(WHO KNEW THAT CARS COULD SING? WHAT CAN'T THEY DO!?)

A week ago I added this upgrade to the game that every 10 enemies you kill with crash dashing, you gain a permanent bonus to all dash damage. I was really excited by this, because it adds a new facet to progress. You got stronger if you played a certain way and in a permanent way that makes each run very exciting. From this I had the idea yesterday to add new upgrades that can give permanent life and other permanent damage when you kill enemies with a healbite, or if you kill them with alt charged attacks.

I can further play on these mechanics by augmenting the upgrades to be more potent. Maybe you find a ring that reduces the scaling required # of enemies killed by 40%. This gives more and more interesting sources of power that have a direct impact on play. Certain areas will give you more kills, other areas will have better items. Some items will be more suited to other areas, and all the while the player will have access to pearls to give them some level of control of their path to power through purchasable upgrades.

I've also for the first time had great ideas for permanent bonuses that last through playthroughs. What if the player could permanently start with these bonuses that increase base stats? What if they could permanently buy the upgrades that reduces the scaling requirements to get that next point of bonus? We are transcending the linear growths of prior games and getting into exponential rises in fun! More than every I feel good about the idea of SeaCrit being a roguelike. You play, it's rough, maybe you die a few times in a 50 minute spawn, and eventually the game becomes too hard and you start a new run. It's all starting to come together.

That at the heart of progression games is the source of fun. That dopamine hit you get when you get that big item, that next stat point, that next convenient that allows you to spend more time grinding that next big rare.

The planned playthrough progress is feeling more viable than ever. I feel like I understand the game now, I know what's going to make it fun. Quality upgrades, quality combat, and well tuned randomization and some revolutionary progression loops spanning many dimensions. I'm very excited for the future for the first time in a long time, if still a bit trepidations and hoping things don't suddenly nose dive as they tend to do.

I wanted to spend more time on this blog, feeling a little scatterbrained right now, but I've got some shepherd's pie to finish up, and I was itching to just get to work, but now feeling off. Was feeling fantastic but i pushed a little hard making the food. This whole ordeal is a real rollercoaster ride.