Welcome or Welcome Back!

First things first, thank you to whomever recently donated to the project! Massive appreciation, there's no requirement to, but I still appreciate the gift. I'll not be taking that money out of itch, I'll leave it in there so I can put it towards hiring artists for the game. I don't particularly need the money myself and I think any donations are probably much better spent on getting the art to a better spot, so I won't actually be taking any funds given to me, at least not for a while, it'll all just get put back into the game.

I just wanted to take a minute to thank the anonymous donators, it's a vote of confidence!

To Design God

So this little devlog is about the design that goes into the bounty bosses, the process behind them and a couple teasers for upcoming patches regarding newer bounties and where this is all going.

Most gods chosen for the mode are already conceptually designed before I start making them, based on what I know of them from my time spent reading mythology over the years. I'm a mythology buff, and I generally try to keep things close to the material I've read or know of, but myths in themselves were originally stories retold and retold again, that changed over time as different people told it. In that sense, I'm not really too concerned if I get something 100% right, as long as it's within the bounds of what that figure, at least in my understanding of them, would be like. Call it a tinge of artistic freedom.

Originally I ran with the three you might already know, Zeus, Thoth and Agni, so I'll talk a little about each and what went into their design.

Zeus

Arrogance, strength, sort of thick headed. Zeus was, to me, going to be the guy that just slams you with nukes the minute you start getting ahead, and speaks as though he's always in control or able to regain it quickly when he loses it with his thunder. I made him deal a lot of mortis out on that basis, and his final "Thunder!" attack when threatened is the epitome of what I think Zeus does. Underestimates a threat, disregards it, gets bit a little, immediately turns the offender into a scorch mark. To me, he's always been that figure of sudden violent response, despite seeming to be very indifferent or apathetic towards others. I wanted him to have his own status effect, Charged, just as a manner of gating his stronger attacks behind some boundary. I wanted his strength to show, but I was concerned that the task would seem completely insurmountable if you didn't have some sort of way to gate his ability to pile on mortis or disrupt your hand.

His turn stealing mechanic, however, I've done on the basis of him having some agency over you as a player, something no other boss can do thus far. Also, thematically, the thunder is quite the jump, at least I found it to be, so I like the idea you're fighting against him, doing all this complex comboing and he just sort of drops a-

NOPE.

and you're back to trying to fight the storm. You might have noticed that you are occasionally given a card to cleanse the storm effects if you manage to play enough cards per turn. That was actually mostly due to not wanting people to have to really botch up their decks with trash just to handle the charged effect, but I think in retrospect you've so much power in the deckbuilder if you take a dive into it that I might end up removing that crutch. We'll see!

Thoth

Thoth's a genius - at least he's meant to be. I wanted him to be eerie and unsettling, and I think his cards do a good job of that. I wanted him specifically to really care about what you played, that he could mark it down, think about it and try to pinpoint what your deck was trying to do and snuff it. He actually is probably one of my more favourite bosses to interact with because I always love seeing the coding pan out and him accurately guessing what I'm trying to do. It might not seem much on the surface, but this guy, more than any other, really expanded what I knew how to do with boss AI. He's a lot of blocks and play conditions compared to all the other bosses.

You'll have to let me know if you manage to kill him quick enough so he can't guess or if he ends up getting it wrong frequently enough, I can imagine strats will change over time, and I'd like to make sure thoth is always aware of what the reaper's potential is.

Agni

A relatively quick addition, all things considered, but was actually the whole reason (just like another upcoming boss) that I bothered to redo the placeholder burning effect a bit earlier than I planned, but I think it paid off a tonne. I really enjoyed making this boss on the basis of how often he'd set your hand alight, how often you were being punished for holding burning cards and how tough he felt - and he is supposed to be! 

I'm aware, right now, codex wins are a little too good, so they'll be getting toned down a little in the next patch, but I am also aware of a few other strats regarding stacking effects on agni that are also currently very good. Those I won't be touching, because, I'll be honest, I think they're cool. I'll touch on this a bit later, but, yeah, Agni is probably the most difficult boss, in my opinion, that's currently in the game, and not on the beta branch.

Speaking of, if you want access to the beta tests, add me on discord @friend1252. There's no discord server for Final Notice that's public just yet, but there is one sitting in private for when any newer playtesters want to come around.

So what's coming?

With the last teaser, you might've worked out one of the next bosses (and admittedly my favourite so far) is Baron Samedi, and the next "line" of bosses are all voodoo themed. I won't spoil any of the others, but I will say Baron Samedi is one of 5 that'll be featured in the upcoming 0.4.5 patch, which will also contain...

Unlockable Cards!

That's right, something to actually unlock and deckbuild with, these cards will be given on first completion of the bounty bosses, and will be thematic to them, with their own art. I'm going to end up using placeholders for the time being, but I'm hoping that I can spend a good portion of the art budget on these cards specifically, to make them look a lot more unique and pretty compared to the normal cards as they are right now.

These cards will be retroactively unlocked, so if you beat any bosses now, you will get the cards instantly on the update that contains them, so get to it!

A Quick Thanks

I'd like to thank those that've picked up this game recently. I recognise this is something that's come out of nowhere, and I hope you're all enjoying it. Updates will be a little slower as time goes on, lot more to do, and complexity of course increases, but this game will absolutely see 1.0. There's no doubt in my mind about that, barring either my death or the absolute ruin of my entire life.

(touch wood that's not going to happen)

Either way, I appreciate the support and, as usual-

Till next time!