The enemy now has a miner building. It mines for resources and uses these to repair damaged buildings. Once they have mined a lot of resources they will use it to buy extra units. The repair function is a slow repair, the purpose is to repair buildings between unsuccessful attack
The enemy now has a miner building. It mines for resources and uses these to repair damaged buildings. Once they have mined a lot of resources they will use it to buy extra units. The repair function is a slow repair, the purpose is to repair buildings between unsuccessful attacks.
This addition will make the 2nd level of the demo make more sense. The enemies you need to destroy are now guarding mining installations.
Rebuilding destroyed buildings in exchange for resources might be added in the future.
Specific improvements for the demo: 1st mission Shows enemy missile aircraft, friendly anti air, anti projectile towers... just a lot more chaos to look at. While still impossible to lose, unless you try. fast move (help) has been moved here to conclude all the movement in the fi
Specific improvements for the demo:
1st mission
Shows enemy missile aircraft, friendly anti air, anti projectile towers... just a lot more chaos to look at. While still impossible to lose, unless you try.
fast move (help) has been moved here to conclude all the movement in the fist mission
2nd mission
Includes option to build extra miner (+help).
Extra resources to mine
Includes option to build builder tower (+help)
Mission is now much more build base + unit focused
3rd mission
removed all the help that is now moved to mission 1+2. So this is more like a non-tutorial level
decreased difficulty to prevent players from taking hours to complete the level. (Thanks to the playtester that just won on turtle grit alone. It was nice to see that this was a viable strategy)
Staging area
added teleport + snap audio feedback
level select planets automatically continue to the destination mission as soon as they move into space. (so player does not need to push as much as before to select the next mission)
Global
Disabled hands are now visible with a red star visual element. This happens when the player is scaled up to full size. UI elements can still be grabbed.
Cost and resource amount is now also shown as exact text vales on the shop.
Audio feedback when entering a UI element (settings/help/objectives/...)
Explosions are visually changed to be more performant (less dropped frames when looking at explosions)
Fixes
Explosions that did not hit a target (hit ground or anti-projectile) are now properly disposed. Where they used to linger like mines until the first interaction.
Better cleanup on switching levels. This should prevent some of the occasional crashes players still ran into at the end of a mission (after succeeding or failing).
New stuff that is not in the demo:
EMP attack with lightning visuals. They can disrupt the player from interaction with items.
The idea is to focus on the final game, and only update the demo version when big improvements are made to the final game. The demo can benefit from the same improvements, but the updates will have bigger spaces in between them.
The demo now has a difficulty setting, allowing you to set the enemy spawn rate. The range is very large from 4 times slower for a super easy 'story mode' difficulty to a 2 times faster 'impossible' difficulty. There is also a fix for some crashes that happen when ending a missio
The demo now has a difficulty setting, allowing you to set the enemy spawn rate. The range is very large from 4 times slower for a super easy 'story mode' difficulty to a 2 times faster 'impossible' difficulty.
There is also a fix for some crashes that happen when ending a mission (exit, fail or success). They are very hard to reproduce, so its more of a 'hope its fixed' than a real fix.
Enemy buildings take damage from missiles more easily.
Mostly working on new missions for the release version. But balancing changes made for it are now included in the Demo version. Units prefer to attack less HP targets Miner tower is removed, only miner building can be used to get resources. Enemy has stationary gun turrets. Missi
Mostly working on new missions for the release version. But balancing changes made for it are now included in the Demo version.
Units prefer to attack less HP targets
Miner tower is removed, only miner building can be used to get resources.
Enemy has stationary gun turrets.
Missile trucks have longer range.
Cooldown to build more items is increased to always be significant. This makes it worth it to buy multiple factories.
The 3rd mission has reduced enemy spawn frequency -> should be a lot easier, but it still takes skill to beat.
Shop items now give a audio feedback when entering them
Reduced default music volume
Radar range and radar vision range are split. Making it possible for vision to out range the radar.
While working on missions for the non-demo game a few changes were made that would also improve the demo version. So here is the update to the demo. Missile towers now have more fire range (still less vision), the explosions do more area damage. And the visual explosion now match
While working on missions for the non-demo game a few changes were made that would also improve the demo version. So here is the update to the demo.
Missile towers now have more fire range (still less vision), the explosions do more area damage. And the visual explosion now matches the damage radius.
The image quality of the terrains has been increased for all missions except the 3rd mission. Since the 3rd mission already used a better texture.
Also fixed a bug that caused enemies to counter attack from too long distances.
Currently working on 2 new missions for the non-demo release. These will both be placed before the 3rd mission of the demo to smooth out the difficulty curve.
The demo has been updated : Towers can now have a different vision and fire range. This will allow very long range support weapons that require other towers to provide vision. Missile turrets now have more fire range than vision range. This requires players to provide the vision
The demo has been updated :
Towers can now have a different vision and fire range. This will allow very long range support weapons that require other towers to provide vision.
Missile turrets now have more fire range than vision range. This requires players to provide the vision with other towers.
The missile tower firepower is not changed. So it might be too weak now. Will probably increase the range and damage with future updates.
The mortar tower/building will not be included in the demo. It will feature an inaccurate long range projectile. It will have almost no vision range.
Enemy units will slowly become visible when entering vision range. Instead of popping into existence, the part of the enemy unit will only be visible, where the player has vision.
Enemy missiles do friendly fire damage. So its possible to throw enemy missiles at the enemy to do damage to them.
Difficulty of the 2nd and 3rd mission are reduced. In the second mission there are less tanks to discover and destroy. In the third mission there are less enemies produced and the first attack is delayed.
Reduced level loading time. Some of the loading is spread out over time to reduce the loading time during the first few frames of a new mission. On older hardware (below minimum spec) I hope this reduces the amount of hang crashes.
Small update. Some settings now persist between games played. music, UI and VFX audio volume is now saved. Player movement preference is now saved. Performance settings are now saved. To allow low powered PCs to start the game with best performance. There is an added launch optio
Small update. Some settings now persist between games played.
music, UI and VFX audio volume is now saved.
Player movement preference is now saved.
Performance settings are now saved.
To allow low powered PCs to start the game with best performance. There is an added launch option "-lowspecstart" which will start the game with MSAA, post processing and shadows disabled. All settings can be re-enabled while in the game. Once you are happy with your settings, and they are saved to file, you can launch the game with one of the other launch options.
Demo now has settings to allow: one hand joystick for movement and strafe. other hand joystick for rotation. (choose left or right) keep controllers symmetric (for one handed play) Both options available for teleport/snapturn and continuous movement. While in mission there are se
Demo now has settings to allow:
one hand joystick for movement and strafe. other hand joystick for rotation. (choose left or right)
keep controllers symmetric (for one handed play)
Both options available for teleport/snapturn and continuous movement.
While in mission there are settings to :
MSAA 2x, was added. Since MSAA has a huge performance and visual impact
Enable/Disable PostProcessing huge performance and visual impact
Enable/Disable shadows (small performance impact)
Some players stop after the 2nd mission, because it was unclear that there was more. So now there is a text after winning the 2nd mission to lure the player to continue the journey. The 3rd mission is the most representative of the real game, so it would be a waist if players miss it.
Stacking and combining the power of multiple units is a core game element. However the effect and the amount added by adding units was obscured. While it was possible to see/feel the difference by having big stacks, it was impossible to see what a single extra unit added to the f
Stacking and combining the power of multiple units is a core game element. However the effect and the amount added by adding units was obscured. While it was possible to see/feel the difference by having big stacks, it was impossible to see what a single extra unit added to the firepower.
With this new update it is possible to get a lot of extra info by hovering over units.
Top tower block :
Shows what attribute is upgraded by extra blue power
Shows what attribute is upgraded by extra yellow power
Shows an exact value that can be used to compare different stack sizes
Resource node :
Shows the amount of resources that are currently available in the node. This makes you less reliant on the colored overlay of the node.
Unlock build item & factory buildings
Shows a small context help text. There was not really any data missing here, so I only added some text to help new players out.
All help items have been updated to also show the new UI with some typical example texts.
My main goal is to allow you as a player to have (roughly) the same information as I do. So you can enjoy the game, like I do.
Playtesters in the latest demo version were taking a long time to finish the first mission. While they were able to, its just not a mission made for more than 10-15 minutes of fun. To address this issue and get players to the 3rd mission more quickly the following improvements ha
Playtesters in the latest demo version were taking a long time to finish the first mission. While they were able to, its just not a mission made for more than 10-15 minutes of fun. To address this issue and get players to the 3rd mission more quickly the following improvements have been made.
Simplify movement, and reducing number of help items
Player rotation and scale are unlocked directly in the first mission.
Arm UI help has a summarized help item that includes 'Help', 'Settings', and 'Objectives'. While the details of each remain reachable via the help tablet.
Player Movement help has a summarized help item that includes 'Movement', 'Rotation', and 'Scale'. While the details of each remain reachable via the help tablet.
Timed in game help in first two missions
In mission 1 :
After 5 minutes an item indicating where you can look at your objectives appears
after 7 minutes an item indicating where you could throw units appears
In mission 2 :
After 10 minutes, 3 items appear indicating where you could throw units
Move units help animation has been improved to more clearly favor throwing.
Demo updated with a small fix. Changing the controller offset does not write to log anymore. This used to write a line every frame, when the default was being altered .
Demo updated with a small fix.
Changing the controller offset does not write to log anymore. This used to write a line every frame, when the default was being altered .
As requested on the steam community hub discussion page: Smooth motion added to demo: There is now a terminal in the staging area where you can toggle between (teleport+snap) or (continuous and smooth) movement. This can currently only be changed here, but it does persist inside
As requested on the steam community hub discussion page:
Smooth motion added to demo:
There is now a terminal in the staging area where you can toggle between (teleport+snap) or (continuous and smooth) movement. This can currently only be changed here, but it does persist inside of the missions.
There will be a setting added later to also be able to change this during a mission.
It is a little overpowered, so enjoy it for now. It will probably need to be balanced in the future.
Joystick motion during the missions is not the intended movement system. It simplifies the game. However since its a single player game, play it how you enjoy it.
Sometimes the demo crashes, but its not consistent, and not often on my machine. Some other players have also run into crashes. So this update is to address this issue without knowing completely what the problem is. It seems to be related to the GPU and rendering API. So to fix t
Sometimes the demo crashes, but its not consistent, and not often on my machine. Some other players have also run into crashes. So this update is to address this issue without knowing completely what the problem is. It seems to be related to the GPU and rendering API. So to fix this:
There is now a start-up pop-up in steam that allows you to chose : Better game experience (via Vulkan) or better stability (via dx11). This can be set on every start-up, or use the same value every time.
The renderpipeline code has been simplified to have less code that could be at the source of these crashes. Both the menu and the missions now use the same render pipeline. So there is no switching happening when moving to or from a mission. Most crashes on my machine happened just after completing a mission. So hopefully this now happens less often.
Crash reporting has been integrated into the demo. So when a crash happens some details about the crash are send to me. This is useful to get an idea about the percentage of players experiencing crashes, and help locate crashes that don't happen enough on my own machine. It will also serve as a baseline to make sure future updates don't make it worse.
From my own experience the crashes happen only in a few percent of the play troughs. But unless you really like this game, this is too often.
Thanks again to everyone playing the demo. It is really nice to see the median playtime go up.
Thanks to everyone for playing the demo and letting me know what issues you walked into. Settings and help tablet now spawn instantly from the grabbed icon. Settings and help tablet, teleport instantly when reactivated if they are far from the player Change Terrain height now als
Thanks to everyone for playing the demo and letting me know what issues you walked into.
Settings and help tablet now spawn instantly from the grabbed icon.
Settings and help tablet, teleport instantly when reactivated if they are far from the player
Change Terrain height now also possible in a mission. Use settings tablet to change terrain height.
Fix : Grabbing a build marker (buy item) fast makes it disappear. This is now fixed and the marker will be spawned at the shop, giving a few seconds to re-grab it for placement.
Fix : Grabbing minder building while its powered spams VFX. This is now fixed.
New Art on the splash screen at start up.
The steampage has received new art and also a new trailer. Hope you like them.
The demo is being played a lot the past few weeks, so the current changes are focused on removing small annoyances that you tend to notice from time to time when playing more than a few minutes. When placing a building there is now a visual indicator that shows the forward direct
The demo is being played a lot the past few weeks, so the current changes are focused on removing small annoyances that you tend to notice from time to time when playing more than a few minutes.
When placing a building there is now a visual indicator that shows the forward direction. This will make it more clear how the building needs to be turned to get it in the right orientation.
Builder turrets will stop firing when there are not enough resources.
Builder turrets will change targets when resources are not available for their current target.
Builder turrets will prioritize partially completed buildings when picking a target to build
Changing settings will now also make a click sound with the continuous settings (volume ect.)
More forward oriented 'first person camera preset' added to the spectator camera
Anti Missile projectiles no longer do significant damage on normal units.
Locked build items will have their cooldown reset of the unlock power threshold is not met anymore.
New version of demo 0.2.6. The spectator camera now has a few presets. 3rd person (left/right) 1st person (no roll, stabilized, down) Top Down Hand follow (left/right) The audio now scales up in volume when the player is bigger. Before the falloff would just be based on the dista
New version of demo 0.2.6.
The spectator camera now has a few presets.
3rd person (left/right)
1st person (no roll, stabilized, down)
Top Down
Hand follow (left/right)
The audio now scales up in volume when the player is bigger. Before the falloff would just be based on the distance, but it seemed something at arm distance should still be audible.
This has resulted in every sound needing to be re-calibrated. And it might require a few more iterations.
Turret range is now only shown while hovering over the top tower. With lots of units it was hard to see who's range was connected to each circle. Now you only see the range of the hovered tower.
Sorry this update is a bit of a mess. Unity had an issue and fix this for every version from 2017 to present. I am not quite sure how vulnerable it really is, but better safe than sorry. The fix itself is not the issue, but now other parts might be in a half finished state. I tes
Sorry this update is a bit of a mess. Unity had an issue and fix this for every version from 2017 to present. I am not quite sure how vulnerable it really is, but better safe than sorry.
The fix itself is not the issue, but now other parts might be in a half finished state. I tested all levels and it seemed fine. Sorry if you run into anything.
Switched the default render API to dx11. Because this has never crashed on me, but it is not smooth on my machines. However I imagine its worse if the game crashes on a new player than when it looks bad. Vulkan can be activated by setting steam launch options: -force-vulkan Dx12
Switched the default render API to dx11. Because this has never crashed on me, but it is not smooth on my machines. However I imagine its worse if the game crashes on a new player than when it looks bad.
Vulkan can be activated by setting steam launch options:
-force-vulkan
Dx12 can be activated by setting steam launch options:
-force-d3d12
Dx12 always crashes on my 9070XT, but its fine on my 5700XT. So your mileage may vary.
Also:
Redesigned to objective markers to look like checkboxes, so they take up less space on the arm.
Changed the fade out to include the post processing, this should make sure there are no objects left after the fadeout is finished.
Fixed objective jittering when holding with 1 hand.
Moved "Total power info" help from the first to the second mission. Minimizing the amount to learn in the first mission.
The Demo version has been updated. Font has been replaced for a more readable font. All AI generated voice lines have been replaced with human made voice lines. Some UI updates related to the previous big help update Audio prioritizes UI Currently hyped for the steam frame, reall
The Demo version has been updated.
Font has been replaced for a more readable font.
All AI generated voice lines have been replaced with human made voice lines.
Some UI updates related to the previous big help update
Audio prioritizes UI
Currently hyped for the steam frame, really hope it will be a great device. That helps the VR market grow. Hope the rumors are true and something is announced.
First of the final versions of the Demo! Tutorials have been replaced by in-game help. This allows you to learn the game in your own speed. Missions have been changed to give you more time to learn the game, if needed. The first mission goes over the basics, and limits the amount
First of the final versions of the Demo!
Tutorials have been replaced by in-game help. This allows you to learn the game in your own speed.
Missions have been changed to give you more time to learn the game, if needed.
The first mission goes over the basics, and limits the amount of available game features.
The second mission now asks you to find and destroy the enemy, which allows you to buildup the base and army you need without being pressured.
The third mission is really the meat of the demo and should be used as representing a typical mission in the full version of the game.
The final mission is just for fun. Giving a lot of resources and an unbeatable enemy.
The 'cut scenes' have been removed since they were not good enough to enjoy, and everyone skipped them anyway. For the future this also helps to cut the AI generated voices from the game completely.
Apart from some small improvements and changes this is the final version of the demo. One of the changes still on the list is to remove the remaining AI generated voice lines.
If you have any comments or feedback on the current demo, it is most welcome.
