Gidday, I'm back! First and foremost I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who joined in on the previous playtest.
Over 2000 people signed up and over 1000 played the sample, including a Twitch streamer I personally enjoy, Squeex. With over 100 responses to the survey linked on the main menu, I was able to get a fair idea of what y'all liked and some of the really annoying issues found.
Thankfully not a lot of bugs were encountered and essentially all that were reported have been rectified with this demo build, I'm sure there could be a couple new ones though. There were a handful of annoying choices I'd made that have also been switched up, namely collision detection is tightened up on the player - so if you're hit, then you're definitely hit. I've adjusted the iframes making them longer and opening a Safe Folder means you are actually safe now. Overall it should feel a little more fair and less punishing for no reason. A bit more clarity and exposure has also been made with some better descriptions and tooltips that don't run off the edge of the screen.
The big new additions you can enjoy in the demo are the new difficulties and meta-progression. While the vast majority of testers found the difficulty to be challenging but fun, and barely anyone said it was too easy, there was still a good chunk of players that found it too hard. The main issue is that a few too many numbers were adjusted too close to the playtest going live and the game became a lot harder than it was intended to be. What was previously available as Protocol I is probably around the Protocol II and III level in this demo build. However there are now 5 difficulties to choose from, with Protocol I now being a bit easier for new players to get their bearings and learn the strats. I believe Protocol V should be impossible to complete without any meta-upgrades being made, but maybe someone could prove me wrong?
Speaking of meta-upgrades, a number of you also noticed the greyed out Upgrades button on the main menu. Yes, that is for meta-progression and permanent upgrades. They weren't ready for the playtest but I also wanted to just get a baseline on the difficulty for that. Now they're here, not the prettiest menu yet but completely functional now. Upgrades can be purchased using a meta-currency called Beanz. Beanz can be acquired when playing through runs. Higher Protocols will reward you with more Beanz every time you open a Safe Folder and no matter what you also get rewarded Beanz for clearing enemies too.
Upgrading your stats in the Upgrades menu will (for most of them) multiply the whole stat and any upgrades made during a run. So while an additional 1% multi might not sound like much, it all adds up and makes tackling the harder Protocols a lot easier the more you play.
That's the major stuff, there's some extra little nice touches added like a more in depth stats screen so you can see what individual stats your weapons have, or the plugins you have installed or what you've achieved on a run. That's also of course added at the end of a run so you can compare with others and figure out the best build possible. A basic settings menu has also been added for anyone who wants to turn the damn music down.
Of course there's still a lot more to come and for me to show you. I hope you have fun with the demo and be sure to fill out the new survey or come and yell at me in the Discord! Big shout out to the Unpaid Interns in the Discord for helping get this thing all tested too!