V.0.1.3 is here!
While I originally thought the previous update would be the last one, I just couldn't help myself to freshen the Demo up a bit with some content and QOL changes.
The major changes include:
Alternative Desert Area: Mesa!
As teased in the previous Devlog, this patch brings the Mesa to the Demo as an alternative Area to the Desert, acting as an appetizer to this whole feature for the full release. It acts as an alternative take on the area featuring a different color palette, some quirks and a new enemy.
This area has a 50% chance of appearing instead of the Desert.
3 new Upgrades & General Upgrade Balancing
Upgrades in the previous version of the Demo felt a bit lackluster sometimes. The game's Upgrades are generally ordered in 3 tiers; Cheap, Medium and Expensive, with the goal being to allow me to design a variety of Upgrades and keep it all balanced with the price tag attached to them. The problem was that some expensive upgrades felt rather weak, and that the game in general was a bit shy with letting Upgrades truly have a massive impact. Especially when it comes to letting upgrades destroy enemies.
We're taking off the limiters for this one; Upgrades have generally been rebalanced; Some made more Impactful, some moved into more-fitting categories. This includes stuff like Carlos & Blast Processor now being able to fully destroy vehicles instead of dealing 50 damage and more.
To make up for the lack of impactful, expensive upgrades, 3 new ones have been added to fill the gap:
GUISE OF SAFETY
A maybe-familiar-looking angelic scarf. Once fully charged by dealing damage, it will grant the player temporary immunity to any non-melee attack, such as bullets. A defensive item to survive the chaos of 13 gunners on screen.
PUZZLING JIGSAW
A saw. Also charged by dealing damage. Once fully charged, releases a ring of damaging saws around the player, each powerful enough to knock out a vehicle on their own. A very powerful, offensive item.
STUNNING SKYROCKET
Obligatory roguelite firework item. Destroy an enemy, and it might launch a homing rocket, ready to explode on a near enemy, dealing enough damage to knock them out entirely.
Other changes include JOYFUL BUZZER being able to deal damage, ENHANCED GRIPPER straight up exploding whatever victim you side-slam into and much more. Overall, upgrades should feel a lot better now, whether that be from an impact standpoint or their general balancing.
A Ton Of Quality Of Life
Enhanced Pause Menu
The Pause Menu has received a bit of a do-over, pushing the options to the left with a more stylish looking backdrop instead of just having them hover in the air. The main new feature here, however, is that you can now navigate to the right side of the screen and check what each of your upgrades are doing. Forgot what an Upgrade does? Think you got a good combo? No problem!
Improved Upgrade Visuals & Audio
In the Quest to make Upgrades more impactful, the game has also been equipped with a variety of new SFX and visuals to make Upgrades stand out a bit more. This includes:
- The "Upgrade Icons" on the left now being replaced by a 2D sprite of the Upgrade, rather than a generic icon for the effect.
- A ton of Upgrades now have a more in-your-face visual effect instead of just relying on the icon, such as ENHANCED GRIPPER coloring your vehicle in a different color, MOUTH FOAM actually having your vehicle foam, or ANCIENT CARTIFACT displaying a halo when the effect is still up.
- Whether it be a vulnerable hit, dealing increased damage, taking decreased damage, all of these interactions are now equipped with a fitting sound effect. Really something that should've been there from the get go, but better late than never.
Improved Health Gain Listing
Previously, with DMG NUMBERS enabled, whenever you dealt damage to an enemy and gained health, the numbers would just pop out of the interaction. This, in hindsight, was of course pretty confusing. They all had the same color and overlapped each other.
All player health-gain has now been moved to a display next to the healthbar, leaving the numbers that pop out reserved to damage. This little display even temporarily stacks the health received, so if you knock out 3 enemies at once, you can review how much health that gave you in total, rather than one-by-one. Useful for stuff like SUPER HONK, in case you want to see if the SUPER HONK ended up paying for itself.
New Base Desert Big Enemy
This isn't really a QOL change but I couldn't fit it anywhere else. The Big Cop has been retired as the mainstay Big Enemy of the Desert, now instead being reserved to a rare spawn whenever the game would spawn a normal Cop instead. It's place is now taken by the Desert Gunner.
While the first area was intended to be easy, the big enemy just being the same as a normal cop but big felt pretty underwhelming and made the first area feel kinda boring. This new enemy is intended to spice things up a bit, without significantly raising the difficulty.
A Ton Of Other Stuff I Forgot To Note Down, Woops
Since I didn't really anticipate another Patch, I didn't note down a bunch of changes, but there are a bunch of unnoted ones here. Most of them are minor and visual, or some simple stat tweaks. So if the color of the Desert Ground looks slightly different, or an enemy turns slightly differently, you'll know why.
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I am now pretty happy with the Demo. It's a bit hard to make a Demo that feels good for a game that is, by concept, intended to be short. I hope it is now equipped with enough boom to really give you a good idea of what the full game will be like if you give it a try.
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- Alexander