Author Topic: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion  (Read 218135 times)

bigosaur

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Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #255 on: June 28, 2017, 10:10:18 AM »
A new version is out (2.1.2) with the tips on loading screen and:

- added an option to automatically detect the aspect ratio and pick the best resolution for screens larger than 1920x1080
- added a screen resolution confirmation screen. If you get a blank screen due to invalid resolution you can now wait or press ESC to cancel the change instead of having to delete the settings file manually
- fixed a bug when a thief would sometimes be shown alive on the screen when he was dead in networked games
- buffed Poison and Snailbite arrows
- nerfed Ice arrows duration
- lowered mana cost for the Snake Staff
- added UTF8 support for text printing in preparation for future translations

P.S. as for the pet Pig bug, I will probably fix it, but the "fix" will be that coins fall down into the hole :)

Jubal

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Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #256 on: June 28, 2017, 04:55:26 PM »
Fair enough :)

A few more suggestions, not super important ones but just thoughts/things that might be nice to have:
  • For daily challenges, I'd add significantly increased bonuses for completing a level/winning boss battles and completing the game as a whole. I feel like the aim should be to encourage people to get to the end, whereas currently there's a strong bias towards spending lots of time firing off extra bombs and working out what useless potions you can drink in order to get points and it's often just as worth trying to do more extra regular rooms even if you don't end up managing to do the boss battle or advance further as a result.
  • The video-game style "ping" for picking up coins really annoys me and I'd like a more metallic jingle or clink when you pick them up. This might just be me though.
  • An NPC in the castle tavern room would be really nice to have, it just feels weirdly empty at the moment whereas having someone to say "welcome to the tavern" or similar might give it a nicer atmosphere for the player even if the NPC doesn't really have any function.
  • Idea for a new scroll type, transformation - turns any bow, hand weapon, runestone, potion or staff into a randomised different item in the same category. So it could be great, or it could just turn something into something else even less useful.

Also just to confirm - it is definitely meant to be impossible to rob shops on the dungeon level, yes?
The duke, the wanderer, the philosopher, the mariner, the warrior, the strategist, the storyteller, the wizard, the wayfarer...

bigosaur

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Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #257 on: June 29, 2017, 09:00:36 AM »
    For daily challenges, I'd add significantly increased bonuses for completing a level/winning boss battles and completing the game as a whole. I feel like the aim should be to encourage people to get to the end, whereas currently there's a strong bias towards spending lots of time firing off extra bombs and working out what useless potions you can drink in order to get points and it's often just as worth trying to do more extra regular rooms even if you don't end up managing to do the boss battle or advance further as a result.

    Perhaps going to next level should give you more than 1000 points. Now it's about 10% of the successful run points. Maybe something like 5000 would be better? Currently you don't get points for the last level, but that's just because the game isn't finished yet.

    Quote
    The video-game style "ping" for picking up coins really annoys me and I'd like a more metallic jingle or clink when you pick them up. This might just be me though.

    I'll try some jingling sounds to see how it feels.

    Quote
    An NPC in the castle tavern room would be really nice to have, it just feels weirdly empty at the moment whereas having someone to say "welcome to the tavern" or similar might give it a nicer atmosphere for the player even if the NPC doesn't really have any function

    I have some plans for it. One is to be able to recruit Bushido and the other is to have some NPC quest which starts there. Have yet to implement both.

    Quote
    Idea for a new scroll type, transformation - turns any bow, hand weapon, runestone, potion or staff into a randomised different item in the same category. So it could be great, or it could just turn something into something else even less useful.

    Already on my list ;) I haven't made it yet because it's tricky - if a player picks it up in a networked game and another player tries to transform it at the same time, there could be a conflict, so I need to make some special procedure to make sure everyone has the game in sync. Similar to disallowing double-pickup of the item, but special case. That one took me days to debug and make work properly, so making this scroll (and a bunch of other ideas with similar problem) is on hold.

    Quote
    Also just to confirm - it is definitely meant to be impossible to rob shops on the dungeon level, yes?

    Of course not. ;)

    If you have a certain pet, which can grab stuff from pedestals... :)

    Besides that, if you're really quick, you can grab the item at the same moment when spikes appear. And you can throw yourself onto spikes to pick up other items as well (as you fall and get up, there's a single frame where you can press the pickup button at the same moment when you get hit with the spike again). Of course, it's very risky and you need a lot of HP to even try.

    Also, there will be a magic staff that allows you to fly over spikes and a pet that you can stand on similar to the mounts. Hmmm, maybe mounts should be resistant as well?[/list]
    « Last Edit: June 29, 2017, 09:06:03 AM by bigosaur »

    bigosaur

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    Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
    « Reply #258 on: June 29, 2017, 04:28:07 PM »
    For some time I have been thinking to change the name of the game to "Son of a Witch". It would match the game story better and I noticed that it's awkward for some players to say the current name of the game out loud. It's also shorter and more memorable.

    What do you think? Which name is better?

    Thanks.

    Jubal

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    Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
    « Reply #259 on: June 29, 2017, 07:53:06 PM »
    Yes that all sounds reasonable :)

    Hmm. My Mom Is A Witch is a little long. On the other hand, "Son of a Witch" will be easily confused with/misheard for the phrase "son of a bitch" which might not be ideal either!
    The duke, the wanderer, the philosopher, the mariner, the warrior, the strategist, the storyteller, the wizard, the wayfarer...

    bigosaur

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    Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
    « Reply #260 on: July 01, 2017, 07:09:08 PM »
    "Son of a Witch" will be easily confused with/misheard for the phrase "son of a bitch" which might not be ideal either!

    I though having a well known similar phrase would make the game name easier to remember.

    If it gets misheard, it could start a conversation about clearing up the confusion, which would make people remember it even better.

    I got some good feedback on Twitter and Steam page, and nobody complaining yet, so I'm going to go with the change over the next couple of days. Probably squeezing in some game features/changes into the new version as well.

    Jubal

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    Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
    « Reply #261 on: July 02, 2017, 01:01:42 AM »
    I guess so - I don't know exactly what market you're looking at, I was thinking it might put off eg parents buying it for their kids to have it sound a bit like a swear-phrase. Follow the feedback though :)
    The duke, the wanderer, the philosopher, the mariner, the warrior, the strategist, the storyteller, the wizard, the wayfarer...

    bigosaur

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    Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
    « Reply #262 on: July 02, 2017, 09:10:23 AM »
    parents buying it for their kids

    Yes, one of the main demographics is parents playing the game with their kids. I hope buying to play "with" instead of simply buying it for them to play would make them look past the title in this case. I guess they just have to be careful not to roll the other phrase off their tongue at some point ;)

    Jubal

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    Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
    « Reply #263 on: July 02, 2017, 11:59:36 PM »
    Yeah, that's fair :)

    Also, one continued bugbear of mine - would it be possible to let players use lower case as well as upper case letters in their player names? It aesthetically bugs me that I can't.
    The duke, the wanderer, the philosopher, the mariner, the warrior, the strategist, the storyteller, the wizard, the wayfarer...

    bigosaur

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    Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
    « Reply #264 on: July 04, 2017, 06:54:15 AM »
    Also, one continued bugbear of mine - would it be possible to let players use lower case as well as upper case letters in their player names? It aesthetically bugs me that I can't.

    Actually, the font that I use is upper-case only. The lower case letters are the same as the upper case ones, just a little bit smaller in size. Now, I could allow you to enter both, but it would mean having to extend the text-entry dialog to double it's current size. I'm not sure it would fit into the character selection frame. Or perhaps have a toggle button that shifts between upper/lower case while keeping the rest the same. Feels a little bit too much for a game though.

    I'm not saying it won't be done at some point, but currently it's near the bottom of a huge TODO list. There's so many more important things like new stages, enemies, weapons, items, etc. for the full release.
     

    bigosaur

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    Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
    « Reply #265 on: July 05, 2017, 06:38:17 PM »
    I uploaded a new version with some minor bugfixes to multiplayer and one important change: all the food now gives much more HP. Some players complained that the Sorceress was useless, so I figured there are two options: 1) increase number of food dropped by the Straberry Staff and 2) all food should give you more HP. I went with number 2.

    We shall see if this works out. I played only one full run to test, and it seemed like there's just too much food in levels 1-3, but on level 4 it was kind-of ok. I mean, there was more food than I needed because I stocked up on beer and health potions. Perhaps I should change my playing strategy: ignore health potions, beer, mushrooms and use the extra inventory space for other stuff instead.

    If you play any games with the Sorceress I would love to read your thoughts on this.

    Jubal

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    Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
    « Reply #266 on: July 07, 2017, 10:34:57 AM »
    I'll do my next few runs with the sorceress and let you know :)

    EDIT: Of course having said that I just got my first sorceress killed super fast from mis-timing a shop robbery :/
    « Last Edit: July 07, 2017, 11:14:45 AM by Jubal »
    The duke, the wanderer, the philosopher, the mariner, the warrior, the strategist, the storyteller, the wizard, the wayfarer...

    bigosaur

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    Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
    « Reply #267 on: July 07, 2017, 05:01:34 PM »
    I'll do my next few runs with the sorceress and let you know :)

    EDIT: Of course having said that I just got my first sorceress killed super fast from mis-timing a shop robbery :/

    I uploaded version 2.1.7 yesterday with some rebalancing. Food gives less HP than previous update but more than it did before. The Strawberry Staff now creates 5 pieces of food, giving you about 60 HP. The Sorceress is primarily meant to be a great support character if 2+ players are playing (healing both players and pets via food, 2 keys at start, understand scrolls). Offensively she starts out slow until you find a better weapon or upgrades.

    Jubal

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    Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
    « Reply #268 on: July 08, 2017, 06:15:34 PM »
    Just had a decent run with the sorceress, died after getting poisoned in the dungeon but that's always a risk that's pretty hard to cover for. I was running with an upgraded teleporter as my primary weapon and just using the strawberry staff for food gen; it worked pretty well, but I didn't get any bounce or orb boosts which made it hard to deal with bigger rooms of enemies by the dungeon level.

    I got this "dark orbs" thing in the dungeon which I think is new, I bought the upgrade for 300 coins but I wasn't really sure of the point, it didn't seem to do anything or make any difference as far as I could tell.
    The duke, the wanderer, the philosopher, the mariner, the warrior, the strategist, the storyteller, the wizard, the wayfarer...

    bigosaur

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    Re: My Mom's a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
    « Reply #269 on: July 08, 2017, 10:51:47 PM »
    I got this "dark orbs" thing in the dungeon which I think is new, I bought the upgrade for 300 coins but I wasn't really sure of the point, it didn't seem to do anything or make any difference as far as I could tell.

    Regular orbs only do damage while dark orbs also stun the enemy (just like melee attack does). If you only get one, it doesn't change the combat much, but if you get two or three, you can basically stun-lock enemies from the distance. It's also a good combination with the knockback potion.

    We shall see, maybe I'll increase the drop chance, so there's a higher chance you would get 2-3 in one runs.