As I recall, that requires some kind of currency. In my 1½ hour of playing, I think I’ve acquired just one or two of those resources, and I probably didn’t happen to spend it on the “right” cartridges. It’s not the first 90 minutes of gameplay I would have wanted, and I wonder if the average player is that different.
When I can launch the game again I’ll try and look for the difficulty setting again, and see how that feels.
I’ve decided to remove the demo couple of days ago, it really was left behind the release build. Based on steam refund policy - if the player doesn’t like the game they can get refund anyway in 14 days and under 2 hour playtime I believe - and that’s more than enough to get the feel of the game.
Back In the demo I had smaller amount of cartridges available, so that’s why the player didn’t start with any. In the new version the player starts with 4 unlocked cartirdges so it is easier to start
But yeah, it’s totally possible that some bad decisions early in the game make starting out a bit harder. Tomorrow I’ll be working on it again, and I’ll rework the energy a bit I believe - max time to fully regen at about 3-4 seconds - so that part will also impact difficulty significantly. But it will still have it’s tradeoffs (shorter dash if no energy etc).
Added the Revive Potion, a powerful support item that can be crafted by combining: Health Potion, Energy Potion, Vitality Potion
The Revive Potion can be used to bring fallen allies back into the fight with 50% HP
Mushrooms now fire spore projectiles when they’re destroyed. When spores burst, they affect all units within the explosion radius making encounters more dynamic and dangerous and better for companions. Spores can regenerate health, energy or dashes.
Simon the Blue - Give 2 carrots to bunnies and he will appear. Once summoned, he’ll fight alongside you in battle.
Quality of Life
Added more explanations to the Daily Run system.
Removed the Wishlist button from the main menu.
Removed the Demo label from Pandora.
Added Sell and Send labels next to the prices on Pawn and Storage Shrines.
Improved the icons for Pawn and Storage Shrines.
Made Gothar immortal during the tutorial.Increased Max’s Energy Regeneration from 1 to 4 by default.
Hard mode has it’s melee damage, ranged damage and dash range now reduced when you don’t have energy anymore.
Tooltips now correctly disappear when closing a modal window with a mouse click.
Added a new dialogue option at the Fox Statue: “What is a Daily Run?” instead of having Start Daily Run as the first option.
More content, balance updates, companions, items, and surprises are on the way!
I think there was another recent update, so here’s my build info. I couldn’t find a plain version number.
I started over on normal, and even did the tutorial again, just to be thorough. No comments, except that the ALMA section uses technical language that the player isn’t likely to understand - I get that it’s a computery voice delivering the information, but maybe just make it as plain and simple as possible for the tutorial.
I also didn’t understand the last bit, about NPCs coming back weaker after every death… I think?
Overall I had a fun run, got to level 3 with several challenging spots. Then I suddenly died - see below. 22% of a coin didn’t seem like much of a reward though, but 5 purple currency did allow me to upgrade a bit.
Notes:
Have the number of crafts per spot become infinite or am I imagining that? I’ve regularly tried dumping a full inventory on one, but I’ve still only crafted: bow, club, stone club, mine, nail mine.
I don’t really understand the three-statues event. The initial press seems unnecessary, the selection press seems completely unpredictable, and the icons on the floor tiles don’t seem to match the ones on the statues. Also, companions can step on the tiles, which I’m sure is very frustrating to someone who knows what they’re doing
Deirdra (?) color on the map is very close to pits’ color.
Did some enemies get slower? I felt it was easier than usual to avoid enemies. In any case, it felt balanced, with a slight favoring towards ranged weapons.
It would be nice to see what the next level of a cartridge offers before upgrading it, even though the menu allows undoing.
It would also be good to show the cartridge tier when buying them. It’s important information, and it’s easy to spend a lot on a cartridge that’s currently useless.
Exploit - placing a vendor’s item in the inventory and going to the ALMA menu and back reduces the cost to 0. I observed this in the mid-point shop in pit encounters.
Use item in the inventory doesn’t seem to work on a carrot, possibly others.
The slime boss in the second pit took forever to beat - even when every ranged shot connects with an enemy, there are so many hp of enemies being spawned that it’s hard to keep up. Also, spawned slimes remain after boss is dead, even though the music indicates that the encounter is over. Not sure if that’s by design.
It’s annoying in any game when a companion steps on clearly visible traps. You could make it so they don’t, or make them invulnerable to it, or at least highly resistant.
The player can fire over chests (and other things), but doesn’t fire at all when right next to them.
A single monster can easily go overlooked in level 2, and the deirdra at the end only tells the player there is a “big enemy nearby” or thereabouts. Monsters could at least follow the player if they’re not dealt with on the way.
I got to the blue lizardy guy in level 3 / caverns of some sort, and died right away. That enemy seems completely out of balance, and impossible to get away from.
New Content
Quality of Life
Book Progression
Quality of Life Improvements
Balance Changes
Bug Fixes
