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...)

As someone who doesn't buy on Steam, I'm curious about something, if I may: what does a "100%" rating on Greenlight signify? Does that mean that the game will definitely be "greenlit"?

The lizardman model looks good, I feel! ^_^

I use and have been rather enjoying my time with Serendipity.

Before I comment further, let me say that I haven't experimented with many blogging platforms, so I'm not in much of a position to give comparative thoughts.

Initial setup was less easy than I might have liked--although some of that might be my own fault. It's perhaps worth noting here that I'm somewhat inexperienced in website setup, especially the back-end elements thereof.

As to theming, Serendipity comes with a variety of themes, with variable degrees of flexibility. (Most are fairly inflexible, I seem to recall.) With some time and willingness to delve into CSS, at least one of the themes can be reworked a fair bit, albeit within constraints (this is how I themed my own site, as I recall). I think that the functionality to create one's own theme exists, but haven't looked too deeply into that--I think that it may be a bit more involved.

Writing and editing articles is pretty straightforward.

There are a variety of plugins available that extend Serendipity's base functionality, both sidebar-related (such as adding a Twitter timeline) and back-end (such as adding a means of creating reusable page-chunks).

I have encountered a few issues. Two that come to mind are these:

• The media manager doesn't seem to like animated GIFs (I've ended up showing them via embedded tweets instead)
• I haven't managed to get the Twitter plugin to add hash-tags when announcing a new blog-post

Overall, I rather like Serendipity. ^_^

What else can you tell us about your game, regarding either mechanics or narrative? More information might help us to find a more fitting name. ^_^

Perhaps "Loot-Text"?

This looks like a rather interesting--and rather lovely--game. Following! ^_^

On the subject of anime-eyes, I'll confess that, to my own taste, I do find them a little large for this context. (I'd likely reduce their height by a pixel.) However, it's far from a deal-breaker for me!

The fortress looks as though it might be rather interesting to explore, and the means of doing so look promising. ^_^

Good luck with it! ^_^

Greetings and salutations!

First of all, this week's "screenshot": a recording of the first scene of the intro cutscene, albeit sans sound or music:




This week past was a somewhat slow one, I'm afraid. Nevertheless, a few things did get done:

Perhaps most salient, and as shown above, the first scene of the intro is complete, save for sound and music. I may yet go back to add a little polish, or address any feedback that I get, but for now it's on to the second scene.

(And indeed, I've already made a start on the backdrop to that second scene.)

The creation of the first scene resulted in my adding a new (minor) feature to my cutscene editor:

The stained-glass window shown above moves sigificantly, starting with its origin well below the bottom of the screen, and ending with it above the top. But when I came to build this in the editor, I discovered that I had no easy means of working significantly beyond the edges of the screen, and thus no easy means of placing those start- and end- points as I intended.

(I could have had the scene itself move--a feature that was already present--but felt that doing so would make the parallax between window and silhouette more awkward to implement, I believe.)

To enable such editing, I added the ability to pan the editor's view, operated via the arrow-keys, and to recentre it via the "5" key. This has proven to be a pretty intuitive way to work, and rather handy.

Further into production of the scene, I discovered another problem: Both the backdrop and the silhouette images are larger than shown above, and it seems that scaling them down resulted in some jagged pixel-edges, which I felt to look a little unsightly. To deal with this, I had my cutscene class activate Panda3D's multisample antialiasing, a solution that I feel has worked quite well. The frame-rate has dropped as a result, but thus far it remains well above the frame-rate at which the game proper runs, and so I'm not yet inclined to worry.

(I did try enabling mipmapping, but was less happy with the results of doing so.)

Perhaps more serious was a lurking resolution-independence bug.

As I may have mentioned previously, the images used in my cutscene system are placed on the screen by applying them as textures to simple rectangular pieces of geometry. However, these pieces of geometry are by default generated as squares of uniform size, and this seldom matches the images being applied to them. I discovered fairly early on that it was awkward and inconvenient to manually resize each object after importing it, so I added a bit of code that, when an object's image was loaded, automatically scaled the geometry so that the image appeared on-screen at more or less its pixel-size. This worked, and proved rather useful.

But what happens when a cutscene is loaded in a window of a size other than that in which it was designed? Since the code results in the image being displayed at more or less its pixel-size, it will take up more space in a window of lower resolution--which has fewer pixels--and less space in a window of higher resolution--which has more. In addition, object-positions are, I believe, resolution-independent: the lack of resolution-independence in image-sizes can thus also result in objects becoming misaligned relative to each other.

The solution was fairly simple: store a "reference resolution" for each cutscene, being simply the resolution at which it was designed. When an object's image is loaded, the automatic rescaling code is run--with the addition of applying a scalar based on the comparison between the reference resolution and the window's resolution.

That's all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

Overall, your proposed changes seem good! ^_^

Hey thanks for the continued awesome feedback.

Not a problem! ^_^

* 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.

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! ^_^

* 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.

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? (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.

Ah, I'd forgotten about this thread, I believe! (I'm glad that I had a notification set.)

Thank you very much for the feedback! ^_^

I think that if you want it to really catch the attention of the player, as if to tell "hey player, you did something really great now!", maybe you need to add some kind of emphasis to the sound.

Hmm... I'm not sure that I want to go as far as "really great", and I'm hesitant to make it much longer: I'm worried that a longer, more intense sound might become grating through repetition.

Well, how? First of all, maybe make it a little longer, more like a fanfare (add more notes, don't just stretch it to take more time). Also, you may try to make it sound more "brighter", adding more high frequencies with an EQ or using filters - now it is sounding a little bit dark, and I think it could easily blend and disappear into music and ambience, as you start adding those elements into the game. But it is not too far from being what it needs to be, I think.
Hope it helps!

I do want to stay away from an "epic fantasy" feel (which is what I have in mind when you say "fanfare"--although I do realise that this may not be what you intended to convey); this is "heroic fantasy", and has a smaller, more personal scale.

I'm not sure of how much in-game music I'll have, or how heavy the ambient sounds will become, but I do take your point about it being lost in those. Right now I don't think that this is a major issue, but it may well be in future...

I might play around with pitching the sound up, or perhaps adding a few lighter notes on top of those already present. I'll confess that I'm uncertain here--I want to retain a sense of... mystery, perhaps, or magic--a feeling that I associate with the setting and story--that I fear might be lost in making it too "bright", too "open".

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.)

No. Choice doesnt't affect on map generation algorythm but we are still considering various options   

Fair enough! ^_^

(As a suggestion, it occurs to me that having the first level after a taint is acquired be themed after that taint's strengths might be an interesting way to ease players into each new aspect of their build.)

No. Only player is resposible for combining Taints. If you mix conflicting taints like Coward and Reckless and
you will be killed, it's only your fault In this game you need to learn mechanincs and improve you strategy
of choosing traits. The best way to do so is trying (and dying). It's a roguelike, though.   

Fair enough. In that case, however, can one back out of selecting a taint after one has seen the taint card and thus learned its effects?

If not, I could see conflicting taints becoming somewhat frustrating (for me, at least), and the player having incentive to avoid unknown taints--which might be a bit of a pity.

After all, one ends up being asked to memorise two lists: which hint applies to which taint, and the specific effects of each taint. This is especially so with taints that the player has not yet seen: how is one to know that the "reckless" taint conflicts with the "coward" taint, unless one has already seen the cards? There's nothing inherent in their dictionary definitions to inform one that they don't work together, and on first acquisition I'm not likely to know their specific effects within this game. In that case, for me, at least, taking both and finding my build all but unusable really doesn't seem likely to feel to me like it's my own fault.

(On top of which, and speaking only for myself, I'm not a fan of being asked to memorise such things.)

Of course, it may be that your implementation--whether in mechanics or writing--renders this fear unfounded--if so, then well and good! ^_^

I've dropped in on this a number of times, but I guess never commented? Sorry about that 

Progress is looking good 

Thank you!

Whether sooner or later, the comment is appreciated. ^_^

Before entering each new section of the Sanctuary you enter this special room we call - The Taint Room. There are 5 paths there and there is a chest witch certain items on each. The items and the signs on the floor are hinting to the taint you are going to receive if you choose to walk that path

Iiinteresting... And does one's choice of path affect the next section of dungeon as well, or just select an "upgrade path"?

Each taint unlocks a new way of gaining power - acustom mechanic designed to encourage acting like a person with that attribute. Let’s look at few examples:

...

Ah, I see, I believe! I rather like that. ^_^

(... Although I'm not sure of how I feel about that representation of OCD, personally...)

Will there be logic to prevent conflicting taints? (Imagine a player ending up with a taint that penalises them for wearing armour, and one that penalises them for not wearing armour, for example.)

Yes there are no levels is Soulblight just Taints

I really like this--it's something that I've been wanting to see in an RPG for a while, now.

Following! ^_^

Excerpts from the (WIP) backdrop that I intend for the first scene of my intro cutscene:

Greetings and salutations!

For this week's screenshot... well, technically it's not a screenshot. Instead, the following are excerpts from the (work-in-progress) backdrop for the first scene of the intro cutscene: a large stained-glass window portraying the two worlds of the game's setting.

Aside from a few minor bits of coding, this past week was almost entirely dedicated to work on cutscenes, primarily the introductory cutscene.

Let me describe my process:

My first step in making a cutscene (after conceptualisation) is to sketch it out. I do this in a paper notebook, thumbnails to the left of the page (with a few directorial annotations) and text on the right (for the most part). It's likely not a perfect approach, and may see refinement as I go on--for one thing, it leaves me with limited space for reworking anything that I've set down. I'm tempted to use loose pieces of paper for each scene--as I get the impression is standard in some industries--but fear that this might quickly result in a fair bit of mess...

I have a pretty-much-complete sketch for the intro cutscene--there are a few points that I'm uncertain of, but I think that I have it overall set. I also spent some time sketching out a few other cutscenes.

Next comes the main of the work: actually painting each image in GIMP.

Most of the week was spent painting the backdrop from which the above excerpts come; it's not quite done, but I hope to have it complete by the end of tomorrow.

I suspect that not all backdrops will take quite so long, however. For one thing, I think that I'm starting to learn more effective (and perhaps more efficient) methods for achieving the style that I'm going for. For another, I believe that certain parts of this backdrop--the stars and mist in particular--went more slowly than others.

Last of all (presumably) is implementation of the cutscene: bringing the images into the editor, specifying the various timings, movements, etc., and doing any other work that might be called for--for example, I intend to use a custom shader to make the glass panels glitter in the backdrop above.

On another note, I'm still considering how to go about including animated mist in my cutscenes. I'm leaning towards implementing cutscene objects that hold a particle system instead of an image, but I'm also tempted to try some sort of texture-based animation, employing layered textures and texture -offsets, -rotations, etc.

Finally, I have it in mind to use some of the cutscene-backdrops as wallpapers if they turn out sufficiently well, whether released with the game, provided as crowdfunding incentives (should I seek crowdfunding), or made available at some other point.

That's all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

I've been trying to think of ways to make this area more non-linear (maybe adding optional rooms could help?), but I'm starting to think a more linear progression for this mechanic would be best.

Hmm... If you were to vary the puzzles a bit such that they could be grouped into distinct sets, you might be able to create multiple paths, allowing players to choose according to preference--to choose their preferred "flavour" of this puzzle, so to speak. Off the top of my head, you might have a set that relies heavily on colours, one that relies heavily on shapes, another that features lots of overlapping elements, etc.

You say that the personality traits gained are determined by the player's choices--what sort of choices produce them (combat, dialogue, exploration, etc.) and (aside from the "alcoholic" trait mentioned above) what sort of traits might one get, with what sort of effects? Do these traits effectively take the place of traditional levelling?

Overall, I find this "Taint" system somewhat intriguing! ^_^

It looks as though this is progressing nicely. ^_^

I like the idea of the mechanic that you have in mind for the lich--there might be some nice tension to be had in attempting to avoid the lich until the phylactery is destroyed, at which point one is free to confront it.

I'm glad to read of an upcoming mage-class! (And mildly amused by the little twig serving as a wand. ) As much as I enjoy hack-and-slash gameplay, ranged magic tends to be my preference. ^_^

I imagine that slowing the player during attacks might add a bit of weight to the decisions of when and where to attack: being slowed makes one more vulnerable, so attacking at the wrong moment may result in damage being taken. A little Souls-like, but not as difficult, perhaps.