Development Demo 1.1

Welcome to the first content update of the Development Demo!

In the first big step away from tech demo territory, Development Demo 1.1 focuses on expanding upon the game's existing systems to help make the gameplay loop much less repetitive and give more things to discover.

First and foremost, I've about doubled the number of rooms in the game. Some of them involve a new monster and a new spike trap, giving you an even bigger variety of challenges to toil through. Some of the new rooms are also weighted, meaning they only appear very uncommonly. See if you can find them all!

You will not only find new environments to explore, but also find that they have much more detail than before. I'm sure the beauty of tricking moonlight and creeping nature will be a welcome reprieve from the constant yellows and browns of the Commons.

You might notice that the bats are moving differently: to spice up combat a bit more, I've made a few AI changes to the existing enemies. Most notably, the once-boring Cave Bat has been redesigned. They will take more erratic flight paths and try to dodge your arrows as they close in for the sting. This will make them more impactful on the combat loop, especially with other enemies around...

Next to this end is the introduction of over a dozen new items, raising the grand total from 23 to 37. While many of the new items fulfill the niches you'd expect, some of them can get quite crazy. How? I can't just tell you...

Have you ever wondered how much time you've spent attempting to breach the Sanctum? How much coinage you've made over your entire adventure? How many times you've made the poor Pawnbroker take cover behind his counter? The Statistics page of the Chronicle Stone is now functional: it will show you a plethora of intriguing, semi-useful metrics sourced from the lifetime of your save file.

(Disclaimer: DD 1.0.1 already logged deaths internally, so there might be a discrepancy if you use a save from an older version.)

Finally, let's have some fun with an exclusive gift for Development Demo players: victory laps! Inspired by a hilarious bug found by my playtesters, a special button on the ending screen lets you return to Level 1 of the Temple Commons at the end of the game, bringing all of your items, money, and virtues with you. You can keep doing this indefinitely to become as ridiculously overpowered as your little Dweller heart desires.

Other QoL + Fixes

• All melee weapons now deal more damage, decreasing hits to kill against most enemies.
• Lengthened the time before enemies become active upon entering a room.
• Added a "Reduce Flashing Lights" option to the Accessibility category.
• Economy balance changes:
  • Levels 2 and 4 are slightly longer. Consequently, one more money bag drops on those levels.
  • Increased the cost of Waystones to 25 Coinage from 15.
  • Increased the cost of Virtues to 90 Coinage from 80.
  • Developer note: This will make it so that you don't have to clear every single room up to the shop floor to afford an item without exchanging one. Store-bought Virtues are meant to be a major investment, so I raised the price of those to compensate for the reduced scarcity of money.
• Added a layer of ambient wind to the main menu and the Last Camp.
• Added a pickup sound for Life Shards.
• Ranged attack hits now play their hit sound without position, making it easier to tell when they connect.
• Reduced sound volume universally, so that playing on full master volume is no longer a painful experience.
• A unique stinger plays when you defeat a boss without taking damage.
• Added a new visual effect for monsters killed by fire damage.
• Renuth's Ire now gives Will Power.
  • Developer note: This was a bug all along. I tried making it a feature, but it sucked.
• The Hexed now direct their melee attacks towards where the target was when the attack began, instead of where they are when the windup animation finishes.
• Monsters now have a tolerance for pits which must be cleared before they fall in. This fixes monsters "tripping and falling into pits" for the most part.
  • Known issue: Monsters may still occasionally push each other into pits.
• Directly adjacent rooms no longer interconnect all of their possible entrances.
  • Developer note: Now, when you see an open door, you can know for sure that there is one room beyond it, instead of guessing if a group of multiple doors all lead to the same room. Rooms that generate next to each other by coincidence will still interconnect, so those cool closed loops will still occasionally appear.
• Fixed the energy swirl particle effect from Surge of Strength displaying too far below the player.
• Fixed cave bat stings being considered environmental damage, making it impossible to be "killed by them."
• Fixed numerous (but probably not all) internal timers ticking down while the game is paused.
• Fixed a freeze triggered by pressing Esc quickly after setting the Chronicle Stone.
• Fixed the closing sound cue playing again upon pressing Esc while the Chronicle Stone window is fading out.
• Fixed a freeze triggered by pausing before the cutscene in the final tutorial room.
• Fixed the game becoming unpausable with Esc after selling the Guild Insignia.
• Fixed jumping over the Migo cutscene trigger at the end of the tutorial.
• Fixed Acalan sometimes continuing his jump or jump-attack after being defeated.