ProjectDragonfly Update Oct2023 (Patreon)

Another late one, and I can't help but notice that Ker's portrait hasn't been finished. Yeah it sucks but she's gone through another gameplay redesign and it doesn't seem smart to finalise a design if the gameplay isn't even sorted out for them. And with Risk of Rain Returns now out there was no chance I was finishing that portrait in any reasonable time-frame.

First thing's first, I've settled on a name for the game: MADLAM
I was considering Redlam last time because I dig the word Bedlam and it fits the game quite well but it shared the name with a damn plywood manufacturer which may or may not have been a big deal but to err on the safe side I went with this. Obviously a mix of mad and bedlam which ends up sounding eerily close to madlad which is fun. I think settling on a name is pretty important actually, it'll help inform the rest of the game to be unhinged which I'm a big fan of.

One of the most important changes here is another rework to the rank system. I wasn't happy with how the previous one was playing out, so I did a bit of research on how other shmups handle it, surprisingly hard to research I might add. I ended up with a system that revolves around bomb usage. Here are the relevant changes from the log:

- Rank is no longer linked to score.
- Rank is no longer affected by stage progression.
- Rank is added after each act and boss spell.
- The amount added is small but a large amount is added based on your bomb stock amount if it's above 2.
- Bombing reduces rank, deathbombing even further.
- Reduced enemy health increase from rank slightly.
- Rank now increases point item droprate.

I really like how this plays out so far. The ideal play pattern is as follows: Play without bombing until things get tricky and you're feeling challenged, then bombing will push things back a bit and slow the increase while you benefit from the increased point drops. Use those points to become more powerful until you can play more risky and start bumping up the rank some more.

The amount of control bombing lends to controlling the rank is fairly nice and the addition of a reward for having high rank feels like something you want to control more than something that just makes the game more difficult for the sake of it. Eventually I'd want a true end stage to unlock if you finish stage 5 at rank 5 which is kinda what I'm designing the difficulty around, but that's for the future.

Along with this change I've decided to represent rank on the interface with a pressure dial, though it's temporary for now, I think it'd be neat flavor-wise to refer to rank in game as pressure.

Another big addition is the new character Entity who can currently only be encountered as a boss, though I have plans for a player version of them as well. They are a shapeshifter, and take on the form of the boss version of the player that you're playing as. Essentially to prevent occasions where you'd face yourself and it'd make no sense, which I could've removed entirely but this solution is cooler I think. As a player I'd want them to be the randomizer, where your starting items are random and whenever you bomb it chooses a random bomb from among all players, not really designed to be viable at all, just a bit of fun.

Other than that, lots of fixes, a few more effects here and there, Flytrap's background is back finally, and of course the Ker rework which came along with another Roach rework. It's been a very chaotic update where I just worked on whatever I pleased but it felt pretty productive in that I got to write a lot of changelogs. I will admit I need to start tidying up the visuals and actually get around to some music and now with a name for a game and a clear theme in mind it'll hopefully be easier, but I've been far too slow recently so I gotta work on finding a strat to get through this that works for me. Though I think I'll aim for a smallish update next so I can catch up with the months properly for once, and even though I can't be sure what I'll work on, let's say the UI interface and maybe at least some mockup visuals for the title screen. 

That I think I can manage. Famous last words.