To celebrate Build 13, Super Cane Magic ZERO is 50% off until the end of the week!
We also added Steam Trading Cards and deployed a small hotfix.
Have fun and don't eat bombs!
:canemagic::seven::bananarang::aifon::yourock:
HotFix 13.02
Fixed a bug that caused the character to be stuck carrying an "invisible object" after eating some items
Improved some interfaces at low resolutions (Minimap, Stun Recovery Button, Inventory)
Fixed a bug that caused enemies and bosses to become stuck and stop fighting
Changed the 3D Glasses action that was bugged in Build 13. Now it has a brand new visual effect (The old effect is now a proper option in the game menu)
Fixed some wrong tiles in 1 room
Fixed the depth ordering of some interfaces (item baloons)
Fixed some minor bugs in the main menu
Fixed a bug that allowed levers and pressure plates to spawn in rooms without exits
Decreased Lantern direct damage, but it now inflicts the "On Fire" status
Fixed the last two levels of the "Really Big Pyramid" to be dark
Slightly increased the enemy aggro range
Save 50% On Super Cane Magic ZERO!
To celebrate Build 13, Super Cane Magic ZERO is 50% off until the end of the week!
We also added Steam Trading Cards and deployed a small hotfix.
Have fun and don't eat bombs!
:canemagic::seven::bananarang::aifon::yourock:
HotFix 13.02
Fixed a bug that caused the character to be stuck carrying an "invisible object" after eating some items
Improved some interfaces at low resolutions (Minimap, Stun Recovery Button, Inventory)
Fixed a bug that caused enemies and bosses to become stuck and stop fighting
Changed the 3D Glasses action that was bugged in Build 13. Now it has a brand new visual effect (The old effect is now a proper option in the game menu)
Fixed some wrong tiles in 1 room
Fixed the depth ordering of some interfaces (item baloons)
Fixed some minor bugs in the main menu
Fixed a bug that allowed levers and pressure plates to spawn in rooms without exits
Decreased Lantern direct damage, but it now inflicts the "On Fire" status
Fixed the last two levels of the "Really Big Pyramid" to be dark
Slightly increased the enemy aggro range
Save 50% On Super Cane Magic ZERO!
To celebrate Build 13, Super Cane Magic ZERO is 50% off until the and of the week!
We also added Steam Trading Cards and deployed a small hotfix.
Have fun and don't eat bombs!
ːcanemagicːːsevenːːbananarangːːaifonːːyourockː
HotFix 13.02
Fixed a bug that caused the character to be stuck carrying an "invisible object" after eating some items
Improved some interfaces at low resolutions (Minimap, Stun Recovery Button, Inventory)
Fixed a bug that caused enemies and bosses to become stuck and stop fighting
Changed the 3D Glasses action that was bugged in Build 13. Now it has a brand new visual effect (The old effect is now a proper option in the game menu)
Fixed some wrong tiles in 1 room
Fixed the depth ordering of some interfaces (item baloons)
Fixed some minor bugs in the main menu
Fixed a bug that allowed levers and pressure plates to spawn in rooms without exits
Decreased Lantern direct damage, but it now inflicts the "On Fire" status
Fixed the last two levels of the "Really Big Pyramid" to be dark
Slightly increased the enemy aggro range
Early Access Update 13
Update 13 has been an important step towards the production of the story mode. This patch introduces many fundamental features like the world map, the save game system and a prototype of the dialog system. Balance and interfaces have also been improved accordingly.
What’s next? From now on we will focus on creating the story arc and the game world, while keeping an eye on characters, items and challenge progression.
Major Elements
WORLD MAP Added the world map in challenge mode. From this map, players can change their selected characters and choose the level they want to play. New levels become accessible on the map as players progress through the game.
PANIC BUTTON We added a new “Panic Button” that makes the characters scream in panic. 100% useless
SAVEGAME SYSTEM (BETA) The game now saves unlocked levels and collected gear for each character (using Steam Cloud). At the moment we can’t rule out the possibility of a savegame wipe before the final release of the game.
NEW AREAS New Area: Crypt. Includes new bosses, enemies, items and rooms
New Area: Hills. Includes new bosses, enemies, items and rooms
New content for Volcano Area: bosses, items and rooms
DIFFICULTY SETTINGS It is now possible to select between 4 different difficulty settings when creating a new game. The game difficulty can be changed any time using the options menu. Each difficulty tier increases the number and strength of opponents. The game difficulty increases by 1 additional tier every 2 players in local co-op.
DARKNESS Some levels are dark, the players will need to find some light sources to light their path. For this reason we added a new throwable item, the lantern, that works as portable light source.
NEW RESPAWN SYSTEM Players no longer respawn at the nearest checkpoint. Respawn now happens immediately after being defeated, with player characters raining down from the sky in explosive meteors made of rainbows. Meteors explode causing damage and stunning nearby enemies. It’s also possible to purchase Extra Lives from Dispensers.
Releasing this update took quite a while but is a very important milestone in our development cycle. We completed our AI and characters upgrade and can finally create more interesting mechanics for combat and puzzles in the upcoming game content. To reach this goal we worked very hard on improving visual feedbacks for many of the combat interactions, and you should find easier to understand what’s going on during your games.
There is still much work to be done. We will now start focusing much more heavily on the creation of additional content. Our next milestone is to have a fun and varied “challenge mode” very soon, and this means more areas, more bosses and more enemies.
Story mode is in development too, but you will have to wait a little bit longer for that.
Special Powers and Playable characters revamp
To add variety and more interesting choices to our characters, we added brand new passive abilities and special powers for each one of the playable heroes.
A special power is a brand new ability that can be activated when the player has enough power charges. Every player starts with 0 charges and can collect a maximum number of charges defined by their “Power Charges” stat.
Players can get more power charges by eating energy charges. Charges are multi colored “pills” that can often be found inside treasure chests.
When a character has at least 1 charge, a fiery mane appears on its health bar portrait, and a number displays how many charges you have. If the number blinks red you cannot eat any more super charges, or you will explode and consume all your available charges.
You can activate a Special Power with space bar or LB by default. You can change this from the controls setup interface.
As these things go in early access games, this is the first implementation of this new feature, in the next updates we will improve the character selection and in-game status interface to better display how each special power and passive ability works.
Stealth
We added a simple stealth system to our game to hide traps and secrets.
Things that are stealth are invisible until a player gets close enough to reveal or trigger them. The distance required to “reveal” stealth is your “see things” stat in meters (tiles). Hidden items sometimes display a small sparkle. Keep an eye out, it could be a trap!
This is our first iteration on the stealth system, and will be improved in future updates.
Chest interaction
Interaction with chests was sometimes confusing and we changed it to be more straightforward and more in line with our “throw everything” design vision. You have now a single mean of interaction with chests: pick up and throw them.
The only way to open a chest is to smash it against a wall. Chest are now powerful weapons, but be careful where you throw them, because they are full of loot!
Arena mode
With the addition of “superpowers” to the game we tweaked and rebalanced item positioning and spawning in our arena levels. In addition, now rainbow meteors fall on the playfield periodically to spawn superpower charges.
For people preferring a more old school match without superpowers involved, we added a small new level called WPD Arena. You can also consider this level a small preview of one of the story mode areas we are working on.
New Enemy AI
For this update we rebuilt our AI system from the ground up. It is now much more streamlined and will allow us to tweak enemy behaviours to create more interesting and recognizable patterns.
In addition, many relevant NPC actions are now emphasized using animations and other visual clues. We will keep updating our AI through the entirety of SCMZ development.
New enemies
We added a few extra bad guys, and moved some of the old ones to other unreleased game areas.
Lizard People Lizard People are the inhabitants of the Great Volcano, and really want to eat you and your party. Female Lizard People are twice as big and are highly territorial. And wield giant rock maces.
Fire People Someone calls these guys “elementals”, but I have a friend in the Lavillage who uses a different term... Truth is, these guys are annoying and not very polite, especially if you hit them, as they have the habit of EXPLODING to express their disappoint.
Oh, yeah, and they cast fireballs and have a magic trick that makes everyone immune to fire. Not awesome.
Undead Considered a scourge in every self respecting fake videogame world, those guys are not a new entry to the world of WOTF, but now come in several different flavours. Every one of them very harmful for your health. Watch out, they are usually more powerful than regular enemies.
New friends
Some superpowers and throwables can now spawn friendly creatures that will help you in combat!
New and rebalanced items
We added more loot for the Volcano environment and re balanced some of the old gear.
Challenge mode
As we work to complete our basic challenge mode vision, we added 7 more rooms to the Volcano tileset and greatly improved most of the old ones.
A couple of the new rooms are exits, a new room category that contains extra loot and of course the door for the next level. Exit rooms are displayed in the minimap and are usually opened when you defeat the level boss.
Reset Unlocks and temporary costs
Due to changes in our whole in-game economy we were forced to reset all your unlocks and dog biscuit points.
We gave everyone 1500 points, so you can unlock some of your favorite characters.
As we are still in a very likey development phase, this kind of wipes are very likely to happen again. To soften the blow, we drastically decreased the unlock cost for every character.
Crossbow traps are now triggered when you hit them and not just when you pass in front of them;
All the parabolic, explosive items now detonate when they hit the ground. This should make bombs much more fun and useful during the game.
Balanced items drop rate. Now items within the same rarity level (common, uncommon,rare, etc...) have the same chance to be spawned. Their rarity is not affected by the differences in power rating. A green item has the same rarity of all other green items, even if they are less or more powerful within the “green items category.
Medium and Heavy Armor chest items now grant slightly less extra stats.
Improved activation speed of all game items, especially weapons.
Activating an item does not lock the character in place for the whole animation, but can be cancelled roughly at 80%. Using items should now feel much more responsive.
Removed grace period after taking standard damage. You now get the grace period (invulnerability) only when you respawn or you recover from being stunned.
Grace period duration duration increased from 1.2s to 1.5s
AOE attacks cannot be dodged anymore
Harmful liquids (i.e. lava) deal considerably more damage and the damage calculation is triggered much more frequently
Bosses gain 15% extra health for each player in co-op games
Small lava pools now re-activate after 3 minutes after they are exhausted
Spawners can now deploy a small team of enemies that scales when there are more players in a co-op game
Visual upgrades and feedback
Improved the explosions graphics to better show their area of effect
Resilient enemies, like spawners and bruisers now display an health bar when taking damage
When a trap or a mechanism is activated, an onomatopoeia is shown
Added an animation of disgust for the times you eat something that hurts you. It is now easier to understand if the item you are carrying can be eaten safely by your character
Now the characters hearts blink when the remaining life is close to zero
A visible colorful pulse of the character puppet is now displayed when enemies get damage or recover life
Improved the flying numbers color to better display the type of damage
Improved blinking colors on hit: damage hit now distinctive orange, invulnerability white
Improved characters animations and facial expressions
Fixes
Fixed a bug that made items and salami disappear when a new level started
Fixed a problem with how traps were spawned
Shurikens now work correctly
Fixed a bug that made enemies appear with the wrong animation in some situations
Fixed a bug that made mini-map show the active passages incorrectly
Now the items don't get stuck over the respawn area
Fixed bugs that affected the game while loading
Fixed a bug that made dark the character in some game areas
Fixed a bug that happened when Sio was thrown in the water
Fixed a bug that broke the GUI when trying the exit the arena mode
Fixed an error in the health bar interface
Fixed some issues that affected the interface fonts
Fixed a bug in the inventory that caused wrong information to be shown
Challenge mode Tutorial level now spawns a lever 100% of the times
Early Access Update 10
Hello friends!
Crazy busy times at Studio Evil! We are working super hard on the big update, AND we will be premiering the PS4 prototype of SCMZ at Milan’s Games Week this week-end.
But we still love you very much! So here is Early Access update 10! It’s still a fix & tweak patch, but fear not, more content is coming!
Fixes
Fixed the Level of The Day Challenge that was spawning only boring rock-fire-based items instead of fire and universal items. You should now find edible things in your path.
Grass tiles are are now just “green” instead of “eye-popping-green”.
Fixed a typo in Dr. Culocane description
Added a new locked playable character: Pesceman
Added a new playable character: Annacosa
Added a new playable character: Giancoso
Fixed a bug with enemy spawn in the tutorial level
Optimized texture size, should improve performances on less powerful computers
Fixed a crash when restarting the tutorial level
Fixed a problem with some navmeshes in survival mode that caused AI to be stuck
First cleanup of AI behaviors, they should be relentless and generally speaking less dumb.
Fixed a bug that caused different game state GUIs to overlap at the end of a level
Fixed some typos in the english translation
Really fixed enemy spawn on boss bullets, lava egg and monster bomb.
Changes - WIP
Info balloons are no longer displayed for equipment on the ground. The Item will blink of a different color according to its rarity. We will improve this system by displaying more info only when items are for sale on a shop.
Changed loading screens. There are now 5,3% more Sio comics in the game.
Balance
Increased damage and area of effect for Lava Bakery throwables and bombs
Slightly increased spawn chance for Fruit Baskets
Slightly decreased spawn chance for Lava Bakery Boxes
Increased the amount of health gain and loss by eating items by 1 point
Increased damage from arrow traps
Early Access Update 9
KNOWN ISSUES
There is an issue with the latest Unity release that is causing crashes with video cards that are not DX11 enabled. We are actively looking for a workaround to fix this issue, and waiting for a Unity fix. In the meantime, we removed some visual features (like anti-aliasing) that should allow the game to work anyway. We are very sorry for this inconvenience, please, let us know if this solves the problem on your computer. We will keep you updated.
Some enemies are not acting very smart, we are working on a complete AI redesign.
FIX
Fixed a bug that caused the destruction of throwable items when colliding with traps
Fixed a bug that was causing throwable items to sometimes ignore walls
Fixed a bug that was causing item damage interface to be displayed for other kind of equipment
Fixed a bug that that prevented unlockable icons to be displayed
Fixed a bug that prevented the Lava Lord from spawning its minions
Fixed a bug that prevented Eggs and MonsterBombs from spawning monsters.
Fixed an outline shader that was supposed to be black, but was grey
Fixed the description for some items
Early Access Update 8
Features
This is by far the most important update to the game since the Early Access release.The new features and functions we built during the last few weeks will allow us to design, implement and track better and more content for the game campaign in the next months.
This is why “update 8” took so long: we re-built from the ground up several core elements of our project, and we are now ready for the challenges ahead.
New scalable game system
We implemented a new scalable system that allows every game element (from items to enemies) to scale up with campaign progression.
This system allows the same elements to exist and be spawned at different “tiers”. Each tier increases how powerful that element is.
Let’s use an hypothetical “armor of cool” item for example. This is how item stats change with different item tiers:
Tier 1 armor of cool: +5 Being Cool
Tier 2 armor of cool: +7 Being Cool
Tier n armor of cool: +n Being Cool
Not every item will be available at every tier, so now we can have items that exist at earlier levels and items that exist only at the endgame.
Game elements now also have “tags” that allow us to spawn them only in areas of the world where they are thematically appropriate. For instance, we can now decide to spawn fire-themed items and enemies only in the volcano area.
In addition to tier and tags, each item has a rarity level, in a classic RPG fashion. Items can be common, uncommon, rare, epic and legendary.
Items are more powerful when they are less common. Rare items contain more stats than their tier budget would normally allow. A rarity level equals roughly 0.5 tier budget.
Common Item: tier + 0
Uncommon Item: tier + tier*0.5
Rare item: tier + tier*1
Epic item: tier + tier*1.5
Legendary Item: tier + tier*2
Updated perk/script system We can now build more advanced effects for weapons and game effects (like dots, and triggers)
New item/weapon system We reworked the way we calculate damage and effectiveness from usable items (weapons and utilities) in a way that allows better scaling.
Items effectiveness is a multiplier of a custom primary stat. Effectiveness is expressed with a “vote rank” going from “S to E”. A rank S item will scale very efficiently, while a rank E item will scale poorly. Item effectiveness can scale using multiple stats at once.
New throwable damage calculation We reworked the way we calculate damage from thrown items, allowing better scaling. The damage calculation is actually pretty simple:
GUI Added an interface to the inventory to display weapon/items effectiveness and damage
Added a new “active perk list” tab to the inventory.
Slightly Improved the Arena mode interface.
Item spawners / altars We added a new type of item spawner. You will now find small pedestals with useful items on top of them. Some of those spawners will also regenerate the item if it is destroyed.
New items Added new lava pastries and improved the older ones.
Added more volcano-themed gear.
Added more volcano themed throwable items.
Added new items for the arena mode games.
Improved Arena Mode Arena mode games are designed to be instant fun for multiple players, so we implemented some extra gameplay rules to temporarily remove the RPG complexity and allow a more arcadey gameplay.
In arena mode games players start without items and are not allowed to open and manage their characters’ inventory. When players pick up a new item in arena mode, the old one is dropped on the ground and the new one is automatically equipped.
In addition, throwable items now respawn when their number in the arena level gets too low.
Balance
Game element spawns and drops have been completely rebalanced using our new system.
More powerful items are now less likely to spawn, and some items can spawn only in specific game areas or from specific enemies.
Normal hits from standard enemies no longer stun the players. Bigger enemies will still be able to stun characters.
Characters can now take environmental damage while stunned (for instance after being thrown into a lava pit). Being damaged while stunned breaks the stun.
Characters now take different amounts of damage when they are smashed against walls.
Smaller enemies take 100% of their HP as extra damage and they are instantly killed, while bigger enemies, like bosses, take up to 15% of their HP as extra damage.
Playable characters take 25% of their max HP as damage when they are smashed against a wall or immovable object.
Work in progress
The following paragraphs contain features that are not 100% complete. Maybe they need more content, maybe an extra dose of polish, we decided to ship them anyway with this patch to understand how well they actually work, with your help.
Ground Traps - WIP We added our first spike traps, so watch your steps! Traps are activated when you step on them, but if you move away really fast you can avoid damage. Trap activation also damages enemies.
New resource visuals - WIP We have now different kinds of Salami and Mortadelle. With the scalable tier system controlling how items spawn, the price for the most powerful stuff can rise to very high numbers. We needed more resource tiers to adapt how they drop to this new scale.
So now we have 6 different Salumi tiers, from +1 to +500.000
We are now testing the new visuals and how much the different salumi tiers are readable.
Fixes:
Fixed a bug that sometimes caused throwable items to stun the launching character too;
Fixed a bug that was causing our throwing cursor to be displayed as magenta-colored quads with some graphic cards;
Removed a temporary fix that increased the character size while carrying objects that was causing locks and glitches to player movement.
Early Access Update Seven
Hello early dwellers of WOTF! We proudly present you the build numero seven!
There are still a few nasty bugs to be fixed (see known issues), but we are getting there.
We are also working hard on the new AIs and the improved loot system, but this is a story for the future build 8.
You can follow our development plans on Trello.
NEW FEATURES / IMPROVEMENTS
You can now access audio and video options from the pause menu while playing.
Completely reworked "flying number" system. It's now easier to read and can display additional information about combat events. It also displays the name of newly acquired perks.
Improved pick-up auto equip. Now the character auto equips new gear only if that equipment slot is empty.
You can now mute music and sound effects with 2 separate options.
Signature beliefs perks are now innate character perks and no longer occupy a belief slot in your inventory. This way it's no longer possible to unequip signature abilities.
Improved advanced character stat sheet to display stat names and hint at primary-secondary stat relation.
The Lava Lord boss room now should look more interesting
FIXES
Completely reworked camera system, this should fix all the camera related bugs that occurred at the death of a player
Fixed a bug that caused items to drop through the environment at the start of a new level
Fixed a bug that caused wrong character placement at the start of a new level
Fixed a bug that allowed enemies to dodge a "wall smash" when thrown against walls.
Fixed a bug that displayed the wrong animation of a player when picking up a thrown enemy in mid-air (e.g. after bouncing against a wall)
Fixed a bug that was preventing some usable items from actually being usable (i.e. coffee cup, megaphone)
Fixed a bug that caused helper in-game GUIs (like "press A") to remain visible after quitting the game. (This time for real)
Fixed a graphic glitch on trap arrows
Fixed a bug that caused enemies to have unwanted equipment and sometimes spawned "ghost pants" running around with no proper enemy attached
Fixed some bad tile placement in spawning rooms and tutorial level
Fixed some bad tile placement that was causing some enemies to fly/move through walls
Fixed a bug that was preventing enemy melee damage from scaling with stats
Fixed Lava Lord boss equipment and attack
Fixed a bug that destroyed bullets even when they were being dodged
BALANCE
Rebalanced melee enemy damage to be about 50% higher
Increased resource (salami/biscuits) de-spawn time from 12 to 16 seconds
Resources and item now "explode" with less force during drop loot events, this should reduce the amount of resources that are lost to environmental dangers.
Fire based enemies are now healed by fire damage
Slightly increased the size of raised ground tiles colliders. Falling from higher places should now be a little more difficult.
Wall smash damage now decreased from 50% to 40% of the character full health (ignores armor)
Lava Lord aggro range increased
Fire Dudes should now be much more aggressive, and will pursue valid attack positions
KNOWN ISSUES
On some MAC configurations the game crashes at launch. We are still investigating this issue.
"South" facing walls have issues with collisions
Sometimes enemies fall through the ground when killed/stunned
