Hello again, everyone! Today we're excited to release Patch #2 for Neon Inferno, which adds a new Score Attack mode to the game, along with local and online leaderboards for both score and time. Patch #2 also contains a few other new features, bugfixes, and improvements as well. This patch is now live on Steam, and it will roll out to consoles as well over the next week or so.
Score Attack
While Neon Inferno's end-of-mission payouts are already somewhat analogous to scoring, quite a few players have asked us for a more granular system since release day. So we've now implemented a more conventional scoring mode into the game: Score Attack! Let me explain the scoring system in a few short paragraphs.
Defeating a grunt enemy awards 300 points; defeating a larger enemy 3,000 points; a miniboss 6,000 points; and a boss 20,000 points. In addition, damaging an enemy or boss awards 60 points per hit, until the final kill.
On top of these base rates are stacked various multipliers. Melee attacks provide a 4x multiplier; deflected bullets a 5x multiplier; deflected bombs a 6x multiplier; and indirect kills (such as slashing an NYPD drone which then falls to the ground and explodes into a police officer) also a 6x multiplier.
Moreover, chain-killing multiple enemies with a single attack increments these multipliers. For example, killing two enemies with one melee attack awards a 4x multiplier to the first kill and a 5x multiplier to the second kill.
At the end of each mission, various bonuses come into play: a no-hit bonus if you cleared the mission without getting hit, a no-civilian bonus if you cleared the mission without any civilian casualties, and a time bonus based on how fast you completed the mission. Unlike the money bonuses in the main game's end-of-mission payouts, this time bonus is granular, down to fractions of a second.
Finally, the game now features both local and online leaderboards for players who'd like to climb them. These leaderboards record not just highest score but also lowest time.
The purpose of Score Attack is to incentivize playing Neon Inferno in the riskiest and most stylish manner possible. If you've already cleared Arcade Mode and you still want more (or if you haven't but you want to try something a bit different) then this mode is for you.
Perhaps there are ways we could further integrate these mechanics, or at least the player incentives that they create, into the game's base systems and difficulty. But that will likely be a task for the sequel. For now, if you have some experience in this genre, then I think you'll find that Neon Inferno's new scoring system is one of the most complex ever devised for an arcade run-and-gun.
One other new feature:
Player Revival in Co-op
In co-op, outside Arcade Mode, a dead player can now revive themselves using a point of the alive player's health (if said player has more than 1 health remaining). On the Hard and Medium difficulties, the revived player receives 2 points of health; on the Novice difficulty, 4 points. (This feature is not available in Arcade Mode, because in Arcade Mode, all death is final.)
And some smaller changes...
Difficulty Rebalancing
(All difficulties) The hitbox to crash your motorcycle while changing lanes was made slightly more lenient, by 3 pixels on each side
(All difficulties) Fixed balance issue where Flame Shot could destroy the Pangaea Dreadnought and Pangaea Hydrosnake minibosses in far too little time
(Hard and Arcade) ("One to the Heart") 54 Linden, fog room: randomized direction and order of armored security tanks and Yakuza Heavies, to make the encounter feel more dynamic and unpredictable
(Medium and Novice) RNG was removed on these difficulties in various places. (For example, the initial patterns in the Pavilion Hotel elevator sequence now occur in a static order on these difficulties, instead of a random order like in Hard difficulty or Arcade Mode)
Minor Features
Pause menu: There is now a "Restart stage" option in addition to the "Restart at checkpoint" option, in situations where applicable
Controls: player can now stab in the opposite direction while shooting towards the BG, instead of being locked into the direction they are facing
Minor Bugfixes
Achievements: local and online achievements now auto-sync upon the game's start, and the game checks if you should receive the "King of New York" achievement, then awards it to you if don't have it. (This fixes a bug where said achievement didn't trigger for some players even after they accomplished all the others, due to desync between local and online achievement data)
BG crosshair: increased its bounds slightly such that the player is always able to hit enemies at the edges of the screen
Vs. Helena Vos: Fixed bug where, when playing as Mariana, one of the boss's attacks was broken
Controls: fixed "oscillation" bug which occurred if player was hanging vertically from a rope while shooting into the BG, then slashed in the opposite direction they were facing
Title screen: fixed one-frame visual glitch on character select screen
Highway: fixed minor visual glitch on the player motorcycle's jetstream
Police escape, helicopter sequence: fixed respawn bug if restarting from the second checkpoint in co-op mode
Pavilion Hotel, elevator: fixed numerous points of awkwardness in the platforming and camera control when playing in co-op
"Baptised in Flame" pre-stage cutscene: fixed bug where, in co-op, the cutscene would show P1's character even if they were dead
Pause menu: fixed visual bug where players' muzzle flashes would continue animating even while the game was paused
Pause menu: fixed bug where, if "jump" and "accept" are mapped to the same button or key, and the player exited the pause menu using that button or key, then they would spuriously jump
Match-up cards: improved Mariana's portrait
Nintendo Switch version: fixed various small issues, including the last remaining major slowdown (in the first NYPD safehouse scene)
Localization: fixed some minor issues in certain languages
The next major patch will release in another month or two, and there will probably be minor patches along the way, especially if any important bugs or feature requests pop up.
Thanks for reading, and as always, I hope you have fun with the game!
Sri Kankanahalli
Creative director, Zenovia Interactive
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