Goatchild: Nightmare

First and foremost, my apologies for taking so long to update the game as promised (was occupied with life, writing a novel, other projects, yada yada). Nevertheless, I'm happy to announce that patch 1.4 has finally been released and comes with a TON of changes to hopefully improve combat as well as the control scheme (still a WIP; suggestions are encouraged, as always)! The changes are as follows:

HUD:

- The Boss Gauge featured in Advent of Vantelieth has been fully implemented.

- Icons indicating certain status effects have been added.

- HP Gauge will now turn white to indicate when Panic Mode cannot be used.

Controls:

- The player can now choose between Classic Movement and the movement type featured in Advent of Vantelieth, referred to as Custom Movement. With Custom Movement, pressing the directional key opposite of the direction of the player-controlled character will cause the character to move back without changing direction unless standing directly in front of an obstacle, in which case the character will face the obstacle.

- The A key is no longer used for backstepping; it is reserved for magic instead. This means that teleporting backwards is not possible with Classic Movement enabled; keep this in mind.

- Magic is no longer mapped to the Meditation key + directional button.

- Teleporting counter-clockwise while holding a firearm is now possible with the A key.

Firearms:

- All firearms receive a 25% damage bonus when fatigue bar is empty. Adversely, damage is halved when fatigue bar is above 70%.

- The speed of both Meteor Dragon and Rancid Pain has been increased.

- Meteor Dragon will auto-guard all frontal attacks for a brief moment during recovery.

- The damage of Meteor Dragon's special attack has been greatly increased.

- The range of Meteor Dragon has been slightly increased.

- All weapon special attacks are now affected by Panic Mode's speed bonus.

Knife:

- The knife now receives a 50% damage bonus when fatigue bar is empty.

- It is now possible to teleport either clockwise or counter-clockwise while swinging the knife by pressing either right or left respectively.

Panic Mode:

- Movement speed bonus while in Panic Mode has been slightly increased.

New Abilities:

- New Teleport Mechanic: Flicker
Allows the player to evade all attacks on the spot by timely pressing (or mashing) the D key OR the Meditation key.

- New Teleport Mechanic: Swap Places
Allows the player to swap places with an enemy facing them and maneuver behind them by pressing the interaction key.

- New Spell: Fortitudinous Flame
Immediately after casting, renders player immune to all forms of knockback. After five "ticks" (indicated by an animation), causes an explosion which repels all enemies within a short radius from player and renders player invincible for roughly three seconds (less than one second if fatigue bar is over half full).

- New Spell: Flame Pulse
Deals damage to all enemies within a short radius from player, renders player briefly invincible, and absorbs all damage that would have been sustained from enemy attacks, adding it to the player's damage for roughly six seconds. Proper timing completely resets fatigue bar. Multiple attacks can be absorbed.

- New Spell: Ensnaring Flame
Stuns all enemies in range for a long period of time. Can flicker while charging to avoid attacks.

Enemy Adjustments:

- Flame Stream no longer triggers the effect of Regnal's barrier.

- Opposing an enemy's breath attack with Flame Stream will render the player immune to its damage.

Fatigue Bar:

- The Fatigue Bar heavily influences the damage of all spells.

- The player will sustain double damage if the Fatigue Bar is over 70% full.

Changes No One Cares About:

- Fixed a typo where Blood Cerberus was misspelled as "Blook Cerberus."

- Goatchild's voice has been changed so as to no longer be identical to Cygna's.

- Lightning Dash now produces blue lightning as opposed to yellow.


Please refer to the updated manual for the new controls. While I DID say I would stop supporting the game following this update, I realize I still have many changes left to make and possibly even more skills to add, so I'll likely continue updating this game until I can fully implement the battle system in Advent of Vantelieth, since feedback is so important and such.

First and foremost, I would like to apologize for my infrequent updates and silence regarding progress of the game. My time is often divided between numerous projects, but rest assured I am still fully committed to the completion of Advent of Vantelieth.

The development of Goatchild as a whole presents me with many challenges, as one might assume, both from a gameplay and storyline perspective. It is an ambitious project several years in the making that I have thus far undertaken as its sole developer. A long, daunting road awaits me, but now I'm fully convinced that the journey will be worth it, many thanks the insightful reception I've received.

One of the challenges I mentioned involves the rather overwhelming control scheme of the game owing to the sheer number of button combinations available. I have recently revised the controls to work much better with the use of an Xbox controller and button mapping software, but as someone who had virtually mastered the keyboard controls, this change has admittedly taken me quite a bit of getting used to. Goatchild: Nightmare will have one final update at some point in the future that addresses the controls while adding a couple of new moves to Goatchild's arsenal, following which I will likely no longer support this game.

With that said, what will become of Advent of Vantelieth? Well, I am pleased to inform that the game is finally under active development and will continue to evolve its gameplay long after Goatchild: Nightmare is finished. Here are a couple of screenshots of the actual beginning of the game and one screenshot to showcase the slightly modified HUD.







A few things to note about Advent of Vantelieth:

• It will be a very long game, relatively speaking. As such, it is likely to be released in chapters.

• Emphasis will placed on its atmosphere and storyline. It focuses a bit more on exploration than combat.

• Enemies can appear randomly at any point in most locations. Enemies can vary wildly in strength and are sometimes best avoided entirely.

• Stealth mechanics will be present.

• The game will contain many secrets and optional challenges.

As always, comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated and taken into consideration (even if I don't respond). Thank you all for your support!