Devlog 13: Demo Day 52 is here.


Long time no see, imaginary audience. I thought I should skip one devlog since DD came about a week earlier this time around and last time I didn't have much to say but that ended up being a bit of a mistake. I think I should have documented my progress regardless.

Anyway let's begin because the lack of sleep is making me slightly paranoid. First of all, there are many new assets in terms of portraits, sprites, tilesets, you name it. I also updated all of the slide cinematics that were missing and even added 2 extra aggy daggy references to the intro.

One of the least superficial changes took place in the store. Not only there are some new items and the glass jar placeholders have been replaced, but there's a new system in place for the item pool available at each location and scrip gains have been increased across the board to try and make items a little bit more relevant. Some buffs were also given to under-powered consumables such as caltrops and most goods are replaced by stronger versions as the game progresses. Also, every defeat awards the player with some pity money just in case.


 Right now prices are wildly unbalanced, but I still think this is a step forward from when items were first introduced and most bosses could be trivialized with a single cup of tea. There are still some busted items with a 1% chance to show up out there only because that's fun.

On a different topic, after 3 attempts there's still no tutorial so the encyclopedia remains the best source of useful information. That's why I made it a little prettier by formatting the text a little better and adding animated portraits.


I actually really like the feature because it's more fun to navigate than my spreadsheet containing all of the same information.

There's also a half baked expression system for the dialogue although right now it has only been implemented on the main hub conversations and a couple of other ones. Funnily enough I drew these ones but haven't implemented them yet despite this character being the reason why I felt this was necessary in the first place. 


Besides this, my dev time has been devoted to making new content. I have finished a new level for people to try if they want to. It contains new mechanics like freezing, anti-heal status effects, pushback, a traveling merchant and by far the most ambitious boss fight in the game so far. 


I would have 2 levels but I think I bit more than I could chew with this one so the total number of stages amounts to an unlucky 13 instead of a lucky 14 or 7 times 2. 

Finally, I have fixed many minor issues that I don't want to list and you probably don't what to hear. Under the hood many aspects of the game have changed these past 2 months because the more bugs I fix the more feedback I get about mechanics, story and such.  I take DD feedback seriously because during these events people often find issues that I had never seen before.

That's all I had to say for now. I'll try to not skip devlogs next time because these get too long otherwise. Enjoy Demo Days 52.

Consider wishlisting the game on Steam. Wooh!

Get Afterlife Gladiator

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.