# Alpha 2.0.0 — Game loop & presentation overhaul

This release refocuses the run around clearer objectives, richer rewards, and stronger combat feedback. Vending machines and ATMs are now priced, tracked objectives; endless mode and boss pressure have been retuned; menus and reward overlays match the new loop; and a large performance pass keeps dense fights smoother.

## New run objectives & economy

- **Vending machines** use priced stock: activation, charge-up juice, silhouette while pending, purchase SFX, and safer shop-close flow.
- **ATM objectives** with HUD tracking, markers, and a jackpot-style reward overlay (free three-pick with a guaranteed Rare+ lane).
- **Run stats** now record ATM completions and vending/ATM item claims; City vending quests align with the new metrics.
- **Elite encounters** telegraph powerup drops (Cool Glasses, Gold Boost, Frenzy, Nuke), with spawn scaling and hardened pooled-elite cleanup.
- **Gold Boost** powerup with overlay feedback; economy tweaks including softer contact damage, boosted gold rewards in places, and item sell-value adjustments.
- **Boss reward flow** and briefcase placement improvements; Key handling in vending (e.g. unsellable / free where intended).

## Combat, weapons & abilities

- **Noob Tube** cluster projectile with explosion mechanics; ongoing tuning (range, lifetime) and hold-to-fire on the Rocket Launcher.
- **Engineer kit**: sentry fire-rate improvements, dual-deploy flow fixes, explosion falloff and crit propagation, shotgun travel falloff, and projectile explosion damage scaling from final shot damage.
- **Pistol**: Bubble Shield visual rework (spherical electric look) and Ultra Bubble Shield shockwaves; Ion Infusion lasers scale range and beam thickness with upgraded VFX.
- **Explosions & crits**: edge-weighted falloff, crit flags through pooled paths, faction-aware damage (enemy vs player), and fixes so cone-copy shots do not duplicate item procs.
- **Item proc rules**: combat hits tagged (projectile vs AoE) so e.g. Golden Apple Core respects true projectile hits; gating fixes for hit-origin procs.
- **Weapon swap**: swap lockout removed where intended, reload state persists across weapons, and held-fire preserved across swaps.

## Endless mode & difficulty

- **Director / endless structure**: five one-minute waves per endless stage, boss spawns at minutes 2/3/4, separate overtime pressure steps (+HP, +damage, +speed, visual escalation) on newly spawned enemies; endless bosses keep fixed HP/damage profiles.
- **HUD & scheduling**: endless wave labeling and boss scheduling aligned with the five-minute flow (no longer masking every wave as "SURVIVE").
- **Life steal & kill hooks**: re-subscribe after continue into endless; Fury/Dash Strike and prestige melee paths tolerate combat vs death events without double-counting.
- **Balance**: increased endless pressure and boss projectile threat scaling; global powerup cadence reduced; selective nerfs to explosive shell splash crit stacking and rocket reload scaling from upgrades.

## UI, menus & reward "juice"

- **Menus & theme**: refreshed main menus, overlays, and presentation for the new game loop.
- **Vending, ATM, briefcase**: unified perspective-fall reward overlays, rarity flashes, slam-style entrances, shop purchase impact, and polish passes on reels, collect actions, and cursor sparks.
- **Level-up**: transparent card styling and calmer entrance; reward flows aligned with ATM/vending.
- **Breakables & pickups**: more reliable breakable rewards (fallback when burst FX cannot spawn), heart pickup visuals aligned with the HUD.

## Accessibility & clarity

- **Settings**: Control-only UI theme presets, colorblind-safer accents, adjustable cursor size, and optional cursor themes.
- **Gameplay cursor**: default pointer art, weapon-aware crosshair (including rocket crosshair), main-menu cursor flicker fix.
- **City objectives**: larger marker pools with randomized vending and ATM placement each stage reset.

## Performance & stability

- **Combat VFX & pooling**: optimized hot paths; burst-load smoothing (enemy pool validity caching, staggered boss spawns, bounded VFX/audio per frame).
- **Pickups & explosions**: event-driven pickup rendering where possible, batched XP/gold grants, smoke shedding under load, cached explosion services in heavy abilities.
- **Transitions**: hardened stage transitions and objective flows against stale node races and async/tween edge cases.
- **Boss arena**: player collision/hurtbox alignment with main levels; fixes for boss hits and heavy weapon tuning.

## Progression data

- Updated **progression and upgrade data** for the new game loop (including ATM/vending integration).