(Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.066 - Quality of Life update
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.066 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) This is a small experimental build update that:
Fixed not being able to hit B to go back in the options menu while in a mini-game or the board game mode.
Number Bots (Numbots) now have some visual changes and will light up the colour of the player once hit. Let me know if you like this change, I understand it may not be for everyone.
PLAYER PLACED HAZARDS NOW AWARD POINTS
That's right, whenever a player places down a hazard on the map, and another player interacts with that hazard, they will receive a point at the end of the turn. This means that even if a sticky surface hazard is placed and a player walks through it, the player who placed that sticky surface will receive a point. This is only a rough implementation, so visually it needs improvement and perhaps the tutorial needs to reflect this too, however this is a very important change to the gameplay mechanics. Right now, players who's hazards are interacted with, will get a point, regardless of the player reaching their destination or not, but if the player dies or doesn't reach their destination, players who's hazards are interacted with, will receive double points (right now, that's just 2 points until I add customisation settings).
In the future, this will be expanded upon, and customisation settings will obviously be added.
I hope you all have an awesome week! ROCK ON!
(Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.065 - Quality of Life update
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.065 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) This is a small experimental build update that:
adds the ability for players to vote READY before doing the turn order mini-game.
the host player (or player 1 when playing locally), will have the ability to force start the game too).
added a tutorial to the Wheel turn order mini-game which hopefully helps new players understand it better. I understand it's still a bit confusing for some people and would really love some feedback from everyone who finds it confusing, or has any suggestions for improvement. I am considering darkening the wheel until players can choose a number too, this may help, but is not implemented yet.
There is also now a button prompt that appears on the turn order wheel when players are allowed to press a button to pick their number.
added an audible "GO!" scream when the turn order mini-game starts.
There have been some other quality of life fixes, such as some barrels on the board game map have been moved to prevent players from getting stuck in the green slime indefinitely.
I hope you all have an awesome day! ROCK ON!
HOTFIX: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.064 (Experimental build)
HOTFIX: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.064 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD)
The item wheel and tile modification wheels have now been fixed up again. Now they shouldn't spin erratically after another player has modified a tile or gone into their inventory.
Please let me know if the issue persists where you will be about to rotate the inventory or the tile mod wheel one space to the right, but it does a fully 360 or the currently selected item or tile is not at the top of the wheel.
There is also now a purple particle effect that will fall onto any players that are cursed as part of a BAD LUCK or SURPRISE tile, but also when a player is cursed from the curse item itself, this is to make it more obvious that the player is being cursed.
I know there isn't really any documentation on the curse item either, but know that the more cursed your character is, the crazier and more unlucky they are. If random purple explosions start happening, or the player shrinks, or they don't teleport to a destinaion they wanted to teleport to using an item or teleport tile, then it's the curse doing it's thing. Also, if you randomly explode and die after placing a trap/hazard while cursed, that's the curse doing it's thing. Aaaand if protestors attack you rather than obstruct you, it's because you're cursed.
HOTFIX: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.063
HOTFIX: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.063
Restored Item wheel and tile wheel to how they were previously until I fix them prroperly
Board Game Tutorial, Bugfixes and last chance for 50% off. [Experimental build]
VERSION: MYSTICAL BOG #1.062
Sorry to keep you all waiting on the next update, but here it is.
This is still for the OFFLINE ONLY EXPERIMENTAL BUILD, so you'll need to switch to that build if you want to see these changes.
If you want to download the experimental build, you need to do the following:
1. Right Click Metal Heads in your Steam library. 2. Go to properties. 3. Go to "Betas". 4. Next to "Beta Participation", select "Experimental" from the drop down box. 5. Metal Heads will automatically update to this version.
THERE'S A NEW TUTORIAL!
For new players, and existing players who aren't too clear on the gameplay loop, there is now a more in depth tutorial available with videos and the ability to navigate back and forward, plus view the board's points of interest. This took a bit of time to get working properly due to the ability for players to create their own custom gameplay modes; There's no point having a section of the tutorial about mini-games if the mode has mini-games turned off. I initially tried to make the tutorial just play sequences on the board (so that I didn't take up hard drive space with videos, and so that I could better accomodate custom settings), but this turned out to be a pretty big task (at least until I can think of a better way to do it), so I opted for creating a bunch of tutorial videos. The tutorial UI definitely needs work, like most of the game's UI, but it's a LOT better than it was before. I tested it with my girlfriend, who isn't a gamer, who really did not understand the gameplay loop at all before, and she has given me the nod of approval, so I consider that a success!
In future, I intend to add a "guide" to the options menu, or an extended tutorial which can be viewed at the end of the basic tutorial, which will go in detail about everything in the board game mode, but for now, I think it's just important that new players get a basic understanding.
I still need to make improvements to the turn order mini-game, this is what confuses players (and my girlfriend) the most, so I intend to try and make this easier to understand, and allow the host/player 1 to replay the turn order mini-game if they so choose.
NEW PATH ON THE SLIME FACTORY BOARD
The SLIME FACTORY board has an additional path next to the conveyor belt. This creates more pathing opportunities and makes the board a bit more interesting. In future, I intend to create even more paths, including an indoor area on the right side of the map.
FIXES, CHANGES AND OTHER NOTES
I forgot to note all of the fixes, but there were a few. Here they are in no particular order.
Mini-Games no longer repeat themselves.
Fixed another bug where after the first mini-game plays, no more mini-games would play.
Fixed up CHECKPOINTS goals not displaying correctly. Checkpoints that are not the CURRENT checkpoint will now display in a transparent red colour.
CHECKPOINTS now have a 3D number representing which checkpoint it is.
It is worth noting that CHECKPOINTS still aren't functioning as intended, the idea is that players must reach all of the checkpoints before getting bonus points, otherwise they are not much different to Golden Gears at this stage.
If a player is cursed, they can use the GIFT item to reduce the curse effect as an incentive to use the GIFT item. At this stage, this pretty much removes the curse effect. Later on I intend to balance this better, I also intend to allow players to customise the curse reduction for individual items.
Fixed the LAPS mode. It wasn't really working before.
Added particle effect to LAPS goal whenever the player would cross the start line. I will eventually add sound FX to this to make it far more obvious.
Fixed issues with the MODIFY TILE radial menu where it would do a massive big spin in order to get to the next selection.
Fixed a similar issue with the inventory menu, although there's some other issues that need to be fixed up now where the currently selected item is offset. Players will need to exit the inventory and go back into it for it to work properly again.
Player can no longer spin the inventory menu if they only have 1 item.
Added temporary fix to the THIEF item icon, for some reason it is not displaying correctly, it was appearing as a red angry face. This item icon still isn't working correctly, but at least the icon is better for now.
WHAT'S NEXT?
I will continue to hunt down bugs and polish up the experimental offline build. I intend to improve quality of life and increase how intuitive certain aspects of the game are, including improvements to some visuals, such as placing items, spawning etc.
ONLINE MULTIPLAYER is a big focus, so once the functionality for the experimental build is working offline, I will continue to convert this to online functionality, so that I can finally update the current regular build of the game.
WHAT ABOUT AFTER THAT?
The main things... in order, are: More board game maps! More Mini-Games! More Tile types More Items! More Metal Heads! More everything!
There's a lot more bugs to find and squish, so your feedback is incredibly important and critical to finding any and all bugs, so help me hunt them down, and let's squish em' all!
If you like Metal Heads, please consider spreading the word, or if you really like it, feel free to leave a positive review, it helps a LOT for small indie games.
If you don't like Metal Heads, I apologize, I hope that you will message on the forum or the Discord channel as your input could severely help improve the experience for everyone else who may not like it for the same reasons.
Thank you to everyone who has purchased the game, and those who purchased it recently too! The Steam Couch Co-op fest is almost over, so grab Metal Heads for 50% off while you still can, the next deep discount likely won't be for a while!
ROCK ON!
HOTFIX (Experimental Build 1.061)
VERSION: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.061 (public)
I've been a busy bee, trying to get the GIFT and THIEF items working in the experimental build, along with some other quality of life changes to the experimental build.
4 sided dice for DOUBLE OR NOTHING item, and the 8 sided dice block for the dice movement method now no longer fall through slime. There's still room for improvement (I want the dice to slowly rotate to the selected side, and/or for ONLY that number to light up, rather than the whole dice block).
New items, THIEF and GIFT should now work. I have noticed some bugs in the minimal testing with friends, but for the most part, it holds up. You will now be able to give and steal items, plectrums, and golden gears. I intend to create a feature to incentivise giving items, for example, when a player is cursed, if they give something, they reduce their curse value. And if players give enough, they would become blessed, which would give the player some bonuses and benefits in the game such as a slower movement wheel, more points when landing on good spaces, less points lost when landing on bad spaces, countering curses and other negative effects. This is planned, but not yet implemented. The curse system is fairly extensive, so it'll take a bit of time to create something to counteract it.
When using the dice move method, if the player runs across a Golden Gear and it moves location, the new Golden Gear cannot be collected until the next round. This is to prevent the player from being able to get multiple golden gears in the one turn. I intend to allow a customization option in the future to allow players to collect multiple however, as I want you to be able to play the way you want to play.
Reduced some oversized particle blobs for when the player falls into the slime.
Aside from this list, I managed to do a test with a few people last night and came across a plethora of bugs. But all in all, it mostly held up. I am striving to get to the point where OFFLINE is as bug free as possible, but also easy to understand, and FUN. The biggest issue I found in testing with people who have never played before is that people have no idea what is going on, and they get bored, phones start coming out. I could blame those people for getting their phones out, however, if the game isn't engaging enough and people are getting bored, then I need to do more to keep players engaged.
I hope you all have an awesome week! Enjoy the update, report any issues! (hopefully not too many haha)
ROCK ON!
HOTFIX (Experimental Build 1.05)
Thanks again to a new Metal Head LightningFighter for assistance pointing out a bug that would have only occurred to new players with the experimental build regarding not being able to play mini-games in the board game mode.
This has now been fixed. Mini-Games now work again in the board game mode.
This is an issue that has plagued me for THE longest time now, and I could not find the issue as I thought I had fixed it because it wasn't showing up for me anymore.
I have also removed the empty dialogue box at the top of the screen when there are no collectible goals (Golden Gears, Checkpoints, Dizzy Drops).
ROCK ON!
HOTFIX (Experimental Build 1.04)
Thanks to a new Metal Head LightningFighter for pointing out that the Dice move method was not working, it defaulted to the move wheel, this issue has been fixed in this hotfix.
You can now roll the dice again
ROCK ON!
EXPERIMENTAL BUILD UPDATE 02/01/2024
This is just a small update to fix a pretty major bug I introduced (while trying to fix another bug). This also improves the UI experience for gamepads in the board game UI.
Fixed issue that prevented players from selecting an action in the action menu within the board game mode. This was caused because I tried to fix a bug with dizzy drops that allowed the dizziness move affector to also affect action menu navigation, now both are fixed.
When navigating the board game menu with a gamepad, the player can use LB and RB to select movement method as well as turn order, rather than awkwardly trying to navigate using the D-PAD or Left Stick. I ran into a bunch of bugs which took a few days to fix with the minimal time I had, which didn't allow navigation of these buttons, nor did it allow a keyboard and mouse user to click the buttons. But it's all working fine now :)
ALSO...LAST CHANCE TO GET 50% OFF, WINTER SALE ENDS REALLY SOON! (2nd JAN 2025, 10am PACIFIC TIME)
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
ROCK ON!
EXPERIMENTAL BUILD MINOR FIXES
Here are some more little fixes for the experimental offline build.
These are mostly quality of life fixes, especially for those trying to navigate the custom board game menu settings with a mouse (it was infuriating before).
Board Game customisation settings list no longer goes crazy scrolling up or down with the mouse hovering over a setting near the bottom or top. It was previously set to CENTER the hovered UI element. Now it does the bare minimum to ensure the UI element is in view, which makes for a much nicer experience.
Hovering over tiles when selecting a teleport destination in the board game mode no longer reveals transparent collectibles such as the Dizzy Drop and Golden Gear.
When the Dizzy Drop is collected, this was severely impacting the player's ability to selection an action from the action menu (move/view map/view items). This was due to the influence that it has on the players controls as they are dizzy. It would work still, but it was very difficult to navigate to the correct action when extremely dizzy.
Using the gamepad in any section of the lobby that isn't the mini-game section no longer causes "Select Mini-game" text and button to appear at the top of the screen.
Aside from the above, I have been continuing to work on getting online multiplayer functioning with all of the new board game customization stuff. I will keep doing this as much as possible with every update.
I hope you all had an amazing Christmas, and have an epic new year!
