So, by popular demand I've now added save games to the game.

Every time you descend a level in standard or quick mode your game will be saved. If you exit to main menu or quit your current game you will be able to "Continue" your last session at a later date.

If you die the save will be removed or if you start another game this will overwrite your previously saved session.

When continuing a game you will always start at the beginning of the last level you entered. With all the monsters intact. Meaning, if you descend a level, kill some monsters and then quit the game you will be restored to the point where you entered the level.

Save games won't persist through updates but those aren't that frequent so I doubt that will be a problem.

This new version should drop sometime before the week ends. I have lots of kids and recently moved to a house so game development will have to take a back seat right now. But the code is done, the tests seem fine and I'm happy with how things work.

// Liq

So I found some spare time during the nights to implement the Mage into the game along with some new artifacts to add some more action.

This is what you can look forward to now:

• The Mage class is playable
  
• Mage skill: Vampiric blow
  
• Mage skill: Erupt
  
• Mage skill: Blink
  
• The "Dynamite" artifact
  
• The "Volatile dagger" artifact
  
• The "Magnet" artifact
  
• Critical hits now cause bleeding
  
• Rogue backstab skill now causes bleeding
  
• Picked up keys are now visible in the side panel
  
• Mage highscore list
  
• The MAGICAL achievement
  
• https://breakhack.net has been updated to support Mage scores.
  

Ok, testing is done. After this development of the game will be on hold for some time since we're having our third child on Thursday. For those of you with kids, you know what that means. For those of you that don't have children. It's awesome but coding usually doesn't take priority. steamhappy

This is what's new:

• Shops can be found in the dungeon
  
• Rooms are a lot "messier" (ruined walls, rooms and doors)
  
• Fairies can show up, they carry gold but the popular opinion among other monsters is that they don't like when you kill the fairies.
  
• Locked rooms can appear, you can find the keys somewhere within the level.
  

As the title states. BreakHack v3.0 is feature complete and pending some testing before I release it to everyone. I'm aiming for a release in roughly a week.

This is what you can look forward to:

• Random wall configurations in rooms
  
• Doors
  
• Locked doors with keys carried by a random monster in the level
  
• Shops
  
• A ridiculously tough but rich shopkeeper
  
• Bodyguards in case you pissed off the shopkeeper guild
  
• Monsters springing to certain monsters defense
  
• Some additional exploration incentives for the weekly leaderboards
  

So because I'm an idiot it turns out that the Linux build was never correctly configured for people purchasing the game. Only the "developer" build was correct and because I was using that I thought everything was working perfectly.

This is fixed now!

To everyone who purchased and inevitably returned the game, I'm sorry about this. No one told me so I never knew.

It was also brought up that there were some lib issues regarding the game. In particular, I'm on ArchLinux which tends to be way ahead on base libraries such as libc.

To solve this I'm now doing what Steam does. I'm building on the latest Ubuntu LTS release (18.04 currently). So if you are on this dist or any similar dist you should be able to run the game without a hitch (might have to install libsdl2_ttf in some cases).

If you are on other distributions you can always start a discussion and I'll see what I can do. Otherwise, you can "force" the windows version of BreakHack which runs perfectly fine under Steam Play.

Br,
Linus

Just a quick update on what I'm working on for the next release of the game.
Likely this will be a major version update. Eg. Next version will be 3.0

Shops
Shops (or traders) will appear in the dungeons on occasion. They'll sell random things such as items and artifacts at a greater level or in greater quantity than monsters can drop.

Better rooms
Rooms should start appearing with wall and fence configurations inside them making monster pathing and combat slightly more challenging or simple depending on the scenario. Currently, I have working examples with randomized predefined configurations but I might take a dive into generating these configurations at random. I just have to make sure that exits never get blocked by accident and similar issues. We'll have to see where it ends up once It's released.

Br,
Linus

Version 2.1 is live!

Essentially only one new thing added. There is now an option to play the "Weekly challenge" when starting a new game. Every player should get the same level no matter what platform they are on.

The week starts at 00:00 GMT on Mondays. Every week should give you a new challenge level. Some might be good some might be stupid. It all depends on the generation algorithm.

Leaderboards can be viewed in better detail at https://breakhack.net

Br,
Linus

Turns out I can be pretty efficient with my time when I'm creating something that interests me.

Next version of Breakhack (2.1) will drop on Wednesday the 27th of February , 2 days from the time of writing. Patch notes will be released at the same time.

You can' already check out the supported leaderboards (and my scores) at breakhack.net.

Br,
Linus

Ok, so... long time, no updates.

As previously mentioned I'm just one guy and I occasionally take breaks from hobby coding and play games and hang out with the family instead.

Now it's time to get back into coding since I have some ideas that I'd like to try.
Before I go any further I want you to know that the below updates have no estimated release date. I'm about to evolve from a father of 2 to a father of 3. When that bomb drops I will have to leave things as they are for some time before I can get back into further development. So... patience.

Right. Back to the juice. BreakHack has a new website which you can view here.

It's mentioned in the 'about' section and I will mention it here now as well.
I'm planning on implementing weekly challenge seeds into the game.

What that means is that every week you will have a new menu option to play the weekly challenge level. Everyone gets the same "random seed" meaning that you play the same set of levels with the same monsters etc. The results will be listed in leaderboards and thusly you should be able to compete with your friends or the world for the top position in that week's leaderboard.

That's about it. Hopefully, people do find this interesting. For me, it's mostly a coding challenge that I wanted to beat and later on beat people by playing that code. steammocking

New classes are in the notes to. Most likely it will drop suddenly when it does drop. No dates on that either.

In the meantime, check out https://breakhack.net. There are more details in the leaderboards there then can be found in the ones on steam, even if it is, in fact, the same leaderboards.

Br,
Linus

This patch fixes an issue caused due to an API change included in the Windows 10 1809 update.

For anyone affected by this change (game wouldn't start) I offer my sincerest apologies. It was an issue that never affected me.

Just submitted a minor gameplay fix.

Now, when playing as a rogue and phasing through enemies in crumbling rooms will correctly make them fall down with the room tile.

Loot will still spawn in the pits after monsters have fallen down. You can collect it by using phase. I considered removing loot drops in pits but I think that would upset the gold collection rate as a rogue and I don't want to encourage players to avoid that mechanic because it's a fun way to play. Thoughts on this are welcome.

Br,
Linus

So, based on comments from players and partly based on my own ideas version 2 of the game is finally out. What follows is a list of what is new in this release.

• Added the playable class "Rogue"
  
• Added an achievement for the rogue
  
• Added separate high score lists based on class (one for warrior and one for rogue)
  
• Added gameplay controller support with help icons for both PS and XB controllers
  
• Added a new room modifier type "Crumbling room"
  
• Added a new game type "Quickplay", essentially the same as regular but with only 12 levels and more frequent boss encounters.
  
• Added a high score list for the quickplay game type
  
• Added a new game type "Arcade", only one level with ~40 rooms. You start at player level 22 and dungeon level 19
  
• Added a high score list for the arcade game type
  
• Added sounds for cloaking and burst attack enemies
  
• Fixed various minor issues
  

I just released a minor fix to BreakHack 1.1 (1.1.5). It's nothing major but I learnt that a certain subsystem in SDL2 (the framework that BreakHack is built with) was active by default. The system in question (TextInput) was treating key presses as text input that could make the game seem "jittery" at times.

Considering how low the graphics demands are on BreakHack I'm not going to idly stand by and watch it lag. So some of you might notice a slight difference, others may not. I felt it's better to explain patches rather than releasing "mystery" patches leaving people wondering.

As a teaser, BreakHack 2.0 is just around the corner.

// Linus

Ok, first things first. One of you "nerds" beat my high score in the game. For a brief yet humbling moment, I was actually the best in the world at a game on Steam. But one of you ruined it!

Well, to be honest, I'm thrilled that some people get enough entertainment out of the game to actually hammer my best score into the dirt. I'll get back to trying to reclaim my spot once I've pushed out version two of the game.

Now, speaking of version two, things have actually progressed faster then I anticipated and I've been getting a lot less sleep lately and my desk is a mess.



This is what you can expect for version 2.0 of BreakHack:

Partial controller support
I've gotten around to implementing full controller support for the gameplay parts of the game. That means that you can start the game, navigate the menus, move around, kill stuff, get loot, beat my score (please don't) and use all the skills. At the moment you won't be able to toggle sound, music and fullscreen without consulting a keyboard.



The Rogue class
All the skills for the rogue have been hammered down. It's hard to say if they will work nicely, make things too easy or too hard as of yet. Most likely somebody who's optimised their gameplay more might be able to find some balance issues with the class that I don't spot during testing.



Room type updates
If everything goes to plan, I'll also introduce a new "room type". Currently, you can stumble into windy rooms and hot rooms, the next addition should leave you more considerate of how you move through the room. Also, I think hot rooms might start showing up a bit earlier into your dungeon dive.

Opt-in Beta access
Since I'm better at coding rather than testing the game I'm thinking that I will release an opt-in beta release for version 2.0. This will be completely optional and come at 0 cost. (I'll describe how to try it out once I do set up a beta branch in Steam). But in order for an endeavour like that to feel useful, it would be nice if those that would like to try out the beta release a week or two before the actual version 2.0 release left a comment on this post so I don't just release it and no one plays it.

Also, don't forget that the games source code is available on GitHub. If you are so inclined you can take a peek on the progress and compile the game early.

Until next time!
// Linus

So, I made a mistake. Apparently BreakHack was flagged as a 64-bit only game. That's not true and I guess I misunderstood one of the settings in the app admin page. Sorry.

For Windows both 32bit and 64bit should work.

For Linux you will need a 64bit distribution. Since 32bit distributions are pretty rare for Linux these days don't expect this to change.

So, I released the game this morning. I'm guessing this is more exciting to me then anyone else.

Either way I hope you guys who do play the game enjoy it and that it offers you the occasional 10 minutes of entertainment as it has for me when I've been making it (and playing it during my work breaks).

To keep things alive on the community page I thought I'd drop some information about what's in the pipeline for the next version.

The next class will be "The Rogue", a character that is faster and more oriented around "keeping a distance" and using the environment (eg. pushing enemies into traps and pits). I only have one skill left to implement but I haven't decided what it should be or how it should work yet. If you have a suggestion then leave a comment. I'm open to letting people influence my decision on this.

Controller support?
Steam recently sent me an email regarding controller usage on their platform, you can read it here. In my mind, BreakHack should work nicely with a controller, the big hurdle is finding a way to change the information and helptexts to show what button to press rather then what key. I'll work on it and see how it goes (short: Implementing controller support is easy, displaying button bindings and info is trickier).

Both these things will be implemented but I can't guarantee what order it will arrive or when. I'll be brave and say that at least one of them will arrive before christmas.

Thanks for playing,
Linus

Just a heads up, I've changed the release date from October to the more specific 26th of September. The reason being that I'm mostly just waiting at this point.

Since I'm not a giant AAA producer I figure I can set my own rules and change my own release date.

Based on some curator feedback I made some minor modifications to the games map generation and monster pool.

What's new in v1.1.1:

• Maps are a lot more 'messy' (non-linear)
  
• Level 1 is shorter (~5 rooms decreased from ~10)
  
• Level 1 has more enemies including some aggressive enemies
  
• Windy rooms appear after level 2 (previously 3)
  
• Introduced a 'hold turn' option, press space to do nothing this turn
  
• Bumped Bash cooldown to 3 turns (previously 2)
  

I got back to fiddling with the packaging of the game. Since I wrote it almost entirely on Linux (in vim) it felt silly that it wasn't released on Linux at the same time as the Windows release.

Turns out packaging was easier for Linux then windows since there are a lot of native packages included as dependencies for the Steam installation. I ended up just statically linking the additional dependencies to get around all other dependencies that aren't included in Steam.

Hopefully, it will work on the major Linux distributions without any hiccups. Otherwise, I'll have to deal with the complaints I guess.

I think I'm all set with the steam integration now. There are a few achievements added into the game and it looks like they are triggering as intended now. There is also a leaderboard for best scores in the game.

I had a plan to make the leaderboard viewable from inside the game. But I just don't have the energy to deal with it now that I'm back at work. As long as the data is registered I'll always be able to add it in the future if there seems to be a massive demand. The data will be there. It's just a matter of showing it to the people.

If stuff works as I think they do after reading a lot of Steamworks documentation it should be possible to view the leaderboard through the games community hub.

For now, I'm going to freeze the code and leave everything where it's at. Hopefully, everything should be perfectly stable from this point on. :P

// Linus

So, the game has been in a completed state since I created the store page. The reasoning for the later release is because I wanted some time to incorporate a global scoreboard and some achievements into the game before it's released.

It hasn't been mentioned previously, but this game is open source and you can check out the code and progress here: https://github.com/LiquidityC/breakhack

You can even implement something if you feel like it. No guarantees that it will be added. But there is always a chance. Especially if you add something really cool.