Gunlocked
Patch 0.75 Short Delay
2 bugs make the game impossibly easy, and one makes it plain impossible. They've been a nightmare to track down, but I think I've just been staring at the screen too long (my headache says yes), for too many days straight. I'll come at the problem with fresh eyes tomorrow, and hopefully get the update out in short order.
Sorry about the delay, but hopefully it's short! It's 90% done, and if I didn't spend the last 2 hours banging my head against the wall with these bugs, I'd be in the home stretch, writing up the final patch notes.
Patch Preview: Early Access v.0.75!
Before I jump into all the goodies you'll be getting, I also want to take the time to talk about price (eww, I know). When Gunlocked launched it was a very slim package with modest Early Access goals. I've since exceeded most of those goals, and I plan to continue to add more for as long as I can.
As such, shortly after the arrival of patch 0.75 Gunlocked will be going up to $4.99 from $3.99. This will be the final retail price. The change will happen on September 3rd, and I'm announcing it now so you have ample time to pick up a copy at the current Early Access price. Regional pricing will continue to apply.
Alright, with the icky capitalist stuff out of the way, it's on to the patch preview!
TL;DR
- 1x New Zone
- 2x Pilots
- 3x Weapons
- 5x Utilities
- 3x Augments
- 3x Symbionics
- 3x Unlockable Ships
- 10x Achievements
- Inventory System
- Tutorial Tips
- Community Item Drops
- Tons of balance changes and updates to previous upgrades
Keep in mind that everything below is a work in progress and subject to change.
New Zone: The Lepi Sector
The Lepi Sector will include the most ambitious boss fight in the game. Don't let the work in progress preview fool you. There is a lot more to this boss than meets the eye. And by the time you finish the zone, I think you'll agree. There are also a host of new unique enemy types to blast through with all the new destructive toys i'll be adding.
New Pilots: Tempest and Ace
A recurring theme in this patch is pushing myself to do the most ambitious things I can. You'll see it in the boss fight, the new upgrades, and the new pilots. Ace for instance, picks a random loadout at the start of every game, and you get to pick from 1 of 3 other pilot augments based on what he's selected for you. It might sound simple, but it was one of the most complex things to add, and it's a lot of fun if you're looking for a challenge.
New Upgrades
A host of upgrades will be dropping with this patch. This includes my favorite Utility yet, called the Drone Cloner. I've been trying to get it in the game since before launching in to Early Access.
There will also be a bunch of electric type upgrades, to add some friends for Shock Bombs to play with. Check out the Buzz Beacons below. The pulsing energy left on affected targets is Tempest's augment.
New Ships
Left to Right: Mantis, Hawk, and Cobra.
Complete with alternate colors, and smol ship variations, you'll be able to unlock 3 new ship cosmetics by completing various goals.
New Features
Inventory System: You'll now be able to pause the game and check out what you've equipped. There are some limitations (it can't show you exact stats of current levels) but you can get a level agnostic description of what it does, see its synergies, and its upgrade types.
Tutorial Tips: You can now enable a tutorial run on Apoid Colony that will explain the basics with a bit of flavor. This genre is pretty notorious for not explaining anything to new players, but a little goes a long way.
Community Items
Lastly, Gunlocked has proven to the Steam Gods that it is worthy of item drops. That means when this new update launches you'll be able to earn trading cards, badges, emotes, and profile backgrounds by playing the game. There will also be a handful of animated profile avatars in the Steam Point Shop.
This is pending approval, and subject to change, but I'm hopeful the Steam Gods look favorably upon these bounties.
Fin.
Anyway, that's it for this patch preview. There's a lot more to talk about, but i'll save it for the actual patch and for you all to discover.
Mini Patch v0.53 Bugs and Balance
Balance:
- Tweaked the loot generation system a bit more. Upgrade diversity has been slightly increased in the early levels.
Note: I previously noticed it was hard to get a couple of upgrades early on that were beneficial to a number of pilots, but not strict synergies, and also found that starting options were way too similar across games. This is a small tweak, however, and should not drastically change things from last patch.
Bugs:
- The new upgrade generation system allowed me to rewrite the Upgrade Beacon code to be far more efficient. It should no longer be possible for it to lock the game in edge case scenarios.
- The upgrade marker effect triggered by reaching 100% on an Upgrade Beacon will no longer show up or play a level up sound if it fails to find an upgrade to level up. A new sound will play on failure.
- I've added a protection for the Sting King that should force it to act if you manage to pause or tab out at an exactly precise moment around its spawning (that is hard to pinpoint).
Note: This is an incredibly elusive and hard to replicate issue because it requires such precise timing, but I've run tests for days, and not been able to break the Sting King again.
Balance Patch (Early Access v.0.52)
- I've made several adjustments to the new weighted upgrade generation system that should provide a more balanced array of choices. Utilities will be a bit more represented, among a number of other tweaks. I'll likely make a few more adjustments after the next big patch, but after several play-throughs on each pilot, I feel pretty good about where things are now.
- Added sideway missile ships to Apoid Colony. These were a big hit for Scout players on the Rachni Belt zone, and I felt there were still enough unique enemies there that moving this guy over to Apoid as well would only be a good thing. These can start spawning as early as 30 seconds into the game, and should be especially helpful for early game farming.
- I've increased mana drop chances for all enemies prior to 8 minutes. Enemies can still fail to drop any gems, but it's about 15-20% less likely.
- The Sting King boss has gained additional shields in the 2nd and 3rd boss fights.
- Elite Scorpion Class ships (the blue late game ships that fire missiles...whew, the Codex can't come soon enough) now continuously respawn during the final portion of the Sting King's 3rd battle.
- Fixed a bug with the blue scorpion class ships not creating an attack charge up effect
Hotfix v.0.51c
- Fixed a bug with the Sure Thing augment that would incorrectly remove the wrong upgrades from the upgrade pool. This would lead to empty upgrade slots when upgrades should have still remained.
Hotfix v.0.51b
These changes may also prevent other issues with not being offered certain upgrades even if levels remain, but let me know in the comments if you encounter any issues going forward.
Hotfix 0.51a
- Fixed an issue that prevented Scarabs from spawning if you had the Deep End trial activated
- Fixed an issue with the Aces Hive and Stingking Hard achievements that allowed them to be unlocked if you had 30+ total difficulty equipped in trials, but then played a basic run.
- I am aware of an issue where upgrades stop being offered too soon, and blank ones are offered instead, and will hopefully have a fix tonight or tomorrow morning.
The Calm Before... (Early Access v.0.51
The next update is shaping up to be absolutely massive, but it's going to take longer than usual. I expect it will take another 2-3 weeks to complete, but it will be a huge step toward 1.0 with a ton of new content and features.
There won't be any significant updates between now and then (bug fixes will still occur as needed) because I want to focus as much as possible on simply getting this content finished for you all. I'll be moving across the country (back to California after some time away) in September, and I want to make sure you all have plenty of new content while I'm getting set back up (which could take several weeks).
Now onto the patch notes
Boss Updates
Hive Queen:
- The Hive Queen now has a slight change in appearance with each subsequent version you face
- The Final Hive Queen fight has been updated with new behavior when only one Queen remains
- Certain Hive Queen animations were ending too soon, but should now be fixed
Sting King:
- The Sting King now has a slight change in appearance with each subsequent version you face
- The Final Sting King fight has been updated with new behaviors during his "frenzied" state (post-pincers)
- New, more noticeable visual effect when summoning Scorpion class ships
New Achievements
- Trial Run: Complete any zone with at least 1 trial equipped
- Mad Lad: Complete any zone with all 4 challenge rating 1 trials equipped
- Trial Jury: Complete any zone with a total difficulty of 12+
- Aces Hive: Beat the Apoid Colony zone with a total difficulty of 30+ in a trial run
- Stingking Hard: Beat the Rachni Belt zone with a total difficulty of 30+ in a trial run
Note: Every achievement, except "Mad Lad" will activate retroactively upon starting a new game
Balance
- Upgrade choice generation has been updated to more reliably offer upgrades you probably want. It now uses a dynamic, weighted, selection system that can still offer things you don't want, but will be considerably less likely to, especially as the game progresses and you make more choices.
- Hail Mary now has a base target amount of 2 up from 1, and now has -30% recharge time at level 5.
- Alpha test now prevents upgrade beacons from leveling your starter weapon
- Max shields are now capped at +100 for power converter (200 total)
Quality of Life
- There is now a game over animation when you die (the sound fx are placeholder)
- Unstable Core now plays an explosion sound when triggered
- Updated the Bulldozer achievement text in-game to match the Steam text.
- The Sound Systems have been overhauled to push sound effects to separate groups of channels and limit repeat sounds in rapid succession.
Note: There may still need to be some optimization, so let me know if you have any issues with too many overlapping sounds or sounds being cut off.
Bugs
- Ctrl+alt+tab could cause the pause menu to become stuck on until you press ctrl again
Trials and Tribulations (Early Access v.0.50)
Patch Notes v.0.50: Trials and Tribulations
This week's update brings a whole host of new challenges to test your mettle with. Combine them in any way you like to create the perfect difficulty or push yourself to the edge of madness. The choice is yours. Early game balance, and level up experience has also seen a significant rebalance for a more meaningful early game, and a smoother late game. I'll keep an eye on feedback and adjust balance and challenges as I collect data, in future updates.
Speaking of the future, I know you're all hungry for a new zone, bosses, and the endless mode, and I'm already taking a deep dive into that. The third zone will be my most ambitious yet! The endless mode is also shaping up to be something quite special, and isn't simply about removing the end game from the current zones, but I'll talk more about that after the 3rd zone is finished.
One more note: Another patch is planned for later this week with updates to how upgrade choices are generated, as well as a few other things not quite ready in time for this patch.
As always, if you're enjoying your time with the game, please leave a review.
New Feature
- Trials: A customizable difficulty system and new way to score. Trials allow you to add additional challenge to your runs. Each trial has its own challenge score, and completing a zone with trials activated will save the combined challenge score total for that zone.
- There are 20 trials to start, with challenge ratings 1-5
- Once you beat any zone, trials becomes activated for all available zones. You can select between a basic and trial run in the deploy menu once trials are unlocked.
- Trial scores are now also displayed alongside high scores in the deploy menu
- You can see your current Trial Score below the high score in-game
Quality of Life
- Asteroids have been recolored to a redder color that should be easily distinguishable from gems
- You can now click and hold selections in the upgrade menu to quick confirm, without needing to click the confirm button. This works with rerolls as well.
- Pilot specific augments are now crossed out for pilots you do not have selected
- There is now a visual effect and reveal for regular upgrades and rerolls like there is for Symbionics.
- The Pulse Cannon's Level 1 text was incorrectly stating that bullets did 25 damage each, but actually do 17. The correct information was already displaying when selecting Badger, but not when finding the weapon in-game as another pilot. The actual balance of the weapon is unchanged.
Balance
- It now takes more experience to level up for the first 11 levels, but afterward it takes less. Gem drops now scale more slowly in the first 5 minutes.
- The action now ramps up a bit more right at the start of the game with more possible enemies on screen
- A new basic enemy has been added to both zones
- Princer class ship's mortar damage reduced from 10 to 8
- High Roller grants an immediate extra reroll
- Force Field is now more likely to spawn in front of your ship
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug that could generate a non-functioning duplicate upgrade choice if you had less than 3 available left in the pool.
- Fixed a bug where hit boxes and effects could get stuck on screen if the game or window was interupted
- Fixed other edge-case issues related to minimizing/moving the window during gameplay
- Fixed a bug that could cause the game to get stuck between a paused and resumed state in rare instances
- The Sting King has been given a code update that should prevent soft-lock situations where he never becomes vulnerable and no longer attacks
Hotfix v.0.43c
- Fixed an issue that would prevent certain force-centric effects from triggering on enemies that were immune to being pushed (bosses, mainly)
- Fixed an issue that would sometimes allow Gravity Wave to deal double damage
- Hopefully fixed an issue related to collisions causing pieces of the Sting King's asteroid walls to fly off into deep space