UPDATE #15 Consumables Shop

Summary

Added consumables to the shop and reduced consumables slots

breakdown

• you can buy and reroll consumables in shop
• reroll animation rerolls consumables too
• the consumables are a different shape then daemons in shop i gotta figure out the colors to be more different tho
• two consumable slots instead of four

Next steps

i came up with alot more ideas to implement

• balancing
• endless mode
• skill tree
• overclock shards and daemon leveling
• daemon synergies
• more consumables
• more sfx
• more animations

UPDATE #14 Consumables 2

Summary

Added two consumables, changed price of rerolls and did some code restructuring.

breakdown

• added a consumable “flash sale” is basically temperance from balatro and gives sell value of all your daemons into your balance
• added a consumable “dycrypt” and it decrypts unknown nodes so you know what they are
• moved the payout ball orb stuff to a different file
• moved the transitions stuff to a different file
• you can now sell consumables and it adds to the balance aswell
• two types of consumable one is instant use and one requires selecting something to effect i will use this later on nodes

Next steps

• balancing
• more consumables
• more sfx
• more animations

UPDATE #13 Consumables

Summary

Added consumables slots graphics and the use/sell buttons that do nothing so far mainly ripped from the daemon code along with basic backend structure for consumables.

• also fixed a bug where hovering sfx never stopped playing on glitched nodes

Next steps

• balancing
• consumables actions
• more sfx
• more animations

UPDATE #12 Audio

Summary

Added sound effects and shop polish

breakdown

• transition sound (my favorite)
• bounce sound (need a better one)
• hover glitched node sound
• hover daemon sound
• hover shop item sound
• hover shop items for more interactivity

Next steps

• balancing
• consumables
• more sfx
• more animations

UPDATE #11 Graphics

Summary

Added moving daemon animation and added encrypted nodes into the map that are a mystery of what it is until you click on them

Next steps

• balancing
• consumables
• shop polish with hovers
• sfx near the end
• more animations

UPDATE #10 Graphics

Summary

Added money adding animation, 4 new daemons, and a reroll animation

Finer Details

• rerolls have a glitch animation
• money scoring summons energy balls that glitch into balance 1 for each remaining ball and 1 for the money winning the level
• fixed bug where you could have over 5 daemons
• new daemon “Honeypot Trap” 30% chance to duplicate score
• new daemon “Firmware Backdoor” +5MB per node hit
• new daemon “Proxy Chain” multiplier per daemon owned (1.2x,1.4x,1.6x)
• new daemon “Rootkit Persistence” every 3rd ball scores 3x

Next steps

• balancing
• consumables
• shop polish with hovers
• sfx near the end
• more animations

UPDATE #9 Map PT 3

Summary

Added menu transitions, fixeds a few bugs

Finer Details

• changes orange glow on current column to green
• made the nodes offset on the y and x axis a bit so it looks less grid-like
• added a glitch menu transition
• fixed bug where you couldnt interact with daemons in the map menu
• fixed map generation that generates stray nodes
• fixed map generate that generated incomplete paths
• level name it now displayed on box on hover
• light path that shows a path you can take to get to the node if you hover a future node from current node
• nodes no longer mostly connect to every single other node

Next steps

• consumables
• shop polish with hovers
• sfx near the end
• more animations

UPDATE #8 The Map PT 2

Summary

Polished the map more and added it into the gameplay loop so that it sets the quota and adds money still no animations for these

Finer Details

• levels give money now
• levels have a random amount of money that increase as you go
• levels interact with setting rewards and score requirements
• quota and reward are displayed on hover
• corner brackets appear with easing in and out size on hover aswell
• changed based unit to MB from KB cuz KB of data are kinda smol
• fixed some frame update bugs where the stuff updates after selection making it look weird for a frame
• faint orange glow on the column of levels you are on

Next steps

• you can’t sell daemons in the map for some reason
• map polish level node entry point
• map path generation sometimes generates a void where you cant progress and also every node connects to every other
• consumables
• shop polish with hovers
• sfx near the end
• more animations

UPDATE #7 The Map

Summary

I made it so rerolls cost money, empty daemon slots have a graphic now and started the start of a level map/selector.

Finer Details

• made a hacking style map based on slay the spire’s level selector
• map currently randomly generates nodes and connections
• map scrolls using left or right click along with scroll wheel
• nodes also have random descriptions as ive yet to come up with names for enemies and bosses i thought NETWATCH from cyberpunk 2077 would be cool
• if you can’t afford a reroll the button gets darker to signal

Next steps

• you can’t sell daemons in the map for some reason
• finish map to link to game
• consumables
• shop polish with hovers
• sfx near the end
• more animations

UPDATE #6 The Black Market part 2

Summary

I started finishing the shop system i started last devlog. I added rerolls to the shop aswell as a next round button. I also added 2 new Daemons.

Finer Details

• New Daemon “Schrodinger’s Basket” 50% chance of 2.5x points 50% chance of .5x points
• New Daemon “Dark Web Node” 5% chance for 15x points on scoring
• made it so when you buy a daemon it gets sold out instead of infinite stock
• daemons you have dont show up in shop
• next button currently goes back to normal game but i want it to go to a levels screen/map like slay the spire
• made credits balance have a thousands seperator of “ “ instead of nothing and no comma cuz a spacebar looks cooler

Next steps

I want to add a graphic for empty daemon slots and add consumables of some sort and the upgrading daemon system along with the slay the spire level map. shop could use more polish with hovers and icons.

UPDATE #5 The Shop part 1

Summary

I started work on a shop system and have item purchases up now. I added a few new daemons and squashed a few new bugs.

Fine Details

• New Daemon “Loyalty Points” 2x points every 5 pins hit
• New Daemon “Mesh Network” 1.5x score for every ball in play
• somehow made it so that the description variables werent being assigned in the class and took an hour to hunt that one down
• added a shop screen with the ability to buy a daemon
• extracted button logic from multiple places to a function to draw the button instead
• increased max score from -9.22 × 10^18 to 1.7 x 10^308 bytes
• made scores that are extremely large get formmated to scientific notation

Next steps

Still considering that hands system for later maybe in 3 devlogs

I want to add a graphic for empty daemon slots and have you a bought item graphic so you cant buy it again in the same shop. reroll and next round button in shop.

UPDATE #4 The Daemon Frontend

Overview

I made Daemons almost fully functional and made them affect the gamestate. I also added a visual so you know which ball is being effected by which daemon.

Fine Details

• i accidentally used ^ instead of std::pow for one of my functions so it took a while to debug
• i added text wrapping to Daemon descriptions so that long descriptions dont overflow
• added a sell value to daemons and linked it to the credits display
• lines between daemons and balls fade out
• made is so that the line picks a random starting point on the left side of the daemon

Next steps

I’m thinking of making a hands system where you choose how many balls you drop at the start and then you have to wait till they all score before you can drop more balls.

I want to add a graphic for empty daemon slots and add a shop system which pops up after you pass the score threshold and all balls finish scoring.

UPDATE #3 The Daemon Backend

Overview

just worked on backend this update and minor graphical changes. I made it so you can click on the daemons and move them up and down aswell as sell them.

Fine Details

i also changed the level of the daemon indicator location, added the graphic for overclocking (buff past max level planned in future basically), and made it easier to make daemons.

Next steps

i wanna add a sell value to the daemons to add to credit balance and make the credit balance actually exist. animations and making the daemons do stuff is next step then get back to pachinko

UPDATE #2

Overview

added a class system for my daemons to try to be able to implement a large amount of them including daemon level, color, effects, etc. Made the balls bounce on pegs with animation and hover animation on daemons. also added the balls have a value shown and when scored the scored data is moved upwards a bit until it disappears

Next steps

the next steps i hope to achieve before the next devlog is that i hope to have a partly functional daemon system that works with the game or atleast be able to reorder and sell them before next update.

AI USE

• had ai generate the daemons vector graphic

UPDATE #1

so this is the start of my game “BitDrop” it’s a pachinko roguelike that takes inspiration from games like balatro,slay the spire, ultrapool.

How it works

Your ball starts with a starting score of something i havent figured out the value of yet and gains score to and cashes out at the bottom. The 5 things on the right are jokers from balatro but like 100% original totally not jokers and are called daemons. There is a target Quota score measured in bytes with the base unit being a kilobyte and so on.

The plan

currently the plan is to have a limited amount of balls per turn and if you put multiple balls at the same time you gain a higher score multiplier but if you have balls leftover you get more money. The pegs i think would be able to be upgraded and the balls aswell. The baskets will prolly be the same throughout and the daemons will assist with scoring higher

What i have so far

• graphics
• balls drop have have physics
• balls bounce off pegs
• everything else not listed is placeholder graphics
  but yeaaaaa thats about it and the idea for the gameeeeee thank youuuuuu

UPDATE #13

This is the last update before i ship

So basically this was just the last update for this project cuz i decided i would start work on a different project, the changes i made this update are just to get ready to ship and complete the project:

• removed fps counter
• removed openings and play menu
• removed variants from selection as they arent polished enough
• removed misc debug features
• audio bug fixed on button hovers
• audio bug fixed on puzzle win

UPDATE #12

added features

• added variants support
• added giveaway chess
• added duckchess (kinda)
• added the start of a play screen, still working on it not much yet
• added easing functions to some visuals so they appear instead of popping in

fixed bugs/cleanup (like 50% of this devlog)

• split code back into multiple files
• fixed that puzzle code was directly in frame update loop
• tons of crash fixes todo with variants and puzzles
• animation broke on variants
• draw legal moves didn’t work on custom pieces

future ideas

• clock
• bots
• particle system effects
• screen shake
• randomize leaves
• menu transitions

i was mainly struggling to fix crash bugs this devlog as there were multiple that i had to fix, most notably there was a crash bug when swapping between the game and puzzle menus, and loading a new ruleset for variants. My current plan now is to finish the create game screen, then work on fixing the last duckchess bugs, programming a bot then variants + polish. I may ship again if i get a chance before i finish this though.

Screenshot here shots duckchess in action but I made the duck sprite using AI just so we’re clear about that because i am bad at art.

Update #11

Added Features

• added puzzle side menu
• added puzzle streak counter
• skip retry hint puzzle buttons
• sucess rate puzzle counter
• sound effect for hovering button
• puzzles are basically done

Fixed Bugs

• 3 fold occured in puzzle mode if you made the same wrong move 3 times
• same thing with 50 move rule as 3 fold
• puzzle would start with you instead of the computer
• swaps turn on failed move
• animations didn’t work in puzzles
• fixed you can select the opponent’s pieces in the puzzle during animation
• if you hit a frameperfect from the animation finishing on the puzzle screen and switch to the game screen it moves the piece in the game screen if there was a piece on the starting tile
• same bug with next puzzle button
• leaves sfx looped infinitely

Smart Bool

I added a new datatype to make my life easier called a smartbool, this is basically a boolean with a third state called NewTrue which is only true for the first cycle the boolean is updated to true. This boolean is useful for when you want to play a sound effect on hover but if you use a traditional boolean it will play every frame. you can use it like a normal boolean too like smartbool = true; or if (smartbool){}. But this new datatype makes the code easier to understand for me.

struct smartbool {
    enum State {
        False,
        NewTrue,
        True
    };

    State state = False;

    void operator=(bool value) {this->set(value);}
    operator bool() const {return state != False; }
    bool is_new_true() const { return state == NewTrue; }
    
    void set(bool value) {
        if (value) {
            if (state == False) state = NewTrue;
        } else {
            state = False;
        }
    }
    void update() {
        if (state == NewTrue) {
            state = True;
        }
    }
};

Future Ideas

• clock
• bots
• variants
• more moving graphics/sfx
• randomize leaves on borders
• menu transitions (maybe)
• finish polishing puzzles (pretty much done)

UPDATE #10

added features/changes

• added a sidebar
• added a settings page with the ability to toggle 50 move counter,3 fold counter,board markings with more settings to come like high contrast and animation speed
• added a makefile to compile code to test instead of running a bunch of commands back to back
• added puzzles to the puzzle tab pulls random puzzle out of a csv

things before next ship

• more sfx
• click and drag to move piece
• sfx plays infinitely on hovers
• randomize leaves placements
• menu transitions
• polish puzzles page and get rid of bugs

general ideas

• theme switcher
• animation speed control
• move clock

In this update i messed up my codebase so massively bad trying to refactor the code so alot of my time was fixing the nuke i dropped into my codebase. uhhh one of the big bugs i had to squash before this that took eternity was playing sound effects would just crash the game. It turned out the reason was i didnt add the compile flag to my makefile causing the audio mixer to crash the game. After that i added sound effects back in and then started to work on puzzles. for puzzles i took the lichess puzzle database of 6m puzzles and condensed it down to 100k for file space. I pull a random row from this file to create the puzzle and it kinda works but its still in progress.