Hey Ponderers!

This is where we are at:

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[c]--The Final Release Content Pass--[/c]

[c]- The Beginning (Magic + Scholar) -- (100% done)[/c]

[c]- The World / New Druidry -- (100% done)[/c]

[c]- The Workshop -- (100% done)[/c]

[c]- Alchemy, Part 1 -- (100% done)[/c]

[c]- Alchemy, Part 2 -- (100% done)[/c]

[c]- Rituals, Part 1 -- (60% -> 80% done)[/c]

[c]- Rituals, Part 2 + The End -- (0% -> 40% done)[/c]

[c]- New Game+ and Achievements -- (0% -> 80% done)[/c]

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Last month was incredibly productive. It feels similar to when you are on the last little bit of jigsaw puzzle: you've lined up most of the other pieces and then this sort of this cascade effect occurs. Every piece fills in quicker than the last. That's what orb has been feeling like to me.

And you can see above I went a little off the rails! I moved off of rituals to work on the New Game+ section because I was struck with how I wanted to handle the new prestige upgrades.

I've was brainstorming for a long time how I wanted to handle them, and I was always running into one small issue. "In a game about creating personalized builds, how do I fit prestige upgrades into that in a meaningful choice-based way?" If prestige upgrades simply upgraded each of your disciplines, wouldn't the player just simply choose the one that fits their current build? If you are a in a Wizardry focused build, wouldn't the player just choose the prestige upgrades that boosts Wizardry?

I want there to be meaningful choices in which prestige upgrades you choose to invest in.

And that's when this idea came to me: "Prestige upgrades will be drafted in a similar way to how Spells, Glyphs, Artifacts, etc. are drafted." And that got me so excited. Feels like I found the missing puzzle piece and all the other pieces clicked into place.

So New Game+ works like this:

- You earn Time Advancements for how far you get into each run (calculated by the number of attributes you've purchased)

- You are given a set of random challenges you can choose to complete on your next run. Each challenge completed gives you more Time Advancements.

- Achievements act as permanent upgrades. Completing an achievement on one run will give you a permanent upgrade for the rest of your runs.

- As you progress through a run, you will be able to draft your prestige upgrades, called Time Runes. This means you will choose 1 of 3 Time Runes, an average about 5 times a run. There are currently 30 different Time Runes.

- Once a Time Rune is drafted/selected, you can then invest Time Advancements into them.

- Once the run is complete and a new run is started, all Time Advancements are refunded, and you will again get a new set of Time Runes and challenges.

This design perfectly fits how the game wants to be played and the spirit of New Game+, which is "how do I complete the game with these challenges and tools I am given?", encouraging you to adjust your build to handle what cards you've been dealt.

Its also very bold. I'm using rogue-lite mechanics in a game that will probably take the average player 20hrs to complete on their first run. Variance will oscillate between "god-runs" to "okay/standard-runs", and truthfully that may have a negative impact on player experience if they have to play with a sucky build for too long. But this is where its bold: I believe if I've designed the game well enough, no runs should feel negatively bad, and with enough discovery rerolls and other mechanics, bad RNG ideally would be non-issue.

We'll see where we land.

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I also wanted to talk about challenges a bit, since I've implemented the majority of them. There are 4 different types:

- Weakening challenges that reduce your strength in some way.

- Specialization challenges that force the player to invest into a specific Expert Research.

- Speed challenges that check if the player can get to a section fast enough.

- And then the one I am most excited about: Focus challenges, that force a player to over-invest into a specific Technology research. All requirements of that tech research are removed for the duration of the challenge so its easy to do.

This is so fun to me because these focus challenges will add a ton of run variance into the game. When you have 5 levels in Improved Auras before anything else, that is really going to shape your run. Or when its its 10 levels in Improved Casting, that's going to feel very different than a run with 10 levels in Improved Artifacts. Its going to be a "fun" challenge rather than being truly "challenging".

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In terms of content size so far, I've implemented 60 different challenges (each with 3+ levels), 30+ different time runes and around 20 achievements. I've also got one more spoiler free mechanic that will add even more fun run variance into the game. So I do believe I've constructed an end-game that'll remain fresh for those that want to keep playing.

For the final section of the game, I've also made the scaffolding for around 30-40 different rituals, and 6 new resources. So there will be a fair bit of content to go through to complete the game. I sometimes just stare at the game for a long time, contemplating the complete size of it. And if I'm being frank, its easy to fear that I've made this thing too big or too complicated.

But the truest answer I've landed on is that the orb demands it. And so I choose to be its humble servant.

-Marple