Hello fellow challengers! First of all happy new year to you! Hopefully better than 2020.
After 2 months of radio silence we can finally say... it’s here !
Well, not yet... but close enough!
So first of all, you want some preview, don’t you?
Everything is not yet perfect, but as you can see there are a lot of changes pretty much everywhere, so let’s start getting into all the details.
The Hangar has been totally reworked to fit the needs of the new gameplay.
Create a preset, choose a pilot, edit the ship, and give it a fancy name to remember it. After that, you only have to choose the preset before playing. It allows different playstyles without needing to reselect the pilot all the time.
Also, the Hangar now has an “editor” screen in which you can edit your preset by selecting each module of your ship.
Every module has to be discovered, earned, or crafted through the Forge. Sadly, that screen and the Tech-tree are the last screens that still require some heavy work so we won’t show them today.
Every screen has some modifications, so we can’t add a screenshot of every modification as it will be a lot to show for some “minor stuff”. Let’s focus on what changes the most!
Gameplay Changes
As you can guess, we worked a lot on this new modular system, and it brings some huge changes to the gameplay.
The ships now have a Hull, which gave it a health point system (HP). Now, when the ball hits your ship, the ship loses some HP and is destroyed only if the HP reaches 0. The shield is still a feature in the game, and some ships will rely more on the hull than shields, and vice-versa. The Shield will bounce the ball, while the Hull just makes a small bump.
Hull increase the HP of the ship, so it is more resistant to ball collisions. Every ship has a minimum of 100 HP even without a Hull. But by default ships don't have a Shield, this depends on the choice you make about which modules you are using, so let’s talk about that.
As you can see on the screen you can add up to 6 modules, but only 4 are mandatory to make a ship valid and playable.
Reactor: this is the core of your ship, it gives the base power and main statistics
Thrusters: it affects how the ship moves and the speed that it moves
Battery: it is what holds power generated by the reactor. It allows for better shields or projectiles. Think about this like the “mana” of your ship (kind of)
Weapon: this defines how the ship shoots, the fire mode, fire rate, etc..
Hull (optional): the hull determines the amount of HP, with no hull your ship will have 100HP
Shield (optional): it works as it did before - this module determines the amount of shields, the power and can change the shape of the shields
Limitations, control, meta?
To limit the power of the ships we added a “energy consumption” system (you can see it on the previous gif). Each module costs a defined amount of points. This will be used to balance the game. A ship can handle 10 points, so basically, if you want all 6 modules on your ship at the same time, you will be able to use 4 modules with a cost of 2 points, and 2 modules with a cost of 1 point.
If you want a super-powerful-insane shot power (like the Aztec), you will have to use a 6 points weapon module, and dedicate the 4 points to reactor, thrusters and battery. No shield, no hull, as it was before.
Balance will be easier to handle and will mostly depend on your playstyle and skill.
Ranked Mode
We know most of you asked for it - the ranked mode is still not done and that’s why we can’t release it yet.
Here are the ranks icons
And we can share with you some of the arenas we’ve created. Each rank as a different arena!
It will work like most of the games out there - ranks are bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond and challenger.
So, When is it Live Then?
As we need to finish some features and debug most of this new stuff, we will release the 0.3 version in a “beta-branch” on Steam. The servers of the beta-branch will be online only during streaming events held once a week, every Wednesday. If it sounds pretty harsh, and we sincerely apologize about it, we want the maximum of players at the same time, while we are working, this allows us to check the servers, bugs, and fix the maximum of things in the fastest way possible.
But please don’t mind, this won't last forever. And once the game is stable, it will go live! Of course we need the maximum of players to help us stress test, crash servers, and get feedback.
If everything goes as planned, this will start next Wednesday, the January 27th around 3PM GMT.
We're holding a score attack tournament "Akashicverse Scoring Vale-tudo 2021"!
Event Period:
From Saturday, January 30, 2021 00:00 (UTC-0800) To Saturday, February 06, 2021 21:00 (UTC-0800)
Details:
This is a tournament to compete for the high score of the DLC "∀kashicverse -pandemonic nightmare-". Awards will be given to the top three high scores from January 30 (Sat) 00:00 (UTC-0800) to February 06 (Sat) 21:00 (UTC-0800). The first place winner will receive a trophy and a Steam digital gift card worth ¥10000, the second place winner will receive ¥5000, and the third place winner will receive a Steam digital gift card worth ¥2500.
Record a video of your high score and post it on Steamcommunity to show off your skills to your rivals!
Supplementary Information
In order to participate in this event, you will need to have "∀kashicverse -Malicious Wake-" as well as the additional DLC "∀kashicverse -pandemonic nightmare-".
During this period, scores will be registered in a dedicated ranking system for the tournament.
∀kashicverse -pandemonic nightmare- will be updated immediately prior to the event. Please update the software before participating in the score attack.
The first place winner may be asked for personal information in order to send out the winning trophy. The personal information provided will not be used for any purpose other than shipping.
So many cool things happened with QT this year and I just want to say such a big thank you to everyone that played and hung out and just generally made the community awesome! People found the last big secrets and speedran the game and made videos of all the updates and stuff so thank you so much!!!
And I am very excited to say that QT now has Steam community items!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can get the trading cards from playing the game etc. and I hope people enjoy the backgrounds and badges and stuff! It's so cool and crazy these exist now! It was real hard to choose which friends to draw on the cards so I hope y'all like the ones that are up :D
A million new things from Happy Snake Games coming in 2021! Thank you so damn much for playing QT and all my other games! You're all the best!!! - Happy Snake ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍
P.S You gotta let me know your game of the year and decade and stuff!!!
We are back with news about the upcoming update B129 and the future of UBOAT Early Access.
Next update
Update B129 is shaping up to be the most important update to the game thus far. It will introduce the remaining features from the initial roadmap as well as will move forward beyond it.
We will publish small teasers every two weeks to keep you updated and give you a general idea what to expect from that update. Stay tuned!
Early Access
After consultation with the publisher, we decided to extend the Early Access for a few months more to polish the game as well as we can for the upcoming final release. Keeping the game in Early Access allows us to move at a higher pace than will be possible later on. We hope that you will agree with us on this decision and that a few months more won't hurt.
This means that after B129 you can still expect at least one more major update to UBOAT before we leave Early Access for good.
Team changes
We are pleased to declare that Ruby joins our team as the community manager. Ruby now has the inside look into the latest news and work, so you can count on getting the latest information through him from now on. We hope that with his help our team will be doing a better job at communicating the progress.
Aside from that, another member is joining our ranks soon as a scene designer. He will help us build new port scenes, as well as prepare content for the new game mechanics that will be shipped in B129. This way our team will grow to five people.
You will hear more from us in the future. We also sincerely hope that you are well in these hard times.
Friends, several months have passed since I last wrote to you. Working on a project takes a lot of time and effort, but in small steps progress is moving forward and now you can see the finish line and you can take a break! Now that I have a free moment, I am writing you this letter with the latest news. So, roulette has been added to the game, I hope it will be a real gift for those who like to take risks and win! For those who are not used to taking risks, the opportunity has been added to earn a part-time job - as a courier, a taxi driver or a plumber, although in order to earn money, you first need to acquire the necessary tools, but these are all everyday matters, but there is no risk! The concept and idea of the game has changed a bit. We will play for the auditor of the State Bank, the "routine" in our case will be checking applications for a loan, it will be fun! Also, new characters and quests have been introduced into the game. I continue to work on the game and think that I will not have to push the release date again and the game will be released on time. The game has also been applied for the February Steam Games Festival! And of course, if the game passes all the checks and is registered, you can already play the demo version. Until next time!
