Happy New Year!
New Year, New Hope
After 4 years of working on Devader, I've vowed to invest more time into showing people what I made. Silence is pretty deadly in this industry and I hope I can be better. I love making games, but exposure is crucial.
Balance
Since release I've made quite a few balance changes. Most thanks to valuable player feedback. In some cases I adjusted too far and had to roll back, but overall it's been a great experience. Hearing what players think and watching streamers play is very informative and I've spent way too much time doing this. I will continue to show progress on the "experiment" beta branch, so if you want to know where things are heading, that's the branch to be on. I only support Windows on the beta branch, but if there is enough demand for Linux/Mac builds, I will consider making experiment builds available for those systems too.
Housekeeping
Devader has lots of settings. I've removed some of the most confusing ones and tried to make others clearer. There are still some obscure settings available, but I feel they have a reason to exist.
I've also been squashing minor bugs and creating major new ones (wip).
Score High
The new update will give better scores. I needed to lower the score multiplier upgrade as it was a clear requirement to get the high-score. If I only change the multiplier this would mean that earlier high-scores would no longer be reachable. The only way to change this was by making all new scores higher. I'm expecting to see some disruption to the leader-boards.
Portals
I've added new "mysterious" portals, that allow you to skip to the end of a level. The portal allows you to take a shortcut and reduce run time. Some requirements must be met for the portals to show.
The Turret Path
I've removed the most hated feature I built, repair. Repair completely changed the required play-style as your Devader no longer could shoot. It was too experimental. Some players did quite well with it and had fun, but in most cases it was seen as an inferior alternative to the standard play-style. Now it's gone and you can take as many turrets as you like with no weird consequences. I've made turrets a little less powerful again, more in line with what was originally balanced. Instead of making turrets too strong, you now get some turrets back at the start of each level.
UI Improvements
There is a shit ton of stuff going on in Devader. It can be quite hard to follow. The new version now shows health, shields and available turrets around your Devader. This let's you keep your focus. Turning off the UI in the settings is now much more viable.
There are also two color modes available. The default setting shows health, shields and turrets in the color of the respective pick-ups. The visually more pleasing option can be enabled in the settings (-> visual settings -> color coding) and is always used in multi-player. The inner ring shows health, the outer ring represents shields and the little dots represent the available turrets.
The Future
I've got tons of ideas I would like to add. Currently there are 12 default bosses (2 for each level), 1 main boss and 12 special path bosses (1 for every maxed path). I would like to add 6 more level bosses and even more variation to the waves. Currently every wave has one alternate, but I would like to add a second or even third. I also have some ideas for new vehicles with completely different mechanics (e.g. more RTS and tower-defense elements), but those will require quite some time and dedication. If you are interested or have ideas, let me know. Feedback is very much appreciated and I enjoy experimenting with new ideas.