Gunlocked
Hotfix v.0.43b
As always, if you experience further issues, let me know in the forums, discord, or on twitter. This is a tough issue to tackle because it's extremely hard to replicate, and most players don't report any issues at all.
Hotfix v..043a
- Fixed an issue that could cause the Sideline to get stuck on, but not charging up
- Updated the Leymines to display the "Force" type in the upgrade menu
Note: I am aware of a slow movement issue with the new gamepad compatibility system, and I am looking into it. For now, if it happens, exiting the level and starting again can fix it.
Push and Polish (Early Access v.0.43)
I know many of you have been playing Gunlocked for hours upon hours and are hungry for new content. The new difficulty system in the next big patch this month should provide many hours of new challenge while I work on the final zone and endless mode, which I expect to release in August. I'm working as fast as I can as a solo developer, but there are only so many hours in a day!
A lot of work under the hood had to happen for many of the changes this week, so I expect I missed some bugs. As always, let me know about any issues in the forums, on discord, or twitter, and I'll work to fix them as fast as I can.
Patch 043 Notes
New Pilot: Ram
Ram is a high skill pilot with a unique playstyle. His augment is extremely rewarding to master, and incredibly powerful in the late game, but he can take some time to get a feel for.
- Weapon: Gravity Wave
- A forcefield forms in front of your ship. When an enemy is within range, the field triggers, knocking back and stunning any nearby enemies for 0.5 seconds, dealing 15 damage. - Augment: Blowdozer
- Force effects apply an explosive debuff, on up to 5 targets, that deals 40 damage in an area after 1 second or when the target dies.
- The blowdozer charges up with movement. When fully charged, its area of effect is doubled.
New Weapon: Sideline
- Type: Force, Beam
- A cannon appears randomly on the left or right side of your ship and charges up an attack. It then fires a 20 damage beam of force energy that damages and knocks all enemies back that it passes through. 4 second recharge time.
New Utility: Feedback Loop
- When force effects hit enemies, the Feedback Loop's meter charges up. When the meter is full, the Feedback Loop will fill the recharge meter of one random weapon by 24%. Works on both timed and kinetic recharge weapons.
Quality of Life
- Updated Victory system and animation
- players will now have 5 seconds to collect gems before a new victory animation plays out after defeating a final boss - New Boss Music now plays during boss fights
Bug Fixes
- Gamepad Disconnect Fix
- After extensive testing, it was determined that an incompatibility exists between the game engine I use, the gamepad drivers, and Steam, that could lead a small portion of players to have disconnect issues with their gamepads when changing scenes. A workaround was devised to use an older control extension as a compatibility backup in the event of a driver connection failure. You won't notice a significant difference in the event this happens, but the home button will no longer work, and the game may not auto-pause if your controller batteries die or it becomes unplugged. The game will check at the start of every new scene/game screen to attempt to use the more modern and optimized drivers. There may yet be edge case incompatibility issues, but this solution has solved the problem for every tester I got into the beta to try it. - Smol Ship Augment should no longer unequip after a game.
- Screenshake should no longer get stuck on if the game pauses exactly when screenshake starts.
Hotfix v.0.42a Gamepad Disconnects
This bug may have been caused by an entirely unrelated system interacting oddly with some player's systems. It's not a bug I can replicate, but it seems to have alleviated the problem for some testers I brought into a beta today.
If you were/are affected by this issue, let me know in the comments if this has fixed the issue for you.
The Road to 1.0
If you look at the Early Access FAQ on the store page, you'll see I've already met or exceeded a number of the goals I originally set out to complete. From enemy and pilot variety, to upgrade and augment quantities, Gunlocked is racing ahead of my original, modest goals. And I have no intention of slowing down!
So let's dive in to what will be in the game at launch, and then talk about what's coming next!
1.0 Launch Content
⦁ 3 Unique Zones and Bosses
⦁ Endless Mode
⦁ Trials: A customizable difficulty system with its own score system
⦁ The Codex: An in-game database of content and statistics
⦁ Tutorial System
⦁ 8 Pilots
⦁ 17 Weapons
⦁ 21 Utilities
⦁ 9 Symbionic Super Weapons
⦁ 30 Augments
⦁ 50 Achievements
⦁ 4 Ship Skins with multiple color options
My musician is also hard at work on both refining the current tracks and adding new ones. This is the one thing I can't do as a solo dev, so the final track list will be determined by sales and what I can afford, but more is coming!
So what's up next?
I hope you've all been enjoying the steady pace of content updates, and that won't stop in July. 3 more pilots will be coming this month including: Ram, Ace, and Tempest. And each brings with them all kinds of new upgrades. Here's a sneak peak at those:
The big new feature of July, however, will be the Trials system. This is a fully customizable difficulty system combined with a whole new way to score your games. Trials are a lot like the augment system, but instead of equipping bonuses for yourself, you equip them for the enemies.
Trials range from simple things like enemies no longer dropping powerups, to more advanced challenges that can change the battlefield, enemy compositions, and even how many upgrades you can get. At launch there will be 20 trials, and unlike augments, there is no limit to how many you can equip at a given time. To unlock the trials system, you simply need to beat 1 zone.
Each Trial has a specific challenge rating, and the more you equip the higher your total challenge score will be. The game will record your highest successful challenge score for each zone. And yes, there will be more achievements to go along with this for you hunters out there.
That about does it for this roadmap update. There's a bit more to talk about in the future, and a few potential features I've left out, but this is what I am 100% certain will be in the game by launch. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Systems Refresh (Early Access v.0.42)
Patch v.0.42
I was able to finish some of my planned features for next week, so I combined them with the bug fixes I had planned and put together this little bonus update for the week. This isn't a heavy content patch, but these are significant system changes, so it's probably better to test them separate from everything else coming next week.
As always, leave your feedback in the forums, on discord, or message me on twitter. I've gotten so much useful feedback over the past 2 months, and I am thankful for your support!
If you've been enjoying the game, please leave a review. Almost to 100!
Feature Update
- Rerolls will now attempt to ensure you are offered 3 different choices from your previous roll. This is not cumulative. Each new reroll only considers the last 3 choices. If there are not enough choices to guarantee 3 new choices the system will not attempt this (should only happen when you're close to maxed out on upgrades).
Powerup Update
- Multiple powerups can now be active at one time
- Any timed effect applied to the player will now generate its own unique timer and indicator in the bottom right (including being EMP'd by enemies)
- Note: This is a work in progress. I'll probably update the interface art eventually, but it gets the job done.
Mission Menu Update
- Your high score will now be displayed on the deploy menu for each zone
Balance
- Taking damage reduces the Hot Streak meter by 20% instead of 25%
Bug Fixes
- Evil Kineto achievement can now be triggered during the final boss fight
- The leymine hitbox will no longer appear and remain on screen in rare instances
- Fixed a bug that was causing "Ant" class ships to trigger certain upgrades twice. (Ant ships are the ones that have different colored back pieces that drop gems or shoot bullets.)
- Note: This will be most noticeable with the Hot Streak augment for Pyre in the early game, but it was always intended to be more of a late game augment.
Hotfix v.0.41b
- Further refinements to Hail Mary. Should be much better now. Forgot to flip a switch, so to speak when I made the last changes.
- Fixed a bug that caused the Force Field to break if hit by a projectile, triggering all of its charges and disallowing respawn.
Hotfix v.041a
- Fixed an issue that caused the Fire Frakker to continue working even when the player had been EMP'd
- Fixed an issue that prevented the Fire Frakker from utilizing the Overclock powerup (this is my favorite thing in the game, currently)
- Improved the responsiveness of the Hail Mary slightly.
- Possibly corrected an issue that may have locked the Smol Ship augment even if you had previously unlocked it.
As always, keep sending your feedback, and I'll keep improving the game. Thanks so much for all of your help so far!
Pyrotechnics Update (Early Access v.0.41)
I'll be posting an updated development roadmap in the coming days, but here's a quick overview of what's coming next: More pilots, more upgrades, a robust difficulty system, updated music, and tutorial tips for new players.
With the growing list of possible upgrades, next week will include updates to how loot and rerolls are generated,
In this patch:
- New Pilot: Pyre
- New Weapon: Hail Mary
- New Weapon: Fire Frakker
- New Symbionic: Heal Mary
- New Utility: Pressure Cooker
- New Utility: Accelerant
- Weapon Update: Sunstriker
- Weapon Update: Leymines
- Raypalm Rebalance
- Junk Drone, Support Strike, and Slag Shot augment balance changes
- Bug fixes
New Pilot: Pyre
- Weapon: Sunstriker
- Augment: Hot Streak. When fully charged, Pyre is granted 2 seconds of the Overcharge powerup, reducing all recharge timers by 90%. Killing enemies fills the Hot Streak's meter 2.5%, and taking damage reduces it 25%.
- Unlocks with: Kill It With Fire Achievement
New Weapons
- Hail Mary: A target appears, moving left and right with you. It locks on to and fires homing flares at an unshielded enemy in the area. The farther you are, the more damage the flare does, up to 10.
- Fire Frakker: A targeter charges up while on enemies, and releases a cone shaped blast of 3 short-range projectiles that do 50 damage each, burning enemies in a larger area.
New Utilities
- Pressure Cooker: Force effects now have a chance to apply burn
- Accelerant: If an enemy dies while on fire, they have a chance to combust, spreading fire to other nearby enemies.
Weapon Updates
Sunstriker
- Sunstriker is now a beam and fire weapon
- Both targets simultaneously erupt instead of alternating
- Now applies burn effects to all enemies hit (see below in balance changes for burn debuff details)
- Has had its base damage reduced from 50 -> 26
Leymine
- Now releases a force pulse that pushes nearby enemies back when triggered, creating a safer incentive to pursue them, and synergizing with current and future upgrades that affect force-type equipment.
- Leymine projectile base range has been doubled, covering most of the screen from the start.
- Leymine projectile base speed is now 50% faster
- Note: There is a bit of a tradeoff here, as it makes hitting nearby enemies less likely, but farther away enemies more possible, all while keeping the player much safer.
Balance Changes
- Burn effects now always deal 24 damage over 1.5 seconds, but multiple burn effects can be applied to a single target.
- Raypalm
- No longer scales in damage, and has had its timer and area adjusted now that burn effects can stack and do standardized damage. It now grows in area incrementally at levels 3 and 4, instead of all at once at level 4.
- Level 2: -20% recharge time
- Level 3: -20% recharge time. +35% area of effect
- Level 4: +35% area of effect. - Junk Drone
- Scrap Cost increased from 20-> 25,
- Chance for scrap to drop reduced from 25%-> 20%,
- Duration reduced from 6-> 5 seconds. - Support Strike
- Support strike is now always active, but with a base 34 second recharge time.
- For every 10 armor below your maximum, the base recharge time is now reduced by 3 seconds. 1 second minimum recharge time. - Slag Shot
- Now creates 3 projectiles that deal 25 damage each instead of 1 that deals 50.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug that prevented augments and utilities with recharge timers from taking advantage of the Overclock powerup
- The burn debuff was previously sometimes doing 1 less tick of damage than it should have been
- Fixed an issue that caused slag shot bullets to consistently favor the left side of the screen
Hotfix v.0.40d
- Corrected the achievement text in-game for "Bulldozer." Used to say "150 enemies" but should have said "150 asteroids."
- Updated some of the code for force (knockback) effects to be more efficient
- Updated some code for the Sting King boss to prevent rare soft-lock situations where the boss stops behaving, but the game isn't frozen.