Roguelike WOODPUNK celebrates Chinese New Year and now weapons can be kept between stages news

Hi Guys!

Another week, another article! We continue describing our adventures related to WOODPUNK’s development. As we have commented previously, we’ve been preparing a big update to WOODPUNK that we hope our community likes! Let’s cover what’s coming on this next update, launching the 4^th of February.

So let’s dive deep into the changes we’re going to implement in this patch. As always, tell us what you think!

Weapon inheritance and Weapon creation system

These are the main changes introduced in this patch. More than 70% of our Negative Steam Reviews consisted in “No weapon inheritance”. This core feature to WOODPUNK was specially disliked by the Chinese Steam community. After a whole month of development, we have at last changed the weapon creation system and now weapons can be saved between stages.

Let’s first explain the new weapon creation system before analyzing how we developed it. We wanted to keep the core mechanic of random weapon generation, but wanted to include the new mechanic the community was asking for. This change has increased the strategy necessary to beat WOODPUNK.

Previously, after completing a stage the player would get a procedurally generated weapon which’s components depended on the technology the player had invested in the tech tree. Now players after every stage will keep the weapon they completed the stage with.

What we did to include in some way the old mechanic is to create a system where weapons ware down, therefore the player may need to ask Theo to craft a new weapon. As you may already know, ranged weapons are made out of 3 components, the chamber (delimits amount of ammunition), the grip (affects weapon shooting rate) and the cannon (gives the weapon ice, fire, bombs, arrows, laser or shrapnel bullets). Now, as players use their weapons each individual component will degrade at a different rate. Once a weapon component has degraded enough, it will drop down a level. But what would happen once the weapons have degrade all of its components to their worst version? They would transform into the pea musket and the wood plank, two new weapons we have developed. These two new weapons have technology available in the tech tree to better them, and once they’re bettered, the weapons would always transform into the best versions of the wood plank and pea musket. Melee weapons are made out of one component, so they are degraded enough, they will directly transform into the wooden plank.

All these changes could lead to player abuse. If the weapons could be inherited between stages, players could just wait Theo’s cooldown to craft a new weapon, and maintain them throughout the run. We’ve changed the way Theo craft’s weapons. Instead of having a set cooldown, Theo will be able to craft a weapon depending on the amount of scrap both the player and him have recollected. So if there’re no enemies to kill, the player won’t be able to craft new weapons.

To keep the balance in check, we made each weapon component degrade at a different rate. So overpowered weapons such as a mortar machine gun will degrade faster than an arrow machine gun. We believe this will force the players to use more their melee weapons, if they want to save their weapons for a later fights.

In order to not make the gameplay too difficult we created a new drop that will occasionally appear when enemies are killed. It’s a toolbox that once picked will instantaneously repair all of the weapons components equally.

Now that we have created this new weapon system we also developed a new suit for the players to collect. This suit is called “Tinkerpunk” and it will play with this new mechanic. When players play with this suits, their weapons will degrade much slower, and the toolboxes will repair each weapon component more than usual. As always, every suit must have a disadvantage. In this case when the player decides to use the Tinkerpunk suit, Theo will require more scrap to craft a new weapon.

How did we develop these new changes?

1. The first step was to allow weapons to be carried on between stages
2. For the weapon components to loose health points:
   1. Components would lose health points when used
   2. Melee weapons lose health points when they impact enemies
   3. We made each component have different health points for better difficulty balancing
3. Now it was time to work with the weapon degradation. This meant
   1. That if a component’s health points reaches 0, it most drop a level
   2. Later if all the components reach level 1 and 0 health points, the weapon must break.
4. Now that weapon degradation was finished, we had to create the two base line weapons which Aquinas would use if his other weapons completely break down
   1. First the Pea Musket. For reference, its spread would be similar to the auto grip (so less precision), while its damage would have to be lower than a level 1 shrapnel gun.
   2. Wood Plank. Similarly we used the Sword as reference, it had to output less damage and have less range
5. Now that we had the baseline weapons and the new weapon creation implemented, we changed Theo’s A.I. Now he would craft weapons depending on collected scrap instead of a set cooldown.
   
   
   
   
6. We produced a new interface, to show which level each individual components has, and their current health point.
7. We had to produce a new section for the tutorial explaining the new weapon creation system. We also took the opportunity of polishing a bit another aspects of it.
8. Creating new base line weapons meant we needed to slightly expand the tech tree for the player to be able to better these weapons. We also created new technology that allows the player to increase the chances of a toolbox drop, and technology with which the weapons degrade slower.
9. Now that all the technology was added to the tech tree, the weapon degradation system was implemented, and weapons could break down, we started working on the Tinkerpunk suit which plays with this new system.
10. To lower the games difficulty, we developed a new drop called the Toolbox that will repair all of the weapons components
11. Now that everything was practically ready, we developed the achievements related to this new weapon creation system. To get the Tinkerpunk suit, the player will have to first use up 500 weapon components.
12. Now that everything before balancing is done, we proceeded to develop the particle effects when weapons are destroyed, etc.
13. It’s time for the Beta test, and analyze if weapons are breaking down correctly, see if the game is not too hard, is the Toolbox is dropping enough, etc.

Chinese New Year

We’re close to the Chinese New Year, so we decided to produce new content to celebrate these festivities. WOODPUNK will have new props that commemorate this culture, these props include: a new gate, lamps, lanterns and Cherry blossom trees.

We’ve also created a new suit, Dragonpunk, which resembles the mythological creature. When the protagonist wears this suit he will output more damage while using the jetpack. As the dragon represents luck in the Chinese culture, if the player uses the Dragonpunk suit the game increases the probability of enemies dropping toolboxes and health packs. In WOODPUNK everything has an advantage and a disadvantage, and the Dragonpunk suit is no exception. Dragons are creatures that do not like unworthiness, therefore if the player uses the baseline weapons, which are the weakest ones, they will output less damage.

This is it for this week! If you get a chance to try out WOODPUNK tell us what you think of these changes!

See you next week!