In my previous update, I've said that the next step would be to integrate relics in the game.

I'm proud to say that I've managed to implements some of the planned relics.

What are Relics?

If you played The Binding of Isaac, you may recall it's Passive Collectibles. Relics are the equivalent in this game.

In other words, Relics are run-scoped upgrade the player either find or (if they're lucky) buys in malls.

These give stats percentage bonus (i.e. +25% bonus in attack) and also give the player special capacities.

What are Capacities?

Capacities are passive (i.e. not explicit, or don't need special inputs) abilities the player gain.

For example, one capacity could be the capacity to shoot laser beams at each attack.

There's a science to it, though. They need considerable balance tweaks here and there just to make sure the game won't break with these capacities.

Some capacities are linked to relics, and others not.

For example, a capacity can be linked to a specific Item or even Foods.

Right now, there are no items or Food in the game, so we'll talk about those in due time...

Stats crash course

Before we continue with the relics, we first need to understand stats.

Stats are exactly what you think they are: just like in most RPG, they quantify the skills of a given entity.

In the game, there are 5 base stats :

1. Chance (or Luck if you're fancy): This stats dictates the probability of a player to have good things happen to them (e.x. good loots spawns after an enemy is killed or a lot of special rooms and tunnels are spawned).
   It also dictates your chance of doing a critical hit (when so, the total damage output are 50% stronger)
2. Attack: it's self-explanatory. This simply gives how much damage is given at each hit
3. Defence: Also self-explanatory. This simply says how much damage is subtracted from an attack
4. Agility: This stats dictates how fast your character goes. there might be more in the future, but for now, it only affects this
5. Vitality (or Health if you're fancy): This stat simply represents your maximal health.

These make CADAV. I don't know if it's clever enough, but it's catchy. (Not as good as SPECIAL, but good enough)

For each stat, there is two different type of bonus/malus. These are a unitary bonus (or simply bonuses) and a percentage bonus (or modifiers).

Bonuses usually come with pieces of equipment (things like armour and/or weapons), while modifiers are usually applied with capacities as a counterweight.

Relics List

Here's a small list of relics that are fully functional as of today:

Laser Gem

The laser gem is a relic resembling an abstract transparent cube with an opaque core.

When the player picks up that relic, it gives them the ability to fire penetrating laser beams that deal damage to enemies when the player attacks.

When the laser collides with anything but entities (like enemies) it will be reflected. This can be a quite powerful tool to quickly dispatch large amounts of enemies.

The beam itself last for about 10 seconds, and only 3 beams can be fired at a time.

Here are the modifiers:

• -10% of Attack
• +5% of Luck

Modern Computing

This relic is also abstract, but it's nevertheless more meaningful than the previous relic.

Both its name and its model references something really vaporwave. But I'll let you figure it out.

When the player grabs this relic, a combo system is activated: for every enemy killed, drops that cames from defeated enemies will linearly increase in number.

Of course, being a combo system, if the player is hit then the combo is reset.

Here are the modifiers:

• -5% of Luck
• -4% of Attack

Credit Card

The credit card is a credit card. (I didn't know what you expected)

With this cool relic, the player can actually purchase anything they want anywhere even if they lack the money for it. 

Buying an item without the needed money creates a debt in the player's funds.

After each 10$ of debt, a random amount of negative modifiers are applied to the player's stats. When the player pays off their debts then these nerfs are progressively removed.

Because of this special capacity, no base modifiers are applied when this relic is grabbed.

DOUBLE-VISION

This relic is rather abstract. It's actually a pair of eyes.

When the player grabs this relic, every loot that are consumables (i.e bombs, keys or money) are doubled.

Here are the modifiers:

• -5% of Attack
• -10% of Luck
• +5% of Agility

Extension Cord

This relic is simply a North American electric extension cord.

There are two capacities attached to this relic.

The first one simply makes the range of your attacks bigger. Its just actually the game resizing your weapons... Nothing special here.

The second one is more a nerf than anything else: It slows down your attack speed by half.

Here are the modifiers:

• -25% of Attack
• -25% of Agility

Boxed Copy

This relic is a Software box. It's supposed to mimic the Windows 9x boxes.

With this relic, on the first successful hit by the player to an enemy, the latter has a chance to get "Boxed".

When being "boxed", enemies are transformed into a similar box like the relic itself. However, that box is able to be opened by the player.

It then spawns a random amount of consumables.

It essentially one hit enemies if your lucky and gives you loot too.

This only works on the first hit: subsequential hits won't work.

Here are the modifiers:

• -25% of Attack

Atk-booster 2000

This relic is a computer chip, presumably a CPU.

It simply increases your attack speed by half.

Here are the modifiers:

• -25% of Attack
• +10% of Agility

Watch Out!

This relic is a simple watch.

With this one, you gain the ability to backstab other enemies. (not unlike the TF2 backstab)

This means that if you hit their back they get one hit.

In essence, this works by using the same algorithm that my vision field

Here are the modifiers:

• -40% of Attack
• -25% of Health
• +5 of Agility

Minor Updates

• Items that are in malls, along with relics and pieces of equipment, now rests on pedestals. These get removed when the item is picked up or otherwise get removed
  
• There's now a key collectible that can spawn with any type of loot. Picking these up simply increments the player's total amount of keys
  
• The Big Mall (the generic one) now has a chance to spawn a buyable relic in its inventory
• Fixed many bugs with a whole lot of things
• Thrown items now properly trigger AIs: they will look at the player that has thrown said projectiles rather than the projectile itself

What's next?

This week I'm planning to add more capacities and maybe add either Foods or Items in the game.

Same goal as before: at least one Food or Item.

Just to be clear: Items are like The Binding Of Isaac's Activated Collectibles except that they also change the player's stat and may also add passive capacities while the item is being held.

As for food, think of relics, but temporary (a bit like Minecraft's potions).

Here comes another big week I guess...