Well that was fast :P
I spent all day working on balance tweaks and later on the missing sfx, and now Beta 9.3 is pretty close to its normal prerelease state. There will definitely be some more work on it, but it will only be 1) to solve any serious problem that might come up or 2) just the few fixes and little optional things left on my list, if I have time for them.
So that also means there will still be a prerelease of the actual 9.3 build before this goes live, but this techni...
2019-12-12 12:45:27 +0000 UTC
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Certainly later than I'd want it, but it's finally ready. Sorta :P
This is definitely an X1 rather than a "this is pretty much what's going public" prerelease like I did for 9.1 and 9.2.
Unfortunately with the deadline approaching and me already crunching on everything related to this release, I don't have time to do an in-depth write-up here going over all the details in advance, though I can say there will eventually be a blog post (after 9.3 releases), and of course by release ...
2019-12-11 14:51:01 +0000 UTC
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Well we still don't have the new leaderboards, but I've done some writing on the old ones for posterity, and who knows, maybe it'll help someone looking to do something similar? It was certainly a relatively easy way to set things up, simplest way I could figure out on my own anyway.
Leaderboards and Player Stats: The Old Way is on the blog (password: "score"), or you ca...
2019-12-10 01:02:06 +0000 UTC
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Well I was hoping to have the new game mode out for you all to check out by this weekend, but it turns out that was a bit overambitious of me since--who would've known*--it's the beginning of December and I had to do my annual review over on the blog.
(*the answer is: anyone who can look at a calendar xD)
Good to have that out of the way, in any case, and now I'm real...
2019-12-05 13:29:47 +0000 UTC
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News
There's going to be a new special mode/holiday event for the end of the year! It's been mostly planned out, and this is actually what I'll be working on next, to be released as Beta 9.3 in a few weeks. Some time before that, perhaps next week, there'll be a prerelease out on Patreon because this is going to introduce a whole new way to play Cogmind (again?!) and it could probably use some balancing :P
Unlike Holiday Mode 2018, this mode will be made a permane...
2019-11-26 05:48:07 +0000 UTC
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This was one of the incomplete drafts for Cogmind's alpha trailer, done back in 2015. A number of trailer versions were created, and mini-tests run, this being one of the more complete ones.
Notice the music is a bit different, as its final style hadn't yet been settled on, and there's a space zoom sequence towards the beginning to provide a little more context. Later I decided to go 100% in-engine for the trailer to make it more visually consistent, rather than mixing in those other no...
2019-11-18 06:40:11 +0000 UTC
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Well then, looks like we did actually hit the Overwhelmingly Positive threshold on Steam, pretty awesome :D
That means the Merchants Guild will be a thing! Wow, I wasn't sure that would actually happen, this should be interesting... I'll talk about my plans for the Guild in a future post at some point, no rush since it's still a ways off, anyway.
In the meantime I've set another review ...
2019-11-18 01:23:30 +0000 UTC
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Beta 9.2 should release next Tuesday, and seems to be working nicely, but let's play with it for a few days just to be sure :P
It's pretty meaty for a minor release, with at least a little something for everyone, if at least fixes for some newly discovered bugs!
Changelog is attached, but here are some highlights:
Last year Steam updated its friends list and chat client to support more features, and among them is support for "Rich Presence," or basically giving games running under Steam the option to share with friends more about the player's current state.
^My Cogmind Rich Presence status as seen in someone else's friends list while...
2019-11-05 11:37:01 +0000 UTC
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So last week for the special Halloween version I had a "branding image" / "cover image" / "logo" / whateveryouwanttocallit, something I've been doing for Beta releases for a while now to essentially represent the release visually. I really like the final choice, which you can see again below with its pretty red theme and "Abomination" (Troll) centerpiece:
And normally I only ever have one vers...
2019-11-04 14:29:17 +0000 UTC
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And I thought I was probably done with renderFilters...
Saw a Tweet today from a dev who was fooling around with negative color in their game, and realized we didn't have that option in Cogmind. We do have SHIFT_HUE(180), which converts colors to their opposite on color wheel for a similar effect, but it's not quite the same thing, nor does that one affect black.
So I added an INVERT command to the renderFilter config system, which simply does 255-X for each of the RGB values, bot...
2019-11-01 07:24:53 +0000 UTC
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There's a new Beta 9.1 prerelease out, the same branch on Steam (so it can autoupdate--saves are compatible), and same DRM-free link. This should be the final version, which also includes some new fixes. There have been more updates to this mode than planned because I've had more time to play it myself recently, finding areas for improvement :)
In addition to what was listed in the first 9.1 prerelease<...
2019-10-26 05:06:23 +0000 UTC
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Beta 9.1 is coming next Tuesday, just a week after the Beta 9 release, as planned.
It's mainly about making the Halloween "Abominations" mode public, but also includes some fixes, including for a nasty potential crash introduced by Beta 9. I've attached the changelog, although if you've been playing the Halloween mode there are also some unlisted changes to that as well (because it hasn't been public yet), specifically:
- Ice Anomalies can no longer soft-lock your run by freez...
2019-10-24 05:52:21 +0000 UTC
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Whew, the data server is up and running, and the deadline for releasing Beta 9 fast approaches, so we're going to do it without leaderboards since at least we'll be properly collecting the data for later!
Next week Beta 9 will release publicly, so before then the goal is to make sure there's nothing wrong with the uploaded stats (and of course the release in general :P). I've been testing it in recent days and fixing anything I find, but maybe others will notice something else.
Th...
2019-10-16 02:18:56 +0000 UTC
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No wonder I've been feeling productive, got to spend most of last week actually CODING! Was recording my hours and noticed it was one of those good streaks :)
The first couple days this week have been similar, although instead of the upcoming event the time was instead spent finalizing and testing the new scoresheet uploading behavior.
Everything's looking good and I'm pretty sure Beta 9 X6 will drop here tomorrow, together with a chance to try the Halloween event in adva...
2019-10-15 14:04:31 +0000 UTC
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The final iteration of the server backend still isn't ready (Will's occasionally working on it...), but the good news is that it's pretty close to a state where it'll at least be usable for accepting uploads, the minimum requirement for releasing Beta 9.
Although it would be unfortunate to not have any active leaderboards at the outset of Beta 9, sitting on Beta 9 for this long sucks, and I really want/need to finally have it out there, so I'm not going to require that there be visible ...
2019-10-13 23:48:51 +0000 UTC
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I'm still waiting on the completed server backend so we can actually test the final score uploading features, so in the meantime decided there was time to implement some extra content for another timed event. Steam sent out an email that reminded all the devs this is a thing you can do, and an idea popped into my head, so we've got our own first October event for Cogmind.
Exactly when and how it'll be announced and released I haven't quite made a final decision on, but even though it ad...
2019-10-09 23:57:10 +0000 UTC
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Because some of you haven't redeemed your rewards yet, here's a quick reminder that you can check out this post for details on how to do that for your particular tier.
This link is also provided in a welcome email when you become a patron, but I'm guessing not everyone sees/notices/remembers that :P (also if you've increased your tier at any point you might not remember to go back and check that!)
A...
2019-09-30 23:46:11 +0000 UTC
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For a long time I've toyed with the idea of having a bot that plays Cogmind, just for fun, and especially in recent months I've thought of the idea more and more often, even coming close to starting implementation a couple times now.
The second such time was last night, though I stopped myself short because I really shouldn't be getting into another project like this just yet. But the first time, a few weeks ago, I also took some notes about the fundamentals of such a system, and though...
2019-09-27 04:42:43 +0000 UTC
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I've added an important new Wizard Mode feature for Beta 9 but will hold off on updating the Wizard Mode How-to until Beta 9 officially releases.
Instead, if using Beta 9 X5 you can access Wizard Mode using the key attached to this post, and reference the new features below:
- "rif": Gives RIF status instantly, as if used a RIF Installer; optionally follow with the name of a RIF abil...
2019-09-18 06:59:17 +0000 UTC
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Another prerelease! I'd like to say this'll be the last one before Beta 9 finally goes out, but it's still missing the leaderboards which we definitely need to test before release, so I guess there'll have to be one more after this. (X5 was going to be the last, but the dude helping with the leaderboard stuff hasn't been making progress for a while :/)
Anyway, X5 is good, and it's here now :)
Again, this is almost a complete Beta 9, so there are tons of fixes--all the stu...
2019-09-18 06:48:30 +0000 UTC
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This is the draft for a new blog post coming soon...
A couple years back I introduced difficulty settings to Cogmind. At the time I wrote about the benefits and drawbacks of difficulty modes in roguelikes, along with an introduction to Cogmind's difficulty-related features, and overall I've been pleased with the results, but with experience I've discovered there ...
2019-09-14 01:57:41 +0000 UTC
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For me, permadeath is a huge part of the roguelike experience. When you make enough mistakes that you lose--that's it, it's over. No immediately starting from a safe checkpoint not long before in order to try again, no in-game benefits carrying over to future attempts. Each run is an isolated attempt in which you're armed only with your knowledge and experience, where the lack of second chances clearly raises the stakes, and the consequences of each and every action feel that much more meanin...
2019-09-10 00:49:01 +0000 UTC
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Well sheesh, the changelog for Beta 9 is already longer than any before it, and it's still not out xD
As I've mentioned in some places, this is because I don't really want Cogmind to be without leaderboards for one or more releases, and a number of the new features I've been working on ideally need to happen together rather than split out across multiple releases, hence the delay.
Good news is I can finally see the end of the tunnel, and it's a glorious feeling. Technically there'...
2019-09-06 05:28:41 +0000 UTC
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After the earlier post declaring Siege Treads the vote winner that'll be going into the next release, I've spent more time thinking about the design and it's been expanded!
I'm pretty close to finalizing it, so thought I'd share the new iteration here before actual implementation.
A New Stat
Treads will get a new Siege stat (taking the place of the unused Burnout stat in their info ...
2019-09-03 00:11:02 +0000 UTC
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The fourth and final article in the Ultimate Morgue File series is up, in which I write about why and how to include accessible character dumps in Cogmind, including automated build classification and a situation analysis system.
I've embedded it in image form below, but you can also check out the text version here (with all of its links a...
2019-08-27 01:13:37 +0000 UTC
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The patrons have spoken , Siege treads are coming to Cogmind Beta 9! I like this one, good choice :)
They'll be fairly accessible, and probably lead to some new reliable strategies, although of course with that accessibility we'll need to ensure they're properly balanced and not overpowered.
A couple days ago I wrote a bit about the related mechanics, but let's go over some more details now that they'r...
2019-08-26 01:11:33 +0000 UTC
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The recent voting will be closed soon, so anyone interested in participating who hasn't done so yet is encouraged to get those votes in ASAP.
We have some clear front-runners now, so I'll provide a bit more clarity on them as I see it. Note the final decisions won't be made until the voting is over since there will be many more balance and content considerations to think through, but these are some of thought...
2019-08-24 02:09:41 +0000 UTC
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Time to vote for a new Cogmind item/mechanic! This patron goal was reached earlier in the Beta 9 dev cycle, as described here when I put out the call for concepts. The requirements and other details are described in that thread so I won't repeat them here, but it's now time to actually decide.
(Note: A shorter version of this post was made a few hours earlier, but I'd accidentally left out some of the opt...
2019-08-15 07:10:15 +0000 UTC
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If you recall, back in March I put out a call for concepts since we reached this particular milestone goal. That was all going to be handled earlier, but instead I've been working on prereleases and other features like the manual hacking upgrade which won the 2019-08-14 04:49:13 +0000 UTC
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