Yay new abilities. As part of trying to make sure melee has the tools to be as viable and interesting as magic and support throughout the tower, these are the new abilities that got created.

Many of these are available on relics, allowing you to start using them right away. Others will show up on demons, waiting to be learned. Still others will join the ranks of those rare but powerful abilities you can only find on modified demons.

Things still appear to be on schedule for an Annual Roguelike Release Party weekend release of the build. Won’t be long now! Until then, enjoy this preview of the new abilities that are being added in that build. (Note: Yes, some of these aren’t melee. Improving melee a little is the main point of the build, but it isn’t the entire build. For example, some relics such as Faithful Heart and Hand of the Dead are getting expanded starting options, and some of these abilities are part of that. )

Absolving Cut: 70 Power attack. Removes Guilt, Mute, Pariah, or Hex from you or a nearby ally.

Bloodthrist: Heals you for 25% of the damage you deal with Slash, Impact, or Pierce abilities (affected by Body resistance).

Brain Knocker: Provides a 50% chance for your Slash, Impact, and Pierce attacks to delay the next turn of the target.

Calming Cut: 70 Power attack. Removes Stun, Panic, Sleep, or Charm from you or a nearby ally.

Crippler: Provides a 20% chance for your Slash, Impact, and Pierce attacks to apply Hex, which reduces physical resistances (not immunity) by one level, and reduces physical damage dealt.

Earth Break: 55 Power attack (Burst). Cannot miss.

Ember Burst: 70% chance to Ignite the targets (Area), causing damage over a short duration.

Guarding Cry: Briefly improves defense by 25% for you and your allies (Area).

Heavy Guard: Responds to blocking and parrying attacks by adjacent enemies with a 40 Power attack that has a 35% chance to inflict Stun, causing the target to miss their next turn. Cannot miss.

Leap Attack: Must target a character. Leap to the target with an 85 Power attack. Inflicts Stun, causing the target to miss their next turn.

Malleable: Improves natural HP regeneration and healing received (including from the Regen status effect) by 25%. Does not affect abilities that drain or heal based on dealing damage.

Maul: 85 Power attack split between two Slash attacks.

Numbing: Provides a 20% chance for your Slash, Impact, and Pierce attacks to apply Paralysis, causing the target to frequently miss their turns.

Piercing Thrust: 70 Power attack (Line).

Riposte: Responds to being missed, dodging, and parrying attacks by adjacent enemies with a 70 Power attack.

Silver Hand: Provides a 20% chance for your Slash, Impact, and Pierce attacks to apply Mute, which prevents the use of non-physical abilities.

What? No, not the AARP, I’m not *that* old yet, even if I am losing my hair. The A*R*RP, The Annual Roguelike Release Party! Basically, it’s a weekend where roguelike devs encourage each other to release updates to their projects.

Granted, Demon gets updated all the time, and I think the idea is more about pulling unknown/unreleased roguelikes out of the shadows, but known roguelikes are still totally welcome, so I’m planning to participate.

I didn’t know this was a thing until just here recently, which is a shame because I’d have liked to have plan on something extra-interesting for it. However, I think I’ve come up with a reasonable goal that will still be pretty exciting: an attempt to shift the balance a bit  towards melee characters/builds, who has Xavier and others have pointed out, tend to get a bit of a rough ride up until now because of how many stats are required (Strength, Vitality, Agility, and often Cunning too) This will also include a small number of new abilities being added to the game, many of which will be available on the Titan’s Fist relic.

I’ll post more details about what I’ve got in mind soon.

The mini map is coming along nicely too. Almost done with this build!

This is looking a bit more useful/pretty now. I wonder if I can find room on the main UI for an actual mini map though, it’s already pretty crowded in the lower resolution…

Mapping is coming along…

Woo hoo! 1000 total (1003, actually) games of Demon have been reported to the server since I started tracking 3 1/2 months ago.

It’s not a huge number by any means.. but the trajectory is nice. :) The first two of those months averaged ~1/day. Mid July it picked up to around 15-20/day, and since then has been slowly climbing. A few days recently even hit spikes of 50 or 60.

I look forward to continuing to develop Demon and make it even better. :) A big thank you is in order for everyone who has helped out with art or code, played it, given feedback, or even just been supportive of the effort despite the particular strain of insanity that compels me to spend this much time on working on a game I never have any plan to charge money for.