Content Update! New Environments + Enemy, New Cards, Introducing Artifacts

Howdy Climbers 😤

Pushed the bi-weekly Content Update last night! Just posting notes now to let you all know what's new.

What's New

Key Card Combat Tests + 4 New Rooms!

This Content Update adds Key Card Combat Test - a new type of room that require you to fight enemies and find a Key Card to unlock the exit and proceed.

There are 4 new Key Card rooms you can now encounter during your Climb. These 4 new rooms will fall under The Plaza floor theme once I move to the themed floor system.

I am pretty happy with how these rooms came together. They incorporate some new randomization logic so the enemies, key card, etc. aren't always in the same place. My level design chops are improving a bit as well, so I think they are more interesting to navigate than some of the existing rooms.

3 New Cards! Dynamo, Spare Magazine, and Pot Shot

This Content Update also adds 3 new Weapon Cards. All 3 of these Cards are unlocked by default, so it should help increase the variety of Cards for first time players until they unlock more.

The new Cards are...

Dynamo An unrelenting engine - for those who can assemble it. Deals 10 damage and attacks 25% faster for each Dynamo in your Library. Damage scales with Card level.

Spare Magazine Your next card has 2X times as many Uses as it normally has. Spare Magazine does not stack. Multiplier scales with Card level.

Pot Shot The poor bot's grenade launcher. Gets the job done or your money back. Just kidding, you're stuck with it. Damage Scales with Card level.

Pot Shot is actually a lot of fun - it doesn't pack as much punch as the different Launchers you unlock later in the game, but it's a pretty fun early stage AOE Card :)

New Gameplay Element - Combat Artifacts

Artifacts are a new gameplay element I'm introducing that will give you, the player, some sort of risk/reward decision. They show up in the middle of different Combat Tests and such and you can choose to activate them or ignore them.

The first Artifacts I'm introducing are Combat Artifacts. If you choose to activate a Combat Artifact, you'll be blocked from exiting the current room until you defeat some amount of enemies at which point a Chest will drop with a reward such as a Card, Gadget, Stars, etc.

I have a bunch of different types of Artifacts I'm planning that I'll be introducing in subsequent Content Updates.

New Enemy - Turret Bots

These won't be new to folks who have fought Construction Bot, but now they'll start showing up throughout the levels.

Turret Bots are mounted enemies that snipe at you from walls, ceilings, and other weird angles.

Feedback and Bug Fixes

In addition to the new content above, I also fixed some bugs and addressed some player feedback:

Feedback

• Some enemy projectiles are a little slower so active dodging plays can play more of a roll.

• Store Rooms are now more common so you have more opportunities to spend Bits.

• Flamethrower and Freezethrowers now have greater range (1.5X previous range). These cards feel a lot more useful now, I definitely find myself picking them up more often after this buff.

• Individual Booster is slightly more powerful now so you can fly a bit better with just one hand.

• Added some new stuff to tutorials regarding new Comfort Settings from last update.

• Reduced build size - the game was pretty big unnecessarily so I found ways to take it from ~3GB to ~2.4GB. There is room to reduce it further that I have planned which should also help performance.

• Reduced damage of Exploding Cubes so they are not a run ender anymore if you accidentally blow one up.

• Buffed Boxer Bot damage (since they fight so hard to get near you lol)

• Made view box for Cards/Gadgets/etc. bigger so the box doesn't disappear when you look up to read the text.

• Flamethrower is now unlocked by Default to increase early game Card variety.

Bugs

• Fixed big bug from recent Content Update that was causing analog stick controller schemes to sometimes get stuck turning in circles (sorry about that).

• Fixed bug where you would be shooting, look at an Interactable, and get stuck shooting.

• Fixed floor bug in Clockworks that prevented you from flying up from the water under the bridge.

• Fixed floor bug in Terrarium that prevented you from flying after landing on Rocks/pipes on side of map.

• Fixed Turrets/Barriers to actually fix in place when deploying instead of sliding around.

• Fixed melee weapons (like Phantom Fists and Energy Hammer) to be smashable against the floor.

• Fixed bug where Flamethrowers/Freezethrowers were not damaging Crystals.

• Fixed some cases where enemies were shooting through walls (still some work to do here).

• Fixed some cases where Turrets were failing to acquire targets (still some work to do here).

What's Next?

The next Content Update is scheduled for 11/04. I may ship a Patch between now and then.

This next Content Update will focus on: * The last piece of the Locomotion system I want in place - some sort of short distance dash movement on the ground via analog stick * New content from the Early Access Roadmap (New Cards, New Rooms, New Enemies).

Reminder that if you want early access to this content as it rolls in and are okay with the risk of some bugs, you can opt into the beta branch. I push new stuff to the beta branch as soon as it's basically done but it has a slightly higher risk of bugs. Otherwise you can stay on the default branch and get the less frequent but more stable bi-weekly updates.

You can opt into the beta branch by following these instructions in the Discord: https://discordapp.com/channels/680320013831241731/694426975862915164/711485596614524928

Thanks and hope you are having fun.

As always, if you have any thoughts, questions, or issues, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me via the Discussion Forums or Discord.

Thanks, Tadatoto