Finally, a new version of Golem has been published! You can find it here: https://surrealpartisan.itch.io/golem-a-self-made-person.
Golem: A Self-Made Person! is a roguelike game about modular bodies with replaceable parts. Delve deeper into the dungeon, slay enemies and incorporate their parts to your own body! Pray to the sinful gods of the underground! Eat your own limbs to avoid starvation!
Below, I'll try to list the most significant changes in the new alpha.
Additions to the game content
A big new addition is the fear system. Critical damage can make the golem and its adversaries scared or even panicked, limiting their ability to attack and have non-defensive stances. Along with this update comes the ablity to run, so you can flee your enemies in panic! In addition to damage, fear can be caused by the scary faces of undead creatures. Of course, in the unique style of Golem, you can take these scary heads as your own and frighten your enemies! Hearts affect the bravery of each creature, making them more or less susceptible to being scared.
Thrown weapons are another addition. You can throw not only daggers and spears, but also stones you get from the smooth round pebbles traps (one of the two new "improvised weapon" types, the other being torches you get from campfires). One of the benefits of throwing is that you can do extra sneak damage to enemies who haven't noticed you yet.
Melee fighting has also been developed further. A big change is that the vertical position of the attacking bodypart and the target bodypart affect the hit probability of an attack. Longer and more flexible limbs reach farther up and down, but the range can be improved with weapons of different lengths. Other aspects now affecting hit probability of both melee and ranged attacks include the speed of the target and whether they are imbalanced by damage to their legs (imbalanced creatures also take more damage from attacks).
The bodies of the creatures in the game are a bit more detailed now, with the addition of kidneys. Kidneys filter out poisons over time, replacing the old system where poisons dissipated by themselves. Without kidneys, you may get poisoned spontaneously, especially if you consist of a combination of living and undead flesh.
Some creatures, namely mole people and canines, have now a sense of smell. They can follow your smell trace to you even if they haven't seen you. And of course you can take their heads as your own, and with it, their sense of smell to get some forewarnings of enemy presence.
There are ten new types of enemies, going as deep as to level 15. HAlf of these are goblinoids that get linearly bigger and badder, but there are also some more unique enemies, including the first one that belongs to two different factions (meaning mainly that it is affected by two types of bane weapons).
Gods have been improved as well. There is now some variation in their blessings and curses. Additionally, they have nice new nicknames describing their personality.
Additionally, there are some new items, interacting with the new mechanics.
User interface upgrades
The detailed fighting simulation may get tiresome, as you have to choose so many details for each attack, even when fighting the puniest of enemies and knowing that victory is only a question of time. Thus, it has been requested by at least two players that there should be the possibility of repeating attacks. Now, that possibility is real! If the target creature, target bodypart and attacking limb and weapon stay the same, just press R (or whatever you set the key to be in the settings) and the attack gets repeated. However, if your tactics include alternating between two attacks, you can press Shift+R to repeat the secont to last attack.
Another upgrade also makes some actions faster. When choosing things from a list, such as an item to drop or a bodypart to include in your body, the first ten options can be chosen with the number keys.
Adjusting the game difficulty
I also heard some complaints that the game was too difficult. Even though the game should be difficult, I agree with the complaints. It is hard to make a game that is not very difficult, when by definition you progress by taking down creatures stronger than yourself. However, I found a loophole! The Golem is a magical creature, that can sometimes utilize bodyparts that would be too damaged for their original owners. Thus, there is now a coefficient in the code determining what percentage of total HP can a non-golem creature or bodypart take before being incapacitated. Now the variable is set as two thirds. As this is easily adjustable, I would be happy to receive some feedback telling whether the game is still too difficult or already too easy.
I hope you have fun playing the new alpha and discovering how all these changes work in practice!
