v0.2 Introducing Challenges and the Focus Bar!

I'll get into some deeper discussion below the notes if you're interested but here's the good stuff!

[Additions/Changes]

• Added the Focus bar. 
  • Focus builds with each attack and once the limit is reached, your turn timer is reduced to 0.05s and you unleash a frenzy of attack for the focus time. 
  • The amount of attacks required to achieve focus and the time focus lasts can be increased through challenges.
• Added Challenges.
  • Challenges allow you to gain currency, reduce the amount of attacks required for focus, or increase the time focus lasts. There are four categories: Defeats, Stats, Items, and Areas/Map.
  • The Challenges button will change color like skills and equipment to let you know when a challenge is completed.
• Area 2 and new gear added.
  • All of the enemies for area 2 including the boss have been added.
  • Two pieces of gear for each category have been added and will be unlocked after defeating the first boss. The stats on each piece contrast the other but both pieces in each category are viable!
• Options menu added.
  • This will allow you to turn on and off window transparency, change the transparency value, and turn off and on the flashing lights for the Focus bar.
• Currency Skill changed to a multiplier instead of just adding the skill level to the total you gain.
• Added a temporary title screen.

[Known Bugs]

• The speed stat for the challenge isn't being calculated correctly.
• The Currency Multiplier increase is not showing correctly. It's currently showing -0.1, but is actually +0.1. The total is showing correctly though and the currency gain is working correctly.
• Saving and loading have been implemented but due to some way I structured code on the backend, there are a few bugs with it loading data correctly. These have been disabled and will be the focus of the next update.

[Future Additions/Changes]

• The ability to upgrade stats while battling.
  • This has been mentioned in feedback a few times and I couldn't agree more that this is needed. I'll be looking into adding this into the next update.
• Showing which category of challenges can be completed instead of scrolling through each list.
• Better distribution of rewards through challenges instead of only being able to get certain rewards from a certain type of challenge.
• More areas and gear.
• An arena mode or some sort of repeatable area with an enemy strength modifier.
• Buffing the Speed increase skill to be more impactful and a more viable choice. 
  • This is tricky due to the way timers function. They can only go so low and is either tied to framerate or cpu speed (I'll research this a bit more). I've tested the lowest speed possible on 3 different PCs and they're all different values.

     Work on this update has been a bit hectic. I entertained the idea of doing an idle game within an idle game as a replacement for Challenges. Ultimately it didn't end up working out but I was considering something like farming for item drops and being able to get them on a timer (albeit a somewhat lengthy one). You would also have ways to reduce that timer. That'll likely be for another game though.

    I also discovered really annoying saving issue that was admittedly caused by me. Things would save and load correctly but the challenges wouldn't update. This seems to be caused by the way I referenced some things in the code on the backend and is gonna require some restructuring. It's not overly complicated but will definitely take time. I think it's important to have though as the playtests are starting to get lengthy and it would be nice to have over multiple sessions both as a dev and a player.

    I'm really enjoying how the focus bar turned out. As someone who plays idle games, my favorite part is watching a lot of numbers happen all at once on the screen and the focus bar is rewarding in that way. I plan to have the lower limit for attacks needed to be 3 if you really go out of your way to do challenges.

    The next major update will be entirely focused on fixing the saving and loading system as well as adding the ability to upgrade things and complete challenges while battling. This is well overdue and was popular feedback. Hoping to get that update done in a couple of weeks!