After a long time in the oven, Update V3 is finally out. It's been a long time coming, but I am finally ready to call this 10 year passion project of mine complete.
This update could almost be called a complete overhaul, as almost every aspect of the game got tweaked or completely replaced. Honestly, I'm not sure I even remember what all has changed, so here is a mostly comprehensive list of what's new.
New Features
- Hub World - Instead of a main menu, the game now has a hub world, where you can fly around and select loadouts in relative safety.
- Meta Progression - There is now some light meta progression, allowing you to boost your baseline strength, and unlock some navigation features.
- Navigation Map - You can now toggle an ARPG style map overlay, which can toggle between follow and pan mode. You can buy upgrades to expand what the map shows, such as enemies and resources.
- Upgrades -When selecting upgrades, you will now be presented with 3 upgrades to choose from, to add a bit of strategy.
- Level Progression - the level progression is a lot more straight forward now, and less dependent on finding one specific map feature.
- Ending - The game now has a proper ending cinematic, as well as a secret final boss. (hint, pay attention to where the navigation beacons point when you activate them)
- Steam Achievements - There are some steam achievements.
- Content - New enemies, new terrain, new hazards.
Note that the original narrative has been removed. Writing has never been my forte, and some of the assets were maybe not quite as open license as I thought.
I also just remembered that I left some of the debug options I used when testing, but I'm sure I can trust you to not abuse them, right?
Looking back
Before I sign off, I will leave you with a quick look at the past, at what the original tech demo looked like when I first started working on it as a university project.
The time sure flies, huh?
