Shuffle Me v0.3.9 - Opponents' Damage, Rebalance, Main Menu Soundtrack
Hey, it's Sifa :D
I'm still alive after all this heat. Omg, I used to live in a house with a "normal" temperature of 12℃, so cold weather is what I like and used to. So when the temperature went up to 40℃ I thought I was going to die, or melt, at least. What's worse - I don't have an air conditioner. Working in that environment was almost impossible, so as you noticed, I'm a little late with the update...
(download links are at the bottom)
(also a soundtrack preview is also somewhere at the bottom, or at the top, don't forget to listen)
Enemy Damage
For quite a while the only thing that Opponents could benefit from was their HP. Well, they could also affect the Battle Stats like Flow or Drain. But it wasn't enough, because doing that was almost the same as improving their HP. I needed them to be able to become dangerous over time or even during a single combat.
The solution was quite simple. We added a new battle stat that works similar to Burst: it improves card power, but for the opponent's cards instead. Beware the new Pressure!
You can see the new stat on the right, under the Opponent's Health. So, in this case Pressure = 2, what simply adds +2 to power of Opponent's cards this turn. It resets back to 0 after every turn (opponent card).
Some cards can raise Pressure. I mostly put this effect on the cards that reduce Stress/Arousal, so instead of healing your opponents with negative power, these cards will make your opponents' attacks stronger by adding Pressure. This should make for more interesting strategies.
Rebalance and Upgrades
Sure, I couldn't release such changes without rebalancing... Yet again, I rebalanced all the player cards, some enemy cards, and some clothes. The balance work never ends, but still, should be fine.
What's more important is that I've added a lot of additional upgrades to all the cards. My idea was mainly to make basic variants of cards less powerful, with simple effects and low Stress/Arousal cost. Some strong cards were useless in the early game, and in the late game they become very important, but then simple cards become useless. The new upgrade steps hopefully fix that.
Now you can work on your build from the very beginning, skipping upgrades if you're not ready for certain cards yet. Most cards got another upgrade level, with a few getting 2 additional upgrades.
The only issue is that the old campaigns weren't built for so many upgrades, so it'll be hard to achieve the full power in the old campaigns. You may need to lose intentionally to have a run last that long, probably. The Floors campaign should be fine though, since you can spend as much time on a single floor as you want.
I also added several new cards, like another "Talk" card that doesn't have a theme. Starting with a deck full of "Friendly" theme cards was unbalanced, since that pushes you into a specific build, which I don't really like. Also added "Apologize" and "Getting Through" cards. Both are quite simple. Also changed artworks for some other cards... but you can find that in the game xD
Main Menu Soundtrack Draft
So, while my mind was clouded enough by the heat, I got into the right mood to write a draft soundtrack for the Main Menu, which will likely be the main theme. Only took 2-3 hours to make it. My issue with music is that you can't just sit and write it, you need inspiration; at least that's how it works for me. Prior to those 3 hours of work, there was 3 months of "waiting" for the mood xD
I'm a bit worried about the mood though. I mean, it sounds just like I wanted, the mood is right, but I'm not sure if you guys expected something like that. Anyway, listen and tell me what you think :D Haven't added it to the game yet, so would be nice to hear some feedback first.
Plans and Next Steps
I'm almost done upgrading the Avatar. Even added a new Transformation option - Lips Size. Still need to add Bras and Panties. Going to deal with that next week.
After that, I'll probably take a better look at the stats of Clothes and Cosmetics. Maybe change few things and add more "Pressure" effects on clothes.
Then I'll start making a better campaign. Introduction part was quite cool, I'd say. Thanks to that I discovered what other Modules I need for the Campaign Builder, so Devoidex already implemented these modules. Should be cool now :D
And there is a chance that I will skip next week's release to push for a bigger update as v0.4.0, but can't guarantee that. Maybe there will be something that I can release as v0.3.10. Hard to say atm. Will keep you updated in any case :D
Shuffle Me v0.3.9 Changelog
Added new Combat Stat "Pressure" that improves Opponents' Card Power
Added another upgrade level for most cards (3 variants of each card on average, basic + 2 upgrades)
Updated help dialog to use the same help text as tooltips
Bump "base" card theme XP by 1 (previously, 'common' cards gave no XP for upgrades)
Themed card upgrades are now skippable, but you still "pay" XP even without accepting an upgrade
3 new cards:
Neutral variant of Talk (no theme)
Apologize (Submission Theme)
Getting Through (Relax Theme)
Clothing supply effects now run after combat win/loss checks (no more free infinites from a -TF clothing item)
Debug menu: Moved deck editor to its own window rather than having the editor "in world"
Reworked internals for campaign graph to support future content (probably breaks saves though, sorry)
.apk file is for Android devices only. Your device will warn you that this app hasn't been seen before or something like that. So you need to click "show more info" or "learn more" or similar phrase and then "install anyway". If it doesn't work - google "how to install apk on android"
there is a chance that your apk file will be downloaded with .zip extension, like ...apk.zip. Try to remove .zip part from the name of the file.