A Vibrant Melody Patch notes 0.22b

Compendiums, Vacations and Reactions

Hi everyone, 

We’re almost ready for a wider release! I’ve been focusing on getting everything ship shape and ready to go. There are so many quality of life changes, new sounds, art, and bug fixes. Along with all these little things, there’s a few bigger things too. Now all the creatures and eggplants react when they are soothed or upset, by flashing, moving, and making sounds. I also added Creature Vacations, where each match one of the basic creatures will go on holidays, so they won’t be around or in need of cheering up. Along with that there’s new button art and animations for the menus, new sounds for the Singing Girl, and a creature compendium, which tells you about all the creatures as you unlock them. The most immediately obvious change are the Creature and Egg Plant reactions. They now flash blue/green when they are soothed, and orange when they are angered. When creatures are angered they take longer to soothe and can reach new emotional states with more powerful abilities. However when Egg Plants are angered they take longer to hatch, and when soothed they hatch more quickly. It should be much easier now to see the results of your actions, and the effects that the creatures are having on one another and on the Egg Plants.

Last patch I made it so that you unlock different sets of creatures as you get better at escaping from the desert, I’ve now added a Creature Compendium to the game, which shows you these creatures as you unlock them. Once unlocked you can see them in the compendium in the main menu. Each creature has a picture and a short description. As you unlock new creatures you’ll get a splash screen that shows their compendium page to you as well. I’ve also added a button to the pre-game screen to let you preview which creatures you’re up against this match.

One of the issues with the late game is that matches can feel a little too similar, to help address this issue I’ve added Creature Vacations. Now once you unlock it one of the basic creatures will go on vacation and won’t appear in the desert this match. This will help prevent players from relying too much on the particular abilities of once creature type. To complement this I’ve also made the order in which creatures appear each match a lot more randomised.

In addition to all these major features I’ve added a bunch of new art and recorded a bunch of new sounds. You’ll notice that all of the main characters in game voice lines have been updated as well as a few new ones added. Pebble people and Scarab hosts now have proper attack animations, and I’ve fixed some bugs that were stopping their current state from displaying properly. Ecstatic Pricklers finally have their own art. I have a new title screen background. And all the menu buttons have new art and animations, and sounds. I hope you like a few transition animations I’ve added, especially the one in the start match loading screen. Adding all this stuff allowed me to redesign a lot of the code base making things more clear and easier to update in the future.

Make sure to check out the past couple of patch notes if you want to see other recent features I designed to make the game more accessible and deeper.

So please let me know what you think!

Trev

@Trev_Murray on twitter

Hot Fixes 10/02/2020 Based on your feedback I’ve tweaked the first few matches to make the game even more accessible to new players. These will hopefully help with learning the game especially as you are starting out. Please let me know what you think. Please delete your previous saves to ensure there isn’t any funny business when playing this new patch.

• I've added a very simplified starting match which has reduced size and features the small egg, the agave, and the pebble people.
• The 2nd match also takes place on this small map and adds the Leap Frog and the Chord Egg
• The 3rd match moves to the bigger map and adds the Bramblers and the Cadenza Egg. 
• The first four matches also have some bonus starting time, to give a bit of extra freedom to learn how things work.
• The first two matches have reduced amounts of Emotional Energy on the ground at the start of the match. 1st Match 2 piles of 1, 2nd match 4 piles of 1.
• Adjusted the compendium to reflect these changes.
• Added Unlock splash screens to inform you as you unlock the new features.

Gameplay features and changes

• Added visible flashes when creatures are soothed or angered. They flash a green-blue when being soothed, and flash orange when being angered. In addition to small sprite movement animations
• Added visible flashes to Egg Plants when they are helped or hindered from hatching. Green-blue when sped-up, orange when delayed. In addition to small sprite movement animations
• Added animations of vines lashing out when Egg Plants eat Emotional Energy
• Added a Creature Compendium so you can learn about all the different creatures currently in the desert.
• Added splash screens after matches where you unlock new creatures.
• Made the pregame gems into buts so you can preview the creatures you’ll be up against this match.
• You can now flee the Tumbler fight by outlasting the timer. If you do you will be rewarded for each Tumbler emotional state you have soothed them through.
• Pebble People now throw pebbles each time they try to move, making it clear which tiles they are upsetting.
• Scarab hosts now slash the air each time they try to move, making it clear which tiles they are upsetting.
• Your emotional energy bar (outside ring) now flashes green when you collect emotional energy.
• Added animation and sounds for whenever you move to a new tile.
• Added sound effects to the menu system.
• Balance: On Vacation, one basic creature is unavailable during each match. This feature unlocks at the same time and the Emerald + Tigerseye. This means the total number of Creatures is 7 down from 8, or 4 before unlock.
• Balance: Increased the players starting emotional energy from 36 to 50, to make the early game a little less stressful.
• Balance: Moved Pebble People to the Emerald gemstone creature set.
• Balance: Moved the Pricklers to the Tigerseye gemstone creature set.
• New voice line for collecting emotional energy.
• New SFX and art for basic notes.
• New SFX and art for Flourishing Light (the 3rd note).
• New SFX for the Dash note.
• New voice line for the player being upset by a creature attack.
• Royal Gelee now heals the play at the end of each bar for two bars 7 emotional energy.
• New title screen, backdrop, and text.
• New buttons throughout all the menus with mouse over animations and SFX.
• Balance: The emotional energy on the ground at the start of the match can no longer spawn next to Egg Plants or the Portal Flower. The total amount released increased to 5 piles of 2, from 4 piles of 2.
• Added an animation to the loading screen when you begin a match.
• Added an escape button to the title screen, so you can quit with the mouse.

Bug fixes

• Bug/Balance: Egg Plants that collect Emotional Energy as they hatch now actually invest that energy into the creatures they release, and the number updates to reflect the final total.
• Fixed a bug that was causing all of the art to be distorted. It should look much better now!
• Fixed some bugs with the save game system that were stopping progress from updating.
• Fixed a bug which let you face off against the Tumbler indefinitely
• Fixed some display issues with the match timer once you summon the tumbler
• Fixed display issues with the par bar in the post game screen.
• Low time sounds will no longer play when the Tumbler summon animation is playing.

Known Bugs

• Tutorial doesn't load on mac.
• Very low amounts of emotional energy are sometimes invisible.
• Projectiles only check the player’s current tile so you can walk into a valid projectile tile at the last second, but not be hit.
• Frogs/lizard singing ignores armour, and can make scarabs happy instead of flying home.
• Display issues with the par-score system, and medal system. (Par score will be reworked in a future patch).
• The tutorial is very choppy, to the point of being unplayable on some systems, Please let me know if this is an issue for you, along with your system specifications.