- Patch Notes - 2021.06.26 - 26 June 2021
This is a quick patch that fixes a bug. When you kill the Bandit Lord from a distance and he drops his axe, it would cause an error. This was introduced in a recent patch that altered my code for weapon pickup/drop. This bug is now fixed.
- Polish Patch has Arrived! - 7 June 2021
This patch adds general polish to the game. The next patch will add the multilingual system, which will support 29 languages! If an upgraded bones ally becomes a rabbit, his head would turn into a black box and his torso wouldn't change into a bunny. This is now fixed. Unlimited arrows quiver ragdoll drew as a black box. This is now fixed. In the info tutorial message for unlimited quiver, the quiver image was still the placeholder image. Quiver is now lined up correctly for ragdoll During a recent patch, the cape stopped drawing for Herakles' ragdoll. This is now fixed and the cape draws for his ragdoll. Fixed a bug where music and sound would fade in/out too quickly. Steps were provided into a function I made but milliseconds was needed. So it would fade in/out 16x faster than I had intended. It was almost like no fade was happening at all. I now have more control over the fade amount…
- Patch Notes - 2021.05.18 - 18 May 2021
Fixed a bug that caused the "Over 9000!!!!" achievement to trigger as complete when simply producing 5 bone allies without having to actually upgrade them all the way (which would take about another 25 lightning bolts)
- Patch Notes - 2021.05.13 - 13 May 2021
Fixed a bug that would cause the game to display an error on launch if you played the demo's version 2021.05.12 and then played the full version's 2021.05.12. Launching the game after the error displays once would make it go away for good, but this patch fixes the bug completely.
- Achievements added! - 12 May 2021
This patch adds 50 Steam achievements to the game. The Demo was also updated. The next patch will focus on general polish. Some achievements will be unlocked upon starting the game. This is because data on them was stored in files or in Steam stats. If someone was to play the Demo client and unlock an achievement, it will automatically unlock when they purchase and start the full game. Also, I did a marketing update to the game: Created animated wallpaper for Herakles Created an updated Speedrun trailer Updated Steam page Updated heraklesgame.com Updated beckergames.com Created Demo installer to share on websites Updated Becker Games free software to advertise Herakles Posted the new Speedrun trailer on reddit
- Speedrun QoL Patch has arrived! - 8 February 2021
This patch adds some quality of life enhancements and fixes to the Speedrun update. This will be the last major update/patch before the Achievements update! Any other patch before then will be to fix unforeseen bugs. Added new rules to Speedrun.com. If someones time is really fast, a video link will be required. See the game's Speedrun.com's rules for details. Reduced the distance to heal in Demo and Classic modes. Previously, the player would heal when they were 1,920 pixels away from an enemy. Now, the player will heal if they have no enemies on the screen. This is normalized to a 1920x1080 resolution. So, someone with a 1440x1080 resolution still won't be healing just because the enemies are off the screen. They would need to go a bit further as if they had a 1920x1080 resolution. This works well and helps newbs. It also doesn't really affect the Speedrun meta since it is not often t…
- Patch Notes - 2021.02.01 - 1 February 2021
This patch fixes a bug in the cheat detection. It had a chance of banning runs that were legit. This bug has been addressed and fixed. Only one person experienced this bug and that person is unbanned. They did not hack anything and it was just a bug. This patch also has added and changed the format of data that is submitted to the leaderboards. For this reason, if you check the box "Compare Against: World Record" and the World Record was a previous version of the game, it will return that the world record is corrupted. This will be fixed once people beat the world records with the new version/patch. In the future, if I need to change the format again, I will be able to make a compatibility system to handle that better. The next patch that I am currently working on will continue to improve the speedrun mode/update.
- Patch Notes - 2021.01.29 - 30 January 2021
This patch balances and fixes things from the Speedrun Patch. In the next patch, I will be continuing to work on improving the Speedrun Patch. It was a big patch and plenty to improve upon. Balanced Recruiting Soldier's #1 level in Demo and Classic modes. The 3 soldiers and 1 pikemen that come overtop of the pit sometimes came in faster than you can get there. For speedrunning, it now feels better and possible to overtake them from underneath with a bow. Demo and Classic modes now allow you to heal if you are far enough a way from an enemy. This isn't going to be seen much in speedrunning, but it is a good way to make the game easier for new players. Console tutorial tip is now disabled during Demo's tutorial. When picking up a weapon that is falling, the collision for pickup was small because the collision for really for colliding with the ground. So, now there is a collision for picki…
- Speedrun Update is Now Live! - 27 January 2021
I am happy to finally share the biggest patch that Herakles has ever had! This Speedrun patch adds so much to the game, including a speedrun mode and leaderboards! See below for a full summary of everything that has been added/changed. Speedrun: 3 game modes, consisting of 5 total leaderboards Automatic speedrun route system - routes diverge any time a player enters a level or acquires a new buff. A segment ends and begins when a player leaves a level. If a player chooses to "Stay in Level" to acquire an item or buff, the level will not end until they exit the level. Every speedrun attempt is saved in the %USERNAME%\AppData\Local\herakles\userdata Cloud/Attempts folder. These can be used in the future to generate fun statistics. They are never loaded into the game, however, and are safe to delete if you ever wanted to. The game keeps a pruned version of your attempts that only includes…
- Steam Cloud Update is here! - 17 August 2020
Cloud patch is here! This patch enables cloud saving, in preparation for the upcoming speedrun patch. The speedrun patch will save every speedrun attempt and other fun things, so it made sense to set up the cloud saving system, first. There are also other various improvements and fixes in this patch. The demo version was also updated. The next patch will be the speedrun patch! :D Cloud patch, moved file location of saved data into: AppData/Local/herakles/userdata/ There are 2 folders here, Cloud and Local. Cloud stores saved data that is synced between computers. Local stores files like "settings.ini" that should not be synced between computers. Cloud data is synced between the Demo and Full version. This is more important for the speedrun update coming up, since people playing the Demo will be allowed to speedrun the demo. If you crafted a torch, it did not mark it as "found/unlocked"…
- Patch Notes - 2020.05.09 - 10 May 2020
This patch adds more gameplay and general improvements. This is the 2nd and final part of the gameplay and general improvements patch. The next patch will be the speed run patch! Ragdolls are now automatically removed after 100 are on the screen. This number would never occur in normal play, but it is good to have to prevent all possible lag. Dropped weapons are now automatically removed after 100 are on the screen. Renamed dolphin to Delphinus. Delphinus makes more sense for Greek mythology. She was a dolphin that helped Poseidon, and in return he placed her amongst the stars (as a constellation). Added a "hotkeys" command to the console. It displays possible hotkeys to press. Tested the new lightning with gamepad to ensure it works as intended. Blocking dragon's fire with your shield now does a lot more damage. It is now the best way in regular play to deal damage to the dragon (excep…
- Patch Notes - 2020.04.11 - 11 April 2020
This patch adds a number of gameplay and general improvements. This is part 1 of the gameplay and general improvements patch. It is a very large patch and so I decided to split it into 2 patches. The next patch will be another gameplay and general improvements patch. On king's tower level, the missing scenery "back" blocks felt off and so I made it level. On King's Tower level, when doing lightning, if no block is underneath the mouse, the lightning will summon all the way to the bottom, making it look strange as you can then see the top of the lightning sprite/image. It now will create at the top of the HUD as the lowest point. I did not yet test this with the gamepad and will do that before the speedrun patch. During Chaos and Hades modes, on any level with snow trees, the scenery randomizer would not randomize them into something else. This was because I did not code them into the sc…
- Patch Notes - 2020.03.09 - 10 March 2020
This patch includes non-game related updates and demo updates. The next patch will revolve around gameplay improvements and other general improvements. It will set things up for the speed run patch. Herakles t-shirt is finished and now available from heraklesgame.com. I will advertise it at a future date in order to attempt a reverse-marketing strategy. In which people will find the shirt, like it and then search for the game. Next patch will have the Arcade Popup include a Shop tab. It is already created, but I just need to enable it. Set up SEO for heraklesgame.com. People can now search for it and it will show up in search results more easily. Finalized the cover art and uploaded its new high res versions all over Steam and heraklesgame.com Demo mode's hydra difficulty has been reduced. Easy and Very Easy have 1 hydra. Medium has 2 hydras. Hard and Very Hard have 3 hydras. You can no…
- New Soundtrack System Implemented - 3 February 2020
Great news! Steam released a new system for soundtracks. All soundtracks were previously DLC, but now developers can list a soundtrack under the "Soundtrack" category. This means you can now purchase the Herakles soundtrack on Steam without having to buy the game. I also updated the Herakles soundtrack's album art. Check it out on Soundtrack's own Steam page!
- Patch Notes - 2019.12.16 - 16 December 2019
This patch fixed and improved a few things. The next patch will revolve around polishing the cover art and updating the library assets with it. Fixed the randomize characters checkbox depth. It was over top of the settings popup. D and A keys on OST screen now work as they should. Updated unlimited Arrow Buff with new artwork. It previously just said "temp". Improved the arcade popup's divider and it is now better looking.
- Patch Notes - 2019.12.06 - 6 December 2019
This patch fixed and improved a few things. The next patch will revolve around improving things in the demo Smoothed weapon and item highlights/glows. I may add additional glow in a future patch. Changed Demo and Classic Hydra water to blue (instead of green/poison). Tried different blue colors and decided the original blue is still good. Changed Classic Graphics blue water to be a solid blue to fit more with the solid color scheme. Lined up and centered the demo and classic level complete text a bit. Hitting shift (or gamepad left bumper) to was enough to trigger the "Move Boat" tutorial complete. Now it requires you to actually move the boat to complete that tutorial. Classic and demo modes now have water splash effect and sound. Classic graphics still does not have the splash effect.
- Patch Notes - 2019.12.01 - 1 December 2019
This patch fixes a few things. Next patch will also be fixing/improving a several things. Classic mode wasn't showing all of the tutorials, even if you don't skip the training level. Now it will correctly show the tutorials unless you skip the training level. Red power bar for bow now correctly shows the classic sprite instead of the normal sprite. Removed a very dark pixel that stood out on the column sprite Adding a debug overlay option in the console, under bug commands. Added weapon selected highlight on the HUD for Classic Mode. Updated Tentative Patch Schedule
- Classic Graphics Update has Arrived! - 22 November 2019
This patch adds the Classic Graphics to Classic Mode, as well as a lot of other improvements/changes listed below. The next set of patches will be smaller and fix minor bugs/issues. Added Classic Graphics to Classic Mode. You have the option using a Checkbox, as well as pressing “Ctrl” at any point while in Classic Mode. Performance and gameplay should be identical. The only difference are the graphics. You may get a hiccup in fps while switching between the 2 because of the resource/texture swap. Added system to my game for swapping resources. This was required to get Classic Graphics into the game. Created new images for Classic Mode that were never in the 2006 version. They are stylized just as the 2006 images were. I reused many other images that were already in the 2006 version. I benchmarked the game using various settings and improved performance by 17.2%. This was mostly due to…
- Patch Notes - 2019.09.13 - 13 September 2019
This is a quick bug fix patch. It fixes a music bug. Fixed a bug that caused the demo and classic mode's music to not start playing. The main theme would simply continue playing because of this.
- Classic Mode Update is Now Live! - 12 September 2019
This patch adds the Classic Mode to the game. Next patch will fix some bugs and add some minor improvements. Implemented Classic Mode. It is accessible through the Arcade popup.
