As we enter the final stretch of Dreamscaper's Early Access period, we are now focusing most of our efforts on delivering the best Dreamscaper 1.0 experience possible. The team is well on their way towards finishing the final biome, the two final bosses and fleshing out a more complete story for Cassidy.
While this work admittedly stretches our 3-person team fairly thin, we decided we still wanted to continue providing regular updates to those of you who continue to support our game's development. Today we kick-off the "Catnap" series of updates which focus primarily on quality-of-life improvements & gameplay refinements based directly on your feedback.
What's New?
Dodge Improvements
While we put a lot of time towards improving combat throughout Early Access, one area in particular that didn't get a lot of our attention was dodging. As players, you pointed out that not all dodges are created equal, and the ones with longer recovery time were particularly polarizing. Introducing the "Perfect Dodge Interrupt":
Originally suggested by Discord user "JT", we applied the same "Perfect" system we have for Melee & Ranged attacks to the recovery animations of each dodge. As you can see, even the dodges with the highest recovery become far more deadly once perfected.
Guard Break
We have heard your feedback that shielded enemies can break the flow of combat. Our original intent here was to introduce enemies that virtually required parrying, but as we added enemies with more nuanced hitstun rules, we believe this is no longer a necessity. Therefore, we've added the concept of "Guard Break" into our game (thank you "PiRoScOuT", "DaddyDeGrand" et al for the suggestion):
For now, all Alternate Attack on all Melee Weapons will break guard. We will continue to refine and expand on this system as we receive additional feedback.
New Secret Room Visuals
We have polished up our secret rooms by giving them a very distinct aesthetic. Thanks to Paul's gorgeous environments, they now truly feel like they're real secrets worth discovering.
New Exchange Room Visuals
Similarly, Paul gave the exchange rooms a distinct aesthetic as well.
Minimap Improvements
Discord user "Hashin" pointed out that there was no way to tell the difference between a portal that is Locked, Reinforced, or a combination of the two. For now, we have decided to simply color-code the portal in the UI.
Destructibles 2.0
There are admittedly quite a few issues with destructibles. We've reworked the mechanic from the ground up to solve all of the observed frustrations:
Destruction
Have you had times where it's taken way too long trying to fully destroy a cluster? What about one or two small stragglers getting completely lost? We are now far more generous with hits and we've introduced rules that prevent stragglers completely.
Bomb Rules
Originally we wanted players to be deliberate in where they place bombs for clearing reinforced destructibles. Over time, it became clear that it was frustrating to not fully destroy a cluster with a bomb. Fortunately, we also discovered that it's far more fun to be deliberate when placing bombs relative to multiple clusters, portals or enemies. Therefore, we've changed it so that bombs fully destroy a destructible cluster in order to encourage more experimentation with bombs!
General Improvements
- Unclaimed items on the ground will be automatically recycled into sand on descension!
- You can now recycle item choices without having to pick one up first.
- Bombs have a short cooldown to prevent accidental double taps.
- New discovered interests play a reveal animation when chit-chatting.
- Gamepad UI navigation has been greatly improved.
- A full audio balance & polish pass.
- As always, a lot of bug fixes!
Closing Thoughts
Thank you so much to all of you for picking Dreamscaper up in Early Access. It not only helps support our development financially, but as you can see, your feedback and suggestions are directly improving the game.
If you have additional suggestions or feedback that you'd like to see in the next "Catnap" update, drop us a line here or over on Discord.
Cheers,
- Rob, Paul & Ian