Patreon Weekly #8 - July 25th 2019

Hey Patrons!

Progress continues on converting Shattered to LibGDX. I have almost all of the game's core functionality working with the library, and I expect to start an Android beta for people to test the LibGDX code soon. A few key areas of the game's logic are going to be tricky to separate from android (primarily text rendering and keyboard input handling), but everything else will be working for that beta. My plan is to roll out this "almost done" LibGDX code with v0.7.5, and then try to get the last bits working in the next update.

Speaking of 0.7.5, you might be wondering what that update will be! 0.7.5 is going to be the 'new foes' update, existing as a counterpart to 0.7.4, which was 'new friends'. My goal is to improve and add enemies such that each chapter has 5 different enemies total, as well as make targeted improvements to each boss. These improvements won't be full overhauls, I will likely do that in the future, as its the sort of thing that should be done one at a time.

I'm really looking forward to sharing the new/improved enemies and bosses as I get to work on them. As a start, let's talk a bit about Goo. I think Goo's basic fight works quite well, and I'm not looking to change any of its core mechanics (it's the first boss, so it should be simpler), but I do think the arena could be improved.

I always planned to do more with the new levelgen system after v0.6.0, and Goo's arena is the perfect spot to do some experimenting. I plan to keep the core principle of ensuring the player can always retreat somewhere, but significantly increase the ways that the can be generated. Most significantly, I'd like to try adding some special rooms which Goo spawns in, and I want to see what level layouts patterns can work instead of just a plain circle. Ideally down the road this could lead to improvements to level layouts elsewhere in the dungeon.