As usual there's a lot of planning and designing going on in between our actual graphic/programming jobs, and with Arcadia there's been a ton of it. Here's a couple new things:
Intro Pacing: For new players, Arcadia can be a bit much to grasp in the beginning, and that will be even more true after the rework is complete. There's a ton of empty plots ready to be purchased by you, new characters and quirks that are unlocked from the beginning or will appear as you play (such as Candy and Muffin who were scheduled to appear after you've reached a certain floor or when you've died x times respectively).
To pace things a little better, we've decided that the first time you spawn in Arcadia, there won't be any signs near the empty plots describing what they'll do. Instead, there will be a cutscene where your new partner in crime introduces himself (Trunk), and you're off on your adventure. The ability to purchase things will only become available after your first death, at which point you'll actually have some money for the first time: and to further invite people to aim for a plot purchase, a NPC will provide a quest with a gold reward.
A couple of deaths after that, Muffin will appear to help you out with treats, and after a while (or after you've reached a certain score and/or floor), he in turn will have a quest for you, which is to bring back Candy who has gotten lost somewhere. Finishing this quest will unlock Curses.
And so instead of everything hitting the player at once (or just randomly), we feel this step by step introduction will be easier to grasp for new Arcade Mode players and sets things up more nicely.
A new type of room: or perhaps, rather, another thing that can happen in event rooms! In some event rooms in the future, there might be a captures NPC tied to a pole or shut in a cage, which upon inspection will trigger a mini boss battle. Winning against this mini boss will unlock the captured NPC in your town, where they might just be another friendly face (with a reward?!) or provide new quests in the future.
More Curses:
* Each room's edges are burning
* The floor is ice
* Defeated enemies leave aoe effects where they fell (such as blind, poison gas, acid, etc)
* Temporary blindness upon entering a new room/Blinding shrooms appear in rooms (haven't decided on which of these variations yet)
* Enemies from the higher areas appear in lower floors
* Player takes double damage
Bishop's Special Runs: Since some people (ourselves included) have expressed a wish to be able to replay certain extreme challenges, such as Bishop's "no leveling, all elites" run, we've decided to add the option! At Bishop you'll be able to select these special formats in a list once you completed the original quest(s) where these rules first applied. Next to each special condition you'll see a mini hiscore list of how far you got (what floor you reached), encouraging you to aim higher next time.
For these special runs you won't be able to use neither curses nor treats, and the highscore gain remains as if you played the game normally. It's basically just for fun wacky ways of playing the game, and some of the special modes include:
* No leveling
* Ell enemies are elites
* Both the above at the same time
* 24/7 blind effect
* Clear the rooms in S-rank speed or insta-die
While some of these could be curses instead/as well, we decided to keep these crazier versions separate as the game isn't designed to be played this way; you're basically not really meant to be able to finish the game with one of these adjustments on, and as such we thought it'd be more interesting to give them their own highscore board where you can see how far you got, rather than an arbitrary score increase.
Exciting times!
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