Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Strategy, Turn-based strategy (TBS), Adventure, IndieTangledeep
Three-week patch notes roundup!
DIRECTIONAL ANIMATION PROGRESS
One of the major goals of our Kickstarter was raising funds to do directional animations for all player characters. We've made some great progress on that, with the Brigand being the first job to enjoy a full set of animations in all directions!
FLASK INFUSIONS
Who doesn't love extra flavor in their drink? At levels 5, 10, and 15, you will now get a choice of Infusions to add to your flask which produce all sorts of positive effects!
HUGELY EXPANDED LATE-GAME
Previously, reaching floor 20 would take you to the final boss battle. Now, there is a final 'hub area' with four connected, hand-crafted zones with all-new monsters and minibosses to fight. Completing these very difficult areas doesn't just yield great loot, XP, and JP, but they will weaken the final boss as well.
BRAND-NEW CORRAL AND PET SYSTEM
It's what you've always wanted: the ability to not just capture dungeon monsters, but take them into the dungeon as permanent pets! The new monster corral builds on the previous patches, allowing you up to 12 monster slots (up from 3). Captured monsters, once further tamed, can be brought back into the dungeon and will fight by your side forever... or until they die. But unlike other pets, monster pets get half of your healing, so it's easier to keep 'em alive!
Not only that, but it is now possible to create ALL-NEW monsters by cooking Romantic meals and serving them to two monsters with good relationships. Did I mention all monsters now maintain relationships with all other monsters in the corral?! Hybrid monsters inherit stats and powers from their parents, allowing you to potentially create the ultimate pet with lots of awesome stats and abilities.
TONS AND TONS OF ENGINE WORK
From performance optimizations to save data handling and much more, we've written huge swaths of engine code to make it more performant and easier to edit and maintain.
BUG FIXES AND QUALITY OF LIFE
Dozens of fixes and QOL improvements have been made, such as showing more detailed and accurate Spellshape information, a new pet "party" UI on the main HUD, better menu behavior and much more.
PORT PROGRESS?!
Tangledeep is getting a console port! Which console? You'll find out soon enough! With master devmans Jim Shepard now on the team full-time, we've actually created a working build on (insert console name here). Exciting times!
Jim Shepard, developer of Dungeonmans, joins the Tangledeep team!
Jim has also been a game programming and design mentor to me from the start, before Tangledeep was even a twinkle in my eye. Without his extensive experience and valuable advice, this game simply would not have been possible.
So, it's with great excitement that can announce Jim is joining the Tangledeep team as a full-time programmer! This is a huge deal since I've been the only one writing code so far, and there are so many things I want to do. He'll be squashing bugs, collaborating on awesome new features, optimizing the engine, and doing prep work for ports to other platforms yet to-be-announced.
Exciting times!
If you're a fan of Dungeonmans, you'll want to read his update announcement here about how this will affect future Dungeonmans dev. (Spoiler: It will slow down, especially compared to the 2+ years of support the game has already received, but Dungeonmans is NOT dying and there is more to come!)
Saturday Patch Review Roundup: August 26, 2017
ABILITY BUFFS
All damaging abilities can now critically hit. The crit chance is the same as your normal crit chance, whereas before it was a flat 5%. Ability crits also get bonus damage from your critical damage modifier!
SHIELD / BLOCK IMPROVEMENTS
It is now possible to block any PHYSICAL enemy abilities, reducing their damage. Shields now display their block damage reduction in the tooltip, too!
GEAR BUFFS
Previously, magical weapons and armor received better baseline power, defense, or dodge, scaling up with the # of magical properties. However, other kinds of equipment did not get any special bonuses, despite their rarity. This has been changed!
* Magical shields now get extra block damage reduction
* Magical accessories now boost ALL core stats
* Spellbooks now increase all elemental damage
* Quivers now boost ranged attack damage
Many legendary items have also been buffed - though this may not affect your existing drops (sorry!)
MAGIC ITEM TINKERING
You can now use the Dreamcaster to REMOVE a magical property from an item! This is useful if you want to continue entering the item to find the perfect magic mod. Removing a mod costs one Orb of Reverie plus some gold.
MERCHANT IMPROVEMENTS
Wandering merchants will now come and go while you are in Item Dreams. Also, merchants in side areas will now restock their goods periodically.
FAST TRAVEL
You can now instantly travel to most any "safe" side area such as merchant zones or the casino by entering the cave in Riverstone Camp!
WEAPON / OFFHAND PAIRING
A much-requested feature... You can now 'pair' an offhand item with a specific mainhand weapon. This is a great way to customize your weapon loadout even further! Examples:
* Pair a shield with your favorite sword
* Pair a different shield with a strong axe
* Pair a spellbook with a powerful magic staff
* Pair an offhand dagger with your mainhand dagger for dual wielding
Switching weapons will automatically equip the paired offhand. Useful!
ENGINE WORK
It might not be glamorous, but we significantly overhauled how handmade dungeon rooms and floors are stored and loaded. It is now possible to lay out these areas entirely in a text editor or external utility with no code required. We've also continued the monumental task of making every element of the game (UI, combat log, dialogs) localization-ready.
Friday Patch Review Roundup: August 18, 2017
NEW JOB - SOULKEEPER
Tangledeep's 10th job is now playable! The Soulkeeper is an aggressive summoner that uses "Echoes" collected from monsters to power her abilities. Debuff enemies and wear them down with your crossbow while reviving fallen monsters to fight by your side (not to mention all manner of elemental spirits!)
MONSTER CORRAL UPGRADE
The Monster Corral system has been revamped! Once captured and placed in the corral, monsters now have a variety of stats like Happiness, Weight, Rarity, and Beauty. Monsters can be Fed or Groomed to improve Happiness, Beauty, or both. Captured monsters also have certain foods they love or hate, so finding the right food will help them become happier even sooner. Happy monsters may produce certain items for you, even when you're away from the corral, so be sure to check back regularly!
NEW ITEMS AND MAGIC MODS
Three new staves, 8 new magic mods (equipment properties), 6 new legendaries, and a number of new non-legendary consumable items can now be found.
SHOPS IMPROVED
Many shopkeepers now stock higher-level goods as YOU gain levels.
PALADIN MINI-REWORK
The Paladin job now benefits from "Wrath", a resource generated by blocking or using Smite Evil. Wrath will power up your Divine Fury skill (which replaces Divine Bolt), OR give you extra defense after using Shield Slam.
MANY BALANCE CHANGES
Adventure Mode death penalty has been reduced, many types of food are now better or have shorter Full time, ranged weapons have been tweaked, pet scaling improved, many abilities adjusted... the list goes on and on!
ART IMPROVEMENTS
Several new tilesets have been added, along with dozens of new hit animations for the full cast of monsters.
NEW MUSIC BY GRANT KIRKHOPE
Enjoy the new theme to the Casino by the composer for such classic games as GoldenEye, Banjo Kazooie, and many others!
BOSS FIGHT IMPROVEMENTS
The first and second boss fights have been further fleshed out and improved, with lead-in areas for both!
SIDE AREA REWARDS
Completing a side area now gives you one (or more) special reward chests with a bonus chance for legendary/set item drops!
Friday Patch Review Roundup: August 4, 2017
BALANCE
We continued to fine-tune various class abilities, items, feats, and stats to create more viable options and builds. Several kinds of monster AI were tweaked, usually to be a little less 'indecisive' with their movement and targeting. Pet scaling has been improved, too.
BUGS
We've been rapidly addressing bugs as we receive them and I'm happy to report that we've now fixed the most major bugs related to crashing at Erin the rumor giver, and issues with save files not loading properly. That stuff seems to be all cleaned up now, and we're going down the list and fixing everything reported in order of priority.
CONTENT
Fist and Staff masteries are now in the game, along with new Champion types and legendary items, among other things!
NEW GAME+ MODE
Have you beaten the game yet? If so, try your hand at New Game+ by selecting "New Game" and going to an existing save slot with a high level character. This will re-create the world while retaining all of your meta progress, items, experience and skills. Monsters in NG+ are much harder, smarter, and more aggressive, but also drop much better loot on average (and legendary/set drop chance is doubled!)
QUALITY OF LIFE
We implemented lots of QOL improvements across the board, such as:
- The addition of a second hotbar for skills/items - You can cycle hotbars via key/button bind easily!
- Expanded and improved Journal with an extended combat log, plus cleaned up Rumors page and the ability to abandon rumors
- Stacking status effect icons in the upper left
- Cleaned up equipment display of stat/combat bonuses
- Instantly portal back to dungeon/Item Dream by pressing P in town
- New option for "Battle Text Speed" (damage numbers etc)
SOULKEEPER PROGRESS
The next character job, the Soulkeeper, is coming along well - but I decided to put it on hold a bit while I focus on smashing bugs. However, some of the core mechanics are already done, such as converting powerups into "Monster Spirits" and reviving fallen monsters, abilities and all!
Friday Patch Review Roundup
GAME POLISH
Thanks to your bug reports and feature requests, we implemented about ~100 bug fixes, as well as dozens of quality-of-life changes ranging from text improvements to UI additions, controller enhancements and more!
EXPANDED ITEM DREAMS
Compared to even our original Early Access build, Item Dreams have been dramatically improved. There are more layouts, more events, more crystal auras, and more ways to improve your equipment than ever before.
WEAPON MASTERIES
Jorito the Weapon Master is a new NPC at Riverstone Camp that will teach you advanced and unique weapon skills, from jumping bow shots to axe cleaves and passive bonuses. Many more masteries to come!
NEW RECIPES
We added about 7 new food recipes, plus a Recipes tab in your journal where you can view previously cooked or discovered recipes for convenience.
MID-LATE GAME DIFFICULTY
Through a combination of intentional rebalancing and bug fixes, the difficulty curve of the game's second half has generally gone up and should provide a good challenge for even roguelike veterans without being overwhelming.
HARDCORE MODE
Don't like meta progress? No problem, play hardcore mode. There isn't any. One death, that's it!
CLASS BALANCE
Budoka and HuSyn shipped as head-and-shoulders above the other playable jobs. Through our ~7 patches since last week, they have been made a bit more reasonable, while other jobs have generally been buffed, making for a variety of viable builds and combinations.
AI IMPROVEMENTS
Monsters are more aggressive and cunning than before; less easily kited or blocked by pets, they will lash out against anything in their way. Watch out!
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WHAT'S NEXT?
We're always working on general polish - bug fixes, UI, control improvements - but we have a number of exciting things in the works for the next week. Here's a sneak peek:
- A new playable class is coming soon - tentatively called the Aethyrmancer - offering an aggressive summon-focused playstyle
- We're planning a New Game+ mode for those who have beaten the game - start from the bottom on the same character, but be prepared for much tougher monsters!
- More flavor and dialog improvements and additions, including more of a proper lead-in to the first and second boss fights
- More weapon masteries types will be added, starting with Staff and Fist masteries
Build b052 Patch Notes
ART/VISUALS
- New grass tileset variation for the early dungeon! (Lushhhh)
BALACE
- Cooldown and energy cost of HuSyn's Runic Crystal increased
- HuSyn's passive Recharge now restores up to a baseline of 25 Energy, instead of 25% of max energy
- Gambler's Double Down is now a free action
- Gambler's High Card damage increased further, if you have more than 1 card in your hand
- Monsters now take less damage from lava, and champions even less
- Buff duration is now influenced by Discipline instead of Spirit
BUGS
- Fixed bug that broke ability targeting!
- Hunter's Ice Missile no longer hits your pets (may have fixed abilities with similar issues)
- Probably fixed issue where jumping away from a monster's telegraphed attack would cause you to get hit anyway
- Fixed bug with "Auto Use Planks" UI option not responding properly
- Deadly Void in Item Dreams should no longer ALSO be stamina-draining water
- Fixed loud menu SFX on load
- You can no longer enter a new Item Dream when one is already open
- Fixed bug where "Fire Ranged Weapon" was double mapped by default to "A" button on 360 gamepads
- Fixed minor display error with certain healing items like Campfire Roasted Fruit
- Fixed UI anomalies with the new gold tribute slider area (it just won't show up until you've SELECTED an item now)
- Fixed erroneous Gambler hand displays (several hands had the wrong effect listed)
- Gambler's Hot Streak now leaves flames behind again
- Fixed bug where playing as Gambler with all abilities then switching jobs would retain your (rigged!) deck
- Spirit now shows % increase to powerup healing on the character sheet
- The 'grid' option when enabled should no longer spin... as much... with your character
ENGINE
- Changed (fixed) the way "grass" layers are generated
QUALITY OF LIFE
- In WASD mapping, 'wait turn' is now mapped to Spacebar by default
- The Skill page now shows if an ability is on cooldown or not
- Dreamcaster interface now shows your current gold
- The minimap should now return to its previous state if you open and close any dialog or menu
Build b051 Patch Notes
AUDIO/MUSIC
- Various sound mix adjustments and placeholder fixes
- Expanded max # of sound channels
- New SFX cue for things stepping on spikes, thorns
BALACE
- Increased monster damage curve starting at level 4 (especially higher level monsters)
- Many telegraphed and ground hazard monster abilities from level 8+ monsters (and upper level champions) are now more deadly
- Bandit Buffslinger ice prisons now paralyze AND root you
- You can now store up to 30 items with Mr. Chimperton
- Enemies with energy shields (such as TURTLING and BARRIER) now reflect damage in melee, if you attack the shield head-on
- The Regen Flask now scales a little less with HP, but base healing has been increased. Overall, its effectiveness is now lower at >400 HP
- Orb of Reverie drop chance reduced
- Magic seed drop chance reduced
- Fewer fountains will spawn in Item Dreams floors that are below your level
- Treasure sparkles now give more gold on more difficult maps
- Champion monsters are a bit tougher now, particularly later ones
- Budoka unarmed damage scaling reduced (offhand too)
- Budoka Tornado Stance duration reduced by 1
- Bezo's Crossbow now spawns with at least 1 magic mod
BUGS
- Fixed bug that occurred on menu after dying
- Fixed bug where you would sometimes interact with an NPC or sign instead of traveling via a staircase
- Added extra error checking to prevent odd nullref with ability targeting
- Removed non-functional and redundant "warp to stairs" option when completing a side area (you can just use your Portal for the same effect)
- Fixed bug with magic item drop rates (I had made them
- higher* instead of lower)
- The banker no longer charges a fee if you deposit 0g
- Fixed cursor issue on Consumables page with unusable items (such as seeds, orbs)
- Added extra error checking for resolution settings
- Added extra error checking for when a 'null' actor dies
- Attempted fix for monsters not being cleared out at 0% HP
- Fixed some bugs when mixing keyboard and mouse control of sliders in the Options menu (clicking now refocuses the highlighted slider)
- Added extra error checking related to Paladin's Radiant Aura ability causing errors
- Budoka should no longer get a double attack if you're using a shield in your offhand
- Fixed bug where temporary crit chance modifiers were not loaded properly, causing load game issues
- You can no longer get more than 2 feats by selecting one, and then using the "random 2" option
CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
- By default, Item Dreams no longer have a chance to give an item an additional magic modifier. Instead, you can put a variable amount of gold into the Dreamcaster. Depending on the level of the item, the number of existing mods, and how much gold you put in, you'll have up to a 100% chance of getting a new magic mod!
- Three new high-level champion mods offering champs (near) immunity to certain damage types. Vary up your builds!
- Legendary and gear set items can now receive EXTRA magic mods from Item Dreams... for a price!
ENGINE
- Removed debug console for now, to avoid some display garbage on startup occasionally
- Added support for game to load data from multiple files per data type (i.e. multiple monster definition files, item files etc)
- Expanded monster balancing debug tools
QUALITY OF LIFE
- New "Text Speed" slider on the Options menu
- When viewing items in the Dreamcaster, you will be shown what upgrade bonus they will receive
- You can now click or press your mapped "Confirm" button to fade the level description overlay text in the dungeon
Tangledeep is now available on Early Access! (plus b050 patch notes)
Oh, and it's on sale for 10% off too!
I can't wait for you all to see what we have in store for the game in the coming months!
b050 Patch Notes
ART/VISUALS
- If enabled, the health bar under the player sprite is now red instead of green
- New placeholder final boss (phase1+2) sprites
- Updates to first boss area sprites, and post-boss area
- Replaced a few more ripped SFX!
BALACE
- Final Boss (phase 1) laser fields are now about twice as strong
- Slightly toned down Budoka's "Hundred Fists" damage, and explosive pressure point damage
- The effect of Guile on crit chance and parry chance has been increased
BUGS
- How are people still entering their Fists?! Tried fixing this again!!
- Added some additional hacks to load corrupted save data
- Fixed game logic bug with "Supporter" type monsters
- Fixed some visual mismatches when evaluating the difficulty / properties of an Item World
- Fixed some visual issues with how energy shields are aligned (if you see more problems, let me know which monsters suffer from 'em)
- Fixed bug where some combat messages / effects would not appear in Item World
- Fixed issue where mouse would be blocked / removed during mouse movement sometimes
- Fixed bug where holding right click would not continuously move you
- Fixed bug where some champion mods, when combined, were not giving champions all their powers and defenses
- Fixed bug where the first boss dialogue would play every time you went there
CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
- Two additional Item World difficulties have been added (available when delving into the most powerful items)
- Added new journal page drops containing various useful recipes on them
- A new character can be found in Riverstone Grove!
ENGINE
- Performance optimization to player pathfinding
QUALITY OF LIFE
- When in Item World and you have Planks in your inventory, you will automatically use them when walking into Deadly Void. (This can be toggled off in Gameplay Options)
- The spikes in Boss 1 now show up as spikes and don't act like lava
- When you complete a side area, you can now use your Town Portal anytime to return to the side area entrance (or back to town)
WRITING
- Tons of new and better item flavor text that reveals more about the world of Tangledeep!
- Various additional dialogs and lore now added!
- Throughout the game, "Item Worlds" are now known as "Item Dreams", opened with Orbs of Reverie.