Savage: The Shard of Gosen Windows game

Hail barbarian! ⚔️

Hither comes a new update with some important improvements, as well as some "quality of life" changes! New weapons and items have also been added, and the world of Gosen becomes just a bit deadlier with new traps, puzzles, and enemy behaviors.

Highlights in this Update

No More Auto Pickup for Gear

Gear Drops are no longer a pain in the loincloth! By default, weapons, armor, and shields will no longer be automatically picked up when you collide with them. Instead, on item collision, the name of the dropped gear will appear above it, allowing you to make a choice on whether you should pick it up or not. To initiate a pickup, you now press DOWN.

This fixes some frustration, where, to make room for a deadly new implement you have run across in the wild, you would drop one or more pieces of gear, only to accidentally pick up all the discarded loot you had just dropped.

Materials, consumables, and the like, are still automatically picked up, as they have an "infinite" space in the inventory.

These will have Game Options associated with them in a future update (Auto Pickup Loot: yes/no).

Important - SLEEP MARGIN?!

It looks like there is a setting here in GameMaker that I wasn't aware of -- "Sleep Margin". I have increased this in the hopes that it will fix some speed issues I have seen some people having, and related problems that have been reported to me. One of them being a "slow motion" type effect on the game.

Some games made on GameMaker seem to have this issue, where certain machines running some versions of Windows will set the game's priority to a low value.

Hopefully this fixes this issue if you are experiencing it!

New Items, Gear, and Brutal Ways to Get 'em!

New items have been added that will facilitate a fully featured "Forge" system in a future update, as well as weapons, key items, and materials.

New Hazards, Props, and Puzzles

The world once again gets a little more dastardly with some new mechanical and visual additions. Existing puzzle and exploration sequences have also been improved and/or expanded.

Patch Notes

BUG FIXES

• Rising platforms do damage to you (like being crushed) when you pick up or use an item that triggers a “powerup” effect

• Fixed some elevators not resetting their levers when coming to a stop, forcing you to exit the room and reenter to use the elevator again

• Certain categories of pickups were influenced by moving platforms and are now not

• Weapons were not getting their stats from static info, creating different instances of stat blocks if changes were made in a patch

• MANY items in a room/screen will stay despawned if picked up, especially many of the “Death Tribute” pickups

• Breakable moving solid blocks (like the cave beetle shell) are NOT destroyed on enemy death by weapons that have more than one “hit” value

• Fixed treasure chests ONLY containing a random amount of whatever they contain (gold values, consumables, etc.)

• Fixed WOUNDS drawing incorrectly on the game HUD

• Fixed when knocking a moveable solid into another that is on a slope, the one you hit comes BACK toward VERY fast you after hitting the one on a slope

• Fixed attacking a moveable solid that is up against a wall and it’s collision effect doesn’t trigger

• Fixed levers still “sparkling” and being hittable when they shouldn’t

• CRASH FIX: Fixed climbing onto side-view-doors (open or closed) crashing the game

• Floating text prompts have been fixed (were sometimes jarring with where they spawned), and will also now follow a target that makes more sense

• Solid objects that you can lift, carry, push, etc., no longer draw BEHIND torches, creating a goofy looking effect

• CRASH FIX: Fixed game crashing on picking up a dropped essence orb

• Fixed hitting breakable rocks with “mirrored” melee object made it so breakable rock ignored actual weapon collision (i.e. pickaxe wouldn’t work if it hit the rock NOT on the “sweet spot” – THANKS Silverfox!)

• Fixed an issue with certain gamepads not registering an “interact” event when pressing UP on the DPad (like the Retro Bit Genesis controller – THANKS Tarxsix!)

• Fixed materials not being removed when forging a new weapon, shield, or armor

• Fixed hitboxes on several enemies

• Fixed hitboxes on several door/gate objects acting screwy

IMPROVEMENTS and CHANGES

• Set GameMaker’s “sleep margin” to 10 – potentially gets rid of “slow motion” effect on some machines, improving framerate on others

• Redid several rooms and cleaned up event scripting

• Improved flow of encounters and enemy placement (also removing enemies in overpopulated screens) in several rooms and screens

• Redid several puzzle rooms

• Changed the locations of some items, introduced new items to certain chest locations

• Essence Vessels (“save” spots) added to improve levels, and in some cases added dedicated rooms for them

• Some loot tables redone across enemies and containers (chests, breakable objects, etc.)

• Some loot tables now based on Favor

• Slightly increased the chance for resource nodes (ore, trees, etc.) to spawn, Luck is also now factored into this

• Weapons are now less effective if you do not meet their stat requirements (base damage is limited and reduced)

• Certain weapon stats have been tuned differently

• Certain enemies now spawning with different behavior and attack properties based on player FAVOR stat

• Gear drops (weapons, armor, shields) do NOT automatically get picked up when you run over them now – current default “pick up” button is DOWN (was frustrating to find a new weapon you wanted to pick up, had no room, dropped gear to make room, and then accidentally picked up what you dropped) – this will have a Game Option in the future to turn on and off (“autopickup loot: yes/no)

• Gear drops will now also display their name above them when you collide with them so you can make an informed decision on whether to pick them up or not

• Doors, chests, levers, and other interactable objects that you can activate by attacking now have an “interact prompt”, much like talking to an NPC – this should fix some confusion and also remedy accidentally attacking NPCs in some cases

• Crafted items at the Forge now display their names when crafting is finished much more prominently

NEW STUFF

• Several new weapons added to the game across a few weapon categories

• New rooms and encounters added to the game

• A few new traps added

• New puzzle rooms added

• Some new enemy behaviors added to certain enemies, as well as the allowance for more status effects (i.e. poison arrows)

• A series of new key items added, some of them specifically dealing with future updates to the Forge

• Several new materials added for crafting

• New secrets and loot drops

• New graphic assets, sprites, backgrounds, tiles, for “Relic” style of environments

I wanted to include a brand new Map System in this update, but I am still wrestling a bit with the particulars, but I have decided on a look and size for the thing, and hope to include that in the next update. Volunheim is still on the way, as well as updates to current locations (story, NPC dialogue, quests, bosses, etc.).

I wanted a static display and went with a design that allows me to show as many map cells on the screen at one time, so expect it to look something like this.

I also want to thank you so much for contributing to over 1,000 units moved on Steam! I have also just recently hit over 10,000 hours of work on the game (disgusting, oops lol - (beyond) time to start wrapping this thing up!).

All the best to you and yours, and thank you for your support!! ⚔️

- Matt