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.

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/






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!


"Buy something, nya~"

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.

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.

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.

[NEW BUILD - 11/17/2016]

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?




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.

[Find bugs? Why not make an account on my GitLab server and report them?!]

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?!

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.




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.



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.


(this art is temporary, sorry!)

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



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.

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.

[WIN]

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:





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

[HUGE and awesome new build today!]

  HUGE and awesome new build today!  

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.



* 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.



* 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.



* 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!



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!

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.

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



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...

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

[Windows:]

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.

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

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

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.

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

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!

[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.]

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)

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






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)

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.

Agree 100%, it's coming!

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.)

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?

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.

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

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.

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

[Control Changes]

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.

[Slowness]

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