Changes
Disarm now disarms upon critical hit
Fixes
Some particles are drawing incorrectly
Fixed 2-tile water flickering bug
Tracking off-hand items as Wanderer doesn't properly show items equipped by enemies
Catacomb Kids
0.1.2b
0.1.2
There isn't too much new stuff to play around with yet, but I'm making very good progress on the upcoming Tinkerer class, as well as implementing a currency to be spent between runs.
New
New Reaper Spell!
New Amulet!
Changes
Can now aim Chain Lightning's trance downward
Reaper spells are now considered "Dark" for charge types
Fully realized Amulets now have a (Realized) tag
Push and Push trance now affect crush traps and falling icicles
Amulet of [Void] no longer drains energy
Absorbing magic with the Amulet of [Void] now restores energy to the bearer
Amulet of [Void] no longer disables the Orb of Leveling
Amulet of [Hunger] now has a fully realized version
Enemy amulet abilities now tied to enemy INT
Enemy amulet effects are now invisible unless you already know said amulet
Can skip logo intro on main menu
Blink trance now protects from projectiles and being crushed by the Grumbul Tank
Fixes
Pouncing with Chain Lightning's trance expends all minibolts at once
Crash when trying to display context button prompts for nonexistent objects
Tomed spellbooks sometimes the visual of being used when using another object
Spellwright shopkeepers crash when casting an aimable spell
Looting menu shows stats for last selected item when selecting Amulets
Sometimes the same amulet type will appear and identify as two separate ones
Sometimes two different amulet types will have the same appearance
Plague poisons allies
Plagued flame bodies are excessively explosive
INT requirement for identifying amulets was wrong
Another crash related to Reaper arena blocks spawning in
Get stuck in ceiling while standing on grumbul tank with extra tough while it jumps
The bottom row of tiles in a level is often cut off or misgenerated
Running Water Anticropolis transition freezes during generation
Thermal indicator shows during level generation
Near Future TO-DO
Next Class
Metacoin Currency
Flesh out Encyclopedia 0.1.1!
I've temporarily removed the Wayward kids from normal level generation since they were causing a lot of crashing issues. I'm gonna put some more work into them and hopefully they'll be back next update ready to rock 'n roll!
In the meantime, I'll be doing my usual dev-stream later today over at twitch.tv/fourbitfriday so feel free to come say what's up and talk about kids in 'combs and ask me why this game is taking so long to finish like I do every night as I fall asleep choking back tears.
MAC USERS: Please let me know if this update fixes the gamepad issues! If it does then I'll know what the problem was. If it doesn't then I'll rule out a possibility and know what the problem isn't.
Fixes
Pose doesn't change when climbing up onto ledges
Fixed a bug with giant arrow damage calculation
Arrows catch fire if stuck in someone who runs past a campfire
Player 2 Overheal UI is jank
Casting Raise Dead with overcharges costs no overcharge and ignores blocked energy
Negative status effects on allies may spread to you via Reciprocity
The number displayed for current energy when paused is incorrect when mp is blocked
Flames from Fire and Ice can also burn allies
Reaper room often reconstructs incorrectly after the battle
Goo meal can overheal for greater than ones INT
Teamed-up Wayward kids spawn as though fleeing when traveling to the next floor
Fire and Ice gave only Hot charges when picked up with Innate Power
Dark Arts gave the incorrect charge types
Eeol Labeled Eel in kixll list
Melting/dangerous slimeballs are not labeled as such
Crash when boiling an orb of leveling in a bottle of water
Can get pushed into walls by boulders and barrels
Cannot teleport out of a wall after surviving a teleport into one
Making soup from a frozen corpse makes potato and [thing] soup
Some kids don't drown
Melting and dangerous slimes are not properly labeled as such
Air Dash can be buggy at times
"Down" on keyboard still rolls/bashes even when roll/bash is bound to a different key
Extra Tough doesn't affect Bear Traps
Fixed some typos
Dark Phase has no spell description
Shops in the Anticropolis have no doors
New
New Anticropolis Transition Stages!
Amulets!
Added a few more Encyclopedia entries!
Changes
Increased arrow damage
Increased arrow accuracy
Reduced chance of enemies dodging arrows
Halved the rate at which bows degrade from use
Taunt now affects crabs and turrets
Increased frequency/severity of unstable undo's side-effect
Barrels are empty more frequently
of Health now heals to a minimum of 3hp, regardless of hp max
Spellbooks restore more charges and charge types when picked up with Innate Power
Added Teleport Overload
Added additional contextual button prompts
(Sorry, no way to disable them yet! But there will be!)
Temporarily removed Wayward Kids in order to address an abundance of crashes
Changed Frolix AI
Helms and Coifs now reduce stomp damage by 1
Non-"Hard Helms" and Coifs take a ton of durability damage when stomped
Removed STR requirement for pilfering enemies' weapons
Reduced frequency of barrel assassins
Improved warhammers' stats
Added "Farsight" to Wanderer's Instinct class ability
Spellbooks can be Tomed by using class ability while holding a book
Transition stages don't count against meal effect floor count
Added button prompts for actions
Encyclopedia entry requirements can be met over multiple runs
Animated title drop
Fat humanoids landing don't knock other fat humanoids into the air
Made fat grumbuls much less common
Added sound effects to crabs and eels
Added sound effects to laser traps
Skeletal mages now spawn in the Anticropolis
Made standing torches rarer in the Anticroplis
Near Future TO-DO
New Class!
Flesh out Encyclopedia
PAX East Minibooth!
Just wanted to give y'all a heads up that I'll be showing Catacomb Kids at PAX East in Boston later this week as a part of the INDIE MINIBOOTH! It'll be my first time showing the game officially at any sort of convention or expo type thing, so if you're in the area come say what's up and maybe gimme a high five or something!
Unfortunately this does mean that the next build won't be coming until after I get back from Boston. I was hoping to have it out in February but obviously that didn't happen -- With GDC going on and PAX stuff to prepare for, I was mostly bogged down in the whole "email and business and taxes" side of game dev that nobody likes to admit actually takes time. That side sucks, yo.
Anyway, wish me luck!
0.1.0c Changelog
Fixes
- obj_en_crab crash
Good job me.
0.1.0b Changelog
(Super sorry Linux folk for the delay in gettin’ this update to y’all! It's coming soon though 💙)
Fixes
- Can't make bottles of slime, et al
- Number of current spell charges changes upon resurrection in multiplayer
- Arrows don't spawn in barrels
- Potions of health identify upon drinking them when overhealed
- Fog of war is not cleared away while in Flame Form
- anim_slash3 crash
- Shooting downward with a bow spawns the arrows in the wrong place, causing them to hit tiles above
- Transition stage music doesn't change upon continuing to the next floor (fixed?)
- Reaper becomes invisible during its super strike
- Several other things become invisible after being off-screen
- Visual glitch with carrying learnable spells
- Slimes still have the wrong spiced effects from 0.0.16
- obj_item_claim_point crash
- Player 2 can't move in co-op when using a gamepad while player 1 is looting
- hud_draw_pause_traits crash
- Touching horizontal moving blocks in the AC can be buggy
- Using tome while holding an item doesn't play the proper tome attack animation
- Grumbul assassins frequently get stuck in walls when jumping out of barrels
- Sitting humanoids count as crouching and so arrows tend to miss them
- Kids with "Archer" trait can have their bow overriden by the "Likes" trait
- Maybe fixed the potion identification spam for real this time, possibly
- Can't select a single-player character on keyboard if gamepad is enabled and detected
- Device spawns too frequently, and multiple times
- Standing near lava doesn't keep one warm
- Level-up cancel screen doesn't accept keyboard input if gamepad is enabled and detected
- Dpad input sometimes doesn't work properly in menus
- Crash when attacking if LUC is greater than 14
- Bone arrows ignite
- Control reset uses the wrong defaults
- Pressing 'esc' while control redefine is waiting for input leaves the control blank
- Slimeballs crushed beneath crush-traps don't always leave slime behind
Changes
- Arrows burn for longer before being destroyed
- Increased arrow capacity from 5 to 8
- Added ui for arrows
- Arrow type no longer changes automatically until all of the current arrow type is used up
- Increased durability damage to armor of reflection when hit by projectiles
- Improved the new grumbul variant and made them more visually distinct
- New visuals for horizontal moving platforms in the Anticropolis
- Moving platforms stop briefly when they hit each other
- Further changes Flame Wave trance (Flame Form)
- Reaper fight now freezes lava into a solid version
- Removed knockback effect upon reaper's death
- Reaper room barriers are slower to come in and slower to kill
- Summoning the reaper now also destroys mushrooms within the room
- Leaving the reaper room mid-fight now angers the reaper
- Added money indicator to co-op UI
- In co-op, each player recieves a small portion of the gold that the other player collects
- Reduced ███-███ hp
- Refined ███-███ animation
- Can now use ███-███ 's █████ to ███
- Can now use claw arms to grapple when pouncing even with a weapon equipped
- Hated weapons now go much further when thrown
- Thrown spears fly straight
- Added identifiable traits to Potions of Acid
- Temperature guage position slightly improved, shifts to fit wanderer's tracking
- Fishanha finally actually consume corpses over time
- Fishanha target humanoid corpses regardless of whether they're bloody or not
- Falling icicles break items like crush traps
- Added unique portrait art to all arm types
- Added death message to popcorn
- Limited arrows' vertical velocity when firing bows in low corridors
- Dagger haters can pocket daggers
- Can once again rebind class ability on keyboard
- Crushed slimes now always leave their slime effect
0.1.0 Changelog
- Balls of Goo, Slime, and Mucus become charred instead of properly melting away or exploding
- Undead Followers don't work properly in co-op when the screen splits
- Spell loss/gain upon being resurrected in co-op
- Daily Run menu marked as "Daily Failed" after backing out of the character select menu
- Rare crash if the player dies with a whirlwind still active
- Passageways on floors display the wrong graphic
- Boiling pools of water never cool
- Humanoid enemies with legs missing get stuck in a weird hovering state
- Crash upon entering a level with previously escaped grumbuls
- Escaped enemies in shops appear behind the locked door
- Turrets immune to Glacial Grinder overload
- Humanoid enemies freeze and spam "!" when attacking beneath them
- Roll sound effect is spammed when pressing down+sideways while using a lantern
- Potion identification is spammed in co-op if both players have the same potion
- Regenerate (Trance Cure) uses two charges
- Extra Regenerate (From Potions of Extra Regeneration or Trance Cure) doesn't actually restore hp
- Certain overloads/trances caused spell charges to become negative ("X")
- Ogo's weapons don't spin when they attack any more
- Severed heads are not destroyed when intersecting with physics objects, causing lag
- Overload Cold burst doesn't reduce "energized" charges
- Environmental slime emits light
- Sometimes 'Hates Weapon' is all jacked up (fixed?)
- Messages sometimes overlap one another when they are more than a single line
- Giant arrows and swinging blades can sever both of the player's arms
- Shields differ in different instances of the same Daily Run
- Peppered non-humanoid corpses behave as though they are both savory and peppered: savory does nothing to them
- Entering the tutorial from the "Extras" menu messes up the music
- Reflected dragon's breath is visually buggy
New Stuff
- Bows and arrows!
- Wayward wids!
- The Anticropolis! (And all that it entails)
- New Upper Dungeon trap!
- Another, different new weapon!
- The beginnings of an encyclopedia! (Extremely early version)
Changes
- Changed the behaviour of barrels to make them less annoying/reduce instances of surprise damage
- Humanoids can no longer stomp when tumbled or frozen
- Chain Lightning no longer travels through every single tile of water
- Boiling pools of water have their heat distributed through them
Larger pools will cool more quickly, and smaller ones will stay boiling for much longer
The position of the heatsource within the pool also matters - Homing bolts no longer target invisible creatures
- Escaped enemies heal over time until you leave the level
- Improved spellwright's spell aiming capabilities
- Added minor squash/stretch upon hitting enemies
- Can Pounce with weapons now
- Arrows stick in non-humanoid enemies
- Trance Cure grants a longer-lasting immunity
- Overload Cure heals for more and grants overheal
- Added unstable Undo effect
- Overloads/Trances no longer require 2 charges to use
- Changed color of overheal to match INT and added indication for maximum overheal
- Flame Form lasts for longer, and becomes inactive when motionless
- Messages in the alerts area are now outlined
- Acid deals damage to all equipment, rather than just armor
- Creatures slain by acid leave no corpses behind
- New barrel sfx
- New sfx for arrows hitting walls and creatures
- Class select menu now remembers your previously-chosen class
- Once more removed conflicting starting traits
- Performing a basic 3-attack combo while unarmed will alternate attacking arms
- Holding a severed limb while regenerating attaches the limb without ending regeneration
- Unstable Caster made rarer for poets
- Added a new limb that grumbuls sometimes spawn with
- Added a new grumbul modifier
- Limited shields' block strength
- Spears and large weapons no longer considered 'heavy' for the purposes of carrying them with hate
- Swinging blades now interact with physics objects
- Reduced the effect of MAG on casting speed without Incantation
- Increased durability of Soul- weapons
- Can now focus strike flourish
- Moved tutorial text to the top of the screen
- Tutorial grumbul no longer runs away
- Reduced distance between floors for item-drop pipes
- Reduced the number of grumbuls spawned during the tank fight
- Can now directly attack the Grumbul Tank's legs
Near Future TO-DO
- Leaderboards (for serious this time)
- Anticropolis Transition Stages
- Flesh out Encyclopedia
The Anticropolis! Bows and Arrows! Wayward Kids!
The Anticropolis
I mean wow guys, for real.
Welcome to your new snowy wonderland: The Anticropolis. Once the underside of Abys' floating fortress before it fell to become The Catacombs, the Anticropolis is now locked in an everlasting, magical cold. Within, you will find undead that roam freely, and grumbul hunters whose excursions have brought them far from their comforts in the Upper Dungeon. Many fun new deaths await in the frigid depths, including but not limited to: being swallowed whole, crushed by giant icicles, spat upon by ghosts, and torn apart by winged beasts while caught in a bear trap and desperately fumbling for a potion. With it being so cold in the Anticropolis, you'll also have to keep an eye on your temperature to make sure you don't suffer from frostbite: Keep dry, dress warmly, and seek fire.
Wayward Kids
But it's not all bad in the snowy deep; with new enemies also come new allies in the form of other wayward Kids that you can find and form alliances with (after doing them a favor, of course). These Kids are a very early version of what they'll become, with the hope being that you'll eventually be able to to forge relationships with them over the course of a run and encounter individuals multiple times as you both descend and grow stronger. But that's something for later.
For now, they just want stuff (and are very formidable opponents, should you incur their wrath).
Bows and Arrows
You'll also find bows, a new type of weapon, and the first that exists apart from the five weapon archetypes. Bows are great ranged weapons that allow you to strike from afar, but their ammo is limited and precious, requiring you to retrieve your arrows after each fight. Once your arrows are exhausted, you may find yourself ill-equipped to handle the trials of more close-quarters combat.
Bows don’t have any weapon skills of their own like the other weapon types, but they do synergize with both the Focus Strike and Trajectory boons.
What's Next?
Now for a disclaimer: This might be obvious, but this release doesn't mean the Anticropolis is done. Far from it: this is the first version of the AC, with much, much more to come. With feedback from players, it will evolve into something even better. Notably missing in this build are transition stages unique to the Anticropolis. I've already started work on them but they were proving problematic and would delay this release even further had I pursued them to completion, so I've simply excluded them for now. There are also several more enemies and environmental features I have plans to implement, as well as a new boss creature (or two?). Anyway my point is: This is just the beginning.
I've learned a lot of things over the past several months of working on the Anticropolis -- things that I hope to employ going forward to help make the game progress faster, so that another months-long absence of updates doesn't happen again.
The first of these is: Hiring people helps LOADS. I have previously mentioned that I brought on one (1) John Sandoval to help lighten the animation workload on me, and subsequently he did most of the animation on many of the new enemies you'll be seeing in the Anticropolis. And gosh, as much as I love doing animation and pixel art that was a huge load off my shoulders. So this is the part where I implore you to spread the word about Catacomb Kids, since my hiring of people is still contingent upon paying them. I would love to bring on another coder and continue to employ the skills of John.
Another thing I've learned is: If I want to work on ~Secret Stuff~, I have to be economical about it. The Anticropolis' delays were ultimately caused by my failure to spread the work out evenly across prior updates, leaving an utterly massive amount of work to be done with little groundwork laid. When I look at how long it took to get the Upper Dungeon to where it is, and realize I expected to make another 60-70% of that amount of content again for the Anticropolis release, it's no wonder my projected timeline for the area was overly optimistic.
To help mitigate that from happening again, I'm going to be starting work on the Deep Dark immediately, even though I don't anticipate it to be released for at least as long as it took for the AC to come together (the better part of this past year). Even if the going on the Deep Dark is slow, the hope is that by the time I'm wrapping up the AC and ready to dive into the DD, work on the area will already be well underway.
For now though, while I continue work on The Anticropolis my next major goals will be implementing meta progression -- that is, the game progression outside of individual runs -- and the next class, which will be focused around Intelligence.
Thank you all for your immense patience, and I hope you stick around for even more fun in the future!
Tyriq P. <3
0.0.16c
Fixes
Daily Run doesn't reset the next day after a failure
More fixes for gamepad/keyboard inputs
Crash when blocking attacks
Map sometimes fails to draw
Crash when stomping on Ogo or Grumbul Turrets
Two players can pick up the same object simultaneously
Charred corpses not labeled as such
Changes
Discovered teleport traps, doors, passages, and the ghost now appear on the map
Break breaks barrels
Flaming barrels burn their contents
Rottenness of food separated from burnedness of food
0.0.16b
Fixes
Humanoid corpses' heads crash like mad
Crash when fighting AI in vs mode
Sound effects from Player 1's split screen inaudible when above Player 2 in co-op
Cannot redefine Player 2's gamepad controls
Some fixes for gamepad/keyboard inputs failing for various dialog boxes and menus
Controllers rumble even when not in use
'Nevermind' on Pipes does nothing
Changes
Added action indicator to ui for ghost form in co-op
Made orb and learning points indicator in co-op look less ugly and dumb
Added message for using pipes with nothing to drop