Devlog No.029

Another couple of weeks! And I do actually have a good bit to talk about!

So my main focus was on getting the new enemies developed, but I paused for a bit during that to add some new upgrade items. As far as the new enemies go, I have finished up all the art and programming for a shrooma recolor. Though in that case I did actually add a new mechanic for him where he throws his hood at you. Nothing too complex or too interesting there. The other enemies I still want to keep under wraps till I push the next update out. Like I had said a while back though I won't be making them anything too special.

With that said, one of the enemies that I showed before will definitely be more fun. I've only done a bit of art for them and I'll be doing them last due to the more complex nature of my plan for them.

As far as the upgrades though I have several more that will be added. I tried to attach an 'enhancement' to each spell. Sadly I feel short as I couldn't figure out something good for the windforce spell that wasn't convoluted, overly niche, or just overpowered. I do still plan on having an upgrade that reduces it's mana cost, but that's still for later. I'll come back to it again.

For phoenix dash, I added 'phoenix resistance'. This one acts as a passive. Whenever you have phoenix dash equipped, you take reduced damage. Though the damage is based on different damage types with you taking significantly less from AOEs and moderately less from normal attacks. It won't affect some special attacks later on in the game, nor does it mitigate damage done by special types of attacks like the rat item steal.

For the bubble shield I added 'retaliatory bubbles'. This one makes it so whenever the bubbles are destroyed by a projectile, they will spawn a small bubble which will home in on a nearby enemy. The bubble only does a small amount of damage, but it penetrates block. In addition, it will inflate enemies if the attack would defeat them. (Though filimuri wizards will still resist it) You don't have to worry about this causing bosses or powerful enemies to hypercharge though. It will just defeat them instead.

For magnetic star I added 'kyrakyst wand'. It's a little more basic and just significantly increases the damage that the magnetic star does to powerful enemy types. It will at least change the color of the star, but is not the most creative thing I've done. I have an idea for something better next time, but for now, this one will be pretty basic and should even increase the value of magnetic star for fighting bosses.

For rejuvenation I added 'scroll of resurgence'. This is another passive one. When you have rejuvenation equipped, if your energy drops below 35%, it will heal you for 25% of your max energy. Of course, this only occurs once every 5 mintues and whenever you equip it, the timer resets. So you have to have the spell already equipped to benefit from it. No picking it up to get a spontaneous heal. I have a feeling that 5 minutes it a bit long, but I do also plan on adding something to reduce that cooldown. Also currently the only way you can tell that the heal is ready is to look at the spell icon which will change to a blue color and Aria's eyes opened. I'll see about adding in a sound cue potentially. Might also be a good idea to change how it charges too. Perhaps picking it up puts it at half charge.

I did also add in a new item which adds a weak flame trail to the orb weapon at lower levels. This way if you perish, you'll still do a little more damage. The item is Volatile Mixture. I plan on adding in some more upgrades to other weapons when they are lower power too to try and help when you've perished. I also will likely separate your weapon level from your symbol count so you can lose weapon level, but later get upgrades to reduce how many symbols you lose. Then I will try to narrow the gap between level 1 in weapons and max level. This is important because I plan to add an enemy type that can drain your symbols and power level too.

You'll be able to purchase Phoenix Resistance, Kyrakyst Wand, and Volatile mixture after beating the gargoyle boss. If you already did that, you can unlock it by visiting the intermission area directly after the boss and talking to Shopia.


Among other things, I also made a change to the way damage works internally. Basically took the enemy damage code and cleaned it up, getting most of it into one script to make it much easier to change damage values and make upgrades easier to apply. Something I should've done sooner, but it's done now.

I did some more small things with the levels. A bit of minor re-balancing. I still need to go over the levels again for resources. (Mostly planned to do for the beach levels)

I finished up work on the barrels and fixed up some issues that I had with how they worked. I also added a small explosive barrel that will bounce when you hit it. Will have to add some of those to let you struggle to juggle them into enemies. They fall much faster so will be quite difficult to keep in the air.

I think that's it for this. I made a short video to show off the new upgrades and the shrooma. I'm not entirely pleased with how much I got done, though I have been quite busy too. I thought I would be more freed up, but hasn't happened just yet. Hopefully soon.