DEMO
I have already been making DEMO versions for a while. I feel like the game has reached a point where I can have an “official” one.
The game plays exactly the same. The only difference is that when you finish Cave 6 it shows a popup indicating you have reached the end of the DEMO. I plan on making updates to it moving forward as new art and localization come in.
DEMO Post>>> Brightflask.itch.io
Major Changes
Player HP Change
You might be thinking that major changes shouldn’t happen this late in a project. For the most part, I agree. That being said, if you find something critical that needs changing and you can do it without a major impact on your schedule, then do it.
In my case, it started bothering me a lot that whenever I touched an enemy I would take 1 damage, and the damage the basic samurai dealt was also 1 damage. It felt odd, it felt unfair, and I don’t know why it took me so long to address it.
Finally, I had the brilliant (obvious?) idea of doubling the player's hp and doubling all enemy damage, leaving the touch enemy body damage to 1hp. For me, a major change because I had the player's initial HP as 2 for a long time, but the game feels better.
Stamina Recovery Change
Another big change was the stamina recovery. When you are moving the amount it recovers per second is different than when you are idle. After a playtest, someone pointed out that it made no difference. It was always better to keep moving.
He was right. The difference between the two was too close. I changed it so the risk/reward of staying idle pays off and the stamina recovery is worth it. Again, I didn’t go too crazy on the values but I made a big enough change to make idle stamina more worth it.
Boss Combat Reworked
The boss had a staggered system for quite some time. The way that it worked was, that you had to hit the boss a certain number of times to stagger him. Once staggered he would play a staggered animation indicating he was open to taking damage. The trick was that if you took too long between attacks his stagger meter would recover.
It worked well, but it made fighting the boss a bit boring. It just felt off to have most of your attacks dealing 0 damage due to him not being staggered.
My solution was to increase the boss's HP, allow the player to damage him at all times, and rework the stagger mechanic. The stagger mechanic now does not block all the damage. Instead, when you hit the boss you damage his HP and increase the stagger. If you manage to fill the stagger meter, the boss still goes into a staggered state where attacking him then deals double damage.
In essence, the course of the battle is about the same, but it feels much better.
Small Wins
- Added a windup animation to the spike so the player can see it shaking before it comes up
- Reworked the layout of some cave, forest, and castle stages
- Removed unused packages I had created and some Unity ones
- Changed tutorial samurai to be even easier to deal with
- Changed loot drop chance of all enemies
Closing
Feature-wise the game is done. The only thing I am working on now that's new is multiple save slots. I wasn’t going to do that but even for testing purposes that will be helpful. Having one file with full equipment and another one clean will improve testing dramatically.
For players, it can also be nice if you want to attempt some achievements a second time and show off your progress.
My plan for June is to playtest and polish the stages more. Work closely with artists to get more art in. Last but not least, I want to rework my pitch deck and try to pitch to publishers once again.
If you like Yurei or know someone who may like it, wishlist it on Steam. It helps a lot with the project.
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Thanks for reading all the way. Keep an eye out on Twitter @brightflask.
