Well, the test build was buggy, but it wasn't completely broken. In too many places.
I still have a good deal of testing to do, but now that I've actually done a little bit of it (and have had some help from my VIP Patrons (shameless plug: Join Today!)) I'm really happy with how the new detection system works for the new stealth segment. Same with how "stealth optional" the segment is.
See, I'm a gamer myself, and as a gamer, I know how gamers feel about forced stealth segments. Especially long forced stealth segments. That really conflicted with how I wanted to handle this update, because with how the characters involved behave, it being a stealth segment is really the only way it was going to work. So, not only is it an optional quest (meaning you don't need to do it at all in order to continue with the story), it's also stealth-optional. The new trophy does require you to actually stealth your way through the mission, but if you don't care about the trophy (or you get the trophy and decide to double back to eat all the enemies for XP) you can just fight everyone without caring about consequences. I even went another step further and made it so you don't fail the stealth requirement by getting caught; you only lock yourself out of the trophy if you defeat an enemy. Granted, running away does set you back at the start, but you still get a second chance. Or third, or however many times you get caught and run away.
Other than that, the simplest solution seems to have ended up being the best for the new shop. I still need to give it a bit of polish, because as it stands right now you get a snippet of BGM that you shouldn't, but everything that needs to work for core functionality works just fine. Contract Selling should be all caught up as well, though like I anticipated, that plus a bit of playtesting is all I managed to get done today. I also need to actually implement the new animations in Evdokia's Estate; they're done, they just need a quick edit to fit the screen size of the game and to be placed within the game files, but I haven't actually done that yet.
But the TL;DR of all this is that the update is finished and just needs a few days of polish and bug fixing to bring it up to snuff. I'm happy to remain committed to the Friday (October 4th) release date.
Then it'll be on to getting this year's Haunt update, v0.18, done. Which will hopefully not take as long as this update did because it'll have less going on, but I'm sure I'll find some new mechanic to torture myself with as I experiment with translating what's in my head into actual playable game.
If you want the update right away on Friday, go join my Patreon or Subscribestar. The latest update always goes out to my Patrons and Subscribers first. They also get patch notes to accompany the test builds and extra development news and the ability to vote in polls and a bunch of other stuff, but I know the updates are what you really want.
Speaking of shameless plugs and game updates, Maids & Masters is in another mega-bundle. There's some good stuff in there, click here to check it out. It's free!
No comments:
Post a Comment