Epilogue Talents, More Hats, More Beta — (the) New Gnorp Times #20

Another issue of the LLM-free, Gnorpitzer prize winning publication (the) New Gnorp Times has arrived.

Today we'll talk about:
— Another hat batch
— A new beta version
— Talents in the Epilogue Update

Hat Batch #2

More hats have been implemented! You'll find them both in the live version and the beta version. A big thank you to the hat creators, and I hope they will be pleased to finally see them in-game!

Zygnorps become united with machine — the drone gnorp. This was made by Matsan, and is acquired by the achievement "Y2K". I gave the Drone Gnorps some extra love with an animated booster effect as a replacement for the regular Zygnorps' little tadpole tail.

Directors get some glasses. Nerds. This was made by Popgoes, and is acquired by the achievement "MY EYES".

Wildly unsafe, but it's Bring Your Gnorp to Gnorp Day for the gunners. This was made by Caty, MetallicSaladFork, Pumpkinburger, and Sting — they all had the same wonderful idea. Acquired by the achievement "Uh, is this allowed?"

Only the hardest working, fastest archer is deserving of a hat like this. It was made by Goat, and is acquired by the achievement "Getting somewhere".

A beautiful flower wreath for your runners. This hat was made by Pumpkinburger, and is acquired by the achievement "First compression".

Balance and Rework Beta

Thanks to everyone who has tried the balance and rework beta, and thanks for all the great feedback!

The talent changes have been received well, particularly Supershatter and Sacred Mountain, and I do agree that it's quite nice to not have to click on drones in order to brutally, viciously murder them. A lot of you have mentioned that you especially enjoy the drone rework, and I am very pleased about that. The mountaineers also got significant changes, and it's been great to see them finding additional use.

We're not quite done yet, though, as there are many elements I would like to improve before the beta becomes a proper update.

I've just uploaded a new beta version, and you'll find the changes here. You can access the beta the following way: Right-click the game in your Steam Library -> Properties -> Betas, and then write 4gnorplovers in the private beta field.

Here are some of the highlights of this round of changes:
— Clear button for the talents
— The Supershatter rework has been reworked, and it is now called Minishatter
— Baby drones now have a cooler way to attack
— Slam 2: Re-Rockening (neé Combo Power) now allows for possibly infinite combos
— Melty Bullets has a synergy of sorts with Future to the Back
— Ice immunity is visible as a status

Again, the full list of changes can be found here.

A big reason for these changes are to improve the foundation of the base game to in order to make the Epilogue a better experience. So let's talk about talents in the Epilogue Update.

The Epilogue Update will have a new mode, Epilogue, that will feature additional gameplay mechanics, like sending gnorps (almost) to space, and a new ending.

Talents in Epilogue

(the) Gnorp Apologue is a bit like a puzzle. The problem of the puzzle is always "How to get more", but the solution will depend on your progression level — your talent points. With only a few talent points available, many people find Popcorn and Superhot to be an excellent solution, but that specific talent combination can only take you so far without adaptation. Along the way, as the player discovers more interactions and gets a more intimate familiarity with the units and mechanics, more solutions are discovered.

I'm very satisfied with the idea of the design. I think (the) Gnorp Apologue would be a poor game if the player was not encouraged to seek out new solutions for progression or their own curiosity.

Now, the tree itself initially started as a tree-like structure — the sort you'd find in WoW or Borderlands. Then I realized a tree-structure would feel too restrictive. My goal was to have the player feel like they are carving a path through a forest. The tree-structure goes against that goal, as then the player merely picks a path through the forest to walk.

Concepting the talent tree we have today.

The talents themselves were meant to allow for exploration of the game, and with an open non-tree structure it was important that the talents adhered to the following rules:
— Not openly synergetic with other talents
— Opens up new opportunities for exploration
— Have a downside, apparent or otherwise, that could ideally be worked around

If you have a very good memory or have recently played the game, you might be asking "What the fuck, Myco. There are many woeful exceptions to these". Yes, indeed. Some talents exist to feel good—to shelter the player from the chaos of permutation. Complicated talents might not have a downside, besides the cognitive load of reading the tooltip.

Some talents could use a bit of a redesign. That's what the ongoing beta is for, and I feel confident that it's moving things in the right direction. But let's not have perfect be the enemy of perfectly adequate.

Now, assuming a delightful talent tree of interesting choices—can we extend that? Should we? I think most of you would agree that more talents would be cool. I am also of this opinion, so I decided that—yes, we should—the Epilogue Update will have more talents.

The question then is, how? A few options are apparent:
— A clean wipe of the existing talents, replacing them with new ones when playing the Epilogue
— New talents are inserted into the tree, resulting in a total 6 or 7 talents per milestone section, up from 5
— The talent tree is extended with new milestones and milestone sections

Ironically, the clean slate option might be the easiest. It would allow for more creative freedom allowing for all sorts of possibilities, instead of trying to come up with new talents that would cleanly fit with all the other ones. Unfortunately, there is a significant downside with the clean slate: You, the player, would not be able to leverage your existing knowledge going into the Epilogue — and that's a deal breaker.

The second option, with new talents being inserted into the tree, could be neat. It would be difficult to come up with talents that fit with the existing ones, but certainly not impossible. The biggest problem would be cognitive overload, where there are simply far too many options to consider — and that's a deal breaker.

The third option, an extended talent tree with new milestones and milestone sections, is a bad option for the following reason: You, the player, would be retreading too much old ground — and, because the Epilogue is supposed to be fresh, that's a deal breaker.

So all the readily apparent options are terrible, but now we can move on with an understanding of what the unknown, good option must do:
— Avoid cognitive overload
— Allow the player to leverage previous knowledge
— Fresh

After tossing ideas like a salad in my brain, I came up with a solution that I am happy with: Talents+. That's a terrible name, but (the) Gnorp Apologue might not the best name either, considering how many "gnorp analogues" I've seen online.

Talents+ is an extension of the talents in the game, where all talents have two slots for points. You'll have to spend two points to get the the Talent+ effect. A talent might look like these:

HIKING BUDDIES
— Mountaineers bring a friend when they depart the Cocoa Cafe
BRING THE WHOLE GANG
Unwilling participants galore!
— 4 hiking buddies now join the mountaineer

Doubling down on the talent avoids cognitive overload and gives a significant power increase to the talent.

BULLET BREATH
— With Fire Breath acquired: Slammers will spray gatler bullets instead of breathing fire on their 7th combo
BABY BREATH
"Where did you get these? Why did you eat them? Why are you the way you are?"
— Instead of bullets, shoot baby slammers that.. despawn when completing their combo

For this one the talent is replaced by something different — it works similarly and slammers breathing babies should be a delightful viewing experience. Since it'll cost 2 talent points and is a replacement, it has to be powerful.

POPCORN
— Fire damage has a range of 7-10, up from 0-3
SOME GNORPS WANT TO SEE THE PILE BURN
Actually, all gnorps if this proves effective.
— Gnorps that shoot fire arrows will now aim for the pile. Burning the pile shifts shards forward.

For this one you keep the previous talent and get an entirely new one!

This solution is exciting, and ultimately the superior one as it sidesteps the issues with leveraging knowledge, cognitive overload, and freshness. The end result will ideally achieve the following results:
— Unhinged and interesting
— The above

The end

— The work to increase the frequency at which I release (the) New Gnorp Times continues.
— Currently splitting my time on the Epilogue Update and the currently-beta-update.
— Doing well! I hope you are too.