Work continues on every aspect of the game this month: I'm playtesting daily and making thousands of small changes that are adding up to create a satisfying game loop.



I'm very pleased to announce that Crab Champions has received a MegaGrant from the amazing folks at Epic Games (creators of Unreal Engine which I use to make this game). Huge thanks to them for their generosity, I'm beyond grateful for the support! Their MegaGrant initiative is helping devs finish their projects everywhere: if you are making a project in Unreal Engine it's definitely worth checking out.


Since ammo is unlimited in Crab Champions, having a reload mechanic was a bit redundant and uses up a keybind for very little value in return. I've decided to move to a new heat based mechanic to replace traditional reloading. Before you raise your pitchforks: this will not result in your weapon doing a frustrating overheat or jammed animation where you can't fire for several seconds. Instead this heat mechanic factors deeply into the mod system as mentioned below, making it so that stacking high cost mods will mean your weapon heats quickly and will require special cooling mods or perks to circumvent, adding a new layer of strategy to builds.

This prevents any one weapon from creating a meta (this would have been the minigun in previous versions of the game as it had a huge clip, fast fire rate and no penalty for stacking the most powerful mods). Anyone not using the minigun was at a disadvantage. Now, each weapon has a different cooling speed and max heat stat, allowing for much more balance across the weapon types in this regard.




In Development Update #9, I shared the list of perks that were added to the game and mentioned that they would compliment the new weapon mod system. I'm happy to say that a huge amount of progress has been made on this system and it's feeling great. There was a lot of hidden complexity in getting this stable as some of the combinations can produce crazy results!

As a quick recap: weapon mods are a core focus for Survival mode, allowing players to stack powerful upgrades on stock weapons with a near infinite number of combinations. Mods can be placed on your primary and secondary weapons as well as your grenade.

These mods tie into the heat system mentioned above: each mod has a heat cost when triggered which means that players must strike a balance between raw power and being able to fire fast enough to eliminate enemies. Sure it's possible to fire a shot that spawns 12 burning blades which each spawn a black hole when exploding but it'll cost a lot of heat, meaning you won't be able to fire again until your weapon cools enough to afford the heat of another shot.

Here are some of the weapon mods added this month (many more are planned for future updates):

• Cooling Shot: Shots that hit enemies cool your weapon
  
• Light Shot: Projectiles are no longer affected by gravity
  
• Bouncing Orb: Chance to fire a bouncing orb along with your normal shot
  
• Heatsink: Cooling speed increased
  
• Extended Mag: Max heat increased
  
• Wind Up: Damage increased for each shot fired in a row (resets when overheating or stopping fire)
  
• High Caliber: Damage greatly increased but max heat is reduced to 33%
  
• Iron Sights: Damage increased when aiming
  
• Glue Shot: Shots slow enemies
  
• Charm Shot: Shots charm enemies (they will temporarily fight for you)
  
• Ricochet Shot: Shots ricochet off surfaces
  
• Snake Shot: Projectiles move in a wavy pattern
  
• Fast Shot: Projectiles fly faster

• Stun Shot: Shots stun enemies
  
• Weak Shot: Shots weaken enemies, causing them to deal less damage
  
• FMJ: Damage increased to shots dealing more than 85 damage
  
• Cluster Shot: Fires an inaccurate cluster of 2-8 shots
  
• Chaotic Shot: Projectiles deal much higher damage but fly in random patterns
  
  
• Big Shot: Projectiles are larger (both in terms of visuals and hitbox)
  
• Explosive Core: Projectiles have a larger explosion radius
  
• Ghost Shot: Chance to not heat the weapon when firing a shot
  
• Poison Dagger: Chance for enemies to get hit with poisoned daggers when being damaged by this weapon
  
• Iron Shot: Projectiles are far slower and heavier but deal much greater damage
  
• Combo Counter: Deal bonus damage when hitting the same enemy multiple times in a row (resets when missing or hitting another enemy)
  
• Precision Laser: Damage increased for each shot you hit without missing
  
• Earthquake Shot: Shots knock enemies back
  
• Close Shot: Large damage increase when hitting nearby enemies
  
• Distant Shot: Large damage increase when hitting distant enemies
  
• Afterburner: Every fifth shot is a guaranteed crit
  
• Mace Ball: Chance to fire a heavy but damaging mace ball along with your normal shot

• Damage Shot: Damage greatly increased
  
• Crit Shot: Chance to crit
  
• Power Shot: Crit damage increased
  
• Mega Crit Shot: Chance to megacrit (3x crit) when landing crits
  
• Giga Crit Shot: Chance to gigacrit (10x crit) if all other mods on the weapon are crit based
  
  
• Supercharger: Fire rate increased
  
• Stacker: Elemental damage stacks increased
  
• Heatseeker: Shots that hit enemies spawn additional shots that fire at nearby enemies
  
• Quad Shot: Fire 4 shots with reduced damage and increased spread
  
• Looper: Projectiles have a chance to explode multiple times
  
• Random Shot: Every time a shot is fired, a random projectile is used
  
• Piercing Shot: Bullets pierce through enemies
  
• Saw Blade: Chance to fire a sharp saw blade along with your normal shot
  
• Elemental Shot: Shots have a random elemental damage type
  
• Crystal Blast: Chance to fire a close range AOE blast with each shot

• Double Barrel: Shoot an extra shot each time you fire
  
• Splash Shot: Shots deal splash damage to a radius around their impact point
  
• Black Hole: Chance for a black hole to spawn at the impact point of each shot, sucking nearby enemies and projectiles in
  
  
• Blade Cluster: Chance for a cluster of blades to spawn at the impact point of each shot
  
• Homing Shot: Chance for projectiles to home to nearby enemies
  
• Ice Shot: Chance for shots to freeze enemies
  
• Fire Shot: Chance for shots to burn enemies
  
• Lightning Shot: Chance for shots to shock enemies
  
• Acid Shot: Chance for shots to poison enemies
  
• Clone Shot: Chance for projectiles to duplicate while in the air
  
• Fireball: Chance to fire a fireball along with your normal shot

To make the divide between weapon mods and perks more clear: weapon mods now only affect what comes out of a weapon when fired and perks can handle any other cases. Some mods have been converted to perks such as Exploding Enemies (enemies explode when eliminated) or Icebreaker (enemies take damage when thawing from ice). This allows for many more mod and perk synergies, making perks more interesting and viable rather than being purely for utility. There'll be more work done to make sure that the mod system feels easy to learn while still allowing some crazy combinations.

Here's a fun quick example: the grenade has a Black Hole mod which creates a black hole when exploding. All nearby enemies and projectiles are sucked into it. In the clip below I'm firing an orb launcher with a mod that spawns blades when exploding. You can see them being sucked into the black hole until it runs out and then the homing mod kicks in and sends all of the projectiles to the nearest enemy.



New challenge modifiers have been added to challenge islands this month, increasing the amount of potential variation across runs.

• Army Of One: All enemies are of one random type
  
• Afterlife: Enemies are invulnerable for 5 seconds after being eliminated
  
• Friendly Fire: You can damage yourself with projectiles and explosions
  
• Shrapnel: Enemies explode into a burst of projectiles when eliminated
  
• Rebirth: Enemies spawn a random lesser enemy when eliminated
  
• Ocean Of Lava: The ocean is made of lava: watch out!
  
• Trapped: All traps and hazards on the island are enabled!
  
• Homing Enemies: All enemies have homing projectiles
  
• Double Edged Sword: All explosions do far more damage in a far larger radius
  
• Randomized Mods: All weapon mods are randomized for this island
  
• Sharpshooter: Missing shots causes you to take a small amount of damage
  
• Elemental Enemies: Enemies explode into a random elemental damage area when eliminated

These are in addition to the challenge modifiers mentioned in a previous update such as Low Gravity or Instagib.



I've been doing a lot of playtesting on controller and noticed that aim assist was badly needed. I've added two settings that players using controllers can use: a Low setting that simply lowers sensitivity when near a target and a High setting that offers a subtle magnetic pull when aiming near enemies. Players can of course play without any aim assist if they wish. In Duel mode, only the Low setting will be applied for fairness.

• New Icons: Placeholder icons are starting to get replaced: I'm going for a nice clean and simple style with these icons: aiming for them to be easy to read no matter the size on screen!
  
  
  
  
• Horde + Wave Island Types Consolidated: As I want each portal type to offer a meaningfully different style of gameplay, I am merging the Horde and Wave island types as they were too similar. A similar experience to the old Horde islands can still be found when on a challenge island with the Army Of One challenge modifier active.
  
• Pacing: Previously, all portal types had the potential to spawn after finishing the first island which meant that an underpowered player could take on an elite challenge which of course ended up feeling unfair. It also meant that it was possible to get very overpowered early on if you only chose hard portals and got Epic or Legendary rewards. I have done a lot of work to balance this out with the harder portal types slowly trickling in as you progress through each biome. The current layout is:
  Island 1: Horde (1 wave)
  Island 2: Horde (2 waves) OR Defense
  Island 3: Horde (3 waves) OR Defense OR Challenge
  Island 4: Shop
  Island 5-8: Defense OR Challenge OR Elite
  Island 9: Shop
  Island 10: Boss
  
• Respawn Tweaks: Downed players now respawn with only 33% health to prevent downing on purpose to regain health.

Thanks for reading!

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Keeping it short and sweet this month, I did a huge amount of playtesting to go over the structure of the game to get it solidified for the upcoming beta. Aside from the content left to add and the loose ends here and there, I'm really happy with where it's at in terms of the gameplay loop: Survival mode has a clear direction and flow now, something that it had been lacking for months. Visuals and content are now the prime focus moving forward to get them up to scratch.




While playtesting, one big thing that stood out to me as needing improvement was the level design: there was a lack of platforming elements and hazards to dodge. The old islands were in general very easy to traverse at top speed without much concern for dodging or platforming. Boss fights were made too easy because of this and in general I want the player to build mastery over the movement and platforming mechanics, not just the aiming and shooting mechanics.

Some of the first hazard types have been added this month: spike traps, falling platforms, spinning lasers and slamming cliff traps. In Survival mode they will be randomly chosen on each island so there are many combinations that can change how it feels to move through familiar areas. Hazards hurt both players and enemies so it can be a good strategy to lead enemies through them!

Hazards will also be added to Racing maps, creating more challenge and variety there.






I spent a good chunk of time this month doing playtests to ensure that the game is playing as expected in multiplayer scenarios, especially at high latencies. I'm happy to say that these went really well with latencies tested as high as 320ms being smooth for all players. It was also great to get reassurance that the major changes in structure over the last few months were for the best. While playtesting, I did a huge balance pass on weapons, enemies, map layouts and more. There'll be a few more alpha playtests as I finish up more content and then... it's beta time!

It's fun to see how the game plays differently in multiplayer with tougher enemies needing teamwork to take them down and how discussions are had at chests and shops to figure out which pickup works best for each player.




It's been an interesting process to try and get a clear read without going too stylized with the visuals. While I love photorealistic graphics, many games suffer from the problem of having too much detail that can take away from the clarity of the game. I wanted to avoid this heavily in CC while still keeping an appealing aesthetic. Not quite there yet (no real detail assets in the worlds yet, just broad shapes) but it's going in the right direction!

• Crystals are now auto collected after an enemy is eliminated: you no longer have to go and physically collect crystals (the only exception here is if the enemy was eliminated by a hazard without taking damage from a player: in that case they will drop their crystals as before and the player can physically pick them up when nearby). The amount of crystals auto collected is given proportionally to the damage that each player did to the enemy- this prevents the previous issue of one player doing all the work but another player being nearby and finishing the enemy off, collecting all of the crystals
  
  
• You can no longer knock back teammates: this was something that happened quite a lot with projectiles and other AOE attacks and while it sounded like it could be fun on paper (to allow for rocket jumping), it was really annoying in practice
  
• Shops now have separate sections for each category of pickup, making it easier to find what you are looking for
  
  
• Potions have been removed, and hearts now both heal AND increase max health. Hearts have also been removed from the chest loot pool and can only be found in shops (shops are guaranteed on the 4th and 9th islands of each biome)
  
• Weapons have undergone a huge balancing and cleanup pass. Many weapons that were too similar to others have been removed for now in order to ensure that each weapon serves a specific purpose and new players aren't overwhelmed with similar weapons to use
  
• Weapons have been removed from the chest loot pool and no longer have rarities. This change may seem drastic, but I realized that the weapon mods do all the work when it comes to the power of your weapon, and the actual type of weapon used by the player is more down to personal preference. A guaranteed weapon chest now drops after completing the first island and weapons can also be obtained in the weapon section of the shop
  
• Weapons can now affect the movement speed of the player
  
• Destructible rocks now fire projectile shards in random directions when exploding, creating more chaos and making them less predictable and more dangerous!
  
  
• Enemy spawn logic has been much improved with better pacing and selection across each biome. Previously, a greater number of enemies would spawn after each island without getting reset after each biome, leading to extremely tedious late game islands
  
• Enemies now all have at least 3 attacks, anything from simple ranged and close attacks to special attacks like spawning lesser enemies or teleporting (Ignore the janky attack animation here haha)
  
  
• Players now take damage when stepping into ice, fire, acid or lightning damage areas that they created by exploding projectiles or shooting destructible rocks. Be careful when throwing those lightning grenades!
  
• Temples now are guaranteed to spawn on the 8th island of each biome (8th = Temple, 9th = Shop, 10th = Boss). Previously, Temples required a key to enter and simply gave the player a reward instantly. I've significantly changed how temples work in this update- they are now one of the most difficult islands in a biome as you must traverse a platforming challenge while fighting off enemies. This way the reward in the temple is earned and the build up to the boss fight is intensified.

I started a bunch of the final features that are planned for the beta this month including:

• Companions: Get support from friendly Puffins, Penguins and more on your Survival runs. They can equip weapons but be careful: they may cause more trouble than they are worth!
  
• Challenge Runs: An alternate Survival sub mode with the goal of finishing a run with specific conditions such as having to escort a very unstable companion to Crab Island or having to finish a run without a weapon but hazard spawns are pushed to the max (all enemies must be lured into traps to progress)
  
• Giant Spider: A new powerful enemy type that can be found on the Sand biome
  
• Head To Head Mode: A competitive Survival sub mode where players compete on the same team for the highest score when the run ends OR to be the last alive- whichever happens first! A fun mix of risk and reward
  
• Mini Objectives: I want to add more life and depth to some of the islands with small secondary objectives occasionally appearing for various rewards
  
• The Forge: As part of a balancing pass, I'm considering adding a forge to shops which will be the only place that players can equip and swap weapon mods, adding a layer of strategy and deliberation to builds. Currently you can swap mods at any time even during battle which is powerful and fun in other ways so I'll be putting a lot of thought in before deciding whether the forge will go ahead or not

Free For All is a newly added sub mode to Duel, allowing players to skip the round based Duel format and simply battle it out against other crabs to be the first to hit 25 eliminations! In the future I may expand to other party style sub modes such as Gun Game and Infected!

That's it for this one, seeya next month!

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This month I've focused on creating a lot of content to fill out the gameplay loop in Survival mode. Mostly temporary visuals here, the time has been spent on design and implementing the features rather than making things look pretty (that comes next). There's a lot of new stuff so let's get into it!






Temples are a new type of island in Survival mode where legendary ancient crab ancestors are worshipped and powerful rewards can be found. A random temple from the list below is chosen when entering a temple portal (entering a temple portal requires a key):

• Temple Of Light: Spawns an epic or legendary chest
  
• Temple Of Greed: Spawns a greed chest
  
• Temple Of Evil: Interacting with the altar gives you random pickups for 25% of your health
  
• Temple Of Doom: Spawns elite enemies and locks the doors when the player opens the spawned chest
  
• Temple Of Joy: Spawns a penguin companion perk
  
• Temple Of Fortune: A large amount of crystal pickups randomly spawn around the temple when entering and the player can try to pick up as many as possible before they disappear
  
• Temple Of Time: Interacting with the altar sends the player back in time, starting a new run but retaining all weapons, weapon mods and perks
  
• Temple Of Chance: Interacting with the altar takes one of your weapon mods or perks, with a 60% chance to duplicate it and a 40% chance to consume it
  
• Temple Of Health: Spawns a gold heart
  
• Temple Of Wisdom: Interacting with the altar levels up 3 random perks by 1 tier each
  
• Temple Of Identity: Interacting with the altar randomizes weapons, weapon mods and perks
  
• Temple Of Strength: Spawns 3 random damage based weapon mods / perks
  
• Temple Of Sacrifice: Interacting with the altar takes 3 random weapon mods (of the lowest rarity possible) and spawns a legendary weapon mod in return
  
• Temple Of Wealth: Interacting with the altar costs crystals but has a high chance to drop a random pickup (costs double each time)
  
• Temple Of Keys: Interacting with the altar costs a key but has a high chance to drop an epic or legendary pickup
  
• Temple Of Peril: The temple is filled with hazards but contains a random legendary pickup in the center of the temple: most players will take damage in order to get the pickup
  
• Temple Of Arms: Spawns 3 random weapons
  
• Temple Of Love: Spawns a random companion perk
  
• Temple Of Purity: Interacting with the altar removes all negative effects of greed perks
  
• Temple Of Protection: Spawns a gold armor pickup
  
• Temple Of Hope: Spawns a Lil Roller companion perk (a tiny pufferfish friend that rolls around and deals melee damage to enemies, growing larger over time)

Many of the island types in Survival mode are focused on clearing out the enemies as quickly as possible with an offensive playstyle, but I wanted to balance this out with an island type that is focused on defending an area from incoming enemies, switching things up for a nice challenge and requiring new strategies to consistently clear. At least one player on the team must be in the defense area for 60 seconds to clear: enemies will continuously spawn during that time and if the player leaves the defense area at any time, the countdown will pause until they re-enter.

At around the 45 second mark things usually start getting intense, with enemies almost becoming overwhelming, leading to a tense final few seconds before the timer runs out. Defense islands are a great way to make use of snipers and other long range weapons + AOE weapon mods as there is usually a line of enemies slowly approaching from a distance.

With the addition of Temple and Defense island types, there are now the following potential island types per biome:

• Shop: Purchase loot from Tony the shopkeeper
  
• Temple (requires a key to enter): Get a reward matching the temple type
  
• Wave (Common Reward): Clear a wave of standard enemies
  
• Horde (Rare Reward): Clear 2 hordes of enemies (each horde being a big wave of a single enemy type)
  
• Defense (Rare Reward): Defend an area against incoming enemies for 60 seconds
  
• Challenge (Epic Reward): Clear 3 waves of enemies with a random challenge modifier active
  
• Elite (Epic Reward): Defeat an elite enemy
  
• Boss (Legendary Reward): Defeat the boss to move to the next biome

As mentioned last month with the new weapon mod system, I have overhauled many of the perks and added a lot of new ones: there are now over 60 perks in the game, and that's just for the beta- many more will be added in the future.

• Fortitude: Max health increased after clearing each island
  
• Endurance: Heal after clearing each island
  
• Scavenger: Heal when collecting crystals
  
• Valued Customer: Heal when entering shops
  
• Potent Potions: Heal more from potions
  
• Vitality: Damage increased when at full health
  
• Second Wind: Damage increased when at low health
  
• Collector: Damage increased for each perk that you have
  
• Autoloader: Chance to instantly reload when swapping weapons
  
• Adrenaline: Fire rate increased for a short time after eliminating an enemy
  
  
• Haste: Grenade and ability cooldown times reduced
  
• Lockpick: Chance for keys to not be consumed when using temple portals
  
• Time Is Money: Gain crystals over time
  
• Paycheck: Gain crystals after clearing each island
  
• Charged Crystals: Crystal pickups take longer to disappear
  
• Tony's Black Card: Shop prices are discounted
  
• Special Delivery: Shops contain more items for sale
  
• Shark Fin: Chance for enemies to retreat when spawning
  
• First Impressions: Chance for the first enemies on each island to have 1 health

• Personal Space: Max health increased after each close range elimination
  
• Medic: Max health increased after each one shot elimination
  
• Grim Reaper: Heal after eliminating enemies
  
• Hard Target: Incoming damage reduced
  
• Sharp Wings: Damage increased when airborne
  
• Checklist: Damage increased after every 10 eliminations
  
• Assassin: Damage increased after each one shot elimination
  
• Life Savings: Damage increased when collecting crystals
  
• Money Is Power: Damage increased for every 100 crystals you have
  
• Tasty Orange: Damage increased for each enemy eliminated in an island (resets for each island)
  
• Speed Demon: Movement speed and jump height increased
  
• Stopwatch: Chance to reset grenade cooldowns after every elimination
  
• Reroll: Reroll chest loot (up to 3 times per island if the perk is Tier 3)
  
• Blood Money: Gain crystals when healing
  
• Scary Mask: Elites and bosses have less health

• Big Hearts: Gain more max health from hearts
  
• Grave Dodger: Invulnerable for a short time when at 1 health
  
• Bulletproof: Chance to block incoming damage
  
• Torn Safety Net: Chance to cheat death and get 25% health back
  
• Gemstone: Damage increased after clearing each island
  
• Grenadier: Gain extra uses of your grenade
  
• Strength In Numbers: Gain extra uses of your ability
  
• Green Dice: Luck increased
  
• Good Omen: Chance to not be affected negatively by Greed totems while retaining the benefit
  
• Restock: Reroll the contents of the entire shop (up to 3 times per shop if the perk is Tier 3)
  
• Repelling Flip: Flipping repels nearby enemy projectiles
  
  
  
  
• Bonus Crystals: More crystals drop when eliminating enemies
  
• Bonus Loot: A random consumable drops after every island (mainly potions or armor, a very low chance for others)
  
• Bargain Hunter: Random pickups in the shop are free
  
• Gold Coupon: Chance for a purchase in the shop to be free
  
• Snatcher: Enemies eliminated at close range drop more crystals
  
• Rare Treasure: Enemies have a small chance to drop a random pickup when eliminated

• Divine Blessing: Damage and health substantially increased
  
• Ground Slam: Gain a large speed boost when flipping in mid air, dealing AOE damage and knocking back any nearby enemies if connecting with the ground during this time
  
• Powerslide: Sliding shoots out fiery sparks that damage and ignite nearby enemies
  
  
  
  
• Ice Flip: Flipping freezes and knocks back nearby enemies
  
• Level Up: Duplicate weapon mods spawn nearby after every boss fight
  
• Duplicator: Chance for pickups to drop twice
  
• Faulty Chests: Chance for unchosen chest loot to not disappear
  
• Care Package: An asteroid containing bonus loot drops after clearing each island
  
• Storm Cloud: A lightning bolt periodically strikes low health enemies, dealing AOE shock damage

As you can probably tell from the info above, I'm trying to add as much content as possible to allow for varied runs and support emergent gameplay, ensuring that the game has a good amount of replay value. The goal is for it to be possible to experience different scenarios on each run since Survival mode has some roguelike elements:

• Permadeath: The run ends when you die and you lose any loot collected in that run
  
• Semi Randomly Generated Levels: The order of levels, types of enemies that spawn, loot rewards, hazards that spawn and more are randomized so you can never predict what will happen next
  
• No Permanent Upgrades: Other than unlocking new types of loot that can drop in future runs (of equal quality to the base set of loot that is unlocked when first playing), a player who has played the game for 500 hours will have no health or strength advantages over a player that is starting their first run. This ensures that the difficulty stays consistent and the player earns a victory by improving, not by the game getting easier over time due to persistent strength upgrades

The beauty of roguelike elements in general is that you get the fun and satisfying build up in power of a looter shooter or RPG condensed into a play session that takes less than an hour. Personally with the amount of games coming out these days, I don't have the patience to grind through an 12+ hour game to slowly level up my character: it just doesn't appeal to me anymore. It's way more fun to jump into a game with roguelike elements and blast through a session, sometimes becoming overpowered and getting a sweet victory or sometimes being handed a hard defeat due to a mistake. While I'm aiming for a core Survival run to take about 45 minutes if just going straight for the boss, much longer runs are supported by being able to loop back as many times as you want to the first biome instead of facing the boss. In the future when more content is added, there'll be unique paths to take when looping before seeing the first biomes again. Difficulty starts to exponentially increase when looping so if going for the highest islands survived record, it will start getting really tough to survive after the first or second loop.

I believe a good game with roguelike elements requires a number of things to be done right in order to be successful:

• Fast + Satisfying Combat / Looting: Makes progressing through the earlier biomes not feel like a chore
  
• RNG Done Right: Randomness in games can feel unfair in many cases, so it's important to ensure that there's always the possibility for powerful loot to drop at any time in the run
  
• POWER: Upgrades should dramatically increase your power, getting a 5% boost to something is unnoticeable and boring in most cases
  
• Emergent Gameplay: Every run should have a memorable story with unexpected moments, tough decisions and close calls that are only possible through creating a truly dynamic system that combines levels, enemies, loot and hazards together in ways that naturally create interesting scenarios
  
• Depth: Easy to learn, hard to master. By providing the player with a deep set of build options (weapons, weapon mods and perks in the case of Crab Champions) while also having a fairly difficult gameplay loop, there's a lot of fun improving and figuring out powerful combinations and strategies. Too easy and the game no longer is fun and runs don't hold value, too hard and each run ends frustratingly early before the player has a chance to get a good build going
  
• Plentiful Content: Stops things getting repetitive and boring (duh)

I'm focusing heavily on all of these goals and will work hard until I'm happy that they have all been met.




While playtesting on Hard difficulty, I had gotten the game balance to a really fun point where each run felt challenging but winnable (there was always something that I could have done differently to prevent my death, enemies were never bullet sponges but also never too weak etc.) and playing for several hours trying to get to the final boss (and failing) was actually really enjoyable. I then playtested on the Easy difficulty and blazed through the entire game first try. Even though this was my goal all along, it of course felt hollow and not fun due to how easy it was.

The fun in any games with roguelike elements isn't the act of completing them, it's the challenge, self improvement and knowledge in the journey towards mastery that is. Enemies that previously scared you become laughable and next level strategies start to form after enough experimentation. Memorable close calls are had and each run towards your first victory feels like "this'll be the one".

For this reason, I'm removing the Easy difficulty as I believe that there is far more value and enjoyment to be had working through a game with a baseline difficulty as long as it always feels fair: earning victory is far more rewarding this way. The main design goal here for me is that with experience it WILL be still possible to blaze through the game, when you have mastered the core mechanics.

I understand that this change isn't for everyone but I'm ok with that and the more I think about it, the less I want to offer a watered down easy mode at all: the intent is for Survival mode to be challenging and for anyone completing it to have experienced and overcome the same obstacles. So as it stands the game will be carefully balanced for the new "Normal" difficulty. The much harder "Nightmare" difficulty will still unlock when completing the game once, for players that like an extreme challenge.



Thanks for reading these long lists and listening to my random thoughts on design this month, it's not for everyone but I thought it was worth explaining what my goals are and the reasoning behind them!

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The following is still in heavy development so the UI and icons are not final. It's mainly to give you an idea of what to expect.



This is one of the most substantial changes to the design of Survival mode since the very first iteration but after months of planning, testing + trial and error, I'm very confident that it's the right choice to massively increase replayability and strategy, boosting the variety across runs.

Perks used to be the only way to become more powerful in Survival mode. The one issue with this system was that the strategy across all runs stayed pretty much the same: pick up as many perks as you can and have them all triggering at once. While this could be fun, it was making the game feel a bit repetitive at times as builds would often come out pretty similar. I want players to be able to have vastly different runs and have to make new strategies based on the loot that they find. Perks now have a new distinct role: passive non weapon specific upgrades (like getting bonus crystals after each elimination or increasing movement speed).

Replacing the weapon specific perks is a new slot based weapon modifier system that allows you to mix and match powerful weapon upgrades to create unique combos and synergies. Weapon mods are visually looted in the same way as perks and drop from chests along with the other loot types (Weapons, Perks and Consumables). Moving from unlimited perks all active at once to a limited but distinct number of weapon mods has allowed me to make every weapon mod far more powerful and fun to play. This lets players go for specific builds and really get interesting results + be rewarded for their strategies.
For example a player might find a minigun and then apply weapon mods to:
- shoot ice bullets
- fire an extra bullet per shot
- have a chance to spawn a cluster of AOE blades around the enemy after every hit
- have a chance to spawn a black hole near the enemy after every hit
- deal more damage to frozen enemies
- make enemies explode into a huge ice explosion when eliminated

This is a quick example of a combo of weapon mods that you might put together to make a powerful ice based build: the black hole synergizes with the AOE blades, sucking them in with the enemy, dealing huge bonus damage and then freezing other nearby enemies when eliminated. While there are a limited number of weapon mod slots, there are endless possibilities to combine them in many creative ways. The only condition for a combo to be possible is that the mod matches the weapon type. Most mods are compatible with all weapons but some mods only make sense for bullet weapons only (hitscan) and others are only compatible with projectiles (launchers and grenades).

As there are limited slots for weapon mods and perks, they can now be sold instantly meaning that even loot you didn't want holds value. There will also be hard choices where you might sell something that you liked in order to buy an even better mod in the shop. This system also goes hand in hand with co-op play, bargaining with your friends to get specific mods and perks that would complete your build. Choices matter far more than they did before as previously there was no penalty to just picking up everything.

In addition to this, each weapon mod and perk has a tier system: if you find a duplicate mod or perk and pick it up, it automatically increases the tier of that mod or perk. There are currently 5 tiers, each increasing effectiveness + chances to trigger. When reaching tier 5, a powerful bonus effect is also granted. This creates a fun mini game within the run, seeking out duplicates and looking forward to reaching max tier as well as feeling the increasing power as you upgrade each tier.


In order to easily try out mod combos, I've added a new inventory system: a simple slot based UI that allows players to swap or sell mods with ease.

Below you can see a really basic example: firing the stock bamboo rifle and then quickly adding the Quad Shot weapon mod which fires 4 bullets instead of 1 but with reduced damage and increased spread.



Since a lot of the mods rely on a % chance to trigger, I've also added a Luck stat that certain perks (like the newly added Green Dice perk) will boost. This stat will increase the chances of getting better loot from chests and also for mods to trigger. I'm still building out the visuals and the logic for the more interesting mods so expect to see more interesting examples soon!



Previously grenades were announced as separate ability types but since they were so fun to use, I've decided that they'll be a permanent addition to your loadout in Survival.

Every player will start with a regular explosive grenade that can then accept any projectile based weapon mods to build up powerful combos in the same way you would on your primary and secondary weapons.

A simple example that really improves the grenades would be the Homing Projectiles mod (projectiles home towards enemies) combined with the Deja Vu mod (explosions have a chance to explode 2+ times). Combine these mods with others that have a chance to trigger elemental damage explosions and things start to get really powerful. Having mods split between your primary weapon, secondary weapon and grenades switches up the gameplay from action to strategy when looting: which mods should go where?




This category of loot in Survival is used instantly when picked up and must be carefully considered alongside the other loot types: ignoring a health potion to get another perk might be your downfall!

The current types of consumables are:

• Health Potions: these come in various sizes and instantly heal for a certain % of your max health
  
• Hearts: these come in bronze, silver and gold varieties and increase your max HP for the rest of the run
  
• Crystal Bundles: these come in small, medium and large bundles and instantly give you a certain amount of crystals
  
• Armor: this is still in development but the goal is for equipped armor plates to absorb single hits (no matter how high the damage) with a maximum of 6 armor plates equippable at once

As with last month, I'm doing a lot of testing and improving visuals across the various biomes in the game. Here are a few tests from this month.







Essential. What more can I say? I'll be improving it so that it closes and opens when you click the mouse.





You might have heard that Unreal Engine 5 is now out in early access. Naturally I wanted to try it out and explore the new features. Of course the first thing I did was see how many crabs could be rendered at once. The results speak for themselves, I gave up after 3 million crabs as the performance stayed solid. Amazing tech from Epic, super exciting for the future of games and other visual media! You can watch the full video along with a sneak peek at a song from the soundtrack here.

For those that have been asking, the plan is to stay with UE4 for now as the majority of the game is already built there but as the project does open in UE5, an upgrade is possible in the future if it makes sense and the content migrates without any issues.




[/list]
Thanks for checking out the update this month, it's exciting to see things start to come together!

Join the Crab Champions Discord server: https://discord.gg/crabchampions
Follow Crab Champions on Twitter: https://twitter.com/crabchampions
Join the Crab Champions subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CrabChampions/

You may have noticed inconsistent visual styles in the previous updates: I've been focusing this month on a final visual style for the game and am in the process of creating polished art, starting with the Sand biome. It's been tricky to lock down a visual style that keeps the game looking clean while still having some elements of realism mixed in.

A growing issue that I've noticed in many games is that with improved graphics, the gameplay can suffer as things get harder to see and the screen is packed with dense noisy shapes and super dark shadows. I want to make sure that the graphics look nice but also don't take away from the gameplay. It's not quite there yet but the current results are promising. Once a few more key assets are finalized, the biome will be finished and I'll be moving on to the Snow and Lava biomes which will take significantly less time to produce with this visual standard in place.



The response to the closed beta signup has been amazing, already outdoing the previous Discord signup count. Because of this, additional players will be selected via the awesome new Steam Playtest feature. Simply go to the Crab Champions Steam store page while logged in and hit the "Request Access" button! Users will be randomly chosen when the beta drops later this year. These users will be chosen in addition to the random selection from the mailing list.
While the beta will start small, I will be expanding to more users over time until the game is ready to release in Early Access.






Aiming was originally removed to simplify the control scheme and to keep the focus on moving around while shooting rather than standing still, but after many playtests I have decided that the satisfaction of lining up shots while aiming was noticeably absent from the game. Because of this I've implemented Aiming 2.0!

Other than the brand new weapon recoil, spread and crosshair systems, a major change is that while aiming in the air, your movement slows by 50% (everything else moves at full speed), giving you the hangtime to accurately aim your shots. This fixes the issue of the old system where you'd be moving too fast in the air and couldn't properly aim which was frustrating in many cases.

This also means that sniper scopes will be added to the game (there'll still be snipers that don't use scopes for those that prefer aiming with the crosshair) which gives me the opportunity to reward aim skill with weapons like the shotgun below that becomes extremely accurate when aiming.














There has been a big focus on the movement system this month with countless changes made while playtesting: lots of subtle camera tweaks depending on your speed / action / state that increases the fluidity of motion. Combined with the upcoming crab model and animation revamp, movement will soon be in a very good place.

Animations are currently the weakest part of how the movement looks and feels so I can't wait to make new ones! Even without movement FX and decent animations, the general feeling of flow throughout maps is really starting to show.



Also working on making movement over cliffs and steep slopes possible.




Above you can see the current planned biomes (not including secret biomes) with their anticipated release periods.

• Beta: The beta will launch with these core biomes
  
• Early Access: Early Access will launch on Steam when these biomes are finished
  
• 1.0: These biomes will be added via updates throughout the Early Access period. When they are finalized, the game will be considered complete in terms of content and will transition to a fully released state, no longer in Early Access. Please note that I plan on adding multiple secret biomes and many more levels for each biome as time goes on to further flesh them out.

Each new biome added will in turn bring many new things to the game such as new Survival / Racing and Duel maps. In Survival mode, each biome will have at least one unique final boss as well as many biome specific enemy variants.

• You can now sell unwanted perks back to Tony in the shop which is a great way to get some crystals towards the perk or weapon that you really wanted!
  
• New level type: Defense. You must defend a point for 60 seconds without getting overwhelmed. Leaving the defense area will pause the timer and enemies will continue to spawn
  
• There are now far more slow moving but high volume types of enemies in Horde and Defense level types which make AOE weapons and abilities much more viable
  
• Elemental grenades have all been buffed to deal flat damage over time in the damage radius as well as applying elemental damage stacks to enemies. This makes it much more effective to lead enemies into damage areas so timing and positioning your grenades is a lot more valuable
  
• Collecting or spending crystals now plays a UI animation to better communicate when it is happening and to show how much was gained or spent
  
• Many more close quarters maps have been added with cave corridors and narrow cliff walls, both allowing you to utilize bouncing projectiles and for encounters with enemies to feel more dangerous (it's very different to fight certain enemies in a narrow space than it is out in the open where their attacks can be easily dodged)
  
• Keys are now used to gain access to secret locked areas (with various random rewards inside such as chests, mini shops, slot machines and more!)

This month a lot of exciting things have entered the design stage but aren't quite ready to show. I'd like to still touch on my favorite upcoming feature as it'll really improve the gameplay loop and further add to the replay value.

Previously, all perks in Survival mode stacked infinitely and were in many cases invisible to the player. This eventually lead to a point in a run where you have countless passive effects triggering constantly which felt unclear and messy.

My proposed revamp to perks and weapon is to replace certain perks with a weapon modifier system that allows you to create powerful deliberate synergies. An example: a regular coconut launcher fires coconuts that explode on impact. With an ice modifier (freezes enemies when exploding), a metal modifier (more affected by gravity but deals more damage) and a exploding enemies modifier (makes enemies explode when eliminated), the weapon then behaves differently and is a lot more powerful.

There are limited modifier slots per weapon which allows me to be able to make the effect of each modifier extremely strong and noticeable. Currently I can't make perks too strong as the game would become too easy, but with these limited modifier slots, it actually results in a more strategic gameplay experience as you have to choose what kind of build you are going for. There are no stacking limits other than the slot capacity of your weapon (which can be leveled up to gain more slots), so a huge part of the fun will be searching for overpowered modifier combos.

You can equip a balanced mix of modifiers OR if you happen to find 3 Fire Bullet modifiers for example, there's nothing stopping you from stacking them all on one weapon, getting 3x the strength by doing so. This change hugely increases the amount of build possibilities in a run as before if you didn't like a weapon, you'd probably have no reason to pick it up again, with weapons feeling samey each run. Now with the right modifiers, all weapons are viable. Modifiers can be dropped, mixed and matched as well as bought / sold in shops.

You might be wondering: if these modifiers are doing so much, what will happen to perks that had a lot of these effects? Passive perks (for example Time Is Money which gives you crystals over time), will stay in their perk form and can still be stacked infinitely. If this sounds confusing, there'll be plenty of images and gifs in the future to show it off: it's a very clean and simple UI and it is quick and easy to try different combinations of modifiers out. Survival will then be all about Crystals (money), Perks (passive upgrades), Modifiers (weapon upgrades) and Keys (gives access to secret areas + can be used to unlock things after each run).

Anyway enough rambling for now, super excited for all the stuff that is currently planned. Thanks for reading this month's update!

Join the Crab Champions Discord server: https://discord.gg/crabchampions
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Today marks exactly 2 years since Crab Champions was first announced: it has come a long way and is a completely different game at this point!

Here's a fun look at how the game has evolved from a basic prototype in 2018!



Last month it was announced that there will be small beta in the future and if interested to add a reaction on Discord. This system broke because of too many reactions which is crazy!

Due to this response I've created a proper mailing list over at crabchampions.com/beta where you can sign up if interested in getting beta access when it launches.



Grenades add a really fun dynamic to the game: lining them up so that they explode into powerful damage areas around enemies. The longer an enemy lingers in a damage area, the more potent the damage effects get.

It's really satisfying to see the different damage over time effects stack up while also dealing weapon damage on top of that. Grenades are part of the ability system in Survival mode, so you would choose a grenade over another ability such as the Sentry Gun or the Crystal Strike. Here are some of the grenade types added this month:

Deals rapid damage over time.



Weakens enemies heavily meaning incoming damage is far more lethal.



Stuns and damages enemies, causing them to deal chain lightning damage to nearby enemies.




Turns enemies into ice cubes (can't move or shoot until they thaw while also sliding helplessly around the level).



This month I remade every visual effect in the game from scratch for better performance, clarity and punch. They still need a second pass but in general are a huge improvement from before.









Battle in this close quarters map with tight cave corridors, slippy ice floors and no room for error!



In addition to customizing basic game rules for custom Duel matches, I've added the following gameplay modifiers to switch things up. More will be added in the future!

• Low Gravity
  
• Instagib
  
• Low Friction (All surfaces behave like ice)
  
• Speed Up Time
  
• Tiny Players
  
• Tanky Health (Players have 5x the normal HP amount)

• Improved enemy aiming: enemies now lob projectiles in a nice arc and predict where the player will end up, making fights more challenging and interesting.
  
  
  
• New Perks
  
  • (Common) Anchor: Deal 100% more damage to enemies that are in water
    
  • (Common) Collector: Get a damage bonus for each perk you have
    
  • (Common) Paycheck: Get crystals after clearing each level
    
  • (Common) Sharp Wings: Deal 50% more damage while you are in the air
    
  • (Rare) Scary Mask: Elites and bosses start with 20% less health (renamed and nerfed from the previous version)
    
  • (Rare) Sledgehammer: Single shot damage over 85 gets increased by 50% (works well on slow firing, high damage weapons)
    
  • (Rare) Checklist: After every 10 eliminations, get a damage bonus
    
  • (Rare) Bullseye: Increases max health by 1 for each enemy that is eliminated in 1 shot
    
  • (Rare) Water Balloon: Increases damage dealt to wet enemies
    
  • (Epic) Gemstone: Get a damage bonus after clearing each level
    
  • (Epic) Stacker: Increases elemental damage stacks applied by 50%
• Water has been added as a new element type: I've added destructible water rocks to biomes that don't have water flowing naturally so if you catch fire in the lava biome, there's a way to extinguish yourself. Enemies covered in water take more lightning damage
  
• New challenge level types such as enemies that fire a random spread of projectiles, spawn other enemies or explode into a damage area when eliminated
  
  
  
• Weapon chests are now guaranteed after completing the first level
  
• Starting max HP has been increased from 100 to 250 for now- since health doesn't regenerate, it feels much more balanced to have a larger health pool that is harder to deplete but also harder to gain back when lost
  
• A health chest is guaranteed after each boss in addition to the legendary chest. This will allow players to heal or if they barely took damage they can instead go for a heart which adds 50 max HP
  
• Added red crit damage numbers
  
  
  
• Enemies now can't spawn too close to the player and have clear FX and sounds when spawning
  
• Greed totems have been made into a new Greed perk rarity (red). Special greed chests will spawn occasionally through each run and offer a very tempting perk that comes with a cost- greedy players beware!
  
• A shop is now guaranteed before each boss
  
• Added a healthbar animation to show recent damage dealt to enemies
  
  
  
• (Bonus) Overkill stress tests. What happens if you are on Island 99 with hundreds of rockets per shot? This isn't a situation I expect anyone to get into but it's still fun to try out and see if the game stays stable. Luckily nothing crashed and I had a lot of fun with all the chaos (don't worry the game won't look this broken, this is a beyond worst case scenario test!). The game can handle a LOT of projectiles!
  
  

Thanks for reading, now time to get back to work on the beta!

Join the Crab Champions Discord server: https://discord.gg/crabchampions
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This month went by quick! Lots of juicy additions this time around, lets get into it!

This is something that I've wanted to try out for a long time and it's been one of the most requested features to add. Here's a quick look at a sword which does huge damage up close. I'll continue to add various melee weapons and ensure that they have a viable role in the game.



UI work continues, with a focus on keeping everything as simple and minimal as possible. Have a look at the redesigned main menu:



This is a fun new mechanic that allows players to deal damage to enemies by knocking them back into the environment. Check out the new Gravity Cannon: this weapon freezes and blasts enemies away, dealing damage each time a frozen enemy ricochets off something.




While playtesting, I felt that Survival mode could have more player choice. For those unfamiliar, Survival mode takes the player through a series of islands set on different biomes, each island containing a number of randomly chosen levels with enemies to defeat in order to progress. Previously, after clearing each level the player was given a random piece of loot and had no control over what kind of level came next. This could feel like they were relying on getting lucky in order to advance rather than being skillful and strategic.

To combat this, I've added choices in every place it makes sense in order to let the player strategize and focus on a particular build rather than just being forced to play with whatever random loot was given.

Now all chests spawn a number of pickups, but only one can be chosen!



Playing the same kind of levels over and over was starting to get repetitive when playtesting: clear waves, move to next level, clear waves... repeat infinitely. Now, players get a selection of different level types via portals that spawn after each cleared level which have varying rewards and levels of difficulty. These new level types really change the pace and flow of the game, and enable the player to make important decisions: "do I have enough health to take on this challenge level or should I play it safe and go to the shop instead?"



This totem is occasionally found in the world and allows the player to gain a powerful passive upgrade that comes with a downside. These choices can quickly end your run so watch out greedy players!



Some of the potential rewards offered by this totem include:

• Brute Force: Increase damage by 50% but lose 25% max health (can be chosen up to 4 times in a row)
  
• Leap Of Faith: 50% chance to gain 25% max health, 50% chance to lose 25% max health (can be chosen up to 4 times in a row)
  
• Glass Cannon: Gain 100% more damage but take 100% more damage
  
• Hoarder: Get an extra chest after each level but double the amount of enemies spawn
  
• False Confidence: Normal enemy health is halved but boss health is quadrupled
  
• High Roller: 50% chance for 2 chests to spawn after completing a level, 50% chance for no chests to spawn
  
• Instant Gratification: Instantly spawn a chest of a random rarity but lose 33% health (can be chosen up to 3 times in a row)
  
• Impatience: Upgrade a random perk tier but lose 25% health (can be chosen up to 4 times in a row)

Between a boss and a hard enemy lies the elite enemy: with more damage, health and attack options than other enemies, they are a dangerous foe to face.



I've added many perks this month to further increase variety from run to run. This brings the total number of perks in the game up to 60 with more to come! Names are subject to change.

• First Impressions: The first 3 enemies on a level have 1 health (doesn't affect bosses)
  
• VIP: Purchases are discounted at the shop
  
• Special Delivery: An additional 2 items are on sale when visiting the shop
  
• Gifted: Damage needed to move to the next combo level reduced
  
• Autoload: Reload instantly when swapping weapons
  
• Safety Net: Bullets are only spent if hitting enemies, missing enemies uses no ammo
  
• Uppercut: On every 6th shot fired, deal 300% damage
  
• Painkillers: Take 50% less damage when at low health
  
• Leafy Greens: Increased movement speed when at high health

• Danger Close: Deal 50% more damage to enemies up close
  
• Wisdom: Damage increased after clearing each level
  
• Assassin: Damage increased when eliminating enemies in one shot
  
• Oil Can: Deal more damage to enemies on fire
  
• Ice Cube: Deal more damage to frozen enemies
  
• Acid Vial: Deal more damage to enemies covered in acid
  
• Metal Rod: Deal more damage to enemies being shocked

• Adrenaline: Increased movement speed and fire rate for 3 seconds after eliminating an enemy
  
• Earthquake: Increased knockback damage + strength
  
• Medic: Max health increased when eliminating enemies in one shot
  
• Gambler: Chest rewards can be re-rolled (once per chest)
  
• Restock: All items in the shop can be re-rolled (once per shop)
  
• Bargain Hunter: One random item in the shop is free of charge

• Charmed: There's now a chance for unchosen rewards in chests to not disappear
  
• Combo Breaker: Damage is multiplied by your current combo (up to a max of 4x)
  
• Gearhead: Fire rate increases with your current combo
  
• Hot Iron: The amount of crystals dropped per enemy is multiplied by your current combo

As work on the visuals continues, I've added an entrance level and short cinematic at the start of each biome: here's a look at the Sand biome entrance level at night (work in progress):



- The combo meter from the gameplay trailer has been re-added to the game. The higher your combo, the more crystals enemies drop when eliminated. If you take damage, your combo is lost.
- Nightmare difficulty can now only be played when the game has been beaten on Normal or Hard difficulties.
- Elemental enemies now take more damage from the opposite element (for example ice enemies take 2x damage from fire based attacks). Conversely, they are immune to damage matching their element (for example fire shotguns will still deal base damage but won't ignite fire enemies)
- Load times have been improved dramatically between each level
- Secret areas have been added to many levels with collectables that count towards challenges
- Enemy attack speed now increases alongside health and movement speed after each level is completed
- Added a slomo effect when the last enemy in a level is eliminated

This map is located on the buried shell of an ancient crab. 1v1 me on Crust, swords only!



I'll be hosting a small closed beta via the Crab Champions Discord server in the future: https://discord.gg/crabchampions



The beta will start when Survival Mode is complete in terms of core content. Participants will be hand chosen based on their interest on Discord + Twitter. If you'd like to get involved, be sure to let me know!

That's it for this month, now back to work to get closer to shipping the beta!

Join the Crab Champions Discord server: https://discord.gg/crabchampions
Follow Crab Champions on Twitter: https://twitter.com/crabchampions
Join the Crab Champions subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CrabChampions/

Lots of new content has been added to the game this month, it's shaping up on all fronts!

As work on the visual style continues, lighting has had another pass to improve consistency across all maps.



As explained more below, I'm tweaking the Survival mode game loop which includes adding new pickups and a shop that appears on each island. Meet Tony the shopkeeper.



He rolls and rolls.



Kick ass and celebrate special occasions at the same time!



Launches a cluster of acid balls that explode after a short time. Each projectile deals both proximity and explosion damage.



I'm happy to say that Crab Champions has been wishlisted over 100,000 times on Steam! Thanks to all for the incredible support and continued interest.



Spent some time this month trying to make the UI as simple as possible while still looking decent: here's a look at the Survival mode UI- I have changed to a much more chunky text style which I think works a lot better compared to the previous more generic style.



Bullets deal splash damage at the impact point, damaging nearby enemies and allowing hitscan weapons to deal AOE damage.



Shoots 2 extra bullets per shot with increased spread. Hugely beneficial on all weapons especially those that have a slow rate of fire like snipers.



I'm currently revamping the Survival mode game loop- here are a few notable changes:

- Added a shop which contains guaranteed weapons, perks and other loot
- Added a new achievement "Heartless" which can be completed by defeating the shopkeeper (it ain't easy!)
- Chests are now opened with keys which can be dropped as loot or purchased in a shop
- Crystals (currency dropped by enemies) are now spent solely in shops
- Chests now come in 3 sizes and drop more than one piece of loot (The current potential drops are weapons, perks, keys, crystals, health potions and hearts)
- Added 2 new consumable loot types: Health potions (refills a % of your health) and Hearts (increases max health)
- Health regeneration is now disabled: this was done to stop players being able to run away from the action and heal up and also to support some of the new loot types
- The core game loop has been changed: previously there were 5 waves on each island that would happen one after another, but there was very little incentive for players to move around the island especially if playing fast. Now, 3 high intensity hordes must be cleared at different locations on each island (chosen randomly) in order to complete the island. The player is constrained to an area around these locations while fighting and can't leave the area until either the horde is cleared or the player is eliminated. After completing each of these hordes, a chest containing rewards is dropped. This greatly improves variation per island and also creates a more intense and action packed game loop.



As part of the journey towards a stable release, I had to face the mountain of bugs that had stacked up over the last few months, big and small. After a 3 week bug fixing marathon I'm happy to say that all currently known bugs have been fixed! While fixing these bugs, many quality of life improvements have also been made. Lesson learned: fix bugs as soon as they are found!

That's all for this update, thanks for reading!

Join the Crab Champions Discord server: https://discord.gg/crabchampions
Follow Crab Champions on Twitter: https://twitter.com/crabchampions
Join the Crab Champions subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CrabChampions/

I'm super excited about the work done this month, it's opening up all kinds of cool possibilities for the future of the game and is massively increasing replayability!




While playtesting Survival mode, I noticed that I was getting bored of the islands that had been made months ago- the fresh feeling of discovery and exploration wore off after playing the levels a few times. It was easy to predict loot and enemy spawn locations which ultimately led to boredom.

The solution to this was something that I've always wanted to do but for various technical reasons hadn't fully attempted yet: procedurally generating all islands. This allows you to always sail to a fresh, unfamiliar and exciting island, not knowing where enemies might be, what loot awaits and what other secrets there are to unveil.

I know what you are thinking: procedurally generated levels often feel very samey and lack the fun of a handbuilt level. I spent a large portion of my time this month making a very modular and extendable generation system to tackle this problem. There are separate generators per biome for different types of levels (caves, forests, cliffs, open plains etc.) which allows me to get the variation that breaks up the samey feel of procedural levels while keeping each level unique. I'm happy to say that it is working really well and is generating varied maps not only for Survival mode, but also has allowed me to add a new endless Racing mode as a bonus!

As soon as I playtested the generator prototype, the fun factor of the game was back! Each run now feels like a unique and memorable adventure rather than playing the same sequence of levels over and over. Emergent gameplay is far more common with unexpected cave layouts filled with heavily guarded loot or packed with explosive fire rocks!

The thing I'm most happy about is that the generators seamlessly integrate new content into levels with each update, so you'll notice fresh additions and new secrets showing up all over the place, leading to a constant sense of discovery as the game moves through early access development. Updates won't be boring: "added one new level to the endgame" but will be more like: "added 20 new potential assets to the Tropical biome pool as well as 3 new sub biomes!" which will make updates more meaningful and worth checking out.

Here's a quick example of a barebones generator with 4 input assets: a terrain, some grass, a tree and a rock. While it's not hugely interesting, it already provides enough to explore.



So with this basic example (a single generator with 5 input assets), some variation is already possible by changing the seed as seen below:



This is only one type of generator however, and each island is made up of multiple generators that themselves spawn sub generators leading to a huge amount of meaningful variation that only deepens as time goes on and more content is added. Add that to different times of day per island, various weather scenarios, unique enemies and assets per biome, gameplay modifiers, dozens of potential secrets and more: there's a lot of content that can be experienced in interesting ways and can make each run play out differently!

Here's a quick look at some more varied examples (still using a very small asset pool):



As an added bonus, this has allowed me to make a Survival Daily Run mode which lets all players play and replay the same seed: this means that the maps, loot, enemy types and any other events based on chance will play out exactly the same each time which allows for a strategy to be developed both for speedrunning and to see how far you can get. The seed and leaderboard for this mode reset every 24 hours, so it's a fun way to play the game in a different way. There'll be a dedicated channel in the Crab Champions Discord server which will allow players to chat about the seed that day as well as show off their run and share strategies / discoveries in that particular seed.


Fire Improvements
Fire now interacts with the environment and spreads: it is much more powerful but must be used with caution: I have been burnt to a crisp while trapped in a cave many times while playtesting!



New Survival Mode Enemies
As seen in the first GIF on this post, I've added new skull variants that shoot a bunch of bouncing explosive mini skulls at the player! Also added this month are fire ants that move extremely quickly and can easily become a problem with their fire trail that can block off pathways, giant armored crabs that shoot high damage homing blades and explosive coral creatures that reside underwater in caves.



Duel Mode
Duel mode is pretty much complete at this point with just more maps needed for variety. I am still finetuning the bot AI to be both challenging but fair: I plan to eventually allow these same bots to be an optional companion in Survival mode if playing solo, as well as a high tier enemy: a rival crab that happens to be exploring the same island as you. Prepare for an epic duel in these situations!

That's it for this one: see you next month for another update, hope you had a great holiday season and here's to an amazing 2021!

Join the Crab Champions Discord server: https://discord.gg/crabchampions
Follow Crab Champions on Twitter: https://twitter.com/crabchampions
Join the Crab Champions subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CrabChampions/

It's been a busy month working on Crab Champions- lots of great progress has been made. I've been mainly focusing on getting Survival mode finished as it is the main mode of the game with the most content to add. Here are a few things I worked on this month:



Perks are passive upgrades found around each Survival map in chests that can be opened in exchange for crystals (enemies drop crystals when they are eliminated). Perks only last for the current Survival run- when you are eliminated, you start the next run fresh with no perks. If you get a duplicate perk, it levels up and makes the effect stronger.

Here are the "basic" perks that are in the game so far. I have a long list of more creative and interesting perks that'll require more work to implement and will be added with future updates.

• Fortitude: Max health increased
  
• Efficiency: Shots that hit enemies return ammo to the clip
  
• Time Is Money: Earn crystals over time
  
• Scavenger: Heal when collecting crystals
  
• Vitality: Damage increased when at full health
  
• Shield Siphon: Damage blocked by your shield heals you
  
• Haste: Ability cooldown time reduced
  
• Endurance: Heal after completing each wave

• Adrenaline: Health regeneration speed increased
  
• Souped Up: Ability leveled up
  
• Second Wind: Damage increased when at low health
  
• Speed Demon: Move faster and jump higher
  
• Personal Space: Max health increased for each enemy eliminated at close range
  
• Stunner: Enemies are stunned for a short time when hit
  
• All You Can Eat: No ammo is used for 2 seconds after eliminating an enemy
  
• Grim Reaper: Heal after eliminating enemies

• Claws Of Fury: Increased weapon damage
  
• Sharpshooter: Increased weapon critical damage
  
• Supercharged: Increased weapon fire rate
  
• Grave Dodger: Invincible for 3 seconds when at 1 health
  
• Rare Treasure: Enemies have a small chance to drop a random perk when eliminated
  
• Bonus Crystals: All crystal drops contain bonus crystals
  
• Bulletproof: Chance to completely block incoming damage
  
• Strength In Numbers: Gain an extra use of your ability

• Exploding Enemies: Enemies explode when eliminated
  
• Splash Damage: Bullets deal splash damage to nearby enemies
  
• Storm Cloud: A lightning bolt strikes low health enemies, dealing AOE shock damage
  
• Piercing Rounds: Bullets pierce through enemies
  
• Firepower: Shoot 2 extra bullets per shot with higher spread
  
• Powerslide: Sliding surrounds you with fire that burns nearby enemies
  
• Ice Flip: Flipping freezes and knocks back nearby enemies
  
• Care Package: An asteroid containing perks and weapons drops in a random location at the start of each island

I've been looking at switching up the gameplay to avoid the repetition that many wave based survival games suffer from. One way of doing this is introducing different types of islands which dramatically change the pace of the game, keeping players on their toes. While one strategy may work great for standard islands, a challenge island may require something very different, forcing players to adapt.

The goal of Survival mode is to reach Crab Island and complete each of the 4 (more will be added later) biomes on the way there. Players can choose to keep going endlessly after Crab Island and loop back over the biomes with tougher enemies. Each map starts with a random time of day, randomized enemies, randomized loot locations and more. Currently to complete a biome, 5 islands must be survived and they follow this structure:

Standard Waves: Mixed enemy spawns at a normal pace.

Challenge Island: The island has a specific gameplay modifier that switches up gameplay in a challenging way, here are a few examples:

• Low Gravity: You and enemies can fly meaning you can reach certain areas of the map more easily but can be left vulnerable floating in the air
  
• High Gravity: It's harder for you to jump and your projectiles are more affected by gravity
  
• Speed: Everything moves faster (including enemies and their projectiles!)
  
• Instagib: All enemies are eliminated in one shot, but so are you
  
• No Shield: All shields are disabled, so certain enemies become a much larger threat
  
• No Health Regeneration: All health regeneration is disabled- playing carefully here is a must
  
• Lethal Liquids: Watch your step- touching water, acid pools, lava or other liquids results in an instant elimination!
  
• Invisible Enemies: Enemies are almost invisible so it's much easier for them to sneak up on you
  
• Tiny Enemies: Enemies are much smaller than usual which makes them harder to hit

Here's a look at the Low Gravity modifier in action:



Horde Island: Enemies come at a much faster pace in one long intense wave. This is a great island to get a lot of crystals to loot up before the boss.

Boss Island: Beat the boss to complete the biome and move on to the next one with a legendary perk and weapon dropped as a reward.

The weapon selection is starting to feel nicely varied- check out the newly added flamethrower, complete with fire propagation!



I'm also currently working on a Gravity Cannon, a Boomerang Gun and a bunch of other fun weapons- more on those next time!

Here are a few things that aren't quite ready yet but will be explored in future updates:

New Survival Lobby
The Survival lobby used to be a boring menu- now it's a fun map where you can practice shooting, choose your abilities for the run, find secret areas and even listen to a crab band while you wait for more players to join!



Abilities
These are chosen in the lobby before the Survival run begins and more can be unlocked by leveling up- I'll be diving more in depth on the progression and rewards system in a future update. Abilities are intended to allow the player to choose a certain playstyle- the Sentry Gun works for players that like to set up a defensive position and hold it down while the Dab Of Death is for those that like to get up close and personal. There are also defensive abilities such as Burrow- this allows you to hide in the sand and not take damage for a short period of time- more on these in the next update!

Soundtrack
Work on the soundtrack continues, I keep adding new songs! Currently there are at least 15 tracks with a few more that I'd like to add before release.

Bugs
As always I'm also spending a decent amount of time fixing bugs as well as cleaning up and refactoring the codebase as it shapes up for release- I figure it's better to spend extra time doing this work now than having a mess to deal with later. This way I can add new features and content much faster in the future, building on a solid foundation.

Thanks for reading, see you next month for another update!

Join the Crab Champions Discord server: https://discord.gg/crabchampions
Follow Crab Champions on Twitter: https://twitter.com/crabchampions
Join the Crab Champions subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CrabChampions/