It's almost ready! A few more small, easy bits left until the item storage menu is complete!! But for tonight, I rest...

The new storage menu is coming along fantastically! Most of the graphics and 100% of the features and QoL tweaks I could think of are now implemented. It still needs a few effects, sounds, and control guides, among a couple of other tiny details, but the storage menu is now officially a thing!

Here's how the upcoming item storage menu looks so far! It has taken a lot of work, but I wanted it to look slick, but also be easy to use. Still needs plenty of graphics. It has taken a moment to get working since it has some cool features...

Got more done today! I improved some effects related to items flying across the screen and started working on the background for the storage window. Bit by bit it is coming together!

Added the "cutoff window" for the scrolling items in the storage menu, fixed a couple other bugs while I was at it... all is working well so far! With this, I'll have everything set up to finish the rest of the visual touches, like borders! The item windows will have animated backgrounds inside!

Got more done on the storage menu yesterday. Even fixed a bug that caused items to be destroyed while in storage! All the functionality seems to be working too. The graphics for the tool buttons are in, but still needs the rest.

Just released a news item on Steam summarizing the upcoming patch! store.steampowered.com/news/app/351...

Miraculously, the new storage menu... works! Not detecting any more immediate bugs, all things behaving as they should so far. We're good to go on adding the graphics! The timeline for the next update moves that much closer!

Would you believe this is less buggy than I was expecting?

Managed to finish the bulk of the internal logic/input for the storage menu! Next, I must put together visual placeholders to see which parts will inevitably need fixing after writing 800 lines of code without testing.

Made more progress on the storage menu this morning! Input handling for KBM and Gamepad should be done. Some item transfer actions are in. It's about 70% coded, but I have yet to test it. I'll have to put together some placeholder graphics to see how many bugs I haven't caught... ran out of time!

Status update on the item storage menu! Most details of the internal logic of the storage menu are in place, here's a few things that remain: -Mouse input -Multiselect -Code for using tools(transfer,fuse,etc.) on item slots -Code for positioning of item icons and scrolling of storage box -Graphics!

Been working hard lately! Today, I'll be continuing work on the item storage menu for the next update. I'll report back with how far I get later...

By the way... for the Spring Sale!

Made more progress on the new item storage menu! I've now got items displaying in the slots... it's a start. I made it complicated by insisting on having the item slots able to animate between positions and do other fancy effects related to transferring, swapping, fusing, trashing and sorting.

Oh wow I can't believe he would say something so specific somehow.

One step closer! The "Status" mode of the world map will be a place to check an overview of your progress/stats, an overall territory map (if I can figure it out), and buttons to bring you to different features/services.

I feel the need to re-iterate that Grabbus and Foxoplasm LLC will NEVER make use of generative tech to replace human work. Games are art, and art is made by people, not machines. No matter how hard it is to make a game, to use these so-called "tools" defeats the purpose.

Just finished the last of the balance bits I wanted to fix before adding the item storage menu! With all these changes I'll go ahead and count this as a major update once the storage is ready! This will be a somewhat involved UI, I planned it out already, but it will take some time! Hold tight!

Made more progress on the balance adjustments. Stun chance adjusted to take damage amount into account, bullet ripening made less intense, size now affects damage for your and your foe's shots. Also fixed a bug related to spiky enemies no longer choosing to be spiky if they get scared.

I've made some progress last night! Four to-do items have been completed! Those being from the recent extended playtest. I'm excited for this next update! If I adjust things well, Grabbus will be more enjoyable as a simplified slice of the game experience rather than just a testing ground.

I've been doing an extended playtest on a fresh file to get another feel for balance and take notes on things I want to improve. I've come up with at least seven items for the to-do list, all of which are relatively easy and quick to do, but should greatly improve the experience!

Doing another balance playtest! Recently added a diminishing curve to certain difficulty modifiers on enemies, gonna see how it feels.

Taking a quick look at the enemy damage scaling formula. Feels like it goes up a bit harshly with difficulty level...

Last night I worked late and got the tiered pickup items finished and implemented! It will have an affect on balance, especially for healing orbs, so that will be a point of interest later! Fixed some bugs while I was in there too. One step closer to a cooler game!

Bandcamp Friday! I released my new album The Hugur Files in January when there WASN'T a BCF. So if you've been holding out until now to buy my album NOW'S YOUR CHANCE!! 🏃‍♀️💨

So far, I have the new quantagon(money) sprites animated! Next are the fusion sparks and health orbs. Once those are done, adding them to the loot pool is trivial!

There are still a few smaller items on my list before the item bank- for today... 1. Give the fusion spark its own sprite 2. Make new denomination tiers of pickup-on-touch items like the fusion spark, health orb, and currency, so that large rewards do not lag your game with tons of pickups.

For the next patch, just fixed the bug that made the inventory not show during the inventory tutorial. Oops!

While I'm sat here, I also came up with an easy optimization that will cut down on a number of checks that were being done each frame on all objects. Related to the "time layer" system for UI objects to take over and pause other entities under them. Allows better performance during gameplay!

Had a pipe burst last night, so dealing with that is gonna be a whole thing... In the meantime, I finally got the layout for the item bank UI put together. With this, I'll be able to program it quickly, knowing where everything goes and how it should work!

Working on the design for the item bank! Getting all the details and features I want from it written down, then I'll draw a layout of the interface based on those needs. I want it to be as easy and snappy as possible to organize and manipulate your collection of doodads!

Shout outs to this soundtrack! Very Grabbus... it's got the vibe. www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

This image, which metadata indicates is from 2009, is the first drawing of what would become Morris and Grabbus!

Here's a video showing off the improved tiles for the world map in the newest version... if you're curious to see! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmnd...

Thinking on boss battles, a far off feature. There's two things I know I want each boss to have. 1. Makes use of weapons, using their aspects in their own way, adding variety to repeated attempts 2. Something that involves using the ability to grab, throw, and/or pull to help defeat the boss.

V0.2.5 is now live! store.steampowered.com/news/app/351...

New update will be today! Patch notes soon...

What they said! I'll be showcasing this game, among a couple others for my 2hr segment of the charity stream marathon!There will be donation incentives as well, for crafts, of different degrees of being hand-made! Come swing by! Schedule provided below #charity #Palestine #Lebanon #Jordan #Anera

A new update for Grabbus will go live by Saturday! I can release what I have now, but want to see if I have time to throw anything else in before the charity stream. These won't be the beefiest patch notes ever in terms of content, but the fixes to loot are significant!

Just had a good extended play session to get a feel for where balance is at with the new fixes and features! With the fusion potency preview and loot calculation improvements, Grabbus feels better than ever to play! I can safely say that the loot is now working as intended. For now...

Grabbus will appear on a charity livestream on Sunday the 11th around 1-3AM EST! tiltify.com/+flat-friend...

I've gotten all the world map tiles I wanted to rework fixed up. Already looks better than before between that and the new foliage! Also just found an oversight in the calculation for loot drop potency. It went up exponentially with difficulty... way too OP items! Fixed it! Normal loot! Patch soon!

This morning I started another pass on some the worldmap tiles to improve the ones that feel least-fitting. A few more of those and it'll more slick than ever! After a few of these smaller tasks on the to-do list and a testing session to give me an idea of where balance is at... a new patch!

In the next update, see a preview of the resulting potency of a fusion, with a warning symbol if one/ ! \ or both/! !\ of the items you have highlighted for fusion have a potency above your containment stat. Also just fixed a mini-worldmap bug caused by the rotation optimization I did earlier!

Just succeeded in isolating fusion potency calculation to its own function, used by the fusion script. But NOW can also be used to tell you what potency a item fusion is ABOUT to be, helping you to plan your combos better! I still need to add that info to the inventory UI later, but that'll be easy.

Looking at the item fusion code to see how I'd like to approach the rework of merged potency calculation. It needs to be extracted to its own function that can be used to predict fusion potency outside of the act of fusing. Doesn't look like it'll be too hard though.

I've decided on what list items I want to include for next minor patch. One that has been asked for: previews for item fusion potency level, and weapon fusion shot-patterns! It requires a slight rework of fusion code, but should be possible.

I'll be attempting to wrap up the new world map foliage sprites today! Later, they will have more uses, but for now, just cosmetic. I'll try addressing a couple other smaller to-do-list items ASAP and package that into the next minor patch. I want to push this out soon since it fixes a data error.

Heya! Been taking a bit of a break after college classes, got all A's! Just checking in to let you know that I'm still here and working toward the next update! It's still a question as to whether I can afford the next semester, but if I can't, I'll certainly be prioritizing back to Grabbus!