Hello Hellraisers!

Huge gameplay update incoming:

The ‘Wit’ mechanic is gone, the game format is switching to a one-life roguelike experience, and one last thing – it’s hecking awesome!

The novel ‘wit’ mechanic, where the character with the highest wit in the trade wins the insult (à la Top Trumps), was interesting enough but still somewhat in its infancy. There is always a risk when creating new mechanics that the player won’t immediately understand them, and this particular set up left players feeling dejected if they couldn’t work out how to raise their wit efficiently. While I still have faith in the original mechanics, I think they are better suited to casual gaming rather than the more hardcore experience I’m intending to create.

So what is replacing wit? Instead of dealing damage if your wit is higher, attacks now have specific damage values that work without fail (in most cases). It was very limiting having around 5 health points to work with, so health totals have been upped significantly to make ability balancing an easier task. This makes the game more accessible, enjoyable, and recognizable to fans of the genre. Classes will no longer have one special move and three generic abilities (attack, defend and pass) - instead, they will be themed around mechanics suited to their aesthetic, such as a Character Assassin who has devastating insults, or a People Pleaser fitting the role of team healer.

Instead of pre-assigned levels that are posed as sorts of puzzles, the new gameplay can be better described as a roguelike, requiring you to think on the fly and come up with strategies as you go, reactively adapting to the enemies you face. This gives the game a lot more longevity and replayability and empowers players, giving them free reign to choose their own strategies, discovering the best combinations of abilities and characters, rather than shoehorning them into one solution that they have to find in order to complete a level. Much better!

The game aesthetic remains largely the same – slanging matches, roast fests, flame wars. Rather than taking place in the stuffy Regent Era, the game is now set in modern day and the insults won’t be quite as flowery (though still nothing explicit). Don’t worry – you’ll still be able to disrespect the hell out of your foes whilst applying other manipulation tactics – intimidate, horrify, doubt, charm and guilt your opponents to victory!

Thanks for all your feedback. I’m always looking to hear from players so if you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know in the Discord[discordapp.com].

Cheers,
Maybe Later Games

December is here, which means it's time for the Moving In update!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS6xcYPF4_0

The new class coming with this update is the Overexaggerator!

Unique trait:
Gets either +0, +1, +2 or +3 Wit randomly during insults (both when attacking and defending)

Unique ability:
Double the Wit bonus from your trait and insult a character

This personality type is intended to add a bit of spice to the game through calculated risk. Sometimes encounters can feel like a solved problem once it gets to a certain stage in combat, but the overexaggerator keeps players on their toes, and their ability can make for a big swing and a hit if the stars align. This class is built for high-rollers and players who enjoy a bit of risk/reward. Don't worry - we don't intend to add too many luck-based elements to the game, but a little pitter-patter and crossing of fingers here and there is good for the heart!

As promised, there are now a whole 20 levels to sink your teeth into - easily a few hours of content already!

A whole swath of visual improvements have made their way into the game. Existing players might be a little disorientated by the fact that the top and bottom elements have switched places, but rest assured that the improvements are easy to get used to. There are now tooltips on actions when they are hovered, the input buttons are more at home on the bottom of the screen, defending and exaggeration bonuses are shown more clearly during insults, Wit and Confidence have accompanying icons whenever they are mentioned in tooltips, among many other changes.

Where game development is concerned, I believe that transparency is key (especially with early access games)! Even when milestones are not met, I feel it is important to address them rather than sweep them under the rug and pretend they never existed.

I will start by saying the overexaggerators are currently a little ham, happy to risk a 1 in 4 chance of winning a trade with reckless abandon. They also could use some encouragement to make better use of their abilities. I will work on improving this throughout December.

What's more, I intended to work on a full-fledged tutorial for this update, but with how frequently the UI is changing, I'm concerned I'll end up re-doing the tutorial many times before the final release of the game. As a compromise, the text across the top of the screen prompts players if they make an invalid selection and much of the UX work included in this update also served to better communicate how to play the game.

Can't wait to hear your thoughts! Thanks for all your support so far.