This is literally the biggest update. Here's what's new:
ALTERNATE ART STYLE
Contains an alternate "cartoon" art style, selectable from the main menu. Changes the look of all minions to a simpler and more expressive style.
STEAM ACHIEVEMENTS
Swarm Queen finally has Steam achievements! (55 of them, to be precise.)
VISIBLE ENEMY "EMOTIONS"
Did you know that the enemy does not (usually) cheat? She collects nectar and mutates her eggs just like you. She has to evaluate the situation to determine what to spend her resources on. But this wasn't very obvious to the player.. until now!
You can now see the enemy Queen's "opinion" about her economy (Harvesters), army size, and egg mutation level.
While we're at it, I noticed a lot of players spending time counting the enemy Harvesters to compare with your own. So this number is now also visible to the player.
"EASY" DIFFICULTY
The new "Easy" difficulty setting is available after level 2, and it functions as the opposite of "Hard"; instead of upgrading the enemy Harvesters to provide +1 nectar, it upgrades yours.
(BUT you can't get "3 stars" on a level unless you complete it on "Normal" or higher.)
TRANSLATIONS
The game has now been professionally translated into several languages!
(简体中文, Español, Português do Brasil, Deutsch, Русский)
If you're reading this (in English), it's probably not a huge deal. But I think it's cool.
MISC UPDATES
MAP AND MENU
All menu screens have gone through an additional art pass, and they look a bit more spiffy.
UNIT ANIMATIONS
Some of the unit animations have always annoyed me, so the worst offenders have been redone or improved. For example:
ABILITIES TARGETING
Neurotoxin now clearly shows the max range, and after firing Neurotoxin or Bio-Nuke, they now show where they will hit.
BALANCE CHANGES
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Minions:
- Waddle Rocket area damage increased to 25 (from 20)
- Smartbug Launcher armor increased to 1 (from 0)
- Sky Queen health lowered to 180 (from 225)
- Sky Queen rate of Zapper production lowered slightly Levels:
- Level 15: enemy no longer has Neurotoxin or Bio-Nuke
- Level 18: enemy no longer has flying minions
SWARM QUEEN HISTORY
Swarm Queen is a one-man indie project that was released with no publisher or publicity, and not much attention initially. However, thanks to 🙂players like you🙂, and a few gaming YouTubers who liked the game, Swarm Queen has been gradually increasing in popularity ever since release. This is the opposite of the pattern that most games see, where they get most of their new players in the first few months, and then it calms down.
For my first commercial release, this steady increase in new players has been pretty encouraging, and it has encouraged continued updates, such as this "biggest" one.
So, thanks for your support and feedback!
-Helmi