Swarmlake cover
Swarmlake screenshot
PC XONE Steam
Genre: Shooter, Indie, Arcade

Swarmlake

Swarmlake 3.0 Out Now


Hi, the free Swarmlake 3.0 Update is out now:


  • Added player health

    Improves understandability of game-overs. Also increases the elasticity of the game challenge. In the past the binary nature of one-hit deaths resulted in frustrations as there was no warning possible. This will affect the gameplay dynamic as it is now possible to intentionally take damage to get to a bomb. Not understanding deaths was by far the most common complaint since release.


  • Added bowl-shaped arena wall

    Removes the punishing nature of falling off the arena while keeping effectively the same playspace as the recently introduced arena limit. Also better fits the now more nuanced fail state in the form of health.


  • Added wall jump
  • Added bomb detonation healing a fraction of health
  • Added health bar display
  • Added player damage audiovisual feedback
  • Added player top percent display to leaderboard
  • Added leaderboard rank display
  • Added settings tab to hide individual HUD elements
  • Improved enemy jump sign display
  • Improved shard despawn warning feedback clarity by increasing flicker speed over time
  • Improved sound effects mix clarity
  • Improved milestone score visual effect
  • Improved startup speed
  • Improved spawning enemies of same wave from similar direction (reverted)
  • Fixed startup delay if loading showcase failed
  • Reset leaderboard and settings
  • Decreased fire rate by 10%

    Better fits expectations of when taking damage relative to enemy density. Also increases decision making by having to avoid enemies more and adapting to their patterns. This changes game feel so it might take some time to get used to it.


  • Increased bomb spawn height variation by 20%

    Encourages more vertical play and reduces repetitive single jump strategies.


  • Increased enemy spawn scaling by 25%

    Speeds up pacing and balances out the increased survivability of the player due to adding health.



Unfortunately the leaderboard also had to be reset.

Swarmlake has continuously evolved over time with the goal to make it more fun for more players by always keeping player feedback in mind. I am aware that people dislike change and I am sorry for the frustration this can cause.

Thank you
- Dominique

Swarmlake 3.0 Beta


Hi,

to try the Swarmlake 3.0 BETA please go to Steam > Swarmlake > right click > Properties > Betas > Opt into "test" build.


  • Added restorable player health

    Improves understandability of game-overs. Also increases the elasticity of the game challenge. In the past the binary nature of one-hit deaths resulted in frustrations as there was no warning possible. This will effect the gameplay dynamic as it is now possible to intentionally take damage to get to a bomb. Since health can be restored this could make defensive playstyles slightly stronger. Having health was probably the most requested feature since the release of the game.


  • Added bomb detonation healing a fraction of health
  • Added health bar display
  • Added player damage audiovisual feedback
  • Added player top percent display to leaderboard
  • Added wall jump
  • Added bowl-shaped arena wall

    Reduces the frustration and punishing nature of falling off the arena and dying while keeping effectively the same playspace as the current arena limit. Also better fits the now more nuanced fail state in the form of health.


  • Improved spawning enemies of same wave from similar direction

    Improves understandability of the early game by having enemies clump more together.


  • Improved enemy jump sign display
  • Improved shard despawn warning feedback clarity
  • Improved sound effects mix clarity
  • Improved milestone score visual effect
  • Improved startup speed
  • Fixed startup delay if loading showcase failed
  • Reset leaderboard
  • Decreased fire rate by 10%

    Better fits expectations of when taking damage relative to enemy density. Also increases decision making by having to avoid enemies more and adapting to their patterns.


  • Increased bomb spawn height variation by 20%

    Encourages more vertical play and reduces repetitive single jump strategies.


  • Increased enemy spawn scaling by 25%

    Speeds up pacing and balances out the increased survivability of the player due to adding health.



Swarmlake has continuously evolved over time with the goal to make it more fun for more players by always keeping player feedback in mind. I am aware that people dislike change and I am sorry for the frustration this can cause.

Thank you
- Dominique

Swarmlake 2.14


Hey all, Swarmlake 2.14 is out to improve understandability and depth:


  • Added arena limit
  • Improved enemy spawning to be independent of player look direction
  • Improved avoider (orange) enemy projectile avoidance to be a bigger threat
  • Improved bomb min move height (now can trigger without jumping if pulled down)
  • Fixed jumping off of bombs
  • Fixed showing wrong leaderboard avatar in rare cases
  • Removed replacing bombs on spawn limit (now pauses spawning at limit)
  • Removed score-based fire-rate (now always at max rate)
  • Removed doubled enemy spawn scaling after 10,000 score (now as before 10k)
  • Reset leaderboard

Please keep in mind that the max highscores will be lower now due to the gameplay changes. Unfortunately the leaderboard also had to be reset.

Congratulations to the top ten players and everyone else who competed the past year:



Thank you
- Dominique

Swarmlake 2.14 Beta


Hey all, Swarmlake 2.14 beta is out to improve understandability and depth.

To try it please go to Steam > Swarmlake > right click > Properties > Betas > Opt into "test" build.


  • Added arena limit
  • Improved enemy spawning to be independent of player look direction
  • Improved avoider (orange) enemy projectile avoidance to be a bigger threat
  • Improved bomb min height to no longer always require jumping to detonate bombs
  • Improved floor color
  • Improved tutorial
  • Fixed jumping off of bombs
  • Removed replacing bombs on spawn limit
  • Removed score-based fire-rate (always at max rate now)
  • Removed enemy spawn scaling increase after 10,000 score
  • Reset leaderboard

Please keep in mind that the max highscores will be lower now due to the gameplay changes. Also the leaderboard might be reset again if there are further changes before leaving the beta.

Congratulations to the top ten players and everyone else who competed the past year:



Thank you
- Dominique

Swarmlake 2.13


Hi, Swarmlake 2.13 is out to improve clarity:


  • Added bomb projectile attract feedback
  • Added death player hitbox pulse
  • Added descriptions to settings and tutorial UI
  • Improved fading out bomb shockwave
  • Improved all UI icons
  • Improved controller support
  • Fixed bomb shockwave model size
  • Fixed UI interaction with right mouse click


Thank you
- Dominique

Swarmlake 2.12


Hi all, Swarmlake 2.12 is out to improve depth:


  • Added bombs moving slightly to player on each projectile hit
  • Added pulling shards vertically up to player on jump
  • Added grace time to enemy jump
  • Added enemy jump sign on UI
  • Improved charger (yellow) enemy by targeting average player position over last seconds
  • Improved consistency of attracting shards vertically
  • Improved death camera by adding vertical offset
  • Improved replay compression
  • Reverted constant bomb movement from last update
  • Reset leaderboard


Unfortunately the leaderboard had to be reset due to the gameplay changes.

Thank you for your understanding
- Dominique

Swarmlake 2.11


Hey, Swarmlake 2.11 is out:


  • Added slight horizontal bomb movement
  • Added gun muzzle flash
  • Improved bomb spawn interval consistency
  • Improved visibility of shadowed enemies
  • Improved visual clarity by reducing enemy explosion size
  • Improved floor model
  • Fixed orbit camera ground collision by keeping player centered
  • Fixed floor springs being able to clip into third person camera


Thank you for your feedback and support
- Dominique

Swarmlake 2.10


Hi, Swarmlake 2.10 is out to improve clarity:


  • Added third-person death camera
  • Added replay orbit camera mode
  • Added 8x replay speed
  • Added showcasing always a top 10 replay at game start
  • Added gun fire rate display to UI
  • Added first bomb movement to improve tutorial
  • Fixed rare visual bomb spawn glitch
  • Fixed immediately stopping sound effects on pause
  • Tweaked visual player model
  • Tweaked visual enemy explosion sizes
  • Tweaked visual enemy sizes to better fit their collision sphere
  • Removed visual sun object
  • Removed score-based bomb spawn limit


Some of the listed changes were already included in unannounced updates over the past months.

Thank you for your continued feedback
- Dominique

Swarmlake 2.9


Hey all, Swarmlake 2.9 is out aiming to improve the game based on recent feedback:


  • Decreased distance of replacing bomb on spawn limit when far away from player by 40%
    Keeps bombs closer to player

  • Decreased time-based enemy spawn scaling by 20% (same as before 2.8)
    Improves agency

  • Readded score-based bomb spawn limit (same as in 2.5)
    Improves early game progression

  • Fixed replacing farthest bomb on spawn limit in rare cases
  • Removed replacing invisible bomb on spawn limit
    Makes spawning less dependent on camera movement

  • Reset leaderboard


Touching bombs is one of the core tensions of the game. Interesting decisions emerge from moving towards bombs (reward) while judging (uncertainty) how to best avoid enemies (cost).

Having bombs move to the player undermines this dynamic as it was better to move in an endless circle and ignore bombs until they were close. Players wanting to win were forced to play this way which reduced depth. Therefore bomb movement was removed in the recent updates.

However this increased uncertainty due to the increased time to reach bombs. This update aims to address this.

Unfortunately the leaderboard also had to be reset.

Thank you for your understanding, feedback and support
- Dominique

Swarmlake 2.8


Hi all, Swarmlake 2.8 is out to improve balance:


  • Increased time-based enemy spawn scaling by 20% (reverted in 2.9)
  • Decreased fire-rate increases to 1,000, 3,000 and 6,000 scores
  • Decreased distance of replacing bomb on spawn limit when far away from player by 20%
  • Readded avoider (orange) enemy intercepting the player (same as in 2.5)
  • Fixed spawning bombs too close to each other in rare cases
  • Removed bomb movement
  • Removed score-based bomb spawn limit (reverted in 2.9)
  • Removed score-based bomb spawn frequency
  • Moved slowmo from fire-rate increases to 10,000 score intervals
  • Reset leaderboard


Thank you
- Dominique
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