[p]One thing we've been trying to improve over the years with our games, is player accessibility and approachability, and with that in mind, we've been openly testing with players a new feature that we're calling "Continue Mode", which lets the players have additional chances during a run in any of the games included in the collection.
How it works
Once you update the game, you'll start seeing a new panel when you lose in any of the games. You can continue playing after losing up to 3 times, and every time you continue your score will be cut in half. Using a continue token will also give you a small boost on whatever situation got you to lose, depending on the game, given you a chance to keep advancing in the game.
You can also choose not to continue and just end the run right there to start a new one or give another one of the Arcade games a try!
If you still want the old style no continues gameplay that was originally released, you can always go to the options menu and turn it off!
Bosses
Along the same lines of making the game more approachable, we finally introduce health bars to the bosses of all games (that have bosses)!
This update also includes some other small bug fixes and balancing. As always, let us know what you think of the update in the comments or on any of our socials. We love to hear your feedback to keep improving the game!
And the 5th game is coming! No specific release date yet, but here's a small sneak peek of it to give you an idea of what kind of game it's going to be 🛹.
Continue Mode Playtest
Hey all!
We've been running a closed beta branch for a few weeks to test a new option in the game, the introduction of Continues and while that has been great, we wanted to gather even more feedback from people that might have not played the game yet, so we're running an open Playtest for the next couple of weeks.
Continue
After hearing a lot of your feedback about the game, we decided to introduce a new mechanic into all the games to make it more approachable to different types of players but at the same time avoid disrupting people that play it competitively on the leaderboards.
We made our best effort to keep it simple and as close to an arcade experience as possible, so the new feature works like this:
In all games, instead of automatically losing when you reach a game over condition, you will be prompted with a new option to continue your gameplay session for that specific game. You can continue your game up to 3 times before actually reaching the game over screen.
This prompt is completely optional, if you choose not to use it, you will be taken to the game over screen, your high score will be saved in the leaderboards, etc... just like how it worked before.
To maintain a balance on the already existing leaderboards, and still reward your mastery within each game, using a continue will halve your score. This way you can still explore even further into the games and gain more experience, to the point where you probably won't need the continues to get to certain points every time.
You can go to the Options menu and disable Continues if you want to keep playing the games without them.
We're so happy to be celebrating the first year since 502's Arcade was released!
First of all, thanks for supporting the game! Regardless if you bought it day one or if you just bought it on the last sale, we appreciate that you're part of our community!
To celebrate this milestone we would like to share some news!
Continues
After hearing a lot of your feedback about the game, we decided to introduce a new mechanic into all the games to make it more approachable to different types of players but at the same time avoid disrupting people that play it competitively on the leaderboards.
We made our best effort to keep it simple and as close to an arcade experience as possible, so the new feature works like this:
In all games, instead of automatically losing when you reach a game over condition, you will be prompted with a new option to continue your gameplay session for that specific game. You can continue your game up to 3 times before actually reaching the game over screen.
This prompt is completely optional, if you choose not to use it, you will be taken to the game over screen, your high score will be saved in the leaderboards, etc... just like how it worked before.
To maintain a balance on the already existing leaderboards, and still reward your mastery within each game, using a continue will halve your score. This way you can still explore even further into the games and gain more experience, to the point where you probably won't need the continues to get to certain points every time.
Playtesting
After some months developing the feature, we feel like it's already in a state where we feel comfortable sharing it with you all, that said, we want to make sure the feature is in it's best state possible, so we're uploading a new Beta branch for the game called `openbeta` where you can play this new feature.
As this is still an experimental feature and build and might still contain some bugs, we disabled the Steam features on this branch so we don't mess up the leaderboards and your achievements so don't worry if you're not able to access either of those during your testing. You'll see
To enter in to the Steam Beta: 1. Right Click on 502's Arcade in your Steam Library. 2. Click "Properties..." 3. Click "Betas" 4. Select "openbeta - Experimental or unreleased features and content" in the drop down menu.
We already extended a little bit with this post, so again, thank you for all your support and we hope you keep having fun with the game!
New languages update!
Hey all!
We've been hard at work with updates for the game, we have a couple of surprises still, but we can't say much yet!
In the meantime, we added a couple more languages to the game:
German
Traditional Chinese
We hope you're enjoying the game, and remember to let us know what you think on the forums! We love to hear about your experiences (or bugs if you find any)!
Endless Replayability Fest and Update 1.2
Hey everyone!
We are part of the Endless Replayability Fest on Steam, and we have a 20% discount during the whole event!
Also, just in time to go with the event, we updated the game with several bug fixes and some improvements and balancing based on feedback that you have been sharing with us.
That should make your experience more enjoyable while keeping the challenge on the games. You can find the full changelog here.
Thank you for your continued support these past few months, we try to be active in the forums to answer any question or feedback you have and remember to hit that follow button to be notified about our future updates, we might have a surprised or two coming in the next few months!
Patch 1.2 - Balancing
Hey all!
We have a new patch fresh from the oven. We are committed to improve the experience for a wider range of players, so we've been working in some QoL changes for some of the games, besides doing some bug fixing. Here's the changelog:
General
Game is no longer running on background to avoid unintended actions when the game is not focused.
Fixed pause menus getting stuck.
Fixed navigation on the Options menu when having one of the navigation tabs selected.
Fixed videos restarting when pressing with the mouse in the arcade selection screen.
Ghost Hunter Hana
- Changed the door placement in exit rooms to avoid accidentally leaving the level when entering one of them.
Added additional variants for the exit rooms.
Balanced the reaction times of enemies when detecting the player.
Adjusted enemy availability in the first area to avoid a sudden increase in difficulty.
Adjusted volume for the explosive parchments.
Might Strike Team
Balanced the maximum number of enemies that can spawn in each level and how fast they spawn.
Balanced the time to wait for a new weapon to spawn.
Changed the way the second area boss receives damage to avoid having an unnecessary cooldown time between shots.
High Seas Survivor
Added an initial amount of coins right from the start of the game.
Balanced the difficulty curve for enemy spawning.
Changed the way the jump movement works to be able to change direction mid-air either jumping or when starting a flying kick.
Fixed enemies moving out of position when landing on the ship.
Let us know how all these changes feel and hopefully will improve your experience with the game!
Patch notes for 1.1 update
Hey all! We hope you're enjoying the game so far!
We're preparing some fun updates for the game, but in the meantime we wanted to get some new things in, including some bug fixing, here's the list of what you can find in this update:
Added better controller support through XInput, now the game supports more controllers!
Fixed full screen resolution not being set to the native resolution of the monitor.
High Sea Survivors: New game over animations.
Potions Panic: New potion completed animations.
Ghost Hunter Hana: Cats will appear in the same order every run instead of being random, avoiding to get the same cat in different areas.
Ghost Hunter Hana: Fixed a bug with a specific variation of a portal room that was preventing level generation to be completed.
🎮 502's Arcade IS OUT NOW! 🎮
Welcome to our Arcade everyone!
What's in it?
There's plenty of fun to have in here! The game has a collection of 4 games for now:
Ghost Hunter Hana: A procedural generated top down with a mixed of shooter and melee combat where you have to seal spirits, including some bosses.
Potions Panic: A match-4 puzzle game, attending client orders for extra difficulty
High Seas Survivor: A mix of a survivor-like beat'em up with tower defense, where you are in charge of protecting your treasure chests from being taken by sea creatures.
Might Strike Team: Fast paced single screen shooter where you have to be fast on your reflex to get new weapons, move across levels and beat some bosses.
With 60 achievements and the daily, weekly and all time leaderboards you always will have a good challenge waiting for you!
We're a very small team, so if you're able to help us with one of the things below, it would mean a lot to us!
That's all on our side! On behalf of all the team, thank you for all the support and we hope you enjoy the game!
Release Date Announcement!
We're super excited to finally have a release date for the game!
🎉February 22th! 🎉
If you would like a reminder on launch day don't forget to wishlist the game or join our mailing list
And what a better way to celebrate this than with a new shiny trailer!
Demo Update
We also updated the demo with several fixes made to the main game! But be quick to try it out as the demo is going away once the game releases!
High Seas Survivor reveal and demo update!
Hey all!
It's been a while since we posted some news, but we've been very active behind the curtain and will have some exciting news in the following weeks/months!
First of all, as you can see in most of our screenshots and gif in the description of our game, we relevead one more of the games to be included in the release.
High Seas Survivor is a fast paced brawler game with a mix of tower defense elements. You play as a pirate protecting you hard earned treasure against several cursed beings coming out of the sea. In order to protect youself and all your chests you will have the chance to get all sorts of aid when you finish a round of enemies, so that's another layer of strategy on top of everything else!
Demo Update
Besides from that we udpated and fixed some things in the game that have made its way to the demo as well! Here's a breakdown of the new things you can find in it:
Fixes display of usernames in other languages in the leaderboards.
Fixes Ghost Hunter Hana map activating while in another menu.
Adds new button images when you're using your Dualsense controller.
Adds new effects to Potions Panic when completing a recipe to have an easier time keeping track of them.
Fixes bug in some enemy behaviors in Ghost Hunter Hana.
Adds support for more gamepads.
Adds new images on the minimap for Ghost Hunter Hana.
Fixes title screen videos not displaying properly on Steam Deck.
Adds new details and background to Ghost Hunter Hana's levels.
Fixes navigation with gamepad in some UI
Fixes camera behavior bugs in Ghost Hunter Hana
Adds redesign for Potions Panic title screen
Adds new instructions format for both Potions Panic and Ghost Hunter Hana with new art.
All of these and a lot of small improvements are in already and we'll keep updating the demo through the coming weeks!
Again thank you for all the support you have given our small team and we can't wait to share even more news about the game's release once we're able to!
