Good evening!
As the weekend comes to a close, I have an update to share with you all~

• Download [0.10.1-A]
• Full Changelog

I've added a couple of new obstacles to the dungeons. Firstly a room full of spinning gears. It features a small platforming section with a light penalty if you fall. The gear speeds are randomized. So I can get the most out of this room, I will be adding some size and layout variants to the platforming aspect, in order to give it more replayability.

In a similar theme, the next room is a corridor flooded with the same mysterious solution (more on that later~). I may add some platforming to this room as well. For the time being, you’ll have to wade through the waters in order to pass.

I've added loot chests! These will now spawn throughout the dungeon. Not much else can be said here. I should add more loot….

The post-processing has been updated to provide environments with a hint of gamma. This means unlit parts of the map will no longer appear as completely pitch black. This has been the bane of my existence as I’ve tried to light this dungeon, while minimizing the number of light sources for performance. No lights at all is now a viable option, however torches are looking increasingly necessary. I'll see if those can be expedited.

I've implemented a new system to manage status effects. The status effect system allows for the triggering of timed, tickable effects. Tickable in the sense that an effect can vary over the course of its duration. For instance, perhaps we want an effect which grows stronger as it progresses and peaks in its final moments, or an effect which needs to periodically check the current state of the player to determine how it will behave in that specific frame.

The potential scope for status effect behaviours is incredibly open ended. They can take on many, many forms. Just to throw out several examples, we could use this system to create status effects like, slowness, blindness, narcolepsy, reduced hearts, increased speed, bleed, and so on, and so forth. The main target will be buffs, debuffs, and timed passives (triggered by spells and potions).

Unlike the item/event framework adjacent to this, status effects tick based on real time as opposed to in-game world time. This has been done as insurance against variable day lengths. Status effects need to remain fixed in their real-time duration from a player perspective, simply because of their nature. If everything was tied to the in-game world time and you happened to be playing with a very long day length, then a simple poisoning debuff could end up lasting an hour in real time (which would be suboptimal). This of course also extends to the balancing of buffs, debuffs, and passives. In a broader game design sense, there will also be cases where map design, trap design, and enemy design expects certain effects and cooldowns to operate on fixed timings.

Status effect icons will appear on screen for the duration of a given effect. The UI for this still needs a little work. The background of the status effect icon currently acts as a progress bar, to convey the effects remaining duration. While it’s good enough for short effects, a visible timer would probably be better all around. I will also need to create a secondary status effect display for the reflection page, (in a similar manner to the trait display). I’ll keep looking into this. The ideal implementation should remain as minimal as possible in order to avoid clutter.

You may be curious as to the nature of that mysterious pink liquid. Avert your eyes if you don’t want to be spoiled! As a proof of concept, I created a feminization status effect which gradually feminizes the player, while they remain within it. Right now, it’s pretty forgiving, but I do want to make it a little more heart racing by adding a slowness debuff while in the liquid. As standard, liquids the player has to wade through will be getting a movement penalty, and in the case of this feminizing fluid, I think I’ll increase the penalty to make it just a little bit more punishing.

I’ve introduced an extra check to dungeon generation which lets us reject maps which don’t meet the necessary criteria, such as minimum tile count. In some rare cases, I found the system generating “micro-dungeons”, where a dungeon would spawn too many dead ends or box itself off very quickly, making it impossible for it to grow any further. This will eventually be extended further so minimums and maximums can be defined on a per room type basis, and I can begin looking at goal rooms for progression.

In the new week I'll be doing more map design work, cleaning up what’s still in a prototypeish state and furnishing all those empty rooms. I’ve been doing quite a bit of prep work in anticipation of this last week so it should be quite interesting. Next update will drop Friday-Saturday. I’ll keep you posted. Until then, thank you all for joining me. I wish you all a lovely week~