Another week, another update! This time our primary focus was on the competitive aspect of the game!
Some of you may have noticed that we have an achievement called "Hole In One!" which requires you to get the combo counter to x50, and you didn't know where the combo counter is. The reason for this was that we had to disable it as we were reworking how the combo system works.
The new combo increases for each kill the player makes. Each enemy contributes a certain amount of points to the combo. When enough points are accumulated the combo counter increases by 1. Each combo level increases the number of points the player gets for all the actions he does in the game.
There are 100 levels of the combo multiplier and at max rank, the score increase is 50%.
The combo isn't lost until you take damage, and at that point, we reduce it by 25%. So it's best to keep away from that damage if you want to build up that combo meter!
To complement the combo system we also reworked how scores are awarded for curses. Each curse increases the total score by 10%, but we decided to add a higher score bonus when you have more curses. For example when you have 5 curses active the total score boost is 75% while with 6 curses the total score boost rises to 100%.
Well, of course, these aren't all the changes. Check out all the other cool features:
New Features
- Added all the assault rifle, pistol, shotgun and knife type tier 3 weapons bringing the primary weapon count to 67 up from 50
- Achievements have been added to NETRICSA
- The score is now visible throughout the game
- The combo counter was added to the HUD
- Reworked the models and animations for Rocketeers, Kamikazes, Bombers, and Firecrackers
Tweaks and adjustments
- Bull won't spawn while near shortcuts
- The boat is now more agile, also, fewer mines ;)
- Loading screen now requires player's input to start the game (so you guys can read the tips in peace)
- Arrows near the lockers now stay visible
- Fixed the error which would appear on taking a shortcut when the tutorial is active
- Fixed a bug where the helicopter would not be visible if it was destroyed in the first loop
- Collider height around the helicopter area was raised to make jumping off the platform with the broken jetpack impossible
- Added tier stars to weapons to make it easier to identify what rank all the weapons are
- Gunslinger perk now affects BonePistol weapon and Colt45 weapon
- Final Assault no longer works with BonePistol and Colt45 as they are now categorized as pistol weapons
- CrossBone weapon now consumes the amount of ammo it fires
- Rocket launcher tier 3 ammo increased to 15 up from 12
- Increased tier 2 and tier 3 Omicron laser damage to 12 up from 8
Road to the "Mega Update" patch
Hey everyone. We have been busy for the last few weeks as we were working on IHRB's third major update. There were many sleepless nights and nervous breakdowns involved in the process, but in the end, we managed to finish in time for the summer sale.
We love our game and want to make it better with each update, but we saw the same comments on each video or post we put up on the web: "The characters look like Minecraft". It was a simple argument that we couldn't dispute. We knew that it's not common for released games to change up the art style, and we knew that it would be a huge job but if the people wanted the change who are we to think that we know better?
A few arguments and meetings later we decided that we're going to do it! Our 3d modeler, Matko had a tremendous job to do. He had to remake most of the characters in the game and even add additional animations to make them more lifelike. We think he did a good job. Tell us what you think!
We also heard complaints that the game lacks weapon variety. At first, we weren't sure what the problem was. As we have a huge arsenal of special weapons in the game and each character starts with 2 primary weapons which are unique to the character.
We found that the main issue was the lack of player decision around builds. With special weapons, there wasn't enough impact on the moment to moment gameplay. Players would save them up for bosses or for tight situations and didn't use them in a pickup, shoot and throw away way as we intended.
Our answer was the weapon locker system. We introduced weapon locker that is placed in the lobby (start of the game) and at the beginning of each environment. Players can adjust their loadout in accordance with the perks they have. As the largest amount of experience is awarded after the bosses it made sense to put the weapon lockers directly after the bosses, that way the players can adjust their weapons to the perks they picked up.
To give the players even more options we introduced a new set of weapon focused perks.
The Stormchaser perk gives the player the option to fire his/her weapon while using the melee attack. This perk serves as a bridge between a melee focused build and a range focused build and gives the player more Mojo(exp) farming freedom.
The skewer is a perk that gives assault rifle weapons the ability to pierce through enemies. At first glance it looks like a damage boosting perk, well it is, but its primary focus is to slow down all the enemies that get hit by the piercing bullets to give you more time for fighting.
The Bomberman perk increases the radius of all weapon based explosion for the player, it's primary focus is to empower the newly added double and triple rocket launcher and velcro primary weapons, but it also empowers a lot of the special weapons.
We want to know what you think! Tell us what perks and weapons you want to see in future updates? Tell us what you think here or join us on Discord. We would love to hear what you think!
I HATE RUNNING BACKWARDS ON LINUX!
Have you not heard? It was our understanding that everyone had heard.
We are happy to announce that the Linux version of I Hate Running Backwards is now available to download on Steam!
So fire up those machines and get to runnin' and gunnin'! Those bad boys ain't gonna kill themselves, you know?
Well, except for the Kamikazes. But that's just what they do.
Update 1.1.0 - MEGA UPDATE
Hello, Runners, we have been silent for too long, but rest assured we were hard at work to bring you another set of small tweaks, changes, ahh hahaha just kidding!
We're bringing you the super, ultra cool MEGA UPDATE! That's right. This time we mean business!
https://youtu.be/mpxBtVIndQ0
Members of our community wanted more variety from the start of the game and more evolving gameplay. On that end, we are introducing a new Primary weapon locker system.
Weapon lockers spawn at the start of new environments and enable you to switch up your primary weapons to something that better suits you. To keep it fresh we randomized what weapons you can get in each locker to make each run a bit different!
We also wanted to give you some more choices in build varieties so we are introducing 4 new perks that put more emphasis on shooting. We love the melee mechanic in our game but we felt that there weren't enough perk options for guns.
One of the biggest features of this updates is the update of our characters visuals and animations. We felt that the looks of our characters didn't do justice to the legends they are. They were our heroes as we were growing up, so we wanted to show them some much-deserved love, with our own personal touch.
We have a lot of other features ready for you which you can check out below:
New Features
- More than 30 new primary weapons!
- Added weapon locker, players can now change their primary weapons
- All primary weapons got more powerful versions (mk2 and mk3)
- New Perk: Stormchaser - enables shooting while spinning
- New Perk: Bomberman - increases the radius of explosions
- New Perk: Skewer - primary weapon bullet pierce
- Added new character models for Serious Sam, Dancing Denzell, Fast Finger Freddie, Lo Wang, Chux, Rambro, Richard, Zombie Zed
- At the start of each environment, the game will slow down and give you the chance to switch your primary weapons with the weapons in the weapon lockers
- Added the option to browse daily by date
Tweaks and adjustments
- Deeper Pockets perk now grants 50% more ammo (up from 20%)
- Mouthful Of Lead now grants 50% more ammo (up from 20%)
- Improved the tutorials so that they don't stop the game and give them a more organic feel
- Lady Death's ultimate ability now destroys mojo barrels and enemy projectiles
- Bloater health was reduced and their explosions now to damage to other enemies
- Blasphemy (The Bullets weapon) damage increased
- New ultimate ready sound added
- Fixed an issue where the mojo bucket would stop a vehicle
- Mine explosion sfx updated
- Velcro weapon projectile explosion speed increased
- Updated the user experience of the traps in the environment, now it's a lot easier to spot traps in the environments
- Players now start with full ammo on all weapons
- Added a new mojo bar
- New ultimate bars
- Added a new effect for the boss health bars to make it more clear when the bosses take damage
- Updated the visuals for the loading screens
That's all for this update we hope you enjoy it! Come and join us on our discord: https://discord.gg/ihrb and tell us what you think! Until next time! Keep on running backwards!
Play I Hate Running Backwards online!
For those of you who don't have the chance to gather with friends in local co-op - our friends from Parsec gaming have solution for you!
By using "Parsec" gaming software, you can have two people from anywhere in the world connect to one PC and turn any local co-op game into an online multiplayer. :IHRBRocket:
As long as you don't live too far apart from your friend, and have a decent internet connection, you will experience almost no input delay.
Setting it up is really easy - so we made a short tutorial video on how to do so!
https://youtu.be/rf6Mio2py48
Join us on Discord to find new friends to play with! :)
Update 1.0.3 - Re-Armed!
Hello runners! We're bringing you a new update with some new fixes, tweaks, and upgrades to make your runs faster and the gameplay experience that much more fun!
Let's get cooking! What's on the menu today:
-Character rebalance and updates - we changed the stats on some characters and fine-tuned some of their abilities
-Added Mojo buckets to vehicle events to make them more interesting and give you the chance to get even more Mojo
-Hardcore mode is unlocked for all the characters once you finish a loop with any character
-New mojo collection effect
-Fixed achievements - the issues with the achievements have been fixed, especially "Winter is coming"
-Improved game save - it won't reset now when the game is started from another PC
-Jackslayer achievement now unlocks the character Bullet
-Backhand achievement now unlocks the Gravity Gun weapon
-Trasher achievement now unlocks the Orbital Strike weapon
-Dumpster Dave location moved to Molty Python level
-Added tooltips to locked curses
-Added tooltips to projectiles
-Added tutorials for new players
-New loading screens with hints
-UghZan and UghZanTank have been made easier for normal mode
-New night and day lights on environments
-Added more training balls to the lobby
-Lava Golem curse now locks-in before shooting
-Added character stats
Have fun with the update. And don't forget to join us on Discord!
UPDATE 1.0.1. - BALANCE!!
We're proud to announce our first update! We looked at all the reviews we got for the game and wanted to address some of the issues that were frequently brought up.
In addition to the updates listed here, we plan to add a lot of quality of life and ease of use features to the game in the near future!
Update 1.0.1. Patch notes:
-Baby mode gives you the opportunity to explore the game world and experience it at your own pace, giving you the opportunity to learn the basics of the game easier.
-Increase of Ammo pickup spawn chances to give you all the firepower you can ever need!
-Increased the size of colliders on the spider enemies to make them easier to hit.
-Ultimate abilities now have a cool new tune when they charge up.
-Humvee won't get stuck on buildings anymore.
-Shortcuts now remain open after you leave the game to making easier to reach new environments when you fire up the game next time.
-Shortcuts now glow making them easier to spot.
-All curse altars are visible from the start but we put locks on the levers until you unlock them.
-Added text when activating curses to make it clear when they have been activated.
-A huge set of bug fixes tweaks and optimizations.
Time to start running... backwards!!! :)
Dear gamers, family, friends, enemies, fans and their pets,
we are happy and proud to announce that I Hate Running Backwards is now available on Steam (and some consoles)! :tgrin:
First of all, we have to extend our gratitude and appreciation to all our fans who were with us, enduring all our bugs and helping with honest feedback to make this game as good as possible! We can't mention all of you, but you know who you are. :tlove:
For all info on the game, please visit our Official IHRB Wiki and for all praises, rants, hate, free hugs, random giveaways and general discussions, come to our IHRB Discord server, we promise you won't regret it or at least live long enough to tell anyone about it! :csdsick:
We already prepared a bunch of useful guides on Steam so you can access them via Steam overlay while dying playing. :thumbs:
Last thing we did is Kill the Streamer game mode! So if you're streaming on Twitch, you have the opportunity to play AGAINST your audience (Streamers :vs: Watchers). They will get points for damaging and killing the streamer and frustrate him enough to consider leaving his streaming career in hilarious rage and go work as a waiter on Hawaii cause the pressure is just too high! ːsteammockingː
You can also connect with us and follow us on social networks to stay up to date with news and updates.
Not to make this too long, we think it's about damn time you start running backwards! Good luck and see you on Discord! ːsteamhappyː
The World of I Hate Running Backwards
Hey guys! We're back with some new info on the game. We're happy to show you how we set up our world and give you a sneak peak on the stuff we had to do to make it all click!
As you all know IHRB is a procedural endless runner where you can destroy everything you see on the screen. We have a lot of environments in the game, and all of them are shuffled and presented to the player at different times. To optimize the game we constantly despawn grounds that exit the cameras field of view and spawn new ones ahead of the camera view to save up on memory.
Our world building process had to follow some rules. All the tiles had to fit one another when they spawn, so we implemented a simple system where we have entrance grounds, middle grounds that get shuffled and exit grounds. Also all ground tiles must be of the same size in the same section. This system allowed us to have a lot of variety.
The base world is made up of 5 different environments. Each of the 5 environments has a set of at least 4 ground groups. Each ground group has a group of entrance tiles, a group of at least 6 middle tiles and a group of exit tiles. What that adds up to is a whole lot of different environments. And when you count in the possibility of activating or deactivating random objects in tiles you get a different experience every time you play.
If you have any questions regarding any details behind the world or the game in general we're always active on the forums and we'll be glad to talk to you!
The Bling Bling of IHRB
Shiny
We wanted to give you guys a bit of insight into what goes on behind the visual effects in I Hate Running Backwards.
There are a lot of effects in the game and as a first rule we try to make them functional and visually appealing.
The problem
Functionality and visual appeal are subjective terms and it often boils down to us having to iterate on different effects to mold them into what they need to be in the end.
The first part we work on is functionality. In this step we try to give the effects context in the world. If we're talking about weapons we try to make the effects give visual feedback on the speed of the bullets or the radius of explosions.
After that we work on visual appeal. We try to make something unique for every new weapon or character we introduce to the game.
Here is an example of the two parts working together to make a portal effect.
First we made the colors of the middle part of the portal more saturated than the outer parts to attract the eye towards the middle part of the portal.
Than we added the sparks that indicate to the player the part of the portal he can interact with.
To spring the portal to life we added the less saturated parts the lights on the ground infront of the portal and the small pulsating crystals. When it all comes together we get something like this:
Iteration
Ahh yes the bane of game development. Well it is a huge part of effects design.
For the next example we have a flame explosion that stays on the ground after the initial impact.
In its first iteration the effect didn't have a good representation of the damage radius and we had to redesign the effect to make it easier for the player to see where the danger is.
We added a flaming circular indicator and the overall strength of the effect got a visual upgrade. We increased the duration of the flame to show where the danger is and it also indicates the duration of the effect. In the end we added some ground cracks with less saturation just for contrast the intensity of the core.
Old Effect:
New Effect:
The difference is sublte but it gives the player more information than the first iteration.
Effect Layering
We usually layer different textures to make more complex effects. For example to make the above flame effect we had to layer different shapes like: the small flame licks, sparks, ground cracks and the radius indicator circles that have lava like scrolling noise moving over them.
And as a last treat we'll show you a breakdown of our lvl up effect.
And when it all comes together we get something that looks like this:
Thanks guys and stay tuned we'll share more cool stuff soon :)
