Big Swamp Update

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FrogFlute_c.gif

We've got the swamp area pretty far along now, going to add more quests there including the one to get the Frog Flute so you can ride Croakers. Right now the Croaker Keeper will just hand over the flute when you talk to him until we get the full quest in. Going to be focusing on the second dungeon next which is our last major content piece before getting ready for Kickstarter and early access.

We heard from you guys that the game was taking a bit to launch on Steam and after checking it out we realized the initial content loading was taking a while to complete. To address that we've added a loading screen pre-title, now the game should launch instantly and load the content at the loading screen. For faster machines and SSD's this should only be a few seconds, for older machines and HDD's it'll take a bit longer but you'll be aware that it's loading now at least. Unfortunately Monogame doesn't have a system for Asynchronous loading but if it makes sense we can spread the loading of different content over the course of playing as it comes up to speed up that initial load.

We've added a new currency you'll find in the game called Tasian Gold. We were struggling with providing rewards on the overworld without breaking the Gem economy balance that keeps progression interesting and makes getting big runs in the dungeons so rewarding. Our solution is this second currency that you'll get in the overworld for various activities, sidequests, fighting monsters, and breaking objects. You'll spend this currency in the actual dungeons to help your runs, whether that's buying items from the dungeon merchants, paying for a minigame like rolling the slots in a gambling room, or unlocking certain chests. This makes Tasian gold something that enhances and aides your runs so they'll help you get more gems without the overworld providing Gems directly. We feel as we add more uses and sources for Tasian Gold as we go along this system should work well to feel more rewarding while doing whatever you want outside the dungeons while keeping the benefits of Gems coming only from dungeon runs themselves.

Version 363 should be live for closed beta players on Steam now. Here's the patch notes:

Version 0.363

Patch Notes:

Features:

  • Added multithreaded loading screen

  • Added dog petting

  • Added Tasian Gold, new currency found outside dungeons that's spent inside dungeons and not taken from the player like gems at the dungeon entrance

  • Added Croaker Transport

Equipment:

  • Added stamina cost to Bash Gloves

  • Added Frog Flute equipment

New Maps and Tilesheets:

  • Added CaveSwamp tileset and tilesheet

  • Added 5 swamp hut interior maps and linked to swamp huts

  • Added CaveF5, CaveF9, CaveF11, CaveA11, CaveB11, CaveD5, CaveD9

  • Updated players house tilesheet

  • Updated almost all swamp overworld maps

  • Updated various other overworld maps

  • Updated CaveSwamp tilesheet

  • Updated Swamp tilesheet

  • Updated PlayerHouse map

New Objects:

  • Added Swamp Tower and Enemy Swamp Towers

  • Added StickPile object

  • Added Stool map object with current Swamp variant

  • Added Wardrobe and made functional to change classes

  • Added swamp version of Bed, Table, Chair

  • Added clinic version of Bed

  • Added MedicalCart, AreaRug, Fireplace, BookCase, ResearchDesk map objects

  • Added Swamp Elder Chair

  • Added TableLongVertSwamp

  • Added swamp tree door

Visual Effects:

  • Added splash effect to jumping in and out of shallow water

  • Added bubble effect to fish in Dock House UI fish tanks

  • Added glove pointer for load screen and made move around with back and forth oscillation and velocity, snap back on moving

  • Added oscillating red cheek stamina overlay to being exhausted

New NPCs:

  • Added Siyo NPC

  • Added SwampElder NPC

  • Added CroakerKeeper NPC

  • Added SwampGranny NPC

  • Added SwampScout NPC

Shops:

  • Added icons to item list in dungeon shop, redid item list box layout, changed item info page description to fira sans and center justified

  • Added current arrow/ bomb counts to item box and info page in dungeon shop

  • Added Requires Bottle to dungeon shop potions, resize/color text for Requires Bow/Bomb Bag. Added icons in info panel

Map Screen:

  • Made player marker show the correct position on the overworld after entering a building, cave, dungeon, or other interior

  • Added village level 2 version of world map village zoom

  • Added map markers for Evie's House, Hilltop Mines, Mire Town, Shrine of Ganudoerma, and Slalen Ruins

  • Updated world map player marker to add missing classes and support for skin, cloak, hair color selections

Music:

  • Balanced volumes of music tracks against each other (Village too loud, overworld too soft, etc.)

  • Added Artifact song for the swamp area

  • Added Arid Foothills song for caves

  • Added Funky Whistle song for Croaker riding

Small Changes:

  • Made ammo for unowned equipment not drop

  • Sped up application launch by splitting chime sound effect load out to preload and the rest of the audio over to the main loading routine

  • Added new sources of overworld drops (Picking up rocks, barrels, crates, regrowth, tall grass, small jungle trees)

  • Added NPC data that gets saved, like whether or not they've been met yet

  • Added company jingle, delayed music start time to accommodate

  • Added PC input label to single player class selection

  • Added PC prompt to class selection cards for their classes ability

  • Added a bit of rotational velocity to thrown bushes

  • Replaced enemy monster sphere drops with Tasian gold

  • Added text info to gear display on Status screen

  • Added Floor Layer transfer region checks to thrown objects. Before objects thrown onto bridge passed under it

  • Added new pit crumble sound effect, borrowed sound effect was removed but not replaced

  • Added pots raining from the ceiling by a floor switch

  • Added shading and bullets to quest list to make more readable

  • Made title menu not pop into place on hitting confirm before it finishes

  • Adjusted fade speed and timing along with title fade in and movement to improve the flow

  • Made Lost Traveler sound effect volume based on distance and made cut off if killed

  • Adjusted mud sinking speed, made player move slower in mud by sinking depth, made sink more slowly the deeper they go, retuned mud boots to match scaling of non mud boots sinking better

  • Made picking up arrows or bombs at max display MAX instead of 0

  • Made hue of stamina circle shift to red as it gets low so it's more noticeable

  • Made Grazer stomping sound effect stop if playing when killed

  • Made not able to purchase dungeon map if not needed, added "Floor Already Known" message to shop if so

  • Made input panel class ability label fade out along with Slash when out of stamina

  • Shortened delay before gem roll out starts when spending gems

  • Made burning an object roll for a drop

  • Replaced Game Over text with You Died. Game Over sends the wrong message since there's technically no real fail state or going backwards, checkpointing, continuing etc.

  • Marked CampFire's volumebydistance drop off rate setting to Fast, similar to the warp statues

  • Split swamp tree into two parts so it can be zordered but still draw over layer 2 shadows and other lower lying objects

  • Made lethal hit avoider prefer to leave 2 or 3 more often to make less noticeable

  • Turned off collision checks for Tendron so they don't get pushed away by collision changes (ie players skull object lands on them)

  • Set maps H10 and H12 to swamp tileset/tilesheet

  • Made Bash Glove destroy most breakable objects including rocks, and rock barrier type objects. Adjusted timing for attack check moment to sync better with animation, made facing down attack check earlier to match quicker strike

  • Made StickPiles shake with new sound effect and SwordTing and sparks to indicate unbreakable status

  • Moved the 3 outdoor swamp NPC's to Floor Layer 2

  • Increased wurmulon's take damage bounds (too small)

  • Increased overall size of enemies bounds that they take damage from by about 33%. Mostly effects projectiles since sword mostly

  • Gave a slightly longer window to attack after skull spear thrust attack. 340 ms > 450 ms

  • Made frogs sink in mud

  • Made Tendrons able to be used for grappling

  • Moved NPC prompt and quest mark to UI layer

Bug Fixes:

  • Added window focus check for mouse control on map screen so you don't highlight and hear sound effects when the game window doesn't have focus

  • Fixed deadzone setting for dock house screen making the UI difficult to use with a controller

  • Fixed fish swimming animations not running in dock house displays

  • Fixed Teraspis fish not displaying in Dock House or UI

  • Fixed world map player marker position for village level zoom

  • Fixed bubble spawn position for larger fish

  • Fixed mouse selector not working for village zoom level dot

  • Fixed issues with CaveSwamp tileset loading

  • Fixed crash when getting a stat popup for a stat that takes less than 10 for next rank (divide by 0 error)

  • Fixed issue with triggering a chest with a power sphere causing a crash

  • Fixed hut interiors getting cut off on the bottom

  • Fixed frogs hopping through trees

  • Fixed sound effect and animation timing/syncing for Lost Travelers. Made not hit reactive once starting to burst to prevent desync

  • Fixed Seasoned Traveler stat popup appearing way too often, side effect from error in recent crash fix

  • Fixed disparity between distance that the Talk prompt appears and the actual distance you can start an interaction at

  • Fixed Siyo not being marked to use blink and talk sheets

  • Fixed bug that made upgrade equipment carry between saves

  • Fixed Grazer gallop sound effect can get stuck on when cancelling attack from player leaving their floor layer

  • Fixed B1 and B2 collision not being implemented correctly. Caused issue with log bridge in swamp

  • Fixed audio/attack desync in Araknars when attacking them during their spit animation

  • Fixed issue with Nik the researcher side quest not completing correctly. Dialog to hand over book was being overwritten by default dailog

  • Fixed build griffs shop sidequest not completing correctly

  • Fixed closing bottle select in dungeon shop also closing the shop window

  • Fixed purchasing dungeon floor map opening a got key item popup

  • Fixed using scroll wheel to change equipment in coop changing equipment for all players

  • Fixed crash when killing a lost traveler, caused by attempting to stop a sound effect instance that didn't exist

  • Fixed wurmulon bullets colliding with trees and splatting but continuing on

  • Fixed camera culling bounds of swamp house parts, disabled collision, moved to layer 2, made fade out when going under

  • Fixed issue in path clearance check for frogs that was causing them to check only the start and end of the path

  • Fixed animated water edge tile rotation import correctly from tile layer

  • Fixed doors on the interior of swamps using the normal cave door style instead of the swamp style

  • Fixed player getting their sinking progress reset when taking damage

  • Fixed a compression issue that was causing load times to be longer than necessary

  • Fixed bug in font draw Wrap Centered function causing end of tips getting cut off

  • Fixed red flash from taking damage not working since addition of skin overlay

  • Fixed Lost Travelers not being marked as having a sound cue causing their sound effect to not pause and to occasionally get stuck looping

  • Fixed bridge issue from C13 to E13

  • Fixed screen shake not getting reset on quitting

  • Fixed take damage red flashing getting stuck on when quitting while taking damage

  • Fixed Zap Jelly connections not drawing, was only drawing light layer

  • Fixed Leech health bar drawing underwater

  • Fixed leechs tail needing to 'catch up' when reentering section

  • Fixed bug in floor layer region check for Blink that made the check always pass and transfer to the 1st floor region's layer it found in the section. Caused blinking to stop showing shallow overlay effect after due to getting surface type at wrong floor layer

  • Fixed Fireball rune spell not lighting stick piles

  • Fixed skull shots on swamp towers getting pushed off after getting reset for section entering

  • Fixed using the Mage's Blink ability causing mud sinking to get reset