Weekly update - 16 september 2024

I decided to make a weekly devlog each monday for this project, to both keep track of the game's state and announce what's new in the latest version of the playable demo.

• The playable character "Neofiend" has a new third skill which performs a dash and some explosions (because why not);
• Added more enemies: the "rookie", which is a weak but fast enemy, and the "hoplite", a decently strong melee enemy;
• Tentative game loop: explore, defeat enemies that spawn every X seconds, find the gate to the next level (aka stage), which is protected by the stage boss. Upon defeating the boss, the player can advance to the next stage. Enemies keep spawning once the boss is spawned, for 30 seconds (will add a progress bar / timer for this), and once the boss is defeated, enemies no longer spawn: this is to prevent infinite EXP and POINTS grinding;
• Improved the loot from exploration, such as the loot chests now drop more EXP shards;
• More clarity to the visuals of the mages' orb attacks;
• Reworked some melee powerups (aka mutations): both the "Stolen Blade" and "Feral Limb" got updates and feel much better to play with;
• A lot of bug fixing, specifically to the enemies management systems and homing-type attacks;
• Balanced the knockback values for all the current powerups (aka mutations): some got nerfed, some got buffed;

The latest version of the TECH DEMO is now available on https://starcrit.itch.io/fiendrise, I hope you enjoy it!