Hey everyone!
It's been just short of two weeks since the game launched as the dust has just about settled. It appears I was lucky enough to have not missed any major bugs in the 1.00 release which makes this 1.01 patch pretty minor in terms of bug fixes.
The one thing this patch will improve however, is the difficulty of a few of the levels in the Remastered, Mad Science and Elemental Mayhem level packs. Whilst I did intend for the difficulty of levels to ramp up and become more challenging as you progressed through each level pack, there are a few stand out levels where the difficulty "spiked" a little too much and created a lot of frustration for some players.
Obviously we play games to have fun, and whilst a little challenge can still be fun, banging your head against a wall over and over because a level is frustratingly difficult isn't most people's idea of fun (myself included). That being the case, a selection of levels have had a few changes to make them a little less difficult/frustrating to complete.
The Following levels have been changed:
Remastered Level Pack
- Level 30 (Ghostbusting) - Increased the number of Ghost Blobbs in the level to 9.
- Level 41 (Chaos Mastery) - Increased the number of Chaos Blobbs in the level to 14 (and adjusted the level target accordingly).
- Level 44 (Gravity Well) - Increased the number of Blackhole Blobbs in the level to 7.
- Level 46 (Crossing the Streams) - Increased the number of starting clicks from 1 to 2.
- Level 47 (Feeling Blue) - Increased the number of starting clicks from 4 to 5.
Elemental Mayhem Level Pack
- Level 7 (Crippling Cold) - Increased the number of Ghost Blobbs in the level to 9.
- Level 9 (Deep Freeze) - Increased the number of Purple Blobbs in the level to 8.
- Level 11 (Thawing Out) - Increased the number of Green Blobbs in the level to 15.
- Level 18 (Heatwave) - Increased the number of Blaze Blobbs in the level to 10.
- Level 26 (Cooling Down) - Increased the number of Green Blobbs in the level to 15.
- Level 28 (Bright Spark) - Increased the number of Blue Blobbs in the level to 5.
- Level 36 (Stormcaller) - Increased the starting number of clicks from 1 to 2.
- Level 46 (Elemental Evolution) - Increased the number of Blue Blobbs in the level to 13 and the number of Frosty Blobbs in the level to 2.
- Level 47 (Fall to Tyranny) - Increased the starting number of clicks from 1 to 2.
Mad Science Level Pack
- Level 2 (Spot the Difference) - Made the "missing" assistant slightly more obvious.
- Level 3 (Definitely Impossible... Right?) - Increased the number of Green Blobbs in the level to 18.
- Level 4 (What a Mess!) - Increased the number of Chaos Blobbs in the level to 3.
- Level 7 (Molecular Decomposition) Increased the starting number of clicks from 2 to 3.
- Level 11 (Pursuit of Knowledge) - Increased the Number of Tiny Blobbs in the level to 5 (and adjusted the Level target accordingly)
- Level 13 (A (W)hole new species) - Increased the number of Tiny Blobbs in the level to 25.
- Level 18 (Meet the Chargebot) - Adjusted the level description to explain the mechanics of the Chargebot more clearly.
These changes should make some of the more frustrating levels a little easier and make the difficulty curves throughout the level packs feel more gradual and less spiky.
Please consider leaving a review of the game!
Finally to close out this update post, a small ask from me. Without reviews and player feedback I wouldn't have been able to identify which levels were becoming frustrating and I wouldn't have been able to improve those levels in this patch. Player feedback really does help and really does matter. If you've enjoyed the game so far please consider leaving a positive review to help the game grow and gain visibility. Likewise if a level really annoyed you, leave a review about that too and let me know so I can look to try improve it in patch 1.02.
For a small indie dev like myself with almost no marketing budget, word of mouth and positive reviews are absolutely crucial in the game having a chance of getting noticed and with just 2 reviews (at the time of writing this post), the game has almost zero visibility on Steam outside of people who wishlisted it before launch.
It doesn't take long to leave a review, and it certainly doesn't need to be a sprawling essay, but if just a fraction of the people who have already bought the game took a few minutes to leave a quick review we could easily hit the 10+ reviews threshold where Steam starts to showcase the game to more people.
Thanks and enjoy the game!
- Nutter