TIGSource Forums

TANGLEDEEP IS OUT NOW (https://store.steampowered.com/app/628770/Tangledeep/)!

After two years in development and a lively devlog on these very forums (which I then transferred to Steam via patch notes during Early Access), TANGLEDEEP is now officially out on Steam! As of this post it is the #1 game in Popular New Releases (https://i.imgur.com/e25Zrrj.png), even above the remaster of Final Fantasy 12!

For those that don't know, Tangledeep is a dungeon crawling RPG inspired by the finest 16-bit RPGs. It uses tactical, turn-based exploration and combat with a Final Fantasy-style job system and a procedurally generated dungeon full of unique characters, deadly monsters, and lots of treasure to find. Explore the labyrinth and discover the secrets behind its mysteries!

There are a dozen playable jobs, over 100 skills, hundreds of items, and all sorts of wild Champion monster mods, magical item properties, Item Dreams to power up your gear (Disgaea style), a magic grove, a turtle that heals you, and Goldfrogs, among many other things. Oh, and you can capture nearly any monster in the game, raise it as a pet and even breed it with other monsters!

LAUNCH TRAILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0N3sEuRJ_I

It has been an absolutely wild ride and a wonderful experience. All the posts in this thread are preserved for posterity, so please enjoy seeing how this game started...

STEAM PAGE
https://store.steampowered.com/app/628770/Tangledeep/

DISCORD
Join me on Discord! Talk about the game, ask questions, and listen in on development. I'd love to have you around!

https://discord.gg/4q5kjUm

SCREENSHOTS - Click for Bigger Versions

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/628770/ss_ead8b3822227678a93404a4323666f5a457010a0.600x338.jpg?t=1517507626) (http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/628770/ss_ead8b3822227678a93404a4323666f5a457010a0.1920x1080.jpg?t=1517507626)

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/628770/ss_89c5019ba10a45edc1c6d18a5a6806dfbaf3c51b.600x338.jpg?t=1517507626) (http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/628770/ss_89c5019ba10a45edc1c6d18a5a6806dfbaf3c51b.1920x1080.jpg?t=1517507626)

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/628770/ss_036c3100aad5d2b139027184fcdfd5d5760cbe81.600x338.jpg?t=1517507626) (http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/628770/ss_036c3100aad5d2b139027184fcdfd5d5760cbe81.1920x1080.jpg?t=1517507626)

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/628770/ss_fd2fa8d0bbd63558502f2aad736de45e5f04caf0.600x338.jpg?t=1517507626) (http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/628770/ss_fd2fa8d0bbd63558502f2aad736de45e5f04caf0.1920x1080.jpg?t=1517507626)

interesting ! nice style !

Today I spent most of my time on improving the way ability targeting works. Before, when you entered targeting mode for an ability, there was a rectangle of possible squares, and then (optionally) a cursor targeting shape like a square or line.

Now there are:

* More shapes, like hollowed-out rectangles and crosses
* Shapes created at the origin point, instead of being cursor based, for example a line emitted from the player
* Shapes with an offset pivot, rather than using the player as the center point it can be the base point for a line for example
* Crosses and lines that can be rotated nicely

Here are a couple screenshots of the improvements in action:

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Rotations.gif)
(http://zirconstudios.com/game/TickTock.gif)

Related to abilities... they can now have icons in the UI (basic as it is right now). Also, ability cooldowns are in and working. They even show up as red if the ability is still on cooldown. I'll put a counter or something at some point too.

I also did some preliminary work on a better audio component for things. This allows me to define multiple "cues" for any given GameObject. For example a monster could have a death cue and an attack cue. Within cues, there can be multiple sounds which are chosen at random. I want to flesh this out more but it's not a high priority.

As player I prefer game that let me choice from a pool of basic classes (warrior, mage or thief for example), with very different powers / style of play and then when I'm able to finish a game, open new classes with different style of play.

In changing style of play I mean literally event basic mechanics. An example of that is difference between some classes in diablo 2:
- barbarian: close fight
- necromancer: monster resurrection

I hope you get my point on that...

Yes I hear you. The main thing is that I don't want to overwhelm players with choice right off the bat. I've played RPGs / roguelikes that have tons and tons of skill trees and options when there are only a few decent builds, and a lot of the abilities end up being same-y and not that interesting. I would prefer to make a smaller pool of skills that are either customizable or more versatile in their effect.

For example, just throwing this out there... imagine a Cleric type class that fires a bolt of holy energy. If the bolt strikes a wall it shatters into particles. If the particles touch you, you get healed. That kind of thing.

But... maybe this is just a UI thing. Like in Diablo 3, there are sort of preset ability loadouts that can be turned off for more customization. Doing it that way would mean newer players can get right into the action, while more advanced players could delve in to tweak more.

Starting September with a VERY basic first pass on some UI stuff, with the much-appreciated help of an artist friend.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/UIBasic.png)

This was a little tricky since I had to wrap my head around the Canvas, and how anchors work... but I got it looking good even when scaling the resolution / window size all around.

The active weapon hotbar is working nicely too, although right now neither that nor the ability hotbar can be actively changed by the player. The weapon hotbar is just auto-filled as you pick stuff up.

Next - show weapon durability, make abilities clickable!

This looks fun and I like the target overlay implementation, looks quick to use but with the different shapes giving me some tactical choice too.
I'm guessing that its probably placeholder art but the doors do look a little odd in the walls, with their different perspective

Interesting! I really like the idea of focussing on variety in the available skills, rather than number. ^_^

If I may ask, how random are the outcomes of player actions? In particular, does your combat mechanic make traditionally-heavy use of to-hit and damage "rolls", or is it deterministic (or largely so, at least)?

Oh yes, definitely placeholder. I'm mixing and matching some stock art. I do have a very talented artist on board now who is starting by helping me flesh out UI/UX stuff, then will be moving on to environments.


I want to try to reduce randomness a little bit compared to most roguelikes. Overall I don't want massive variance in combat that is solely due to RNG, unless that's the theme of the class or ability. For example I could see a class that has a lot of luck-based abilities, but you'd be intentionally selected that method of play, as opposed to a more straightforward one.

Anyway, updates! Yesterday I implemented multi-targeting. Right now it's being used for a simple multi-shot type ability but the functionality should be extendable to a whole bunch of possible effects.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Multishot.gif)

The next big task I'm tackling is "Effects". This is the underlying code that will power all abilities, status effects, and many class features. It has to be very versatile and tweakable, potentially by modders down the line too. For example, I want to be able to create an ability (say, a fireball) that has multiple effects. The effects might be "ChangeStat" and "AddStatus". The ChangeStat effect might be set to reduce health, and AddStatus could add a "Burn" condition.

After thinking about ways to do this, I'm going with a parent "Effect" class with a generic virtual methods like DoEffect(). Subclasses that implement this might be things like ChangeStat (which is flexible enough for buffs, damage spells, heal spells, etc.) or MoveSelf. To go a step further, I put in an excellent expression parser (http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php/ExpressionParser) which allows me (or anyone) to write out things like damage formulas in XML format.

This is really exciting to me, because it means I can write something like this in a text file:

(attackerWeapon * attackerStrength) * 0.5 + rnd(10,20) + abilityPower

And it will actually load & evaluate correctly in-game, without needing to code additional classes or functions. Can't wait to put it to the test this weekend!

Aah, that's encouraging to read! I intend to keep an eye on this one, then: heavy reliance on randomness in attack results is one of the things that puts me off of the more traditional roguelikes--that sort of risk-management gameplay simply isn't to my taste, I feel. A tactical, turn-based roguelike with combat mechanics that aren't heavily randomised is an appealing prospect. ^_^

Weekend spent implementing ability / effect classes, tons of backend work that was immensely satisfying. The inspiration came from designing the core abilities of the game's first playable character class ("Brigand"). I wanted to code some fun and complex abilities which culminated in this:

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/QueuedAnim.gif)

This showcases an ability that combines lots of tech: multi-targeting and multiple effects. First, the player selects a wall tile to jump OFF of. Then, they select a tile to jump TO. Then, they get a spread targeting cone for a multi-shot attack. That plus a little animation fun!

Though there's still lots to be done, the core of this ability system already works very well. Creating new effects (either as part of abilities, statuses, etc) can be done through XML easily and stacked in all sorts of ways. It may even be over-engineered, but I wanted to make sure all the stuff I have in mind can be done properly!

Otherwise: continuing to work with artist on UI/UX stuff and beginning to think about the game's overall 'tone' (dark, serious, humorous, etc) and setting. I guess I've spent so much of my time just on code that I haven't thought about that other stuff. But I'll figure something out.

Interesting! That looks like a fun little ability. ^_^

Hmm... What purpose does the first (wall) position serve in the jumping phase? Does it affect the placement or direction of the targeting cone? Or the available positions for the final landing?

As to the camera, I fear that its sudden, sharp movement during the jumping phase might be a little disorienting. (I find it to be a little disorienting in the gif, but I'll admit that this might be related to the size of the image, or tiredness on my part.) This might be alleviated by leaving the camera static during movements of this sort (I would imagine that it's unlikely that off-screen tiles would be selected when using abilities like this). Alternatively, perhaps "soften" the camera's movement, preventing sudden changes in its position.

It might also be worth implementing some additional animation frames for jumps like that, rather than starting immediately, to make the motion seem a little more natural--but that might be something to consider at a later point in development!

The proper direction is clear: Darkly serious humour. :P

Zircon himself!? Jesus, I like your stuff man!

Your project looks good, keep it up!

The ability there was really more of a system test than anything - I still haven't quite gotten to *actual* content yet. :-) Also the motion probably seems more extreme because the gif is so cropped. However it's also because the camera is locked on the player right now. I'll add an option that will unlock it.

Don't have much to add, just wanted to say I'm following and looking forward to seeing this develop.

Off topic; Been following OCRemix for 10+ years and so I certainly know your name. Also, Super Audio Cart is a godsend, been playing with it non-stop for the last couple months. If your game design ends up half as polished as your audio stuff, this is going to be very cool.

Aah, fair enough, on all counts!

(A wall-jump in which the choice of wall affects where the character ends up might be an interesting ability, by the way. ;))

Pixel Noise: Hey thanks for the kind words!! :D Glad you're enjoying Super Audio Cart. We're working on an awesome free update coming out later this month which makes the arpeggiator WAY better, so stay tuned for that.

Moshfunk: Thank you!

I've been working on implementing some UI graphics as well as fleshing out more with stats, weapon switching, controller support (SO COOL being able to play with an SNES USB controller) and various other things. Too much to describe so I'll just paste a short gameplay video of where I'm at now. Sorry for all the ripped audio and stock graphics...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9jpVNJwa3g

Overall, it looks as though it's shaping up well! ^_^


Regarding the "wall-jump" shown at the end, unless I'm missing a change that you've made, I think that you were right about the movement being more disorienting in the gif version--it looks much better as shown in this video, I think.

Got a super rough build that is.. actually playable! Stuff works! You can explore 5 levels of the dungeon, with increasing difficulty. Harder monsters and better items spawn further down. At the bottom is an ancient golem boss; beat him to win. Now to uh.. do everything else. Lots of progress though.

Wrote some dungeon music too! The goal will be to cycle music every few floors.

http://zirconstudios.com/game/IRL_Dungeon1Wip1_LP.mp3

Sounds great! I don't want to sidetrack the devlog with too much audio talk, so I can PM you if you'd like - but was just curious what VSTs you used for this; is it mostly SAC sounds? It's definitely reminiscent of SNES era sound.

Will you be releasing builds for testing as you go along?

All the amazing games posted here put my thing as it is now to shame. I want to wait until I get some more custom art in. But I'm basically working on this 20+ hours a week so maybe by end of September I'll feel confident enough to post a build (which should have ~15-30 mins of gameplay.)

Thanks for the kind words on the music! Happy to talk about it more. Yes, I'm using all Super Audio Cart for it so far. Actually it's proving to be interesting, because there are some sounds I find myself reaching for that aren't yet in the library (certain orchestral sounds like orch chimes.) So we'll have to add those in the next update. :-)

SFX are all ripped right now but I'll be making those with SAC also.

I can understand the hesitance - but I've played some pretty rough test builds on here. I think overall people here are pretty forgiving of placeholder art, etc - and they'll be able to give feedback on bugs/gameplay, etc. I'm certainly eager to test it out  :handthumbsupL:

I could tell the BGM was done with Super Audio Cart - but when the trumpet came in ~:40, it sounded almost too good to be a pure SNES/etc sound. I'd love to get that preset from you, it sounds amazing!

You got it - once I develop the music more I'll share some of the specific patches / settings etc I used!

Last few days have been great.

Monsters got a big overhaul. They now have an aggro system tracking who has done what to them. They can (potentially) lose interest in combatants as well, for example if you don't hit animals for a long time they may simply wander away. They will also evaluate aggro vs. range; if someone far away hits them, that will be less tempting than an angry target nearby.

There are also some new basic monster 'attributes', which are basically behavior types, that can be mixed and matched: starting with Greedy, Berserker, and Timid. Greedy monsters will pick up nearby treasure. Particularly greedy ones will actually fight other monsters for treasure, or even stop fighting something to pick up loot. Timid monsters will panic at low HP and run, though they will fight if cornered. Berserkers fly into a rage at low health and will hit anyone or anything nearby.

I also managed to implement a dialog box system which took surprising long. Variable length text that drives the size of the box, variable # of options, cursor and mouse-based navigation. This is currently being used for tutorial prompts but will obviously be expanded to other things later.

Buffs/debuffs now have info display if you hover over them, plus a nice radial cooldown graphic on top.

On the backend, all combatant actors now have a "FigherBattleData" class which is basically a big pack of data calculated when stats or equipment change. This can be referenced quickly for battle calculations like, what is X actor's raw physical damage output or physical resistance? The data is calculated using a variety of factors (stats, equipment, statuses...)

Ooh, these changes seem promising--I see the potential for some interesting gameplay and tactics arising from them, the "attributes" especially! (Even just offhand, I have the idea of attacking a "berserker" monster in a group of others, then backing off and letting it deal some damage against them before they finish it off. ;))

(On which note, one idea might be to allow the player to drop any item--including gold and treasure. This might be useful around "greedy" monsters, it seems to me.)


Likewise, I'm eager to try a build at some stage, I believe. ^_^

More cool progress

* Loading bar during dungeon generation. Just a nice touch to indicate that nothing froze.
* Various tutorial popups. These appear when you touch an item for the first time, touch stairs, when a monster drops a powerup, etc. Ties in to the dialog box system.
* Monsters can now use abilities, although they're only damaging abilities for now.
* TONS of refinements to dungeon generation.
* Support for many kinds of new wall tiles / directions, plus ground tile directions/corners. This is a big step for making everything look good.
* SNIPER monster type - will try to stay at further range to use ranged attacks.
* LOVESBATTLE monster type listens for the sound of battle, and is attracted to it.
* PREDATOR will wait for player to get low before attacking.
* STALKER monsters will track the player and follow at a distance.

The monster attribute system is becoming really powerful. There are a few more types I want to implement but after that, I think all the core tools will exist to make for fun and unpredictable monster types.

The next big step in terms of making combat interesting and exciting is giving monsters more varied powers. Damage is fine. But I want monsters to be able to jump around, move the player, modify obstacles - maybe even destroy dungeon walls! Combat should be more than just sitting next to the monster and taking turns whacking each other.

On the art end, my artist has been working to produce the first set of custom ground + wall tiles. They're not 100% done but already it looks really nice, with a huge variety of directions, corners, etc. to make things look varied and nice.

Random design thoughts

Given how I want to do a class-based system, I'm thinking of an approach somewhat based on Final Fantasy Tactics. Here's how it would work. You start out with your desired class (job) which determines starting stats and skills. As you fight, you will level up, and your level up gains vary depending on your class.

Besides XP, you'll also gain JP from battles. JP can be spent to unlock new skills, both passive and active. Rather than a skill tree like many roguelikes, I think I like the idea of being able to purchase skills out of order - although the more powerful ones will of course cost more JP.

In between floors, or maybe every X floors (5?) you will be able to switch jobs. When you switch, your stat modifiers may change but your core stats you've built up will not. You will be able to bring SOME skills from the previous job, but not all. Otherwise you would start gaining JP in the new class. You will also be able to change your skill loadout in between floors, if not your entire job.

The design goals of this are:

1. Provide some structure to the player so you're not thrown in an ocean of choices.
2. At the same time, let players mix and match skills to create their own way of playing, influenced primarily by their current class/job.
3. Make balance a little easier by making it so that you can't necessarily use the ultimate abilities/skills of multiple classes at once.

Overall, this update seems rather promising! ^_^

Hmm... I do worry that it might feel as though time and points spent on skills left behind might feel wasted, and that multi-classing might be discouraged. Does the player at least recover the JP spent on such skills, allowing them to purchase new ones?

This is probably the kind of thing that will need to be (thoroughly) playtested to see if it works well and feels good. To be clear my design is that you would always be able to grab skills from the old job. However, you can't bring everything at the same time. Imagine a strict, 100% pure class based game. You're either Fighter, or Mage. That's it.

Then imagine a totally freeform game with no classes. You could be 10% Fighter, 30% Rogue, 60% Mage. This is a fine system but I think it makes the game somewhat harder to balance. Lots of not-useful skill combinations, and potentially OP ones.

What I want to see in this game is something like... 50% Primary class, and the rest is stuff you've picked up along the way. If you *want* to go all-in on a single class you can do that. Or if you want to go 50% Fighter, and 10% from 5 other classes, that's fine too.

PROGRESS

Monsters
* Monster infighting no longer rewards the player XP, as actors now track who killed them.
* Monsters can now use movement-boosting abilities. Think jumps, charges, pounces, etc., to get closer to their target.
* Monsters can now pull the player to them with 'hook' or grab type abilities.
* Monsters can now use abilities that buff themselves, just like the player.
* New GANGSUP monster attribute. Monsters with this attribute will wait to attack until their target is already engaged. Supports swarms/mob type behaviors.

Combat
* Settled on a 5-stat system to start with, may be refined later. Strength, Discipline, Swiftness, Guile, Spirit. More on this later but they all do something already.
* Critical hits and parries implemented.
* Better implementation of 'Charge Time', i.e. the system by which actor turn order works. Players can now get multiple turns in a row if they're really fast (however, this is not likely). Monsters can also get multiple turns...
* All combat actors now keep a list of every other actor in combat with them.

Miscellaneous (But Important)
* Fixed some bugs with map object rendering, related to line of sight. I'm no longer using Unity's Physics2D Linecast for LOS (for the most part) and instead using a Bresenham's line implementation. This is necessary as some LOS checks are outside render bounds.

Items / Loot
* Loot now generates at the time a monster is spawned.
* Items can be magical, so there is now a magic mod system. Right now, this supports changing any stat, weapon power, weapon durability, adding any kind of status effect as long as the item is equipped, and proccing bonus damage on hit.
* Magic loot has a sparkly effect on the ground. Yay!

Hmm... Fair enough.


But doesn't your current approach produce much the same thing? If I change jobs twice, I might well end up with a spread just as you've given above. The only advantage that I see is that you might be able to specify which abilities are disallowed for each combination of classes--the wizard might lose "Magic Missile" when switching to fighter, and "Fireball" when switching to rogue, for example.

However, as you say, this is all likely a matter for play-testing!

Super mega progress!!! We're doing some big work on the art side (unfortunately, not much to actually *show* there yet because it's not all finished) and TONS of ingame work. Since the previous update:

Engine
* More optimizations to line of sight calculations
* Actors no longer automatically block vision - this is now a tag, so a big object or monster can block LOS but a small one won't necessarily
* Massive bug fix / speed improvement to map generation
* Sprite effect systems can override individual sprite effect audio
* Fixed big tile rendering issue
* Proper 1:1 pixel zoom scale
* Scanlines shader

Monsters
* Monsters can use healing spells on themselves (based on HEALER attribute)
* Combinable monsters - i.e. slimes that can merge with other slimes

Items
* Items can spawn with magic mods (increasing rarity per extra mod spawned), plus the color of the item name changes. Things like bonus damage, stats, etc...
* Resistance system, support for Armor item type. Armors can resist elemental damage (% or flat), physical damage, specific types of physical like pierce, slash etc

General
* Rough first pass on character sheet UI (stats, resists, etc)
* Weapons can now have individual impact FX / particles
* New ATTACKREACTION effect type which can modify an in-progress attack (i.e. reacting to a hit, miss, parry, or altering miss/parry chance)
* Ability targeting offsets, including random offsets
* Equipment and character sheet UI
* Armor + accessories
* Ability targeting non-centered single point line etc
* Swap and sort items UI
* Item descriptions including mods
* Press 1-4 in equipment sheet to hotkey weapons
* Press R to consume a common weapon to repair a selected weapon of the same type
* Help popup

Can't wait to get back to it!

OK guys. Super nervous about this but I think I have a solid ~15-20 minutes of gameplay here... Build #1 is ready to go.

http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build9-29-16.rar (Windows)
http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build9-29-16.app.zip (Mac-  does it work?)

Before you actually play the game I recommend checking the Input bindings. You can also hit "H" for help once you get started.

Keep in mind this is SUPER SUPER alpha but I think it shows off some of what I'm trying to achieve with dynamic combat and some cool job abilities. SO MUCH more to do but please let me know what you think.

Short list of changes...

* Status effects can have a directional component
* "Consume on Run" bool for status effects (i.e. run a debuff then destroy it)
* Directional attack reactions
* Better handling of directional abilities / effects in general
* Basic UI for learning job abilities including passive abilities
* Ronin monster attribute - rather than wandering randomly 1 tile at a time, picks a destination somewhere and wanders to it with purpose.
* "Rest until healed" button
* Status effects can now have a "consume" trigger (or multiple triggers)
* Status effects can influence turns: stun, paralyze, sleep etc.
* Status effects have an "on move" trigger (i.e. bleed on move)
* Optimizations to pathfind
* PUSH type effects
* Abilities can be tagged to proc on-hit bonuses ("empower attack" effects)
* First pass on making map tiles look good
* RemoveStatus effects

Ooh! ^_^

I've downloaded it, and confirmed that it seems to largely work under WINE. (I did notice that the pause-menu seems to lack labels--but that might be related to my running it under something other than an actual Windows installation.)

I'll likely play it properly either later or tomorrow--I'm rather tired right now, and want to have a slightly clearer mind when playing, such that I'm less likely to miss things and more likely to provide accurate critique. ^^;

CRITTER GALLERY

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/IREnemies.png)

@Fervir has been doing an awesome job with creatures for the game. Here are just a few of them! (All are animated ingame).

The design style is influenced by games like Breath of Fire and Phantasy Star. Looking forward to sharing more!

All right, I've played it briefly, and have some feedback!

First of all, note that I played it under Ubuntu Linux via WINE; some of the issues below may stem from that.

Speaking of which, the game ran a little slowly for me, resulting in it feeling somewhat unresponsive. In all fairness, in addition to running it through WINE, I did have some other programs running--but the slowness was nevertheless a little surprising for a 2D game of this sort. I also had one crash, and one apparent freeze (with no errors that I noticed--unless there's a log somewhere that I should look at). I did note that the second level appeared to run more quickly at first, then slowed as I went on, so perhaps it's related to tiles being revealed?

On to the game itself!

The slow speed perhaps resulted in my noticing something: am I correct in guessing that the keyboard input is polled, not event-driven? I found that the game didn't seem to consistently respond to key-presses unless I held the key, which may be the result of the key's state changing to "pressed" and back between frames. Given that this is a turn-based game, I'm inclined to suggest switching to event-based key-handling, if feasible--it should be more reliable (I would imagine), even at low frame-rates.

(That unresponsiveness was perhaps--along with tiredness--the reason that it took me some time to figure out how to attack. I'm reasonably confident that I did try "bumping into" enemies, but attempted to do so by tapping the keys, which may have resulted in my inputs being lost and the impression that it didn't work.)

Speaking of the keys, I found the combination of arrows (or numpad) and mouse a little awkward--it results in my left hand sitting on the right side of the keyboard, my right hand being occupied by the mouse. This was perhaps exacerbated by the various hotkeys being scattered around the keyboard, calling for me to move my left hand to the opposite end of the keyboard every so often. It might be worth supporting "WASD"--or perhaps rather the left-hand "square" of keys, centred around "s"--for movement, and reassigning any hotkeys that clash with this.

However, I think that my primary suggestion regarding the controls is simply to make more use of the mouse. You already support mouse-controls for the hotbar--why not let me click on enemies to attack, empty tiles to move, and on a GUI overlay to open the various menus available? (Not to mention making those menus mouse-navigable.)

On the art-side, the graphics thus far look like a decent start! I might suggest "shaving" the convex corner tiles to connote that one can pass diagonally by them--right now they suggest to my eye that they block the diagonals that they "touch".

As to gameplay, it feels a little simple to me thus far--although I only delved to the second level, and was tired, so I may have missed some tactical depth. The abilities are cool, and add some appreciated spice to the "bump into things" mechanic.

The heavy use of directionality in "Find Weakness" and "Precision Jab"--the latter especially--did seem to me to limit their usefulness. I seldom seemed to be in a position to make good use of the former without moving and being hit, and the latter calls for remembering the last direction that it faced.

As to the "sand" ability, that I found very useful--but why does it only seem to aim "up"?

Finally, I'd like to see item information displayed when an object is collected--as it stands, it seems that I have to open the equipment menu and inspect each new item to learn about it. (Unless it ends up in the hotbar, in which case I do at least get its durability.)

All of that said, I found the game to overall be fun! If it were running more quickly--whether natively in Windows or otherwise--I could see myself returning to play further, I think.

I do like the idea that the character wanders around with pocketfuls of sand, by the way. ;P

Thanks for the feedback! Believe me there are a million and one things I want to do and so much stuff to put in the game, and also balance is really not there, which means it's more of a shell of a game than anything (but that shell is what has taken 99% of development time!)

Slowness: I'm not getting that at all on Windows, so I wonder if it's something with Linux? I will make a Linux build to test as a comparison. I do know that there are lots of optimizations that can be done, but the common wisdom is that optimizing too early is not a great idea. For example do I put in potions and consumables or make monster pathfinding a little more efficient? Probably both but I think I should do the former first.

Unresponsiveness: Yep the input management is not great. On the list to improve for sure.

Arrows / Mouse: You shouldn't need the mouse to play at all. You can play with the numpad (or arrow keys) in your right hand for directionals, and then activate everything else with your left hand. What were you using the mouse for? That being said I definitely want to make click to attack, click to move, etc.

Directionality: This is supposed to be a theme of the Brigand. Because I'm not doing true directional 'facing' sprites for characters (too expensive), I wanted to give the feeling of striking an opponent's weak spots. It should feel good, and worth it to use. So if it doesn't I need to make that better of course. Wall Jump is supposed to be an ability you can really lean on to reposition yourself - i.e. lure a monster out into the open, then Wall Jump into position to get a big hit on them. With Find Weakness you can practically oneshot a lot of enemies if you have a decent weapon.

Sand Sweep: You can rotate this with "T" or by pressing the arrow keys in the direction you want the cone to go. Waay more flexible :D

My pleasure, and fair enough! ^_^


I do agree, I believe--and if this is related to the environment under which I was running it, then it's perhaps even less a concern. That said, the game was running sufficiently slowly that it impacted gameplay, I feel.

Hmm... I've played other games under WINE with little trouble, as I recall (although I forget whether I've done so with the other programs in question active while doing so). Perhaps your game is relying on some feature that my WINE installation doesn't provide? Does the game produce a log that I might look at, perhaps? While it is a low-priority matter, I'd like to at least check for this possibility, I think.


Good good! ^_^


Interesting! I think that, given the option to use the mouse, I tend to do so--I suppose that for many actions it just feels a little more intuitive or comfortable to me than do the keys.

As to what I was using it for, I believe that I was using it to select weapons and abilities from the hotbar, as suggested by the tutorial. I realise that there are hotkeys for these actions, but again, the mouse just seemed like the more comfortable option. (If there was time-pressure I might prefer the speed of hotkeys, but being turned-based, there is little pressure.)

For one thing, a GUI-based approach has the advantage of relying on recognition rather than recollection: one can simply look for the desired option, rather than remembering a hotkey.


Ah, I'll confess that I didn't think of using the wall-jump for this purpose! (Perhaps tiredness was to blame for that. ^^; )

I might retry the game with that in mind...


Ah, I didn't know that! Did I miss that in the tutorial or help screen somewhere? ^^;

OK!!! New build!

WINDOWS: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build10-01-16.rar
MAC: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build10-01-16.app.zip

* First pass on randomized dungeon decor and tile variation
* Enormous performance optimizations
* Fixed weirdness with hotbar weapons? Hopefully?
* You can now turn off tutorial tips
* Reworked line of sight calculations, render distance & player vision range (hopefully not wonky?)
* Abilities can have charge time (CT) offsets
* Charge time gain per turn and current CT amount displays properly on character sheet (C)
* Positive status effects now last longer based on your SPIRIT stat
* JP gain increased
* Hotkeying fists shows up as placeholder art (drumstick), sorry
* If the player observes interesting monster behavior, it will occasionally show up in the combat log
* Monsters can spawn with multiple items in their inventory
* Added increased variety in map rooms and variance per floor

* MAP EDGES: Still a problem sorry

Control Changes
* You can now left click on a tile to move to it, loot it if you're already on it, left click on monsters to attack (if in melee range), or click + hold to move in a straight line to tile. Left-click movement does not currently pathfind so you do have to be smart with where you hold the mouse
* You can now right-click in ability targeting to try rotating targeting shape (applies to Sand Sweep). "T" and arrow keys can be used for this too
* You can now unequip an item by pressing "U" while highlighting an equipped item
* You can now drop items by pressing "D" while highlighting an item in your item list.

Balance / Content Changes
* Consumables now exist and can be used from the inventory/equipment sheet (E)
* Consumables can be hotkeyed from 1-0 (on ability hotbar- doesn't affect weapon bar) - be careful not to overwrite one of your abilities though (sorry, next build will have a proper skill/spell book)
* BRIGAND: Find Weakness refunds 50 CT when used (puts you at least 50% closer to an extra turn)
* BRIGAND: Precision Jab now hits 2 squares (front and back)
* Salamanders now go nuts sometimes
* Grotto Flyers nerfed a bit
* New monster: Young Water Elemental, found on the 4th floor and below
* TOTALLY NOT RELATED TO DROPPING ITEMS there are now Altars. I wonder what those do.

Ah, that's quite an update, with some changes that I'm eager to try! I've downloaded it, with the intention of trying it out on Monday. ^_^

All right, I've played it briefly, and have a few thoughts on this version. I may return to the game and come back with more critique, but this makes a start, at least:

First, the mouse-controls were a big improvement, to my mind! Pathfinding might be appreciated, but even without it I think that I found the mouse-controls to be intuitive, responsive, and fun. Indeed, I'm inclined to encourage you to extend mouse-control further: add some UI buttons for things like the equipment screen, and make such screens mouse-navigable.

I did encounter one bug: At some point the UI-buttons that control the character's abilities seemed to become disjointed from their visual positions. That is, clicking on the button wouldn't necessarily work--instead, some seemingly-arbitrary region, generally nearby, possibly overlapping, would operate the button. (I think that this may have resulted in a few cases in abilities ended up being attempted on a tile near the hotbar, and thus being wasted.)

(I don't know offhand whether this affected the weapon-bar--I think that I had only one weapon at the time.)

The positional elements are indeed rather more fun now that I know to use wall-jumping! However, I found a number of cases in which I ended up fighting enemies in single-tile hallways, leaving little room for directional attacks. I could perhaps have drawn my foes out into rooms--but when there was more than one that incurred the risk of being surrounded, leaving me inclined to keep my opponents bottled.

Perhaps it might be a good idea to experiment with levels that are a little more open, either having broader corridors or simply using an approach different to the current "rooms-and-corridors" layout. This might reduce the temptation to bottle enemies, and might provide more space in which to play with those cool directional elements.

The game still runs a little slowly on my end, but it's tolerable with the mouse-controls (which I imagine are event-driven), and again, it may be in part an artefact of the manner in which I'm running the game.

Agree 100%, it's coming!


That's concerning, if you can figure out a way to reproduce let me know. The UI buttons are supposed to be fixed/anchored and there is nothing in the code that would move them. Maybe I'm doing something wrong with the Unity UI/canvas tools. Were you running windowed or full screen?


This boils down to dungeon generation. I've done a lot of work on the generation algorithm and I want to make more variety in the kind of levels you can find. I agree that more open spaces should be added. However, corridors and tight spaces should be part of gameplay also. This is a problem for the Brigand naturally BUT... There are going to be at least a dozen more classes, so I have to keep that in mind also :D


For the next build I've rewritten a lot of rendering stuff which should hopefully (?) work way way better and more efficiently.

I think that I was in full-screen mode. Hmm... Running the launcher, I note a few things:
 - While I have two monitors, it seems to only recognise one of them (the second)
 - The selected (and only) resolution, on the other hand, seems to be that of the first monitor
This may be related to either WINE or my NVidia drivers--the latter seems to treat a dual-monitor setup oddly (which may be related to my having the second monitor connected via HDMI).

I intend to return to the demo for further play; if I do so, I'll hopefully remember to keep my eyes open, and perhaps see whether it works better in windowed mode.


Fair enough, on all counts! Hmm... Indeed, I can see some possibilities for classes and abilities that actually benefit from tight corridors, now that I think of it... ;)


Excellent, on both counts. ^_^

New build is up! Again, tons and tons of stuff here :D

http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build10-08-16.app.zip <- Mac OSX
http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build10-08-16.rar <- PC

GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzKM-cXaHko


ENGINE / PERFORMANCE
* Switched over to entirely new tile map rendering system! Instead of hundreds of tile objects stitched together at runtime, the entire map is drawn as a single texture. Much more efficient!
* Map decor is now drawn as a single texture for optimization purposes
* Another pass on performance / optimization and sharpening of textures
* Initial map generation should be faster

CONTENT / FEATURES
* Accessories can now be found! These helpful items can even add new abilities while equipped! Note that to equip an accessory to a specific slot, you must first select the slot (press "Enter" on the Accessory 1 or 2 slot).
* Related - Items can be tagged as 'unique' (only one can be equipped at a time)
* Champion monsters will now spawn! These have modified names and skulls hovering next to them. Champion monsters are considerably more difficult (higher stats and damage) but drop at least 1 magical item guaranteed, in addition to awarding more XP/JP.
* Offhand items can now be found, such as shields! Also, you can dual wield weapons by putting one weapon in your off hand. The offhand weapon will give you an extra swing at reduced accuracy and damage unless you get a Dual Wield skill (to come later...)
* There are now 6 basic weapon types: Swords, Knives, Axes, Bows, Spears, Hammers, and 3 tiers of each type for now. None are strictly better than another. The right pick depends on your character and situation!
* Two handed weapons can now exist - right now, this includes only Bows.
* There are now two basic armor types: light and heavy. Light armor is balanced between slash & pierce protection whereas heavy armor protects better against slashing damage.
* Shields protect against blunt damage and offer a small chance to block (completely mitigate) an attack.
* Helmets can now be found and equipped as accessories. Yes you can wear two helmets. Whatever. Helmets increase raw HP and provide light mitigation against blunt damage.
* There are now 3 tiers of magic mods for various stat boosts, extra damage, and durability. More to come!
* You can now stop wandering monsters from spawning by finding a destroying a monster-attracting crystal (there's one on each floor.)

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Camera movement and character movement have both been made much smoother
* Hero movement looks a bit more animated!
* New tutorial popup for when you accumulate 150jp (enough to buy your first ability). Remember to hit "J" folks!
* Monsters will not spawn in rooms with stairs up/down
* XP/JP gain is shown in popup text and in the combat log
* When weapons get low on durability, their durability numbers in the lower right (active weapon) area will turn yellow (50% or less of max) then red (<=25% of max)
* Fog of war system changed. It should look better overall by revealing more of the dungeon map texture.
* When attacking a monster with damage resistance, you'll see a message noting the (in)effectiveness of the attack. The damage number will also pop up in grey.
* Scanlines shader should be disabled by default
* Attack descriptions are a bit more flavorful
* Enemies and objects should no longer pop in and out but smoothly fade instead.
* Removed step sounds for now

ART
* New hero sprite! Not 100% done but it is much closer to the style of the game than our placeholder.
* More adjustments to the look and feel of the dungeon tileset, including stairs up/down.
* Cursor bounce and blinks!

BUG FIXES
* Auto equipping a weapon after weapon break - maybe fixed/improved?
* Cleaned up behavior with monsters that use jump abilities

BALANCE / CONTENT TWEAKS
* Map sizes and rooms are bigger on average now
* BRIGAND: Backstab now adds bonus damage when attacking an enemy from different angles (i.e. not the same angle twice in a row)
* BRIGAND: Improved Parry… has been improved
* Reworked behavior for RONIN type monsters (wanderers that move room to room)

Wow, that's quite a list of changes! I had thought to mention the lack of a JP-indicator, but for some reason never did--I'm glad that you seem to have implemented something to that end anyway!

I have the new build downloaded, I believe, and intend to play it in the not-too-distant future! ^_^

All right, I've spent a little bit of time with the new build, and have some feedback:

First of all, I think that it's improved! Overall, I believe that I had more fun with this build than the previous. ^_^

The game runs much more smoothly now--I didn't notice any slowing down as the game progressed.

The new hero-sprite is cute, and an improvement over the old sprite, to my eye. ^_^

The "champion" monsters are a welcome addition: not only do they provide a guaranteed source of magical items, this same property makes them particularly appealing targets.

I'm not sure of whether this is an issue, but I did discover a "club of cunning and cunning", which seemed a little odd. :P

I did encounter a few issues:

The cursor in the "equipment" screen seems at times to resist control--I think that I encountered this when I had an armour item equipped and selected, and attempted to move "right" to the inventory list.

The same cursor is also sometimes not visible when the screen is opened. A little experimentation seems to suggest that it might effectively be "in the wrong column", as I think that pressing the "right" arrow a few times brought the cursor back into the screen. I believe that I replicated this issue by closing the screen with nothing in the inventory column.

Finally, I ended up in a state in which I could no longer act, neither moving nor attacking; attempting to do either seemed to simply pass the turn (with enemies moving around me). I could activate abilities and ranged weapons, bringing up their targeting regions, but once again clicking simply dismissed them with no effect, if I recall correctly. The equipment and character screens responded as expected. Speaking of which, the latter did show that I had a very negative amount of "CP"--but I'm not sure of what that value represents, so I don't know whether this is relevant or not.

All good feedback - We'll see if I fixed those things properly!

WINDOWS: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build10-18-16.rar
MAC OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build10-18-16.app.zip

AUDIO
* Let there be music! First two tracks are in the game. Subject to some tweaks and of course the simple crossfade implementation between floors is not final. Looping also not quite working properly.
* Stairs up/down sound is implemented.
* Footsteps are back in the game. You can control their volume from options (Escape)

ART
* More tileset enhancements!
* Monster movement is now at a constant velocity instead of the 'smooth' style player movement.

* The Fungal Toad and Creeping Spider now have new art.
* Full pass on all monster animation timings (should look much more diverse now)

IMPORTANT - Now that the camera is 'pixel perfect', I highly recommend hitting Escape and setting the Zoom Scale to taste! This should save as a preference going forward.

BUGS
* It should not longer be possible to take negative damage from poisons.
* Damage over time effects caused bugs when the actor who inflicted them died before the end of the effect. This is fixed.
* You can no longer convert any weapon into a ranged weapon by pressing "F" with a bow/slingshot and switching weapons.
* Blinking cursor behavior in equipment screen should work better.
* Various improvements to make player info on the main HUD update at the right time.
* Wandering monster champions will no longer spawn without the skull indicator.
* Fixed bug with sprite flicker and fast movement.
* Draw order should look better between destructibles, monsters, and the player.

BALANCE
* Champion monsters no longer spawn as frequently. Also, there is a cap to the number of champions that can spawn per floor.
* “Find Weakness” is no longer consumed when you hit the target. Instead, the duration ticks down by 1 extra turn per hit (the normal duration is 6 turns). You should now be able to get 2, maybe 3 hits out of it! Also, Find Weakness should no longer spawn the weak spot in a wall.
* Destroying the monster spawner now yields experience.
* Mold-Infested vermin now spawn on the 1st floor, albeit weaker.
* The hero gains more stats with each new experience level.

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY

* New breakables now spawn on the map and can be smashed for TREASURE!
* The "Job" screen (opened with J) now shows all learned abilities in addition to learnable abilities from your current job. You can also hotkey these learned abilities (as long as they are not passives) by hitting the alphanumeric 1 through 0 keys.
* You can also use skills directly from the Job screen by pressing Enter. This is useful for when you eventually have more skills than can be hotkeyed!
* New monster, the highly aggressive Jade Beetle, found on floors 3 and below!
* Another new monster, the Dark Chemist, can be encountered on floors 4 and below!

ENGINE

* Camera should now be "pixel perfect" regardless of screen resolution!
* More optimizations to smooth out spikiness when monsters take turns
* Extensive work to prepare all the various ingame objects (and the map itself) for serialization (saving/loading).

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Every class will have their own starting weapon that spawns nearby, with infinite durability. It will be weak, but now you'll never run out of your weapon supply.
* Current job JP is now displayed under your XP in the upper right.
* Cursor movement sensitivity is a little lower in menus now.
* When scrolling through an item list, the cursor will now wrap around properly.
* Stairs up now have a different color on the minimap (magenta) than stairs down.
* Destructible objects now show differently on the minimap as well.
* Game start should be a little faster.
* The options menu now recalls settings even after quitting the game.
* Tutorial popups can also now be toggled from the options menu.
* SFX volume control actually works now. Also there is now a footsteps volume control.
* The combat log now writes which items were dropped when a monster or object dies.
* Placeholder enemies have been scaled up in size.
* Semblance of a game over screen!
* Movement speed delay is now shorter (150ms instead of 200ms)
* Attack animations are now faster overall
* Combat text moves faster

EDIT - 1 hour after initial build there were some bugs so I made another build wooo

BUGS
* Both music tracks should load now.

CONTENT / GAMEPLAY
* Monsters now have more varied basic attack types.

ENGINE
* Music / audio manager improved.

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Keypad enter can now be used in options menu
* Camera movement is smoothed out and better (doesn't jitter with character bounce)

Downloaded, I believe! I'll hopefully get around to trying it soon. ^_^

Actually, thinking about ranged weapons, I've been finding that some of them feel a little limited in range. In many cases I can only get one or two shots in before the enemy reaches melee range. Conversely, it can be tricky to approach an enemy without having them step either out of range or too near for comfort.

No new build yet, BUT... I'm overjoyed to say that I now have a working save/load system! I'm sure there are bugs I haven't found yet but this was a HUUUUUGE undertaking, serializing and recreating objects, links between actors, loot, player UI, map state, etc. So next build will have that for sure!

Lots of progress on a new class! But first, how about this awesome work in progress shot of the town / camp area?!

(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/230778909388570634/238883126976315393/outpost-opening.png)

Looks great - and not what I expected to see from a dungeon focused game. Nice!

That looks really good indeed! ^_^

(And quite unlike the dungeon areas--I think that it could be quite an improvement if the dungeons were to look somewhat as lavish as this area.)

~

I've spent a bit of time playing the most recent build, and have some feedback, I believe:

Things that I liked:
 - I really like the lower zoom--I think that it helps to be able to see further around my character.

 - I like having a JP-counter on the screen, and the presence of learned skills in the JP screen.

 - The music is a rather welcome addition! It adds a bit of atmosphere to the gameplay, I feel. ^_^

Mechanics:
 - Having spent a bit more time with the ranged weapons, I find that I don't really like pressing "f" first, then selecting a target--it's less convenient than I'd like, especially for an action that I might want to take often. Since melee-ranged combat is simply point-and-click, why not do the same for ranged? Perhaps something like this: when a ranged weapon is selected, hovering over an enemy brings up the range-overlay, and clicking attempts the attack, as with melee weapons.

UI:
 - I'm inclined to suggest collecting the various character-related screens into a single, central screen, perhaps separated via tabs. While I visit the "Equipment" screen often, I find that I tend to forget about the "Job" screen (even with the JP counter at the top-right), and barely ever remember the "Character" screen. Collecting all of the screens into one place might make for a useful reminder: as the saying goes, "out of sight, out of mind".

 - It might be useful to have a means of comparing items, or at least of comparing an item to the one currently equipped. At simplest, perhaps place "up" or "down" arrows next to values in the item being considered that are higher or lower than those of the equipped item.

 - I find that I keep expecting to be able to close the map by pressing the "escape" key, as with other screens in the game.

 - It might be useful to have the inventory sort items by type, or perhaps to provide "auto-sort" buttons for various sorting methods.

Stats:
 - What do the character stats do? I can guess at the effect of "swiftness", but what does "guile" do for me, or "spirit"? Perhaps it would be helpful to have tooltips for stat-values, both in item-descriptions and the character screen.

 - On a similar note, how do I determine what damage-types a given enemy deals, or is weak to? Right now I'm not really seeing it, and tend to simply ignore the damage types and simply select the highest damage/defence numbers. (That said, I'm not a huge fan of damage types anyway, and don't really like the idea of swapping and changing my gear for every other monster.)

Possible Bugs:
 - I had one case (possibly two) in which a breakable dropped two items (reported in the log, I believe), but only one seemed to be collectable. An image remained that I presume applied to the second item, but it seemed non-interactive.

 - Finally, I encountered another case of the game seeming to become stuck. I believe that I had just killed a "Gleaming Summoned Living Vine of Evasion"; upon dying it dropped a Verdant Tonic. I found that I could no longer move nor act, by either keys or mouse. I could still open screens, and select weapons and abilities, but not target anything.

~

All that said, I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that either the game or the "brigand" class is not quite for me. Something's not quite "clicking" for me during play, I fear. :/

Part of this is perhaps because, even with the job-skills, the brigand (as I play it) seems to still rely heavily on basic melee attacks, and thus on repeatedly clicking on an enemy until it dies--a mechanic that I just don't find particularly engaging.

However, some of this may well be fundamental: I'm not a huge fan of stat-based mechanics, preferring ability-based ones; for example, I tend to play casters in RPGs, with the fun of a level coming from the new spells that I gain access to more than changes to my stats.

Finally, I'm currently not finding there to be much reward for exploration: loot is acquired from enemies more than breakables, and the various rooms are all more or less the same. (One suggestion might be to take a leaf from Pixel Dungeon's book and have a variety of "special rooms" salted around the levels, offering a bit of extra variety. That said, even a bit more visual variety--as in the screenshot above--might help a little.)

I still intend to keep an eye on, and perhaps respond in, this thread--especially if a new character class is made available!

PARTY TIME!!! Second class & save system! The Floramancer needs a little work and of course balance is not going to be final for awhile, but you can play around with cool summons and swing around and stuff. AND you can change classes. Plus other new stuff. Yeah.

Windows: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build10-23-16.rar
Mac: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build10-23-16.app.zip

ART
* New slash animation!
* New art for the Plunderer

BALANCE
* JP gain does not scale with floor anymore
* Chests spawn less frequently
* Brigand Find Weakness returns even more charge time (65)
* Grotto Flyers are not quite as aggressive
* Mold-infected vermin are more likely to drop loot
* Many other tweaks and changes to monster balance

BUGS
* Projectile weapons now fire projectiles again, and at the right angle hopefully!
* Picking up an offhand item will no longer unequip a 2 handed weapon (like a bow)
* Equipping an offhand item while using a 2handed weapon will no longer cause crashes
* You can no longer shoot already-destroyed destructibles
* Abilities and ranged weapons should now automatically 'snap' to the first good targetable tile (was not working reliably before)
* Possibly fixed crash bug with monster TakeAction() null reference (may have occurred when monster target died unexpectedly)
* Movement types that spin (rotate) will now spin over the entire course of the move.
* Accessories now spawn again.
* You can no longer make movements faster than the movement threshold (one square per 150ms)
* Backstab passive ability now works

CONTENT / GAMEPLAY
* NEW CLASS - the Floramancer! You can select this class at the start of the game. Abilities include summoning pets, summoning vine objects, pulling yourself (swinging!) to said vine objects for super mobility, and laying down thorn traps for enemies to walk on!
* You can now find Job Change Books as randomly dropped consumables which allow you to switch jobs during the game. This will be done a little more elegantly later.
* Ability system fleshed out more. Each job has 4 active skills that come with the job, plus a couple of innate passives. The innate passives can't be passed on from one job to the next, and by default the active skills are not either. However, you can spend JP to MASTER one of these default skills, after which you CAN transfer it to another job.
* All ingame actors can now have "factions", such as Player or Enemy. This ties nicely in with abilities that summon creatures to help you out!
* More crate and chest types, with new art - more ways to get gear!
* Destructibles can be tagged as destroyable by monster, so that monsters are able to break them to proceed forward.
* New monster - rock viper!

ENGINE
* Game saving and loading, VERSION 1!!! This was a massive undertaking - I had no idea how difficult and complicated serializing the game's data would be! But thanks to Jim Shepard (developer of Dungeonmans) pointing me in the right direction, the system is functional and expandable. I'm sure there are bugs I'm missing of course so... go find them! Press ";" to save the game and load it from the main menu.

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Default settings will now initialize when you first load the game
* Destroyed objects no longer show up on the minimap
* Cursor is shown in options and dialog menus by default
* The starting room should no longer ever have monsters in it.

--------------------------

Re: Feedback

* I agree that point and click for ranged weapons would be good. Will do that.

* The character screen UI is definitely not final. All that stuff (equipment, character, job) needs to be designed properly. Sorry it's not great right now but I agree 100% and it will be improved.

* Method of comparing gear makes perfect sense. Yep!

* You can sort items in the inventory by hovering on the slot of your choice on the left, or did you mean sorting in the "All" list?

* STATS: If you hit "H" for help you can read what the stats do right now. Of course this is really early on so it's all subject to change.

* DAMAGE TYPES: You can tell what kind of damage monsters do by reading the combat log and watching the animations, which of course are not as good as I would like right now. Once the animations are improved it will be a little easier to tell, but the combat log will say so too.

* MONSTER WEAKNESSES: Monsters don't have weaknesses right now. Some monsters do have damage resistance to specific types though. Once I put in an "inspect" or "examine" function you'll be able to tell this more easily.

* Brigand feedback: Yes it's very possible it's not the class for you, because it does rely on melee attacks. But if you're just standing in one spot trading blows you're not making use of its abilities, especially the learned ones. Once you learn stuff like Backstab and Improved Parry you get big bonuses for strafing around enemies. Combine that with Find Weakness (which has been buffed) and you can get some huge hits in.

Another motivation to stay mobile is Precision Jab and Hemorrhage. Set up bleed effects and kite your enemies while they bleed. Once you get Lacerate you can then pop the bleeds to do even bigger damage (AOE).

BUT of course not every class is for everyone and indeed I want each one to have a different feel, which goes for the magic users as well. Let me know what you think of the Floramancer!

* EXPLORATION: I agree that there isn't a ton of fun and unexpected stuff in the dungeon yet. The reward for exploring right now is primarily breakables, which *do* drop gear guaranteed compared to monsters, whose drop rate has been slightly nerfed now. But there should be more.

Things like... fountains, more kinds of shrines, merchants, etc. Definitely want to do more of that. And when it comes to visuals, absolutely no question that we are very early on in terms of the tilesets. Not only will this set be fleshed out more with visual interest but there will be multiple sets and multiple kinds of floor layouts. The next layout I do will be focused on open spaces, "cave" style with lots of room to maneuver.

I've given a little more thought to my tendency to end up trading blows. I do move around, and do make use of my abilities, but I suspect that it's often simply easier to just click on the enemy than to pick out an ability and apply it, especially when dealing with weaker enemies that pose little threat.

(On top of that, I sometimes find myself short on stamina or energy, leaving me with only standard attacks.)


I don't use "Lacerate" very much, but I am indeed a fan of "Hemorrhage". Letting an enemy bleed to death while keeping out of its range likely appeals to my caster-appropriate preference for attacking in a context in which my opponent is prevented from attacking in return. ;)


I'll give it a try, I think! ^_^

(I do have a partial concept for a classical caster, if you're interested--but I have no argument if you'd prefer to stick with your own concepts!)

Sure I'm always happy to hear any and all ideas. Go for it!

Great, and thank you. ^_^

I'll try to keep most of the below fairly vague as to flavour; it could work with a number of themes, I think. (In my head it's largely traditional magic: fire, lightning, etc.)

The basic concept is of a Job-Skill-only class: this class doesn't use weapons at all, and none drop for it. Instead, all attacks take the form of job-skills. Each drains energy; if no energy is available, they instead drain stamina; if no stamina is available, they drain health.

The skills would include both utility and damage abilities. The aim is to have combat in which each turn calls for thought, and perhaps forethought.

Possible abilities, largely drawn from traditional RPG spells:

• A simple "cone of damage"
• "Marching" spells: These move by one or more tile per turn.
  
  • A "marching cone": The player targets a tile neighbouring their character, and the effect then spreads outwards in a cone from that point.
  • A "spreading pool of damage": The player targets a single point as the origin of the effect. On each turn it spreads outwards, stopping at walls and extending to some maximum range.
  • A single-tile, seeking, "marching damage" spell: The player targets a single, nearby point from which the spell then starts. On each turn, it moves towards the nearest enemy, damaging anything in its current tile.
  • A "direct-damage" spell: This darts off along a specified line, perhaps moving multiple tiles per turn, damaging a single target on "impact"
• A wall raised to block off a region (perhaps specified by indicating start and end tiles for the wall)
  
  • This might allow the player to control the flow of battle and affect the movement of enemies
• Similarly, a wall raised that doesn't block passage, but that damages those that pass through--much like the floramancer's "bed of thorns".
  
  • Creatures with higher intelligence might think to go around it
• A "chain damage" spell: upon hitting the target, a lesser version hits another nearby, etc. The catch would be that the player is a valid target for these lesser blasts, if near enough.
• Perhaps a spell that moves enemies in some way--something that might work well with the cone and chain spells above, increasing the number of targets within reach.

Finally, this class might not acquire job-points via the killing of monsters (although experience would still be acquired this way). Instead, job-points would be gained by finding items specific to the class--a wizard might find grimoires, or crystals of power, or wells of knowledge, for example.

(This last might contrast with a class that does somewhat the opposite: job-points and experience are gained normally, but job-skills are only added to the list of skills available to learn by finding class-specific items.)

~

I've spent a little time playing as a floramancer, and have some feedback:

First of all, it's an interesting class, and I am indeed finding it rather more enjoyable than I did the brigand. It's still not quite my style, but I'm having more fun with it, I do think.

My read on it--which may colour my thoughts below--is that it's essentially a ranger/summoner, using the "pet" to hold off enemies while avoiding contact and striking at range.

(Part of my enjoyment of the class may come from a personal rule that I've established of not using any melee weapons, even in desperation, thus reducing the temptation to slip into the gameplay that I've previously mentioned finding unappealing. Indeed, I'm inclined to suggest simply not dropping melee weapons for this class (or restricting melee weapons to only include the lighter items--knives, etc.), and slightly increasing the rate at which ranged weapons drop.)

The "pet" is a very welcome addition--for one thing, it's lovely to have a third party to handle the boring "hit things until they die" gameplay. ;) I've noticed that multiple summons are disallowed; is the pet intended to improve as the player levels, thus making it capable of taking on stronger foes?

My main critique right now is that I feel that the class could use more job-skills--it feels a little anaemic to me as it is. A few ideas, if I may:
 - Clinging vines, much like the bed of thorns, that hold enemies in place.
 - A "Ring a' rosie" spell that surrounds the player in thorny rose-bushes. These prevent movement either in or out, but not ranged attacks--although the player might still be able to use "vine swing" to pass through.
 - Buffs for the pet--poisonous thorns, extra health, etc.
 - Transformation of the pet into a static "turret" with increased range.
 - Perhaps an ability that commands the pet to go to a point and attack the nearest enemy (flavoured as a small plant that releases a chemical signal, perhaps).

I'm not entirely convinced of the utility of the "Conjure Anchor Vine" spell. Since there are no environmental hazards or obstacles (that I've thus far seen), the main use that I see for it is to escape dire situations. However, simply moving away from an enemy doesn't make it go away, so this just buys a few turns. If the pet is present (or I can summon it), I can simply vine swing to that, giving me an "anchor" that also holds off enemies. If I don't have sufficient energy to call the pet, I might as well stand and fight, I feel. On top of this, casting the spell takes up a turn, potentially giving nearby enemies the opportunity for a free attack.

I'm inclined to suggest dropping the "anchor vine" spell and simply scattering anchor vines (and other such plants) about the dungeon. Not only does this provide single-turn vine-swings, but it might provide an opportunity for a little extra class variation: while the floramancer swings to these vines, the brigand might cut them down to create camouflage that provides a single-use sneak-attack, while some other class might cut them down to gain a random potion, and yet another might cut them down to drink sap and regain stamina and energy.

(Indeed, I'm somewhat of a fan of objects that are present for all classes, but work differently for each.)

Finally, I found a bug, I fear: I started the game, opened the "help" screen, then closed it. After this, the UI buttons seemed to no longer respond--they were visible, but didn't seem to accept clicks. I believe that I was playing in windowed mode, with a resolution of 960x720,

Preview of new combat effects going in next patch. Ouch!

(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/230778909388570634/240627045888032769/AllEffects.gif)

RE: Floramancer feedback, very useful, thanks. Yes it does need more abilities for sure. There are only 6 right now I think and there should be more like 10-12.

I hear you that the anchor vine is not 100% useful right now. But I don't want to make them pure random either. What if you are in a bad spot and you want to summon one in a specific place to escape? Or you want to set up for a fight? I'm not sure that should be taken away from the player.

Here's my thought, that I'll try in the next patch. Instead of summoning 1 at a time, you summon 2; one at the target point, and one right next to you. Or maybe it will summon 3 in a line, like a wall. Any monsters you fight that are near these will be SLOWED as the vines grasp at them. This will help deter the monsters who may also turn to try and destroy them before going for you.

This way it has more utility - an obstacle to control the battlefield vs. your enemies, AND a way to set up escapes.

Of course part of this is contingent on having more dynamic combat from the monster side of things, and the dungeon itself, so that's on the list to do also...

Quick build to address some crash issues and also quality of life stuff. There will be more coming but I wanted to get this out first.

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build10-26-16.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build10-26-16.app.zip


AUDIO
* Much more subtle sound effect for switching weapons

ART / VISUALS
* New battle effects: punch, bite, pierce, claw, blunt, slash, axe, arrows!
* Tweaked destructible art
* "Jitter" effect when anything is hit with a normal attack. Adds some extra oomph to combat

BALANCE
* Brigand "Precision Jab" now hits both sides at once.
* Floramancer's "Anchor Vine" now slows nearby enemies too. (But only if you're in combat with them.)

BUGS
* Fixed small issue with animation frames flashing at the end
* (Hopefully?) fixed a couple crash bugs related to missing item prefabs
* Fixed game load issue

CONTENT / GAMEPLAY
* Removed Brigand's "Find Weakness" skill, replaced with "Dashing Cutter". Dash to an open square and hit everything nearby along the way!

QUALITY OF LIFE
* When using (targeting) an ability, a quick description of the ability effects will now display.
* Monsters are now RED on the map. Hero pet(s) are GREEN.
* Auto targeting ranged weapon by pressing F now prioritizes last attacked foe, followed by ANY enemy you're fighting.
* Summoned creatures now inherit their summoner's combat targets, allowing them to spring into action on summon!
* Area of effect abilities will now exclude your pets.

Ooh, I like those effects! ^_^


Hmm... Fair enough--that seems like a reasonable approach for the most part, I think. I do like the idea of that additional utility, I believe!

However, I'm inclined to suggest that the status effect to apply to all nearby enemies: having the means to slow or stop an enemy seems like a good way to set up combat. (Unless you intend to have another ability that's dedicated to such slowing or stopping, of course.)

(I do think that randomly-placed vines could work, as long as there was some logic ensuring a fairly broad placement of them. However, what you have seems likely to work too, and will likely be easier.)


I have it downloaded, and intend to play it soon, I believe. ^_^

Oh, a thought that I don't believe that I mentioned previously: now that player-allies are available, it might be useful to be able to see their health. (I'm inclined to suggest a small health-bar connected to them) This might allow the player to better evaluate their status; a dying ally might be the player's cue to heal or buff that ally, or perhaps make a hasty escape while the enemy is still engaged, for a few examples.

Right, once again I've played a little and have feedback:

The "combat effects" add a nice touch of variation and flavour to the combat, I feel, as well as--I presume--suggesting the damage-type involved.

The new Anchor Vine was useful in slowing enemies, but not as much as I'd like, I'll admit. That said, I don't think that I ended up attempting to back out of a dangerous situation, so I may simply have not tried it at its intended use.

Once I reached the levels in which enemy Living Vines appear, I had at least one instance in which I didn't know which of two was mine and which was an enemy. Looking at the update post above, I see that I could presumably have checked my map, but doing so didn't occur to me at the time. It might be helpful (and convenient) to have a more immediate means of telling them apart--perhaps a simple colour-tint? (Admittedly, this issue would likely be obviated if you ended up taking my suggestion of showing a health-bar over player-allies, as the bar would also serve to mark them out.)

It seems that the summoned Living Vine interprets the use of the "Photosynthesis" ability as an attack, as the pet seems to start attacking me when I use it. :/

Now that I'm perhaps more heavily relying on energy than I was with the brigand (especially since I generally want to keep a pet around), I more often want to refresh my energy bar. Potions of energy are rare, and so--when I have them at all--kept for the more urgent situations. However, resting seems to stop once the player's health or stamina (I'm not sure which) becomes full, meaning that it's often not an answer to regaining energy, even in an empty level. I have found that I can simply attempt to walk into a wall repeatedly in order to "waste" turns and regain energy, but it might be handy if resting continued until all bars were filled (or the player cancels it, of course).

(On a related side-note, I've found cleared levels to be good places to rest; I'm glad that one can ascend stairs as well as descend! ^_^)

I do find myself enjoying the game more, I believe; I'm mainly waiting for those additional floramancer abilities to flesh the class out a little and perhaps aid my survival into deeper levels! ^_^

 ;D HUGE and awesome new build today!  ;D

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build11-1-16.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build11-1-16.app.zip

There are a ton of patch notes and way more things that happened under the hood. But here are the major points I wanted to address:

* A single dungeon layout algorithm was not enough. Now there are 3 generator algorithms which create very different environments. You'll immediately notice the "cave" layout which will (hopefully) help show you the importance of maneuvering.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/CaveLayout.png)

* Floramancer has been fleshed out and finished. Lots of new abilities and tweaks! The goal of this class is to control the battlefield through indirect combat (summoning), and in particular, to reward planning your turns carefully. Placing vines in the right spot will make all the difference, especially now that there are more complimentary abilities to interact with and benefit from them.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/CreepingDeath.gif)

* Weapons didn't feel different enough. If you had a strong axe vs a strong sword (both slashing damage), there was minimal difference. Now, each weapon type has unique traits that may benefit you depending on the situation.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/AxeFX.gif)

* You can now hover with the mouse or press X (for "examine" mode) to check out what is in a tile. This is a way to quickly check a monster's % health or see what is in a pile of items.

* New monsters, and some tweaks/new powers in existing monsters!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/FireBreath.gif)

FULL NOTES

AUDIO
* Some new Floramancer SFX
* NEW music track!
* Music now plays totally at random per floor (including start of game)

BALANCE
* Playing around with XP gain - dialing it back a bit overall to encourage forward progress
* Monsters don't crit as often, or as hard
* Brigand Sneak Attack no longer works with ranged weapons

BUGS
* Floramancer: Healing your pet with Photosynthesis no longer makes your pet want to kill you.
* Stairs should now save/load properly. Oops!
* Miscellaneous bugfixes with loading data
* You can no longer dash into walls with Dashing Cutter
* (Probably) fixed weird bug with monsters not rendering sometimes?
* May have fixed bug with abilities randomly not firing

GAMEPLAY, CONTENT, FEATURES:
* Two NEW dungeon layout algorithms, plus more room templates for a much more varied dungeon!
* Floramancer "anchor vine" ability is now "Vine Wall". Summons 3 blocking vines that slow enemies, and can be swung to! Enemies will have to break them to pass.
* NEW FLORAMANCER ABILITY: "Detonate Vines". Blow up one of your summoned vines (even your pet!) to do AOE damage.
* NEW FLORAMANCER ABILITY: "Creeping Death". Summon a small but deadly plant that rapidly expands outward to consume your enemies!
* NEW FLORAMANCER PASSIVE: "Plant Synergy". When standing near one of your summons, regenerate extra health, energy, and stamina by absorbing nutrients.
* NEW FLORAMANCER PASSIVE: "Aura of Growth". Once learned, vines will randomly spawn as you move around the dungeon. (They don't block you anymore! See Quality of Life below...)
* Hovering over a tile with the mouse will pop up a display of what's in that tile (if anything). If there are multiple things, like multiple items, that will be displayed. If it's a monster, the monster's % health will be displayed.
* For keyboard-only players, press "X" to enter eXamine mode. Move the examine square around with the keys.
* Floramancer's living vine pet now receives Thorned Skin if you've learned that ability.
* Pets will now regenerate HP, stamina and energy just like the player.
* New Monster - Treasure Hunter. This bad mofo will ruin your day with a bow.
* New Monster - Young Fire Elemental. Coming at you with raging aggression, flaming skin and the ability to turn the floor into lava.. uh oh!
* Weapon types have been differentiated more beyond their damage type (slash, pierce, blunt), damage, and durability...
*** AXES now hit every monster around you.
*** SPEARS have a range of 2 (hit "F" to attack at range with them.)
*** MACES have a 15% chance to stun an enemy for 1 round.
*** DAGGERS deal increasing damage with each consecutive attack on the same enemy.
*** SWORDS will counter-attack the enemy on parry.
*** Ranged weapons (bows, slings, crossbows) have a range of 3+ so they're cool by default.
* Salamanders now have a fire breath ability to help teach you to avoid telegraphed enemy attacks.

ENGINE
* Created code supporting customized & weighted spawn tables for each dungeon floor. Steps toward more balanced and better-tuned encounters!
* Effects of all kinds can have internal cooldowns for how often they can be used on an actor. For example, a slow effect can be set so that it only processes an actor once per 3 turns, regardless of who uses it.
* Monsters can use summon effects now...

QUALITY OF LIFE
* New display showing summoned pet HP and turns remaining.
* Your pet will now travel floors with you.
* (R)esting will now restore your stamina and energy to full, also.
* The monster spawner crystal should no longer spawn on stairs.
* Your pet will always be visible to you and will no longer wander into unexplored areas.
* Floramancer summoned vines are no longer player collidable!

Wellll shortly after that last build I found out that most monsters were no longer using abilities. I fixed that and then added a bunch of other stuff including some buffs to Brigand abilities to make them more interactive, and complimentary. NEW BUILD NEW NOTES

WIN http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build11-2-16.rar
OSX http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build11-2-16.app.zip

ART
* New class sprites! Also, if you change classes, your sprite will change.
* Some new battle FX

BALANCE
* Brigand's Precision Jab, Lacerate, and Dashing Cutter benefit from on-hit attack bonuses
* Monsters starting at level 3 will have more HP

BUGS
* Many monsters that were not using their abilities... will now use their abilities again.
* Weird Young Water Elemental behavior fixed
* Crossbow is now 2handed
* Monsters no longer have vision of you just because you have vision of them. Hopefully no more of this:

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/tdI2rlM.gif)



CONTENT / GAMEPLAY / FEATURES
* Brigand's passive pierce bonus has been changed. Instead, she gets a 20% chance to inflict bleeding with any slash or piercing weapon on a regular attack, which is good, because:
* Brigand's DASHING CUTTER - Now gets a damage boost if the target is already bleeding
* Brigand's PRECISION JAB - Now gets a damage boost if the target is already bleeding
* Brigand's WALL JUMP - Now strikes all nearby targets at your landing point, if they're bleeding!
* These bleed-related effects ALSO work with Hemorrhage. So if a target has a mild bleed (from your attacks or Precision Jab) AND hemorrhage, dashing cutter & precision jab will do even more damage.
* Enemy champions are now extra dangerous at low health. Watch out!
* New battle ring! It's ok.

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Floramancer's Summoned Living Vine has a slightly different hue to differentiate from enemy monsters
* Brigand's Dashing Cutter can rotate in 8 directions
* Visual indicator for when an enemy is bleeding
* Reminder message will appear in the combat log if you have enough JP to learn an ability
* If you don't have enough JP to learn an ability, job sheet ("J") will now mark it in red

I've spent a little time with the new build, and once again have feedback! (All of this is based on playing as the floramancer, I'll note.)

To start with, the new sprite is cute! I like it. ^_^

The floramancer definitely feels more viable now! Having "Thorned Skin" apply to my summoned pet, as well (I presume) as having the pet recover health should result in the latter surviving a little longer--although I have still had cases in which it seemed to fall rather quickly to enemies, I think. "Creeping Death" seems tricky to use, but interesting. I might suggest having it hang around for one additional turn after it finishes propogating: it may just be that I want for practice with it, but given the energy cost I don't feel as though I'm getting as much effect out of it as I'd like.

Being able to recover energy by resting is welcome. That said, I do seem to feel as though I'm too often low on energy, given the kill-focussed nature of the class. As noted previously, I can recover energy by resting, but that's dangerous in an uncleared level, and it's tedious to repeatedly go back and forth between the current level and the previous in order to rest. Energy potions seem to be somewhat rare. Perhaps it would be worth altering the rate at which energy -potions and -orbs drop for this class?

(That said, it's possible that I should just prioritise taking the "Plant Synergy" skill--I was intent on some of the others in my playthrough, and so neglected that one.)

I see that the summoned Living Vine's attacks aren't effective against all creatures--which is a bit of an issue, given that it's one of my primary methods of attack. Perhaps it might be worth having some means of changing the Vine's damage-type, or another summon that attacks with a different damage-type?

The new Vine Walls are neat, and an improvement over the previous Anchor Vine spell. I might suggest making them a little tougher: they seem to fall to a single hit from an enemy, and while that proved useful on one occasion, on others it didn't seem to do much to slow down advancing foes.

Having my summoned creature follow me past stairs is appreciated. However, I'm in two minds on this: I'm generally not a fan of having my summoned creatures suddenly vanish, so I'm inclined to suggest having them last for the entirety of a dungeon-level, and disappear when moving to another. However, this dislike might be mitigated by an indication of how many turns a summoned creature has remaining, which I believe that you indicated above should be present, but which I don't seem to have seen in-game.

The summoned Vine does seem to be better at following the player, but can still get lost occasionally.

I like the telegraphed enemy skills.

The new, open dungeon layout is nice. I do think that it could use a bit of tweaking--there still seems to be a sense of a larger grid-layout to it, and it feels "messy" in places, with little chunks of wall scattered about--but it's a good start at the least, I feel.

Some of the new UI changes have proven rather helpful. The yellow text that indicates an ineffective attack is especially welcome, as I feel that it helps me to learn what works--or rather, what doesn't--against which enemies. The similar prompt of a new job skill being available is appreciated. (I'm not sure that it doesn't have a minor bug, however: I think that I've seen it announce the availability of a new skill when at least one had previously been available, and the newly-gained job-points weren't enough to add another to the list.)

Colouring unavailable job-skills in red is handy, but a little hard to read against a blue backdrop, I find (at 800x600 resolution, at least).

In all cases--and especially the red-on-blue text--I do wonder how those prompts might look to a colourblind person. Perhaps it might be worth checking that, and marrying them to additional changes--italics for skills that one can't buy, and bold for "ineffective attack" and "job skill available" prompts, perhaps.

The popup that appears when one hovers the mouse over an object is useful, but seems to be a little buggy. While it appears to be consistent for enemies, it seems to quickly stop working for summoned creatures, stairs, and altars. Moving to another dungeon-level seems to temporarily fix the issue. (I'm not sure that this affects the above-mentioned issue of not knowing how many turns a summoned creature has, as on those occasions on which the popup has worked, I think that I recall only seeing health displayed there.)

Hey thanks for the continued awesome feedback.

* Creeping Death: Having it stay for an extra turn might make sense. Overall game balance is constantly changing as I'm tweaking numbers, abilities, etc. so I apologize that it's not all as tuned as I would like. It should feel like a pretty strong power.

* The lack of merchants (and thus a more reliable source of consumables) is probably the biggest thing right now w/r/t energy usage. But maybe I'll scale back some power costs too. I

* If the vine is having trouble with something you do have a few other damage tools right? Thorns, creeping death, ranged attacks? But yeah having a way to maybe alter it would be good. I agree.

* You know thinking about it, there's really no reason to have the pet disappear. I will just make it last forever or until it dies.

* Will look into the pet wander algorithm!

* UI stuff: Yeah the UI is still not in a great spot. Lots of bandaids since so much of it is my own scratch placeholder stuff. I've asked the lead artist / UX guy to work on the equipment/inventory screen first, after which we will work on other screens.

Overall, your proposed changes seem good! ^_^


Not a problem! ^_^


Balance issues aren't unexpected at this point, I daresay; indeed, that's a big part of the point of testing this early, it seems to me! ^_^


Aah, I didn't realise that there were going to be merchants! (Or forgot.) In that case, I wouldn't worry about it too much just yet--let's see what the balance looks like once the player can purchase their choice of resources.

(Does this mean that I'll have somewhere to dump all those items that I don't use? :P (Aside from the altars, of course. ;) ))

Regarding the Vine's buff, I was thinking a bit more about the summoned pet, and it occurs to me that there may be a potential issue in later levels: as the game goes on, the enemies faced will presumably become more powerful. If the Vine remains unchanged, it will presumably become largely ineffective. If the Vine simply becomes more powerful to match, I fear that there's the risk that some of the challenge of those more powerful monsters will be lost.

What I suggest, then, is not one but a set of skills that alter the Vine--giving it more health, or a new damage type, or more attacks per turn, or a slowing effect, etc. This gives the player choices in how they buff each Vine, allowing them to adjust it to a given situation. With balance measures in place, the Vine would hopefully not become overpowering, or suited to all situations.

NEW BUILD DAY

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build11-12-16.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build11-12-16.app.zip

Find bugs? Why not make an account on my GitLab server and report them?! (http://git.impactsoundworks.com:617/isworks-andrew/tangledeep/issues)

There's a TON of stuff in this build that I can't wait to share! Among other things, I've named the game: Tangledeep, which will be the name of the labyrinth you're exploring. Here are the cliffnotes.

MAJOR CHANGES

All new job: Sword Dancer!
The Sword Dancer is a graceful, mobile melee fighter inspired by wuxia and tai chi sword arts. The twist is that she also uses elemental powers, controlling the battlefield around her with fire, ice, lightning, and wind.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Strikez.gif)
(http://zirconstudios.com/game/GetOutTheWay.gif)

Lots of new combat FX!
Combat looks even spiffier, and getting better with every build! Enemies will now also visibly alert you when they are aggroed.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/FireAttack.gif)

Brigand Rework!
I wasn't happy with most of the Brigand abilities so I redid over half of them. You'll now be using even more dirty tricks, like smoke bombs that obscure the battlefield (and give you bonus crit), explosive traps, throwing knives etc.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/SmokeCloud.gif)
(this art is temporary, sorry!)

More Monster Powers
Monsters have toughened up, with a number of them getting new ways to ruin your day.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/JadeCharge.gif)

FULL CHANGELOG

ART
* Tons of new spiffy combat FX for various abilities, projectiles and impacts!
* New swinging vine animated sprite
* Animations no longer start at the exact same time every time; they will randomly be a bit more "staggered" which looks nice for most things.

BALANCE
* Monster density has been increased at floor 3 and below.
* Floramancer's Summoned Living Vine lasts forever (or until killed) now.
* Floramancer's Vine Swing now restores a little bit of energy when used.
* Champions now get ENRAGED at low health! They get bigger and do more damage, so watch out.
* Floramancer's Creeping Death now lasts an extra turn after spreading
* Tweaked Energy costs of various abilities downward
* Reduced stamina regen rate slightly
* Increased Energy regen rate slightly

BUGS
* YOU CAN RESTART THE GAME ONCE YOU DIE~
* Long load time on switching floors has been fixed. This came from music loading on-demand instead of in the background and streaming in...
* Examine mode / mouse hover should work more reliable now
* Fixed some save / load game bugs
* Precision Jab no longer stops working after 8 uses
* UI overlay now refreshes when switching floors
* The hero should no longer spawn on top of various destructibles
* You can now swap a unique item with the same kind of unique item in the same slot (i.e. one Bottomless Brew for another)
* Champion slimes will no longer merge with non-champion slimes to become a non-champion slime.

CONTENT / GAMEPLAY / FEATURES
* NEW dungeon layout type! (Currently found on floors 3 and 10)
* NEW JOB - Sword Dancer! Use graceful weapon techniques and elemental qi powers to carve your enemies apart with true skill.
* Job REWORK - Brigand. This class is supposed to be about dirty tactics, cheap hits, and taking advantage of your enemy's weaknesses. To that end a number of skills have been removed and new ones created. Try it out!
* Armor has been simplified. Medium and Heavy armor types now reduce damage and add to your dodge, while heavy armor mitigates more damage but offers no extra dodge. There are no more damage resistances (on player armor) to specific damage types like Pierce or Slash... it's just "Physical".
* Monsters can now have monster 'families' (such as slimes, bandits, etc.) which will be used for various things, like...
* New monster attribute: CALL FOR HELP. Monsters with this tag can call out and try to get their friends to help. Uh oh!
* Various monsters have new powers...
--> Fungal Toad's jump now hits you if it lands right next to you.
--> Jade Beetles will now use a powerful charge attack.
--> Mold-Infested Rats will now occasionally pull you closer.

ENGINE
* In the previous build, monsters were able to use an ability that caused them to 'wait' X turns. Salamander fire breath was actually summoning a bunch of tiles that, in turned, summoned the actual effect, while the salamander waited. In this build, strong monster powers can work a bit more intuitively: the monster can CHARGE an action, with 'danger' tiles indicating where that action will happen.
* More robust system governing monster powers in general. They can now be set to trigger only under certain conditions, such as by chance, within a certain range, health threshold, behavior state, etc.
* Lots of under-the-hood stuff for ability targeting and movement to support the Sword Dancer.
* Support for abilities to write flavor text in the combat log.

QUALITY OF LIFE
* An !!! indicator now appears above an enemy that is aggroing somebody (probably you)
* Summoned pets should stick even more closely to you and not wander out of sight
* Monsters should no longer spawn very close to the hero on cave levels (or any level)
* You will now see a message in the combat log when you learn an ability, such as via special item.
* Newly-learnt abilities should properly auto-add to the hotbar if there are open spaces
* When swapping positions or pushing another actor, the game will pause briefly to show the move
* During combat, effect procs now allow for animation time so you can more clearly see what's going on.

Wow, that's quite a change-list! I've downloaded the new build, I believe, and intend to try it out fairly soon--perhaps Monday. ^_^

I like the new name! (I'll confess that it caused a little confusion at first: I received an email thread-notification for "Tangledeep", but didn't remember setting notifications for any such thread...)

Cool name!

Ughhh, I'm going to find time to actually play one of these builds, I swear. It's looking really cool, every new update sounds great and really interesting. The sword dancer is my favorite so far.

@Pixel Noise: This build is perhaps not a bad point at which to enter: While there are still some bugs, the gameplay seems to me to be starting to come together, and can be quite fun. Additionally, there are now three classes to pick from, each offering a slightly different experience.

@zircon: Feedback!

I like the new Sword Dancer class! While it's not really my style, it seems pretty cool overall, and has some interesting-looking abilities.

Speaking of the new class, I almost managed to effect a full Floramancer->Sword Dancer->Floramancer job-switch (I want some of those abilities!), but died before I managed to pick up the last Sword Dancer ability that I wanted to carry over. I actually somewhat enjoyed playing the Sword Dancer during this run--although I think that this was in part because of the Floramancer abilities that I carried over.

I might have another shot at that job-switch...

As to the Floramancer's abilities, I really do think that Creeping Doom is improved--it really feels worth using now, and in fact became one of my staple attacks. Even more so was Bed of Thorns: it's extremely powerful during the first few levels (which I feel is appropriate), and seems to remain useful as far as I've thus far reached. I like that it affects creatures in the tiles directly surrounding it.

(That said, the sound effect associated with Creeping Doom is a little annoying, I find. :/)

I do think that I prefer having my summoned Vine stick around; it feels more useful, and more reliable, and perhaps gives a little more weight to paying attention to its health.

The exclamation point that appears when a creature becomes hostile is welcome: it provides a useful means of conveying a creature's state, I feel.

I like the change in how armour is handled--it's simpler, which I find leaves armour feeling more useful and more manageable.

On a general note, the gameplay balance is starting to feel good to me. The first floors are easy, but (based on one run, at least) at around floor five or six I start to feel that it becomes important to think about my moves.

As to bugs:

Every so often a tile seems to end up with a "phantom" object: hovering the mouse over it indicates the presence of a "Summoned Living Vine", but none is present; such tiles seem to show up as green on the minimap. Unfortunately, this seems to result in further issues:

• The tile can be selected for targeted abilities and ranged weapons. I've only tried it with the latter, I believe, but doing so seemed to render the game largely unresponsive, leaving me able to open screens, select abilities, etc., but not act.
• Perhaps related, every so often it seems to result in the character not being able to move. Going into the equipment screen and "using" an item seems to fix it most of the time (without actually using the item). It also looks as though I'm "pushed aside" somewhat, I think.

The information bar that appears when one hovers the mouse over a tile remains when one opens the equipment screen, covering the top part. (I'm not sure of whether I've tried it with other screens.)

When the player has accumulated quite a few items, the list doesn't seem to scroll all the way to the bottom. This can be worked around by using one of the dedicated sub-lists (such as by highlighting the "weapon" slot, such that only weapons are shown)--until that list grows too large, too.

Finally, in the job screen, attempting to scroll the "learned skills" list seems to instead scroll the "available skills" list, resulting in known skills that fall off of the bottom of the list being effectively unavailable.

Hey sorry I missed that feedback! My topic notifications got turned off somehow. Thanks very much as always - really helpful. Some of these issues have been fixed in the build I'm about to describe below (such as the 'phantom' summon tiles), others will be fixed shortly. The equipment/jobs UI is a big pain point for me right now as UI is my weak area and we don't have proper design for it yet.

NEW BUILD - 11/17/2016

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build11-17-16.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build11-17-16.app.zip

TL;DR
First boss (WIP) on Floor 5. Crash/bug fixes. More quality of life improvements. Lots of new art. New ability type (toggle) which will be used for lots of stuff going forward. Jobs now influence stat growth.

GIFS BECAUSE WHY NOT?

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/NOT_TODAY.gif)
(http://zirconstudios.com/game/StatusRotation2.gif)

FULL CHANGELOG

ART
* MORE sweet new combat effects!
* In-game status effect sprites should now align properly, in all directions, regardless of the size of the monster or actor!
* New in-game status icons when enemies are debuffed in various ways, and these debuff icons will cycle to show each status effect present
* Tile perspective enhancements

BALANCE
* Sword Dancer's "Dust in the Wind" now costs 20 Energy (down from 25)
* Slightly boosted player HP gained per level
* Slimes hit a little harder
* Player starting HP boosted slightly

BUGS
* Jians will no longer spawn outside of the Sword Dancer's starting weapon
* Rooted enemies can no longer use movement/jump abilities.
* Fixed major crash/freeze bug with Floramancer pet
* When monster pets die, they will do the death fade out + sound so you know what happened
* Floramancer's Plant Synergy can no longer revive you after you've died
* Fixed bug caused by some weird combination of Plant Synergy and Creeping Spider's Mild Venom
* Fourth Sword no longer does ridic damage
* Scanline state now saves/loads properly
* You should no longer spawn on the first level trapped in stone
* The "examine" info bar will now close when you open character/equipment sheets (etc)

CONTENT, GAMEPLAY, FEATURES
* First BOSS FIGHT - not quite 100% finished but it's mostly there! You will encounter it on Floor 5. Be prepared...
* Brigand new passive: "Detect Weakness". This is a passive skill that, once learned, will randomly reveal enemy weak points (if you're not in combat with them already). Attack these weak points for massive damage!
* Sword Dancer's "Thundering Lion" is now a TOGGLE as opposed to a limited-duration status. Also, toggle abilities are possible ingame now!
* Jobs now influence stat growth (Strength, Swiftness, Guile, Discipline, Spirit) on level up. The differences are not huge but do add up over time. The base/average gain is 1.5. Floramancer, for example, now gains 1.8 Spirit per level but only 1.25 Strength.
* Monsters now have the ability to heal other monsters! If they have a heal spell, that is.

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Red battle text (numbers, "WHIFF" etc) is now yellow or white
* Self-only abilities no longer require an extra button press to cast.
* When summoned stuff disappears, it will now fade out instead of suddenly vanishing
* New option: show jp/xp gain, pops up above character's head when you kill something
* If you have a ranged weapon equipped, you can now click on an enemy (within range) to attack it

WHAT'S NEXT?

Here's what's on the table:

The THAUMATURGE is coming as the 4th job! This class will be a traditional energy-based magic user with a twist. You will be able to learn "Metamagic" skills that change how your spells behave. Combining different metamagic abilities will yield new and unique combinations. For example, you could extend the range of a spell, change the targeting shape, or the 'trigger' (instant, reactive, etc...)

More art! Art is an ongoing process. Tiles, battle FX, polish, and enhancements.

UI (equipment, jobs, character sheet) is all placeholder and need some serious love. Workin on it!

Revamp to magic mods and champion mods. They will be better. I promise.

The town hub is coming too... And for that I'll need a more robust dialog system, buying/selling item UI and so forth.

I have the new build downloaded, I believe, and intend to try it soon!


Ooh, I've been waiting for that! ^_^


Just to check: am I correct in thinking that the bug with the "learned skills" list hasn't yet been fixed? I want to hold off on my next attempt to dual-class Floramancer and Sword Dancer until it has been, since it prevents my reaching--and thus using--some of the skills thus accumulated.


MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

*ahem*

I mean, I really like the sound of that class. ^_^


Ooh, I like that!

I do have one suggestion--although note that this may significantly increase the amount of work involved: in previous games that I've played that have provided spell-customisation, I've found that I generally prefer those in which the spells produced are distinct from each other, rather than simply looking like the same basic spell with different variables. For example, a basic "fiery missile" spell might look like a simple fireball; a range-extended one might look like a snake made of fire; a reactive one might look like a smouldering ember; a cone version might spew out "claws" made of fire; and so on.

As already noted, however, this does presumably call for quite a bit of additional art.

Yes the equipment / skill list bugs will be fixed, they are not fixed yet however.

I agree on the spell FX thing. Visual polish is enormously important to me... this game needs to look amazing. The new combat FX we've been doing look great (IMO) and I want to do that for all jobs.

I've played a little of the new build, but have encountered two bugs, the latter of which has stopped play for now:

First, it seems that when I die and attempt to restart the game, I end up stuck at a black screen with nothing happening. I've confirmed this happening when I die as a Sword Dancer, but not as other classes. Specifically, I died, clicked the mouse to continue, then selected a class to start a new game. The screen went black, and stayed that way.

Second, the Floramancer's summoned Vine seems to be a little broken. :/ Specifically, it wanders about more or less randomly, and no longer seems interested in fighting for me. I did see the "aggro" exclamation-mark appear over it a few times, seemingly arbitrarily, but I didn't see it attack as a result of this.

On a more positive note, I like being able to simply click on an enemy to attack with a ranged weapon. Thank you for that! ^_^


Fair enough!


Excellent! ^_^

Can you send your saved game files or upload them somewhere? That's a bad bug... should be savedGame.xml and .dat.

The second one I have fixed locally. Sorry about both of these.

Right now I'm working on overhauling a lot of UI code. Equipment screen is totally new and there will hopefully be other redone UIs as well.

Hmm... Does the game autosave at some point? The "options" menu doesn't work properly for me--I see sliders and check-boxes, but no labels, and I'm not sure about buttons--perhaps due to my use of WINE (I might be missing some UI package, or some such thing). As a result, I haven't been saving manually in any way. (And I close the game via Ctrl-F4, if I recall correctly.)

Would I get a valid save-file if I reproduced the bug as described above (all the way through to the black screen), then used Ctrl-F4 to quit?


Ah, fair enough!


Not at all! Bugs like this are not unlikely during so active a period of development, I suspect.


Ah, excellent! ^_^

Ohh I misunderstood, when you say restart the game you meant like hitting "Enter" at the game over screen right? OK.

If it happens again send the Unity log...

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/LogFiles.html

With regards to options not appearing, what resolution are you using? This could indeed be a WINE thing. I will (eventually) be making a proper Linux port tho.

Why does the player sprite only face one direction all the time? And they never seem to do attack moves or anything but stand there jerking up and down? It bothers me.

Cause none of that stuff doesn't add as much to the gameplay compared to things like new enemies and attack effects.
The game is really early in development too and it's much more important to put dev time towards things like new enemies and effects which add a lot more than other character angles or detailed attack animations.

Also, this is generally the style of these types of games, so you're basically the only one who gets all bothered

Well, Fervir said it perhaps a bit more bluntly than me, but he is also correct. My top priority is getting a wide range of characters, battle FX, monsters, NPCs, etc. We also need item icons, portraits, skill/spell icons, status effects and much more. BUT once I'm satisfied we have all of that then I would do directional sprites for the hero and then maybe simple walking/attack animations.

Most roguelikes have nowhere near the level of visuals that (thanks to Fervir and our other artist OceansAndrew) we have already been able to achieve, even early on. Most are pure ASCII, text and numbers. Those that aren't use very lo-fi graphics with minimal if any animations at all, no battle FX, etc. Even doing idle animations is a big step above probably 95% of roguelikes and that kind of polish is important to me. Take a look at some of the top rated, most beloved roguelikes around to see what I mean:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/259680/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/333640/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjIRntJUy84
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2heHtwCFn9s
etc...

Granted these are all extremely good games. But I think even with no attack/walk animations or directional sprites, Tangledeep will end up looking a lot more pleasant and polished, which is really important to me!

P.S. One of the merchants you will encounter soon, say hi!

(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/230778909388570634/250406872383881217/CatGrill.gif)
"Buy something, nya~"

I ran the game quickly (this bug is very reliable on my machine), and here's the resultant log file, I believe:




I believe that I'm running it in Windowed mode, with a resolution of 928 x 696.

A Linux build would be nice to have, I daresay! ^_^


Kitty!!! :D

Um... I mean... *ahem*

Uh... I like it! ^_^

NEW BUILD! This one has some extensive changes so I fully expect there to be bugs that I've missed, but any play testing is of course sincerely appreciated.

WINDOWS: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build11-30-16.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build11-30-16.app.zip

OVERVIEW: All the UI code has been completely redone. Several interfaces have been redesigned from scratch, such as equipment, UI, and job, plus there is now a new skill book UI (s) where you can view/use abilities and equip support abilities. There is now a basic title screen and character creation process! Also, the champion mod system has been reworked. Champions are much more interesting now, capable of spawning with various unique powers that require more planning and battlefield awareness.

New champion abilities (electrified, frozen, toxic)
(http://zirconstudios.com/game/CHAMPS.gif)

Passive/support ability swapping
(http://zirconstudios.com/game/SkillManager.gif)

Character creation 1.0
(http://zirconstudios.com/game/CharCreation1.png)

FULL CHANGELOG

BUGS
* Summoned pets will now remember their summoner on load properly, and not aggro him/her/it
* On load, monsters will continue respawning on floors with the monster-attracting gem still intact.
* Monsters that normally restrict their movement to a small area will be more inclined to wander about in caves.
* Anchor/swing vines spawned by Floramancer's "Aura of Growth" will no longer stack up on the same square
* Anchor vines should no longer slow enemies you aren't in combat with

CONTENT
* Monster champion system has been totally overhauled. There are now "Champion Mods" which, in addition to adding raw stats, grant new battle powers to the monster. For example, "Toxic" champions will spawn spreading poison clouds, "Turtling" champions conjure energy shields, and "Electrified" champions call random lightning strikes! You can view a monster's mods by hovering over them with the mouse, or using the "x" (examine) key.

* Champion monsters have more flavorful names, too!

* You can now select from 2 feats when you start the game. These are innate active or passive abilities that will help you in your adventure! There are just 6 for now but expect to see lots more.

* Passive abilities must now be EQUIPPED from the skill sheet (S) to have an effect. You can have up to 5 passive abilities equipped at a time, from any mix of jobs.

ENGINE
* More support for ability in-game 'flavor text' (written to log)
* Abilities can now have one sound effect play to cover the entire effect, even if there are multiple animations generated
* Lay the groundwork for new job traits (passives/stats) to unlock as you master your job. This will give you extra benefits that are NOT carried over from one job to another, giving you incentive to select the job you like even if you've mastered all abilities from multiple jobs.

QUALITY OF LIFE
* On the "Game Over" screen, hitting escape will now restart the game.

USER INTERFACE
* Game now has a title screen and basic character creation!
* Massive overhaul to underlying UI code.
* Equipment and Inventory UI have both been redone from scratch. More work to be done but these should be much more useful and focused now. Equipment is for weapons, armor, and accessories, Inventory is for usable items.
* Job Sheet (J) has been redone. This is now used to view in-depth info about your current job, learn/master new abilities.
* New UI sheet, Skill/Spell Book (S), which is where you can use abilities and equip (?!) new Passive abilities... See CONTENT above

Quite an update, I feel! ^_^

I've played for a little while--I haven't yet gotten very far, but do have a save to go back to (I hope)--and once again have some feedback:

First of all, It's good to have my summoned Vine working again! :D

I like the new character-creation system, and feel that you have a good start to it. It's a nice, RPG-ish experience. ^_^

The main menu is just lovely; even the title is pretty, being both in a lovely colour and a nice font (to my eye, at least). ^_^

The new inventory screens seem rather more manageable than the old, I think: the increased space increases the ease of reading (the increased space-usage offset somewhat by having two columns), and the icons add both a bit of visual interest and an aid to quick recognition, I think. Similarly, I like the new layout for the job-screen.

On the other hand, it might be nice to have a bit more space between the options shown in menus (such as in the character-creation sequence), both for increased legibility and to provide a bit of buffer-space to reduce ambiguity when picking via the mouse.

Perhaps more saliently, hovering the mouse over an option produces tooltips (when available), but doesn't seem to actually select items. As a result, pressing the mouse-button selects whatever the hand-cursor is highlighting, regardless of where the mouse is--something that tripped me up a few times. This is perhaps most problematic when selecting a character-class, since the mistake only becomes clear when the game-proper starts, a few screens later.

The new character-screens (equipment, inventory, job, etc.) don't seem to resize to fit the current aspect ratio--for example, they seem to extend beyond the sides of the screen when one plays in a 928x696 window. (I've recently dealt with something similar on my end, as I recall--if you like, I should be able to provide some pseudo-code that might be useful to you. That said, the utility of my code may depend heavily on just how similar your UI system is to the one that I use.)

I do still think that it would be worth making all character-screens available from a single, central screen, perhaps via tabs.

As to gameplay, I feel that it's a little too easy to target an ally by simply clicking on them at range. Worse, once one has gained the aggression of said former ally, one may find that at melee range they seem to still be treated as allies, meaning that mouse-clicks simply move the player towards the character, swapping positions with them. (I'm inclined to suggest that clicking on a distant ally simply move the player towards them, even with a ranged weapon selected. If one really does want to attack an ally, this can presumably still be done via hotkeys.)

The new champion abilities are a nice addition, I think--although I'll confess that I haven't yet had enough such encounters to be confident of more detailed feedback than that.

I encountered a bug in the text-colouring: a creature (a champion, I think) was described in the log-text more or less as: "<color=yellow>[text]</color>" (where "[text]" represents the text that was presumably supposed to be coloured).

Finally, the new story is interesting--but if we're ascending towards the surface, why do the staircases that allow progress seem to go downwards...? o_0

Great points re: mouse control. I play almost entirely with keys as is the Roguelike tradition so the mouse control should be improved. I will make it so clicking an option selects it, clicking AGAIN will confirm it (if already selected).

UI scaling is a thorn in my side. For now if possible try to play at 16:9. It should scale properly to any multiple of that.

Tabs in the UI - definitely, it's on the list. I wanted to get the new wireframes and functionality in, but I agree that tabs would make life easier.

Hurting own pet: I'm going to just make this impossible :P

I'm honestly not a fan of the idea of requiring two clicks to perform a single action. :/ Not only does it double the number of clicks required to perform such actions, but it seems to me to be less intuitive than I'd like. Instead, what I'm inclined to suggest is that hovering the mouse over an option selects it (as though the user had used the keys to move the hand-cursor to that item), and clicking performs the relevant command.

However, another thought has occurred to me: you've said that you play the game almost entirely via the keyboard; if that's your intended control mechanism, and implementing mouse support is a pain for you, perhaps it's better to simply remove the latter entirely. (If you do this, however, I strongly recommend removing mouse support entirely: having it be present in one place and not others might be frustrating for those inclined to prefer it, as I recall finding in an earlier build.)

I, personally, find the mouse to be a far preferable input device for this game--but it's not my game, and if it's not well suited to me, then that's okay, I feel.


Hmm... Excluding the non-16:9 resolutions, it seems that the highest windowed resolution available is 960 x 540--slightly smaller than I've been playing at, I believe. A pity, but fair enough. :/


Good good! ^_^


Hah, fair enough!

** NEW BUILD **

OK, been working very hard on this build which adds a LOT of new code. There's (as always) tons more I want to do but I hate going more than a few weeks without releasing something publicly, so here we go.

WINDOWS: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build12-15-16.rar
MAC OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build12-15-16.app.zip

tl;dr / THOUGHTS
This build is a big step forward because it introduces the town hub, Riverstone Camp. Right now there is not a ton you can do there; there are just two merchants with static positions. But it took a lot of code and assets to get here, creating an entire NPC system, merchant UI, currency, shops with inventory that is cycled over time, branching dialog system, etc etc. So while it may be humble right now, a lot of groundwork has been laid down for future improvements.

I've also spent more time working on mouse control and bug fixes, plus refining and improving content (i.e. throwing out all existing magic mods and making new ones, new monsters and monster tweaks), balance and all that good stuff, all with the goal of making the game experience better, fresher, and more fun overall.

I'm looking forward to further fleshing out the town hub and adding the 4th character job very soon!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Nando.gif)
The dancing food merchant, Nando

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Rivers.png)
New rivers added to caves (temp art)

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Gameplay.gif)
New help system (press H)

FULL CHANGELOG

ART
* New tile set/skin for the boss fight room!
* Crappy temp skeletons (summoned by Summoner champions) are now Bone Crabs.

BALANCE
* Fungal Toads and bandits that call for help will no longer call for quite as large a distance
* Equipping MAGICAL armor, accessories, or shields now takes a turn. (This is tentative / may be reverted)
* Summoned Living Vine toned down slightly
* Stats no longer influence regen % rate

BUGS
* The game over screen now lingers and requires you to press enter, return or escape to move on
* Probably (?) fixed bugs where Sword Dancer abilities would sometimes not move the player sprite visually
* Alpha sort inventory, equipment, and player skill list now works
* Sort player skill list by job now works
* Clicking on sort buttons should work now too
* Monsters in wide-open areas are less likely to stop moving
* Fixed flickering bug with some visual FX fading out at <100% alpha
* If you have a unique status effect added by multiple items (such as a unique magic mod), the effect *should* no longer be removed if you unequip one item
* Items on the map should now save and load properly. Also fixed a number of other save/load bugs related to items.
* Items and champion monsters loaded from save will no longer lose their display names
* Fixed bug where some items (mostly accessories) would load the same mod twice on load game
* Hero status effects that have ingame sprites (shields etc) should now properly load

CONTENT
* Got rid of nearly all existing item magic mods and started from scratch. New mods have been added that have more flavor and offer more interesting choices/effects than simply small stat bonuses. More to come, of course!

* Money has been added to the game. Kind of important right? :D Money is granted upon killing monsters. Eventually it will drop from chests etc too. This means items now have a monetary value (different when buying vs. selling, and also varies based on merchant.)

* New feat: Entrepreneur. Find more money and sell items for more money.

* The town hub - Riverstone Camp - has been added! You can reach it by traveling to the stairs up on Tangledeep's first floor.

* Merchants have been added! You can find two in Riverstone Camp, Katje and Nando. Talk to them to buy/sell items. Each time you reach a new floor of Tangledeep, their inventories will be refreshed. Their goods may also improve depending on what level you are!

* New type of consumable item added: food. Food will restore one of your prime stats (health, energy, stamina) over a short period of time. It's cheap, and easy enough to come by. However, eating ANY food makes you full, and if you're full you can't eat more for a bit!

* Caves now have rivers running through them (with placeholder art, for now). Rivers carve through the map but take a bit of stamina to move through.

* Grotto Flyers now have a projectile sting attack.

* New monster: Toxic Urchin. These creatures are immobile but highly aggressive.

* New monster mod: Regenerating. These champions will buff themselves to heal up quickly after an attack, but if you wait for the buff to wear off you'll have the advantage!

ENGINE
* Created 'exclusion groups' for magic mods so certain mod combinations will never spawn.
* New support for skinned areas! Important for the new boss room skin and TOWN area! :D
* Support for animated components of skinned map areas
* Support for maps that exist outside the dungeon
* Fleshed out conversation/dialog/dialogue system - now loads from XML, custom window sizes, color/size parsing!

QUALITY OF LIFE
* You can no longer target your pet with ranged weapons
* Help button ('H') now displays an interactive manual with much more info!

USER INTERFACE / UX
* Tweaked fonts in the main HUD and dialog windows
* Hovering over UI options/buttons now moves the cursor
* You can now hit enter/return to go up and down stairs.
* You can how hit Numpad5 (middle) to pass your turn
* Mouse movement has been changed. Now, left-clicking (or left-click + hold) simply moves the character toward your cursor. Simple - no pathfinding. RIGHT clicking and holding will select a tile and attempt to pathfind to that tile as long as the right mouse button is held. It's still a little rough but will be continuously improved.

Quite an update, I feel! I have the new build downloaded, I believe, and intend to try it soon. ^_^

All right, I have a little initial feedback:

First of all, the reason that I'm doing this now, rather than after more play: I seem to have encountered a bug that makes the game difficult to play (by mouse, at least). Specifically, the skill-buttons don't seem to work--I can press them, and they respond visually, I believe, but it seems that nothing happens. :/

That said, the mouse-controls are otherwise rather improved thus far, I believe! In particular, I really like having mouse-selection work in menus. ^_^

I did find one bug with said selection: When selling, I found that selling an item resulted in the cursor jumping to the "exit" button, regardless of the mouse-cursor's location. It only resets when the mouse is moved--and further, it seems that it doesn't actually update the selected item until (I think) the mouse is moved to another item. :/

Otherwise, I do rather like having the shops available, both as a source of items and a place to dump unused loot, and get some resources in exchange for it. I do wonder whether going back and forth might become tiresome once the player has reached some of the lower levels--do you plan to implement a "town portal" of some sort?

The rivers seem like a nice idea. I haven't had much interaction with them yet, but I like the concept, at least. A suggestion, if I may: Have the rivers flow, pushing objects along their course. This might produce some interesting gameplay effects:
 - Objects being carried downstream
 - Easy travel in one direction and difficult going in the other
 - River hazards into which unwary creatures and players may be dragged
 - Places that can only be reached by river, whether by struggling upstream or riding downstream, with impassable tiles to either side

Yes I think there is more I can do with rivers for sure. And I'll continue refining mouse control / fixing bugs with that. Although, re: skill hotbar, I do recommend IF you are playing with mouse to use left hand to trigger skills - that seems like a natural setup (left hand rests on 1-8, right hand on mouse)

Anyway, no build yet, but I'm working on a lot of stuff including testing getting rid of durability altogether. I've created a google doc which features everything I'm working on right now.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VIFBxOeX-ijjPTsrGuscJYKyGFre1WwHS_nfSlTT4kU/edit

Excellent, and thank you. ^_^


Hmm... Actually, in a game like this, it seems natural to me to use only the mouse. After all, there's little call for quick reactions, and I see nothing thus far that couldn't be interacted with effectively via a mouse.

(Honestly, I think that I'd forgotten at the time that there were hotkeys for the skills. (Which is silly in retrospect, since as you've pointed out, the keyboard is intended to be the primary control mechanism.) While not ideal to my mind, at the least they should allow me to use my skills in the current build!)

Speaking of which, I a suggestion related to the mouse controls, if I may: I'd like to be able to use stairs via the mouse. Since moving up and down carries little penalty (as far as I see), the cost of a mis-click seems minor to me.

Specifically, what I suggest is this: When the player-character enters a tile on which some action may be taken, bring up one or more little buttons; instead of clicking on the player, clicking on these performs that action. For example, when entering a tile that contains loot, have an icon pop up that indicates "taking"; if the tile contains both stairs and loot, have two icons pop up.


Ah, interesting! Thank you for sharing that. ^_^

I like the idea of removing durability: thinking about it now, I think that it's been more of a nuisance than a mechanic that's enhanced the gameplay.

The new weapon-type properties are interesting; I don't care to speculate as to whether they're an improvement--we'll see once they're play-tested, I suppose. (Not likely by me--I'm sticking to my spellcaster classes, I intend. :P)

I see that we have a "town portal" coming up--excellent! ^_^

Happy new year all!!!

And good suggestions, you can now click on yourself when on stairs to use them. To avoid issues with using items instead of stairs I've also added a new auto-pickup option. This can be toggled at will, though it feels pretty good to leave it on.

These last few weeks have been crazy productive. Check the build notes Gdoc - so much happening here, not just bug fixes and balance tweaks but major new content and quality-of-life stuff.

The SPELLSHAPER will be in the next build as noted in the guide and looks positively awesome thanks to Fervir. It's pretty advanced but very powerful once you get a handle on it. Essentially you have/can learn up to 4 basic elemental spells, each of which affect a single target instantly:

FIRE - Strong damage and leaves a residual burn damage over time (DOT)
ICE - Light damage, slows and reduces accuracy
SHADOW - Moderate damage, but leaves a stacking debuff for shadow damage, making it very powerful for repeated casts
ACID - Moderate damage, debuffs target's defenses

Then you have abilities which change the shape of the spell: CONE, BURST, LINE, RECTANGLE. These let your spells hit multiple targets in different patterns, but they add an extra Stamina cost to the spell. You can have one spellshape active at a time via a toggle effect.

Lastly you have special modifiers which add either extra cooldown or 'exhaustion' time after casting: the mutually exclusive PENETRATE and MATERIALIZE. Penetrate makes the spells pass through resistances, while MATERIALIZE changes the spells from instant damage to summons. Materialized Fire creates a flame that burns + adds a DOT to anything passing through. Materialized Ice will block enemies, forcing them to break the ice to pass through (which also slows them!) Materialized Shadow will root and damage enemies that pass through, while Materialized Acid damages and debuffs.

You can combine these to create effects to fit your situation. We'll see how it pans out balance wise but so far it's pretty fun to play!



(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/230778909388570634/266702916025450497/SpellshaperAnimation.gif)

Along with a new PALADIN class that is designed to be the entry point for new players, as well as one that can serve as a baseline to balance other classes.

If we would work in my "EDEKA" I would buy everything.

Spellshaper class sounds like a lot of fun, and the way the spells and modifiers work is really cool - great design!

Happy new year to you too! ^_^

I recall you describing the Spellshaper class previously; as then, I rather like the idea! The sprite looks cool, too. I imagine that I'll be switching from the Floramancer to this once you release a build that includes it. ^_^

Three cheers for

NEW BUILD DAY!

Today I'm confident enough to put my completion percent at 30%. In the last month we've done a staggering amount of development and for the first time, playing the game last night, I forgot for a second I was developing it and was instead focusing on just enjoying it. That's a big step for Tangledeep! :D

WINDOWS: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build1-17-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build1-17-17.app.zip

OVERVIEW

So much has changed it's hard to cram it in a tl;dr. Two new jobs (Spellshaper & Paladin) are now in the game, rounding out some of the core play styles and archetypes. Weapon durability is gone. All stats have been reworked. About twice as many items and magic mods. Better map generation. New map terrain (lava, mud). A field of view/line of sight system. New non-stock icons and art for player abilities and items. New incentives for dungeon exploration. Tons of bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements too.

In every way it is simply a better game across the board now, and I'm eager to make it even better. If you play, be sure to leave me your feedback, bug reports, suggestions, etc.!

PICS!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/ChampionFight.gif)
The mighty Spellshaper using multiple elements to fend off champion monsters!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Retribution.gif)
The noble Paladin summons divine retribution to strike her foes!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/ShinyLoot.gif)
Loot is now scattered throughout Tangledeep, dropped by less fortunate adventurers perhaps?!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/GettingItems.gif)
New auto-pickup feature and pop-up item display (both optional)!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/NewLayouts.png)
New and improved maps, showing new terrain types and shapes!

WHAT'S NEXT?

Besides tons more content (classes, items, monsters...), I want to make the dungeon itself even more dynamic with merchants, hidden areas, shrines, etc. UI will continue to be worked on and improved. The town will be built up, with more to do there, and a persistent progress system across saves. All ground tiles will be reworked/improved with more tile sets as you descend in the dungeon. More floors, more bossfights, and more dungeon layouts.

FULL CHANGELOG

ART
* All new icons for player skills & abilities!
* All new custom art for items!
* The rest of the waterfalls in Riverstone Camp have been animated, along with some of the river <3

BALANCE
* Monster health has been increased.
* Magical and Artifact items (2, 3 mod) are now less common.
* Floramancer: Bed of Thorns duration reduced from 20 -> 14 turns
* Many skill damage equations tweaked to account for Spirit Power, but this is ongoing.
* Salamander fire breath can hit at angles now.
* All maps have been made slightly larger.
* Rewards gained for defeating monsters lower level than you have been scaled down.
* Moving through water now takes more stamina.
* Blocking with a shield no longer blocks 100% of damage - now 50% instead
* XP to level has been slightly increased
* Adjusted HP level up curve
* Salamanders, Fire Elementals, and Water Elementals now have appropriate elemental damage resistance
* Lower level monsters found on harder floors of the dungeon will scale up somewhat
* Global drop / powerup chance slightly increased
* Weapon drops are now slightly less common; armor, offhands and consumables are slightly more common.
* Picking up items no longer takes a turn
* Bows now do only 50% damage at melee range.
* Dark Alchemists do more damage with their Alchemical Fire, and have a stronger weapon
* Plunderers have stronger weapons
* Health regen now occurs every 5 turns out-of-combat instead of every 3 turns

BUGS
* Character sheet opens again.
* Clicking on hotbar abilities/items works again.
* You should now get rewards when a pet kills a monster.
* It should no longer be possible to have more than 0 but less than 1 HP.
* "Wild" weapon magic mod works, and no longer crashes the game.
* Equipment screen: item info display is no longer cut off, fixed multiple-mod display
* Monsters should no longer spawn on top of the player at game start
* Fixed bugs with dodge / parry chance being out of whack with certain items/effects
* River tiles no longer obscure some actors and sprite effects (work in progress)
* Fixed bug with monster pathing for jump / teleport type abilities. Should no longer veer about at random!
* All item mods and effects should now save / load properly (??)
* Elemental resistance and absorption should now work properly
* Saving the game, loading, then saving + loading again should now work (was an issue with town not being deserialized right!)
* When your pet dies, it should now be cleared from the UI
* When physically attacking a monster with a damage resistance, the appropriate message should now be displayed in the combat log
* Stairs in caves should no longer spawn at inaccessible tiles
* Fixed various display bugs related to the equipment screen

GAMEPLAY
* Durability for weapons is gone. Kaput! Use weapons all you'd like!
* Fog of war / exploration fog has been changed. Player’s vision range has increased. Explored tiles that are NOT in direct line of sight are now greyed out showing the underlying terrain, but not the contents of that tile. (First pass on this system!)
* Your character sheet now tracks monsters killed, lowest floor reached, and steps taken!
* There are now three things that can happen when re-applying a status effect, depending on the effect. The effect can stack (multiple copies, compounding the effect), the effect can extend duration (i.e. a poison with 5 turns left, re-applied as a new poison with 8 turns, will result in 13 turns), or the effect can simply refresh duration (the poison at 5 returns to 8 turns.)
* Stats have been reworked and tweaked as follows.

- STRENGTH
   * OFFENSE: Increases melee damage dealt
   * DEFENSE: Increases physical resistance
   * SECONDARY: Increase crit damage

- SWIFTNESS
   * OFFENSE: Increases ranged damage dealt
   * DEFENSE: Increase CT gain (extra turns)
   * SECONDARY: Increase crit damage

- GUILE:
   * OFFENSE: Increases chance to crit
   * DEFENSE: Increases chance to parry
   * SECONDARY: Chance to find powerups

- DISCIPLINE:
   * OFFENSE: Increases defeat parry/dodge
   * DEFENSE: Increases elemental resistances
   * SECONDARY: Contributes to Spirit Power

- SPIRIT:
   * OFFENSE: Increases Spirit Power
   * DEFENSE: Increase health regeneration
   * SECONDARY: Recover more from powerups

CONTENT
* NEW CLASS: Spellshaper! A powerful spellcaster that can use elemental forces in a myriad of ways. Using 'spellshape' and 'spellshift' abilities, you can modify spells as they are cast... at a price.
* NEW CLASS: Paladin! A “sword & board” melee fighter that uses divine power to smite enemies. Good for beginners!
* Floors of Tangledeep will now contain various items - consumables, weapons, armor, or money - strewn about the dungeon floors. These appear as glimmers on the ground. What could these items be? You'll have to walk over the glimmers to find out!
* New item: Torch of Escaping. Warps you out of the dungeon and back to town.
* Now that durability has been removed, weapons have extra properties - special effects that occur only on crit!

   - SWORDS: 100% chance to parry NEXT attack.
   - MACES: Deals additional damage equal to 10% of the target's current HP
   - DAGGERS: Grants an instant +60 charge time toward extra turn
   - AXES: Target will take 25% more damage from whatever damages it next
   - SPEARS: Target is rooted for 2 turns

* Armor has been fleshed out further, with the addition of LIGHT armor:

   - LIGHT armor increases your stamina & energy regeneration, as well as your CT gain, plus a chance to dodge.
   - MEDIUM armor offers a mix of dodge chance and damage mitigation.
   - HEAVY armor has the highest physical damage mitigation outright.

* New shield mod: MASSIVE. +5% chance to block, -2% chance to parry
* New shield mod: EMERGENCY. Reduces incoming attack damage while at low HP.
* New mod (any slot): ZEN. 10% chance to recover extra health/energy/stamina while passing turns or resting.
* New mod (any slot): FAMILIARS. Summoned pets have +15% HP.
* New mod (any slot): SCAVENGING. Increases drop chance of powerups.
* New weapon mods: Frog, Insect, Beast-Slaying. Extra damage to certain monster types.
* New weapon mod: CONJURATION. All summons last +1 turns. Stacks if dual wielding.
* New armor mod: CLOTTING. Bleed effects are less powerful and wear off quicker.
* New armor mod: BONECRABS. Randomly summons an undead crab when struck.
* New armor mod: GLUTTONY. Food is more effective, but you remain full longer.
* New armor mod: VANISHING. When struck, there is a chance you will randomly teleport to a nearby space.
* Stat-boosting magic mods are back in the game, appearing on Accessories.
* Several new consumable items that have damaging effects when used
* New accessories: Endless Flagon, 5 elemental enhancement rings, Running Shoes, Sturdy Boots
* New feat: FOOD LOVER. Food is extra effective!
* Lava pools can now be found in some areas. These are harmful to (most) monsters and hapless adventurers…
* Mud now appears near water sometimes. Mud takes some stamina to move through, and occasionally you may get stuck briefly!
* Some monsters are immune to certain terrain hazards, and some may even benefit by fighting on certain terrain. Uh oh!
* Fungal Toads can now regenerate their health (once per battle)
* Slimes now randomly split off smaller mini-slimes.
* Barrels now randomly spawn. There's a small chance you'll get loot from them.
* Alchemists now have a point-blank gas cloud attack!

ENGINE
* Toggle abilities can now be set in 'exclusion groups', so certain types of abilities may be unique and not stackable with other similar abilities
* Turn behavior optimization (more performance!)
* Support for effects that raise/lower resistances (statuses, for example)
* Reworked and expanded consumable item system, now supports a robust range of abilities and powers.
* New audio manager system (v0.1) to deal with various simultaneous SFX in a better way
* Support for abilities that repeat their effect multiple times, and abilities that hit targets in range at random
* Support for destructible / map objects that move on their own (useful for traps, abilities, etc.)
* Support for more randomization in sprite effects.
* Support for items / effects that boost damage of specific damage types
* Cave generation algorithm has been refined.

QUALITY OF LIFE
* There is now an option to auto-pick up loot when walking over it! (This can be disabled in Options)
* Picking up items now displays a quick popup over you showing the item that was picked up (This too can be disabled)
* Your character sheet (C) now shows powerup drop chance
* On the equipment screen (E), weapons in your hotbar are no longer shown in the general equipment list
* Reworked equipment sheet character stat display and item comparisons - should look/work a lot better now
* Equipment sheet layout tweaked for clarity and to always show item info in the same place (like Inventory)
* Currently toggled abilities on the hotbar now have a red overlay
* When Slimes combine, text will appear above them indicating they have combined.
* You can now click on stairs (while standing on them) to travel up/down
* While selling items, hotkeyed weapons are marked with an asterisk
* On the equipment sheet, hovering over an item slot filters items below
* On the skill sheet (S), hotkeyed abilities indicate which hotkey they use
* Once an item is unequipped manually, it will no longer be auto-equipped if that slot is empty for whatever reason

hey, nice game! art and music in particular are great. just a few minor nitpicks/suggestions:

1. i couldn't find anything ingame on how getting extra turns works

2. i got a tip saying i had enough JP to buy a new ability even though i didn't (was playing brigand)

3. the help menu seems outdated. it still has stuff about weapon durability which you said was removed.

4. consider making keys rebindable in the future. i use a german keyboard and using ][ for weapon switching is pretty unintuitive for me.

All good suggestions -

1. Yes I will explain this better in HELP and I'm also going to add a meter in the upper right that shows how close you are to an extra turn. It's based on your Swiftness.

2. Will fix!

3. Agreed, I gotta update it

4. Right now they are rebindable when you launch the game, in the Input tab. But it's not the prettiest way of doing it.

ah ok, i never look at that tab in unity games because i tend to assume devs don't use it. thanks for the heads up!

Once again, quite an update, I feel! I have the new build downloaded, I believe, and intend to try it soon! ^_^

NEW BUILD

Yes it's been less than a week, BUT this has some key bug fixes along with a variety of content, art, and quality of life additions.

The biggest new content which I'm eager for people to try out is the addition of secret rooms/hidden areas. These are tucked away in Tangledeep starting on floor 3. You can find the entrance by looking for standalone wall blocks which can be broken by attacking. They contain treasure, danger, or maybe both!

WINDOWS: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build1-26-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build1-26-17.app.zip

FULL CHANGELOG

ART
* Reigned in weapon swings a bit
* More of a bug, but all tile variation has been restored. Oops!
* New skill icons for Spellshaper and Paladin (more coming)
* New ingame status icons for various effects
* New combat FX sprites for some abilities and monsters

AUDIO
* Better punch sound

BALANCE
* Brigand's "Concussion" now costs only 150jp to learn (down from 200)
* Sentry Bots in the steam golem fight no longer drop loot. Conversely, the steam golem should now drop more/better loot.
* You will no longer regenerate any stat while on terrain that is dangerous to you (lava, mud, water)
* Reduced chance to hit with your offhand weapon while dual wielding

BUGS
* Probably (?) fixed bug where you would pass turns automatically/unintentionally and let monsters wail on you.
* Fixed a serious crash bug related to monster pathfinding.
* When attacking with a ranged 1h weapon in your main hand (such as a sling or spear), you will no longer proc dual wield attacks from your offhand. You must be in melee range to do a double attack with dual wield.
* Projectile weapon rotation has been fixed. Again.
* Fixed a bug where re-applying a stackable status would sometimes cause it to 'stick' permanently.
* Possibly fixed some bugs with alignment of text on the equipment sheet, but need to investigate at other resolutions/modes
* Stairs should no longer spawn enclosed by walls (i.e. impossible to get to!)
* Your summoned pet, when killed, should now disappear from your list of summoned pets immediately.

CONTENT & GAMEPLAY
* New item type: Spellbooks. These are offhand items that, unlike dual wielded weapons or shields, offer no direct combat power but instead restore your Energy while attacking, boost your Spirit Power at all times.
* Secret areas have been added to the game! These rooms may hold treasure, danger, or both… and all will give a JP bonus for discovery. Look for breakable rocks to find your way in!
* New consumable: Deflecting Philter
* New accessory: Knight Gloves (when wielding a 1 handed weapon with no offhand, increases damage)
* New feats at character creation: SCAVENGER (find more/better items) and ESCAPE MASTER (grants you a permanent Torch of Escape-type ability)

ENGINE
* Modified line of sight (you will no longer see walls in pockets of nothing)

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Equipping weapons in the EQ screen should be better now. If a weapon is in your hotbar, hit enter to switch to it. (This is just like clicking/cycling on the main screen). If it's already selected, hit enter to swap to a new weapon.
* Under your stats in the upper right, you will now see a display indicating how close you are to a free turn. This will also turn yellow when you have earned a free turn.
* You can now disable the "EXTRA TURN!" popup over your character (Options menu)
* Stairs will no longer spawn in lava, water, mud, or with destructibles (i.e. barrels) on top
* Help guide has been updated to reflect changes to weapons (no more durability, special effects on crit) and the three armor types

Oh wow--I hadn't even gotten around to giving feedback on the last build yet! XD; (I've been meaning to, but had wanted to play at least once more, and hadn't yet done so, I believe.)

I really like the idea of secret areas (indeed, the inclusion of secret areas in a procedurally-generated roguelike is something that I've given thought to myself). I'm eager to see how they work here!

Once again, I have the new version downloaded, I believe, and intend to try it out soon! ^_^

All right, I've played for a bit, and have feedback! Beware: long post incoming!

(Indeed, for the first time I've reached--and for that matter beaten--the golem found on level five-ish! :D)

A Few Miscellaneous Points:

• It's good to have the skill-buttons working again! :D
  
• In the equipment screen, the arrows that indicate changes in stats from a change in equipment are appreciated. ^_^
  
  • (Although they do appear somewhat to the right of their expected positions on my screen.)
• I like the new line-of-sight system. ^_^
  
• Being able to simply click on stairs to move up and down them is appreciated!
  
• A thought: should stepping into a river remove the "burning" status? Similarly, should certain combinations of element counteract each other--fires melting ice, or ice putting out fires, for example?
  
• I may have mentioned this before, but I rather like the enemy special abilities--the salamander's fire attack, the toad's leap, etc. They add a bit of interest to the fights, calling for a bit more thought in combat, I think. (Indeed, I think that I'd like to see more of them!)
  

The Spellshaper Class, overall:

• I really like this class! Indeed, I think that it's likely to be my main class going forward. ^_^
  
  It did feel rather slow at the start--the first few levels, fighting scattered enemies with only two evocations (and thus delays between castings) and limited shaping ability, were a little boring, I fear. (Perhaps a change to the starting spell-shapes might help here? "Materialise" and "Line" might make for a good starting pair, perhaps.)
  
  However, once I managed to save up enough JP to buy the Materialise spell-shape, and discovered that I could combine spell-shapes, things became far more fun. The question of what shape to use, with which evocation, and where, all done while avoiding enemies, made for some interesting fights, I feel.
  
  The golem boss was a little easy, however: I simply stacked evocations onto him using the Square and Materialise shapes, and supported their damage with a bow. Lacking many ranged abilities, and being rooted by the shadow evocation, he largely sat there and took damage; I think that I saw one ranged attack come from him in two battles. It seems that the sentries largely didn't notice me, perhaps because I was fighting from afar.
  
  I have three suggestions regarding this, if I may:
  
  • First, give the golem at least one more ranged ability, and the inclination to use it. (I had the idea of giving him a one-tile shadow evocation (to root the player to the spot), followed by a one-tile line of fire, similar to the salamander's special attack.)
  • Second, give him a means of escape--perhaps a teleport or a leap that he can do occasionally, and that ignores the "rooted" debuff".
  • Finally, make the sentry-bots aware of the player as soon as they spawn, and make them aggressive--having them harry me might have made it more difficult to keep pressure on the boss himself.
    
  
  I like the new spell-shaping icons, although I think that they could perhaps use a slightly higher contrast.
  

Spellshaping

• I love that spell-shapings can be combined! It really adds to the flexibility and interest of the class, I feel. I also really like that the Materialise spell-shape produces a more-or-less separate stable of effects (such as Shadow producing the "rooted" debuff). ^_^
  
  I did encounter a bug, I fear: it seems that the Materialise and later the Square spell-shapes became stuck in their "active" state; clicking on their skill-buttons produced log-messages indicating that they were being deactivated (and activated on a second click), and the cooldowns seemed to work, but the spell-shapes remained active throughout.
  
  It seems that the UI allows me to activate three spell-shapes, but only two actually take effect. In addition, it seems that the "Cone" spell-shape doesn't combine with the "Square" spell-shape. However, this was tested with the above-mentioned bug active, so I'm not confident that my results were valid.
  
  If they were, however, then it might be worth either disallowing a third spell-shape, or having the activation of a third spell-shape disable the least-recent spell-shape in the list.
  
  I don't like that toggling a spell-shape takes up a turn, especially when I want to toggle more than one for a given action. It allows enemies to move around while I'm trying to prepare a casting, reducing my ability to react to their positions. :/
  
  When applying the Materialised shadow evocation to a tile that contains a creature, it seems that the "rooting" effect doesn't take effect immediately, leaving the creature free to move out of the tile on its next turn. This feels a little unexpected to me, and makes materialised shadow a little trickier to use than I'd like, I think (especially with spell-shapes smaller than the Square).
  
  As to the shapes themselves, I'm a little dubious of the proliferation of conformations available. While they each have their uses, some of those seem a little niche to me--although I'll admit that there was at least one situation that resulted in my character's death, and that a broader use of shapes might have seen me through.
  
  If I may, I have a few suggestions for additional shapes:
  
  • "Ray"--The spell is cast on each tile along a line passing through the indicated tile, continuing until the line hits an obstruction other than an enemy. (Combined with the "Square" shape, I could see this either producing a thick line, or--perhaps more interestingly--producing a spray of lines towards each of the tiles in the square.)
    
  • "Chain"--If the spell hits a target, it jumps to all targets within two tiles (i.e. with at most one tile between them and the original), and ignoring any already hit. This repeats from each of those targets, and so on until no more targets are found. Importantly, the player character is not exempt here: the attacks spawned can target and affect them.
    
  • "Galvanise"--Much like "Materialise", this changes the way that the spell works: instead of producing a simple effect, it produces a short-lived summon based on the evocation. Each does a certain amount of damage, and applies an effect to the tiles immediately surrounding it.
    

Secrets and sparklies

• I like both of these additions: they're not obtrusive, but enticing and interesting when spotted. I do think that the secret walls could likely use a better tile, but I imagine that the current one is temporary.
  
  I encountered a secret wall that opened onto a small, square room filled with lava, and holding a chest at its centre. Is this intentional? o_0
  
  A suggestion, if I may: When picking up sparkles, it might be nice to have the associated item appear briefly on-screen (perhaps above the player-character), to show what has been acquired.
  

Water and lava

• I like both of these additions--they make the environment, and encounters in it, a little more interesting, I think.
  
  That said, lava doesn't seem to hurt me, but does seem to hurt enemies, which seems odd... o_0
  
  I've seen cases in which water tiles spawned on top of walls, which looked a little odd, I think.
  

UI Issues

• The use of codices wasn't clear to me at first: based on the seeming-example of the Thick Tome, I expected them to be weapons, and thus thought that a codex's insistence on going into an equipment slot was a bug.
  
  • (I'm not sure of what to suggest here, I'm afraid. ^^; )
• In the shop:
  
  • Moving the mouse to an item, then pressing an arrow key, can cause the cursor to appear to "jump" to another item. (I'm guessing that the "current item" is stored separately for the keyboard and mouse controls.)
    
  • Pressing the "up" arrow with the selection at the top-most item moves the cursor to the "exit" button. Pressing it again moves the cursor to the last visible item in the list--which is not necessarily the last item.
    
  • There seems to be no mouse-based way of scrolling through items. (Perhaps a scroll-bar at the side of the list?)
    
• It might be useful to have skill-icons produce some effect when their cooldown finishes--perhaps glowing briefly, or sending up a few particles. This might help the player to note a skill becoming available.
  
• In the main menu, the "continue" option is available regardless of whether or not a saved game exists; using it when one doesn't seems to spawn the player into an invalid world.
  
• The cursor seems to be a black box in the main menu. (In one or two cases, this extended into play for a short while, presumably until something happened to prompt a change of cursor, after which the gameplay cursor seemed to work as expected.
  
• Every so often, clicking on a skill-button seems to move the player-character "towards" it. :/
  
• In the equipment screen, clicking on an item to equip it seems to also exit the screen, which can be a minor nuisance at times.
  

Miscellaneous Bugs

• I discovered a situation in which I could open menus, but not move around. This seemed to happen more easily when standing in water and clicking on an adjacent wall tile, but that may not be a relevant correlation. Clicking on certain skill-icons seemed to fix the problem.
  
• I saw only a very few orb-powerups, and then it seemed that I only saw them later in my game. I did spend a fair bit of the start wearing "scavenger" gear, which I expected to increase the number of powerups found--is this perhaps malfunctioning?
  
• I think that I had an instance of the Canteen Heal ability remaining on my skill-bar, and remaining functional, after de-equipping a Bottomless Brew (but not removing it from my inventory).
  
• I encountered a level in which the logical walls didn't seem to match the visual walls: monsters walked through apparent wall-tiles, and I kept fetching up against obstacles that I didn't see.
  
  • When this happened, I think that I had a single turn (before I moved after entering the level for the first time) in which the level seemed different, and contained a great many barrels--much like the level after the golem boss.
• A Moss Jelly ended up chasing me while rotated to lie on its side (presumably after one of its tumbling leaps).
  
• This is a minor matter, and not really problematic, but it's possible to "rest" multiple times. Each additional "rest" causes the character's stats to recover more quickly.
  
• The monster-attracting gem spawned on lava in one level.
  

Whew! I hope that you don't mind so exhaustive a response! ^^;

As always this is super great feedback. Thank you very much!

Misc Points
* I'm still trying to figure out how to best anchor the stat arrows. Can you take a screenshot and show me how it looks on your screen?

* There will definitely be more terrain interactions beyond what there are now. Going into a river to remove burning: great idea. Likewise I was going to make it so that if you're on lava (or an enemy is), freeze attacks don't work.. etc.

* Definitely want to make more special abilities for enemies. It's coming.

Balance
* Steam Golem fight can certainly be improved. Balance is sometimes tricky to nail down at this stage in development but I'll keep trying. The sentries are definitely supposed to aggro you and they should have ranged attacks.

Spellshaper
* I think I will make it so that your toggle abilities are free to turn on/off.

* In theory I had set it up so only one SHAPE can be toggled, while either Materialize or Pierce can be added on top... not sure how two were active...

* I agree that maybe ditching burst or cone in favor of one or two new things like your suggestions would be great.

Other Stuff
* Yes some hidden areas can have weird contents, like treasure with lava surrounding. Why not, right? :D

* There is actually an option in the general options menu to turn on loot popups when you grab something. It should be enabled by default. Not sure why it isn't - looking into that.

* There was a fairly serious terrain related bug in the last build which may have caused a number of odd issues like lava not hurting you, being stuck, etc...

* Looking into those other bugs!!!

I'm glad, and my pleasure, respectively! ^_^


Sure. Here you go:

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/58334662/Screenshot%20from%202017-01-31%2021-03-57.png)

(I am using a slightly odd resolution, admittedly. It's a matter of getting a decently-large view in windowed mode, without hiding my menu-bar.)


Excellent, on all counts! ^_^


Hmm... Perhaps a pathfinding bug? They might be failing to find a route to the character.


In that case, it may be that the other bug that I mentioned--the spell-shapes ending up permanently active, regardless of the state of the buttons--might have confused the system: it thought that they were inactive, and so allowed a "third" shape to be toggled.


Why not indeed! ^_^


Aah, fair enough. It may well be checked--for some reason, the options menu has no text for me. (I've been assuming that it was an issue related to WINE, I believe.)


Ah, fair enough.


Good good! ^_^

NEW BUILD!

WINDOWS: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-2-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-2-17.app.zip

We're kicking off February with a well-rounded new update to Tangledeep! I wanted to address a bunch of nasty bugs here and also experiment with various quality-of-life improvements related to mouse control and cleaning up the UI. (Less pop up text, less intrusive combat log, etc.) There's also gobs of new art (items, skills, fx), balance tweaks, and new monster abilities, and most importantly the addition of side areas to the dungeon.

These side areas round out my latest effort to make the dungeon - Tangledeep itself - even more fun to explore. You might find a themed combat area, or a terrain challenge, a merchant, or something else. As development continues this concept will be extended even further, giving you more to discover in the dungeon, more ways to get loot (or spend money), and more interesting/unique "stuff" to add to your experience.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/HolyBolt.gif)
Divine Bolt FX!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Punching.gif)
You can finally punch stuff now

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/ShadowStrike.gif)
New spell FX for the Spellshaper

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Storeroom.png)
A new side area to discover!

CHANGELOG

ART
* More item art! Thanks to Lachlan Cartland for killing it on this!
* Specifically, we now have FISTS.... yes!
* Reworked the system for drawing walls / ground, and corresponding art. Good times!
* Thrust attacks (spears, punching) now have a separate 'swing' animation
* New projectile animations for mechanical enemies (still working on making projectile firing look better though)
* Young Water Elementals have an appropriate projectile attack now (wave shot)
* More icons for skills and status effects
* You will now find not only barrels, but also crates, and stacks of crates. Exciting!
* More combat / ability battle FX and objects! (Fewer placeholders!)

AUDIO
* New music for Riverstone Camp (town) - wistful and nostalgic, enjoy!

BALANCE
* Mold-Infested Vermin will use their mold mind control on you more frequently
* Monster density reduced on upper levels to a max of 2 monsters per area. For very small areas, the max density is limited to 1 (for a 3x3 room)
* All toggle abilities now refund 100 CT when used (i.e. they do not take up a turn)
* Swapping equipment now no longer takes a turn (experimenting with this)
* Young Water Elementals have a longer attack range
* SPELLSHAPER: When casting materialized evocations, the effect will now trigger immediately on any actor in the tile
* SWORD DANCER: Thundering Lion no longer costs Energy to activate.
* SWORD DANCER: Flame Serpent now deals damage if you move the fire into the target - not just if the target ends turn on that tile

BUGS
* MAJOR: Fixed an issue with moving near map edges (and other various terrain) locking up player movement and causing lots of other issues
* Fixed a bad bug when saving, loading, and then saving -> loading the game
* Tweaked mouse texture to hopefully avoid some buggy looking’ cursors
* The game should no longer let you load saves from versions of the game with particularly different save data structures (important at this stage of development)
* Secret rooms should now appear on floor 8
* Stair spawning has been rewritten, preventing cases where stairs up or down sometimes did not spawn at all
* Decor layer should now load properly when you Continue the game
* Options values should load properly (note: you may be switched to default options values as I add new stuff)
* The mouse and keyboard 'focus' when navigating lists (items, skills, shops) should now be synchronized
* In a long item/object list (such as the shop), pressing UP at the top of the UI will now scroll to the very bottom of the list properly
* Sentry adds in the Level 5 boss fight now aggro/target you properly, and use attacks
* Thundering Lion no longer lasts forever, and will expire (along with other Energy-using toggles) when you don't have enough resources
* Fixed various issues with powerup drop chance calculation

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* Starting at the 2nd floor of Tangledeep, you will be able to find stairs leading to areas "off the beaten path": merchants, special enemy areas, and other fun stuff. Many more will be added, but for now, explore those stairs and see what you find!
* Adjusted map generation for upper levels (should be better now)
* More cave ‘pieces’ have been added
* New food item: Juicy Apple (restores all stats a bit)
* Jade Beetles now have an armor break effect at melee range, when their health is reduced to 50% or less
* Plunderers now use a dagger toss when at range
* Cave Lions now have a deadly 3-range claw rake attack (takes one turn to wind up)
* Young Water Elementals now have a powerful cross-shaped splash (heh heh) attack (takes one turn to wind up)
* New monster: Guardian Sphere. Appears on levels 6 and up
* New champion mod (floor 3 and up): Nightmare. Summons deadly shadow traps across the battlefield!
* SPELLSHAPER: Changed Spellshape BURST to Spellshape RAY. Try it!
* New weapon mod: RUST-BITING (more damage to machines)
* New boss encounter on floor 8 of the dungeon (beware, no idea if this is balanced!)

ENGINE
* Refactored how the dungeon is stored in the game's memory
* Changed how stairs work (they can now travel to any location as opposed to incrementing floors up/down, or hardcoding)
* Created option for monster abilities to limit target tiles to ONLY actors affected (i.e. damage and then summon object on damaged actor)
* Added the capability for map object effects to trigger if an actor STARTS turn in that tile

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Experimental: Changed the way the combat log is displayed. It now appears "when needed" under you on screen, and disappears after a short delay. Press "L" (rebindable) to toggle it to always show.
* When opening the equipment screen, you will now only see weapons (as weapon slot 1 is the default selection). Move to another slot to see items in that slot
* Monster-attracting gems will no longer spawn in mud, water, or lava
* Barrels and crates no longer spawn in water, mud, or lava
* Mousewheel can now be used to scroll list pages, such as the shop list or known skills, if they take up more than one page
* Experimental: Cleaned up popup text displays. Parry, Whiff, and Block no longer pop up over your head (but you still get the SFX and combat log text.) Walking through mud/water no longer pops up -stam text, but combat log text is now yellow to make things more obvious.

Excellent! I've downloaded the new build, I believe, and am eager to (hopefully) try it out soon! ^_^

I really like the idea of side-areas--for one thing, I like to see rewards for exploration.


... I don't think that I was aware that they had that ability. Either I've missed it up until now, or they really have been using it sparingly! o_0


Yes... MWHAHAHAHAHA! >:D


Aah--I take it that this was what caused the "unresponsive character" bug that I previously reported? Interesting.


Oh, I intend to! >:D


Ah, I had thought to ask whether there was a reason to progress past the golem boss--it seems that there now is! ^_^

The upcoming build is coming along and has yet more polish, bug fixes, and quality of life stuff. Really looking to get the "feel" of the game right with smoother interfaces and less jank. I know it's pre-alpha but polish is important to me.

But I'm mainly posting to say that I've started a mailing list for Tangledeep that I plan on using for MAJOR announcements, such as the upcoming Kickstarter campaign, alpha/beta release, and eventual Steam launch (+ possibly other platforms!) It would mean a lot to me if you signed up, IF you're interested in following the game!

http://eepurl.com/cAFft1

Signed up - I've been following every update, just haven't had time to test the game myself  :(

Definitely enjoying the updates and progress though, and looking forward to hearing more of the OST!  :beer:

I've signed up, I believe! ^_^

Will the mails include anything not mentioned in these devlogs?

I'll be using the list for BIG news primarily, so following the thread will technically have more info, but email is a guaranteed way to reach people... And speaking of news:

NEW BUILD TODAY: 2/7/17

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-7-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-7-17.app.zip

OVERVIEW

The purpose of this build is primarily polish, bug fixes, and quality-of-life improvements, plus overhauled tutorials and hint popups. A number of underlying UI systems have been reworked to fix things like overlapping damage numbers. The combat log has been further improved and cleaned up. Various interfaces should work much better with the mouse now. The world itself now auto-clamps the camera as you approach the corners, so that your screen isn't primarily taken up by black space. There's more art replacing various placeholders. Level transitions.

You get the idea - hopefully the game feels a lot less like a pre-pre-Alpha now, and more like a pre-Alpha :-)

BUT! There are some new balance changes and content too. I've done a pass on monster density as I think that was one of the biggest issues before (density getting out of control). Also there are some new items and tiers of equipment, plus a couple new monsters on the upper levels that will really give you a run for your money... Let me know if you make it that far ;)

FULL CHANGELOG

ART & PRESENTATION
* More tile variation for walls
* More playing around with lighting effects
* Even more new art for items!
* Targeting tiles now have synced animations again
* New transition fades when changing areas
* Stairs removed from Riverstone Camp - just walk into the cave to use it
* Projectiles should now track their target even if the target moves
* Fixed title screen background jank

BALANCE
* Slightly nerfed low-level stamina and energy potions
* All low-level healing-type potions now have a slightly higher value
* Running Shoes nerfed
* Monster densities reworked floor-by-floor

BUGS
* Deflecting Filter and Vigorous Draught now both exist again
* Fixed Evocation: Shadow art
* Sacrificial altars now only work when dropping within 5 squares of them
* You can no longer drop Fists/empty item slots!
* Offhand weapon, while dual wielding, now displays properly on main HUD after loading the game
* Clicking now works again in the job screen to learn abilities
* Fixed some cases where clicking in a UI area would cause the player to move or act
* Fixed some minor bugs where the cursor would disappear in dialogs
* When killing a fleeing monster, its "death fade" will no longer jump a square
* Selecting "Continue" when you have no game loaded no longer brings you to a black/empty screen
* Arrow keys and mouse position in menus/lists should be synchronized... properly this time
* You seriously, really, actually can't shoot your own pet with a ranged weapon now
* Fixed bug where dungeon terrain tiles (i.e. lava) would no longer be dangerous to player after loading game

CONTENT & GAMEPLAY
* NEW MONSTER: Bandit Swordmaster, to give the Sword Dancer a run for her money... Will show up on floor 7+
* NEW MONSTER: Young Lightning Elemental, mischievous but deadly... Shows up on floor 9+!
* NEW ACCESSORY: Infinite Flask. Restores Energy, but makes you tipsy.
* NEW ACCESSORIES: Incombustible / Incorruptible Necklaces. Each offers specific elemental resistance.
* NEW ITEM TYPE: Gems. These don't do anything but sell for a hefty price to merchants! Where might you find them...?
* NEW POTIONS: Stronger Health, Energy, and Stamina restoratives
* NEW WEAPON TIER: The fourth tier of weapons can now be found from difficult enemies deeper in the dungeon!

ENGINE
* Cleaned up how tile visual types are stored, allowing for more variation
* Reworked how the combat log works (now: GameObjects), allowing for all sorts of processing per line of text
* Added code support for tiered 'innate' abilities in jobs, i.e. unlocked after spending a certain amount of JP total
* Lay the groundwork for an improved loot table / drop system
* Reworked tutorial system loading / display - much more expandable and loads from XML now
* Monsters can now use movement abilities outside of combat
* Reworked how monsters are spawned at map start; new min-max monsters per floor definitions
* Some code optimizations to reduce GetComponent() calls, as well as pre-allocating some variables for heavily-used operations

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Various unnecessary combat log messages cleaned up, some colors added to make things more digestible
* Damage number popups will no longer overlap but instead queue up if a whole bunch happen in quick succession
* Shop interface: Exit button moved to upper right for mouse users. Pressing escape now quits the shop.
* Experimenting with a new camera locking mode that prevents you from seeing way beyond the edge of a level, "clamping" the camera to map edges.
* Added a clickable, flashing indicator when you are able to learn a new job skill
* Treasure sparkles should no longer spawn on barrels / chests
* Combat log now writes a different message when you block an attack
* Moving into the cave at Riverstone Camp now automatically takes you to Tangledeep
* Tutorial hints have been cleaned up. Some have been added, others removed or rewritten. Tutorial tips will also never show twice, even if you die.
* Melee, ranged, and spirit power added to character sheet (C) along with parry, block, dodge and crit chance
* Rather than text messages, the stamina bar now flashes as you move through difficult terrain (mud/water)
* While at low health (<30%) your health bar now subtly blinks red
* When in the merchant interface, items you can't afford will be marked RED
* Barrels/crates should no longer spawn on the monster-attracting gem

Aaand I had a couple lingering major issues that are now fixed. Same build links...

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-7-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-7-17.app.zip

BUGS
* Combat log text now scales properly
* Mouse control now works at smaller resolutions properly
* Camera no longer scrolls off screen at lower resolutions

GENERAL
* Game is now locked to 16:9 aspect ratio (this may change later, but this is the most stable/bug-free for now)

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Right-clicking can now be used to Cancel dialogs/targeting
* Abilities that have floating targeting shapes (such as lines, crosses) will no longer rotate if you use the arrow keys - use the "T" key instead
* The mouse can now be moved to rotate abilities that are not cursor-targeted

That's quite a list of fixes, in particular; as per usual, I have the new version downloaded, I believe, and intend to try it out soon! ^_^

I have a few quick thoughts from playing briefly with the "Ray" spell-shape. These come from the build that introduced it; if the points raised have been changed since that version, then please ignore.

Overall, I like it, but find it a little awkward to use. Specifically:

 - The ray only rotates in forty-five degree increments, which can make it tricky to hit things at times--especially since moving to line up the ray with an enemy gives that enemy an opportunity to move out of alignment.

 - It seems that I can only use the shape by directly targeting an enemy--I can't click on a box or barrel to target those, it seems.

I intend to spend more time with it while playing the most recent build, however; presuming that I do so, I may have further thoughts!

I have some feedback, based on a few quick play-sessions:

First--since this may affect the validity of my other comments--I note that the stairs seem to still be visible in the "camp" area. Do I perhaps have an old build? I'm reasonably confident that I used the link given two posts above this one; the downloaded file is named "Build2-7-17.rar", I believe.

That said, the game seems to be running rather slowly again. :/ This slowness may have decreased a little as I played the level, but it may also have been greater in a certain region, near my spawn-point--the former impression may simply have arisen from moving away from that region.

In the equipment screen, item descriptions seem to still overflow the right-hand border of the window. I note that I don't seem to get a resolution dialogue any more; is the game perhaps using my old options file--and thus my old, possibly-unsupported resolution--and if so, where should I look to delete that file?

I may have mentioned this next bug previously; I don't see it on a quick look through the last page or two, but I may be mistaken. If I have mentioned it previously, please ignore! ^^;

In the shop menu, use the mouse to hover over an item, then use the mouse-wheel to scroll the list. This part works as expected, I think. However, now move the mouse again so that another item is highlighted--you should see that the description no longer matches the item displayed. To be specific, I think that the description corresponds to the item that would be highlighted if the list hadn't been scrolled.

Conversely, however, mouse-functionality within such menus seems improved overall--that's appreciated! ^_^

I like having the camera cease scrolling near the edge of the map--as you mentioned, I believe, it . However, it also means that, when the player-character is near the bottom- or right- edges, parts of the level are covered by the UI, concealing objects beneath and making it awkward to click on them. Perhaps it might be worth having the camera go just a little beyond the edges of the map, just enough to clear those parts of the level?

As to the ray-targeting, I'm glad to see that the ray can now be rotated via the mouse, and that one can target empty tiles!

As a suggestion, it might be nice to see the spell-effect appear in all tiles along the ray: On the practical side, it might convey to the player that the ray affects all highlighted tiles, and show that the spell succeeded even when no enemies were hit. On the aesthetic side, it might simply look cool.

One thing does feel off to me: When the player-character is near the edge of the screen, the camera is offset, leaving the character no longer centred on the screen. However, the mouse-targeting seems to still determine the direction for the ray relative to the centre of the screen, rather than the position of the character--this feels somewhat unintuitive to me.

I like the new indicator that appears when a job-skill is available. ^_^

Great feedback. Next build has tons o' fixes and QOL (again), I have several QA people now helping so... Stay tuned!

Excellent--I'm glad to read both points! ^_^

Would you prefer that I scaled back my feedback, then, perhaps particularly with regards to bugs, or should I continue to give feedback as I have been?

Your feedback is massively helpful so by all means give as much as you want. I write down everything and try to address as much as I can with each build. Sometimes I need to do engine changes to support certain things. Other issues that are more related to balance, or connected to larger systems, may take longer.

Performance for example is a broad issue... but I did run through the code and tighten up some spots where I was instantiating lots of Lists<> per turn etc.

Also while the next build is primarily focused on bugs, QOL and polish (again) there will be new content too. Specifically after finally playing Shiren the Wanderer I'm really interested in adding more situational consumable items, so I'm working on adding more of those for freshness.

I'm glad, and fair enough--I intend to keep doing as I have been, then. ^_^


That's fair enough--and, from an external perspective, at least, things seem to be progressing pretty well, overall. ^_^


Interesting...

I'll confess that I'm likely to be one of those players not much affected by such an addition: I have a perhaps-unfortunate tendency to not use my consumables overmuch. ^^; (I tend to forget them, or prefer renewable means of recovery, I think.)

(I don't believe that I've played Shiren the Wanderer; seeing your mention of it there, I did very briefly look it up on TV Tropes, at least.)

I think for Tangledeep, consumables are designed to:

(a) help you get out of bad situations, for example a Lightning Brew when your resources are exhausted

(b) prepare you to tackle harder challenges, for example popping the right buff or eating some food before a difficult champion fight

(c) fill in the gaps for your character - giving melee heroes some reach, giving non-healers a way to restore health, etc.

They also add an extra element of positive randomness to the game that I think is fun for dungeon crawlers. I want you to find an Orb of Summoning and smile as you call your very own Moss Jelly to your side. I want you to breathe a sigh of relief when you find a Mint Herb Brew in a barrel as you're escaping from a crowd of baddies. That kind of thing.

Of course... you do have to use them for them to have an effect ;) Dying with a backpack full of potables = shame!

Oh, I imagine that they're very useful--I just tend to not use them! I suspect that I've died many a time with a satchel full of potables. :D

That said, I think that there are some types of consumable that I'm likely to use--I imagine that the single-use (I presume) summon that you mention would likely be one such, for example. Perhaps it's things that I'm likely to use immediately, not drop into my inventory and forget.

NEW BUILD!

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-15-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-15-17.app.zip

OVERVIEW
This build features a ton of bug fixes, QOL improvements, balance tweaks, some deep engine improvements, major new art and new audio. Overall - as with the last build - it's largely intended on delivering a better all-around player experience. There IS some new content too, in the form of new consumable items and map areas, plus a badass new monster.

Over the next 1-2 weeks you can expect more content additions/balance tweaks, plus dungeon areas, new monsters, and a new player job (Hunter).

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/StoneTiles.png)

FULL CHANGELOG

ART
* All-new tileset found in different levels of the dungeon! Wow!

AUDIO
* Two new placeholder tracks added (boss and merchant themes)
* New music track (dungeon theme)
* Various SFX mixing

BALANCE
* (Half bug) When unequipping accessories that grant abilities, like Endless Flagon, their cooldown will be remembered if you re-equip them
* Sentry Assemblers no longer give ludicrous amounts of XP
* Dual wielding has been toned down. Previously, your offhand weapon had reduced damage and accuracy. Now, your main hand weapon also loses some damage and accuracy (though not as much)
* Shield block chance increased overall
* Medium and heavy armor now offers some flat mitigation for physical damage
* Made the Lava Pit side area a little tougher, with a little less loot
* Experimental: When switching floors, all monsters heal to full (to prevent stair cheesing)
* Adjusted map size/room distribution further - should be more even now
* Adjusted XP curves (now written manually)
* BRIGAND: When YOU are in your smoke cloud, enemy aggro range is now severely reduced. (It already reduced enemy sight range if they're in it.)
* Adjusted magical item drop chance; anytime a monster or destructible has a better chance of dropping items, these items are also more likely to be magical

BUGS
* Many abilities (and ranged weapons) could fire at targets not in line-of-sight (i.e. blocked by walls), this should be fixed
* Disconnected rooms were possible on some floors (4, 7) - this should no longer happen
* Hovering over abilities on the job sheet ("J") with the mouse should now display full info
* Hopefully fixed various weirdness when restarting the game after dying, such as not being able to properly do character creation, and post-restart hang/glitching
* You can no longer sell equipped items. Selling an item or weapon in your hotbars will remove it from the hotbars
* Fists should no longer randomly turn into Javelins on the hotbar
* The blinking cursor that indicates when an item/slot is selected for swapping has been re-enabled
* When in the middle of swapping equipment, hovering the mouse over item slots will no longer filter
* Fixed various other weirdness during item swap on equipment screen
* Abilities granted by items (Bottomless Brew, Endless Flagon) are properly removed from the character and hotbar
* Fixed mouse wheel scrolling causing bad behavior in some menus
* Revised some code relating to turning sprites on and off when out of vision. Should no longer see champion (etc) buffs when they are not in line of sight. If it's still happening... tell me!
* Mouse rotation of ability targeting is now relative to hero position, not screen center
* Fixed lighting bug where stacked items would look brighter and brighter
* Magic mod exclusion groups now work - i.e. a weapon cannot be converted to both Fire and Water damage
* Damage numbers should now 'track' objects much more closely and accurately, same with status effect icons/hovers
* Damage numbers will no longer pop up if enemies are out of sight, nor will combat text or animations
* Removed the dead mouse zone at the bottom of the screen (still working on how to prevent UI from getting in the way of character movement)
* Small zones no longer obey camera clamping - this gets rid of some issues, but I need a way to do this better.
* Tweaked how stat modifier (comparison) icons are displayed on the equipment screen - should work better
* Fixed a bug where transparent stairs (like those in Riverstone Camp) would re-appear after game load
* Possibly fixed bug with champions getting the same champ mod twice? We'll see!
* Fixed a bug where food in the bandit storeroom would not save/load
* Fixed a bug where you could use consumables like gems that have no on-use effect

CONTENT
* Added several new room layouts for all map types
* New consumable: ORB OF SUMMONING. Calls a random monster to fight for you for awhile.
* New consumable: BALSAM. Heals all negative status effects.
* New consumable: UNSTABLE CONCOCTION. Summons a bunch of acid pools that damage and debuff enemies!
* New monster: ROCK GOLEM. Spawns on floor 9+. He's rough, tough and he'll mess you up.
* New weapon mod: PENETRATING. Ignores 50% of physical damage resistance (e.g. some monsters are resistance to blunt, slash, or pierce.)
* New side area!
* New consumable: DUNGEON MAP. Reveals an unexplored floor at random. (But which one? And where do you find the maps?!)

ENGINE
* Items now support a persistent counter of cooldown
* Audio engine now properly supports different mixer groups
* Assorted performance optimizations

QUALITY OF LIFE
* EXPERIMENTAL: Removed weapon swing animation for everything but critical hits, to avoid combat clutter. (Impact sprites are still there.)
* Audio settings have been rescaled, one tick = 1 dB, total dynamic range of 30dB. At minimum value, that mixer group is OFF.
* New "Back to Game" option added to Options menu. "Save and Quit" renamed for clarity.
* When moving with the mouse, you will no longer auto-pass turns when trying to move into a wall
* Monster HP should never appear as 0% - only 1%
* Reduced the threshold needed for mouse movement -> changing ability directional targeting
* When using Spellshapes (ray, line, etc) you will now see the spell effect trigger even for unused spaces
* By pressing Escape or your bound Cancel key, you can return to previous pages of character creation
* Barrels and crates should no longer spawn on stairs. Really. Yes. For real this time.
* Extended camera clamp range so you should no longer be blocked by the UI (this still needs to be improved further)
* Ability damage numbers should now pop up AFTER the ability animation has played. If this is not happening with some abilities, let me know as internal numbers must change
* Added two new tutorial popups related to difficult terrain and selling items.
* Added a (placeholder) splash sprite + sfx when you enter water

[edit] Download delayed. ^^; [/edit]

[edit 2] Right, now I have the new build downloaded, I believe, and intend to try it soon. ^_^ [/edit 2]

I like the new dungeon art shown above! It looks cool, and it's pleasant to have a little variation in the game's environment, I feel. ^_^

Yep! The goal is lots of different tile sets for different areas.

Also because I got some reports of resolution weirdness, I've put the resolution selector back in (which is also connected to the input manager.) While I was at it I made some other changes, bug fixes and QOL improvements.

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-15-17b.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-15-17b.app.zip

BALANCE
* Toxic Urchins can no longer be champions
* Nerfed the health on Sentry Bots and the Steam Golem, as well as both Assemblers
* Toned down the damage on Explosive champion bombs
* Increased the damage for Electrified champions, and the number of lightning strikes that appear
* PALADIN: Increased the stamina cost for Heavy Guard (4 -> 7 per block)
* SWORD DANCER: Increased the energy cost for Thundering Lion (7 -> 11 per attack)
* You now lose stamina for taking actions in water, not just moving through it

BUGS
* Fixed a bug where hovering the mouse over an item and dropping it with D would sometimes drop the wrong item
* Fixed a bug where a blinking cursor would appear in the Inventory screen sometimes.
* Lava tiles now hurt with each step again (related to a bigger bug with certain effect types)
* When you die, your health bar reflects your current health (0)
* When killed, monster health should display properly as 0

ENGINE
* Monsters can have a NoChampion flag

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Hovering over status buffs from toggled abilities now shows that they are Toggled, and not fixed duration
* Hovering over a monster now shows whether it is Neutral, Aggressive, or Hostile to you

I've downloaded the build just above, I believe, and have played it briefly. I have some initial thoughts, but I want to hold onto them until I've played a little more, I think.

I will say that I like the new dungeon music! ^_^


I was pleasantly surprised to find a level that seemed to use both tilesets. It gave a welcome bit of variety within the level, and made the place feel a little more organic, a little less like a themed set of levels, I think.

NEW BUILD! 2/18/2017

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-18-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-18-17.app.zip

I've been on a roll over the last week or so getting some serious work done on Tangledeep. I'm very excited, and I think we're on track for a Kickstarter next month.

This build is well-rounded, with a mix of art/polish and quality-of-life enhancements, UI tweaks, balance changes, and new content. One of the major changes is the fact that you no longer start with 4 abilities for free. Instead, you get 250jp which can be spent (or saved) as you please. There is also a new job that is about 40% done, directional sprites (well, left and right-facing...), some cool new terrain interactions, and some engine improvements to help catch serious crashes/issues.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/WallBreaker2.gif)
Breaking walls with the new Demolition Hammer!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/HOKUTONOKICK.gif)
Budoka kicking a hapless Salamander in the face.

ART
* Sprites now flip X axis to 'face' the right direction
* New art for Swamp Toads!
* New effects that appear when you enter water, mud, or lava for the first time, and with each subsequent step. (Should this apply to enemies? Let me know!)

BALANCE
* Scaled up JP costs for most abilities
* Champion mobs will no longer combine themselves into a regular mob (thus making the regular mob non-champion). However, regular monsters CAN combine themselves with champions, making the champion even stronger.
* Nerfed sentry bot "Robo Repair" skill in the first boss fight
* Your effective block chance is now auto-set to 0 if you are not using a defensive item in your offhand (codexes count). This is relevant for Paladin Heavy Guard.
* Creeping Spider's venom will no longer stack duration on multiple casts.
* Monsters summoned by Orbs of Summoning will no longer drop items or yield XP/JP/gold
* Frog Swamp toned down a bit
* Spread out the distribution of side areas a bit. It's a little less likely for there to be ton of side areas on one floor now.

BUGS
* Fixed a bug with some mouse / keyboard click weirdness in menus (namely the Perk menu)
* "Explosive" champion bombs no longer explode instantly but now have a fuse
* Fixed minor cursor flicker in menus/dialogs
* Fixed a music error with the new temp shopkeeper theme
* Minor visual/text fixes in opening dialogs/menus. More to do
* You should no longer get double-gameovers
* Adjusted "Ruins" layout algorithm (floor 3) to try and fix unreachable area bug
* Possibly fixed shop item list 'desync'
* Orbs of Summoning will no longer only summon a specific monster type per game
* Monsters summoned by Orbs of Summoning should now ALWAYS be on your side (untargetable etc)
* Guile now actually helps your defeat dodge/parry chance (it was supposed to before, but didn't)
* Juicy Apples and Boxes of Mints now work.

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* Reworked the job system and game start. You no longer start with 4 abilities. Instead you are given 250 JP at the start of the game, which you can spend to learn 2 or 3 skills. You no longer get 'temporary' active skills from switching jobs, and there is no longer a concept of 'mastering' an ability. You either know it or you don't!

* New job: Budōka! A badass martial artist, master of a secret assassination art passed down for 2,000 years. Her abilities have longer cooldowns but pack a big... punch. (Pun intended.) - Note: The job is not totally done yet, more abilities are coming.

* All classes now have NEW innate abilities unlocked when you spend 1000 or more JP in that class! Though you lose this bonus when you switch jobs, you will gain it back if you return to the original job.
   - PALADIN: After blocking an attack, your next Smite Evil or Divine Bolt deals 25% more damage
   - SPELLSHAPER: While using a Spellshape, your spell range is increased
   - BRIGAND: Your bleed effects last 2 turns longer
   - SWORD DANCER: Summon a one-tile Flame Serpent when parrying an attack
   - FLORAMANCER: You learn "Summon Living Vine II", which gives your vine a ranged poison-element shot attack
   - BUDOKA: Get a kick attack if you are unarmed in both main + offhand. The kick is even stronger than your fists.

* Added more terrain interactions!
   - FIRE damage is enhanced if the target is standing on lava but diminished if they're in water.
   - WATER damage is diminished if the target is in lava.
   - LIGHTNING damage is enhanced if the target is standing in water.
   - Walking into water now removes any burning effects.

* NEW MONSTER: WRAITH, found on floor 6 and up. Beware its haunting gaze...
* NEW ITEM: Greater Orb of Summoning. Summons more powerful monsters!
* NEW ITEM: Demolition Hammer. Destroy walls. Have fun :D
* NEW SIDE AREA: Bottles n' Brews
* NEW ARMOR MAGIC MOD: Heavy. Adds 10% physical damage resistance, but slows your CT gain.
* NEW CHAMPION MOD: Illusionist. Summons up to 4 illusions, and swap places with one of them. (Clones are easy to kill and don't attack!)
* NEW CHAMPION MODS: Fire/Water resistant (both elements), Lightning/Shadow resistant, Physical resistance. Takes 50% less damage from those damage sources. Don't rely on just one or two skills in your character build ;)

ENGINE
* Added a try/catch to the game turn loop, hopefully to help diagnose and debug serious issues. The game log will notify you when a big error occurs.
* The game will now delete your save file when you die. Permadeath! Kind of important for a roguelike, right? :D
* Resistance data on equipment is now serialized/deserialized, not just read from a template (thus: changes to resists via mods can be done)
* Code support for magic mods to affect resistances directly
* Game now caches many common resources (combat text, damage numbers, monster fades, etc.) to improve performance
* Support for champion monsters to spawn with specific accessories (that can in turn grant various new powers, resistances, etc)
* Support for champion mod exclusion groups (e.g. preventing particularly bad combinations)
* Performance optimizations related to animation and line of sight

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Added UI buttons for equipment, inventory, job (etc) screens. Placeholder graphics naturally, ux still in progress
* When attacking monsters on top of destructibles like Ice, you will always target the monster first. (Not the best solution, but I'm working on it)
* Increased combat log delay-to-fade time
* Increased combat log scrollbar sensitivity
* Added numbers below the skill/item hotbar
* Added a (bad) placeholder splash sprite for when you walk in lava
* If weapons have extremely similar power (power uses floating point behind the scenes) they will no longer show a comparison difference on the equipment screen unless the integer difference is >= 1
* NPCs now show up on the minimap
* Added labels to equipment slots when the slots are empty ("Offhand", "Armor", "Accessory 1/2")
* You can now hover over stats on the equipment screen to see what they do.
* Added a page on what each stat does in the Help manual (press "H")
* You can now use Control+1-4 to switch to a weapon on the weapon hotbar.
* Added a warning message in the combat log when a Regenerating champion has activated its Reactive Regen ability.
* Added more possible descriptors for monsters on examine/hover ("Stalking", "Curious" etc)
* On the skill hotbar, hovering over a skill on cooldown shows the remaining turns left

I really need to try Tangledeep - the art looks awesome! I've been hearing about the project on the Discord, but alas, job and coding doesn't equal lots of free time to play :P

Doing my best to make it awesome!

Also, this coming Friday I'll be participating in Reddit's r/roguelikedev "Feedback Friday" to get opinions about the game. Expect lots of improvements before then :D

FF is indeed an amazing thing, I will do my best to participate then, as I've used Feedback Friday once myself and will probably do so again when the LOVE version of my game gets better (I just uncovered a bug in a library I am using  :'()

Once again, a rather impressive update! I'm eager to try it out. I'll hopefully download and play the new build soon. ^_^


Hmm... While I'm not working on a roguelike, I imagine that there are similar events for other genres (or perhaps for games in general). I'm now wondering whether I should consider looking into a Reddit account--it's something that I had in mind for later, I think, but perhaps it's worth considering doing it sooner...

You should go for it!

By the way I've been streaming some game dev live: https://twitch.tv/tangledeepgame

If anyone wants to pop in, I've got another one coming today at 4PM EST.

NEW BUILD! 2/22/2017

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-22-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-22-17.app.zip

Boy oh boy are there are lot of bug fixes in this one! Thanks to everyone who has been submitting feedback. 25 (!!!) bugs fixed along with a host of QOL stuff.

On the content end: there are two new dungeon generation types/layouts, one of which you'll see in the very first level, and Tangledeep itself has been extended down two floors. There are new monsters, new items, and new effects, along with new skills for the Budoka (who is still not quite 100% done.) There's also a bit of new art and a number of balance changes, generally oriented at making some of the deeper monsters even more aggressive.

Feedback Friday in just a couple days so let's hope this is pretty fun, eh?!

ART
* New awesome champion skulls! There is a unique skull for each strength of champion
* Implemented proper sprites for mini-versions of monsters (fixes small number/small icon scaling issue)
* Replaced some placeholder item art with new art (thanks Lachlan!)

BALANCE
* Lava should no longer intensify its own damage
* You can no longer equip multiple Running Shoes
* Budoka now gets an offhand attack. Unarmed Fighting II (unlocked at 1000jp) turns it into a more powerful kick.
* Your offhand weapon (if any) damage is now factored in when you use skills.
* (Partially bug) Offhand weapon damage no longer scales with level MORE than mainhand weapon damage
* Axes wielded in offhand will now ALSO hit all adjacent foes. (This was intentionally disabled, but let's see what happens)
* Switching floors now resets your action timer to 0, to avoid running around until you get an extra turn before switching floors
* Elemental rings now boost your element resistances too
* MONSTER: Wraiths are a little tougher now (they were using the wrong weapon!)
* MONSTER: Living Vines are much more aggressive now (no longer stalk, they just go for the kill)
* MONSTER: Aggro range on Fire Elementals and Rock Golems increased
* MONSTER: Fungal Toads have been toned down.
* MONSTER: Bandit Swordmaster's "Run Through" no longer costs it any stamina
* Adjusted a number of monster wander behaviors
* Paladin's "Shield Mastery" ability now stacks with Mace stun-on-hit property (currently capped at 25% total, either of those alone is +15% chance)
* Damage variance for regular attacks has been reduced by 2/3. This should let you more reliably plan around the damage your attacks do.

BUGS
* Fixed display of abilities on the hotbar that are not on cooldown (should show max turns now, not "0")
* Fixed major bug with how status mods attached to equipment were handled on unequip.
* Fixed bug where the Learn Skill buttons would continuously flash no matter what (oops)
* Fixed crash/hang bug that happened sometimes in combat (I think when an enemy died as you were swinging at it?)
* Claymores (bandit-only weapon) no longer spawn for player
* Fixed engine error when switching jobs, if you had learned innate/passive abilities
* Fixed pathfinding/targeting error with sentry bots in the first boss fight (Probably?)
* Toxic clouds will stay green when switching floors and returning to those floors
* Fixed bug where the game would try to auto-equip unique accessories and fail to do so
* You can no longer equip offhand items when you have a 2H weapon equipped
* Fixed some bugs with switching jobs not working properly
* Fixed some SFX audio bugs with effect systems
* Fixed wrong HP text on helmets
* Bandit Swordmaster's "Run Through" will now reposition camera properly if it hits you
* Fixed bug where summoned destructibles like ice would stack on a single tile (this is now toggleable)
* Fixed bug with new map algorithm that would occasionally cause map edges to be considered as ground tiles
* "Ronin" monsters will properly wander in cellular automata style cave layouts
* Fixed bug with ability targeting that was causing many abilities to allow you to cast on wall/invalid tiles
* Fixed various minor bugs with UI sheets opening/closing and cursor showing up in weird spots
* You can click on title screen options now
* Fixed bug where enemies killed by a counter-attack would sometimes be left with a 'ghost' on the field, causing errors
* Fixed bug where trying to restart the game after death - on a continued game - would not work
* Fixed mismatch of selected item info in shop list
* Fixed issues where clicking in the hotbar area would sometimes move the character
* Pressing multiple arrow keys like Right+Up should now properly move on a diagonal.

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* BUDOKA: "Tornado Stance" self-buff. While this is active, enemies will be automatically kicked away and damaged if you're attacked.
* BUDOKA: Vital Point skills have been added. These are free toggles that add debuff effects to your Budoka abilities and critical strikes.
* BUDOKA: "Steel Resolve", new passive that makes you immune to crits and stun effects.
* BUDOKA: "Fist of Mighty Rage". Powerful delayed AOE attack that deals extra damage based on missing health.
* Added a new cellular automata CAVE-style map generation algorithm, currently used on the beginning and 8th floors. Let me know what you think of the feel!
* "Ruins"-type floors like floor 3 are bigger now, and lava pools are more likely to spawn
* Spectacles now give +5 Guile, +5 Swiftness
* "Living Vine" is now "Faunaconda" (thanks Jim)
* Tangledeep is now 12 floors deep! (+2 max floors)
* New 'drunk' wander behavior type for monsters is implemented
* NEW MONSTER: The mighty VERDIGRIZZLY. Found on high levels of the dungeon!
* NEW MONSTER: The Frosted Jelly. Also found at high levels!
* NEW MONSTER: The Guardian Lurker. Appears on the same levels as Guardian Sphere. Also, the properties of Guardian Sphere have been moved to this monster, and vice versa...
* NEW SIDE AREA: Elemental Lair (2 floors!) - Will be refined further
* NEW SIDE AREA: Stone Labyrinth - Will be refined further
* NEW ITEM (Accessory): Noble's Crown.
* NEW ITEM (Accessory): Circlet of Persuasion.
* New 4th tier of armor and shield
* Charm effects are now implemented!

ENGINE
* (Bug-related) Ruins floors now use a flood fill to remove inaccessible areas. This better be fixed.
* Improved the way special maps / side areas are loaded
* Dungeon creator now supports multi-level side areas, and randomly generated side areas. For example, a branch that has 3 floors and a mix of both proc gen and handcrafted layouts.
* Cellular automata cave layout type now has parameters definable in XML
* Tuned set of automata parameters to create 'maze' type layouts
* Monsters can be tagged as Bosses, which gives them immunity (or resistance) to some status effects

QUALITY OF LIFE
* When examining an enemy with temporary status effects, you will now see the duration of those effects
* When examining an enemy, you will now see a guess of the difficulty of that enemy (easy, hard, very hard, on par, etc)
* Auto equip will now only try to auto-equip the item you pick up. Previously, the auto-equip algorithm would run through ALL your potentially open slots and your whole inventory every time you picked up an item.
* You can now rebind movement keys, check the Input tab on startup. MoveEast, NoveNorth, etc.
* Budoka will no longer auto-equip weapons.
* If you just hit "Enter" on the name entry screen, you will now get a random name.
* You can now stop resting by pressing any key.
* You should no longer start the game on a barrel or crate.
* You should no longer start the game on stairs.
* Added QUIT option to title screen
* You can now hover over/examine NPCs to see their name
* If you are using an ability (targeting mode), you can click on that ability in the hotbar to cancel it. OR click on another ability to switch
--

The new build has been downloaded, and I'll hopefully play it soon! ^_^

(At the rate at which you're producing new builds, however, I don't know whether I'll actually manage to provide feedback before it's invalidated by the next build. :P)


Shouldn't that be "Floraconda"? "Fauna" refers to animals, I believe, and "flora" to plants. (I do realise that "Faunaconda" better fits the pattern of "anaconda"; it's just that it isn't a pun, as I imagine is the intent.)

I'm tempted to suggest "Floradile", but that perhaps doesn't fit the creature--perhaps it might fit some other such creature?


My main hesitation, I think, is that each community joined incurs an investment of time: the more communities that I join, the more time that I spend away from actually developing the game, it seems to me.

I'll want to join up there eventually, I daresay--I'm just not confident of whether it would be better done sooner or later. :/

I love the Suikoden vibe of the graphics <3

That's true. I can't speak to other communities, but roguelikes have a certain tight-knit..ness... and so I think it's important for me to participate. It may be less so with other genres. I wouldn't know though, this is my first game!


Thanks!

In the upcoming build...

I've been trying to make the player experience better and I actually think each job just had too many abilities. Too much choice can be a bad thing and can take away from the impact of learning, considering, and using various abilities. I've removed a number of abilities so that each job now has more like 8-9. I may slim it down even a little bit further. I'd rather have more jobs with more  radically different TYPES of abilities, I think.

For example, Paladin had... a lot of stuff. Too much for what is supposed to be a relatively beginner-friendly class. So I removed 4 things. Likewise, Spellshaper's 'Mana Seeker' is nice but could just as easily be an item effect, and the Cone spellshape felt redundant. Sword Dancer had a lot of passives: Fourth Sword and Unconscious Riposte are out the window. And so on.

Also I spent like 2 days working on casino games. lol. But this guy looks so dope, it was worth it:

https://twitter.com/blankthevidya/status/834532393566474245

A good point, perhaps.

I honestly don't know what sort of community might exist for my game's genre. For one thing, I'm not entirely sure of what genre to consider it to fall under--the best match that I have right now might be "action-adventure" (which is a bit of a catch-all), with the caveat that it's relatively light on combat and heavy on puzzling.


Hmm.... That's interesting. I do agree on the skills that you mention for the Spellshaper (although I'll confess that I haven't actually tried "Mana Seeker" yet): they can likely be removed with little harm. That said, I'll confess that I do like to have a large array of abilities available--as long as they are indeed fairly distinct.

A thought: In order to both keep initial simplicity and end-game complexity, what about "Masteries", being "Jobs" that each job-class can graduate into at a relatively late stage in the game? Otherwise, you might provide in deeper levels books that add new skills to a given job's roster. Indeed, finding a book that offers an intriguing skill, but for a job other than the current, might provide incentive to switch jobs...

... Or you could keep the game simple, if that better serves your vision for it. I'll confess that I seem to have a liking for adding complexity... ^^;

[edit]

Oh, I forgot: I have a bit of feedback. I haven't yet played for very long, so I may post more at a later stage.

First of all, the game's performance seems to have improved! ^_^

That said, it does slow down a little at times: in particular, the salamander's fire attack and--I think--the proximity of water tiles both seem to slow it down.

Getting an initial pool of job-points instead of a set of pre-determined skills is appreciated--I feel that it allows me to more fully build my character, and choose my character's progression, as I'm inclined.

I like the new dungeon layout used in the first level: it feels interesting to explore, with wandering paths and lots of oddly-sized rooms.

The new UI buttons that open and close the various character screens are welcome! Perhaps it might be worth adding a similar one for the map?

I did find one bug with said buttons, I think: while it seems that most of these screens can be closed by pressing their button a second time, this doesn't seem to work for the "skill" screen.

As to the shop, I'm glad to say that the bug that resulted in mismatched item-descriptions after scrolling seems to have been largely fixed. ^_^

That said, there seems to be one case in which a similar issue presents: when scrolling with the mouse-wheel, the item-description seems to only be updated when the mouse-cursor is moved to a new item-slot.

Finally, I think that I encountered one case of clicking on a skill button moving the character "towards" that button. :/

NEW BUILD! 2/24/2017

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-24-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-24-17.app.zip

Bug fixes, UI improvements, class rebalancing and retooling were my major goals - making the jobs feel more distinct, removing cruft, etc. BUT there are also new items, magic mods, more aggressive monsters, and a NEW job that is about 90% done - the HUNTER!

BIG OL' CHANGE LOG

BALANCE
* Endless Flagon now restores stamina instead of health.
* Salamanders, Fungal Toads, and Moss Jelly now have a bit of aggro range. Frosted Jellies have yet more.
* Light Armor adjusted. No longer boosts regen, but reduces range at which monsters will aggro you (i.e. they don't hear you)
* Conversely, Heavy Armor now makes monsters slightly more likely to aggro you.
* Accuracy for regular attacks has been clamped from 5% to 95%
* Moss Jellies and Salamanders are no longer quite as slow

BUGS
* Fixed bad behavior/errors with multiple stacked items on the ground and moving up/down floors.
* "Quit" on the title screen works now
* 4th tier light armor now properly offers dodge
* Fixed some UI inconsistencies and bugs on the Equipment screen
* Fixed some bugs with shop list behaving badly with keyboard scrolling - still a bit janky with keyboard and mouse scrolling combined
* Some food was not healing the correct amount of resources
* Axe swings no longer hit allies/pets
* Fixed bug with monster scaling where scaled-up monsters (including champions) would take MORE damage, not LESS! Wooow!
* Conversely, Paladin's "Close Wounds" no longer LOWERS your defense...

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* NEW JOB: The HUNTER! Finally, a physical ranged class! Use bows, carefully-planned shots, and traps to defeat enemies. Still missing an ability or two though.
* 2nd boss fight is now on floor 9 instead of floor 8
* A hidden casino can now be found in Tangledeep! Play some slots or blackjack, win some cash... or lose.
* New ACCESSORY: Manaseeker's Ring
* New MAGIC MOD (Offhand): Protection (25% chance to negate crits)
* New MAGIC MOD (Weapon): Lightweight (reduced dual wield penalty when used in offhand)

ENGINE
* Fixed some animation stuff for sprites that have large start offsets (i.e. hail of arrows)
* Save file optimization (about 33% faster / smaller)

JOB CHANGES
* BUDOKA: New passive, "Two-Finger Catch". Randomly catches ranged attacks and throws them back.
* BUDOKA: New vital point, "Explode". Enemies afflicted explode when they die. Wow!
* BUDOKA: Fist of Mighty Rage, Shichisei Tenshin and Deadly Focus removed
* PALADIN: Divine Protection, Radiant Aura, and Divine Retribution removed
* SPELLSHAPER: Mana Seeker and Spellshape: Cone removed
* BRIGAND: Fan of Knives and Improved Parry removed
* BRIGAND: Hemorrhage replaced with Shadowstep, a short range 'blink' that causes an AOE shadow-based bleed on arrival.
* FLORAMANCER: Plant Synergy removed
* SWORD DANCER: The Fourth Sword removed
* SWORD DANCER: Budoka's "Fist of Mighty Rage" -> Relentless Current
* SWORD DANCER: Budoka's "Shichisei Tenshin" -> new ability, "Phoenix Wing Movement"

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Lava is now orange on the minimap, instead of red
* Combat log will no longer fade out if you are hovering over UI
* You can now reliably close equipment, job, skill (etc) sheets by clicking on their buttons again
* Also, every UI sheet now has an X button to close the sheet via mouse

WRITING
* "Faunaconda" is now "Floraconda". Oops


RE: YOUR FEEDBACK, THAUMATURGE - GAME SIMPLICITY?

As always, really helpful input. I don't want the game to be simple by any means. There should be a lot of depth to the systems, richness, and true decisions/choices moment-to-moment AND in how you build your character. That is the goal. However achieving that goal means making all the content worthwhile and unique. Sure I could give the Budoka 10 different punch attacks. But not only is that way harder to balance, it also takes away from the impact and uniqueness of just having 1 or 2.

Ultimately I'm aiming for about 12 jobs for the final release. Each will have 8-9 abilities (2 of which are passive) - so you'll have something like 24 passives to choose from and between 72 to 84 active abilities. That's a lot! And I want them all to feel distinct and interesting. The Brigand's movement skills are about stealth and dirty tactics: swapping places, attacking while you move. The Paladin's is boldly charging into enemies. The Sword Dancer has a long leap that requires a target. etc.

On top of all that each job will have a 3rd tier innate ability unlocked when you master the job. There will also be way more items, magic mods, and equipment customization... Don't worry, it's going to be a rich game :D

I caught the UI bugs you described I think, with the exception of clicking on a skill button moving the character. Gotta spend more time with that. I suspect it's resolution related... Remind me what your resolution is?

As per usual, I have the new version downloaded I believe, and intend to play it soon. ^_^


I very much agree! Perhaps even more so in a game that allows (what is effectively) multi-classing: having largely-unique skills--i.e. skills not easily replicable in another class--provides more incentive to take on another class.


That sounds pretty good, overall! :D


I believe that I'm currently playing at 960 x 540, in windowed mode.

NEW BUILD! 2/28/2017 (Pre-GDC)

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-28-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build2-28-17.app.zip

Hey, I have a website now! Check out Tangledeep.com (http://tangledeep.com) :D

This build has some BIG changes to some core gameplay and visual things. I expect there to be problems but overall I think we made a couple nice moves in the right direction. On the visual end, we now have grass tiles and proper code for 'directional' water. The camera view should now be pixel-perfect (no stretched pixels or distortion) and a non-smoothed camera mode is available for shimmer-free, pixel perfect scrolling.

On the gameplay side, I've been grappling with the problem of regeneration. It was previously optimal to run away from monsters and dance around to regain health, or press R in a corner. It reduced the challenge and danger level and it let you play sloppy in each encounter. Well, now regeneration is gone! Instead you have a magic flask used by clicking or pressing U. It holds unlimited charges, and heals your stats each time it's used. Find more charges by exploring the dungeon and stepping on fountains.

... oh yeah, and I spent several days deep in the engine code, refining things like monster pathfinding to be about 400% faster ...

ART/VISUALS
* Camera/viewport has been redone and should now be pixel perfect, including camera scrolling. No stretched pixels, no "shimmer" artifacts. Let me know what you think! There is also a "Smooth Camera" option that may have more shimmer, but movement is ultra-smooth.
* Grass tiles are now in the game! Beautiful!
* First pass on directional river

BALANCE
* The number of mods a champion can spawn with has been adjusted based on floor.
* Champion monster damage mitigation decreased
* All food is about 50% more effective

BUGS
* Game properly shows as "Tangledeep" not "Impact7DayRL"
* Fixed a crash/hang bug related to attacking and jitter animation
* Stunned monsters that are charging up abilities will no longer use the abilities... while stunned...
* Tile effects like lava will now fire even on extra turns
* When using jump abilities like Wild Horse, you should now jump around obstacles in your way if you have line-of-sight on the target.
* When continuing the game in town or any other special area, the appropriate music will play
* Brigand's Shadow Step now does correct damage (scaling from Spirit Power)
* (Partially balance) Fixed a bug where anything that had a damage output multiplier got the bonus 2X... like champions... oops
* Budoka's offhand attack should now scale properly with strength
* Budoka's debuffs no longer affect the user (OOPS)
* Fixed some weird/bad options menu behavior

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* Two new hunter abilities - Ice Missile and Triple Bolt! This rounds out the job.
* Altars removed from the game for now (these were previously a way to get rid of unused items. Outdated now.)
* MAJOR new change - experimental - regeneration has been removed from the hero. In exchange you've been given a magic flask, usable by clicking or pressing U. This will regenerate your stats over time. You will heal even more based on Strength (more health regen), Spirit (more energy), Discipline (more stamina). The flask can store unlimited charges, and can be refilled by stepping into Fountains (a new map object).
* As a result of the above, resting has been removed from the game.
* New armor magic mods: BRAMBLES and THORNS. Reflects damage in melee.
* New accessory: Fairy's Choker.
* EXPLORER removed from the game, replaced with THIRST QUENCHER (heal more from your flask)

ENGINE
* VSync is now available in the Quality menu (every frame, or every other frame)
* FOV Slider temporarily disabled as I work on camera.
* Performance optimizations for ability targeting (used frequently by monsters)
* Performance optimization - combat log via object pooling
* Performance optimization - monster pathfinding
* Performance optimization - all resources are now cached on game start and not Loaded on the fly
* New ability shape: CLAW (used by Hunter)
* New ability logic: strike only first target in ray/line
* Made SummonActor effects more flexible (i.e. summoning based on a struck/status effect owner's position, not originating actor's pos)
* Effects can now have a status requirement, i.e. not processing effect X unless target has status Y.
* Abilities can now be tagged as requiring ranged weapons
* Change stat effects can be marked as silent so they don't appear in the combat log.

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Weapons in your hotbar are no longer directly sellable in the shop. You must unbind them first. (No more accidental sales)
* Attacking destructibles now shows your weapon impact animation
* Added new "Restart Same Character" option at gameover to restart with the same name, job, and feats.

What did you use to make the website? I'm slowly working on mine, from scratch because Jekyll is a pita to get working on Windows and other static site generators don't cooperate with the GitHub Pages.

Oh nothing special... I just picked up an HTML template for this. For my other business (http://impactsoundworks.com) I use wordpress with a custom design, but WP seemed like overkill here.

Interesting! I intend to download the new build a little later, and hopefully play it soon. ^_^

I like the idea of removing the "rest" mechanic. Indeed, I'd considered suggesting something similar previously; I'd found it to be all too easy to clear a floor, then dash back upstairs and rest when my health, stamina, or energy ran low.

I'm interested to see how the new system feels. Was it inspired by Dark Souls/Bloodborne, perhaps?


If I recall correctly, I tried the "explorer" perk several times, wanting to more prioritise gaining job-skills. However, I found the rewards to be too slight, and too easily-missed, to feel worthwhile. :/


It looks good, overall, I think. ^_^

My one critique is that, to my eye, at least, the middle section--starting from "A roguelike inspired by..." and ending with the three points below the green rectangle--looks a little empty, and lacking in personality. That said, it may be that this layout is preferable when viewed on a mobile device, where the small screen might result in clutter interfering with legibility.

Finally, a few bits of feedback from the previous build; if any no longer apply in the new build, please ignore!

I found that I was sometimes unable to target enemies at the far edges of an evocation's range: as I recall, they would fall into the targeting rectangle, and their tile would highlight when hovered over, but clicking did nothing. Nearer targets didn't seem to be a problem.

In the shop, while the descriptions are correct, clicking on an item after scrolling with the mouse-wheel seems to purchase the wrong item. (At a guess, the item that would have been under the cursor had the list not been scrolled.)

A suggestion: Right now (well, as of the previous build), the job-screen and "learn skill" buttons flash whenever the player has enough JP to purchase a new skill. However, since I tend to save up points for specific skills, I tend to have those notifications showing often enough that they don't really convey much information to me.

What I suggest, then, is having them be dismissed when the job-screen is closed, only showing again when the player earns enough JP for a skill that wasn't available at the time of the job-screen's closing.

This would allow the player to respond to the notifications by checking the job-screen, and, if there's nothing that they want to purchase just yet, close it again until the next notification.

Hmm ok, tell me if you have any of those issues (some may be solved, some not - yet) with the build below...

NEW BUILD! 3/8/2017

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build3-7-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build3-7-17.app.zip

Today we have a wide spread of new art, polish, bug fixes, balance tweaks, and content. The biggest game experience changes are that you now start in the town, and you now have a permanent 'town portal' item that can be used anytime to return to town. You can then take a portal back to where you were. We're also experimenting with walking sprites - starting with the Hunter - which look pretty amazing, in my opinion!

Also, we're about 1 week away from launching a Kickstarter. If you're reading this, can I count on your support? If so, join our mailing list here (http://eepurl.com/cAFft1) to be notified of the launch.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/TangledeepCast.png)
The current cast of characters, monsters and NPCs. Some new art + palette improvements here!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/TangledeepWorld.png)
A snapshot of the world as it looks now. Improved grass, trees, better lighting, better fog of war.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/HunterWalkingAnimation.gif)
Walking animation!?

FULL CHANGE LOG

ART/VISUALS
* Improvements to stone + earth tile sets, plus new variations
* Characters 'jab' while attacking now
* Jitter animation (when hit by an attack) is no longer based on frame rate
* NEW MONSTER ART: Sentry Assembler
* NEW BATTLE/STATUS FX ART: Static Shock, Shadow Trap, Hundred Fists, Regenerate, Feared, Haunted, Electrified, Hunter Tracked
* New skill icons for Hunter
* Fog of war / unexplored areas look better now (softened/cloud-like texture)
* Lovely trees now spawn
* New art for mud, lava (work in progress)
* PRE-ALPHA TEST: Walking animation for Hunter. We will do walking animations for all jobs as the camera/movement system is refined
* New "chunk" wall decor

BALANCE
* Magic Fountains now give you 2 flask charges instead of 1, Fairy Choker now gives you 50% chance for an additional charge instead of 100% chance
* Brigand’s “Escape Artist” stun now lasts an additional turn
* Budoka Vital Point toggles now make your abilities cost +5 energy
* Adjusted Sword Dancer and Brigand JP costs down slightly.
* Summoned Floracondas no longer regen HP over time.
* Toned down the number of mobs in the bandit fight, as well as health values of all but the boss. Boss gained new powers and a new sprite though!
* More mud should spawn near rivers

BUGS
* NPCs are now properly collidable again
* Tutorial popup option “turn off all tips” works again
* Stalking monsters should now properly identify dangerous tiles
* Grass should no longer spawn in water, mud, or lava
* Enter/return works for ability targeting confirmation again
* FOV slider works again (all values pixel-perfect)
* Dead enemies will no longer print status messages after death
* Fungal Toads can no longer regenerate above their max health
* You will now level up if you hit the XP requirement exactly (before, if you had 50/50, you would not level)
* If you are using a toggled skill that requires Energy/Stamina per use (like Thundering Lion), the skill will no longer de-toggle if you go below the required stat. It simply will not fire.
* Bandit Swordmaster (now Battousai) Run Through now swaps places properly
* River properly spawns on floors where it is intended to spawn
* MAYBE POSSIBLY CLICKING IN THE UI WON'T MOVE YOU ANYMORE?
* Splashes now play at the appropriate time
* Fixed various other anim timing issues
* Fixed issues with some animations firing at the wrong rotation
* Fixed some major bugs with area and status loading from save

CONTENT / GAMEPLAY
* The game now begins in Riverstone Camp, and a helpful NPC has been added to the end of the bridge. (Will eventually give quests)
* Powerups now disappear after about 10 turns, but persist when switching floors and on game save/load
* “Zen” magic mod removed from the game
* Brigand CONCUSSION has been removed from the game.
* Brigand FAN OF KNIVES added back to the game (now also refunds Energy cost when it hits bleeding enemies)
* NEW ITEM: Teleportation Scroll (three guesses as to what it does)
* NEW MAGIC MODS: Second-tier stat boosts for Accessories (+20 to single stats) - note, some stat mod names were switched
* NEW MAGIC MOD (Accessory): Well-Rounded. +5 to all stats.
* TWO NEW MAGIC MODS: Elemental Protection and Elemental Shielding. Available on Offhands.
* NEW ITEM: Assassin Gloves. Grants +15% damage when attacking with piercing weapons.
* HUNTER MASTER ABILITY (all skills learned): Summon Wolf Companion (summons a pet that lunges at and slows enemies)
* BUDOKA MASTER ABILITY: Lethal Fists. Your regular attacks and abilities have a chance of striking ANY or even ALL vital points
* SWORD DANCER MASTER ABILITY: Effortless Parry. Any time you parry an attack, all your cooldowns are reduced by 1.
* FLORAMANCER MASTER ABILITY: Your Summoned Floraconda gains a shield of thorns
* BRIGAND MASTER ABILITY: Whenever you use Cloak & Dagger or Shadowstep, you also drop a bomb.
* PALADIN MASTER ABILITY: Sanctuary. Prevents all damage for a brief time.
* SPELLSHAPER MASTER ABILITY: Unstable Magic. Blast an enemy with random elements (can be spellshaped!)
* You have been given a Torch of Escape with unlimited charges from the very beginning of the game. You can use this to escape anytime (after a brief delay). The Torch of Escape droppable item, and the Escape Master feat, have thus been removed.
* There is a placeholder final boss area, with a final boss, that can be defeated to win the game.

ENGINE
* Rewrote how powerups are handled - now follow the same logic as other map objects/destructibles
* Ability effects can now limit targeting to specific factions, independent of who created the effect
* Adjusted behavior for Floramancer random vine summoning
* New fog of war engine
* Rewrote system for how terrain tiles like mud, water, lava are displayed
* Expanded stair functionality; stairs can now be portals, and can teleport to specific tiles

QUALITY OF LIFE
* When switching jobs, the stats gained from the new job will no longer clutter the combat log
* Budoka will no-longer auto-equip things to offhand (to preserve your default double attack
* When hovering over a tile with powerup(s) the type of powerup(s) will be displayed
* When switching from a 2 handed weapon to a 1h weapon with an offhand and back again, your offhand item will be remembered. For example, Sword+Shield -> Bow -> Sword, your shield will be re-equipped automatically.
* The Job screen (J) now shows your current mastery level (how much JP you’ve spent vs. the max JP needed to master)
* Rather than being separate abilities, Floramancer’s upgraded Summon Floraconda now just applies to the original skill.
* Monsters that are running away will now display a "feared" icon
* Regen Flask and Escape Torch (town portal) are now bindable in the Input tab before game start
* When escaping from dungeon, the map will fade out then in again (just like traversing stairs)
* When escaping from dungeon, a small animation will play indicating that you activated the ability.
* Moving into walls no longer takes a turn.
* You now start with 100g

WRITING
* Full basic pass on all items for flavor text (no more placeholders)
* Creeping Spider -> Cave Stalker
* Jade Beetle -> Goliath Beetle
* Dark Alchemist -> Mad Chemist
* Cave Lion -> Panthox
* Young Water Elemental -> River Spirit
* Young Fire Elemental -> Ember Spirit
* Toxic Urchin -> Quillkin
* Bandit Swordmaster -> Battousai
* Young Lightning Elemental -> Thunder Spirit
* Rock Golem -> Craggan
* All bandit boss fight mobs renamed
* "Five Foot Step" feat -> Quick Step

I intend to!


Ah, excellent! I mean to download and try it soon! ^_^


If I had the money to comfortably spare, I likely would. :/

(This did prompt me to check for a Twitter account, however--I've followed the Tangledeep account (my handle being @EbornIan).)


Ah, those look really good, I do think!

Based on the GIF above, the hunter's walking animation looks pretty good to me--a bit of detail that I think makes movement feel a little less artificial. It might be nice to have multiple animation directions, of course--but that's a significant investment, and what you have looks good, I think.


Ah, excellent! I'll confess that being permanently zoomed-in somewhat put me off playing in the previous build.


Hah, we may hope so! XD


Hmm... What prompted this, if I may ask? (I'll confess that I don't really like having drops disappear, in general--but then that's a personal preference.)


Hmm... Let's see...

It makes televisions drinkable!

It grants access to foreign harbours!

It translates telenovellas!

Yes? :D

Here's why I changed powerup behavior - before, if you were really smart and micromanage-y, you could generate them and leave them for when you need them. That's lame. They're supposed to be like Diablo 3 health globes or something. I WILL increase the time it takes for them to disappear though.

First of all, game looks and feels fantastic so far!

While the placeholder sounds did trigger some nostalgia, the music track that you created seemed to blend with that same feeling really well (I was really digging it). So I'm looking forward to what you come up with when you tackle the SFX.

Loving the art style of the characters.

Only had time to play through once so far, but I'll circle back to try out a couple different classes and skills.

Here's a few bugs I noticed (Win10):

• cooldown timer on skill could be more visible, it was red and my quick step skill was orange, didn't notice it at first
• kept thinking I didn't have anything in my equipment inventory until I moused over my equipment slot, not sure of a good fix for presentation there, maybe if the big blank inventory window wasn't there until the equipment item is moused over, or it says "Select an equipment slot" in the space until one is chosen?
• clicked on my canteen (with mouse) to heal and I moved in that direction also (collision on UI not blocking maybe?)
• when I fill canteen the new max number doesn't show up immediately (like if I currently have 3, fill it up, it takes a while after moving around til it shows 5 uses), not sure if intended
• On the "You have died!" screen, couldn't confirm either option. The hand icon could point at either of them, but nothing happened when I pressed enter or clicked, so had to close the game

Signed up to the mailing list so I can support on Kickstarter when it goes live! I'll try to keep an eye out here too to try and give feedback. Good luck!

Thanks for the kind words! Already fixed a few of those errors today, gotta look into that stupid UI mouse blocking thing though... What resolution are you playing at?

Screen Resolution: 1600x900 (Windowed)
Graphics Quality: V-Sync

Also looked at the unity output log and that game over bug was a null reference. Probably not that big a deal, but if you wanted the log just let me know and I can send it to ya.

A whole day of development, so why not a

NEW BUILD! 3/9/2017

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build3-9-17.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Build3-9-17.app.zip

This adds some polish, title music (still needs some tweaks), balance, and some key bug fixes that were causing really bad behavior.

Coming soon - I'll be further tweaking how regeneration works. Right now there are too many ways to drain stamina on the map (water, mud) and it feels bad to restore stamina/energy with your flask. So I'm thinking the flask will JUST be for HP, but I'll crank up the drop rate of stamina/mana powerups.... maybe. Anyway, full change log below!

ART
* Various new item art (also, the Demolition Hammer is now a Knight's Shovel. heh heh)
* Camera clamping is back~
* Various fades and polish to the intro / title screens, including a quick developer logo ~ ~ ~
* There are now visual effects for block, parry and crit (let me know how it is)
* Replaced some old, janky animations

AUDIO/MUSIC
* Title screen theme!

BALANCE
* XP requirements to level have been slightly reduced.
* When switching floors, any player-summoned destructibles (bombs, thorns, etc) are removed
* Fairy Choker effect has been revised, and rarity increased slightly. The item now gives you a 20% chance to tick any cooldown by 1 when struck.
* Powerup disappear rate: 15 turns -> 20t
* You can no longer parry while wielding a ranged weapon

BUGS
* Monsters should wander into lava less. Hopefully not at all.
* Fixed bug with selecting "Restart Game" on gameover
* Floramancer's Thorned Skin should properly apply to your pet now (once re-summoned)
* Fixed crash bug related to enemies in Feared state (i.e. running away)
* Your displayed Flask charges now refresh immediately after using a fountain.
* Fixed some bugs with certain options menu variables not reading the correct state (showing as 'on' when off and vice versa.)
* Healing fountains no longer spawn in absurd quantities in side areas
* Improved behavior of "Sniper" type monsters. They will no longer juke around if you can hit them at your range, and focus more on hitting *you*.
* Fixed some areas near the hotbar that still moved your character (portal for example)
* EXPERIMENTAL: Bug fix for weird situations involving push effects, like Budoka kick.

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* NEW ACCESSORY: Spiked Pauldrons
* NEW ACCESSORY TYPE: Quivers (3 tiers right now). Gives you extra CT when attacking with a bow.
* If you are significantly higher level than a monster, it will now run from you on sight (assuming you have not started fighting it)
* Loot tables have been added to the game, allowing me to properly balance item drop rates so they are NOT all even. This changes the way items drop across the board, notably scaling down the % chance that you will get a lower level item when you are at a higher challenge level.

ENGINE
* Optimizations to initial game start (map generation)
* Rewrote fog of war system (again) - should be much more CPU efficient
* More ability effects can now be tied to trigger conditions (attacker weapon state, melee vs. ranged, etc.)
* Loot table system implemented
* Reduced size of save files and speed of save writing

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Summoned living vine is no longer affected by lava/mud
* The "Learn Skill" indicator/message now disappears if you open the job screen. It will return after you gain 100 more JP and can still learn an ability (gentle reminder.)
* When switching floors, your CT now resets to 0, not -50.
* When starting or loading the game, there is now a nice screen fade.
* Smooth Camera is on by default
* Guardian Sphere's self destruct only plays in one tile now.
* Weapon information (shown in shops, equip screen) now displays damage type too (pierce, slash, blunt)
* EXPERIMENTAL QOL: Monsters in your faction follow your collision rules (i.e. swinging vines don't block your Floraconda)
* "Emergency" magic mod lists exact HP amount for defense threshold (33%)
* Non-smoothed camera now moves faster

WRITING
* "Floraconda" properly renamed across the board
* Broad Dagger -> Obsidian Dagger
* Breast Plate -> Half Plate
* Half Plate -> Full Plate
* Added a few more colorful damage words for the combat log

I have the new build downloaded, I believe, and intend to try it soon! ^_^


I had actually made a note to mention the flask in my feedback on the previous version, I believe. I've been finding that, playing a spell-shaper, the flask feels somewhat limiting: I effectively have only so many castings available to me, outside of the effects of foodstuffs (which cost money). Conversely, a melee class can (I presume) keep hitting things effectively, even once they no longer have the resources with which to use their class skills--and might use their class skills less often, come to that.

So I like the idea of having the flask only restore health. Intuitively, I think that the powerups might be a good alternative source of energy and stamina--since they drop from enemies, there's a bit more incentive to engage in combat.

As to the powerups, now that you mention it, it occurs to me that I don't seem to be seeing them very often at all. That said, I haven't been getting very far into the dungeon of late--does that have any effect?


Ah, thank you for that! ^_^


I'll confess that I don't believe that I've played (or watched much of) Diablo 3. ^^;

I actually liked leaving the powerups for later, as I recall--much like instant-use health items in old first-person shooters. I also think that I tend to find it frustrating to have resources vanish. On the other hand, as noted above, I didn't see powerups often, and so didn't leave a flood of spare resources in my wake.

That said, I think that this is just a matter of individual taste in gameplay. If their persistence runs counter to your goals for the game, or what you find enjoyable, then fair enough.

~

I played the previous version briefly; most of my thoughts are either covered by your update post or Blosser's feedback, I think, but a few that aren't, as far as I see:

First of all, the game looks much better! The grass and trees add some welcome variety to the environment, the bends in rivers and the like make things feel a little more "organic", and the walls look improved, I find!

The town-portal is welcome--but it seems to take an awfully long time to activate. If I'm fleeing enemies, there's still plenty of time for them to kill me; if I'm not, I'm hanging around doing nothing until it activates.

I like having previously-equipped offhand items be automatically restored to use when putting away a two-handed weapon--that's rather convenient, and the lack of it might be a little frustrating at times.

Bugs:

I had one occasion in which my character seems to have been displayed in the wrong tile. (And indeed, I believe that I had an enemy displayed over my character.) Perhaps this is related to the relatively low frame-rate that I think that I was seeing--something in the code that moves an object's visual representation from one cell to another, perhaps?

I once found myself stuck, unable to move, during a fight. Clicking on the "Town Portal" icon seemed to fix the problem. The enemy was a champion slime, I think. I did note that my "extra turn" percentage read "-43%"--but given the above mention of a now-fixed issue that resulted in having -50CT, this may well not be relevant. (I recall that there was a similar issue in a previous build, in case the solution there helps here.)

It seems that I can't sell weapons that are on my quick-bar. This means that if I don't have many weapons (and thus don't have weapons that might take the quick-bar slots of those that I want to sell), I can end up unable to sell some of my loot.

In the shop, clicking on an item after scrolling with the mouse still results in the wrong item being bought, and item descriptions don't change while scrolling, only updating after moving the mouse-cursor to another item.

I struggled a little to wield a crossbow that I found. It insisted on going into the "offhand item" slot, and seemed to refuse to enter the quick-bar (despite showing up when I clicked on a quick-bar item to be replaced).

Finally, some of the check-boxes in the options menu seem to flip the screen vertically. o_0 (One of these, I think, was the option that removed the textured overlay that the game has by default.)

Some feedback on the new build:

First, I really like the new title music! It's pretty, and somewhat reminiscent of something from a previous age of gaming, I feel. (The leafy, or perhaps rainy, sounds mixed into it are a nice touch, I feel.) ^_^

Thus far I haven't had any further trouble with targeting foes at the edge of an evocation's range. While I haven't yet played for very long, this one may be fixed. ^_^

I appreciate having the job-skill notification disappear after the job-screen is opened!

Some areas seem to run a little less slowly than they previously had; the camp is one such example.

Issues encountered:

 - The job-screen notifications don't seem to come back, as far as I've seen, even after a significant amount of JP (i.e. more than a hundred) has accumulated.

 - I'm still experiencing the bug in which clicking on a skill-button results in the character moving "towards" it. :/

 - Perhaps relatedly, there seem to be areas around the UI--but not covered by it--in which clicks don't take effect. One such area was just above the "wielding" note, extending a short but significant distance above said note.

 - I've also had both mouse- and key- inputs seemingly ignored, in this case due, I think, to particularly low frame-rates. (That is, it seems to show up in those areas in which the game runs particularly slowly.)

 - I saw occasional flashes of white, which was a little unpleasant. o_o

 - Finally, attempting to continue a (presumedly) saved game seems to result in the program hanging. (Well, either that or it was taking an awfully long time to load, with no visible indicators to this effect--just a black screen, I believe.)

Got it - looking into those...

Note that I did slow down player movement somewhat to account for walking animations (although we only have one right now.) That could be what you're referencing?

Also, you are on WINE, right?

You might want to allow the camera to extend beyond the map edges/corners so the UI doesn't obscure things that are important to gameplay.

Example: It looks like the UI could cover up the stairs to move to the next level if its placement is unlucky
(http://i.imgur.com/4vWfDMm.png)

Title music is nice btw!

Thank you! Yes, aware of that UI issue, we're overhauling now.

Good good. ^_^


While it's not impossible that it had an effect, I'm highly confident that the primary cause is the speed at which the game is running--especially since the degree of slowdown varies from place to place. In some of the smaller, simpler maps, movement feels fairly quick and fluid. Elsewhere it feels slow. In a few places within larger maps, the game slows down further, and starts to become unresponsive.


I am, yes

NEW BUILD DAY!

WIN: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://zirconstudios.com/game/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

This build does quite a bit in terms of polish, bug fixes, QOL, and mechanics - though there's not a lot of new content, it should *feel* a lot better now in many ways. Here's the rundown of the key changes/additions and the design process behind them.

Also, Kickstarter is launching next week! Please sign up for the Tangledeep mailing list (http://eepurl.com/cAFft1) if you haven't already!

The Banker
This cute lil' guy in town is Tangledeep's first instance of metagame progression. He'll store your items - for a fee - and if you die, you can then retrieve the items on your next character. He can only store up to 9 items, and you'll have to weigh whether you want to save that badass weapon you found OR use it on your current character... But it overall, this will help you progress further!

Combat Numbers
We've changed the font for damage text and the way it animates - instead of a boring straight crawl up, it 'bounces' off the character. This, along with the jab animation added last patch, really helps with combat 'feedback' and makes it feel nice.

Recovery Changes
The Flask was a little OP, and it didn't feel great to use it to restore Stamina and Energy when you were at full health. So now, it ONLY restores health. On the other hand, I've removed Health powerups, and significantly increased the powerup drop rate. In other words, you'll now be relying on Stamina/Energy powerups as a regular source of resource restoration, along with food & other consumables.

Damage Types Streamlined
I've done away with Slash, Blunt, and Pierce damage. It felt like unnecessary bloat and didn't add any real depth. It was also hard to guess or communicate whether a monster was strong or weak to a certain damage type. However, all the other elements still exist, so you'll still have to think twice about using Fire on a Salamander or Lightning on a Thunder Spirit. And remember, some terrain interacts with elemental damage - like Lava boosting Fire damage!

UI Revisions
The UI has received an overall polish/visual pass, particularly the Equipment screen, which now also includes item comparisons so you can tell at a glance whether an item is better or worse than what you're currently wearing. (The shop comparison UI also got an upgrade.) Along the same lines, I rewrote a lot of the 'list' code from scratch which I believe should make both keyboard + mouse scrolling behavior a lot better.

Game Over Feedback
When you die, you'll now be presented with a summary of: what killed you, how far you got in Tangledeep, monsters slain, steps taken, AND... how many restorative items you died carrying ;)

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/ShopUI.png)
New comparison UI in action

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/DieToDungeon.png)
Use those potions dummy!

FULL CHANGE LOG

ART/VISUALS
* Baller new damage text
* New custom art for the 2nd boss fight room
* Various new battle FX
* Updated art for the 1st boss fight
* Lots of UI tweaks and polish
* More icons~
* New SFX for some abilities that didn't have any (Blessed Hammer, Divine Bolt)

BALANCE
* Helmets have been moved from the Accessories loot table to the Armor loot table, which means they will generally drop a bit more often
* Town portal now only takes 10 turns to activate (down from 15)
* Stamina lost while walking through water and mud has been reduced
* Consumable item drop rates no longer scale down at higher levels of the dungeon, i.e., a basic consumable like Mint Herb Brew will drop with the same frequency later in the dungeon
* Treasure sparkles should spawn with a little more consistency and frequency now
* Accessories Endless Flagon and Infinite Brew tweaked. They now heal Stamina or Energy, and cost 10 of the other stat to use.
* Reduced the flat damage reduction of medium and heavy armors
* Fungal Toad "call for help" range increased
* Quillkins have a longer attack range, but don't attack as often
* Blessed Hammer now travels independently of the player's position
* Item costs have been generally increased (scaling up with difficulty), while sale costs have been decreased
* Caltrops now only trigger once per turn even if you stack them
* Frog regen power has been reduced, but they can hop more often
* Chance of being rooted while moving through mud has been increased
* Monster critical hit chance and critical damage have been increased (they were very low, previously)

BUGS
* Fixed audio fade time bug at title screen - should no longer cut off
* Fixed several bugs related to game loading
* Special area overlays no longer load 2x when loading the game
* Portal animation now plays upon game load
* Fixed movement/positioning visual bug
* Fixed a bug where Static Shock (from Hunter's Triple Bolt) struck twice
* Removed some placeholder UI text
* Fixed bug with game over options (again)
* When buying or selling an item at the shop, and you're at the top of the shop list, you will no longer wrap around to the bottom
* The "Learn Skill" indicator works more reliably now
* Possibly fixed sporadic crash during level generation
* Fixed a bug where if you were targeting an ability and opened a menu, the targeting would get messed up
* Hopefully fixed bug with monsters appearing when they are out of LOS and vice versa
* Sprites will no longer randomly flip X/Y
* Lava and mud should no longer spawn on top of one another
* "Hidden" statuses like the Steam Golem's countdown timer will no longer show up when examining/hovering
* Blessed Hammer no longer obstructs movement (i.e. monsters won't try to dodge it)
* Fixed bug with accessory (de)serialization
* Rewrote menus like shop interface, equipment/inventory list, all should work much better now
* Some items that have no magic modifiers will no longer show up as uncommon/magical (blue/yellow)
* Fixed bad visual with Rock Golem's slam earth-to-mud ability
* "Sniper" type enemies will no longer juke into lava while trying to get awesome shots at you
* You should now be able to click-to-move in the lower part of the screen, as well as the lower left area (if the combat log is not showing) - still trying to fix mouse clicks in the skill area, however!
* Reinforced checks for "default weapon" (i.e. fists) to avoid unequipping of fists.

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* METAGAME PROGRESS! You will now find the Banker in town. He will store up to nine of your items - for a small fee of course - which persist even if you die! It's free to withdraw but not to deposit, so think carefully about what items you want to save.

* Recovery has been adjusted. The Flask now restores ONLY health. At the same time, Health powerups have been removed from the game, but the chance of a powerup dropping from enemies has increased considerably. Note that killing enemies around your level will yield more powerups, while lower level enemies will eventually stop dropping them.

* Slash, Pierce, and Blunt damage types have been removed and rolled into just "Physical" damage. Having the three different types was confusing and it was difficult to communicate each to the player. It was also unclear at a glance what kind of weapon some monsters would be weak or strong to. Of course, elemental resistances still exist, and some monsters that didn't previously have them now do. (Also, weapon damage types for flavor text still exist.)

* There are now two types of healing foods for each primary stat (Health, Stamina, Energy) - one version that heals over a short time (5 turns) and another over a longer period (10) for a greater overall amount. NOTE: I changed Chicken Dinner to heal HP slowly over time.

* NEW ACCESSORY: Nord's Helm (boosts Strength and Spirit)
* NEW ACCESSORY: Obsidian Band (reduces ability Energy cost by 20%, but all abilities now cost +10% stamina)
* NEW MONSTER: Sludge Spirit (Floors 10+). He's gross! Ew!
* NEW CHAMPION MOD: Barrier. Stronger version of Turtling :D
* NEW MAGIC MODS (ARMOR): Hardened, Sheltering. Adds flat damage reduction to your armor.
* NEW MAGIC MODS (WEAPON): Deadly, Lethal. Adds % critical damage.
* NEW ITEM: Elixir. Super rare, but heals all stats to full :D

ENGINE
* All music now streams instead of decompressing, which means it should load/play faster
* Various adjustments to hotbar handling
* Rework of all list indexing logic (visual lists of buttons/items, such as in the shop)
* Removed V-Sync quality modes as I think they were negatively impacting performance with no benefit
* Minor optimizations in level generation and per-turn step

QUALITY OF LIFE
* When opening a portal to town, you now spawn further from it upon arrival
* In the equipment screen, you can now press "U" on any weapon in your hotbar to remove it from your hotbar (and unequip it, if it is currently equipped)
* In the combat log, damage YOU receive is now a different color than damage enemies take
* Paladin now gets a Blunt Training Sword as a starting weapon, to match the sprite. Likewise, the Floramancer gets a Spark Staff.
* You will no longer see fists in your hotbar if there is no weapon assigned. The boxes will simply be empty. (People were getting confused at the idea of having 4 fists/hands...)
* You now start with your starting weapon equipped
* Some jobs start with a consumable nearby spawn
* When equipping in offhand slot, items you have in your hotbar are now marked
* While swapping items on the Equipment screen, you can no longer accidentally switch to another slot
* The default binding for ability rotation is now "R" instead of "T"
* Floating ability shapes can now be rotated with mouse wheel
* The equipment screen and shop screens now show an item comparison when swapping or buying items
* Current money is now displayed on the character sheet (C)
* There is now a visual indicator when Guardian Spheres are about to explode
* Tweaks to item colors, including a 4th rarity color (for 4+ magic mods)
* When saving your game, the system will save to a new backup file. If an error occurs, your original save will not be corrupted. This is useful for debugging and not destroying progress!
* When you die, the game over screen will give you some basic stats about your death and the combat log will remain open.
* Added toggleable "Grid Overlay" in the options menu that places a transparent grid on the map

WRITING
* Katje -> Katy
* Tutorial NPC at the end of the bridge in town gives better advice
* Budoka - "Power Kick" -> "Palm Thrust"
* Rewrote / condensed many magic mod descriptions
* Cleaned up some writing in the ingame manual ("H")

Aah, I'm eager to try this build--as per usual, I intend to download it later, and hopefully try it out soon! ^_^

The introduction of metagame elements is especially exciting! ^_^

I agree - I really like the banker concept.

NEW BUILD!

New build links
WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

This is the last build pre-Kickstarter launch (tomorrow!) and mainly focuses on bug fixes, polish, and balance tweaks. Just a bit of new content this time. Once the KS launches I will dive back in to features and content, and will be making some larger changes such as making the dungeon deeper and making the difficulty curve a bit gentler (in some ways).

NOTE FOR NEW PLAYERS: HIT F1 FOR HELP!

ART/VISUAL
* More equipment screen visual cleanup
* Improved the info display when you hover over an ability (or weapon) on your hotbar
* Updated sprite font for numbers
* Skill icon update - now, all job skills are colored based on job
* Status effect icons are now bigger
* New attack animation for Floramancer's starting weapon
* New title screen art!

BALANCE
* Alchemists no longer have two AOE attacks, but their ranged attack is a little stronger.
* Summoned pets now scale a little more with the summoner's level
* Floramancer's Vine Swing now restores a bit more Energy when used
* Mint Herb and Mint Fat Brews (healing potions 1 & 2) now heal a flat amount instead of % based.
* Overall loot drop rate has been decreased slightly
* Consumables now drop less frequently.
* HP curve has been reduced somewhat
* Toughness perk has been reduced in power (it was scaling considerably higher than the regular HP curve)
* The overall number of champions spawning has been decreased
* The ICE/water debuff from Frosted Jellies now lasts longer
* Tornado Stance duration shortened by 1 turn
* Verdigrizzlies hit a little harder
* Final boss adds do more damage and have more HP
* Final boss itself has better stats
* Sludge Spirits can now add a debuff that reduces healing effectiveness by 50% ("Toxified") applied on hit and on ranged attack
* Swamp Toads now show up in the main dungeon floors, can no longer regen, but CAN knock you around
* Paladin SANCTUARY: Lasts longer, but now gets consumed when you attack or use an ability
* Craggans are more powerful overall.
* River and Ember Spirits have been buffed a bit
* Rock Vipers have also been buffed a bit
* Enemy Floracondas can now add Toxified on hit (33% chance)
* Some non-champion monsters were giving a little too much bonus XP; this has been toned down
* Swords now give a +3% chance to parry on top of auto-counter attacking when parrying
* Number of fountains per floor has been decreased
* King of Bandits has been toughened up

BUGS
* Flavor damage type ("crushes", "slices") should read properly now
* Banker's interface has proper headers now
* Fountain sprite draw order is fixed
* Your summoned pets will no longer run from you
* Fixed game over screen not restarting properly... again?
* When rotating abilities, the targeting indicator will no longer disappear sometimes
* Adjusted gridlines visual to not allow "half tiles"
* Lava and mud should really, really not overlap anymore
* Fixed buggy interaction with certain abilities and destructibles
* Fixed some UI weirdness on Job screen
* List of active skills on the Skill sheet now scrolls and wraps properly
* Inventory and equipment lists should now refresh selected item when scrolling the list down
* Adjustments to UI 'dead zones' where the mouse was not triggering movement
* Magic fountains should no longer spawn on top of one another
* You can no longer press UI buttons in the upper right while dead
* Sound mix settings now apply to the title screen
* King's Champions will no longer attack the King (lol)
* Reduced instances of flashing numbers in the bottom left

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* Budoka new ability: Qi Strike. Tricky to use, but deals heavy ranged damage and can strike vital points.
* NEW ACCESSORY: Claw of Violence - same stats as old Nord Helm
* NEW CONSUMABLE: Barrier Potion. Gives you +30% defense against elemental damage.
* NORD HELM: Now gives you a Nordic Shout that pushes enemies away
* NEW MONSTER: Dark Panthox. A nasty variation on the Cave Lion...

ENGINE
* Optimized 'ronin' monster behavior code by simplifying for now - may return to this later
* Game now runs at a max framerate of 144 (this will be an option later, 30/60/120/144 max)

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Julia (tutorial NPC) will now automatically talk to first-time players when you cross the bridge in town. This only happens once
* Level music, once assigned, will not be changed when you return to that floor
* "Loading" text has been added when you select Continue from the main screen
* Hovering over the Flask or Portal reveals info about each
* Hovering over weapons in your hotbar will reveal info about them
* Item comparisons now take into account block chance for shields
* Clarified display for damage resistance on items
* Default help binding is now "F1"
* New button for "Hide Player Hud", default mapped to H. A bit of a hacky workaround for dealing with issues when you can't click tiles due to UI...
* Added some help info in the banker's dialogue

WRITING
* "Hiding" magic mod now called "Stealth"
* Frog Swamp -> Frog Bog
* Swamp Toad -> Bog Frog
* CT gain on light armor is spelled out explicitly

... one last build before the campaign launches ...

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip
(Note: Builds include handy command list txt!)

BALANCE
* Many damage-dealing abilities can now critically hit, increasing their damage by 33%. These are generally abilities that do upfront damage, NOT status effects (bleeds, poisons), tile hazards, or damage-over-time. The base crit chance is 5%.

BUGS
* More attempts at blocking mouse movement while clicking on hotbar
* Mud and water tiles should no longer stack
* Fixed various problems with right-click pathfinding

ENGINE
* Minor optimizations to player right-click pathfinding
* Minor optimizations to vision blocking checks

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Right-click movement (pathfinding) has been improved. Now, the destination tile will remain locked as long as you hold the right mouse button down. Once you reach the destination, after a brief pause, you will begin pathfinding to a new destination. Also, your pathfinding will be cleared if you engage in some kind of non-movement action (attacking a monster, talking to an NPC)

* "Show Map" is now assigned to TAB by default, not M
* Removed the ridge collider in town, west of the bridge
* Several map objects like water, mud and lava which previously did not have hover displays... now do

Thank you to everyone for your support of the game so far! Today, Tangledeep launched on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1363989456/tangledeep-a-dungeon-crawling-tribute-to-the-16-bi

I'm raising money for extra animations (walk cycles, attack animations for the player characters) plus special guest composers to make the game even more polished and awesome.

Already, composer Hiroki Kikuta (Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3) has agreed to contribute a track and I couldn't be happier! :D

Good luck with the Kickstarter! I hope that it goes well. ^_^ (It looks as though you've had a good start, at least!)

As per usual, I've downloaded the new version and intend to try it soon.

Speaking of which, I'm inclined now to guess that either I'm missing something from my WINE installation, or my Linux drivers aren't as good as my Windows drivers: a quick test in Windows 8.1 showed that one of the previous builds, which I believe ran slowly under WINE, ran quite well under Windows. I've also had at least one other case of a program seeming to run better under Windows than Linux--although that's a perhaps-muddier case, and didn't involve WINE.

As a result, I don't intend to report slowdowns in the future, should I encounter any, unless I try a build in Windows and encounter them there.

My apologies for any inconvenience that previous reports may have caused! :/

No no not at all. I've been continually optimizing the game and there are yet more things to do to get it running really well. Plus a native Linux build at some point.

Ah, I'm glad then!

And a native Linux build would be lovely! ^_^

No surprise, but great to see how well you guys have done already! Seriously - I hope you have some stretch goals in mind :)

Can't WAIT to hear this soundtrack!

P.S. Any plans to release some of the SAC presets you've developed for this as a pack or anything?

Basically all the sounds are straightforward out of the SNES sample set, no fancy layering happening :-) I'll do a video on it at some point though.

NEW BUILD!

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

IMPORTANT: Be sure to check the Options menu and set your new Cursor Repeat Delay setting to taste

Our Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1363989456/799120286/) has been going great, reaching nearly 75% funding in just a few days! This has also been the biggest audience ever playing the game, which means I've had LOTS of bugs to fix. That was the main focus of today's build, BUT I managed to get a bunch of other awesome features in like a drag-and-drop equipment UI, a number of new items, new magic mod, new champ mod, wandering & hidden merchants, new art, etc.

Enjoy!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/EQSwapping.gif)

ART/VISUALS
* More new skill + status icons
* Animated water v1!
* New art for recovery / buff effects
* New ice attack / shatter effects

BALANCE
* "Frozen" champions have been buffed: breaking their ice crystals now reduces your charge time and deals damage
* Non-projectile ranged weapons like spears now deal 25% less damage when attacking at range
* Budoka Palm Thrust: 20 -> 15 stamina

BUGS
* Disabled title screen fade-in. Was causing a black screen on some computers?
* Fixed nullref on game load (sorry)
* Fixed nullref on game restart and picking up items
* Fixed minor error related to deserializing terrain tiles (caused extra load time)
* Fixed some jank and errors in shop UI (especially with the map merchant)
* Added code to check for dead monsters each turn and get 'em off the map in case they were not removed before
* Increased leniency for map generation attempts to hopefully avoid total failures (maps full o' rock)
* Opening the Job screen no longer shows placeholder text on first open
* Hovering over buffs/debuffs shows information again
* Pressing numpad 5 now skips turn, like I said it would in the help text
* If a creature absorbs damage, it will no longer take 1 damage, but 0.
* The keyboard in examine mode (X) now has a 'cooldown' so it doesn't go nuts
* Fixed bug with dropping items from your inventory or equipment, which was causing exceptions
* Monsters that "Love Battles" will no longer be attracted to non-battles automatically
* Obsidian Bands will actually drop now
* The Banker will no longer periodically get rid of your items
* Fixed some inconsistencies in shop, inventory, equipment UI and hovering
* Pathfinding highlight square should no longer get 'stuck' visibly on the map when mouse buttons are up
* Options Menu: All options should now work when clicked on (previously, only keyboard worked for about half)
* Fixed display problem where Steadfast energy shields visually stacked
* Toggled abilities with stamina/energy requirements will now stop working when you drop below that requirement
* Abilities no longer crit 100% of the time
* Fixed bad behavior/errors in the first boss fight... Caused by healing monsters searching to heal monsters on OTHER FLOORS WOW BAD F-.
* Player's combat list is now cleared when switching floors

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* You will now find Armor, Jewelry and Bow/Ranged merchants hidden in the dungeon!
* Also, wandering merchants will now occasionally visit Riverstone Camp. (You'll get a message about this)
* Planks will now randomly spawn in water, giving you a way to easily walk over it without penalty!
* New champion mod: BLAZING. The champion's attacks will set you aflame, and they will constantly summon burning fires all around. Not only do the fires hurt you, but they heal the champion!
* NEW MAGIC MOD (Weapons): Bandit Slaying
* NEW ACCESSORY: Tier 4 helmet (phys resist/HP)
* NEW ACCESSORY: Necro Band
* NEW WEAPON: Flail (unique weapon type)
* NEW WEAPON: Sickle (unique weapon type)
* NEW WEAPON: Bone Dagger (mid-tier dagger)
* NEW LIGHT ARMOR: Runic Garb

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Left mouse button now defaults to pathfind, while right mouse button is the direct-line move.
* The equipment screen has been remodeled for improved mouse control. You can now use the mouse to simply drag equipment to the slot of your choice, using the Filter buttons on the right to narrow down the displayed equipment list. You no longer need to click slots or items to swap - just drag and drop.
* Identical consumables are now combined in your inventory and show quantities in parenthesis! Hooray!
* When using keyboard to move through mud, if you are rooted, your movement will stop until you press the key again
* Hovering over / examining that staircase will display where it goes. Also, standing on the staircase will print the destination in your combat log
* Character screen now shows how much damage your critical hits do
* Summoned pets should no longer steal powerups
* New options for FRAME CAP and CURSOR REPEAT DELAY. Frame Cap sets to 30, 60, 120, or 144fps. Good for throttling CPU/GPU and temps. The latter applies to using the keyboard when navigating menus.
* An animation/sfx will play when you get a powerup

Mini-followup build, early morning :D

BALANCE
* Mud no longer drains stamina. However, the chance to get rooted while walking through is higher now.
* More balance changes are coming, but for now, Panthox nerfed a bit
* Bandages now heal Poison. If they remove a status they heal 10% of max HP instead of 5%.

BUGS
* Jewelry merchant no longer carries a ridiculous number of items
* Fixed error when killing enemies in certain special areas (such as Bottles n' Brews)
* Vault to the left of the Banker is now collidable
* Turning off tutorial tips should work now
* Options should save/load again...

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* New wandering merchant: Wando. Sells various specialty Slaying weapons
* New MAGIC MOD (any item type): Lucky. Chance to find extra gold on monsters.
* New STARTING PERK Rage. You deal +15% damage when at 50% or lower health.
* Bandages now heal HP conditionally - only if they removed a status first.

ENGINE
* New support for magic mod 'flags', allowing them to be grouped or filtered in various interesting ways
* New support for status 'flags' like Bleed or Poison, also allowing grouping/filtering and processing
* Support for abilities to have conditionals based on the results of the first effect. For example, remove status -> if statuses were removed, run further effects.

The game continue to progress well, by the looks of things. (In particular, the inclusion of drag-and-drop controls to the UI seems to me to be a very good idea!) ^_^

Since WINE doesn't seem to run the Windows version terribly well any more, I may stick to playing in Windows for now; since I so seldom boot into Windows, I fear that my feedback is going to become more sporadic for now. If I discover a means of making WINE run it more quickly, or a Linux build is released (or, I suppose, I end up using Windows more often), this may change. Sorry about this! :/

Nevertheless, I intend to keep downloading the new builds, and to still be present in the thread! ^_^

Ladies and gentlemen, we've done it!

Tangledeep (http://kickstarter.com/projects/1363989456/799120286/) has been fully funded! Now I can ad all that delicious polish, AND, since the Kickstarter isn't over yet, there are more stretch goals (http://kickstarter.com/projects/1363989456/799120286/) (and more awesome polish) ahead.

For example, composer Grant Kirkhope (GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Civilization: Beyond Earth, Yooka-Laylee...) will be joining the project as a guest composer if we can hit the $21k goal. How awesome is that?!

NEW BUILD DAY!

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

Of course, we're not resting on any laurels here - I've been putting every spare minute into Tangledeep to make it better and better.

This build is pretty major from a balance and content perspective. Notably, the dungeon is now 20 floors total, and all enemies and loot drops have been rebalanced to compensate for the additional length. That means new monsters have been added, abilities have been changed, HP/damage values tweaked, and new side areas available to explore. My goal is to smooth over the difficulty curve so there is not such a dramatic spike between certain floors, also giving you time to learn enemy behaviors/powers and build up loot.

While dungeon expansion is the main thrust of the update there's tons of other great changes and additions too. Check it out!

(http://i.imgur.com/LNlvXoT.gif)

ART/VISUALS
* New Brigand, Sword Dancer, and Floramancer walk animations!
* New animation for breaking wood
* New art for "Frozen" ice blocks (smaller)
* New levelup visuals (w/ audio)

AUDIO
* New gameover music (Sorry you died)

BALANCE
* Hand-tuned monster levels and mlvl to player level ratios. Generally speaking, as you level up, it will take longer for a monster to register as less dangerous (and thus give less XP).
* Monster xp/loot values adjusted across the board
* Monster power/hp also adjusted across the board
* Monsters will now run from you by default IF you are so powerful that they give no rewards
* Sale values of some hand-priced items reduced
* Blazing champion mod: Chance to proc their DOT reduced to 50% on hit instead of 100%. Also, the DOT refreshes duration but will not STACK duration.
* Electrified champion mod: Casts more frequently
* Staircases to side areas / branching paths no longer display destination name until you use them once
* Nord's Helm now increases Stamina and Energy in addition to giving you the Nordic Shout ability
* Multiple dodge-enhancing mods will no longer spawn on magic items
* Bandit Chemists can now heal their allies
* Summoned pets will now scale in level proportional to your character (previously, their level number did not increase, leading to lower combat effectiveness)
* Summoned pets gain a little more HP in proportion to your level
* Monsters below your level now scale up a little bit more
* Weapon damage no longer scales up quite as fast
* Champion mobs no longer drop loot above their challenge value (but they do have a greater chance of magical items!)

BUGS
* Trying to use an ability with insufficient Energy/Stamina will no longer put the ability on cooldown
* Brambles/Thorns mods, as well as Flaming/Thorned skin now react ONLY to melee attacks
* Adjusted some rendering layers related to trees
* If you are reduced to 0 HP by a DOT, you should die immediately
* The "caged" Verdigrizzlies in the casino are no longer champions and can no longer ruin your casino experience. Unless you release them
* Map generation should now properly cap monster density
* Monsters should now save and load their ability cooldown states
* Job change scrolls / dungeon maps no longer consume the entire stack when used
* Ability animations should now properly display on an actors' current position (was causing mismatches before if player was moving - monsters could cast on the previous square)
* Champion powers will now be properly read from save files (!!!)
* Various abilities should now properly play their animations even on empty tiles, such as the Lightning Storm champion mod
* Fixed error/bad behavior when you had more than 6 displayable buffs or debuffs (extra statuses will, for now, not show)
* "On Move" status effects will now only run or tick if the player actually moves (attacking no longer counts as a move)
* Fixed obscure game load bug
* Summoned monsters should now immediately appear, not 'pop in' after a moment
* Clicking to fire at an enemy with ranged weapon should now work with either mouse button

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* Significant rework to the dungeon. It has been extended down to 20 floors! Many monsters have been rebalanced, three new ones have been added (see below), and there is a new boss fight. These drastic changes might mean balance gets thrown off, so be sure to let me know how your runs go!

* New low-ish level side area: Flooded Temple!
* New mid-level side area: Bandit Enclave!
* NEW POTION: Brew of Rapidity. Increases your CT gain for a brief time! Action economy!
* NEW MONSTER: Crabbit. You'll find these not-so-threatening dudes on the lower levels, but don't get too complacent: if they grab on to you, they won't let go!
* NEW MONSTER: Airacudas. A swarm of snapping fish in midair... why not!? Watch out: if they smell blood, they go berserk!
* NEW MONSTER: Bandit Spellshaper. This dangerous enemy uses shadow, ice, and acid to ruin your day!
* NEW CHAMPION MOD: Blademaster. Summons lots of spinning, moving blades!
* Food restructured and expanded further for consistency. All heal-over-time food has two types: a faster heal, and a slower heal (with more overall power). MEATS restore health. CHEESES restore stamina. MINT restores energy. FRUITS restore all stats. The Choco Bar has been repurposed and now gives you an instant +50 CT. (It does still fill you up, though.)
* Sword Dancer's "Thundering Lion" ability has been remade. Now, when toggled, you will gain an Electric Charge each time you move, at the cost of 5 Energy. You can hold up to 3 charges. Each charge gives you a bonus to Parry, and will be unleashed on your next attack as lightning bolts. (More charges = more damage). This should synergize better with the flowing, movement-heavy gameplay of the Sword Dancer, and fills both an offensive and defensive role.
* Jade Beetles no longer have a wind-up charge, but instead, will rush at you with a jump attack.
* Accessory flasks removed from the game (will come back in another form)
* Stone Labyrinth removed (was mainly a test thing)

ENGINE
* Wrote some useful code to calculate expected monster damage
* Fine-tuned several dungeon map generation algorithms
* Added more tweaking control in XML files for dungeon generation
* Rivers can now spawn randomly and cut through any part of a dungeon level (more organic this way)
* AlterBattleData effects now support changes to Spirit Power and Crit Damage (more elegant!)

QUALITY OF LIFE
* "Examine" is now user-mappable on the Input tab at game launch
* Food consumables now show how much they heal up, and over how many turns
* When attacking an enemy, their information will pop up in the info bar at the top of the screen (this can be toggled with H, as with the rest of the hud)
* Job change scrolls are no longer consumed if you exit without using them
* Special effect text in combat log from some monster abilities is now highlighted in yellow
* Toxic clouds are more visible now
* Build date is now displayed on the title screen
* Champion bombs now draw over most other actors so they are more visible
* Monsters should no longer spawn on top of stairs

WRITING
* New damage flavor text for bite attacks
* New combat log text when switching jobs

Congratulations on hitting your Kickstarter goal! Good luck with the stretch-goals. ^_^

I have the new build downloaded, and hope to try it soon. ^_^

My apologies that I'm a little late with this, but I have a bit of feedback on the previous build. If anything below has been dealt with in the new build, then simply ignore! ^^;

 - The new UI feels much better, I think!

 - I like that hovering over an occupied weapon-bar icon results in the weapon's power being shown--I found it useful and convenient to have that information on-hand.

 - The bridges crossing the various streams are a welcome addition, providing a means of crossing without paying in stamina.

 - The animated water is an improvement, I feel.

 - It feels a little weird to right-click to move to an adjacent square--especially since the right mouse-button doesn't also interact with menu-items. (I tend to prefer single-tile movement--although this may just be a matter of becoming accustomed to using the pathfinding mechanic.)

 - A suggestion: In the equipment screen, if the player drags a weapon off of the weapon-bar and drops it onto another weapon, swap the latter into the slot from which the former was dragged.

 - An odd bug: I switched to another window to type something. I then returned to the game--only to find that the mouse-controls no longer worked! The keyboard controls still did, however--and indeed, opening the equipment screen seemed to restore mouse control.

 - I had an instance in which a set of stairs was hidden behind the leaves of a tree--I only found it via the map, I believe.

 - It feels difficult to restore stamina compared to energy--and especially compared to health.
  -- This is perhaps exacerbated by the stamina-draining effect of water--there seems to be no analogue for the other stats.
  -- Perhaps it might be worth allowing stamina alone to restore naturally? (Perhaps by uncovering new tiles on the map, or granting a flat amount when moving to an unvisited floor?)

Thanks for the feedback! You CAN left click to move to an adjacent square, right? Just click and you'll move there. No problemo. Will keep working on the rest...

NEW BUILD!

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

As we approach the Kickstarter campaign's (http://kickstarter.com/projects/1363989456/799120286/) first stretch goal (character portraits!) I've got a new update ready to go! This introduces the rumor system. Rumors are a way to get extra items, JP, XP, and gold, as well as get info about parts of the dungeon you've not yet explored. There are 4 types of rumors to start with, which you can obtain (for a price) in Riverstone Camp. There are also 'conditions' which sometimes appear with rumors, adding extra rewards - but extra challenges too.

Aside from this - which took most of my dev time since last build - there are quite a few bug fixes, some balance tweaks, and a key fix that should make the UI more usable at resolutions lower than 1920x1080. Check the full log out below!

p.s. Hit "Q" to view your current rumors, this can be re-bound in the Input tab on launch

BALANCE
* Blademaster champion: Spin blades will no longer hit twice in the same turn. Also, they don't double-summon blades anymore.
* Goliath Beetle's jump attack now has a one-turn windup, and cooldown has gone from 4 -> 6
* More fine-tuning over number of champions per floor, and max mods per champion (this can now be set in mapgen data.) Crucially, side areas no longer *automatically* support up to 4-mod champions!
* XP/JP awards from destroying monster-spawning crystals have been increased based on your level
* You can no longer see enemy status durations unless you have the "Keen Eyes" perk

BUGS
* Opening your inventory, equipment (etc) while in a shop will now close the shop instead of drawing behind the shop
* Fixed "Test 123" message when toggling player HUD (info bar will not show if it's blank)
* UI should now be more usable at lower resolutions (UI anchors/scaling adjusted)
* Recovery/Buff effects will now follow characters instead of staying in the square they were spawned
* Fixed impassable fountains in the Flooded Temple 2F
* Fixed missing stairs up in Flood Temple 2F
* Banker should save items now if you die and continue the game right away
* You can no longer use Knight's Shovels on boss maps or in the town.
* Tile visual types (like earth vs. stone tile set) are now properly saved and loaded with the game
* Items with multiple inherent magical properties (i.e. Woodland Vest) will now save/load properly and not stack their effects
* Fixed bug where some magical mods would make weapons gain more power with every game load (lol)
* Left-clicking on enemies with a ranged weapon will really actually attack them now (as long as you're within range)
* Fixed game restart bug when you selected "restart with same character"

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* The RUMOR system has been added! RUMORS are a blend of: tips about potentially useful areas or items, quests that yield rewards, and challenges that take extra skill and care to complete. RUMORS are told to you by a new NPC in Riverstone Camp, for a price. You can have up to 3 at once. For now, there are four possible types of rumors, which can be made more difficult (yet rewarding) due to extra completion conditions. Once rumors are completed (or failed), you can learn of more, but you must keep exploring deeper into the dungeon to unlock them. PRESS Q TO VIEW RUMORS

* New low-level side area: Jelly Grotto. What could possibly be inside?
* TWO NEW MONSTERS: Fire and Electric Jellies, found in the easier levels of Tangledeep
* New champion mod: PULLER. Will randomly pull other monsters into the fray, causing damage if they land near you.
* Added a tier of magical items between "Magical" (2 mods) and "Artifact" (4 mods), called "Ancient" (for now)
* MUD now dampens LIGHTNING damage

ENGINE
* Wow that rumor system. It saves and loads too!

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Game now tracks champions defeated (actually this was last build, but I didn't write it in the notes)
* Blessed Hammers and Blademaster swords will now indicate their direction of movement
* Branched paths/side areas now count toward "lowest floor explored" (which also impacts things like merchants restocking)
* Poison clouds now draw on top of actors (more visible)
* Tiles destroyed with Knight's Shovels are now more obviously destroyed from the surrounding area

WRITING
* Expanded the champion name generator

Had a very productive evening and morning, so here's another build! :D

ART
* Gorgeous visually expansive art for Riverstone Camp!

BALANCE
* Spellshaper's Delayed Teleport now uses 20 Stamina instead of 10 Stamina and 10 Energy
* Crabbids slightly nerfed
* Rumors with conditions now give even more rewards. "No Flask" condition gives yet more still. "Damage Taken" has been made more lenient.
* The cost to learn a rumor now scales +25g per level, but you also earn more gold rewards.
* Rearranged the golem boss fight a bit
* Turtling and Barrier champions now reflect projectiles when their shields are up, if you fire into the shield!
* Gems drop less frequently

BUGS
* Summoned pets really shouldn't take powerups now
* Stamina bar no longer flashes when moving through mud
* Crabbids will now move again after you disrupt their grab
* Fixed some incorrect Spellshaper icons
* You can actually finish rumors that point you toward magical items
* Abilities that hit multiple squares will no longer sometimes take much longer to resolve
* Hovering over status buffs/debuffs now shows info again
* Charge time display on the main HUD is now synced with the character sheet (also, the sheet version is more readable)
* Visual - Grass now correctly spawns in side areas

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* NEW ITEM: Tent. Just like in all the classic JRPGs, this heals your stats to full! However, it can ONLY be used in town... (Todo: Sleep music)
* NEW SIDE AREA: Applewood Grove, complete with a Grotto Flyer variant (Grove Pest)

ENGINE
* Support for totally custom, one-off ability effects

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Death screen now shows your character level and job

I can, I believe--and indeed, I perhaps didn't convey very well what I was doing.

Outside of combat, I tend to move my character as though it were controlled by a directional key: I point the mouse in the direction in which I want to go, and hold down the "move" key, adjusting the mouse position as called for. This doesn't require that I be clicking on the square beside me--just a square that lies  in the right direction. Since movement is turn-based, I still have control over which squares I enter (with occasional errors, I daresay), but don't have to click on each in turn.

Unless I'm mistaken, the left-mouse controls don't work quite that way: the choice of tiles is determined by the pathing algorithm, with little input from me aside from selecting the destination.


Ooh, this sounds like a rather interesting take on quest-giving!


That seems useful! The requirement that it be used in town is interesting--we'll see whether the inconvenience of going back is greater than the temptation to sleep frequently...

As per usual, I have the latest build downloaded, I believe, and hope to try it soon! ^_^

Feedback!

First of all, I had a lot of fun playing this build! The game really feels to me as though it's coming together. ^_^

The rumour system adds a fair bit for me: I find it fun to have specific goals to seek out while exploring the dungeon.

I also rather like some of the new side-areas; the jelly cave (the proper name of which I forget) was a nice low-level encounter, and the Applewood Grove was a fun little adventure. In the latter, I particularly like that the insects steal fruit--it provides a new incentive to engage with them.

The "Blademaster" champion effect is an interesting one!

On a similar note, I like the new monsters now available, especially the varieties of slime--their various abilities provide a little extra interest to the combat, I find.

I kinda like that monsters that would provide no XP on defeat now run from the player: it reinforces, to me, the sense of the character increasing in power, as well as providing feedback that there's little profit in killing them. The "worthless" tag is similar, I think. (Although both do also feel a little sad, the former especially!)

There are some really cool items turning up in the dungeon now. ^_^

You mentioned the presence of a tent item--where does one get it? I didn't notice it in any of the stores that I visited. (Is it dropped by some creature, perhaps?)


Bugs and issues:

 - Chicken Dinners seem to have the same price as Turkey Legs, which feels a little off.
 
 - With Energy and Stamina so limited, I find myself avoiding the use of my evocations when playing as a Spellshaper; instead, I tend to save them for more dangerous encounters. This feels to me like a bit of a pity, and somewhat contrary to my impression of the class. :/

 - I had a case in which the game would not let me cast a materialised, square-shaped shadow invocation. I had 43 Energy and 88 Stamina, I believe. The spell-shape did include some obstructed tiles, but not all were, and I think that I was clicking on a non-wall tile. A fire evocation did work, if I recall correctly.
  --That said, I think that I may have had some instances of clicks being "ignored" elsewhere, so the issue may have come from that.

 - I got the same rumour twice--the same down to the item to be acquired and its stats, and the creature from which to get it--but with different rewards offered. (I died before I reached it, so I don't know what might have happened if I had completed "both" quests.)

 - Unlike food, potions that heal stats don't seem to display the amount of healing that they provide.

 - The key-binding for the "rumour" screen doesn't seem to be shown in either the help screen or the "readme" file--although it's possible that I simply missed it!

 - It seems that sometimes deactivating a spell-shape consumes a turn--is that intended?


A few thoughts:

 - Breakable walls hide secret areas, but they seem to be displayed on the map in a colour other than that of normal walls, which can somewhat give them away. That said, they're also distinct in the level, too, so perhaps they're intended to be clearly visible?

 - A suggestion: In the equipment screen, have item-comparison information show when the player drags one item over another, presuming that the two are compatible. For example, if I have two suits of armour in my equipment (aside from the suit being worn), I might compare the two by dragging one and hovering it over the other.

Great feedback, noted all the bugs/inconsistencies, will look into it more.

Stamina/Energy are indeed supposed to be limited, but food is (relatively) plentiful - between that and powerups you should be able to use abilities regularly enough. No job can get by right now without a decent amount of physical fighting and I think I like that design because of the variety of weapons, the weapon hotbar for easy switching, and all the possible weapon mods you can have.

That being said as the game goes on you can find more and more ways to mitigate energy costs. More on that next patch...

I did find foodstuffs to be very useful, I will admit. I think that I did feel that I was pressing up against the limits of my gold, but then I seem to recall that I still had food in my inventory when I died, so perhaps I was nevertheless a little too parsimonious with it.


Fair enough.

I think that I tend to be frustrated when a game offers a class that appears to be a pure- or near-pure- spellcaster--but then nevertheless expects me to rely primarily on standard weapons. That, however, is a matter of personal taste.

I have been thinking about giving the Floramancer another shot; in light of this, perhaps I'll like that better. (While I do recall using standard weapons rather a lot with the Floramancer, I suspect that, given the class's flavour and abilities, I'm less likely to feel that I'm missing out on a pure-spellcaster experience.)


Fair enough again--I wait to see what those are. ^_^

NEW BUILD!

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

OK! This build introduces an all-new job with the most custom ability coding I've done yet... the Gambler may or may not be balanced, but she'll take those monsters for all they're worth! This is a job that relies on high-risk, high-reward playstyles and (of course) some luck too.

On the balance side, you can expect a greater challenge from floors 9 and up, as monster damage was not scaling anywhere near enough previously. The aggro/stealth system has been revamped and is ab it less abusable. Recovery abilities have also been scrapped or reworked; there are no longer any jobs who can simply heal themselves on command.

Lots more too... see the full log below!

ART/VISUALS
* New sparkly effect for even common items to help them pop. All loot should shine. Even meat!

BALANCE
* Monster damage + health has increased starting w/ monsters that appear in dungeon floors 9 and up. This means significant damage boosts for some monsters. Let's see how that goes. Watch out! ;)
* Rumors now start at 75g instead of 125g
* Brigand's "Sneak Attack", as well as other abilities that require you to be 'out of combat', should now more accurately check to see if you are actually hostile/aggroed to enemies.
* Scavenging magic mod has been halved in effectiveness (was offering a huge drop rate boost before!)
* Scavenger perk also modestly reduced in effectiveness
* Magic Books (offhand item) no longer give you Energy on attack. Instead, they reduce Energy costs (scaling up per item tier)
* "Max Steps" condition for rumors will now scale if the target floor is further away, making it easier to complete
* Max number of equipped passives / support abilities is now 4 (down from 5)
* The Bandit boss fight is tougher now - all mobs have been buffed, there are now Bandit Spellshapers, and the King has a new trick up his sleeve
* Dark Panthox' Claw Rake attack now has an expanded range
* Paladin's "Heavy Guard" no longer takes Stamina to toggle on/off
* "Elemental Shielding" and "Elemental Protection" offhand magic mods no longer stack
* "Quick Step" ability from perk now only costs 15 Stamina down from 25
* GUILE stat now has more of an effect on your chance to crit and parry.
* STRENGTH stat no longer scales healing received from items
* Prices of magical items have been generally scaled back a bit (includes sale prices)
* Slow-healing food (that heals MORE over time) is now slightly more expensive

BUGS
* Monsters in secret areas will now react if you attack them from outside the secret area
* "Number of healing items" counter on death screen now accounts for stacks of items
* Fixed some weird behavior with Floramancer's "Aura of Growth" that caused vines to not spawn in some areas
* Fixed bug with "ronin" type monsters generating errors (i.e. in Applewood Grove)
* Fixed some text alignment issues in dialog boxes
* Hopefully fixed some bugs related to saving/loading (corrupted saves somehow)
* Fixed exception/error when switching jobs with status overlays active (Steadfast magic mod for example)
* Added error checking for loading quests from save
* Status effects and items that affect crit chance should now be reflected on your character sheet (crit chance)
* There should no longer be impassable planks
* You should no longer get duplicate "Find Item" rumors

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* New job: The GAMBLER! Gamblers throw caution to the wind, relying on high-risk high-reward abilities with just a pinch of luck. If you like to shoot the moon, roll the dice, and let the cards fall where they may, this is the job for you! (NOTE: Gambler is missing some art and some rare hand effects, but this is coming.)

* Recovery job abilities have been reworked because they generally have been throwing off game balance. Recovery should come from your Flask, food, and potions - if some jobs have simple self-healing abilities, then restoring Energy suddenly becomes that much more valuable for those specific jobs. Here's what changed.

   FLORAMANCER
   1. Photosynthesis ability has been altered. This is now a self-buff that improves your damage and defense by 15% if standing near a summoned vine.
   2. Floramancers have a new innate passive - when your Summoned Living Vine dies, recover 15% of your max HP.

   PALADIN
   1. Close Wounds removed.
   2. New ability: Radiant Aura. This is a toggle that restores Health when you block an attack. (Balance note: Does not work when fighting trivial enemies!)

   BUDOKA:   "Iron Breathing" costs 15 Energy down from 20, but now ONLY heals if it also removes a status. However, it does heal for more than it did before. (Also, it will not heal if the status was applied by a trivial monster.)

* "Stealth" effects such as the Intimidating perk, Brigand's Smoke Cloud, Light armor and Stealth equipment have all been changed. They no longer reduce the enemy's aggro/sight range. Instead, they reduce the chance an enemy will aggro/notice you if you are within their range. Thus, even with a lot of stealth, you can still get noticed by an aggressive monster if you spend too much time nearby.

* There is now a chance that a side area will be hidden / not discoverable until you hear a rumor about it. (That's what I was going for to begin with)
* Spellshapers have a new innate job passive: Stamina powerups now restore a little Energy too.
* New side area: PET SHOPPE (also a wandering merchant). And some new items exclusive to there.
* WAYPOINTS! As you explore deeper into the dungeon, moving to the entrance of Tangledeep will allow you to select a floor to jump to (increments of 5)
* Confusion status effect added to the game

ENGINE
* Support for ability effects that reduce Energy and Stamina costs (rather than hardcoding this!)
* Support for abilities that cost % of current or max health
* Support for Status Effects to use conditionals like ___ damage taken since previous turn
* Effect components can now be created in XML and read individually, then attached modularly to abilities and statuses

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Equipping or unequipping gear with Health, Stamina, or Energy bonuses now only increases your MAX stat and not your current stat. Which means you can't kill yourself unequipping a Hood anymore!
* Various tweaks to Riverstone Camp map grid

WRITING
* Orbs of Summoning are now Mystery Eggs
* Clarified when a weapon must be Projectile for certain effects, vs. just being ranged (i.e. spears)

NEW BUILD...

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

Well there sure were a lot of bugs with that last build! Oops! This new one fixes lots of them, plus older bugs that have been around for a long time. I made some deep engine changes to map generation, saving, and loading, so hopefully nothing will break this time?

This build also adds a much-requested feature, a healer in town! Percy doesn't do much at the moment other than heal you to full, but that's pretty good, right? Of course, healing isn't free, and it only gets more expensive each time you do it per character level. In other words: you won't pay much earlier on, but as the XP curve slopes upward and you spend more time on each experience level, you won't be able to rely on him as much.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/RiverstoneCamp.png)

And here's the Gambler styling on some enemies...

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/GamblerFun.gif)

ART/VISUALS
* New art for monster eggs

BALANCE
* Mint Herb Brew buffed
* Breakable tiles leading to secret areas no longer show up on the minimap
* Paladin's "Radiant Aura" no longer costs Energy to toggle
* Paladin's "Radiant Aura" and "Heavy Guard" toggle cooldowns reduced
* "Confident" magic mod now gives you +20% attack damage if you're above 75% health (as opposed to at 100% health)

BUGS
* Fixed visual bug with getting an ever-increasing number of Gambler cards on-screen; also, cards will no longer draw over ability hover text
* Fixed error when getting a One Pair with Wild Cards
* Fixed bug where the Knight's Shovel would not work on some floors with generic tiles (it should only be unusable in areas with custom tiles)
* Character sheet now shows block chance modified by status effects like Paladin's Heavy Guard
* Lightweight magic mod will no longer spawn on 2H weapons
* Fire Jellies should no longer throw fire away from you
* Gambler's "Hot Streak" should leave fire trails now
* Toggling abilities off (such as spellshapes) will no longer take a turn
* Fixed some deep engine bugs related to saving/loading discrete areas
* Actual Rumor cost should match the displayed cost now
* Fixed rare map generation error/hang
* Misc icon fixes for some status effects, recentered pivot for some jobs

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* A reluctant new friend has joined Riverstone Camp: Percy, the healer!

ENGINE
* Rewrite of how "areas" (rooms, corridors) are handled, saved, and loaded

QUALITY OF LIFE
* When returning to an area with merchants, if they have restocked their inventory you will receive a message in the game log
* Potions now show about how much they heal in their description

As per usual, I believe that I have the most recent build downloaded, and hope to try it soon. ^_^


It's the iron content. :P


Ooh, I like that! I had previously not found much use in the energy gain from books (or at least the ones that I was managing to afford before death...), but a reduction in energy costs is a very appealing feature! (Especially given the above-mentioned issue of not getting to use evocations as often as I might like.)


Hmm... Between this and the change to books, above, I'm tempted to forgo my plans to try out the Floramancer again...


Hah, I'm glad that I missed that one, then! :P


Ahh, interesting--that does seem like a neat feature, especially given the scaling!

Very good!  :monoclepop:

NEW BUILD! 4/12/17

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

This essential update fixes some map generation issues and other big bugs, while also making key balance tweaks, and adding an all-new map layout style. There are also a bunch of new items, the 2nd boss fight has been redone, and Percy - the turtle healer - can now change your job anytime, and give you temporary 'blessings' too!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Shadow%20Sanctum.png)
The new "Shadow Sanctum" boss fight

ART/VISUALS
* New 'outlines' for equipment sheet when you're not wearing items in a specific slot
* Visual improvements and new details in Riverstone Camp

BALANCE
* Gambler: Chance to get a Wild Card draw increased (it is now base 100% chance per crit or monster kill, scaling down with easier enemies)
* Gambler's "High Card" poker hand now scales up in damage slightly with each card in your hand, so blowing a whole hand on a single attack is a bit better :)
* Gambler's "Sharp Eyes" buff no longer lasts forever
* Increased drop rate of tents
* Halved drop rate of Job Change Scrolls
* The (placeholder) final boss is harder now.
* Money received from monsters scales slightly less with monster level now
* Sale prices of items reduced a bit

BUGS
* Rumors ACTUALLY COST THE RIGHT AMOUNT, really (75g base, +50g per char level)
* Fixed bug with Hunter's Blood Tracking that continuously lowered all your resistances. (Oops)
* Fixed bug with Blessed Hammer causing major errors
* Flask charges should update more consistently on UI now
* Fixed some bugs with Ruins map generation creating cut-off "islands" of ground
* Attacking with elemental weapons should now actually use that element (applies to monsters too)
* Fixed a bug with consumables not stacking properly if a monster picked up a stack
* Fixed a bug where Grove Pests would steal from themselves and multiply the amount of fruit they had...
* PROBABLY fixed bug where some dungeon levels would have unreachable areas. Let me know if this continues.
* Equipping gear that gives you more HP will no longer affect current HP

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* New map generation type, currently found on floors 14 and 18... introducing a new environmental hazard: poison atmosphere! Stand in rooms with Purifiers to save yourself!
* You can now talk to Percy (turtle guy) to change your job anytime! This gets more expensive each time you do it, and scales up with character level
* Percy can now also give you blessings, buffs that can make life in the dungeon easier. Blessing cost is based on your level, and they only tick down while in the dungeon.
* Spirit Sanctuary has been renamed Shadow Sanctum. The layout has changed slightly, the air is now poisonous, and the boss is different... :D
* NEW FOOD: Hearty Carrot! Grants immunity to negative status effects for a brief time. (Doesn't affect existing statuses you might have.)
* NEW FOOD: Briny Fish! Allows you to effortlessly move through water, gaining an extra 5 CT per step.
* NEW WEAPON: Sharktooth Axe. A particularly powerful weapon that is less accurate than most, but hits like a truck if it connects.
* NEW ACCESSORY: Judo Sash. Grants you the basic unarmed fighting ability of a Budoka.
* NEW ACCESSORY: Topaz Earrings. Allows you to absorb incoming lightning damage.

ENGINE
* Status effects can be flagged as "dungeon only"

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Added "MISS" text when you miss your target with a regular attack
* Monsters killed by the player will always show up in the combat log regardless of distance

WRITING
* Added clarifying text in Percy (healer) dialog explaining his pricing

I intend to download the new build a little later, and hopefully try it soon. ^_^

That said, I have some feedback on the previous build. A few of the points that I noted for feedback seem likely to have been fixed--they were a single-tile dungeon on level five, which stopped my progress, and rumour prices not seeming to be as expected, I believe.

I decided to try out the Floramancer this time, and had fun doing so. I miss my evocations, but the often-persistent nature of the Floramancer's art perhaps results in my feeling that I'm getting more use out of them. Perhaps a multi-class run is in order--especially now that job-changing can be handled via Percy...

First of all, I very much like the Floramancer's more-animated sprite; I think that the walk-cycle adds somewhat to the aesthetics of the game. Similarly, I like the new tile for the "Bed of Thorns"; the animation is a nice touch, I think.

I also rather like the Spark Staff as a starting weapon: it's different, and it feels appropriately "magical", unlike the fairly basic slingshot that I recall the class previously starting with.


Issues:

 - Bank prices feel frustratingly high at times. Leaving a run, I had some rather nice gear that I wanted to keep--only to find that the price of doing so was significantly more than the money that seemed to be available to me. :/
  -- Come to that, what is the purpose of requiring payment for deposits? The player is already sacrificing access to the weapon in question, or the gold that could be had by selling it. There's also a limitation on how many items may be stored. Why prevent the player from storing things?

 - The bank's storage functionality doesn't seem to work properly--at least, if I'm understanding it correctly. If I'm not much mistaken, this is what happened: I had one item in the bank. I then deposited another, and performed a save-and-quit. That done, I started the game again and created a new character. Going to the bank, I found the original item present, but not the second.

 - There seems to still be a large area around the bottom-right UI in which mouse-clicks don't work.

 - I'm uncertain about the application of the "Cloth Quiver": does it work with weapons like the spear? It refers to "ranged" weapons, and the spear has a range greater than one. I gather that "projectile" weapons are considered to be separate from merely "ranged" weapons, and it would make sense for a quiver to be associated specifically with such as these--but the description isn't clear on this.

 - In fullscreen (under Windows 8.1), seams seem to appear between tiles when moving.
  -- Of the tiles that I saw, this only seems to affect water, mud, and wooden bridges. I don't think that I found lava during this run, so I don't know whether it was affected.

 - Similarly, some sprites seem to "shake" when the camera moves.
  -- For example, in the camp area, the banker shakes, but the rumour-vendor doesn't.

 - It seems to be possible to move while the "rumour" screen is visible.

 - The sprite used for the swinging vines could use a bit more contrast, I feel--I find them a little too easy to miss, I believe.

 - While having sprites become transparent when overlapping is quite helpful at times, it looks as little odd to me when applied to the player-character standing in front of and overlapping an NPC.

 - In the bank, I believe that I saw cases in which a deposit would cost more than I had, but in which the text wasn't coloured red.
  -- It seemed that losing sufficient money did cause at least some of these items to turn red.
  -- Is it perhaps using the base sale cost of the item, rather than its deposit cost?

 - Pressing the escape key to open the options menu seemed to toggle the "Camera Scanlines" feature. o_0
  -- This may stem from the presence of an options file generated by a previous build; I note that the issue disappeared eventually--possibly after restarting the game.

 - The lowest setting for the "Zoom Scale" doesn't seem to do anything.

Again thanks for the feedback. I haven't been able to replicate the Banker issue... tried that exact setup and it seems to be working here, but I'll keep an eye on it. Some of the visual things you noted are on the docket. Addressed a couple other things with this hotfix patch...

NEW MOSTLY BUGFIX BUILD! 4/13/17

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

BALANCE
* Storing items in the bank now only costs half as much
* Some new battle FX for Gambler

BUGS
* Fixed major error with game saving/loading (related to some engine changes)... sorry
* You can no longer move or take combat actions while the Rumor screen is open
* Fixed the red text indicator for when an item is too expensive to deposit in the bank
* For now, the "Ruins" map type has been removed, hopefully fixing any issues related to it (unreachable areas). Don't worry, there are still 6 other map types and counting.
* Fixed some visual bugs with legacy code on the character sheet (red/green stats)

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* On the character sheet, you can now see your lowest floor explored *all-time*, as well as your total number of characters (runs), and your most favored job
* NEW MAGIC MOD (Weapons): Frostbite, chance to freeze enemies on hit
* NEW MAGIC MOD (Armor): Frostscale, chance to freeze enemies attacking you in melee

WRITING
* Clarified text for Quivers - these only boost CT when using bows

Hmm... I think that I may have been using the bank after reloading a save--could that have had an effect?

Oh, thinking of which, there may be a minor exploit in the save-game system: as far as I've found, quitting the game via Alt-F4 bypasses the save-system, allowing the player to return to an earlier point in the same run.

I've downloaded the new build, I believe--I had intended to play the game a little tonight, so a build that addresses some of those issues (the bank especially!) is quite welcome! ^_^

NEW BUILD! 4/15/17

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

OK! Lots of bug fixes here addressing some annoying issues. Map generation received quite a bit of love (and art), and there are some diabolical new upper-level challenges such as expanded side areas and new monsters. It's a pretty great patch! I've also laid the groundwork for the upcoming ITEM WORLD. What is Item World? You'll see next patch! :D

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/IceDaggers.gif)
The new "Ice Daggers" champion mod in action!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/DungeonImprovements2.png)
The dungeon is looking great!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Shocking.gif)
New Thunder Spirit now electrifies nearby enemies, which in turn can electrify you :D

ART/VISUALS
* New and animated lava!
* Nando's kin have their own palettes now
* New plank art
* New graphics for the rumor giver in town
* More dungeon decor - flowers and bushes

BALANCE
* Bandit Spellshapers no longer have an intrinsic stun in melee (this was not intended...)
* Equipping items in any dungeon area other than 'safe' floors (merchants with no enemies) will now use a turn. Cycling weapons in your hot bar will NOT use a turn
* Shields have generally higher block chance across the board, but slightly lowered flat physical damage reduction
* 1st boss fight mobs all have a bit more HP
* King of Bandits HP increased
* Increased damage from areas with poison air/hazardous areas

BUGS
* Attempted fix for regen flask charges sometimes not being consumed.
* Lava should now spawn again
* Fixed placement bug with Fungal Toad & Bog Frog jump impact visuals (now shows under them, as it should)
* Fixed some deep engine bugs (again) related to saving/loading chunks of the map
* Probably fixed obscure bug related to wandering monster spawns
* Budoka's "Steel Resolve" now works properly against stuns caused by maces/hammers
* Wandering merchants should no longer overlap poor Katy
* Crabbids will no longer lose their movement range if their grab wears off normally
* Fixed major bug where many things that boosted your core stats... would seemingly not do that
* Fixed display bug in item comparisons where some low values would round to 0 instead of showing the decimal
* When doing the "appease monster" type quests, the appeased monster will only drop 1 food item (as intended)
* Fixed display bug with banker prices, along with other banker bugs
* Flooded Temple should be flooded again

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* New side area: the Bandit Library! I heard you liked Bandit Spellshapers...
* New monster: Bandit Buffslinger! (I wonder where you might find it)
* New map generation type! Also a bunch of mapgen changes adding some more variety and (good) randomness
* Modified version of the Demon Spirit now spawns in the main dungeon, later on!
* Elemental Lair has been expanded to 3 floors with a smoother difficulty curve from start to finish
* Added more room variations, shapes, and layouts throughout the dungeon (20 new templates)
* New champion mod: ICEDAGGERS

ENGINE
* Monsters can now use buff abilities on other monsters, even AOE buffs and AOE heals!
* Enhancements to summoned objects - they can now have directional movement regardless of how their summoner moves

QUALITY OF LIFE
* Colorized some text in the combat log
* Shield block chance is now shown in item descriptions
* Trying to attack while disarmed/paralyzed no longer consumes a turn.
* Summoned objects like Toxic acid pools that are not collidable will not show up on the mini map
* Hitting "Escape" will exit examine mode without popping up the Options menu
* You can now drag inventory items on to the "Drop Item" button to drop them. (You can also drop them by tapping "D" with the cursor over an item)

Ooh, quite an interesting update. As per usual, I intend to download the game later, and hopefully try it soon. ^_^

I did play the previous build, I believe, but only have a few notes from that session; most I'll hang onto until I've tried the new build, I think.

Three that I do want to mention, however:

First, having the UI cover the corners of the dungeon is still a bit of a nuisance. To that end, a suggestion: simply extend the map outwards a little, filling it with whatever wall tiles edge the play-area at the point from which it's being extended. This might allow the camera to move the UI out of the play-area when the player approaches the edges of the map, without filling the screen with blackness.

That said, I don't know how well this might play with varying resolutions and zoom levels. :/

I like the new equipment slot outlines--they seem likely to be useful to new players! That said, I'm not sure that the icons for the "offhand" and "accessory" slots are terribly clear--perhaps it might help to simplify them a bit? (And in the case of the "accessory" icon--which I think is a set of objects, including a helm and a ring--separate the objects a little.)

This build was the first in which I noticed the information regarding the summoned pet that's shown below the "extra turn" information. The health readout here is useful, I find! That said, the Floramancer's Floraconda is indicated to have "0 turns"--I presume that this is intended to show the duration of other summons, but looks a little odd here.

I will say that the UI is definitely going to be reworked a bit - it's coming. I think all the HUD stuff will be put along the bottom, and then 'letterbox' the game so the UI doesn't go over it.

Ah, fair enough--that makes sense, I think. ^_^

Hmm... Given that monitors seem to tend toward the wider aspect ratios these days, have you considered putting the UI on the sides rather than the bottom? That way the play-area is diminished in the more spacious axis, where it's thus less of a loss.

There is a lot of UI info to display - in our mockup, it should fit nicely along the bottom. Hotbars, buffs, combat log, etc. I don't think it will take up too much space, ultimately, but we'll see.

If both sides are used, the amount of space available there should be similar, I think, to what's available at the bottom--although that does split the UI.

However, fair enough! As you say, we'll see how your layout works--I may be concerned over nothing at all. ^_^

Oh boy! I never thought it would happen but the Tangledeep Kickstarter (http://kickstarter.com/projects/1363989456/799120286/), with 24 hours left, is closing in on the final stretch goal - a full remix album from OverClocked ReMix! :D

And let's add to the hype with a

NEW BUILD!

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

Today we have a patch chock full of bug fixes and quality of life improvements, plus a smattering of art and UI upgrades. Lots of stuff related to shops, sorting, and the inventory screen, and helpful things for mouse users too. But even more notably, I'm introducing version 0.1 alpha of ITEM WORLD! Inspired by the Disgaea series, Item World is a way to go inside a piece of gear, generating a mini-dungeon on the fly (with unique map layouts) and upgrading the item if you can beat the boss.

To enter Item World, you first need to find an Orb of Item World (placeholder name...) from champions or boss monsters. Use it in Riverstone Camp, then drop a piece of equipment (weapon, offhand, armor) to enter.

Again: This is just v0.1, so there may (probably will) be bugs, and there will be much more content associated with Item World before development is done. But in the meantime, have at it! :D

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/BlingFrog.gif)
The elusive Goldfrog

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Lootsplosion.gif)
Items pour out of monsters/chests instead of stacking now!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/InventorySwapping.gif)
New inventory hotbar - drag and droppable!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/DialogAnimations.gif)
Dialog borders and animations!

ART
* New bookshelves in the bandit library
* New tileset: cobblestone! Looking dope!
* Sprites now draw in a consistently correct order based on Y position (i.e. if you go "behind" a character, you will actually be covered up by that character)
* New crate and barrel visuals
* Dialog box UI borders!
* Dialog box animations!
* New battle effects for: Fire Evocation, Qi Wave

BALANCE
* Side areas no longer have monster spawning crystals. Clear the maps and you're done!
* The cost of blessings has been reduced
* Sword Dancer's "Dust in the Wind" now costs Stamina instead of Energy
* Flat damage resistance from shields turned down slightly
* Proc damage mods (Soldier, Warrior, Gladiator) will no longer spawn on the same weapon
* Plunderers now have a poison proc on attack
* Mystery monster eggs are now a little more common

BUGS
* Attempt at fixing a hard-to-catch bug that corrupted saves by not writing the Town properly to save file
* Fixed bug where exiting the targeting UI would sometimes consume the item you were trying to usebanker:
* Stairs now spawn in the bandit library
* Fixed errors in the casino blackjack UI (game would not close properly)
* Escape key can now be used to quit the casino properly
* Several defense/attack down effects were multiplying their effect each turn. This has been fixed!
* Fixed error with monster eggs used at a high level
* Cleaned up visual targeting of Jade Beetle's charge (now "locks" to character)
* Abilities like Wild Horse or Jade Beetle charges will now land at the closest possible square to the original position of the attacker
* Fixed major exploits related to free abilities (flask, ability toggle off) - these now don't enter turn logic at all and simply fire off
* Fixed bug where after saving -> loading a game, champions/bosses would not give the appropriate experience boost
* Fixed bug with loot drops scaling in a weird way
* After getting a heal from Percy, your stats should refresh instantly
* When hotkeying a weapon to your hotbar (1-4 on EQ screen) in the dungeon, you will no longer try to use an ability in that slot (1-4)

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* ITEM WORLD can now be found in Tangledeep! This is a way of powering up a piece of gear (weapons, armor, offhands), increasing its raw stats and possibly adding a new magic mod. Here's how it works.

1. Find an "Orb of Item World" (placeholder name...) which has a chance to drop from any champion.
2. Use the Orb in Riverstone camp.
3. Drop the piece of gear you want to enter. This creates a new mini-dungeon! Item world floors have a different open layout and interesting new challenges. Poison water fills each floor, but you can build planks with the Plank Builders you find. Crossing the water is not a death sentence but it will drain your life fast if you're not careful.
4. Reach the bottom of the Item World and defeat the ^ITEMBOSS^ to find an upgraded version of the item you dropped to spawn the world. Picking up the item exits the world!

Each individual piece of gear can be upgraded up to 3 times! Also, you may find the mythical Goldfrog in Item World. What happens if you catch him?!

NOTE: This is just the first iteration of the concept. Ultimately I want Item World to be even weirder!

QUALITY OF LIFE
* The Inventory screen now has a hotbar at the top that can be used to drag-and-drop consumables for easy ingame usage. (You can also still hotkey stuff by hovering over an item and pressing 1-8)
* You can now bet 100 OR 1,000g at the Casino
* You can now bulk sell items at most merchants
* Hovering over portal/flask icons will show the default keybind
* The plank builder item can now ONLY be used on water, as intended
* Monster tooltip now shows their 'family' (beasts, frogs, insects, etc)
* Monsters you summon will now have charm hearts above their heads to indicate they are on our side
* Your summoned pets will no longer destroy objects summoned by you (i.e. Floracondas destroying your own vines)
* "0turns" is no longer displayed when a summoned pet is around forever
* The critical effect of axes (defense break) now shows up as a status on enemies
* The critical effect of swords (parry next attack) will also show up as a status on yourself
* New tutorial tip while equipping items in the dungeon
* Inventory sorts are now back on the Equipment screen again
* You can now sort items by type or value in the shop interface
* Clicking any sort button on any interface twice will reverse the sort order
* Monsters shouldn't spawn on top of stairs
* When monsters or chests drop multiple items, they will spread out instead of stacking on a single tile
* When Grove Pests steal food, a message will pop up above them

The Item World seems like a neat idea--an engaging means of upgrading items, potentially more interesting than simply applying some other item to the one to be upgraded. ^_^

A hotkey for consumables may prove very useful to me: I do sometimes forget my consumables, which may be made less likely by having them be visible on-screen.

Regarding items spreading out out to adjacent squares, a minor suggestion, if I may: perhaps have them arc up, then back down, as they move: that might convey the idea of the items being thrown into the air and falling back to the ground, and add a little animation to those remaining in the monster's erstwhile tile.

I have not been keeping up with the most recent builds--nevertheless I have the latest downloaded, and hope to play it soon, as per usual!

Unbelievable.. with just hours left, we surpassed the final stretch goal of the Tangledeep Kickstarter. I can't thank everyone here enough for your continued support of this dream game of mine <3

But there is no time to rest. Dev dev dev. And that means a

NEW BUILD!

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

This build has a major bug fix related to wandering monsters causing game errors, which is the main reason I'm pushing it out today. It also has a couple major gameplay-related changes and I'm interested in seeing how they play out. First, powerups have generally been made more useful and more frequent. You are more likely to find ones that you need, champions always drop them, and you can get two from a single monster. Also, you won't ever get powerups for a resource you're full on. These things should - in theory - make it easier for all jobs to use their abilities a bit more often.

At the same time I've adjusted the monster-attracting gem in a way that may make the game harder. Previously, destroying the gem was almost always optimal so you could make a floor safe. Now, there will always be wandering monsters. However, destroying the gem (which is now "Monster Surpressing Crystal") will yield a larger reward of XP, JP, and gold. The tradeoff is that future wandering monsters will be a bit harder - maybe by 10-15%.

Another key change is that destructibles can generally no longer spawn loot at the same level as the monsters you're fighting, with some exceptions (like gold chests). I think that fighting monsters should be the best source of loot to reward beating challenging encounters.

There are other changes coming up too but for now, I wanted to get these into the world!

ART/VISUALS
* First pass on transparent overlay system - objects behind other objects should be dimly visible

BALANCE
* Appease monster / food delivery rumor is now done with just one piece of food instead of 3
* Limit HP damage requirement has been relaxed further
* Airacudas are now tagged "Flying" and will not take ground terrain damage/mud root
* Ice Daggers champion mod now has a brief cooldown period. Also, they now spawn and move over collidable tiles. Also, they die with the champion.
* Changed loot scaling for destructibles (chests, barrels, etc) and treasure sparkles - these now scale somewhat slower than monsters at the same level
* Champions are now less likely to get rooted in mud
* Champions now always drop a powerup
* All monsters now have a chance to drop a second powerup (half the drop rate of the first one)
* The type of powerup that drops is now influenced by your resources missing/remaining. Also, if one resource is completely full but the other one isn't, you will always get a powerup of the missing resource.
* Powerup drop rate up 10%

BUGS
* Fixed display bug with hover/examine and the Keen Eyes perk (displaying some items in a multi-item tile as blanks)
* Possibly fixed error with wandering monster spawn
* Adjusted "Examine" mode behavior. This is now entirely keyboard-based. The mouse no longer moves the box: mouse in examine mode was redundant anyway, since hovering has the same effect...
* (Probably?) Fixed edge cases where trying to use an ability without enough resources would STILL trigger a cooldown
* Attempted fix at a rare bug where toggled abilities would be stuck on cooldown forever

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* New Rumor type: kill a handful of a specific type of monster using a specific element.

* ITEM WORLD: Small chance of a special, particularly blinged out floor.

* Changes to the monster-attracting gem. This is now the Monster Surpressing Crystal. While the crystal is intact, wandering monsters spawn with light scaling as normal. If you destroy the crystal, you will get XP, JP, and gold, scaling with level. These numbers have been increased from what they are now. However once broken, the monsters that spawn from that point on will be somewhat tougher (higher HP, damage, mitigation)

ENGINE
* Added extra error checking for errors with spawning wandering monsters
* Added additional error checking in game load to track down some problems

QUALITY OF LIFE
* "Drop Item" is now a bindable hotkey, instead of being hardwired to "D"
* There is now an area on the EQ sheet where you can drag items to drop them on the ground

WRITING
* Added text to Sharktooth Cleaver noting that it has lower accuracy
* Added easter egg related to Budoka's "Arrow Catch"

I've said so already on Twitter, but let me say it here, too: congratulations on so successful a crowdfunding campaign, and on hitting all of your stretch goals! ^_^


Ooh, I really like that! Getting to use my abilities more often is quite welcome, I believe! ^_^


I'm... not a fan of that idea, I fear. Constant spawning of monsters is something that I've generally disliked in previous roguelikes, and its (optional) lack something that I liked in Tangledeep, as I recall. :/

This looks fantastic! A bit sad I found your post right after your kickstarter ended, but I'll have to give some money on PayPal when I can to help out. Good luck on finishing up!

The Kickstarter might be over, but I'm not slowing down. Not now, not ever!!! So let's do a NEW BUILD, but first, I should mention that the game has been GREENLIT FOR STEAM! HOORAY :D

NEW BUILD!

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

** I forgot to update the build text ingame sorry **

Besides the usual round of bug fixes and QOL/polish, this build offers some new buffs to the Floramancer, Budoka, and Gambler, plus new weird stuff in Item World. Rumors and Medium Armor are also better/more unique now. All good stuff I think!

Also, to expand on the reasoning for the wandering monster change I made last build: The issue with how I had it before was that players would destroy the crystal ASAP, because it was always the best option. There wasn't much decision making involved. This made it a lot easier to kite and hunt monsters one by one. This should be a valid tactic, but not one without risk, and if no new monsters spawn... there isn't a lot of risk involved.

Now, destroying the crystal is worth even more, but it makes life a little harder, too. The choice is yours. (Remember, if you're very high level, monsters will run from you, so eventually, each floor WILL become safe.)

ART/VISUALS
* Stair directions reversed, because in Tangledeep you start at the bottom and you're going UP...

BALANCE
* Gambler's "two pair" Wild Cards hand now lasts 25 turns (up from 20) and gives an additional 5% crit chance
* Gambler's Wild Cards ability cooldown is now 2 turns (down from 3)
* Gambler now starts with 200g (other characters start with 100g)
* Gambler's "Snake Eyes" dice roll no longer does 50% max health damage to champions/bosses, but 50% current health instead
* Gambler's "High Card" ability now scales a little more with cards in hand (+5% dmg per extra card)
* Mint and Fat Herb Brews now heal more
* Rumors are now less expensive (60 + 15 per level)
* Rumors now reward more XP
* "Lightweight" weapon mod now reduces dual wield penalties when used in either hand - this effect stacks
* You now gain 3 max Energy per level (up from 1), and 3 max Stamina (up from 2)
* Floramancer's Photosynthesis now lasts 11 turns (up from 9)
* Floramancer's "Creeping Death" costs 400jp (down from 500)
* Floramancer's Bed of Thorns can no longer be stacked on the same square(s), and can only trigger once per turn (per monster). However, it now does more damage.
* Sword Dancer's "Phoenix Wing" now uses a 'burst' shape, costs 25 Energy instead of 30, and has a shorter cooldown
* Budoka: Reduced cooldowns of Hundred Fists, Palm Thrust, Iron Breathing, and Qi Wave
* Spellshaper now starts with a Simple Codex (offhand) instead of Chai Qi Cookies.
* Goldfrogs are jumpier
* The GUILE stat now has more impact on crit and parry chance

BUGS
* Fixed bug where using elemental weapons would not count toward the "Burned Monster" type rumors
* Fixed game load error when saving/loading vs. fighting monsters using charge/pass turn abilities
* Hovering over a blank hotbar slot no longer pops up a blank window
* You can now blow up your advanced Summoned Floracondas with Detonate Vines
* Fixed bug where saving/loading in item world would return you to town (!)
* Probably fixed bug where monsters would sometimes push you (or themselves) into map edges
* Fixed bug where the sword crit special effect (auto-parry next attack) was not working
* Plunderer's weak venom proc should work again
* Budoka's "Iron Breathing" should work again

CONTENT & GAMEPLAY
* ITEM WORLD: Chance that a floor will have lots of fountains
* ITEM WORLD: Chance that a floor will have tons of food
* ITEM WORLD: Chance that non-champions will love you from the start
* Floramancer: New ability, "Grow Spitting Plant". These are stationary turrets that have a ranged thorn attack with a chance to poison!
* Floramancer: Improved Floraconda (1000jp + max unlocks) now has a Constrict attack instead of a ranged thorn. Constrict will root a target and cause damage over time.
* Budoka: Hundred Fists, Qi Wave, and Palm Thrust all grant you a stacking defense boost for a brief time when used.
* Medium Armor: While wearing this armor type, your dodge chance also applies to dodging many damaging abilities
* New armor mod: CONSTITUTION. Gives you a 20% chance to shrug off a negative status effect before it can be added.
* New weapon type: STAVES (Staff). These ranged weapons (range: 3, shorter than bows) scale off a mix of Spirit and Swiftness, instead of just Swiftness like other ranged weapons. The Floramancer's starting weapon is now this type. Two additional staves can be found in the world.

ENGINE
* Trimmed save files a bit

QUALITY OF LIFE
* There is now a short tutorial the first time you enter Tangledeep. Let me know what you think!
* "Sell All" menu options now sell gems too
* You no longer spawn in dangerous terrain in Item World

WRITING
* In item world, the water is now displayed as "poison water"

Congratulations on being greenlit! ^_^


I see your point, and indeed, I think that the crystal as it previously was didn't make for a particularly interesting decision. If this change fits your intentions for the game, then fair enough!


That's a fair point.

In my case, I think that it still results in something that's more or less a non-decision, albeit a slightly more complex one: "always ignore the crystal until the floor is safe (by virtue of all monsters in that level running), then smash the crystal." However, this may well not be the case for other players!


Ooh, those changes sound promising! ^_^

NEW BUILD!

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

Tonight's build has some important key new features and changes that I'm eager to see in action. First is a rework of the main HUD. All of the key information has been placed along the bottom of the screen and cleaned up. The gameplay now centers on the hero and not the dead center of the screen, so you should no longer have cases where the UI covers up crucial game content. You can of course hide the hud with H still. This IS a work in progress and it will be improved more over time but it's a big step!

Next we have level up bonuses. Previously, your core stats (Strength, Swiftness, etc.) rose slightly each level, between 1.3 to 1.75 points, based on your current job. Now, in addition to these bonuses, you can select a core stat to boost even more. This +3 stat boost is received on every level up. Over the course of even 5-6 levels this should help you customize your character further.

I'm also trying to make sure that you can't screw up your character. All stats are useful to all characters, and there should be no "dump stats". A melee fighter can still use Discipline for elemental resistance; a ranged fighter wants Spirit for powerup recovery and buff duration; a mage still enjoys the physical defense boost from Strength.

Lastly there is the Monster Corral. The visual implementation here (a single placeholder shark NPC) is VERY INCOMPLETE as the corral will be integrated into the entire new town expansion map, coming soon. But the basic functionality is done. Buy (or find) a Monster Mallet, weaken a monster to <15% health, then knock it out with the mallet and bring it to the Corral. Monsters in the Corral have their own charming interactions and personalities. They also grant you combat bonuses against those specific monster species and their family.

There's a lot more too but I'll just list the rest in the log!

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Knockout2.gif)
Knocking out a monster with the Monster Mallet.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/MonsterCorral.png)
Hey, what happens in the corral...

ART/VISUALS
* Rework of main HUD UI, which (mostly) no longer blocks gameplay. Camera centers on character instead of screen. Can still be hidden with "H" as needed.
* Improved text boxes / dialogs in opening and character creation
* New Paladin and Spellshaper run cycles!
* New vine wall/swinging vine art

BALANCE
* The "elemental kill" type rumor now allows for Physical damage. Also, it will ONLY give you an element that you have access to in your learned skills.
* The "no flask" rumor requirement now yields even more rewards if you can complete it
* Electrified champions use their lightning storm ability more frequently
* Slightly decreased penalties for dual wielding
* Reduced wandering monster spawn chance by about 55%
   NOTE: Wandering monster chance continues to scale based on initial monsters in level and # of killed monsters. For example, if you haven't killed any monsters, new ones won't spawn. If you've only killed one or two on a level, the spawn chance is much lower than if you've killed a whole bunch of them.
* Goliath Beetles no longer have an armor break attack
* Plunderers no longer have a self dodge buff
* Guardian Sphere's "Self Destruct" now only triggers at 15% health (down from 35%)
* Champion Icedaggers uptime has been reduced another 2 turns

BUGS
* (Visual) Casino text boxes now have borders
* Illusions of champions no longer drop powerups or item world orbs
* Champions should now correctly give more XP, JP, and gold
* Tornado Stance now only reacts to enemies in melee (as intended)
* You should now correctly auto-equip accessories to your second slot, if that slot is empty
* Fixed error with Floramancer's Bed of Thorns
* Fixed numerous issues with Spellshape abilities that I apparently introduced last build
* Fixed bug that was causing every floor to have (up to) 1 more champion than intended
* Obsidian Daggers and Warhammers should no longer drop from monsters at lower levels
* Sword damage has been reduced to intended levels
* Fixed bug with Item World Orbs and saving/loading

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* The MONSTER CORRAL (v0.5) has been added to the game! This currently lacks any visuals, but the functionality is there! Talk to the shark (placeholder) in town to learn more. In a nutshell: The Monster Corral is a place where you can bring a monster you've knocked out with a Monster Mallet (new item). You can have up to 3 monsters in the Corral. For each monster in the corral, you get a bonus while fighting them AND their family (less damage taken, more damage dealt.) This persists from character to character as well, just like the banker.

* The BANKER will now store your money. It costs 200g per deposit, but you can store any amount above that for no extra charge (and withdraw for free)

* When you level up, you can give any main stat (Strength, Swiftness, Discipline, Guile, Spirit) an extra bonus. This bonus is permanent. ALL your stats still go up a bit every level (unchanged)
* Added 5th tier of weapons (this probably only drops from high level champions)
* Guardian Spheres now have a "Vortex" ability that pulls you closer
* Floracondas summoned by Verdigrizzlies now have a short-range heal
* ITEM WORLD: IW-only Knight's Shovels now also spawn at random
* ITEM WORLD: Added more ground and wall tiles in the ocean
* ITEM WORLD: There is now a chance that a floor will be full of monsters that are prone to attacking one another.
* NEW CONSUMABLE: Butler's Bell. Summons a random assortment of food.
* NEW SIDE AREA: Stalker Nest (mid-level)
* New monster: Guardian Arachnoid
* New monster (with placeholder art): Vine Stalker

ENGINE
* Improved engine code for dragging actors around

The monster corral sounds interesting--especially given that it's part of the meta-game layer. On a minor note, I like the little interactions between monsters (are those just flavour, or do they have effects?), and was pleasantly surprised that dragged monsters move "around" obstacles. ^_^

BUGFIX BUILD (MOSTLY)

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

ART/VISUALS
* Removed job and current level from main HUD in favor of current money (xp level will be added back soonish...)

BALANCE
* "Spirit" enemies now have their own enemy type ('Spirits')

BUGS
* Destroying the Monster Crystal now (properly) grants money, as intended
* You should no longer get quests involving the caged Verdigrizzlies in the casino
* Fixed a game load bug
* Fixed minor bug with saving/loading duplicate hero feats
* Fixed some display errors with Sheltering / Shielding magic mods
* Selling stacks of consumables should now take into account the size of the stack
* Abilities that proc on-attack effects (i.e. Qi Wave procs Thundering Lion), should now also check to CONSUME effects which are normally consumed by attacks.
* Champion illusions should really probably not drop item world orbs
* Fixed buggy behavior with Monster Mallet on certain enemies
* Gambler - Straights and related hands (straight flush etc) should evaluate properly
* (Visual) Fixed Gambler hand overlap issue
* (Visual) Fixed summoned pet overlap issue
* (Visual) Fixed camera centering issue in some side areas
* (Visual) Fixed slow Paladin walk animation
* (Visual) Fixed issue where KO'd monsters would sometimes use the wrong sprite when dragged to a new zone

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* New weapon mod: Spirit Slaying
* GAMBLER: New effect for FLUSH (repeated through Full House, for now), massive haste!
* Percy now offers a Blessing of Mastery (boosted JP gain)
* Guardian Arachnoids (non-boss) now spawn in the main dungeon too
* Bandit Buffslingers also now spawn in the main dungeon

ENGINE
* Trimmed some extraneous data from save/load
* Added an extra new line of sight check to hopefully prevent cases where monsters are inexplicably visible (when they should not be)

QUALITY OF LIFE
* On the character sheet (C) you can now hover over core stats (Strength, Spirit etc) to see EXACTLY how that stat is impacting your character
* Trying to move while rooted (if the root chance is 100%) will no longer take a turn. You can still attack nearby enemies while rooted, use abilities, and pass turns.
* Cleaned up display for magic mods that give resistances to 5 elements
* Your summoned pet will now show its name in the lower right, instead of the generic "Summoned Pet"
* Added tutorial tip on the passage of time ingame (which currently is how shops are restocked)
* The Monster Mallet no longer allows you to target champions/bosses (who are immune to it anyway)
* "NEW!" text appears above the heads of merchants who have restocked their goods since you last talked to them
* When using 'sell all items', you will not sell your last equipped offhand item (i.e. swap from 1h+shield -> bow, the shield will not be sold)
* When saving and loading the game, your last equipped offhand item will properly save/load

WRITING
* Updated Monster Mallet's description to clarify that it does not work on champions or bosses.

END OF APRIL BUILD!

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

Alright, strap in... I've been working overtime on this build and there's a whooole lot here. From classic RPG-style "typewriter text" (surprisingly hard to do with colors, sizes, etc.) to a new town EXPANSION, magic trees, and cooking... Tangledeep has definitely risen above 50% completion! I'll focus on some of the key changes here...

Magic trees can be planted in your GROVE, which is in the all-new town expansion (south of Riverstone Camp). Trees grow over in-game time, and continue to grow even when a character dies. As trees mature, they will begin to drop food as you play the game. This is a great way of stocking up on food items. With 5 mature trees, you can expect a decent amount of food with each new character or floor you explore! BUT, you can also cut down trees for a quick XP + JP bonus. Another way to boost a fresh character OR help put you over the edge to the next level.

To plant trees, you'll need to find magic seeds which drop rarely from common enemies, and more often from champions & bosses.

Next, we have the cooking system which is still in its infancy with lots of possibilities ahead. Talk to the campfire in camp to see what recipes are available. Recipes are more powerful than normal food items, so when you want to maximize every turn in the dungeon, these are the best way to do it. More recipes will of course be coming!

You can also enter accessory Item Worlds now, which can yield new magic mods and is guaranteed to give a boost to max Energy and Stamina.

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/Magic%20Trees.png)
A fully developed grove! (More tree art is coming...)

(http://zirconstudios.com/game/CookingFood.png)

ART/VISUALS
* Buff/debuff icons now start from the left instead of the right
* New Item World tileset! (Work in progress)
* New "NEW!" art for merchants
* New art for Plank Builder (it's actually planks now)
* "Typewriter" style text boxes! (Will iterate and work on this as well)

BALANCE
* Topaz Earrings no longer absorb lightning damage - they now reduce it significantly.
* Cheese Wheels and Boxes of Mints now restore more Stamina/Energy, respectively
* Airacudas fish rush (jump) ability now drains CT when it lands nearby
* Frosted Jellies now summon a whole bunch of ice tiles when they land
* Champion Ice daggers are now destroyed when you touch one
* Jellies now Slime Hop at shorter ranges to close the gap
* Monsters across the board are no longer limited by Energy and Stamina
* "Find Item" rumors will send you back at MOST one previous floor than your lowest explored (as opposed to -2)
* Dodge bonus has been increased on all light armors
* Mint Fat Brew (HP tier 2 potion) buffed slightly
* All tier 2 potion cost 300 -> 250, challenge value lowered (should spawn at lower dungeon levels)
* Spellshaper's "Spellshape: Square" is now 300 jp (down from 500)

BUGS
* Guardian Arachnoids that spawn in the world no longer always drop Item World Orbs (and are no longer counted as bosses)
* Treasure chests in the Stalker Nest are now properly accessible
* 'Spirit' type monsters now have champion names again
* Equipment and statuses that modify spirit power, stamina costs, energy costs, crit damage and many other "battle data" properties should now be saved/loaded properly
* Fixed bug in Swiftness hover display
* Fixed Spellshaper toggle bug (FOR REAL this time? I think?)
* Fixed a number of irregularities causing mouse movement to not work properly (dead zones, unresponsiveness etc)
* Fixed (newly introduced) bug with armor not displaying physical resist properly
* Skill sheet: scrolling through more than 1 page of skills should now display the proper skill descriptions beyond the 1st page
* Goldfrogs now warp when hit at range again
* "Toggle Log" keybind disabled
* Dropped items should now also sort on the Y-axis properly
* If you level up while another dialog is open, or you somehow gain multiple levels at once, you will still be able to boost your stats. You will just get multiple level up dialogs.
* (Visual) CT/extra turn bar will now show at the correct visual state on game load
* (Visual) Rewrote UI cursor aligning... should work much better overall now in dialogs
* You now get rewards for killing enemies with Gambler SNAKE EYES

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* COOKING: You can now "talk" to the campfire in town to cook food! These recipes are more powerful than regular food, and will give you the most bang-for-your-buck (or, more accurately, bang for your hunger)
* New TOWN EXPANSION area! Just go SOUTH from Riverstone Camp! (The corral has been moved here, along with...)
* MAGIC TREES! Look for Magic Seeds in the dungeon (killing bosses or champions is a safe bet.) These can be planted in your tree grove, in the town expansion. Trees grow over time, and across multiple characters. They will produce food for you as in-game days pass. Or, chop them down for an XP & JP reward! Older trees = more XP and JP!
* You can now enter ITEM WORLD of an Accessory. Upgraded accessories may get a random magic mod (as with other equipment), and will always get +5 max Stamina and +5 max Energy per upgrade.
* Multiple save slots have been added!
* NEW LIGHT ARMOR: Ivory Cloak. No dodge chance, but adds parry chance instead.
* NEW MEDIUM ARMOR: Samurai Armor. Increases all damage output.
* NEW HEAVY ARMOR: Mirror Plate. 25% chance to reflect magical projectile attacks.
* NEW HEAVY ARMOR: Goldmail. 50% chance to resist any pull/push attempts.
* NEW ACCESSORY (low lvl): Glowtorch. Boosts Fire and Lightning damage.
* NEW CONSUMABLE: Shadow Shurikens. Strong single-target shadow damage at range.
* NEW CONSUMABLES: Tier 3 potions (health, stamina, energy restoration at higher values)
* Armando (armor merchant) now stocks even better armor for high level players
* Lady Hildegarde now stocks meals at higher levels
* Katy in Bottles n Brews now stocks better potions at higher levels
* When you clear a side area with no stairs up (i.e. a one-floor side area, or the final floor of a multi-level area) you will now get a message indicating you've cleared the area, along with some bonus JP
* When you have mastered a job, additional JP gained will be converted into XP at a ratio of about 10:1
* Sword Dancer: "Ice Tortoise" reworked. This now summons the same kind of shards as champion Ice Daggers. :D

ENGINE
* Reduced save file fat further (~10% savings)
* Added a debug command to help diagnose mouse issues. Hold W and tap A with the mouse over the game world if you are having issues and tell me what it says (should report whether mouse is in game world, UI, or both)
* Added a debug command to diagnose issues with line of sight - monsters being in sight when they should not be. Hold left bracket [ and tap A, then save+exit and send your output_log.

QUALITY OF LIFE
* When viewing skill information, you'll now see information about damage/healing calculations. (Some skills may be missing info - working on it!)
* Mousewheel can now be used on the Skill sheet (S)
* When getting a Rumor, you can choose not to take it. You still have to pay though, and Erin still only has a limited number of rumors at any time. (No cheesing to get easier rumors!!)
* If you are wearing Knight Gloves, you will not auto equip offhand items.
* Reverted change w/ root chance; if you are rooted and you try to move, you WILL pass a turn again
* The game now tracks playtime, both on a per-character and "meta" basis!

WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar
OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip

Bugfix build... heh heh...

ART/VISUALS
* New item world "water" art (it's now 'deadly void')
* New monster art for Vine Stalkers

BALANCE
* Chance to parry ranged attacks is now the same as melee attacks (i.e. higher)

BUGS
* Fixed bug where after dying + restarting, your list of recipes would multiply with duplicates
* Fixed bug where menu cursor would disappear in some dialogs
* Fixed bug where you could not travel to the town expansion after reaching B5F in the dungeon
* The tutorial level will no longer show up in rumors
* Probably fixed bug where style tags like <size=50> would show up in dialog windows
* If the level up window gets closed for some reason before you can spend a stat point, it will re-open within your next step
* Attempted fix of crates/barrels spawning in walls

CONTENT/GAMEPLAY
* Added two extra tiers of Gems that sell for even more money (found at higher levels, naturally)

QUALITY OF LIFE
* When entering the town expansion, if any food is available in your grove, you can harvest it all at once.
* The level up dialog now shows your current stats

That's pretty impressive progress--and well done on passing the fifty-percent mark! ^_^

Now that we're in May I've been cleaning up lots of bugs... This is where the complexity of the engine I've built so far begins to rear its ugly head, as interconnected systems can produce all sorts of unwanted behaviors. Most of my focus over the last few days has strictly been bugfixing.

However I've also created the first Legendary item - one of many! Legendary items are (naturally) both rare and quite powerful. They can't get normal "magic mods" like other items but they DO have unique effects you can't get anywhere else. Some will be generally useful by basically any job or build. Others will modify specific skills for certain classes, or even grant access to new skills altogether. Plus, legendaries CAN be upgraded in Item World!

Those legendary items sound intriguing--I'm interested to see what individual abilities you come up with for them. ^_^

Massive, massive progress throughout the month - I'm really happy with how things are going. New side areas and quests, total UI overhaul, new input manager / in-game resolution switching, full controller support, LINUX builds are now working natively (!), lots of new graphics, monsters... man, it's great!

We're heading for an EARLY ACCESS launch in July - probably July 11th. Between now and then we're going to get the final leg of the game implemented, along with at least one new job and core animations for all characters. It's gonna be fun.

Here's some images of various progress:

New characters...

(http://tangledeep.com/images/FrogFarmer.gif)
(http://tangledeep.com/images/MonsterRancher.gif)

New tile sets...

(http://tangledeep.com/images/Volcano.png)

New UI...

(http://tangledeep.com/images/NewCharSheet.png)

Excellent news, all around, to my mind! (And thank you for providing a Linux version!) ^_^

One piece of critique, if I may: those lava tiles don't look particularly good, to me. Specifically, the glowing "cracks" look too... disconnected, I suppose, not flowing into each other as I might expect.

(Of course, this may be a case of an accurate representation not matching my expectations--the "coconut effect", in essence. If so, please ignore the above! ^^; )

TANGLEDEEP IS OUT NOW (https://store.steampowered.com/app/628770/Tangledeep/)!

After two years in development and a lively devlog on these very forums (which I then transferred to Steam via patch notes during Early Access), TANGLEDEEP is now officially out on Steam! As of this post it is the #1 game in Popular New Releases (https://i.imgur.com/e25Zrrj.png), even above the remaster of Final Fantasy 12!

For those that don't know, Tangledeep is a dungeon crawling RPG inspired by the finest 16-bit RPGs. It uses tactical, turn-based exploration and combat with a Final Fantasy-style job system and a procedurally generated dungeon full of unique characters, deadly monsters, and lots of treasure to find. Explore the labyrinth and discover the secrets behind its mysteries!

There are a dozen playable jobs, over 100 skills, hundreds of items, and all sorts of wild Champion monster mods, magical item properties, Item Dreams to power up your gear (Disgaea style), a magic grove, a turtle that heals you, and Goldfrogs, among many other things. Oh, and you can capture nearly any monster in the game, raise it as a pet and even breed it with other monsters!

LAUNCH TRAILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0N3sEuRJ_I

It has been an absolutely wild ride and a wonderful experience. All the posts in this thread are preserved for posterity, so please enjoy seeing how this game started...

STEAM PAGE
https://store.steampowered.com/app/628770/Tangledeep/

YES! Awesome. I will admit to not having kept up with progress as much once the updates moved off of TIG, but  I've seen the occasional twitter update, and super excited for you and Fervir.


Now then, about those lovely Super Audio Cart presets you developed for this...any chance you'll be sharing some of them publically?  :handmoneyL: :handmoneyR: :handforkL: :handknifeR:

I said it in Twitter, but I'll say it again here: Congratulations, and I hope that the launch continues to go very well, and that the game finds a large audience enthusiastic for it! Well done on getting it done, and looking so good! ^_^

Congrats! Looking good already  :coffee: