I’ve been rather productive the past two months, but have unfortunately been less on top of blog posts and posting on other social media. There were a lot of rapid improvements made thanks to the private playtest service I signed up for.
The playtesters have given constructive feedback and found bugs I would otherwise never have found by myself. It is known that playtesting is always important, but it still surprises me how much the game can vastly improve because of it.
A common complaint was that the stats and descriptions were difficult to grasp or obtuse. On my end, this was intentional to add a layer of mystery when it came to understanding the mechanics and language of the world. Though I could see where players were coming from, I added a few things to help guide them. When highlighting stats to level up, the corresponding attributes related to that stat will be highlighted. This way, players know what stats will actually affect. I’ve also attempted to clean up the stat screen more and add other stats that weren’t visible before, such as Self-DysConnection dmg (self-inflicted damage)
Another annoying thing I hadn’t picked up on was the way I had programmed NPC dialogue. In order to continue to the next block of text, the player had to essentially wipe the text before it would continue. An unnecessary step that adds up. I knew it was a problem because a lot of people really HATED it. I went back and tweaked it, and now the NPC dialogue goes straight to its next speech without the awkward gap in between.
Oh, and the settings/graphics. This was a major complaint of many people. I had thought the screen modes were working fine, but apparently not. Obviously, I hadn’t thoroughly tested it, and the game wasn’t adjusting properly for windowed, fullscreen, etc. After some tedious testing, I got the screen settings to work properly (I hope). Apparently, some players’ eyes were strained because of the pixelated edges, so I added a setting to reduce it. Though I added a note that the intended look is rather jagged.
The menu navigation was a mess, and I agree. Making sure everything went the way you expect when moving with a gamepad is one of my biggest challenges. I learned how to explicitly dictate which menus the focus of the player would go to when moving in specific directions. Basically, I added more rules so players wouldn’t get lost and could navigate menus more efficiently. I also rearranged some buttons and moved the pause menu into the inventory. It will take an extra step to pause the game, but it is now easier for players to find where the stats and equipment are.
I added a huge change to the items (known in-game as Keepsakes). Each one now comes with a passive, which is separate from its active use. So just having a Keepsake equipped will give the player the benefit of its passive. This should hopefully encourage more build diversity.
A lot of players really wanted more than 30fps. At the moment, I don’t think so. The game was designed around 30fps, and recently, when I tried playing it at 60, things got weird. I am considering adding a special item that can increase the fps, but I will add a note that it could break the game.
The last fun thing I added recently was being able to change the font. Not everyone was enjoying the pixel font, and some found it hard to read. I still have to adjust some things with the font change, especially the scaling of things, but it’s a step in the right direction since the game does have a lot of text. I wouldn’t want a player to be frustrated because they strained their eyes reading.
Exciting things are coming, and next year is the year! I expect to not be able to do as much work this month with the Christmas season in its final gear. It’s been a great year of work, and I am looking forward to 2026.
GoldenGratus Games 