catakids

[catakids]

Hey! 0.2.0 is out! Been a long time comin’ x_x. This last year was a wild one.

Patch notes below the cut.

New

4 New Boons!

Completely rewrote level generator

Completely re-made Normal Bear fight

Added two new weapons, dropped by Normal Bear

Added collectible learning points

Added collectible blessing items

Bunch of new premade rooms

New type of treasure chest

Weapon Mastery

Martial Artist

Blastoff

Spin-dash

Changes

Raised followers retain weapon skills, boons, and spellcasting abilities

Grumbuls no longer spawn with amulets, gorhounds, or small turrets in the Grumbul Tank fight

If a player with undead followers dies, the followers will reassign themselves to any player who comes near that also knows Raise Dead

Weapon's status effects only apply when an attack deals damage

Grumbuls in the Grumbul Tank arena no longer spawn with amulets of any kind

Completely re-made the Normal Bear boss

Regenerate now makes slimes multiply

New flame visual effect

New "zapped" visual effect

Made dipper effects last longer

Decapitated enemies who aren't immune to bleeding will bleed out now

Reduced damage frequency of acid

Completely re-made the Encyclopedia

Added the ability to specify potion, spellbook, and grenade types on custom kids

Can now jump up to 1 tile higher by holding up when leaping out of whater

Amulet of Force now slightly pulls usable items towards you when fully realized

Campfires can now bake nearby things, as long as the food isn't directly on the fire

More things cause detectable noise now - like being hit, bear-traps snapping shut, corpses falling, and weapons clashing

Can now roll by sprinting while crouched

Unstable plague now produces many fewer flies

Increased drop rate of fishanha corpses

No longer alerted to lava by dangersense when immune to fire

Changed appearance of stone platforms in the Upper Dungeon

Made device more durable - no longer destroyed by fire or water

Added unstable cold burst effect

Can now pounce onto climbing ladders and ledges again

Fixes

Swarm Form is broken

Grapple breaks if the thrower dies mid-throw

The same items sometimes persistently appear across multiple floors

Disowned player followers remain persistent across floors in co-op

Crash if a corpse currently being looted is destroyed by plague blight or some other means

Lightning Strike (Chain Lightning + Air-Dash multi-cast) sometimes places the player in walls

Reaper deactivates upon leaving the view during certain attacks

Water isn't spawning properly

"fx_sound" surface crash

Byat eye trails never disappear sometimes

Typo "You knows [...]" when looking at oneself

Bear traps draw at the wrong depth

Bear traps continually re-attach to large enemies after falling off

Dangersense only grants a speed boost when traveling to the right

Orbis Malus orbs are affected by status effects

Crash when using Break on arrow turrets

Crash related to fx_sound

Crash related to obj_creature_handle

Tinkerbot weapons don't persist between floors

Reaper can consume keys necessary for progress

Fur Hoods and Coats prevent heat loss entirely instead of slowing it

Crab's skittering sound continues to play even when it shouldn't

One player's pause menu doesn't draw when both players pause in co-op

Raising the corpse of a dead co-op player erases their traits

Controller still rumbles for players using keyboard controls

Crash when backing out of "enchant equipment" shop menu when equipment is all enchanted already

Crash when tracking tunnel doorways

Arrows hit walls immediately when fired up or down while too near to a wall

Can no longer press esc to back out of starting a game, or move the selection left/right after a character has been selected

Spell-dealers now have the proper text for the "Slow" and "Haste" spells

Fixed bug with fire sound effect continuing after explosions

Using poet's Tome ability as a spell while also having incantation causes the tome to always cast its charged version, even as a non-wordsmith

Tinkerbot stops animating when heavy-lifted

Gamepad input doesn't work in single player character select menu if the menu was entered via keyboard

Boulders on pressure pads repeatedly press them instead of holding them down

Sometimes get stuck to ceilings with the sticky feet meal

Tinkerer's class ability was named different things in different places

[catakids]

HEY. Hi. I have a Patreon now! Check it out maybe?

[catakids]

0.1.3 and 0.1.3b

Realized I never posted a changelog for 0.1.3 here! I also just put out 0.1.3b for windows. Have a combined changelog below!

New

New Class! The TINKERER!

New Items - Grenades

Robot Follower

Catacoins!

Custom Kids!

Battle music!

AC Forts!

Changes

0.1.3

Oog now have energy for the void amulet to drain 

Changed some reputation requirements

Large mushrooms are now heavier and bounce away creatures even when not upright or when struck

Mushrooms are know knocked away by attacks

Improved Magic 101's charged tome attack

Improved Magical Combat's charged tome attack

As a Spellwright, projectiles from tome attacks will auto-aim

Undo is now removed from your skill grid when its max charges reach 0

Arrow types can be swapped by holding "Stow", even when having held/stown items

Made Anticropolis background details better and more unique

Added splash visual effect for entering water

Added bubble effect to lava surface

Changed explosion visual effect

Changed flame wave visual effect

Made icy slopes much more slippery

Holding left/right no longer reduces your speed if you're moving faster in the same direction

Added a V-Sync option in Graphics options

   Setting V-Sync to "ALT" should help WIN 10 users with their black fullscreen issue but may

introduce other issues

Added option to disable contextual prompts in Graphics options

Some changes to lighting in the Anticropolis

Orb of Leveling light now cycles through colors

Classing up as a wanderer more dramatically increases farsight distance

Improved camera point of interest functionality

Doubled charged duration of Soul weapons and added a damage penalty for losing charge

Changed behavior of shadow strikers for Soul weapons

Stronger enemies generate more shadowbolt strikers when killed with soul weapons

Changed the behavior of lanterns to make them more useful

Lanterns now remove invisibility from lit enemies

Wearing sandals, going barefoot, or being naked in the anticropolis all increase heat loss

Sandals have less durability; Sandals/bare feet kick faster and increase freerun wall-run speed

Boots have higher durability, kick slower, and decrease freerun wall-run speed

Heavy weapons and equipment slow freerun wall-run startup time

Boots reduce damage from ground spikes 1 at the cost of durability

Helms and Coifs reduce damage from ceiling spikes by 1 at the cost of durability

Slightly reduced input window for heavy lifting creatures

Added learned percentage of weapon skill to "Likes [Weapon]" description

Increased shop security

Shops now come in different types

Shopkeepers offer different services based on their store type

Added living space to shops

Added background details to shops

Merchants will buy your items for closer to their actual value with higher LUC

Mixed potions now identify if their components are identified after being made

Weapons clashing gains the attention of nearby creatures

Disarming enemies while you have [Pilfer] now [steals their weapon]

Using Grapple on enemies now [disarms them] if you have [Disarm]

Made gamepad input for mighty stomp harder to do accidentally

Refined Air Dash behaviour

Improved input responsiveness for quickly throwing things after taking Trajectory or Deft Throw

Changed appearance of Trajectory throws

Trajectory now briefly slows time when initiated

Deft throw now has a slight auto-aim

Weapons thrown with trajectory only bounce once

Realized Amulet of the Void now only activates upon stealing energy/magic

Reduced Amulet of the Void's range

Increased INT requirement for enemy amulet use

Can now ride boulders

Can now initiate trajectory bow shots downward

Crush trap chain reeling sound is now emitted from the crushing head

Corpses are no longer valued by name length

Humanoid corpses' worth now take into account their equipped items 

0.1.3b

Reduced Tinker-Bot max hp increase from class-up from +5 to +3 each

Classing to Engineer lets tinker-bot carry heavy items

Reduced Tinker-Bot stat increase when going from Mechanic to Engineer

Added option to tinker-bot to only pick up unusable objects

Added input prompts to tinkerbot's manual mode

Added input prompts to character select menu

Engineer's Tinkerbot changes sprite to reflect improvement

Tinkerbot repairs damage from poor repairs by descending floors

Headaches now last for 2 floors instead of 1

Tinker-bot is better at avoiding shifting platforms in the AC

Fixes

0.1.3

Fixed pools of water spawning incorrectly

Fixed amulets de-identifying when INT drops

Energy with Void Amulet drains one from max

Input icon for class ability doesn't display when using controller

Arrows behave a bit better in tight corridors

Crash when drinking Potion of Cleansing Flame

Icicles are fine in lava

Flame pipes add excessive "Charred"s to corpses

Teleport traps can spawn on the ghost and other "up-to-interact" features

Boulder traps don't trigger over too-short distances

Flame Wave, Infernus, and burning enemies don't properly produce light

Fixed a bug with disabling out-of-view instances

Interactable object title text is drawn in the wrong color

Burrah-boi meal doesn't work at all

Strange transparency artifacts with alphas while in fullscreen

Solidified Lava in reaper room is rendered incorrectly

Still climb up and down ladders while tracking/aiming lantern

Can heavy lift creatures while already holding an item

Heavy lifted creatures can be picked up by humanoids other than the one who initiated the heavy

lift

Ghost sometimes provides too many, too few, or incorrect trait options

All the music was in mono BECAUSE I'M AN IDIOT

Crash when ogo slime on feet explodes in a gas trap

Crash when losing one's weapon-arm mid-attack while using a bow

Potions are overly resource-intensive

Firing a bow homes in on switches even when they're behind you

Missing particle effect upon level up

Breathing Masks don't work

NB becomes unresponsive after being blocked or shield parried

Using raise dead on a player in co-op doesn't restore their charge stars

Dead things gain value as they degrade

0.1.3b

Undo isn't removed from the spell bar when maximum charges reach 0

Missing leg causes air dash to behave strangely

Orb blinks when intersecting walls even when carried by Tinkerbot

Barrels sometimes burn them forever

Can be moved while going through doors

Moving Platforms in the AC can overlap the entrance/exit doors

Bot hits self with thrown arrows

Bot weapons don't disintegrate when broken

Can give bots heavy objects through the idle menu

Likes/Good With [Weapon] doesn't specify weapon type when loading a template kid

Spellbooks stolen by rats become invisible

Reaper weapons fly away after unpausing from tinker mode switch

Spikes in reaper room float when walls disappear

Wind-up turtle can be poisoned

Thrown weapons not reflected by armor of reflection

Potions deal damage incorrectly

Can't change Tinkerbot mode in coop while the screen is split

Bear trap keeps you caught after Undo

If you ride a boulder into a wall, the boulder may push you slightly into it

Weakness and a few other status effects aren't reciprocated by reciprocity

Lava bridges sprite turns to wooden bridge sprite when crushed by crush traps

NB sometimes spawns in walls and other strange places

Tinkerbot mode cannot be changed when class ability is assigned to SPELL

Custom Kids can't start with amulets

"gml_Object_par_player_Step_0" crashes

Locked rooms often generate without treasure

Wooden barricades can block off areas

[catakids]

If you don't feel like watching that then read below the cut. (it's mostly the same words):

The Tinkerer!

First things first, this update adds a new player class to the game; 

The Tinkerer

. Tinkerers are crafty item-users, planners, and mechanics, and as such they are associated with 

Intelligence

. Their class ability isn't really an ability so much as a companion: All tinkerers have a flying robot buddy that can carry items and fight alongside them.

The Tinker-Bot has four different modes that the player can switch between at will:

In Defensive mode, the tinker-bot will only attack enemies that you're already in combat with, but won't fly off and start fights on its own.

In Offensive mode, it'll attack any nearby creature regardless of whether they're aware of you or not.

In Manual mode, you control the robot directly, letting you move, attack, and pick up items with it, but you lose control of your Kid while doing so.

In Idle mode, the tinker-bot enters an inactive standby state: You can use this mode to tell the bot to wait somewhere out of the way while you go do something dangerous. You can also interact with the tinkerbot in this mode to manage its held item or modify its behaviour.

Of course, nothing lives forever, and the tinker-bot will be destroyed if it takes too much damage. When this happens it breaks into three pieces that are scattered around the level, and in order to restore it you'll need to reassemble the parts and then take a moment to power it up again. When you repair your bot this way, you'll become mentally exhausted for a couple floors, during which time if it breaks again, repairing it might result in some...lower quality results - or else come at a high cost.

In addition to their tinker-bot companions, Tinkerers also have a chance to start with items unique to their class, called "Contraptions." There are only two kinds of contraptions so far - Grenades and Wind-up Turtles - but more are planned for future updates.

Those are the essentials of the new Tinkerer class, but there's much more to them that you'll have to discover for yourself. I'm excited to finally have the fourth class implemented and I think they'll find their place alongside the bully, wanderer, and poet as a valued addition to the game.

Catacoins

The next major addition to this update is the introduction of Catacoins. These coins are a kind of currency that you gain over the course of multiple runs by getting far and gaining reputations. Different reputations are worth different amounts of Catacoins based on how difficult they are to get, but even if you don't get any reputations at all, you'll still slowly gain Catacoins over the course of your runs to spend.

As for what you do with these coins, there's only one thing to spend them on so far, but I think it's pretty neat: You can spend coins to customize the otherwise randomly-rolled Kids, tweaking certain starting traits and equipment to create a kid that suits the way you play, but keep in mind that the more specific you are, the pricier the kid becomes.

You can choose to spend just a few coins for a simple quality of life improvement, or save them up to roll an expensive all-star suited to your tastes -- but play well, to make sure they survive and make the investment worthwhile.

Shops

I've also made some changes to shopkeepers: They're no longer generic sellers-of-all things, but are instead divided into four different shop types: blacksmiths, magic dealers, potion brewers, and clothiers. In addition to each shop type offering different kinds of items, shopkeepers themselves now offers a service unique to their profession.

Blacksmiths can improve your weapon's stats and repair damaged equipment.

Magic dealers will sell you a single spell that doesn't require learning points to acquire.

Potion brewers will identify any potion type, for a price.

Clothiers offer enchantments for your armor and shoes.

What's Next?

So, now that this new class is out and the groundwork has been laid for meta progression in the form of Catacoins, my next major goals are the implementation of the third environment, the Deep Dark and the addition of Tier 3 boons, and transitioning development to Game Maker Studio 2. But like, in the reverse order from what I just said. Of course this all will be aalongside the continued fleshing-out of existing systems - adding more meals and meal effects, more things to purchase with catacoins, more spell overloads and trances, etc.

I'm Still Not Dead

Lastly, as I've mentioned before but will continue to mention for as long as it remains true: If you ever think I'm dead or have dropped off the face of the earth (like I know sometimes happens) Check out http://twitch.tv/fourbitfriday on Mondays or Fridays - unless I'm out of town I'll always be dev-streaming from 3-6PM PST. We've also got a relatively active discord channel that y'all're all welcome to come in and chat ‘bout stuff.

So anyway, sorry this build took such a long time getting out - there were a lot of irritating and common bugs in the last version, and going so long without at least addressing them was pretty unacceptable of me. My bad. I'll try to do better forever. After all, what can we do but strive evermore for betterment - of ourselves, of the world around us - or else be crushed by the sameness and the worseness of all prior existence; softly smothered by the enticing and outstretched arms of the grand beast named Contentment with Mediocrity.

So you strive, stumbling at times, sure, but resisting that beastly embrace. And so shall I strive too - until I am Better. Until I am Best. And even further, until the infinite endeavors which lie beyond.

[catakids]

Grumbuls and skeletons don’t get along at all.

[catakids]

Undead Warriors

It came to pass that on occasion some noble would-be-heroes sought to defy Abys' absolute rule, and these kings and lords would gather armies to assail her infinite stronghold. Inevitably, all were unsuccessful, ending up ravaged by her undead hordes and turned back by the unbreachable walls of her floating fortress-nation.

However, among the defeated armies, there always seemed to exist a curiously strong-willed general, soldier, or vengeful peasant -- one who did not go mad or quake in fear at the presence of the Dark Sorceress. These willful challengers would attempt to slay her even as she stood omnipotent before them, and Abys came to admire their fighting spirit. And so, for her amusement, she took to encasing their feet in stone before unleashing her minions upon them in waves. The warriors fought off Abys' monsters to the point of exhaustion and death - sometimes over the course of days - and it is rumored that there are some whose fighting spirit was so strong that even after the light of life faded from their eyes they continued to swing their blades.

Now, they are among the remnants of Abys’ army that roam the Catacombs, having centuries ago forgotten who they were in life or what they fought for.

If their jaws still functioned (or existed) they would mostly tell lewd jokes and exaggerated tales of their own ancient exploits.

[catakids]

0.1.2

Ahh! This build is kinda way overdue! The last build was pretty buggy and crashy, and this should hopefully fix a lot of that. It's only available on Windows for the time being, with Mac and Linux following sometime this weekend, hopefully. There isn't too much new stuff to play around with yet, but I'm making very good progress on the upcoming Tinkerer class, as well as implementing a currency to be spent between runs.

Changelog below:

New

New Reaper Spell!

New Amulet!

Changes

Can now aim Chain Lightning's trance downward

Reaper spells are now considered "Dark" for charge types

Fully realized Amulets now have a (Realized) tag

Push and Push trance now affect crush traps and falling icicles

Amulet of [Void] no longer drains energy

Absorbing magic with the Amulet of [Void] now restores energy to the bearer

Amulet of [Void] no longer disables the Orb of Leveling

Amulet of [Hunger] now has a fully realized version

Enemy amulet abilities now tied to enemy INT

Enemy amulet effects are now invisible unless you already know said amulet

Can skip logo intro on main menu

Blink trance now protects from projectiles and being crushed by the Grumbul Tank

Fixes

Pouncing with Chain Lightning's trance expends all minibolts at once

Crash when trying to display context button prompts for nonexistent objects

Tomed spellbooks sometimes the visual of being used when using another object

Spellwright shopkeepers crash when casting an aimable spell

Looting menu shows stats for last selected item when selecting Amulets

Sometimes the same amulet type will appear and identify as two separate ones

Sometimes two different amulet types will have the same appearance

Plague poisons allies

Plagued flame bodies are excessively explosive

INT requirement for identifying amulets was wrong

Another crash related to Reaper arena blocks spawning in

Get stuck in ceiling while standing on grumbul tank with extra tough while it jumps

The bottom row of tiles in a level is often cut off or misgenerated

Running Water Anticropolis transition freezes during generation

Thermal indicator shows during level generation

[catakids]

0.1.1!

I've temporarily removed the Wayward kids from normal level generation since they were causing a lot of crashing issues. I'm gonna put some more work into them and hopefully they'll be back next update ready to rock 'n roll! In the meantime, I'll be doing my usual dev-stream later today over at twitch.tv/fourbitfriday so feel free to come say what's up and talk about kids in 'combs. As always, changelog below:

Fixes    

Pose doesn't change when climbing up onto ledges 

Fixed a bug with giant arrow damage calculation 

Arrows catch fire if stuck in someone who runs past a campfire 

Player 2 Overheal UI is jank 

Casting Raise Dead with overcharges costs no overcharge and ignores blocked energy 

Negative status effects on allies may spread to you via Reciprocity 

The number displayed for current energy when paused is incorrect when mp is blocked 

Flames from Fire and Ice can also burn allies 

Reaper room often reconstructs incorrectly after the battle 

Goo meal can overheal for greater than ones INT 

Teamed-up Wayward kids spawn as though fleeing when traveling to the next floor 

Fire and Ice gave only Hot charges when picked up with Innate Power 

Dark Arts gave the incorrect charge types

Eeol Labeled Eel in kill list 

Melting/dangerous slimeballs are not labeled as such 

Crash when boiling any unsupported object in a bottle of water 

Can get pushed into walls by boulders and barrels 

Cannot teleport out of a wall after surviving a teleport into one 

Making soup from a frozen corpse makes potato and [thing] soup 

Some kids don't drown 

Melting and dangerous slimes are not properly labeled as such 

Air Dash can be buggy at times 

"Down" on keyboard still rolls/bashes even when roll/bash is bound to a different key 

Extra Tough doesn't affect Bear Traps 

Fixed some typos 

Dark Phase has no spell description 

Shops in the Anticropolis have no doors 

 New 

New Anticropolis Transition Stages! 

Amulets! 

Added a few more Encyclopedia entries!

 Changes

Increased arrow damage 

Increased arrow accuracy 

Reduced chance of enemies dodging arrows 

Halved the rate at which bows degrade from use 

Taunt now affects crabs and turrets Increased frequency/severity of unstable undo's side-effect 

Barrels are empty more frequently 

-of Health now heals to a minimum of 3hp, regardless of hp max 

Spellbooks restore more charges and charge types when picked up with Innate Power 

Added Teleport Overload

Added additional contextual button prompts (Sorry, no way to disable them yet! But there will be!) 

Temporarily removed Wayward Kids in order to address an abundance of crashes 

Changed Frolix AI 

Helms and Coifs now reduce stomp damage by 1 

Non-"Hard Helms" and Coifs take a ton of durability damage when stomped 

Removed STR requirement for pilfering enemies' weapons 

Reduced frequency of barrel assassins

Improved War-Hammers' stats 

Added "Farsight" to Wanderer's Instinct class ability 

Spellbooks can be Tomed by using class ability while holding a book 

Transition stages no longer count against meal effect floor count 

Added button prompts for actions 

Encyclopedia entry requirements can be met over multiple runs 

Animated title drop 

Fat humanoids landing don't knock other fat humanoids into the air

Made fat grumbuls much less common 

Added sound effects to crabs and eels 

Added sound effects to laser traps 

Skeletal mages now spawn in the Anticropolis 

Made standing torches rarer in the Anticroplis 

Near Future TO-DO 

Next Class! 

Continue fleshing out Encyclopedia

[catakids]

Didn't see your policy on posting YouTube videos of Catacomb Kids anywhere. Would it be alright to post on my Let's Play Channel? -Gremdavel (youtube/gremdavel)

Make All The Videos! Post Them As You Please! Let’s Play ‘Til The End Of Times!

[catakids]

0.1.0b!

Buncha bug fixes (AND SOME NEW STUFF) Windows only for now, Linux + Mac coming in the next couple days. 

(Super sorry Linux folk for the delay in gettin’ this update to y’all! It’s coming soon though 💙)

Fixes

Can't make bottles of slime, et al

Number of current spell charges changes upon resurrection in multiplayer

Arrows don't spawn in barrels

Potions of health identify upon drinking them when overhealed

Fog of war is not cleared away while in Flame Form

anim_slash3 crash

Shooting downward with a bow spawns the arrows in the wrong place, causing them to hit tiles above

Transition stage music doesn't change upon continuing to the next floor (fixed?)

Reaper becomes invisible during its super strike

Several other things become invisible after being off-screen

Visual glitch with carrying learnable spells

Slimes still have the wrong spiced effects from 0.0.16

obj_item_claim_point crash

Player 2 can't move in co-op when using a gamepad while player 1 is looting

hud_draw_pause_traits crash

Touching horizontal moving blocks in the AC can be buggy

Using tome while holding an item doesn't play the proper tome attack animation

Grumbul assassins frequently get stuck in walls when jumping out of barrels

Sitting humanoids count as crouching and so arrows tend to miss them

Kids with "Archer" trait can have their bow overriden by the "Likes" trait

Maybe fixed the potion identification spam for real this time, possibly

Can't select a single-player character on keyboard if gamepad is enabled and detected

Device spawns too frequently, and multiple times

Standing near lava doesn't keep one warm

Level-up cancel screen doesn't accept keyboard input if gamepad is enabled and detected

Dpad input sometimes doesn't work properly in menus

Crash when attacking if LUC is greater than 14

Bone arrows ignite

Control reset uses the wrong defaults

Pressing 'esc' while control redefine is waiting for input leaves the control blank

Slimeballs crushed beneath crush-traps don't always leave slime behind

Changes

Arrows burn for longer before being destroyed

Increased arrow capacity from 5 to 8

Added ui for arrows

Arrow type no longer changes automatically until all of the current arrow type is used up

Increased durability damage to armor of reflection when hit by projectiles

Improved the new grumbul variant and made them more visually distinct

New visuals for horizontal moving platforms in the Anticropolis

Moving platforms stop briefly when they hit each other

Further changes Flame Wave trance (Flame Form)

Reaper fight now freezes lava into a solid version

Removed knockback effect upon reaper's death

Reaper room barriers are slower to come in and slower to kill

Summoning the reaper now also destroys mushrooms within the room

Leaving the reaper room mid-fight now angers the reaper

Added money indicator to co-op UI

In co-op, each player recieves a small portion of the gold that the other player collects

Reduced ███-███ hp

Refined ███-███ animation

Can now use ███-███ 's █████ to ███

Can now use claw arms to grapple when pouncing even with a weapon equipped

Hated weapons now go much further when thrown

Thrown spears fly straight

Added identifiable traits to Potions of Acid

Temperature guage position slightly improved, shifts to fit wanderer's tracking

Fishanha finally actually consume corpses over time

Fishanha target humanoid corpses regardless of whether they're bloody or not

Falling icicles break items like crush traps

Added unique portrait art to all arm types

Added death message to popcorn

Limited arrows' vertical velocity when firing bows in low corridors

Dagger haters can pocket daggers

Can once again rebind class ability on keyboard

Crushed slimes now always leave their slime effect

[catakids]

Let’s kick some ice.

The Anticropolis

I mean wow guys, for real.

Welcome to your new snowy wonderland: The Anticropolis. Once the underside of Abys' floating fortress before it fell to become The Catacombs, The Anticropolis is now locked in an everlasting, magical cold. Within, you will find undead that roam freely, and grumbul hunters whose excursions have brought them far from their comforts in the Upper Dungeon. Many fun new deaths await in the frigid depths, including but not limited to: being swallowed whole, crushed by giant icicles, spat upon by ghosts, and torn apart by winged beasts while caught in a bear trap and desperately fumbling for a potion. With it being so cold in the Anticropolis, you'll also have to keep an eye on your temperature to make sure you don't suffer from frostbite: Keep dry, dress warmly, and seek fire.

If you’re looking for the changelog, I’ll be posting that separately, but you can check out some of the other new stuff in this build - as well as future plans - below the cut.

Wayward Kids

It's not all bad in the snowy deep; with new enemies also come new allies in the form of other wayward Kids that you can find and form alliances with (after doing them a favor, of course). These Kids are a very early version of what they'll become, with the hope being that you'll eventually be able to forge relationships with them over the course of a run and encounter individuals multiple times as you both descend and grow stronger. But that's something for later.

For now, they just want stuff (and are formidable opponents, should you gain their ire).

Bows and Arrows

You'll also find bows, a new type of weapon, and the first that exists apart from the five weapon archetypes. Bows are great ranged weapons that allow you to strike from afar, but their ammo is limited and precious, requiring you to retrieve your arrows after each fight. Once your arrows are exhausted, you may find yourself ill-equipped to handle the trials of more close-quarters combat.

Bows don’t have any weapon skills of their own like the other weapon types, but they do synergize with both the Focus Strike and Trajectory boons.

What's Next?

Now for a disclaimer: This might be obvious, but this release doesn't mean the Anticropolis is done. Far from it: this is the first version of the AC, with much, much more to come. With feedback from players, it will evolve into something even better. Notably missing in this build are transition stages unique to the Anticropolis. I've already started work on them but they were proving problematic and would delay this release even further had I pursued them to completion, so I've simply excluded them for now. There are also several more enemies and environmental features I have plans to implement, as well as a new boss creature (or two?). Anyway my point is: This is just the beginning.

I've learned a lot of things over the past several months of working on the Anticropolis -- things that I hope to employ going forward to help make the game progress faster, so that another months-long absence of updates doesn't happen again.

The first of these is: Hiring people helps LOADS. I have previously mentioned that I brought on one (1) John Sandoval to help lighten the animation workload on me, and subsequently he did most of the animation on many of the new enemies you'll be seeing in the Anticropolis. And gosh, as much as I love doing animation and pixel art that was a huge load off my shoulders. So this is the part where I implore you to spread the word about Catacomb Kids, since my hiring of people is still contingent upon paying them. I would love to bring on another coder and continue to employ the skills of John.

Another thing I've learned is: If I want to work on ~Secret Stuff~, I have to be economical about it. The Anticropolis' delays were ultimately caused by my failure to spread the work out evenly across prior updates, leaving an utterly massive amount of work to be done with little groundwork laid. When I look at how long it took to get the Upper Dungeon to where it is, and expect to make 60-70% of that amount of content again before the Anticropolis release, it's no wonder my optimistic timeline for the area was overstated. To help mitigate that from happening again, I'm going to be starting work on the Deep Dark immediately, though I don't anticipate it to be released for at least as long as it took for me to get the AC together (the better part of this past year). Even if the going on the Deep Dark is slow, the hope is that by the time I'm wrapping up the AC and ready to dive into the DD, work on the area will already be well underway.

For now though, while I continue work on The Anticropolis my next major goals will be implementing meta progression -- that is, the game progression outside of individual runs -- and the next class, which will be focused around Intelligence.

That’s all for now.

<3

[catakids]

0.1.0

See below for an -- if I may say so myself -- sizable changelog.

Fixes

Balls of Goo, Slime, and Mucus become charred instead of properly melting away or exploding

Undead Followers don't work properly in co-op when the screen splits

Spell loss/gain upon being resurrected in co-op

Daily Run menu marked as "Daily Failed" after backing out of the character select menu

Rare crash if the player dies with a whirlwind still active

Passageways on floors display the wrong graphic

Boiling pools of water never cool

Humanoid enemies with legs missing get stuck in a weird hovering state

Crash upon entering a level with previously escaped grumbuls

Escaped enemies in shops appear behind the locked door

Turrets immune to Glacial Grinder overload

Humanoid enemies freeze and spam "!" when attacking beneath them

Roll sound effect is spammed when pressing down+sideways while using a lantern

Potion identification is spammed in co-op if both players have the same potion

Regenerate (Trance Cure) uses two charges

Extra Regenerate (From Potions of Extra Regeneration or Trance Cure) doesn't actually restore hp

Certain overloads/trances caused spell charges to become negative ("X")

Ogo's weapons don't spin when they attack any more

Severed heads are not destroyed when intersecting with physics objects, causing lag

Overload Cold burst doesn't reduce "energized" charges

Environmental slime emits light

Sometimes 'Hates Weapon' is all jacked up (fixed?)

Messages sometimes overlap one another when they are more than a single line

Giant arrows and swinging blades can sever both of the player's arms

Shields differ in different instances of the same Daily Run

Peppered non-humanoid corpses behave as though they are both savory and peppered: savory does nothing to them

Entering the tutorial from the "Extras" menu messes up the music

Reflected dragon's breath is visually buggy

New Stuff

Bows and arrows!

Wayward wids!

The Anticropolis! (And all that it entails)

New Upper Dungeon trap!

Another, different new weapon!

The beginnings of an encyclopedia! (Extremely early version)

Changes

Changed the behaviour of barrels to make them less annoying/reduce instances of surprise damage

Humanoids can no longer stomp when tumbled or frozen

Chain Lightning no longer travels through every single tile of water

Boiling pools of water have their heat distributed through them 

Larger pools will cool more quickly, and smaller ones will stay boiling for much longer 

The position of the heat-source within the pool also matters

Homing bolts no longer target invisible creatures

Escaped enemies heal over time until you leave the level

Improved spellwright's spell aiming capabilities

Added minor squash/stretch upon hitting enemies

Can Pounce with weapons now

Arrows stick in non-humanoid enemies

Trance Cure grants a longer-lasting immunity

Overload Cure heals for more and grants overheal

Added unstable Undo effect

Overloads/Trances no longer require 2 charges to use

Changed color of overheal to match INT and added indication for maximum overheal

Flame Form lasts for longer, and becomes inactive when motionless

Messages in the alerts area are now outlined

Acid deals damage to all equipment, rather than just armor

Creatures slain by acid leave no corpses behind

New barrel sfx

New sfx for arrows hitting walls and creatures

Class select menu now remembers your previously-chosen class

Once more removed conflicting starting traits

Performing a basic 3-attack combo while unarmed will alternate attacking arms

Holding a severed limb while regenerating attaches the limb without ending regeneration

Unstable Caster made rarer for poets

Added a new limb that grumbuls sometimes spawn with

Added a new grumbul modifier

Limited shields' block strength

Spears and large weapons no longer considered 'heavy' for the purposes of carrying them with hate

Swinging blades now interact with physics objects

Reduced the effect of MAG on casting speed without Incantation

Increased durability of Soul- weapons

Can now focus strike flourish

Moved tutorial text to the top of the screen

Tutorial grumbul no longer runs away

Reduced distance between floors for item-drop pipes

Reduced the number of grumbuls spawned during the tank fight

Can now directly attack the Grumbul Tank's legs

[catakids]

Catacomb Kids - Update 0.1.0! 

Currently 20% Off on Steam and Itch.io!

(Yes, it’s still in Alpha)

[catakids]

By the way, @humanhacks makes some AMAZING CK fan art on the regular. It is The Best <3

Also, in general, a fantastic artist, so that’s dope too.

Catacomb Kids tribute, stealing the orb.

[catakids]

0.0.15

H'okay!

Unfortunately still no Anticropolis yet, but it's getting close. Co-op is very nearly done, so regardless of whether or not The Anticropolis comes out with the next update, co-op will likely be in for sure.

In the meantime, this build introduces many balance changes, including some alterations to the damage calculation formula to make both enemies and players: less likely to deal 0s and less likely to wham for 8-10+ damage in a single hit. I've also consolidated the Heal and regenerate spells into a single, less healing-oriented (but hopefully more interesting to use) Cure spell, with Heal and Regenerate being made its Overload and Trance, respectively. Overall, the result should be that being struck is less of an immediate death sentence but bears more of a long-term cost, with damage numbers being more consistent and healing being rarer.

Additionally, where before your maximum spell charges would increase by simply leveling up MAG, they now only increase once at MAG level 3, and apply to all spells both known and yet-unknown. Some changes to the way charge stars work for Overload and Trance should hopefully make those abilities a bit more fun to use as well.

In any case, there's a bunch of other changes, and some bug fixes that should make this build a bit less volatile. Guess you'll just have to read the changelog or play to find them out!

Fixes

Changing window focus while looting doesn't pause the game

Fixed(?) crash from humanoids attacking with missing weapons

Roll sound plays continuously when looking down with lanterns

Unarmed kick (dagger skill 1) doesn't work properly

Soul- weapons' dark bolt strikes miss frequently

First attack after Taunt doesn't always activate the power strike

Salting food doesn't actually do anything

Sticks continue to burn even in water

Fixed(?) Impossible trap rooms

Fixed several memory leaks

Some optimizations

Fixed wall-grumbuls

Bottles filled with water while held are drawn incorrectly

Voices of humanoid enemies wrongly positioned upon death

New Stuff

New Wizard Throw overload

Added unstable effects for:

Wizard Throw

Haste

Slow

Frost Bolt

Vampirism

Poison Blob

New Spell:

Cure

Removed Heal and Regenerate as individual spells

Changes

Changed how Charge Stars work for Overload and Trance

Stars are now shared among all overloads/trances, rather than being spent per-spell

Changed how damage and defense are calculated 

Fewer 0s and fewer unexpectedly high hits

Changed ladder sprites

Added focus strike abilities to Pounce, Downward Thrust, and Rolling Blade

+1 MIN STR instead of +1 STR at level 3

Max spell charges are now gained only at MAG level 3

Max spell charge increase applies to all spells, known and unknown

Unstable teleport is more consistently unstable

Taunt and Focus strike attacks win weapon clashes

Added different effects when pouncing with different slime balls

Changed rules of Soul-weapons

Increased range of unstable shadow cloak

Made Health and Regeneration potions rarer

Enemies use potions sooner in fights

Boiling Potions can be carried for longer before boiling away

Critical strikes made visible with a green streak

Poison damage now stacks when applied multiple times

Changed the Grumbul meal effect

Changed input of Flourish to match Heavy Bat and Dagger Storm

Improved range, knockback, and stun of Heavy Bat

Changed input for tier 3 Axe / Hammer neutral air to double-tap attack

Increased knockback on focus strike uppersmash

Removed Flourish from spears

Made byat spawn holes more visible

Soups now heal for 1 by default

Added two more ways to cook food

Smoldering foods char much faster

Shopkeepers now have classes and are smarter about catching thieves

Reduced default charge amount for several spells

Increased delay on enemies using weapon skills

Pursuing foes lose you slightly more easily

[catakids]

0.0.14

Fellow humans,

Behold, 0.0.14! Numerous changes in this one. If you missed the status update and are wondering where 0.1.0 is with The Anticropolis and Co-op, please check out the post I made on that subject right here. Long story short; they're a-comin'! Just need some more love and carressin', ya know?

In the meantime, peep this healthy changelog!

Fixes

Regeneration doesn't restore limbs if you have Overheal 

Teleport always takes spell charges, even when Energized

Can't back away from ledges while shielding 

Can't descend ledges while backing up with a shield 

Slow fall while casting empty spell 

Wrong coloration for some corpse's heads 

Twins flee fights (legit fixed this time) 

Grumbul Orb-Bearers can flee the floor 

Having Incantation and Overload causes Vampirism and Haste to rapidly cast multiple times

Frozen food doesn't thaw over fire 

Spiked equipment descriptions are wrong 

Wanderers only hate hammers 

Ghost spawns underwater 

Bug drawing helms in ui when picking them up 

Can't break fallen ceiling blocks in collapsing tunnels with weapons

Gamepad stops working on main menu sometimes (fixed??) 

Hidden spikes often appear under gas traps

Grumbul Tank sometimes gets stuck behind the intro wall

Enemies can escape through barred exits

New Stuff

New Trait: Hungry 

New Trait: Unstable Caster 

New Trap: ████████████

New shopkeeper menu 

New ghost menu 

New class select menu

Changes

Improved stats of Claymores 

Heavy Bat input changed to sprint+attack (same as Dagger Storm) 

Ghost dialog box redone 

Shopkeeper dialog box redone 

Spinning attacks deal less damage per hit 

Numerous changes to Weapon Skills: 

Backswipe is now Flourish -- moved to tier 2 Axe Primary

Parry is a tier 4 weapon skill for Hammers and Swords; removed from Hack 'n Slash

Spin Cleave removed from axes 

Increased hitbox on Downward Thrust and The Drop

Numerous changes to Traits 

Traits no longer occupy Skill Grid space

Positive and negative traits no longer paired 

Loud is louder and increases the range of other noises 

Hunger no longer universal: Moved to new trait 

Hated weapons now behave like normal carried objects 

Weapon hatred cannot be unlearned 

Lucky Boots no longer a starting item 

Significantly reduced range of Teleport 

Leveling up INT increases efficacy of class abilities: 

Bully gains more Power Orbs from taunt 

Wanderer's Vision ability reaches further

Poet Tomes have more charges 

Teleporting into walls will now kill you 

Collapsing tunnels will destroy fallen crush traps and boulders 

-of Removal weapons blink enemies further away, respecting knockback direction

Using items interrupts blocking with shields 

Dropping through platforms requires less horizontal pixel precision

Added telefragging 

Began adding Unstable spell effects: 

Heal, Raise Dead, Blink, Magic Blast, Teleport, Infernus, Chain Lightning

Boulders and Crush Traps break spikes 

Potions of Extra Regeneration last longer 

Frozen potion shards have grace period before becoming dangerous

Reduced potency of "--of Light" 

Added descriptions for footwear 

Can sell items to shopkeepers 

Killing a shopkeeper will return spent money 

Humanoid AI dodges slightly less aggressively 

Decreased LUC requirement for spiked armor to appear, and increased its frequency in general

Break made slightly more effective 

Wanderer's "Vision" ability improved

Newest tracked object carries between levels

Can target items to be tracked

Pathfinder improved

Changes to Grumbul Tank

No longer jumps when player is in combat with summoned grumbuls (excepting the rider)

Tank Legs are no longer impervious to physical damage

Added more visual and audio cues for attacks

Removed time limit from chasing escaped enemies

Added indicator to exits when enemies escape

[catakids]

What’s Up?

So I posted this a couple weeks ago on the Steam community forums, but I know not everybody uses those. Since the next build is impending (as in, sometime late tonight or early tomorrow) I figured it’d be relevant to repost this update for those Not-Steam-Communiteers out there as to where the game currently stands, and where it’s headed.

So, the first thing to get out of the way is that neither Co-op nor the Anticropolis will be in this update as I had hoped they would. But it’s not all bad!

Co-op is actually progressing much more smoothly than I had anticipated -- really most of what's left there is to fix some UI bugs, add a means for dead players to get back into the game, and make some changes to enemy AI to be able to better handle the coordination of two players trying their hardest to cheese the hell out of everything in their way. All of these are things I feel I have pretty solid plans of how to tackle. The Anticropolis is a bit tougher. The actual content for the area is coming together well enough -- 3 of the 5 new enemies I hoped to have completed for the area's reveal are just about complete, and the other 2 should be not long behind. There are also a number of new environmental dangers making their way into the area, and the visual style of the place is fairly well nailed down. The problem I'm facing though isn't one of content, but of integration. The Upper Dungeon feels much like an ecosystem to me, with items and creatures all having their own niches and relationships with one another. In my hubris, I assumed that merely switching out some enemies for different enemies and tweaking the level generator's variables a bit would be enough to call it a new area, but that was a failing on my part to recognize the interconnected nature of the Upper Dungeon's elements. As it stands, the Anticropolis is currently just a very cold looking place filled with a bunch of stuff. It lacks cohesion. It's just stuff. I was so eager to work on and put out a new area that I overlooked the very important task of making it feel like a unified whole. For this reason, I'll be taking a bit more time on the Anticropolis to make it a worthwhile update and not just "hey guys here's the upper dungeon but colder and more poorly designed". 

I hope that’s okay. So that's the bad news. The good news is: Basically everything else. I've gotten a lot done in the past couple months, including overhauling the code for traits, which was essentially the last major systems change before the majority of the remaining work is content (excluding the meta-game progression, which I'll start working on after the Anticropolis is out). Stevie and I also finally overcame a major hurdle with the implementation of leaderboards, which should now be close at hand. I've made a number of bug-fixes and balance changes that I'm pretty proud of, including somehow making Teleport simultaneously less and more op. I've added fairly robust dialog boxes for talking to people which have homogenized the ui of the ghost and shopkeepers, and which will make the implementation of npc kids smoother and radder. I've finally begun implementing unstable effects for spells, and added a new trait to match. I've made the character select menu a bit prettier, and made it compatible with two inputs in preparation for the forthcoming co-op. (You guys won’t actually get to see that though, but believe me it’s in there).

So that’s the gist of it. As I said, 0.0.14 should be coming out very soon -- likely tonight for Windows and later tomorrow for Linux and Mac. Things to look forward to in 0.0.14 include: New shopkeeper UI, new ghost UI, new character and class selection menu, improved Wanderer ability, a couple new traits, telefragging, and a wad of bugfixes.

In other news, GDC was last week and I gave a talk! It was about the representation of human fragility in games, and health systems, and meat! It went pretty good. Hopefully a video of it should be going up sometime in the next few weeks and I’ll link it here when that happens.

I think that’s all for now!