Quarter Onion Games

Tag: developer notes

  • Emberlight 2019: In Retrospect – The State of the Game

    Emberlight 2019: In Retrospect – The State of the Game

    As we continue with areas that we are actively looking to improve in the future. There will always be places where we can do better, both working together as a studio, and each person that is a part of this experience. We fail as a studio when we can’t identify where we failed.

    Ongoing Bugs

    Nobody likes bugs, least of all the developers of your favorite games. As games get more complex, bugs will express themselves in new and “exciting” ways, and the team is always looking to resolve them. We’ve had a few rare bugs that continue to elude us, particularly a rare turn bug, and it’s been a tough one to crack.

    For the non-coder type, most of the code of a game tends to interact in some way with everything else. Making changes that may seem benign will suddenly break another system. While some fixed can be straightforward with some elbow grease and focus, others are a lot more complicated, and we’ve built a stronger QA and unit testing process for future projects to help us identify and resolve issues early.

    Game Presentation

    Consistent feedback we received from the community focused on a lack of user feedback within Emberlight. Whether this was confusion within initial menus, or a lack of direction with something as important as navigating the rooms on a level, we needed to do a better job at conveying information to our community. Efforts such as tutorials we’re not enough to properly ease players into the game.

    As a team, we have a major focus in the current project to ensure the user feedback is properly designed out at the start. We can’t assume that a new player will simply get it, and therefore the game needs to provide appropriate direction for a player that needs it. At the same time, we cannot force a player down a lengthy tutorial, so it’s a balancing act that we’ll refine with the demo we’re working on.

    Game Awareness

    While this isn’t directly related to the game development itself, getting awareness for future games is crucial to build our community and push us to continue building quality games for everyone. This was a learning experience for us, and we have new tools in the tool belt for our future projects. Particularly both how to get the game in front of more people, and to ensure that our presentation properly represents the game.

    We had many great reviewers, streamers, and YouTubers play our game and provide feedback on it, and it was a humbling experience to hear everyone’s views on Emberlight. From the reviews we received, we averaged around a 7 out of 10 which is average to us. Nothing less than a 10 out of 10 is good enough, and we have a blueprint on how to achieve that goal.

    If you have purchased the game, please leave a review so the Steam algorithm can index our game properly.

    Our final article will focus on our next project. We’re super excited to finally unveil our recent work, and where we’re going in 2020. Stay tuned!

    Read the first article here.

  • Emberlight 2019: In Retrospect

    Emberlight 2019: In Retrospect

    As we walk into a new decade, the experience of creating and launching a game has given us a lot of insight into how to move forward confident in our abilities as a studio. We’ve grown this past year with Emberlight and our wonderful community with well over a thousand folks that have given us a chance so far but there’s always room to improve. We strive for a 10 outta 10 with our future games, and it starts with self-critiques which we’ll breakdown in a three-parter leading into our new game in production.

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  • Emberlight October Content Update Patch Notes

    Emberlight October Content Update Patch Notes

    The development team has made the following changes to the game in our October Content Patch Update. This patch is scheduled for release later today.

    Please read the changes below.

    • Ember Maiden class has been added to the game.
    • Turns that would hang on certain situations with summoning units that would cause the run to be abandoned has been fixed
    • The camera position has been moved back to allow us to increase the detail of each map.
    • All maps have been overhauled or updated due to the new camera settings.
    • All units have been spaced out to provide more variety in their sizes. Bosses are much larger than a regular character.
    • New character portraits have been added to the game for selecting quests and characters prior to launching the game.
    • The loading process for the game has been split up to speed up the game. A loading bar will show the progress when starting the game.
    • Forest and Sewer themes added to the game.
    • The first and second levels will randomly select from different themes. The first level uses either forest or ruins, and the second level uses caves or sewers.
    • You can now suspend a run and continue it at a later date.
    • An ability button was added to the game where you can move your skills around your characters at any time.

    Any issues with the patch please report them to us on our discord server.

     

  • Updated Patch Notes for August 30

    Updated Patch Notes for August 30

    The development team has made more improvements to the game. Read the updated changes in the patch notes for changeset 1.0831 below.

    • Resolved issue where “Share A Pint” achievement wasn’t being fired off due to a corner case not handled.
    • Additional safety checks added when getting all party members or enemies, and getting a random party member or enemy, to hopefully resolve Blaze Knight getting stuck. This also removes two while loops that could potentially stall the game.
    • Summoned units with “shared drain” now properly give the drain heal to the party instead of enemies.
    • Shared drain now in ability tooltips. Applies to Necromantic Heal and Necromantic Aura where the drain heal is applied to allies.
    • Ability bar now shows a “full cooldown” on any arcane and psionic abilities when the unit is silenced.
    • While previously the buttons would do nothing if clicked when an ability was not ready, buttons are now non-interactable when the ability is not ready. This includes Fury abilities.
    • Resolved issue where “Jump to me” button in daily challenge did not work properly.
    • Resolved issues with moving left/right in leaderboard with the recent back-end changes.
    • Adjusted gambling chances to win to 40%/35%/30% based on amount waged. Will continue to adjust from recent feedback.
    • Props now have a range for chance to fire off versus one set value. This was in response to feedback where graves would spawn a skeleton every click. All props now roll a chance value based on the prop template’s min and max, and then test against it per use.
    • Updated all ability and trait icons.

    Join our popular Discord Community Server at www.discord.gg/quarteronion to discuss Emberlight.

     

     

     

  • Updated Patch Notes for August 26 – Steam Achievements Added

    Updated Patch Notes for August 26 – Steam Achievements Added

    The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest Changeset 826 update.  Steam Achievements are now live! Earn 49 new badges for your steam profile with these new achievements.

    • Updated the ground on surface and caves to help with feedback where the characters blend too much due to similar color scheme
    • Adjusted the quest screen tutorial to help with some confusion on quest selection
    • Added a tutorial in-game for purity mode explaining what it does when active
    • Added cloud saving of corruption points, corruption levels, and all corrupted bosses. This is paired to whichever platform you’re currently logged into (Steam has highest priority, and Discord is secondary). Bonus points if you have the same display/username between Steam and Discord as it will use the same backend. This is also the same system that determines name on top left of main menu.
    • Updated leaderboard system to now show “today’s leaderboard” which clears when challenge resets, and “lifetime leaderboard” which shows highest score. This also uses new backend with cloud saving which unfortunately wiped out all lifetime scores to date.
    • Updated trap room effect due to graphical artifacts and performance issues
    • Removed light around treasure in treasure room
    • Resolved issue where, with the game log turned off, it’d flash on and off in rooms as messages were passed to it
    • Resolved issue where, with purity mode, if you exhausted all corrupted bosses in pool, you could still select a corruption quest and crash in boss room
    • Gambling chance now 50/50 (originally 70% chance to lose). 10% chance for jackpot stays the same
    • Added wolf/werewolf hurt and die sounds
    • Updated sounds for critters (especially rats which made everyone’s ears bleed)
    • All units now have variance in their stats and health instead of just the level’s base balancing amounts
    • Voice now has its own sound category in options
    • Achievements added to the game. Currently only in Steam. Eventually will show in the encyclopedia.
    • Rooms with doors now properly highlight both the frame and door when hovered

    Join our popular Discord Community Server at www.discord.gg/quarteronion to discuss Emberlight.

     

     

  • Updated Patch Notes for August 21

    Updated Patch Notes for August 21

    The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest Changeset 825 update.

    • Resolved issue where diminishing returns/hard cap on crowd control was not working properly. It now properly recognizes dimishing returns (there is a test per attempt to use) along with a hard cap (after 10 full uses in a room, CC will not work). This should help with a few encounters that overloaded CC (wolves and werewolf encounters, critter encounter with 3 rats, and Ratman miniboss) as well as corruption fight with CC-heavy party members.
    • Raised floaty text above the status effects area. It will also raise higher with many status effects.
    • Resolved issue where the Blaze Knight, when having multiple turns in succession, didn’t rotate back to starting rotation in between turns. This was fixed before launch, but accidentally commented out in a recent update.
    • Leaderboard numbers now start at 1 position as opposed to 0.
    • Added roadmap image as a clickable button to bottom left of main menu. This opens browser to the State of the Game article for details on the future of Emberlight.

    Join our popular Discord Community Server at www.discord.gg/quarteronion to discuss Emberlight.

     

  • Updated Patch Notes for August 19

    Updated Patch Notes for August 19

    We just made updates, changes, and some fixes in the latest build for Emberlight in Changeset 821. Please read about the new purity mode for those wishing for a “good ending” in options as well as the other updates to the game.

    • Rebuilt quest screen to help resolve confusion in determining which quest was selected and how long the quest will last
    • Fixed a few grammar and spelling errors
    • Resolved issue where the persistent corruption bars did not properly update the bar portion
    • Resolved issue where the windowed option was flipped
    • Unit portraits (in abilities window, town portal, and above units on screen) now show stats window when hovering over
    • Traits have all been shifted as status effects to make them more apparent. We’ll see how this plays out in later levels where many more status effects are applied and whether we’ll need to present the traits differently.
    • Various tweaks to the tutorial messages to align to recent changes
    •  Pushed the updated options window
    • Quest window now defaults to highest accessible quest. It can still be cycled.
    • Updated method for hovering over unit portraits as it was occasionally flipping the toggle
    • Resolved issue where somehow clicking through tutorial windows in quest and party screens allowed the back button to be hit leaving the tutorial window up indefinitely.
    • With traits now in status effects, reduced size of each icon to be 6 wide to handle traits, drinks, and any active status effects.

    Purity Run Explained

    • When defeating the final boss, if none of the party members received any corruption (relying solely on town portal abilities), the corruption fight is skipped and a different ending is earned. No corrupted boss is created. This was in response to feedback requesting a “good” ending.
    • Is Purity Run added to options menu. When set, if any party members have 0 corruption but a corruption fight must happen due to another member having corruption, the system will pick a 0 corrupted party member in the fight. This was in response to feedback requesting a “good” ending.
    • If at least one corruption fight occurs, but the survivors are not corrupted, the second ending is earned. No corrupted boss is created. This was in response to feedback requesting a “good” ending.

     


     

  • Updated Patch Notes for August 16

    Updated Patch Notes for August 16

    Thank you everyone for supporting Emberlight. Here is a list of things we added or changed based on the community’s suggestions.

    Here are the highlights

    • How to play removed from encyclopedia due to tutorial system ingame. Defaults to locations tab.
    • Resolved the abilities and town portal windows still having the rare case of an icon being stuck on the screen
    • For effects with absorb and mirror image which stay active until used up, duration now goes down to 0 versus negative before
    • Adjustments made to better support multi-monitor setups
    • Added Windowed mode back into options. Seems stable, but we’ll need more testing to be 100% (Need to check the box then uncheck it to enable. Will be adjusted in next update)
    • Finally, maybe, hopefully resolved the rare wander creature bug
    • Tweaks to order of operations when handling death to see if this resolves the rare bug where sometimes an enemy is at 0hp and yet doesn’t die with the turn system getting stuck
    • Potions now function the way they worked before where multiple can be used in a cleared room
    • Tooltips for potions button are now always active to show potion amount regardless of situation or if there’s 0
    • Game log can now be disabled in the options menu if you find it intrusive

    If you have any more suggestions, feeling chatty, or need support, simply join our community on Discord to speak with us.

    — Quarter Onion Games


     

  • Emberlight – State of the Game

    Emberlight – State of the Game

    So we have finally reached the finish line (of sorts) for Emberlight. What does that mean for Emberlight over the next few months? And more importantly, what is up the sleeves of our team over the next year or two? Read on, dear reader, and we’ll go down the path of Trinity.

    Roadmap for Emberlight

    We had posted the Emberlight Roadmap a few months ago due to questions about what was happening after August 13th. And while this roadmap details a lot of the cool content and features we have planned over the next year, it doesn’t really go into detail about how we will continue to build up the core functionality we have in Emberlight now. So where are we going with Emberlight?

    First off, we know there’s still plenty to tweak. We took in valuable feedback during our pre-launch period from the many streamers and YouTubers that helped iron out flaws we were overlooking. There’s still some glitches, including a few we’re having a helluva time to recreate (resurrection instantly killing the resurrect party member which might be a feature, the Blaze Knight moonwalking which is most definitely not a feature, and those pesky snakes not going away properly when ending a run), but these will be cleaned up.

    As many will attest during the pre-launch period, we will work rapidly to get these fixed. We’ve done what we could to alleviate the vast majority of issues. These last few mainly stem from an inability to recreate on the development side making it very difficult to resolve them without potentially breaking the game for those without the issues. We will continue to tweak areas to see if it resolves itself, but it’s one of those areas where we may just need new eyes looking at the code base as we start rounding out the team for this and future endeavors.

    Of particular note is additional platforms we plan to support. We aim to be on iOS and Android by the end of October with the Co-op mode update. We then, publisher permitting, aim to be on the Switch by the end of December with the Dungeon Master mode update. At the moment, those are the only platforms we’re aiming for long term but we are open to suggestions from our community (please come talk to us on Discord, we don’t bite…).


     

    Project 2 (It really needs a name…)
    So we’ve briefly discussed what is after Emberlight, which will get touched on in more detail below, but the current goal is for project 2 to be a tactical RPG. Keeping with the tradition of Emberlight pulling from our nostalgia of Final Fantasy X and XI while attempting to modernize it with a few twists, Project 2 will pull specifically from our nostalgia of Ogre Battle. This project will fall within the same timeline as Emberlight, and this becomes important with Trinity.

    What is Trinity?
    Trinity is basically a framework that will connect Emberlight, Project 2, and a third concept (a side scrolling city simulator) into one persistent shard. The point of Trinity is continuing the charm of single player games (you do not directly connect to any players within the shard you are playing on), but the actions of each playthrough have lasting consequences on the shard. Emberlight players completing quests will see those regions have a smaller evil footprint. Project 2 players will secure the borders as countries vie for power and territory. And the city sim players are the engine that fuels the other two games, providing quests and resources respectively.

    Is this ambitious? Most definitely. And this is why we want to focus on each game as its own project. We want to build these to the highest quality possible. Trinity basically forces us to. Even as we shift gears into the 2nd and 3rd projects, we are still having to work on the previous games to ensure they all pair up properly.

    Just as Dungeon Master mode in Emberlight comes from our yearning for that tabletop experience in the games that we just feel hasn’t quite been achieved yet, Trinity builds off of our desire for a most interactive experience for players in all genres. That ability to play a game that is underappreciated in the industry and yet have it interact with those that are.

    Can we pull all of this off? We sure can!

    – The Quarter Onion Games team


  • Updated Patch Notes for August 9 (Ready for Launch)

    Updated Patch Notes for August 9 (Ready for Launch)

    Emberlight is now ready to release on both Steam and Discord on August 13th.  We made the following tweaks to the game in the latest patch build .818.

    • Tweaked quest selection tutorial due to recent feedback to be more explicit in how the window works.
    • Tweaked the entrance room tutorial that pops up to have a quick tip on navigation as folks have gotten stuck on this in multiple streams/videos. The tutorial for navigation still gets added as well.
    • Locked quests on the quest window now are grayed out but still allow tooltips (to show corruption level to unlock) and cycling through them.
    • Added Steamworks fully to launch build. Will eventually support achievements and cloud saves. For now, it will grab the display name to show in top left (previously either randomized a name or grabbed the Discord display name).
    • Debug mode has been disabled for launch build.
    • Adjustments to game UI to ensure that no input can happen during either an enemy’s turn, or with a party member that is charmed, confused, or stunned. Still working to fix the character getting stuck that occasionally happens.
    • Adjusted damage shield tooltip text to say that it reflects damage back onto attacker.
    • Adjusted reflect tooltip text to say it reflects all abilities back onto attacker.

    Join our popular Discord Community Server at www.discord.gg/quarteronion to discuss Emberlight. We are ready for launch!