Weekly Update #2 - Balancing & Affinity

Hey all, happy to announce the second weekly update to Flower Crown Chaos! Here are the major additions for the week:

• Floral Affinities - the first iteration of this rogue-like mechanic is finally here! The player can assign up to three flowers (using 1, 2, and 3) to begin upgrading the abilities of that flower. Each time a player crafts a crown with that flower, the affinity level will increase. Once the player has reached the next tier (bronze, silver, and gold), the stats of that flower will upgrade - including score, range, damage, and even number of projectiles. The player also gets a score bonus associated with the tier whenever upgraded. I intend to make these upgrades a little more exciting down the line but just wanted to get the system in place for now. You can switch out flowers at any point by pressing the corresponding slot button, but it will reset the current stats of the flower replaced.
• Precision Throwing - the range stat on flower crowns now affects the distance the player can throw the crown, rather than the range of each projectile. This gives the player more agency in where they would like the crown to end up. The actual destination is denoted by a new UI indicator
• Flower Discovery - the fire flower is the only uncommon unlocked by default now. Players must pick up the other flowers once in-game in order add it to the uncommon loot pool. I will probably change this system to be challenge or money based in the future, but wanted to get the system in place for now.
• Player Movement Revamp - no more annoying stutters when changing direction - hopefully the player feels much more responsive
• Enemy Behavior Revamp - instead of infinitely gaining speed, enemies will begin gaining health once their speed surpasses the players - this should keep the challenge high as difficulty increases, but the player isn't destined to die at like the 2.5 min mark anymore. Enemies also will respawn if they get too far from the player
• Projectile System Rework - Projectiles will now always have the same pattern regardless of projectile type - while this mechanic was fun to play with, I think it adds an unnecessary layer of depth to the gameplay. In terms of scaling the game with more future flowers, this was the right move. 
• Various small bug fixes and improvements
  • Added an uncommon indicator for easier telling which flowers are rare
  • Changed text bubbles to fill from the top down so that text isn't constantly in motion
  • Added space indicator on Description screen

What's coming next week?

• New Flowers
• More Catalog Upgrades
• A Floral Affinity Tutorial
• Sound Effects (maybe)

You decide! Fill out the form featured by the QR code at the end of the game by clicking on it or scanning it. One of the questions will allow you to give input on what comes next. I have a couple of plans in the works, but I would love your feedback!