Well now, the first week of early access was one hell of a ride. Your response to the game has been overwhelming, and we've worked extra hard to make sure the first update of the game is a good one! The game should run slightly better on Windows 8, we have a whole new interface with cool portal transitions, we have ambient sounds in the levels now, we added some more props (like explosive cars) to the levels, balanced some of the characters and there are two unfinished new weapons (the splinter gun and toxic bow) in there! Other than that there's a whole pile of tiny additions, bugfixes and anything in between.
Content
- new menu & level up interface
- character power preview images (these will be animated eventually)
- basic portal effect inbetween levels
- there are a couple of new skill icons, our artist Paul Veer is still working on making the rest look that nice.
- ambient sounds for all areas, filter on ambient sounds when in the portal
- various new sound effects
- two new work in progress weapons: the toxic bow and splinter gun
- props in sewers (pipes and toxic barrels)
- car wrecks in scrapyard
- it now rains in the scrapyard! poor birds
Characters
- steroids throne butt changed, now makes all weapons fully automatic and 1/5 of shots don't cost any ammo!
- fish now rolls in movement direction instead of towards mouse
- plant throne butt now makes the snare kill anything under 1/3 health instead of dealing damage
Bugfixes
- you can now add a file called "nomusic.txt" or "NOMUSIC.TXT" to the game folder to mute the music.
- there should be less crashes at level loading.
- game no longer stays in 4_1 after first loop.
- more impact effect tweaks, causing less of a delay when hitting a pile of maggots with a melee weapon.
- big dog gunangle bug when player dies before he "wakes up" fixed
- fire traps no longer damage props or wake up the big dog
- shotgun bullets should no longer clip through walls
- weapons should no longer rotate like crazy when stuck in walls
- music no longer stops when quick restarting
- hopefully fixed the shotgun crashes
- various random optimization things and small fixes
Balancing
- slightly more ammo for energy weapon pickups
- melee weapons only deal damage once now
- ever so slightly lower assault rifle rate of fire
- slightly lower slugger rate of fire
- lower triple machinegun spread, making it actually useful
- slightly more screwdriver range
Misc
- radiation canisters now glow
- HUD is now shown when loading/leveling
- skill icons on the HUD now drawn closer to the side
- robot now INSTALLS UPDATES instead of SELECT MUTATIONS
- debris now disappears after a while
- enemy slash animation is longer
- grenade launchers no longer automatic
- lower sound effect volume
- changed the character descriptions around a bit
On our wishlist for next week
Things that are definitely on the list for this week are looking at our possible solutions for the screenshake discussion, fixing that the game shuts down on Escape and probably a new look at fixing the controller support. A real, actual option screen is on our wish-list and of course we'll keep plugging away on problems with Windows 8, too.
Please keep telling us what you think of the game, what you feel should be different and don't forget to join us for the livestreams again on Tuesday and Thursdays 1PM CET.
That'd be all,
Thanks,
--
Rami & JW