Demo update! – Overview of Changes and Improvements

First of all, we want to thank you for the warm reception since the announcement and release of the DOPAMINER demo. We’ve been paying very close attention to your feedback and opinions about the game, and over the past few weeks we’ve been fixing bugs and adding a few changes.

With the release of patch 0.1.4, available today, we wanted to go over everything that has changed in the game since day one:

Gameplay & Balance

• Removed the delay before potion effects activate when picked up. Effects now trigger immediately once the potion crate is destroyed.

• Both damage upgrades have been buffed so the power increase is more noticeable.

• Modified the behavior of the Sparkball.

  • It no longer disappears after colliding with explosive blocks and instead continues its path.

  • Its bounce inertia and speed have been increased to make it behave more like regular shots.

• Unlock costs have been readjusted, mainly for the early skills. The start of the game should now feel more direct and require less grinding.

• Increased the time gems and resources remain on screen before disappearing.

• Explosive blocks have been modified so they explode sooner if shot multiple times.

• Adjustments to the end of an incursion:

  • The character now stops shooting exactly when the incursion ends—neither slightly before (as in the original demo) nor slightly after (as in our first fix).

  • The final incursion summary screen has been sped up. You can also now click directly on the options to go to the upgrade screen or start another run.

• Added the double shot upgrade after unlocking all the content available in the demo.

Visuals

• Updated the explosion VFX for explosive blocks.

• Added a breaking VFX to potion crates.

• Added tutorial and clarification texts:

  • A reminder of the basic controls during the first incursion.

  • An explanation of how to obtain materials during the second incursion.

  • A warning about the effect of explosive blocks (without a doubt the biggest friction point we noticed from your feedback).

• Updated the explanatory text boxes at the start of the demo: better spacing, clearer information, grammatical adjustments, etc.

• Removed unnecessary options from the Controls menu in Settings.

• Added a clarification message when reaching the end of the content available in the demo.

Thanks to your feedback, DOPAMINER is a better game today than it was a few weeks ago. Looking ahead, we’ll continue polishing and refining anything that can be improved in the demo while, of course, working hard toward our summer release.

Until then, adding the game to your wishlist helps us a lot!

See you next time!

– Javi, David & Gallardo