We are very lucky to have had a small feature as part of this years INDIE Live Expo - live from Japan!

With the team commenting on the meaningful connection you have with the animals in game, as well as the 'mellow' sounds of the soundtrack which perfectly fit the vibe.

Watch the clip here:

Next week, we’ll be releasing the first of our Major Updates. While we aren’t ready to share everything just yet, we want to take some time to let you all know how your feedback has shaped what’s coming. No hyperbole, it’s going to substantially change the way the game feels to play.

First, let’s talk about Amplifiers, or Amps for short, those mid-run upgrades you collect from the stations with the glowing blue crystals. We’ve heard your feedback about them, how you felt constrained by the limits on how many you could carry, how it was difficult to find Amps with good synergies. All of that is changing.

We want players who spend the time to explore and collect Amps to feel like their character is an unstoppable force of nature by the end of each level. To that end, players now receive Amps more often per level, and with no limit to how many they can carry.



Now, collecting enough Amps of a specific category will activate a Powerup, a special Amp with an extremely powerful effect. For example, collect enough Damage-focused Amps and you’ll unlock Multikill Enhancer or Glass Cannon, or collect Defensive Amps to unlock the Vampire Powerup.

This update will also include new Amps that are more powerful and drastic than what came before, often triggering off of status effects that can be inflicted with specific weapons.

Weapon handling has also seen a significant overhaul. Weapons now have expanded movesets that are exclusive to each archetype. End combos with stun-inflicting finishers, high-knockback launchers, or press the button rapidly to spin endlessly in a tornado of blade strikes. Attack in any direction in the air, knocking around and bouncing off of airborne enemies.



All of this should work together to give players another layer of decision-making and strategy when making a build, with more specific upgrades that they can work towards mid-run.

And players will need these upgrades now more than ever, because even though their counterselves will be more powerful than ever before, so will their foes. We've improved the reaction times of many of our enemies, and adjusted their attacks to make them more challenging to fight individually. The multiverse has never been more dangerous.

The instability of the multiverse has given shape to a tumultuous place that sits outside of ‘normal’ space and time, intersecting with and connecting what still remains of the various branches of the multiverse. The Engineers don’t know what to make of it. The Ewer call it “The In-Between”.



This location will bring together trials and opponents from all across the multiverse, so be prepared for a challenge.

We’ll have more to share, including the full patch notes, next week when Major Update #1 is released on Steam. Keep an eye out for it!

Hey all,

We've been hard at work over the last few weeks ironing out bugs that have been found in playtesting, cleaning up the graphics and effects, optimizing the code, and when they can, working on some new content! A lot of the FX have seen updates, tweaks, and reworks to make them less resource intensive and to improve visual clarity. Similar changes have taken place with lighting and shadows. On the backend, much has been rewritten into C++, which has helped the game to run more smoothly. Many of the bugs that were previously present have been patched, and work is continuously being put in to squash whatever bugs remain, and to get us to a bug-free state. Last, we've got a new map being worked on, and a couple new game mechanics that come with! No spoilers yet, but we'll have more word for you on that in a couple weeks. Thank you to those who have helped playtest! Your input has been and continues to be invaluable.

We look forward with anticipation and eagerness to the full release,

- The Solar Showdown Development Team

• Gel-trap has been added
  
• Bug collision sizes updated (Some were quite wrong)
  
• Some bug speeds adjusted
  
• Trap collision areas fixed
  
• Weapon cool-down and fuel bar resized on some of the weapons
  
• Few particle effects updated
  
• Laser cannon idle animation added

- Fixed some bugs with building placement
- Added an option to delete derailed cars
- Added horns
- Fixed some typos

Last time we gave a look at the design and model changes. However, we also pointed out that the game has been completely rewritten gameplay-wise.

As specified in the last Update, after a series of playtests we have uncovered many inconsistencies in terms of gameplay, from unbalanced mechanics all the way to non-engaging features.

This is what we will focus on in this developer update. We will analyse a match in order, going from start to finish. Keep in mind that the screenshots you see in this developer update are taken across several different playthroughs, so they do not always refer to the same match. In addition, all design choices in the UI may still be subject to changes.

The Commissariat is the new major gameplay addition. A group of players will be chosen to decide on a Decree, then everybody together will either vote in favour of the proposed Commissariat or not.

The Commissar role is assigned by the Tyrant at the beginning of the game...



...and passed onto the next person (directly to their right) once every Decree has been completed.

The player currently holding the Commissar role will have to pick between the other players those that he wishes to involve in the next Decree...



...and then all the players, including the Tyrant and the Commissar, will vote in favour or against. The majority wins.





Keep in mind that rejecting a Commissariat fills up the Instability bar.



If it reaches five, it's game over for the Loyalists.



The Decrees come in to replace what were previously known as Tasks.
When the Commissariat is proposed and everybody votes in favour, it will move onto the next step: the Decree.

Every person that is part of the passed Commissariat (Commissar included) will then have to act on the Decree.



...with the ability to sabotage if you are a Dissident.

Supporting a Decree will shift the Paranoia in favour of the Loyalists (left), whereas Saboutaging will shift it in favour of the Dissidents (right).





Special Permits are your means to twist a game. They are assigned by the Tyrant upon reaching a certain stage on the Paranoia bar.



A Tyrant may only assign one Special Permit per player, including themselves.





The player that receives the special permit will then be able to use it on another player. Above is an example of the Special Permit Confidence which allows a player to show their identity to someone else.



The Discussion Time remains unchanged. It's the time of the match in which players must sit down and talk among themselves, discussing what has happened in the previous Decree (if necessary) and share any vital information they possess, to try and somewhat gain a picture of who the Dissidents might be.





Although we plan on making it an adjustable parameter, five are the total Decrees on which players will work on. The Loyalists must Support three Decrees and the Dissidents must Sabotage three. The first team to achieve their goal wins, and their victory displayed in the ending screen.



There is a case in particular in which Dissidents manage to Sabotage three Decrees immediately without the Loyalists ever Supporting a Decree, triggering The Purge.







In this case the Tyrant is given the opportunity to play their cards right, attempting through gathered information to pick the exact Dissidents among the players. If all Dissidents are purged then the Loyalists win.

The host may disable this feature for their match in the Lobby creation menu:





A reminder to everyone that the game will be available to play the next Steamfest in June 2023!

Thank you for reading this Developer Update. See you in the next one!

Make sure to follow us on Social Media! You can find us on:
Discord
Twitter
Reddit
YouTube

This update, which was released in two parts, features user suggested features so thanks as always to the players who help me with great ideas.

The first change is a fix to the map exporter. It was created before the addition of map layers to the program, so it only exported the first layer of the map when you pressed the export button. I've changed it so now the exporter will image and export whichever layer of the map you are currently viewing, and will add the layer number to the exported map name so you can export all the layers you've made.



The next changes were all suggested by a Dungeon Maker player. First is the addition of custom map items for furniture, decor, wall covers, and floors. These appear as simple yellow squares with a black icon on them, but each can be replaced using the asset editor without writing over one of the existing items in game. The custom assets can be shared with your players either by sending them the files directly, or by using the Steam Workshop. Once shared your players will see the custom asset images on their maps, allowing the game's host to add whatever items they need to a map.

Another new feature is the addition of weather effects. The host of the game has a new drop down field in the DM menu that says Clear Weather on it. They can select another weather type from Rain, Snow, Sandstorm, and Fog, and a weather overlay will appear on all player screens. The effect covers the whole screen, it can't tell inside from out, but should still allow the game host to tell a richer story using weather effects.



The last update is an in game notes section on the character sheet for players to keep notes. The notes are saved to the player's character sheet, so will transfer with the character between different games and campaigns. They can be accessed in game using the Edit Character button, and going to the Notes tab.



That's all I have for this update, as always if you have any ideas for new features or changes you would like to see please let me know.

Cheers

Brian

(For the best viewing experience, please read the original copy of this post on Shatteredpixel.com)

Hey Dungeoneers, it's time for another beta release!

In this blog post I'm going to go over the bulk of the changes coming in v2.1.0, including a bit of new content and a bunch of Duelist balance!

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When I look at balance data, I usually only include players who already have a win. A few weeks ago, after enough time had passed, I ran some numbers for the Duelist, and got some pretty interesting results:

• The Duelist is played 33.7% of the time, quite a lot higher than the average of 20%. This makes sense of course, she is a new character.
  
• Her overall winrate is almost exactly 50% lower than the average. This seems to indicate that she is extremely weak!

Right away this felt wrong to me. If the Duelist was truly half as strong as other classes you guys would be letting me know quite loudly. I decided to expand my numbers to include everyone who has at least beaten Goo to see what might change:

• The overall number of runs studied increases by about 5x, there are lots of people who haven't gotten their first win yet!
  
• The Duelist becomes played 21.1% of the time, only slightly more than average.
  
• Her relative winrate shoots up to just 12% below the average. Still a little weak, but much better!

To me this very clearly shows that experienced players are still experimenting with the Duelist and building their mastery of her, which causes her to appear quite weak. If I include a wider range of players though, who haven't mastered any of the heroes yet, the Duelist shows as just a bit below average.



For v2.1.0 I'm focused on a whole bunch of targeted buffs to specific Duelist abilities. These will come together to be a buff to her overall, but it's more about making more of her gameplay options effective than flatly boosting everything. In particular it seems quite clear that I still need to make many of her more awkward or risky weapon abilities stronger, as the 'plain but no downside' cleave ability is still doing quite well compared to other weapon abilities.

Pretty much every weapon ability (except cleave) is getting a buff, with most either focused on milder power boosts, or more substantial changes to reduce ability downsides. As probably the most significant example, heavy blow is getting its accuracy penalty replaced with a guaranteed hit, but now costs 2 charges when not surprise attacking. This should still preserve the goal of the ability synergizing with surprise attacks, but also makes it less useless in cases where surprise attacks aren't an option (such as against bosses).

---

While the changes to the Duelist are the biggest overall adjustment in v2.1.0, it wouldn't be an update without some new things as well!

---

I expect the beta for v2.1.0 to last slightly longer than a week, perhaps until next Wednesday. If you'd like some incremental updates on that leading up to release, consider following me on Mastodon or Twitter!

Hey folks! Real life stuff interfered quite a bit with this past week, but I did still manage to add a much-requested feature: you can now create runs with custom difficulty!

Here are the changes:

- added custom difficulty to the difficulty selection! You can now create a new run with customizable AI difficulty, death rules, item prices, food prices, salary bases, training costs, and starting aura, as well as the option to turn off weapon durability.

- boosted training costs by 10% for brutal difficulty (applies to new runs only).

- broke up the arena manager's dialogue in the Qualifier Scheduling scene upon losing the Monkey League Qualifier into two branches, making it easier to see that the qualifier won't be rescheduled until the player goes back and wins another non-league match.

- updated in-game documentation to more clearly explain what each level of the AIHandicap script action does.

- fixed a typo in the tooltip for Relaxed difficulty on the difficulty selection screen.

- fixed an error in the way the game checked for level-specific skills in the progression which could cause a freeze upon promoting certain classes (such as bowmen).

- fixed a typo in the animated calendar for days 21, 22, and 23 of each month.

- fixed: cross-fading music during promotions was not behaving as intended, leaving two tracks playing simultaneously.

- fixed: cross-fading music was causing the new track to play too quietly.

- fixed: faded-out music could unexpectedly start playing again during scene transitions.

- fixed: the game was reconnecting and spawning a brand-new instance of the Steamworks manager class every time the player returned to the title screen.


As mentioned, this is a shorter one, but I hope you enjoy the new custom difficulty options. There's more to come!


Tactically yours,

Craig

It doesn't matter for what reason you bought the game! I want people to be able to launch and play at any time! Moreover, I want to remake the game for several reasons. While there will be a small demo version or just a launcher. If you wait, there will be a remaster of the game!