Hey guys! Krayfishkarl here and welcome to another Droplet: States of Matter update! Early Access 1.36 is now available! This update reworks some of the bonus areas.
Across the game, you can find hidden artifacts. When you return them to the Science Museum, you'll receive a reward of 2,000 atoms each. Naturally, these valuable items are well-hidden, and in the process of going through and polishing the game, I wanted to make these bonus areas interesting and invoke a sense of exploration. Some of them have been moved to different locations than they were previously. I've also decided to reduce the number of total artifacts you can find from 14 to 12 in interest of time. In doing so, I was given the opportunity to better flesh out the remaining ones.
Two of these artifacts have been moved to unique areas: the Lava Planet and the Ice Comet. I won't spoil how to find these locations in the game, but I can show you what you can expect.
The Lava Planet is a short, platforming gauntlet through an area that is so hot that you start out in cloud form. At the end, you'll find a lava monster boss armored with rock. It's a challenging fight, but I imagine it'll be equally challenging trying to find him the first place.
The other new level, the Ice Comet, is a frozen area where you'll find a unique mechanic related to floating moisture. In some levels such as Misty Canopies, these moisture platforms must be frozen with ice form in order to interact with them. In the Ice Comet level, these platforms actively move around to create a challenge unlike anything else seen in the game. If you manage to make it through, you'll be rewarded with an artifact.
In other news, I've made some tweaks to the Particle Accelerator level, a late-game stage just before the final boss. I've smoothed out the pacing and made it much more difficult, yet fair, in order to better take advantage of the skillset the player would have learned at this point. Best of luck as you try and survive the challenges in store for you.
That's all for now! And with that, thank you for following the development of Droplet: States of Matter!
Patch Notes
Gameplay
- Artifacts have been reshuffled across the entire game. Some have been relocated, and two of them have been removed. (Dev notes: Their internal ID’s have been redistributed across the game for some backend consistency. You may notice that some artifacts you may have picked up already will be counted as uncollected. The reverse is also true where some artifacts you haven’t found yet will be marked as collected.)
- New areas: Lava Planet and Ice Comet. These are hidden bonus areas you can find on the galaxy map.
- Reorganized atoms in Particle Accelerator. Adjusted some platforms and the time trial times.
- Reorganized atoms in Neo Kryptopolis. Flying drones in that level now drop atoms.
- Adjusted bonus area in Frozen Fortress.
- Shop prices have been adjusted to compensate for the decreased amount of atoms in the game.
- Adjusted projectile aiming for Ice Elemental enemies.
Audio
- New music tracks for the new Lava Planet and Ice Comet bonus areas.
- Fixed various audio issues with enemy sound effects.
Menus
- Reshuffled the status menu to change the pages where levels are shown.
Misc
- Adjusted collision detection for platforms that sink.