Bullet Heaven Fest is here!

From December 4th to December 11th, 2024 (PST)

And The Nightwatch is part of it next to many amazing Bullet Heaven games, with a special 20% discount to go with it!

Demo Update

With the release of v1.1.0, the demo has been massively updated with all the quality of life features that have been developped this past few months. We also enabled Infinity Mode after the boss is defeated, instead of just ending the demo.

Come checkout the game and try out the demo!

[ 2024-12-03 18:42:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

v1.1.0 is out

TLDR

- New difficulty mode with its own Steam Achievements, new boss patterns, bonus experience and enemy spawn rate. - Defeating a boss rewards a talent point in all difficulty modes - Increased experience accross all difficulties (more than 2 talent trees can be completed each run) - New enemy variations added for the Tentacle, Elite and Eye - Many improvements in collision detections, spawn system - 8 new trinket upgrades - Blood rose no longer heals the player (sorry! Added new alternatives to heal the player) [hr][/hr] Many changes were made for this patch, with big changes in balancing and difficulty. Here is the full list of changes :

Difficulty modes

Normal mode

• Boss Health starts growing exponentially after the 5:00 mark.
• Experience requirements at each level reduced from [strike]30%[/strike] to 20%.
• Enemy health increases more drastically with time.

Hard mode

• Boss Health starts growing exponentially after the 2:00 mark.
• Experience requirements at each level reduced from [strike]30%[/strike] to 20%.
• Enemy health increases more drastically with time. (+)
• Distance between bosses (+)
• Increased enemy variation chance (+)

Ultra Hard mode

• Boss Health starts growing exponentially after the 1:40 mark.
• Experience requirements at each level reduced from [strike]30%[/strike] to 10%.
• Increase experience gained by 20%.
• Enemy health increases more drastically with time. (++)
• Enemy spawn rate increases with time. Caps at 2x the usual spawn rate at the 15:00 mark.
• Distance between bosses increased (++)
• Increased enemy variation chance (++)

[hr][/hr]

Enemies

1st Boss

• Rewards a talent point on death
• Normal mode : Spawns 2 normal elites during transition
• Hard mode : Spawns 4 normal elites during transition
• Ultra Hard mode : Spawns 4 golden horn elites during transition

2nd Boss

• Rewards a talent point on death
• Normal mode : Attracts player toward him during bullet hell phase
• Hard mode : Extra projectile aimed at the player every 2 seconds
• Ultra Hard mode : More projectiles during the bullet hell phase

3rd Boss

• Rewards a talent point on death
• Hard mode : Floating eyes will target the player during laser transition
• Ultra Hard mode : Boss laser creates a laser box to restrict player movements during rotation
• Improved boss laser collisions
• Boss laser damage [strike]30[/strike] -> 50
• Correctly disable lasers on death
• Floating eyes 10% chance to spawn with a laser
• Floating eyes contact damage [strike]10[/strike] -> 20
• Floating eyes laser damage [strike]10[/strike] -> 30
• Floating eyes improved laser collisions
• Floating eyes will rotate toward the player when targeting him during boss transition

Elites

• New Variation : Golden Horns - Will change dash direction half way through
  

Eyes

• New Variation : Big Eye - Deals 100 damage to all enemies around and spawns 10 regular eyes on death.

Tentacles

• New Variation : Red Tentacle - Lower attack cooldown and sends two low-cooldown projectiles
  

[hr][/hr]

UI

• New Feature : Displays total damage sorted by type in the Character Details tab of the pause menu
• Buff cooldown display correctly aligned with medal tracker
• Diamond counter correctly aligned with gold counter
• Adds red particle animation on health bar when max health is modified (blood rose trigger, max health level up upgrade...)
• Correctly displays the right image when the second Extra Arrow upgrade is displayed

[hr][/hr]

Trinkets

Thornmail

• No longer reflect damage after player death

Storm Potion

• Base damage [strike]15[/strike] -> 20

Glacial Gemstone

• Upgrade [strike]+30%[/strike] +20% chance to trigger

Book of unstable fire

• Base damage [strike]200[/strike] -> 150

Book of deep frost

• Base damage [strike]200[/strike] -> 150

Amulet of decomposition

• New Upgrade : +15% periodic damage
• New Upgrade : +10% periodic damage speed

Blood Rose

• No longer increases current health, only increases max health (removed healing effect)
• New Upgrade : +10 uses before destruction
• New Upgrade : Heals for 5 on use

Golden Key

• New Upgrade : Heals for 5 when opening a chest

Pickaxe

• New Upgrade : Heals for 5 when shattering a crystal
• Fix issue with upgrade : Crystals have one extra burst

Ring of Bargain

• New Upgrade : Heals for 5 every 1000 gold spent

Lantern

• Increased light intensity and range

Lightning Arrow

• New Upgrade : +1 projectile in opposite direction
• Lightning projectile : Improved collision detection
• Fix lightning color in text description

[hr][/hr]

Talent trees

Elemental Tree

• Elemental Damage [strike]25%[/strike] -> 30%
• Fire Damage [strike]50%[/strike] -> 75%
• Lightning Damage [strike]50%[/strike] -> 75%
• Ice Damage [strike]50%[/strike] -> 75%

Periodic Tree

• Poison explosion talent : Increased explosion radius by 25%

[hr][/hr]

Player

• Displays heal amount as a damage popup above the player
• Displays damage received as a damage popup above the player
• Increase basic attack arrow size
• Improved basic attack arrow collision detection

[hr][/hr]

Interactable objects

Speed Shrine

• Increases movement speed by 25% for 10 seconds

Chests

• Increased gold spawn speed
• Fix issue with most of the gold amount happening on the last animation, now correctly spreads on all gold coin animation.

[hr][/hr]

Misc

Steam Achievements

• 13 new achievements for Ultra Hard medals and meta-achievement
• Unlock multiple "talent tree" achievements at once when multiple talent trees are completed for the 3rd boss

Experience

• Experience bar continues to fill even when changing scenes (shops and boss)

Spawn System

• Improvements in the way the system triggers each enemy wave. Multiple spawns due to frame drop can no longer occur, and it follows the time with more precision.

Phrasing and Translations

• Many improvements in phrasing and translations mistakes.

[ 2024-12-01 14:22:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

What will be in v1.1.0 ?

This update will add multiple things to the game, here is a non-exhaustive list of the things I'm working on.

Ultra Hard difficulty

This new difficulty will increase enemies spawn rate, health, but more importantly more boss attacks and patterns to make these fights more interesting. To make this new difficulty different, I'm experimenting with a +20% xp gain and a lesser increase in experience requirements to the next level. The goal is to be able to complete 2 talent trees by the 3rd boss, and enable more build combinations for maximum damage. To tackle this difficulty, you will need to use all the knowledge gathered when playing the previous difficulties, and make the most out of all the items unlocked. This difficulty will have its related Steam Achievements and Medals.

More enemy variations

Just like the Red and Gold imps you could face previously, there will be variations of other enemies to add more patterns and attacks. The greater the difficulty, the greater the chance of a variation to spawn instead of a regular enemy.

New trinket upgrades

There is room for new upgrades especially on trinkets that don't have any upgrades at all.

More interactable events on the map

Buff Shrines.

Various improvements and fixes

Collision improvements, UI fixes, damage balance, optimisations... Many issues were hightlighted this first month of release that will be fixed with the update. I've been working on this update for a full week already, and as some of you know, I'm alone working on the project. I don't have a specific date yet, but I'm hoping this will be ready for the 1st month anniversary (23rd of November). This accounts time to develop all these features and improvements, test it, balance the difficulty as much as possible and make it available to everyone. Thank you all for this first month of release, I hope you will continue to enjoy the game and the updates I'll keep bringing. Astrow

[ 2024-11-12 10:54:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

I wanted to pass this fix with the next big update v1.1.0, but the sooner it is live, the better.

Steam achievements

There was an issue with some Steam Achievements not registering. The related item was unlocked but not the Steam achievement. The issue appeared randomly and not on specific achievements.

• Added multiple retries, check confirmations etc to correctly register the Steam achievement.
• In the main menu, every achievement is analysed and validated if you have the related item unlocked but not the achievement. This catch-up happens after the "Press any button to continue".

Codex

• Correctly displays the current unlock status of the item. Locked->Unlocked but not found->Found

v1.1.0 is still planned for the week-end, and will include improvements on the 3rd boss with more challenging patterns, and a new Ultra Hard difficulty with its related Steam Achievements. Thank you for playing. Astrow

[ 2024-11-07 07:30:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Small edge cases and rare issues have been identified and fixed in this patch.

UI

• Early in a run, if you pickup for the first time both type of scrolls in the same chest and they arrive on the player at exactly the same frame, the panel describing the Scroll could not be closed. It is now correctly displaying both scroll descriptions one at a time, and closes correctly.
• Red shop reroll option now correctly counts the required number of scrolls to be enabled.

1st Boss

• Reworked the door system, so that enemies cannot be locked outside when slowed down by frostbite.

3rd Boss

• Health regeneration is now disabled in the room before the boss spawns

Other

• Disabled OnDeath effects (ex: Blood rose trigger) during player death animation. To avoid health display changes when an enemy dies by periodic during death animation.

I'm still looking into improvements for the 3rd boss fight patterns, as it is still a bit too easy for a final boss. Alongside the fight improvements, an Ultra Hard Mode will be available, for extra boss patterns on all fights. I'll release everything with the version v1.1.0 of the game next week. Astrow

[ 2024-11-02 09:54:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

First patch note since the release, mostly to fix some UI issues and various issues that were found by players.

Boss

• 1st boss now correctly spawns exit portal

UI

• Black Shop - Side description panel correctly displays again after the normal shop is Sold Out
• Medal Tracker - Correctly displays the right image for Eliminations medal (it displayed the Time medal)
• Medal Tracker - Better text alignment when reaching the final step of the Treasure Medal. There was too much text creating a newline.
• Diamond mismatch between owned diamond and displayed diamond - It should now update the diamond count correctly

Boss Challenges

• 3rd boss challenge used to be re-usable when coming back from the boss. It is correctly disabled now when entering the infinite mode

Inventory

• Game correctly resumes when using a scroll from the pause menu (no issues with the use item shortcut)

[ 2024-10-25 18:06:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=yD4hfMO09sE;full][/previewyoutube]

After more than a year of development, The Nightwatch is available!

A 10% discount is applied for the first 10 days of release, grab it while you can! A special bundle with Soundtracks is available too, if you enjoy the work that has been put into the musics or if you want to support the development of the game and its future.

And a bundle too!

You can grab it with an extra 10% discount with the great Genome Guardian bundle

What now ?

There is a list of other fixes planned for the next few days, nothing blocking but that I would like to improve. To name a few :

• Description side panel in the black shop disappears when the normal shop is sold out. Upgrades are still applied and you can check them in your inventory menu if needed.
• Mismatch between interface and real number of owned diamonds

I'll push a patchnote tomorrow to resolve those issues.

Steam Deck compatibility

Since the game has a linux native build, it works out of the box. If you encounter the issue where the game doesn't start or Cloud Sync problem, Steam might be downloading the game with Windows proton compatibility. To fix this problem you can select manually the Linux Native build from the Settings->Compatibility option on the game, it will work directly Feel free to give any feedback or requests or if you encounter any problem during your runs, I'll make sure to fix it right away. Astrow Games Discord Have fun! Astrow

[ 2024-10-24 09:31:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Demo is back!

And right on time for october's Steam Next Fest. The demo includes :

• 1 endgame boss
• normal difficulty
• 18 trinkets (one active trinket per damage type)

The current state of the demo should give a good sample of the full game, that will add many items to unlock through completion marks, steam achievements and a new Hard difficulty with 2 other bosses. Try out the demo and don't hesitate to give us feedback! You can reach out through Steam Forums or directly on Astrow Games Discord I hope you will enjoy the demo as much as I enjoyed creating it.

[ 2024-09-25 14:06:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

The date is set and the game will be officially available the 23rd of October. For the occasion, a new trailer has been made to introduce a few bosses, new graphics and animations and some of the environments that will be present in the game. [previewyoutube=yIg1FmrpEG0;full][/previewyoutube] As previously announced, the public demo will be back for the Steam Next Fest happening early October, with all the features the full release will have. We really hope the game will match your expectations, and we will continue working on it after the release to add the content that we didn't have time to include before the release. Don't forget to wishlist the game to help it grow or if you want to follow the development and updates. If you wish to follow the development more closely, weekly updates are published on Astrow Games' Discord server

[ 2024-08-06 09:23:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

After a few months of the demo available for everyone, we decided to remove it from Steam for the remaining duration of development. As the development of the game is faster than ever, we no longer have the time to update the demo every week to match the new QoL features, animations and trinkets that were added to the full game. We decided that we will bring back the demo for the Steam Next Fest of October, with all the major features that are beeing developed, to really match the experience of the full game.
Here's a sneak peek of the second boss that will be present in the next update. If you want to follow the development of the game, please join the discord at : https://discord.gg/cXDnxMbyzc

[ 2024-07-26 12:46:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello to you, reader of this announcement! The full release is still planned for October, and we will be ready for a full experience of The Nightwatch by then, fully tested and balanced for you to enjoy. The sandbox version of the demo was "fine" to try and have a taste of what the game is, but the content is very limited and doesn't offer any real objective. Not much from the full game has been communicated except on the Discord server, and I'm here to try and resolve that by listing what is already done, what is worked on and what is still planned. I will be saying "we" during this article, but as many know I'm the only developer planning and working on the game.

1- What is done

Gameloop and incremental difficulty.

As any survivors-like, the gameloop is defined by the objective. Will it be to survive 10 minutes ? Kill a boss ? Kill multiple bosses ? It will depend on the difficulty you are at. The difficulty will be increased gradually by succeeding in previous runs, and the objective will change accordingly at important steps of the difficulty. Starting slowly by just surviving 5-10 min as introduction to understand and discover the game, to having to kill multiple bosses in a single run.

Bosses

The initial release of the game will have 3 bosses. Each related to a common ennemy in the game. 2 out of the 3 are designed and implemented, the 3rd one is currently designed by the same artist who did the other enemies. The first one is the Tentacle boss :
- This fight will be a typical bullet hell fight, with waves of bullet and tentacles attacking when the player comes close to them
- Defeating a boss will either finish the run if it was the objective, or reward a powerful trinket before returning in the main room with the enemy waves. To reach a boss, you will need to find the challenge runestone which will start a challenge fight that will open a portal to the boss room. To help you find objectives, arrows pointing to them will be displayed at the start of the run, and help the player understand that they shouldn't be too static in the center of the room, but walk and explore.

New "Eye" enemy

This enemy comes in group, with very small health, and explodes on death dealing damage to the other enemies in its range.

Clarity and animations

- Animations have been added to the game, visual indicators when an enemy is poisoned, burned or bleeding. - Upscaled animations have been replaced with new original sprites. - Player's light radius have been sharpened and increased. - Global visibility and contrast with darkness have been reworked to make it more appealing and clear.

Trinkets and general balance

- Now that the gameloop is set and worked on, balance is easier to maintain. Enemy health, speed, spawn rate and spawn location have been reworked for a smoother start and harder endgame. - 20+ trinkets are added from the demo, and we still have some time to add and test many more.

2- What is worked on

Second boss

The 2nd bossfight is currently in its balance phase, tweaking the difficulty and accessibility. This boss is the Imp boss. Watching the player fight from its throne and sending waves of imps to the player. We will send more informations on the fight when we are happy with the final result and feel of the fight.

Second Character

We are working on the second character, which would be the strict minimum for the full release. Difficulty progression will be linked to the character and will enable different gameplay than the bow and arrow.

A new trailer!

Now that a lot have been worked on, the old trailer is starting to get a bit obsolete. A new one will be uploaded as soon as possible to reflect the new changes and hopefully hype up new (and current) players.

2- What is planned

Third boss

The design is still in its experimental phase, but what we do know is that this enemy will be related to the new "Eye" enemy.

More, more and more trinkets

We really need to add as many trinkets as we can, as long as they are balanced and work well with the game.

More, more and more events

Same as the trinkets, we want the procedural generation to be as "random" as we can, with extremely rare events you can find on the map that will drastically change the gameplay if you choose to interact with them.

Steam achievements

Every trinket unlock, secret actions or player achievement need to have its related steam achievement. I for sure missed a lot of the new features that are currently implemented or worked on, but I really want to keep surprises and some mystery to what you will be able to find in the dark rooms of the Wizard tower. Can't wait to hear from interested players and I will answer any questions you might have on the state of the development or what will be in the full game. Don't forget to join Astrow Games discord if you want to follow the weekly updates, or just to hang out : https://discord.gg/cXDnxMbyzc May you survive the night ! Astrow

[ 2024-07-14 10:21:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

As the development of the full release continues, the demo has its first catch-up update to include many quality of life features that are already part of the final build. The important part of this update is to give the player more information, in example : - Visual representation of all the keyboard/controller shortcuts (you can find it in the settings menu) - Tooltips and animations to display scrolls and where the inventory is located - More shortcuts for keyboard and controller Some visual updates like : - Scene transition animation - Scroll pickup animation - Player light radius sharpened - Upgrade selection improved And of course gameplay and content update - Blood shop now has its own item pool with special theme items - Portals now knockback enemies when spawning - 1 new trinket If you want to know more about the full release, weekly updates are posted on the Discord channel https://discord.com/invite/cXDnxMbyzc Come discuss the game with us, all ideas or feedbacks are welcome.

[ 2024-06-21 21:55:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Demo is out ! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2817910/The_Nightwatch/ After weeks of polishing, it is now ready for the Steam Fest of Endless Replayability starting the 13th of May. Come try it out and give us your feedback, it will help us improve the rest of the development, as we will continue to work as hard as we can until the release. For the full content of the game, we are currently working on implementing objectives and bosses, now that the base is solid, and will be even more thanks to you. May you survive the night.

[ 2024-05-10 10:58:24 CET ] [ Original post ]