Playtesting and balancing your game is so hard, because you’re just face first in it for so long that you have no idea what a real player would act like when they don’t know every detail of the game.

These are charms.

Charms have their own slot on the UI, and you can only carry one at a time. Each charm gives you a different bonus (not going to specify here). These bonuses are much bigger than the regular passive items, as you can only carry one at a time. Things like dash into enemies to hurt them, or health regen. There won’t be any description of these charms anywhere, so it is up to the player to figure out what each one does. To obtain them, we added some new chests.

These chests are different from the regular ones that have a chance to spawn every room, as currently they are in every starting room. I may add a chance to put them in the starting room instead of a guarantee, I’m not sure yet. The chest on the left will produce charms, while hte one on the right produces usable items.

EDIT: The gifs don’t seem to be playing on Tumblr for some reason, so here’s an imgur link with an album.

I have a lot to share, so long post incoming.

Here’s a comparison picture of how the game used to look, to how it currently looks. Big difference. Believe it or not there was only a few key things I did to make the game look just so much better. I added SSAO, a bumpmap for the floor and ceiling, and played with the lighting and torches. These three things come together to make the game look just so much better.

In the top right there’s a minimap, this is still a huge work in progress but it’s definitely getting there. I need to fix it so it works every time, make it so your room is highlighted, have icons for different rooms, and show the doors inbetween rooms. 

In the bottom right there’s some transparent items. These are items you either buy from a vendor, get from a chest, get from an item room, or get from beating a boss. These all give different passive abilities. Items are still and probably will forever be continuously added. 

Under the stamina bar, there’s a usable item. These are items that you have to refill the charge on by completing rooms (or getting kills, haven’t decided yet). Each item has a different max amount of charges. Once these charges are filled, you may use the item. These items are generally pretty strong.

I also redid the UI for bombs, potions, and the currency. These are now shown under the usable item. No, levels aren’t gone.

This is the stats screen, it replaced the inventory. I just didn’t like the inventory anymore, it didn’t fit with the closed dungeon like scenario I have now, as opposed to the old open world design. There are a few stats shown here. The damage still raises with your level, but there are items to make you do more damage. Speed and attack speed can only be increased by items, these are not raised with your level. 

Xbox controls are in, here’s a quick demonstration of them and the vendor.

Now there’s a title screen, showing some fun stats about how much you’ve played.

Now on to the main part of the game, the objective and how it’s reached.

This is a boss. When killed an item spawns, when the item is picked up a new floor is generated. Mob levels now go by floors, so the lower you go the harder the game becomes. The current goal of the game is to get through all 5 floors, and kill the last boss. Neat, we have a complete-able game. 

As a bonus for staying around so long, here’s a funny gif of the Drilldot boss getting blind sided by his minions.

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