Hey Everyone!

So, Beta 2.0 is out now, so you can play it! This document will serve as a kind of guide to this update. It will cover what I am looking for feedback on,  how to play, known bugs and flaws, etc.. Hopefully this will solve the problem of people having no idea what they're doing because I haven't added a tutorial yet. :) (Maybe next update)

Update Summary

This update, I tried to "fix my game". It used to be a complete mess, with weird gameplay, a broken progression system, many balance issues, and, well it wasn't fun. So to fix this I started working on "2.0". This update was intended to completely remake the game, with better design and MORE FUN combat! However, obviously, it's a lot to remake an entire game in just one update, so I split it into 2. Beta 2.0 has made the combat better, now including a DASH ABILITY (amazing), and a difference between the primary and secondary weapons (primary weapons are very weak but secondary weapons slow down the player but do a LOT of damage). Beta 2.1 will add the Forbidden Woods area, a bunch of content, and more of the dungeon crawler systems excluded from this update.

How To Play

Alright so the basic controls are simple. It's literally just the standard WSAD. You can aim with the mouse and use LMB (Left mouse button), and the mouse wheel to switch weapons (The revolver weapon lets you hold fire). To dash, simply hit the space bar. You will dash in the direction you are moving, not the direction you are facing. 

Extra Things!

You can press F3 to activate "Cheat mode". This will reload the game and give you a Hyper Revolver and Sniper Rifle. 2 very early examples of "Chaos Variant" weapons. I will explain these more maybe in the next playtester information because its not really fully in this version yet. At the moment these are just stronger versions of the basic weapons, but in the future they will also have unique behaviors.

Gameplay

The gameplay in this update is pretty boring, as it was just made in a few days to showcase the new movement, combat and AI systems, which were the focus of this update. It is very similar to the gameplay of Cataclysm pre2.0, with the wave based combat, but considerably worse. Enemy spawns are now constant with no break. The enemies exponentially get stronger (they are really weak for ages though), and the idea is that you have to try and kill as many as possible (that's how you increase your score). Dying simply restarts the level.

Oh yeah by the way, feel free to post your highscores in the community section. I have made a tag specifically for them. Don't try to use cheat mode to get a good highscore though! Using cheatmode turns your score counter red. :)

Feedback

So, as a lot of the stuff is temporary in this update, I will list what I do want feedback on this update. You can still give me feedback on other things, but chances are that it would be changed in the next updates anyway.

• Combat (Player movement, PVE, How it feels to fight enemies. Keep in mind that these are enemies that will be featured in the first area, so they will definitely be easy and maybe get boring after a while).
• AI Behavior (How the AI moves and acts. It does have a "wander" AIState where it walks around until it finds the player, but that has been excluded from this update because it made the gameplay feel really boring because you have to go and find the enemies and thats not very fun. I still want this update to be a little bit entertaining, I have to record footage of it for the devlog).

Thats about it. Anyway its time for the Known Bugs And Flaws Section!!!!!!

Known Bugs And Flaws Section!!!!!!

• Art is bad. Its literally just placeholder.
• Splash screen looks a little weird??? Anyone else notice that?? Hopefully I should be able to pinpoint the problem by 2.1.
• UI is also bad. It won't stay like that forever though. I will fix it in the UI Update (Beta 2.0.1), But if you read the Future Plans section of the changelog, you'd already know that.
• There aren't any known bugs by the way, so if you find something I probably don't know about it.
• Oh yeah, and before anyone mentions it, no, the dash doesn't let you go through things. That is reserved for a specific item I will add maybe in 2.1 or 2.2

Conclusion

Alright, well that's Beta 2.0. I have been working on this update for ages (Mainly on the AI), and it feels super good to finally be done with it. But again, this update is not better than 1.4. Its just meant to upgrade specific systems so future updates can be better than 1.4. Just had to clarify again. But yeah. Thank you for playtesting Cataclysm. It is really appreciated.

Have a good rest of your day :)

-Millipede

(I spent literal hours editing this)