Castle of Vice – Development Diary #13 (New Minigame and Conversation)

Hello everyone!

Today is the first Friday of March, which means CoV Alpha 0.7 will be available today. But before that, I want to share a couple more things that have been added in this version.

To start with, the minigame that triggers when an enemy tries to throw Annelise to the ground has been changed.

I received a good amount of feedback mentioning that the previous minigame was either difficult to understand or became bothersome after a couple of hours of play. I attempted to improve it in Alpha 0.6, but those changes didn’t fully solve the issue. Because of this, I decided to replace the number minigame with something easier to understand: a power meter minigame.

For those unfamiliar with this type of minigame, it consists of an indicator moving back and forth inside a bar that contains a colored zone. You must press a key while the indicator is inside that zone to succeed.

Here is an image showing the minigame in CoV:

The win conditions remain the same as before: you need to push back the red bar. If it fills the blue bar, Annelise is forced to the ground.

To push the red bar back, press the SPACE bar when the yellow line is inside the blue zone. Just like before, depending on how much progress the red bar has made, you may need to succeed multiple times.

Also, if you succeed in the minigame, the enemy who attempted to push Annelise down will immediately perform a normal combat action. This is to prevent enemies from repeatedly triggering the minigame.

Lastly, the size of the blue zone depends on how much Strength the enemy has compared to Annelise. Because of this, you may need to weaken the enemy, increase your Strength, or rely on quick reflexes to succeed.

Although I personally feel that this game was an improvement, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it after you’ve had the chance to try it!

Moving on, the last addition in this version is a new conversation with Karidion in the safe room. To unlock it, you need to reach the second section of the castle.

I had planned to add this conversation in alpha 0.6, but I decided to focus first on balancing the existing gameplay before expanding the lore. Anyway, for those interested in learning more about Karidion, I hope you find this conversation insightful.

That is all! Thanks for reading and, as I mentioned, alpha 0.7 will be out shortly!