After receiving plenty of feedback on the game, and after the game's complete financial flop, I've decided to work on one large update to address concerns and almost completely revamp the game. Over the past 2 or 3 weeks, I have done just that, and am now barely 2 days from completing the update, which will launch 1 week after this announcement and will have an accompanying post once it goes live (keep an eye out for that).
Quality of life
A big problem with the level generation that is often annoying or disorienting is when enemies are spawned in the starting room of a level, with direct line of sight to the player. Of course, due to the game's almost complete lack of consequences for death, this was never truly a problem, at most an annoyance. However, as you'll see later in this post, this is no longer the case. Due to these new circumstances as well as player feedback I have implemented a system in which no enemy will have line of sight with a player initially (though they can still move to the spawn area and see the player that way).
Another problem players have made me aware of is that, while I have a habit of pressing all keys on my controller when I play a game for the first time until I find every basic function, most don't share this habit and may find it infuriating to not know how to do important tasks such as reload their weapon while starting off with the game without looking at the manual (which you definitely should look at, by the way!). My solution is having the controls on the main menu screen, on a nice graphic of a definitely not patented controller design from both of the main console brands. While R is fairly intuitive for keyboard/mouse players, controller players may have a hard time figuring out that L1/LB is the button to reload, especially considering most games use Square instead.
Another small adjustment that has been made and makes great impact on the gameplay is the prevention of players spawning with or ever ending up with a pistol during gameplay. It's no secret that the pistol is THE bad weapon in the game, the shotgun being a relatively close second, due to its range. Now, even if you pick up a rndwep, you will still only receive either the Rifle, the SMG, or the Shotgun.
Finally, the character will now run if you hold the movement for long enough, and firing or reloading while running will revert that timer back to zero, allowing you to move around faster when outside of combat. However, running will reset the aim to wherever the character is running towards, so be wary of that fact before pre-aiming into battle if you're not using a mouse. Stopping every few seconds will ensure your pre-aim is not thrown off.
The nature of an arcade coop game
It's no surprise that the game, in its current state, is rather bare bones. This makes it not only difficult to market (even with the low price), but also makes it a rather quick game to get bored of, when playing alone. After all, to experience all the content in the game, you need only spend 5 or 15 minutes playing it. That's terrible for player retention.
To fix this, I've taken notes from a previous game of mine, Coliseu, and implemented different stages for the game, each separated by a boss fight. Each stage has different lighting and ambient FX, different props to use as cover, different enemies, the difficulty progresses exponentially, and enemies from previous stages are ever-present in the new ones.
The total number of bosses is 3, with three stages. The initial one is classic Toupei55. There you'll find the current selection of foes: the baddie, the big bad, and a new one, whose official name I cannot mention due to the profanity filter. The first boss is akin to a big bad, only this one strafes around and knows where you are. Boss arenas are pre-made and not procedurally generated for obvious reasons and will always be entered after the player reaches a level bigger than 10, 20, 30 etc.
Death will now also have consequences. Meaning if every member of your team dies and the level is failed, you all collectively lose a Retry. You'll earn Retries from levelling up 5 times, and you start with 3. If you run out of Retries, you'll have to start all over. Not just the stage, not just the level, but the entire campaign. And your save will be deleted, too.
Not only that, but from now on, it will no longer be the case that for one to exit a level one has to kill all enemies. Instead, upon killing most enemies, you'll unlock an exit door, spawned at random points of each level. This eliminates the need to hunt for 'that last guy' every time, for every level. Once unlocked, a large arrow will appear indicating in which direction the door is relative to the players. It should be noted however that exiting through the door will not yield the usual extra points one gets from level completion.
Finally, I have made new songs for every stage and boss fight, changing the total from 2 (main menu, game) to 9 tracks (main menu, 4 game tracks, 4 boss tracks). I am quite proud of some of these, and I hope they will serve their purpose: to enhance the gameplay experience and set the mood for each stage or boss fight.
The future of Toupei55
The game will see a price increase once this update hits. Nothing huge, just from 3$ to 5$. The change is purely based on more accurately reflecting the amount of content within the game post-update. I do ask of anyone currently helping with spreading the word about the game to temporarily pause the word of mouth until the update drops, so that players are greeted by the new version of the game and all it offers.
It must be said however that I currently have no further plans of updating the game beyond this major update, besides patches for correcting issues within it. That's not to say nothing will come after this, but rather that from now on the focus will be purely on Pelted Warfare and other similarly 'mainline' game projects I'm working on.
I also personally thank every single one of you who have purchased the game. While 6 is a miserably small number, it's infinitely greater than zero. So thank you, and I hope you'll enjoy this once the update is out. Also, it's 5 am, and I definitely should be in bed. So have an extra gif showing off the new third Stage 1 enemy: the female dog.
