Venturous 1.7 Episode 7 Release

[PixelFox]

On MAP09, I found a way to skip the red gate by jumping on top of a pillar on the right and then over the wall

Thanks for letting me know! It's been fixed, will be updated in the next version.

Changing the machete jump so it only works while you're in the air makes it much harder to use effectively IMO, which is a bit unfortunate.

The change to the machete jump was necessary, unfortunately. I kept seeing too many people not understand how to use it, even after I tried to spell it out in the journal. They expected it to function more like a double-jump. And those who did figure it out, usually (rightfully) accused it of feeling janky. Because it was an unintended side effect the melee lunge.

I eventually decided to try making it behave in a more standardized fashion, and gave it to the playtesters on the Discord to try out. Most of them preferred the new jump. Further, the reason it now only works in the air is so the player can break things without getting awkwardly pulled into them every time. Or to maintain control while melee-ing enemies. And to stop the player falling forwards out of huts while trying to break pots, which kept happening to me. Unfortunately, this does make the longjump a little harder, and speedrunning a little more awkward. But I felt the trade-off was worth it, to keep the player's footing solid while on the ground.
The sweet-spot is to jump and swing simultaneously, don't wait for the apex of the jump to swing.

[Kzer-Za]

First of all: a great game! I've enjoyed it a heck of a lot more than any commercial game I've played in a looong while. Can't wait for the last episode!

I do have some nitpicks though (which do not detract from the fact that this is a fantastically good game):

1. I would have preferred to not have permanent life upgrades.

2. All armor items are picked up even if your current armor is 200. I realize that this is done because the secrets are implemented not via sectors, but are tagged when you pick up a secret item, so you need to be able to pick up those secret armor items even when your current armor is 200 in order to tag the secret... But still, my heart bleeds when this armor goes to waste.

3. I would prefer that the author cut down on enforced pistol starts. For me it ruins the feeling of progression, when all my hoarding in the previous map was for nothing since I lose everything anyway. IMHO, enforcing pistol start just for the first map of an episode would be enough, but currently in the second episode you are forced to pistol start not once (for the first map, which is okay), not twice, but thrice!!! Thankfully, subsequent episodes do not follow this pattern, but seeing this pattern (very high probability that you are gonna lose everything) very early in the game made me squirm for the rest of the game each time I approached a map exit.

[Kzer-Za]

Forgot to tell how much I love Ebu Gogo This little f-er is an incredible mix of horrifyingly funny and funnily horrifying! And I don't know whether this was the source of the author's inspiration for creating this creature or not, but to me they greatly remind of that "Zuni doll" from Trilogy of Terror (1975).

[Kzer-Za]

Also, I have found several issues with the last episode:

Map24 (Monsoon): in the first two open-sky areas it is raining, but in the final area it is not. The result looks rather strange: you stand under an open sky, it is raining. You go through a corridor, emerge to a new area: no rain. You go back: it is raining again.

Map25 (Flooded Caverns):
1. There is an area with a stone step that is only 1-line thick (see the screenshots, the crosshair is pointing at it).
http://shadrinden.ru/files/Map25-1-1.png
http://shadrinden.ru/files/Map25-1-2.png
http://shadrinden.ru/files/Map25-1-3.png
http://shadrinden.ru/files/Map25-1-4.png
(the fourth screenshot shows it on the automap, with the player represented by the angle pointing towards the line in question)
2. There is an area where a stone step leading from water into dry land has a scrolling texture, same as the water stream neighboring it. To be more precise, not only the texture is scrolled, but the player is moved in the same direction, as if in that stream. The scrolling can't be seen from the screenshots, of course, but they show you where it is.
http://shadrinden.ru/files/Map25-2-1.png
http://shadrinden.ru/files/Map25-2-2.png

Map26 (Gua Tanpa Pulang): there is an area where a small stone "island" has a scrolling texture (and is moving the player), same as the water stream the island is in. Again, the scrolling can't be seen from the screenshots, but they show you where it is.
http://shadrinden.ru/files/Map26-1.png
http://shadrinden.ru/files/Map26-2.png

Also in all the maps (as far as I can tell) in the last episode: if you throw a grenade or a torch into shallow water, they disappear without a trace, same as in deep water. By deep water I mean water that has a dedicated water texture, like streams, ocean, etc. Shallow water is puddles that you encounter in some room/corridors/etc, they have the same texture as the floor in that room/corridor, just with a reflective surface. See the attached screenshot for example.
http://shadrinden.ru/files/Puddle.png
As far as I can tell, in the preceding episodes shallow water was handled correctly: grenades bounced off it (since it is obviously just a couple cm deep, so they bounce off the floor).

[PixelFox]

First of all: a great game! I've enjoyed it a heck of a lot more than any commercial game I've played in a looong while. Can't wait for the last episode!

Thank you!

And thanks for reporting those issues, I'll address them. I noticed a grenade disappearing in a puddle the other day, I reckon I know what happened there.
The rain not being in the final area was a deliberate choice for performance reasons. But I'll test if it actually does affect performance or not. With the help of the Discord playtesters we got the rain pretty performant. I could also just switch of the rain in the starting areas once the player gets to the final area, as if it stopped raining.

Tagging the pickups as secrets instead of sectors was done after I saw a couple of streamers cheat by playing with secrets revealed on the map. I figured this would combat that. But I've since stopped caring about it, so I guess I could make the secrets sector based again. But yes, that's why the armour is always pickup-able.

With regards to the pistol starts. I was making those early maps out of order, and not really knowing what I was doing. And resetting the arsenal was a way to keep some control over the difficulty curve. I definitely wanted the player to have the MG42 in the museum for the 2nd lobby fight, but the next map had already been built and balanced around the player not having it, etc. And story-wise it makes sense to disarm the explorer when he is captured, so he has to gather a new arsenal with new weapons, and not be overwhelmed if he still had the old guns as well. I also saw it as a way to encourage the player to use the good weapons now and not hoard it for later, since they're shown it's going to be lost anyway. But yeah, I hear you. I wouldn't do it this way if I were to redo it.

Re the Ebu Gogo, those were mostly inspired by the undead pygmies from The Mummy 2. Glad you like them, they were fun to make