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Friday 25 November 2016

Pre-Alpha 3.9 / 4.0 Preview / More Mindy Stuff.

Lotta stuff this week. Let's break it down now.

Pre-Alpha 3.9

This week's release is all about bugfixes, and thus ain't that interesting. The details:

- Changed the intro screen. I liked the concept of the original, but it was too... messy, I guess? The new one comes across as more elegant. Somehow. I don't know.

- Changed the sewer battles so you don't have to wait several seconds once you drive off a monster. A Leave button appears instead.

- Added a text box that pops up if you try to start a New Game, warning that the old save (and all related achievements) will be deleted if you proceed.

- Fixed a little bug where the exit button disappears when scrolling through Sid's gallery.

- Tidied up the status screen a bit. The sound controls have been shoved behind a button, similar to the opening screen, and there's now a box showing which ability you chose when you started the game.

- Have made Strength the 'default' ability, assuming you forget to choose an ability when you start a new game.

- Tried to add Skip buttons to several of the king scenes to speed up repeat viewings, but they lagged the hell out of the scenes and generally wreaked havoc. I unfortunately don't have enough time right now to set them to rights, but this problem should be remedied by next week, and most of the needed infrastructure is already in the code... just disabled.

- Though it's not a bug, per se, I've noticed a few people complain about not getting keys they should have earned, or certain events not triggering properly. I suspect these problems stem from the Skip button itself - Stencyl may not register variable changes in a new scene for a split second upon entering that scene, and I think players who are going through the game for a second, third, fourth, fifth, however many times, are hitting the button too quickly.

I assume this is a Stencyl thing that I can't really change myself. My plan is to eventually go through and change the scenes a bit so the Skip button isn't created for about two seconds, allowing the variables that get altered at the beginning to do their thing. Until then, I recommend not spamming the Skip button too hardcore. Give the scene half a moment to load properly.


Yep. No monumental changes. I was too busy to go nuts last week.

4.0 Preview

This week's Patreon release is much more interesting, as it includes the final two endings, as well as a slight tweak to one of the achievements. The two endings are the hardest to get by far, 'cause, hey, you needed some kinda reward for collecting all those damned keys. 
Also, something looking like this might be involved. Maybe.

Mindy Stuff

The release of the new game's first build is just a week off for patrons, and I figured I would share another little look at what to expect. I give to you a little preview of the status screen!


As you can see, this game is going to feature far more stats than Soo Cubus, allowing players to customize their Mindy to a much greater degree. This will lead to a planned forty different endings (by comparison, Soo Cubus has a mere eighteen, last I checked), which should drive you completionists fuckin' batty.

A few other things to expect:

- RPG-style combat, more robust than Soo Cubus, with explorable dungeons
- A season system that will change stat accumulation and some of the scenes
- Lots of goofy storytelling tied into a large number of branching stories, depending on how you proceed through the game
- Sex

Might sound like I'm overselling some of the features - never wise, in this post-No Man's Sky world - but I'm pretty sure I can make it all work with my current skillset. Lookin' forward to the new challenge, and to your reactions to what is coming.

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