October Update

Spooktober

We had a few things we wanted to focus on in October. One was implementing a backlog of enemies. Enemies that Albin had already done all of the art for, but we had yet to hook up logic to. Another big area was getting our prayer system into proper form. Finally we had to prepare for Dreamhack which is coming up in November, and preparing a stable build for actual players is a big task.

Bats, Necromancers, and Skeletons oh my!

We’ve had a backlog of enemies lying around for a while now and a lot of them happened to be spooky themed. So, October seemed like the appropriate time to hook them up. The bat (all the enemy names are TBD btw, we know they are terrible) is similar to our fly enemy, in that it flies around and shoots at you. But instead of a projectile that can cross a room, it shoots a sonic wave in a shotgun pattern. So it ends up being a threat at close range, but in a different way than a melee enemy.

The necromancer is what we call an urgent threat. These types of enemies do something that makes them a top priority over other enemies. Their purpose is to take your attention away from tie-up enemies that gang up on you. The necromancer happens to summon its own tie-up enemies in the form of skeletons. You’ll want to neutralize necromancers early or you’ll end up with a pile of skeletons to deal with.

Finally, the skeleton which can be summoned from the necromancer. He can be used in all kinds of places including as a surprise. Skeletons are dumb, and so is their attack pattern. They just wander around randomly and toss bones in the direction they are facing. No big deal on their own, but they add complication to messier fights.

Prayers and Curses!

We have four major systems that the player can discover items through. Relics, consumables (or potions), prayers, and familiars. Right now the relic system is the most fleshed out, with consumables being next in line. Finally, this month we really got around to improving prayers to the point we are getting happy with them.

The prayer system works like this: the player comes across altars on each floor. At an altar they can pray using gold. Different prayers are unlocked by finding tomes. Each prayer increases stats on the peasant, but there is a catch. Each prayer also has a downside in the form of a curse. For example, you can pray for strength and increase your melee damage, but you will be cursed with frailty which will decrease your max HP.

The goal with the prayer system is to give the player control over their “build.” So if you are running through the game and getting certain types of relics, you can also control how your stats are built around those relics. But we didn’t want this to be free, hence the curses. We also really like the idea of having these micro challenges that can augment the way you play. Sometimes curses aren’t even that bad. They can trigger certain relics more often than if you didn’t have the curse. For example, Arachnophobia spawns two spiders every time you kill an enemy. Sounds like a challenge, and it is, but it also gives you more enemies to kill. Relics like Hungry Ghost (gain HP back when killing an enemy) and Clover (gain gold from killing an enemy) rely on lots of enemies to kill, so maybe this isn’t a curse afterall?

Prayers are mostly about stat adjustments and they have appropriate curses to go along with them. The player will be able to “earn” bigger and bolder curses through other means. These curses will immediately impact you run and have big effects.

Atlanta Baby!

UnderMine was selected for the Indie Playground at Dreamhack Atlanta as part of the Best Adventure category, so… hell yeah, of course we’re going! We’ll be there from Nov (looks up Dreamhack website for the 3rd time because I am crap with dates) 16 -18, so if you’re in town attending the show come say hi and play the game!

Cons are great, because not only do we get to meet players and fans, it also forces us to get our ducks in a row, iron out all the bugs, and get the game in tip top shape.

Alright… that seems decent for the first shot at a dev blog. See you in November!