Devlog #1 - Levelling Up The Game

Hello Talented Gamers!

After an amazing first week with hundreds of people playing the game and thousands seeing it, I'm a little nervous to take the next step forward and dive back into designing and coding again but games don't make themselves so here goes nothing. Below are areas of the game I want to improve in the next Talented update. (These are subject to change, Game Development is a process of trying out 100s of ideas and deleting the crap ones!)

As promised, I want to build this game closely with the people who enjoy playing it (that means you I hope) so you'll notice that a lot of the points I want to hit on with 0.3.X are topics that have come up on the Talented Discord. Come and join the conversation there, you may even get a talent named after you one day!

Run Structure

A common problem people experience with Talented is getting a build so broken they can effectively play the game forever (or until they get bored). This can be fun once or twice, but it stops the game from having that moreish, 'just one more run' feel that makes roguelikes so great.

There are a few solutions to this, but I believe having a clear early, middle and end game for runs would fit Talented best. Building that is a process that will take more than one update but I'll be laying the groundwork for that in 0.3.

• Runs will be limited to a certain number of days, surviving those days will mean you've completed the run successfully (aren't you cool!).
• Every time you complete a run you will unlock a new Mastery Level to play on, which will add additional challenge to the run.

Meta Game

Another common issue people have is that awful feeling when a run ends; everything you've just collected is gone and you have to start all over again. 

With 0.3 I'll be adding a new levelling system, which means as you play, you'll keep getting stronger (even if you die!).

• Runs (successful or failed) will grant Knowledge which will increase the options available in future runs. The better a run, the more Knowledge can be passed down to future runs.
• Classes (more on Classes soon!) will have a number of Knowledge Levels, reaching a new level will unlock more talents and every 5 Knowledge Levels will unlock a Class Trait.
• Class Traits are a choice from 3 possible bonuses that will stay with you permanently throughout the run. You can change your Class Traits before each run to try out new strategies.

Hopefully this gives you enough to chew on for now! There's plenty more to come, even inside this update but I won't overwhelm you with that right now. If you have any questions/concerns about this please do Join the Discord and we'll chat about it!

Thank you so much to everyone who tried out 0.2.3, especially to those that reported bugs and gave feedback it's so useful to hear where the game is flourishing and where it's falling short!