Quality Assurance for PA is done. We'll have news soon about our plans for a 2.0 release.

In the meantime, we'll tease with some new weapons, upgrades to existing weapons, and the current state of the levels.

The Weapons

Project Absentia takes huge inspiration from a game the director of the project, SanyaWaffles, grew up playing on a shareware disc on an old 486 she had - Rise of The Triad. Many of the features of RoTT were very ahead of their time - massive weapons that you could unload and forget on many enemies, huge levels with huge amounts of verticality, ludicrous gibs, a bit of style, and really cool explosions.

In both Project Absentia and Rise of The Triad, the amount of weapons you can carry on your person are limited, but extremely powerful. You can switch out a weapon for another based on the situation at hand or personal preference for an encounter.

In Rise of The Triad, you could only carry one non-bullet weapon - a single missile weapon or magic weapon. This admittedly is a bit limiting for the player.

In Project Absentia, you have four categories for weapon pickups - shotguns, energy weapons, missile weapons, and big weapons. This is on top of your backup weapon - the Tommy Gun - which has an alt ammo type (high powered bullets) you can find through levels or on certain enemies. While you can carry only one of each category, you have four categories to choose from, each with their own mechanics, quirks, and damage types.

Also, all weapons have alt-fires or modes. Most alt-fires consume different amounts of ammo for the weapon.

• Shotguns

  • Boomstick - Abby's double barreled sawed off that Abby fires and reloads as quickly as a gunslinger should

  • Boltshot - intended to be a welding device that, due to a design flaw, became a weapon for crowd control instead.

  • The Six Pack - A massive six-shelled revolving shotgun that fires piercing shots. Secondary fire fan-fires and empties the chambers. New for Episode 2!

• Energy

  • Hailer - a cryogenic weapon that freezes most enemies easily, allowing them to be shattered with a quick/auto kick or any other weapon

  • Plasma Rifle - Updated a bit for Episode 2's release, this will shoot rapid fire plasma spheres (but not as a burst shot of five), or one big electrostatic sphere that sucks in enemies and does ripping damage.

  • Popper - A microwave weapon that causes enemies to expand, explode and can cause chain damage to other nearby enemies. Secondary fire is an explosive popcorn bag! New for Episode 2!

• Missile weapons

  • Missile Launcher - self explanatory. Primary fire shoots missiles, secondary fire shoots grenades

  • Heat Seeker - a souped up missile launcher. Primary fire shoots heat seeking missiles, secondary fire shoots a massive firebomb that goes out in a cross-shape

• Big weapons

  • Rainbowitzer - Taste the rainbow mother[beep]er. For primary fire, shoots a wall of color that can disintegrate most enemies, while the secondary fire shoots a giant rainbow nuke that nukes most enemies. In Episode 1's initial release, it could kill the player if in the blast radius and not behind cover. For Episode 2 we're getting rid of that, so players can nuke the baddies to their hearts content.

  • Blitzcraig - a man eating plant that is also a friend. Primary fire shoots energy blasts that leech health off enemies, while secondary fire throws the plant, causing little mini-Blitzcraigs to go out, eating everything in their path.

Here we'll show off one of the new weapons in motion - the Popper - specifically the Popper secondary fire.

And while we're at it, the new look of the Rainbowitzer's secondary fire.

The Verticality and Level Design

Project Absentia is designed to have tons of vertical as well as horizontal movement, and the level design is meant to complement that. Episode 2 will be no different. With huge, colorful locations with tons of combat and eye-catching detail!

Here's a few examples for Episode 2

Abby, with her gliding ability, can firebomb enemies from the air, and on the ground can dash around. She may be small, but she packs a huge punch, especially from above.

Of course, not every part of a location can be vertical, but we still offer enough so Abby can move around.

We'll have updates soon - some pretty substantial updates to be exact about release plans. We hope you all are as excited as we are that the finish line is approaching fast for release.

Cheers!

-SanyaWaffles