It'd be an understatement to say oOo dominated much of my life last year - it utterly consumed it. Relentlessly pursuing various platform launch dates whilst trying to market, bug fix and polish the game meant that by the time it hit Steam in October I was already worn down (a new addition to the family didn't help either) and by the end of November I was done.
Taking some time out has been a good thing though, as when I revisited the game at the end of February I immediately saw things that I had been too close (or tired) to see at the time - primarily that I had made the base game far, far too difficult. My very reason for making games was to bring an enjoyable experience to as many people as possible and here I'd gone and made a game with an utterly ridiculous skill barrier to entry.
(Relatively) Well rested and with my enthusiasm restored I began to work on what I called the 'Mercy' patch. Here's what's in store:
- Crashing no longer puts you back to the start, instead spawns you close to where you were, but also adds a penalty to your overall time - meaning it's still f**king difficult to get those top target times, but it's actually playable to more casual gamers.
- The original game still exists as a hardcore mode which can be toggled on or off at any point, but otherwise it's now much more forgiving
- You still have to do all boss levels in one go, however the overall difficulty of these has been dialled back
- A 50% smaller ship means you're 50% less likely to die, surely?
Once I started making improvements to the difficulty though, I started noticing things all over the place. Also included in the patch is:
- An improved realistic lighting setup and procedural star background. The game just looks prettier, plus it also runs substantially better. Double the goodness.
- Mouse and keyboard support because some players might hate themselves enough to want to play like that.
- A proper settings menu in not one, but two places.
- A slightly more intuitive UI. Kind of.
- An overhaul of the controls, including a small acceleration period to remove the sometimes-twitchy input, and replacing all sensitivities with one perfectly precise input system. Well, precise enough.
- Retroactive Achievement unlocking, in case you happen to be playing offline
There's also been a whole bunch of text, UI, collision and loading fixes, all of which makes this the game I originally intended to make. I'll continue to tweak away over the coming months but overall this is the game I set out to make, so I hope you enjoy the changes. Apologies also for not being as active in the community hub since launch as I'd have liked, but I'll be sure to check in much more often now.
Have fun,
Kenny
