This update tackles one of the oldest tasks we've had on the todo list: an in-game map! There's a persistent minimap in the HUD, and you can display the full map by going to the pause menu. Rooms will appear on the map as you enter them, and special rooms will be marked with an icon. Currently we mark entrances, exits, shops, npcs, treasure rooms, and challenge rooms. Currently we do not have the ability to mark individual objective items on the map, although we hope to add that in the future.
We've also added challenge rooms! These are rooms where the combat difficulty will be higher, but there will be a reward for anyone willing to take on its challenge. To start with, each floor in the mansion has a challenge room containing a map of the floor, in the future we will add additional high level powerups as well.
We've also added several NPC's to the mansion, currently with 1 appearing per floor, each offering different benefits. Talk to them and see what they can do for you! (And beware the Widow, her blessings are not always a boon). The NPC's are currently static with a simplistic chat system, but we'll be changing that down the line.
There are also several changes to game balance around player health, enemy spawn counts, and adjusting spawn counts per each additional player in multiplayer games. Tread carefully!
Smaller additions to this update include new combat and treasure rooms, double difficulty arenas, nine different widow potions, and changes to the map generation to prevent rare degenerate cases (e.g. - entrance spawns on spikes, objective collectables spawn inside an indestructable prop). We also fixed several small networking bugs and exceptions that were causing gameplay issues.
At this point the last 3 or 4 updates have changed the gameplay considerably in our zone of focus (the mansion), so if you have feedback about how the mansion is playing we'd love to hear it! We're approaching the point where we're going to take the lessons learned from the mansion and start applying it to the other zones to get them up to speed, so if there are things you particulary like or don't like please let us know so we can consider them. If you've been playing in local or network multiplayer we'd especially be interested to hear how the latest balance changes are working for you!
Cheers,
Ryan & Craig
2018/02/21 - 1.13.6627 (Content Update 11)
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What's New:
* We finally have a map! Added an on-screen minimap as well as a full map in the pause menu
* Added minimap room markers (currently for npcs, challenge rooms, treasure rooms, entrances, and exits)
* Added a map item that gives you the full map for the current floor
* Added 3 challenge rooms with more difficult spawn wave patterns
* Added 5 new combat rooms
* Added 2 new treasure rooms
* Added rare 'double difficulty' arenas
* Added NPCs: Widow, Klunk, Garrison, and Meredith
* Widow: Offers 3 random potions, may be helpful or may be harmful there's only one way to find out
* Klunk: Trade in 2 guns for one random one
* Meredith: sells relics at a significantly reduced rate
* Garrison: Sells weapons at a significantly reduced rate
* Added 9 widow potion items
What's Changed:
* Made adjustments to all possible arena waves
* Tweaked enemy generation to be slightly friendlier for single player, but added additional enemy spawns per additional player in MP.
* Adjusted enemy costs during generation
* Reduced player health, but increased invincibility time after taking damage
* Changed mansion rooms so the entrance or exit will no longer appear on spikes
Misc:
* Fixed several small networking bugs
* Fixed occasional bug where 2 maps would be generated on a single floor
Content Update 10: More Player/Enemy Movement Work, Props, & More
Happy New Year!
This update is a bit smaller than usual with the break for holidays, but Craig and I are back hard at work after a few days off. We hope you all had a happy holidays!
The content in the update breaks into two major sections - player/enemy movement & prop/decoraton.
For movement we stated by taking the updated movement code from the previous update and applying it to all enemies as well. We had initially been hesitant to do this because it's a more cpu intensive system, but it results in much smoother movement around walls and props. If you notice performance issues with this build, please let me know. In addition to changing the collision system we also updated all the props in the mansion to have rounded corners. This should reduce any sticking points on props. Eventually we need to apply this to wall corners, but this is a bit trickers since that is a custom generated collision mesh. Finally we updated all the player characters to have a new dodge animation instead of the old blue dash. We lowered the speed at which you sady significantly, but increased the time you dash by quite a bit. This will give you a larger window of invincibility while you dash, but you should still cover a similar distance as before. In particular this should make it easier to correctly time a dodge through large laser beams (skullington fight) and large spike sets. Also, it just looks cooler.
For prop and visual work we did a full pass on all the static props in the mansion, removed several, and added several new ones for variety. We also re-added all of the large scale props like dining room tables to the rooms. They provide additional cover from enemies, but has a limited life. All props also have a permanent debris on destruction, a new explosion effect, and new debris particles. All candles/torches in the mansion should now work as a functional point light to make the whole scene a bit brighter. And we also added a mask in all the empty space on a level to reduce the likelyhood of seeing any random sprites poking through the sides. All in all, hopefully all this work makes the mansion feel more varied and interesting.
Thanks for reading, and we hope you have fun! We're looking forward to all of the new stuff we'll be adding in 2018. :)
Cheers,
Ryan & Craig
2018/01/02 - 1.12.6576 (Content Update 10)
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Happy New Years!
What's New:
* Enemies now use the same movement code as players, providing improved movement around props and wall edges
* Decreased player dodge speed from 32 to 12, but increased dodge/incincibility time from 0.15 to 0.41 seconds
* Added a dodge animation for all player characters
* Added a dust trail to players while running
* Added first pass of a full map "ceiling" mesh to reduce sprites poking out into empty space
* Added functional point lights to mansion walls that have a candle or torch
* Added prop remains/splats for persistance after destruction
* Reworked all prop colliders/hit areas to be more accurate and smooth pathing out for players and enemies
* Updated to Unity 2017.2.1f1
* New Prop: Knight's armor
* New Prop: Grandfather clock
* New Prop: Large Dining Table (Round)
* New Prop: Large Dining Table (Horizontal & Vertical)
* New Prop: Sofa
* New Prop: Dining Chair (Red & Blue, front & side variants)
* New Prop: Potted plant
* New Prop: Fireplace
* New Prop: Book Stacks
* New Prop explosions and debris effects
What's Changed:
* Fixed several map generation bugs that were causing excess mesh generation and performance issues
* Fixed prop bug that would spawn multiple explosions and debris effects on death
* Reworked all mansion rooms to contain a valid start/exit location
* Reworked prop and enemy debris sorting to ensure prop debris always shows on top
* Fixed netcode bug where incorrectly configured props can cause an error on level initialization
More Mansion and Monster Improvements (Content Update 9)
For the last several weeks we've been working hard on the content and balance of the Mansion - with a goal of getting it to 1.0 quality so we can use it as a template for the remaining zones in the game.
To that end, we added several new enemy variants (Pinkeye Earl, Speyeball Earl, Pinkeye Jr). We also completely revamped the enemy selection/spawning system for both normal enemies and arena challenge rooms. All of the mansion enemies have been moved to the behavior tree AI system and there have been many changes to their behaviors. Several bullet animations have been replaced as we try to work on a style that makes them more visible and give them a consistent feel across the range of enemies. Several enemies got a new coat of paint to bring their looks up to par:
We have also started tweaking player movement/mobility, most of the work in this update went towards giving player smoother movement around props and walls, reducing many cases where you might "stick." Please let us know how this feels to you, we will continue to tweak it going forward!
Besides all that we added several small quality of life things - for instance in arena challenges all enemies now have a spawn warning animation so you are more likely to not have an enemy spawn on top of you. We've hopefully fixed the remaining issues with arenas not correctly opening, thanks to everyone who submitted information that helped us track that down!
Have fun with the update, and always we'd love to hear what you think!
Cheers,
Ryan & Craig
2017/11/16 - 1.11.6529 (Content Update 9)
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What's New:
* Added shoppe to airship
* Added Speyeball Earl
* Added Pinkeye Earl
* Added Pinkeye Earl Jr
* Props no longer drop health or items, only a (very low) chance of coins
* Arenas now have a spawn warning to indicate that a new enemy is appearing instead of spawning it instantly
* Overhauled enemy generation code to use a new method instead of the old percentage of area calculation method
* Overhauled arena enemy generation to work alongside the new systems
* Added new arena rooms that use the new enemy types
* Modified player movement to work a bit more smoothly around walls, props, and enemies
* Added a 'scatter' behavior and applied it on all rats for more erratic behavior
* Updated to Unity 2017.2.0f3
What's Changed:
* Fixed multiplayer bug where arenas would not finish/resolve correctly
* Converted Speyeball Jr to behavior tree system
* Moved speyeball and pinkeye to behavior tree system
* Tweaked speyeball and pinkeye behavior
* Removed slowing effect from ghost, moved ghost to behavior tree system
* Increased beam range and sweep of tesla sphere
* Converted Skullclops to behavior tree system
* Significantly increased skullclops dash length
* Updated enemy data tooling to account for new enemies
* Removed gungir from relic list until we can add it back in with corrections
* Added logic to behavior tree system to allow enemies to respond to wall collisions
* Added teleport to scatter ghost
* Replaced art for several bullets
* Updated web art and gave it an animated fade out
* Replaced art for ghost and scatter ghost
* Replaced art for bombdemons
* Updated art for rats
* Fixed seed info not appearing correctly in network MP games
* Fixed spawn position of spike traps
* Adjusted collision on spike traps to be a bit more forgiving around edges
* Adjusted player collision slightly
* Replaced skullclops art
* Changed all weapon sound effects to use random selection instead of round robin
* Replaced art for slime jr
* Replaced art for super slime jr
Welcome Monsieur LeClawe! (Content Update 8)
Hello!
First of all, thanks to everyone who's reported their experiences with the new map generator and arena challenges so far - the feedback has been incredibly helpful and because of it we've been able to track down issues that otherwise would have been a nightmare to find.
But on to the update! The biggest change in the mansion generator is the inclusion of shops in the main zones, instead of as an interstitial level. It's the first "special" room type that we've managed to include, towards our longer term goal of increasing moment to moment diversity on a level. Along with the shop we've also added the first two in-level NPCs, Monsieur LeClawe and his cat. Their conversations are temporary until we do the full conversation mechanics/UI, but it's fun to see them in the world after all this time.
Now that shops are integrated into the levels we will need to revisit the loot tables and costs. It is on the todo list, but will be part of a larger revamp as we look at what items are worth having in shops, what their rarity should be, and what the costs should be to scale with the value and player progress. It's a balancing act that relies on a lot of other game systems and mechanics, so we appreciate your patience for it.
In addition to the shops there are a bunch of smaller but visible updates - notably a secondary tileset for the mansion, several new arena challenges, and bug fixes that were preventing some players from progressing in the last version. You can see the full changelog below.
We hope you enjoy this update, and we hope to be back soon with the next one!
Cheers,
Ryan & Craig
2017/10/03 - 1.10.6485 (Content Update 8)
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What's New:
* The new generation system (e.g. the mansion) now integrates a shop into each floor rather than having a single interstitial shop between the two main floors of a zone.
* Added the first two shop types (normal and black market) to the mansion generator.
* Added a new tileset on the first floor of the mansion
* Added two shop NPC's (LeClawe and his cat)
* During play the level seed is now displayed on screen
* Shops now change the music based on whether or not a local player is in the shop
* Shops can now pull from different loot tables, letting different shops pull from different item sets
* Added several new arena challenges
* Updated to Unity 2017.1.1f1
What's Changed:
* Tweaked difficulty of some arena challenges
* Fixed floor names created by new generation system
* Fixed bug where zone transitions were sometimes incorrectly generated on the mansion
* Added a data validator to ensure that bad data can't make a challenge arena bug out
* Added additional validity checks to challenge arenas to make sure they open as expected
* Added a periodic check to see if someone has been caught in an arena barrier - and if so teleport them to a safe location
* Fixed error with barrier & key objective where it could prevent some level rooms from being correctly processed
* Arenas now have a per-wave timeout of 120 seconds. After that it should immediately move on to the next wave or open the doors if the last wave has already been processed.
* Fixed an errant ceiling tile on the treasure room map
Misc:
* Added ability to weight rooms with odds, currently only used in shop selection
* Replaced shop table art
Known Issues:
* We've had periodic reports of challenge arenas not opening. We've tried to bulletproof the code as best we can, but if you see a specific case of this please note the level seed in the bottom right corner of the screen and let us know! We are still actively looking for a repeatable test case to reproduce the issue.
Update 7: Monster Arenas and Tech News
Hello players!
We've just pushed the latest update to both the testing and default branches, so you should see it regardless of what branch you are playing on.
The most visible change will be the addition of combat arenas - rooms in the mansion that offer a series of enemy waves you need to defeat to progress. The wave/locked room structure will require you to change tactics and provide a nice pacing change as you work your way through a level. It's a major structural change though, so we'd love your feedback on them. We will continue to tweak wave counts, enemy counts, arena count and distribution, and more as we continue to work on the game. It's worth noting that we already realize that the arenas need some additional user experience stuff like warning indicators for incoming spawns, blocking exterior enemies from shooting through, etc. But we felt like it was in a good enough spot to start getting feedback from players.
A more behind the scenes change is we've taken some time to build out additional tooling to modify monster generation throughout a level - it's really nice to be able to iterate on all of the data more quickly, and as we start to fine tune the encounters it will allow us to work on them much faster. (For folks who are on windows you can find the first of the tools in the Mods/tools folder - although be warned that if you change data it can break the game/online play for you!)
There are also some minor changes to netcode, including the start of an overhaul of how trap timings are propagated. It's not where we want it to be yet, but timings should appear more accurate for people playing in our recommended ping range time of 0-120ms.
Thanks, as always, for playing and we'll be back soon with the next update!
Ryan & Craig
2017/08/31 - 1.9.6452 (Content Update 7)
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What's New:
* Challenge Arenas! A certain number of rooms on each floor will now require fighting multiple waves of enemies.
* Changed the netcode for trap timings in an online game. Movement may be a little less smooth but trap placement and timing should now seem more consistent on client machines. (NB: this will degrade with high/inconsistent ping times, we currently suggest playing with a ping of under 100ms to your game host)
* Added the 6 initial challenge arena configurations
* Added the first version of the enemy configuration tool. This is mostly for internal use right now but will also be used eventually for anyone making mods. Use of the tool is *not supported* but for curious folks you can find it in the Mods directory.
* Added animated tile support so we can start adding more life to the game maps
* Updated to Unity 2017.1p4
* Updated controller library to newest version, adds several new controller types to use
* Fixed bugs where enemy spawning was checking the map for valid locations incorrectly, you should no longer get enemy spawns near your starting area.
Content Update 6 - Now Live on Testing Branch
Short Version:
We’ve started an initiative to rework all the map generation in the game, and the mansion is the first zone to get changes. There is a new branch called “testing” that you can download now that contains the work to date. Our next update will focus on adding even more content to the mansion.
Long Version:
For a long time now Craig and I have felt like the map generation isn’t quite where we want it to be. We have a list of features that we’d *like* to see in the maps - unique/rare one-off rooms, NPC places, trap rooms with more design than “randomly placed spikes,” rooms with unique visuals, and more. We’ve made several efforts to prototype these features in the existing map structures, but were never really happy with the results, and the effort to author a single space of the type was so great that we would likely fall well short of the variety that we want to see.
As a second but equally important issue, we’ve been frustrated with the game pacing on the existing map structures. We feel like the moment to moment combat is fun but over the course of a zone the pacing is basically a constant level of challenge. Ideally it would vary more, with peaks where the combat is more intense, and valleys where players get a bit of downtime to recover and explore.
So with those issues in mind, we decided we needed to redesign the map generation system to better fit the needs of Monsters and Monocles. Our multi-step plan to validate a new design was:
Create a small tool to allow for testing and modification of the basic generation algorithm
Port the new generation code to the Monsters and Monocles codebase
Create a tool for defining the map segments with all the required metadata
Rework map rendering system to handle new segmented map generation with varying tilemaps per segment
Create several new rooms/segments for the map generator to use (empty rooms, combat rooms, trap rooms, treasure rooms, etc)
Replace the main combat floors of the mansion with the new map system
Test and ship
The initial tool for testing out the new designs wasn’t much to look at, but it allowed for very quick iteration on both the generation algorithm and different room shapes for testing. The tool itself was working after a couple days, and then I spent the next three weeks working on the algorithm, tweaking potential room shapes and sizes, generating large batches of maps for design discussions with Craig, and then finalizing details like calculating a critical path, adding looping paths, etc. We spent a lot of time at this stage because it is far and away the easiest stage to fix problems, and the more we got correct at this stage the easier the rest of the stages would be.
(Screenshot of the test tool we used to create the new generation system)
Once we were done with the prototype tool phase, I quickly brought the core algorithm code into the main game codebase and reworked it to start generating the necessary data structures required for play. I also developed a file structure in the Tiled map editor to start drawing out map segments and define all the necessary metadata. At this stage the goal was to be able to add all the data we need but also do it as simply as possible, since added complexity will increase the time to create variants, and eventually reduce the overall number of variants we can create. During this phase we reduced the segment creation process from around 2 hours per segment to approx 25 minutes (with a bit more time required for trap rooms with complex layouts). We feel pretty good about these times, but we plan on tweaking the Tiled map editor a bit to meet our needs even more.
Now we had map data being generated, and all of the data structures were valid, but we couldn’t see the maps! I needed to rewrite the map renderer to change from a monolithic map to creating and rendering several small segments. Fortunately I was able to reuse a lot of the existing renderer infrastructure, and just went through a refactoring process to increase the flexibility.
At this point we could see the the new maps and actually start to play! Well, we could run around the maps anyways. Once we hit that step I had to slowly start adding back in all of the remaining features that make a map playable - enemies, props, objectives, hidden entrances, exit points, etc. While I worked on that we also created more map segments and added a new trap type - a spinning blade of death.
And while I was working on all of this stuff, Craig had been reimagining the visuals for the mansion and using our new tooling to overhaul all of the tiles and details. It’s a huge step forward for the game visually and it’s not even using all of the new options at his disposal yet! I can’t wait to see how it looks when he’s done. He also plans to revisit the props and other objects to bring them to a consistent level.
(Mansion tiles: before)
(Mansion tiles: after!)
So, that’s a rough outline of the work for this update, and we’re launching it all today in a new branch called “testing.” If you’re interested in checking it out you can do so by following these instructions:
Right click on Monsters & Monocles in your library
Select “Properties” in the popup menu
Go to the “BETAS” tab in the dialog that appears
Select the “testing” branch
Close the dialog. At this point steam should automatically queue the patch download for you. If it doesn’t quit and restart the steam client. You’ll know when it’s worked because you’ll see [testing] next to the game name in your library
We hope you enjoy the new map system and see the same potential in it that we do - we’ll continue to push more changes and content into it as part of the testing branch, and once batches of work have stabilized we’ll push it from testing to the main game branch as well.
Thanks as always for your patience, and have fun!
-Ryan & Craig
2017/07/26 - 1.8.6386 (Content Update 6)
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Note: This build is currently on the TESTING branch because it is not guaranteed to be stable and we will update it as needed. Changes will be pushed to the main branch as appropriate.
What's New:
* Removed original mansion map generator
* Added new map generation system based on room variants
* Added 10 combat room variants
* Added 5 trap room variants
* Added 1 treasure room variant
* Added a boss room for skullington fight (and slightly reduced overall space for fight)
* Removed original mansion tilesets
* Added all new gothic stone tileset
* Updated map renderer to support multiple tilesets within a single floor
* Added a new spinning blade trap type
Known Issues:
* Spinning traps can desync in online MP on clients
S.C.O.N.E. INTERNAL MEMO # 10005
From: Overlord
To: Minions
Minions,
I have two major items to touch upon in this memo.
First, our Research Division has announced that a new monster type named the “Papergeist” has escaped the experiment labs and flown to the zones of engagement. It is a ghost with an endless search for knowledge and will devour any books and papers it comes across. Give it space and do not let it consume any of our internal memos! It’s already eaten a collection of my early journals from my early days as an analyst in Central Services, and I don’t know what it will do with the information. If you find a Papergeist and manage to recover any portions of my journal, please return them to immediately. And don’t read them. You must promise not to read them.
Second, our Spymaster has informed me that the heroes have recently received upgrades to their airship. The new device is called Turing’s Enigmatic Analyzer, or T.E.A., and will begin to track a wide variety of tactical information for them. They have also added a fragment analyzer that can take partial pieces of pages and attempt to reconstruct them into a readable whole. To help process all this information they have also added a B0T-13R model robot to keep things running smoothly. Please, minions, redouble your efforts and show the heroes that any attempt at improvement is a futile effort.
Yours,
Overlord of the Secret Criminal Organization of Nasty Evildoers
Att. Intel Report 1.7.6331
INTELLIGENCE REPORT #: 1.7.6331
TOPIC: RELEVANT CHANGES IN ZONES OF ENGAGEMENT
What's New:
* Turing's Enigmatic Analyzer has been added to the airship
* Fragment Converter Device has been added to the airship
* Your trusty butler, B0t-13r has been added to the airship
* The first book of journal pages has been added to the game
* Papergeists have been added to the game
* Added codex entries for weapons, items, and relics
Changes:
* Reworked entire seeding system so each game starts with a single distinct 'parent' seed, that all other seeds and generators are built from. This improves our ability to replicate levels more consistently and also moves us a step closer from being able to share seeds for fixed runs/challenges
Fixes:
* Dynamic lighting had broken with unity 5.6, now fixed
* Several shader objects had broken with unity 5.6, now fixed
* Debris particles should now appear as expected
* Fixed bundle name on mac to fix issue where game wouldn't load
S.C.O.N.E. INTERNAL MEMO # 10004
S.C.O.N.E. INTERNAL MEMO # 10004
From: Overlord
To: Minions
Minions,
I apologize, but I must dispense with the customary pleasantries to offer up a warning:
BEWARE.
Unbeknownst to us, the heroes have received a supply drop of several new weapons and items. This arsenal has drastically improved their firepower and tactical options. Until Central Services can fully evaluate these new offensive capabilities, I urge you to take care and engage the enemy in groups of sufficient number. An initial intelligence report has been attached to this memorandum, and I have included a brief clip of some of the new weapons we’ve seen the heroes using. I'm still not sure how they managed to weaponize a cucumber sandwich...
With that unpleasant news out of the way, the remaining news is relatively minor but still worth mentioning:
The zones of engagement have been slightly modified to bring the size of the zones within standard operating regulations. This should allow you to more efficiently funnel the enemy into advantageous encounters.
Our devious traps to cause “crashes” or “infinite loops” when a hero tried to enter zones have been found and removed. Likewise, we will no longer be able to create a mansion zone that blocks the players from the exit. This is unfortunate, as it means heroes will be able to progress at will. As always, we will persevere.
For the remaining changes please review the attached intelligence report. As always, thank you for your efforts and please contact Central Services with any questions.
Yours,
Overlord of the Secret Criminal Organization of Nasty Evildoers
Att. Intel Report 1.6.6297
INTELLIGENCE REPORT #: 1.6.6297
TOPIC: RELEVANT CHANGES IN ZONES OF ENGAGEMENT
What's New:
* New guns and items to play with!
* New gun: Antique Pistol (Bullet class, Rare)
* New gun: Auto Cross Launcher (Holy class, Uncommon)
* New gun: Cricket Bat (Explosive class, Uncommon)
* New gun: Cucumber Sandwich (Spread class, Rare)
* New gun: Double Shot (Bullet class, Rare)
* New gun: Flame Belcher (Fire class, Common)
* New gun: Hole Puncher (Spread class, Common)
* New gun: Plasma Rifle (Beam class, Uncommon)
* New gun: Wave Beam (Beam class, Common)
* New item tier: Uncommon (previously all were common)
* New item: Brandy Snifter (Common)
* New item: Fancy Slippers (Uncommon)
* New item: Slippery Moustache Wax (Uncommon)
* New Item: Iceberg Fragment (Uncommon)
* New Item: Steam Powered Fan (Uncommon)
* New Item: Demonic Bullets (Uncommon)
What's Changed:
* All zones have had a pass over map size to try to make them more roughly in-line with our long term plans
* Guns can now have multiple valid exit points/angles for bullets
* Added "contact" damage type for all melee damage
* Added ability for items to modify damage taken per damage type
Fixes:
* Fixed a rare but major issue with mansion generation that could cause an impossible level to be generated
* Fixed an issue where mansion generation could infinitely loop trying to place doors
* Fixed bug with item cloning not correctly tracking gun modification fields
* Fixed bug with item sprites not being located correctly on screen (they were center pivot when they should be bottom pivot)
* Several miscellaneous bug fixes across all level generators that would cause unnecessary stalls or loops
* Added caching of map segments for town generation improving overall generation time
* Fixed bug where HUD texture atlas could become corrupted
S.C.O.N.E. INTERNAL MEMO # 10003
S.C.O.N.E. INTERNAL MEMO # 10003
From: Overlord
To: Minions
Dearest Minions,
It is my pleasure to announce that after several months of preparation, the zone of engagement in the Ancient Forest is now fully operational. I would like to thank all of you for your patience while the work was being completed, and hope this new zone provides much needed assistance in your fight against the heroes. I noted that several of you were unable to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony this morning - please file your absence forms immediately or be subject to disciplinary action.
I would also like to welcome the new monsters working with us in the Forest. Welcome to the team all Doomshrooms, Flamedeers, and Grave Hermits. We expect great things from you, and look forward to seeing you in action.
For all of you deployed in the forest zone, a word of warning: avoid the deepest floor at *all* costs. Although we have successfully corrupted the Old Man of the Forest to our cause that is no guarantee that you are safe in his presence. Tread carefully.
As always, I have attached the latest intelligence report for your edification. Please read it at your earliest opportunity.
Yours,
Overlord of the Secret Criminal Organization of Nasty Evildoers
Att. Intel Report 1.5.6420
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INTELLIGENCE REPORT #: 1.5.6420
TOPIC: RELEVANT CHANGES IN ZONES OF ENGAGEMENT
What's New:
* The forest zone is now live! It is not complete, but should be fully playable.
* The Old Man of the Forest now sees over the forest exit
* Doomshroom, Flamedeer, and Grave Hermits are all now live in the forest
* Reworked forest art
* Reworked enemy groupings on forest
* Added new props to forest and updated all debris particle effects
* Added new title music
* New custom map built for the Old Man of the Forest fight
Changes:
* Updated to Unity 5.5.1 - this might small like a sound thing but required several major changes to lighting, input, and physics. Please keep an eye out for bugs!
* Fixed several behavior tree nodes for enemies so they will face the correct way while moving
* Players can now be affected by damage causing status effects (e.g. burning)
* Sound effect player now culls sound cues based on distance from the main audio listener
* Bullets no longer count a target as 'hit' if passing through while invincible
* Started support for pluralization of text values for objective text
* Added ability for traps to hold their damaging state for a given duration instead of a single frame check
* Added ability for traps to be fired by controlling AI enemies
* Reworked entrance/exit selection for cellular automata maps to better enforce a minimum distance
Fixes:
* Fixed multiple generation bugs that could cause a crash when teleporting in to a new zone
* Bullets fired now despawn on level change to prevent them from persisting into the new level
* Reworked shader for particle debris so it can properly alpha fade based on supplied color gradient
S.C.O.N.E. INTERNAL MEMO # 10002
S.C.O.N.E. INTERNAL MEMO # 10002
From: Overlord
To: Minions
Dearest Minions,
I felt it appropriate to issue a short missive to make you all aware of some changes that you will undoubtedly notice over the coming days, before returning to my work establishing our stronghold in The Forest. Please familiarize yourself with these changes immediately and incorporate the information into your daily work against the nefarious heroes.
First: We have retained the services of a professional Relic Hunter to assist in identification of the items we find in the zones of engagement. They are working around the clock to identify and name all relics found and submitted to Central Services. Please send all new relics to Central immediately via the nearest available pneumatic tube.
Second: Central has identified and weaponized four new relics for immediate use, please see the attached Intelligence Report for more details.
Third: Central has also … lost four relics. Those responsible have been sacked. Central Services Executives send their deepest regrets to anyone using the crumpet cannon, gatling gun, hand cannon, or firebuss relics. Hopefully new relics will be found over time that make up for the loss.
Fourth: I have authorized the use of several experimental rare minions across the current zones of engagement. Please be aware if you see a Tesla Turret, Dark Scorpion, Scatter Ghost, or Pink Eye that they are in our employ, and give them any assistance needed.
Thank you, as always, for your tireless service. I know you may be feeling beleaguered, but look forward to the new year as we attack our foe across new zones of engagement.
Yours,
Overlord of the Secret Criminal Organization of Nasty Evildoers
Att. Intel Report 1.4.6199
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INTELLIGENCE REPORT #: 1.4.6199
TOPIC: RELEVANT CHANGES IN ZONES OF ENGAGEMENT
What's New:
* Relic Rework - All relics given new art, new names, and new functionality. Four relics replaced with new ones. Details in a section below.
* Rare Enemies - Pink Eye, Dark Scorpion, Scatter Ghost, and Tesla Turret have joined the enemy forces
* Initial work on contextual button icons. Controller players should now see xbox or ps4 controllers based on their controller type. (Keyboard support still in progress)
* Gun pickup UI now shows what class a weapon belongs to before pickup
* Relic/Item pickup UI now shows what type of item it is before pickup
* Relics now tell you their effect on pickup
* Added the concept of damage types so the system can respond to them differently. Initial type is Explosion, will add new types like Burn etc as needed.
Relic Details:
* Midas Crown (prev. coins+) - new art/name
* Bandit's Glove (prev. coin range+) - new art/name
* Flask of Endurance (prev. dash recharge) - new art/name
* Puma Mask (prev. dash speed+) - new art/name
* Flask of Vigor (prev. health+) - new art/name
* Wings of Icarus (prev. speed+) - new art/name
* Holy Chalice (prev. health regen) - new art/name
* Templar Shield (prev. knockback-) - new art/name
* Enchanted Teacup (prev. health item+) - new art/name
* Janus' Hourglass (prev. combo cooldown+) - new art/name
* Loki's Mask (prev. combo kills-) - new art/name
* Jaws of the Last Wight (prev. revolver dmg+) - now affects Bullet class weapons, new art/name
* Hand of the Last Wight (prev. revolver fire rate+) - now affects Bullet clas weapons, new art/name
* Flames of Ra (prev. flamethrower burn+) - now affects all Fire class weapons, new art/name
* Totem of the Wind Giant (prev. machine gun range) - now affects all Bullet class weapons, new art/name
* Dragon Breath (prev. stake launcher burn) - now adds burn to all Holy class weapons, new art/name
* Ares' Wrath (prev. grenade launcher explosion radius+) - now increases radius on all Explosive class weapons, new art/name
* Khione's Ice Crown (prev. blunderbuss slow) - now adds slow effect to all Spread class weapons, new art/name
* Gungir (prev. revolver max hits+) - now adds additional hits to all Bullet class weapons, new art/name
* Cloak of Houdini (new!) - Reduces movement penalties from slowing effects
* Skadi's Tear (new!) - Slows the rate at which weapons overheat on all weapon classes
* Stone Golem's Heart (new!) - Reduces damage taken from explosive blasts
* Fist of the Titans (new!) - Increases knockback on Spread class weapons
Changes/Fixes:
* Portal modified to not allow for knockback, which previously prevented its firing sequence to occur
* Adjusted enemy generation on town
* Fixed bug where barrier/key objective could be defeated by dashing through the barrier
* Fixed bug where last alive player could drop out from menus
* Removed two beams in the airship where players could get stuck
* Fixed bug where tutenkraben's health bar wasn't appearing if he was shot before initial state change.
* Fixed bug where vase hermits weren't properly responding to player proximity
* Fixed bug where in an online game after a loop levels weren't always correctly cleared out for the next loop.
