June Devlog

First things first:

The new live version has been made available to "Partners" patrons ($10).

Thanks to all of you, whether you have ugraded your pledge, are new members or have been with me for a while. Please don't feel pressured to switch tiers, this new reward has been released to add purpose to the $10 tier, which has been abandoned for quite some time now. It is worth noting that some of you held your pledges at $10 even with no additional rewards for a long time, again, thank you so much. That being said, regardless of the amount of your contribution, your support is very important for the continuous development of HC2, and with the constant growth of the Patreon page, it seems that we're on the right track. To close this matter, I hope the frequency of uploads was satisfactory, I've avoided publishing half-way content and did some bug checks before uploading, even though one or two got away.

Anyway, Live version was a success, it will be maintained indefinitely.

Now, there's another important subject that we need to talk about before sharing the content of the next version:

Hero Corruption 2 has been available to play on itch.io for quite some time now, people are able to download the latest public version of the game for free or play HC2 right on the browser. There's also a web playable version for Patrons, which you might not know about, as the link was only shared with a specific number of patrons who sent me a DM requesting it. Itch is a great free platform and offers an excellent service to its users, however, it has two limitations: Games played through the browser cannot be more than 1GB or 1000 files, which are understandable. With the latest HC2 update, the game is far from 1GB in file size, but it easily reached the 1000 file limit due to it's gameplay nature.

• What does that mean?

As of July, the browser version available on Itch will not be the latest public release, instead I'm working on a demo which will take its place. This demo will not receive further updates. However, people will still be able to download the latest public version on itch. The game profile will be updated monthly with dev logs, patch notes and download file, as it is now. Also, I know that some of you prefer the browser version of the game, and having a demo stuck in time is a huge bummer, so I've been studying alternatives and apparently it will be possible to add the playable browser version directly on the website https://diogaoo.com, which already has a private page in which the game is embedded. If all goes well, it should be published early next month, maybe one day after 0.45. To be honest, I'm not sure how we're going to deal with the browser exclusive version for patrons, probably an area for members only. First I need to keep an eye on how the interaction between the website and the embedded game will work, then I'll do my best to make the Patreon browser version available asap.

Please note that all this applies to the browser version, the downloadable version will not be affected in any way.

With that out of the way, let's talk about version 0.45: In the last poll, there was a relatively close dispute between adding side jobs and new areas, so the first alternative area, the Plains was implemented. Players will be able to choose which area they'd like to start in, or choose "Random" if you're feeling lucky, similar to what already happens in Hero Corruption 1.

There's also a new exploration screen, where the player can see the location's recommended level, and an icon to better reference the gallery. This screen will also be shown at Janna's shop, with the addition of each map's cost. You guys will probably struggle a little due to muscle memory with this new screen, especially veteran players in the early days, but this is necessary to keep the game from becoming a mess once more locations are added. This screen well likely see improvements over time.

Although this new area borrowed some enemies from the forest, there are no bosses in it, so keep that in mind when choosing where to start your run.

Along with the new area, new enemies were added to populate it, a new round of girls was added to the tavern, new achievements, a new bad trait and new bad endings. This next week I'll be playtesting the new version, so we can schedule the release of version 0.45 for Monday, July 3rd.