With developing Astral Gunners, we have two big goals in mind. The first is to create a deep and enjoyable scoring system that encourages competition between players. The second is to try and create an entry-point game for newcomers to the bullet hell genre. Today's update is focusing on the latter of those two goals.

We're adding power-ups to Astral Gunners. These are a series of effects that can be equipped that change how the game is played. From summoning a miniboss to slowing every bullet on screen, each power-up has a unique effect. In total there are 18 power-ups to unlock, and a total of 5 categories of power-ups. An important thing to note for arcade purists: you do not need to play the game with power-ups, and we are still designing the game to be beatable at every difficulty with no power-ups. We have added an online leaderboard filter that allows you to view with power-ups on or off. Some players have been finding progression in this game to be much more difficult than we intended, so we're adding this feature as a fun extra to mess around with while also being a system that prevents players from feeling locked out of making any progress. We're big fans of many action roguelites that use a similar progression system, and are hoping this brings a bit of that feeling to our game.

So how do power-ups work? You can go to the equip powerups menu in the mode select screen. Once there you'll be presented with a screen that lets you equip one power-up in each of the five categories. The categories include:

SP Medals: Any power-up in this category will grant you a bonus effect when you pick up an SP Medal, turning them into something that functions more like traditional shmup powerups.
Overload: Power-ups in this category give you an effect when entering system overload, for now these all summon a mini-boss to help you.
Options: These power-ups will bring an option along with you to help fight. We felt sort of bad taking away one of the things that made Green Gunner unique, so when you play as Green Gunner with a green option you can control both of them with your shot 2 button.
Bullet Slow: These power-ups might be a bit overpowered, but we wanted to at least test them out during early access. As the name implies these all slow down enemy bullets (or the entire game).
Special: Each of these power-ups modifies something about your special ability.

How can power-ups be unlocked? If you look at the achievements menu you will now notice that a few of the achievements have a note that says "(Unlocks new power-up)." Complete these achievements to see which power-up you'll receive!

Full patch notes: https://steamcommunity.com/app/893900/discussions/3/2994296361624652730/