Rare Grid Events, New Mutations, Extermination Protocol & 7 New Languages
This is one of the larger updates to the demo so far.
It adds 10 Rare Grid Events, several new mutations, upgrades and curses, a new timed combat objective, new Anomaly unlocks, additional story interactions, major control and interface changes, and full support for seven additional languages.
10 New Rare Grid Events
Rare Grid Events can now interrupt the normal flow of a level with temporary opportunities, challenges and rewards.
Each event has its own rules instead of simply adding another pickup to the board.
Coin Storm
An 8-coin route appears on the board.
The coins expire progressively, so you need to follow the route before it disappears.
Coin Storm is also used as the first guaranteed introduction to the Rare Grid Event system.
Marked Prey
One reachable moving enemy becomes marked for 10 seconds.
Kill that specific enemy before the timer expires to claim the bounty.
Anomaly Drop
An Anomaly Cache can now drop into a reachable location during a level after the Rare Event timer reaches 30 seconds.
You have to leave your normal route and reach the cache before the opportunity disappears.
This event is unlocked through progression rather than being available immediately.
Golden Echo
After the event activates, cells vacated by your tail temporarily turn into coins.
This means the route you just travelled becomes a short-lived reward path behind you.
Jackpot Line
A reachable row or column of the grid becomes a temporary jackpot.
The coins remain available for 5 seconds, giving you a short window to redirect your route and collect as many as possible.
Time Breach
Enemy actions are frozen for 6 seconds, but the level's survival pressure continues.
Five reachable temporal coins also appear on the board during the breach.
Coin Comet
A comet targets a safe location on the board.
When it lands, it releases 8 coins in four directions from the impact point.
You have 5 seconds to collect them before they disappear.
Crown Run
A crown appears on the board and you have 10 seconds to reach it.
Collecting the crown starts an 8-second bonus-drop phase.
Golden Pinball
A golden projectile performs 3 telegraphed bounces from the edges of the board.
Each bounce produces a wave of 2-4 temporary coin drops.
Vault Break
A vault appears with 3 locks.
Break all 3 locks within 14 seconds to complete the event and receive a 20-40 coin payout.
Active Rare Grid Events are also preserved when a run is saved and continued.
New Mutations, Upgrades and Curses
Several new mechanics have been added, with a strong focus on builds that reward movement, positioning and speed.
Kinetic Charge
Every 10 cells travelled gives you 1 Kinetic Charge, up to a maximum of 3.
At 3 charges, your next physical contact with an enemy consumes all charges:
You take no damage from that contact.
Any normal enemy dies immediately, including shielded and armored enemies.
A boss loses 1 HP instead, and the shield plate you hit is destroyed.
Projectiles and hazards do not activate Kinetic Charge.
Doppler Strike
Entering a cell directly next to an enemy marks the side you approached from for 5 seconds.
Reach the opposite side of that enemy before the mark expires to trigger Doppler Strike.
It deals:
2 damage to normal enemies.
1 damage to bosses.
This turns positioning around enemies into an offensive mechanic rather than simply something to avoid.
Apex Turn
Making a successful 90-degree turn that ends directly next to an enemy stuns that enemy for 1 second.
Each enemy can trigger Apex Turn once.
Bosses can also be stunned.
While stunned, the enemy's actions and attacks currently being prepared are paused. Projectiles and hazards that already exist on the board continue normally.
Temporal Overdraft
A new curse built around borrowing time now and paying for it immediately afterwards.
Every 15 normal board moves:
Time freezes for exactly 2 seconds.
After the freeze ends, enemies move at 1.5x speed for 2 seconds.
Velocity Dividend
A new Legendary upgrade that ties your economy directly to your movement speed.
Positive Score and Coin gains during a run are multiplied by your current movement-speed multiplier.
The current multiplier is shown in the build/status interface.
Pruned Timeline
Rerolling a standard reward selection now has a permanent consequence:
Every currently visible card is removed from standard reward drafts for the rest of that run.
Replacement cards are then rolled one rarity tier higher.
Repeated rerolls can therefore improve the rarity of what you see while permanently shrinking the pool of upgrades still available to your build.
Soul Anchor
Soul Anchor can now recover an additional charge if you survive for 60 seconds in a level after using one.
This recovery can happen once per level, allowing the charge to be restored again in later levels if you survive long enough.
Meteor Tail
Meteor Tail has been added as a new Fire Tail evolution.
It becomes available through Anomaly progression at Anomaly Level 15.
New Objective: Extermination Protocol
Levels can now use a new timed combat objective called Extermination Protocol.
Instead of simply surviving or reaching an exit, you must kill the required enemies before the countdown expires.
The available time can vary between Extermination Protocol encounters.
The objective now has dedicated kill-progress and timer feedback, and early versions guarantee an appropriate enemy spawn so the objective cannot become impossible because of random enemy generation.
Locked exits also now tell you which active objective still needs to be completed instead of only displaying a generic locked message.
Anomaly Progression Changes
Several progression changes have been made alongside the new mechanics.
Field Research now unlocks at Anomaly Level 11.
Meteor Tail unlocks at Anomaly Level 15.
Phase Shed and Rapid Combo have exchanged their positions in the unlock progression.
Patch Contraband has been moved to an easier unlock requirement.
Incorrect curse values displayed in the Anomaly Track have been corrected.
The Anomaly Signal on the main menu now shows more than just progress toward the next unlock.
It displays the next unlock's icon, name and a short description of what that unlock actually does.
The Anomaly Track itself has also been reorganized so reward categories, names, tradeoffs and progression states are easier to distinguish.
More Patch and Gridmaster Interactions
Patch and Gridmaster now react to more situations during a run.
Patch Rescue
The first time an eligible profile reaches 1 HP, Patch can now send a Heart directly onto the board.
The Heart appears in a reachable location and has its own delivery animation and sound.
It does not heal you automatically - you still need to reach and collect it.
Objective Introductions
Patch now has a one-time introduction for the Score objective so its rules are explained when the player first encounters it.
More Gridmaster Reactions
After the first-death story interaction has already happened, Gridmaster can now react to later deaths as well.
A repeat death line has a 25% chance to play, and additional retry lines have been added to reduce repetition.
A new one-time story interaction has also been added for reaching the final boss for the first time on a profile.
Movement and Input Changes
Snake's direction buffering has been simplified.
Only one future direction can now be queued.
For example, rapidly pressing several directions before Snake moves no longer creates a long sequence of delayed turns that continues executing after you have changed your mind.
Pressing the direction Snake is already travelling also no longer fills or interferes with the input queue.
Input after bouncing from a side wall has also been fixed so a buffered turn is handled correctly after the bounce.
Combat Feedback
Enemy reactions now better communicate the direction they were hit from.
Gatekeeper movement now has clearer intent telegraphing, and its teleport sequence has received additional visual and timing improvements.
Enemy death-cause feedback has also been made more noticeable so it is easier to understand which mechanic actually killed an enemy.
Safer Level Starts
Level generation now guarantees a safer opening area around the player's starting position.
You should no longer begin a level immediately trapped by an unsafe obstacle or hazard arrangement.
The initial direction of the Snake is also aligned correctly with its body when the level starts.
Camera and Board Visibility
The camera and adaptive board zoom have been adjusted to keep the playable board visible without unnecessarily zooming too far out.
Excessive edge padding has been reduced, and board framing is now based more closely on the actual playable area.
Adaptive zoom has also been made less aggressive.
Loading Screens Now Show Your Run
Loading screens now display useful information instead of functioning only as transition screens.
When starting a new run, they show:
Your selected class.
Difficulty.
When continuing an existing run, they can also show:
Current health.
Objective progress.
A compact summary of your current build.
Faster Codex Access
The Codex now prepares its resources while you are already in the menu.
Once initialized, the same Codex view can also be reused when you return to it.
This reduces the hitch that could previously happen when opening the Codex for the first time or reopening it repeatedly.
Options Menu Overhaul
The Options screen has received a substantial usability and accessibility update.
The main tabs are now ordered:
General -> Audio -> Video -> Accessibility
with the remaining categories following them.
Better Settings Search
The Options search can now find settings using more than an exact setting name.
It can search through:
Setting names.
Categories.
Current values.
Possible values.
Alternative terms and aliases.
Search is also more tolerant of small spelling mistakes, accents and diacritics.
Short two-letter searches are supported, and Advanced sections can temporarily expand when they contain a matching setting.
The search field also keeps focus while the result list is being filtered.
Better Tooltips
Options tooltips have been rewritten and fully localized.
They now stay close to the mouse pointer with a small offset instead of covering the cursor.
Moving between related controls no longer repeatedly restarts the tooltip animation.
Longer descriptions now use paragraph spacing, while unnecessary headings have been removed from short descriptions.
Accessibility and Scaling
Visual preset cards now resize correctly with UI text scaling, including at 150%.
Contrast and readability have been improved across the Options menu.
The layout has also been adjusted so settings remain accessible on smaller and more compact display sizes.
Controller Improvements
Confirming a text field with a controller now deliberately opens the platform's on-screen keyboard where supported.
Text fields also show controller-specific keyboard hints.
This applies to interfaces such as the progress-reset confirmation as well as normal text input.
Visual Readability Changes
Heart pickups have been made larger and easier to see on the board.
The revive screen's Score presentation has been corrected.
Score-related iconography has been made more consistent.
The Points Multiplier pickup received updated artwork matching its Codex representation.
Several Anomaly Track icons and panels have been redesigned for better readability.
7 New Languages
Seven additional full localizations have been added:
Korean
Turkish
Czech
Spanish - Latin America
Hungarian
Traditional Chinese - Taiwan
Thai
The new localizations cover the game interface and gameplay text, with the localization systems also updated for language-specific formatting, fonts and Steam achievement text where required.
Other Fixes
This update also includes fixes to save/continue behavior for the new systems, localization switching, compact-resolution layouts, reward displays, controller navigation and several smaller gameplay presentation issues.
Thanks to everyone playing the demo and sending feedback.
Keep breaking the grid.