January Development Update

-

January Development Update


Welcome to the January Aetherdale development blog post. This month, I allowed my focus to bounce between a bunch of different subprojects. This isn't an effective strategy for completing work, but it's ideal for expanding Aetherdale's content and determining the future direction of development.

In this post:
  1. Progression Systems
  2. Trait Synergy
  3. Shop Improvements
  4. Ice Caves Graphical Work
Hope you enjoy. If there's anything I can include to make these blog posts more interesting, or any type of updates you want more of in these, please let me know.


Progression Systems

Aetherdale has two types of progression systems - I'll refer to them as "in-run progression" and "meta-progression". 

In-run progression is a temporary set of unlocks/items/powers that persist while you are skipping through areas trying to beat Aetherdale -  this consist mostly of traits, and accumulated gold and the things bought with it. All of this contributes to your immediate chances of victory against the final boss and all the challenges leading up to him. Should you die, in-run progression is lost, and will have to be amassed again on the next try.

Meta-progression consists of all of your permanent unlocks, like weapon upgrades.

Aetherdale is lacking in both, particularly meta-progression, as you may be able to tell from the discrepancy between those description sizes. The thing is, I've had tons of things that could be considered meta-progression lurking right under my nose, and just didn't occur to turn them into meta-progression.

The following things must now be unlocked by various quests/achievements:
  • Idol Forms - now unlocked via main quest
  • Trinkets - now unlocked via main quest
  • Weapon upgrades - TBD
This serves a dual-purpose, in fact. Alongside providing more meta-progression, it simplifies the experience for a player who is booting up Aetherdale for the first time. There are no longer 3 loadout panels that must be filled out with items you don't understand, at first - there is one slot to fill, and it's your weapon, which needs little explanation.

In-run progression got some love too, in the form of new traits (more on that in the next section) and the conversion of player level from an unused account stat, to a run-bound mechanic. Now, you will level up a lot faster during each run, and reset to level 1 upon death. Each time you level up, you will receive a new trait. Previously, entering an area would reward a trait, but I've removed this to tie the mechanic solely to levelling up.



Trait Synergy

 (as a reminder, a trait is an upgrade to your character that you acquire

An important notion in a roguelite game is that of assembling an "engine". You can acquire however many hundreds of upgrades you want, but if you have acquired the wrong ones, you will still fail. An "engine" is a playstyle built carefully, by choosing upgrades with discretion and luck, where your upgrades and powers feed into each other in such a way that it feels like you're breaking the game by merely existing.

Aetherdale did not previously provide the means to assemble an "engine". You could stack up on attack speed and damage and crank out numbers that blitz through content, but eventually, due to the nature of enemy scaling, it will still fall short of what's required to clear a level.

To help with variety, I've added the following traits:
  • Cursed Coin - The first cursed trait, which signifies some sort of tradeoff in exchange for power. Cursed coin will convert 25% of the gold you get from enemies into "cursed" coins, which seek out nearby enemies and damage them
  • Cutpurse - A common trait that increases the gold you receive from enemies. This is fine on its own, but becomes significantly better when paired with Cursed Coin, as it increases the amount of cursed coins being generated in turn
  • Wisdom - An uncommon trait that increases experience gained. While wisdom doesn't directly help you in combat, it makes levelling up faster, and more level ups means more traits in the future.
  • Voltage - A rare trait that causes enemies to occasionally emit lightning when you hit them, which strikes another nearby enemy. The lightning hit can also induce on-hit effects, including another Voltage, potentially creating a devastating chain of lightning.
  • Primordial Spiral - A legendary trait that allows elemental damage you deal to re-inflict itself on the same target. The re-infliction can re-inflict itself again, and so on and on. Each re-infliction can also proc on-hit effects, meaning Primordial Spiral can combine with voltage to decimate large groups of enemies quickly. Primordial Spiral is severely overpowered and I must look into how to balance it.
Part of what's taking development so long is that I'm doing a lot of work to make effects like these easy to set up, to accelerate future development. For example, all of the logical work for Primordial Spiral took under 20 minutes to plug in and have it working in-game. So I'll likely have a good number of new traits for each of these updates I do. Future synergies I want to delve into involve critical hits and elemental status effects.



Shop Improvements

Derbo, owner of the greatest interdimensional general store to date, has acquired some new technology to assist players in their journey. Rather than interacting with Derbo via a complex, hard to maintain shop menu, items will now be bought by simply approaching a physical table containing them, and trading gold for item. This results in a more colorful shopping experience that will surely result in greater customer retention for Derbo.


A Trait Tome containing a Primordial Spiral trait

In addition to new item table technology, I've also added a new item - the trait tome. Traits could already be bought from Derbo, but turning them into a tome that the trait is learned from is an important distinction. As soon as I get done writing this blog I'm going to begin plugging trait tomes into other places in the game, to prompt engagement with other parts of the levels.

Elites will have a not-insignificant chance to drop trait tomes, and chests will have a small chance to contain them alongside the other consumables.



Ice Caves Graphical Work

Throughout the month I've been chipping away at getting the Ice Caves to look just right. I'm a ways off from this goal still, in my opinion, but I'm very happy with how they're turning out. Here's a sneak peak of the new area, to give you an approximation of what you'll be dealing with:

The first Ice Caves map in its current state. It needs additional detailing and props added in, but in the broadest strokes, is what it's supposed to be.




Closing Thoughts

It has been a reasonable month, progress-wise. I don't want to put a percentage on my completion status but I think there's less work to be done than I once thought, when accounting for the acceleration in progress I'm starting to observe.

As always, feel free to join the discord here: https://discord.gg/UsyRfHtWra, or check out  the demo here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2958610/Aetherdale/

If you have any suggestions/ideas for content, let me know because external perspectives provide a lot of value to my process.

Thanks for reading, and have a good weekend.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

June Development Log - The Beginning of Flying Enemies, Paladin Weapons

-
June Development Log This will probably be a light development log, as it was a busy month outside of game work. The Ice Caves region is looking a lot better so my focus has pivoted more into developing gameplay aspects that feel as though they're lacking. It would be excessive to detail all of the separate little changes I've made so I just want to write about the flashier things in this dev log.     Flying Enemies On The Way One issue I have with the way Aetherdale plays at the moment is enemy variety. There's a lot of stuff on the ground, and that's it. There's a very limited number of directions you can be attacked from, and yet there's so much space above the player at any given point. If something were floating around, attacking the player from the air, it would instantly make the game more dangerous and therefore engaging.   The closest thing I had to a flying enemy before was the Runewasp - a boss that hovered above the ground. Runewasp wasn't really...
Read more

February Development Update

-
Image
February Development Update No new gameplay systems this month, which maybe isn't such a bad thing. The majority of gameplay systems have been implemented, so my focus has shifted to adding new content within those systems, and polishing existing content. I have a fairly solid grasp of my long-term plan now - fortunately, it hasn't changed in any meaningful capacity since the December Development Update: Early access release with the first 3 areas and majority of gameplay systems. I plan to get to this point by (and this is the part that may change) mid-2026. Aetherdale will be available at a reduced price during Early Access, and take on its final price at the end of E.A. A span of time in Early Access used to get feedback and improve things. During this time I'll also be developing the final area and final boss. Full release with the minimum amount of content to call Aetherdale a complete game Depending on my success and remaining ability to sanely work on Aetherdale at t...
Read more