I just barely managed to get this game in a playable state in time for the jam submission deadline, which I did not think I'd be able to do. Emphasis on "playable." This game about bugs is unsurprisingly quite buggy, but I don't have time to fix them right now because I have to go to work. Have fun with it while I'm gone!

I’ve just updated The Legend of Quintavius to version 0.5. Aside from more bug fixes, it adds a new setting for effects; in addition to just turning them on or off, you can also enable them during cutscenes only, and not during gameplay.

Effects in this game are just Stencyl actors (similar to game objects in Unity), same as characters but much simpler. Since this game has a lot of actors, I wanted to have options to reduce the number of actors for anyone who has trouble running the game, for whatever reason that might be.

But since there’s so many effects, I’ve played through the entire game with each of the three settings to make sure nothing breaks, but it’s still possible some bugs exist that I just didn’t come across. So if you find a bug, experience lag, or the game freezes, you can try a different setting for effects and see if that makes a difference, and let me know if it does.

Now that this update is out (later than I had wanted), I’ll be taking a probably much needed break from The Legend of Quintavius for the rest of the month. In a few days, I will try to make a game for Ludum Dare; it’s most likely going to be in the extra category again. And after that, I’ll start sharing what I’m working on for Pixel Day. To be honest, that project has been stealing my attention from LoQ, and I think you’ll understand why when you see it.

I plan on returning to LoQ in February, and I’ll resume my semi-daily Twitter posts. But instead of doing more bug fixes, I’ll start working on some of the bigger stuff that needs to be done. Because there’s always going to be a bug to fix, even after the official release.

In case you missed it, or if this is the first you’ve seen of it, I finally released that one game I’ve been making for over three years. It’s an open beta pending an actual official 1.0 release because I still have a few more things to work on, but the game is entirely playable from start to finish. If you haven't tried it yet, you can find it here.

So far I’ve released a couple patches, mostly bugs that had escaped me until after launch. I also posted some blogs just talking about the game, not just general updates like this one, but topics I think might be interesting, like how my silly battle game accidentally gave rise to phenomena found in the real world.

Most of my activity has been on Twitter recently, where I’ve been posting semi-daily. Social media is not my strong suit, and I’m a very shy lurker, but I’m just trying to tweet little things about the game and keep a consistent flow. A neat idea I had was this thread of character introductions with a short description, their dialogue picture and animated sprite, and some relevant stats. But something I still need to figure out is how to record pixel perfect clips of gameplay, or as close to that quality as I can get, because my beta trailer could have looked better if I’d known anything about recording gameplay.

I have another update in the works that fixes a lot of problems with effects (which in this game are just a lot of pretty objects), it just needs a lot of testing to make sure it doesn’t break anything. But my progress has been slowing down; the holidays are near and I got pretty busy with some IRL things. I also plan on making another Ludum Dare game in January, and later I want to do something for Pixel Day. But I won’t stop making The Legend of Quintavius for another few months again.

The Legend of Quintavius’ gameplay mechanics are very experimental. The idea is basically a battle simulator, with several characters on either side running around and smacking each other with their weapons. But coding it from scratch has been a journey all on its own.

Almost every character has the same AI and does the following; first they find a target, then they navigate to that target, and lastly they engage in combat with the target. But this seemingly simple behavior ended up getting really complicated, and opened the door for some unusual bugs.

Characters pick a target that’s closest to them, but then must maneuver around obstacles and their own allies to get to their target. Since this is a top-down game and characters can only move in 4 directions, they switch between prioritizing up/down and left/right movement. And if a character runs into another enemy, they target them instead. Friendly soldiers will also try to stop fighting and find Quintavius if they have low health, and ranged soldiers will try to keep their distance from their target and attack from afar. Some characters even have different abilities that make everything even more complicated.

There’s so much going on that even the tiniest, most unnoticeable difference in an otherwise deterministic jumble of code can completely change the course of a battle. It actually seems to have a lot to do with chaos theory and the butterfly effect. I’m not an expert on that topic; my knowledge mainly comes from Wikipedia and Youtube videos. But its presence in my game really fascinates me, and I think it’s a sign of good game design.

But it goes further than that, because when I say a character “tries,” I mean it. Sometimes a character can get stuck around obstacles or allies trying to reach their target, or try to push another character instead of just going around, almost like they’re confused. Soldiers try to find Quintavius if they’re in danger, but they can still get caught or even trapped by several monsters, unable to escape. And ranged soldiers almost seem to get lost, trying to stay away from monsters until they wander too far and have trouble getting back to the party. These imperfections have inadvertently made these characters even more alive, almost more human.

It’s very similar to the fog of war, the uncertainty of your allies’ and enemies’ capabilities, and intentions. And the uncertainty of your own capabilities, too. Can you both fight and avoid monsters, and keep your entire team alive at the same time? Because they’re counting on you. Think about it; everyone else might also be uncertain of your intentions, too.

Some of the bugs in this game have made it more realistic. Why should I put the effort into removing them when they make the game so much more interesting? Why not decide to make them features instead and keep working on them? I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and it’s why I have such a hard time defining what a bug is. But it’s also why I’m fine with releasing the game with all these bugs. Paired with the story, I think it makes a really unique experience. You truly have no idea what will happen.

Now that my chaotic battle game is out, one of the things I’m most curious about is how difficult it is for everyone. I don’t want it to be a hard game; it shouldn’t take you more than a couple tries to win a battle, and you shouldn’t have to know all its mechanics to do so. But since this is the most complicated game I’ve ever made and its mechanics are pretty experimental, it’s tough to gauge how hard it really is.

How hard is it to avoid taking damage and being defeated? How hard is it to keep soldiers healed (ignoring that bug where some of them end up at the edge of the scene)? How hard is it to fight each boss with all their unique mechanics? I’m curious to hear what you think.

I feel like I have a pretty good balance between everything right now, but I’ll probably change some things if it would improve the difficulty. Something to keep in mind is that I intended for Quintavius to be weak. It forces you to avoid damage altogether and rely on your allies to help you fight monsters. People have suggested a way to heal yourself, but the problem with that is it’d nullify this entire dynamic.

I’ve thought about having multiple difficulty modes, but with this kind of game I feel like it’d be best experienced with one difficulty that’s designed for everyone. Maybe I’ll change my mind (again) in the future. But something else I haven’t thought of before that might work out better is difficulty scaling; changing the difficulty based on how well the player is doing. I already did something like this for the final boss, because he’s so much more powerful than everyone before him. So (without spoiling anything) on your third try and after, the time it takes to fight him is greatly decreased.

Let me know how hard you think this game or any specific areas are. A lot of my games are supposed to be really hard because those are the kind of games I enjoy, but this is one I don’t want anyone to struggle with.

It’s almost done.

The game is playable and the story is complete, from beginning to end. There’s only a few things I have left to do in terms of game content, like the world map and that giant dragon that will definitely take a while to complete (you’ll know when you see her; that will not be the final sprite). Another thing on my to-do list is the credits, right now it just says “Made by Immanent Death.” I’m even thinking about adding a few more secrets to make things more interesting, just for fun.

But the biggest problem I’ve been facing, because of how much bigger this game is than any other game I’ve made, is how many bugs there are. They’re anything from barely noticeable details that don’t affect anything, to game-breaking glitches that have flown under my radar. Figuring out how to fix one could take anywhere from a few seconds to several days or even weeks. And keeping track of them has been extremely difficult; my bug list is enormous, and a mess, and it’s probably outdated, too. Because what baffles me the most is when I don’t touch the game for a while, and then come back to find bugs that never existed before. How did that happen?! I don’t know if something changed in the browser or HTML5 or Stencyl when I wasn’t looking. And I’ve also had bugs completely disappear with no explanation. I have no idea how many bugs in my list still exist anymore.

This is why I keep making games where bugs are personified antagonists.

No matter how much progress I’ve made, finishing this game hasn’t gotten any less daunting. I still don’t know if I ever will. But here’s the thing; I’m tired. I’ve been making, giving up on, and returning to this game for over three years. I feel like the finish line is moving away from me the closer I get to it. I just want everyone to finally play my game and enjoy it and/or have mixed feelings about it.

So I’m starting an open beta. The game is available to play right now, right here, in all its epic, janky glory. It’s about an hour long and there are save points, so you don’t have to play through it in one sitting.

This begins the second time I’ve publicly developed a game, the first being for my very first game. On itch.io I can just set the release status to “In development,” but on Newgrounds I’m trying something different. I’ve made the preview page public, and when I feel it’s ready for an actual, official release, then I’ll publish it to the portal.

I cannot guarantee that it won’t crash or soft lock or do other catastrophic things. I have a list in the game’s description of the major bugs I’m aware of, as well as a complete bug list and changelog on my website, so you’ll know what you’re getting yourself into. But I also have a couple tools to help find and bypass bugs.

First, I have a Google Form for bug reports and feedback. I would really appreciate it if you could fill one out whenever you find a bug, or if you just have some feedback to share. It’ll help me organize and prioritize what I need to work on, since my bug list’s reliability is inversely proportional to its age. But also, if you just have a small comment or detail you want to point out, you can just send me a message or leave a comment.

Second, there’s an option in the settings menu to jump to save points, both as a testing tool and just a QoL feature. Whenever you see the save icon, that save point is unlocked and you can jump to it any time; just keep in mind if you go back to a previous save point, your score will be set to 0. But if the game is breaking too badly for you to progress, there’s a cheat code to unlock all save points; just type “quintessence” on the title screen.

I’ll definitely have more to say later as development continues, but you should probably still expect me to be slow about it. I should also mention that my 3+ year old laptop has really bad memory issues and could die any day now. I’ve already had the most disastrous System 32 error of all time, and it’s a miracle it’s still working. It’s especially tough running Photoshop on it, which sucks up all the memory it can get ahold of and ignores the limit I’ve set for it. So it’s quite possible there will be more unplanned delays.

But at the end of the day, what really matters to me is that my story is finally out there, even if the game itself is pretty scuffed. I encourage you to try your hardest to break everything you can and then complain to me about it with descriptive details. And thank you for being patient with me while I try to finish this game.

Sometimes I forget that I’m a gamer. The kind of gamer who sees games as a challenge to overcome, who finds completing games rewarding in and of itself. If a game is too hard, well that just means I’ve got more practice to do, and it’ll be that much more rewarding when I beat it. But it’s a double-edged sword; if a game is too easy, it’s not fun for me.

As a game developer, I try my best to make games for all kinds of gamers, but I also try to make the kinds of games I’d want to play myself. I know my games aren’t for everyone, and I don’t try to make games everyone will like. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try to make my games as fun as I can for as many people as I can.

I read a post the other day that got me thinking about Qubit again. I put a lot of time and thought into balancing its difficulty, and I ended up with something I actually really enjoy playing, more than several of my other games. I fully intended it to be as hard as it is because that’s the kind of game it ended up being, and I was happy with it being a niche game that few people might like, but people like me would really enjoy. I hope you guys know I wasn’t trying to be mean or rude when I said to just keep trying. I try to give helpful tips and hints, but I was hesitant to change the difficulty of a game, especially if it’s more fun for me the way it is.

But after thinking about it more, my viewpoint has changed, and I thought of a way for everyone to have their cake and eat it, too. It’s actually the same thing I added to Darkhouse way back when; difficulty modes. I think a game with an optional hard mode is better than a game that’s just hard. So go give easy mode a try and see if it’s more fun for you.

Darkhouse is the only other game I’ve made so far with difficulty modes, and the only thing it changes is what checkpoints are active. The original version didn’t save any checkpoints after a game over, and the game takes about an hour to beat in one run. It just wasn’t really fair, so I added modes that made checkpoints permanent so players can keep their hard-earned progress.

I didn’t think to add difficulty modes to an endless game that only lasts a few seconds or minutes. Especially for small games like Qubit, I just try to make them for the kind of person I think would like them, and I don’t really update games much after their release (I also had this weird belief that I couldn’t update a jam game with more than bug fixes after the deadline).

So I might be pretty late with this update. I’m sorry it didn’t happen sooner, but at least it’s more accessible to future players.

Easy mode changes a lot, including the player’s physics that a lot of people suggested I change; now the player switches direction faster but has a maximum speed to stop further acceleration, so it feels lighter. It’s still not an easy game, but it’s a lot better than the original difficulty. I know the mechanics can be confusing but I swear they’re not that complicated; I am not smart enough to fully understand quantum physics, I just think it’s cool.

For me, easy mode isn’t hard enough. When I changed just the player physics and nothing else, I already managed to get past 2 minutes after a couple tries. After making all the other changes, I was able to surpass 5 minutes, which is longer than the game’s song. At one point I tunneled so many times I nearly reached the right edge of the screen, partly just due to chance, but I couldn’t have done it without all the health I’d accumulated. As interesting as that was, for me it’s just not as fun as normal mode, but my hope is that more people will have more fun with it than I do.

Thanks for getting me to think about this more, and don’t ever let me forget it. Oh, and I also added an even harder mode just in case even normal mode is too easy for you.

And for the record, I’m still going to make the full version of Darkhouse an absolute nightmare.