Posted April 29, 2023 by laikaproj
I've really blown up the achievements this update! That and much more in this update. I'm really excited to hear what you think!
For a while now people have noted a lack of "meta progression" in the game and while there is some it's rather opaque and very light. I wanted to solve a couple of issues with this update:
So I built the achievement system directly into the game and gave it an interface where players can clearly see what they can unlock and how far along they are in the progression leveling. I'm also hoping dying in the game feels a little less bad because you have a much better chance of unlocking a new upgrade or item for your next run!
I've added a sneaky new mechanic to incentivize high risk/high reward gameplay. The basic idea is if you contract this virus you'll die in any one hit but you can remove it by powering up 3 shield structures. There's a handful of ways to get this right now but I don't want to spoil them for you and some ways to flip it into a positive!
Added a few dozen upgrades and weapons in this update, one for nearly every single achievement in the game. There's quite a few other updates:
Note about new upgrades: I really tried to focus upgrades around building synergies between things that are typically not all that good. Frost effects are pretty ineffective alone but nice to have attached to other things so introduced upgrades that play off of this aspect.
I'm winding down what I'll call "active development" on the game. With this update I feel pretty good about the amount of content and replayability the game has. I have a new project that I'm spinning up and you may hear about that soon. I'll also be listening and always trying to fix any bugs that come up. I can't say for certain if I'll do any more sizable updates but I may return every once in a while to introduce some new elements to shake things up or maybe I'll decide to do some DLC content down the road.
I'm also happy to announce I've signed an agreement to port the games to Switch, Playstation and Xbox! I'm really excited I'll get to see the game on consoles, it's like a dream come true for me!