Son of a Witch: Devlog and general discussion

[Jubal]

One of the oddities of the new multiplier system is that in some cases you can get absurd scores even higher than you used to be able to - check the magic stat on this run out:

[bigosaur]

One of the oddities of the new multiplier system is that in some cases you can get absurd scores even higher than you used to be able to

At first I wasn't sure it was a consequence of the new system. But now that I look at it, the 850% bonus to 3000+ base skill...how on Earth did you get your base magic skill to 3160% ?!

Edit: Oh, looks like Bare Bones + Heavy Magic potions via retort? ... and +17% magic when you use mana... ridiculous combination.

[Jubal]

Yes, exactly. With that combination of potions plus bare bones amulet everything gets easy - the difficult bit is surviving a while after you use the BB amulet until you can boost your minimum health again, though if you have rabbit amulet + iron flesh potions (which I did here) that actually becomes quite easy as well.

I mean, I don't think it's actually necessarily a problem - the new system is more balanced on average, it just gets very, very broken if you can get the sort of really good combos I was working with there But I don't think it's much more broken to have 30,000 than 3,000 in a skill - once you're working with being at several thousand percent on something, you can just one-hit nearly everything anyway.

[bigosaur]

Yes, exactly. With that combination of potions plus bare bones amulet everything gets easy - the difficult bit is surviving a while after you use the BB amulet until you can boost your minimum health again, though if you have rabbit amulet + iron flesh potions (which I did here) that actually becomes quite easy as well.

I mean, I don't think it's actually necessarily a problem - the new system is more balanced on average, it just gets very, very broken if you can get the sort of really good combos I was working with there But I don't think it's much more broken to have 30,000 than 3,000 in a skill - once you're working with being at several thousand percent on something, you can just one-hit nearly everything anyway.

And I still see new players on Steam complaining the game is too hard. 

[Jubal]

They clearly haven't been using my game guides

[bigosaur]

I'm making a short break from Son of a Witch development while waiting for Nintendo to approve some of the builds for the Switch version, and I'm contemplating a small action arcade stealth game, similar to pac-man, but in fantasy setting (something I can create in a month or two while waiting for Nintendo). I have a prototype that looks like this currently:



And now I'm stuck on the name. The game's story isn't determined yet, but it's probably going to be about a group of adventurers going into an abandoned castle or cursed castle or dungeon or vault to steal some gold and treasures. The enemies are skeletons (could be called warriors, but I'm not sure if I want them with swords or it's enough that they chase you down), skeleton mages (similar to warriors, there is no magic attack planned, but they will be smarter in chasing you down) and dogs.

So, the name can express ideas of undead, chasing/running, gold, treasure, tower/dungeon, etc.

Here are some ideas I have so far:

- Gold of the Necromancer
- Don't get Caught
- Necromancer's Trove
- Necromancer's Stash
- 's Dare
- Quest for the golden Duck (perhaps with a gold duck at the end level)
- Necromancer's Birthday Bash
- Wizard's Birthday Bash
- Gold of the Undead
- Shindig Glitz
- Escape from Undead Tower
- Undead Heist
- Undead Vault Heist
- Gold Rush Tower
- Tower Stormers
- Tower of Necromancer
- Undead King Tower

Some of the ideas I discarded:

- Skeleton Tower (apparently this has some special meaning in English?)
- Thieves of the Undead
- Hide and Sneak (taken: Disney game)
- Tower Heist (taken: a 2011 movie)
- Tower Raiders (taken: Android game)
- Vault Raiders (taken: itch.io game)

I'm currently using "Undead Heist" as a working title:



Does that even sound good for you native speakers?

Any help or brainstorming ideas are very welcome!

[Jubal]

Undead Heist sounds fine but isn't necessarily all that catchy. I actually quite like Quest for the Golden Duck, but i like games like this having a certain light hearted/silly element generally. I'll have a think and see if I can come up with anything else.

Btw, it looks like someone found an exploit on the daily challenge - no idea what, but the top scorer this month so far only seems to have played one game but has ten times anyone else's score.

[bigosaur]

Version 3.7.8. is up. The main change is support for new servers for online games, but there are also a couple of bug fixes:

- fixed bug with lightning based weapons being able to go through metal shields even when you did non-lightning attack

- fixed bug when item pickup info would show for dead players

I set up 3 new servers for online games.

In the past, all online games used to go through a server in Germany. This sometimes created latency problems for players outside of Europe. To solve this problem I got two additional servers, one for players in Asia, located in Hong Kong and another for players in the US, located in New York. I also got a new server for EU region.

You need to use version 3.7.8 of the game or above to use these new servers. The game host selects which one to use and guests will automatically get routed.

The old EU server for online games is being shut down by the end of this week. Make sure you update to version 3.7.8. if you want to play online multiplayer!

[bigosaur]

Undead Heist sounds fine but isn't necessarily all that catchy. I actually quite like Quest for the Golden Duck

Thanks. I think I will go with the Quest for the Golden Duck and have a golden duck at the end of the game Undead Heist is so hard to remember.

I will have a playable beta version soon. I want to wrap this up by mid-January, so I can go back to adding stuff to Son of a Witch.

[bigosaur]

I spent an entire afternoon making the game logo in Inkscape:



Demo coming soon and I'll create a separate thread then.

BTW, I'm thinking about adding a new, alternate story to SoaW, with some new NPCs, some enemies shuffled around, and adding a new faction: Demons. Still not sure what would their main thing be, most probably different types of fire weapons.

The new story would unlock after you complete the game for the first time. It would deal with events after the heroes come back home with their mom. Demons set the whole village on fire and are fighting with goblins in the forest. Since you have the portal staff, you need to find the portal they are using to enter your world and shut it down. Goblins and king's guards are now your allies, but there are still remains of the great undead army roaming around. So you would be fighting demons and undead mostly in this mode.

This is just a rough sketch. If you have some cool ideas or twists, I'm all ears.

[Jubal]

Yeah, that sounds cool - I'd be up for playing most new SoaW twists Would this be separate to your eastern-theme storyline idea? And how many levels would you imagine for it?

[bigosaur]

Would this be separate to your eastern-theme storyline idea?

Not sure yet. I think it will be integrated into the same storyline as I wasn't really able to think of "enough" of a story/lore/enemies/etc. for far-east theme.

And how many levels would you imagine for it?

Not sure about this either. I was thinking something like: forest, then entering the castle from the main entrance, dungeon and catacombs overflowing with the undead and then a hole in the ground leading into hell (a new level type with lava caverns) where you would fight the demons. So, that would be 5. But we could also have multiple levels of hell. I think the main hazard would be thirst again, because it's really hot down there

Or maybe having to go through old catacombs will be mandatory, but with much smaller level than the Eye of Ramana quest (regular 9-12 rooms).

[Jubal]

OK, how about something like this as a schema (may be too big an idea, but):

Plot point: goblin shaman calls for your aid, gives you the Tar of Akhal and explains that demons are attacking, you must find the portal.
> Forest: Goblins vs Demons. Maybe occasionally forest rangers/an elf here or there?
> Hills: Wild beasts - could include orcs, wolves, some sort of gnoll or other barbaric-type enemy maybe.
Plot point: You reach the edge of town, it is being attacked by ninjas
> Town: Castle guards, Villagers vs Ninjas & Samurai
Plot point: you reach a samurai (similar to king in the original game) who explains that the enemies of his clan want to use the demons to conquer his people.
> Undertown/Town 2: Similar to Town, addition of good Samurai (colour variant on enemy samurai) to allied troops and occasional Bushido and Demons to enemies.
Plot point: you saved the town, they open the way down to the old caves for you
> Caves: Undead, similar to old catacombs (could indeed just be the same as a smaller variant on old catacombs)
> Muspell: Demons and lots of fire
> Lower Hells: Stronger demons & demon magic casters etc, final level. When you win, you can re-seal the gate of hell and return to the surface.

That's maybe overly large, though.

[bigosaur]

OK, how about something like this as a schema (may be too big an idea, but):
That's maybe overly large, though.

It does sound too big at the moment, but I will certainly try to incorporate some parts of it. Thanks.

[bigosaur]

Quest for the Golden Duck is out on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/996160/Quest_for_the_Golden_Duck/

I decided not to make any special threads as that game is pretty much complete and I don't plan to add anything significant in the future. Here's some history:

In 1999 I made my first game called "Njam", a two-player pacman type of game. It ran on 486 computer with DOS operating system and had VGA graphics. So, it's the 20th anniversary and that prompted me to create an updated version:

I ported all the levels to 16:9 format for modern displays and added a 4 player co-op option and the versus mode (1 vs 1, 1 vs 2 and 2 vs 2). It has full controller support and I completely revamped the graphics to use a fantasy theme with heroes and monsters chasing them around.

This game concludes my short break from Son of a Witch development from the end of 2018 and now I'm back on it full speed. New features coming soon.