The first update of 2020!!!

Over the holiday break I was able to put a decent chunk of time into adding new content into Astrominer. Mostly small things, but hopefully it all adds up to something that introduces a good bit more gameplay value to the game. 

Being that it was the start of a new year, I also spent some time thinking about the future of the game and how I want to proceed with development. I'm still having an absolute blast working on Astrominer, but wanting to avoid some of the self-imposed stress that I put on myself worrying I'm not getting enough gamedev done, I've come to a conclusion. Or a resolution if you will. My goal for 2020 is to just focus on getting 1 feature complete each month. So the way I will look at is is this: "If I get (insert feature name) complete, it will be a good month".

This way rather than worrying that I'm not making enough headway each week, and scrambling to add as much as possible, I can focus on a single end goal. Ideally that means each month I can put out an updated build--which is what I've been doing since September already. But depending on the feature I choose to work on for the month, it may not be feasible. I have a list of possible features to choose from so I'm not scrambling at the start of each month trying to figure out what to work on next. Though none of it is written in stone as I want to be able to pivot to whatever sounds interesting at the time. Also the goal is to work on "big win" features--things that drastically add to the game rather than piddling around working on back-end stuff that nobody will ever notice or see. I do expect of course I will need to take some time to address bugs here and there, or do general tuning, which may add up to a month's worth of work all said and done.

But I digress...

Let's talk about the new features in this build!

First off, I've added a Daily Goals system to the game. Each day (UTC time) the game will present the player with 3 challenges to accomplish that result in grap rewards. The idea here is to have a way to get the player to leave their comfort zone and go out to look for the enemies, or crafting components, etc. and potentially even introduce things to the player that they didn't even know were in the game. It's also a fun way to earn some easy graps.

Next up is what I've been referring to as "The Ever Changing Mine". This is a new mine that I've added to the overworld that behaves differently from all the rest. Firstly, it regenerates every time you go into it, so it's never the same twice. If you see something in there that you want, you better grab it before you leave! Secondly, this mine does not obey the normal mine biome rules that the others do. Enemies, traps, and items from all biomes can appear inside this mine all at the same time. Thirdly, there's no mig to rescue in this mine. You can go in and start mining straight away if you want. Though, be careful because the difficulty level of this mine is as hard as it gets.

The next big change is the addition of the Graveyard Biome. Unlike other biomes, this one appears in small chunks littered throughout the overworld. This introduces 3 new enemies, and a new craftable sword. The Artifact Dungeon has now been converted to a Daily Dungeon, meaning the player must now unlock it each day if they want to go through it. The key for the dungeon can be acquired via the Graveyard Biome...tho I won't say exactly how ;)

And lastly, the boss fight received a bit of love too. The boss health bar now appears at the top of the screen like a proper boss, and shows the boss' name. Most importantly, the bar now shows how many lives the boss has remaining. Because one of the things I want to add more of in 2020 is boss fights, I figured it was important to get this change in now so as not to lose time later on it.

As always, be sure to delete your previous save files as this update touched a little bit of everything (inventory, crafting, world objects, etc.). If you run into any bugs, please don't hesitate to reach out on Discord.

Changes

• Daily Goals system.
• Added the graveyard biome.
• Added new enemies: gravekeeper, mummy, grave ghost. Grave ghosts are considered spirits, and cannot be damaged unless the item the player is attacking with is infused with a spirit buff.
• Added  spirit stone item. This can be used to infuse weapons with a spirit buff so they are able to attack spirit-type enemies. Applying a spirit stone to a hat will reduce spirit enemy attacks by half.
• Added the siphon sword item. This will grant a percentage of the damage done to enemies back to the player as HP. Cannot be purchased--only crafted using grave stones.
• Added spirit potion which grants short-term invincibility. Cannot be purchased -- only crafted using spirit potion essence.
• Artifcat Dungeon is now considered a Daily dungeon, meaning each day you will have to unlock it if you wish to run through it. Once it's unlocked it will remain unlocked for the day.
• Made it so wood items (pickaxe, sword) cannot have buffs applied to them. 
• Added ability for the player to wear body items (tunics) so we can now have more clothing options to use for armor and cosmetics. First tunic is the Amber Tunic which now gives the amber you aquire in the artifact dungeon an actual use.
• Made it so now the player's armor level is the sum of all armor being worn, meaning you can have a hat and tunic both set as armor and their ratings will be combined.
• Fixed a bug where armor being held (not worn) by the player was still be degraded when an enemy attacked.
• Added a new boss health bar that displays at the top of the screen instead of under the boss. It also shows the boss' number of lives, along with the boss name.
• Made it so armor snail and flower turtle regenerate health when they are hiding.
• Made it so the purple "spider" enemy in the mines has a low chance of spawning web as it moves around.
• Added "The Ever Changing Mine". This is a mine that regenerates each time the player enters it and doesn't necessarily follow the rules of normal mines (i.e. ice/fire/slime traps and enemies can all co-exist in this mine.)
• Made it so machines (smelters, dirt processors) are stackable in inventory.
• Reduced max item repair limit to 3 (down from 4).
• Made it so player can now dispose of craftable items in their inventory for graps (d-pad down on gamepad, x key on keyboard). The amount of graps given is based on the purchase price of the item, taking the current hp of the item into account -- i.e. the lower the hp of the item, the fewer graps you'll get back in return.
• Added visually distinct versions of the poor, good, great smelters and dirt processsors.
• Placed randomly spawned world objects on the overworld map. They can spawn world objects from any biome, and will be different each time they respawn after the player collects them. This will give the player opportunity to get some items located on biomes they haven't been to yet. These special world objects can be identified by a particle effect they give off.