Revised Roadmap

Normally this post would be a patch/update, but October was a particularly "eventful" month to say the least - I'm realizing at the moment I'm not sure if my time estimates are realistic, so I'm taking a moment to shift the priority to avoid rushing/burnout.

That being said, I'm still working on Siphonogore, The current issue is the list of things I realize I want to/need to implement keeps growing, though what actually needs to be done for the Demo release isn't as large. Here's what's planned for now:

Leveling up and specializations rework

someone mentioned that taking a specialization felt "bad", it was reducing stats, and was making you take a negative. While I usually think tradeoff upgrades as cool, I also think that specializations are in a bad spot right now. As it stands, leveling up is regimented - the player will always get move upgrades level 1, a specialization on level 2, and then they'll be open for regular upgrades onward. This was initially to allow for a sort of "safe start", but I think this was a bad decision in the long run.

What's getting changed

• Specializations are going to be paired down from 6 options to 3, and will be selectable during the move-selection segment at the start of each run.

• Specializations will be restatted to act as buff-only options, while the drawbacks will be pulled into a stat rebalance for each character.

• Leveling up will be unshackled from the set drops, and the full loot pool will be open at the start.

• Leveling up will heal the relevant part a small % of their Max HP value to tie into the "growth" aspect it's meant to represent.

• leveling up will be capped at a specific level, though this value will likely be more than what you're expected to reach in a normal run. the goal here is to avoid either breaking the game by running out of loot options, or making the game unlosable by adding too many upgrades onto a character. It also allows me to make more broken drops.

Narrative status blurbs

some players have mentioned getting stuck trying to figure out what enemy behaviors do in a fight - I've been pouring over how to properly remedy this, as "just figure it out" isn't great, and telling the player outright is worse. I remembered how I would give hints to DND parties during fights, describing ways certain things seemed, so that they could deduce a weakness or behavior organically.

What's getting added

• To remedy this, as well as add a sort of narrative spin on a fight, I'll be adding a narrative status effect that sits on certain enemies that the fight centers around, something as simple as "Hatching their young seems to wear them out" - this would appear as something told to you by the guide - those eyes in the darkness that acts as your layered tutorial. I'm hoping this would not only fix the "I don't get it" moments some players have, but also add an extra layer to the fight to give it a bit more weight.

• The status effect will have a customized blurb for each fight's core mechanic, even straightforward ones, to keep the vibe consistent.

Implementing the first act boss

This one is more of a no brainer - I still need to put together all the pieces for the act boss - there's a lot of moving parts here, but I also want to use this time to flesh out a few inner workings of the code.

What's getting added

• specific points in the crawling segments that override the normal choice to segue into the boss fight - can also then be used for fixed events every X fights later down the line.

• Changed enemy behavior based on the choices of the boss' crawling segment - this may also be useful in changing enemy behaviors on a larger scale if there's some kind of event or upgrade that dictates it. this may also open up new design avenues for loot.

• Implementing custom loot drops and an "end-point" post act-1 boss, which will help with the demo and also with certain gameplay to menu transitions.

I'll be trying to rotate through these so that I don't get hung up on one thing - as it stands sticking on one aspect for too long definitely hurts productivity.