Arcade Mode Update!

For those of you who hate reading... introducing: ARCADE MODE!

Skip the story and dive directly into Steel Century Groove's fast-paced, strategic rhythm battles. Complete objectives, purchase upgrades, chase high scores, then challenge the ultra-difficult upper ranks of Endless Mode. But don't worry, those playing in Story Mode won't be left behind. The update also brings the High Scores, Shop, and Quickplay features to the endgame Haus Infinity area.

🎉 To celebrate the new update, Steel Century Groove will be 25% off from April 30th to May 7th at 10AM PDT! 🎉

Check out the update trailer here:

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Thank you to everyone who's played the game and left feedback or reported bugs! And especially those who helped test this update on the beta branch. The next update, 1.7, will be going to into development soon with the big planned feature being the ability to import custom charts for players who want full control of the the beat mapping. Keep an eye out for that on the beta branch in the future!

Full patch notes for version 1.6:

Gameplay

• Added a new Arcade Mode that allows players to play battles without playing through the story. This is an independent mode that runs on its own save and has its own progression and objectives for acquiring, leveling, and equipping Tenzerks.

• Added a score feature to Arcade Mode and endgame Haus Infinity battles that measures your performance in battle and assigns you a numerical and star rating. High scores can be obtained on an overall basis, on a track-by-track basis, and for a specific Tenzerk.

• Added a new Quickplay Mode in the endgame Haus Infinity and in Arcade Mode. This allows you to jump into battles that scale in difficulty with your team and can earn you Mods, Paints, and Simchips.

• Added a shop, available in the endgame Haus Infinity area or in Arcade Mode, where you can purchase Mods, Tenzerks, and Paints for Simchips.

• Added a new opponent difficulty option to Practice Mode (formerly Freeplay), rematches, and Quickplay battles that allows you to tune the difficulty of the battle.

• Added several bosses to Practice Mode (formerly Freeplay) and the new Quickplay Mode.

• Added a Novox Grunt opponent in endgame Practice/Quickplay mode and in Arcade Mode. This is mostly a just-for-fun reskin of the Discordion (damage) opponent Tenzerk.

• In Practice Mode and Rematches, players can now further tweak the difficulty.

• Changed endless mode to always be very hard difficulty and the added challenge level to the Acclaim bar in battle. Evened out the +Acclaim% for the early difficulties to compensate.

• Players can now earn Pilot Levels in the Haus Infinity Endgame even in modes where they do not make Rhymery/Phantiverse posts.

• Reduced the cost of purchasing a lead Tenzerk in the Haus Infinity endgame shop to 10 Simchips.

• The Paragon Levels feature now requires you to obtain and max level all lead and replica Tenzerks to unlock it. If you have already purchased Paragon Levels but do not meet this requirement, you will be grandfathered in and still be able to use the feature.

• Adjusted the ending top down shooter minigame to make it less oppressive if the player moves quickly through the posting phase. Increased follower HP for the later followers that substitute in.

• Added a default Simchips reward if you already have the reward that would otherwise have been in a chest in the world, which is now possible because you can purchase items in the endgame shop.

• Slightly reduced average destructible respawn time.

• Reduced the duration of the Lockdown opponent ability by 1 turns and increased its cooldown by 4 turns.

• The Dualdrive Tenzerk now also gains XP when an Instruction Disk is upgraded.

• Moved the "Knee Up" dance step out of the starting move set to instead unlock at a later level.

UI

• Added more information about Tenzerk level ups that happened during battle to the victory and defeat screens, even when you do not need to make a Rhymery/Phantiverse post.

• Added a label to make it more clear when the game is asking you to submit a reply in dialogue.

• When any custom music is enabled, added a label under the Setup Custom Music button in the in-game menu to help make it more clear how many tracks of each type are enabled.

• Added a new UI to track your Simchips while inside the endgame version of Haus Infinity.

• Added details about disabling built-in tracks to the Setup Custom Music help menu.

• Renamed Freeplay Mode to Practice Mode.

• Made 3D UI rotation with the right gamepad stick more consistent across screens.

• The cutout area around the cursor in battles now also affects the black background behind the Moves bar.

• Updated UI animations on the Choose a Tenzerk menu.

Audio

• Adjusted UI audio across the Tenzerk screen and others.

• Improved the music muting in the custom music and music selection menus to only apply when previewing a track.

• Small increase to the default volume of hit sounds.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed overlapping music when previewing built-in tracks from the main menu.

• Fixed an issue where sometimes you couldn't navigate replica Tenzerk level bonuses with a gamepad.

• Fixed an issue where players could escape the world bounds in the Appalachian Scar area.

• Fixed overlapping text in the Practice Mode (formerly Freeplay) menu.

• Fixed destructibles being destroyed slightly too early during Tenzerk call down animations.

• Fixed an issue where the menu background could clip into the previewed Tenzerk on the Choose a Tenzerk menu.

• Fixed an issue where the previewed Tenzerk could spin with the mouse as you were selecting it on the Choose a Tenzerk menu.

• Fixed issue where sometimes destructibles would not be fully spawned in before the battle loading screen would disappear.

• Fixed an issue where L4-V4CH could display the wrong name on its level bonuses.

• Built-in tracks that you have disabled will no longer be chosen even if the game has saved them as the track to use for a particular pilot after being defeated.

• Fixed the description for the level 9 bonus on the Pettalion, which incorrectly read 25 turns instead of 20.

• Fixed overlap with Add XP button and Simchip display on the Tenzerk Stats & Levels screen.

• Fixed incorrect "Preview Track" prompt showing up with the gamepad on the music selection screen, even though tracks are automatically previewed on this screen.

• Fixed an issue where the Fortifer opponent Tenzerk's head shield would display incorrectly in UI menus.

• Fixed a spot where players could fall off the stairs near the roller coaster in Rainica Park.

• Fixed an issue where only one paragon levels button would grey out if you used up your last Simchip on mouse and keyboard.

• Fixed an issue where you could initiate dialogue by mashing the talk button after starting a rematch.

• Fixed an issue where buttons could have too small of a hitbox after they had been previously grayed out.