I am back! The update coming on May 19th brings co-op play to FranknJohn. But that is not all! Oh no. We have also been super busy making the core combat more exciting and engaging based on your valuable feedback. Turn on the kettle and pull up a chair. This is a long one. The most common criticism on the base attack has been that it lacks variety. You are doing this single action for the whole game, which gets repetitive and doesn't offer much in the way of variety or experimentation. Bottom line, it just wasn't very exciting and couldn't carry the whole game. A big part of the problem lay with the way the base attack had been built. It was implemented using physics with a spring joint to control how the head behaved. The head was shot out using force and recoiled using the spring. This lead to many issues when trying to modify the attack for a Skullcap and ended up restricting their design. Due to the unpredictable nature of the physics, we could never gain exact control over it, hence some of the weird behaviours you may have noticed. Attacking was also quite ‘loose’. We tried to enhance the functionality of the attack by giving players some agency over the direction of the head once it had left the body. This sounds cool in theory, but in practice, analogue sticks just aren't cut out for that kind of use (nor are our fingers!) It came at the expense of accuracy and feeling, leading to a kind of toxic frustration that erodes away at you the more you play. A more focused base attack was needed. So we went back to the drawing board and dissected the entire system. We had one simple goal - how could we make the core gameplay more exciting? What we came up with was a system that is more flexible, providing more attacking options through additional base attacks and opening the door for Skullcaps to offer real variety. The first thing we did, was scrap the physics. Instead of forces and springs, we moved to simple lerping and as a result gained complete control over the head. Attack speed, range, recoil and a tonne of other small values that add to the feel of the attack, are now extremely accurate. The base attack is more satisfying than ever! It’s a punchy, straight in and out jab without any of the loose feeling or uncertainty. Happy days!
Moving onto Skullcaps! They have been sort of loosely defined as ‘power-ups’, with a blue-sky approach to their design. Some had cooldown abilities, some had added damage, some had weird effects on gameplay and some didn't do much at all. Not only was it hard to communicate what each new Skullcap did, they didn't really augment gameplay in a satisfying way. So we set about sorting Skullcaps into categories and used a distributed point system to balance them and open up different styles of play. The Skivvy

• Skullcaps now control Damage, Attack Speed and Attack Range
• Skullcaps have a damage type
• Skullcaps modify the base attack and augment the additional swipe and slam attacks
• Every Skullcap has a special ability with a cooldown.

• Smash enemies with FranknJohn's weaponized head
  
• Experiment with 20 different Skullcaps that alter gameplay in many different ways
  
• Huge skill tree. Collect Dr. Harmin's mysterious ooze and use it to upgrade your body and mind
  
• Randomly generated environments. A new experience with each new life
  
• Local co-op - play with a friend!
  
• Battle through the first area two areas of the game, "The Garden of Denial" and "The Furnace of Anger"
  
• Perma-death, challenging enemies will test the sternest of players
  
• Glorious soundtrack by Ben Prunty (FTL/Gravity Ghost)
  
• Pills to temporally upgrade your stats
  
• Explore FrankJohn's underground hideout

• More areas - The Cistern of Depression and the final showdown with Dr. Harmin in the "The Lab of Isolation"
  
• More variety, challenges and secrets - We have lot's of fun stuff in store
  
• More Skullcaps - these are so much fun to make we want to keep making them forever
  
• More enemies - Each new area will have roughly the same amount of enemies currently available
  
• More bosses - Dr. Harmins most prized creations are being readied for battle
  
• More glorious soundtrack by Ben Prunty

• We have put a lot of effort into making sure FranknJohn is as bug free as possible, however the game is in Early Access so it is unavoidable. We will do our best to squish them as soon as they present their ugly heads.

• A game like this lives or dies on it's balance, so expect a lot of tweaking to occur throughout Early Access.

• OS: Ubuntu 12.04+
• Processor: Intel Core i3 or AMD equivalent or betterMemory: 2 GB RAM
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: Intel HD 4400 or Nvidia or AMD equivalent or better
• Storage: 525 MB available spaceAdditional Notes: SteamOS coming soon. few graphical problems currently

• Processor: Intel Core i5 or AMD equivalent or betterMemory: 4 GB RAM
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: Dedicated graphics card recommended