Hello again, my Beetle Brethren.
It has been almost a month since the game's release, and I've received some great feedback from players on ways to improve the game experience. Thank you all for your support!
As promised, Version 0.1.8 comes with a bunch of new content! Let's break down the main stuff:
We have 2 new Battle stages:
Courtyard: This is the biggest stage yet, but its also comparatively less dense than previous large stages. Instead, this stage highlights some new stage features I'm experimenting with. I have updated this stage and some previous maps with new dedicated item zones. This keeps the stages from feeling repetitive with the same items spawning everywhere, and hopefully will drive players towards high interest targets. In addition, there are now Item Requirement Gates, which divide stages into sections. This will open up the stage at later parts of a map and allow the progression of a match feel more dynamic.
Canopy: This is another arena-style stage, however, with more emphasis on aerial maneuvering and shooting. And to help with shooting, we now have a one-item shooting solution, the Bombardier! Players have been asking for a Bombardier beetle since I first announced the game. I hope this large ally makes shoot out fights more accessible.
In addition there are 2 new Challenge stages added. One acts as a crash course towards drifting, and the other is a more classic approach to the "roll em up, get items" style game. Give it a try!
As for items, a majority of the added items are there just to give some needed variety. One item has been changed, the ice block. Now, when traversing over water, the ice block will freeze the water beneath your ball! Neat, right?
There are a couple new Cosmetic items available now too, that I'm pretty fond of myself.
Last and probably least, I have updated the Leaderboard system used for Challenge stages and Shoot & Stir. The previous system would have loading/upload issues for reasons out of my control, so now we are using Steam's native Leaderboards. This means any players' old scores will be wiped, so if anyone is really precious about preserving their score from when they lost at level 3 in Shoot & Stir, let me know.
That's all for now! This update took a lot of effort and testing, and so I will be taking a break with the updates for now (with the exception of crucial bug fixing). As always, feedback is more than welcome, and let's get dung battling!