Hello Gladiators
We are back with a fresh update! We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to our players and community members for sharing their valuable feedback with us.
As we promised earlier, we will continue to publish monthly development logs to keep you informed about what we are currently working on.
Don't forget to join us on Discord to stay up-to-date with the game's progress and not miss any upcoming events.
Let’s dive in.🐹
In the Works
The Crystalcaster
Our amazing artist continued working on a new type of Crystallisk that we briefly
covered in our previous Dev log. The Crystalcasters are masters of ranged combat
and will attack from a distance, using energy projectiles, also known as the ‘’spitting
ones’’ by the gladiators.
Here you can see the progress from sketch to actual sprite made by our talented
artist. We can’t wait to add it to the game!
Improvements
The Sanctuary
Behind the scenes we started working on a brand new area you’ll encounter in the
game called The Sanctuary. In this area you’ll be able to select different characters
to play as, as well as pick your weapon and ability of choice.
Additionally, you’ll be able to permanently upgrade your favorite weapons and
abilities here using your hard earned Crystallum at the giant forge. We won’t disclose
too much just yet as we want to surprise you with what’s coming.
Stay tuned for more information about The Sanctuary!
Updates
HUD overhaul
We’re finally done with overhauling the HUD and implementing all the features. The
HUD is now bottom centric and all the important information is visible at a glance.
Some new elements have been added to display your progress to achieve Overkill
Time as well as the power boosts gained during.
From Health Bar to Lives
We decided to change the way your player health is managed as we think this will
create a more engaging and clear experience. While it used to be a health bar, which
made it less clear to how much health you had left, we now switched the system
around and went with lives instead. This way you can easily see how many lives you
have left allowing you to focus more on the game itself!
Depleting Not Filling
The crystal’s stability gauge now depletes instead of filling up as this makes more
sense to convey that the crystal is losing stability over time.
Burrow Counter
We’ve included a burrow counter that displays how many burrows you’ve destroyed
and how many burrows there are in total. This makes it easier to check your progress
during the wave.
Weapon & Ability Cooldown
Both the weapon and the ability cooldowns are now clearly visible on the HUD,
making it a lot more intuitive.
Audio System Overhaul
We’re in the process of converting our old audio system, which was starting to show
its flaws by now, to the new system using FMOD Studio. This allows us to implement
adaptive soundtracks, scaling sound effects, audio balancing, and so much more…
Overhauling the audio system was nothing short of a daunting undertaking as it
meant we had to unlink a lot of our systems and triggers to implement the new
FMOD events.
With the new system in place, our audio engineer could now focus on setting all the
effects and soundtracks up creating an amazing atmosphere while doing so.
Additional Soundtracks
With the new overhaul of our audio system also came new soundtracks! Our audio
engineer immediately went to work and made full use of the power of FMOD by
implementing a system that scales the intensity of the soundtracks as you progress
through the waves.
Additionally, we also added some new soundtracks made by our lovely artist Andrew
Dunne for the shop area and during Overkill Time.
Overkill Time
In our previous Dev log we introduced a new mechanic called Overkill Time. After
gathering all of the feedback of our community we iterated and improved on the idea
to ensure it felt right.
The more you crush your foes the more you revel in the power by racking up a power
enhancing boost that will last even after exiting Overkill Time.
Fullscreen Overlays
To enhance your experience we’ve added several fullscreen overlays during certain
events. We think this will help you to detect if a certain event is triggered like for
example being low health or when the crystal is about to overload.
Fracturion
We reduced the amount of armor Fracturion has making him easier to kill and more
interesting to invest in high damage upgrades.
New & Improved Upgrades
With this update we bring 2 new upgrades and an updated version of the
Stormbringer’s Fury upgrade! The 2 new upgrades are all about drones and making
them stronger while the updated Stormbringer’s Fury is even more devastating.
Hive Mind - NEW
Summon a pack of drones that will lock-on targets and launch themselves towards
the target to destroy them. Each stack, up to a maximum of 10 stacks, increases the
damages of each drone and the number of drones you can have active.
Tinkerer - NEW
Each stack increases the damage of all your drones by 20%.
Stormbringer’s Fury - UPDATED
The new update brings even more mayhem as you now truly become a god of
thunder! The lightning summoned by Stormbringer’s Fury will now strike multiple
targets summoning a multitude of lightning bolts.
Fixes
- Misaligned hitboxes
- The hitboxes of several things have been made more accurate
- Fracturion attacks having too large of a hitbox
- Burrows not displaying correct damage state
- Dashing through walls
- Crystallisk keep attacking/dealing damage even after death
- Audio playing too loud
Known Issues
- Soundtracks not fading into each other nicely
- Fracturion not being able to charge into the top wall
- Upgrades not affecting other upgrades and only affecting weapon
- Damage upgrade not increasing the damage of other upgrades
- Critical hit damage not applying to other upgrades
- Upgrades not being able to critical hit
- The overkill bar in the HUD can start shaking after going into overkill and
- immediately going out again through getting hit
- Audio becomes louder when hitting Fracturion repeatedly
- Audio balancing
