A new update, in preparation for Tuesday's Early Access end. This time, we bring a much needed review of how heads work, some changes to COPGORE and balance improvements.
HEADS REVIEW
For some time, we had planned on consolidating how heads work. The idea was for all of them to share a common basic mechanic, apart from whatever made each unique. That basic mechanic is the ability to mark enemies as targets, and have the camera automatically track them.
Now, finally, this vision has come to fruition and we can proudly say that the ability to lock targets is in the game. By tapping on camera action (Tab, Middle Mouse Button or Right Analog Stick Button, in most cases) you can re-centre the camera. If an enemy is nearby, it will be selected as target. Once a target is selected, the camera will follow them while they remain close enough. To switch targets, move the camera left or right. Tapping camera action again will deselect the target, returning you to the normal camera.
Some heads, like B-DSS Head or COPS Head, had a special attack triggered by tapping camera action. Now, that special action will be triggered by holding down camera action, instead.
Although simple in appeareance, this change has required extensive modifications on how heads are implemented and configured. So we've decided to use this opportunity to further improve the heads that most needed it.
In particular, we have modified extensively the Rocket Head. Its missile platform ability is now enabled by default, so you can fire missiles from the get go. That used to be the third update, so it has been replaced by a cool new one: the ability to target the same enemy with more than one missile, plus two extra missiles. The destruction power of this piece of equipment has increased considerably.
We have also changed how the Mecha Head special ability works, providing a wider window in which its missile deflection power is active. It should be easier to use, but still require precission.
Other changes and improvements won't be as noticeable, but will result in more consistent behaviour.
And, as a plus, because we've spent so much time checking missiles, we have decided to change one small aspect of their behaviour. Now, if a deflected missile cannot find a target, instead of continuing in a straight line, it will fly randomly until it collides with something or it runs out of fuel. We hope you like this piece of visual flair.
COPGORE
The fight against COPGORE had two problems which made it last much longer than initially expected:
If the COPS bots were destroyed fast enough, COPGORE could be trapped in a loop in which it did almost nothing besides dropping more bots to replace the defeated ones.
The Big Missile collided with the space lift tether quite often, depending on how people preferred to face it.
We have made some changes to the probabilities of each COPGORE attack, so that it is less focused on dropping new enemies unto you. Also, it will fire the Big Missile a little bit more often than it used to.
And to fix the second issue, the Big Missile will try to avoid the tether cable if possible. It can still be tricked into hitting the pillar, but it has to be a much more concious choice by the player.
BALANCE
There were a couple of enemies which were a little too hard to fight against. These were the DOGBOTS, missile turrets and Big Grunts with chainsaws.
DOGBTOS dash legs now tend to evade a little less, so it is easier to trick them into evading and move in for the kill. Their knife attack is also easier to evade. It used to do damage too late into the animation, when players had already finished their evasion movement. Now they move a little slower and do not track the player so much, so in general that attack is easier to avoid. But it is still quite dangerous, if you let more than one enemy surround you.
Missile Turrets will now fire less missiles (4, instead of 6) in the city and the space lift. Returning their own fire should be somewhat easier, but still risky.
And, finally, the chainsaw slash attack. It was a little too fast, and did a lot of damage. Standing close to a Big Grunt with such a weapon was a sure way to lose a couple of hearts. That was not the original intention, so we've made the attack considerably slower. Now you'll have time to cancel fast attacks before you're hit. But should you get too greedy, be warned: this attack now does more damage. It was required to even things out. You won't be destroyed in one hit, but you should be careful if you're low on hearts.
BUGFIXING
And, as usual, a couple of fixes got in the mix, too:
Smoother COPS mortar target movement.
Reduced volume of Green Chasm rooms when spawning enemies.
UPDATE #47: HOTFIX FOR INPUT SETTINGS, RESETTING SETTINGS
Hi.
With yesterday's update a bug crept into the input system. We didn't notice because it was settings dependant, and our settings were, unfortunately, correctly set.
A fix has been uploaded for the issue and should be live now. In the changelog, present in the installation directory, it should be listed as version 0.9.5.
However, some settings will still lack some of the new configurations, making menu navigation harder than it should be. We recommend removing the game's settings file for the controllers you're using. They are located in:
The files to delete are:
input[NameOfController].brw
input[NameOfController].brw.bak
You might also want to delete these files if you still have issues:
inputSettings.brw
inputSettings.brw.bak
Afterwards, start the game again and configure the input from the settings menu.
Depending on the language, Users might be Usuarios or something else.
[useraccount] should be the name of the Windows account you're currently using.
AppData is a hidden directory. You might have to enable system or hidden folders to see it. Other option is to simple append \AppData in the folder address bar.
[username] should be replaced with your Linux user name.
MacOS X
The latest version is still not available for MacOS X, but once it is the same changes will apply.
/Users/[UserName]/Library/Application Support/HeartnSlash/Settings
or
/Users/[UserName]/Library/Application Support/aheartfulofgames/HeartnSlash/Settings
UPDATE #46: RELEASE DATE AND PRICE, LEVEL 3 CHANGES AND OTHERS
Hello, all.
The date at which Heart&Slash will be released is close now! We have come a long way since we started the Early Access, and lots of things have improved. We hope you enjoyed the journey.
Heart&Slash will come out of Early Access and be officially released on PC on 9 August 2016.
The moment the game is released the price will drop to $15. As we have explained in the Early Access info, the current price was set to remain fair to our Kickstarter Beta backers, but it was never intended as the final price. If you want to play the game, but not RIGHT NOW, you can wait a little more than a week and get it cheaper.
Together with the game we will release the Soundtrack, composed by Michael Chait, for $10, and a Heart&Slash + OST bundle for $20.
All of these will have a one week discount of 10% starting the day of release.
LEVEL 3 CHANGES
After asking for feedback and watching player's reactions to the previous version of the third level, it was clear that it is less than ideal. We've dedicated some time to come up with new ideas and ways to mix them with the current system's, without breaking anything.
After much thought, lots of work and even more testing and fixing, we have a new version ready. It is less claustrophobic now, which should help with combat, and has some more variety. We hope you like it!
Currently, it has only received internal testing, so there might be some issues to uncover. Please, help us find them! And if you have feedback on the new version, please let us know.
Other changes
As always, we've used the time to also fix some bugs and balance equipment and enemies. Some more changes are coming before release date, so stay tuned.
Heart&Slash 0.9.4
Enemy spawning is a little bit more random, allowing less difficult combinations to spawn a little more.
Dogbot dash is done less frequently. Reduced knife attack tracking.
City spawners adjustments.
Heart&Slash 0.9.3
Minor improvements to tutorial.
One per Cent Body upgrades now cost 6 crates each. instead of 3. Total upgrade cost is now 18.
One per Cent Arms only have two upgrades, instead of 3, and their cost is 3 crates, instead of 2.
Combo Sword can spawn in the second level.
Combo Sword upgrade 4 costs 2 crates, instead of 1.
Combo sword icon reflects combo ratio, instead of combo time.
Skip is only activated by actual button and key presses.
Poison Dagger can be equipped as main weapon.
Poison Dagger damage boost upgrade effect and cost reduced.
Poison Dagger backstab boost cost reduced.
Fixed memory leak.
Heart&Slash 0.9.2
Fixed bug in which slash console in quest 3 would disappear.
Freeze modifiers no longer stack.
Players should no longer get stuck on a fall. A double jump is forced if too long on a fall without moving.
Fixes Axes hard attack cancelling into jumps.
Fixes misplaced particle in Slash attack.
Fixes hard lock bug with Missile Launcher.
Fixes typo in grenade weapon description.
Fixes water splahes over concrete in Herbie's room.
Fixes many holes in the city.
This changes are available right now for Windows and Linux builds. We'll update the MacOS version in the next couple of days.
UPDATE #45: CAMERA FIXES AND BALANCING
Hi all,
today we are bringing the first significant patch that resulted from us releasing to consoles.
As you might have noticed, console release brought in our first press reviews. While we are happy with the overall reception (we are a very small game and accept our limitations) there were a couple points that almost every reviewer raised, even those who really liked the game.
Moreover, now we have a larger playerbase to receive feedback from, and some of the players' complaints overlap with those of the reviewers.
Thus, we've been rushing through some sorely needed fixes to those issues, in the hope of bringing up a new patch that addresses some of them.
CAMERA
Perhaps the biggest, most commonly raised issue, was the camera. Here there's little we can say except that we really thought it wasn't as bothersome as it turns out it was. We grew used to the way it worked and didn't see it clearly or objectively. It's taken us giving extra visibility to the game to realize what we had done.
Namely, we tried to be too clever. Cameras in third person action games are tricky, specially at the speed Heart&Slash moves. We though we had a couple of interesting behaviors that improved the camera, but in the end those attempts at automatic compensation took too much control away from the player.
Now, the camera is simpler, and easier to use.
Also, we added the ability for the camera to allow certain smallish objects to obscure the player, thus keeping the camera much more stable overall in combat, without losing much awareness, we think.
PROGRESS BREAKERS
We also discovered, thanks to the recent console launch, that we still had a couple of critical bugs that would glitch the game to the extent of losing the whole run. We have addressed the most prevalent of these (one related to the Thunder Hammer and another related to the Clockwork Lens).
We've also made it less likely for you to fall through the second level world, and made it so the game respawns you if you do indeed fall through.
THIRD LEVEL IMPROVEMENTS
We've also added a couple minor surprises to the third level, making it harder and less predictable. Look carefully at the elite enemies, for they are not the same.
BUGFIXES
Finally, we have fixed as many issues as we could during this time. The full changelog since the update last week is:
- Added options to disable camera shake.
- Vertical camera movement is more directly linked to camera sensitivity.
- Reduced default camera speed.
- Very fast taps of Camera Action now properly centre the camera.
- Camera does no longer close up when a small or transparent element is between it and the player.
- Added random weakness/resistance for elite soldiers in the third level. Changed their graphical representation to indicate that.
- Made it so that if you fall through the world in the second level you respawn.
- Made it more unlikely to fall out of the world in the second level. Fixed subway collisions.
- Fixed Clockwork Lens conflicting with level 3 camera.
- Fixed Morningstar recycling.
- Fixed weapon recycling while in alternate weapon selection mode.
- When first entering the weapon room, the doctor dialog doesn't dissapear until the player hits the computer.
- Fixes animations sliding when switching weapons.
- Changed how hearts recovered from recycling are displayed when picking up a weapon.
- Camera should not go through the floor on Franky’s intro.
TESTING
Finally, one request to all of you. One of the reasons we released with so many technical issues on consoles was lack of testing. Being a two/person studio, we are really struggling with having enough QA, and mistakes slip through unnoticed too often.
Please, test this patch and let us know if everything is working correctly. Don't be afraid to report a bug if you see something that looks like one...
We think the patch is solid, but it's a big one and something not trivial might have broken in some of the code changes. Also, we are very interested to hear what you think of the new camera behavior.
We really hope you enjoy the changes.
Juan
UPDATE #44: DIFFICULTY AND BUGFIXING
Hello, all.
We have recently released the game on other platforms. This is great for us, but also good for you. New issues have been brought to our attention, which will help us improve the game.
For starters, we bring a series of adjustments and fixes for the game. A difficulty balancing for the first section of the game and the City is the most noticeable, but there are other improvements under the hood.
Difficulty balancing
Apparently, the first section of the factory is a little too hard for new players, creating a barrier which stops people from discovering what's beyond. Because of this, we have made some changes in there:
There are less spawn points for enemies in its rooms. At most, 5 enemies at once, and only in one or two specific versions of big rooms.
Increased difficulty rating of biggrunt's chainsaw, flybot's laser and smallbot's flamethrower, missile launcher and shield. They won't spawn until a few rooms into the level.
These changes are specific to that first section. General changes to the game are:
COPS units are now weak to physical attacks, instead of resitant to every kind.
Smallbot's kick attack is now 33% slower in all variations, except on the Elite troops.
Flybot's missile launchers only fire three missiles now.
Recycling
Another aspect of the game many players seem to miss is the possibility to recover hearts by recycling equipment. This is one of the core mechanics players need to take into account, when playing, because Heart is, in practice, a walking first aid kit.
To help with this, for the time being we have added an explanatory message when the recycling option is selected on the upgrade menu. We plan to add a quest to teach players about this, but it will take a little longer.
Bugfixing
And, regarding bugs, we have some important fixes coming, too:
Improved framerate when lots of particles are present in the scene.
Thunder Hammer electric explosion attack would lock character in place if used after changing scene.
FPS counter no longer visible.
Moved Pickup menu explanations out of the monitor overscan zone.
Weapons should not become invisible because of an in-attack switch.
Fix city lights when reached in a second consecutive run.
If you think there are other things we should fix, let us know in the forums.
Enjoy the game!
ANNONCEMENT: REGARDING THE PC RELEASE DATE
As many have already noticed, Heart&Slash has been recently released on consoles worlwide. Obviously, that triggers some questions regarding PC and why it is still not out of Early Access. We'll try to answer some of those doubts with this post.
Is the console version more polished than the Steam Early Access?
The version released on consoles is pretty much the same as the one in Early Access. There are some platform specific changes, but the overall game remains the same.
We are releasing a patch on consoles which fixes some bugs discovered by our new players, and these changes shall be part of our next PC update.
When will the PC version of the game be released?
We are aiming for a late August/early September release date. There are still details to decide, and as always, things might not work as expected. We'll try to meet that date as best as we can.
Why was the game not released on PC at the same time as consoles?
There are several reasons. The main one is that the Steam Summer Sale was planned to start one day before our release date. We didn't think it would be a good idea to release the game in the middle of the sale, so we looked into delaying that date.
There are also some secondary reasons. Although we consider the game to be completed, it is still missing some of the content we announced on our Kickstarer, including the infinite dungeon mode. We'd rather have that as part of our PC release, along with the custom tailored version of the game for $100+ backers.
Will that content be PC exclusive?
Once we finally release the game on PC, we'll release a patch for the console versions, adding all improvements done to the game and the new game mode. However, things like custom tailored builds will not be available on consoles, simply because backers get access to the PC version, not the consoles.
Will Heart&Slash be released in Steam only?
Currently, Heart&Slash can be bought from other stores, but only to get Steam keys. We're trying to have Heart&Slash available in other PC stores, but we cannot announce anything now and, probably, not here.
If you have any other questions, please ask us in the forums, to the game's twitter account (@heartnslash), on TIGSource (https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=34470) or to our info mail address (info[at]aheartfulofgames{dot}com).
UPDATE #43: CITY & SEWERS IMPROVEMENTS
Hi!
Today we are bringing an important update to Heart&Slash.
For a long time, the layout of the city & sewers level has not been completely to our liking. The city part felt too long, boss placement was too arbitrary and there was not much sense of progression in the level.
We were always thinking of ways to fix these issues. However, we were also afraid of implementing any of those fixes while we were making other considerable modifications in the rest of the game. Things could break, and the cause might not be evident if we had too many moving parts in the game code and configuration.
But the game is a lot more stable now and we are focusing on bugfixing, so we had the opportunity to try different things out.
After a week of tests, modifications, crashes and head scratching, plus a couple of weeks of internal testing, we are confident that the new version is a lot better.
So, what have we changed?
For starters, the general layout is now closer to our original idea. The city and sewers are built in smaller sections of under and overworld. Once each section is completed, it can connect to the next set, which can be, once again, under or overworld.
What this means is that, in order to progress through the level, you are more likely to have to go into the sewers and back into the city from time to time. And we have a little more control over which rooms are generated as you progress.
The second improvement is that the chances of getting to fight either HERBIE or COPGORE are pretty much the same. In fact, it is quite common for both to spawn in the same level. Previously, COPGORE rarely spawned, because of how it's connections were configured. With the new sections approach, their rooms work exactly as FRANK-Y and B-DSS's in the factory level.
Another important change is that there are now a lot less big city "rooms", so navigating through it is less repetitive. We have also made a better selection of which rooms appear in each section.
The other big change is that the stat upgrade pickups that could only be found in the city are pretty much gone. We have left a couple floating around, but only those most significative.
The number of crates spawning in the city and sewers has been reduced, too. You can still find lots of new equipment, but not as much as in the previous builds. You will have enough to recover hearts and optimize your build, but not as much as to always get exactly what you want.
We think this changes make the city level much better, but we'll still look for ways to improve things.
Let us know your opinion on this update!
P.S.: Of course, there are some bug fixes in. The most important is that the repeater gun has been fixed and does no longer auto-fire when reloaded.
We are also working on having Heart&Slash available in more languages and regions, but we cannot say anything else for the time being.
UPDATE #42: PHYSICS, BALANCING
Hi.
We have a good list of updates for today. We delayed this update in an attempt to include a couple of extra improvements, but they will take a bit more than planned. But they'll be ready for the next update.
Regarding this one, we have a fix for excessive friction against walls, a few text fixes, upgrade balancing and input improvements.
Friction
Trying to fix another issue, some time ago we introduced a different one, which made walls feel too sticky. Going through doors and navigating areas with obstacles was harder because of that. Friction has now been reduced to a sensible value, which means that getting closer to walls should no longer be problematic.
Input improvements
Xbox One gamepads were not properly configured out of the box. The View button is now configured to work as an Xbox 360 gamepad Back button. That means that the menu should be accessible without needing to reconfigure the input.
This, however, means that people who have already configured their Xbox One gamepads in the game will need to either reset it to the default values or reconfigure it.
Upgrade costs
Some of the more powerful weapons were too easy to fully upgrade. That includes daggers, special swords and heavy weapons. Some very good upgrades were very cheap, too. So we have increased the costs of all or some upgrades in Power Ax, Combo Slicer, Ice Sword, Cunning Dagger, Poison Dagger, Vorpal Dagger, Vorpal Sword, Electric Hammer, Morningstar, Rocket Hammer, Electric Shield, Riot Shield, Knuckes and O&S.
Upgrading them is still feasible, but fully upgrading two or more of them would now be a considerable investment.
Text improvements
We have corrected some translations and fixed some missing character problems in Spanish and French. Spanish has also been slightly improved, with some dialogues being corrected or clarified.
Also, we have corrected how line wrapping is applied to Asian languages. This one affects mostly to Chinese players, who would find that some lines would start with invalid characters under very specific circumstances.
Screenshots
The game has the ability to capture screenshots. However, the screenshots were stored inside the game installation directory. It has now been changed, so they are stored in relevant OS specific directories. Pictures in Windows, ~/aheartfulofgames in Linux and the personal folder in MacOS.
We have also changed how screenshots are captured in MacOS. Instead of F12, you should use F5 now.
If you play from Steam, those keys should be overriden by Steam, so screenshots would be stored in your Steam configured directory.
UPDATE #41: EVEN LESS MEMORY, BETTER CAMERA, MORE CONTROLLERS
Hello again!
Today we bring even more improvements: better memory efficiency (again), fixes to gamepad configurations and a much needed fix to how the combat camera behaved. Let's check them one by one.
MEMORY IMPROVEMENTS
We've discovered another problem with how we managed memory. This one comes from the old prototype code and, although we knew there was a potential issue there, we didn't realize how bad it was until we made some calculations on how much it was costing us. Turns out, in 64bit systems we were wasting from 500MB up to more than 1GB. In 32bit systems the improvements are a little less extreme, saving from 250MB to 700MB or so.
We've modified how that part of the game is managed and, as a result, we think the game might run in systems with as little as 2GB of RAM. We'll contact players who were having issues with such setups, so they can test the game now.
Together with the improvements brought from the previous update, we've reduced our memory budget in more than 1.5GB. That's hard to top.
On Linux 64bits, for example, the game used 1.5GB and about 2.5GB in Update #40 when loading the Factory and Sewers, respectively. Loading a similar level now, those numbers are at 700MB and 1.3GB. We've been unable to surpass 1.5GB in our test runs with this build.
On Windows 64bit, the gains are more noticeable, because the base usage is higher all around. From 1.7GB and 2.6GB, approximately, we've gone down to 1GB and 1.5GB.
So, if you had problems because we ran out of memory, please try the latest build. It might just work now.
CAMERA
We were aware that the combat camera had issues. Our attempts to make it predict the right direction to look at, taking into account movement, walls and nearby enemies, worked from a technical perspective, but failed gameplay-wise. It moved in what would seem the wrong direction when there were enemies close and made running away from them harder than it should.
So, after considering our options, we have decided to simply drop the predictive part of the camera. The combat camera is now a lot more stable and will not move on its own, except to slowly position itself behind the player after it moved for a while.
We feel gameplay is much smoother now and combat involves more enemy reading and less camera fighting.
Let us know how you think it works now.
Also, because of this change, the special cameras we used throughout the third level are now redundant. Those customized cameras were created to avoid the combat camera issues in that level, where they were particularly problematic.
Since those cameras were causing some hard to locate bugs and their reason to be was no longer valid, we've simply removed them. Except for a couple of special moments, the third level is managed with the default cameras, which should make things a lot easier.
GAMEPADS
After a long time, we have managed to acquire a couple of problematic gamepads, which we've used to, we hope, once and for all, resolve the issues we had with gamepads unknown to our default configurations.
We have now created a default configuration for unknown gamepdas, which should map the first 4 axis and 8 buttons in a way that should let you, at the very least, navigate the menus. In many cases, going into the configuration should not even be needed.
The other big issue was that, even if you managed to reach the controller configuration screen, configuring the axes did not work. We've reviewed the code used for that and fixed a couple of issues with axis mapping. Now, if the game detects the gamepad, it should be possible to configure it as you like.
TRANSLATIONS
Finally, in this release we have pretty much all languages translated. We might add one or two extra languages in the future, but the 7 languages we had promised to support are in: English, Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Italian and Russian. That's a huge percentage of the world's population, so we hope most of you, players, should be able to play Heart&Slash in your mother tongue.
We would like to thank all who have helped us with this huge undertaking. Friends, players and professional translators alike.
BUGFIXING
And, as usual, a barrage of bugs have been fixed. Let's see them:
Black planes visible in 3x3 4 doors factory rooms
Translators added to credits
SpaceLift pause menu progress meter
Some weapon issues
Check that the five security stations spawn
Gopgore is bugged
Thunder Hammer weird issues
Incorrect marble room configuration
Remove wings from QUASSY's satellites
Last boss has issues
Saved data backup in Win, Linux, MacOS
Main menu is not painted sometimes
Slash can be defeated in tutorial before ROBOLUTION
[TiZ] White water (fixed on PS4, but could never reproduce on PC)
Fix tutorial loop - After beating the tutorial, go to Factory right away
UPDATE #40: GIVE ME BACK THAT MEMORY
Ok guys, so, along with the usual small bugfixes adn QoL improvements, for this update we bring a fix a nasty memory leak issue we were having that was increasing memory requirements of the game for over 1GB.
This was found during the porting process to consoles, that are more fickle than PCs and thus allow us to see problems much more clearly. It's the perfect example on how the process of porting is helping improve the PC version till the final launch!!!!
This means the game should be now much more stable in systems that just meet our recommended specs. The game caps at about 2.6GB of RAM at the highest we have seen, so 3 free GB should be more than enough to avoid fatal issues now (before the fix, we could go up to 3.6 and maybe even touch 4GB in rare occasions).
Other than that, we bring several bugfixes. Below I list most, but not all of the fixes:
[Tutorial] Lowest set of stairs has collision issues bug
z-fighting in sewers entrance bug
Herbie intro audio plays with a few seconds' delay bug
Remove platform central pillars in Marble rooms task
BDSS much, much harder to stun-lock
Blockers in Elevator collide with player blockers bug
Steel slicer air hard down attack stood still over Biggrunt's shield bug
Water cannon turret attack is wrong bug
Fire Blades strong attack cycling animations are misconfigured bug
Turrets don't sound when they hit the ground bug
Funny turret placement in 8-Square_Room enhancement
Null ref on water particles bug
Equipment can spawn twice (or thrice) in a run enhancement
