Area/weapon/mutation seeding is now far more consistent.
There's now an option for borderless fullscreen on Windows (Alt+Shift+Enter / in options).
There's now a confirmation dialog when exiting/restarting a run; R confirms in it.
Safe spawns now work consistently.
Added a setting for native cursors - when supported, this gets rid of mouse lag once and for all.
Added a setting for mouselock (when available) - for windowed or multi-screen setups.
Both players can now play the same character in coop without making use of bugs.
Added localization support (see lang-example.ini / copy to lang.ini for translating)
Almost too many bugfixes.
Balancing
Weapons returned by Determination no longer have cooldown of last seen weapon in that slot.
Trying to pause mid-generation now pauses as soon as loading finishes.
Game now auto-pauses if connection is lost to the in-use gamepad.
Grenades no long persist on level change (since they could break generation / kill you).
Proto statues no longer keep rads from previous encounter if forgotten
Discs now have an axis-aligned bounding box and bounce
a little* more predictably. (don't get too excited - the spread is still there and you'll still hit yourself a lot)
Player' plasma shots now hit players with iframe rules when reflected.
IDPD grenades now harm IDPD (alongside everyone else) if deflected.
Mimics are no longer multiplied on loops.
Select enemies now just don't increment kill count instead of reducing it by 1.
You can now blow up the last enemy with Melting's Ultra A (the trick: it'll leave a corpse).
Proto chest now defaults to rusty revolver if it's weapon is gone.
Jungle now consistently offers new mutations on each visit.
You no longer accidentally pick up weapons when entering secret areas via objects.
Weapons can no longer end up under $$$-specific prop.
Hyper Crystal now clears additional area upon noticing the player.
Ravens no longer lift up and land on same spot if there's nowhere to fly.
Giving up crown of destiny no longer can cause you to have -1 mutation points.
Rads should now get stuck on wall edges slightly less often now.
The game will take minor effort not to spawn the player right on top of cars/generators.
IDPD explosions appearing on one spot no longer stack horizontally.
In a particular location, other cars no longer explode when using one of them.
Elite inspectors no longer pull non-moving projectiles.
Maggot spawns can no longer be duplicated on loops.
Enemy' slugs will no longer hit things while on last (almost gone) frames of animation.
Frog can now use Hammerhead mutation - use active ability when standing next to a wall.
Fixes
Fixed original weapon gaining cooldown of what last was in your secondary slot when picking up a new weapon while having only one (mostly affected only Chicken and Robot).
Fixed portal not opening until van is gone if Big Dog and van are the last enemies on the level.
Fixed automatic weapons/abilities being used when unpausing via Continue/ability button.
Fixed necromancers trying to revive things that they can't revive (such as boss' corpses).
Fixed necromancers not doing anything if the nearest corpse has no line of sight to it.
Fixed a broken torch with T1 collision box behind T1 if dealing >1K damage to it during intro.
Fixed grenades getting blown up in portal proximity few frames after opening.
Fixed a number of oddities with Skeleton<->Melting changes.
Fixed it being problematic to sit down on 7-3/HQ3 sometimes.
Fixed portals in HQ not opening chests.
Fixed IDPD freaks being able to freely leave 0-1.
Fixed Rogue sometimes getting a rad canister on 7-3 with Open Mind.
Fixed Crown of Love not applying to chests on 7-3.
Fixed it being possible to farm kills by going between a level and HQ.
Fixed some tiles being slippery when fighting guardians in 5-2 vault.
Fixed a very occasional out-of-level hole appearing together with a hostile Horror.
Fixed cluster spawns breaking through safe spawn walls sometimes.
Fixed ultra bolts vanishing when out of 0-1
Fixed it being possible to farm rads by killing-reviving Horror in coop.
Fixed IDPD plasma ignoring iframes completely, as result dealing ~120 damage per second. It's now only almost always an insta-kill.
Fixed ravens duplicating if killed just as they are about to liftoff.
Fixed cars duplicating if grabbed by a snowbot just as they are about to explode.
Fixed it being possible to force self to deal with a van by blowing up the last corpse around.
Fixed Gun Warrant not allowing to use "infinite ammo" if clip is empty.
Fixed blood weapon "exchanging" not working for Steroids' active.
Fixed vans being required to destroy before a portal can open at 1-1 \ 1-2.
Fixed proto chest jumping around if pulled onto the crown pedestal.
Fixed jungle flower not spawning sometimes.
Fixed certain 2-1 specific props not spawning sometimes.
Fixed Technomancer spawning turrets outside of the level.
Fixed a possibility of getting multiple 101-1 portals on loops.
Fixed elite enemy spawn condition not being checked for each enemy separately when duplicating.
Fixed "spawned" enemies (green rats, nest maggots) not getting killed upon entering secrets.
Fixed Horror's Meltdown allowing to "reroll" any extra mutations due to some real old code.
Fixed it being possible to pick up invisible weapons while in portal sometimes.
Fixed big rads charging the statues only by 1 rad.
Fixed 5-1 special prop sometimes getting destroyed by enemies on loops.
Fixed laser and lightning crystals freely moving for a few frames if hit mid-charge.
Fixed Lil Hunter extremely occasionally dying during spawn phase.
Fixed weapons not being swappable during boss intros.
Fixed it being possible to get free ammo via YV Ultra B when having no rads.
Fixed IDPD portals spawning on top of the player without intending to.
Fixed elite shielders telefragging the player sometimes (and generally teleporting oddly).
Fixed golden cars still occasionally being amiss on 3-1.
Fixed assassins not getting killed on special level transitions.
Fixed quick restart in hard mode not incrementing hardmode runs statistic.
Fixed "pop pop upgrade" not being free in terms of rad cost on ultra weapons.
Fixed explosions and enemy flak-type projectiles not being cleared when a portal opens.
Fixed it being possible to destroy throne columns with SPC/other wall clearing weapons before starting the fight.
Fixed lightning weapons not working correctly at 0-1 boss fight.
Fixed rogue strike canisters being replaced by rad canisters if a big weapon chest spawns.
Fixed statues absorbing rads even before activation.
Fixed weapons sometimes rapidly flying off in a direction because of appearing at the same spot.
Fixed weapon pickup mask being slightly off-center.
Fixed a rare crash related to elite shielder.
Fixed 6-1' stationary enemies spawning under 6-1 L1+ boss sometimes.
Fixed 7-3 and 0-1 bosses not dropping rads that were beamed into them.
Fixed a rare softlock in 7-x enemy teleportation.
Fixed "cursed"/glitched crown vaults (where non-guardian enemies would spawn inside).
Fixed portals sometimes appearing at position of last exploded barrel on 1-x.
Fixed Frog being unable to turn around when providing an opposite-to-moving-direction inputs.
Fixed elite shielder's teleport not working correctly.
Fixed a bug with specific prop unintentionally exploding after hitting it with an energy screwdriver and laser brain mutation.
Fixed a rare softlock in raven flight algorithm.
Fixed hyper launcher and hyper slugger hitting allies.
Fixed a very rare bug with portals spawning off-level.
Fixed portals spawning at an unnecessary offset from the last killed enemy.
Fixed a rare crash on dying to CrownGuardian.
Misc
Swap button now switches skins on daily, for lack of any other function.
Weekly' tooltip now shows the name of the weapon in case you've no idea.
Health chests now have a separate sprite when dropping from enemies with Confiscate in 2-?.
Added a potential fix for music playing for a split second even if muted.
Controls menu now knows more button names.
Controls menu now waits until newly bound button is released to avoid triggering it's effect.
Reworked formatted text drawing for performance and locale features.
Holes inside 0-1 level are now a little darker for contrast.
IDPD chests no longer appear to be regular large chests with Steroids' Ultra B.
Proto chest now displays under the weapon(s).
Names on daily/weekly boards are now shown to best extent.
The game now randomly cleans up some of smoke/dust/debris if there's enough to lag the game.
HUD now draws on top of mutation bar in case of too many mutations.
Control menu' items can now be triggered with Enter (accept-key).
Regular secondary weapons now draw with outlines during boss intros (b/c black background).
Secondary weapon' outline now draws on 7-3 for ease of identification on screenshots.
Van portals now display over most other enemies and effects (as they're a larger threat).
Pickup prompt now shows the correct key name if it's not E.
Crowns can now be picked with digit keys (like mutations/ultra mutations).
Snowbots now have a separate sprite for holding red cars.
Positional audio ("3d sound") can be disabled in audio options.
Rusty revolver now has a separate sprite for loadout (thanks to BioOnPC).
Most sounds can no longer restart more than once per frame, which helps performance.
Large-scale wall destruction now lags less.
Freeze frames now have decaying effect when stacking up too much (i.e. no 1s worth of FF).
Settings are now saved right upon exiting the options menu in-game (to avoid loss of changes).
Allies dying after portal opens should be a bit less laggy now.
Grenades no longer make continuous sounds if hit near walls.
3-3 boss music now ends after it explodes.
Captions are now shown for the nearest weapon, not for all nearby weapons. This is also guaranteed to be the weapon that you'll pick up on key press.
Co-op Coop-specific fixes and improvements:
If Chicken didn't find a health pickup on time in coop and was revived by other player, max health is no longer further reduced by 2.
Fixed the game only checking if one (random) player has low health for health chest spawn.
Swords & guitars now drop even if the according L1 level was skipped.
Fixed rads not being attracted to a non-Horror player during beam use.
Unsuspecting players now cannot be hurt by Frog "not holding it" during level loading.
Fixed a player being stripped of Rhino Skin passive if they were fainted when it was picked.
Mutation bar no longer displays under mutation buttons in coop.
Players can no longer attempt revival of coop partners while at 0 health.
Health chests can now restore maximum health to both players at once if they are Chicken.
Rogue' ammo is now preserved upon reviving.
Hammerhead uses left are now preserved upon reviving.
"mutation bar" now displays the coop ultra mutations.
If one of the players is YV, you now get the expected one-time effect on level ultra.
P2 can now skip credits as well.
Fixed Horror' passive having no effect on coop mutation choice with Crown of Destiny.
Coop HUD no longer has duplicate elements for P2.
Item drops now consider both players in calculations.
Fixed Crown of Death' effect wearing off upon revival.
Fixed "Eagle Eyes" bonus wearing off upon revival.
Fixed camera looking at nothing if your Chicken's (missing) head gets exploded.
Bloodlust/lucky shot now proc simultaneously for both players with the according "bond" mutation.
Robot' passive now works consistently in coop.
Fixed Strong Spirit recovering only for one player per level.
Players now will automatically pick up their weapons upon revival, provided that they are still lying nearby.
Fixed extra feet speed boost wearing off after a player dies.
Fixed it being possible to pick wrong mutation in coop when both players are actively mouseovering them.
The game now displays a separate kind of HUD for fainted players.
Fixed Melting sometimes getting 3/2 HP upon revival.
Fixed discs starting to hurt one of the players in coop earlier than the other.
Fixed chests and crowns not always playing the touching player' sounds in coop.
Fixed wrong line 2 color in Throne Butt description in coop.
Fixed proto chests closing only by proximity towards one of the players in coop.
Fixed player-race-specific alternate soundtracks not always triggering in coop.
Fixed area-specific player sounds playing only for one of the players in coop.
Fixed ammo pickups getting cursed only based on one player's actions.
Fixed shovel/ultra shovel precision based on one player's stats in coop.
All of the players are now shown on loading screens.
Fixed various skills and effects only displaying above one player in coop.
(Bloodlust, Horror TB, Laser Brain, Level up, Robot' active, Steroids TB, Strong Spirit, weapon switch)
Fixed Rogue' chests not always appearing in coop.
Fixed Rogue not always causing the additional enemies to spawn.
Fixed Melting' passive not always working in coop.
Fixed weapons not always uncursing correctly in coop.
Fixed gas TB effect not always working in coop.
Fixed Rebel-specific sound on 1-3 victory not always playing in coop.
Fixed Horror' passive not always working in coop.
Fixed Y.V. specific loading screen text not always appearing.
Fixed maggot canisters not checking appearance condition correctly in coop.
Fixed big maggots only attempting to ambush one of the players in coop.
Fixed 2-1 exploding enemies not always making the "approaching" sound in coop.
Fixed 2-1 L1+ boss item drop condition not always working in coop.
Fixed 4-1 entrance condition not always working in coop (now requires any player to meet the condition)
Fixed 5-3 boss being biased towards terrorizing one of the players in coop.
Fixed 6-1 exploding enemies only desiring to explode near one of the players in coop.
Fixed 6-1 stationary enemies only being triggered by one of the players in coop.
Fixed 6-1 L1+ boss not necessarily tracking the right player.
Fixed 7-3 boss being only activateable by one of the players in coop.
Fixed 7-3 boss only being interested in walking towards one of the players. If you had situations where one of the players was randomly ran over by the boss, that's what it was.
Fixed vans being biased towards running over one player in coop.
Timer now displays in bottom-left corner of the screen in coop.
Fixed timer going faster than usual in coop.
Fainted players now carry over to the next level as you could expect them to.
Fainted players now emit a small amount of light in dark levels.
Fixed wasting health on reviving characters with less maximum health.
Fixed "Bloodlust" proc not working correctly in coop.
Fixed "Recycle Gland" resetting P2's bullet ammo.
Fixed Fish' passive working only at P1 slot.
You can now switch to B-skin in coop by using "swap" key on character select screen.
Fixed "Trigger Fingers" mutation' effect in coop.
Fixed "Rhino Skin" mutation' effect wearing off after respawn.
Huge thanks to YellowAfterlife, who we hired to work on update 99. And thanks so much to you all, for your enthusiasm, care, patience, and for being part of this community.
Love,
--
Vlambeer & the Nuclear Throne Team
November 6th: AMA + Update 99 Release!
Hi there! It's been a long time, and as you all probably noticed, Vlambeer has been in somewhat of a hybernation state. Nuclear Throne took a lot out of us, and when we finally released the current U98 over a year and a half ago, we were all entirely exhausted. Since then, we've slowly been finding our footing again, and now that we're feeling creative again, we decided to return to form with an long-long-long-awaited final major update to Nuclear Throne for PC, Mac, and Linux.
We've hired YellowAfterlife (the creator of the Nuclear Throne Together mod) and worked closely with community members and feedback to create an update 99 that is worthy of the wait. While we want to stress that you shouldn't expect new content for this update, it is nevertheless significant: the game performs significantly better, is easier to mod, and a lot of quality of life and balance fixes have been introduced.
We're excited to have one more update art by the phenomenal Justin Chan, we're excited to see the meta change once more, and we've genuinely missed seeing your responses to our silly development antics. We are eternally thankful for your patience, and your sense of enthusiasm and community for the game.
As such, we're announcing an AMA over on the official Nuclear Throne Reddit for November 6th, and Update 99 will release at some time near the end of the AMA.
Update #98 - Thronebutt - February 21st, 2016
It's been a while, but update 98 finally seems ready. While we've done lots of testing on this build over the last few weeks, do note that the changes to this build are 'deep' enough that we can't guarantee it's 100% stable. Over the next few weeks we'll work on update 99, which will fix any issues that come up as 98 rolls out.
Most of Update 98 is balancing and fixes to issues introduced in 97, but the biggest change is the re-introduction of the Thronebutt meta-leaderboards. Nuclear Throne now directly interfaces with the site, and that means you can keep track of your Daily and Weekly performance there.
Thanks for the patience, and let us know what you think!
Features
Thronebutt.com integration!
Balancing
Heavy Slugger Buff
Jungle flies now have a chance of dropping maggots
Lightning Crystals are now more aggressive
Ultra Bolt Damage Buff
Some minor Steroids changes (now starts with bullets, starting ammo increase)
Huge things can no longer be revived (bosses, etc.)
Fixes
Fixed some retroactive achievements
Removed Daily/Weekly from DRM-Free builds
Coop fixes
IDPD Van Depth fixes
Several No Portal Bugs fixed
Less freeze frames on Ally death
Skeleton now loses mutations properly
Lightning can now escape certain levels
Mom attacks with toxic again
YV purgatory bug fixed
Lots of crashes fixed
Van infinite loop fixed
Misc
Collision optimalisations
Lightning optimalisations
Melting scorchmarks depth issues resolved
Loadout guns no longer sound like chicken sword and vice versa
As a fun side-note, community member lietu has been working on Throne2Speech, which sort of narrates your Nuclear Throne run using the new Thronebutt. It's still in beta, so it might not be perfect still. We're looking forward to what people create with the new stream key and Thronebutt integrations!
Update #97 - Clouds and Tweaks - December 15th, 2015
First of all, thank you so, so much for your support during the launch of Nuclear Throne. We know things were unexpected, and we wish we would've been capable of communicating a bit more - but such is the nature of surprise announcements.
While we're not allowed to go into specifics due to legalities and the like, we can easily say that this was by far the most successful launch in the history of Vlambeer, and such an enormous part of that was all of you on social media.
It was also by far the biggest launch we ever did, and that does mean that we're learning as we go. We're super thankful for your patience, and we're going to continue updating the game to address some issues in terms of balance, fix some things that came up before the launch and some new things that came up after it, restore Daily/Weekly functionality, and polish just a tiny bit more.
We're going to switch things up a bit now that we've reached home from PSX, release status on the game, and update 97 in our long history of updates. We'll be lowering the frequency of updates and livestreams permanently, although we'll have more information on what happens on our Twitch channel in the future. For this update, we're introducing some balancing tweaks, a lot of crash and hang fixes and introducing Steam Cloud.
Update 97 should also address problems with OSX and Linux builds on certain configurations, and if everything went OK, nobody should ever have to touch options.ini again. We also learned to never make the default pause menu option 'Quit to Menu'. Sorry!
For next update, we're going to transition the Dailies and Weeklies over to new servers, hopefully restoring those to full function for the first time after the launch. Let us know if you run into any new bugs or problems.
Balancing <*> A lot of tweaking to the enemies spawning on loop. Difficulty should increase throughout the areas a bit more and desert has been made slightly less ridiculous.
<*> Enemy HP now increases less with loops.
<*> Lil Hunter now spawns a second later, and looping decreases the spawn time less than it used to.
<*> Lil Hunter's weaponry now gets more powerful with loops.
<*> Hard mode now starts you out with slightly better weapons.
<*> Tiny Gamma Guts nerf, prepared to change it back if this ruins it.
<*> Energy Hammer now uses more ammo, spawns later, and deals more damage.
<*> Guitar rate of fire has been slowed down a bit.
<*> Energy Sword rate of fire has been slowed down a tiny bit.
<*> Freak IDPD now has better guns with more spread.
Fixes <*> Fixed bug that started game from loadout screen with gamepads.
<*> Fixed crash on Daily/Weekly load.
<*> Disabled 'G'-key that made gamepads unpredictable.
<*> Fixed Guardian point_distance bug on death in palace.
<*> Wrote better save corruption handling, should stop game from crashing on load.
<*> Fixed additional VertexBufferHandler errors resulting in corrupted graphics.
<*> Fixed Plant B skin unlock achievement not appearing when not looping.
<*> Crown of Risk and Crown of Luck icons are no longer swapped in the loadout screen.
<*> Fixed OSX game open crash on certain configurations.
<*> Fixed Linux game open crash on certain configurations.
<*> Fixed achievement bug with Plant's B-skin.
Misc <*> Tutorial tweaks for gamepad support.
<*> Default menu selection with gamepad is now 'continue' rather than 'menu'.
<*> Improved Steam Cloud support.
<*> Allow for D-Pad control on gamepads.
<*> Smaller Save Icon.
<*> Retroactive Steam Achievements for a number of achievements.
<*> Certain secret weapons now adjust legacy values in old save files to prevent crashes.
Update #96 - The Real Deal - December 5th, 2015
This update was supposed to go out yesterday, before the PSX announcement, but due to exhaustion I couldn't muster the energy. We're really sorry about that, and we hope 96 fixes most of the major bugs many of you have been running into. Please note that this build was uploaded from the PSX showfloor, and didn't get the normal amount of PC/Mac/Linux testing it would normally get to get it to you as soon as possible after the announcement. If you see any oddities, let us know here on the forums!
Features
Trading cards, emotes, etc.
Balancing
Nerf for cluster grenade and small grenade impacts.
Not sure if lasers go here or under fixes or both.
Fixes
The flamethrower is back for those of you who noticed it was gone.
Added missing sound when the Throne comes up.
Gamma Guts
Control bug causing people to fire each step fixed.
Gamepad should work again.
Co-op controls fixed.
Many save/load bugs fixed.
Checked on some achievements not always triggering.
Not sure if lasers go here or under fixes or both.
Hopefully fixes for Daily/Weekly troubles, we'll keep checking in on this.
Fixed weird glitchy screen (it was kind of pretty) happening on systems not supporting fast VertexBufferHandling.
We're going to be keeping track of the forums, so let us know what else we need to fix. While the release of the game means we are generally happy with where the game is, we're not done just yet. Thanks for your patience, your support and your enthusiasm for the game, and thank you for your trust as always.
Nuclear Throne launch at PSX
We're finally allowed to announce what we've all been so ridiculously busy with - we have just launched Nuclear Throne on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita at the PlayStation Experience in San Francisco. The entire team is here, and we hope to be able to do a livestream somewhere later today, if we can find a place with good internet. Keep track of our Twitter (@Vlambeer) to see if that works out!
That means we're also changing the status of Nuclear Throne on Steam to 'released'. As we promised, the game will launch at a pricepoint of $11,99 without any discount or sales, continuing our stance of not discounting the game during Early Access. We also want to emphasize that this release doesn't mean that no more updates will happen. It's a formality we had to get out of the way, and we're aware of the issues and problems on PC. We're working to fix those.
Much of the work that we did on the PlayStation version also indirectly benefits the PC version, like performance optimalisations and improved controller support. Sadly, every time we pushed an update for PC, something would've just broken. We're going to solve those issues as soon as we can, and although 96 was supposed to launch this past week, it seems that now PlayStation's pressure is out of the week, early next week is super doable.
I've been writing a small press release, but halfway through I realized I wrote it as if I was writing an announcement post to you all. So instead of sending this as a press release, I'm posting it here with some minor tweaks.
Today, we're celebrating the launch of Nuclear Throne - a game that has been in Early Access on Steam for the past two and a half years, enjoying 95 weekly updates and two development livestreams a week. It has, to date, sold over 150,000 copies on PC, Mac and Linux. During its development, you've directly helped popularize the idea of livestreaming commercial game development on livestreaming service Twitch (which has since introduced a ‘creative’ subcategory), and Nuclear Throne became the first game ever available for sale through subscription to a channel on the service.
During the interviews we've been having for launch, the one thing that kept coming up was how Nuclear Throne is well-regarded for its supportive community, and your constructive, considerate and helpful attitude. Not only did you create a lively forum, you also hosted expanded leaderboards, weekly contests, a fan-Wiki and even weekly update videos for the game. Before the game reached this ‘launch’, Nuclear Throne had a fan-organized world championship and unofficial mods. Without the community, we wouldn’t have been able to make the game into what it is today.
We’re also extremely proud of what we’ve achieved with the game itself. Nuclear Throne’s unique blend of fast action and roguelike gameplay has already coined the term ‘Thronelikes’ – games like Enter The Gungeon and Downwell have taken inspiration from the game and made beautiful new games that we love to play. We introduced the idea of ‘Weeklies’, a subversive variant of daily shared challenges that are infinitely replayable for practice during the weekend. Most of all, we’re proud of the gameplay, the world and our mutant heroes and foes: we’ll miss Fish and Crystal and the rest of the mutants.
It’s going to be really strange to wrap up on Nuclear Throne. For the past 33 months, every week for the two of us at Vlambeer and the four freelancers we worked with, we’ve had a very consistent schedule. On Monday, we read feedback and made a plan, on Tuesday we’d livestream, on Wednesday, we’d work, on Thursday we’d livestream, on Friday we’d wrap up, on Saturday we’d release an update and we’d hotfix the build or sleep on Sunday. We’d absorb the feedback and community enthusiasm and immediately repeat the cycle. We’ve become good friends with many people in the community, and we hope that they’ll stick around for the future.
For us, life will feel strangely empty for a while without that constant loop at the top of our mind. It’s a very bittersweet moment, and we hope we’ve done the community proud. They have given us a lot, and we hope we’ve repaid their trust and time and patience.
As for what’s next for Vlambeer, it’s hard to tell right this moment. We’re going to support Nuclear Throne for a bit, as we’d like to see how the game performs on PlayStation platforms, and see if there are any outstanding issues on the PC version. We also feel like we should take a break and revisit our earlier projects and see if they require some polish, touchups, updates or re-releases. Nuclear Throne was by far our biggest and most intensive project, but our goal was never to make ‘bigger’ games. Our goal is to make better games. We’ve learned a lot making our first roguelike, the first game we’ve made with the sheer scope and size of Nuclear Throne, and we’re eager to find out how that new knowledge applies to future –probably somewhat smaller- projects for the foreseeable future.
As for the team, it’ll eventually be splitting up again. Vlambeer always works with friends and freelancers beyond our two core team members. Paul Veer, the artist who is entirely responsible for the visual style of Nuclear Throne, is going to work on some of his own exciting projects. Joonas Turner, our SFX designer responsible for the explosions and other less important sounds in the game, is already swamped with a dozen new projects. Jukio Kallio, the amazingly talented musician responsible for the soundtrack of Nuclear Throne, will be releasing the Nuclear Throne OST in the nearby future. Finally, promo artist Justin Chan will be continuing studying art. As for me, I’ll be keeping track of Nuclear Throne’s community and working on addressing any issues the influx of new players might bring. For what it’s worth, Vlambeer designer J.W. has already been pitching new game ideas.
For now, we’re going to take a nap, and then back to work. We'll chat to you soon.
Update #95 - Shiny Throne - November 17th
It's been a while, and we apologize for that. There was no way we were going to finish this update in a week, so instead we took our time and tackled some long-overdue isues. This update is going to be a rough one, so strap in. We're really getting close to wrapping up, and port of that was rewriting a lot of code from the ground up. We've redone most of the leaderboard, rendering and collision code, changed to a new way of creating the executables that'll perform better on low-to-mid-end computers, and we've added a ton of features.
We've also, very likely, broken the game in dozens of ways. Over the past few weeks, we've worked with many of you in our community to fix as many bugs as possible, but it's time to throw the build out there and get numbers instead of focused feedback.
With this update comes a bunch of new stuff. You can now set your keyboard controls in the options menu (since you've all got a save game, you might want to delete that or bind every control to something), we've added a 'stream key' functionality that is a work-in-progress, and we've finally integrated achievements.
Please, please, please let us know if you run into any problems. We specifically need crash logs and other hanging bugs, but anything you see that looks odd compared to Nuclear Throne as you know it is welcome.
Features
Audio balancing! We've worked on all the volumes for every sound, to make the game sound way more clear and crisp and powerful!
Achievements!
Control remapping!
Balancing
Tiny explosions now deal the same damage as normal explosions.
Fireballers and Super Fireballers now have a max range.
Update to Palace and Vault Guardians.
All Plasma is no longer deflected by Shielders.
You now get revived with your old ammo in co-op.
Tiny Heavy Auto Crossbow rate of fire buff.
Less Elite Grunt HP.
Crown of Destiny now takes 1 level to give you a mutation when taken from the start.
Slowed down Alligator reaction time.
No more IDPD in secret areas.
Refined taste is now more effective.
Cursed ammo makes larger explosions.
Tiny bit less lightning for the lightning cannon. Literally, tiny. As in, you won't notice it. Sorry.
More damage for Heavy Grenades.
New Chicken B-Skin unlock.
Tweaked Horror's "early portals" Ultra a bit to not count Vans.
Toxic Gas no longer deals damage under a certain size.
More drops from Loop Bosses.
Some balancing to the new IDPD unit.
0-1 Boss HP has been increased a bit.
More Caves loop spawn variation.
Fixes
Some fixes regarding a certain Melting thing.
Fixed Plant B-Skin unlock.
Quitting a run no longer counts as a death.
Big Dog can't spawn inside walls anymore.
Ending is no longer broken.
Fixed a few chest effect bugs.
Fixed a lot of the depth issues on the campfire characters.
Some minor seeding fixes.
Fixed the icon for "no weapon" to not be a random bit of spritesheet.
Fireballer attack sprites are no longer mirrored.
Fixed some minor menu issues, this might have caused trouble for the co-op menu though.
Fixed a crash caused by pausing co-op.
Rebel can no longer kill herself with Riot.
The "Friends" page on the daily and weekly result screen now only shows 10 entries at a time.
Fixed a lot of issues with the loadout screen and weeklies.
Enemies now play your hurt sound when hurting you with melee.
The Proto Chest no longer destroys weapons.
Fixed a side art issue, also greatly improving the performance.
Everything that should play explosion sounds now does.
Fixed a crash related to resizing the window.
Built in a fix for when levels are empty but no portals appear.
Both players can now pause co-op.
Fixed Van depth.
Shielders now stay inside their shields when shot.
Starting with Crown of Death now gives you the downside.
Fixed a Steam related error.
No more walls inside props.
Opening YV's chests now breaks the walls nearby, making more space for weapons.
Fixed the Hyper Crystal charge particles.
Fixed a collision bug with the 7-3 Beam.
You can no longer take 2 cars at the same time.
Better performance with side art.
IDPD portals now have the correct sprite when disappearing.
Big Bandit now plays his intro sound.
Getting killed by a
CLASSIFIED* no longer shows as a Raven.
Exiting your first run no longer unlocks melting.
Car Music no longer keeps playing when leaving the level.
Misc
Van and IDPD portals are now a lightsource.
Recoded the camera code.
Mutation, Crown, and Character texts are now colored. We've also done some rephrasing here and there.
Tips are now seeded.
HQ should now always be the same seed.
Toned down Gamma Guts screen shake.
There's now a small timer that shows how long you have to revive someone.
Mimics are now inside bubbles in Oasis.
Changed the timing for Big Dog's intro.
Boss deaths now properly clear projectiles at the right time.
Went over all the shadows to make sure they're nice.
Tiny unlock popups no longer overlap.
Unlocking a char now plays a voice clip.
Rumble for gamepads!
Customizable keys for gamepad, still work in progress for keyboard sadly.
You can now view the credits from the options menu.
Rewrote the camera system.
A proper intro when you boot up the game!
Rogue Strike now works better with gamepad.
Better performance when loading a level.
Palace music timing tweaks.
Better Mom death.
Better 0-1 Boss death.
Saving Icon.
New Music for 0-1.
Retry button on the Weekly.
Loop props are no longer random.
Switched off auto-aim by default.
Co-op cursor colors are back.
Every character now has a unique stat!
Gamepad improvements.
Grenades now blink before exploding.
Elite Shielders now have their own Shield art.
Steroids' Ammo Chest now look different with Get Loaded.
Generators now have sounds.
Van sounds updated.
New Sewer Pipe break sound.
New Menu sounds.
New Elite Grunt flames.
New Big Rat charge sounds.
New sounds for the 0-1 fight.
Pickup disappear sound.
Crystal Shield ricochet sound.
Dying on 7-3 now says "you almost reached".
7-3 beam has been optimized.
IDPD now sounds underwater in Oasis.
New 0-1 Boss projectile art.
New 0-1 Boss death sound.
Wow, feels good to write one of these again. Update 96 won't hit on a weekend either, very likely, as we're going to process your feedback as we continue to fix bugs, balance and work out our final worries about the game.
Thank you so, so much for your patience and feedback. You're all the best community we could've wished for.
Note: Update 95 has been delayed
As you all might've noticed, update 95 has been delayed. We apologize for that. We really tried, but at this point most of the team is tired from that enormous sprint we did from update 92-95, and needs a little bit of time in recovery mode.
Normally, one of us would pick that up, and work on the game alone for a few days, but that's not really possible anymore. We've reached a point where most of the things we're creating are balancing, polish, and this week mostly integrations into the Steam ecosystem (which some of you noticed) - which just takes a bit more time than we'd want, and is not not something you can just release half-working because we're working with someone else's code.
We're aware of some bugs that prevent the ending from triggering, and we hope you know that if we saw a possibility to fix that now, we would've done so already. The code that is in this build is too structural to put out half-finished.
It seems an update is a few days out at least, so we might delay #95 or even decide to skip, and give us time to get everything proper hopefully before next weekend.
Sorry <3
Update #94 - Weeklies! - Weekend of October 16th
As you might've noticed, we've been pulling off some huge updates lately. We've been working extremely hard for basically months now, and you can see the results: Nuclear Throne is getting very close to being a finished product. Update 94 is probably the last enormous update, as after this we'll be slowing down, carefully wrapping up the ride and smoothly sailing into release. This means we're close to entering a relatively quiet phase where we spend all the time we need making sure NT doesn't break when you look at it.
We'll jump right in with what most excites us: Weeklies.
Weeklies run every weekend from the first minute of Saturday until the last minute of Sunday UTC, and are basically seeded runs with a set loadout. Your character, crown, and starting weapon are all fixed, and you won't find a single Crown Vault in your runs. The thing is, you can play a weekly as much as you want until the time runs out. You can try optimizing your route, mutation picks, and strategies, but also master some of the quirks specific levels throw at you. Every weekend will bring a new Weekly, and a new weekly leaderboard to conquer.
Besides that, there's just too much to list here. The first weekly should've started right about 40 minutes ago. Go have some fun!
Features <*> Weeklies!
<*> New settings! Most significantly, we've added a few more cursors and the option to pick side-art instead of black bars on the side.
<*> An update to the Throne itself!
<*> Big upgrade to gamepad functionality in the menus, including access to the loadout screen!
<*> Many Ultra Mutation changes and updates, including Rebel, Robot, Steroids, Crystal (faster Juggernaut), and Horror.
<*> Big update to the stats screen, including win, speedrun, hard mode, daily, and weekly stats!
<*> New sounds for various cool, huge, dangerous things!
<*> Chicken B-skin can now be unlocked.
<*> New sounds for all characters!
<*> Sounds for all Ultra mutations!
<*> Colored shadows! Barely noticable, but this'll make Frozen City feel colder, Jungle junglier, etc.
Balancing <*> Reduced rads dropped by some bosses and most enemies after caves a tiny bit.
<*> Hyper Launcher, Ultra Crossbow, Bouncer Shotgun, and Heavy Assault Rifle rate of fire has been increased.
<*> Ultra Revolver and Bouncer Shotgun are now automatic.
<*> Ultra Grenades now drop rads when exploding.
<*> Crown of Blood now spawns more elites.
<*> Swapped some pre- and post-loop crowns.
<*> Tiny Recycle Gland, Gamma Guts, Stress & Lucky Shot buff.
<*> Crown of Luck gives more enemies 1HP.
<*> Golden and normal Scorpions now have the same range.
<*> Sharp Teeth damage has been increased.
<*> Elite Frogs have less HP.
<*> More Golden Snowtank HP.
<*> Changed some of the character/b-skin unlock requirements a tiny bit.
<*> Some Devastator love.
<*> Earlier Flamethrower and Bouncer SMG spawns.
<*> More damage from green explosions.
<*> A bit more time before Vans spawn.
<*> No more cursed spiders on normal loop areas.
<*> Rebel's Throne Butt has been slowed down a tiny bit.
<*> Tiny bit less health for Generator.
<*> Reproducing enemies such as Big Dog's missiles and the Hyper Crystal spawns no longer count as kills.
<*> Ultra Shotgun uses a bit more ammo and rads.
<*> Update to the Caves loop boss!
<*> Lightning Crystals are now a bit more faster and have more range.
<*> Secret areas now don't spawn random enemies on loop.
<*> Energy Hammer cost, reload time, and damage have all been increased.
<*> Golden and normal Shotgun now have the same rate of fire.
Fixes <*> Fixed the Rogue Canister crash.
<*> Ending a daily or weekly after it has ended (but starting while it's still active) should now submit your score correctly.
<*> Chests no longer disappear when touching props.
<*> You can no longer view locked stats.
<*> Co-op and hard mode no longer reset your streaks.
<*> Portal in 0-1 is back.
<*> Robot's B-skin can no longer unlock multiple times.
<*> Updated laser collisions.
<*> Updated Spider and Snowbot collisions.
<*> Generators now drop weapons when you run with Crown of Guns.
<*> Laser Cannon now aims correctly with gamepad.
<*> Allies now behave correctly when playing with gamepad.
<*> Corpses are no longer light sources.
<*> Loading info is no longer shown when loading cutscenes.
<*> Tutorial bandits now have corpses.
<*> Fixed a "double Portal Strike" bug caused by pausing the game.
<*> Bloodlust and Lucky Shot now work properly in co-op.
<*> Fixed minor visual glitches related to the HUD/portals.
<*> No more chests inside walls, hopefully.
<*> Fixed various depth issues, including the infamous desert bones drawing in the wrong order!
<*> All bosses now stop the boss music when defeated.
<*> Big Dog missiles now sound like metal.
<*> No more Horror in the Pizza Sewers getting instantly blown up.
<*> Fixed the quick restart music bug!?
<*> Unlock screen can no longer be behind the game over screen.
<*> Boss Intro's pause the timer.
<*> Fixed Lil Hunter's sprite when flying after death.
<*> Guitar swing now looks heavy.
<*> Rad Chests/a certain Scrapyard prop should now be guaranteed.
<*> You can no longer unlock Melting by winning.
<*> *CLASSIFIED* can no longer get stuck in endless teleports when she kills you.
<*> Music for Crown Guardians is back.
<*> Flying maggots now don't count as kills when turning into normal maggots.
<*> Hyper Slug now glows.
<*> Melting post-death explosions fixed.
<*> Crown of Luck and Crown of Risk no longer have their icons swapped.
<*> Buff Alligators are back on pre-loop runs.
<*> Fixed enemy lightning visuals.
<*> Pausing during the Ultra screen in co-op no longer removes the mutation icons.
<*> Fixed a Heavy Grenade collision problem.
<*> Golden Snowtank corpse is now Golden.
Misc <*> Your Crown now flies with you through portals!
<*> Mutations are now shown on the game over screen.
<*> Various optimizations.
<*> Death sequence for the 0-1 boss!
<*> Killing the boss in 7-3 makes the Generators inactive again.
<*> Various tiny effects and details added.
<*> Pickup sound for the Guitar.
<*> Elite Grunts now have jetpack flames.
<*> Some changes to the cocoons.
<*> Enemy missiles are now easier to see.
<*> A million new tips!
<*> All floor "materials" are now up to date, resulting in more appropriate walking sounds in some of the newer areas.
<*> Various new light sources in dark levels.
<*> Some tiny audio balancing things.
<*> More props at the campfire scene.
<*> Your window state (fullscreen or not) is now saved.
<*> New splat for the tiny unlock popups.
<*> Plasma now slows the game down less.
<*> Fixed the sound for underwater mines.
<*> The window now has a minimum size of 320x240.
<*> The tutorial no longer counts for the stat screen.
<*> Timer is now shown on the game over screen when enabled.
<*> Crown names are now drawn without brackets.
<*> Horror now breaks all rad chests on the level.
<*> Some changes to Cuz.
<*> Throne carpet looks better.
<*> Some tweaks to the character select.
<*> Main Menu daily/weekly timer are now shown on hover.
<*> Big Dog explosion tweaks.
<*> More things explode into flames now.
<*> Alligators now also spawn a !!! before firing.
<*> Removed the floor tiles spawned by a Crown Portal.
<*> Crowns no enter portals.
<*> Crown of Haste looks better.
<*> Update to the wave gun sound.
<*> Frog heal effect.
<*> Minor updates to some of the music.
<*> Update to Chicken's ULTRA HUD icons.
<*> Sniper and basic enemy bullet art updated.
<*> Green Explosion art updated.
<*> Update to Proto Portal visuals
<*> Update to slash readability.
<*> Gamma Guts kill sound.
<*> HP pickup sounds! Can't believe we never had those.
<*> Palace prop update.
Notes <*> Portal rendering update makes portals look weird, and IDPD ones ugly. Fixing that.
Update #93 - Happy Birthday, Nuclear Throne! - Weekend of October 9th
You know what that is? That's Rogue's voice. Congratulations everybody! Not only does every Nuclear Throne character now have a voice, but this game has now officially been in Early Access for two years, and we've also just reached the final balance and polishing phase! This week was spent just cranking out details and polish, and finally implementing long awaited content! Either way, it's probably safe to say this is the biggest update we've ever done.
Feature
A voice for Rogue and all other remaining characters!
A new save file system. This means we hopefully won't have to clear your save files anymore! As a side effect, we've decided to remove the Unlock All button. What you unlock now is (probably) yours forever. Unless you hit the delete button. Obviously.
Your loop streaks are now stored and displayed in the stats screen. Any loop you get is added to the streak, if you die before you loop the value is reset!
Little effects and sound for most mutations and ultras!
Sounds for some of the loop bosses!
All the music and all the level ambient tracks should now be in the game and all of them have been mastered!
Crown icons!
Two new rare enemies.
Rogue has been given a big overhaul, upgrading her Portal Strike damage and giving her a new Ultra replacing Resourceful.
Balancing
Van portals now break walls when spawning.
Elite Inspectors have less HP.
Captain no longer drops ammo.
Heavy Auto Crossbow rate of fire has been decreased.
Elite Shielder projectiles are now slower and have a smaller explosion hitmask.
Cursed Crystals now have a slightly longer minimum time before teleporting again.
Rabbit Paw no longer affects gun drops.
Heavy Heart has been increased in effectiveness a tiny bit.
Palace Guardians no longer deal contact damage when appearing.
Buff Alligators now spawn more pellets from their projectile.
Splinter Gun and Golden Splinter Gun now have the same rate of fire.
Ultra Grenade Launcher has been given a proper update.
Bullet ammo size has been increased by two.
Exploding Guardians spawn fewer projectiles.
Elite Inspector walk speed has been decreased slightly.
Alligators are now always active.
Removed the Ion Cannon. You will not be missed.
Blood Cannon rate of fire has been decreased slightly.
Torches in the Crown Vault now have less HP.
Tweaked the loop spawn code a bit.
Heavy Bolts are now affected a bit less by Bolt Marrow.
Flak Cannon has more accuracy.
Sledgehammer deals slightly more damage.
CLASSIFIED doesn't blow up Crystals before completing the boss intro.
Increased damage from IDPD explosions.
Proto chest now always contains a rusty revolver on dailies.
Decreased IDPD Shielder HP.
Elite Grunts now have slower reaction time but faster projectiles.
Fixes
All bosses now end the boss music when killed.
Cursed Chests opened by portals now contain cursed weapons.
Fixed the quick restart music bug.
Fixed the Van exploit hopefully.
Fixed the Y.V. double loop on Ultra bug.
Small flames and craters can no longer appear outside the levels.
Crown of Blood description typo fixed.
Big Dog now shows the right cause of death when exploding.
Fixed Crown of Death de-select crash.
Shielder now always plays shield sound when shielding.
Fixed a daily crash bug.
Fixed a bug related to drawing the Freaks.
Fixed the notorious save file crash hopefully.
Fixed a co-op problem with Plant's Throne Butt.
Crown is no longer drawn on random character.
IDPD Explosions now spawn craters.
Chicken can now heal back to full health.
Misc
New Crown Guardians, gameplay is still very unfinished.
Heavy Grenade Launcher.
Updated Ultra icons.
Gamepad is now automatically detected.
Green explosions for the Throne and Generators!
Timer is now an option, and beating the game now shows your time.
Less screen shake for Plasma Explosions.
Inspectors now draw their pull effect behind their heads.
More particles for Laser Crystals before firing.
Removed all the old icons from the Character Select.
Added a NO HUD mode.
Generators now drop rads.
Re-spaced the loadout screen.
A ton of new weapon sounds.
Timer now also counts during mutation selection.
Removed the "keep old crown" option, instead made guardians spawn when running with a crown.
No Rad Canisters in the HQ.
Added some more tips.
Updated the credits.
Tutorial Bandits now explode into wood splinters.
The fade when sitting down now comes in a bit later.
Weapons now disappear properly when sucked into the portal to the next level, no longer leaving a copy behind when the portal disappears.
New splats for melting after using their active.
New Rogue HUD indicator for her ammo.
Tiny details: feathers, leaves, money.
Small blue flames for IDPD explosions.
Uncursing something now has a sound.
Empty Horror trying to fire now has a sound.
Sound for Dog Guardians landing.
Sound for mutation and crown icons popping up.
All elite IDPD now have sounds.
Added lightning particles to the portals.
Low HP sounds for some bosses.
Sounds for the final cutscene.
Updated the tiles for 0-1.
New slider art.
Sounds for Rogue Canisters.
New art for the IDPD explosions.
Updates to loads of projectiles for readability.
Ally art update.
Icon art update.
All mutation selection sounds.
New slashes.
Mutation sounds are now stereo.
Updated the mansion tiles.
New decals and props for various areas.
Update to the menu generation.
New Crown Vault art.
Sounds for the cursed enemies.
Updated flying maggot art.
Radiated maggot death sounds.
New gun for the Jungle Bandits.
Updated the color of the Freaks.
Sound for reaching level Ultra.
HQ is now less bright.
New Present Chest opening animation.
Sounds for the different IDPD portals.
Big Dog now explodes in a way cooler way.
Fire Trap game over image.
New portal sounds, also when inside.
Lil Hunter now has a sound when calling for backup.
Sounds for allies.
Grenade weapons now have a reload sound.
Various enemies had new sounds added.
Cool new car sounds.
Boss intro sounds.
A nice radioactive hum on the logo.
New disc sounds.
Little dust effects in the Crown Vaults.
More prop destruction sounds.
Removed the old Palace pillars.
Van hijack sounds.
Art update to the green rats.
Art for Heavy Heart.
Small 7-3 art detail added.
My eyes hurt from reading over this list a few times, so it's time to sleep for a full day. We're moving full speed ahead, and there's a finish line that we're eager to reach. Let us know what you think, what you like, what you don't like - but mostly, please enjoy Nuclear Throne.
For those of you that have been with us for two years now - we cannot emphasize just how much we owe to your continued and unwavering support and enthusiasm. For those of you that joined us at any point after that, thank you so much for being part of this and allowing us to grow and reach beyond.
So from the entire team, Happy Birthday, Nuclear Throne, and Happy Birthday, Nuclear Throne community!
