it has been quite a while – over two years already! While Beat Invaders is a finished project for me, and I continue to work on my new game, Engraving, it is still a project that I love dearly.
There were a couple of bugs that bugged me (pun intended) and some things that just broke down with services that I used that were taken offline (Dailies/Weeklies).
Originally, I planned to fix those bugs and release a minor patch. But then I had way too much fun! So, this month’s development time was poured completely into Beat Invaders.
If you find new bugs, I would love to hear about them via the in-game Feedback tool or on the Beat Invaders Discord server.
I really hope you will enjoy playing the new version of Beat Invaders as much as I did making it!
Beat Invaders 3.0 - Patch Notes
Highlights
Season 3 started: Leaderboards are fresh and clean - I will post the top scores of the last season in the upcoming days.
Hyper Lone Wolf game-mode was added: This was requested a couple of times by the community.
Added slight Vertical Movement: General gameplay change - Delivery HQ installed the Convoy Control Protocol into every Ship. This will allow the Ship to gain a bit of vertical movement, which Convoy Freighters will react to. Talented pilots can use this to employ new defensive or offensive tactics.
Route Effect System: Whenever you jump to a new System, you can alter your run by adding Route Effects. These stackable, optional effects will make the game a bit more challenging while offering bigger rewards!
Steam Community Items: Trading Cards, Badges, Backgrounds, and more!
German language: I finished my work on the translation integration and added German as a second language. If you want to play Beat Invaders in your language, reach out on the Discord and help me with the translation!
Missions menu: In this new menu, you get an overview of your Achievements - and maybe a good idea of what to do on your next run!
7 new Achievements!
Three new Meta Upgrades: You can now equip up to three Hacks, repair your Freighters, and store up to three Specials - very common community requests.
5 new in-game Ship Upgrades!
Improvements
Improved appearance of Upgrade Icons. Added Rarity labels and made Rare upgrades easier to recognize.
Damage Numbers: With more damage influence from different Route Effects, this helps to get more information about the damage you deal! You can enable it via the options.
Added Attract mode: This starts the game automatically in demo mode after idling in the main menu; you can enable it via the options.
Added a Shield display over the health UI when your ship is protected by the Shield provided by Defensive Refactoring.
Added a template to the Feedback Reporting tool’s bug section.
Added Option for low Screenshake; previously, you could only enable or disable it.
Added Option to confine mouse to the game window.
Improved Hack Selection screen: Selected Hacks are now easier to recognize, and the layout was rearranged for consistency between screens.
Improved Options Menu: Restructured to make it easier to navigate and look less cluttered.
Reworked Dash charge UI element to make it easier to read.
Clicking/Selecting a profile in the profile selection screen now directly changes to this profile.
Added Icons to profiles to make it easier to recognize which is active.
Balance
Increased enemy life with increasing wave count.
Boss: The Hammer now shoots additional projectiles.
Meta Upgrade cost becomes more expensive with increasing levels of the upgrade.
Increased the maximum amount of Dash charges that you can get via in-game Upgrades (3 > 4).
Added level up options to Evasive Attack (launch 1 additional missile per level, up to 4 in total).
Immensely buffed damage of Ultrashield shards (400% + bonus based on absorption + wave count bonus).
Bugfixes
Fixed double inputs with external controller on Steam Deck.
Fixed broken Daily and Weekly leaderboards, making the achievements available again!
Fixed bug where additional Upgrade Levels were awarded after loading a game with the Cutting Edge upgrade equipped.
Fixed typo in Repair Bot description.
Fixed a bug where "Meta Upgrades" button glow did not update after changing profiles.
Fixed a bug where "Meta Upgrades" were not sorted correctly.
Fixed letters in the Upgrade screen appearing in incorrect colors.
Minor patch 2.2.35
It was quite some time since the last patch!
I just read in the community forums that dailies/weeklies were broken. This was because I used an external service/api to supply that information to the game.
I updated the game to work with a different service now - So dailies and weeklies are now available again!
Another small bug that was reported in the community forums was that the screenshake setting is not saved properly - this should now work as intented!
There are still known bugs about certain controllers and double inputs. This is unfortunately an engine issue and will be fixed in the next release of it. I will update the game and release another patch as soon as this happens.
Hope you enjoy the game! Raffaele
Meet me at the GDC!
Hey everyone!
I will be showing Beat Invaders on the Game Developer Conference 2023 as a part of the Godot showbooth. I would love to see you there to chat!
As part of the preparations for the show, I also implemented a feature that was suggested on the Steam forums, a "Attract Mode".
Attract Mode starts after idling in the main menu for about 10 seconds (just the main menu, not upgrade screen or ship select etc.) and is of course an option that you can enable or disable in the game settings.
I also added a couple smaller, gameplay/visual updates!
The next patch will be coming after the GDC - so in about 2 weeks.
By the way:
The game is on 35% discount at the moment, so grab it while the plasma is still hot! 🤘
Patch 2.2.33
Hey everyone!
Patch 2.2.33 was just set live! Thanks to feedback on the Discord and a new way of testing, I found two more bugs in the game that decreased performance on longer runs.
Patch 2.2.32
Hey everyone!
Patch 2.2.32 was just set live! Thanks to feedback on the Discord, I was made aware of some bugs that I fixed right away 😁.
Patch Notes
Meteoroids did not get cleaned up properly when leaving the play area, this resulted in auto-acing the Meteoroid event and other issues.
Spreadshot: Spread upgrade did not display the correctly calculated damage.
There was a performance problem with the Spreadshot ship class that was leading to decreasing performance on longer runs.
Patch 2.2.31
Hey everyone!
2.2.31 was just deployed. It has only minor changes.
Patch Notes
Meteoroids in higher event waves have received a boost to their health.
Meteoroids have a damage modifier depending on where on the play field they are.
Meteoroids no longer damage each other when they overlap.
Smaller changes to the effects when hitting Meteoroids.
Patch 2.2.3
Hey everyone!
I just uploaded a new patch!
2.2.3 is mostly a bug fixing and balancing patch, but it also has some new things for you! Thanks again to Hugo from the community for a lot of feedback for this patch and the rest of the community for reporting bugs and problems.
Patch Notes
Balancing was reworked
All ship classes have adjusted damage output values and should now be competetive! I'm still looking for feedback to adjust balancing in the future, shall there be the need for it.
Adjusted Hyperbeam damage to wave be useful in higher waves.
Adjusted Hunterswarm missiles to be useful in all wave counts and have high enough damage to cause chain reactions again.
Meteoroid health was adjusted to match the new damage output.
Changes
Coins now come at different colors representing different values. (Gold = 1, Green = 3, Purple = 10)
Pods: Double Up now changes the appearance of your pods.
Added a "boost" effect before starting a new wave.
Added different sound effects for each ship class on the ship select screen.
Added a new button for "Details" in the Upgrade Screen, now it will be finally usable on a gamepad.
Changed how a lot of stats are displayed in the detail view (e.g. Ship Speed is now also an absolute value, not just a percentage change)
Reworked how the Magnet powerup works, it now has a much stronger pull on tokens, but it also can "lose" grip on tokens if they leave the magnet area.
Railgun Ship class has received an impact effect on Meteroids, making it finally possible to move Meteroids with the Railgun Ship.
Pulse Blaster: Charge Boost is now Epic rarity
Spreadshot Ship Class: Main weapon now acts much more like a shotgun and has a increased bullet count by default.
Certain Graphic Options that had no effect on the Steam Deck are now not displayed anymore when playing on the Steam Deck.
Fixed Bugs
Destroyed Freighters are now not displayed anymore after continuing a run.
Run savegames do now properly get deleted on the Steam Deck.
Some of the new achievements weren't properly awarded, now they work!
And a LOT more bugs...
I hope you have fun with the new Patch!
Patch 2.2.2
Hey everyone!
another patch is live and with this patch, there is finally a Demo waiting for you if you haven't yet played Beat Invaders!
Another new "feature" is a new trailer - I finally took the opportunity to use some of the footage I collected during the recent patch development to refresh the old trailer. It didn't really do the game no justice anymore. So check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.
Let's jump right into the changes!
New Features
Skip Track list
WIth this feature you can add up to four tracks to a list of songs that won't be played anymore from that point on. You can edit the list in the options menu.
New Special: Auto Tracker
Activating this Special will give your projectiles homing capabilities for a moment.
New Upgrade: Pods - Double Up
Adds a projectile to your pods - that means each round will fire one more shot - Missiles and the Attack Pods. This can be leveled to level four which gives your Pods a lot more power making Pod centered builds more interesting and viable.
New Achievements!
13 new Achievements are waiting to be unlocked!
Detailed Upgrade Menu Stats
This was requested more times than I can count: The ability to show in detail what an upgrade does for you. Now you can press the detail button and get all the information about what you will get from an upgrade!
Outline Effect
Fans of a more Comic like look can try the new Outline Effect by activating it in the Options menu.
Tutorials
I added a series of small tutorials that will explain the basic gameplay mechanics of Beat Invaders. Some mechanics were always very obvious while others, e.g. Enemy Shield Link weren't. I hope this will help new players learn the game quicker!
Changes
Attack Pods manual fire
Attack Pods are back to manual fire mode - At some point in the past I changed it to auto-fire. But it felt a lot less powerful to press the shoot button. Not that all charge-up times (Railgun and Pulse Blaster) have been reduced, it's more fun to shoot it manually.
Automatic Settings on the Steam Deck
For Players that did not have played the game so far on the Steam Deck, it will select good settings on the first start up automatically.
Special Info in Upgrade Menu
The effects of a Special were not explained anywhere. Now you will get a small box during the Upgrade Screen when you have a Special in your Special Slot, explaining what the Special will do for you on activation!
Repair Special repairs Convoy
In the past, the Repair Special only repaired your ship, with an amount that could be improved from the "Special Power" upgrade. The Repair Special will now also repair your convoy ships, making it more valuable.
Performance improvements!
The game should, in general, have a noticeable better performance on most systems (including the Steam Deck).
Rebalancing
I had the feeling that the higher waves were a bit too easy, oftentimes the screen was cleared before the action could even start. This was adjusted and to make up for it, point rewards for some enemies were increased.
Smaller Changes
Token pickup has a new sound, Tokens got a new look, the Player ships got a visual upgrade, You will now have a level up indicator on the ship... and a lot more!
Bugfixes
And of course, this new patch also has a lot of bugfixes, especially for some bugs related to continuing saved runs.
Patch 2.2.1 - Patch Notes
Hey everyone!
Thanks to Hugo from the Beat Invaders community I was informed about a bug that needed hotfixing. While I was at it, I also took another look into performance issues and optimized performance some more.
Because the Spreadshot class had some massive performance issues on very high upgrade levels there was also changes to that ship class.
Changes in 2.2.1
Spreadshot Upgrade: Shot Amount is now capped at lvl. 30
When Shot Amount is capped, a new Upgrade is unlocked: Spreadshot Damage. This will directly increase the damage of each projectile.
The time it takes to ramp up Spreadshot: Focus Fire was increased, the time it takes to reset the effect was decreased.
Spreadshot: Focus Fire now has a visual effect on the projectiles.
Performance increases.
Fixed a bug where area damage decreased performance over time.
Fixed a bug in the Spreadshot Class where sometimes performance would decrease over time.
Patch 2.2.0 - Patch Notes
Hey everyone!
With this patch some new features made it into the game.
I knew for quite a while that some runs can really take some time. And there is nothing worse then having to cancel a run just because of running out of time to play.
In-run saving
Now it is possible to leave a run and continue it later from the last successful wave.
Profiles (Save Slots)
Another feature that is especially helpful when multiple people play on one machine are the Profiles (Save Slots). You can now select from three Profiles that will track progress individually.
Tutorials
I also know that some game mechanics were never really explained very well - for example the Enemy Links. To help with that I added a series of small in-game tutorials, highlighting and explaining the different core mechanics. If you are a Veteran, you can of course disable the tutorials in the game options.
Performance Boost
The games performance was improved. This will be especially noticable on the Steam Deck and in scenes with a lot of enemies. This should also help a bit with the battery drain on the Steam Deck 🔋
Railgun Class rework
Before this patch, the Railgun class felt a bit on the weak side. Especially the game design around the Attack Boost was a bit weird. Fire Rate was an upgrade that really only helped for Attack Boost while Charge Level did not help a lot there. This left players at a decision on upgrades that always felt a bit meh.
The rework did the following:
When having an Attack Boost, the charge rate is doubled and the shots are automatically released when fully charged.
Fire Rate was removed from the Upgrade Pool.
A new Upgrade was added to the Pool: Discharge (The first hit of the railgun explodes, dealing 30% of the charged damage. - Upgrades increase the explosion size.)
This Upgrade will also help with horizontal clear speed.
Smaller Changes
Hyperbeam can now be chained (using a Hyperbeam while a Hyperbeam is active will restart it.)
Spreadshot Class: Spread Upgrade now also increases Damage.
A bug was fixed where sometimes it was not possible to use a Repair Bot even though it should have been.
