Hi everyone!
This is a relatively small update, although it contains A LOT of important bug fixes and improvements. Apart from that, it contains some neat additions, such as a new laboratory, reworked character models, and a couple of new quests and locations. Without further ado, let's talk about a couple of important changes.
Just as a quick request. Please don't forget to leave a review if you haven't done it already. The game just reached 200 reviews (thank you guys for that), and my personal goal is to hit 500 reviews in the next month or so. I'm reading every single one of them, so yeah, it'll be a huge deal even if you'll leave just a single "good"/"bad" word.
Characters Rework
Thanks to Ink Ribbon's character models that I carefully reworked and retextured, all of the interactable characters now have a new look.
While it is mostly just a cosmetic change, it was really necessary in order to push the story forward since it requires new and unique characters. Besides... some places in the game truly required a proper cosmetic improvement, so no more potato face for a doctor.
Story Continuation
New transmissions are now available after the Red Forest biome, which includes a little push towards the conclusion of a story. I'm planning to have multiple endings for the game, so expect a small branching in a way to complete the quest.
New Location: Bar
One of the problems I faced when adding new quests is that I literally have no place to put quest characters, so I needed to create some sort of a location that will act as a "place to find stuff to do." Currently there is only one new quest available in this place, but expect a lot more characters to come.
New Location: Bay
Currently it is a bit empty, but it'll be used for a couple of quests and story endings. As of now, it is just a place to roam around and collect a bit of loot.
New Laboratory
New laboratory with new lore and a bit of loot. Expect a lot of hostile creatures that would love to chew on some random miner (you).
Notable QOL improvements
- Added 3 additional inventory slots (to a total of 5).
It is finally here. More instrument slots will ease the gameplay and provide a player with more opportunities for what he will bring underground.
- Peaceful Mode no longer disables hostile creatures. They will not attack the player and just roam around instead.
Thank you for this suggestion. Since the majority of new items from the past update are dropped by creatures, it was really wrong locking all of this new content for people who just want to chill without hostile creatures.
- Quests now display a place where you can claim the reward (so no more guessing who gave you the quest).
It was extremely needed. New players couldn't find a quest giver, and it was a bit frustrating.
- Updated experience formula. 50-70% harder to gain experience on early levels but A LOT easier to gain experience past level 50.
It is extremely questionable and probably needs to be improved. Early-game perk points will be a lot harder to get, but since now the formula is not exponential, you will never face a moment where you'll need 1 billion experience for just one level.
- Added 1 new ambience soundtrack to a total of 3.
Slowly but surely Colony 37 will have a full soundtrack album; I've listened to the new soundtrack quite a lot of times already, and ... it has good vibes :) Besides, there is one additional soundtrack by Alexey Gudimov in a bar area; this one is a bit more on the jazz/rock side of things, but it suits the place.
Other Changes
- New Weapon: Mining Laser (available in random item rotation for late-game robot traders).
- New Weapon: Defense Pistol (available as a quest reward).
- Fixed an issue that caused laboratory crates to be invincible.
- Added new filter option "Support Instruments" (moved all of the corresponding instruments in this category).
- Fixed Extractor not showing recycled items after interaction.
- Fixed all of the flashlights.
- Fixed Anti-Rad point showing wrong description.
- First boss health increased from 25 to 600 (it was not intended to be one-shot).
- Auto Sell and Portable Extractor now properly display resource names.
- Flamethrower fire no longer damages the player.
- Helmets no longer respawn.
- Laboratories now close after 20 seconds of leaving them instead of immediately.
- AntiRad Chip MK-4 radiation removal changed from 0.016 to 0.02.
- AntiRad Chip MK-5 now gives 50% incoming radiation reduction.
- Fixed the majority of ranged weapons not being instant (bullets will fire immediately after pressing the attack button).
- Helmets are now affected by filtering options.
- Added a quest that allows you to upgrade rusty climbing boots to overclocked climbing boots.
- New item: "Overclocked Climbing Boots." Increases wall climbing by 25 seconds.
- Electrolyte solution free energy chance increased from 0.25 to 0.33.
- Minor texture improvements.
- Instruments no longer cast shadows (fixes weird flashlight behavior).
- Improved left "Quests" and "Stats" loadout buttons.
- Updated vision range for a couple of creatures (late-game creatures will spot the player further away).
- Notifications will now properly appear in paused menus.
- The conversation panel now also pauses time.
- Added an ability to disable the merchant's radio.
- Fixed single-use placeable instruments causing animation issues.
- Updated elevator behavior. Now it starts and ends smoothly.
- If the elevator reaches the surface, it will stop at the surface level, not 2 blocks below it.
- Laboratory elevators now work smoothly.
- Added transmissions for remaining biomes.
- Fixed foliage and clutter objects being invincible to projectiles.
- Robot Trader's possible item count increased from 2-3 to 3-5.
- Extractors now pull all of the resources from the player until the player has zero resources or the extractor is full.
- The sound detector now properly stops pinging if a treasure was already collected.
- Fixed unloaded blocks having pitch-black sides (slightly fixed multiple instances of block sides being black).
- Updated optimization when destroying multiple blocks at the same time.
- Fixed "Rank" panel slider not showing actual value.
- Slightly updated "Rank" panel.
- Elevators now spawn at the top if at the start of the game (no need to call them up each time).
Future Plans
I've been testing a lot of stuff out about the game behind the curtains, and... expect Oxygen Consumption to be completely removed in the next patch. In previous versions it was needed to provide a player with some sort of a threat that he has to look out for, and it was working fine for the previous scope of the game, but now... especially with the addition of creatures, it feels like the game outgrew this mechanic, and it is just straight up annoying. I'd rather focus on creatures and other unique ways to challenge the player rather than keeping this timer.
Additionally, I'm still working on upgrade system that should hopefully give a player a lot of new opportunities to use weak items.
All in all, I'll work really hard in the next couple of weeks to provide the new update (and not a month later), since September 23 will be a year since Colony 37 was released to Early Access. I'll talk about it in the future, but as of now, hopefully you will enjoy this QOL update.