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Steam News14 March 20251y ago

The Demo is to shut down on March 16th

The demo version of the game is going to shut down by end of day March 16th. My reasonings are: Generally, when both the full release and the demo of a game are available, the demo is expected to look and feel exactly l

In this update4

Full notes

Full Solar War update

Read the full published notes in a cleaner layout. The original post stays linked below.

What changed

0 fixes5 additions9 changes0 removals
  • Balance
  • Store
  • Gameplay
  • Events
changedIf you’ve already downloaded the demo, you should still be able to play it. If you’re seeing this and still want to download the demo before it goes offline, now’s your chance!
changedIf you’ve missed the demo, don’t worry! The period between the demo going offline and the full release of the game should be very short (less than a day), so the full game will be available for purchase very shortly, if not now.
addedNew Solar Systems and Tour ModeYou already know about the one and only Sol. But now, there are 2 new solar systems that you can attempt to conquer!
addedNew Solar Systems and Tour ModeYou can fight the solar systems individually, or you can fight all of them in the new-fangled Tour Mode, that allows you to hop from system to system!
changedA bunch of difficulty optionsWe’ve completely reworked the difficulty system.
changedA bunch of difficulty optionsIn the demo, there were 4 difficulty options: Relaxed, Standard, Challenge, and Insane Mode. When one was selected, it would set a bunch of variables that control things like how fast planets spawn, how often powerups spawn, what spawns during bosses, etc.

Solar War changes

changedIf you’ve already downloaded the demo, you should still be able to play it. If you’re seeing this and still want to download the demo before it goes offline, now’s your chance!
changedIf you’ve missed the demo, don’t worry! The period between the demo going offline and the full release of the game should be very short (less than a day), so the full game will be available for purchase very shortly, if not now.
addedYou already know about the one and only Sol. But now, there are 2 new solar systems that you can attempt to conquer!
addedYou can fight the solar systems individually, or you can fight all of them in the new-fangled Tour Mode, that allows you to hop from system to system!
changedWe’ve completely reworked the difficulty system.

The demo version of the game is going to shut down by end of day March 16th.

My reasonings are: Generally, when both the full release and the demo of a game are available, the demo is expected to look and feel exactly like the full game (though with limited features, we don’t want to be giving the game away for free!)

However, the current demo of Solar War is missing some key QOL features that are going to ship in the full release, so it is not an accurate representation of the full game. So, I’m going to make the demo unavailable right before I make the full game available.

If you’ve already downloaded the demo, you should still be able to play it. If you’re seeing this and still want to download the demo before it goes offline, now’s your chance!

If you’ve missed the demo, don’t worry! The period between the demo going offline and the full release of the game should be very short (less than a day), so the full game will be available for purchase very shortly, if not now.

Everything coming to Solar War v1.0

I’m going to use the remainder of this post to advertise all of the cool things that are coming to Solar War v1.0.

New Solar Systems and Tour Mode

You already know about the one and only Sol. But now, there are 2 new solar systems that you can attempt to conquer!

  • Alphy Centauri may appear to be a hospitable binary star system, but the system is actually riddled with annoyances that are sure to ruin your day.

  • Epsilloni comes with only 5 main sequence planets… along with 50 moons that those planets will release.

You can fight the solar systems individually, or you can fight all of them in the new-fangled Tour Mode, that allows you to hop from system to system!

A bunch of difficulty options

We’ve completely reworked the difficulty system.

In the demo, there were 4 difficulty options: Relaxed, Standard, Challenge, and Insane Mode. When one was selected, it would set a bunch of variables that control things like how fast planets spawn, how often powerups spawn, what spawns during bosses, etc.

Now, you can adjust each of these variables individually. For instance, you may want a high recovery rate, but with 7x planet spawn rate. That option was simply not available in the demo, but it is now!

The 4 game modes that were found in the demo can now be considered as “presets”, where selecting one will still set all of the variables, but will still allow you to tweak said variables as needed.

Instead of keeping separate high scores for each difficulty, the game now adjusts your score through a “score multiplier” (Calculated by advanced witchcraft!) at the end of a run. This means short runs on harder games can now compete with long runs on easier games!

Upgrades, its store, and its currency

Something brand new coming to Solar War v1.0 is the upgrade system.

Simply put, the upgrade system is a way to allow players to upgrade The Earth… in the middle of a run.

Players would do this by entering an upgrade store and spending space rocks acquired from defeating planets on various upgrades (or throwing them to bonus points.)

These space rocks can be found in almost every planet, though planets that are harder to defeat tend to have more of them.

Defeating bosses, however, will allow the player to acquire a free

Source

Steam News / 14 March 2025

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