Small patch for C: aft rolling out today

Bugfixes

• Fix crafting required counter on subsequent playthroughs
• Provide an exe to launch with for Windows instead of launching the .jar directly

The exe part is important because apparently Steam does not allow Steam Link streaming or Broadcasting without it. With this patch it should fix a long standing issue of having a green screen when streaming with Steam. Thanks @tenukibozu for identifying the bug with the crafting counter and providing me with the save data to help me fix it.

[ 2018-06-30 16:23:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Some changes are landing today that I forgot to push before. Should generally improve stability and fix minor issues.

Bugfixes

• Fix amount of HP for hired allies (will only affect new hires)
• Fix HP recovery in dungeons for all allies including hired monsters
• Fix spell recovery and charge amount display
• Fix hovering over items causing the game to crash
• Fix inconsistencies in item records between UI submenus
• Hired allies no longer start in a send off state when resuming from a save game
• Spells now recover when returning from a dungeon

Changes

• New dice graphics for better legibility in combat
• All resources count as loot according to the counter now per floor
• Items no longer expire into new items, as this was a barely explored feature

[ 2017-12-09 02:23:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Some changes are landing today that I forgot to push before. Should generally improve stability and fix minor issues.

Bugfixes

• Fix amount of HP for hired allies (will only affect new hires)
• Fix HP recovery in dungeons for all allies including hired monsters
• Fix spell recovery and charge amount display
• Fix hovering over items causing the game to crash
• Fix inconsistencies in item records between UI submenus
• Hired allies no longer start in a send off state when resuming from a save game
• Spells now recover when returning from a dungeon

Changes

• New dice graphics for better legibility in combat
• All resources count as loot according to the counter now per floor

[ 2017-12-09 02:23:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Small change today that results in a larger patch size than usual.

Changes

• Google's Noto font has been added for wider unicode support, thus improving the file browser.
• Font glyphs are no longer preloaded, thus improving start-up time. This comes at the cost of memory usage potentially increasing over the play period as more unique glyphs are encountered.

Bugfixes

• File browser now properly highlights which drive you're in
• Action log no longer says a member has joined your party after trading when they really haven't

Noto is about 16mb by itself. Double that because of the usage of git for the mod system, and that's why the patch is about 30mb instead of the usual couple hundred kilobytes..

[ 2017-10-23 01:12:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Small change today that results in a larger patch size than usual.

Changes

• Google's Noto font has been added for wider unicode support, thus improving the file browser.
• Font glyphs are no longer preloaded, thus improving start-up time. This comes at the cost of memory usage potentially increasing over the play period as more unique glyphs are encountered.

Bugfixes

• File browser now properly highlights which drive you're in
• Action log no longer says a member has joined your party after trading when they really haven't

Noto is about 16mb by itself. Double that because of the usage of git for the mod system, and that's why the patch is about 30mb instead of the usual couple hundred kilobytes..

[ 2017-10-23 01:12:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Some balance and bugfixes have been performed.

Changes

• Doors now invoke the lockpick minigame to encourage key usage
• Slow recovery now heals non-active members at a rate of 1/20th of the hp
• Sacrificing to recover in a dungeon will heal all party members to max hp, and will even revive the Adventurer
• Speed stat has been slightly rebalanced in combat to be skewed more in the player's favor
• All party member's share a single set of equipment
• Party select screen in dungeons now shows more character details
• Monster trading dialog now shows the monsters name so you can better decide if you want it.
• Potion drops now heal more mana, as do Heart drops heal more health
• Moved Menu button on the dungeon screen away from the settings button to improve mouse usability.
• Will-o-Wisps, Mimics, and Domimics can no longer be added to the party for balancing purposes, but you can still trade with them.
• It now costs double the monster's asking price for them to join your party. If you intimidate an enemy, they will not join your party. Friendship is rewarded only to those who ask for it.

Bugfixes

• Fix door placement in the dungeon algorithm so they only appear at the end of hallways (this slightly increases dungeon generation time)
• Display proper max hp on level up in dungeons
• Properly remove an entity from the dungeon after trading with them if they replace a member on your party
• Fix item worth in trading with monsters where the item matches what they prefer
• Fix resolution selection dropdown in settings after reloading the game
• Hide stat hover on dead characters
• Fix occasional crash bug on using the Fill Randomly button

Fix positioning of enemy drops to be closer to where they died

Equipment durability meters are now accurate

Minimap properly shows corridors

Fix some input consistency issues with the UI

Fix scrolling on network drive window

Adjust font in Monster's tab of the Page File to fix overflow This patch marks the first post launch adjustments. There should not be too many of these.

[ 2017-10-22 00:42:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Some balance and bugfixes have been performed.

Changes

• Doors now invoke the lockpick minigame to encourage key usage
• Slow recovery now heals non-active members at a rate of 1/20th of the hp
• Sacrificing to recover in a dungeon will heal all party members to max hp, and will even revive the Adventurer
• Speed stat has been slightly rebalanced in combat to be skewed more in the player's favor
• All party member's share a single set of equipment
• Party select screen in dungeons now shows more character details
• Monster trading dialog now shows the monsters name so you can better decide if you want it.
• Potion drops now heal more mana, as do Heart drops heal more health
• Moved Menu button on the dungeon screen away from the settings button to improve mouse usability.
• Will-o-Wisps, Mimics, and Domimics can no longer be added to the party for balancing purposes, but you can still trade with them.
• It now costs double the monster's asking price for them to join your party. If you intimidate an enemy, they will not join your party. Friendship is rewarded only to those who ask for it.

Bugfixes

• Fix door placement in the dungeon algorithm so they only appear at the end of hallways (this slightly increases dungeon generation time)
• Display proper max hp on level up in dungeons
• Properly remove an entity from the dungeon after trading with them if they replace a member on your party
• Fix item worth in trading with monsters where the item matches what they prefer
• Fix resolution selection dropdown in settings after reloading the game
• Hide stat hover on dead characters
• Fix occasional crash bug on using the Fill Randomly button

Fix positioning of enemy drops to be closer to where they died

Equipment durability meters are now accurate

Minimap properly shows corridors

Fix some input consistency issues with the UI

Fix scrolling on network drive window

Adjust font in Monster's tab of the Page File to fix overflow This patch marks the first post launch adjustments. There should not be too many of these.

[ 2017-10-22 00:42:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

For those who have noticed, C: aft has launched out of early access finally. After a little hicup, things should be good, stable, and ready to play now. This latest patch to wrap up early access brought a few small bug fixes.

Changes

• There should be no more issues navigating any part of the game with only a keyboard.
• The font used for the filesystem navigator has also been changed to support CJK characters, so you can see file names from other languages
• To help new players, or anyone who's taken a long break from the game, there are now more help dialogs throughout the world navigator to explain features and how to use them.

From this point on there will be no new feature development, only bug fixes, as I focus on my next endeavor. Thank you for joining me on this ride!

[ 2017-10-02 23:56:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

For those who have noticed, C:\raft has launched out of early access finally. After a little hicup, things should be good, stable, and ready to play now. This latest patch to wrap up early access brought a few small bug fixes.

Changes

• There should be no more issues navigating any part of the game with only a keyboard.
• The font used for the filesystem navigator has also been changed to support CJK characters, so you can see file names from other languages
• To help new players, or anyone who's taken a long break from the game, there are now more help dialogs throughout the world navigator to explain features and how to use them.

From this point on there will be no new feature development, only bug fixes, as I focus on my next endeavor. Thank you for joining me on this ride!

[ 2017-10-02 23:55:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi there, this update will be short My apologies for not keeping up with this, things have been getting in the way with my life during times where I can usually be productive when it comes to working on this game. The content manager has been put on hold again since it's taking more work than I'd like to put into it. What's there on github does work already for most parts of the system, you'll just have to download the source and run it yourself from a javascript development environment. Since mod support is more of an after thought feature, what's already in place I feel is good enough that I can move forward with other things. That said, there's a few small outstanding bugs that I'll be fixing with some menus that you unlock later in the game. Once those are done, the game will finally be moving out of Early Access. Thank you for the support

[ 2017-08-07 15:08:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi there, this update will be short My apologies for not keeping up with this, things have been getting in the way with my life during times where I can usually be productive when it comes to working on this game. The content manager has been put on hold again since it's taking more work than I'd like to put into it. What's there on github does work already for most parts of the system, you'll just have to download the source and run it yourself from a javascript development environment. Since mod support is more of an after thought feature, what's already in place I feel is good enough that I can move forward with other things. That said, there's a few small outstanding bugs that I'll be fixing with some menus that you unlock later in the game. Once those are done, the game will finally be moving out of Early Access. Thank you for the support

[ 2017-08-07 15:08:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

I'm sure some of you have noticed, but an update was pushed late last night. This update adds simple mod support to the game! You can install, enable, and change the load order of mods within the game's settings menu. Mods available for installation come from Github's API. To create a mod, simply go to the Github and fork the Assets repository. Any file can be edited or replaced in the Assets folder. As soon as the repository is forked, you'll be able to see and install your mod from the game. If you ever accidentally install a mod that is broken, thus resulting in the game not properly starting up or crashing, you can use the extra command line argument [noparse]--disableMods[/noparse] to disable all your mods and reset the assets directory to its original state. From there you can go through and reenable you mods one by one to find the troublemaker. I'll be adding this as a runtime menu entry on Steam so it'll be easier to remember/fix. Now that modding is supported as part of the game, finishing the Content Manager will be my full focus for this week's development in order to make modding easier and safer. Have fun with the new update!

[ 2017-07-17 14:03:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

I'm sure some of you have noticed, but an update was pushed late last night. This update adds simple mod support to the game! You can install, enable, and change the load order of mods within the game's settings menu. Mods available for installation come from Github's API. To create a mod, simply go to the Github and fork the Assets repository. Any file can be edited or replaced in the Assets folder. As soon as the repository is forked, you'll be able to see and install your mod from the game. If you ever accidentally install a mod that is broken, thus resulting in the game not properly starting up or crashing, you can use the extra command line argument [noparse]--disableMods[/noparse] to disable all your mods and reset the assets directory to its original state. From there you can go through and reenable you mods one by one to find the troublemaker. I'll be adding this as a runtime menu entry on Steam so it'll be easier to remember/fix. Now that modding is supported as part of the game, finishing the Content Manager will be my full focus for this week's development in order to make modding easier and safer. Have fun with the new update!

[ 2017-07-17 14:03:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Steam Sale is over, so nows a good time to start talking about the last bits of C:\raft that'll be introduced. Until the game launches out of Early access I'm going to be posting minor status updates on a weekly basis to keep you all informed. This is probably something I should have been doing from the beginning to keep myself motivated instead of developing in bursts. Anyway, thanks to all the new faces in the community and various results from testing, there's going to be a handful of fixes throughout that should make the input in menus more consistent and less buggy. I'm also still making my way through the codebase and cleaning some things up for myself for personal maintenance reasons. For anyone who follows the Github organization, they'll be happy to notice that the game's Assets are available entirely within a repository. This is important for the 2 last things I plan on adding to wrap up the game. Mod support will be added to the game. Any asset in the game can be replaced or modified. To create mods all you'll have to do is fork the assets repository on Github. This keeps the modding community agnostic from the software distribution platform, so users on itch and steam can both benefit from the mods. Anyone will be able to install mods by simply merging branches/forks with Git because the assets directory everyone will have with the install of the game is a fully checked out local instance of the repo. To make things more intuitive to the users, I am working on integrating simple git/mod management into the game itself or with a small external tool specialized for C:\raft. To make mod creating simpler, the Content Manager is still being worked on. There's not a lot left to do for the basic management of content, but I will need to work a bit to add a new app into the Steam store so anyone can get the application through Steam itself or precompiled on itch. It's also available on Github for anyone to work on and contribute to. Now that the Assets folder is also on Github, which is all the application requires to get to work, that should make it even easier for people to test the app on or make mods without even needing an installation of the game. Hope you're as excited for these new tools as I am making them!

[ 2017-07-11 16:37:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Steam Sale is over, so nows a good time to start talking about the last bits of C: aft that'll be introduced. Until the game launches out of Early access I'm going to be posting minor status updates on a weekly basis to keep you all informed. This is probably something I should have been doing from the beginning to keep myself motivated instead of developing in bursts. Anyway, thanks to all the new faces in the community and various results from testing, there's going to be a handful of fixes throughout that should make the input in menus more consistent and less buggy. I'm also still making my way through the codebase and cleaning some things up for myself for personal maintenance reasons. For anyone who follows the Github organization, they'll be happy to notice that the game's Assets are available entirely within a repository. This is important for the 2 last things I plan on adding to wrap up the game. Mod support will be added to the game. Any asset in the game can be replaced or modified. To create mods all you'll have to do is fork the assets repository on Github. This keeps the modding community agnostic from the software distribution platform, so users on itch and steam can both benefit from the mods. Anyone will be able to install mods by simply merging branches/forks with Git because the assets directory everyone will have with the install of the game is a fully checked out local instance of the repo. To make things more intuitive to the users, I am working on integrating simple git/mod management into the game itself or with a small external tool specialized for C: aft. To make mod creating simpler, the Content Manager is still being worked on. There's not a lot left to do for the basic management of content, but I will need to work a bit to add a new app into the Steam store so anyone can get the application through Steam itself or precompiled on itch. It's also available on Github for anyone to work on and contribute to. Now that the Assets folder is also on Github, which is all the application requires to get to work, that should make it even easier for people to test the app on or make mods without even needing an installation of the game. Hope you're as excited for these new tools as I am making them!

[ 2017-07-11 16:37:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello again, it's been awhile but there's a new batch of updates coming to the game! It's been about 6 months since anything major happened, and that was primarily due to things with the game in general just winding down. No new features are planned as it's rather bloated already with nothing really perfected. In fact, some things are being stripped as they were never fully realised while others are being rebalanced. The biggest update, however, as some of you have noticed, is the full scale rebranding effort! Back in March I was demoing the game whenever I had the chance to at GDC as I walked around the halls and attended a few meetups. During that time, I had already started the effort to change the name to C: aft and was informing people to look forward to the update soon. Well, that turned into a bigger effort than I was initially thinking it would be. Almost 4 months later the game has been completely rebranded now, with new promotional art, all in-game references updated, and going around to other sites to update references there too where possible. Further more, I wanted it to be more than just a name change. In the process I've been working more on balancing content and combat to make the game more accessible and less frustrating. Also, there is now a tutorial on the first time you enter the main menu to explain what everything is. The biggest change you'll notice is that I've also gone ahead and incorporated a brand new soundtrack provided by IMANKITA to help give the game a better, more unique, more hype sound. And of course there's the usual slew of bug fixes being throw into the mix. These updates will be pushed out incrementally (you've already seen the name change one). As always, please report any bugs you find so I may fix them ASAP for you. This will be the last set of major updates I'll be making before launching out of Early Access. After a little more polish and bug fixing, I'm things will be raring to go. Plans are to launch out of Early Access no later than the 2 year anniversary of launching on Steam. It's been a fun journey taking this joke too far. Also, thank you to all the new faces who found my game during the Steam Summer Sale this year! I hope you're all having fun and are looking forward to seeing what comes next! tl;dr here's a changelog

Changes

• Vitality points are now worth 10 hp each instead of 2
• If things are too hard in boss fights, you can now run away/surrender
• You can open the settings with your mouse by clicking on the settings icon
• New soundtrack provided by IMANKITA
• Some loading save data bugs have been resolved
• Name changed from StoryMode to C: aft
• Lore feature has been removed
• Achievements have been removed
• Other minor fixes made

Notices

This update does break save files, you will have to start new

[ 2017-06-30 16:49:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello again, it's been awhile but there's a new batch of updates coming to the game! It's been about 6 months since anything major happened, and that was primarily due to things with the game in general just winding down. No new features are planned as it's rather bloated already with nothing really perfected. In fact, some things are being stripped as they were never fully realised while others are being rebalanced. The biggest update, however, as some of you have noticed, is the full scale rebranding effort! Back in March I was demoing the game whenever I had the chance to at GDC as I walked around the halls and attended a few meetups. During that time, I had already started the effort to change the name to C:\raft and was informing people to look forward to the update soon. Well, that turned into a bigger effort than I was initially thinking it would be. Almost 4 months later the game has been completely rebranded now, with new promotional art, all in-game references updated, and going around to other sites to update references there too where possible. Further more, I wanted it to be more than just a name change. In the process I've been working more on balancing content and combat to make the game more accessible and less frustrating. Also, there is now a tutorial on the first time you enter the main menu to explain what everything is. The biggest change you'll notice is that I've also gone ahead and incorporated a brand new soundtrack provided by IMANKITA to help give the game a better, more unique, more hype sound. And of course there's the usual slew of bug fixes being throw into the mix. These updates will be pushed out incrementally (you've already seen the name change one). As always, please report any bugs you find so I may fix them ASAP for you. This will be the last set of major updates I'll be making before launching out of Early Access. After a little more polish and bug fixing, I'm things will be raring to go. Plans are to launch out of Early Access no later than the 2 year anniversary of launching on Steam. It's been a fun journey taking this joke too far. Also, thank you to all the new faces who found my game during the Steam Summer Sale this year! I hope you're all having fun and are looking forward to seeing what comes next! tl;dr here's a changelog

Changes

• Vitality points are now worth 10 hp each instead of 2
• If things are too hard in boss fights, you can now run away/surrender
• You can open the settings with your mouse by clicking on the settings icon
• New soundtrack provided by IMANKITA
• Some loading save data bugs have been resolved
• Name changed from StoryMode to C:\raft
• Lore feature has been removed
• Achievements have been removed
• Other minor fixes made

Notices

This update does break save files, you will have to start new

[ 2017-06-30 15:53:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello again! Been quite some time since the last update, so I thought I'd try and throw down something new and special to celebrate the end of 2016. With the forthcoming update, the Daily Dungeon Server has been completely rewritten. So let's go over what this means for the gameplay.

Ghosts

Now when you venture into the daily dungeon, you'll see ghosts of all other players currently connected to the dungeon on your floor. This is purely cosmetic, but it provides a nice level of interactivity to remove the feeling of loneliness. I want players to feel connected and capable of helping each other out, so ghosting is just the start of enhanced multiplayer features that'll be added into the game.

File Uploading

To help expand on the idea of players playing together, there's a new "Network Drive" tab on the file browser. This allows you to see any file that another user has uploaded to the Daily Dungeon server for others to adventure through. The server keeps track of the filename, filesize, and who uploaded it (by their steam name or tombstone alias). Files don't actually get uploaded, only their metadata that's used for generating dungeons. This makes uploading dungeons and downloading them incredibly fast, clocking in at an average of less than 5kb responses. Files uploaded by players will expire at midnight when a new daily dungeon is created, no more than 48hr after upload. This will prevent the drive from getting too cluttered.

Deploying your own server

The server code is available on github and is pretty easy to run. Just get the python dependencies through pip, and execute python dungeon.py By default the http port will be 8080, and tcp port 8081. You can edit the python file to change these values. If you want other people to connect, the address and port mappings are configurable in the network tab of the Settings Pane.

General Bugfixes

I've gone through and hunted down some bugs too while I was at it. Boss fights should be a lot more stable now, and Braving should actually work.

Github

In case you haven't been following the tumblr where I discuss future plans, gameplay ideas, and general business with the game, I've been putting a lot of stuff under a github organization. On there you can grab the source code of the game from before I started integrating with Steam. You can also find the new domain for the official website, the Server code, and the new location for the issue tracker.

Future Plans

The new planned update for StoryMode will not be content oriented, but instead will be Content Manager oriented. I'm starting to run out of ideas for content and features, which means I'm finally reaching that point where I can feel safe about wrapping up early access and going full launch (of course after some more bugs are ironed out). As such, I feel it's best for me to start leaving some more things to the community. On github you can see the start of me learning React and building up an Electron application. Once this application is done, modding the assets of StoryMode will be a breeze and less error-prone than editing the files directly. I'm hoping this becomes as much a tool valuable for you as it will be for me!

Last Note

I'd also like to mention I'll be walking around at MAGFest this weekend (Jan 5-8th). I won't be presenting in the MIVS, as I chose not to apply this year because I have other obligations that'd prevent me from manning the booth the whole time. However, if you see me or get a hold of one of my business cards, contact me on twitter and I'll send you a free key, my treat! The patch and public server updates will both be pushed before the first day of MAGFest. Have fun, and be safe and considerate!

[ 2017-01-04 05:14:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello again! Been quite some time since the last update, so I thought I'd try and throw down something new and special to celebrate the end of 2016. With the forthcoming update, the Daily Dungeon Server has been completely rewritten. So let's go over what this means for the gameplay.

Ghosts

Now when you venture into the daily dungeon, you'll see ghosts of all other players currently connected to the dungeon on your floor. This is purely cosmetic, but it provides a nice level of interactivity to remove the feeling of loneliness. I want players to feel connected and capable of helping each other out, so ghosting is just the start of enhanced multiplayer features that'll be added into the game.

File Uploading

To help expand on the idea of players playing together, there's a new "Network Drive" tab on the file browser. This allows you to see any file that another user has uploaded to the Daily Dungeon server for others to adventure through. The server keeps track of the filename, filesize, and who uploaded it (by their steam name or tombstone alias). Files don't actually get uploaded, only their metadata that's used for generating dungeons. This makes uploading dungeons and downloading them incredibly fast, clocking in at an average of less than 5kb responses. Files uploaded by players will expire at midnight when a new daily dungeon is created, no more than 48hr after upload. This will prevent the drive from getting too cluttered.

Deploying your own server

The server code is available on github and is pretty easy to run. Just get the python dependencies through pip, and execute python dungeon.py By default the http port will be 8080, and tcp port 8081. You can edit the python file to change these values. If you want other people to connect, the address and port mappings are configurable in the network tab of the Settings Pane.

General Bugfixes

I've gone through and hunted down some bugs too while I was at it. Boss fights should be a lot more stable now, and Braving should actually work.

Github

In case you haven't been following the tumblr where I discuss future plans, gameplay ideas, and general business with the game, I've been putting a lot of stuff under a github organization. On there you can grab the source code of the game from before I started integrating with Steam. You can also find the new domain for the official website, the Server code, and the new location for the issue tracker.

Future Plans

The new planned update for StoryMode will not be content oriented, but instead will be Content Manager oriented. I'm starting to run out of ideas for content and features, which means I'm finally reaching that point where I can feel safe about wrapping up early access and going full launch (of course after some more bugs are ironed out). As such, I feel it's best for me to start leaving some more things to the community. On github you can see the start of me learning React and building up an Electron application. Once this application is done, modding the assets of StoryMode will be a breeze and less error-prone than editing the files directly. I'm hoping this becomes as much a tool valuable for you as it will be for me!

Last Note

I'd also like to mention I'll be walking around at MAGFest this weekend (Jan 5-8th). I won't be presenting in the MIVS, as I chose not to apply this year because I have other obligations that'd prevent me from manning the booth the whole time. However, if you see me or get a hold of one of my business cards, contact me on twitter and I'll send you a free key, my treat! The patch and public server updates will both be pushed before the first day of MAGFest. Have fun, and be safe and considerate!

[ 2017-01-04 05:14:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

It’s crazy thinking about just how much has changed in the past year alone thanks to Steam Early Access.  Some stuff had already changed thanks to the push for Steam Greenlight compared to what the game was when it was exclusively distributed on Desura. Let’s summarize all the big changes from each update

• Items rebalanced so they can be found in any file type
• You may now encounter miniature and jumbo versions of enemies
• More quest types were added
• Character creation and customization with stat point allocation and class based special abilities is now a thing
• All drops are now identified with icons
• HP and Spells regenerate over time
• Floor minimaps have been added to show what you’ve discovered
• Torches are placed randomly to light up rooms
• Pacifist approach added to allow you to defeat enemies by trading items with them
• Added resource harvesting with minigames, so you can get items without fighting enemies
• Party system allows you to recruit a team to adventure dungeons with (befriending enemies with trading adds them to your party)
• Boss fights completely redesigned to take advantage of the party system (it’s now more like traditional JRPGs)
• Daily dungeon now tracks deaths of everyone who plays them and puts down identifying tombstones
• Redesigned settings menu that’s better organized and adds plenty more configurable features.
• Changed all the dungeoning music to be more neutral and jrpg-ish to appeal to a wider audience.
• CRT shader exists for those who want a more old-school appearance
• Main menu completely redesigned and reorganized into a series of functional planets
• Blacksmith exists to permanently improve your equipment
• Persistent parties exist to allow you to recruit party members outside of dungeons
• Persistent party members can be sent off to collect items for you without having to go into dungeons
• New Game+ allows you to continue adventuring and discover more of the world after completing your list of crafts.  The game gets harder yet easier each time.
• Resting is no longer a requirement after you die
• Quests redesigned to have their own dedicated dungeons to help with completing them (can only accept one quest at a time now)
• Tons of new enemies and adjectives
• Improved Day system with lunar cycle and scaling difficulty
• Temporary leveling within dungeons based on XP
• Items can rot and become new items
• Turns can execute at a timed interval instead of being full-wait

There’s also be a slew of smaller, more engine related changes regarding graphical performance and stability improvements.  Code’s also be refactored quite a bit, and things like dungeon generation have been restructured to allow for additional algorithms, though I still have yet to take advantage of that. And for reference, this is what happened in the past year of on-off development.
That’s quite a bit for a project that’s managed by a single person who isn’t good at keeping track of how much he changes on a file-by-file basis and commits in bursts.  Also, a good portion of the file additions were just resources and not code, so the game’s code-base is still manageable (only about 240 source files). Here’s to hoping the game continues to get better.  Also here’s to hoping I can finally feel comfortable with wrapping this game up and marking it as a full release.

[ 2016-09-09 20:39:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Its crazy thinking about just how much has changed in the past year alone thanks to Steam Early Access. Some stuff had already changed thanks to the push for Steam Greenlight compared to what the game was when it was exclusively distributed on Desura. Lets summarize all the big changes from each update

• Items rebalanced so they can be found in any file type
• You may now encounter miniature and jumbo versions of enemies
• More quest types were added
• Character creation and customization with stat point allocation and class based special abilities is now a thing
• All drops are now identified with icons
• HP and Spells regenerate over time
• Floor minimaps have been added to show what youve discovered
• Torches are placed randomly to light up rooms
• Pacifist approach added to allow you to defeat enemies by trading items with them
• Added resource harvesting with minigames, so you can get items without fighting enemies
• Party system allows you to recruit a team to adventure dungeons with (befriending enemies with trading adds them to your party)
• Boss fights completely redesigned to take advantage of the party system (its now more like traditional JRPGs)
• Daily dungeon now tracks deaths of everyone who plays them and puts down identifying tombstones
• Redesigned settings menu thats better organized and adds plenty more configurable features.
• Changed all the dungeoning music to be more neutral and jrpg-ish to appeal to a wider audience.
• CRT shader exists for those who want a more old-school appearance
• Main menu completely redesigned and reorganized into a series of functional planets
• Blacksmith exists to permanently improve your equipment
• Persistent parties exist to allow you to recruit party members outside of dungeons
• Persistent party members can be sent off to collect items for you without having to go into dungeons
• New Game+ allows you to continue adventuring and discover more of the world after completing your list of crafts. The game gets harder yet easier each time.
• Resting is no longer a requirement after you die
• Quests redesigned to have their own dedicated dungeons to help with completing them (can only accept one quest at a time now)
• Tons of new enemies and adjectives
• Improved Day system with lunar cycle and scaling difficulty
• Temporary leveling within dungeons based on XP
• Items can rot and become new items
• Turns can execute at a timed interval instead of being full-wait

Theres also be a slew of smaller, more engine related changes regarding graphical performance and stability improvements. Codes also be refactored quite a bit, and things like dungeon generation have been restructured to allow for additional algorithms, though I still have yet to take advantage of that. And for reference, this is what happened in the past year of on-off development.
Thats quite a bit for a project thats managed by a single person who isnt good at keeping track of how much he changes on a file-by-file basis and commits in bursts. Also, a good portion of the file additions were just resources and not code, so the games code-base is still manageable (only about 240 source files). Heres to hoping the game continues to get better. Also heres to hoping I can finally feel comfortable with wrapping this game up and marking it as a full release.

[ 2016-09-09 20:39:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

It’s been a year since StoryMode entered Early Access on steam, and I swear the game isn’t any less broken than it was when I started.  On the plus side, though, there’s been a lot of new features added since then, and in a lot of ways the game is nothing like it was. It’s probably a good time to update the trailer too, but I’m not good at stuff like that, so whatever. There’s some new features arriving with this update too, and like usual old save data is no longer compatible.  Instead of giving a long write up on what’s changed, I’ll just direct you to some blog posts that I did while the changes were still just ideas fluttering about in my brain. Here’s a summary:

• Turns now execute automatically based on a set interval determined by your difficulty (this can be disabled in the settings)
• Spell casting now cost a turn
• Additional CL-Args exist for launching right into dungeons
• Items rot over time to become new items
• Lunar cycle starts on a different day for everyone now
• Fixed some UI bugs and alignment
• Updated to libgdx 1.9.4
• Improved FOV calculation (more efficient, crashes less)
• Fixed scrolling on some views
• Items are referenced by combined ids instead of full strings in files
• Adjectives and Items are now CSVs instead of JSON files
• Tombstones now properly display a variety of messages
• Save files are now versioned, preventing incompatible saves from showing

[ 2016-09-07 22:26:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Another big update, coming along. Sorry for not posting any updates in June or during the summer sale, I’ve been rather busy the past 2 months and couldn’t put as much time into this as I would have liked (rather I spent my free time trying to de-stress from programming all day by playing other games like FFXIV). Anyway, this update includes the culmination of everything I’ve been working on and talking about in the dev blog for the past two months. Particularly, it includes the following features that I’m going to talk to you in detail about!

Seasons and Lunar Cycles

The game time system has been cleaned up a bit internally, and as such I’ve added new seasonal tracking and a lunar calendar to the game. Seasons don’t do anything just yet, but they’re in there as a feature that’ll be used for a future update. Lunar cycles, on the other hand, do have an impact. A lunar cycle lasts 18 days, meaning you’ll hit a full moon and a new moon on average once a month. The closer you are to a full moon the harder enemies will become in dungeons. This adds a new level of challenge and strategy, as you’ll have to decide when do you want to go into a dungeon and when do you want to sleep away a day. As always, the higher level enemy you fight, the more loot that drops, so on full moon days you can guarantee yourself getting more loot, if you can stay alive that is. Additionally, there’s a 5% chance of an eclipse happening on any day. Eclipses convert dungeons into a boss-run mode, where on every floor in the dungeon there is a boss fight. This leaves you with no chance to ally with friendly monsters to take with into dungeons, but it does give you an opportunity to try your might at fighting low level bosses and high level bosses to get the items you need in your quest to serve the goddess. It also gives you a chance to pit your skills and might of your human party against the strongest beasts of your hard drive.

Sleep is Optional

With this update, days now advance whenever you return to town, and you’ll automatically be healed. Sleeping has been a considered a chore and confusing element of the game since I demoed it for the very first time. Removing it is a much needed change. Now the only reason why you’ll need to sleep is to adjust dungeon difficulty, or for other features that may come in the future.

Redesigned Questing

Questing has been completely restructured due to criticism about its seemingly pointless nature and lack of guidance. While the prompts remain the same nonsensical spam email mad-libed humbo-jumbo, quests are a lot more structured and easier to complete. Now, you may only take on one quest at a time. Also, Quests no longer expire. Each quest has its own random seed assigned to it, so now you will achieve your goals by going into the quest’s own dungeon instead of trying to find everything on your hard drive. This makes questing more extensible as well, which means in the future I can add more unique quest mechanics, such as quests starting your character off at level 1 and having to reach a certain level within the dungeon to complete the quest. For Hunt quests and Gather quests, there’s a 10% chance an enemy will be the type you need to kill or will drop the item you need to collect. This is much better than the usual .05% chance you have to get a specific item or monster because of the amount of randomly generated content in the game. These additional features and guides should hold your hand enough to get quests done, but the dungeoning is still hard so don’t expect the game to suddenly be a breeze.

Leveling in Dungeons

Leveling a character now works the same way as leveling up your equipment at a blacksmith. Within dungeons your character can once more gain xp from killing monsters and level up. When you level up in a dungeon, the stat point is assigned randomly, unlike when you train a specific stat. Upon leaving a dungeon, whether willingly or through death, your stats will reset back to the values that you have trained them to be. This makes your dungeon level a completely temporary stat, but the leveling up in dungeons with natural progression should help adventurers make it deeper more safely. And of course, the deeper your go, the more pleased the goddess will be. Because you get more loot that way to crafting things with, of course.

More enemies, More fun

Dungeoning is a lot more dangerous now with the enemy factory adjustments. There’s a heck ton more enemies on each floor now, because there were complaints that dungeons just weren’t dangerous or fun enough. Seeing that dungeoning is the core component of the game that people are going to be playing, it’s probably best that they don’t feel bored in vast dungeons with no enemies.

Bug Fixes

And what patch/update isn’t complete without a few bug fixes. Some of the big ones noticed were

• Craft menu doesn’t match up properly (Today and Required were switched)
• Crafting button was missing, so you couldn’t actually craft.
• Fix enemy AI movement for when there are more than 25 enemies on a floor, This has been plaguing the game for months and was nothing more than a spelling error calling dot instead of dst for distance calulations.

Of course, since this patch introduced new features, there’s bound to be some new bugs introduced. Please report all that you find to either the steam forums or github issue tracker as you find them, so I can squash them as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience and enjoy the update!

[ 2016-07-23 20:39:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Found some bugs shortly after pushing yesterday’s update. I fixed what I saw and made a few cleanups here and there. Something that I forgot to mention in the last update post was the fact that the dungeon generation backend has been completely refactored to allow for different algorithms to be plugged in. Right now it’s still using the classic algorithm based on RoguelikeLib, but I’ll be looking into adding support for Angband and Perlin-nose/Cave style dungeons. As a result of the refactor, some things were temporarily broken with the classic dungeon generation that have been fixed with this patch. In addition to the quick fixes, I’ve added in the CRT filter as a video option that can be toggled on and off. Be careful, as since it does distort the rendering space slightly, mouse-based input may not be pixel perfect towards the edges when it’s turned on. The update has already been pushed out on Steam. Itch.io will be updated shortly. Also of notice, I've created an official dev blog on tumblr that'll feature more kinds of background to the game's development. You'll be able to ask me questions directly and see screenshots and videos of features in development. Steam will continue to receive changelog posts, but anything else will be on the blog.

[ 2016-05-23 01:05:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Big update falls this month in Storymode. As we're approaching the one year mark since I uploaded Storymode to Steam Greenlight, I thought it'd be a good time to change quite a bit with the game's features and presentation. So let's go over the changes in detail (it's gonna be a long one)

Planet Navigation

Visible right away, the biggest change is the reorganized main menu. As new features and menus began creeping their way into the game, I realized a new menu system was required to keep things streamlined and easier to navigate. Some things still need ironing out, and user feedback is incredibly valuable at this point because it's such a big change to a central part of the game. Menus are now broken into planets, which can be navigated between by either scrolling or pressing Up/Down. Some planets and options are locked away until you reach certain criteria, including some features that were accessible as soon as you started the game. There are hints provided to help you discover what you need to do. Some planets have features and menus that weren't available before this update. So let's talk about those next.

Blacksmith

In addition to training your character by sacrificing items to the gods of Gains, there's now a planet of blacksmiths, which will accept items as materials with which to increase the base stats of your equipment. Weapons and armor that you find in dungeons function more as an enhancement/enchantment to your base equipment, meaning once the enchantment wears off you're still as good as your equipment instead of your raw strength. You're able to permanently increase the strength of your equipment, as well as increase the minimum durability of all enhancements. Be sure to balance increasing weapons with increasing stats. Unlike stats, weapons do have a max level, so at some point you will need to make yourself stronger instead of just relying on your tools.

Persistent Party

Forming a party of humans instead of monsters is now possible outside of dungeons. A select group of up to 4 humans of varying classes, birthsigns, and names that you hire will follow you into dungeons. They play by the same rules as monster allies, so when they die they'll be sent right back home, allowing you to replace them with something that you befriend during your dungeon run. Additionally, if you befriend a monster that's stronger than an ally, that ally will be sent home. Each ally has a random growth curve assigned to them, allowing for a predictable level up path. In some ways leveling up an ally is a bit cheaper and easier than yourself, but since they have a predefined curve you lose the intimate customizability that you have with your character. However, since they have their own birthsigns and jobs, it allows you to experience a taste of all the game has to offer without having to create new characters.

Micromanaging

What's a grindy game with luck based micromanaging/gambling? Another feature of your persistent party is the ability to send them off into dungeons by themselves for multiple days to gather items for you. Success rate is dependent on their level and their current depth in the dungeon they're exploring. You can call them back at any point, and it'll take only a day for them to bring back all that they've gathered...if they're lucky. Allies can die at any floor during exploration, so balance your chances if you want to get anything out of sending them off. When they die, you get nothing out of it. Additionally, since it takes a day for them to come back, there's even a chance they'll die on the way out. Also, when they're away getting things for you, they won't be able to accompany you when you go into a dungeon. You might be thinking, with this mechanic, why even go into dungeons anymore? Well, since it also takes days for them to get or do anything, you won't be able to use this as a means to complete quests. Additionally, what they pick up is random, unlike going into files where the items are dependent on the kind of file you're exploring. Pretty much, micromanaging provides a safe, fast way to get a mix of junk, which is useful for leveling up your main character and your allies. Heck, you might even get lucky and get enough random items to craft a few things. But if speed is your game, and you want to complete the goddess's list like a loyal servant, you'll want to do things yourself.

New Game+

End game no longer returns you to the title screen. Instead, you'll be thrown back into your world, with your same character and party, but with a new, longer list of items to craft, allowing you to play through faster and unlock as much of the game as possible. Some features and menus are also only available after you beat the game at least once, so look forward to that too!

Overlay mini-map

By pressing B and C in a dungeon simultaneously, you can adjust the minimap's display mode to be overlaid or in the corner. You can adjust the overlay opacity in the settings menu, or even turn off the minimap all together if you want to be hard core. The dungeon introduction can also be turned off now, for those of you who just want to jump straight into killing stuff.

Mac OSX Support

Packages have been made to support OSX, however, as I do not have the equipment to test said packages, try them at your own risk. Virtually, they're the same as the linux builds, just with different .so files. LibGDX makes that really easy when it comes to desktop bundling, so it shouldn't be that much trouble. However, if there are any bugs that don't appear on other platforms, please report them indicating you're using the Mac build.

Backend Changes

LWJGL3 didn't appear to be the most stable platform to build against just yet, blocking out some people who used to be able to play the game. As such, I've rolled back to using the LWJGL2 backend of LibGDX. Additionally, the JVM packaged with the game has been upgraded from Java7 to JRE8 thanks to Azul System's Zulu OpenJDK builds. This will give me more flexibility in the future with the code and features that are possible.

As always...

With any big change like this, expect some bugs and things needing polish (it wouldn't be Storymode without things being broken now would it). Hopefully there's no new conditions that cause crashing. Also take note, with these new features, there's been enough breaking changes that old saves are not compatible. Updated binaries will be rolling out shortly. Thanks for all your support! Have fun grinding, and have fun breaking stuff!

[ 2016-05-22 02:05:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, back for yet another update! Sorry for the long-ish period with no new content or word from me. Things have been a bit hectic, but hopefully what'll be dropping in the next day or two will have been worth the wait! So let's talk about these changes

Snazziness

There's been some adjustments made to the rendering code so now the appearance of the game scales substantially better for more resolutions. Aspect Ratio is maintained, color filters are better managed, and oh my god the texture scaling, it's perfect. No more weird one pixel wrap around errors or dithering or proportion distortion. Now, instead of scaling all elements and textures per actor, everything is rendered to a frame buffer with internal resolution, like is the native solution provided by frameworks like XNA, and the common technique used by other 2D game engines. The frame buffer is then and scaled appropriately to your decided resolution. This sacrifices sharpness slightly, but it improves overall quality ten-fold and does away with all previous texture errors associated with different resolutions. It also means I've restored manually resizable windows, because now no matter your resolution it won't look like absolute crap. There's additional snazziness elsewhere too. Title sequence has a little bit of decoration added, and now when you enter a dungeon it'll tell you your location and the name of the song track that'll be playing in the background.

Jazziness

The chosen music of the game has always been a point of contention for players. There's only so much that can really be done with creative commons music while trying to not sound like every other low-budget game. At the same time, there's a feel and atmosphere that is familiar to the genre and is expected with the territory that needs to be respected. As such, I've been looking into putting together more neutral soundtrack that should be less offensive to the general populous. This includes some more atmosphere and even jazzy/weather channel-like music for the main menu and more JRPG-ish music for dungeons and boss fights. And as always, everything is downsampled to at least try to give it a retro-vibe. And if you're worrying if this is going to make the game feel even more generic, don't worry, because that's the point. StoryMode has always been a satirical homage to the roguelike and JRPG genres, so having a generic soundtrack is all the better towards making it what it's supposed to be. If it turns out, however, that most people do not like the new music selection, I'll either revert the soundtrack changes, or I'll release the old pack as a free DLC pack allowing you to swap it in on-demand.

Anything else

There's the typical slew of bugfixes coming. Found some problems with input that should be fixed, and a game crashing bug when you craft the last item in your list. The settings pane now has a network configuration tab that allows you to set values such as your tombstone alias, daily dungeon url, and check what data you pull and send to daily dungeons and steam. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Thanks again for purchasing and/or following Storymode's development and trying out the game. It always makes me happy when I check the daily dungeon server and see people's tombstones!

[ 2016-03-15 05:21:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch has been put out featuring a new settings menu and a slew of bugfixes. Also added a few more tombstone phrases so you can laugh some more at people who died in the daily dungeons. The new settings menu is a priliminary design and will be improved according to user feedback. Additional optional settings for the game have yet to find their way into the new interface, but that'll be adjusted. In the future there will be a networking setting that'll allow you to configure things such as your upstream connections to services like Steam and what you send to daily dungeon servers. Color palettes have been moved into the settings pane instead of being a "hidden" feature along the number row. This means that the number row no longer changes the palette. Color palette settings are also now saved alongside every other setting, so when you start up the game again it'll be in the same palette that you last played in. The general bugfixes include some odd ones with rather obscure execution requirements that'd cause crashing (one only happened if you were playing from save data instead of a new game), so overall the game should be more stable now.

[ 2016-02-07 01:49:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Some reworking has been made to the daily dungeon system. Deaths are now tracked each day for every user who dies in the daily dungeon. When you load up the dungeon, you'll see tombstones on each floor indicating where someone else has died. These tombstones are non-blocking, so you can walk right on through them. Hovering your mouse over the tombstone will show you the name of the user and what they died against. The daily dungeon script which you can host yourself has been updated to include all that's necessary for making a daily dungeon server. The script is a python flask application, but you're free to implement it in whatever language and framework you feel like using, as long as the responses are the same. Because the daily dungeon application has changed, so has the server URL. If you weren't already using a custom daily dungeon server that you intend on updating yourself, you will have to revert your settings to the defaults in order to pick up the new url. This update is a very basic update to the game to show off the new feature. Detail and polish will be made in later updates. I've also updated the game's dependencies on LibGDX and complimentary libraries to the latest versions with this build. I'm still running on the LWJGL2 backend as long as the LWJGL3 one is still in development. Once it's marked stable I'll be looking into adopting it for improved support, stability, and performance. My apologies for any game breaking bugs that are currently out there, I'm trying to fix them up as they appear. Remember, the more logs and reports the better, any bit helps to make a greater game! Thank you

[ 2016-02-01 03:34:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello again for yet another monthly update full of new features and bug fixes! Continuing on with the party system introduced with the last update, I've gone ahead and done what I said I was planning to do: Redesign the Boss Fight combat system.

Boss Fight Redesign

I've already uploaded a screenshot to the store page that shows the new layout of things, but there's been some modifications to the way it's played. One of the key aspects now is Dice roll persistence. When you or the boss defends, the rolled value persists on them until their next action. Any attack done against the opponent will act according to that stored value. If you roll the same value or less, your attack will do nothing, unless of course you do a manual attack. Manual attacking, now called Braving, is the same as before where you have to time your hits to do any damage. To do any damage at all you'll need to match more of your hits than how many of the enemy's you missed. For example: If you roll 4 and the enemy has a 3 roll on their defense, you'll have to time 4 of your hits and 3 of theres. If you match 3 of yours and 2 of theirs, you'll score 2 hits. If you match 2 of yours and 1 of theirs, your attack will be blocked. Matching all 3 of their hits will give you a clean shot at them. Going on with dice persistence, when you attack your dice roll will not persist, leaving your defense wide open. This works both ways, where if the boss attacks its defense is left wide open too. The AI is a bit more complex now, balancing who to attack and when to defend. It'll purposely attack allies who aren't defending, and it also has a slight preference to attack allies instead of the main character. Additionally, if you're holding "C" (default: Tab) when a party member becomes ready, they'll act according to AI as well that's teamwork oriented. So AI in boss combat is not just for the boss! Stacking modifiers onto the boss is no longer a mechanic, as the assistance of party members should be more than enough to compensate for it. Sacrificing to heal is still available, though. It should be noted as since sacrificing still costs items in battle, the amount is still relative to how many times you sacrificed in your dungeon run. AI execution also will never sacrifice, so if you need to heal someone, you'll need to do it manually.

Other fixes

There were a few other bugs found throughout testing the new combat system. As such, returning to the dungeon after a boss fight should be working a-okay now. Additionally, on deeper dungeons where there's a 100% chance of encountering lore, you will now actually encounter lore. In fact, before this update it was mechanically impossible to see any of the game's lore without using the cheat code in debug mode, so sorry about that! On top of that, I finally got around to fixing a logic bug with input, so now you can hold down a direction button to move in dungeons, instead of having to repeatedly click or press buttons. Feels good to have that back again, it's been almost a year since that was last possible.

Shareware/Demo version

Over on itch.io there's been a shareware version of the game available with limited features. A lot has happened in the steam version and I haven't gotten around to building a new version of the demo in quite some time. In order to encourage more people trying the game without having to buy it, the Demo will be available here on Steam as well, and it'll be updated to the latest build features. The itch.io versions will also be updated soon, too, for people who enjoy getting games through that platform. Thanks again for the feedback, bug reports, and supporting development with your purchase. Be sure to tell your friends, too, if you like the game. Enjoy the new features!

[ 2016-01-24 20:06:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Merry Christmas, or Merry Dies Natalis of Sol Invictus for you traditionalists, it's time to announce the latest new feature added just in time for the holidays! This time I've added a new feature that will help StoryMode feel more like a traditional RPG and make the game a bit easier, if you become good at utilizing the strategy that is.

Introducing the Party System!

Expanding upon trading with enemies, now if you trade with an enemy successfully they'll join your party. You can have up to 4 allies in addition to your main character. By going into the assist menu, you can select which character to wander around as. Your party will consist of only the 4 strongest foes that you've befriended. All characters have a shared inventory and shared equipment, but they all have their own stats and can become afflicted with their own set of ailments. Additionally, every enemy now has their own birthsign and job assigned to them, so when they join your party and switch to a different character you now have the opportunity to play the game differently. When you sacrifice items you'll only heal your currently controlled character. The sacrifice requirement is also shared, so if you require a lot of healing, it might actually become more advantageous to just befriend more enemies because that will mean more total hp. Additionally, since the cost is shared, you might hit a point where it's cheaper to befriend enemies instead of sacrificing, so you need to consider that too. When a character dies, you'll automatically be prompted to change to another living character. Your main character may never be removed from the party. Additionally, you can not revive your main character after he/she goes down, but you can still befriend other monsters with whoever you are guiding. You can think of it as if your squad is going through the dungeon dragging around and puppeteering your main character a la Weekend at Bernie's.

Other fixes

Weather systems can now be toggled in the settings pane as they were primarily for eye-candy. There's also some general code optimizations and cleanup as always, primarily done for my own benefit. The party system was the primary update and was thrown together within the past 2 days. There's still plenty of room for improvements and rebalancing of it, which will be done according to user feedback and my own ideas. I'm going to be trying to implement the party support system within boss fights as well at a later date. Thanks again for the feedback, bug reports, and supporting development with your purchase. Be sure to tell your friends, too, if you like the game. Enjoy the new features and enjoy the Steam Winter Sale!

[ 2015-12-25 19:48:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, it's time to announce the latest new feature! This time I've added what every game of this generation has: resource gathering! Now you can fish and mine for bunches of items, which is a great way expand upon the pacifist approach introduced with the previous update.

How does it work?

Resources are a type of NPC, so when you bump into them you interact with them instead of fighting them. The interaction that takes place when you bump into a Resource is a little time-based mini-game. Time it right and you'll get items! The deeper you go in a dungeon, the harder it becomes to harvest resources, but you'll also get more items for being successful.

What if I don't want to play a stupid mini-game?

That's easy! You just blow up the resource with some magic like you can any other npc! The only downside is the drop rate of exploding a resource is significantly less than if you played the mini-game. Where you could have gotten 3-4 items, you now will only get 1, if that.

How do I identify a resource?

Well, for one, resources don't move. There are 3 kinds of resources you can currently find: Water, where you fish; Ore, where you can mine; and Treasure Chests, which you can pick open. Yes, Treasure Chests are now a resource instead of using the standard enemy approach. This means you will attempt to harvest them through picking their lock instead of just bashing it in by default. You can still "bash" them, though, by lighting them on fire with your magic. This is necessary if you wish to pursue the achievement.

Anything else?

There's the usual slew of bug fixes. I also made some performance improvements regarding particles in scenes. Additionally, I gained access to a new server where the daily dungeons can now be hosted. You can either change the url in your settings file manually to http://luna.red/public/storymode/dungeon.map or just reset all your settings to their defaults through the settings pane. Additionally, the character creation menu navigation has been improved and can now be completely navigated with just the keyboard. No more mouse required! Thanks again for the feedback, bug reports, and supporting development with your purchase. Be sure to tell your friends, too, if you like the game, or tell them not to waste their money if you didn't! Or maybe tell them about the game and let them decide if they like it or not. I've already got plans for the next feature, so prepare yourselves! And as always, I probably introduced some bugs somewhere

[ 2015-12-04 02:55:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

A fix has been pushed that should prevent dungeons from crashing on floor change (it was a bug regarding the new torch system) In addition to the bug fix, windowed mode now allows for resizing by dragging the border. Due to texture scaling, it's possible that the game will look pretty dang ugly if you resize it manually. Also, the daily dungeon server is currently down. I'm in the process of finding a new server to host on, something cheaper and smaller in scale because I really don't need much. In fact, with the new update you may manually override the url of the daily dungeon server by changing the value in the settings.json. If you want to have fun and try hosting your own daily dungeon server, here's the script to generate the file. All you need to do is create a http server, then point the url to whatever is the public route to the file generated by the script is located. Setup is really easy and lightweight. I personally just ran NGINX and had the dungeons generating using a cron job on Linux. Good luck and have fun everyone. Even if I don't get around to answering every report personally, thanks you for filing them.

[ 2015-11-18 01:13:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's been awhile since I went ahead and released an update. This new update fixes a few bugs that were present in the current version and adds a two new features as well. The two big changes that are immediately visible are torches and a pacifist approach to the game.

Torches

Torches are randomly placed on each floor and will light up the map from a distance, allowing you to see things far away.

Pacifist

As for the pacifist approach, by using the same method to unlock chests and doors with keys, you can now use the same button combination to trade with monsters. This allows you to tell monsters off by giving them items instead of fighting them. Some monsters will want more items than others, and monsters will ask for even more if your level difference is great. As for some bug fixes, I cleaned up some of the code for dungeon generation so it shouldn't be as intensive, and I went and rebalanced loot drops. As always, thanks for the bug reports! Hope you enjoy the update

[ 2015-11-09 20:16:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Lastest update to StoryMode has just been pushed complete with a whole new slew of features and more than likely a new slew of bugs too! The big new feature that's been in the works and is finally out is...

Improved Character Customization

With the latest version and onward, character creation allows for a whole new degree of customization, and with it some new gameplay changes. When creating a character you'll have the option to allocate upto 16 additional stat points into whatever category you wish. You'll also be able to select a sign that your character was born under, as well as their profession. The birth signs and job both provide special abilities and traits that can completely change how the game is played. For example, those born under the constellation of Dynamite can cause enemies to explode on death when using a spell to result in collateral damage to adjacent enemies. Any character created before this change can still be played. Their job is inherently as Slacker, and their birthsign being The Human. Characters made with that combination results in a gameplay session identical to that before these changes.

Other Changes

All drops now show an icon instead of just going straight into your inventory, much like the case was with equipment before, this now applies to everything. As such, you will encounter money bag/item icons when killing enemies, or you may encounter mana potions, health hearts, or equipment. Stepping on the dropped icon will pick it up. HP is now capable of recovering over time as long as you have not engaged in combat recently. To go with that, there are also now indicator rings that will identify how close you are to recovering HP or Mana naturally. There's also the typical batch of crash and logic fixes. Some icons were also changed to help make things a little bit clearer. Then there's always the behind the scenes code refactoring that makes things easier on my end. The version of LibGDX and other libraries were also upgraded with this version, so we're using the latest of everything that's available. This insures development of StoryMode may be more easily supported, we pick up any optimizations and fixes in the backend, and also makes it so we're more capable of also giving back to the community.

Thanks for your continued support, reports, and feedback

Have fun creating new characters. Hopefully this will spice things up for you

[ 2015-10-24 05:36:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Several small fixes and updates made it into the game this past week. It's been a rather hectic one with I swear a new update being pushed each day. To highlight what's new and what was done

• In dungeons, you can now select to only sacrifice from the items that you picked up
• Adding that feature led to some refactoring, which broke things, which I then had to fix...which I'm pretty sure I did. Hopefully. I miss things a lot.
• Messed around with FOV a bit but rolled back the changes and instead went for a better system...
• Memory and Performance optimizations have been made so it can run a bit smoother on floors with tons of entities.

additionally, the big highlight of the week is...

Minimaps

They're now a thing and they're simple and nice. They display walls that you've discovered, allowing you to plot out the shape of each floor. The maps persist between floors so you never lose progress on your run. Maps also persist between visits to the dungeon, with the maps being cached into the tmp folder alongside the dungeon's cache data. So if you visit a file multiple times in a sitting your exploration progress will not be lost. Just like dungeon progress and visit history, maps do not persist between times you open up the game. As always, thanks for the feedback and bug reports.

[ 2015-10-03 04:23:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thanks to IndieGala there's been a surge of new bug reports and testers. I appreciate the support you guys are providing me so StoryMode can become a bigger, better game. Over the weekend I patched up a few reported bugs, and I patched up a few more today as well. To summarize some of the changes

• The new collision dynamics has been improved (though is not perfect yet)
• Enemies can now drop more than one item (Especially big enemies)
• Big and small enemies can no longer drop equipment
• Add descend quests
• Fixed some achievements
• Fixed a few crash bugs regarding training

It appears the error dialog pop-up was not functional for most people, so instead the system has been changed to automatically create a log file in the game's installation directory whenever it crashes. This should also fix the error where the game would disappear but would still be "open" according to Steam. So now you will no longer have to go through steps to set up a debug environment through command line to track errors. Hopefully now reporting errors will be easier. Thanks for the feedback

[ 2015-09-28 23:34:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings once more! In the process of fixing up the Boss Battles bug tonight I decided to throw in more features that I had been bouncing around in my head for awhile. To summarize the changes

• You should now be able to engage in Boss Battles once more
• Boss Battles have been rebalanced to only start appearing after the 10th floor of a dungeon
• After the 5th floor, miniature versions of enemies may start popping up. They move in half steps and have half as much defense as usual, but several can appear in a single cell making them capable of mobbing you.
• After the 15th floor, huge versions of enemies may start popping up. They move at the normal rate of 1 tile per step, but they take up the space of 4 tiles and can easily block your path.

As always with the introduction of new features, there's bound to be some bug that slipped through the crack because I'm awful at testing things. Hope you have fun!

[ 2015-09-17 01:29:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello there! First I'd like to thank people in the forums for reporting bugs for the game and providing criticism. The game is a lot more stable and less clumsy now because of your help. Launch was a bit bumpy but it should be smooth(er) sailing from now on. For this weekend I went out and redid the item database to follow some new rules. The changes are as follows

• Items now have "types"
• Items can be found in any kind of file, but their chance of being found in a dungeon still depends on the file type
• Details of items can now be collected in the PageFile alongside everything else

In addition to the change in items, I decided to just throw together a little detail that allows you to adjust the resolution of the FOV shadows. It's not the best system, as it really just subdivides the cells and isn't actually doing anything optimially like Box2D lights would be. I recommend continuing to play with 1x Shadow Detail as that's how the game was designed to be played. This is just a stupid little feature added in for the heck of it.

[ 2015-09-12 20:10:41 CET ] [ Original post ]