slots are full.
- Time of day tint now changes color more smoothly.
- Curse Charges now disappear when you are hit instead of over time.
- Luck now gives you a better chance to find rare random events.
- Boggot Heart trigger ghosts will now attack enemies for you.
- Secret buttons are now much smaller.
- Rurus and Fests are now native to the Holy Cathedral of Dust in addition to their other locations.
FIXES:
- Fixed a bug preventing Grong Sage from dropping its heart.
- Rain and puddles properly fade away smoothly now.
- Fixed a crash involving displaying text.
- Monsters shouldn't drop their hearts before dying now.
- Fixed a bug with keys pointing the wrong direction.
- Fixed the luck of comet armors not updating properly.
- Fixed many perk related projectiles that were not being counted as player owned.
Development Update
Reki here. I think I'm a weekly update or two behind. The reason for this is that the bulk of content for the game is complete, and the remaining work is mostly stuff that will take longer and require more design work. The holidays have also been a factor in delays. Regardless, I am still working on the game, and will continue to do so until it is finished. From this point on, however, updates will no longer be weekly. They will be released once chunks of content are finished and I am satisfied with them. I'll break down what remains, in the rough order I'm going to develop them in:
The game will have an ending.
The Curse Card system will receive 2 more challenges for each area.
More secret passages and traps will be added.
A few more creatures may be added.
A few more random events may be added.
Any missing creature hearts will be added.
Sound effects will be added to everything.
Everything will be polished and balanced.
I believe that's all. Once all of that is done, I'll be happy with, and proud of the game, having delivered everything I've promised. Thanks for all the support through Early Access.
Without further ado, the patch notes. This week is mostly new npcs and fixes for a couple annoying bugs.
CONTENT: - Added 8 new NPCs.
- Added a bar showing your cooldown before attacking if you miss an attack.
- Added music to Dawn.
GAMEPLAY TWEAKS: - Connected every gravestone to another via portal.
FIXES: - Fixed unfinished and nonfunctional Curse Cards showing up.
- Fixed certain texts repeating their scrolling animation when button pressed again.
- Fixed hearts not displaying their blood type.
Multiplayer Fix
Reki here. Just a quick note that multiplayer is now fixed. So sorry it took so long for me to notice it was broken by the removal of the old tutorial. In case anyone does not know how to access the multiplayer, I stickied a post in the Steam Discussions with a quick summary of everything. Hope you're enjoying the weapon level update!
Levelups and Luck Update
Reki here. Instead of working on more urgent things, I couldn't resist developing some extra features that I've been excited about. I'll get right into explaining those, no centaur jokes this week. Not that I've ever joked about centaurs, they're a very serious threat, after all.
Each corpse now has a fixed luck stat, which affects how often you see albino creatures, golden creatures, and key-holding creatures, as well as a few other bits like eggs. Ones with more difficult to use finishing moves tend to have higher luck to make up for it, while the strongest ones will have very little. Hopefully, this will introduce more reasons to use different corpses.
Weapons now have levels. They start at zero and gain xp every time you hit something with them. Higher levels will reduce the attack cooldown for missing an attack. While that system is in place to reward accurate, high-speed attacks, the levelup system should be a well fitting counterpart to it, rewarding you long-term for landing many attacks over your career, opening new potential. There is no level cap, but the effects of leveling will end at level 100, where your weapon will no longer have any cooldowns.
Lots more cool stuff to come. Please enjoy this week's update.
CONTENT:
- Added weapon leveling system.
- Added corpse luck system.
- Added an unused creature to Skungus Wilds.
GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:
- Text now quickly scrolls in instead of appearing all at once.
- Renamed Dustyhag Mine to Sootyhag mine, to better fit its industrial theme and distinguish it from the Holy Cathedral of Dust.
- Adjusted Garden-Drone's attack.
- Golden and key monsters now spawn anywhere.
- Buffed Demon Bulwark directional attack.
- Priko Heart trigger jars no longer count as monsters.
- Plague-Blocking Shield now displays a goo in the direction that it is equipped to, while blocking.
FIXES:
- Fixed crash involving keys.
- Fixed a couple bugs with tentacles.
- Fixed some crashes and bugs with holding down wield mode to swap equipment.
- Rowus more reliably damage you instead of just changing direction.
- Fixed some bugs with Boggot Heart undead.
Clutter and More Hearts Update
Reki here. This update is very late in the week since I've been barricaded in a shed, hiding from the recent centaur invasion. Their hooves were cruel, but I was able to escape at the last moment. However, some stuff for the game that won't be in this update has eaten all my time, so I only had three minutes to cobble together and release this update in its entirety. That other stuff is still ongoing, so there probably won't be an update next week. Anyways, on to this update's features:
The largest amount of work this week went into decorating the world with a tileset of clutter objects. In other words, there is a lot of trash scattered about now. There is still some work to be done with transitions into other areas being inaccurate.
Next up, a bunch of hearts were added or tweaked. There are some truly weird ones that I hope will be a lot of fun. Actually, they're all weird.
That's mostly it this week. I'll go ahead and say what the other stuff I'm working on I mentioned is.
- First off, I have to put together a new trailer for the game since the two I'm currently using are old, and really old.
- Next, I'm planning on adding a weapon leveling system. I've long been jealous of games with levelup systems to encourage you to fight and progress.
- Then, I need to add many more curse cards to the game, each with their own unique challenge and difficulty modifier.
- Finally, I've felt for a long time that the game lacks anything worthwhile to keep collecting long-term. I'm thinking of adding a new type of collectible item you can buy with gold coins. More details on that when I make sure my idea works well. I promise nothing.
CONTENT:
- Added clutter visuals.
- Added a sound for critical hits.
- Added Meat-Imp Heart trigger.
- Added Bellscum Heart trigger.
- Added Priko Heart trigger.
- Added Grimmit Heart trigger and passive.
- Added Plonker Heart trigger and reworked passive.
- Added Dubble Heart.
- Added Scrapheart Heart Heart.
- Added a new random event to Belly of the Comet God.
- Added a light visual effect to various objects.
- Added text displayed when you die, noting the amount of bosses left in the world. This number will not be accurate for preexisting saves, but may be corrected by reviving bosses.
- Updated Skungus Wilds boss battle with new attacks and balance.
- Updated Bakyarl Prison boss sprites.
- Added text to potion delivery cats.
GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:
- Buffed Pudon Heart trigger.
- Bells of the Cemetery now only require 3 hits to break.
- Adjusted Spindle of the Waxing Sun to make it easier to juggle more types of enemies.
- You can now swap out your equipment for those in your storage by holding down wield.
- Gunners on auto-mode aim through walls now.
FIXES:
- Fixed spirits crashing the game if you started the game touching one.
- Fixed a bug where bleed would stop you from jumping temporarily.
- Fixed inconsistent knockback with player melee attacks.
- Monsters that don't require a finishing move to kill no longer die and drop pickups if not damaged by the player.
- Damage that deals no knockback no longer removes existing knockback.
- Tikes no longer damage each other.
Soundtrack and Fruits Update
Reki here. Last week, I think I promised a new font for the game, and music. Music is here. New font, changed my mind. Changed some colors and stuff of the current font to make it more readable instead. Music is still a WIP in some aspects, in general I think it is too quiet at the moment. Also, the file size will be much bigger because of all the audio files. Next week will hopefully be a fat content update. More curse cards, more monster hearts, more everything. Till then.
CONTENT:
- Added music.
- Added 9 new fruits across the world.
- Added new random event to Fossil's Basin.
- Added new random event to Dustyhag Mine.
- Added new random event to Holy Cathedral of Dust.
- Flooded Passages giga boss is now magnetic.
- Comet God giga boss now does damage with water spouts.
- Added information on various mechanics.
GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:
- Souls now refill your health to three.
- Changed the background and color of game's main font and added shadows.
- Buffed Bell-Mankyu Heart passive.
FIXES:
- Probably fixed NPCs getting lost forever. Saves from before this fix will need manual adjusting, as those NPCs are still marked as in use even though they aren't.
- Souls, gold coins, and other items now come to the player when stuck in the walls.
- Fixed some bugs with chests failing to keep track of which items were in use.
- Fixed native fish in Dustyhag mine not replenishing its population due to a typo.
- Fixed Flooded Passages boss taking up an ecosystem monster slot and being replaced by other monsters when all slots were full.
- Fixed Curse Cards being completed without actually killing bosses.
Curse Cards Update
Reki here. Today's update is the beginning of an effort to give the game some more direction for the player. That effort, I call "Curse Cards". You can find Curse Cards as drops from enemies. You can then view them in equip mode. Each has a unique name, and will list a challenge for you to complete. Once you have completed the challenge, you can toggle the card on and off and it'll add a difficulty mod to the area.
At the moment, there are only cards for killing bosses, one for each area. The difficulty mod of all these is to unlock the "giga" mode of each boss. Giga mode triples the boss's health, gives it new attacks, and changes its color. Only the Krunki Garden giga boss is fully complete at the moment, the rest do not have additional attacks yet. Rest assured, they will all be given a brutally challenging, but fair giga mode.
In other news, I have obtained all the software necessary to make fonts, so expect at least one new font to be added to the game at some point, created by me, one more suitable for the game's small resolution than the current one with weird thick lines. Also, I intend to begin adding the soundtrack to the game next week no matter what, please look forward to it.
Happy Halloween!
CONTENT:
- Added Curse Cards to every area.
- Overhauled all boss text.
- Dramatic screen darkening effect added to all boss intros, and removed the same effect from Bandit Warlord encounter.
- Added Stemmie Heart.
GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:
- Merged all potion delivery cats into one that drops a random potion, as they were simply too widespread.
- Pet now snaps into position upon entering equip mode.
- Pet will now drop the item it was carrying upon death.
- You can now block during regular attacks, or cancel into a finisher.
FIXES:
- Made crosshair collision smaller so it doesn't touch multiple buttons in menu.
- Fixed a crash with Boggot bullets.
- Priko Heart passive tail no longer disappears between areas.
- Updated code involving fire effect spreading.
- Fixed some bugs involving reviving bosses.
- Fixed a bug with bouncy status effect bouncing you while midair.
