Launch Week concludes with Version 1.03

I want to start by thanking everyone for your support during this past week as Instruments of Destruction launched into version 1.0. It's been a stressful time, for reasons I'll go into below, but it's also a time to celebrate.

Version 1.03 is the last significant update we expect to make to the game for a little while. We've been getting through as much feedback and suggestions as we can from the past week while working on fixing bugs and trying to tweak the game to be the best it can be. Despite the stress of launching the game, having Alan helping to troubleshoot and fix issues has made this past week go a lot smoother than it otherwise would have. He's fixed a number of important, challenging bugs, which has allowed me to focus a bit more on the balance and fun of the campaign.

Campaign Tweaks
Versions 1.01, 1.02, and 1.03 have each brought with them some updates to vehicles and missions to improve the campaign. The biggest area of concern was the Boulder Bay missions, which went too far into the "moving boxes" theme, and was just not as much fun as other areas of the game. Two of the Infernal Isles missions also needed some vehicle adjustments, and missions with turrets/drones needed to be tweaked as well. The Kraken also got a bit of a nerf in terms of move speed in 1.03.

Overall, the game is supposed to be fun and varied more than it is particularly challenging (or frustrating or tedious). I feel more confident that the campaign achieves that at a consistent level compared to v1.0 last week. We've also addressed the majority of the technical and control issues that have come up, and the number of negative reviews (angry ones in particular) has diminished compared to the weekend.

A Successful Launch?
The launch of the game has been a success by many metrics, but launching on May 10th turned out to be a less-than-ideal time to launch. Hades II stealth-dropped a few days earlier, and then Animal Well also launched suddenly as well. The week was devoid of big games when I chose May 10th as a date, but both of those games garnered a huge amount of buzz and made it harder to get coverage from many outlets and YouTubers.

The game still got some great articles from places like PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, PCGamesN, and Level 80, but I don't know of any sites that have reviewed the game, and YouTube coverage has been a fraction of what it was for the Early Access launch. A couple Reddit posts I made went semi-viral, and one I put on Imgur went very viral. But Imgur is *not* friendly towards indie video games in 2024, and the post has like 35% downvotes and way more angry comments than supportive ones.

Combined with the sometimes-quite-angry reviews that really didn't like a specific thing or two about the game over the weekend, as well as the skewed wishlist-to-sales ratio (way more wishlists than sales, which surprised me), and I haven't really enjoyed this launch as much as I wanted to.

I've had 2nd thoughts about not using a publisher for a while, and this launch has only solidified the feeling that I should have used one. Alan has been a great help in terms of finishing the game itself, and it would have been great to have a partner to help with promoting the game. Promoting the game is something I just do not enjoy. I'm only ok at it, I always feel like I should be doing more of it, and yet I simultaneously feel like I'm doing too much of it when I do.

What's Next?
Version 1.03 will be the last update for a while, unless there's some urgent-to-fix issue. The game is finally as good as I hoped it would be for 1.0, and I'm burnt out. Alan is just starting work on the ports to PS5 and Xbox Series S/X. The game is also coming to GOG.com sooner than later.

I don't have any definite plans for what to add to the game in the future, aside from bonus missions for the Build & Destroy campaign (aka 7 more Sandbox maps along with a few new structures). I could maybe see adding some Expert missions to the Main Campaign. Those would just be remixes of the standard missions with different vehicles and harder objective requirements. Some time away from the game will help me get some perspective on what could be added to improve it further.

So for now, I'm taking a break to work on something else (and enjoy the summer with my family). Hope you guys enjoy the game!
- Luke

Here's the full changelist for 1.03:

• Revised 3-3 significantly (no more boxes)
• Added option to cameramod to disable the cursor while active
• Added a small warehouse to 3-4's target area
• Added vehicle-building collision scalar/setting to vehicles, affects high speed vehicle impacts
• Made Armando (vehicle) use Medium Joint Stabilization to reduce glitchiness
• Revised 8-3 so there's no time limit and bonus goal is destruction
• Revised turrets to aim a little slower, fire a little less frequently
• Revised drones to fire a little less frequently
• Slowed down Kraken move speed a little (except 10-5)
• Increased range of Valkyrie laser
• Reduced angle of camera change caused by zooming in/out (default unaffected)
• Added option to prevent thrusters from affecting other objects
• Added buttons to remove objects in Sandbox mode (when Place Objects is active)
• Added Sandbox mode option to disable invisible walls
• Prevent game from saving immediately if you quit right way (possibly wiping out save data)
• Prevent progress saving if crystals and stars are both 0
• Made map/structure loading overlay use transparent buttons so you can (kinda) see what you loaded
• Fixed glow for barrels on mission 4-2 not working
• Fixed structure glow failing to work correctly in 2 cases (turning off too fast, and not turning off when it should)
• Fixed "Test Destruction" in structure editor being "frozen" in time
• Fixed Failing BnD 8-2 objective->Pause sequence in BnD missions (failed instantly on next restart, got stuck)
• Fixed vehicle ropes falling from the sky after a dropship despawns (visible on main menu sometimes)
• Fixed a couple challenges having reduced controller vibration when they didn't need it
• Significantly reduced insane impact blasts from Bomb Launcher and structure collisions
• Made ultra-wide (21:9) push the UI elements to the side more (aka expanded max UI width)
• Fixed an obscure bug with mouse controls
• Fixed Rust Rally (sb12) has the challenge scores reversed