A lot of people played the demo - thank you for that -, and we received a lot of feedback too. We agreed with a significant portion of it and immediately started working on those changes.
Here’s our biggest update yet, packed with improvements and fixes that greatly enhance the overall experience.
List of the most notable features and changes:
Save system update (protected quick save feature).
Ui system upcade (not floaty, fixed).
Box stacking and item handling update.
Wrench update - more range, more damage, a new charged attack!
Gunplay update #1 - already loaded guns, enhanched sounds, more damage and improoved fire-rate for the shotgun and the smallgun.
"Silence the discord!" - less chaos and cacophony on the audio front.
Hello darkness update - the game is less dark, even if we are not using the flashlight.
Turret damage visibility - The turret will emit smoke and sparks if it's damaged.
Player movement and mantling tweaks
Rhino mutamod update - Now it's obvious that the effect is on if we are using melee weapons.
Enemy state on-off - you can turn the enemy state indicator on and off anytime from the menu.
Cloning error update - tweaked the entire system, as well as the effects of certain errors.
Using the PDA and the inventory while crouching
Visibility and player guidence - there were some new player guidence tweaks added to "timelline B" to help the players get around without being handholdy.
A ton of bugfixes and tweaks - both visual and functional.
Detailed changelog:
- Save system update
An extra button has been added to the difficulty selection screen (and to the menu as well) that allows you to enable "protected quicksaves." This means that when this feature is enabled, your quicksave won’t be overwritten even if your in-game character dies, and you can easily load your previous save without any penalties. This is, of course, entirely optional, but you can turn it on or off at any time.
- Ui system updade
The previous, rather clunky, floaty, and janky "interactable UI" has been replaced by a much more elegant, attractive, and user-friendly fixed version.
- Box stacking and item handling update
We've greatly improved the way objects are moved, stacked, thrown, and handled in general. It’s now much easier to use this feature; if an object gets too close to you, it becomes transparent so it doesn’t interfere with your view, and stacking them, or building “box stairs” so to speak, has become much smoother and more fun.
- Wrench update
The wrench was a favorite weapon for many of you, but you were a bit dissatisfied with its power. We’ve increased the damage slightly (not too much, so not to break the balance), extended it's range a bit (so you can hit headcreeps even while standing), and added a secondary attack mode as well.
Now holding down the right mouse button initiates a charging attack; if you release it once it’s fully charged, you’ll deal multiple times the damage. When launched from a good position (with some skill or luck), this can be extremely devastating and can even result in an instant kill attack.
- Gunplay update #1
We’re constantly working on the gunplay, and we’ve made a bunch of tweaks to it in this first round. We’ve increased the base pistol rate of fire and the bullet ricochet effect. We’ve also tweaked the animations and the weapon shake. We’ve even changed the sound effects to make it a bit more impactful, even though this pistol is intentionally designed to be a weaker starter weapon.
The shotgun has also received some tweaks, new sounds, and its rate of fire has been increased slightly to make it feel a little less sluggish - though we were very careful to maintain balance here.
In addition, we’ve tweaked the explosions: if enemies are close enough to the epicenter of an explosion, they won’t just die - they’ll be blown to pieces. (GIBS!) This is incredibly satisfying, but be careful! In this case, the bodies won’t be lootable. (Instead, you can throw the limbs and heads around.)
- "Silence the discord!"
Certain sounds were too loud, so in some places the audio overlapping sounds could result in a kind of cacophony. We’ve made significant improvements in this area, and we’re currently working on a system that will mute certain channels while more important sounds are playing (for example, an important story monologue).
- Hello darkness update
Darkness is good; darkness is our friend. Especially in a game like this. However, as many have rightly pointed out, it was so dark in some places that it led to complete disorientation.
We’ve fixed this as well; now, even in the darkest places, you can faintly make out the outlines of the environment, making it much easier to find your way around—even without using a flashlight—without having to compromise the atmosphere.
- Turret damage visibility
From now on, when we damage the turret, we'll see it smoking and sparking. This makes it clear that we're actually damaging it and that it isn't immune to our attacks.
- Player movement and mantling
We've tweaked the player movement and the mantling system, making them much easier and smoother to use. Now it's much easier to catch ledges and edges without the system feeling too automated. Overall, this has greatly improved the feel of character movement in the game.
- Rhino mutamod update
It wasn't clear to many players that the Rhyno body Mutamod (passive), once purchased and equipped, only activates when you're holding a melee weapon. We've now made this clear in the Mutamod menu. In addition, the ability now provides a slightly higher damage bonus than before.
- Enemy state indicator on-off
Some of you were bothered by the indicator that appears above enemies' heads, which shows whether they are in a peaceful, scouting, or attacking state. You can now turn this on or off at any time in the menu.
- Cloning error update
Certain cloning errors were occurring too frequently and had too strong an effect. We've now thoroughly reworked and tweaked them (I'm looking at you, alcoholism!) to achieve a much more balanced experience.
- Using the PDA and the inventory while crouching
Until now, we could only do these things while standing, and if we were crouching, using them would make us stand up. That has now changed; both the PDA and the Inventory can be used while crouching. If the Janitor's knees can handle it, why not?
- Visibility and player guidence
Without coming across as overly patronizing or spoon-feeding the player, at a certain point in the demo (during that specific B-timeline segment), we made it a little clearer what to do and where to go. We did this without any tutorial pop-ups, or anything "agressive" like that, simply by refining the objective description, and using some visual cues.
- A ton of bugfixes and tweaks
In addition to all of this, we’ve fixed more than 100 various minor functional or visual bugs.
Issues may still occur, since the game is still very much in active development, but we believe this update has taken the RetroSpace experience to a whole new level. :)