Hello there, folks! I'm glad to bring you a whole new beta for Nightfall tonight. Not as much new stuff here as with the previous beta releases, but still there's some pretty neat stuff for you to check out!
I was hoping for this beta to be the last one, but sadly, there's still a lot to do, so there will probably be a Fifth beta before the full release. In the meanwhile, I'll always appreciate your feedback!
Anyway, let's bring the good ol' changelog. What's new from the first release of the Third beta (v3.48b)?
- Added position cooldown (for building) after collecting or breaking a structure. This prevents the old 'trick' of instantaneously replacing structures when they're low on health.
- Light Torches now show their area of effect. Completely necessary to build your strategy!
- Lower drop rate for potions and power-ups. It just felt like a grocery shop before this!
- Collecting structures now restores half of its energy cost. Pretty convenient!
- Added air dash. Double-tap the direction keys while in mid-air to extend your jumps!
- Enemies' AI improved. No more 'all I do is attack the player' AI.
- Shadowbolts and some bosses can now stun the player/mercenaries. You better be prepared!
- Items and structures can now be sold. Need some extra money? Check it out!
- 'Force night' option now gives some extra money in Normal mode. Forcing night is somewhat rewarding now!
- Creative mode now features double money gain. It's Creative mode after all.
- You don't lose lives anymore by falling off the map. Now you can be less worried while playing as a non-pegasi!
- Added 'Game speed' option (F5). Would you like to fast-forward? Or maybe slow things down a bit!
- Game is now slightly faster by default. It feels way more active!
- Added 5 seconds of invulnerability and invincibility after losing a life. Those 5 seconds can make a huge difference!
- Added Adventure mode (map 1). Explore the pre-made maps, collect the keys and find the exit! That's right, a whole new game mode for when you're tired of building!
- Added hard mode. For you crazy guys who want the game to be even harder.
- Added new skills and achievements. You gotta love Wave Attack!
- Greatly improved overall performance. This took its time, but I'm really glad to say the game's performance has been GREATLY improved. And I mean A LOT.
- The world now gets regenerated every 25 nights. I've had this idea for quite some time now. The whole world terrain gets re-generated after the 'big' bosses. Your stats, money and inventory don't change, though! Just the terrain and structures. You better start rebuilding before night falls again!
- Your attacks now bounce off structures. All of them.
- Other minor changes and bug fixes. And everytime I say this, I mean A LOT of minor changes.
The red points are the changes since the last version of the Third beta (v3.94b), so those of you who have been following the blog will be most likely interested in those.
Anyway, as always, you can find the download link in the Games section!
Thank you hugely for your time, support and interest, guys, and feel free to share your feedback! It's greatly appreciated.
Oh, and by the way! As it seems you haven't found out yet... there's actually 7 characters in the game.
Have a great day, and I hope you have fun!
"Thanks M. A. Larson!" Lol. Minecraft-like messages always seem to be funny.
ReplyDeletetrololololololo
DeleteBut... but... I wanted to do something productive today... ah well.
ReplyDelete(hm... why I suddenly can't comment with Intense Debate?)
I hope you enjoy it!
DeleteAnd yeah, I don't know- Blogger does what it wants sometimes.
How bigger is Pinkamena's fire-rate/range/damage?
ReplyDeletePinkamena mode is:
Deletex2 shooting damage, x2 shooting speed, 1/2 received damage and no spirit usage on skills.
I felt that it's strong, thanks for the info :)
DeleteI'm trying to play now with Pinkie Pie, concentrating on the character-attack skills, and always going in Pinkamena before nightfall (putting down some frost-ring turrets to assist me). It's hard, but incredibly exciting. The best part is, that I finally have enough firepower to kill bosses (even if sometimes have to use a potion or two).
Awesome! Thanks for playing, pal!
Delete"Featuring Rainbow Dash's replacement"
ReplyDeleteHOW TO PLAY AS DERPY?
Sorry if this is a bit rough; I wrote it while I played.
ReplyDeleteAdventure Mode - tried it. Fun initially, but couldn't find the last key. If you relied on me to make a 'leap of faith' of the side of the screen, then that's bad gameplay design.
:::POSSIBLE BUGS:::
AJ can dash in air?
cannot open shop if you use esc, works only if use enter - also, enter is not listed on readme, only shows up in tutorial
cannot heal trees with shift+click, can only heal their blocks
Celestial aid has limited range?
fruit disappears after ~15 fruit on tree?
juicy apples - after getting the ach, the spawn rate for green apples does not to up significantly? (for reference: http://imgur.com/AOqcdcY :: 24 trees nearby, and I only count 6 green apples.)
prices for blocks (maybe everything?) in the shop goes up after I reached level 30? perhaps something else; I got an ach around that time as well.
:::COMPLAINTS:::
Adventure mode - what's with the jeweled tree?
having to collect a whole 250 fruit before being allowed to collect trees and consequently make a farm sucks hard. I don't want to make a base until I have a farm nearby. Reduce to 100?
days are too short, not enough time to do significant work on base. There should be no worry about making days too long if we have the force night option.
Summer achievement doesn't come quickly enough to be appreciated. By the 21st day - at best - most of my base work is already done. That extra precious day time would be better early game. Reduce from 20 to 5?
far too many enemies too soon
makes tree generate apples while even further away?
explain the powerups - gold circle, silver circle, etc. I can only tell that the red circle kills enemies.
leaf powerup, coin powerup - define 'near' in their description
define different fruits
level 30 boss flies away from you? I had the perfect death trap set up, but he simply wouldn't stay near me. By the time I figured I could block him in, the night was over.
explain pinkamena mode in the character selection menu
:::SUGGESTIONS:::
prohibiting collecting structures before the relevant ach discourages exploration early game; how about prohibiting placing structures instead?
item: 10 sec invulnerability, 1g
ach for merc kills?
map function - revealed as you explore, updated to reflect changes, special icons for special blocks so you can come back later to collect.
Add number to UI to show number of trees nearby generating fruit. I want to make sure I'm not making a farm that's too big.
Here is my base at night 30:
http://imgur.com/FGk4yN7
Offscreen, I have several, several layers of dirt wall on all sides (bottom side was the bottom of the map)
I wasn't able to do this on normal mode, normal speed on my first go. I was completely overwhelmed by enemies. I went back on easy mode and was able to live to day 31, but any game should be tuned so that the average Joe will be able to beat the game, satisfyingly challenged, by playing on normal mode, normal speed.
Overall, though, fun game! I will try again on normal mode with some new strategies...
Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you liked the game :) I assume Night will reply to your other suggestions and complaints, but here are some things I think I can answer too.
DeleteIn the screenshot where you counted 6 green apples, I can see at least 8 (one is hidden behind other fruit, right below the selection square), others are somewhat clearly visible (as much as a green apple on a green background can be).
Maybe the increase in probability isn't that big? Like 20% more than usually? Or maybe you just got unlucky. I wouldn't expect a big difference from an achievement that can be earned somewhat early, and with such small probabilities it's very common to get unlucky.
About the powerups - when you pick one, a small icon appears a bit below your money counters. When you mouse over it, it displays an explanation of the power up. As far as I remember, there are double damage, stun all enemies, and halve incoming damage power ups, apart from the red one you mentioned.
About the difficulty - I suppose there are different good (and different bad) approaches, and I think it's not necessarily bad if normal mode is actually pretty hard on first try. Many games assume that casual players will start with easy, rather than normal. Are you saying that all games should be equally difficult on normal, equally easy on easy, and equally hard on hard? That would defeat the purpose of some games, that are trying to be punishing by design. While I agree that it is great if the easiest difficulty is beatable by everyone, so that no one finds the game too hard to beat no matter what they try, it's alright if difficulties harder than easy, such as normal difficulty, progress at different pace depending on game's target difficulty. Otherwise it would be impossible to make a game, where players feel like they are fighting against an insurmountable foe (unless they choose the hardest difficulty), which is in my opinion quite an important feeling in some games, where enemies aren't supposed to be playing fair. Though that's just my opinion, I don't mind if you disagree :)
Regards,
Xinef ^_^
Hey there! Thank you very much for playing, and for your feedback as well! It's really appreciated.
DeleteMost of those 'bugs' are not really bugs, but intentional features.
- All characters can perform air dashes.
- The shop can only be opened with Enter (it seems I forgot to add that in the Readme file, so thanks!)
- Trees cannot be healed.
- Celestial Aid has no limited range. Nevertheless, keep in mind it only heals a little bit of HP, not all of it.
- Fruits disappear after some time.
- Prices increase gradually throughout the game.
- The Juicy Apples achievement affects the spawn only slightly. I'll increase it a little more!
- The requirement for the Seed achievement is alright as it is. We've carefully thought about it and tested it out- the whole point is to not be able to get a "farm" too soon. Just as well, days are supposed to be short, otherwise it'd just be too easy to build and collect stuff around, and enemies are supposed to be a lot. I know it may sound really hard for a first try, but after you try a few times, you'll get around it.
- When you pick a power-up, you get a little square in the Control Panel that explains you what it does.
- Night 30's boss was just probably trying to attack some structures. Shame on him!
- The invulnerability items sounds good!
- I've went through the minimap idea before, but there are some problems within the engine that won't allow me to implement it. I actually like it without a map anyway, too.
I'm glad you enjoyed the game, and thank you very much for playing!
Oh, and by the way, there's no hidden leap of faith to find the fourth key. Just look around carefully!
Sweet Celestia, I can't believe I never thought of mousing over the buff icon to see its description. World of Warcraft does the exact same thing, and I played that game for seven years of my life. I'm feeling the strangest sense of embarrassment from this.
DeleteThank you (and Jerzy) for your responses. I realize that a lot of my comments addressed mechanics that simply affect difficulty level, which is a very broad barn to hit. Nothing about what you chose was wrong, I simply wasn't prepared for the difficulty curve that I hit.
Incidentally, I tried normal mode again and mopped the floor with it. I managed to kill every boss except for the first one, because I couldn't get my base running in time for him.
I improved my base design to be a two-tile thick box of towers on all sides, brick wall insulation on the inside, extra hidey hole for myself on the inside, and enough dirt to all directions so that mobs would only spawn on the inside. Once I got this setup, I could essentially skip day immediately and go to night after night after night. Holes in the wall were easy to patch up. I had four leaf powerups and coin powerups each keeping me healthy. I had no more need for my farm... I just sat there and let the towers to the work. The level 30 boss went down 18 "seconds" after nightfall.
Fluttershy's perk - enemies attack less frequently - seems redundantly similar to simply choosing easy mode. It isn't giving you a unique ability to deal with the challenge of the game, it just take away some of the challenge. Perhaps give AJ's regeneration to Fluttershy, and have AJ make nearby apples spawn faster?
Personally, I didn't not use torch blocks for anything. For those that do, could you assign a new button that will make all torch blocks highlight their area of effect? That would be a nice convenience button.
I finally killed one of those treasure chest boxes and felt kind of let down that there was no reward.
Thanks again for giving me something to do on a Thursday!
Is Wave Attack affected by the attack-range character upgrade? Even with 2.0x range, I find the skill to be completely useless. I practically have to walk into the group of enemies to deal significant damage, but then I get killed, because the wave attack does not parry enemy attacks like normal missiles do.
ReplyDeleteThe wave attack is just long enough to reach through a one-block thick wall. You can hurt them in that situation, but they can't hurt you.
DeleteIs there or will there be a wiki for this game?
ReplyDeleteI never really thought about that!
DeleteI don't think I'd do one, though, sorry. Not for now, at least. Although I wouldn't mind if someone else did!