Treble Clef Sword - old reliable weapon with medium range and speed
Alto Clef Bow - good for dealing damage at great distances
Bass Clef Scythe - Slower weapon with larger swings
Blunder Trombone - Great for staggering and dealing huge damage
Electric Guitar - Shockingly good, but have restricted mobility
Each weapon has a unique moveset of animations/ There is main weapons on LMB and range weapons at RMB that uses notes to shoot
Weapons are dropping from every boss (arenas 5.10.12.15.20.24) and have 3 stats
Damage - it's a multiplier of base damage of the weapon. This stat is always higher on the new weapon.
Speed - it's a multiplier of base animation speed and downtime between hits. This stat has random nature
Range - Multiplier of swing size. This stat has random nature
Overall, it's freshens the gameplay and make boss battles more meaningful, cause you getting sweet new weapon for your arsenal!
Talents
Misery - it's negative energy and you better use it than collect it yourself.
Same way it works in GwenBlade where your Miseries are fuel to become better! Bad experience is still experience^^~
Right now you can increase your Max health, get more MOTIVATION, Damage and learn new tricks to deal with stress more efficiently!
...
Overall this update include all groundwork for new weapons and talents, that would be implemented with every new Update.
I'm solodev and trying my best, and welcome any feedback!
Weekly Updates will be coming!
Bash-Bash Update!
New abilities
Ability system was once again changed. Now you need a Motivation to cast spells an it's 20 points for every ability. Also now Motivation isn't passively regaining, and instead you need to hit enemies to get any. At the same time, now you don't need motivation to dash, walljump and block.
Burst of Heal
Heals you up to 20% of health and deal damage to nearby enemies at the same time
Dragon Fly
Launches a big fire ball that burns enemies
Chain Note
Note flying and slashing every enemy on arena
LightStrike
Lightning strike and make area dealing Break that exists enemy's energy and increases your damage
Balance Changes
Damage Now all enemy damage is clamped to 25 hit points. It was to fix 2 issues Firstly, there is no one shot kills in late roguelite sessions Secondly, Max health upgrade always grants a player +25 hit points, there for every time it's at least 1 more hit that you can take, cause previously in late game +25 meant nothing impactful
New enemy - Impatience
Impatience is airborne enemy that shoots laser at a player once in a while. Also his laser could damage other enemies too.
Note system
Notes needed for a range attacks on RMB input. And previously there was max 10 notes at a time.
default max amount of notes is changed from 10 to 4
Now you can increase it with new Reward
Also Notes UI was enhanced and about it later in a post
Bugs fixed
damage formula for abilities was incorrect and all skills was dealing crazy damage in result. Now their damage is high as intended
Many enemies become static while being constantly attacking - it was oversight in a code, and now, they actively would prevent you from hitting them by attacking you.
Happiness(currency in a game) formula had also an oversight, so in a result it was really hard to buy anything in the shop. Now all of it balanced
UI enhancements
Pretty basic stuff, now if you don't have enough motivation, or spell is not ready or you don't have enough Notes than you would be greeted with the sound and Warning that you don't have any of this, Also motivation bar and Note bar had a subtle animation have a subtle animation at this events to make clear with thing you need at this moment.
Future Updates
This update was planned to be bigger and later, but after feedback that i get, i decided to launch a balance patch. At the same time some amount of work was done and it's now included in this patch
I am planning to add in the next update
Weapons system - Bosses and minibosses would drop a new weapon that you can take. Right now there is three melee weapons that fully modeled and animated - Sword, Guitar and Scythe and two range weapons - Bow and Blunderbass. Every new weapon would be different in moveset and in stats (Damage, Speed, Reach). Game would motivate to change weapon cause the new weapons would be always better in some stats.
More abilities and new Infusions!
End of the first mission and fully ready second mission. Also a return of old story levels
I working on this mostly as solodev with sometimes taking help with the music, so the next update could not include every thing in that list, However i would launch it in the next 7 days, so there would be always incentive to launch a GwenBlade again^^~
Huge Roguelite and Story update!
Discord server
Our cozy and welcoming corner for a community, when we discuss GwenBlade^^ link: https://discord.gg/pxR5bne9
Story and lore
The previous story line was scraped out and a new one was made. Right now there is a first prologue and the first mission without an ending. I have a lot of plans and would add and ending and other cutscenes to deliver more information about the awesome world of GwenBlade.
Mechanics
Abilities
Fully remade. Now abilities don't have a cooldown and manacost, instead each one has it's own unique bar and refill by inflicting damage and executing an enemy. Abilities are now having their own infusions for example: Drill has a Needles, so every new tick of damage is higher. of Eye of the Storm has a Lightning, so every time it hits there is lightning jumping between enemies. Also, they have their own basic damage. Instead of taking RMB, Q, E or R inputs they laying on 1 2 3 4 buttons. You can choose where to put new skill when equipping it.
In future there would be an option to change abilities mapping at any given moment in the game, and also adding more information about every ability, and more abilities variety.
Execution and motivation bar
It's fully new mechanics. Motivation it's like an armor. so if an enemy has 100% of motivation, then your damage, it's 50% lesser and if 0% then your damage is 50% higher. It's reflected under enemy's healthbar.
Also, if enemy has 5% motivation or less then you can execute him by dealing him 50% of damage plus 1000 damage aoe. It also replenishes your abilities faster and heals you a bit.
Lightning and Breaking
Slowing and Healing as infusions now deleted cause they were to cheesy.
Lightning is jumping throw enemies and dealing damage.
Breaking decreases enemy's motivation
More Infusions in future
New top-down camera
Now in top-down mode (which is applied to specific levels) you can rotate camera in 2 axes, and levels were adapted by deleting background Building (camera used to clip in them)
Now there is now Sidescroller camera, but the new top down camera could use in this perspective too.
Block and parry system
Now it's on Q-input. By holding Q you're blocking incoming damage and using your motivation for that. But if you time it right (0.2 seconds before taking damage) then Jane would make powerful explosion by parrying incoming attacks!
Also try pressing Q with projectiles near you - it would launch back at enemy^^~
NoteShootingMechanic
Now by pressing RMB - you shoot a note. Notes are dropping upon death of every enemy.
Visuals
Overall, there were a couple changes in rendering setting and shaders to make more slick and catchy look of aquaric comic.
Abilities, Skills and Keys!^^
Mechanic Changes
Now Key has a use in locked doors! Every third encounter there would be a locked door with double reward and without an encounter, but you need get a key before it.
Several abilities: Blink, Slide and TonalFall were remade into skills that will not disappear after your death! Blink even can be used with every weapon, but no longer does damage at the finish.
There is also a 3 new unique abilities that you can find in Roguelite!
DreamCut for Sword
Eye of the Storm and Fiend's storm for Guitar
Also a description to every move added so you would know for sure how to use them^^
Now exploring of the levels are rewarding! You can find almost in every level a boost to your max Health, Energy or Attack. Here are three examples:
Others are up to you to find!
Balance Changes
Abilities now randomize their properties like infusions, farther you go - harder they would be. For example now you could raise a Damage of ability 3x times in a late game. So hope for these abilities!
Infusions were nerfed in terms of levels and their raw damages, mostly Doom.
Added a scaling for enemy damage, cause in previous patches it was to easy to play without taking HP max boost.
That's it for now! I hope you excited for this Update! And the next would not take long and i be sure to deliver it within 10 days^^
see ya!
Endless Rogulite Update! Working on Unreal Engine 5^^
I'm so happy by delivering this update! I hope you would be too, and have some tense and thoughtful fights in DreamLike Roguelite!
SHOP As you can see there is a Shop as a room between Rogulite arenas, here you can exchange your Happiness to make you stronger but all powerups are for the current run. So choose wisely how to spend your goodies^^
This paw signals you that after this Door there would be shop!
Now there is more Rewards in Roguelite and more possibilities for deck building!
Suffering and Happiness system was changed. After dying you get a 25 suffering for every 100 happiness that you have, to make the balancing act of them more controllable we added them as rewards after completing an encounter.
Also there is Key that now only heals you a 10% of your health and they would stay after you died in the run. But sadly there is no use for them untill the next update.
INFUSIONS
There is 5 Infusiable moves:
Ability
Dash
Jump
Kill
Attack
Upon using any of this moves or killing enemy there would spawning hitbox that would inflict certain status. Or in the case of ability - there would be not any additional hitboxes and statuses would inflict upon hitting the enemy
There is five statuses that you could inflict
Heal - Pink (Would heal you in certain Amount)
Freeze - White Green (would slow all enemy's moves)
Fire - Red (Would burn enemy)
Doom - Orange (Would spawn explosion that makes aoe Damage)
Needle - Ultramarine (Every new attack with a needle would make more Damage)
If you already have an infusion on certain move, then their levels would be summarized. Either you like to upgrade only one move or to inflict as many as possible - is up to you!
They all makes gameplay and decision making more thoughtful and enjoyable! To do that you every run is different - there is one free Infusion at the Hub. Here is how it's looking like
Besides some bugfixes and minor balance changes there is also big leap in technic side - game is now on Unreal Engine 5! The reason to change the engine version was to implement destructible decorations and to have less restrictions in making animations for the game.
It was a hard month for me and i'm really sorry to not delivering any story content with that update. I felt that gameplay is still a bit hollow so in the middle of making story content i turn around to include Infusions and Shop. Next Update would at least include a key usability and maybe it would just small update.
That everything for now on, keep you safe and let me know if it something bothering you in this game!
New Boss and Key Mechanic in next Update!
There is struggle at this with the update cause of bad management and planning. I just was overwhelmed by tasks in many different fields of work but recently i got programmer in a team! It's not a full time thing for him, but he made more space to breath for me, which is great. So i was more concentrated in visual stuff like models and animations, and here he is - Hollowness! New boss in the next update! Lock and Key which would be a new Reward in a Rogulite.
So promising i guess^^~
Music System update!
Arc Willow team get help of composer Limenya and in our partnership we add a new original soundtrack to the game! We look forward to work in the future.
Right now there is 3 new tracks for different GameStates: Research Fight BossFight
We make sure to make every state distinguishable, and suitable to situations in the game. Now visuals and Music in the game compliments each other in a unique way!
To make your roguelite experience more seamless we reworked our music system in the game, so now loading will not interrupt the score,
There is a balance changes as well - now basic attacks do more damage to shields, and shields recharging is not depending on max HP of enemies and take much more time.
Fixed the bug causing to have more stamina than the max amount after killing an enemy
Mini-boss Sorrow, Envy, Anxiety and Shame get nerfed due to having too much HP, and arena a "no fun zone"
Background of rewards on Doors now darker to make it more distinguishable.
Heal reward is now green so it would be easier to differentiate from max HP boost that look like Red Heart.
And most importantly - there is a credits available in a menu!
Now - what's next
I am working hard on story update and most of the characters and location now is done! Now it's about to finishing it and working on the code side.
Here are some Test renders, in a update, it would look better
That's all for today, i hope you would like Limenya's work and excited for a next Update!
Feedback Update And the next for GwenBlade!
Hello DreamWalkers! After Massive Nexus Update there was a small update everyday, but they all were fully committed to fix issues balance breaking mechanics.
In future in the middle of the next week would be a Story Update! The main feature, it's a real world story and character interactions that will crucially influence your RogueLite runs!
Here is Jane's room, a place of calmness and safety.
Main story would feature Jane's music band before the Concert that can turn their lives around to become professional musicians. But this way it's nerve wracking experience, and only Jane's DreamWalking experience and friend's hand can help.
Also Update would feature the rainy city as a next biome!
Other mechanics that were implemented, would be improved further, like skills, abilities, shop and more!
Hope you excited^^~
A 30% off Special Discount ends in 20 hours!!!
Take your chance and buy GwenBlade for 4.20 $ or even less!
Right now there is a fresh Massive Nexus Update with balance patches on top of it and Story update on start of the next Week!!!ːsteamhappyː
Massive Nexus Update!
Nexus is a hub location that contains new NPC GwenBlade and previous campaign levels. They will be modified in later updates, now idea to make them like dungeons where you can find artifacts to make your life easier.
GwenBlade is a NPC that would be able to help you by taking your suffering to make you stronger! Now new moves and electro guitar is purchasable through the menu, and anything that you have purchased will remain forever, even after your death, so it's RogueLite element
Every move and weapon has unique animated footage as preview so you would for sure what you buying!
Now you can purchase
Electroguitar - unique weapon that has fast and large attacks by just playing riffs! But in comparison with the sword, not so mobile.
Treble Charging - two unique attacks for Treble Sword that available throw charging the Left Mouse Button on ground and air
Tornado - Summon a tornado that deals some damage and stunning the foes. To that you need to press jump right after any attack of Treble Sword
Faster Treble attacks - makes your attacks with treble sword faster
Faster Dodges - makes your dodges more frequent to make
Sharp Dash - Dodge after an attack of the treble sword to slash enemies in fast pace
3 New arenas were added in roguelike pool!
The Game was rebalanced to make the progression through roguelike would be a softer experience. First arenas has not 3 waves, but continuously growing from 1 to 3. To be more clear encounter 8 is would as a hard as first in previous updates. Now also with the normal waves there is also waves that contains only one kind of enemy to make players understand each enemy better.
Encounters now updated from 12 to 24.
HP boost for enemies with every encounter now lesser - from 25% to 5% for every encounter. So the same enemy on 10-th encounter would have 150% max HP instead of 350%.
All abilities was rebalanced around this HP change and also has a bigger cool down, cause with the previous CDs most players would just take either damage boost of charges, cause Cool down was really good in begin.
I hope you would be more clean experience in RogueLite overall, but also would glad to see any criticism and argument that you have.
Next updates would be smaller, more frequent, and would be about adding shops between encounters, new skills and new abilities with old abilities redesign.
After a week there would be a story update to make your runs in the game more meaningful and will jump into Jane Walker's (protagonist) life!
