Back when we started making Eight Dragons, we were intent on making something that felt like it was of a particular era in gaming. That meant proper pixel-art, a CRT effect, arcade gameplay... We were so focused on achieving that goal that we went all the way with how it was presented, right down to blocking out a third of the screen with static status bars, just the way it was when we were kids.
Coming up on the first anniversary of launching Eight Dragons, we had a bit of a rethink - why not make it a little bit more like the arcade games of our youth rather than the home computer games? So we've given it a bit of an overhaul. We've gone from this:
...to this:
It looks a lot nicer, as you can see! While we've been upgrading the look, we've also tweaked the gameplay by adding a dash move. Double-tapping in any direction will shoot you off at double speed, giving you a way to quickly dive out of trouble. If you're dashing left or right, you can also attack at the same time, giving you a way of getting the first hit in before you're mobbed by enemies.
We hope you like these changes as much as we do!
Update 11
We're pleased to announce our first 'proper' post-launch update, as we've added our first new game mode! Super Arcade gives you 11 levels to fight through - two of which you can't see in the other game modes - which makes it more than twice as long as the regular Arcade mode. You'll get to fight through hordes of enemies, including all the bosses, and really earn that ending!
As well as the new game mode, we've also fixed a couple of bugs:
The demo mode won't start while you're using the menus, even if you're using a mouse
The Arcade mode won't skip levels the more you play it
We hope you enjoy this update to the game, and we can all look forward to the next one, with another new game mode...
Update 10
Now that we've launched, a few more people have joined the ranks of Eight Dragons players and let us know about a couple of new issues. Today's patches fix the following:
The enemies on the Docks and Subway Station levels should now stop running away from the players
Leaderboards have been reset (which means my epic high score on Central Park, achieved when coins didn't disappear when you picked them up, has been removed)
The game no longer freezes if there are issues talking to Steam when updating the leaderboards
As mentioned in the Discussions board yesterday, we're working on a new game mode that should be ready for you next week. While we're working on it though, we're thinking about making our beta branch public, so that those of you who are interested can try it out as we make it. We'd love to know what you think of the idea!
Update 9
This update's an important one, despite the lack of new features, with lots of little things being done to make Eight Dragons ready to leave Early Access. There are still bugs in the game, and we'll be working on them for a little while yet, but the biggest ones are now out of the way!
The last update rather annoyingly prevented more than 4 XInput controllers being used at once - now you can once again plug in all the XBox controllers you've got!
Silky can no longer fire his gun while you're throwing him.
Mr Big can no longer throw you while you're throwing him (yes, that was a thing!)
Enemies on the Subway Station will no longer back off if you're within six feet of the platform edge
The game won't get stuck if furniture gets in the way of an enemy during an opening kidnap sequence
The game starts up in about half the time; the resources that were loaded on startup are instead loaded when you start playing
Player start positions have been changed so that all players start inside the playing area. They also don't appear in some spooky shadow form.
The ending sequence has been expanded, with extra art depending on which characters you're playing as
We've also remove mouse control, as finding a way to keep it from behaving strangely in the menu system was taking an inordinate amount of time. When we find some time, we're going to figure out how to put it back in in a non-disruptive way.
This will probably - assuming nobody finds any big bugs! - be the last update before Eight Dragons leaves Early Access and becomes a Real Game. We'd like to thank all of you who've played the game, especially those of you who've given us feedback and your invaluable bug reports, and we hope you continue to enjoy playing Eight Dragons!
Update 8
Just some little things in this update! Following up on another bug report, it's no longer possible to move while you're in an elevator. We've also added sound effects when you pick up food and money.
There's a slightly bigger fix to correct an issue we discovered this week. It turned out that pausing the game didn't pause everything. Thrown objects continued to move, even though none of the characters could move. We've fixed that in this update, so you can't get hit while the game's paused.
We've also changed things so the bad guys can't use your health pickups. Getting beaten up is one thing, but letting them steal your lunch is another!
Update 7
Following a bug report we've made some changes in how we're handling controller inputs. An oversight made when switching to the Unity engine meant that redefining your controls could lock you out of the menus when using a controller - very silly of us, but we've fixed it!
Update 6
Our updates are like buses - you wait ages for one and then two show up almost at once! A shorter one this time - we've added more props to the levels, and things now fall out of them when you break them. In particular food, will which boost your health! We're sure that'll come as a relief to just about everybody - we know it can get a bit tough sometimes. Especially since we've also tweaked the enemy behavior to make them slightly more aggressive...
The other thing we've added is an option to the Graphics menu to let you turn off the CRT filter. We love it, so it's on by default, but we know some of you aren't fans of it. And some of you might be trying to play on a CRT, and don't need that filter when you've got the real thing!
Update 5
It's been aaages since the last update, we know. We've been moving the game from an in-house engine to Unity - that's a pretty hefty change behind the scenes. For most of you that means there are some little tweaks to how the controls work - hopefully you'll find the movement a little bit tighter than before, and most of the issues people have had with controllers should now have disappeared.
GOING CROSS-PLATFORM
For those of you who haven't been playing because you don't have Windows, there's good news for you too - Eight Dragons now works on Linux and SteamOS, and will very soon work on MacOS too. (It might already work, but it's a lot easier to find people with Linux to test the game than people with Macs.)
GETTING SHINY
It isn't all behind-the-scenes stuff that's been going on, either. We've also improved the look of the game. We've improved the shader effect to make the game look more like its running on an old tube television. We've added a whole bunch of different animations to our heroes to spice things up. And we've also added breakable props, like trashcans and parking meters. Some of them, like trashcans, can also be picked up and thrown around!
GOING FORWARD
Like we said at the start, it's been ages since the last update. Way too long, in fact, and that's sadly been unavoidable because of the engine change. Nobody wants months of updates saying "we're working really hard, but you can't see any of it yet". Those days are over though, so here's what's coming over in the next few weeks:
MacOS support!
More pickups - something to boost your health at last!
More props - everybody likes throwing things!
Some level changes - because we really don't like the Docks!
And once those things are done (and a few others) we'll finally be ready for an actual release! Thanks to all of you who've bought and played Eight Dragons - we couldn't do this without you!
Update 4
While the coding side of our team is working on those big features we've talked about, the art side has started looking at improving the look and feel of the game. The first thing we've got to show you is in our latest update - the Downtown level has been drastically upgraded, with more and nicer things to look at and distract you while gang members try to beat you up...
There'll be more of this in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled!
Update 3
It's been a couple of weeks since the last update, but we haven't been doing nothing, despite how small this update is!
This update adds support for German, Russian, Spanish and Chinese languages. Yes, we know that won't affect most of our existing players, but we thought it'd be nice to let some more people play too! We're going to add more languages later on, but we thought we'd find out how badly we've done with this round of localisation before going any further...
That's not a huge change for two weeks of work, we're sure you'll agree. But that's because we're working on some quite big features that just aren't ready yet. We appreciate your patience - it'll be worth it!
