Game completed! Done with version 1.00, I only had about 3 people provide feedback but that's good enough. I guess I can post the game in "Made with GameMaker" forum now.
14th February 2021 1.00 release New: -You can now pause the game (with the ESC/Start menu). It was easier to implement than I thought, hopefully there's no exploits. -Removed poise damage (the sub-sta...
rainlizard.itch.io
New:
-You can now pause the game (with the ESC/Start menu). It was easier to implement than I thought, hopefully there's no exploits.
-Removed poise damage (the sub-stat). The way it worked was monster types were either stunlockable or not, depending on your poise damage number. This felt very vague and it made the new-player experience hellish if you didn't level up Str/Tec right away, additionally making the combat confusing on a first impression. It could also screw you over late-game if you didn't totally max out your Str/Tec - you'd come across a Cactus or Minotaur and could be quickly killed by it when you expected your attack to stun it. A different implementation is possible, but I think it's important for the stunlocks to be predictable when fighting in chaotic large crowds as that's the kind of combat I want to encourage.
-When the player dies for the first time there is now a brief "cutscene" which explains the objective of the game. I was hesitant to add something like this but I received feedback from a few people about lacking direction and giving indication about the game having an end. This also solves a concern I had about players possibly being unable to find bosses, the game now explicitly tells you to seek them out.
-Upon starting a New game you can now select your default controls method.
-The south boss (confusing and underwhelming) has seen some big changes, mainly with the addition of some floating weapons which act like a giant blender.
-The west boss also received some changes to make it a little more interesting. It alters its movement speed based on a timer/pattern, alters its turning speed based on HP lost, has a combo attack and can push opponents around. Adjusted the head's collision box and nerfed bite damage from 150 to 100.
-Added "Limit Flying Debris" option to help for when there's big FPS drops.
-You can now always see the location of the Mind Stairs in your map (if you have one). I considered only showing it when not being persued but I don't think that makes much logical sense.
-"Regain stamina on kill" is now "Regain missing stamina on kill", regain a percentage of your missing stamina. I hope this isn't considered confusing but I'm low on text space in the UI. It's also now 0% to 40%.
Adjustments:
-Random monsters will no longer be placed in Central zone until you reach at least level 25. Previously there was a small chance for random species to be placed absolutely anywhere which meant fighting minotaurs at level 1.
-All shopkeepers always sell Paper now, not just the Central zone shopkeeper.
-Colour profile default is now 90 Gamma, 105 Red, 125 Blue. This will have a more accurate picture than before. (it's to compensate for the bad screen I designed my art on)
-Pit tiles adjusted so that you can walk along the edge, closer to the pit.
-Pits now require a longer touching time before you fall in. (15->25)
-You can no longer slide into a pit through movement deceleration (you must be pressing a movement key or dodging into it).
-Items are now a golden colour rather than blue (but may appear blue in dull lighting as the glow is still blue)
-Small Beetle bite damage 40 -> 30 (it was dealing more damage than a Goblin with an axe, which didn't seem right)
-Large Beetle bite damage 90 -> 60 (should be a little more in line with other Central zone enemies)
-Wizard lightning damage 2 -> 3 (50% more damage per frame)
-Wizard HP 75 -> 93
-Damned HP 93 -> 75 (Damned has a visibly smaller body than Wizard)
The XP (Power) rewards hadn't been updated in a long time despite some monsters being much more difficult to deal with than others:
-Wizard XP 250 -> 200
-Mask XP 400 -> 250
-Sun XP 500 -> 350
-Reptile XP 200 -> 400
-Knight XP 350 -> 500
-Reaper XP 950 -> 700
-Angel XP 1250 -> 950
-Minotaur XP 700 -> 1050
-Devil XP 1050 -> 1250
-Decreased lower-end XP required 400 -> 300 (so you can get out of the difficult early-game quicker)
-Blood shield rarity 0.333 -> 0.166 (twice as rare now)
-Some shadows adjusted
-Edited Heal/Restoration icon slightly.
-Prevented the smooth scaler option from being automatically enabled under certain resolutions.
-Message display time now takes into consideration message length.
-Made the Mercenary Summoner's welcome sound effect louder
-sfx_thud volume 0.5 -> 0.75
Bug fixes:
-Fixed softlock heal while being killed, for sure this time.
-An error is now displayed if you try to run the game within the zip file. If it's missing the /music/ and /ambience/ folders then you need to extract the entire game.
-Attempted fix of rare error in thing_push() script
-Fixed objects being rarely placed on top of each other. This was too complex to fix so I just added a check after the fact to remove overlappers.
-snd_beetle_armor_spike1 was the wrong sound file
-Fixed not filling to 100% HP when emerging from stairs with a +MAXHP heart in your inventory
-All particles are now cleared upon leaving an area
-Fixed a bug where some boss attacks such as projectiles weren't dealing damage depending on the boss's facing direction.
Tutorial garbage:
-Added another controls popup specifically for items saying "Space : Pickup item".
-Added extra popup messages for artifacts, equipping and using items when you have your inventory open.
-The "Seek glowbug" control popup is now written as: "Use ability".
-Movement controls now pop up first instead of Use ability controls.
-"Switch ability" controls popup and the "Level up" popup now wait until you've completed most of the other popups.
-Dodge controls popup now waits until you complete Attack popup and no longer requires that you take damage.
-Only display "Attack" and "Dodge" control popups if the player is not in the dark.
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