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I'd like to thank everyone who's followed the development and supported NNFF! Seeing you as excited about the game as me kept me motivated, and made me want to see it through to the end.
There's a lot of soul in this project, and it means a lot to me... I hope you like it!
Only three weeks left before you can play the game!!
No Need for Flowers has been in development for a few years now, and it's very exciting to finally be able to share it with everyone! I hope you enjoy it...
To see more development updates and announcements like this, make sure to wishlist & follow!
Hello! It's been a while since I last posted an update. I've been very busy finishing up the game and making sure it's polished as best as it can be. In this post, I'd like to share some information regarding the release plans and what to expect!
The gameplay, content, cutscenes, and graphics are 100% finished!!
\
... soon... very soon...
Several tweaks and improvements were made to the gameplay and mechanics based on feedback from testers!
• All pages of the bestiary are fully unlockable on any difficulty! • The easter egg level is now replayable! • Bosses no longer deal contact damage! (no more confusing deaths) • Late-game bullet patterns have larger, more visible bullets! • The life system was simplified! • ... And more!!
Something interesting I discovered during testing was that most players were very invested in the story and characters, and it was the main thing that kept them playing. Many of the changes were made to ensure players of all skill levels are able to see 100% of the story! The biggest change was removing all Hard Mode requirements from feature & content unlocks such as the bestiary. Now, Hard Mode mainly just unlocks achievements... Although actually, there is a fun surprise waiting for people who manage to beat Hard Mode without using any continues.
The main focus of the game is on the three playable routes, but there is also quite a bit of extra stuff to play around with... As you progress through the game, you'll unlock a few bonuses and features, as well as the bestiary!
The game also supports achievements through Steam, of which there are 47 to unlock! Most achievements actually have more than one unlock condition, so if you're clever, you may be able to find workarounds for some of the more challenging ones.
NNFF's style of story is quite unique for the genre. The plot basically "turns on" in stage 4 and keeps ramping up from there.
And once you think it's all over...
... There's even more.
The story features some extremely high highs and low lows. It's also just long enough to be satisfying and just short enough to not overstay its welcome. My goal was to make NNFF one of those games that that invades your thoughts for a few weeks... Hopefully it clicks with you!
I am unable to give a specific date at the moment, but it will definitely be released between the start of August to the end of September. Whenever the release date is finalized, it'll be announced in an update post on Steam, itch.io, and on the official social media accounts two weeks before launch.
Initially, I was very worried about the reactions the full game would get from people during the playtesting phase. There are a few atypical and risky design choices that I was anticipating mixed responses from, but to my surprise, there were very few complaints other than bug discoveries and some minor difficulty issues (the game was too easy). It also was very exciting to see more people finally react to the narrative of the game, especially the unlockable character's route. Overall, everything went way better than expected, and I'm excited to finally be able to share the game with you soon!
To see more development updates and announcements like this, make sure to wishlist & follow!
About
This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for No Need for Flowers, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main No Need for Flowers statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.
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Decided to port over a few improvements from the full game that won't affect existing replays. This will likely be the final patch for the demo, ever. (Full game soon!.. Very soon...)
• Increased the sprite size of the tiny purple fog bullets in stage 1 for improved visibility.
• Changed the color of the bullets the angel enemy at the end of stage 1 shoots from cyan to purple. (Cyan bullets on a cyan background? Am I insane? What was I thinking??)
• Fixed a major bug where your shooting sound would sometimes either be switched on or off independent of input for the rest of the stage after a dialogue box appears.
Progress update!!
All of the gameplay is 100% done, all of the story is 100% written, there's just a few cutscenes left to make and some more testing that needs to be done. I will likely be able to announce the release date at the end of next month!.. (I made a cool trailer for it and everything, which is actually already featured on the store page, just without the date attached)
Hello! It's been a while since the last update. For the past 2 months, I've been hard at work finishing up the game and preparing it for release. In this post, I'll go over what's finished, what's not, and what to expect!
As of, like, a week or so ago, the base game has been fully completed! Here are the specifics of what that means (and doesn't mean):
• All the graphics are DONE! • All the stages and bosses are complete! • The entire game is fully balanced on all difficulties! • All dialogue is either finished and/or drafted!
• Just waiting on a few more songs... (final boss, ending themes, and a few additional SFX) • Also, waiting to give the game to testers until I get the final assets^... • Big: Designing the third character's gameplay and finishing writing the story & dialogue for their route (the first draft is done, though). • Finishing up a few bonus features, unlockables, and achievements.
... We're almost there!
The demo features around 20% of the game. And very soon, you'll get to experience the remaining 80%!
NNFF's late-game stages are a massive jump in quality from the ones featured in the demo.
• Super polished graphics for bosses, animations, backgrounds, bullets, effects, and more! • Cool background art that changes and is more dynamic! • Incredible soundtrack, some of Princess Sylvysprit's best work yet! (The stage 5 boss theme is my favorite) • Surprising gameplay features & twists! • ... And more!
Also not important, but the bosses make fun of you on Hard Mode for using spells now (lol).
*This feature is not in demo
I'm very excited for people to finally get to see this part of the game. But I'm also a bit afraid of the reaction I'll get from some of the more atypical design choices. I've only shown it to two people, but so far, they seem to like it... So hopefully you will too??
<-- (God)
Not only will the second half of the game feature all-new gameplay twists, but it also marks a major shift in the story. The dragons you'll meet are a lot more serious, and are willing to do anything to stop you. Because they need the necromancer to succeed. No matter what...
"Finally. I can finally save everyone... I can finally save HER."
The last half of the game features a lot more story, and even has a few cutscenes (don't worry STG fans, it's all skippable). Also, this part of the game has my favorite characters, and I'm very excited for everyone to finally see them in action!
Recently, I got a new job with a long-ish commute, so my time to work is a lot more limited. BUT I love the environment, so I come home with a lot of energy at the end of the day, which is cool. Still, I have less time and must use it wisely. This means a few things need to be cut if I am to keep to my deadline, but they will more than likely be added in future updates for free after the full release.
The initial release will be English only (at least for a while).
I had originally promised that the game would release in both English and Spanish. Things have changed, and I don't have a Spanish translator at this time. More importantly, I also need to rework how the game stores and loads text before it can be smoothly translated (it's a nightmare. the tech debt... the tech debt......). My top priority right now is releasing on time, and to achieve that, I will have to push the translation to the bottom of the to-do list.
There is no specific ETA for any of the translations at this time.
That's kind of it for stuff that will be cut, actually.
(These are really cool, and I need to show them off)
A few of my friends decided to make a bunch of super nice poster designs advertising the game. One of them even went around pasting them all over downtown LA!
(credit to Tenzing for the bottom two, & \illosiphy for the top one)
Development is going very smoothly, and the game is still planned to release this year (yay!). I'm currently looking at either a summer or fall release. If that changes, or if I'm able to get a specific date, it'll be shared in an announcement post on Steam, itch.io, and on the official NNFF social media accounts. Anyway, thank you for reading this update! I hope you are looking forward to what's to come...
To see more development updates and announcements like this, make sure to wishlist & follow!
There's been a recent wave of feedback and feature requests, so I went ahead and added the most requested ones! Most of the changes and additions are related to options, but there are also a few UI improvements to make the game's controls and mechanics more explicit for players who skipped the tutorial.
• Added an auto-fire accessibility option in Misc Options. There are two options to choose from: hold the shoot button to STOP shooting, and press the shoot button to toggle shooting on and off (for players with wrist/hand issues).
• Added an option to always show your hitbox (for Esther players).
• When you get hit, the text above your power bar says "Press (spell_button)!!" instead of "Power" (for players who skipped the tutorial).
• On Normal and Easy, your controls are displayed at the very start of the stage.
• The default date format is now YYYY/MM/DD.
• Added reset to default button in Misc Options.
• Misc Options are now separated by category since there are a lot now.
• Fixed an error where resetting your sound settings or all settings to default would not properly set the music's gain in the Option Menu.
• Fixed a bug where Esther's tension score would desync after using a spell in specific circumstances. This will unfortunately cause all replays before this update to be desynced, but ensures all future ones are 99.99% accurate.
Resolved a few extremely minor issues, and also made a few visual changes.
• Life heart partial sprite now fills up symmetrically, 20% per life piece, for better readability.
• The replay list now starts from 0 to match how they are stored internally. This is only a visual change, replays still function the same exact way.
• Added more people to the credits.
• Fixed bug where charge up animations only worked on bosses and not anywhere else.
A few weeks ago, the demo for No Need for Flowers was a part of Nextfest. This event was a complete success, and most importantly, the countless detailed feedback from streams, videos, emails, comments, and people filling out the feedback form was extremely insightful. It shined light on all the parts of the game that people resonated with and all the parts that were confusing or needed a bit more polish.
After this influx of feedback, I put together a big list of things I wanted to improve before the full release, which was shared in the previous update post. Well, I went ahead and made all those changes and have added them to the demo in this final major update (v3.0)!
Due to the various major changes made, old replays will be de-synced and should be deleted. There is now an indicator to show which replays are out dated, which will make this simpler.
It is strongly advised that you delete your scores. You will be prompted to do this upon updating, but you could also just say no to this prompt... But, like, please don't.
• Poly from 18 to 30 frames.
• Esther from 12 to 25 frames.
• ???? from 15 to 25 frames.
• Updated Help Menu to reflect these new values.
• Poly's second pair of orbitals are always active, independent of your power level.
• Redistributed Poly's damage values so that the homing shot contributes to a much higher percentage of her total DPS output.
• Doubled the size of Poly's non-homing shot hitbox to fix a major oversight that caused her to do less damage at max power. Had the additional benefit of making Poly easier to do good damage with in general.
• Poly's spell now does ~400% more damage at max power. If you want the specific numbers (damage per frame at 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 power): 1.2 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.2. For reference of how significant this is, here are Esther's stats: 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.1. The philosophy behind this change is to give players who die a lot or play on Easy (which has way more power pickups) a method to cheat the hard sections of the game if they use Poly. But you're probably thinking, doesn't this make Hard Mode cheatable too? In the full game, no... You'll see why soon (not sorry).
✿ New QoL mechanic: All items on screen are automatically collected if you don't shoot for 1/2 a second.
• Every character's collection line is now the same, at 40% from the top of the play area.
• Pickup collection range was increased on all characters from 64x64 to 80x80.
• Blue star pickups no longer factor y value into score calculation and will always display their number in blue, unless it is max value, in which it will be rainbow.
• Their calculation is now (BASE_VALUE * (480 + TENSION)).
• Added an option to show your numerical power value.
• Added an accessibility option to disable screenshake.
• Replays now save your game version and will display a warning if the version does not match the current build you are playing.
• Changed player invincibility frames on hit from 120 frames to 180 frames.
• Player now has 1 additional second of invincibility after using a spell.
• Changed continues on Normal difficulty from 3 to 6 (there is still some bad programming that limits the potential of using multiple in one stage though, sorry).
• After using a continue, the player's life counter will be set to (STARTING_LIVES + CONTINUES_USED), meaning the game will become slightly easier each time. Note: Starting lives are unchanged (5 on Easy and 2 on Normal and Hard).
• Increased tension gained from seconds left on boss timer: Poly 3 to 5, Esther 6 to 10.
• Tension bonus for boss spell clears is no longer affected by whether you used a spell.
• Increased the dialogue auto-scroll timer from 5 seconds to 15 (this functionality exists to prevent making an infinitely large replay file, please understand...).
• The dialogue skip prompt is now visible during all dialogue scenes, so long as you have beaten that particular stage.
• That one fake crash has been removed and replaced with a hard reset.
• The secret stage re-trigger event no longer affects the music pitch.
• The secret stage forces you into Easy on the first playthrough.
• Some parts of the Help Menu were made much more explicit, and a section for the "item magnet" mechanic was added along with the separation of pink and blue star sections.
• There is a skip prompt on the intro cutscene if you have seen it at least once now.
• Made the animation that happens before the dialogue auto-scrolls more obvious (starts 3 entire seconds before, arrow blinks faster, colors are brighter).
• Character select menu attack descriptions are a brighter color.
• The warning exclamation points that appear at the top and bottom of the play area are now larger in most instances.
• Made the grid background that is used in various parts of the game larger, because it was ugly, and not in a charming way.
• Replaced the background effect in Boss Practice with something less oppressive. This will likely be replaced with something better in the future.
• Bestiary has arrow indicators on the horizontal menu now.
• Now when you get hit, the last life in your life meter turns dark, and if you can use a spell, your power bar lights up.
• The time before the boss nonspell starts has been increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds.
• Bosses will have a charge up animation 1 second before their nonspell starts, and is accompanied by a warning sound if you are too close.
• Major Hard Mode change: Life pieces no longer individually drop after clearing a boss phase. Instead, end-of-stage bosses will now drop 5 upon defeat. The reason for this change is to account for the increased counter spells timing.
• If you fail a boss's Last Stand Spell, you will no longer receive a Perfect Clear (because it didn't make sense).
• (None of these are important, feel free to disregard). • Added functionality to show numerical lives value, but I disabled it because it makes the UI look ugly (it takes 5 life pieces to get a life, and at 4, a drippy thing appears below the heart being filled). This may be replaced with something more explicit in the future, but this is what it is right now. • Added an indicator in the UI when you are invulnerable. Removed it because it was kind of ugly. • Added a telegraph that would draw a line to explicitly show where Lotus's flood bullets will go but disabled it because it looked ugly. • Added a line to show where Esther's Helix Bolt spell would shoot, but it felt sort of overstimulating, so it was removed. • Are you seeing a trend with these?
• All of Snapdragon's nonspells shoot closer to her sprite now. • HP values of nonspell phases slightly increased to account for Poly's increased homing shot damage. • Nonspell 1 timer reduced from 30 to 20. • Split Paths timer reduced from 60 to 30. • Nonspell 2 timer is now 25, unless you are playing Hard, in which case it is 20. • Misdirection timer reduced from 60 to 45. • Frenzy Fog timer reduced from 60 to 40.
• Nonspell 1 timer reduced from 25 to 20. • Nonspell 1, Lily no longer moves on Easy, and her range of movement has been greatly limited on Normal. • Leap Frog timer reduced from 40 to 30. • Leap Frog, Lily no longer moves on Easy, and her range of movement has been greatly limited on Normal.
• Nonspell 1 timer reduced from 30 to 20. • Waterspout timer reduced from 60 to 30. • Nonspell 2 timer reduced from 30 to 20. • Flash Flood spell timer reduced from 60 to 45. • Sinkhole timer reduced from 60 to 50.
• Helix Bolt timer reduced from 60 to 32. • Lightning Ram timer reduced from 60 to 45. • Lightning Ram, HP increased to account for Poly's homing attack doing more damage.
• Sacred Flare timer reduced from 60 to 32. • Holy Inferno timer reduced from 60 to 45.
• All enemies have increased HP to account for Poly's homing attack being stronger.
• Fixed the awkward timing at the end of the stage if you defeat the enemies extremely fast.
• Less power is dropped by enemies in the first half of the stage (around 1.2 less, specifically). • The sin wave shooter that chases you does a bright charge-up animation before it starts shooting now. It also makes a charge-up sound.
• Made the 10 pink enemies near the end of the stage appear faster as to not accidentally lure you to the center of the screen where the fire spawner that kills you is. • If you stand on top of the fire spawner that kills you in the center of the screen during the final wave, it screams at you, exclamation points appear, and a bright charge-up animation plays, letting you know that it will, in fact, kill you. • Fixed the awkward pause on the final wave if there are no bullets on screen.
• Fixed a bug that made Poly's homing shots not change their sprite correctly when homing on bosses specifically. • Fixed a bug where after using a counter spell during a boss spell phase, the spell bonus tick down would be inaccurate sometimes. • Fixed an error where window dragging was disabled on Windows 10 for some reason. • Fixed an incredibly annoying bug that would suddenly max out the music volume upon entering and exiting the data delete menu. • Fixed an extremely minor tension desync on replays that would occur when bullets were turned into bulletscore stars, most notably after using a spell with Esther. • Corrected a graphical error that caused the Stage 2 flood sequence bullets to be partially visible while they were inactive. • Removed all remaining instances of Practice Mode being referred to as "Mirage Mode" in other menus (the name changed right before the public demo release, missed a few). • Fixed a bug that would cause your shooting sound effect to keep playing during dialogue scenes under rare circumstances. • In Hard, Esther's double-helix shooter, which appears right after she says "Give it up, ''priestess''! I've got you cornered!", is supposed to do that, it isn't a bug. This exists solely to bother people, and is clearly working exactly as intended.
(In relation to the changes made, and various things about the game as it is so far)
If you've played a Touhou game before, you will likely see the inspiration of how the score items function in NNFF. But after watching how people interact with the game, I have decided to simplify everything by removing the y-value from score calculation, because honestly, forcing players to stay at the top of the screen to maximize score makes no sense within the greater flow of the gameplay and level design. It would also especially bother people in stage 5 if it remained this way (you'll, uh, see what I mean soon). Additionally, I felt like there should be another way to collect items, especially for Poly players who have them all across the screen due to her homing shot, so I went ahead and added that feature where you automatically collect items after stopping shooting for a bit.
Something that I noticed was that some players tend to get stuck on certain boss phases for way too long with no escape. To fix this, I lowered all the boss timers to give people who don't care about score a break. Also, I often saw that players continuously get sniped by bosses while trying to collect items as Poly (not so much Esther) after their spell phases. Her collection line is much lower now, and there's that new item magnet method now, so this should no longer be an issue for most players. There are now also several visual and audio warnings to indicate that the boss will start shooting again for extra security.
I am personally very proud of the tension system, even though it has the potential to be slightly routing-heavy for people trying to optimize the game. If you play the game normally without trying to cheat the systems, you'll still end up with an extremely high score as long as you're good at all the important mechanics: aiming at enemies, bombing intelligently, collecting items, grazing, defeating bosses quickly, etc. It's been left pretty much untouched in this update, but since I changed a lot of the boss timers to be shorter, I went ahead and boosted tension earned from time left. The tension penalty for using a spell on a boss spell phase (getting +50 instead of +250 after clear) has been removed as well to leave room for imperfection, since you'll be losing a large amount of score anyway from the bonus either being failed or halved.
This is going to be the final major system rework and patch for the DEMO. I'm pretty happy with how the game feels and personally think all the mechanics are fun as they currently are. Any more changes from this version to the full game (first three stages and mechanics) will be very minor. Also, if I keep spending all this time redoing stuff, I'll never get around to actually finishing the game. My time to work on NNFF is decently limited, so I need to be careful about what I choose to use it on if I want to hit my (secret) deadline. Still, it feels important to put in all this extra polish work. I just really want people to have as good an experience as possible.
... One more thing. I will be announcing a special event in either December or January. The details of it still need to be worked out, but it's going to be a competition with prizes. Whenever it's ready to share, the details will be shared in an announcement post on Steam, itch.io, and on the official NNFF social media accounts.
To see more development updates and announcements like this, make sure to wishlist & follow!
Thank you for all the wonderful feedback during this year's Nextfest!
I've been listening to your critiques and put together a big list of things that will be improved before the full release. Additionally, these changes will be added to the DEMO as a final major patch sometime in the coming weeks!
This is the current list of planned changes to various game mechanics for the next update. There are also a few QoL features that will be added.
• Time between boss waves will be increased for smoother item collection, along with there being an indicator of when the boss non-spell will start
• Counter spell timing will be made easier for all characters
• 6 continues in Normal (there is some bad programming that limits the potential of using multiple in one stage though, sorry)
• More lives in Normal
• Poly's collection line will be much lower to avoid accidental and frustrating deaths
• Speaking of Poly, she will be buffed, just in general...
• Double invincibility frames on hit for all characters
• Changing the (ugly) Boss Practice background to something cuter
• The secret stage will force you into Easy Mode to prevent annoying situations
• That one fake crash will be replaced with a hard reset (it keeps getting reported as a bug, lol)
• The music easter egg on the Practice Difficulty Select menu won't string you along as much (SPOILER: all it does is re-enable the secret stage...)
• Stage 3 as Esther, the pink fire spawner at the end of the stage will be more obviously dangerous to prevent cheap-feeling deaths for players who think it's an item to be collected
• More sprite readability adjustments?(??)
• UI readability adjustments
• Help Menu wording improvements for some stuff
• And probably more
• An accessibility option to turn off screenshake will be added
• More tutorialization for the player spell mechanic (such as a prompt on first getting enough power for the first time, etc.)
• Option to show your numerical power value (this is actually already a debugging feature)
• Replays will also save the game version
• Fix for replay score desyncing issue
• Timeout spells will turn the boss's health bar gray (these are much more prevalent in the last 3 stages)
• Tutorials for general bullet hell techniques such as a streaming tutorial
• Maybe another way to collect all items on screen(maybe connected to graze, not sure)(this one might be added to the demo as well if it happens)
• Might remove y value from score star calculation and just give you a flat value+tension bonus, because people keep hugging the top of the screen too much and it doesn't seem very fun, personally... And if I did remove y value from score calc., the item collection range would likely be doubled(as a treat)
• A counter spell practice room
• A streaming practice room(maybe??)
• Accessibility option for always showing your hitbox(?Maybe not... This idea is just for Esther players specifically)
My goal is to make NNFF as good of a game as possible (within reason). The next update, v3.0.0, will be the final major patch for the DEMO. Any additional updates will be minor bug fixes... Which means after this update, your replays and scores will no longer be affected by any other future updates!
The philosophy behind some of the changes is to make the game as accessible as possible to players new to this genre while also providing enough challenge to give veteran players a fun experience. One of the ways I am trying to do this is by keeping Hard Mode mean while making Normal and Easy nicer.
Something fascinating I found in the feedback was that the vast majority of you were heavily invested in the story and characters. Locking this behind extreme difficulty seems unfair, so a lot of the changes, such as changes to continue amount and making Easy even easier, are a way to let everyone be able to enjoy that part of the game!
Also, to the pro players who keep sending me feedback that the game is too easy, all I will say is, be careful what you wish for (spoiler: late-game Hard Mode...).
Have something you'd like to see changed or added that isn't listed above? Feel free to share your ideas with me here!
The goal is to have all or most of these changes added, tested, and implemented sometime in the next few weeks. Once everything is done, there will be another announcement to let you know when v3.0.0 is available to play!
Speaking of updates, there have been a lot of minor patches since the v2.0 release that were silently pushed out without any public announcement (they were only posted on a sub-page on the official website). In the future, all updates, even the small ones, will be paired with a Steam announcement, just as a way to let everyone know this game is still being supported! (which it is...)
Oh, and there's also one more exciting thing planned before the full-game-release. But that's going to be announced much later... So look forward to that! (hint: it involves prizes)
To see more development updates and announcements like this, make sure to wishlist & follow!
I've been putting together a major patch that addresses the core issues with NNFF's design. The score mechanics, sprite readability, and difficulty have all been majorly improved upon in this most recent demo update.
• The graze/multiplier system has been completely reworked into a new system called "tension"! It has much more impact on your score, and there are tons of interactions to learn and master.
• Hard mode has been updated to match its much more difficult full-game counterpart!
• The stages were polished to have better timing!
• Tons of bug fixes and fixing of mechanics that were not working as intended.
• Additionally, many of the point values and calculations were changed in this update.
• Due to changes to bullet patterns, old replays will be de-synced and should be deleted.
• It is strongly advised that you delete your scores. You will be prompted to do this upon updating, but you could also just say no to this prompt... But, like, please don't.
• All Hard Mode changes that are present in the full game but were missing in the demo have been restored. In short, there's a lot more bull... ets. Bullets, yeah.
• Some sections are particularly cruel (not sorry).
Tension is a new scoring mechanic that increases the worth of various things. The better you are at all the game, the higher your tension will be! Maximizing your tension is key for getting a good score.
• Your tension is displayed in the UI under your graze.
• Base spell bonus values are affected by tension: Base Spell Bonus = (Base Value + (Tension * (16 * Difficulty)))
• In Boss Practice, tension has no effect: Spell Bonus = Base Value.
• You now receive (50 + (Tension * .1)) points per graze collected in the current stage during the end-of-stage scorecard sequence.
• Blue star worth is enhanced by tension: (Item Worth = Item Size * (Y Value + Tension)), capped at 64,000
• Tension is halved upon losing a life.
• Tension is reset to 0 upon entering a new stage.
• Collecting a pink star = +1
• Collecting bullet bonus stars = +1
• Collecting graze = +2 (or +1 as Esther)
• Collecting a blue star (not max) = +2
• Collecting a blue star (at max) = +5
• Defeating an enemy = +5
• Clearing a boss spell without losing a life but you used a spell = +50
• Clearing a boss spell without losing a life _and_ without using a spell = +250
• Clearing any boss phase (not as Esther) = +(Time Left * 3), capped at +500
• Clearing any boss phase (as Esther) = +(Time Left * 6), capped at +500
• Using *ANY* spell causes all bullets on screen to turn into bullet bonus stars now, not just counter spells.
• Bullet bonus automatically triggers at the end of a boss attack phase if you didn't lose a life AND didn't use a spell... Basically, counter spell spam has been de-incentivized, and will give you the same if not worse results than thoughtfully-used normal spells.
• Bullet bonus stars now give 50 points (in addition to tension).
• Mastering bullet bonus is key for maximizing your score, especially during the non-boss portion of the levels. Well-timed bullet bonus triggers can give hundreds of extra tension. Although, since spells cost power, you need to be clever about it!
• Also, here's a cool fact that may help Esther players: Did you know that if you use a spell *right* as a boss's non-spell phase is cleared, it won't count against your spell bonus for the next phase? (Its usefulness is situational though)
• Graze is no longer lost upon getting hit.
• During the end-of-stage scorecard sequence, instead of displaying the number of graze collected during the stage, it displays your Graze Bonus and ticks up to your total rather than down to 0 for improved clarity.
• All spell bonus values have been altered to be more consistent and much lower.
• Timeout spell bonus base values have been greatly reduced.
• The points received per remaining life at the end of a playthrough have been reduced from 500,000 to 160,000.
• The game clear bonus has been significantly reduced and now only gives (64,000 * Difficulty) points, as it is more of an aesthetic bonus rather than one meant to have impact.
• The perfect clear bonus is no longer multiplied by difficulty and now only gives 64,000 points. Again, aesthetic bonus.
• The mega blue star's base worth has been halved.
• The maximum worth of blue stars is now capped at 64,000. The number displayed will flash rainbow at this value (Did you know this was already a feature?).
• All tiers of boss drops have been altered.
• Boss drops are no longer effected by your current power for simplicity.
• Boss spell highscores are no longer recorded outside Boss Practice.
• Boss Practice non spell boss attack score calculation has been changed: Score = Score + (Graze Bonus Calc).
• In Practice Mode, when you lose a life, you also lose 160,000 points.
• Spells now cause all items to be collected during their entire duration rather than just at the end.
• All items are now collected upon reaching max power.
• Added a mega pink star which gives +.2 power that is dropped by bosses and during set points in some stages on certain difficulties.
• Many bullets have increased size.
• Stage wave timing has been significantly improved (no more empty space).
• Added more birds to stage 2.
• The second half of stage 3, the flower spawners are no longer killable.
• The enemies at the end of stage 3 no longer punish you for using a spell.
• Many stage enemy formations have been made more complex.
• Added more telegraphing sfx to various attacks.
• It is now significantly harder to exploit Snapdragon's last stand spell for massive graze (work for it!).
• Updated the help menu with information about the new scoring mechanics.
• Added a section about boss item drops.
• Added a section about item value.
• Added a section about end-of-game bonuses.
• Some wording has been made more direct.
• All pickup sprites have been made darker to help distinguish them from the background and bullets.
• The largest pickup tiers are darker for enhanced readability.
• The opacity of the limited continue message has been increased.
• Some bullet sprites have been swapped with their outlined versions for enhanced contrast between pattern layers.
• The mega score enemy sprite has been changed to be more obviously important.
• Added more color variety to stage 2 and 3 patterns for better pattern readability.
• Streaming bullets will now usually be drawn below all other bullets for better pattern readability.
• Your highest tension score for the current game is recorded and displayed in the end-of-game stats screen.
• Removed the misc option that loaded your best graze score in practice mode, as it no longer effects anything.
• Added a misc option for toggling if whether total graze, stage graze, or stage/total graze in shown in the UI.
• Pressing back on the main menu no longer sets the selection to "Quit".
• The focus button now slows down the credits.
• Replays no longer de-sync when holding and then letting go of the skip button during dialogue.
• Stage Practice stages ending early is no longer tied to the highest difficulty beaten (this was functionality leftover from a long-removed mechanic).
• Fixed an oversight that caused the graze score to be wrong in the end-game results screen after exiting or losing the current game.
• Fixed an oversight that caused the graze bonus to be calculated slightly incorrectly.
• Fixed an oversight which caused your stage score to be lower if you skipped through the scorecard sequence too quickly.
• When a boss appears, all items will now always be instantly collected as intended.
• When pickups swap from score to power upon obtaining max power, they now calculate their score using max height value as intended.
• The life piece sprite is no longer distorted.
• The foggy bullet spawners in stage 1 no longer erroneously give 3x graze.
• Player spells no longer deal damage to enemies that are off-screen (fixes the issue with empty waves after using a spell).
• Fixed a crash in the practice select menu that would happen when holding the focus button and moving the cursor right three times after completing the secret stage.
• Corrected several incorrect bullet hitboxes.
The demo OST is now available on Bandcamp for purchase and download!
https://sylvysprit.bandcamp.com/album/no-need-for-flowers-ost
If you like the music in the demo and want to hear more, consider checking it out there! Also, when you buy the album, you'll receive a free upgrade to the full version once the game releases next year!!
This OST contains some of Princess Sylvysprit's best work yet, so definitely go check it out.