- Added first-person camera effects while moving
- Implemented joining and inviting friends through Steam
Lightphobe
v0.20.3 Patch
v0.20.2 Patch
Gameplay
- Added double jumping
- Added sprinting for Soldiers
- Lightphobe AI now uses abilities
Diffuculty Balancing
- Decreased Lightphobe shield amount (temporary ability) from 500 to 150
- Decreased default lightphobe_ai_multiplier from 2.5 to 1.5
- Decreased base movement speed for Soldiers (since they can now sprint)
Bugfixes
- Added invincibility frame when spawning in
- Fixed game sometimes crashing when kill feed is full due to widgets not being garbage collected properly
Other
- Improved controls text inside tutorial
- Added randomness to Soldier AI to make them feel more natural
- Improved object interaction
v0.20.1 Patch
- Fixed bug with soldier ragdolls not showing properly for late joiners
v0.20.0 Patch
New Content
- Added 2 new Lightphobe abilities: Activate Temporary Shield + Summon Enchanted Sword
- Added revive mechanic for Soldiers
- Added a test area into the tutorial
Performance Improvements
- Optimized Suburbs map for better performance and lower VRAM usage
Diffuculty Balancing
- Adjusted Soldier AI's enemy detection
- Decreased damage dealt by turrets in the training arena
- Increased Soldier respawn time from 25 to 45
Other
- Moved the turrets in the tutorial into the training arena
- Added ADS scope effect on sniper (first person view)
New Update: Soldier Bots + Singleplayer Support (and more...)
Soldier bots have now been added into the game, and player count restrictions for starting/joining a game have also been removed.
What this means is you can now play the game in singleplayer just like how you would in multiplayer! Bots will automatically fill-in the place of any missing players at the start of each round.
The lobby menu has also been updated with additional parameters for setting up team sizes before starting a match. By default, each round starts with 8 Soldiers and 20 Lightphobes, and it can be increased up to a maximum of 16 Soldiers and 80 Lightphobes.
Behind the scenes, each Soldier bot is controlled by a neural network (in addition to pre-programmed behaviors). The code for it has been made open source, so feel free to check it out and use it in your own projects if you'd like :)
Wall Jumping
Lightphobes have also been upgraded with the ability to wall jump; allowing them to scale almost any vertical surface.
This extra mobility allows Lightphobes to sneak around and launch an attack from almost anywhere; making them significantly more dangerous!
Sleep Mode (dedicated servers)
Sleep mode has now been added to dedicated servers to improve stability and resource usage when servers aren't being used.
A small downside to sleep mode is that players may need to wait an extra few seconds when joining a server if the server happens to be sleeping at that time.
The entire process of entering and exiting out of sleep mode is automatic, and so other than possibly longer join times, everything else should still remain the same.
Other Changes
- added melee auto-attacking to Lightphobes when the attack button is held down
- buffed sniper: increased bullet velocity
- nerfed 8-round shotgun: decreased damage and increased pellet spread
- updated skin effect on Lightphobes
- added extra indicators to the capture zone when Lightphobe presence is being removed
- removed the 'Save Dataset' checkbox in the settings since it's no longer being used
- added object pooling to bullet projectiles
- optimized palisades to improve FPS when there are several of them on-screen
- fixed an issue with dedicated servers sometimes crashing when the map resets
What's Next?
It's now been 2 weeks since Lightphobe's Early Access launch, and so I thought I'd give everyone an update for what's going to happen next with the game.
I'm currently working on a new map which I'm expecting it will take at least 4 more weeks before it's ready for playtesting. So just be aware that things might be a bit quiet over the next few weeks, but know that the game is still being worked on!
Pricing Changes
For the past couple weeks, I've been reconsidering the business model for Lightphobe, and after giving it a lot of careful thought, I've decided that I'm going to transition Lightphobe into being a free-to-play game with paid DLC once it releases out of Early Access. I believe this is for the best, and it should help with populating the game for multiplayer in the future.
Anyone who purchases Lightphobe during its paid Early Access period will be given access to all paid DLC. However, this only applies if the game was purchased through a legitimate storefront. Note that as of this writing, the only legitimate storefront for purchasing Lightphobe is through the Steam store.
The pricing of Lightphobe during its paid Early Access period will continue to follow its original plan of slowly increasing over time as more content is added.
That's it for now! Let me know if you have any questions or comments!
v0.18.6 Patch
- Tweaked Lightphobe AI spawn formula
- Fixed "Fatal error" crash when scoreboard is shown due to widgets being garbage collected
v0.18.5 Patch
Gameplay Improvements
- Improved ladder climbing
- Added Lightphobe teammate names above heads
- Changed to fixed FOV when teammate names show above heads
- Made it easier to pickup light sources
- Made it so that soldiers will automatically pick up a light source when respawning at a dropped light
Diffuculty Balancing
- Changed default lightphobe_ai_multiplier from 3 to 2.5
- Increased Lightphobe jump height
- Increased player Lightphobe attack range
Other
- Minor UI improvements
v0.18.4 Patch
Bugfixes
- Fixed rotation smoothing not being disabled on clients
- Fixed spectator controls not working after opening another window
Quality of Life Improvements
- Made it so you can click outside the text chat to switch in-game
v0.18.3 Patch
Difficulty Balancing
- Decreased soldier respawn time from 45 to 25 seconds
Quality of Life Improvements
- Modified live spectator controls to not use click-and-drag
- Disabled rotation smoothing on live spectator
- Increased size of objective arrow