Gigapatch Notes!!!

Hey wizards!

We've been hard at work improving Magicmaker for its launch on Steam on September 22nd. Though we've been showcasing a couple of the changes via screenshot Saturday, we've been pretty quiet on the particulars. No more! Below is a compilation of all the changes made since the last alpha demo back in May. Get your beverage of choice, you're in for quite a read!



Patch Notes: Alpha (0.9.1.2) to Launch (1.0):

New Content:

• A playable introduction sequence has been added.
• Dörwall Community College has (again) been completely remodeled after an unfortunate accident in the alchemy lab.
• A finale story mission is now available after the player has completed the main story (gold) quests
• The Master's difficulty temple quest has been replaced with an improved mission.
• Some of the other temple story quests have been adjusted
• There are now seven race tracks and seven target tracks, 1 themed for each zone and two bonus missions.
• Many oddities have been added to level generation
• Several new cosmetic items have been added.

Features:

• Crafting menus have been streamlined. Players can now customize their wands, spells, robe and artifact via any of several crafting stations around the hubworld, located near core NPCs
• Spell tooltips have been streamlined and colorized.
• Hovering over a slotted material now displays its effects in your spell.
• Zone menus have been reworked
• Alchemy menu has been remodeled for clarity
• Quests no longer require trips to and from NPCs
• Quests are accepted upon entering zones, and their completion is handled at the level results screen.
• Quest progress is no longer stored in the journal, and is instead a persistent HUD element.
• Challenges have been added to free play missions!
• Random Loadout: Your equipment is randomized, but your first spell gains an extra material slot!
• Bag of Spilling: Taking damage sometimes knocks a material out of your loadout!
• Plug and Play: Materials you pick up are randomly slotted into your loadout!
• Super Murderfest: All enemies deal 100x damage, but your spells cost no mana!
• Goblin Revolution: All enemies have been replaced with goblin wizards that all cast the same spell!
• Challenges can be mixed and matched however you want
• Completing a challenge awards a ribbon
• Each difficulty on each zone has a unique set of ribbons
• A new camera mode has been added that follows the cursor instead of always centering on the player. This is enabled by default.
• The old camera style can still be set via the options menu
• The cursor can now be locked in the window via the options menu
• This is disabled while the game is paused
• Several different HP display options are now available
• Enemies now leave behind persistent bits and pieces
• Spells now have impact effects
• NPCs no longer need to be interacted with to speak
• All dialog appears when near an NPC
• Any functions accessed via crafting benches near the associated NPC
• Wizard goblins now roam free and cast spells! What witchcraft is this?!
• Levels are now generated with slightly randomized dimensions
• The turret flower enemy now spawns in a wide variety of colors
• Added many, many sound effects.
• Bosses now enter with more flair and silly titles.
• File select menu has been improved
• Improved options menu clarity
• Multiple costumes can now be saved and loaded 
• Players are now warned about incoming desert sandstorms
• All background music tracks have been polished and equalized for improved quality.
• All art assets now comply with the style update (alpha 0.7.2)
• UI elements have been overhauled to be consistent with new aesthetic
• Improved messaging on successful execution via Guillotine Blade
• The player's mana bar now flashes purple when taking mana damage (cavern gem enemy, mana shield effects, etc)
• Enemies now indicate more clearly when they are suffering status effects
• All levels now have an entrance animation where the level is pieced together.
• Improved/adjusted many particle effects
• Loading screen tips have been added
• The test dummy in Dörwall Community College's HP values can be set by interacting with it (E key)
• Score attack and all related systems have been removed
• Gold doesn't exist

Gameplay Changes:

• General:
• Pacing Rework:
• Enemy spawns have been increased
• The player's cast speed has been doubled (spell/wand cooldowns now 0.5s, from 1.0s)
• Base spell mana cost has been halved (now 15, from 30)
• Adjusted spell power
• Player's base movement speed has increased.
• Spell projectiles now vanish after some time without colliding with enemies
• This timer is refreshed if the spell redirects or other material conditions are met (i.e. Sticky Slime's wall-follow duration will always run its course)
• The player is kicked back slightly when casting spells
• This kickback scales with spell power
• Spells can now pass through one-way platforms
• Reward artifacts are now chosen when opening the big treasure box instead of requiring the player to go to the vault
• Vault of Silence has been removed
• Benign spells have been removed
• Ice is now broken in large chunks instead of one tile at a time
• When the player is hidden behind something in a level, their shadow is drawn on top of what they are behind.
• Windstorms in the forest have been greatly reduced in strength
• Main quests now require the player to defeat the level's boss monster in addition to other objectives
• Temple traps are now sealed with anti-teleport barriers instead of normal barriers
• Tutorial level has been optimized for learning
• Optimized material drop distribution
• Removed stats menu
• Materials:
• Materials have been rebalanced
• Every single material's power level has been adjusted in some way. Only functionality changes will be listed.
• Fire crystal's burning effect spreads faster, but enemies must come in contact to spread the fire
• Noxious Spore's poison effect on spells now stacks up to 5 times
• Soul Contract spells' health cost is now a percentage of the mana cost instead of always being 1:1
• It still has a health cost on wands
• Vacuum Cleaner spells now pull enemies towards the projectile instead of the player
• Ectoplasm now increases the mana cost of the spell, and its mana restoration is a percentage of your maximum mana
• Diamond spells no longer have damage reduction on hitting multiple enemies
• Shade Spirit on robe's stealth delay minimum time is now capped at 0.5s
• Philosopher Stone's mana shield robe effect is now capped at 99%
• Trick Bullet now has damage reduction on multiple hits
• Ton of Bricks has been renamed "Tonna Bricks"
• Crystal Ball spells now only update their target selection if the target dies
• Spider Silk can no longer spawn trail particles on top of another trail particle
• This will also prevent too many trail particles from existing in the same location
• Ninja Sword on robe now damages enemies the player passes through
• Boomerang's robe effect no longer requires the target to collide with the orbs
• Adjusted VFX accordingly
• Siren's Seafoam robe effect now reflects bolts directly at nearby targets
• Rune's robe effect is now capped at 95% mana cost reduction
• Enemies charmed by Shade Spirit now deal increased damage in addition to being your slave
• Magic Boomerang now causes your spell to appear near your cursor and travel towards you
• Necrom-nomicon on robe's crows are now invulnerable and do not vanish on colliding with an enemy 
• Vulcan Wrench spells can only have one turret out at a time (per spell)
• Turrets now have a limited number of shots before they expire, rather than lasting for a set duration
• Artifacts:
• Izzy's Bookmark now sends you to your location 5 seconds ago, and activates almost instantly.
• Jin's Lucky Dagger is now called The Heartseeker
• Enemies defeated have a 25% chance to drop a bonus health pickup
• Tipsy's Mysterious Flask now has no cooldown, but only 3 charges per level
• Blessed Ancient Mystical Enchanted Cursed Voodoo Doll now sets your health to 50% when triggered instead of 1.
• Spellblade of the Legion has new behavior
• Enemies defeated charge the blade. At any number of charges, the blade can be activated to damage all on-screen enemies. Damage scales on number of enemies defeated, and resets on use.
• Enemies:
• Goblins now intelligently hop through one-way platforms and up small hills, and hide in leaf piles
• All monsters have had their damage, attack speeds and health values rebalanced
• Snowballs now split apart when damaged
• Ice Gargoyles are now nearly damage-immune while frozen\
• They can also no longer be knocked away in this state
• Flipper Beetles now stun the player
• Skeletons now only attack when the player is nearby
• Lamias now avoid the player and spit poison
• Fairies now attempt to attack the player and have variable movement speed
• Velociraptors now stop chasing the player if they stand still
• They also no longer moon jump

Bug Fixes:

• General:
• Breakable objects no longer spawn inside walls
• Fixed an issue where the background would darken too much during menus and pausing
• Falling through thin platforms is now more reliable
• Fixed several texture tiling issues
• The timer on training courses now starts when the player's entrance animation has finished
• NPC dialogue no longer has extra blank space below their chatter
• Smaller levels are now more compliant with high screen resolutions
• Fixed a rare level-loading crash
• Fixed many instances of incompletable levels
• Fixed an issue where starting a new game would carry over some quest progress from the previous file
• Fixed a crash caused by setting keybinds to non-alphanumeric keys
• Fixed a bunch of typos, newline errors, and other dialogue issues
• Haht the Wizard's Wizarding Hat now properly describes its behavior (off by 1)
• Fixed an issue where Blessed Ancient Mystical Enchanted Cursed Voodoo Doll would proc but the player would still die
• Fixed an issue where Grudge Talisman would double self-damage when not set to an enemy type
• Fixed an issue where Periwinkle's Fairy Companion would simply not care about loot sometimes
• Removed the ability to bind two actions to the same key
• NPCs are now immortal, for real this time
• "Reset" now consistently appears as a pause menu option in training courses
• "Return to Hub" is no longer a pause option until appropriate
• Materials:
• Fixed an issue where the fire trail effect did more damage than intended or would stop working
• Spells with Optic Lens now properly function for quest objectives
• Rainbow Prism spells no longer leave behind lingering darkness
• Noxious Spore's robe effect now works in levels without enemies
• Fixed many instances of the stealth robe effect crashing the game
• Optic Lens spells no longer build up Guillotine Blade's execute effect 10x as fast as intended
• Philospher Stone's robe effect now works properly in cases where the damage would be split between health and mana
• Fixed an issue where the player could heal via a combination of Philosopher Stone, Soul Contract, and several other materials
• All materials now properly interact with Spider Silk
• Players can now properly crouch-walk with Bouncy Ball on their robe
• Damage over time effects (aura damage, etc) can now deal more than 60 damage per second
• Fixed an issue where Sticky Slime and Spider Silk could cause a spell to last forever
• Forest:
• Bees no longer display health values
• Fixed an issue where the grapple vine would get the forest boss stuck in walls
• Castle:
• The boss's shockwave boots are now properly named
• Improved castle boss's mace weapon behavior
• The darkness gauntlet is no longer chosen for the boss on the first difficulty (where the lanterns cannot be extinguished)
• Carpet-sensitive objectives no longer randomly fail
• Fixed an issue where spiders would crawl into walls
• Skeletons no longer translate horizontally when possessed
• Fixed an issue where chandelier glow would persist between levels
• Desert:
• Fixed a bug where the desert boss's wings would sometimes be invisible
• Harpies now more reliably steal loot
• Cavern:
• Icicle platforms are now immune to knockback
• Gargoyles no longer heal when dealt very small amounts of damage
• Fixed an issue where snowball enemies were generating too many particles
• Fixed an issue where two instances of the player would sometimes spawn in the cavern
• Owl Medallion no longer triggers on ice
• Temple:
• Fixed a crash caused by the boulder chase
• Traps no longer trigger incorrectly when approached from the right side
• Fixed several instances of robe effects preventing the cut scenes from completing

Under the Hood:

• Removed many unused textures and other asset files
• Greatly optimized particle effects
• Optimizations to memory management
• Optimizations to tile rendering
• Optimization to hidden logic tiles
• Optimizations to physics
• Executable icon is now less pixelated
• Game objects are now roughly 10% smaller
• Tons and tons of iteration on new content/fixes/features that always goes unmentioned but, good golly, is a lot of work