Happy Holiday Season!
Week 4 Update is here, bringing Ship Color Customization, two new throwable objects - the Fuel Cell and Larva Sac; plus more enhancements to throwing enemies!
Ship Color Customization
Players can now select a ship color on the Ship Selection screen, this system also allows for unlocks so that we can add unlockable ship colors for challenges, achievements or completing stages in the future.
Throwing Improvements
Some mechanical and visual updates to throwing have been introduced with this update, and more work is still being done on the scoring and hyper power mechanics for chain-reaction rewards.
While holding down the throw button, the held object/enemy will begin flashing faster and faster. This provides a much needed indication of the throw strength
Top-end throw speed has been raised from a default of 12 to 16 (33% boost).
Rebound strength of thrown enemies raised, allowing for more chain reaction kills.
A majority of enemies that bounce off others while dying will hurt other enemies they hit, even while in their death animation.
Two new throwable objects
Fuel Cell - Highly explosive, whether thrown or shot - this fuel will ignite and cause a large explosion causing heavy damage to enemies in a large area.
Larva Sac - A squishy sac of alien larva, it is slightly resistant to energy weapons. You'll find this object in the alien areas of Shipyard 7.
More objects incoming!
In Cosmic Destroyer you are a member of a salvage team, Squad 86 - the team that cleans up the big messes and searches through debris fields, picking out the valuable scrap. That very scrap and salvage becomes your greatest weapon. I want to embrace that as much as possible with each iteration and improvement to the game. More variety in pickable, grabbable and throwable objects will continue to be released in each update, and that will also include enemy debris from destroyed enemies that can be used.
Grabbing a piece of flaming wreckage to create even more chaos is something that feels just so right for Cosmic Destroyer!
Other Changes and Bug Fixes
Additional background asteroids
Additional background visuals at the exit gate of Stage 1
Fixed some issues with sounds not assigned to mixing groups
Fixed score screen readouts to more accurately reflect killed enemy counts
Fixed an issue where the Gunboat rotating turret was not working
Rocket Explosions have had their layer adjusted to avoid being hidden by some backgrounds
Fixed an issue where the death effect of Muncher enemies was not being spawned in some cases.
Fixed an issue where some visuals in the Command area were being hidden by walls.
Fixed an issue with the Shielded Cruiser's engine graphic showing on top of the ship intermittently.
Fixed tutorial spotlight which was not playing it's destruction animation.
December Release Planning
Planning two more releases this month
December 18th - Target for tutorial updates and chain reaction scoring mechanics
December 30th - Target for hyper abilities first release & new cinematic
This doesn't mean other releases won't happen, just that I know this month's schedule is a bit tight with the holidays, travel, etc.
Still in the works
Hyper Abilities
Chain Scoring
Tutorial rework
Intro cinematic art and sound assets
New song(s)
Refining in Public test
Expanded joystick support