Monthly Archives: May 2018

EBF5: Challenge Runs

Something a lot of people requested for Newgame+ was additional challenges, like perks for monsters or different upgrade options. I’m not going to lock content like that behind a 2nd playthrough. Instead an idea I’ve had for a while is “Challenge Run” settings that you can set at the start of the game and cannot change after that. Ideas I’ve got so far are:

Content Remixes:
• Randomised locations of equipment.
• Alternative weather throughout the game.
• Different foes appearing in battles.

Added Difficulty:
• Perks for foes such as more resistances.
• Dead players lose their turn, additional cooldowns, or other handicaps.

Basically stuff that will make the game feel fresh if you want to play it again, but you won’t feel like you’re missing out if you only play through it once. It doesn’t involve any new content, just a bit of remixing.

This won’t be a feature at launch though. I’m saving it for a future update if sales are good.
(along with lots of other leftover ideas, such as bringing back old bosses and making some totally new enemies!)

Also here’s an unrelated video.

Brb, Moving

64 Replies

Hey guys, all the battles in EBF5 have been defined. Most of what’s left to do is stitching all of the parts together, the title menu, tons of testing and balancing, translations, and the final boss. Then after that there’s still some promotional stuff like trailers and store pages etc. But it’s getting there. People who have volunteered to translate are getting a bit impatient, but I’ll get round to contacting you soon-ish. Still need a month or so before I’m ready to organise that.

I was supposed to be buying a house, but the seller is having trouble moving, so that’s been delayed. I’m moving back in with my parents for now – hopefully not for too long, but who knows. Maybe it will be a chance to take a break from work.

But while that’s happening, you guys can tell me what you want from Newgame+ in EBF5. Like usual, I don’t want to put much work into it, but I do want it to be a fun way to replay the game. Did you prefer it in EBF3 where you could just rush through the game again with super powerful players? Or did you like EBF4’s version where monsters got much stronger and you could keep levelling up for longer? If I do that again I’ll have to balance it a bit better.

In other news, I’ve been suffering quite heavily from nostalgia lately, and have been playing lots of games on Kongregate and Newgrounds again – old stuff and new. I’m probably too young to feel this way, but it feels like a huge part of my life is over. Flash games and whatever replaces them will still be around, yet I feel that some of the magic is gone, now that they’re no longer the cutting-edge of the creative space. I feel like the old man who doesn’t like what kids these days are into, because I had better entertainment in my day. Oh well. Maybe I’ll just have to keep making games in my style and prove it.

I read through my EBF4 postmortem, and I really need to update that soon. Back when I wrote that I felt like EBF4 was a failure and that I didn’t have much future making PC games, but since then EBF4 came out and Steam and was hugely successful there. Now my problem is that EBF4 might have been the height of my career and I won’t manage to make another game that’s so successful. That’s a bit silly of thing to worry about, I suppose.

I really need to blog more. It’s very therapeutic and a nice way to connect with people. I’ve got a few long ones that I’ve been meaning to write for a while, so maybe while I’m stranded at my parents house I can write some of those. I know I’m not the best at replying to comments, but I do read them all and appreciate them.

Bowls and Cats

6 Replies

My pottery classes are finished and here’s the final results. I didn’t quite manage to make a Zelda pot, but some of my bowls turned out okay. I guess I can use some of them for snacks.

I’m not very happy with the figures though. Making them bigger would have made them a lot easier to paint neatly (the tallest are about 2 inches). Also you really need some practice with the glazes to see how they turn out, as only the black came out as thick as I wanted.

I’d like to try using coloured clay at some point to make figures again. I think skipping the step of painting might lead to better results for me.