MidBoss v1.0
Beta ReadMe

Created by Emma 'Eniko' Maassen
Copyright 2014-2017 (c) Kitsune Games

MidBoss: http://www.midboss.net/
Steam Store Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/561740
Itch.io Store Page: https://eniko.itch.io/midboss
Kitsune Games: http://www.kitsunegames.com/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kitsunegamescom

==========================================
 Introduction
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MidBoss is a roguelike where you possess your slain enemies to progress. To do this, cast possess on them and kill them, you will then be presented with the option of actually possessing the enemy. Possessing an enemy will restore your health to full and other than some abilities which restore health later on in the game there is no natural health regeneration; after all, dungeon monsters aren't supposed to regenerate health!

As you level up you will gain statpoints you can spend in the status window on the four meta attributes: violence, cruelty, relentlessness and adamancy. These stats don't do anything by themselves, but are used to calculate your core stats (strength, power, focus, etc) by multiplying them by the multipliers of your current form. This means you can easily customize your playstyle without going into the complexity of what all the core attributes do.

When you possess a creature you learn their form. Later, while in another form, you can equip that form in the top-left of the equipment window. This will give you access to that form's abilities, but only the ones you have selected in the forms window. Any form can have a maximum of three abilities selected.

==========================================
 Controls
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Controls can be remapped via the Options menu in game, below are the default keys:

QWEASDZC, Numpad 1-9, Mouse: Move the player
Space: Pass turn
R: Rest until mana is full
F1: Possess
F2: Depossess
Number keys: Abilities
I: Equipment window
O: Forms window
P: Status window
Tab or M: Toggle map overlay
F12: Screenshot
Ctrl, Alt: Toggle/show item labels
F10: Cheat menu (if enabled)

Target abilities with the mouse or keyboard, double tap an ability hotkey to target the current target or yourself if it is a self-casting ability. Attack monsters by moving into them. Pass your turn to regain mana.

==========================================
 Attributes
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Most of the information in this section is available in-game in the form of tooltips.
As you level up you can increase the following attributes, called meta attributes:

  Violence: increases damage
  Cruelty: increases minimum damage, critical chance, and status effect strength
  Relentlessness: increases HP, MP, and stamina
  Adamancy: increases defense to attacks

These attributes do nothing by themselves, instead they use form multipliers to calculate the 9 core attributes:

  Strength (Violence): physical damage
  Power (Violence): magical damage
  Focus (Cruelty): critical chance, minimum damage
  Force (Cruelty): status effect strength
  Toughness (Adamancy): physical defense
  Resistance (Adamancy): magical defense
  Constitution (Relentlessness): increases HP
  Endurance (Relentlessness): increases stamina and stamina regeneration
  Spirit (Relentlessness): increases MP and mana regeneration
  
There are also some independent attributes, these are largely influenced by either your core attributes, or passive buffs:

  Critical: chance to score critical hits
  Accuracy: chance to score a hit against an average enemy
  Evasion: chance to evade a hit by an average enemy
  Stealth: decreases the per-turn chance you'll be detected by aggressive enemies
  
==========================================
 Forms
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Forms, unlocked when you possess a new creature, have their own multipliers. While you are in a form other than your imp form, you will use that creature's multipliers to calculate your core attribute scores. In imp form, you will use the set of best multipliers from all your currently equipped, mastered forms.

For example, if you've possessed a rat, your multipliers will be those of a rat. However, if you're in imp form, and you've mastered the rat form, then any of the rat's multipliers which are higher than the imp's will increase the imp's multipliers.

Forms level up with a special type of experience called form experience (the bottom experience bar in the bottom-left of the screen) until you've unlocked all abilities for that form, at which point the form will be mastered, indicated by a star icon. Every form can have a selection of 3 of all their abilities available for use, selected in the forms window.

You will be able to use the equipped abilities of all forms selected in the top-left of the equipment window.

==========================================
 Abilities
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Abilities come in two main forms: passive and active. Active skills are targeted and usually cost stamina or mana, passive skills give their benefits so long as they are equipped. Passive abilities may also be innate, this means they are always active while in that form and do not need to be equipped.

However, if you're using a different form and have another form equipped, the latter's innate ability will not apply. For instance, if you're in the form of a rat you will gain the effects of Agility (+1 speed) without having it equipped, but if you're in zombie form with the rat form equipped as your free choice, you will not gain the benefits of Agility unless it's actively equipped on the rat form.

Innate abilities have one more quirk; the imp is a master of forms. While in imp form, ALL innate abilities for mastered forms automatically apply, regardless of whether the form is equipped, or whether the form has that ability in its active set.

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 Items
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Loot comes in 5 rarities indicated by the following colors:

  Common: no color
  Uncommon: blue
  Rare: yellow
  Epic: orange
  Legendary: purple

==========================================
 Command Line Arguments
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-nomusic        Disables the music engine and music entirely
-noupdate       Skips the version check when the game starts
-allowcheats    Enables cheats (this is currently on by default)
-debug          Runs the game in debug mode (not recommended)
-debugloot      Outputs a loot debug file for each floor
-nothreadsave   Disables save parallelization (will decrease performance)
-debugstatics   Shows a debug texture in topleft of the screen
-timecontrols   Change engine speed using , and . keys

==========================================
 Credits
==========================================

Emma 'Eniko' Maassen: code, art, sound effects, design, balance and concept
Jeffrey 'yuzuki' Yang: music
John 'Dragonmaster' Howard: QA testing
Anders 'Regus' Eggers-Krag: webhosting
Edward Kim: title screen and high resolution character art
Phoebe Kalinowski: cratefish king proofreading
Steve 'st0ven' Seator: additional art
'Kaiser': game balance

Special thanks to:
Tyler Doak (@CAS_Kicks) for lots of help on how to make hit sparks and weapon trail animations
Tactless for some excellent bug reports and QA
My buddies from Unshaped for pushing me to keep developing MidBoss
Phoe (@PhoeQD) and her communiphoe for all the support and suggestions
Ludum Dare and everyone who runs it and participates in it, you guys are all amazing!
