Author Topic: Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion  (Read 218128 times)

bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #285 on: August 23, 2017, 09:25:09 PM »
Certainly you may want to make the extra money not count for extra in points, or it'll become broken for the daily challenges.

Yes. Already done. I have also capped the gold at 999999 because I managed to blast past that during testing ;)

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One request though wrt the "subplot quests" - have the characters reappear at some point! It feels weird that you only get to play the quest until you complete it and never find that subplot again. Like the woman you have to transport to the castle could sometimes optionally turn up in the castle tavern if that appears or something?

I actually planned for her to show up again at some later stage (locked in a dungeon or something like that) and you have to escort her again. But this time it doesn't unlock a character. She gives you some reward instead. I completely forgot about this, thanks for reminding me.

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #286 on: August 23, 2017, 10:31:12 PM »
No prob :) There's also the forest archer and the woman who gives you the duck, though I'm not sure how they could come back necessarily... but yeah, having a couple of regularly cropping up sidequests might be a good thing.
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #287 on: August 24, 2017, 02:54:59 PM »
the woman who gives you the duck

She's also the vendor in the pet shop :)

Archer has a fetch quest (fetch 100 arrows) which I think would be boring if you had to do again? I mean, I could make another "fetch X pieces of Y" but I'm not sure players would want to see that often.

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #288 on: August 24, 2017, 11:56:44 PM »
Hm, maybe, not sure.

Also, bug report: I just robbed a scroll shop with petrify arrows in a daily challenge but the prices didn't disappear.
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #289 on: August 25, 2017, 01:22:06 PM »
Also, bug report: I just robbed a scroll shop with petrify arrows in a daily challenge but the prices didn't disappear.

Thanks. I fixed it. It will be in the next version. BTW, while testing that fix, I also found another bug: you can use replicate scroll on arrows to create stacks instead of single arrow (ex. using it on a singe Petrify Arrow creates a new stack of 3 arrows). I fixed this one as well.

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #290 on: August 25, 2017, 04:35:57 PM »
Good stuff :)
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #291 on: September 01, 2017, 03:02:06 PM »
The Catacombs are ready, including a playable Skeleton Archer character, a bunch of new items, weapons, special rooms, etc. I did a lot of changes to the game to allow playing with undead, so I will need to test it for a while before releasing to make sure there are no serious bugs.

If you want to try the newest version, I have uploaded it to steam into Beta mode. To switch to the beta version, right-click the game name in your Steam library and select Properties option from the menu:



Then click the BETAS tab at the top of the Properties window. Select the "testing - Unstable" option from the dropdown menu:



Enter the password: minimum89012



Steam would then download the files that are different and let you run the beta. If you plan to play online multiplayer - both players have to have the beta version (there will be some periods in-between releases where beta version could co-op with stable version, but this is not guaranteed).

If you decide to go back from beta to stable just open the Properties again and select "opt out" from the dropdown menu in the BETAS tab.



In this version, the Skeleton Archer is fully playable, without needed to unlock him (for easier testing). I plan to run this testing version for a week or two before the official release. In the meantime, I'll probably make the quest as well and then the Skeleton Archer will be locked until you complete it.

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #292 on: September 01, 2017, 09:18:30 PM »
Great, thanks :) Not sure how much time I'll have in the next week but I'll try and give it a test drive if I get a chance!

I put SoaW in Updates again: http://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5312
« Last Edit: September 01, 2017, 09:28:52 PM by Jubal »
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Glaurung

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #293 on: September 03, 2017, 10:43:22 PM »
Moderator action: the discussion in this thread about the Updates e-mail not getting through etc. has been split off to a new thread, to try to avoid muddling topics. Please feel free to continue to contribute to this thread or the other one, as appropriate to the subject.

bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #294 on: September 10, 2017, 10:15:31 AM »
The Beta version has been updated. New version is 2.2.6 and contains:

- added quest (with a special maze in the catacombs) to unlock the skeleton archer
- added the Skeleton King boss
- added blue sorceress skin and achievement to unlock it
- added a Squirrel pet
- balanced the music volume for all the songs to make it consistent across levels
- fixed stomp hitboxes for some units
- improved Vampiress strike animation (second part only plays out after successful hit)
- skeleton archer hero has a different color for health bar and his own set of sound effects
- fixed a bug with missing animation for stomped spiders in the garden
- fixed display height for status icons for enemies
- fixed Amanda's pathfinding code on the final screen of Pyromancer quest
- displaying status icons in multiple rows when playing co-op
- if you have dark orbs and exploding orbs upgrades, the orbs explode into smaller dark orbs now
- improved engine performance when there are many objects on the screen
- increased runestone drop rate for rocks on levels 4 and 5 (because there aren't many rocks)
- various minor bugfixes

I plan to test this for a couple of days, esp. online multiplayer and then, if there are no bugs, turn it into the official "Catacombs update" release.

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #295 on: September 10, 2017, 07:33:50 PM »
OK, finally got some testing done.

The new stuff works well, the catacomb levels etc seem good to me, and I think the necromancer twins feel like the right level of toughness. The skeleton archer quest levels I'm less sure about; I think the number of wizards/curses is often too high, such that unless you're a wizard of some sort that deals damage exceptionally quickly, by the end of one room you probably already have so many curses that any other tactic is very hard to use, especially because all your mana-using items quickly end up useless because they use the distraction curse so often. I'm not sure what to suggest with this. I'd consider giving the undead wizards a more restricted range of curses possibly, so the player has some vague idea what to prepare for and feels a bit more in control. I'd also exclude distraction & extravagance from their curses, unless you're planning to time limit or add more things that can "cure" them. The trouble with any curses like those that require dragonfire potions to remove is that you then have to sacrifice all your status effects, which for some characters (depending on what potions the game has) can feel like you're undoing the whole game's work. (They also seem to "curse" you with fire immunity occasionally which is a bit weird, or at least I'm pretty sure I saw the fire-immune symbol appear above my head at one point?)
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #296 on: September 11, 2017, 09:35:27 AM »
The skeleton archer quest levels I'm less sure about; I think the number of wizards/curses is often too high, such that unless you're a wizard of some sort that deals damage exceptionally quickly, by the end of one room you probably already have so many curses that any other tactic is very hard to use, especially because all your mana-using items quickly end up useless because they use the distraction curse so often. I'm not sure what to suggest with this. I'd consider giving the undead wizards a more restricted range of curses possibly, so the player has some vague idea what to prepare for and feels a bit more in control. I'd also exclude distraction & extravagance from their curses, unless you're planning to time limit or add more things that can "cure" them. The trouble with any curses like those that require dragonfire potions to remove is that you then have to sacrifice all your status effects, which for some characters (depending on what potions the game has) can feel like you're undoing the whole game's work.

This quest is meant to be really hard, perhaps the hardest in the game. I have maybe a 20% win ratio so far.

In one of the runs with a Knight I got a mana canteen at the start and one of the potions was Barbarian's friend. I found a retort in the castle and created a bunch of potions (since I didn't use mana at all up to that point). I got about 360% melee by the time I got to the catacombs, and a bunch of dragonfire potions as well. With a decent sword, I would do about 50 damage per hit.

A mage with some orb upgrades and magic skill upgrades can do the quest without too much trouble. Challenging but doable.

Another feasible way is to defeat the necromancers, take the Staff of the Dead and then kill the vampiress shop vendors and raise them. Add a couple of skeletons and you have your own undead army. I played this type of run a couple of times. Once you defeat 2-3 rooms it gets easier as you can raise more vampiresses to help you.

There was one run where I got a book of life on the altar of nature, so with +100 health bonus the tomb quest became doable even with average damage.

In any case, I want this to be a real challenge, not something you can done every time. Since it's optional, the players can skip it if they didn't get enough upgrades / items to prepare for it, go past the necromancers to complete the main game and do the quest another time. I'm thinking that tomb might show up as an optional area sometimes even if you have already unlocked the archer.

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(They also seem to "curse" you with fire immunity occasionally which is a bit weird, or at least I'm pretty sure I saw the fire-immune symbol appear above my head at one point?)

The overhead icons only show the spells that were cast. If you are immune, they don't affect you. Perhaps I should change this to show some symbol (red X maybe?) if the spell failed. Or simply not show the icon at all.

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #297 on: September 11, 2017, 10:55:47 PM »
It's not so much the difficulty, just the balance of tactics available, which gets super restricted by the lack of mana abilities. The distraction curse is the only one that I particularly think is an issue - it's not what it does to the difficulty, I just suspect that eg an amulet to stop distraction or a bit more possibility of protection/cure from it would help make the player feel more in control/able to strategise than I did. The issue was not feeling like I can do anything other than run a lot and hope for the best, I guess. I've found things like your suggestion of building an undead army (which is much more my sort of approach) really difficult because I usually find I run out of mana far too fast (I managed it once I had a run with the mana canteen admittedly). But anyway, you probably have a better idea of it than I do, those are just my feelings after a few playthroughs :)

A couple of minor bugs to report:
1. I hit the undead pig with an orb from the healing staff and it didn't let me ride it afterwards.
2. I took the skeleton archer (NPC version) in to fight the necro-twins, they "killed" him and then raised him on their team. This doesn't make any sense given that his whole backstory is "that one undead guy who's immune to their mind control".

EDIT: Finally unlocked the skele archer character. Not played much yet, but immediate issue - not sure why, but he seems to have an automatic left-facing, so it's really hard if not impossible to get him to shoot right. No idea why.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2017, 12:27:07 AM by Jubal »
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bigosaur

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #298 on: September 13, 2017, 08:12:21 AM »
A couple of minor bugs to report:
1. I hit the undead pig with an orb from the healing staff and it didn't let me ride it afterwards.
3. not sure why, but he seems to have an automatic left-facing, so it's really hard if not impossible to get him to shoot right. No idea why.

Yes, I noticed those as well, and fixed in version 2.3.4. which I uploaded later yesterday. If it still happens with 2.3.4, let me know.

2. I took the skeleton archer (NPC version) in to fight the necro-twins, they "killed" him and then raised him on their team. This doesn't make any sense given that his whole backstory is "that one undead guy who's immune to their mind control".

Whoops! You're right. I completely forgot about that possibility. I need to fix that.

Jubal

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Re: Son of a Witch: Castle Crashers meets Isaac
« Reply #299 on: September 13, 2017, 10:07:05 PM »
OK, did my first proper run with the now-functional skeleton - completed it right through to the necro twins on the first go which I was pleased about, though then attempted deep catacombs and got smushed pretty quickly.

Some notes & thoughts:
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Is it now intentional that hidden forest-level rooms can have skeletons in? Will they always do so?
  • 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?
  • 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?
  • I love the bat-thingies, they look wonderfully grumpy with everything :)
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