This is probably one of the biggest updates we've ever done! Shit.
First of all, we've done a massive amount of interface and menu work. This includes a brand new mutation and pause screen, and a lot of tiny tweaks helping make things flow a bit more. We've added convenient alt+F4 rage-quitting, and you no longer need to look at the beautiful Vlambeer logo every time you go back to the menu (we know, we'll miss that too). We've ironed out a ton of bugs in the process, so hopefully things should be a bit more smooth now!
We're re-introducing something the game used to have in some of the earliest versions this week as well. Justin sketched new Boss Intros that Paul then painstakingly pixeled. The two of them worked extraordinarily hard to get this thing in, and we're convinced it's some of the coolest art we have in the game.
Now, for actual gameplay things: For starters there's a fun late-game shell weapon now that allows you to do some fun long-range bouncing tricks. It should be pretty viable in the late game, especially with Trigger Fingers.
That's not all, there is really a ton more exciting stuff in this one! Please continue reading, play the game, and let us know what your thoughts are!
We're aware that a lot of things are still in a kind of rough unpolished state, but we are getting very close to having most of the features we want for Nuclear Throne in place. This means that we can move on to actual hardcore polishing soon, which is super exciting to us!
Oh, and, for all the nice things we added this week, do you like the IDPD? There are Elite versions of them now. They're basically Throne Butt versions of the mutants they're similar to. You can figure out for yourself what that means for the Shielders.
Features
Boss intros.
Brand new mutation screen.
Brand new pause screen with futuristic functionality, like access to the settings.
Elite IDPD. There'd be a joke here if it wasn't so serious. Hope you enjoy getting trashed on loops.
New late-game shell weapon: Hyper Slugger.
New sound effects for the Jungle Assassins, Jungle Flies, Turtles, Turrets, Exploding Guardians, Dog Guardians, Crystal Spiders, Mimics and the Golden Scorpion! Whew!
Balancing
Tweaks to the Frozen City algorithm.
Snowtanks are more agressive.
Scrapyard difficulty curve has been tweaked a bit, slightly fewer Ravens.
Plutonium Hunger attract range for ammo and HP has been slightly decreased.
Small enemies can't deal melee damage when on their hurt animation now.
Gamma Guts burst size has been increased again.
More IDPD Grunts the further you loop.
Flames from Flame Traps and Salamander no longer linger around when hitting a wall.
IDPD Inspectors have a lower Telekinesis range now.
Long Arms no longer has a gap!
Looping now clears cursed weapons.
Fixes
Fixed the "drifting enemy" bug when multiple enemies spawn on top of eachother.
The Guardians in 7_3 can no longer spawn Portals.
Floors under the Proto Statue now have the proper material.
Hyper Crystal no longer takes damage from debris.
Fixed a bug related to restarting the game with Patience active.
Fixed a graphical glitch that caused Splinter and Seeker weapons to float away when fired a lot.
Necromancer should no longer revive enemies inside walls.
Fixed the "back to main menu" glitch that made the game blurry.
Assassin sounds are now played at the proper moment.
Pressing WASD no longer crashes the title screen. Yeah.
Pausing now shows dark areas properly, and fog no longer scrolls when paused.
The widescreen effect no longer disappears when pausing during the Mutation screen.
Mutation Icons are now centered properly.
Fixed a bug related to the campfire scene.
Fixed lag caused by the Throne beam. We'll have to redo this entire thing eventually.
Misc
You can now pause the game during loading screens.
Added a "DELETE DATA" option.
Added an option to enable/disable Boss intros.
[R] is now a quick restart hotkey in the pause screen.
Mutation names stay on the screen for a bit after picking them.
Going back to the main menu from in-game now skips the intro.
Alt+F4 now insta-quits the game.
Throne statues are placed slightly higher now and have updated art.
Fancy menu buttons!
Assassins now have a new notice effect!
The loadout splat has been updated.
IDPD Shielder shield sprite has been updated.
Crystal's shield shakes again when almost out of time. Fixed some depth things with it as well.
New art for the Bouncer projectiles.
Started work on the stats screen. More of a drawing test than anything else so far.
Character select now properly supports keyboard and gamepad as well.
Chicken now plays a sound when trying to throw a cursed weapon.
B tracks now only play under more specific conditions.
Minor changes to the second Ultra of all mostly triangular characters.
Broken
Coop mode has been broken by the UI overhaul. We're afraid that fixing this will take a few weeks at the least, so if you enjoy co-op, we recommend switching to another branch in Steam. The 'smite' branch would be our recommendation.
That's all folks! Go play the game and get blown up by some Elite Grunt missiles.
Update #82 - Crystal Party! - Weekend of July 17th
We're still going strong with hard work, but got a bit caught by needing to have the update done in the middle of all kinds of huge and exciting changes. We would have had more to show you, but unfortunately there's no time to finish it just this week!
Since we're really starting to tie all the seperate parts of Nuclear Throne together, we might break the game a little bit here and there. No matter how well and carefully you construct the parts, they might always fit a bit weird and require some tuning. That'll be happening in the next few weeks as we push forward.
In the background, a lot of our code is being optimized for both computer and console platforms. Similarly, that means that code-wise things might be a bit unstable, and it will be going through major structural changes as we push forward. While this shouldn't be super noticable, the Windows version should enjoy a significant performance boost in areas with a lot of stuff going on.
More noticeably, we bring you a bit of a rework to the Nuclear Throne, a newly tuned Crystal, smoother portals, a ton of balancing, fixing, and all that good stuff!
Oh, and assassins still deflect, but in a way less lethal way.
Features
Some work on the Throne!
Reworked Crystal, with a more mobile, snappier shield, usable Throne Butt, and complete B skin graphics!
Portals now look better!
Balancing
Assassins still deflect, but the projectiles won't hurt you! Great way to take out enemies behind you with trick shots. We've also made them a bit meaner again.
Lil Hunter's IDPD spawning has been balanced.
Blood and Lightning Hammer now spawn earlier.
Energy Hammer and Sword now spawn a bit later.
Plant's Throne Butt now kills things under 33% HP.
We got rid of the HP-loop-change we tried out last week. Turns out giving people less HP reliably gives them more ammo, destroying some of the fun balancing going on there. We'll solve this problem soon when we get closer to reworking loops.
Loop Big Bandits now spawn from different positions, which wasn't spurred at all by a certain video last week.
Bouncers now have harder impact, more damage, and glow.
Bouncer Shotgun now has a higher rate of fire.
Super Plasma and Flame Cannon now take longer to reload.
Lasers can now damage Crystal in her shield.
Fixes
Fixed Total Recall.
After long deliberation, we fixed a tip saying "follow your" and nothing else.
Bouncer Shotgun now works with Eagle Eyes.
Big Maggots no longer slide when burrowing.
Might've fixed a problem that causes the game to freeze.
Explosives no longer explode in your face when fired exactly when a Portal opens.
Fixed a collision problem with Bouncers.
Misc
Changed the default audio levels.
Changed gamepad layout to the old buttons until we implement key customization.
Tweaked the colors for the Game Over map when looping a lot.
Robot now gets an Ultra Update instead of Ultra Mutation.
Art for Bouncer weapons.
Since so much is changing, and things are starting to lock down, your feedback is worth more than ever now, whether you're just starting or a hardened veteran. Let us know what you think, how the game performs, what your concerns are but also the things you love.
As a general 'feedback' reminder - and we've mentioned this earlier in the process - feedback is at its best if you describe the problem rather than trying to offer a solution. When you offer a solution, we still need to dig to figure out what your actual problem is so we can fix it.
Enjoy!
Update #81 - We just really want weekend right now - Weekend of July 10th
This is another one of those updates with tons of tiny things, fixes, and balancing! We've really been pushing as hard as we can for a month now, with the past four updates all being huge in size for how little time we have each week. As such, please pretend everything underneath is a nice cohesive story instead of just the bullet points, so we can enjoy our weekend instead of thinking of exciting sentences here.
Features
Awesome Crown selection sounds!
Paul cleaned up some of the interface art in the character select screen! We now have beautiful letters and the nicest splats you've ever seen.
Two new bullet weapons: the Bouncer Shotgun and Bouncer SMG
Crowns have now been divided into two groups: post- and pre-loop.
Balancing
A bit more Chicken throw damage, because why not?
A tiny bit more pickup range for ammo and health.
A bit of spawn tweaking.
Flame weapons are now more fuel-efficient!
A little effect and timing tweaking to Assassin attacks!
Lil Hunter now only spawns Grunts pre-loop.
Lil Hunter now waits a bit longer after spawning IDPD.
Guardian Dogs have slightly more less HP.
Heavy Bolts are affected a tiny bit less by Bolt Marrow.
Crystal's Fortress Ultra now gives her +6HP, for when you want to be 10 times more healthy than Melting!
Being high on ammo now lowers your drops slightly less.
Changed Plant's trapper Ultra to give you a big snare.
Plant Throne Butt now kills enemy under 30% instead of 40%.
HP now drops less the further you loop, which seems like a solid idea.
Shell weapons no longer reduce your sight distance.
Fixes
Corpses for the Snow Tanks are back!
Chicken now drops a head when going through a portal headless so the camera doesn't stay static.
Fixed the situation where only one portal drags you.
Melting's special after death is now the same as when still alive without Throne Butt.
Might've fixed a crashed where wall collisions completely froze the game.
No more YouTube videos raging at "invisible walls" on 0-1.
Turret corpses are stationary now.
Misc
New art for the Eraser and Guitar.
Nice art when you get killed by Lightning underwater.
Nice art for Y.V.'s Giant Chests.
New art for Cursed ammo drops.
Big Dog missiles now rotate!
New sound for the Rogue Rifle.
Thrown golden weapons now sparkle.
Jungle Bandits now play a pop gun sound!
Portals are slightly brighter on the inside.
Update #80 - Bear with us - Weekend of July 5th
We've done it, we've made the jump towards a completely new main menu! It's currently in an ugly, ugly state, the kind of things that'd normally never be seen by anyone outside of the studio working on it (and studios might even hide it internally). Then again, this is open development, so for the sake of transparency and weekly updates we've thrown it out there for you.
We're currently making the move from having all options in the character select, to having a proper main menu and separate character select. For now, we have both menus, but eventually the character select screen will be just that.
This brings a few cool things with it too: options are now accessible with gamepad, and the new menus will work with mouse, keyboard and gamepad at the same time. Anyway, we hope you understand that it'll take a bit more time until we get this into a decent state without placeholder art, so please have some patience! We'll also get back on the Crown system and Loop Bosses relatively soon, as it's about time we fix those up!
Other than that, we've done some proper balancing (Horror might be less OP now), some fixes, and the usual small stuff.
Enjoy, and we hope you're as excited for the finished interface as we are!
Features
First steps of a new main menu!
Balancing
Horror's beam now gets cleared in a small area when it destroys a projectile, making it harder to cut through loads of bullets.
Flame Cannon now costs 1 more ammo.
Cursed Caves enemies now drop a lot more rads.
Lil' Hunter no longer deals contact damage.
Fixes
Discs, Flames and the Flame Cannon cause less shake and sleep.
Fixed a crown typo.
If you kill yourself by using lightning weapons underwater, it now properly shows that as a cause of death with beautiful placeholder art.
Gun Warrant's text now says 7 seconds, as it should.
Misc
Bumpers on gamepad now swap weapons.
You can now set how strong you want the "freeze frames" effect to be in the options.
Added some screen shake to the menu.
Rephrased the "gain damage" crown for now.
We actually did a tiny bit of optimizations!
Cursed ammo explosions now work with Crown of Death.
Don't forget to tune it to the huge Nuclear Throne tournament by SmiteSA, which happens over at Twitch, and check out the weekly challenge by Solid too for some extra challenge in your Nuclear Throne this week!
Update #79 - Crown Mess - Weekend of June 26th
We started redoing the way Crown Vaults work. It's currently in a weird, broken, unsatisfactory state, but will definitely help us get crown things wrapped up within a few updates (disregarding actual crown balancing, which will come later).
We've thrown out the old Crown Guardians and replaced them with temporary temple guardians. The new crown vaults will only grant mutants access to three vaults during their lifetime. Specific crowns are now always found in the same specific Vault, but that'll probably change again soon.
We rounded out the amount of crowns to twelve crowns, which is the amount that we intend to have in the final game. The first new crown, Crown of Protection, makes dropped guns give you +1 HP instead of ammo. The other crown, Crown of Luck, gives all enemies more HP but a chance to just kind of explode on death.
We've done quite some bits of balancing and fixing in this week as well. We have no idea how this all work out, they need some time and will probably be changed again! We'll be watching your feedback, your Let's Play's and your commentary here, on the wiki, on Twitch, Reddit, the forums and Twitter. Enjoy!
Features
New Crown Vault system.
Crown of Protection and Crown of Luck.
Balancing
Plasma Cannon rate of fire has been increased.
Heavy Auto Crossbow rate of fire has been decreased.
Lil' Hunter is slower with IDPD summoning when higher on health.
Crown of Life has been changed, now killing enemies at spawn instead of giving you a chest.
Gun Warrant got an additional second.
Scarier Face now reduces enemies' max HP instead of just dealing damage, effictively synergizing a bit less with Plant's Throne Butt.
Snowbots need to be closer to throw cars.
Higher chance for turrets to spawn.
Turrets now have more HP and activate in groups.
Flame Cannon no longer explodes when touching an enemy.
Guitar has slightly less damage and rate of fire now.
Lightning and Blood Cannon now both cost 1 more ammo.
Gamma Guts damage has been increased but no longer triggers every frame.
Strong Spirit now only gives 5 frames of invincibility when triggered.
Big Bandit loop numbers have been increased.
Cursed Ammo doesn't work with Plutonium Hunger and fades even faster.
Fixes
Fixed a bug with Turrets not spawning portals.
Cursed Spiders no longer drop rads after splitting.
Fixed crashes related to Flak Cannon and Lightning Hammer.
Guitar only drops on loop 1 now.
Exploding Freaks now also drop rads when blowing up by touching a wall.
Fire Traps can no longer create untraversable situations.
Bandits can no longer spawn in Crown Vaults.
Fixed some glitches with entering portals right when they spawned.
Saplings no longer one-hit-kill the Sewers loop boss.
Misc
Vaults Statues can now also spawn in palace on loops.
Less freeze when using Flak Cannons.
Some new tips.
Enjoy!
Update #78 - That's the sound of the beast! - Weekend of June 19th
We've been pulling off some big updates lately, and here comes another one that's so filled with so much stuff that it's hard to come up with a title. It doesn't help that this week was E3, so both Rami and Joonas were stuck in Los Angeles repping the game. It was lovely seeing how many people have heard of Nuclear Throne, and a large part of that is your efforts on Twitter, Facebook, Twitch and YouTube. We super appreciate all of that, so please keep it up!
For this weeks' update, well, where to begin? First of all, we've wrestled with all the tiny bugs and exceptions that broke the new "what killed you system". Most of those should be gone, and you can now casually triple loop with ease of mind again!
After that, we basically spent the week striking things of our shrinking to-do lists one by one. Lil' Hunter has been given a significant upgrade, making him use more mean, cowardly tactics, and giving him an additional cool bouncy bullets attack!
We've added Joonas' brilliant sound effects for the Sewers loop boss, created a new enemy for the Labs, update both the loading and game over screen, and even added a new crown that introduces a new "secret" system to the game!
Other than that, there's some significant balancing: enemies spawn further from spawns, a single melee enemy is no longer as effective at shredding you to bit in under a second, and strong spirit now also works for things that hit you twice in a super short amount of time. There's more balancing, fixes, details, you know, the usual really!
Features
We've upgraded Lil' Hunter! Less direct firepower, more mean cowardly attacks!
The Sewers loop boss now has her own sound effects!
We've added a new, rare enemy to the labs.
Updated loading screen!
We've added a new crown, for now only accessible from the loadout screen.
Balancing
Enemies spawn slightly further form the player, especially on 5-3.
A single enemy can now only deal melee damage once a second.
Slightly more bullet ammo from drops.
Strong Spirit now makes you invulnerable for one second after triggering.
Ravens now have a minimum firing range.
Chicken's corpse flies slightly less far.
Seeker Pistol rate of fire has been lowered a tiny bit.
Eraser deals a tiny bit less damage.
CLASSIFIED Assassins now react slightly slower.
Fixes
Fixed a ton of small bugs related to getting hit by: Golden Scorpions, deflected weapons, Lil Hunter exploding, Crown of Death.
The amount of IDPD spawning on 0-1 is now always the same.
Made some tiny adjustments to bolt and bullet collisions.
Chicken's thrown weapons no longer snap when turning into pickups.
Fixed a visual glitch related to Chicken's B Ultra.
Crown of Death explosion no longer spawns outside of the level.
Fixed a HUD glitch related to the Splinter Pistol.
Corpses no longer spawn in walls on 0-1.
Cluster Grenade no longer creates a horizontal line of tiny grenades when hitting an enemy directly.
Impact Wrists should no longer damage Allies.
Laser Crystals killing you are no longer shown as the Hyper Crystal on the game over screen.
Misc
Game Over screen now animates.
Crystals in Cursed Caves are now a light source.
Fixed/changed some tips.
Enjoy, and remember, there's absolutely no way to find a Yeti in the game!
Update #77 - This is not the update in which we add Jungle - Weekend of June 12th
Through some sort of devious marketing scheme, everyone has come to expect great things from the legendary "double digit" updates, and it seems like it's time for one of those again. Despite last weeks update being enormous already, the team taped their knuckles, dipped 'em in glue and glass shards, and we started working like there was no tomorrow.
Let's start with some of the obvious things: Last week's Chicken redesign prompted a lot of rebalancing this week, aside from the usual balances and fixes. We also have new cursed weapon sounds, and a super fun new shell weapon.
As for the more notable changes this week: we've had another go at making spawns safer! We're looking forward to hearing your feedback on this one. It's subtle, but it should make a notable difference. We've also continued work on a major Game Over screen overhaul. This is obviously still work in progress, but it already looks a lot better now. It will also show you exactly what killed you, so you'll never have to wonder whether it was a maggot or an assassin that ended your loop.
Features
Safer spawns.
Game over screen overhaul, now also showing what killed you.
New shell weapon, the Eraser. Combines the best of both sluggers and ordinary shotguns.
Balancing
Thrown weapons now deal more damage and are a bit bouncier when they hit walls.
New Chicken Ultra B: Thrown weapons teleport back to your secondary slot.
New Chicken Throne Butt: Thrown weapons pierce (her old Ultra B).
Better rate of fire for the Double Shotgun, Sawed Off Shotgun, and Heavy Slugger.
Slightly less damage for the Energy Sword.
Fixes
Fixed a rare bug causing Horror to spawn outside the level.
You now play your damage animation and sound when eating a cursed weapon as Robot.
Fixed Scarier Face waking up Assassins and Alligators.
Fixed a weird thing where sleeping Assassins thought they should deal contact damage.
Certain cars now have a nicer explosion.
Melting's HP is now rounded up when divided by two.
Misc
Chicken now bleeds a lot for the last second before dying.
Sounds for Cursed Weapons.
Trivia: there are currently almost ninety different ways to not reach the Nuclear Throne. Have fun!
Reminder: Nuclear Throne will not go on sale while in Early Access
We just wanted to put out a quick reminder that Nuclear Throne will not be in the Steam Summer Sales, or in any sale in any capacity for that matter, while it's in Early Access.
To us, Early Access is a way to gather feedback and improve the game, and not a way to maximize our profits or earn quick money prior to launch. We've found that the quality of feedback is higher with a dedicated community that loves roguelike-likes, instead of thousands of people that bought the game 'because it was on sale'. We don't want to do strange price hikes and drops, we don't want to play with pricing - we want to be upfront and honest with you about what the price of Nuclear Throne will be in the future.
While we appreciate that many of you are excited for Nuclear Throne, the game will remain $12.99 while in Early Access. After the game hits version 1.0 (which is currently scheduled to hit in a couple of months), we'll drop the price to $11.99. A while after release we'll start considering sales, but at this timeline that means the game very likely won't be on sale until the end of this year, or early next year.
Thanks so much for your support, and for helping us make Nuclear Throne the best game we can possibly make it. As always, catch us on the livestreams every Tuesday and Thursday, and we're looking forward to your response on this weeks update.
Update #76 - Fasten your seatbelts - Weekend of June 5th
Justin's back!
Through a magical combination of ridiculously hard word, luck, sleep, and nice weather we've managed to pull of one of the biggest updates in the entire history of Nuclear Throne! Fasten your seatbelts.
We've redesigned the way Chicken works.
After a lot of thought, we've decided that her slow-motion ability did more damage than it was worth, slowing down a game that's supposed to be fast. Her active also embarassingly emphasised a whole bunch of bugs. She can now throw weapons. This deals a whole load of damage, is able to one-hit kill a lot of enemies, but does leave you empty-handed for a bit. With that we've also got a new Throne Butt and two redesigned Ultras. As with all new things, this'll probably need a lot of tiny changes, exploit fixing, and balancing, but we're at least excited to get you started on this!
Then there's the crowns: We've done a lot of cleaning up, and decided to get rid of a few, combine some, and add a few new things. This'll hopefully result in a more interesting, less limiting selection! We're excited to see how things play out.
But there's way more... Portals now have a weaker pull in their "outside region" and after just appearing, allowing you to get out in a pinch; we've changed the way Golden Weapons unlock; we've done a ton of balancing; we've added cool new Wall Break sounds, and the list goes on! Details below, but we suggest you just jump in and give the much-changed and hopefully improved Nuclear Throne a run!
Features
New Chicken. Go Hotline Miami on your enemies as you literally throw weapons at their faces!
We've renamed, redesigned, and reconstructed a whole bunch of crowns!
Gold weapons now become unlocked for your loadout when taken through a portal, including a cool sparkle sound effect!
Portals don't pull as strong when you're further away for them and the first second after spawning.
Balancing
IDPD now drop a lot more ammo and health. Wonder how that influences Rogue.
Headless Chicken camera is less static.
Gun Warrant now lasts a bit shorter, and has a visual effect.
Golden Scorpions now have a max attack range.
Horror drops even more rads when killed. Wonder when people get the hint that this might speed your run up.
Snowbots and Wolves have less HP.
Fixes
Rhino Freaks should no longer spawn inside walls.
Death no longer resets your preferred starting weapon.
Fixed an audio glitch when walls broke during the loading screen.
Some of Y.V.'s tips now properly display the #!
Fixed a "drawing no weapon" glitch.
Lil' Hunters attack sounds should be more clear.
Fixed the Lightning Hammer and Shovel icon.
Picking up weapons should be slightly easier.
Misc
The wall break sound is now different for most areas!
Sounds for Gold Weapon related things!
Added a few new tips.
The Game Over map now shows B skins and special skins like headless Chicken and hooded Rebel.
Rogue's Throne Butt now has a visual indication.
Added a few more tiny interface animations to the Character Select screen.
We're super proud of this one. Hope you enjoy!
Update #75 - Golden Age - Weekend of May 29th
Update art by Jukio this week!
This is a really exciting update to us! We've made quite some more progress with the interface overhaul, and we're really starting to get somewhere. While there's still a long way to go, we've finished our rough version of the Loadout screen and have started work on the Game Over screen.
This also means you no longer lose golden weapons after dying without them, and we've enabled B skins for a bit, until the unlocks for them are added in.
Other than that there's various bits of polish and balancing. We're very excited to make such significant progress on the interface overhaul, as it is pretty much the biggest and hardest thing still left to do for Nuclear Throne. After that there's just a list of almost a thousand tiny things, secrets, polish, and any ideas that still pop up that need to be taken care of.
Features
An early version of the screen you stare at most: the new Game Over screen is introduced, with a WIP map.
Big update to the Loadout screen, now with tiny animations, and allowing you to pick your starting weapon and B-skin!
Gold Weapons are no longer lost when dying without them.
Balancing
More range for the Cluster Launcher, Grenade Rifle, and Grenade Shotgun.
Ravens now hang around a bit longer before activating.
Fixes
The Character Select screen no longer starts with Random selected.
Technomancer HP now scales with loops, like all loop bosses do.
Misc
Icons for all gold weapons!
We redid the machinegun art, that thing always was ridiculously long.
