Random update! Slightly nerfed hard difficulty and added feature to update existing saves to latest balance data.
Also 30% discount that will last for couple of days is planned to start tomorrow!
Full changelog:
BALANCE
Hard and stable hard game modes: - Enemy damage multiplier per wave: 2.2% -> 2.1% - Enemy additional stat multiplier per boss wave: 25% -> 22% - Overall enemy damage multiplier: 125% -> 120% - Boss damage multiplier: 110% -> 107% - Health powerup drop chance multiplier: 90% -> 95% These changes should decrease gap between normal and hard difficulties but still keep hard difficulty *hard*
Third boss: - Healing powerup (dropped between phases) effect multiplier: 140% -> 145%
- Added feature that allows updating balance data of existing save file to latest version. Button to perform update can be found in saved game "INFO" panel.
Winter sale
Winter sale is here!
For it's duration the game is 40% cheaper.
Happy holidays!
Autumn sale discount
Autumn sale is here !
You can get the game 30% cheaper in the next 7 days so consider grabbing it as the price is the lowest it has been so far !
Special halloween sale
2.0.0 update discount has already finished, but there is another chance to get the game at promotional price! There is a global steam halloween sale happening for the next few days, so you can grab the game for 20% less.
2.0.0 update discount
The 2.0.0 content update has just been released and with it I have prepared a special 25% discount that will last for the next few days. Make sure you don't miss it!
All changes present in 2.0.0 content update are listed below. As a reminder, changelog for 5 most recent updates is also available in game - just click version number in the bottom left corner of the screen in any menu.
General
Added score multipliers to game modes. They exist on top of point bonuses for game mode difficulty and change depending on chosen game mode options
New game menu: added field that displays total score multiplier for selected game mode
New game menu: added field that displays amount of bonus points awarded for completing the game on selected game mode
Added new game mode option: randomized boss order - causes bosses to appear in a random order. It grants 15% additional score multiplier and can be turned on in any game mode
Added new game mode option: randomized boss phases - makes bosses procedurally generated by assigning them randomly chosen phases. May cause bosses to be CONSIDERABLY harder. Grants 30% additional score multiplier and can be turned on in any game mode
Added new game mode: boss rush - changes default waves into 12 boss waves and enforces both new boss randomization options. Available in both standard and stable variants
Boss rush game mode also alters available consumables, perks and causes bosses to drop additional currency and energy powerups
Most of the small player bullets are now more square-shaped
Tweaked player bullets coloring a bit
Added 2 new achievements
Fixed a bug that caused short game mode to have incorrect available player unit/weapon combinations
Gameplay
New player weapon: Crawler - shoots pulsing bullets in a wave pattern and it's damage depends on bullet's size during hit
New player weapon: Swarmer - shoots a swarm of low damage bullets that can bounce off the edges once
New weapons won't appear in previously saved games, you need to start new one to try them out
New enemy behavior: Charge - travels across game area while shooting. After leaving screen, waits a certain amount of time, then travels back
Enemies with charge behavior travel in different patterns at higher waves
Adding new enemy behavior causes enemy reshuffling in stable game modes. It means that you will encounter different set of enemies when playing an older saved game with stable game mode
Balance
Rifle: decreased base damage from 50-70 to 45-65
Tracker, Homing discharger and blue unit's barrage skill: can no longer target enemies outside of game area
Slightly decreased collision radius of small player bullets
Boss2: increased attack speed multiplier from 55% to 80% and adjusted cooldowns for all attacks so overall everything stays the same, but when this boss' phase is used by some other boss, it should be considerably easier
Boss3: increased attack and movement speed multipliers from 100% to 130% and adjusted attack cooldowns/movement speed so overall everything stays the same, but when this boss' phase is used by some other boss, it should be considerably easier
Boss3: slightly increased speed during teleporting phase
Sound
Fixed a bug that caused background music to start playing when the game was minimized and setting which was supposed to prevent so was toggled on
Other
Small tweaks in Polish translation
Landing screen animation can now be skipped if it was seen at least once
Random update #5
Hi, it's time for some more news about upcoming content update and some other stuff!
Update details
New content update is expected to go live October 23rd 2019 @ 17:00 CEST
There are 2 new gameplay trailers available in the store page. First was uploaded last week and mainly focuses on new player weapons, while second one is very fresh and shows off new boss rush game mode. It can also be seen on youtube: [previewyoutube="D0IecXgFTAU;full"]
The two new player weapons are:
swarmer which shoots multiple bullets in a swarm-like pattern. It's bullets bounce off edges of game area once before flying away.
crawler which shoots single bullet that dynamically changes it's size. Damage dealt depends on bullet's size at the time of hit (almost no damage when bullet is small, very high damage when bullet is big)
Enemies will also gain new AI pattern, but that needs to be found in game :)
On top of that there will also be three new game mode options:
Randomized boss order - can be turned on in any game mode for additional point multiplier, causes bosses to appear in random order
Randomized boss phases - can be turned on in any game mode for additional point multiplier, causes bosses to be procedurally generated by assigning them random behavior phases, which means it's very unlikely for two boss fights to be the same
Boss rush mode - entirely alters the game flow: enforces both boss randomization options, amount of waves is reduced to 12, every wave is a boss fight, causes bosses to drop currency in between phases, changes available wave skip consumables
Point multipliers are new thing that help adjusting amount of points gained to how difficult the game is. The idea is that toggling on certain game mode options increases total point multiplier. For now only boss randomization and changing rng seed after defeat grant additional point multipliers.
Version naming
With the new content update, the game's version will be changed to 2.0.0. Why ?
I decided to use convention where version number is a combination of 3 numbers separated by dot. In short it's composed like that: xxx.yyy.zzz. Changes to specific number inform about severity of changes:
xxx - major patch which includes sizable amount of new content or system changes, smaller changes and bugfixes
yyy - minor patch which includes very little content or system changes, few smaller changes and some bugfixes
zzz - bugfix patch which does not contain any content or system changes, has one or two smaller changes and is mainly focused on bugfixes
Upcoming patch has quite a lot of new content and system changes, therefore I consider it as a major patch, which means the leftmost number will be increased - 2.0.0.
Random update #4
Hi, it's time for yet another batch of news!
What's next?
I have almost finished developing next update. This time there will be a bit of new content and few bugfixes together with balance tweaks.
I don't want to go into the details of all of the changes too much for now because things may be different in final version and also it kind of spoils the fun, but in short there should be:
2 new player weapons,
1 new enemy ai pattern,
3 new game mode options (one of them entirely alters the way game is played),
tweaks to scoring system
If everything goes smoothly, the update should be available about 3 weeks from now, around 23rd October 2019. Full patch notes are going to be available both here on steam and in-game (see bottom left of the screen in main menu)
Discounts
Last time I wrote there are no plans for discounts until christmas sale, but ultimately nothing is set in stone and things can change. This is one of these cases where things have changed. I have rethought the whole idea and decided for setting more frequent discounts. In short there will be a discount when the next update is released, and also every few weeks/months in the future.
Version 1.1.0
First patch is here!
This one is very small, but brings few bugfixes and a new quality of life feature: ability to save custom game modes. Check it out in action here:
https://imgur.com/a/v3L0jf8
Game modes are saved in JSON format, which means they can be easily edited in any text editor (although it's neither advised nor supported - do it at your own risk as you might break stuff !). They should be located in C:/Users/[Username]/AppData/LocalLow/PN/JustRandomSquares/CustomGameModes/ directory
Patch notes can also be found in game - just click on version number in bottom left corner.
General
Added ability to save custom game modes so they can be used without the need of adjusting everything all over again
Saved custom game modes are not being saved in cloud (might be changed in future patches)
Fixed a bug in new game menu that caused sound to not be played when selecting game mode for the first time
Pressing menu cancel button (escape) in achievements and leaderboard menu now causes return to main menu
Other
Tweaked Polish localization a bit
Changelog text can now be selected and copied
Random update #3
Hi again!
Launch
Looks like things went smoothly, I didn't get any emails/messages/posts/whatever from angry people complaining the game is bugged/crashing/unplayable/whatever, so that's a good sign.
If you encounter any bugs or want to share your feedback, you are more than welcome to send me an email (JustRandomSquares [at] gmail.com), make a post in community discussions or leave me a message on twitter
Discount
There are only few hours left of launch discount, so if you are interested in the game there is still time! I don't plan on setting another discount until winter sale (which will be about the same as current launch discount anyway), but nothing is set in stone.
Next patch
Right now I'm working on adding a feature that allows saving custom game modes to file so they can be reused later when starting new game. I am also thinking about integrating them with workshop, but that's a topic for later.
