Hello Cloudbreakers! Thanks for the feedback and bugs reported for the first wave of the Demo Playtest.
We have been hard at work incorporating it all in preparation for our official demo launch. The full release note are below, but some highlights are:
Rarity stacking. Parts rarity can be upgraded by combining them with another part.
A new onboarding, to ease the process of learning the game.
Reworked Transmitter upgrades.
Vast rebalancing of the Layer 1 waves.
Steam deck performance fixes.
Core weapons can now be upgraded.
Build 1.5 - Demo Playtest
Known Issues
- On first open, sometimes the controller will not work to accept a part in the part selection drawer.
Bug Fixes
- Difficulty levels not clearing correctly.
- Tooltip displaying over tutorial.
- Smart Scatter shot not targeting.
- Steam Deck setting GPU clock speed too low.
- Memory leaks.
- Explosions causing chain explosions that could grow too loud.
- Heal on level up relic.
- Many minor bug fixes.
Balancing
Overcharge
- General Overcharge balancing pass.
Skill Nodes
- General skill node balancing pass.
Engine Parts
- Radar: Upgrade speed increase changed from 0.7 to 0.5.
- Tesla Coil: Damage boost per network strength changed from 2.5 to 2.0.
- Ballistic Shot: Upgrade damage increase changed from 4 to 3.5.
- Core Turret: Damage reduced ×0.5, fire rate increased ×2.0.
- Firing Line, Liquid Nitrogen, Mine Dispenser, and Plasmatic Blade removed from demo.
Missions
- Created demo-specific mission versions to allow unlocking within the confines of the demo.
Ships
- Gunship removed from demo.
- Gunship defense changed from 4 to 6.
Transmitter Upgrades (Reworked)
- Gamma Ray: Now deals damage for each enemy in the transmitter beam.
- Radioactive: Swapped with X-Ray. Now increases transmitter beam size for each enemy killed with it.
- Induction (replaces X-Ray): Charges enemies, causing them to stun surrounding enemies on death.
Progression
- XP curve increased to prevent being fully levelled before the end of a run.
- Extensive wave balancing pass.
- Many minor balance adjustments.
- Difficulty Modifiers adjusted.
Improvements
- Overcharge feedback improved.
- Font changes.
- Upgrade tooltips now show stats adjusted from the current weapon state rather than from a base weapon.
- Art iterations across the game.
- Story beat added to the start of the game.
- Repulsor network indicator added.
- SFX work across the game.
- Noise and scanlines disabled by default.
- Overcharge key changed to Shift for easier access.
- Network indicators added to all network parts.
- Transmitter upgrades given their own colour emissions.
- Many minor improvements.
New Features
- New onboarding process, including custom waves for tutorial runs.
- New level select screen.
- Collateral Shot skill.
- Automatic save backups to prevent data corruption.
- Rarity stacking: A part can now be dropped on a part of the same type and rarity to increase the part's rarity.
- Core weapon upgrading: Core parts can now be upgraded.
- Shard missions.
- Hide tooltips button in engine menu.