On May 30th the Early Access of Super Cane Magic ZERO will come to an end and our game will be officially released! SCMZ is by far the largest project we have ever undertaken as a small indie studio. It took us a lot of time and effort to make and we are very proud to be finally able to present you the final release of our crazy-cute Action RPG. But all of this would have been impossible without your continued support that motivated us to always keep working even when we had been silent for a little bit too long. On behalf of the whole team at Studio Evil, let me thank you one more time for supporting us over all these long years of development! While you wait for these last handful of days until May 30th, this is what you can expect from SCMZ release 25!

New Localizations: Now Playable in 10 Languages

One of the things we are more excited about is the possibility to deliver our weird story to many more people around the world thanks to the new localizations. At launch, the game will be available in the following languages: English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese.

A Smooth Kickstart: Updated Tutorial Level

With all the new features and improvements of this final release, the first campaign level felt a bit outdated. Using all your feedbacks from the Early Access and the numerous events we attended, we redesigned the tutorial. It should be now more engaging, and also a lot more easy to follow.

Bite-Size Crunchy Portions: Smaller, Better Levels

Some levels were a bit overwhelming for their sheer size and the time-commitment required to complete them. They also felt out of focus and were hard to navigate. Once we understood this we decided to modify several game areas. We split the overworld levels and the largest of the dungeons into smaller and more interesting spaces. We meticulously populated these new areas with new characters, items, and secrets and we also placed some landmarks to help your exploration. We also included a new type of treasure chest that spawns unique items! There is so much new stuff that even if you have completed the game already, you might want to start another run :D

Turbo Combat: Fewer Enemies but Smarter and Angrier

Another aspect of SCMZ we wanted to improve on for our final release was combat pace and clarity. Especially when playing co-op with a couple of friends, enemy groups could become large and chaotic very quickly, leading to messy and sometimes boring combats. Our goal has always been to create engaging combat encounters, so we re-balanced several of the existing game mechanics to provide a more interesting confrontation with your opponents with fights that are visually clearer, shorter, faster-pace, but also equally dangerous. It took quite some time, but we are very happy with how the combat plays now.

Combat Rebalance:

• Enemy groups are now between 30% and 50% smaller
• Enemies have less health
• Enemies deal more damage
• Enemies recover from stun faster, especially melee enemies
• The Enrage buff also provides +35% Dodge (this is the buff temporarily granted to enemies when they recover from being stunned)
• Enemies have new special abilities and attack patterns
• Enemies announce their special abilities and stronger attacks with dialogue balloons
• Both Player and enemy attacks have a shorter range
• Enemies benefit from improved AI and Pathfinding

Better Adventuring: Quest Log and Minimap Icons

The inhabitants of the planetoid WOTF can have some weird requests. To help you keep track of them we added a Quest Log to the game. Opening the Inventory/Map/Belief Trees screen will also get you access to the Quest Log screen that will keep track of all your main- and side-quests. The Quest Log only reminds you what you have already discovered and wont spoil anything. You still need to be watchful, curious and resourceful. We feel exploration is a very important and rewarding part of Super Cane Magic ZERO and wanted to keep it like that! Also, to aid your adventuring in previously-visited areas we renewed and expanded the minimap icons to make them more informative and discernible from one another.

Eat Like Theres No Tomorrow: Stronger Edible Effects

Eating was fun, but we wanted it to be more useful and interesting as an in-game mechanic. To make diet perks more relevant to gameplay, and to different playstyles, we increased their effectiveness. Also, the new perks are re-distribuited on a wider range of items to give you more options to choose from. Potions represent an important part of the effects obtainable by eating stuff, but were underutilized. We increased the duration of their buffs and also created new art to make them more recognizable.

A More Varied Fauna: New Characters and Enemies

As we expanded the planetoid of WOTF, we knew that these new places needed more bad guys and old places could use some extra variety. So we created a few new enemies, like a giant Tomato that pelts you with bombs, a cute vomiting skeleton, a terrible Wizard Mummy, a bunch of additional ninja-pirates and also a ninja blob. With all these new opponents we had to bolster the ranks of our heroes too. SCMZ only had unlockable characters late in the game campaign, so we decided to add some help close to the beginning of the adventure. Where will you find this new heroine? Well, you don't. Shell find you when the time is right. Shes a detective after all.

Other Than Story Mode: Refurbished and Brand-New PVP Arenas

After all the enhancements to the Story Mode, we felt the need to give some love to the Arena Mode too. We improved the design our many of our arenas and added a few more to the list. To integrate turbo combat even in arena matches, we re-balanced the special arena rules with: Reduced player health on all classes, giving a needed slight advantage to Baker and other tanky classes Increased weapon damage, throwing damage and special ability effectiveness on all classes Greatly Increased Special Abilities mana cost on all classes Greatly Increased mana regeneration per second on all classes These changes make matches more deadly, and tune down some characters like Flascio or Laser Grandpa who could spam powerful ability too quickly. On the other hand, with the increased mana regeneration, characters that rely heavily on abilities will not be completely useless after depleting their mana. Hot Shower We decreased the overall size of the arena and improved placements of throwables. We also removed some obstacles to make the area easier to navigate Insta-Friends This arena was completely re-designed. It is now slightly smaller and has only one item stand located at its center that spawns Insta-Gib Staffs for all players. Removing the four different item stands - one for each player - allowed us to improve obstacles and trap positioning to achieve a faster gameplay. And that isnt the only change. We replaced all the throwables in the arena with bombs and explosive slimes. And we also added a shield potion that will make you immune to the staff - but not to bombs - for a short amount of time. Brainfreeze We decreased the size of the arena slightly and removed some obstacles and covers. NEW ARENA! Shrine of The fists This is a brand new arena based on melee fighting using both main and off-hand items. Each player has a heavy weapon and an explosive-parry shield. This is the Dark Souls of Super Cane Magic ZERO arenas. NEW ARENA! Lava-Donut Factory This small arena is about throwing explosive donuts at long range using a special range extender potion. Also, be mindful about stepping on the elevators, they can drop you into the lava pool! NEW ARENA! Laser Duel Laser Duel is a melee arena similar to the Shrine of the Fists. The difference here is that the rotating laser traps await the ones that fall off of the main platform.

Interface Upgrade: Now With 5% More Animations

The in-game interface went through a round of improvement. We beautified and simplified many interface elements to improve their readability and remove visual clutter. Fonts are bigger and at higher resolution, GUI elements have better placement and everything should be looking better than before. We also added a few animations to cursors and selectors.

Under the Hood: Performance Improvements

As you might know, we have been working on console ports for Super Cane Magic ZERO. Usually, as a STEAM user, you would not care much about this matter but all these months of work on consoles had an interesting side effect: the game runs much faster. You should experience a drastic improvement in in-game performance and loading times.

Under the Sun: Visual Improvements

The game shaders now render lights and surfaces in a different way. This new solution is much faster also looks better, with in game objects reacting to cell-shaded lights in a more realistic way.

The Bad News: Bad News

We made so many changes to the game that was impossible to preserve full compatibility with previous versions. Old save game files have now become obsolete, and by obsolete we mean most likely broken in campaign mode. Even if they are broken, we decided to avoid a forced save game wipe to preserve your character unlocks that will still work in arena mode. Even if the game might work properly for arenas without starting a new save, we STRONGLY ADVISE you to start a new campaign from a clear save slot to be able to experience all the new story features. The quest log and the new playable character will not work if you are using an old early access save game. We are super excited to share all these improvements with you and we can't wait for May 30th to arrive!

[ 2019-05-20 16:40:44 CET ] [ Original post ]