Author Topic: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion  (Read 218173 times)

bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #300 on: September 14, 2017, 12:15:41 PM »
The main reason I managed the whole thing as the skele was that I got the giraffe pet early. As the main big disadvantage of the skeleton seems to be physical fragility, without many ways at all to restore health, the giraffe is an excellent pet to combo with that character.

Yes. There are four ways to heal: Giraffe, Vampire Sword, Healer Staff, Life Staff. Well, you can also get a Book of Life from the nature altar, but that's rare.

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Sunset scrolls are now massive no-brainers most of the time in how you use them, except on the final level; I just always fire them all off at the end of a level before moving to the next one, so I get all the benefit without ever having to fight in the dark.

Yes. I noticed that I'm doing the same. Not sure if this is bad or there is something I should really change.

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Is it now intentional that hidden forest-level rooms can have skeletons in?

Yes.

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Will they always do so?

I'm not sure. The plan was that they would be full with undead from the very start. There were goblins initially because I hadn't created the undead enemies yet. But now I feel like the room doesn't feel right. You can get hit by a Skeleton Warrior and get muscle spasms without seeing that before and bats are very hard to fight when they can hide behind the trees.

I'm thinking maybe it should be goblins-only, at least until you defeat the necromancers, and maybe 50-50% goblins/undead later. Or maybe just make it goblins-only like before. I somehow felt those rooms were more fun to fight than the current ones.

What do you think?

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Unless I'm very much mistaken, you seem to be able to get items from the dead pile when you start the castle level by turning them all into barrels. Are you meant to be able to do that?

No. It's a bug. I will fix it.

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What is it that actually triggers the bone arrow drops? Is it just being the skeleton archer, or is it actually holding/using the bow?

They drop if one of the player characters is the skeleton archer. At first I wanted it to be a feature of the bow, but as we played co-op games it turned into "don't kill enemies, I need arrows to power up" which made it less enjoyable for other players.

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #301 on: September 14, 2017, 04:01:49 PM »
OK, fair enough :) Are the catacomb levels officially released now?
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #302 on: September 15, 2017, 08:10:26 AM »
OK, fair enough :) Are the catacomb levels officially released now?

Yes. The testing and official version are currently the same. Here's the official announcement:



A new version is available with a lot of new content:

  • The 5th level, Catacombs, with 5 new enemy types
  • New hero: Undead Skeleton Ranger
  • Unlocking the new hero is done via a special quest in the old part of the catacombs which is a really dangerous place
  • 2 new bosses
  • 3 new special areas in the forest
  • 1 new mount (zombie pig)
  • 1 new pet (finds hidden runestones)
  • Blue color skin for the sorceress character and achievement to unlock it
  • Elemental altars where you can get some powerful items and weapons
  • A dozen new weapons and items
  • Improved game engine performance
  • Darkness now increases your stats
  • Item and weapon drops are now slightly affected by starting heroes (ex. you are more likely to get magic items when playing with mage)
  • Avarice doubles coins
  • Fixed Amanda's AI on the final screen so she doesn't get stuck
  • Fixed problem with chat not being available on the character selection screen
  • Co-op death countdown now starts from 60 during boss fights
  • Increased lightning damage for the sword
  • Bow descriptions update after damage upgrade
  • Balanced runestone drops from rocks
  • Rebalanced poison to make the Druid hero more viable
  • Added more stats to pause screen
  • Status effect icons show up in two rows in co-op
  • Fixed many bugs
« Last Edit: September 15, 2017, 08:18:38 AM by bigosaur »

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #303 on: September 16, 2017, 11:03:37 PM »
Excellent, added to frontpage :)

One thought - could you make a separate thread/post in this forum where the top post just has all the general information about Son of a Witch (links to twitter, steam page, etc)? When I do announcements and stuff I'm often finding that I'm trying to put in several links and it would be good to have a main information post to point people at rather than some place halfway through the dev thread.
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Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #304 on: September 20, 2017, 08:52:58 PM »
Bug reports:

- You're missing an article in the mom's final dialogue, it should be "to the goblins"
- I let off a poison cloud scroll at the end of the castle, then jumped in, and when I got to the dungeon after the cutscene I had no health. My guess is that the poison cloud was continuing to kill my character during the cutscene, which probably should be fixed.

I like the new cutscenes though :)
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #305 on: September 21, 2017, 08:20:15 AM »
- You're missing an article in the mom's final dialogue, it should be "to the goblins"

Fixed. Will be in the next update.

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- I let off a poison cloud scroll at the end of the castle, then jumped in, and when I got to the dungeon after the cutscene I had no health. My guess is that the poison cloud was continuing to kill my character during the cutscene, which probably should be fixed.

Yes. The problem is that you are still "in the hole" during the cut-scene and in networked games there's no "pause". I will have to find some way to fix this. Perhaps "if player is in the hole ignore poison effects". I guess I should do the same for hunger as well.

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I like the new cutscenes though :)

Thanks.

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #306 on: September 21, 2017, 10:18:50 AM »
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if player is in the hole ignore poison effects
Yes, this would seem the obvious solution I guess.

I had a great final boss fight on the recent daily challenge too - used gamble scrolls on the twins and ended up fighting an ice dragon which was fighting an executioner with a few goblins running round, which worked fairly well for me :D (I also used a gamble to rob the catacombs shop, so every one of the vampire bats turned into goblins which was fun)
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #307 on: September 28, 2017, 07:36:01 PM »
I finally made a website for the game. It's here:

https://sonofawitchgame.com/

Please tell me how you like it and let me know I have some typos or bad grammar ;)
« Last Edit: October 01, 2017, 04:30:43 PM by bigosaur »

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #308 on: October 06, 2017, 02:45:37 PM »
Sorry about the disappearing posts, hacking attack :/

Anyway, regarding the website (which looks good!) a few grammar points:
  • At the top, I'd make it "A Mix of Beat 'em up and Shooter games with Roguelike elements", or "A Mix of Beat 'em up and Shooter gameplay with Roguelike elements" or "A game mixing Beat 'em up, Shooter, and Roguelike elements" - the current version doesn't quite read right.
  • Under "high replayability" it should be a couple of mounts
  • Archer: "2 or 3 shots" is correct
  • Skele: After "The Undead Ranger is a skeleton", use a semicolon (;) not a comma
  • Pyro: "Starts with the Fireball Staff which can shoot fireballs which do significant amount of damage in very short time." should be "Starts with the Fireball Staff, which can shoot fireballs that do significant amounts of damage in a very short time."

Hope that helps :)

Recent updates are good, I like the new dungeon boss, I think he's a bit less difficult than the butcher in general but fun nonetheless. The cyclopes are good too, I've faced/beaten them once. The long jump is nice, but I didn't feel like I'd gone very far at all from the look of the jump on-screen despite getting both items, which felt a bit strange.
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #309 on: October 06, 2017, 02:52:04 PM »
Hope that helps :)

Awesome! Thanks.

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The long jump is nice, but I didn't feel like I'd gone very far at all from the look of the jump on-screen despite getting both items, which felt a bit strange.

Well, you can't jump much further without more speed and I really wanted the player to behave exactly the same as usually. I also wanted the players to always be able to get both items.

I did add a Steam achievement for jumps longer than 200. To get it you would need some speed upgrades like the blur potion, rabbit pet, rabbit amulet, etc.I tested a bit - a player could jump really far with a couple of blur potions (esp. if you get a couple of duplicate scrolls to make some more). So the length of the landing area is still reasonable for that.

Here's my previous post:



Meet Ugh and Ogh, the cyclops. These brothers are a new boss in the forest. Cyclops is the weakest of all bosses, so there are two of them to make the fight fun.

Since the catacombs update I focused on adding new content to existing levels and bugfixing any problems. I also added 10 new achievements to make the game interesting for players who completed all the levels.

Another new boss is the Ringleader. He sometimes shows up in the dungeon instead of the Simerian Butcher. The Ringleader can jump on you similar to the way the thief does - except that he is faster and has greater reach. If he finds any bombs on you, he would use them immediately. He also steals and throws your other items around.



I also added a new themed area in the forest - a long jump competition. You get some items as rewards for jumping certain distances. To jump even further, you can find some speed buffs like The Rabbit Amulet, Blur Potion, etc. There's also a Steam achievement if you manage to jump really far.

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #310 on: October 06, 2017, 02:57:25 PM »
I'd consider making the second item require more speed so you don't always get both? Or add a third item/coin reward for really long jumps. It just feels a bit odd that once you get the achievement, 80% of the long jump space doesn't really have any use.

Also, which cyclops is Ugh and which is Ogh? ;)
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #311 on: October 06, 2017, 03:46:08 PM »
I'd consider making the second item require more speed so you don't always get both?

I feel like players would complain then because it all depends on the random generator and not your skill.

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Also, which cyclops is Ugh and which is Ogh? ;)

Aha, that's a tricky one  ;D

Ogh is the one with the green clothes :)

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #312 on: October 07, 2017, 12:41:37 AM »
Yeah, it's difficult. I guess you may be right and it's the best balance, it just still feels short on-screen.

Good to know. Ogh is now my favourite cyclops :D
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #313 on: November 03, 2017, 08:57:37 PM »
I'm working on the ice level. I added a couple of enemies and am now working on a boss. I want the first boss to be a mad Santa Claus throwing exploding presents at the players.

I'm not sure whether to name him "Crazy Santa" or "Mad Santa". Which one is better?


Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #314 on: November 04, 2017, 11:24:08 PM »
Crazy over mad I guess... though I'd rather give a more different name/version, I can't help feeling that Santa will be great as a Christmas thing but then feel kind of odd the rest of the year.

Also, some balance thoughts from recent playtests:
  • The healing staff is, I think, overpowered at the moment. 8 damage + poison removal and heal, given how dangerous poison is, makes it a no-brainer as my main attack staff any time there's a shop I can rob one from on 1st or 2nd level (which is a fair chunk of the time). It's frustrating because I like using the others, like shepherd and turret especially, a lot, but at the moment, in most games the healing staff is just always the better option. I'd drop it to 6 or even 5 damage, so people will still cart it around as a curing tool but it's not automatically the best fighting-power option around if you find one on first level.
  • Why is the lightning from the staff so weak compared to the lightning from the sword? This doesn't make a huge deal of sense to me, especially considering how high-mana the lightning staff's ability actually is.
  • Is there any way at all for the skeleton archer character to get rid of curse effects like distraction and avarice, given that they can't drink dragon fire potions?
  • I've not had this come up, but what happens if you try long-jumping while riding a boar?
  • Are you meant to be able to resurrect Undead King Salamis and have him follow you around? I really love the fact that you can, but it may arguably be OP to be able to resurrect a boss-level character like him.
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