Developer postOriginal post (opens in a new tab)

Neon Chrome Release Candidate 1

The latest update is the very first release candidate of Neon Chrome. We will update before the release - at least the MOTD and some other details but for the most part this is very final.

The biggest change is the "post unlock" behavior. I'll tell you the whole story.

First we implemented unlocks a couple of months ago in the final phases of main production. First the unlock pool was global and all unlocks weree pulled from there. This was the most basic implementation of unlocks we wanted to have, but we iterated on that.

After playing a while we decide we wanted to control the pacing of unlocks so that we could have more radical stuff in the game without too severe impact: Some stuff which unlocks late game makes the early levels much easier. So the unlocks were tied to chapters. This mean chapters started running "out of unlocks" at some point. We decided to give stat upgrades from chapters with all unlocks done. The other option was to stop spawning unlock terminals, but we think the game is more fun with them: The joy of discovery!

However, after playing that version it started to become clear that the unlock terminals become super valuable when stat upgrade costs raised higher and higher as you improved the stats. For maxing out the easiest way was to farm the terminals from early chapters. This is something we didn't want to encourage that radically.

So just a few days ago we changed the unlock terminals to increase the stat cap as many beta testers have asked for that and we also wanted to give the really advanced players more stuff to play with. That didn't feel right either for early game.

So, today we changed it hopefully for the last time. Now the unlock terminals usually give you a chance to change your ability during the game (something people wanted too) or money. Some terminals give you a stat upgrade - but that's much rarer. Also, after you max out a stat, some terminals give you a stat cap upgrade. We feel that this is the combination we've been looking for :)

Anyways, have fun!

Change list below, mostly bug fixes.

  • The player can now always destroy shooter mines with a melee attack.
  • Made a couple of special stages slightly easier.
  • Removed parenting from a wall turret in Hospital.
  • Fixed caretaker move animation speed
  • Raised the railgun damage a bit.
  • Modified unlock terminal behavior when there are nothing to unlock.
  • Airship should not pop in any more, spawned much further away
  • Total play time is now correctly updated after the player has finished the game.
  • Now micro missiles never target companion drones.
  • Made the softa slightly lower to prevent player from lifting barrel
  • Added death tips for Spiderboss variants.
  • Fixed an error with getSQRandInt() - might have caused music and variant spawn bugs
  • Slowdown field does not show effects for cryocasks anymore.
  • Only player owned explosives spawn submunitions now
  • Spideroid limits lowered for a bit less spideroids
  • The map screen now says Generating instead of Loading when generating levels.
  • There is now a small delay before player's mines activate ( you can sneak plant mines).
  • Fixed problem with crossbow model
  • Removed some repetitious stages from special stage list.
  • Caretaker's name is now Caretaker.
  • Lit up some crates in hovertank battle to avoid accidental collisions
  • Exploding bullet should not hurt the owner anymore
  • Fixed a crash bug that rarely appeared when a hovertank killed a player.
  • Removed bad low walls
  • Shrapnel actor has a better name
  • Main menu buttons centered
  • Stat screen fix
  • Removed vibration checkbox from options (not implemented yet)
  • Achievement rewards are not shown as collected credits in the death screen statistics anymore.
  • Gen1 back in warehouse
  • Bug with orphaned exploding bullets fixed
  • Dead actor props are updated on death even when they die outside the screen.
  • Smoothed choppy loop from char sheet idle animation
  • Adjusted assault rifle firing sound
  • Added a simple stand and backside to the wall turret model
  • Fixed a crash bug related to a grenade launcher.
  • Fixed some potential bugs.
  • Music should be different in subsequent levels
  • Fixed hologuys lighting (and all skinned models which had the old self_illuminated flag).