The first EA update for Void Vikings is here! We wanted to explain some of the changes we've made so you get an idea of what we're thinking about the game.
Currently VV emphasizes a lot of enemy avoidance at higher difficulty levels. This can cause the game to become somewhat stale/repetitive. In order to address this we've added health/shield drops. These will linger for a short time and then expire, meaning if you want them, you'll have to get into the fray. This should allow players to play in the middle of a swarm more effectively.
Another big issue we wanted to tackle was upgrading your ship. Previously we had some icon randomization on the items that could make it very hard to find an upgrade of the same component type. This meant players either didn't have their best equipment equipped, or they spent too long trying to sort the equipment out. The items now have static icons which should make finding an upgrade for a particular type much easier. There are still item balance issues we want to address, but we think this makes the upgrade portion of the game much smoother.
We want to continually make improvements to the visuals of the game, and to that end we've made a few changes in 1.5.01. First off we've added a warp in effect for enemies, so you'll get a small "preview" of what's coming your way as the enemies show up. We've also added a more dramatic death sequence for our boss ship, so that destroying it feels a little more special.
Data! We want it, you have it, we'd like to borrow it with your permission! We've added code to the game that lets us know how people are playing. It's completely optional, and no personal information is sent. You can enable/disable this in the setting menu.
Finally we've got a number of bug fixes included in 1.5.01 that should smooth out some rough edges.
What's coming up?
We want to give you some idea of what we're focusing on next. These plans are heavily driven by feedback from the community, so be sure to let us know what you want us to focus on.
The next big item is controller support and it's a good bit of work to do. We don't have an ETA for you atm, but we're planning on it being included in the next update.
Patch list:
- Added health (shield and armor) drops from destroyed enemies.
- Added a "warp in" effect for enemy ships.
- Added a "death spiral" for the boss ships.
- Use just a single item icon for each item to make them easy to differentiate.
- Rework the score multiplier to "decay" slower.
- Increase afterburner default fuel to 75 (from 50).
- Fixed bug where health bar would show health after death.
- Improved visuals on some menus at higher resolutions.
- Misc small bug fixes.