The Boss Would Like to Rearrange Your Carefully Laid Plans

Bosses. Let's talk about bosses.

I hate mine.

No, just kidding. My actual boss is one of the best I've had. He's safe from this particular rant. The bosses in Swordoku: Grid & Glory, however, have been given several new reasons to make you dislike them.

Apparently getting hit makes them angry

Monsters from Elite rank upward have had a difficulty upgrade, and some have picked up new abilities. They now have staged encounters: wear them down enough and they'll become enraged, getting a wee bit stronger.

So if you were hoping the unpleasant thing in front of you would become more agreeable as the fight continued, I have some disappointing news.

Dungeon monsters already have attitudes. Now the tougher ones get to escalate theirs.

Nice board. Be a shame if someone moved it.

The big dungeon bosses have an additional trick: they can manipulate your puzzle board.

All those shiny pieces you've been carefully lining up? Cross your fingers. Bosses can now shift things around, rotate the board, mirror it, and throw gravity effects into the arrangement you were feeling so pleased about.

That might accidentally help you. It might also turn your next brilliant move into a fond memory.

The board-manipulation toolkit now includes:

• Gravity shifts
• Quardrant shifts and meteor strikes
• Board rotation and mirroring
• Row or column slides
• Fault lines and the maelstrom

None of which sound particularly relaxing when you're trying to arrange blocks with some sort of strategy.

That's the point, though. I want the enemies to affect how you approach the puzzle, not just stand there waiting for you to finish it.

These attacks have new visual effects too. Sometimes making the effect takes more work than writing the code that actually does the thing. Moving the blocks is one job. Making it look like the dungeon has developed a personal grudge is another.

A little spiritual guidance

Our adventurers have also discovered spirituality.

Well. Spirits.

You'll meet the ghosts of old adventurers during your journey through the dungeons. Depending on their mood, they might heal you, offer an ability for a price, or hand over the last possessions they had in life.

Which is rather sweet, considering how the dungeon treated them.

It's another way to put something unexpected into the journey. Not everything you meet needs to be trying to remove your remaining health.

Small details, more awkward boards

The enemy-turn hourglass is now animated, with sand happily draining away. Sometimes it's a little detail like that which makes a screen feel more alive.

I'm also working on further board mechanics: rubble that blocks your way until you clear nearby matches, and rune stones you activate in a particular order for a bonus.

Those are still being worked on. But the direction is clear: boards should offer different problems, rather than becoming the same place-piece, match, win routine every time.

As if the boss moving your pieces wasn't enough of a problem already.

The suspiciously wealthy beginner

Some internal systems are getting a rethink too. Originally, daily rewards and achievements were going to be account-wide.

Then I deleted a test character and made a new one.

I hadn't claimed the old character's achievements. Suddenly my brand-new adventurer could collect a pile of coins and Essence earned by somebody who no longer existed.

Excellent inheritance scheme. Less excellent progression system.

So I'm revising those systems around individual characters. A new character should earn their own “Kill 100 monsters” achievement, not arrive with somebody else's rewards waiting at the door.

This still leaves room for selected account-wide achievements, whose rewards could be claimed on the current character. It needs some rewriting, but I think the result will be fairer.

The same character-based approach would apply to currency purchases if I offer them, which I probably will. For example, a purchase of 500 Essence would go to the selected character. Delete that character and that currency would go with them.

I'll make sure that has appropriate warnings. That's not something a player should discover after pressing Delete.

Meanwhile, a disturbance in productivity

The original Star Wars Episode I racing game was a favourite of mine for a long time. My current machine apparently prefers the radio adaptation: plenty of audio, absolutely nothing useful on screen.

Black-screen racing. Very challenging. Poor visibility.

Then I heard about Star Wars: Galactic Racer.

Uh-oh.

Now I'm eyeing the SteelSeries controller and trying to find an old-style USB cable. There's also another WoW distraction on my radar, because apparently the existing project list wasn't enough competition for my time.

I'm sure I'll demonstrate tremendous restraint.

Anyway, back to the bosses. Before I become the reason development has an unexpected racing break.