Aaaaaaand at long last, the much-anticipated weapons build is finished!
Go download version 0.6.2 “Arms Race” from your local Humble Library now!
We definitely appreciate all of your patience during the massive gulf of time it took us to get this build out. We have been adding some new systems, and made some pretty extensive technical changes… but more on that later. With several bonus features (you can throw things!!!), we hope the wait will have been worth it.
What’s changed?
Obviously there are now lots of weapons! To tell the truth, there is really only a small batch of what’s to come in the future, as we add zones and additional content. But the full feature set is in place, and we can make weapons of just about any length, speed, and attack pattern for a huge amount of variety.
For a long-winded explanation of the new and changed features, please see the full Build Notes on the forum: http://forums.pixelscopic.com/alpha/arms-race-v0-6-1
But for the rest of you, here’s the short version:
Feature Overview
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LOOT! — Weapons randomly drop from breakable objects and chests.
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WEAPONS! — New weapon types, with more coming each build.
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INVENTORY! — Equip up to 6 weapons to your inventory (5 sub-slots and 1 primary slot).
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ITEM JUGGLING! — Swap your equipped weapon on the fly, for use in your primary slot.
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CHARGED ATTACKS! — Hold down the attack button to charge the attack for a higher critical hit rate.
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BARE-FISTED ATTACKS! — No weapon? No problem! Punch your way out.
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LIFT! — Pick up and carry objects - jars, crates, torches are all portable! Use it as a shield or...
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THROW IT! — Anything you can pick up becomes a projectile weapon.
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DEGRADATION! — They can’t all be positive, can they? Weapons and items have decreasing uses, depending on your selected class’s proficiency with that weapon type. Primary weapon types for each class have infinite uses.
New Controls
The first thing you need to know before you jump in is the new control scheme:
The big things to remember are:
- Use the Interact button to pick up food and weapons, as well as to open the jail doors and flip switches.
- To use a weapon, you must swap it into your primary slot (on the right side), before it can be used!
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Weapons uses degrade, so watch the numeric counter on your items. If the counter displays “---” this weapon is infinite use for your class.
Weapons System
This build took a very veeeeery long time… trust us, we felt the pain as much as all of you. So why all the work and was it worth it?
We think so. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Delver’s Drop has one of the more complex weapon systems on the market. Take a look and judge for yourself based on what we can do with the system. In other words, allow us geek out on technical details:
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VARIABLE SPEED — Weapon speed is a major factor in gameplay — the faster you can strike, the more effective you’ll be. We can customize the speed down to hundredths of a second and weapon speeds can be unique to the three 3 stages of an attack.
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REPEAT STRIKES — Some weapons can do repeat hits in a single attack, such as a knife stabbing 2 or 3 times in quick succession each time you use it.
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RANGES — Weapons can have variable lengths / ranges, from the character’s bare fists to the full length of the screen.
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BARE FISTS — Yes, bare-fisted combat is possible for the masochists among you. Expect achievements for game completion without using a weapon!
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KNOCKBACK — Enemies are knocked back (and stunned) to greater or lesser degrees based on the weapon type.
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RECOIL — There is also recoil on your character when some weapons are used. This is undesirable in low-tier weapons, but will cause incredible hijinx when you eventually find a shotgun that shoots you across the room (and possibly across pits) with its recoil burst.
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USER DAMAGE — Some weapons will hurt you. Yes, this kinda sucks. But if it’s between having no weapon and a low-tier weapon with such a splintered grip that it hurts your hands to use… maybe the weapon is worth it. Or maybe you like the idea of a cursed vampiric weapon that slowly steals your life in exchange for increased damage to enemies.
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THROWING — If a weapon is unusable, or so poor that you don’t even want to equip it to your inventory, it has a secondary use when you THROW IT IN AN EMEMY’S FACE. It will cause as much damage as before, without the hassle of putting it in your pack.
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WEAPON COMPONENTS — Each weapon consists of between 4-6 parts that have unique visuals and each part can be swapped via randomization (coming soon!)
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TONS OF PROPERTIES — There are approximately 100 different scriptable properties that go into determining how each weapons looks and plays. This means that we can create an almost limitless number of unique weapons.
The following is the list of weapon features that are NOT yet done, but will be coming in future builds:
- In the next build, we will add a second button so that you can attack with items directly from your inventory, rather than only your primary slot. Two buttons = DUAL WIELDING!
- Lots of weapons are not ready yet, but should be available soon — bombs, shuriken, crossbows, grapnels, flails… all ready to go, and just waiting on art and scripting!
- Weapon randomization (prefix / suffix descriptors) is not yet complete. The weapons randomly drop, but do not yet have randomized properties or names. So expect the “Expert Double-Bladed Flaming Maul of Kablooey” soon.
- We have plans for around 1,000 base weapon instances (before randomization). Some weapon categories only have one weapon type right now. Eventually all weapon types (axes, maces, firearms, whips, etc) will have at least 10 instances.
New Delver Class!
And finally, we announce the presence of the new and improved, and most importantly, playable, BEASTKEEPER!
The most flamboyant Delver of all is ready to tame the Drop with her powerful whip and (coming later) summoned companion monsters!
Bonus Improvements!
Vastly Improved Load Times
We are now loading approximately TWICE as much data (the weapons databases are gigantic), and load times have been improved so that it should take only 10-20% of your previous wait. For reference, our loading times have been around 5 seconds when you drop to a new level. We would definitely love to hear from you all regarding your load times — it will help us further improve them. Please let us know how the game performs for you here: http://forums.pixelscopic.com/alpha/v0-4-2-load-times/
Cross-Platform Controller Support & Remapping
We now natively support controllers on Windows and Mac (and they will on Linux, too)! You should be able to plug in an XBox 360, PS3, or PS4 controller and play instantly, provided you have the necessary drivers.
Not only that, but we also now support entirely remappable controls for both controllers and keyboard. We will eventually have a menu in that game from which you can do input remapping, but for now remapping must be done in the controllers CSV file. You can make a copy of this Google Doc, make changes to the “Mapping CSV” tab, and download it as a CSV file to replace your local settings. See the “README” tab for more detailed info: https://docs.google.com/a/pixelscopic.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlVTZiRSjNf2dGVDcTBrNU1NRUlFMG00LUVuSEdqUFE&usp=drive_web#gid=8
We also now have a gamepad tester inside of the game, so if you have a gamepad which we have not yet mapped, you can help us add it! Please help us support every controller possible!Theoretically, anything your computer can recognize as a controller should work — which means things like USB adapters for many console converters should be mappable. We’re still waiting for someone to map a Rockband instrument, Dreamcast fishing controller, or ChaCha Amigo maracas. You can find all of the details about adding a new Gamepad to our database in the public Controller Mapping spreadsheet’s Readme tab as well (same link as above).
Build Checker
We also implemented a feature to check whether your build is up to date. Whenever the game launches, it will try to ping our servers to see if a newer version of the game is available. If such a version is, then you will get a very basic message telling you that there is a new build and that you should download it. This network check DOES NOT interfere in any way with the normal operation of the game!
If you don't have an internet connection, the game simply shrugs and moves on. If your build is out of date, you can still play it to your heart's content the game will simply remind you each time you boot up that a newer version is available. We hope that is a convenient way to guarantee that you are up to date without interfering with your ability to play the game immediately, regardless of internet accessibility.
So why’d it take so long?
Databases Databases Databasessssssss….
A huge database conversion unfortunately took a massive amount of time and effort on our end. We effectively rewrote the entire code system for our in-game databases. Not only did the coding take forever, we of course broke several dozen things that had to be fixed and tested.
So why did we do this if it was so time intensive? Well, we didn't exactly want to, but we were reaching a point of no return. We wrote the database system last summer to work with the massive CSVs our designers and scripters use. Unfortunately, as most of you have probably experienced, the load times for the game were getting really, really bad due to the way this information was loaded.
So instead of waiting for the mobile release (for which we knew we would have to redo the databases) and living with awful load times in the meantime, we bit the bullet and redid the whole system. This was one of the most painful months of development for all of us here in the office.
We think that the benefits were quite worth it though: now the game is loading approximately 2x as much data (the weapons databases are gigantic) in under 20% of the previous load times. So you get more weapons, levels, and enemies even faster. It was effectively a win-win-quadruple-win, but it was the single largest factor in delaying the build, and giving us all premature gray hair. Or in Coby’s case, further balding. :D Besides that, the weapon system did take longer than expected. But we added some features like thrown objects along the way in order to flesh out the item-equipment system event further.
What’s next?
Dungeon Generation 2.0
Build v0.6.2 is going to be the last major build using the legacy dungeon generation scheme. In other words, if you like the current rooms in the game, enjoy them now, because everything related to the dungeon is getting a makeover. As we mentioned late last year, the new dungeon generation scheme should accomplish the following goals:
- More flexibility in room design and greater variability within room components.
- More cohesive and interesting layout of each dungeon level.
- Better support for puzzle mechanics both in rooms and throughout a dungeon level.
- New drop mechanics, less backtracking, and more pronounced progression.
- Integration with thematic elements
We’ve spent a lot of time planning out how to accomplish these goals in order to maximize fun, reduce repetition and backtracking, and create some unique and interesting generations. The shortcomings of the first generation scheme and the planning for this next iteration has given us a lot of confidence that our Randungeoneration™ (Random Dungeon Generation 2.0) is going to be awesome. And if it’s not, we will cry. And then redo it again.
Boatloads of Content
New content will be raining down from here on out. Random Dungeon Generation 2.0 has been a bottleneck for us regarding adding in the new zones, but now that we are moving forward with the new generation system, new zones will get easier and easier to build. With the weapon system finalized, we are also able to rapidly generate the remaining base weapon instances. New enemies, new objects (puzzle and otherwise), and the remaining characters are also all coming into focus now. The next major build will probably look and feel like a different game!
Sneak peak of a basic Zone 2 room:
Sneak peak of the updated Assassin Class:
Where’s my (insert reward here)?
Due to all the database updates and the rush to get content production for additional zones / characters / weapons / etcetera running smoothly, our artists have gotten behind on reward production. We assumed you would still prefer to have cool game updates than a postcard in the mail. But we are beginning to work on them again, and a few are almost ready to print. We’ll send an update as soon as they are in-hand, when we are ready to mail them!
Livestreams!
Don’t forget that we do a livestream on http://twitch.tv/pixelsopic every Wednesday at 3pm CST. We talk about a lot of the upcoming features, show new gameplay footage, and work on in-progress art. If you want to keep up-to-the-minute (or week) on our progress, please tune in! If you miss the live version, you can always watch it in our Twitch archive. We will also be uploading many of them to YouTube.
For now, that's all we have! If you've read this far down, you are a champion among mere mortals. Let us know what you think in the comments, or hit us up at ks@pixelscopic.com!
