Content Update: New Enemies, New Music, More Bullets

Howdy doody y'all,

Who likes new enemies? I like new enemies.

These are patch notes from the 12/8 Content Update!

Here's What's New

7 New Practice Bots

Scaling out enemies and bosses is a big priority on the Early Access Roadmap.

This update adds 7 new enemies. I tried to ensure each of these new enemies contributes some new feel to the game. They each have unique quirks for you to learn and master.

I have also been leaning in more and more to the 3D bullet hell direction, so a lot of these enemies feature bullet hell inspired projectiles and attack patterns.

Bounce Bomber

A tanky ranged enemy that fires bombs which bounce multiple times before exploding. The bouncing bombs introduce a little more chaos than your standard Grenadier bots.

Smallclops

A tiny cyclops with a fighting spirit. Fires bullets at you from it's single eye.

Triclops

A three-eyed bot that fires a spread of bullets at you from it's three eyes.

Frostclops

A many-eyed bot that fires a barrage of ricocheting bullets at you from it's array of eyes. The bullets ricochet off of nearby walls, ceilings, and floors.

Spin Spider

A spider bot that spins constantly, firing bullets horizontally in all directions.

Frost Spider

A small spider that fires ricocheting bullets upward, such that they bounce off ceilings and back to floors.

Bounce Spider

A troublesome enemy. Spins and fires a barrage of bouncing bombs in all directions. Deal with these quick if you cross paths with one.

New Exploration/Combat Soundtrack

Currently some of the game's music was produced by me, and other tracks were licensed.

My end goal is to have strictly original soundtrack, but the music takes me a long time to produce as composition doesn't come so easy to me.

That said, I was able to produce a new soundtrack for the game's exploration/combat/climbing gameplay loop.

You can listen to it on Soundcloud or better yet, in game :)

https://soundcloud.com/tadatoto/hand-cannon-virtuoso-climbers-edge

Feedback and Bug Fixes

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

Feedback

The primary feedback addressed in the game this update has to do with combat feel and leaning into the game's direction as a 3D bullet hell.

I've gotten feedback previously that some of the enemys' projectiles are basically so fast that they are un-dodgeable for all intents and purposes.

I want the game to be hard, but not via a mechanism like un-dodgeable bullets which reduce your sense of agency as a player.

In this update I've taken steps to address that by:

• Reducing the set of enemy projectiles to a learnable set of visually distinct projectiles with consistent behavior - ex: Regular Bullets, Bouncing Bombs, Ricochet Bullets, Grenades, Void Blasts, etc.

• The idea here is that if a player sees a projectile, they can recognize it visually and expect it to behave a certain way which encourages player skill/learning.

• Many of the bullets (especially the Regular Bullets used by low-level enemies) are now slower and larger so you can see them more clearly and dodge them.

• Enemy projectiles can now be shot-cancelled by the player via their own projectiles, which I think is a satisfying new skill mechanic.

I want to call out that this change to projectiles has made some parts of the game easier. Especially the early floors have become a bit easier since low-level enemies tend to use Regular Bullets which are now slower and can be shot-canceled by the player.

That said, I think long term the new bullet behavior will let me scale difficulty in other parts of the game via more interesting mechanisms (e.g. more complex bullet hell projectile patterns, more enemies shooting more bullets, faster projectiles like Void Blasts that only show up from high-level enemies, etc.)

Hope you have fun with some of these new behaviors and as always would love to hear what you think.

Bugs

• Fixed rail grinding while playing standing up, which was broken by the previous walking update.

• Fixed many bugs with the Spider Bots AI so that they now actually get aggroed and run at you and explode.

What's Next?

In addition to the above, I've been working on a free demo for the game to help more players try it out and grow the player base. It's going through the Steam review process this week. The next Content Update is scheduled for 12/16, so I'm hoping I'll be able to announce the demo then and share the game with a lot more players!

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