I know it's been a long time but all I can say is it's 2020!
As a solo developer sometimes you have to just bite the bullet and get a "real" job (aka one that pays a living wage) which is what I did.
Development continues but I'm not able to work full-time on the game anymore.
Bosses!
There has been a "Prototype" boss fight in the Campaign mode for a while now and the feedback has been good! So good that I've spent some time polishing it up, making 2 more and adding all 3 of them to the Dive game mode.
Every 5th level in Dive will be a Boss Fight and they get tougher the deeper you go. Each Boss is designed to test a specific set of skills core to the game and I have another 3 I'm working on right now.
Dive Mode
In addition to getting Boss Fights Dive Mode has undergone some other changes (actually almost all of this Patch is about Dive mode).
- Timers no longer restart when entering a new level. You take whatever time you had left with you to the next level.
- XP from kills has been nerfed but completing Objectives and Downloading Files now rewards XP and the amount increases as you get deeper.
- There are more Files to download in all Dive Levels.
- Dive now only has 1 Arena Type but the Maze levels have been added to the standard map rotation.
- Entering a Level gives you some extra time depending on the type of level.
- Completing a Level no longer stops enemies from spawning or the timer from counting down.
- Completing a Level no longer despawns any Subsystems you haven't destroyed yet so you can go back for those Files you missed.
- When the Exit spawns it no longer kills everything in the level.
Tutorial
The Tutorial has been completely re-designed! It still needs some extra work but it should now be much better at walking new players through the game without bombarding them with walls of text.
The Tutorial will also go straight into a game of Dive on Easy when it completes.
Bug Fixes & Changes
There are several bug fixes and quality of life changes in this patch too most of which were requested by members of the community!
- Enemies killed by spawning under the player no longer stay visible.
- Using the Glitch Item doesn't crash the game anymore.
- Fixed a crash in the Loadout editor.
- Fixed Rotation of the Quakes effects.
- Beam weapons no longer lose damage output at low framerates.
- Added Floating Text when the player gains Experience.
- Added Option to disable Floating Text.
- Added Option to disable the Status Ring.
The Future
Things are looking bright! While I may have gotten a full-time job to pay the bills this at least means I'm no longer stressed about paying the bills and can focus entirely on making the game better rather than worrying about sales.
I now have everything I can think of in my own Jira backlog and am doing month-long Sprints with a specific goal that should result in a new patch every month (the next one is focussing on Steam Achievements).
Based on my current backlog and the rate I'm completing work It looks like I'll be finished in about another year at the earliest however unlike previous attempts to finish the game this time I have a solid goal to work towards and it's just a case of ticking things off the list until I'm done.
Thank you for being patient! I have the best community I could ask for and I'm really grateful for all your support!
Rob