Early Access comes to an end, and the full release of Monsters Loot Swag will be coming soon™!
In this, the last of the Early Access updates, I have finished off the gameplay and achievements. Souvenirs are now unlocked, and may be collected when an Boss Monster is killed. Note this is done via an ever increasing RNG and the likelihood of Souvenirs dropping increases with game difficulty and level progression. Collected Souvenirs are displayed on the "Souvenir Screen" within the "Swag And Stats" Menu.
With Souvenirs now available, the last of the Achievements are now unclocked and can be collected.
This update also sees the new rebranding of the game in ancipation of full release, with the store page art and in-game main menu renewed to more closely follow the rest of the artwork for the character selection screens.
The game has also been updated to take into account the recent Steamworks SDK 1.62 update released by Valve.
There have been a myriad of other changes and fixes, not least the retopology of the earliest created characters to reduce polycount and improve UV mapping. Previously I had relied on an automated plugin with Blender3D, but it turns out I could do a better job myself.
There are now dedicated GAME OVER and GAME VICTORY screens, with the latter unlocking the option to continue playing in "ENDLESS MODE" once the game has been beat.
Update 36: update to version 1.9.9.8
Change: Updated to Steamworks SDK v.1.62.
Fix: Fixed a memory leak with zip files.
Fix: Screen resolution detection for smaller than 16:9 aspect ratio was failing due to floating point maths not giving 4:3 a precise 1.33 ratio. Now everything under 1.4 is considered 4:3 aspect.
Fix: Startup screen now has it's own seperate 4:3 background image.
New: Souvenirs are now active and will drop by level incremental RNG increasing with game difficulty.
New: Level Souvenir stats are now active.
New: Souvenir collection achievements are now active.
New: Souvenir collection screen is now available in Swag and Stats menu.
New: Souvenir artwork completed in the Swag And Stats section, and will update as each level Souvenir is collected.
Fix: Fixed bad spelling of souvenirs, apparently it's not souveniers.
Change: Swag and Loot pickup audio is now done in 2D client sound space for the player who is doing the pickup to stop speaker twang when the player is moving fast.
Change: Swag and Node unlock audio is now done in 2D client sound space for the player who is doing the pickup to stop speaker twang if the player suddenly changes direction after triggering the unlock.
Change: Player datablocks have increasinly reduced velocity when moving vertically.
Change: Vertical player blockers for each level has reduced repulsion force to prevent ping-pong effects.
Fix: Level 8 swag and exit nodes are now set to the correct height.
New: Final Boss's Final Form now has it's own portrait.
New: Added monster relevant preload textured object for elite monsters to each level.
New: Added player relevant status effect texures preload object.
Fix: Avoiding liquid on player spawning was defaulting to node or swag object origin rather than nearby.
Change: Minor wording change on Final Level's introduction.
Fix: Missing test for achievement SUBSCRIBE FOR PICS after all cosplaying catgirls are unlocked.
Change: Achievement SUBSCRIBE FOR PICS will now unlock at the start/load game screen, so not to spam achievement unlocks when the final cosplay unlock achievement has occurred.
Fix: Stats numerical holders were losing their lower border on smaller screen resolutions.
Fix: Bad entries for some Elite Monster effect materials.
Change: Main Menu screen now uses new branding for release.
Change: Retopologized playable character WATER HAZARD, reducing poly count by ~60%.
Change: Re-exported playable character WATER HAZARD animations to remove redundant nodes.
Fix: Playable character SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY had mixed up wobble and slowed materials.
Change: Retopologized playable character SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY, reducing poly count by ~60%.
Change: Re-exported playable character SOUTHERN HOSPITALILTY animations to remove redundant nodes.
Change: Retopologized playable character PUMPKIN, reducing poly count by >60%.
Change: Re-exported playable character PUMPKIN animations to remove redundant nodes.
Change: Retopologized playable character BIKAVER, reducing poly count by >60%.
Change: Re-exported playable character BIKAVER animations to remove redundant nodes.
Change: Retopologized playable character SUNRISE, reducing poly count by ~60%.
Change: Brought playable character SUNRISE armature bone naming convention into line with all other playerable character skeletons.
Change: Re-exported playable character SUNRISE animations to remove redundant nodes and reference new bone naming convention.
Fix: Playerable character STARSHIP light attack animation was ending outside of range.
Fix: Final Boss weapon FSM was attempting to wait for trigger release but AI do not use that state.
Fix: Level 3 Boss animations renamed so as not to conflict with similarly named animations.
Fix: Level 6 Boss animations renamed so as not to conflict with similarly named animations.
Fix: AimerAid material original name was referencing another material.
Fix: Multiple shapes were failing to find a referenced material ID due to missing suffix, though they did still load the material.
New: Cutscene Outro for player death now as a Game Over screen.
New: Cutscene Outro for player victory over game.
New: Winning the game now gives the option to continue playing in "Endless Mode".
The only thing remaining to complete before FULL RELEASE is the cutscene intro, which will detail the all important PLOT. Catgirls need PLOT. ːhappychappyː
Final Level, Final Boss, Early Access Ending Soon
This is Hollólány, she is the Final Boss of the Final Level - but this isn't even her Final Form.
With the completion of level 8, the gameplay and all assets are pretty much complete. All that remains to be finalized for FULL RELEASE, is some 2D artwork for the "Souvenir Collectables System", and an intro and outro explaining the PLOT. So much plot - and I'm not just talking cute catgirls.
Early Access is winding down to full release soon™ and so the introductory price will be rising next week,
Apart from level 8 and the completion of the gameplay itself, there have been numerous bug fixes, as outlined below in the changelog.
Update 35: update to version 1.9.9.5?
New: Level 8, the final level has arrived.
New: Level 8 final boss has arrived.
New: Added final boss final form event.
New: Gameplay now has choice of continuing in endless mode after level 8 is complete and the game has been beaten.
New: Multiplayer Co-Op defaults to endless mode once the game is beaten.
Fix: Added an extra check for monsters to prevent opportunity attacks when stunned.
Fix: Level 2 camera start node not facing correct direction of preload group.
Change: Level 2 preload group moved towards camera start node.
Change: Level 6 waterBlock wet depth reduced to 0.1.
Change: Level 7 waterBlock wet depth reduced to 0.1.
New: Added an extra test for detecting liquids when spawning player.
Change: Removed redundant DDS files from terrain moss textures.
Change: Orbiters no longer get slowed by water, which had been seperating them from the player.
Fix: Missing invisible "wobble" texture for player character STARSHIP now exists for use with GHOST RUN swag powerup.
Change: Player slowed down object has been removed in favour of displaying a temporary slowed down texture effect on the afflicted character.
Fix: Spawning enemies were attempting to check for nearest player to attack without seperating object and distance first, so the initial test always failed.
Change: Speed Bonus elite monsters who are not chargers are now always hunters.
Change: Level 3 Boss minigun attack has increased audio range as it sounded a bit too quiet.
Change: Green Radiation Bonus object for elite monsters has been replaced with a green glowing skin but remains for bosses.
Change: Blue Speed Bonus object for elite monsters has been replaced with a blue glowing skin but remains for bosses.
Change: Red Strength Bonus object for elite monsters has been replaced with a red glowing skin but remains for bosses.
Fix: Level 7 monsters were not playing the correct choice of emitter colours based on their skins.
Fix: Fixed issue with fallback special death effects would attempt to spawn an explosion when only particle effect was the default.
Fix: Added missing amberRingDecal5.
Change: Boss spawning decals now match the colour of their spawning particle effects.
Fix: Player melee weapon images had their item data pointing to the default weapon item and not their own.
Fix: Later level Bosses were being severley short changed with energy replenishment.
Change: Boss energy replenishment is now based on ascending level progress.
Fix: Monster opportunity attacks were not firing if the weapon FSM had a second ready state.
Fix: Level 2 Boss was missing cash multiplier for loot drop.
So that's Early Access Update 35 complete, and this leaves only 1 or 2 more updates before full release! ːhappychappyː
New UNLOCKABLE Character: Introducing SCHIAVONA
Introducing SCHIAVONA. She enjoys opening sparkling wine in a fancy manner, eating olives and skewering anything that moves with the overly large sword that she is named after.
SCHIAVONA is the fourthand final unlockable player character, and can be unlocked by gaining the achievement PHEIDIPPIDES, when the player has travelled more than a total of 225km / 139miles and 1423 yards in old money.
SCHIAVONA is a close range, melee based character with the highest damage rating of all playable characters. She has allround good statistics for speed, health, energy and strength, but nothing super special.
Her Standard Attack is SABRAGE, a neat way of taking the head off a bottle of fizz, and equally effective against monsters. With an excellent range for melee combat of 5 metres, it does have a slight pause whilst she poses to show off before delivering the coup de grace.
Her Special Attack is the SHISH KEBAB, were she dashes forwards to skewer all enemies to her front. Again there is a pause whilst she flamboyantly strikes a pose before dealing the highest damage of all cosplaying characters to all who stand in her way. She is invulnerable to taking damage during this attack, which makes the delay all about timing to land the best blow. See the gif below.
Her Special Evade is BACK DRAFT, were she stuns all nearby enemies and forcefully pushes them away before quickly retreating backwards, and hopefully out of harm's way. As with her Special Attack, she is again invulnerable to damage for the short duration of her Special Evade.
Update 34: update to version 1.9.9.1
New: Playerable Catgirl Cosplay Character SCHIAVONA, 8th and final playerable character and 4th unlockable bonus character.
New: SCHIAVONA can be unlocked with the achievement PHEIDIPPIDES.
Change: Default Build has been upgraded to the same level as the BETA branch, and the BETA branch has been retired.
Fix: Some melee based audio assests were not specifically set to use the effects audio channel.
Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year, with Monsters Loot Swag expected to ship in Q1 2025! ːhappychappyː
New UNLOCKABLE Character: Introducing STARSHIP
This is STARSHIP, she enjoys floating in zero gravity, getting blown out of airlocks, reads cheesy 1950s pulp sci-fi stories, and spamming phaser fire at anything that moves!
STARSHIP is the third unlockable player character (out of 4), and can be unlocked by gaining the achievement ULTRA MARATHON, when the player has travelled more than a total of 100km / 62 miles and 241 yards in old money.
STARSHIP is a ranged based playable character, featuring high mobility, excellent energy recharge, but is physcially weak when pushing enemies out of the way, and has low health regeneration.
Her Standard Attack is PHASER SPAM, which makes her the only character capable of true run-and-gun, as she doesn't bother to aim and just spams shots whilst moving. This is also the only attack were the player can just hold down the fire button and it will keep firing.
Her Special Attack is PHASERS TO STUN, which unleashes a wide energy beam, immobilizing all enemies to her front.
Whilst physically weak with low strength making it difficult to push monsters out of the way, her Special Evade is ENERGIZE! Which teleports her away from danger, 18 metres in the direction she is moving, or forwards if she is static, whilst stunning any enemy close to her materialization point.
In other news, Steamworks SDK has been updated to version 1.61. This has a new feature were Steam Stats are preloaded on the Steam Client. Naturally this broke all my custom code and safety checks for whether Stats had been loaded, so that took some time to fix, but now all is well and my C++ has been updated to play nicely with the new method of retreiving player statistics from Steam's servers.
There have also been a number of changes and bug fixes, as detailed below in the changelog!
Update 33: update to v.1.8.8.4
New: Steamworks SDK updated to version 1.61.
Change: Local game files re-coded to receive user stats pre-game load.
New: Playerable Catgirl Cosplay Character STARSHIP, 7th (of 8) playerable character and 3rd (of 4) unlockable character.
New: STARSHIP can be unlocked with the achievement ULTRA MARATHON.
New: Playerable phaser weapon for new character STARSHIP.
New: Particle FX for phaser impacts and stunned enemies.
Fix: Fully populated uft font files are now included.
Fix: Playable cosplay character Southern Hospitality's directional speed now equalised.
Change: Projectiles now spawn at the end of their point-blank raycast hit test point (~2m), rather than weapon muzzlePoint origin, so they don't look like they're spawning behind weapon barrels if projectile has a long tail.
Fix: Removed interfering head/look animation from playable character PUMPKIN that kept making her look at the ground.
Change: Increase minimum distance of Deer Hunters (level 4 enemies) spawn and death audio for slightly louder sound.
Fix: Deer Hunters (level 4 enemy) spawn fx was missing due to change in previous naming conventions.
New: Created a rudimentary function to prevent the cursor escaping the rendering window when K&M are the selected control system (and the game is windowed or multiple monitors are in use).
New: Cursor window lock is disabled if the game window is not in focus. (eg: you TAB out)
New: SteamDeck disables window lock as it should not be required.
Fix: Total Orbiters was calling the wrong stat when dumping stats.
Fix: Best Attack stat was not being correctly set.
Change: Minor wording change to level 3 loading screen.
Change: Startup loading screen now has it's own thinking catgirl portrait background image.
Happy Swagging it up!
Early Access Update 32
Builds Builds Builds ...
Default build has been updated to the working Beta build, whilst the new Beta build has been updated to a newer engine build.
Build.
Error reporting had been broken under certain "circumstances" ... circumstances which briefly made my life as a developer a pain in bug tracking, and this is now fixed.
Update 32: update to v.1.8.6.8 New: Player now has 10 seconds spawn protection, useful if joining an already started multiplayer game. Change: Enemy missile elites will now attempt to fire a missile when they spawn. Fix: Leaderboard Top 3 bronze player name was not correctly resizing for display. Fix: expanding fonts had a global on it's global. Fix: error reporting once again names the error and error location. Fix: previous Beta issue with broken animated textures not animating. Fix: correct default build now pushed - derp ːsteamfacepalmː
And if you're in the UK, don't forget to turn your clocks back in 2 and a half hours! ːareusureaboutthatː
Early Access Update 31
The DEMO has returned, after being fully upgraded to the new all singing, all dancing PBR engine, and it features the first level, the initial 4 starting catgirl cosplaying characters, and online Co-Op mode!
The DEMO is downloadable from the store page, if anyone fancies a try.
Early Access Update 31 also includes a few changes and fixes to both the Default Game Build and the Beta Build.
Update 31: update to v.1.8.6.3
Change: Default Release updated to engine version 1290.
Change: Beta Release updated to engine version 1304.
New: Return of the Demo, fully upgraded to the new PBR engine, featuring the first level and choice of the starting 4 cosplay characters, including 4 player online co-op mode. Previously it had been removed due to being built with the outdated, pre-PBR engine.
Fix: Custom keybinds were being saved in an outdated format.
Change: All 212 animated materials are now using the new animFlag typemask display format.
Fix: LightFlameLinesMagenta16_dds material asset file was in the wrong directory, now reunited with correct assets.
Fix: Removed duplicate setCosplay function for gameConnection to call serverConnection.
ːcorblimeyguvnorː
Early Access Update 30
It's not just the Windows kernal that got updated and caused worldwide chaos - apparently Proton was also affected by changes to Windows, and has thus required a fix to the DirectX shader compiler. So once again, the game should be running on SteamDeck, Proton and Wine in general. A shame M$ don't actually mention anything when they update D3DCompiler47,dll ... ːnotsohappychappyː
In other news, the Beta has had another overhaul, and the GlowBin has been ... er ... binned! ːhappychappyː This has now been replaced with glow getting it's own pass during rendering. This required a bit of "fixing" of every object that used glow ... which turned out to be 94 of them ... ːsteamfacepalmː
Here is the full changelog for Early Access Update 30:
Update: 30: update to v.1.8.5.9
Change: Default Release updated to engine version 1281.
Change: Beta Release updated to engine version 1290 with a rollback for a bug I identified in player movement code.
Fix: Mostly about fixing Proton shader compatibility which broke after an update.
Change: D3DCompiler47.dll had previously been included for SteamDeck and is now updated to a more recent driver version.
Fix: LightFlameAmber animated texture was missing.
Change: GlowBin has been removed and glow now gets it's own rendering pass.
Change: 94 textures with glow have been updated to use the glowMap texture slot.
Change: Unified auto-exposure adaption rate through all 7 levels.
Change: Keyboard input returns to menus for the Beta version, though option selection and statistics menus are not currently useable this way, though you can ESC to go back, but really, use the mouse.
Steamworks Update v.160 and Early Access Update 19
Valve have released an update to the Steamworks SDK, and so I have updated Monsters Loot Swag to the latest Steam build!
This is Early Access Update 29, and includes the following changelog and bug fixes:
Update to v.1.8.5.7
Change: Steamworks SDK updated to latest development build v.1.60.
Change: Alert FX upon defeating the level end boss and opening the exit had stereo audio when it should have been mono for 3D direction on players who are too far away from the exit to see the exit shields fall.
Fix: It was possible for SinglePlayer pause to mistakenly think it was in Multiplayer, if player had entered Multiplayer mode but aborted hosting or connecting to a game.
Early Access Update 28
Welcome to Early Access Update 28! ːhappychappyː
The old Beta build is now considered stable enough to be promoted to the Default Release Build.
The new Beta build has a new audio library, which has resulted in a change to ALL THE THINGS - the things in this case being the audio files which have been reformatted from floating 32-bit OGG to 16-bit WAV, so the game engine doesn't have to do the conversion itself. Batching conversion was infinitley preferable to manually changing volume levels on all normalized audio. This has led to a rather larger update than usual which should weigh in at around 330mb.
Update 28: minor update to v.1.8.5.3
Change: Default Build engine ported to version 1226.
Change: Beta Build engine ported to latest version of devhead 1281.
Fix: If the startup character is locked, the first choice of character now defaults to the first unlocked character.
Fix: If the previous session's character was an unlocked character but that character is not currently available due to the steam achievement check failing, eg: offline play, a deathloop lockup/crash could occur.
Change: Altered level 3 loading "flavour" text to make a catgirl joke.
Fix: Level 4 preload was not working fully effectively due to wrong object transform.
Fix: Wrong HDR settings for level 4.
Fix: 2D audio initiated via server was failing.
Change: Beta audio files have been converted to 16-bit WAV due to changes to normalization of 32-bit float audio files in newest audio library.
New: Included openAL32d library.
New UNLOCKABLE Character: Introducing POLARIS
This is POLARIS, she enjoys meditating under the stars, drinking green tea, and beating the seven shades out of anything that moves!
POLARIS is the second unlockable character, and can be unlocked by the player getting the achievement known as; THE AMBASSADORS BY HOLBIEN.
POLARIS is a close range, melee based playable character with a trio of hand-to-hand standard attacks, featuring very high health regeneration, alongside high mobility, and high strength for knocking monsters out of the way. Her Special Attack is FURIOUS FISTS, were she pummels everything in front of her with super-fast blows, whilst being invulnerable to damage herself. Her Special Evade is RUGBY RUN, a short range speed burst with very high damage to anything she collides with, ending in a small area stun.
FURIOUS FISTS in action! (You can make your own Waaaa-ATATATATATATATA sound effect if you like)
Besides this new unlockable character, there has also been a host of bug fixes, tweaks and changes, which bring the game build up to version 1.8.4.9. Most of the fixes are regarding updating the engine from the older, and now retired build, and stabilizing the BETA build.
Update 27: updated to v.1.8.4.9, BETA build merge 1.2.2.8.
New: Unlockable player cosplay character "Polaris" is now available and requires Achievement "THE AMBASSADORS BY HOLBIEN" to unlock.
New: Multiple fist strikes special weapon for player melee combat datablock.
New: Rugby Run special FX and audio for Polaris special evade.
Change: Unlockable characters are now initialized directly via the test for unlocked steam achievements.
Fix: Removed zone volumes which were causing an assert on disconnect server / quitting level in BETA version.
Fix: Wrongly named arrayObject was attempting to cleanup the nodes list on level initialization.
Change: Added Follower mesh to preloading objects.
Change: Removed out of date font references.
Fix: Streamlined fonts and constrained sizes.
Change: Re-fonted all GUIs.
Change: Increased Elafi The Athelete Level 4 Boss melee attack range from 3.5 to 6.5.
New: Added multiple strikes FX for Elafi The Athelete Level 4 Boss melee attack.
Change: Decreased Elafi The Athelete Level 4 Boss melee attack knockback so that the player is not automatically knocked to safety after being hit and thus is more likely to receive multiple kicks.
Change: Moved the miss radius particle effect for Elafi The Athelete Level 4 Boss melee attack to spawn at 75% of range. Previously it made the player looked like they were in range of the attack which missed.
Fix: Multiplayer was showing engine versioning and not game versioning.
Fix: Level End GUI input control was not getting the call for set first responder due to misnaming.
Change: Amalgamated level end client calls to standardized function.
Fix: Removed redundant client call at level end.
Fix: Monster Boss charge FX array had been disabled in Default build, Beta build not affected.
Fix: Level End Menu buttons were throwing an assert whilst being parented to a gui when not visible. Parenting now delayed until button status check is activated.
Fix: Level End Menu buttons are now cleaned up onSleep.
Fix: Multiplayer mission recycling and level advancement was broken due to recent changes to engine build. Fixed and reported to engine development team. Changes merged into devhead on github.
Fix: Multiplayer advance level schedule calls were not referencing the new naming convention for game modes.
Fix: Multiplayer disconnect was calling an obsolete function, now calls disconnection directly.
Change: Removed all references to redundant server exit pause timings.
Change: Removed all references to obsolete cycling of missions on the server.
Fix: SpawnFX arrays with sfxPlaylist workarounds for some monsters on Default build were missing. Beta uses the correct system due to sfxPlayLists being fixed to work with networkable explosions.
Fix: Numerous weapon audio fx not referencing the correct module in BETA build.
Change: Player attributes for Light and Heavy Attack Damage no longer scale together. Heavy Attack Damage is now the maximum damage that can strike a single target and is out of 350. Light Attack Damage remains out of 150.
Fix: Explosion 72 particle was not correctly referencing the bitmap.
Fix: Machine-gun burst audio special attack was wrongly named in the Beta.
Fix: Level 1 Boss attack audio was changed but reference not updated.
Fix: swordFlashHighAudio was trying to reference a defunct playList in Beta.
Change: Updated autogenConditioners header file and will probably flush the shader cache on update.
