Game Update (2.00) - Feb. 4, 2020

Wow, hello y'all! This is Matthew or Fish With Headphones in the internet! I've worked quite a bit after exams. So in this update, numerous things have changed. Since school seems to get harder pretty darn quick. The future updates may get a bit tad slower. Maybe not who knows really. I know the game is not really that popular, I still wanna improve the game and my skills. It's also good to know how post-release process works, and even how to make patch notes (wow my first patch notes).  So without further ado, here's the latest patch notes for the game Combo Spells

Extra Notes

• In the game there's actually a hidden mechanic before this update called Damage Hit Multiplier. This is when hitting a dummy with spells will increase it by some decimal. I decided to make it more visible so you guys know this actually exists. This is before Synergies was created.
  • This is a reason why the the Base/True Damage shown in the Spell List in the game page does not reflect on the Actual Damage that is dealt.

Game Changes

•  Status Effects! They can be inflicted to the dummy by using the four spells which can be categorizes in this list:
  • Burning from Fireball
  • Wet from Bubble Blast
  • Poison from Overgrowth
  • Stun from Lightning
• Adding to Status Effects, there are now Synergies. Depending on the status effects inflicted to the Dummy, it'll increase or decrease True Damage and increase Damage Hit Multiplier. There are also like damage per second kind a thing, but that doesn't matter.
  • Burning = Gives off a 0.5 damage per second, multiplies the Lightning damage by 2, but decreases Bubble Blast damage by a factor of 0.5.
  • Wet = Multiplies the Lightning damage by 2, but decreases Fireball damage by a factor of 0.5.
  • Poison = Gives off a 2 damage per second.
  • Stun = Has the above, and increase "Damage Hit Multiplier" per hit.
• Movement has been changed to be more slower and give the player more control.

  
  

  • Speed has been reduced.
  • Gravity has been reduced.
  • Jump should be the same, hopefully.
• Added the ability to Dash. It can be activated by pressing Shift while moving.
• Reworked how spell casting works. When cast, it will NOT cast immediately, but the effect of the spell will appear after certain amount of time. (Each of the spells appear rates are different however).
• Add some additional options when doing Practice Mode which can be found in the pause menu, the player can now:
  • Reset Damage Dealt.
    
  • Reset Player Position.
    
  • Reset Everything To Its Original.

Spell Changes

• Fireball now spawn 4 one at the time.
• Overgrowth does NOT last longer, but disappear shortly after it appears. - Overgrowth now deals 150 damage in total because of this.
• Lightning now has the highest Damage Hit Multiplier. Giving it a more value than spamming Boulder 500 times.
• Lightning's combination changed to: Left, Right, Up, Up.
• Boulder has the lowest Damage Hit Multiplier. Now has True Damage of 550.

Graphic Changes

• Magician has hair and hands! She's looks more of a person now than a brick with eyes, actually one eye really. Added another eye in her other sprites.
• Magician more sprites when moving, jumping, dashing, and creating the spells. (Making her more "alive", than being a lifeless brick)
• Added an indicator near the Magician for when the spell is in the process of showing effect after spell cast.
• Added an indicator that you cannot cast that spell due to it being cast in the first place.
• Changed the Magician's GUI a bit, mostly the colors really.
• When the Magician is near the dummy or near the right edge of the screen, the GUI for the Spell Creation/Spell Inputs will be moved to the left side for easier readability.
• Added a Status Effects Indicator besides the dummy, shows when the Status Effects are active or not.
• When the Dummy is hit, it's eyes changes. An examination mark also appears besides it.
• Clouds are changed a bit. I don't remember what changes are. Probably slower speeds. Less distracting.
• The Damage Dealt on the Dummy and in the Title Screen now rounds into whole numbers. Not that bunch of decimals that is useless and cluttered.
• Changed the Logo to be more fancy looking because why not.
• Change the little credits to the top left corner instead on the bottom left corner, and its color black.
• The Press Any To Start and Total Damage Dealt in the Title Screen is now more centralized.
• Added the control to perform the Dash.
• Lightning now changes position now and then, it does not appear in the same spot the whole time. More variation-ish!
• GUI are now higher or are now front of the platforms and the others.
• Spells appear front of the Dummy rather than behind it. Making Lightning and Overgrowth more visible.
• The Damage Dealt Score is now scaled to how many  digits the player has dealt to the Dummy. It's seen in the title screen and as well in game.
• Add the Damage Hit Multiplier besides the Dummy for it to be visible other to show that it existed.

Bug Fixes

• The score does not actually registered upon completion. (It's an awful fix, but at least you can finally share your scores).
• When spamming the Boulder, it will not store the gravity from the previous one and will fully reset. (Doesn't matter due to spell casting changes).

Little Improvements

• Refactored a lot of the code to be more readable and less messy.
• Removed unnecessary code and Arrays.
• Fix and Put in comments.
• Replaced the program icon! Except on run time though...
• Changed it to a exe. file. (The original, jar. file, still exist if it doesn't work!).

Future Plans?

• Update the Title Screen to occupy 3 modes:
  • Practice Mode
    • Same as before, it'll just be moved to the title screen instead of the pause screen.
  • Timed Mode
    
    • New Mode, there will be now obstacles that would help the magician to prepare her tests. There would be lasers, falling meteors or something. The Dummy might even have a barrier this time which can be broken into pieces before regenerating after no getting hit for a while. Deal the Highest Damage to the dummy under 2 minutes.
  • Classic Mode
    • Like the current mode really, no obstacles in your path. Just deal the Highest Damage to the dummy under 2 minutes.
• Including the Title Screen update, there could be a separate Controls List menu or a little tutorial that will teach the player how to cast in game. Yet again, this may change due to my limitation of skill and knowledge.
• Add Hysterical spell if you messed up a spell or cast the spell that is currently active. Encourage more thought and skill. It does a small damage, but doing it repeatedly will result the Magician to temporary slow down. Probably bad in Timed Mode. But not much in Classic Mode.
• Move on and do another project, and also maybe release a concept art of what the character would look like if I know how to program in images and improve my pixel art skills.

Conclusion

Yeah, that's pretty much it really. There could be some hot fix after the update, but that's pretty much it. I already talked my Future Plans or rather Future Features of this game above. Once I'm done with those, I can move on to other projects that I wanted to do, or actually keep on learning on Game Development software, process, etc. So anyway, I really hope you guys enjoy this update, it's getting really close to the original in vision that I have imagined for this game. Even if I know this will not get hundreds of downloads, but knowing that someone played my game online still puts a smile to my face. It's an indication on how I'm taking baby steps to becoming a Game Dev. Hopefully it turns it right in the end, this game and my career. See ya later lads! Have fun!