This update is an exciting one as it is the first to contain work from the artist Athena Kipen that I'm lucky enough to working with on Vactics. So far Athena has jumped in to add some additional polish to the enemy visuals, in particular help communicate when enemies are on cooldown or are in various other states that might change the tactical choices players make.
You can find more of Athena's work on her ArtStation page
My time has been a bit limited for this update as I've been organising bringing Athena onto the project but I have managed to add support across the UI for a dyslexia font option. This change is really exciting for me as it improves the accessibility of the game overall but also sets up the UI to support font swapping. In the future this will be really useful when I get to localising the game. Other changes this update include some more gameplay and UI polish as well as bug fixes as needed.
Now I'll put out my regular requests for those playing Vactics:
- If you are enjoying the game, please leave a review. These are really helpful for letting Steam inform other players that Vactics is cool as well.
- Tell some friends and tell some strangers. Word of mouth is the main way I have for Vactics to find people who might enjoy the game. I'm really wanting to reach out to people who enjoy rogue-lite tactics games.
- If you have any things that aren't working for you, please make a post on the forum or use the in-game feedback button. People who get in touch in these ways have really helped me improve Vactics.
Thanks again to everyone who is giving my game a play, a review or sending in feedback. I'm really excited for the changes that will be coming to the game now that Athena is working on Vactics. I'm hoping myself to add the new co-pilot perk system for the next update in two weeks. So look out for that.
Cheers,
Gerard / The Lemur Conspiracy
Client Versions
Early Access: #0.300.4016
Demo: #0.300.4016
Changes
- Credits: added artist credit for Athena Kipen.
- Gameplay Balance: updated enemy logic so that enemies affected by a System Lock Hack don't ever attack the player.
- Gameplay Balance: updated the timing of Defence Mode mod to occur after the attacking enemy has fully completed their attack action.
- Progression: players start the game with 3 color palettes unlocked.
- UI: added font swapping support to the whole UI system in preparation for future updates and localization
- UI: added option to enable a dyslexia friendly font in the UI - OpenDyslexia.
- UI: added pieces of description text when menu buttons are highlighted to better communicate what the button will do if pressed.
- UI: improve text sizing, alignment and layout across all game screens.
- UI: removed the re-centre button from the map screen to simplify the available interactions in that part of the game.
- Visuals: added a highlight effect to tiles when enemies are spawned at that location.
- Visuals: new sprites for all enemies that communicate when an enemy has been hacked and will not attack the player.
- Visuals: new sprites for all enemies that communicate when an enemy is on cooldown and cannot attack this turn.
- Visuals: updates across all the enemy sprites to improve their animations.
Bugfixes
- Gameplay: Fixed bug where Factory Vactics could be hacked by the player but not spawn any new enemies.
- UI: fixed bug where a hover popup would not disable if it's target button was turned off while the popup was active.
- UI: fixed issue where some hover popups would show on the map after the launch button has been pressed.
- UI: fixed the statistics screen not updating properly if opened via the main menu.
- Visuals: fixed issue where hit effect would not flip colours on the killing blow to the player.
Note: Any relevant fixes and improvements will also be in the updated client for the demo version of Vactics.