Demo Update Alpha 3 is here in time for Next Fest (which starts Oct 13th, 2025). This update brings a complete rework of both demo stages, complete with reworked environments, new enemies and a new boss! This also includes Pass and Failure at the end of the stage, with consequences for your team that affects dialogue and future events in the game.
I'm super excited for Next Fest and can't wait to get feedback, chat with players, and try all the other great games on Steam!
A New Disgusting Boss!
More Focus on the Grappling Hook
The grappling hook is a big hit with players and really embraces one of the most unique mechanics of the game - the ability to grab enemies, weapons and objects from the world to use against your enemies. This mechanic is getting more attention and will be reflected in the game's presentation including logo and other marketing materials in the future.
Many new expanded mechanics have been added to enhance the grappling hook:
Grappling Hook deflects bullets! This is a major countermeasure against some enemies and can wipe out bosses VERY quickly if you are accurate and brave enough to try it!
Grappling Hook destroys enemy missiles.
Large objects like Asteroids can be shoved using the Grappling Hook, and these objects do damage to other objects and enemies based on their velocity.
Smaller asteroids and objects like throwable containers have had their throw velocities increased, many of these objects do heavy damage even when thrown without fully charging up for a full second.
Collisions around held objects and objects as they are being pulled in by the hook have been improved to help avoid objects being destroyed inadvertantly.
When hitting objects which cannot be grappled a sound and spark effect is shown to make it a bit more obvious.
Grappling hook can now pickup score pickups.
Coming Soon: Grappling hook will "Open" power up containers
Notable Changes
Stages/Environments
Grid 38 (Stage 1) area has been reworked to be more cohesive and follow the briefing the player receives at the beginning of the game.
Reactor area has been moved to the end of the stage
If players do not defeat the Combat Jet boss, the boss will destroy the reactor (which also means any NPCs stationed here in the future will be gone for the rest of the game)
If players defeat the Combat Jet boss, they can visit this final section and collect the Option power-up and receive bonus points before the end of the stage.
New Enemy - Split-Shot Bot (head)- this is an early low-stakes enemy that fires volleys of two-way shots. When held the bot fires up to 12 volleys downwards from the player's ship. You might see this enemy "heading up" a larger robot in the future!
New starting area showcasing the grappling hook, and using the grappling hook fetch a battery and insert it to open the main gate.
New asteroid field area and background assets
Completely reworked pacing, but there is more to improve in this regard.
Reworked the Asteroid Base interior completely with new art assets
Shipyard 7 (Stage 2) area has been completely reworked
New background elements, including capital ship (destroyed and built variants)
New damage effects all over the Shipyard
New 3D parallax effects on the interior walls
Expanded assembly plant area with an additional Smasher
New Enemy: Spore Pod
New alien nest area with creepy hair-like growth
New Boss: Flesh Horror
Central Eye is the main boss weak point.
Boss is accompanied by dynamically controlled wiggly tentacles that guard the alien boss' eye from damage and will whip any player that strays too close. These tentacles will retreat to heal once they've taken enough damage.
Spore Pods that respawn over time as the boss is being fought
Teeth that launch at the player, these teeth can be grabbed with the grappling hook and deal heavy damage if the player can toss one into the eye
Weapons
Dumbfire Missile Improvements
This missile was always intended to do splash damage, which has been added.
Overall damage has been increased to be viable alternative to Lock-On missiles which should be weaker individually.
Explosion graphics have been tweaked to be more visible.
Enemy Weapon Aiming Improved
Quadratic formula for leading shots from turrets and other aimed weapons have been improved by exposing data elements for projectile speed so that instance-level speed changes are taken into account when aiming.
Held Weapon: Vulcan Cannon
Added a projectile hit effect
Fixed barrel smoke effect positioning
Held Weapon: Heavy Laser
Orientation of laser hit effect has been corrected.
Enemy Missiles (Missile Cruiser and Missile Turret)
Splash damage when shot by player now damages enemies instead of player (the cause of many unexplained player deaths in Shipyard!)
All Grazed Bullets (including grappling hook grazes)
Much higher velocity
Improved visual effect trail and added "Pew" sound to make it more obvious
Damage slightly higher.
Level Loading
Tilemap data is now loaded asynchronously, saving a lot of performance overhead when loading sections of stages
Enemies
All Turrets that aim now use Purple Bullets, which helps player see aimed shots
Hangar Pod
Added Damaged effect to Hangar when < 50% health
Fixed and issue where Hangar Drone's Stage Clear icon was incorrect
Fixed an Issue where the Hangar would not flash when taking damage
Processing Facility Mini-boss
Containers have been made smaller, and are know grab-able with grappling hook.
Fixed an issue where Boss Cores on Crane Miniboss would not flash when taking damage.
Fixed an issue where Bombs were not fully affecting the Cores
Fixed an issue where Counterweight visual element on crane would sometimes appear behind some background objects.
Turret HP adjusted down slightly
Bug fixes and Refinements
Fixed issue where D-PAD stopped working in menus
Fixed an issue with all explosions where particles would move in the Z axis causing particles to disappear when passing through background elements.
When receiving a game over, player is now prompted to submit their score if applicable - a message is shown if no high score is allowed due to using continues, etc.
Throwing velocities have been raised across the board
Fixed and issue where Asteroid Debris visuals were too small
Fixed issue where player was not invulnerable during the "Stage Clear" screen
Added Mission Complete and Mission Failed screens, along with fanfare for success
Fixed an issue where some enemies were not checking for "Bullet Sealing" when player was too close
New system for creating parallax backgrounds which follow splines and retain accurate scaling.
Added additional Shader effects to handle Foreground elements using a "Fake" 3D effect
Improved instantiation time of many large environmental objects
New firing system allows for more dynamic firing configurations for weapons (such as multiple different projectile types in the same volley)
Fixed an issue with Mouse+Keyboard/Gamepad switch where gamepads with Accelerometers would prevent the mouse from ever showing up.
Game Timeline velocity improvements - smoother and simplified API control
Stage intro camera Hand-off improvements
Dialogue System now supports branching dialogue paths (which are triggered when player fails/passes stages or completes certain activities)
Fixed an issue with parallax elements in the background not appearing where they were intended
Fixed an issue with world collision damage not respecting damage cooldown timer
Fixed an issue where the Processing Facility could prevent the Jet boss from controlling the Timeline Velocity if defeated too quickly.
Fixed an issue where Score Pickup trails were "popping in" and visually mixing with projectiles.
Fixed an issue where Power-Ups would "pop" from their intended spawn position when the game camera was rotated.
Fixed an issue where thrown objects would push Power-Ups
Fixed a collision issue with some asteroid walls not blocking projectiles.
Screen Vertical size allowance has been adjusted to be slightly smaller (this real-estate was not being used, and caused more camera tweening than necessary).
Fixed an issue where bullets were not fading out when cleared by bombs or boss defeat
Debris from enemies now (mostly) matches the color of the enemy destroyed.