Alonso Martin posted the latest development update on the kickstarter page for Heart Forth, Alicia. The update has information on new changes, and added features.
More information.Dev Update 4: A great new change, new features & more shoutouts
Hey guys! Tuning in to give you an update as to how things are moving.
The last few weeks have been pretty exciting! Everyone on the team has been working hard to move the game forward. Just recently I shared a small video through our Twitter account to show you a Vine of HFA's first test on the Wii U Devkit. If you haven’t seen it yet, maybe you’ll be as happy as we are to see the game running on console!
Click here to watch the Vine
We’re also simultaneously developing the Sony ports, if you're wondering, and though there’s still a huge amount of work to do to get the game fully running on these consoles, this is most definitely a great start.
Smaller changes
During this past couple of weeks I’ve also added a few more interesting modifications to the game. Some of them include redesigning the Earth Spell to be more controllable by the player. The Earth spell used to have a random factor with which 2-3 enemies were targeted for damage, and any other enemies were left untouched. Now, the spell works more like Castlevania’s axe ability, and boulders are thrown in the direction you’re facing. Any enemies found in the path of the boulders are automatically damaged, giving you a wider scope and control over which enemies or obstacles can be targeted.
Another cool change was to add multiple item-drops from enemies. Before, if an enemy was able to drop 3 different items, only one item was selected via a dice-roll, and then that item’s drop-rate was calculated. Now, all possible items can be dropped at once if the drop rates of each one is met, and they're dropped in a nice bag that you can pick up & open after an enemy is killed.
One of the latest features added (and one of the last) are… ladders! My goodness, I have no idea of why it took me so many years to get around to adding ladders, but they are absolutely amazing and life-affirming. Using ladders just opens up so many possibilities for level design, and it clears away some difficult situations when designing terrain. Next time I see a real-life ladder, I won’t look at it with the same eyes.
