I don't usually share upcoming updates in detail as I've fallen into the trap of failing to deliver on time before ːsteamfacepalmː, but I'm really close to the finish line with this one.
I'm planning to release a series of graphical facelift features and this is how the first step looks like:
Jokes aside IMHO in-game the new tile system looks better and the dungeons feel a bit more claustrophobic.
I'm almost done with all the tile-sets so I can ship it soon with more goodies ;)
Hope you all like it ːsteamhappyː
Let me know what you think!
I Am Overburdened, 1.2.1. journal entry
Hi there!
My apologies for being dormant for so long. I'll explain what happened, but I want to jump right into the details of the latest update I've just released. I'm leaving the boring rambling to the end ːsteammockingː !
Update
Version 1.2.1. has a plethora of changes, but mostly just fixes and tiny additions. It is not THE huge content update I've been teasing, but has a bunch of nice things I hope many will appreciate.
The game has been localized to German ( ...) and Spanish ( ...). With this second set of official translations the game now supports 7 languages :O ! Hopefully this way even more players will be able to enjoy the wacky descriptions and dialogues ːsteamhappyː I would love to add even more in the future, but I can't make promises yet as these take time and money. Will try my best.
Special thanks to the translators for their work:
Nico Weiß (canemus): German, Juan Buleo (PsychoKurt): Spanish
Mouse and UI
When I Am Overburdened launched it lacked proper mouse support. I patched-in this feature shortly after and I tried upgrading it ever since, but there are still a few ideas left worth pursuing.
Book graphics and controls
The menu book graphics were improved with a simple trick and all the screens received separate "Back" and "Close" buttons. This way it is way easier to navigate them (some menu "stacks" were quite deep) + now it is possible to move around with only the left mouse button easily.
In-game UI
There is a new book icon under the health-bar for opening the menus. Again this allows left mouse button only navigation during play.
Inn renovation
The same way the user interface needed some changes to better support controlling the game with mouse only, the inn had to be updated a bit to accommodate. I added a journal next to the innkeeper which can be used to access the main menu.
Stash confusion
Many players claimed that they did not notice the "Stash" in the inn and had no idea about collecting starting items. Mea culpa, this was a big design error on my end. Now when it has items in it there is a smoke effect triggered when entering the inn similar to the ones accompanying other unlocks and play variants. Hope this helps in discovering the unlocked starter items.
Bug-fixes and tweaks
Besides adding new languages a lot of localization fixes found their way into the game. Layouts of the menus were changed a little to make translated content better fit them. I also increased the item pickups notification time for longer fluff texts as translators suggested.
A small balance change was applied too. The luck penalty on nightmare difficulty has been decreased to 3 from 5. It is not a heavy impact modification, but it does make nightmare an itsy-bitsy less luck based.
Path-finding
I made a mistake in the underlying path-finding system which caused a rare but weird issue when controlling the player with the mouse. Fixed!
That is all for this update, but soon more will follow!
So what's up?
Sadly In the last six months I had to face a lot of difficulties (financial, personal and housing/moving related). Due to this I had to hibernate work on the game ːsteamsadː
Thankfully it looks like everything is settled now. In the upcoming months I'll focus on completing the updates I've been dying to deliver for a long while. I already re-organized my TODO list and plans ːsteamhappyː
Thanks for your patience and understanding.
Have fun in the dungeons!
I Am Overburdened, 1.2.0. saving my soul update
Hello everyone,
I've been away from working on games for months, but thanks to some new opportunities it looks like the time has come for me to return to active development again ;)
Version 1.2.0 is live and the highlight of it is the save-game feature! Besides this one major addition, it is mostly a bug-fix and tweak build.
Save & Exit
Finally the game can be suspended in the dungeon and continued later. Since a full play-through is relatively short plus I Am Overburdened is primarily a rogue-like and save-scumming would undermine this core idea so only one save slot exists. Of course more could be added with slots only having a continue option if there are genuine requests for it, but I think the game works well this way.
This is more like a convenience feature to be able to stop playing at any point you wish and finish the run when you have the time to spare.
The pause menu had to be reorganized a bit, since it was already crammed. As you can see it's cleaner now and the last option saves and closes the game.
Immediate (Save &) Exit
The immediate exit hot-key was remapped from F10 to F9. Sorry about this change, it was a necessity (os/platform reasons), but as a bright side it also supports saving the game. So now if you hit F9 during play and the game could be continued (e.g.: the player is not dead :) ), the state will be saved just like when saving and exiting using the pause menu. This change is already reflected in the input guide.
Pesky bugs
I've been working on the game on and off in short bursts in the last months and alongside with the community I discovered some problems too. I fixed quite a few things so I'm simply going to list them:
Few items and their related skills could cause a crash under super specific circumstances. It's not likely many of you run into these issues, but if your play was interrupted by a crash I'm sorry.
Certain item skills with persisting effects (e.g.: Fear, Cripple) could get stuck or be triggered on freshly summoned/resurrected monsters in rare cases. These were not visible, but could affect how well you did, so my apologies for the occasional unfair (de-)buffs.
The positioning of hallucinations from toxicity effects (e.g.: Toad monsters, poison in potion) were not correctly randomized. These hallucinated monsters were always placed in the upper-left quarter of the map, breaking the illusion. Now this is fixed.
A while ago I added item-slot notifications to item pickups and chests when standing nearby. It did not occur to me though, that with this modification the treasury pickups and chests triggered unnecessary ones too. Oops, fixed!
In balance
With this update balance tweaks found their way into the game too. There were still some complaints regarding this aspect, so I made normal mode a tad bit harder and nightmare difficulty a tiny bit more forgiving. These are not substantial changes, only slightly affecting the pickup and chest spawn rates. Another extra is "near death" detection. Simply put if you end up in a really bad situation at some point, the game tries not to punish you even harder on the next dungeon level :D
These changes are subtle, so they keep the game challenging, but they were introduced to make it more fair at the same time.
Boss confusion
Some people found the boss level corpses confusing. I don't know if the new version will work out better (this is not the first time I change this :S ), but now the number of corpses (below the one serving as the story hint) are tied to the unlock progress of the boss entry in the monster book.
I know some other unlocks still need more and better hints too. I'm going to work on these problems in the near future...
Still alive?
Is the game still supported and under active development? Yes, pretty much. Due to personal and financial reasons I had to put game development on hold for a long while, but I'm back now and I will be working on it in the upcoming months. Before I vanished I teased possible ports, a bigger content update and more official translations for I Am Overburdened. These are not forgotten and progressing well ;) In a few weeks I will reveal more details about my plans.
Until then, have a fun-filled time.
Thanks for reading and take care!
I Am Overburdened, 1.1.8. tiny achievement update
Hi there artifact hunters!
It is time for another tiny update. 1.1.8 is online, featuring mostly fixes and fine-tunings, but lets see in detail what it has to offer!
Changes
Achievement bug fixed
Due to some timing and file-reading mistakes in rare cases some achievements were not unlocked. The boss, monsters and the four artifact unlocking related trophies may have been affected for some players.
Now the problem is solved and I added an extra step to the startup logic of the game so that achievements missed by previous versions will be unlocked automatically (e.g.: if you unlocked all the monsters, but the achievement is missing).
My apologies for each of you who run into this problem.
Item pickup and shop enhancements
Item pickups (especially buying one in the shop) bugged quite a few people, due to not knowing what kind of item one receives. I wanted to leave item collection as a "mystery" and unlocking artifacts being both a reward and a learning process, but I understand the inconvenience of this. To alleviate it a little I added a simple item slot notification when the player moves next to an artifact.
Another hopefully useful addition is the "same item speech" in the shop, which triggered before when you tried to pick up an item you already own, but now it triggers before buying items you have equipped too.
What's next?
Finally the Mac and Linux ports are getting closer to the finish line and the save-game feature is already functional :) ! It will still take a week or two to stabilize and complete them, but they are next and will be out later this month ;)
I'm also working on a bigger update. I may have mentioned it before, but it is still too early to show anything in action, however it will see the light of day by the end of summer.
Thanks everyone for your patience, understanding and for your continued support.
Good luck and have fun in the dungeons!
I Am Overburdened, 1.1.7. first language update
Hello there dungeon crawlers!
It's been a long while since my last I Am Overburdened update and I haven't posted anything online for more than a month now ːsteamsadː . Version 1.1.7 is online now containing some nice additions ːsteamhappyː , so I'll showcase the changes and I'll go into what happened to me.
Changes
The game has been localized to French ( ...), Danish ( ...) and Romanian ( ...)! These are the first bunch of official translations besides English and Hungarian. I'm hoping the game will reach more players with new languages added. Of course I would like to add even more in the near future and I already started talking to translators to make this happen.
Special thanks to the translators for their work:
Nicolas Fourcroy (French), Victor Fisker (Danish), Fazekas Sándor-Imre and Vezsenyi Ákos (Romanian)
Another addition is the "developer" tools for localization and QA. In the latest build of the game three debug screens can be accessed. Of course these were developed for internal use, primarily to test translations, but I thought they could help anyone who would like to localize the game.
So I cleaned them up and added an option to access them in the release builds too. I also created an official guide how these tools can be used and how new languages can be added to the game.
P.S.: I guess using them could be considered cheating ːsteammockingː (spoiler alert!), since you can see all the items and monsters the game has to offer even if you have not unlocked or seen them previously.
What is up?
So yeah, long time no see and this update isn't a huge one neither. What is going on with Magic Item Tech?!
Last month I stopped focusing on my projects and made the decision to find a full-time job. I already have a position secured at a studio. This does not mean goodbye, my contract allows me to keep my company and I'm not abandoning my games. Magic Item Tech and I Am Overburdened will not be forgotten, only they are becoming a secondary commitment.
Besides job hunting, organizing and integrating the translations, I also worked on new features. If you checked my Trello board recently you already know that the "save game" feature is getting close to completion and I'm still planning to release ports and content updates in the future! They will take more time due to working on them on the side, but I will try to make all the ideas I mentioned before a reality ːsteamhappyː .
Thanks everyone for your understanding and patience and for all the support I got from you. Currently I'm not sure when, but sooner or later more updates will follow.
Take care!
I Am Overburdened, 1.1.6. tiny "input" update
Hello there dungeon crawlers!
I know it's been a while since the last update, but this one will be a relatively small one regardless :( . I'll go into why this is the case but lets start with the list of changes and additions first ;) !
Changes
Now the game supports a much wider range of controller devices. With older joysticks and game-pads it tries to emulate the mapping of the Xbox 360 controller automatically. In the "Controls" menu you can re-map your buttons if the game fails to capture a sensible layout. If you had to use x360ce before you probably don't need it anymore :) !
Pressing Left Ctrl + R in the dungeon restarts the run immediately without confirmation now. I forgot about this modification, but many of you requested it multiple times so I finally added this hot-key.
A little balance fix: the skill of the Zombie was tweaked heavily. Their regeneration now only triggers if you can damage them for a given minimum amount (5), so you won't hit a wall going against these monsters regardless of your build having high defense/health/dodge but low damage. I hope this is another step in the right direction for making the game feel challenging, but fair.
Another tiny extra is the InputGuide. It's an official documentation containing all the relevant information about possible control mechanisms, hot-keys and default button mappings. I'll do my best to keep it up-to-date if something changes and I'll provide localized versions too in the future!
So as I mentioned it is not a huge list, but took some time to deliver. The reasons behind this are the larger features I'm working on. I'm currently juggling between several longer-term projects and they take up all my time. These are: organizing and delivering official localizations, more robust tools and guidelines for translators, the "save and continue later" feature, porting the game to other desktop operating systems (Mac & Linux) and I'm also working on a "secret" big update, but that is all I can tell about this as I want it to be a surprise plus I'm super unsure when I will be able to finish and release it.
I'm hiding in my room, working in silence, but development on I Am Overburdened is still going strong :) !
You can check the Trello board or follow me on Twitter for more frequent updates.
Thanks for your understanding and patience.
Good luck and have fun!
I Am Overburdened, not so "elite" hotfix.
Hello everyone.
Sadly I made a mistake in the code of the latest "elite" update ːsteamfacepalmː so I had to upload a new build today. A pesky bug crashed the game on startup if you completed the game prior to the update once (and only once). I guess still many people could run into this wondering why the game is not starting. The problem was with the automatic unlocking logic of the skull candle.
Please accept my apology if you wanted to try the new update, but the game did not launch ːsteamsadː . In 1.1.5 this problem is fixed now and the game should work properly.
Looks like I'm struggling with keeping the updates bug-free like Joey is struggling with the loot on the animated box art ːsteamhappyː . Sorry ːsteamfacepalmː ! I'm going back to making new features and content now and will try my best to don't make new issues while doing so.
Thanks for your understanding and patience!
I Am Overburdened, 1.1.4. "elite" update.
I've just released another update for I Am Overburdened.
It is now at 1.1.4. and received quite a few enhancements since the first major update ;) .
Latest additions
Elite variant
There is a new "decoration" in the inn. If you complete the game twice on normal or on nightmare difficulty you unlock the skull candle. Once lit, there will be one tougher "elite" monster on each dungeon level. If you completed it before the candle will be unlocked automatically.
I don't consider this a new difficulty as it is a variant working on both levels, but if someone finds nightmare too easy :P or too painful :( with normal not being a challenge any longer it can spice them up ;) .
Ease-of-use
The most requested UI enhancement was inventory screen access through the in-game inventory bar. Plenty other UI and mouse control enhancement found their way into the game (e.g.: the handling of speech bubble fade-out effects are not instantaneous when using the mouse).
Effects beef-up
Both the battle effects and the level entry (player spawn) got a little more love. The later one especially got many complaints. Hopefully from now on the player will be instantly recognizable when reaching a new dungeon level.
Fixes & fine-tuning
There were some annoying problems which were fixed with this build. Rendering and input handling works correctly when the application is not in focus and there was a more serious item skill problem too (dodge wasn't canceling some penalties & de-buffs even though at the end not suffering the hit causing them) which is history now :) !
The future
As always I have quite a few plans for the future! I would like to add more variants (like the Elite or the Treasury) in the near future and I started working on the next big update: Saving. Don't worry no save scamming, this is a roguelike after all :D . This feature would only allow you to suspend and close the game any time and be able to continue later on where you left off.
Sadly I don't have the capital to pay for professional localization yet, but who knows, the game is sold on a special promotional price for a week and it may turn out well, fingers crossed ;) !
Good luck and have fun in the dungeons ;) .
Stay tuned!
I Am Overburdened, 1.1.3 "just" a hot-fix
A crash-bug slipped into the latest update. Anyone who run into this problem, please accept my apology. If you waited at the last cut-scene till the end the game most probably crashed due to a timing issue when ending the game (launching credits).
Thanks for the report, and again I'm really sorry about it ːsteamsadː . I will increase the automated test sets for the game to try decreasing the chance of similar issues occurring in the future when I release new content updates.
Thanks for your understanding.
Take care!
I Am Overburdened, 1.1.2 welcome the stash!
Hello there dungeon crawlers, a new update is here :) .
Sorry for the slow delivery. I know I promised this version a bit earlier, but a nasty flu knocked me out and I spent the last few days in bed :( ...
Changes
The inn has a new "member". There is a stash from which you can take one blue (tragic) artifact with you into the dungeon as a "starter" item from the ones you previously unlocked in the Tome of Artifacts.
Taking a starter item with you does not affect achievements or unlocks. They can be reached the same way. The stash item will show up in your statistics though, but has no other side-effect.
The stash game mode affected the balance/difficulty of the early levels significantly so some items and monsters had to be tweaked. Also a few later monsters and monsters skills were modified a bit to have a more fair difficulty ramp-up mid game.
The mouse sprite graphic hiding logic had a problematic design. Now the mouse graphic becomes visible immediately if the device is active (e.g.: moving) and it only fades out if it is inactive for 5 seconds. There is also a new setting under the options/mouse menu to fully disable the mouse graphic hiding if you only prefer to play with the mouse!
For the next update I'm planning to create new game "mode(s)" like the treasury or the stash. As always if you are interested in how the development on the updates are progressing you can check it here:
Magic Item Tech - I Am Overburdened Trello Board
...) and 
...). With this second set of official translations the game now supports 7 languages :O ! Hopefully this way even more players will be able to enjoy the wacky descriptions and dialogues ːsteamhappyː I would love to add even more in the future, but I can't make promises yet as these take time and money. Will try my best.
...), Danish (
...) and Romanian (
...)! These are the first bunch of official translations besides English and Hungarian. I'm hoping the game will reach more players with new languages added. Of course I would like to add even more in the near future and I already started talking to translators to make this happen.
