Core-Loop & Session Length Improvements
One of the first design documents we wrote—before we even had the idea of swapping body parts—outlined the structure of a run:
Start on “the mothership” (now ROX-1)
Select a Galaxy (yes, it took about 8 months before someone pointed out we were calling solar systems “Galaxies”)
Deploy onto a planet and complete or fail it
Return to “the mothership”
Purchase upgrades
Repeat this process for two more planets
Deploy to a boss arena and complete or fail it
Run complete – return to “the mothership”
Here’s a screenshot of our User Story Map that we used to make sure we were all on the same page while we were building the initial experience:
User Story Map of the game loop from June 18th, 2024
Well, there’s a few more steps in there than I noted above, but one thing that you’ll notice in Early Access or even if you’ve tested SWAPMEAT prior is that Step 4 of that shortened flow is missing.
Our intent was to allow the player to break their run into 10-15 minute sessions and bring them “back to base” to cash in rewards, upgrade or change their equipment, take a bathroom break, or just socialize with friends and take a breather after a hard fought escape.
We dropped the return to ROX-1 because we didn’t have all of the affordances necessary to communicate to players that a run was more than just a single planet. Objective trackers, on screen markers, or even anything for the player to even spend on upgrades, so we decided to “keep it simple ‘for now’” and chain the planets together.
Over the last few months we’ve heard from many of you that you’d like to be able to take a break and resume a run and, while we did enable that feature a few updates ago, its still not very clear when its okay to quit out of the game.
Additionally, we’ve heard you loud and clear that the core-loop of fighting and upgrading is much longer than expected, so we’re going to tighten it up.
In today’s update you’ll now return to the ship after each planet you complete. You can interact with everything normally on ROX-1 except for changing your equipment before launching down to the next planet.
We weren’t able to get this in for this past Tuesday’s update but we wanted to get it in your hands before our holiday break (starting tomorrow). This is a big structural change, so please let us know what you think in Discord or on the Steam forums.
– Jamie Stormbreaker - Game Director
Gameplay
Reduced the Out of Combat Timer from 15s to 5s. If you don’t receive damage, deal damage, or heal another entity in combat you’ll begin to move 30% faster after 5s.
You’ll return to ROX-1 at the completion of each planet
When this is mid run, you’ll be unable to make equipment changes but can make upgrades through terminals, talking to carl, and the currency trader
Increased overall director cost of “Siege Enemies” – Highbeam, Eyeclops, Paper Bobby
Abilities
Increased Elemental Accumulation for all Abilities
Reduce Explosion Impulse on most Ice Abilities. This will leave the enemies closer to the player where they can more easily shatter them
Tuned Squishy Blast (on default Rangus Torso) so that it gets enemies off of you more consistently. Some flying enemies weren’t really responding well previously. Some larger enemies can’t be knocked back, but it should feel more natural and useful now, for clearing some space. (Hint: you can also use it to get rid of some projectiles!)
Meats
Assigned Quake Rush Ability to Eyeclops Legs
Assigned Turbo Boost Ability to Belly Grinder Legs
Meta Progression
Added new Lunar Rifts for fishing from on Barbecuria and a corresponding fish collection quest
Added new Sludge Rifts for fishing from on Calypso and a corresponding fish collection quest
Updated icons for ancient tech tiers 2 through 5
Animation
Animation and VFX changes for item container presentation
Animation polish on Hunter Intro cutscene (the one that plays at the end of the tutorial)
If you’ve not seen it in a while, OMG_d0gheart would love feedback on the scene and how the Hunters are first introduced. Nothing huge has changed, but they have their voices now, so have more personality, and some more polish and personality for Squishy as well.
Campaign cutscenes (like the two major Boss outros) will no longer play in Random Mode. Bear with us as we continue shaping the core experience and how it relates to the overall world and story of the campaign
We are excited to not have to watch these over and over now! Unless you want to! We’re always open for ideas around the story and world we’re building, and we’ve got so much more in store on that side of things down the road.
Added interact animations to all hold actions
UI / UX
Team XP Bar will now display while in ROX-1
Additional entries have been added to the FAQs in the Codex
Damage health flashes on the player and enemies have been tweaked
Art
Add new models for Tier 2 Pestie and Zorpjet alien enemies
Audio
New audio for item container presentation.
Added more voicing, efforts and laughs to the Hunters in their Intro cutscene after the Tutorial.
A lot of game mixing updates. so be sure to reset your audio to defaults and see how things sound. We bumped up Player, Enemy and UI sounds, while ducking Music and VO just a bit
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where the Meat Market secondary directive marker was located in a wall of ROX-1 instead of in the actual Meat Market
Fixed a bug where the Out of Combat Buff was showing in the item inspection menu
Items that you obtain during a run will more reliably show up in the Codex
Fixed broken text “all bad things” on the red player status tag and hooked tags up to localization (non English translations for the tags will come in a future update)
Fixed some broken VO that was cutting out early (namely Carl’s first set of lines from a fresh save file)
Fixed incorrect handling for the Esc key / back button in the Employee Handbook if a tutorial popup was being displayed
Known Issues
No significant performance tuning has been done yet. If you are graphics bound, you can try lowering the quality settings in the Esc menu via Options → Video, but systems with more constrained hardware may struggle
Not all input buttons and keys have icons in the UI yet. Text descriptions (eg. “J”, or “Button West”) will show up for things that do not yet have an icon in the input glyph map
When observing other players, some UI bits such as the reload HUD don’t show accurate information for the observed player