Update #3 - Nov. 11th, 2023

   Hello everyone, long time no see. Today is a pretty big day and I first wanted to talk about things that were changed with this update and what to expect with the currently playable version (v0.51110a).

What's new?

   Well for the most part, the core of the gameplay and idea is still around. We have a corruption system, gun swapping, leveling system, difficulty scaling system. That stuff is still around. As far as what's different:

• Better working corruption system
• Better working gun swapping system
• Level upgrade system
• Chests
• Sounds
• Major UI changes
• Bug fixes to combat
• Melee!
• Abilities! (Only 1 is currently testable)
• Stats system
• End game stats
• Major changes to enemy spawning

    So that's just a brief little rundown. A lot of this build has actually been just simply changing a lot of the old code. Many of the ways I had initially written code are a bit whacky and kind of brute forcey. So a lot of this has actually just been to update all that - which is quite a task. But that's the developer's folly isn't it? All the code you wrote a week ago is now garbage code.

    There are a few things that have been added that I think can lead to gameplay being a bit more dynamic. Like the level upgrade system.

    Every level you progress through, you will get 3 random upgrades offered to you which can have different tiers of rarity, or you can reroll if you have the money for it. This allows you to have different kinds of builds rather than just being forced with the basic 'get more damage and health'. Obviously you can choose those upgrades if you'd like - that's up to you!

    Abilities are also a newer thing that I'm happy to add. Basically this will be something that you'll eventually be able to swap out and upgrade a few times, as well as eventually be able to hold 3 in total.

    Obviously the gameplay within this build is still pretty limited, and the boss that you can spawn  is just really a bullet sponge but a lot of this will be changing before I would call this game "finished".

What's to come?

    A lot, of course. One of the big things I'm feeling right now is that gold is useless. So I am currently working on a way for you to be able to spend your hard earned gold on something called an "augment", which is basically just an upgrade that you don't have to level up to get.

    I am also currently working on a few more enemies, and a random level generator. Enemies are bland and boring right now, and so is the level. It's just a bunch of boxes thrown together with no really unique features to them. There's also only 4 enemies in total. The basic guy, a faster circle, a really fast triangle, and a behemoth of a circle that is really just a bullet sponge. 

    The level generator is going to take a bit of time as I haven't even fully fleshed out how I want the levels to even be. Right now I'm landed on the idea of it being a dungeon crawler where you progress into harder and harder levels and have to kill the boss on each level to progress. That one may not be in the next build, but I'd like for the core part of it to be there.

    Enemy variance is arguably pretty important in games. Who likes fighting the same 3 enemies for hours on end? Not a lot of people, probably. You probably don't even play that game for hours on end if there's only 3 enemies unless there's a massive other part of the game. So I'd like to add some more dudes for you to beat up and whatnot. Like shooting enemies, exploding enemies, that kind of stuff.

    I'd absolutely love to say that I'm gonna add some artwork but knowing my artistic skills, I don't find that to be super likely done in the next build, if I ever even do it. But I'm trying to at the moment at least!

My ask for you:

    I'd love to get input/feedback on some of the features currently implemented, as well as some things you think would be fun to have added to a game like this. If you could, I'd love for you to try this out and just give me some basic feedback and help with hunting down some bugs too! Any feedback is welcome, and if you'd ever like to be a tester for any non-public builds (or have early access to builds before actual releases), join the discord!

Thank you friends, if you're reading this. Making games is hard, and making fun games is even harder and I'm struggling to do that sometimes.

-Contradictive Games 

(Davis)