Tip of the Tentacle · The Prompted Pixel

Version History v0.15.0

Every version of Tip of the Tentacle, newest first, each gathering one round of work; open one to see every change.

  • 15 versions
  • 70 added
  • 48 changed
  • 14 fixed
  • since Sep 26, 2026
Balance Reports
  1. v0.15 Tip of the Tentacle
    1. v0.15.0

      Tip of the Tentacle

      Changed

      • The game is called Tip of the Tentacle (a tentative title; it was Memory Roguelite): the title screen, window, installer, Windows and Android app names, the browser version and every page.
      • The browser version moved to https://play.thepromptedpixel-downloads.workers.dev/tip-of-the-tentacle/; the old address forwards there, and saves and settings carry over.
      • The Android app has a new id, so it installs as a new app beside Memory Roguelite (uninstall that one); progress and settings on Windows carry over on first start.
  2. v0.14 Boss Themes
    1. v0.14.0

      Boss Themes

      Added

      • Songs for one boss: [BOSS] [BLACKOUT] in a song's filename makes it play during The Blackout's round (wave 10) and nowhere else; [UNFORGETTABLE] does the same for wave 20. Options, Audio lists them under the boss's name.
      • New songs: Blackout Arrives (The Blackout's theme), Game-Over Groove and High-Score Hustle.
  3. v0.13 In Your Browser
    1. v0.13.0

      In Your Browser

      Added

      • A browser version: play at https://play.thepromptedpixel-downloads.workers.dev/memory-roguelite/ (always the newest version; each version also stays playable at its own address). Saves and settings live in the browser. Its music is a lighter 96 kbps copy, so the download is about 30 MB.
      • node tools/release.mjs builds every version of a release (Windows .exe, Android .apk, browser) and puts the browser version online, so it updates with every release.

      Changed

      • In the browser, the main menu has no Quit button (a tab can't close itself) and Options has no Window Mode (the browser owns the window).
  4. v0.12 Shopping Within Your Means
    1. v0.12.0

      Shopping Within Your Means

      Added

      • "Only Offer Cards I Can Afford" (Options > Gameplay, and a checkbox on the shop screen; on by default): the shop only shows cards you can pay for right now, stepping an item down a tier when that makes it affordable, so some shops have fewer than four cards; when nothing is affordable, it says so ("Nothing you can afford yet") instead of showing cards. Holding a Lock turns it off, so you can lock something to save up for. Reroll is always there, even when you can't afford it.
      • The main menu buttons have their own art (Continue, Play, Collection, Options, Quit). The one you point at or select swells, brightens and gets a glowing ring.

      Changed

      • Enemies are 5% bigger (bosses unchanged), hit boxes included.
      • The button art carries its own name, so the menu no longer draws the name on top of it.
  5. v0.11 Lock It In
    1. v0.11.0

      Lock It In

      Added

      • Beating The Blackout gives a Lock. In the shop, press the Lock icon, then a card: that card stays through rerolls and comes back in the shop after the next wave. One use per Lock; any unsold card can be locked, even one you can't afford yet. The Lock shows beside your Memories while you hold one (art slot icons/lock, with a drawn placeholder).
      • Debug panel: Give Lock.

      Changed

      • Absent Mind, Hindsight, Earworm, Guilt, Nagging Doubt, False Memory and Tip of the Tongue are bigger, so their detail shows; their hit boxes grew with them, so what you see is what you hit.
      • Enemies shrink half as much as the waves go on: 0.3% a wave, to 95% at most.
      • Thoughts drop about 8% more memories: a full clear now pays about 1.3 shop cards a wave instead of 1.2, so a typical wave buys about one card (it was a little under).
  6. v0.10 Bosses With Bite
    1. v0.10.0

      Bosses With Bite

      Added

      • Outburst, a bomb weapon: it lobs a bomb that swells for a moment, then bursts, hurting every thought nearby (art slots projectiles/outburst, outburst_blast, icons/weapon_outburst).
      • Defense Mechanism, a shield orb item: orbs circle Pixel, destroying enemy shots they touch and hurting thoughts they hit (a Greater one gives two; art slots pixel/items/defense_mechanism, icons/item_defense_mechanism).
      • A boss falling is an event: "<Boss> Defeated", a flash, a big shake and a moment of slow motion; the other thoughts fade away and the wave ends a few seconds later.
      • Move Speed leaves a faint violet speed trail behind Pixel, stronger with more Move Speed.

      Changed

      • Bosses are much tougher: their health scales with how hard Pixel hits when they arrive, so a strong build gets a fight instead of a four-second kill, and other spawns thin out more while a boss is up.
      • Enemies are 15% bigger and barely shrink as the waves go on.
      • Weightless Drift no longer draws dark streaks behind Pixel; its Move Speed shows as the speed trail.
      • The starting-weapon screen keeps its panel (and even margins) however many weapons there are: the cards scroll inside it (mouse wheel, right stick, or following the controller), and each card fits its text.

      Fixed

      • Using a controller or keyboard: the mouse cursor no longer pops up from tiny or automatic mouse events, a resting mouse no longer steals the selection on the main menu, and hover highlights (like a "stuck" Options tab) don't show until the mouse is really moved.
      • Coming back to the shop from its Menu (and Options), the controller works again: focus returns to where you were.
      • The song card stacks above the FPS counter and the version label instead of covering them.
  7. v0.9 Four New Weapons
    1. v0.9.0

      Four New Weapons

      Added

      • Four new weapons with your art: Tunnel Vision (a steady beam locked on one thought), Recurring Dream (a crescent that flies out and back through everything), Train of Thought (a spark that jumps between three more thoughts) and Rabbit Hole (an orb that opens a hole, pulling thoughts in and hurting all of them). Buy one in the shop to unlock it as a starting weapon.
      • "Alpha: <version>" in the bottom-left corner of every screen, read from the game's version.
      • Recall and Forget flash their colour over the area they affect: Forget fills exactly its range, Recall gives a big soft flash.
      • A Continue Saved Run button on the "you have a saved run" warning.
      • Custom art for each main-menu button: ui/menu_<button>.png (the name stays on top).
      • Options > Debug: a Play Debug Run button that starts straight away with the Debug settings (Gaze Bolt when no weapon is set), switching Debug on if needed.

      Changed

      • While you use the mouse or touch, the keyboard/controller highlight is hidden, so the first card no longer sits lit; the first key or controller press brings it back without moving it.
      • The song popup is a card in the bottom-left corner like the other pop-ups; Options > Audio > Song Popups turns it off.
      • The "New: …" banner sits low at the bottom edge, out of the play area.
      • Every title, label, button and tab follows the style guide: Title Case, shorter option names, no exclamation marks.
      • The starting-weapon screen shows two rows of four, with even margins top and bottom.
      • Weapon stats read the same everywhere (shop, run setup, Collection) and describe each weapon's own kind of attack.

      Fixed

      • Clicking a locked difficulty level cleared the chosen level (Begin could even start the locked one); now it only shows the locked level's details.
      • A debug run no longer erases your saved run.
      • The menu screenshot tool always puts your settings and progress back, even if it stops early.
  8. v0.8 Ten New Enemies
    1. v0.8.0

      Ten New Enemies

      Added

      • Nine new enemies with your art, one new type on most waves, gentlest first: Fragmented Thought (wave 2, splits into three fast pieces), Panic Attack (wave 7, swells up and bursts, hurting everything nearby), Absent Mind (wave 11, steals memories off the floor and drops them all when killed), Denial (wave 12, its shield blocks shots from the front until it cracks), Brain Fog (wave 14, leaves fog that slows you), Guilt (wave 15, latches on and drains you until you shake it off, use Forget or kill it), Hindsight (wave 16, aims along a red line, then fires a beam down it), Rumination (wave 17, keeps calling up Stray Thoughts) and Tip of the Tongue (wave 18, nearly invisible until it's close).
      • A second boss, The Blackout, on wave 10: it swoops, sends swarms of static moths that home in, and puts out the lights outside a shrinking circle around you.
      • Your elite art for all nine original enemies and the nine new ones.
      • The debug panel can spawn either boss.
      • An Android build (arm64, debug-signed): the "Android" export profile makes build/android/Memory Roguelite.apk, installed over wireless debugging with adb install -r.
      • A balance history report (python tools/balance_history.py): every balance simulation so far on one page, charting upgrades per wave, survival, crowd size, kills and shopping across versions, with a heatmap of every run and wave.

      Changed

      • Both bosses come at every level: The Blackout on wave 10 and The Unforgettable on wave 20. Beat each one before the wave's timer runs out or the run is over; if it's at half health or less when time runs out, you get 15 more seconds, once.
      • The Unforgettable is tuned for every level (580 health, softer shards), and shows your art in its own colours instead of tinted purple.
      • Level 5 now makes both bosses tougher (40% more health, more frequent attacks) instead of adding the boss.
      • Later waves pay a little more, since their bigger crowds mean fewer kills, so income stays near one upgrade per wave; boss waves' income accounts for the thinner crowd while the boss is out.
      • The balance simulator dodges Hindsight's beam and reports kills per enemy type and how much health each boss had left, records the game version, and compares each run with the last one at the same level.
      • Both balance reports use The Prompted Pixel's dark purple theme, with no light mode.
  9. v0.7 Playtest Reports
    1. v0.7.0

      Playtest Reports

      Added

      • The "New: …" banner and the shop's coming-next line show the new enemies' pictures, so you know what to look for.
      • A playtest report after every run you play from the editor (dev copy only, never in builds you send out): per wave the time, kills by enemy, damage taken and what dealt it, HP low point, memories earned and spent, the shop's offers and buys, ability uses, enemies on screen and slow frames; per run the level, loadout, how it ended and the songs played. One JSON and a readable summary per run in playtests/, and python tools/playtest_summary.py compares them with the balance simulator. Debug-started runs are marked.
      • A version history, from the first prototype on, in the same layout as The Prompted Pixel site's; it comes in the zip as "Version History.html".
      • The project is backed up on GitHub.

      Changed

      • The README describes the game as it is now.

      Fixed

      • The Thick Eyelid stays on the eye's top edge as seen on screen, whichever way Pixel faces.
      • A direction still held from playing no longer moves the cursor when the shop, end-of-run screen, pause menu or how-to popup opens; it works again once you let go.
  10. v0.6 First Shareable Build
    1. v0.6.0

      First Shareable Build

      Added

      • A Windows installer, zipped with a short READ ME, to send to friends: python tools/build_release.py exports the game, builds Memory Roguelite Setup <version>.exe (no admin prompt, Start Menu and optional desktop shortcuts, an uninstaller) and zips it into dist/. (The first zip, sent out before this history was written, was labelled 0.1.0.)
      • Pixel's eye as the game's window, taskbar and installer icon; the Godot splash logo is gone.
      • A red glow around the screen edges when Pixel is hit (softer with Reduce Flashing), and bigger, brighter damage numbers on him that pop in and stay up longer.
      • The shop warns when the next wave brings a new enemy type, and a "New: …" banner names it when that wave starts.
      • Every shop has at least one weapon card until three tentacles are armed.
      • PgUp / PgDn switch tabs on the keyboard; switching tabs and opening the debug panel are now proper controls.

      Changed

      • Every control hint is read from your bindings and switches between keyboard and controller wording as you use each device: main menu, how-to popup, pause screen, Options and Collection tabs, key-binding help and the debug tools.
      • The first waves are busier: waves 1–3 spawn more enemies, blending into the normal rate by wave 4.
      • New enemy types ease in: about a third of their normal rate on their first wave and two thirds on their second, so there's no jump at wave 6.
      • On PC the Recall and Forget buttons are small tiles showing their key or cooldown; phones keep the big buttons.
      • Debug settings reset every launch and are never saved, and debug runs are never continued or recorded.
      • The on/off switches and checkboxes are redrawn so "Off" is clearly visible.

      Fixed

      • The shop could offer the same weapon or item more than once; each now appears at most once, in one tier.
      • In run setup, the details panel always matches the highlighted level; hovering a level only previews it.
      • The HUD fills in behind the how-to popup instead of showing an empty bar.
  11. v0.5 Six New Enemies
    1. v0.5.0

      Six New Enemies

      Added

      • Six new enemies, each with its own behaviour: Earworm (wave 4, snakes in a wide wave), Déjà Vu (wave 6, blinks to the mirror-image spot when hit), Nagging Doubt (wave 8, keeps its distance and spits), False Memory (wave 9, disguised as a memory until it lunges), Anxious Spiral (wave 10, circles, telegraphs, then dashes) and Nightmare (wave 13, a bruiser that comes in pairs).
      • Elite and boss art slots: enemies/<enemy>_elite.png and the_unforgettable.png replace the drawn versions.
      • Items show on Pixel as accessories (a heavy eyelid, extra little eyes, veins, an ink sac, sucker dots, wisps, orbiting lodestones, tears, a glass shine); Greater versions or duplicates make them bigger or more numerous.
      • Every item card comes as Lesser, normal or Greater, with more Greater ones later in a run.
      • Pixel turns to face where he's moving (0.1 s, a stat ready for upgrade cards), banks up to 15° into turns, and his tentacles trail behind.
      • The boss wave gets 15 more seconds, once, if The Unforgettable is at half health or less when time runs out.
      • +1 max HP at the start of every wave.
      • A how-to-play popup at the start of runs, with a "don't show again" box.
      • Controller support in every menu: A selects, B goes back, and the right stick scrolls long panels.
      • Debug tools in the dev copy only: Options > Debug (start wave, level, weapons, items, memories, invincibility) and an in-game panel on F1 / Back (spawn enemies or the boss, kill all, end the wave, edit banked memories, heal, hitboxes, game speed).
      • Memory Roguelite.exe in the project folder launches the dev copy.

      Changed

      • The game is called Memory Roguelite, starring Pixel; settings and progress carried over.
      • Pixel no longer grows each wave. Enemies arrive at full size and shrink a little each wave after they're introduced.
      • Waves last 10 s at wave 1, rising to 30 s at wave 10, 35 s at wave 15 and 45 s at wave 20.
      • Gems take the colour of the enemy that dropped them, and their value shows by shape: shard, twin, cluster, crystal.
      • No weapon cards once all six tentacles are armed.
      • A compact shop panel that sits below the Menu button.
      • Menu navigation: left and right move only between the items in a row, down reaches the buttons below, and movement keys navigate menus too.
      • The mouse cursor hides while you use the keyboard or a controller.
      • The music toast shows the song title and length, with the artist beneath.
      • The sprite folder holds only your PNGs (plus svgs/ where a placeholder is still used); game-ready copies live in assets/game_sprites/, and new art shows up without running Prepare Sprites.

      Fixed

      • Heavy lag from wave 17 on, caused by the tentacle trail and the Thick Eyelid drawing: frames went from about 300 ms back to full frame rate.
      • The Nagging Doubt's shot looked like a pickup; it's now a spiky dark orb with a red rim.
      • The False Memory's warning looked like a glowing gem; it's now a tightening spiky red ring with a "!" and a shake.
  12. v0.4 Menus and Soundtrack
    1. v0.4.0

      Menus and Soundtrack

      Added

      • A main menu where Pixel floats among his options as glowing memories, reaching for the one you pick.
      • Run setup: choose a starting weapon (others unlock by buying them in a shop) and a difficulty level from 0 to 5; winning a level unlocks the next. Level 3 adds elite enemies and level 5 a boss on wave 20, The Unforgettable.
      • Options with Audio, Display, Controls (key and controller rebinding), Accessibility and Data tabs, each with its own Restore Defaults; erasing records or progress asks more than once.
      • A pause screen with your loadout and run stats; the run saves each time the shop opens, and Continue picks it back up.
      • A Collection of weapons, items, enemies, run history and records.
      • A drop-in soundtrack: MP3s in audio/music/soundtrack/ are named from their tags and play in the menu, waves, shop or boss fight.
      • Sound effects stay in the key of the song that's playing (Recall and Forget are deliberately dissonant); keys are measured while loading, never mid-play.
      • A 22-second GIF preview with an "Alpha Work in Progress" watermark, and a small MP4 of it: python tools/make_gif_trailer.py.

      Changed

      • All 18 sound effects remade in a 90s arcade style: FM tones, fast sweeps, crunchy explosions.
  13. v0.3 Balance Simulator
    1. v0.3.0

      Balance Simulator

      Added

      • A balance simulator: a bot plays the real game headless, 100 full runs in about a minute, and writes a report of memories per wave against the cost of an upgrade (python tools/balance.py).
      • Pixel's tentacles use your art, bent along each curve, with the pads and spades blended in so they sway with the tentacle.
      • Tentacles grow with the Range stat, up to double length, thickening a little as they go.
      • Pixel's eye follows what he's doing: his latest shot, then where he's moving, then the nearest enemy.
      • Memories come in four values drawn from one image and recoloured in code.
      • A 53-second gameplay trailer at 1080p, as MP4: python tools/make_trailer.py.

      Changed

      • Income is balanced to about one upgrade per wave: each wave's drops scale so a full clear pays about 1.25 upgrades. (By wave 9 you could have 1,200 memories without trying.)
      • Difficulty eased to match: far fewer enemies by wave 20, and their health grows more slowly.
  14. v0.2 Pixel's Art
    1. v0.2.0

      Pixel's Art

      Added

      • Art swaps by file name, like the sounds: save a PNG under the right name in assets/sprites/ and the game uses it. Every slot is listed in assets/ASSETS.md.
      • Your first art in the game: Pixel's eye and iris, the three enemies, the four projectiles, the memory shard and the arena floor, with vector placeholders for everything else.
      • tools/prepare_sprites.py trims and resizes full-size art into game-ready copies.
      • ChatGPT prompts for each asset in CHATGPT_PROMPTS.md.

      Changed

      • Pixel matches his description: six tentacles covered in fine cilia ending in suction pads, and pink and indigo spades that glow when their ability is used.
      • The camera is zoomed in about 35% to suit the detailed art.
  15. v0.1 First Prototype
    1. v0.1.0

      First Prototype

      Added

      • A playable prototype in Godot, for Windows and mobile from one codebase: Pixel with eight swaying tentacles, six of them firing weapons automatically.
      • Two abilities: Recall (pink) pulls in every memory, and Forget (indigo) makes nearby enemies lose track of you.
      • 20 timed waves with telegraphed spawns, 3 enemy types, 4 weapons and 9 items.
      • A shop between waves with 4 offers and a reroll; memories are the currency.
      • Keyboard, controller and touch controls.
      • 18 placeholder sound effects that swap by file name in audio/sfx/.
      • 110 design questions in DESIGN_QUESTIONS.md.

      Changed

      • The pink and indigo tentacles sit exactly opposite each other, longer and thicker than the rest, with only their spade tips coloured.

Tip of the Tentacle v0.15.0 · made by The Prompted Pixel