It's Dante, back here for an update on a few things we've been working on.
Less Bugs + Better Platformer Feel = Easier Development For New Zones
The holidays being what they are, we slowed down a bit this past December but we are back at things with the new year. We've been working hard to do an overhaul on several of our systems used in the platformer sections of the game. As we have been knocking that out, we've been squashing a lot of the bugs that have alluded us for some time now, which is a great feeling!
We are very close to having some key systems feeling exactly the way we want them to which is going to simplify a lot of our decision making process as we continue to build out the different landing zones.
Overgrowth
This month we wanted to give you all a peek at one of our new landing zones, Overgrowth. We are still ironing out a lot of this area but we are very happy with the overall look and feel of this landing zone. The wild forest areas of Overgrowth are a far cry from the neon lights of Old City, containing remnants of some of the earlier known societies of Celestro along with it's fair share of secrets.
November 2022 Blog Post
Hey everyone!
It's your pal, Dante, again!
Just here to show off some of what we've been working on the last few weeks. Spoilers be ahead!
The Pencil Pushing and The Map Moving Forward
We have completed a host of pre-production organization work that is super boring so I won't drone on about specifics. But! Out of that work, we have organized exactly how we want Campaign to unfold!
From the moment we first hit the World Map, players will be given the choice of 5 different landing zones on Celestro to explore for platforming gameplay or they can go straight for the final boss fight. Here's a look at our new World Map:
We will explore the landing zones over the coming month as they rotate through different phases of completion!
Old City
To kick things off, one of the first landing zones we are working on is Old City. This neon-riddled metropolis will be the most populated areas of Celestro that Flerp and Nova can venture through.
At one time the pinnacle of the Celestro oligarch's collective flexing on rivaling societies, Old City has seen better days. Pits of awful sludge and enemy units can be found off of most beaten paths. But don't worry, there's still plenty of shops, movie theaters, and even dance clubs thriving in this seedy, worn relic of time already passing.
That's all for now, though! I'll be back next month with more updates around the holidays!
Thanks! -Dante
State of the Game - ExtraGalactica
Hey folks!
It's Dante here again! Sorry for all the silence on our end.
In the interest of transparency, we'd like to shed some light on a few things that have been going on behind the scenes and give you all an update on the roadmap for ExtraGalactica moving forward. We'll start with where we've been and then we'll talk about where we're going but before we get started I just want to say a heartfelt "Thank you" to everyone who has supported this project in large and small ways. We wouldn't have made it this far without you.
Where We've Been
Since day one, we have been very open about the fact that we are a small team with no financial backing. It's one of the first things listed on our Steam store page. To keep this in perspective, while Dave and Nate do excellent work on Audio and 3D models whenever we reach out to them for stuff, the remainder of the contributions that make up ExtraGalactica come from Matt and myself (Dante). That is how it has been since we started working on rebuilding and reimagining ExtraGalactica in early 2019 and there is no sign of that changing any time soon.
Matt and I have always worked full time jobs throughout development, often times with regular overtime. Every hour we put back into ExtraGalactica is simply because we want this game to exist and to share it with anyone who might like it. Unfortunately, this puts us in a position where major life events for Matt and I have a very big impact on development. Every job change, busy season, sickness, breakup, demotivating technical problem, loss of development hardware, you name it. The loss of both my mom and Matt's mom in the last year and a half... It all adds up to a heavy toll. And when our development time comes from the 1-3 unpaid hours we can squeeze out at the end of a work day or the odd weekend lockout when the stars align, that's the first time to get stolen away for life's problems. But please do not mistake this for excuses. All of us involved with this game wish it was already complete and available to share with you.
Out of all of this, a very unhealthy pattern was forming where the biggest pushes towards updates/releases for ExtraGalactica were overlapping with very heavy times in our lives. While we'd make it across these shorter goal lines, one or more of us would burn out for a bit as a result. This cycle of burnout/rest/rally showed that every time we got to the rally phase it was harder than the time before. That has been a big hurdle for us. But today, we have more time and resources available to us than we ever have.
In our most recent development cycles, we explored both local multiplayer (with Remote Play support) and online multiplayer modes. This meant handling a lot of large technical hurdles that took time for us to work out but we never got either mode to a point where we were happy to release it. Behind the scenes, we've always worked on the platformer portion of Campaign trying to build up a preview to share with the community. So while there has been work ongoing where possible, nothing hit a point where we felt it could be released.
Where We're Going
Matt and I reconvened over the summer and set up a plan to use August and September to do everything we needed to get back on the horse. This included redesigning large portions of what we consider ExtraGalactica to be. This also meant cutting Multiplayer, local or online. Our previous designs were much more linear than our new plan which also means a lot (if not all) of our levels need to be reworked or scrapped entirely. But this is ok. Matt and I have had a long time working with the bits of platformer that we already have and this gives us a very good plan for how this work will be done.
Our redesign for campaign will lean more into roguelike territory in how we will transition between space shooter and platformer sections of gameplay. It will also change how we approach boss fights in both sections. Our goal is to make a whole playthrough of the campaign take less time than before but the results should be much more interesting from run to run. We are exploring possibilities with this new design that will hopefully allow us to make the campaign mode available to the public at a quicker pace. Then with further updates we will expand the content within the mode until we feel the game is ready for a full release.
As of now, we have also updated our Steam Store page to reflect our new designs and roadmap expectations. This includes lowering the price until more content is available. Even once we have a first version of campaign mode available, we will not be going back up to full price until we fully release the game. While we likely won't be very active on Twitter or Facebook, we will be committing to releasing a blog post here on Steam at least once a month. We are hoping this will prevent communication droughts but set realistic expectations as we no longer stream game development sessions and would like to focus our attention on getting the most out of our development time.
Again, thank you to those who have stuck with us this far! Matt and I are feeling really good about ramping back up on this!
Update 7: Infinite Mode Achievements and New Boss, Vulcan Needle, Available Now
In this patch we have taken the time to add quite a few improvements to Infinite Mode.
Among these changes are some stand-out additions such as reworked control “feel”, haptic feedback for gamepads, a new boss, graphical improvements, new background art, and of course the aforementioned Steam Achievements!
Read ahead for a full list of fixes, changes, and additions.
Fixes:
Basic Enemies:
Hyper Rush:
Gun position now follows new ship position after Rush
Missiles are now able to destroy Hyper Rush
Cave Cricket:
Gun position now follows new ship position after Dash
Missiles are now able to destroy Cave Cricket
Mini Bosses:
Deftkruiser:
HP scaling
Unnecessary particles and real time lighting removal for better performance
Bosses:
Cryptops:
Rigging rework
Eye flares added
Attack timings adjusted
MechaTick:
Damage animation added
HP scaling
UI:
Menu color correction and Navigation adjustments
Round Start options screen rework
Background Art:
Sprites have been scaled down for better performance
Particle systems have been scaled back for better performance
VFX:
Screen Ripple effect toned down to prevent visibility issues
Changes:
Art:
Super G effect toned down to eliminate unnecessary flashing
Decreased overall size of star field particle system
Missile explosion rework
New spooky weapons system Jack 'O' Bullet sprites replace skulls for two phases
New spooky weapons system Pentagrams added to Super tier
New spooky BG effects and imagery added
Background now has slight parallax effect
Gameplay:
Spiral Attack duration scaled back
Barrel roll gauge depletion and refill times adjusted
Analog, D-pad, and Keyboard controls have been slowed down and sensitivity has been adjusted for greater accuracy
Retro Dash speed has been decreased to allow for better dodging
Black hole collider size increase for easier entry
Turret ship collider size increase for easier docking
UI:
King Slayer Icon added after defeating bosses without the use of a super attack
Additions:
Explosions:
Blast Explosion:
Real time lighting has been replaced with sprite flares to better performance
Smoke particles added
Small Explosion:
Real time lighting has been replaced with sprite flares to better performance
Smoke particles added
Bosses:
Vulcan Needle added
Cryptops new attack pattern added
Random Boxes:
Super G was added to list of Random Box perks
Haptic Feedback:
Haptic feedback added for devices with vibration support
Steam Achievements:
20 new steam achievements have been added
UI:
Vibration toggle added to front end options menu
Vibration toggle added to in-game options menu
ART:
Background colorization rework and adjustments
New background events added to increase visual variety.
ANIMATION:
Super G machine now barrel rolls into the scene when a fresh round starts
Update 6: Tutorial rework, Infinite mode balancing, and some fresh Leaderboards!
Hey folks!
It's your friendly neighborhood indie dev, Dante! I just wanted to touch base real quick and provide some information around the changes/fixes that have gone out in our most recent update this week.
We've been listening carefully to our community members and actioning upon their feedback where ever possible. This has lead to a re-design of the tutorial for shooter gameplay to help streamline things and clarify a few things better.
We also have had some fixes and balancing work in this update which have forced us to make a tough decision as we have closed our leaderboards that have existed in the game thus far. These leaderboards are now locked to maintain the integrity of the work people put in to achieve these scores. They will remain viewable in game as well as in the Steam Community interface.
BUT FEAR NOT! We have rolled out a new batch of "phase 2" leaderboards that function a little differently from the previous set. These leaderboards have a hardcore and casual versions depending on whether you have the Auto-Barrel Roll option off or on (respectively).
Other notable changes/fixes: - Exit button added to main menu - Pause menu updated in gameplay to show active gameplay - Pause menu in gameplay now also includes an option to restart your round of Infinite Mode - Rework/balancing for Dipper, Hyper Rush and Deftkruiser - Ship Invincibility VFX have been updated to be more apparent - Fixes around the spiral attack while Super G - Leaderboards added to front end menu for easy access - Round Start menu added to Infinite Mode to allow players to select a weapon system skin and view leaderboards before starting gameplay - Carousel Mode - With this new mode activated, your weapon skin will randomly shift to another skin you have unlocked after each use of your Super G Ultimate attack to help keep rounds interesting and fresh - Windowed Mode - ALRIGHT FINE. I did the thing. I didn't want to but I did anyways 😂😂 Never say I don't do anything for the community ❤️ (Jokes aside, you can now select fullscreen or windowed mode in options in the front end or in options in the Round End Screen of Infinite Mode - Tutorial Pop-up - I have things set up now so that the tutorial option that appears while loading into Infinite Mode will stop appearing once you have passed a minimum score threshold. The tutorial can always be accessed from the Options Menu in the front end if you need a refresher - Additional Boss audio assets added to gameplay
I'm not sure if I am missing anything on this list but please know that we intend on doing another update soon to get our Simplified Chinese localization caught back up ASAP. Please let us know if you hit any new issues in this update so we can get things squared away for you!
Take care! Dante Campana
Community Blog: Some Stumbling Blocks But An Update Is Coming Soon
Hello all!
Dante here!
I just wanted to take some time to put together a written progress update after E3 and Steam Summer Sale had wrapped up. We've been hard at work on some really great community feedback that we have gathered from folks who have been nice enough to stream ExtraGalactica on Twitch and Facebook Gaming. This includes adding access to leaderboards in the front end, adding some settings that can be adjusted before the first round of Infinite mode in a game session, and some much needed adjustments to our tutorial.
This has not been without difficulty, though. As is the nature of indie game development, with only three sets of hand actively working on the project we are bound to hit issues from time to time that none of us have the skill set to handle immediately. In those cases, we often must pick up a new skill set or go through lengthy processes to find the cause of the issue. Throughout the majority of July and August, we have been plagued with these types of issues but we believe we've made it through the woods.
This process has made us update our Unity Engine and Wwise Engine versions which has also forced us to redo some previous work once the solutions had been identified. Unfortunately, as a result of this work, we will also have to reset everyone's statistics and retire our current leaderboards. These retired leaderboards will be locked at their final standings with the next update. They will still be viewable in-game and on Steam, but scores will no longer update. A new batch of leaderboards will be released with the next update which will kick off Phase 2 of Early Access for ExtraGalactica.
As we are now unblocked on most areas of our work, we are focusing on finishing up the community feedback mentioned above. After this next update we will continue focusing our work between Campaign Preview and Local Multiplayer modes so we can get something fresh in the community's hands ASAP.
Thanks again for all of your patience, feedback, and support!
We're so excited for what we have coming next for y'all!!
