The last two weeks and especially the last three days were hectic in terms of development and things are not done. Getting straight to the point; what's up next?
Upcoming
Most importantly I will be keeping an eye on feedback to make sure to address game breaking bugs, unintended mechanics, crash to desktops, etc. I simply did not have enough time to get everything I wanted in as well as testing all of it thoroughly. I was fixing major bugs less than 2 hours before release so there are certainly bugs remaining. Expect minor updates as I find and squish them.
Character visuals and other cosmetic rewards. I only added the cosmetics in the latest update, but didn't really add any "real" cosmetics, simply palette swaps. There will be additional character sprites, outfits, cameos and such, but also I need to figure out what I'm going to do for unit attack visual customization. No clear plans at the moment. Also interested in cute simple filler cosmetics like custom cursor, custom cursor trails, just more stuff to dilute the reward pool pretty much!
More content: stages, cards, a few enemies, and a few more mechanics are all planned. Most importantly is more build variance. At the moment a lot of the game is the core gameplay loop of solving the damage, energy, and casts per second for each unit in the party. I want to maintain that core loop while also increasing the amount of unique interactions between units and adding more types of secondary attacks that units can cast.
Linux builds are easy to do with Godot but I don't yet entirely know how to handle different builds on steam, so I'll do some exploration there.
Compatibility builds for people who do not have Vulkan support as well, though that is a little harder since the game does use some Forward+ only visual effects I think.
There have been some queries into an Endless mode as well which I think I can make available relatively soon.
Balance
Moving on, I want to discuss the changes that occurred between 2.1.3 and 2.1.4, namely how many seemingly random things were added out of the blue. About four days before release I was running some tests ensuring things were working as intended and letting my development build autoplay so I could observe different builds and eke out performance issues and such and unfortunately noticed just how bad the power imbalance between playing cards on each party member versus playing all of your cards on one party member had become.
The simplest strategy to beat normal mode was to simply place all your units in the center and play every card on one unit and it was successful just about 100% of the time on The Lovers stage. I felt very strongly in my mind that no matter what I did not want to release the game where you could simply not think about it at all and still win. So what did I do to address that?
The Problem
The actual root of the problem is that unlike classical RPGs there is no "equipment limit" in Get Those Bugs. You're allowed to put 50 "swords" in the unit's hands to keep increasing their damage. Mathematically this results in the most efficient method being to stack all of your damage related stats onto the same unit. I originally intended to mitigate this by having high energy requirements but it turned out that no matter how high I made them it was still most efficient to stack all the energy cards on one unit.
The lack of damage type and attack type specific cards exacerbated this problem since your main DPS could also be the best at applying debuffs as well. I absolutely did not want to limit the amount of cards you can play on a unit though so it was time to determine other mechanics I could use to address this.
Blessings
The Blessing mechanic is straight forward; every turn a weighted random unit is Blessed which gives them an extra play on the next card you play on them. The weighting is 1.0 / Cards Played so units with fewer cards are much more likely to be Blessed than units you stack cards on. The intent is to incentivize taking advantage of this mechanic to get additional power on the units you would otherwise ignore. When I implemented this I thought it worked quite well and moved on.
Energy Recovery
At some point I played some 20 Minutes Til Dawn for inspiration and realized I could also have a kind of reload mechanic in Get Those Bugs. If units have to wait for their energy to fully recover once they run out there will be a period of downtime where even your strongest unit can't attack and that's when it would be really nice to have balanced your cards. So that's how it works now!
Eventually I might be able to use this "reloading" as a trigger for different effects, but for now it's just a small part of the solution.
Damage Limit
The idea to add damage limits came from me thinking about what other ways classic RPGs limited player power. I think case I was thinking about how Final Fantasy limited you to 9999 damage even if you were actually capable of dealing a lot more. Once you hit a damage limit you have to find ways to deal additional _hits_ instead. And that line of thought is what made me realize what I really needed to focus on; creating little problems for the player to solve on each unit.
Micro Puzzles
What I'm actually trying to do is allow players to freely build units in whatever way solves these little puzzles: reaching the damage limit, recovering energy, and generating additional hits. Without a damage limit you can simply keep playing as many damage cards as you have on one unit and there is not much value in playing them on someone else. Now that there is one, you only play as many as you need on one unit and then figure out how to solve the same problem on your other units. This naturally incentivizes players to spread their cards out (the intended gameplay) without disallowing players from simply playing whatever cards they want on whoever even if it leads to failure.
Once you've reached the damage limit if you want to increase the effective DPS of the unit you need to increase the amount of enemies you hit and the frequency at which you hit them. As you do that however you generally increase the energy usage meaning you need to choose what types of energy recovery you're going to give to each unit. With some being much more effective than others on certain units, it comes down to picking the best options out of the cards you are given for the units you've taken into battle.
I would like to implement more little puzzles to solve, but I've got to figure out what they are first!
Enemy Stats
After all of these changes I had the final important decision to make; how hard do we make normal mode? My goal was simply to make it so that placing all four units down and putting all of your cards on a single unit _never worked in my testing_. This excludes Double, Support, and Party plays which is where the strategy is intended to be. So I tweaked the numbers and set up an autoplay that tried over and over with different unit types to win using that logic and once they failed every single time I checked to see how easily I could win the same seed with strategy. When the AI consistently failed at wave 18 and I won handily with very strong characters and only losing around 100 health I knew things were in a better place.
It is possible that the game will be considered too hard and that's something I can tweak going forward, but I'd much rather the game appear too hard before you learn all of the strategies than it be so easy to win that you don't have to think, so for now it is what it is. The balance will absolutely change as I play more and discover more issues or unintended interactions, but I'm much happier knowing that avenue to victory has been severely mitigated.
Stages and Difficulties
I have not done sufficient testing of these new changes on the other stages or the other difficulties. Based on how handily I won the tests I did after making these changes on the simple stage I imagine it's quite possible to win on the other stages though I'm not as confident about Apocalypse difficulty.
I will be playtesting to ensure what I think is true is actually true and pushing adjustments if not.
In the future I am almost certainly going to remove the difficulties between Normal and Apocalypse and have an Endless mode you can toggle on for some type of build pushing gameplay.
For now that's all I have to say. Thank you for reading and being here for the release of Get Those Bugs!
This is a large update to Cine Tracer 2. We have upgraded from Unreal Engine 5.2 to Unreal Engine 5.4.2. This may cause some unexpected issues, please let us know via YouTube/Instagram if you have trouble opening/using this new version.
You can revert to Cine Tracer 0.6.3 by using a Steam Beta Branch.
Known Bugs: - MacOS, Meta Actor Grooms literally explode. This is a known UE 5.4 issue that will hopefully be resolved in the future. We will give Meta Actors alternative hair in the next update.
Possible Issues - UE 5.4 changed how packaging works and a CTUserSettings.sav file was not packaged with this release. This may cause issues again.
New Navigation and Selection Controls - To Switch between First Person and Editor is now [ Y ] - To move in Editor Mode, you must hold Right Mouse Button down. - To move up and down in Editor you now press [ Q ] [ E ]. This is the UE5 Editor / Fortnite key bind. - Selection now works "normally" where selecting an "Unmovable object" like the ground or sky will deselect. - Escape is now "Deselect" and then Menu. - To add to selection / multi-select you must hold [ Left Shift ]
Location Maps - There is a new "Grid" map with the new Time of Day and Weather system. - There is a new "Park" test map. There is a lot of foliage and it may be too heavy to run on some systems. - There are new "Foliage" assets in the inventory.
With the update to Unreal Engine 5.4.2 (despite the Groom issues) this should stabilize the builds. The focus is now to work on bugs/UX/UI of the existing systems and to add more content like lights, building assets, clothing, and pre-built locations and maps.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess - capcomjapan_marketing
Experience a taste of this unique Kagura Action Strategy game in the Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess demo, available now!
An Okami collab campaign is also now live! In the spirit of Kunitsu-Gami's villager co-operation theme, demo players around the world must co-operate to complete two missions. Succeed, and all players will receive costumes based on Amaterasu and Waka from Okami, as well as unlocking collab soundtrack for the full game!
The Demo got another juicy update this month! Namely, the Effera route is turning it up a notch with more Maesol content. So, quite fitting for the month of June, I've coincidentally focused on Team Pride all around!
Thank you so much for your support, and I hope you'll enjoy!
In other news, I am working on an artbook! It's nowhere near done though, you'll have to wait a few months. Turns out looking through 100+ .mdp files for the only 2 drawings of stradovarius isn't easy.
We have a new Custom Lobby + Codes system to try out. It uses a new server provider and works differently from server list servers
You now have the ability to freely move HUD elements and to make custom crosshairs
Testing new movement: WASD+Skate Ground Control
The Long Part:
This update features the first version and test of how players interact with game servers. We are beginning to roll out the Custom Lobby feature. It is important, and we would love your help in making sure that it accomplishes its goals. It’s a simple feature with a lot of intent.
We would like to provide a new home for Pick-Up Games and other non-public play which is:
More Secure - only the people with the code can join
Better net routing and potentially lower pings for far-flung players
“Fresh” performance every time, since the server resets for every new match
It should take no longer than 2 minutes to spin up a custom lobby as the maximum. Typically - it should start under one minute.
The first version only has simple controls: Map Selection, Mode, Region, and POG Mode (Tournament Rules). In the future, Custom Lobbies will have many more parameters to choose from.
If you’re loading into a game: the leader of your match should spin up an instance, and share the code to everyone else who is joining. From there - it’s the same as any other match you’ve played in Midair 2.
Our intention is that Custom Lobbies will be a place where:
Pre-Organized Games happen (those which are typically organized outside of the Midair 2 official Discord)
Servers can be located closer to where you are on-demand (maybe you’re in Singapore and want people to join on you?)
Mentoring new players can happen in a private environment
Less-frequently played modes can be enjoyed which don’t have a permanent server browser home (League/Skyball and TDM for now)
Anyone at all can host a custom game with their friends just by exchanging codes
We can see a lot of benefits for expanded functionality as well.
Because it is our first time using this new provider, some new issues may be encountered. We are looking forward to your feedback so that we can make the necessary changes and improvements.
If this feature works well and the servers function as advertised and suits the competitive needs, we can look to move all Pre-Organized play to these servers and remove the current always-on ones.
The Custom Lobby servers will be used for future matchmade games, so it is crucial to make sure that they work well.
The HUD Mover is a super exciting feature as well. Advanced players have been using configs to change up their UI for quite some time. Similarly to the FOV slider, we wanted everyone to have this feature - so here it is!
Now you can hop into the HUD Mover feature from the Escape menu in-game, it should be pretty self-explanatory from there! Move, resize, and remove whatever elements you’d like!
And another nice QOL is the tool for switching up your crosshair, in case you would like that additional level of customization!
Lastly also for QOL - we have a first version of ground control implemented in the game. This means when you hold Skate ‘and’ a directional key like WASD, or WASD+Skate+Turn into a particular direction, you will be able to alter your trajectory on the ground. This feature seems to be subtle enough not to change longstanding route-running, and also very intuitive. We are also considering making this feature a little bit stronger than what you’ll see in the Playtest.
Implemented the first version of the Custom Lobby feature
Click “Custom Lobby”, select your map, server location, and mode. Optionally - select POG Mode, which is a tournament-style rule-set
The spinner indicates that the Custom Lobby server is being started. When it is active - you will see a code at the bottom.
Copy this code and Paste it to anyone you’d like to join you in the game. You can also grab this code from the Escape (Esc) screen when in the game
If you or anyone playing in the game accidentally exit, you will have a chance to rejoin
WASD+Ground Control has been implemented and is ready to check out
Loadouts have been moved to the new back-end system and should persist between game launches
Servers
Custom Lobbies run on Hathora servers
Servers available in: Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas, Chicago, Washington DC, Sao Paolo, London, Frankfurt, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo
Existing Server Browser servers now restart at 8am UTC every day
This is the historically slowest playtime, but can be adjusted on feedback. During this time, Server Browser servers may be intermittently unavailable. (1am US-Pacific, 4am US-Eastern, 6pm Brisbane - Australia, 10am Paris)
Public TDMs have been removed, along with The Learning Space server (Custom Lobby is the best place for this now.
Numerous bug/performance fixes have taken place in the server code which will hopefully yield higher performance.
UI
Implemented the new HUD Mover feature - which does exactly what it sounds like. You can resize, remove, and shift most any HUD element
NOTE: Changes made in the Hud Mover, including “Reset All” override any existing config.cfg.txt commands.
Custom Crosshairs are in as well! You will find them in Settings -> Game -> Use Dynamic Crosshair checkbox. This will open up a host of new options.
Maps
CTF-Relay
Fixed spawns
CTF-Nightflare
Fixed poor skybox performance
CTF-Outpost
Raised terrain to fully connect to the large trees behind each base outside of the red out-of-bounds
League-Dune
Removed invisible wall from flag stand
VFX
Skate trails now fade out more smoothly
Tempest projectile trail is shorter and leaves behind sparks
The flag trail will persist when dropped to make its trajectory more readable
The flag now has a pulsing glow to make it easier to spot (carrying the flag disables the glow)
Audio
Added sounds for player death
Increased the audible distance of the flag out of bounds alarm
Fixed health kits repeatedly triggering the low health alarm
Fixed blaster and plasma firing sounds not being replicated across the network correctly
Added additional music to the main menu lobby queue: In Paradisum, Saana, and Singing Sands
Additional Updates
League is called Skyball in Custom Lobby, and this transition will take soon in other mentions
Fixed League Skyball bug where flag slap would become stuck if you died while holding flag toss[
Chat spam protection will no longer trigger in Practice Mode
Removed flag grab speed notification from chat window and added it to the “Flag Taken” message
Welcome back. We fixed a few bugs, made some small improvements and a few levels received rebalancing. The Skill Stop Perk is revised. The perk now has a lower starting cost, but it becomes more expensive at the top. Then there was the long awaited and highly requested UK 2p coin.. and we applied the wrong skin on release ...but this is now fixed. At the moment this update applies for Windows. Linux build should arrive soon.
Fixes:
UK 2P coin has now the correct skin
Unlocked Arcade Coiner and Arcade Casino difficulty (was locked still)
Fish Tank water bubbling sound volume now responding to machine volume slider.
Translational error in reset menu fixed.
Rebalanced:
Classic Level 5 (fun fair)
Classic Level 26 (fun fair, Coiner)
Classic Level 31 (all difficulties)
Classic Level 32 (all difficulties)
Classic Level 33 (all difficulties)
Zen Level 30 (fun fair, Coiner)
Zen Level 32 (fun fair, Coiner)
Zen Level 33 (fun fair)
Skill Stop Perk
Arcade Wheels 'n' Fortunes. Small bonus time is given on Multiplier dice and Devil dice games.
Arcade Slot Machine: Small bonus time is given on Coin Flip game start.
Features and changes:
Gamepad UI focus button shows option wheel immediately. Rather than having to also pres direction.
In game settings: Music volume slider immediately applies volume without unpausing the game.
Added: VSync option in graphics menu.
As always, thank you all for the continued support and feedback. We hope you enjoy and have a great push!
