Apologies for the silence over the past little while. I wanted to get a few smaller games under my belt, and now that I've done that (Cosmic Ray, Brainmelter Deluxe, Super Rocket Ride) I will be switching back to TOXICANT as my primary focus.
You may have also noticed the name change from Undermine to TOXICANT. This was due to the fact that there was another game being developed by the name of UnderMine and I didn't want to create confusion. (that game looks great, BTW, check it out!)
So what's the deal?
I've done a few sprints over the past year or so and made some solid headway. The biggest one entailed upgrading the game engine and moving to a more of a retro style (grittier point-sampled textures). You'll notice the screenshots on the store page reflect this new aesthetic, and I'm quite happy with it:
I've also done some work on the combat: I've added a "shielding" mechanic for melee weapons, improved animations, hit detection, etc. Somewhere along the way I also greatly expanded the capabilities of beacons, adding a dedicated "beacon launcher" and multiple beacon modes (radar, explosive, freeze).
More recently, I've been exploring the idea of switching to multi-floor procedural level generation. I think this will open up some interesting new possibilities, such as some light back-tracking to unlock items that were initially inaccessible, stock up on supplies, etc.
So what comes next?
This game has been in a playable state for about two years, so my top priority continues to be launching in early access as quickly as possible. I will most likely be doing a soft-launch early access on Itch, so do follow me over there if you're interested in that. The purpose of this soft-launch will be an expanded alpha test of sorts, with the mainstream early access to follow on Steam shortly thereafter.
If you're looking to see how things are unfolding, your best bet is to follow the TIGForums devlog. I've also been streaming development regularly, and posting highlights to YouTube.
Last but not least, don't forget to join the official Cosmocat Discord to stay up to date about my games and chat with other players about the things that matter in life (mostly: games, beer, cats and music).
Thanks for your patience as I try to wrangle what is my most ambitious project to date! I'm confident it will be worth the long wait 🙂