Valley 2 Beta .708 "Aggressive Angles" Released!

This one is the first beta update since our return from the holidays.  Yesterday I was in meetings practically all day about our various in-work projects, making sure that we hit the ground running in the new year.  Things are looking good on that score!

In terms of this new version of Valley 2, there's a lot to love, but it's mostly tweaks and fixes and the like. 

The number one complaint we've had is about the controls feeling awkward with the game in terms of shooting at angles.  And players were right -- that was awkward.  A lot of us didn't really pick up on that because we simply ignored the existence of the angled shots and then things were great.  But if you actually felt like you needed to use the controls that were there... well, then it felt like uncomfortable finger ballet.

After a lot of mulling, we decided that if shooting only in the four cardinal directions was good enough for Cave Story, then it's good enough for us as well.  The release notes contain much more detailed notes on the reasoning and rationale behind these control changes.

Another big item is monster aggression on player death, which you can read about in greater detail there.  But basically, it was pointed out to us that there was just no incentive at all to avoid death, and so we introduced one that is based off of player suggestions but a bit on the kinder side.  Unless you're playing on a higher difficulty than your skill matches, this shouldn't really be an issue of a change for you; and on the lowest two difficulties it actually flat-out makes the game easier.

Lastly, there was a whole laundry list of fixes and tweaks and balance adjustments, including some that were game-blocking in the late game if you hit level 21 before doing certain other actions.  And including some that were causing unnecessary confusion about what can and can not be walked on in terms of tiles on the world map.

More to come soon.  Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game.  If you have the beta on Steam, it will automatically update for you.  When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time. If you don't have the standalone game, you can download that here.  If you already own the first game, just use your existing license key to unlock the sequel for free!