Key points of this update are to improve pacing of the game and reduce monotony. To achieve that I added bosses to provide tense moments during a run, boss rewards to provide a couple high-impact decisions, and a series of augments that require more active playstyle.
Bosses
Six bosses were added. They appear in random order each run. Their health scales with game time like any other bug, but much more sharply. Each one has some unique mechanic to make them more annoying, but they don't warp the game too much.
- The long bug
- Broodmother
- Boulder B.
- Mama Moth
- Spindlebug
- Thornface
Boss rewards
Bosses drop powerful augments, which can not be upgraded further. Some of them are brand new augments, and some are augments that I didn't feel worked well with current upgrade model.
- carpet bombing (no longer drops normally)
- falcon rocket (no longer drops normally, buffed)
- reroll pack (new augment)
- artemis collector (new augment)
- orbital offence (new augemnt)
- air defense drone (new augment)
- the sentry (new augment)
- laser barrels (new augment)
- pandora's box (new augment)
- unholy communion (no longer drops normally, buffed)
- shotgun (no longer drops normally, buffed)
- laser (no longer drops normally, buffed)
- barell gun (no longer drops normally, buffed)
- flammenwerfer (no longer drops normally, buffed)
Other new augments
There is a new type of augment, which drops exploding barrels that player has to shoot to cause various effects. They are generally pretty strong. Also added more ways to gain rocket ammo, because rockets were pretty much unusable without significat amount of metaprogression, and more ways to heal because it's easier to get hit now.
- recognition
- recognition 2
- gasoline drums
- artemis container
- insecticide shipment
- portable hive
- container technology
- ammo drops 2
- ai upgrade
- regenerative structures
New champions
3 new enemy types added, just for the sake of variety. They are rather nasty, so they can't become elites, but they can be chosen as "flavor", which basically means ocassionaly the game will spawn a lot of them. One of the bosses also has their own summons, they are not listed here.
- baby brood
- flying bug
- centipede
Elites
- elites are now bigger, to make them stand out more visually, and have more health lategame, so that they instadie less often
Final stand
- bugs spawn at increased rate during the final minute of the run. It might be advisable to just run for your life when this happens, but they also are more likely to spawn behind you :)
Bugfixes
- thorns now proc when hit is prevented by shield
Misc
- juice meter now modulates to red color gradually, to better indicate that bad things happen when it runs out
Balance
- Most augments that deal passive damage were nerfed, to offset strong power-ups the player is now reliably gaining from bosses
- Spawn rates and health scaling were also adjusted (there are more bugs on screen now, especially lategame, but unless they are a boss or an elite they have slightly less health, especially the basic pink nasties)
- Health regen augments were buffed slightly (on top of adding two new ones), because it's easier to get hit overall. So were the weak augments that I personally never felt like taking.
- white champion's death rattle/thorns effect now have a slight delay to be less annoying
All in all changes make the game noticeably harder, but I also think it is much more fun now.
If you read all that, you probably deserve something in return, so I will give you a tip: recipe for success is to focus on damage early in the run, but to not forget to invest in regen/shield/utility augments before minute 10-12 or so*.
* this might be wrong, but this is what I have been doing.
I wish you everything great in the new year and I hope at least a bit of the good experiences you will have will come from my game :)
