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| Steam Summer Sale 2025 |
Steam Summer Sale is upon us, and just in time for Monsters Loot Swag NG+ update!
This major update give a whole host of modifiers for repeat playthroughs (New Game +) , which can be selected individually or as multiples. Here's a quick rundown ...
After completing the game by gaining Final Victory in the Final Level over the boss's Final Form, NG+ is unlocked, allowing for the following modifiers.
- House Of Fun: All enemies drop explosive funballs on death, and enemies which dropped them in standard game mode now drop more. +20% Score Bonus.
- Test Of Strength: Both Players and Monsters do triple damage critical hits with every attack. +20% Score Bonus.
- O Fortuna: No SWAG parcels spawn, instead there is a RNG for monsters dropping SWAG on death. Chance: 5% monsters, 10% elites, 50% Bosses, and a 1% chance of dropping a Nerve Gas Bomb. +20% Score Bonus.
- The Harder They Come: All enemies spawn as elites, even Bosses. +20% Score Bonus.
- Targeted For Termination: Every 9 minutes of gameplay a specialist team of Anti-Catgirl Assassins will spawn, 6 members with 6 unique special attacks. +20% Score Bonus.
- Endless Mode: The game continues after level 8, cycling back through the levels with ever increasing difficulty.
With the exception of Endless Mode, which is it's own bonus scoring system due to the game never ending except via the Player's defeat, each selected gameplay challenge adds +20% to the Player's scoring.
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| Saved Games Display Their NG+ Modes |
And here is the whole thing in action on video:
In other news ...
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| Flaming June was flaming hot |
Last year the weather was so bad I grew a single, tiny strawberry ... this year I have buckets of strawberries, more kale than I can fit in the freezer and one hell of a tan!
It has been proper scorchio, but the pursuit of free vitamin D hasn't prevented me from getting back into coding on my Melee Combat Demo.
I have spent the month, (inbetween updating Monsters Loot Swag, harvesting my bountiful veg patch, and absorbing vitamin D in non-capsule form), to working out the finer points of defense in the Melee Combat Demo.
I have a combined a Dodge system into the Jump input, with a tap of the Jump button being a Dodge whilst holding the button down to apply a Jump. The dodge defaults to away from the camera view, as I expect the Player will be looking at an opponent most of the time, but the dodge can be made in a selected direction by the Player putting movement direction input in before the button tap is completed.
Getting this working and networked for the player was not too much trouble, and I eventually got it working the AI aswell, as can be seen in the below video were I telegraph a heavy attack to the AI target.
A bit more coding and a lot more maths, and the AI now checks which is the best way to dodge from an incoming attack in the obvious choice is blocked.
During coding all of this I discovered that the hitBox collision resource I was using had the minor drawback that there was no boolean option for actually disabling checking for hitBoxes on hitBox enabled objects when I just wanted to test ONLY against their Bounding Box presence in the game world.
As CastRay is used EVERYWHERE in the engine it seemed like a fool's errand to modify every single instance of that, so instead, after much methodical backtracing of how the function worked, I created another version that would always ignore hitBoxes, and so CastRayNoHB was born.
After all of this I have set about coding a Parry system, which has been even more complicated. The real problems come from the fact that a Player, unlike the AI, might not actually be locked-on to the enemy they are about to hack at, and what happens if there are two Players, with neither locked on to each other, or someone is standing near the target and is also going to get hit in a wide, swinging, heavy attack - well maybe they would like to parry too.
So, I managed to code a system, based on AI skill modifiers, that checks proximity, parry ability, direction, weapon parrying attributes and a whole load of other stuff which I have forgotten off the top of my head. It doesn't actually use i-frames, but checks against a; "where is the incoming strike in relation to how far we are into the parry animation", and even a successful parry may be overwhelmed by a larger weapon, but does then limit damage. Too many times I have seen games were a Bollock Dagger blocks a Zweihänder with no ill effect. A fully successful parry staggers the opponent (technically it's knockback for the duration of the attack animation rather than full stagger) which allows for a light attack reposte that will hit for critical damage. No video of this happening yet, as I am still debugging the code and working out animations.
After Parry, the final defensive measure will be Shield Guard. Shields will not be used for parrying per-se, but will absorb damage dependant on Shield type which will deplete the defender's Stamina, whilst reducing any damage that does get through the same as parrying works. If the defender runs out of a Stamina their guard is broken and they will be staggered.
I suppose I could also throw in Roll-Slop, and give the Player the opportunity to decide if they want to use that instead of the dodge mechanic, but that would be decision for a later date.
Anyhow, happy strawberry munching everyone.
