The Dungeon Paradox
ALPHA BUILD 3
* Added display of current Experience progress per level, both in Teammeber UI and Selected Operator UI
* Added handling of Experience Progression on Defeat of a Monster, across the team, based on on who did the killing blow
* Added LevelProgressionValue to all Monsters
* Fixed so a Unit targeting an opponent that dies during aim-phase doesn't report the target as Lost when evaluating firing
* Adjusted amount healed on Level Up - reduced to 10% of max health
* Added Selected Operator indication in Party UI
ALPHA BUILD 2
* Fixed a visual glitch of AP in Operation overview when exiting Acion phase and an AppliedEffect ends
* Fixed issue that could under some instances still perform Terror-evaluation for dead Monsters
* Improved the buttons for Attribute value more/less on Character Creation scene
* Improved visual buttons for in-scene transition in Character Creation scene
* Improved Healing potions, now heal a % of characters max health instead of set number of points
* Added Level and LevelProgression to save-states between Levels
* Added max Health-benefit on Level Up - 10% per level gained
* Added automatic healing of Operator on Level Up
* Added visual particle effect to indicate Level Up
* Fixed Bat-strike AP-cost and cool-down in ticks to match new animation
* Added new handling, animation and transition for reading books
* Adjusted Golem CON from 24 to 30, and from 26 to 34 for Veteran
* Adjusted Spider STR from 10 to 8
We are entering Alpha phase
With our first Alpha Build Update we have now officially entered into the Alpha Phase. This means that the core frameworks are all in place and the main game-loop is ready for validation.
As is often the case when one designs a game, in the early stages of Pre-production one makes a lot of assumptions regarding will be the impact of different sub-systems, what will be fun regarding the core game-loop, what kind of emotional impact will some events have for the player - while a lot of finer details such as what kind of weapons, spells, monsters and so on may still be in planning and part of what is decided once production is actually underway. As the frameworks fall in place and the game-loop is realised, there is always the posibility that changes is needed. Rarely has a game entered Alpha state and been a solid title that merely needs all the content finalized.
Going forward we will continue to publish the change logs as they occur of each and every build. We will also start to build out and publish information in our own wiki as an online manual and will talk more about it when the information in it is expected to be less fluctuating and more complete.
Terror and Morale
One of the last building-blocks added as we enter Alpha was the Terror-property of all Units (Monsters and Operators). This is the amount of Fear and Terror this unit generates on their surrounding. The impact range of the Terror attribute is maximum value up to 4m, and then a linear decline up to Charisma (CHR) meters. A units (especially Operators) ability to withstand being affected by this is determined by the units Willpower (WP) attribute, with bonus from each near teammate's Charisma (CHR), with gradual decline in a linear scaling over distance.
A unit that fails this Terror vs Morale check, can be Shaken (which impact skills by -15% and -2 points in WP) or if even more impacted; Frightened (skills -30%, WP -4 points) or if heavily impacted; Paniced (skills -60%, WP -8 points).
This change increase the importance of Charisma and Willpower, partly avoiding the typical stat-dumping of characters when created in the beginning on the game (you can still put all points into Strength and Agility if you want, but better be ready to run if being alone and facing very scary Monsters).
Operators also generates limited Terror (men in gear with weapons storming at you can be scary!), but in general only the less intelligent and weaker enemies would be affected by this. But there are ways to temporarily increase this amount...
Some Monsters of the truly evil kind are immune against the impact of Terror - while most often generate a lot themselves.
So, what now?
As hinted at above there will be less major changes during the Alpha Phase as we hope that no major systems need to be added, removed or redesigned. We have some minor systems that are still being worked on, but the core game-loop is expected to remain. As such there may be less revolutionary or evoluationary changes with each update, but there will be more build out of actual content, such as levels, monsters, weapons, spells and many more things. For that reason alone, we expect the Alpha Phase to be a decent amount of months.
Changes on Steam the platform impacts us
You may have read about this from other Indie-developers or on gaming websites, but there have recently been another set of changes to Steam in how they handle upcoming games and games not yet released. At the same time the huge number of games being released these last 3 years have created a situation for Indie-developers where they find themselves being lost in the noise of new games. The latest changes has made it so that in general upcoming games will receieve much less visibility in the store - until it is released - while also making it much more important that a game generate a lot of attention (i.e. sales) for the Steam platform in the first week of the release.
This is doubly backwards for an Early Access title (where growing organically would often be better, to avoid front-loading players into a game that is not finished yet) as an Early Access game that have no attention will suffer from not recieving valuable feedback from user play testing of the growing title, but also then 'making sure' that any release once Early Access phase is finished will be much smaller as players have slowly been buying the title over several months time, as oppose during one single day on release. Virtually guaranteeing that no news or front page placement will be given, if not a run-away success or from a triple-A studio.
One way, perhaps the only way from what we know today, is to make sure we have enough Wishlists ready for the day Early Access is opening. This will be a challenge going forward and will be something we need to monitor and work on too, in addition to the game itself.
Updated screenshots
We have now replaced all screenshots from the store-page, they should all be showing our latest progress and be captured in full 4K.
ALPHA BUILD 1
* Added concept of Terror and Morale impact, with added AppliedEffects 'Shaken' 'Frightened' and 'Paniced' for debuffs
* Added support for stacking TTL for AppliedEffects
* Introduced immunities to Terror and Hurt for some Monsters
* Golem CHR raised from 10 to 12, for increased Terror-range
* Monster A.I. now takes into account Operator CHR to evaluate selecting target
* Performance improvements around handling of non-fullfilled CloseCombatOrder
* AppliedEffect 'CloseCombatAffected' now impacts all ranged with a 75% skill penalty
* Sniper-rifle AX338 recieved some adjustments to Deviance table to balance it to other ranged weapons now that Sniper Rifle is a separate skill
* Units having AppliedEffect 'Hurt', 'Shaken', 'Freightened', and 'Paniced' applied pops a status info line
* Added small sparkle-effect to potion-vases, to indicate contain type and content remaining
* Added additional minor healing potions to multiple Levels
* Added WIP icons for all AppliedEffect buff/debuffs for Operator Team List
* Adjusted so Aim Predict use the actual Unit position and not the AimCenterPoint, for ranged weapon, to avoid animation-induced offset
* Adjusted Skill-induced Deviance graph to mimic InvSqrt, also now have a much larger potential value for the extreme lower end of the skill-spectrum
* Added Special Ability Puls Nade ingame model and special effect
* Adjusted Puls Nade to now last 4 seconds effective time (240 ticks)
* Adjusted Puls Nade ping-frequency to 0.5s
* Golem AGI increased from 8 to 10, to balance it against its new slow powerful punch
* Added BoostInjection Special Ability Icons
* Adjusted LightFlare_Deactivated and Look_Deactivated to lower brightness to more clearly indicate the status as deactivated
Progress as we approach Alpha - September 2019
Here is some of the recent highlights from our most recent pre-alpha patch notes:
Skill progression
Since last months update were we finalized the skills available to all Operators the work has been focused on finishing the Skill Progression framework. In the tradition of classic RPGs the system is D100 based and offer a dynamic way to raise skills depending on how much it is used, no-matter if the action itself succeeded or failed. The exact possible progression-points and progression-points cost per level may still be adjusted during testing, but initial evaluation of progression-pace have been promising.
Selected Operator Order UI
After clicking on an Operator or its profile in the team-overview an action bar is shown, showing health, currently used action points and orders available. This is the UI used to control the actions of an operator, be it direct specific attacks, interact or investigate the environment, or plan out the movement to undertake. See the new 4K screenshots below or on the store page for an example of the UI with the new high-resolution icons.
A.I. Improvements
Support for Ranged Attacks used by A.I. controlled Units are now added. In addition several improvements has been made to CloseCombat Attacks, to more rapidly engage moving targets and handle situations where a lot of units are ganging up on a single opponent.
Path from pre-Alpha To Alpha
As we are now finishing the implementation and integration of all the major frameworks it is time to enter the Alpha phase of the development process. This stage will focus on evaluating all the systems working together, find bugs and determine if there is need for additional distinct features.
This stage is also dedicated to building out the content side of the game, that means implementing the plans for the dungeon levels, building out the existing levels and populate them with Monsters and Puzzles. As we build out the levels, and play-test them in end-to-end testing, there will be need to rebalance Monsters, Weapons, Skills - but we expect the majority of the final balancing to be done when all content is done and we enter Beta phase.
(4K screenshots)
To stay up to date with the development don't forget to click Follow, visit the Community forums or our Discord.
Latest progress re-cap - Aug 2019
Here is some of the recent highlights from our pre-alpha patch notes:
Finalizing basic skills
The range of skill that will be available to the operators and monsters, and that one can level up through experience, has been finalized and introduced for all characters. Each skill defined what they are used for to allow different play and weapon choices to have an impact on the gameplay experience. More details as to what the skills are and their values by default for each Monster-type and variance will be published going forward here and in a wiki.
New 'Close Combat' System
Since the earliest prototypes the close combat system was a sub-system of the projectile-based attack-system that ranged weapons use, only with limited range and speed of the attacks. This was always a temporary approach until we had our dedicated Close Combat System in place. This has now been introduced in the internal pre-alpha builds, and unlike the projectile based system it instead uses a more traditional RPG-approach with a D20-roll to evaluate Success, Failure and Critical Hit, where both the attackers and defenders skill-levels in the appropriate skill (depending on weapon carried) define the chance for the different outcomes.
'Damage vs Resistance' System
To further allow for a tactical approach to the gameplay, different Monsters have different resistance to different damage types depending on their type and variance. This also allows for introducing weaknesses in some monster-types and variances, for example an Ice-based variance may be sensitive to Fire, while the normal base-type of the monster wouldn't be. The details as to each monsters resistance towards each damage-type will be published going forward here and in a wiki.
New 'AppliedEffect' System
This system is to handle unit buff/debuffs across all other systems, allowing for instance a temporary boost against a base attribute or skill to be properly used by all other sub-systemce that use this attribute or skill in their calculations. It also takes care of the general status of the Applied Effect itself, the time to live in rounds and the display of visual indication (effect) over/at the units position if applicable. The first Applied Effect that was introduced was 'CloseCombatAffected', a debuff that impacts any unit that is attacked in Close Combat but isn't focusing on defending themselves. The impact of the debuff in question is a 25% skill-penalty for the rest of the round. One typical scenario is a Operator attempting to fire their weapon against a Monster, while another Monster is attacking the Operator. The decreased chance of success indicates the Operator being unable to fully focus on their attack at hand due to having to try to dodge the incoming blows from an attacking Monster. Another Applied Effect introduced is the buff from carrying out the CloseCombat-specific order Guard Stance, having a unit focus on performing a defensive stance for the duration of a round to deflect incoming attacks with a 33.3% increase chance to their skill-level.
The AppliedEffect system isn't limited to Skills, but can also impact Attributes, Health and XP-gain, in a positive or negative way. An example of this would be drinking a potion that gives the Operator a +2 in Strength for a number of turns, or performing a ritual that gives the operator a bonus to XP-gain for a set duration.
New 4K compatible Party UI
As we move from internal debug-panels towards a proper UI, we have now added a Party-UI that indicates Health, used Action Points, class, level and Operator icon -- that also scale flawlessly between any custom resolutions and all the way up to 4K. The same is also true for the Action Panel UI, shown for the selected Operator when selecting actions to perform, and we will be showing it and the new rendered icons going forward in the near future.
(4K Screenshots with Party UI)
Thanks for your interest in The Dungeon Paradox - A short re-cap of progress
Since the beginning of April, here is some of the highlights:
- 4K reskin of Dungeon levels
- HD dirt, mud, blood and other decals
- Speech Bubbles to indicate feedback from Operators
- Operators now understand and respect Friendly Fire concept
- Improvements to Monster A.I.
- Special Ability order added
- Assault class received special ability Light Flare
- New and improved special effects
- Another 9 Monster-types added to the backlog
Why not already open up the Early Access?
Due to how the nature of Early Access has changed, partly because too many games go to Early Access way too early and others don't continue their development once released, we have determined that while we would like to go Early Access as soon as all the core systems are in place, this will not be viable.
Too many games have misused the trust of gamer's, leading to them having a lack of confidence about Indie games abilities to actually finish what they started. As such, most Early Access games from Indie devs these days will receive reviews based on what they offer upon first release and then many reviews are never updated. This means if a release isn't already offering a near-release quality package, the reputation is forever lost.
As such, while the title will still be an Early Access release, we will hold back on releasing it until we are even more further along the path towards the v1.0 - i.e. it will be released once it reaches Beta state, not Alpha state as previously predicted.
We understand that this may upset anyone that was hoping to get into the game very soon, but please understand that this is the best path for the game going forward. As an Indie-dev there are no second chances in having release-exposure for going public with a first release, no bought journalists that will push the game for months even when it is in an unfinished state, no huge marketing budget to dig from to cover for missing features or bugs.
I really want to know more about the game or be involved, what do I do?
We will continuously post updates as we go along here in the Steam forum, on reddit etc, and we will always be available to answer question here or on discord. In addition, once we hit Alpha phase, we will open the door to invite a select few to participate in closed Alpha testing (no pre-order of the game needed), and the best way to get selected is to be an active member of the community.
Ability to monitor Pre-Alpha Progress
This will allow you to monitor any and all progress that is done for the game on its path towards the Early Access release.
Please note that the changelogs will rarely be fully exhaustive for the non-released builds and a functionality already implemented will not be listed in the first Pre-Alpha notes published.
What is already working?
* The core game loop, PLANNING and ACTION phase
* Move, Attack (multiple), Reload, Interact, Look, Overwatch
* Realistic projectile-simulation with drag and gravity
* Deferred rendering with multiple dynamic lights
* Usage of CTAA - Cinematic Temporal Anti-Aliasing
* 8 high quality animated soldiers, with multiple weapons
* Four Monster opponents, in multiple variations, fully ingame
* Additional 12 Monsters fully modeled and animated
* Levers, gates, doors, buttons is functional, animated and in-game
* Character creation step, ability to choose Attribute values and Class
* Team creation, with selection screen of all available options
* Save and Load of game progress
* Progress down the Dungeon through the Levels
We invite you to follow this journey and hope you will find it interesting.