itch.io

I managed to reproduce it and uploaded a video (beware, the video upload is from some random file sharing website):

https://filepost.io/d/8ZhAbRrSxy

I meant the props in rooms, like barrels and boxes that are close to each other. It is a somewhat minor issue, but still annoying. I do not recall the specific layout of the props, just that they were close to each other and that I could not pass through in time slowdown mode while being able to outside it.

I've had that happen a few times, usually there's one remaining enemy that's trapped on a few props.  I'll look over the enemy handling code regardless. Also, I'm planning on adding a visual indicator that points to the last two or three enemies in a room to avoid this kind of situation.

I found a bug.

I encountered it when I was just at the edge and was shooting exploding barrels.

There are some narrow choke points that I cannot walk through while in alchemy mixing mode/time slowdown, but that I can go through outside of that mode. I do not know whether that is intentional or not.

The way that enemies attack each other over friendly fire is hilarious and adds to the chaos.

Also, the main way I abuse time slowdown is by cancelling time slowdown before it runs out, since then I can immediately enter it again with the time reset.

Also, I sometimes get the impression that the physics are wonky. Like, I shot at a barrel, and the shot seemed as if it flew through the barrel. And the next shot hit the barrel. My framerate seems high, though.

As I played it and got better at it, I enjoyed it more and more.

After many, many, many attempts, I succeeded at completing it at Medium difficulty.

I did not use the electricity mix, since it would be unlikely that a player without developer hints would have been able to figure the electricity mix out. I very, very heavily abused time slowdown.

When doing alchemical mixes, I could not always decrease one component by using right-click.

A couple of times, I got trapped in rooms with no apparent enemies and red laser gates blocking the exists, basically ending runs and forcing me to commit suicide. I could hear exploding enemy ticking, but I could not figure out where the enemy was. I tried using the scythe all around the walls, and also tried using plasma-3 as an attempt at area-of-effect damage near the walls, but never figured out where the enemy might be (if it was somewhere). It would be good if you could figure out how to fix that specific instance, but if you could make the room handling have a mitigation or fallback for that kind of bug in case other similar bugs are present or occur (without making that mitigation or fallback vulnerable to exploitation by players or introducing new bugs), it would not be bad either. Like giving the gates 100,000 health, which decreases over time to 0 after 10 minutes, longer for boss rooms or rooms mean to last a long time? Unless players can use that to cheese their way through rooms in some cases.

The physics are messy, which adds to the chaos, but can also mean that an exploding enemy can be shot straight at you faster than their regular charge and explode in your face, even when you try to use freeze mixture (you can alleviate that by killing enemies quickly and destroying exploding barrels to start with). Would it be a bad change to make exploding enemies immune to physics? Or make them "heavier" against outside forces, or something?

I think there will always be "unfair" deaths in this game, but the runs are fairly quick, and the chaos and difficulty and extremely quick pace makes it feel alright after getting used to it. And there are actions the player can take to alleviate and decrease the frequency of deaths.

All in all a very nice game.

I do not know how I did it, but in one run, I somehow got two instances of the player character (maybe double-clicking the "start" button?). I ended up scything myself to death at the start of that run.

let me know if it's something on the game's end that's influencing this decision, since i don't want players to feel uncomfortable about this if possible.

No, it is just me being careful in general, I try to be careful with demo day games, and honestly with software in general.

again, thank you for all your generous help in tracking down and helping solve these issues. i am sure you have greatly sped up my dev time, and i am very thankful for it.

I am happy to help 🙂.

Sorry, I do not wish to send the save file, for different reasons.

Also, in case there is any confusion, I am describing two bugs, and they appear unrelated, at least the bugs can be reproduced on my system without the other bug's items being involved. I have now spent some more time investigating the bugs:

Bug 1: Is with the ring crafted by a Golden Goblin, where the stat boosts it gives are apparently bugged. I tested it a bit more, and it appears that it might be the combination of "+2 to Strength" and "All Stats Increased by 3" that bugs out. The ring, at least on the Stats Page UI, gives +5 Strength, and no other Stat increases, even though according to its description it should give +5 Strength and +3 all other Stats. I have isolated the bug to just the ring by having no other items equipped on the character than that Golden Goblin-crafted ring.

Bug 2: Is with the unique shield "Guiding Eyes" that the wounded paladin left behind as well as a wand crafted by another Golden Goblin, and quickswapping. The wand has a number of different properties, including +4 Constitution and "Increases Mana by 5". My character has 12 base Constitution, so if the wand is not held, the shield cannot be held, since the shield Guiding Eyes in this run requires 14 Constitution. I have isolated the bug to just those two items by removing all other gear. I also had a torso-body-armor depend on the extra Constitution from the wand, but I tried with just that torso-body-armor and the wand, and I could not replicate the bug. I have also isolated the bug to quickswapping, by either clicking in the inventory on the "II" button or by using the quickswap hotkey, and having the shield Guiding Eyes fall off due to the wand no longer being present and not giving its Constitution bonus. I can not replicate the bug by manually clicking on the wand to remove it and holding it in my cursor and that way making the shield drop due to not having sufficient Constitution, it is only by quickswapping that it occurs. The bug gives increases not just to Mana and Intelligence, but also Armor and Defense, the properties that the Guiding Eyes shield gives in this run (apart from the "15% for Damage Absorbed by Mana" property, but I can not see the effects of that from the Stats Page UI). Each time that the quickswapping is done, the properties are increased, and after having been done many times, giving very high values of Intelligence, Mana, Armor and Defense. What is important to note is that when I load the save again (for instance by quitting to the menu and loading the Iron man save again), the character does not keep the extra Intelligence stat, mana, armor and defense, but the bug can still be replicated by doing the quickswapping again. I do not have any other shield that requires Constitution to be held, so I do not know whether the bug can be isolated to the unique shield Guiding Eyes or if it is a general bug involving left-hand (or shield in case idol items do not bug out?) equipment.

Is there anything locally you might want me to do, that does not include sending the save file?

Running on ToK.22f, hard mode, iron man.

I used wands on the first Golden Goblin and can confirm that it works and does not bug out.

I created this very strong ring using the second Golden Goblin. But, now that I check it many levels later, is it bugged? It seems to increase strength and not all stats.

Sometimes my equipment falls off due to taking off or changing other equipment. Could that have something to do with it? Or maybe that the ring was created by the Golden Goblin?

Poison on the player character does not appear to stack, unless I am mistaken. Is that on purpose?

You wrote somewhere that you intended to make the Breeding Grounds more open. I do not believe that is necessary, or at least, you could keep one of those levels like it currently is and then change the other one. More traps, enemy variety? For the second level, playing into the "breeding", have temporary enemies spawn? Like, giving an enemy a summon spell like the snake summon spell the player has? But that might run counter to the player's expectation and possibly also the game design and game balance.

Why do I have 52 intelligence? I do not believe my items should add up to that. Is it a bug? I did put a lot of points into intelligence, but I am playing on hard mode, and I have unspent ability points.

Wait, I just switched around a lot of gear to try to figure out what the source of the intelligence was, and now I am at 60 intelligence with the same gear as before.

I think I figured out how. Changes to secondary weapon and shield, stats not sufficient and drops including shield, switch back, pick up equipment.

https://fastupload.io/n92WEZwVTFjH3FY/file

One way to robustly fix this in programming might be to not directly mutate the "final" variables and try to keep them accurate always, but instead just store all "sources" of attributes. And then, whenever equipment changes for whatever reason, you recalculate the final attribute value from all sources. It can be a bit finicky, but should possibly be much more robust than straight-up mutation and a better trade-off in the code, and the computational cost should be a non-issue since it is just the main character and very few equipment slots and sources. That might fix a number of different bugs related to stats - the ring I forged with the  Golden Goblin also appeared buggy in regards to stats. In some ways inspired by "reactive" programming, or like Excel cells, or "unidirectional data flow", but just limited to stats. It will likely take you time to implement that subsystem and replace the current apparent direct-mutation-bookkeeping method you use.

I do not know whether my iron man hard mode run is now ruined, because having 108 intelligence is over-powered. At least "intelligence" first and foremost affects the ability to read books.

Wait, my maximum mana is also affected. I have 195 mana. That must be from the paladin's shield, since the "mind" ability is what gives extra maximum mana.

I will end my run and claim that I lost due to being completely over-powered due to unintentional exploit-usage due to bugs.

I still have not completed an iron man hard mode run. Much sadness.