Something is waiting in the dark, far, far away... You can now challenge a new Loop Boss! If you manage to reach the labs, you'll fight a new highly unfinished enemy, but you'll get the idea. To stay with the Labs theme, we've also reworked Necromancers! They'll no longer instagib you, but instead respawn Freaks in a small area after a short delay. Either way, more challenge, and more fun. We've also done some general balancing to be a bit more generous with drops, and have various other cool things in the works! Tune in next week for more Nuclear Throne.
Features
Work in progress Labs loop boss.
Reworked necromancers.
Balancing
Less HP for Loop Bosses until we get around to giving these a proper treatment.
Necromancers now activate faster, but also drop more.
Exploding Guardians drop weapons slightly more often.
Normal Guardians drop a bit more ammo.
Lightning Cannon now uses 1 more Energy.
Super Plasma Cannon deals more damage, Plasma Cannon deals less damage.
A corpse getting revived now counts as -1 kills for your score, so no Necromancer farming for the daily!
Gamma Guts has a bigger blast radius.
Fixes
Fixed a crash related to rockets.
Misc
No crown is shown when none are equipped.
Steroids now shows an extra revolver in the menu.
A new tip for Rogue.
Have fun!
Update #73 - Shielder shields shield Shielders - Weekend of May 15th
They say "good things come in small amounts". At least we think they say that. It'd be mighty convenient if they say that. It'd fit the update really well if people say that.
In other words : it's been tremendously busy week with events and unexpected travels! Joonas has been cranking out a ton of new weapon sounds, so those've all been implemented! We're also making some progress with the starting weapon art for the loadout screen. Oh, and on one of the days this week, Jan Willem suddenly jolted up and casually strolled to his computer mumbling something about "nerfing shielders". We're not sure what that was about. He wouldn't, would he? It's so funny to watch people die to those.
Since Justin is still a bit too busy for update art, this week's update art is by the always-talented Paul Veer.
Features
A ton of new weapon sounds! Blood cannon is probably our favorite.
Partially updated starting weapon menu art!
Balancing
We added a small delay before Shielder shields shield Shielders! It's a work in progress, but a step in the right direction.
Fixes
Fixed some problems with the menu character art.
Misc
Some small updates to the Labs tiles.
After this week we should have a bit more time to get working on some larger content and the rest of the interface again, so that'll be exciting! Have fun!
Update #72 - The Beautiful Update - Weekend of May 8th
Oh yeah, this is a good one.
Your favorite character now has new, beautiful art in the character select screen, and so does your least favorite character. We've added bubbly sound effects to the Oasis too.
But most importantly, we decided to dig deep into the design and rework some of the basic ammo balancing going on. This is a rather risky move, because changing tiny things down in the foundation ripples through the entire game, so things might be kind of silly. We're pretty certain that these changes will work out well, but we're looking forward to what happens this week.
You'll now find slightly more drops when low on ammo, while Rabbit Paw has been toned down a bit, Lucky Shot has been improved, and Back Muscle no longer helps you get more drops. This design will both help new players (and we've lowered Scorpion HP for them too), but also allow high level players to take more risks and swap their weapons around more as Back Muscle functions more as a storage for un-equipped ammo. These changes should hopefully make everyone less reliant on these ammo mutations, while also allowing them to really make some of the more ammo-hungry weaponry shine. Speaking of mutations, we're trying something silly with Gamma Guts: little area of effect blasts whenever you kill something with it.
Looking forward to seeing how that and all the other fixes and balancing work out!
Features
Brand new character select art! airhorn.wav!!!
Bubbly Oasis sounds!
Balancing
A tiny bit more drops when low on ammo.
Less HP for Scorpions.
Gamma Guts now deals area of effect damage when an enemy is killed by it.
Rabbit Paw has been weakened a tiny bit.
Back Muscle no longer increases your drop rate.
Lucky Shot will trigger more.
Allies now have a smaller hitbox.
Frog Eggs now have a smaller hitbox.
Super Plasma Cannon costs 24 ammo again, and is a bit less strong. Plasma Cannon is also a tiny bit weaker.
Fixes
Angry Big Rats now have a shadow!
Less slowdown when meleeing grenades and hitting things with Plasma/Flare Gun.
Fixed bosses spawning in groups on loop.
Fixed Rogue's shadow at the campfire.
Fixed a bug with Big Dog missiles.
Fixed a crash caused by Big Weapon Chests.
Fixed a crash caused by rads.
Ultra Revolver should now be able to hit enemies close to walls.
MISC:
New art for Big Dog missiles and flames that'll get smaller in the future.
Updated Crystal's in-game art a bit.
Update Rogue on icons.
Starting weapon is now displayed correctly in the menu.
Enjoy!
Update #71 - Literally a million tiny things - Weekend of May 1st
Whoa, an update with update art by Jan Willem Nijman? Our promo artist Justin Chan this week didn't have time to make update art, so we went and asked the most obvious secondary source for super quickly made promo art: professional placeholder artist J.W.
He got so excited at the opportunity to draw for you all, that this week you're all graced with not one, not two, but four pieces of promo art in the style of the placeholder art you've all come to love.
Anyway, if you scroll down you'll notice that this is an update without any main features. We felt that was rather innovative too! This week, we've got almost a million (count and see!) little bits of balancing, fixing, and polishing going on! Next week we'll hopefully have more interface progress again.
Balancing
Seekers weapons deal a bit less damage and have a lower rate of fire, their seeking has also been modified slightly.
Horror now doesn't attract rads for a bit after using the beam.
Plutonium Hunger adds less range to rad attraction.
Gatling Slugger and Laser Minigun spawns a bit later.
Total Recall now gives you an extra mutation, is still broken though.
Assassins need to get closer before they attack.
Sledgehammer deals a bit more damage.
Ultra Shovel and Ultra Revolver both use one more rad.
Higher rate of fire for the Wave Gun.
Super Plasma Cannon spawns later and uses more ammo.
Energy Sword deals a bit less damage and spawns slightly later.
Made Big Bandit more fun on loop.
Fixes
No more Loop Boss clusters. We're sad about that, too.
Crown of Choice is selectable form the menu again.
Should be less bandits spawning inside walls now.
Improvements to bolt collision.
Gamma Guts glow is no longer drawn when you're in the portal.
Misc
Art for the Seeker weapons!
Character select icons now animate in.
IDPD, Flak, Super Flak, and Ultra Bullets now have hit effects.
Picking up radiation now spawns a little effect, larger with plutonium hunger.
Changed the sprite origina for the Ultra and Heavy Revolver.
Debris and Shells no longer blink before disappearing.
Bullet shells are now darker.
Some new tips.
A controversial change in the team: level names are now displayed as X-X instead of X_X.
Have fun!
Thank you!!!
We’re thankful to announce that Nuclear Throne broke through a total Steam revenue of over 1 million dollars just a few moments ago. That’s kind of ridiculous and amazing, and we owe all of you that bought the game once or many times for the fact that we reached that number.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the two of us now just have a million dollars sitting in our bank account. A good part of that number goes to our amazing crew – Paul, Jukio, Joonas and Justin – and making sure that they can work on the game comfortably too. Quite a bunch of it has already been spent on travel and conferences and meeting and events, so that we can meet you and negotiate over future platforms for the game to release on. Part of it has been spent on developing the game further and extending our development process beyond the original six months that we had planned.
For that entire period of time, we’ve tried to keep you up to date of progress by doing two livestreams a week and updating the game weekly. We’ve not discounted the game even when we’ve had offers to be in huge Steam sales or bundles, because we feel discounting a work-in-progress is disingenuous. We’re always scouring the internet, following your forum discussions, finding new and amazing fan content every day, laughing about your Twitch banter, and watching your Let’s Plays and Y.V. videos.
It’s easy to forget that when we originally started on Nuclear Throne, we set out to finish a quick jam prototype we made in half a year. Instead, we launched Weekly Update 70 just earlier today, indicating that we’ve been working on the game for almost two years. Over the past two years, all of us have gained an idea of where the game needs to end up, and we can finally say that we’re slowly getting close to a final game. We just wanted to let you know once more that this project would not be possible without your support, not just in very concrete ways like helping us pay our rent, but also in terms of spreading the word and giving us feedback.
As always, thank you for being a wonderful, understanding and encouraging community while we somehow try to kick together a video game.
Update #70 - Bolt Variety - Weekend of April 24th
A bit of a smaller one again, as some of the team are in Germany to visit A MAZE festival, and some of the team were all over the world! We've still managed to cram in a brand new bolt weapon type, so let's see if it's any good! Other than that, we've probably eliminated Melting's "dead end" bug, changed crossbow hitboxes slightly to allow you to shoot nearby enemies, and fixed a few other things as well.
Sorry for being late with the update this week, I really needed a quick break after a ridiculous travel schedule this week (2 continents, 3 countries, 4 presentations at 4 events, in 7 days). We'll be back on our usual schedule again next week with releases. Thanks for your understanding!
JW said I should add "HAVE A FUN" to this one, so HAVE A FUN.
Features
Seeker Pistol.
Seeker Shotgun.
Balancing
Tiny change to the way Plasma Minigun fires.
Open Mind now gives you an extra chest in 7_3.
Fixes
Fixed bolt hitmasks.
Fixed Melting's "dead end" Ultra bug.
Throne Butt now has a dash between the character name and description.
Revving back up again, and really excited about some of the progress we're making with the UI so far. We're also slowly getting more information together on the physical editions of the game.
Hotfix #9 - A way out - Hotfix for Update #69
Should be fixed.
Update #69 - Four assassins - Weekend of April 17th
Time for your weekly update of Nuclear Throne, and we think this one is pretty sweet! As you'll immediately notice when you boot up, we're slowly continuing work on the interface, and we'll be continue to break and rebuild stuff over the weeks. This week we also decided to throw in a bunch of balancing, some cool new loop things, and two more possibly quite amazing weapons! Other than that, we've also slightly addressed the problem formally known as "shitty RNG", by ensuring at least a tiny bit of cover near most spawns!
Features
Some more work on the character select screen, even though things are still broken and very unfinished!
New bullet weapon: The Incinerator.
New energy weapon with a 6 second reload time.
Hopefully, improved spawns!
You can now swap cursed weapons for other cursed weapons. This one is really interesting.
Enemies on loop might now spawn as a group of enemies of the same type. Have fun fighting 4 assassins at once!
Balancing
Rads now fade faster on loops as well.
IDPD difficulty now ramps up, making sure your first few encounters won't be Shielders.
Crossbow rate of fire has been decreased slightly.
Laser Minigun is now less accurate.
Heavy Assault Rifle now spawns later.
Lightning Rifle now spawns sooner.
Slight lightning shotgun ROF buff.
Exploding Guardians now spawn slightly less bullets. (Guardians are still getting a buff eventually, but we're just making these a bit more playable for now.)
Made some more loop-exclusive changes to Lil Hunter.
Fixes
Ravens should now fly towards the player if there are only a few enemies left.
You can no longer press L to toggle the letterboxes.
Scorpions should no longer get stuck in walls. Fingers crossed!
Misc
More Crown Vault tiles.
Blood Cannon art.
Heavy Bullet weapons now drop heavy shells.
Plasma weapons freeze the game a bit less.
New tip.
Enjoy, and we'll be back with more - as always - next week.
Update #68 - The Long Overhaul - Weekend of April 10th
This must've been the weirdest update we've ever done, as it's tiny, and both boring and super exciting at the same time!
We've started on our big interface overhaul, which is a ton of extremely detailed work intending to lift the overall game to a next level of polish. This is a lot of very detailed work, requiring us to rework and clean up a lot of the existing code while meticulously designing how and where every pixel has to move. In the long run, the new menu will allow us consistent behaviour across keyboard, mouse and controller. After that, a lot of other screens in the game are going to get the same treatment.
Basically, the update we've just thrown live contains a super-unfinished, half-broken start of where we're heading with the character select screen. It might not look like the most exciting thing, but it sure is a huge step towards getting the game ready for release. There's some (great) placeholder art by Paul and tons of tiny animations, and it sure is no indication of the final product!
This is one of these things you'd normally never even think about showing when working on a game, and it's almost so rough that we wanted to keep it behind the scenes. But, promise is promise, and we said we'd show you the ins and outs of game development. So for the sake of science, we present to you: the broken, half-finished new menu update! We'll hopefully be a lot further along next week, allowing us to get back to fixes, balancing and content, but we thought it'd be fun to give am extreme peek behind the scenes for now instead of an updateless week!
Be sure to jump into our streams next tuesday and thursday to get more insights in where all of this is heading!
Features
A brand new, very broken, work in progress character select screen! Sorry if it breaks things.
Fixes
Spiderwebs in [CLASSIFIED] now actually work!
Hopefully we'll have a slightly more complete interface for you next week, and a bit more actual substance!
Update #67 - What dog? - Weekend of April 3rd
A smaller update this week, as the last hotfix took... a bit more work than usual.
We've been working hard on the plans and mockups for our interface overhaul, and we're proud to announce the very first signs of that are starting to appear in the game! We've now got support for colored text, meaning that for starters your tips now look more interesting! Words like HEALTH or AMMO will be color-coded, and we'll also highlight anything else we might deem important.
Do note that the current implementation is super early, so where and how we've applied it is probably still a bit inconsistent. We're figuring this thing out.
Other than that, we've got another big update to the mutation icons for you, a few small balances, some bug fixes, etc.
Dig in, and have fun! Hope nothing weird shows up this week.
Features
Basic support for colored text.
A big update to the mutation icons!
Balancing
Snowtanks now explode sooner.
Blood Cannon drops later.
Heavy Assault Rifle drops slightly later.
Fixes
Fixed a minor glitch related to Big Dog.
Sewers loop boss projectiles no longer fly forever.
Steroids now gets a 4th weapon from Big Chests with his Ambidextrous.
Lil' Hunter flying around before death now has a smaller collision mask.
