Update 0.9 Delay, Future Prices Update and Community Discussion
Hello Everyone
This is not a monthly dev blog; I'll go more in detail next week during the next dev-blog
Future Price Increase of the Game Has Changed
The game's price was always planned to increase with updates.
The original plan was to go from USD $5 (current price) to $7 on update 0.9 release, $8.5 on Update 0.10, and finally $10 on update 0.11, leaving a month for polishing before the 1.0 release with a 20% discount.
The new price plan is:
USD $5 > $9 (0.9) > $12 (0.10) > $15 (0.11)
Discount for 1.0 release will be increased from 20% to 33% and yes, the price will still be localized
I've explained why I wanted to update the price on the game's Discord and ran a poll to gauge what players felt was a good price increase path.
Edit: Here is the explanation from discord for non-discord users:
original post Follow up about poll result:
Update 0.9 is Delayed by 2 to 3 Weeks
possibly more, but that depends on if unplanned things happen
I initially planned for update 0.9 to be developed over June/July, with a release before the end of the month. However, I now realize that this is simply impossible. While the last two months were quite productive and a ton of improvements and content were added to the game, the update is simply not ready, and I don't want to push an unfinished update.
The biggest missing thing so far is the boss for the 4th zone. There are also many missing animations, icons, and visual polish for the new zone and variant. The new soundtrack is also unfinished. Overall, there is too much missing stuff.
I'll Also Increase the Time Between Major Updates from 2 to 3 Months
While update 0.9 contains more refactoring than updates 0.10 and 0.11 will contain (and those take time), I prefer to increase the planned development time for the few next majors updates. This will also allow me to add a few additional features that I plan to discuss with the community.
Speaking of which:
Community Discussion
As time progresses and I spend more time improving the game, there are often times when I'm wondering whether A or B would please the players more, or actively discussing some ideas.
While I've done this previously (Card rebalance) via Steam, I believe it's not the right tool for proper discussion. It's more of an announcement, and feedback in the comments, rather than a proper discussion.
This Is Why I'm Creating a New "Community Feedback" Thread in the game's Discord
(Don't forget to take the Community feedback role in the role channel)
These threads will be announcements about X or Y that I want to actively discuss with the community, exchange ideas, and find what would work best in a forum post.
Rogue: Genesia, July monthly Dev-Blog
Hello everyone, it's time for the monthly Dev-Blog!
Although it was originally planned for June, the timing pushed it to July
Hiring Composer and Sound Designer
Thanks to the previous month's post, I was able to find a great artist to help me!
This time, I'm looking for someone who can preferably handle both composing and sound design, but composing is the most urgent matter at the moment.
Here is a music piece made by one of the previous composers that can serve as a reference for the style we're aiming for: The rate would be around $40 to $70 per minute of used music.
If you are interested and think you can fit the target style, please send an email to roguegenesia@gmail.com.
Start of beta 0.9
June marked the start of the development for the next major update.
Card drop rebalance
One of the main objectives of this beta is to test the major rebalance of card drops. This rebalance includes two main changes:
Adjusting the drop rate of cards based on the player's level, making high rarity cards less common early in the game but more common as the player progresses.
Locking more cards behind other cards or specific requirements to give players more control over their builds early on, reducing the reliance on RNG and providing more strategic choices.
These changes have been a bit controversial, and I have decided to wait for feedback from players during the beta to determine whether or not to keep them. However, after running the beta for two weeks, I have received no feedback at all regarding these changes. While I am slightly frustrated by the lack of data, it could also be interpreted as the changes not having any noticeable impact on the difficulty, which is a positive outcome. I am hopeful to receive more feedback about this aspect of the game during the remainder of the beta in order to make a more informed decision on whether or not to keep these changes.
Boss rework
Another big change to come with Update 0.9 is a big rework of the bosses. From the feedback, the first boss was good, however the second one was a dip in enjoyment, and the third one was straight-up bad and confusing for most players.
Second boss was the first one that got designed and created, served as a boss for the end of demo. It was hastily created in an evening. Third boss was created by an helping hand during the 0.7. so I didn't directly worked on it, and it's a bit hard to modify the code of someone else.
So an entire week went into improving the bosses.
Bosses cutscene
Now all bosses have a small (skipable) cutscene when they spawn.
Boss healthbar
Bosses now have dedicated health bars, displaying the number of phases they are in and indicating if they are resistant to player damage.
Reworked Necromancer
The third boss has been completely remade from scratch, separating it into multiple distinct phases and adding new/reworked spells.
In the first phases, the boss will only use skill-shot type spells that are easy to read and dodge. This serves to teach players the boss's main attack.
Once you've dealt enough damage to reduce the boss's health to 2/3, it will enter its first Inter-phase. The health bar will display a small blue shield to indicate that the boss cannot be attacked. A custom objective will appear in the top-left corner of the screen to help players understand what is happening. You will either have to survive for a set duration of time or activate a magic circle while the boss summons hordes of undead.
After this inter-phase, the boss returns to the ground and gains the ability to summon undead as additional spells.
The second inter-phase is similar to the first one, but more intense and slightly longer.
In the third phase, the boss constantly summons undead around the player and gains a new powerful spell that players will need to dodge.
Once you've finished the third phase, the boss enters a final Inter-phase, where it gains the ability to cast spells without having to stop moving.
(For C-rank Difficulty, there is a small change to this last part)
Worm boss improvement
The worm boss has also received a small improvement, making its abilities more interesting in higher difficulties. There may be further improvements based on feedback.
In C-rank difficulty, the boss will summon spikes of rock that pursue the player. In C-rank difficulty, the boss will summon large quicksand areas to slow the player down. The Worm Spit ability has been reworked in D-rank+ difficulties to properly target the player and pose a serious threat. The boss's last phase involves repeated dashes that the player must avoid until its defeat.
Rework of stage generation
In order to continue adding new zones with unique and interesting gameplay, the stage generation system has been reworked. Players now have more control over the paths they can choose, and stage generation can be customized to create committed paths or prevent stages from spawning in certain locations. This update also allows for more visually interesting stages that blend better with the environment
(visuals are still WIP)
New Stats Menu
With the addition of more stats in the game, the current stats menu no longer suffices. Therefore, a complete rework of the stats menu has been implemented. The new menu now displays as many stats as needed, including modded stats. Additionally, it provides a detailed breakdown of (almost) all the stats, allowing players to understand the effects of each card they have.
(the way the breakdown is displayed is also a work in progress, and further improvements will be implemented)
Improved Achievements
Achievements have undergone a significant refactor to eliminate hardcoded functionality. Custom achievements can now be created, listening to custom events.
There are also two major UI improvements for achievements:
New Achievement Menu: This menu allows for the display of a larger number of achievements at once. However, the option to revert to the old achievement display is still available.
New Achievement Unlock Animation: It was easy to miss achievements unlock before, now you won't miss them!
Gunslinger Monster Count
To address the disadvantage faced by the Gunslinger avatar in combat due to a similar number of monsters as other avatars, a new stat called "Monster Count" has been introduced. For the Gunslinger, this stat is set to 25%, resulting in a reduction in the overall number of spawning monsters. This adjustment aims to preserve the uniqueness of the Gunslinger avatar without compromising its abilities.
Shop and Soul-shop Refactorization
The Shop and Soul-shop systems have undergone significant code overhaul to improve their functionality and flexibility. Previously, buyable items in the shop were hardcoded into the shop class, leading to a bloated class and difficulty in adding new buyable items. With the refactorization, modders now have the ability to add new buyable items through modding.
Similarly, SoulShop upgrades were previously hardcoded into a few categories. The refactorization introduces individual classes for each upgrade, allowing for more versatile upgrades and enhancing the overall functionality of the Soul-shop system.
Things Left to Do Before the 0.9 Update is Ready
The 0.9 beta has seen significant progress, with a focus on time-consuming tasks and slow progress. However, there are still several important tasks remaining to be completed before the update can be finalized.
Here is a summary of the remaining work:
Finalize Volcano Zone: - Create missing assets - Finish enemies in the Volcano Zone
Volcano Bossfight: - Devote considerable time to experimenting with and refining ideas for the bossfight
Complete Bestiary: - Add monster abilities list and pickups - Provide missing descriptions for many monsters
Polish Snow Zone and Add New Enemies: - Finish unfinished assets for the snow variant - Introduce new enemy variants for the Snow Zone
Avatar Skins: - Implement unlockable skins through difficult challenges
New Avatars: - Design and create two new avatars, one with a major unique mechanic and another with gameplay closer to the norm
New Events and New Card Type: - Increase build variety and depth with new event encounters - Improve Build diversity and depth
C-rank Survivors
C-rank Challenges
B-tier Soul-shop Upgrades: - Develop B-tier Soul-shop upgrades, to be added towards the end of the beta after ensuring content balance
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list, but it covers the major tasks that need to be addressed. As development progresses and player feedback is gathered during the beta, adjustments and refinements may be made.
Thank you for your continued support and patience as I work towards the 0.9 update.
Starting Beta 0.9 today
Hello!
Today mark the begining of the Beta for 0.9, as usual, expect a broken and half finished update, that will be worked on for the next 3 to 5 weeks
You can join the game discord and look into the "beta-announcements" Channel for the beta code.
I know my preview post about drop-chance based on level received mixed review having people like this change and other dislike, however, to get proper data on the changes, it'll be keep into the beta for now. It's likely to be moved to hero-soul difficulty only if increase the difficulty of the game too greatly.
This Beta also has a lot of placeholder content, like the balance on 4th zone of C-rank difficulty is not made as it just contain placeholder enemies.
As this update change a lot of thing regarding balance, I advice to create new profile, this will also greatly help me properly balance the game. If you find any situation too hard, precise the situation, your card, and the stage you were at just saying "game is too hard" is not gonna help me make it easier in any way.
Update 0.8.5.0 (first 0.9 beta) Changelog
Engine Updated from Unity 2020 to Unity 2022
Improved performance when a huge amount of visual effect happen
This will allow for future implementation of DLSS 2.0 And FSR 1.0
Majors Change
(Experimental) Card Drop-rate now change as you gain level, Low rarity card are much more common at low level but high rarity card become much more common at high level
Added more requirements to many soul-cards, this should help player have the build they are aiming for more easily (You can check the requirements for card in the Soul-card list by clicking on the cards)
Placeholder C-rank work (Enemy are placeholder, visual are unfinished, and boss is missing)
Unfinished alternative zone to Forest zone (Visual are unfinished and enemy are for now just the same as the Forest zone)
Improved Bosses Bosses now has an healthbar Bosses now has an intro (can be skipped by pressing Escape, space or Enter key (A button/start button on gamepad)) Bosses are now more clearly put in multiple phases
Rework of the Necromancer Now cut into 3 distinct phase, between each phase, he'll go into a "fly" mode where he can't be targeted, you either have to activate the magic circle to bring him down, or survive for long enough. First phase will be focused on the necro-mancer attacking ability for the player to get used to it's attack pattern. Starting on second phase he'll summon skeleton soldier to help him. Third phase will bring improved ability for the necromancer as well as the ability to cast and move at the same time Defence loss from defence piercing is reset between each phase
Rework of the Worm boss Did a major refactorisation on how the boss work as it was the oldest boss, and the most outdated code-wise Update into the new boss format, cut into 4 dinstinct phase. Gain a lot of defence during his burried phase On D-rank+, his spit ability got updated, he also spit dangerous zone arround him during his second "burried-phase" On C-rank+, gain new a new ability, summon spike from underground, be careful where you walk! On C-rank+, gain new a new ability, create quicksand zone, slowing down your movement On C-rank+ he can also summon spitter worm to help him during phase 2 and phase 3// Defence loss from defence piercing is reset between each phase
Slight rework of the Shaman On D-rank+, Gain a buff ability to buff entity around him On C-rank+, Gain a new attack ability.
New stat : Defence Shredding - how much of your defence piercing permanently increase the damage a monster take (was previous a value locked at 10%)
Changes
Knockback of enemy capped at twice their movement speed (only to 100% when the knockback is negative)
Slighty changed how pike collision are working to try at improving performances
Slighty increased Cave boss stage brightness, also increased survivors mode cave brightness
Dash improvement also give a 0.15sec damage immunity after the end of the dash movement speed also increase dash speed
Death Aura talent tick-rate increase nerf (actually a buff since it wasn't applied before)
Ice Spirit rework - slow down now scale with the level of the card.
Balance changes to monster in zone 2 (Vulture health was way too low, Cactus health too high)
Castle health bonus increased from 25 to 40
Reduced Gold Coin pick-up objective requirement scaling from zone
Seven sin achievement now unlock broken demon horn card
Flesh tweak Max level increased from 1 to 2 Base health increased from 150 to 200 Corruption increase from 1 to 3
Lunatic tweak Max level increased from 1 to 2 Base damage increased from 4 to 6 Defense piercing multiplier increased from 5 to 6 Now also increase area size by 15% Base corruption increased from 5 to 10
made an overall reduction to damage multiplier
Accumulation Change Reduced AttackSpeed penatly from 15% to 7.5% Reduced Damage multiplier from x1.25 to x1.125
Recursion Change Reduced Damage multiplier from x1.15 to x1.1 Increased max level from 4 to 5
Armor-less Change Reduced Damage multiplier from x1.5 to x1.35 Increased Health multiplier from x1.5 to x1.75
God wrath Change Reduced damage multiplier from +10% to +8% Increase max level from 4 to 5
Aiming Change Reduced damage multiplier from +10% to +7.5%
Size Up Change reduced damage multiplier from +5% to +3%
Flesh Armor - Rare | +10% armor multiplier, +10% health multiplier, +2 base corruption
Black Wing - Rare | +15% Move speed, +1 Dash charge, x0.9 purification multiplier, +5 base corruption
Broken demon horn - Ascended | + 50% damage multiplier, +150 base Health, x0.5 health regen, + 20 base corruption, x 0.90 experience multiplier
Holy Conversion - Ascended | Convert 4/6/8/10% of your corruption into Damage (at 10% ratio), Health (at 10% ratio) and Health regen (at 2% ratio)
Silk Edge - Ascended | Convert 99% of your damage into Defence piercing at 4/6/8/10% ratio.
Hemokinesis - Heroic | Increase your Defence shredding on Critical Hit by 5/10/15 %.
Acid Coating - Rare | Increase your base defence shredding by 1 %. Increase your Defence piercing by 1. Increase your base damage by 0.15
New Challenges
C-rank challenge - Armor Ban | Start with "Silk Edge" and "Armor-Less", reduce your damage by 50%,You cannot level-up Silk Edge, Banish conversion type cards | upon completion unlock "Silk Edge" card
New Achievements
"Your Corruption make them stronger" - Reach 1 Corruption - Unlock Candle
Slight improvement to the Desert zone grouds material
Fixes
Summoned enemies dropping 0 xp gem instead of not dropping them at all
Optional objective being "initialized" twice, leading for example to "kill X monster" optional objective to increase the monster killed by 2 instead of 1
Death Aura talent not increasing the tick-rate
Non-elite enemy in Fang collection objective not dropping fang
Ability, reloading or manual attack activating in pause menu when pressing their key
Ouroboros Necklace Description
Modding
Breaking Changes, `DamageInformation` class constructor now require a defenceShredding parameters.
Breaking API change for `SoulCard`
Removed `GetDescriptionLevelUp()` Changed how `GetDescription` work, it now use a `level` and `comparisonLevel` variable
Enemies AI refactorisation, you can now easily add new AI for your own monsters
Pet required DLC also has an "any" setting to make modded pet work with both pet or cat dlc
New Event - `OnDisplayStageObjectiveText(StringValue)` - Called when displaying the stage objective text to inject text (currently used for Custom boss related objectives)
New Event - `OnFightUpdate` - Called Once per frame when in fight.
New Event - `OnCalculateCardLevelGainAtOnce` - Called When determining how much level at once a card should gain when picked up (expect bug if you set it to 0)
New Event - `OnCalculateCardMaxLevel` - Called when detecting what is the max level of a card
New Event - `OnCalculateMonsterDefenceLoss` - Called before calculating the defence less of an enemy
Refactored Training weight to no longer have anything hardcoded into the game
Discussion about upcoming changes
Hello!
Since last week, I have begun working on the next major update. This means I can finally make significant changes and overhauls that wouldn't be feasible for a regular update.
During this period, I like to address any hidden or unreported issues, as well as fix other minor things that I believe need attention.
Today, I want to discuss something that I have noticed for some time now...
Soul-Card Rarity
I'm not referring to the existence of rarity itself, but rather the drop rates of different card rarities and the overall progression feeling during a game.
For some time now, I have observed that the chances of obtaining certain cards are a bit too high. It's not uncommon to come across 1 or 2 heroic cards in a single card selection or find 10 heroic cards by level 20. To gather more precise data, I wrote a small script to calculate the drop chances for each rarity. Here are the results I obtained:
Tainted - 10.58%
Normal - 31.10%
Uncommon - 22.63%
Rare - 9.89%
Epic - 16.26%
Heroic - 6.98%
Ascended - 0.05%
Evolution - 1.74%
Synergy - 0.76%
These percentages represent the drop rates for each card rarity. It's worth noting that the rarity of a card is not determined first, followed by a random selection from that rarity. Instead, I calculate the total weight of all valid cards available and randomly select a card based on its weight. This approach provides flexibility and prevents issues where a rarity is selected but no cards are available within that rarity.
The problem
The main issue is that having a large number of cards in a certain rarity greatly increases the chance of that rarity being dropped. While this may not have been a significant problem initially, as more heroic cards (which typically have interesting effects) were added to the game, the drop chance for heroic cards, as well as epic cards, significantly increased.
While this may not seem like a problem in itself, it can disrupt the progression rhythm of the game. Based on my observations, players quickly accumulate the heroic cards they desire by using rarity rerolls, and by levels 50 to 70, they end up with fewer interesting cards to choose from. This has two negative effects:
Players often reach their full power relatively early in the game, which can make subsequent runs feel less engaging and exciting.
Leveling up becomes less rewarding and less interesting as players progress, as they have already acquired most of the good cards. This also renders artifacts like Gilgamesh and talent points relatively pointless.
Solution?
After careful consideration, I believe scaling the drop rates of cards with player level could lead to a better sense of progression in the game. This would make obtaining heroic cards feel like a special event early on and increase their drop chances as players progress.
To test this approach, I created a curve for the drop chances of each rarity at different levels. Please note that the drop chance for Rare cards is still lower due to a smaller card pool, but I plan to address this by adding more rare cards in the upcoming update.
Here is the curve:
I understand that this is a significant change to the game, and I wanted to discuss it with the community before implementing it. Please feel free to share your opinions on this change in the comments, as your feedback will greatly help me.
Since this change is experimental, it may be subject to removal or significant modification based on the feedback received during the beta testing phase.
It's worth noting that this change may also have an impact on avatar balance, potentially resulting in an indirect nerf to the Shopkeeper. To address this, I may consider implementing a multiplier or exploring other options. Additionally, I may need to track the player's level when selecting cards during manual level-up or provide players with the choice to spend their levels later for better drop chances. These are all possible options that I will explore further.
Speaking of the beta, I do not have a specific date yet, but I hope to start the beta testing in less than two weeks. I will provide a detailed announcement with the precise date for the beta.
Hotfix 0.8.4.0f
Fixes
Stage selection - Player not moving when selecting a stage if you had no pet selected
Hotfix 0.8.4.0e
The previous update was planned to be the last for 0.8, but some unexpected bug got reported, so here it is
Updated Japanese Translation
Fixes
Monster category kill progress being reset upon restarting the game or loading a profile (like Elite for pride achievement or golem for Crystal sword achievement)
Hotfix 0.8.4.0d
Changes
Shrine buff - now increase duration when stacked instead of just reseting the duration
Goblin engineer - rank increased from normal monster to elite His stats has been increased to reflect the changes Spawn rate reduced in D-rank survivors
QoL
Slight change to how actives talents are named
Added the selected pet in the Victory screen
Fixes
Timer from survivors mode not added to total time survived stats, Now it's added up to the red timer (15min for F, 30min for E, 45min for D)
Goblin engineer not having animation on spawning
Worm boss burrying animation not working
Pet scaling being wrong in a few places (especially with modded pets)
Hotfix 0.8.4.0c
Fixes
Crossbow having some weird texture.
Damage source icon
Solar Stone Card drop chance and Xp bonus displayed value being wrong (their actual effect were still working)
Rogue: Genesia, May monthly Dev-Blog
Hello everyone, time for the monthly Dev-Blog!
Hiring Artists
First off, I would like to mention that I am looking for a Pixel-art animator (high priority) and a Pixel artist
Send an email to roguegenesia@gmail.com if you are interested.
Secondly, I've made a roadmap for the upcoming major updates.
(Dates may shift, changes are bound to happen, depending on players' feedback) Here are a few more details: I will increase the price to $10 about 1 month before 1.0 (so 0.11) to allow for a 20% discount on the game's 1.0 release, as Steam requires a 30-day cooldown after any discount/price changes.
Dog DLC release
Yesterday marked the release of the first pet DLC. A cat pet DLC is coming later on (likely for the 0.9 update). Initially, I wanted both pet DLCs to be released at the same time, but the animator who worked on the avatar is much busier with other things. In the end, dog animations were completed much later than I expected, and work on cat animations hasn't even started.
As people may have noticed, there is a bit of backlash about the release of a DLC while the game is still in early access (EA).
First off, why make a paid DLC in the game?
As I explained in the previous Monthly Devblog, initially, I didn't see it as important. However, due to numerous requests from players, I ended up creating it as a DLC. Creating animations for a pet is a time-consuming process, and I had two options: either I do it myself and delay the overall development of the game, or I spend money to hire someone. By making it a paid DLC, I can cover the animation costs.
Then why not wait for the release of the game? Why spend time on a DLC when you can focus on the game?
Firstly, personally, I spent around three days of development time implementing the pet system. I don't believe it significantly delays the overall lifetime of the game.
Secondly, developing and supporting a game is also running a business, and in this case, I'm not alone. I have a contract with my publisher (iolaCorp) that states we share the development costs 50/50. This means that whenever I want to hire someone for certain tasks like optimizing the game or creating more animations, I need to go through them as well. While they give me creative freedom in the game (although we sometimes clashed, I always achieve to win), hiring someone is not something I can do as freely.
Recently, the revenue of the game has significantly decreased, reaching only $6,000 this month. While this may initially sound like a lot, it is not much for a business. Let's say I want to hire an animator and a pixel artist, costing around $4,000 per month to pay them. This means that out of the total revenue of $6,000, we are left with $2,000, which is then shared between me and iolaCorp. This means that both my publisher and I receive $1,000. While I can manage with $1,000 per month, iolaCorp is a business that hires people and works on its own projects, so it is not sustainable for them. Consequently, I won't be able to hire the people I need.
Having a paid DLC that increases the revenue to around $8,000 to $10,000 per month allows for a higher budget to hire people to assist me with multiple tasks. This enables me to solely focus on developing the game, ultimately speeding up the development process and improving the overall quality.
In the end, it still hurt to face hate due to this DLC as if I were trying to hack their bank accounts or engaging in predatory monetization. However, this is part of the life of being a "Solo-Dev".
Solo Dev, not so solo
It has been some time since I have been completely alone in the development of the game. While the initial Early Access version of the game was developed solely by me, I have since hired people to assist me with certain tasks. Although I still handle most of the development and the direction of the game, I haven't been alone on this journey. So far, I have hired:
1 programmer for 3 to 4 months to support me with the D-rank boss, talent development, and other minor additions. This was especially helpful as I focused on creating the talents and avatar system.
1 animator I hired for 2 months who worked on the avatar animations.
1 animator who did a few animations but quickly disappeared after completing them.
1 technical artist I hired to work on optimizing the game, as it goes beyond my technical capacity.
2 musicians. (one that we parted way due to not fitting the game, and the other not giving much life sign <.<)
However, I am a developer at my core, not a manager, and it can be quite challenging and stressful to have people working for me. Finding the right individuals to work with is difficult in itself. you need to check a lot of person, make sure they are not trying to scam you, they have the skill level I'm looking for. Additionally, life happens, and some individuals may become busy for various reasons, either too occupied to continue working with me or experiencing unexpected delays.
Let's take the example of game optimization. It is a major issue for the game currently, and I hired someone to work on it. Unfortunately and for valid reasons, they couldn't deliver on time. Seeing that it was still reported a lot (I'm especially thinking of update 0.8) I become a impatient toward some players and ended up closing a thread where people complained about it... and I'm sorry that was seriously stupid. I try to take it upon myself and not affect the person I hired, I know very well that harassing them about it is not gonna help, They also understand they are behind schedule, and that can easily build-up stress. In the end, it is still a video game, and I want to avoid causing stress that can affect the well-being of the people I hire.
Speaking of optimization, I have some exciting news as significant progress has finally been made! The optimization is not yet ready to be implemented into the game, but it should be ready for Update 0.9.
Update 0.9
Now that the pet DLC is out, I can finally start working on the next major update. (The dog pet DLC didn't really cause any delays as I simply started working on things that were planned for 0.9 in the meantime like the bestiary or the Crystal sword.)
Development of 0.9 will begin next week, and the beta will likely start the week after, following a similar pattern as before (I will make a news post about it regardless).
One last note
Based on the current state of the game and my development speed, if I could solely focus on development, I would aim to have the game ready for 1.0 around September/October. In terms of development, the remaining work is "relatively" minor:
Creating new zones and zone variations is primarily asset-heavy work, with programming focused mainly on implementing AI, particularly for bosses.
Enemy design involves about 95% of the work dedicated to sprite and animation.
Implementing unlockable skins is again mostly asset-heavy, requiring about one week of work at most to integrate them into the game.
Some refactoring needs to be done for the shop, achievements, and soul shop, but each task would likely take no more than one week.
The cursed stage will likely require a significant investment of time.
Avatar design takes some time, usually around 3 to 7 days for the most ambitious ones, while animations typically require approximately 2 weeks of work.
Card and artifact development usually involves spending equal time on both sprite creation and coding.
Weapons generally have a 75/25 split between programming and art, with a major focus on creating particle effects.
Events and stage objectives can be more involved development-wise, but I can easily work on a few of them per day.
Ultimately, the factor that will most significantly impact the timing of updates and the game's release will be whether I can find talented animators and pixel artists to assist me.
Hotfix 0.8.4.0b
Changes
Sun Stone, Solar Stone and Stelar Stone now increase purification instead of removing corruption
QoL
Added talent at the end of active talents to now confuse player
Fixes
Fixed scrolling speed in mod list
Display issues when having a huge amount of avatar for avatar selection
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