10.2, 10.3, 11.0... (Patreon)

I haven't been sharing as much lately but that's because I've been hard at work on Cogmind stuff, including in particular something I have decided would be best left a secret even to patrons ;)

So yeah, secret project time! Good thing is the secret part is now 100% complete, and I guess I'll admit right away what might be obvious to some: Yes it's a special mode for Halloween. No it's nothing like previous events--never done anything like this before. Should be interesting...

Unlike previous releases it will have only been tested by me, so let's hope that's enough xD. The event-related content should probably be fine, but this will release as 10.2 including a good number of other fixes and changes I'm trying to edge in as well. Anyway, if something important does go wrong I'll be around for hotfixes ASAP.

10.3

After 10.2 is done I'll be working on... 10.3! This one is looking yet further ahead, and will be a special event for the end of the year. The reason being that Beta 11 is going to take a while, and I can't reasonably also stop part-way through that process to offer separate event builds (unless we didn't care about retaining these features into the future), so I want to have both of these releases done and ready to go before event starting work on Beta 11 :P

The alternative would be to basically skip events and just focus on Beta 11, which I considered, but at this point events are generally quicker to put together and offer fun different activities while waiting for a bigger release.

I'm thinking I'll probably fill patrons in on the end-of-year theme at a later date since I think it'll be best to get some group input and testing for that one, although if that happens it should ideally remain private info rather than spread around. It's another very unique event. Or maybe I should surprise you all with that one, too? Kinda hard to pass on such an opportunity when you know it's something people will really enjoy and at the same time totally not expect :P

I haven't starting working on it yet, but after initial planning I'm pretty sure it'll work. It's kinda involved though and 10.3 could actually take some weeks to put together. BUT if done right it could also keep people entertained and playing it for a while so is probably pretty worthwhile.

While I really wanted to get started on playing with Beta 11 balance builds, it looks like I'll instead be busy with other things for a bit longer. Overall I've actually gone through a number of plans for near-term events and none worked well in terms of design, but I'm quite happy with what's coming now.

11.0

Moving beyond vague talk of events, the next Beta 11 thing to be happening here will be feature voting! We've got things from the old lists and also some new ones to consider.

In the meantime balance discussions continue on the forums and Discord. There is quite a list of things on the slate for changes, in particular nerfs (which are always more contentious :P), but also some buffs here and there (not all is despair!).

9.0~9.6?

One thing I still haven't done for the first time in years is a review of the the stats for our previous series of releases, in this case Beta 9. This is due to the switch over to the new leaderboard system, for which I no longer have my old analysis program available. Like the old leaderboard system it was a mess anyway, and needed to be replaced, but I haven't done that so don't have the same quick access to stats. (I was originally hoping we'd have something built into the new leaderboard system, but that never got completed.)

Stats are something the community likely wants to see, and it's always nice to get some insights from the results, plus I have a long list of things (like new stuff) I wanted to look at in particular from Beta 9... so I'm thinking I should probably do that. Of course this would mean even later/slower progress on Beta 11.

10.1

While we're talking version numbers... if you're not on the Discord (or missed it) you might not have seen the results of the new "encounter seeds" tool I built to potentially help with challenge runs or other things requiring seed foreknowledge.

It specifically lists all the random encounters in every map for 50 different seeds. To do this it literally visits every depth and generates the maps that would appear for that seed, extracting the encounter data and taking about 45 seconds per seed.

Many encounters are actually predetermined when the game starts and the seed is first set, but actually visiting the maps to check is far more accurate because encounters may not actually be able to be placed depending on the layout or other things that happened elsewhere.

You can download the entire file (attached).

HUGE WARNING: THE ENCOUNTER SEEDS FILE IS EXTREME SPOILERS, AS IT INCLUDES EVERY MAP IN THE GAME, INCLUDING SECRET AREAS. So yeah in that sense it's not really for everyone :P

Here's a spoiler-free excerpt from the beginning showing early depths:

The encounter names just use the literal internal tags. Sorry, I don't have any friendlier versions :P

This "seed catalog" feature sorta goes along with the Exiles seed feature I built into Wizard Mode, but even together they don't quite provide a complete picture. Maybe eventually there'll be one, but honestly it's not something I've needed for development--these features so far have just been added because people needed them and I felt like playing with how to build them since it was kinda fun at the time :)

1.0

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha