---Red---Tether--> now has a final release date: January 18th! The game is feature complete and fully playable already, but there is still some more content I want to add and feedback I want to implement.
To get more of the later I’ll be running an open playtest here on Steam. Feel free to opt in if you don’t mind some bugs and unfinished edges. :]
The playtest features:
-7 player ships that come with distinct core upgrades
-50+ upgrades to find and unlock
-8+ boss encounters
-12 zone variants
-50x3 premade waves in interception mode
-New endless mode with an optional final boss
-Freely combinable challenge modes for endless runs
-New video options for better visual clarity
-Experimental controller support
The playtest has everything unlocked by default, but if you want to go through the game normally you can disable this in the game options. I’m looking forward to your feedback!
In closing here is a quick rundown of what I’ve been working on in the last months.
A whole bunch of new mid- to late-game enemy types and mechanics have been added. Carriers send out various types of small craft to hunt you down, ranging from melee troopships over chaingun scouts to deadly interceptors and bombers. New homing torpedos require you to have harpoons ready to counter them. And in beyond wave 40 you’ll start to see shield piercing beam attacks.
An ongoing goal was to improve combat pacing and make battles a bit more dynamic. Most direct attack enemies will now start to chase you down via tac jumps if you spend a while in a wave. Additionally, certain ships that can’t fight on their own will now jump out once all their escort is gone, eliminating situations in which you had to mop up passive cargo vessel or asteroid to progress.
As mentioned above, the game now has an endless mode that dynamically generates enemy waves. These waves can also have random modifiers to spice things up. Some wave modifier can work in your favor, others very much not so.
Endless mode also comes with a new launch area and its own custom final boss. Defeating whatever that is unlocks coordinates, ---Red---Tether’s--> system for challenge modes. Activating coordinates in subsquent endless runs brings you closer to the Contempter homeworld, but also grants broad bonuses to the opposition.
The game now contextualizes your runs a bit more and has you travel through various zones within your target system. You start up in asteroid fields and ice clouds, go through various industrial areas and eventually end up near the systems sun. Right now these zones mostly just represent a visual change, but some can trigger certain wave modifiers more often (In the scrapyard you’ll encounter more waves with the [debris field] modifier etc.). Expanding on this is one of my goals for the final month. I want to add distinct modifiers for all zones and I also want them to affect enemy types.
Visual clarity was an ongoing concern especially in regards to background visuals and contrast. So I added some options that allow you to freely customize how the game displays backgrounds. If you find the background to distracting you can make it darker or turn objects and dust off entirely. You can even play the entire game in a high-contrast, dark void, which I find looks pretty neat in its own minimalist way.
To further improve readability I also added some additional dark outlines to all ship assets. I hope this allows to identify them more clearly on any background.
And last but not least I added in a whole range of new player upgrades to collect. I also increased the frequency at which tech-ships appear, allowing you to upgrade faster. Boss fights also spawn their own type of upgrade ship now, which always forces you to choose between an offense upgrade and health. I’m considering dropping even more additional upgrades during combat, to get upgrade progression going even faster.
To keep track of your ships capabilities I also added an item screen to the pause menu (similar to how Hyperspace Dogfights handled this, but essentially combining the pause screen and intermission stat sheets into one overview). Not seen here is that this also shows full tooltips on items and all your stats in one sheet when selecting your ship.
The new items again come in various shapes and functions, some provid basic stat boosts, others extend your toolset with whole new functionalities. There is still a whole set of basic upgrades in the pipe and three new elemental-based ships are in the works to carry some of them.
The game now also has a system for displaying unlocks during a run. And if you go for 100% there are databases to unlock, indexing all items of individual categories, while also showing unlock conditions. These will be available to ponder near the title screen hangar.
If you want to try all this out right away feel free to opt into the playtest. You feedback would be much appreciated!
Cheers!
Stefan – Sleeper Games