Witchinour
Small patch
Patch 2.0.1
- Added a HUD element that shows weapon notes in-game
- Fixed Nour's Destination's enemies' health scaling less than it should
- Flame Sword has been replaced by Venom Blade. Venom Blade makes your bullets apply a non-lethal poision to enemies.
- Recovery has been replaced by Bloody Pauldrons. Bloody Pauldrons allows you to cast at 0 MP by sacrificing 33% HP.
- Refresh now recovers 50% HP and 2 MP after killing a boss
- Extra Battery now makes energy packs give 100% energy and drop more frequently
- Medical Manual has been replaced by Blood Money. Blood Money decreases energy usage by 25% but makes medkits stop spawning.
- Sports Drink now resets your ability's cooldown
- Sunglasses now decreases enemy projectile speed by 15%
- Guillotine now effects bosses, but with reduced strength
- Changed Glaciation's description to clarify that it only effects non-boss enemies
Performance Patch
Patch 2.0.0
- Art and visuals rework!
- UI rework!
- Tutorial!
- New difficulty system!
- Dressing room!
- Game modes rework!
- Area mechanic rework!
- Character progression rework!
- Weapons!
- Class and spell reworks!
- Upgrades rework!
- Improved map generation!
- Lots of gameplay improvements and bug fixes!
Notes
- Since changes have been made to unlocks and other save stuff, this patch will reset your progress
- This is a very large patch, so if you come across a bug please post it in discussions and I'll do my best to fix it!
- Thank you to everyone who has played Witchinour so far, I really appreciate so many of you having taken time to tell me about your experience with the game. It means a lot to me and I'm so excited to finally be able to share this patch with you all!
- Purchases should be re-enabled shortly (likely today or Saturday) - apologies to those of you who found the game and were interested in playing it while they were disabled, I really wanted new players' first impressions of the game to be of 2.0!
Art and visuals rework
- Almost every sprite in the game has been remade or improved
- Visual effects have been added for various abilities, spells, and upgrades
- The scanlines option has been renamed to "CRT mode" because it features CRT-style screen curvature now
- Scanlines CRT mode now defaults to off
- A color correction shader has been implemented so that color output is the same whether CRT mode is on or off
- Some font and text color changes have been made for better readability
- Player and enemy shadows are now sprite-based, giving a more consistent look than when they were drawn as primitives
- Projectiles now have shadows
- Projectiles now have a contrasting glow effect. This is used to show effects on player bullets (for example, if the player has energy) and to make enemies' projectiles easier to spot (especially thrown weapons, which were easy to lose track of before).
- Projectile impacts are now shown when player projectiles hit enemies
- Projectile impacts are now shown when player projectiles are destroyed by reaching their maximum distance
- Enemies no longer flash when hit
- The player now leaves a body behind when killed
- Enemy bodies slide more now
UI rework
- Added a splash screen
- Menus are now mouse-controlled when playing on keyboard and mouse
- Screen transitions have been improved
- Pressing escape now goes back on menus
- The gameover screen no longer exists and has been integrated into the game scene
- Text pop-ups have been added and are used for things like damage numbers, showing HP/MP/XP gains, and letting the player know their ability is ready
- The HUD is now displayed on the level up screen
- The HUD now displays your upgrades in the order they were chosen
- The HUD now displays your current location and descension level in the upper-right corner
- Improved visibility of enemy health bars
- Spell/ability HUD elements' order has been reversed to reflect the order that they're chosen in
- A HUD element that shows the direction of bosses has been added
- The "how to play" option has been removed from the title screen. Its purpose was to hint to the player how the alert mechanic works, which is no longer necessary
- Window scale is now changed through the options menu instead of a hotkey
- Camera effects are split up into camera shake and camera recoil now and the screenshake option has been turned into a general camera option that can turn them on and off separately
- The keyboard and gamepad rebinding menu options have been turned into one option that takes the player to the appropriate binding menu based on what control method they're using
- The "loading" text has been removed from the screen during map generation
Tutorial
- A brief in-game tutorial has been added that needs to be completed before the player can enter the first floor of the dungeon
Difficulty system
- Alert is now called difficulty
- Difficulty is displayed as a percentage in the top-left corner of the HUD
- Difficulty increases the amount of projectiles ranged enemies fire and melee enemies' movement speed
- Unlike alert, killing enemies does not reduce difficulty and there are no upgrades that affect it
- Difficulty is linear - if the current difficulty is 200%, the increase to the amount of projectiles ranged enemies fire is double what it is at 100%. The exception to this is difficulty's effect on melee enemies' movement speed, which eventually maxes out.
- As a reference, 250% difficulty is about the same as loop 2 in pre-2.0
Dressing room
- A dressing room option has been added to the title screen. In the dressing room you can customize how you look or let the game generate a look for you with the randomize option. Your initial appearance is generated by the randomize option as there's no longer a set protagonist!
Library
- A library option has been added to the title screen. Inside the library menu you can go to two little encyclopedia screens that lets you see what upgrades do (once you've seen them in-game) and notes about the different classes of weapons.
Game structure rework
- A single loop now uses every area (Rogues' Hideout -> midgame areas (randomized order) -> endgame areas)
- Battlemages' Lair Control Room is now three floors, like every other area
- Trackery area has been removed
- The book room at the end of each loop has been removed
Modes rework
- Selectable difficulty modes have been replaced by descension levels. Descension levels add game-wide effects that make things more difficult, like limiting the amount of weapon drops or the player's regen.
- Descension levels can be unlocked by completing loop 1 on the highest descension level you have unlocked. Right now the maximum descension level is 6.
- Boss Rush has been removed
- The leaderboards available now are:
- Distance
- Loop 1 time
- Loop 2 time
- Distance
- Each leaderboard has a descension level 0 version and a maximum descension level version
Area mechanic rework
- Each area now has some unique mechanic or danger to the player. For example, some enemies in Rogues' Hideout now have a stealth effect and the cavemen's monkey friends in the Cavemen's Ruins now start out sleeping and can't be damaged until you wake them up.
Character progression rework
- The player no longer gains HP and MP through potions or XP by killing enemies. Instead, when a floor is cleared, three bonuses will spawn around the floor's stairs and the player can take one of them. The bonuses that spawn are:
- Medkit: recovers 50% HP and 2 MP
- XP: gives you XP towards leveling up. Leveling up will give you 1 upgrade point and, on levels 1-10, increase your minimum damage (the damage that you do when at 0 energy).
- Weapon box: contains two weapons and 50% energy. Better weapons drop the further into the game you are.
- Medkit: recovers 50% HP and 2 MP
- There is no longer a level cap but XP gained scales down every 10 levels
- Player HP now regenerates
- Enemies can drop energy packs that give 50% energy and 1 MP
Weapons system
- You're able to carry two weapons
- Some weapons have unique features, looking at the notes in the weapon library is advised!
- Having energy increases the damage that your weapons do
- Energy is shared between both of your weapons
- If you run out of energy your weapons will continue to function, but with reduced strength
- If an enemy is carrying a non-melee weapon, that means it's currently possible for it to drop from a weapon box
Outfits rework
- Outfits are now called classes and offer abilities that are mostly similar to Nour's outfits, with some additions and changes
Spells rework
- The player is now limited to one spell
- Like abilities, spells have undergone some additions and changes
Upgrades rework
- Many of the game's existing upgrades have been changed and many new ones have been added. In total, there are now 40 upgrades, compared to pre-2.0's 23. The purpose of the upgrades rework is to provide the player with more choices and to make the effects of upgrades more interactive.
Unlocks rework
- The order of class and spell unlocks has been changed to have players unlock the easier to use classes and spells first and the more specialized ones later
- Unlock progress is no longer tied solely to total kills and the unlock bar has been removed from the title screen. Classes and spells are now unlocked by reaching and completing different areas or by reaching certain amounts of total kills.
Miscellaneous gameplay changes
- New, non-static game camera
- Map generation will now try to generate cover in open areas. The more open an area is, the more likely it is that cover is generated in it.
- Player movement has been modified to feel a little heavier while still being as agile as before
- Adjusted handling of analog input so that fine movement can be done more easily with thumbsticks
- Various changes to bosses
- Enemy projectile speeds have been decreased
- Enemy drops are now predetermined so that in seeded runs the same enemies will have the same drops. As potions no longer exist, this change only applies to energy pack drops.
- Decreased the range at which enemies will target the player regardless of sightlines
- Bullets fired by the player can now critically strike
- Player bullets created by abilities and spells are no longer affected by upgrades
- Boss room size has been increased
- Enemies' movement no longer stops if they touch the player
- Enemies that spawn projectiles when killed now must be at least a certain distance away from the player for their effects to be triggered
- Player bullets no longer slow enemies' movement
Bug fixes
- Enemy HP bars are now rendered at the correct depth. Previously they could become hidden under walls.
- Enemies will no longer aim their weapons at the player before they've acted
- Fixed the last of the instances of enemies firing at the player at the beginning of a floor before they were supposed to
- Fixed a handful of enemies not having targeting distance applied to them
- Fixed enemy drops not happening on kills caused by Dragoon's Assassin's ability
- Fixed enemies not leaving bodies behind when killed by Dragoon's Assassin's ability
- Fixed Orcish Lair's boss spawning closer to the player than other bosses
- Mouse is now properly unlocked when player is not in-game
Witchinour community update 4
Witchinour community update 3
The first screenshot is to show off the rework I'm doing of all of the game's art. My goal with the art rework is to make everything look nicer obviously, but also more readable. The scanlines option's been renamed to "CRT mode" instead, as it has CRT-style curvature now. I've also implemented a color correction shader and made it so that color output is the same whether CRT mode is on or off. Enemy bullets get a contrasting glow now which helps to pick them out when things get hectic, and this applies to thrown projectiles as well, making things like cavemen's spears or dwarves' axes especially easier to see compared to pre-2.0.
The second screenshot is partly to show off the library screen, which you get to from the title screen. Once you've seen an upgrade in-game, it'll show up here. It's not a terribly important feature, I just implemented it because I really like bestiaries and other little information and lore menus in games. Oh! And patch 2.0 also adds mouse control for menus (that was a fun one to add to my old menu code!).
The other thing I wanted to show off with this screenshot is that patch 2.0 is going to be bringing the total number of upgrades up to 40 and reworking a large number of the existing ones. A lot of the upgrades in pre-2.0 don't affect how the player plays very much and so I'm trying really hard with the upgrade rework (and other reworks) to create a lot more variety in playstyles and between runs.
As for release dates and Witchinour 2, Q1 2022 is my guess for patch 2.0. I originally wanted to release patch 2.0 and Witchinour 2 around the same time but I kind of got away from that idea the closer patch 2.0 has gotten to the finish line.
Patch 2.0 came about because I liked what I was doing with Witchinour 2 so much that I decided to go back and put its gameplay into Witchinour and use it as a base for Witchinour 2, which is not something I anticipated when I started working on it, so I apologize for not having had solid timelines for any of this until recently.
Witchinour community update 2
"So", I thought, "why should Witchinour be frozen in time?" and started updating the game to bring it up to speed with Witchinour 2. These updates are what form the content patch I announced in the last community update and touch almost every aspect of the game. For reference, the draft of the patch notes for patch 2.0 is sitting at about 1000 words right now, and I promise the word count isn't inflated!
As for a release date? Patch 2.0's release is kind of tied to Witchinour 2's release because I inevitably find things to change or implement in each project that I end up doing in the other project as well. So, for now, the release date is eventually, but I promise I'll post another community update as soon as I have more to share.
Witchinour community update
Patch 1.66.5
- At some point changes I made ended up making the alert level growth rate much slower than it should have been, so I did small rebalancing of it. Instead of talking about boring numbers I'll just say that I think it should feel a little more like a tug of war now. Alert level growth rate is now also the same across all difficulty levels.
- Chronomancy now slows time down when the player takes damage instead of slowing the alert level growth rate
- Picking up your spell book after completing a loop no longer increases your max HP/MP
- A few boss attacks have been tweaked to scale up on loops past 1
- Improved appearance of player and enemy shadows
- Fixed colors of locked options on difficulty selection menu
- Fixed enemy health bar color being slightly off from the green that's used in the rest of the HUD
Patch 1.66.4
- Made some small changes to UI and in-game art to make things easier to look at with scanlines off (and to look better generally)
- Removed background from unlock and alert bars
- Recolored parallax backgrounds
- When using a gamepad there is now a 10% deadzone for showing the crosshair
- The mouse will only lock to the game window while in game now (ie if you pause the game the mouse unlocks)
- Made some fixes to map generation
- Ballistic upgrade now makes your bullets pierce enemies
- Sniper upgrade now makes your bullets curve towards enemies
- Scope upgrade now increases your bullets' speed
- Max HP/MP upgrades no longer recover 1 HP/MP when taken
- Mana Fountain and Recovery now recover 2 HP/MP when you kill a boss instead of increasing the rate at which you find potions
- Instead of increasing per-loop, enemy limit per floor now starts low and increases over the course of the game
- Fixed a bug that was causing the sound and music volume options to sometimes not actually go to 0% when set to 0%
- Fixed XP bar text cutting off
- Fixed a bug that was causing upgrade screen to take player input from just before upgrade screen loaded
- Fixed a bug that was causing two enemy types to target the player at the beginning of a floor regardless of whether player was targetable or not