A Message from Annie:
Hi everyone!! It’s been a bit! Welcome to Version 1.2: The Whispers Update!
This project just refuses to die; it’s too fun to work on. This isn’t and probably never will be our job, but with the rough and tumble world out there, developing new content for DRACOMATON is a bit of an anchor. We hope playing it might do something similar for you!
In any case, it’s been a full year since our Steam release. Thank you for all the support both then and now! When we realized the date was coming up, we did our best to fit all of our in-progress changes into this new update. Me and Calex have been cooking up a storm with two new forms, namely Spirit and Tornado. As always, the indomitable Sophie has also designed some new rooms, with some new faces to fight, designed and animated by the wonderful Benji. Both Sophie and the gracious Autumn have gifted us some new sound effects for all above.
Calex has also made something for all of us to dirty our hands with to make the game harder, for all you sweats out there: Challenge Modes! So if the current game isn’t quite challenging enough, beat your first run and you’ll have some extra fun options waiting for you in the main menu. Credit to Ryan, Sophie, and Tracie in particular for these meat grinders.
To be completely honest, on a random day in May, Calex told me off-hand that he was bored, so I jokingly told him to boot up DRACOMATON and we could make a new form on the spot. He doubled down so I followed suit, and subsequently dragged our team into the vortex of working on this game again. I’ve dived into so many sections of the game that I haven’t before, and know a lot more about doing animations and VFX now. Calex has stayed mostly the same from what I can tell; he’s always been the one welding the game together when no one else can.
It’s been a wild couple of months against a wild backdrop of a year, but none of us regret it at all. I hope you all are staying safe and healthy out there, and as the world continues to change, I hope we all continue to find ourselves growing into something new.
Speaking of new things, the members of Gun Jumpers and beyond have also continued to create games! If you haven’t already make sure to check out:
Spared
Be the last pin standing in this fantasy bowling setting!
Play Here!
Beat Heart Beat
https://twitter.com/BHB_game
Patch Notes:
New Forms
Spirit: Summon ghosts and slow enemies!
- Ghost Wave: Shoot a piercing wave that inflicts a slowing Curse.
- Shade Summon: Summon a ghost that follows your crosshair. Killing Cursed enemies makes it stronger.
Tornado: Blow your foes away and ride the wind!
- Pinwheel: Knock enemies away with an exploding shot.
- Tempest: Summon a tornado that boosts the Speed and <#ff5271>Damage of your other projectiles that pass through it.
New Items
Normal Items:
Storykeeper: Enemies take 0-10% more Damage on based on bestiary progress. Also, gain 0-10% Damage based on room's terminal progress.
Accelerant: Projectiles gain a damage bonus based on their velocity.
Challenge Items:
Shroom Form: Your vision changes. Gain 25% Speed and Attack. Gain 40% primary ability cooldown reduction. Your projectiles are 40% smaller.
Damaging Bolts: Bolts deal 5 damage to you while a room is active. Bolt pickup range decreased.
Enemy Cloning: Enemies are cloned every couple of seconds, depending on how many enemies are remaining in the room.
New Rooms
- 2 new room layouts and 1 miniboss room layout added to the Sun-Dappled Factory (Area 1).
- 1 new miniboss room layout added to the Snowy Surface (Area 2).
New Hazard
Turret:
Turrets continuously shoot at a pre-determined angle while the room is active. Be mindful of your movement if you encounter them in a room.
Challenges
The game now has challenges for you to complete! You can access the challenge menu by hitting the button on the main menu after you’ve beaten the game at least once. Completed challenges will show up in gold. Do your best to complete them all!
Chaotic: Survive a run with no normal items and an enhanced chance for chaos items!
Cloning: Every couple of seconds, all remaining enemies in arena rooms are duplicated! Be mindful of how you spend your time...
Damaging Bolts: Picking up bolts while a room is active deals damage to Eclipse! Watch your step...
Hitless: A trial for the truly insane.
No Items: No items or shops. Survive on forms alone.
Platformer: No longer a secret item, Platformer returns as a challenge for the gravity fans out there.
Shroom Form: Do not play this challenge if you have photosensitive epilepsy.
The Gauntlet: Given a preset loadout of forms and items, survive a trial of skill alone.
New UI Improvements
Update 1.2 brings various UI improvements to the game, including but not limited to: item select and inventory frames, the option to enable status icons above enemy health bars, and more!
Item Frames - updated with new visuals. Also has unique visuals for normal versus chaos items.
Item Cards - updated with new visuals.
Status Icons - New option in "Visual Settings" that adds status icons to enemy health bars for statuses that have an icon.
Magnet: Electromagnet icon updated
Hunter: Evo Icons updated
New Achievements
Big Buddy: Have your ghost grow to over double the base size on Spirit Form.
Blown Away: Shoot a wind-blast enhanced projectile through two separate tornados..
Damaging Bolts: Complete "Challenge: Damaging Bolts"
Chaotic: Complete "Challenge: Chaotic"
Cloning: Complete "Challenge: Cloning"
No Items: Complete "Challenge: No Items"
The Gauntlet: Complete "Challenge: The Gauntlet"
Form and Item Changes:
Construct Form Rework:
- Primary Attack Order beam replaced with new short range rapid spray.
Battery Overclock - Above 70% battery, you deal double damage and your projectiles are slightly larger. Your batteries drain 30% faster.
Momentum Spinner - Damage boost adjusted to flatten over time instead of linearly increasing forever.
Still very powerful but prevents projectiles reaching ridiculous damage boosts (specifically VSynth protective bullets).
Pinned Down - Now works by checking speed stat instead of checking for certain status types.
General Changes + Bug Fixes
- Eclipse spawn animation now has increased resolution to account for the camera zoom.
- Steam Rich Presence Support - See the status of your Steam friends runs in real-time!
- Fixed bosses having invulnerability during their stagger phase.
- Regulus roar animations adjusted to fix snapping.
- New tiles have been added to uncover some of the factory flooring on the Snowy Surface.
- Removed accidentally placed lore terminal stuck in wall in one of the rooms on the Snowy Surface.
- Enemy Gunner bullets are despawned properly on room completion
- Death Screen no longer shows enemy ID instead of enemy display name (crawlerExploding -> Starburst Crawler)
- Miscellaneous bug fixes.