A belated Happy New Year to everyone!

I'm just popping in to let everyone know that this game is still in development, and that I plan to get Mechabot Defender to 1.0 by August of this year. Although, plans could change.

While I can't really say exactly what the 1.0 version of the game will look like, I can tell you that I think I am finally done dramatically changing the mechanics of the game. To everyone that has played through these constant, drastic changes, thank you for your patience.

In general, my plans for 1.0 are currently:

• A new character
  
• 3 new stages
  
• Story/Character dialogue between runs
  
• Upgrade balancing
  
• More upgrades (maybe)
  
• General polishing / bug fixing
  

Hi everyone,

Just letting you know that I'm postponing the update (again) by another couple of days while I continue to optimize the game.

Many of the optimizations are already implemented, so all that's left to do is stress test the game and try to catch some more bugs before pushing the update to the default branch.

After these optimizations are complete, I'm hoping to move on to creating more stages for the game.

Cheers,
Spargit

Hi everyone,

Just letting you know that I'm postponing the update to the default branch for another day or two while I iron out some of the more major bugs in the game, but you can try out all the new changes now in the beta branch!

Cheers,
Spargit

Hey everybody, just letting you know I've been fixing a few bugs and making a few tweaks to certain upgrades and classes, and you can play with these changes right now in the game's beta branch.

I'll be pushing these changes to the default branch in the next couple of days.

Cheers,
Spargit

Hey everyone!

I've been hard at work on a massive update for the game, including some much needed polish and controller support.

As always, big updates like these are bound to introduce some bugs and issues, but I've tried my best to catch everything.

Here are the major patch notes:

> A new character to unlock and play as - The Archmaster.
> Four completely new and unique TURRET CLASSES including a Flamethrower and a Cluster Bomb turret.
> Complete UI overhaul
> New main menu art
> Character portraits for the character select screen!
> New music (and more on the way!)
> Keybinds work now! And you can now use the keybind menu with a controller, speaking of...
> Controllers are now fully supported with customizable keybinds and an improved aiming system while tethered to turrets
> Tethering to turrets now costs energy but gives you a speed boost and improved fire rate, as well as Bullet time.
> New achievement icons
> New grading system and defeat/victory screen

There were a ton of other small changes and bug fixes along the way, but overall Mechabot is in a much stronger and stable place now.

Please beware that unplugging or plugging in a controller while the game is running can cause major issues and bugs that can cause the game to crash - I'm working on it.

I've got a lot planned for the future of Mechabot, mainly more content and more polish, but if you encounter any bugs or crashes please make it known in the Steam discussions!

Cheers,
Spargit

Hey everyone! It's been a while; life's been pretty crazy for me over the last 6 months and I haven't really had the opportunity to work on the game, but I'm just finishing up a big update which will be out TOMORROW.

I'm not going to go into detail here, as the update hasn't been released on the main branch yet, and there will be a separate post containing all of the patch notes. HOWEVER, you can now play the latest update of the game on the BETA BRANCH (right click the game in your library > properties > betas > select the beta branch)

I need all the feedback I can get in order to catch any bugs or problems this new build might have before it's published to the main branch in time for the Steam SHMUP Fest, so I'd love to hear from you.

I want to thank everyone that has kept an eye on this game for their patience, I hope you like the update.

Cheers,
Spargit

Hello everyone!

After a little bit of a break from development, I've managed to cobble together this pretty large update. There isn't a lot of content in this update (although there are some fun new upgrades), but instead a lot of balance changes, bug fixes, and quality of life changes. Mechanics have been removed, changed, and switched around all in the name of making the game clearer and less bloated. I hope you enjoy the changes, and here they all are in no particular order.

PATCH NOTES
>Charging turrets is now done through a large AOE instead of single targeting. This makes charging turrets MUCH easier and even allows you to charge two at the same time!

>Picking up turrets is now instantaneous. As a result, the turret pickup time upgrade has been removed.

>Max scrap storage increased from 30 to 100. Rerolling now costs 10 scrap instead of 3.

>Energy crystals now remain on the ground INDEFINITELY, but Scrap will still disappear over time. Scrap now only spawns if you actually have space to pick it up.

>Scrap now magnetises towards you as well as energy crystals.

>Magnetism has been polished and made stronger to make it more satisfying and easier to pick up crystals and scrap.

>Magnetism vector has been normalized to stop it from slowing down as it approaches you.

>Homing missile vector has been normalized to stop it from slowing down as it approaches its target.

>The Upgrade Screen UI has been improved and made clearer so that it is hopefully easier to understand for newer players.

>There is now some negative feedback when you dont have enough scrap to make a purchase.

>Turrets now have an UPGRADE LIMIT. When placing an upgrade on a turret you can see the upgrades that it currently has, and how many spaces you have left.

>Changed some button styles to make it clearer that you can still upgrade the silver turret, its just been automatically focused for controller users.

>Fixed a bug where the turret select buttons would disappear forever.

>Added a "skip" option that lets you take scrap, energy, and health instead of an upgrade. This is useful when your turrets run out of room for upgrades.

>Energy crystals and scrap will no longer follow you around if you have no space to pick them up.

>Everything is cheaper to unlock.

>Iffy meta progression stuff has been removed. You can no longer revive yourself and I removed some of the more meta-progression elements I was experimenting with.

>You can no longer unlock a Corrupt version of a character if you havent unlocked their base version.

>The Wrench has been changed to a Health Kit to make it clearer that it is a healing item and not an upgrade for your turrets.

>The keybind menu has been (temporarily) removed until I can figure out whats going wrong with it, because its quite janky currently. Sorry folks, Im hoping to have a solution ASAP.

>Turret charge bars now turn red when you cant charge them.

>Turret deploy upgrades now only show up if you take the base upgrade. This should make the upgrade pool less bloated.

>The tutorial has been polished and made clearer.

>First Time Bonus mechanic has been removed in an effort to make the game less overly complicated and more balanced.

>Polished button navigation with the controller.

>Added a set of Drone upgrades.

>Added 2 new freeze-related upgrades: Freezing Grip and Fire & Ice in an effort to make the freezing tree a more viable upgrade path.

>You no longer get a fire rate buff from tethering, but there are now upgrades that let you gain this bonus as well as reduce the speed debuff that you get from being tethered.

>Enemies now have passive health scaling, making the game have a more sturdy difficulty curve.

>Batteries now switch positions after you have gained a specific amount of XP from them. This means you have to move your turrets around a lot more and cant camp in one spot all game.

>The Special Override warning has been made clearer and reworded to Bullet Type

>Fixed bug where enemies wouldnt spawn and you would get a free level.

>The Snowball upgrade actually works now.

>The red vignette on the screen to display low health has been toned down.

>Theres now a visual on the XP bar when you arent gaining any experience, as well as a sound effect when you stop gaining experience.

>Worked on optimisation. There is now a limit of 150 enemies on screen at any time.

>Default ability costs have been reduced.

>Fixed bug where music would overlap.

>Early levels now require less XP.

>Scrap container no longer animates when you pick up energy crystals.

>Added Orbital Damage upgrade to improve Orbital Bullets.

>Moved a control point on stage 2 that allowed you to camp in a 100% safe spot.

THANK YOU
If you made it this far down, thanks for reading! And if you're an existing player, thank you for your patience as I've been working on this update. Although I've done my best to make sure the game is fully stable, there have been so many changes to the game that it is impossible for me to guarantee. If you encounter any bugs or issues, please use the Google form or Discord to provide feedback (links on the main menu of the game).

Thank you for your continued support, I hope you all enjoy the new update!

Cheers,
Spargit

Hey everyone, sorry for the hiatus. I took some time away from the game to work on various other projects that, to be honest, never really amounted to anything. But the break was highly necessary, as I was beginning to completely burn out on this game. Thankfully, returning to work on the game has been a relatively painless experience, and I've made some changes that will hopefully make the game more enjoyable.

I'm not going to go into detail here, as the update hasn't been released on the main branch yet, and there will be a separate post containing all of the patch notes. HOWEVER, you can now play the latest update of the game on the BETA BRANCH (right click the game in your library > properties > betas > select the beta branch)

Every time I get feedback on the game, it's always extremely valuable. So if you have any suggestions or encounter any issues, or even if you think a certain upgrade isn't balanced right -- let me know! There's a link to the Discord and a Google Form via the game's main menu.

NOTE:
>Keybinds have been (temporarily) removed because they were causing some weird issues. I'll try fix this in the future, but they are currently not a priority.


Cheers,
Spargit

Hello again everyone, this update reduces the amount of early-game healing and gives the option to scale that healing into the mid-game by upgrading your wrench. I also fixed a few bugs and added a new setting.

>Nerfed repair wrench to 1 use with the option to upgrade using scrap

>Nerfed pickups to 1 per pickup (default used to be 2)

>Added option to reduce bullet opacity to 50% for better visibility (but this is OFF by default)

>Fixed bug where you were able to go over max scrap by 1

>Fixed bug where the game would become unpaused while looking at certain menu screens

>Stopped INCOMING warning blocking mouse input

Cheers,
Spargit

Hey everyone, and welcome to new players! This is just a small patch to fix a few bugs and balance issues brought in by the new Major Update.

>Nerfed bullet hose so it no longer instant kills non-boss enemies.

>Bunch of balance changes to enemy formations/spawns

>Defeating the Enforcer now gives all future enemy spawns +2 max health

>Fixed difficulty scaling issue

>Fixed bug where victory screen would get stuck

>Fixed bug where you would receive too many Starchips

>Stopped "Napalm" upgrade showing up when fire upgrades are taken. You must now take an explosive upgrade to add "Napalm" to the upgrade pool

>Fixed bug where the revive screen spawns multiple times

>Fixed bug where your starchips can go into the negative

>There is now a constant blue light underneath the player to make the game more readable

>The Enforcer can no longer be pushed around by the player

>Fixed bug where enemies wouldnt start spawning on subsequent runs if you had a game over in your last run

>Fixed some weird layering issues

>Removed the enemy kill count from the UI because it was unnecessary and just cluttered the screen

Thanks to everyone that has been playing the game, enjoy the new update!

Cheers,
Spargit

Hello everyone!

This update has been a long time in the making, and there's lots to cover, so I'm going to get straight to it.

RELOADING HAS BEEN REMOVED
You no longer have to reload your turrets. Turrets have unlimited ammo, and can now be loaded with energy (collected from enemies) to charge up powerful ultimate abilities. These abilities are different for each turret class!

CHANGES TO ABILITIES AND HEALING
Abilities no longer have cooldowns, but instead cost energy to use. Each character has a different energy cost for their ability. Healing is now limited to 3 uses per level, but has no cooldown. These uses are replenished on level-up, but there are plans to limit this healing as it's currently quite strong.

Also, Harper's ability no longer disables turrets.

NEW LEVEL-BASED SYSTEM
Instead of waves, you must now power BATTERIES with your turrets. The locations of these batteries are randomized on each level up, but you are able to see all of their potential locations very easily. This ensures that players aren't camping in the same spot the whole game, and also means that there are always enemies spawning throughout the run, rather than the previous wave-based system that got less and less intense towards the end of a wave. Despite this, all enemies are destroyed on level up, to give you a bit of breathing room.

Reaching level 10 will trigger the miniboss (The Enforcer), and reaching level 20 will trigger the boss. The boss must be defeated to win the game.

NEW GAME STRUCTURE
The game now has a structure to it, rather than just a screen with some stage buttons. Now, all the stages are shown on a spaceship deck plan. It's nicer to look at, easier to understand, and provides more information.

NEW STAGE
There's now a Stage 3 (The Recycling Plant) with its own unique boss. It's probably my favourite of the three stages, and you can expect more to come soon.

NEW PROGRESSION
Lore has been removed and replaced by "Starchips", which are the new meta-currency earned through your runs. You can use Starchips to unlock new characters and turret classes. As well as this, completing each stage now unlocks something.

-Beating the Cargo Hold unlocks the Launch Bay and Recycling Plant.
-Beating the Launch Bay unlocks asteroid mining (passive Starchip farming).
-Beating the Recycling Plant unlocks revives (which cost Starchips).

There are more stages planned with their own unique progression, but I am trying to stay as far away as I can from the kinds of meta-progression you tend to see in a lot of similar games, purely because that's something that I myself am not interested in. So you can expect to see future unlocks that don't just have pros, but have cons too.

RELICS
The miniboss, the Enforcer, appears at Level 10 and grants one of three relics when defeated. You get to choose which relic you want, and all three are very different from each other. However, they may be in need of a little balancing.

NEW CHARACTERS
It seems strange to put this so far down on the list, but there's a whole new character, as well as a Corrupt variation to unlock. There's now also a Corrupt variation of Goran for you to try out.

The new character is Big Iron Bill, he has a gun that has a very low energy cost, and some really neat unique upgrades to find in the pool. However, Bill is occasionally hunted by a unique enemy type: Bounty hunters.

NEW ENEMIES
There are 2 new enemies in the game: The Adrenalbot (boosts speed of nearby enemies), and The Cannoneer (slow ranged enemy). These enemies do a lot to spice up the early and late game.

SMARTER ENEMIES
The enemy pathfinding has been completely reworked to... actually pathfind. Enemies will now actually move around your turrets and objects to get to you, rather than running straight at you and ignoring everything else in their path. Pretty neat.

MORE ENEMIES
Low-level enemies now spawn in bigger groups, so there's always a bigger horde around.

BESTIARY
The Lore system has been replaced with a Bestiary which you can fill out as you meet all the enemies for the first time. This should hopefully provide some insight into what each enemy does if you're ever confused.

HARD MODE
Hard mode can be unlocked by beating the first stage. This mode reduces the time that pickups remain on the ground, and increases the frequency of enemy spawns, as well as the chance of enemies being champions.

REMOVED EVENTS
Because of the new level-up system, events didn't really work anymore. I have plans to try and rework them back into the game, but for now, I've simply removed them.

NEW TUTORIALISATION
There is now a tutorial-giver -- The Archmaster. He exists to better ease new players into the game.

NEW SAVE SYSTEM
I have completely upended the save system into something that is much more reliable and easy to expand on. However, as a result, existing players may find that their saves have been wiped. Whilst I do apologise, I will say that this is likely for the best, as the game has changed so much that any progress made is likely irrelevant or could cause issues with the game.

NEW MUSIC
Each stage now has its own unique track, which is interrupted by another unique track when the Enforcer arrives, before going back to the regular stage music. This should hopefully provide a little more variety audio-wise, but I do intend on making each of these tracks longer eventually. There's also a unique title theme outside of runs.

BALANCE CHANGES, UI, and BUG FIXES
Due to the mountain of changes, the balance of the game is a bit up in the air. I'll be working on testing and tweaking the game's balance, but in the meantime, if you have any feedback and or suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Bosses all have a lot more HP, including the Enforcer, so they pose an actual threat now.

The UI has had a bit of an overhaul, I've tried to make things cleaner and nicer to navigate, hopefully successfully. There's also an "Are you sure?" button when exiting a run. Oh, and I added an exit button on the main menu, because for some reason there wasn't one.

A few bugs have been fixed, most importantly a bug where Goran's dash would get you stuck, as well as some issues with the fullscreen toggle. There was also a weird bug where "Vessel" would cause enemies to occasionally become unkillable, which has also been fixed.

THANK YOU
If you made it this far down, thanks for reading! And if you're an existing player, thank you for your patience as I've been working on this update. Although I've done my best to make sure the game is fully stable, there have been so many changes to the game that it is impossible for me to guarantee. If you encounter any bugs or issues, please use the Google form or Discord to provide feedback (links on the main menu of the game).

Thank you for your continued support, I hope you all enjoy the new update!

Cheers,
Spargit

Hey everyone! It's been a while.

The reason for this is that the major update that I've been working on has just gotten bigger and bigger and now contains a BUNCH of new stuff, and a BUNCH of changes.

I won't get into it too much here, but you can now play the game as it stands with all the new stuff on the BETA BRANCH (right click the game, properties, betas, choose the beta branch).

It would be extremely helpful if you could check out the game on the beta branch and give any feedback, especially if you encounter any bugs or issues.

This new update is planned to release very soon.

Thank you for your patience, and thanks to everyone that's still playing.

Cheers,
Spargit

Hello again everyone!

This is just a little update that fixes a few issues brought in by the recent Major Update, as well as a few balance changes and one new upgrade.

I'm about to start work on a bigger update that will add a new stage or two (along with new bosses to fight!), as well as some more enemy variety. If there's anything you'd like to see added to the game, please feel free to comment on this discussion, or join the Discord and let me know over there.

• Added new upgrade: Swift
  
• Defaulted game to Windowed Mode as a soft fix for the resolution errors some people have been having, but I will continue to look into a neater solution for this.
  
• Added a visual to the Turret boost on deploy upgrade, so you can now see if a turret is currently boosted!
  
• Nerfed the starting magnetism by A LOT, so its more of a very small quality of life. Also nerfed the upgrade.
  
• Fixed an issue with keybinds related to changing the key to an action that began with the same letter as the key you were trying to change it to VERY weird bug, but its fixed now.
  
• Removed Lightning Pulse from Goran (the Glitch)'s upgrade pool.
  
• Fixed the Vessel upgrade so that the lightning generated on enemy death actually works now.
  

Hello everyone, and welcome to any new players this sale has brought in!

Some people have had issues and/or suggestions, so I've addressed them. There's not much to say, but hopefully, this should increase the quality of life of the game :)

-added a window mode option
-added a warning that pops up if you have a controller plugged in, warning you that the game's mouse+keyboard controls might not work properly with a controller plugged into your computer
-you now become untethered when you disable a turret with Harper's EMP
-disabled turrets can no longer be tethered to
-scrap automatically magnetizes towards you. The Magnetic upgrade has been changed to increase the magnet strength and range

That's everything! I hope you're enjoying the game.

Cheers,
Spargit

Hey everyone, the update is finally finished! I'm super excited to share this huge update with you, so here's a rundown of everything that's been added and changed.

NEW UPGRADES

There are 22 NEW UPGRADES in the game, I won't tell you what they do, I'll let you figure that out in-game. However, here are all their names:

-shock
-electrical fire
-double strike
-chain lightning
-vessel
-storm
-lightning pulse

-nitro coat
-coolant leak
-icy exterior
-ice shard
-sharp shards
-snowball
-snowzone

-ring of fire
-line of fire
-fire orbital
-unstable mechanics

-extra explosive
-durable shells
-homing missile
-air support

-satellite

NEW PLAYABLE CHARACTER
A new character: Goran the Glitch. Goran has a dash that damages enemies. Goran has his own unique upgrades available (these are separate from the 22 new upgrades!). Goran can be unlocked with 5 lore points (gained from completing challenge waves or winning runs).

BOSS REWORK
The first boss has now been entirely reworked to have an attack pattern, a second phase, and even its own fancy health bar and name tag. Defeating the boss and winning the run will grant you a lovely rosette badge next to the stage button. Stage 2 now has its own unique boss!

NEW TURRET CLASS + UNIQUE CLASS SPRITES
A new turret class: "Giant", this class does contact damage from the get-go, as well as being physically MASSIVE. Like the rest of the classes, Giant only costs 1 lore point to unlock.

NEW EVENTS + EVENT REWORK
There are two new events in the game: "Time Attack" and "Preserve", I'll let you discover them in-game. On top of this, I've reworked events to be much less common, and it's now impossible to get the same event twice in a row. The "King of the Hill" event has also been rebalanced so that the progress meter doesn't change if the hill is contested.

NEW CHARACTER/CLASS SELECT SCREEN
The old character and class select screens sucked, I hated the way that they looked, and the old class select screen was frankly confusing.

This has been changed. The character and class select screens have been merged into one slick screen that is hopefully much more intuitive. There are now descriptions for the characters, as well as the classes, and the UI for the screen is much more polished. It's a simple change, but should hopefully improve the experience of starting up new runs.

NEW BULLET-TYPE SYSTEM
To help with making your two turrets feel more unique, and to softly discourage players from putting every upgrade on the same turret, Bullet-Type upgrades are now EXCLUSIVE. What this means is that, for example, if you put flaming bullets on a turret that has freezing bullets, the flaming bullets will OVERRIDE the freezing bullets. This works the same with all bullet types, but don't worry, you'll get a warning every time you take one of these upgrades, so when in doubt just click the upgrade and see if you get a warning.

BALANCING + QUALITY OF LIFE
-explosive bullets are now destroyed on contact
-explosions are now MUCH smaller by default
-fixed upgrade duplication bug when rerolling
-hidden mechanic of sawblades spawning after 20 minutes of gameplay has been removed to avoid confusion
-added "Back" button to upgrade screen turret choice
-stopped FTB warning from constantly showing up every run

NEW TUTORIAL SYSTEM
This shouldn't affect many of you who have already purchased and played the game, but you are no longer forced to play all three tutorials. Instead, I have split them into separate choices, all on their own mini-menu within the title screen. This means if you'd rather figure out the game for yourself, or perhaps just play the basic tutorial, you can. This should hopefully also help to remove the confusion that the game is JUST a tutorial, which a few people, unfortunately, did have.

THANKS FOR READING!
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and thanks to everyone who has played the game so far! I'm much happier with the state of the game after this update, and I hope you think so too :)

As always, if you have any feedback or encounter any bugs and/or issues, please don't hesitate to let me know on the Discord, or on the Steam forums.

Cheers,
Spargit

Hey everyone,

Just popping up out of the woodwork to let you know that this next update is going to be a BIG one, and it's nearly ready.

I won't babble on, but instead here's most of what you can expect from this update:

-22 NEW UPGRADES.
-A complete rework of the first boss (they now have attack patterns and even a Phase 2), as well as a unique boss for Stage 2!
-1 new turret class: The Giant
-2 new events: "Time Attack" and "Preserve"

-Turrets can now only have ONE bullet type (eg. explosive, flaming ,freezing, etc.)
-tutorials are now in 3 segments, separate from the START button
-explosive bullets are now destroyed on contact
-explosions are now MUCH smaller by default
-fixed a few minor bugs
-fixed upgrade duplication bug when rerolling
-it is now impossible to get the same OBJECTIVE twice in a row
-the chance of getting an objective has been reduced, and the scaling of this chance has been fixed
-"King of the Hill" event has been optimised
-hidden mechanic of sawblades spawning after 20 minutes of gameplay has been removed to avoid confusion

Keep an eye out, this update will be out soon!

Cheers,
Spargit

Hey everyone,

Just letting you know that keybinds have been added to the game, as well as controller support. You can now rebind all the major inputs from the pause/options menu! It's a little janky in places at the moment, sometimes it'll change the wrong inputs-- I'm going to be working on smoothing out the experience, but I'd like to start adding some actual content to the game first.

You should be able to fully play the game with a controller, including navigating any UI/menus. There are some prompts that haven't been changed yet, and the cursor is a little stiff to control at the moment, but again, this will be worked on after I've managed to push out some content updates.

This week I'm going to get to work on the big list of upgrades to be added to the game, so keep your eyes peeled for an update regarding that. There's also going to be a major change to the way elemental effects work in the game.

Going forward, you can expect the new playable character to be ready early September. I'm currently calling this character "Glitch", and they're equipped with a VERY fun dash ability. I can't wait for you to try it out.

Best,
Spargit

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to check in and say thanks to everyone that's been playing the game. I've been having a short break from development this last week, but I wanted to let you know that I've been taking feedback into account, and keybinding and controller support are nearly fully implemented into the game!

If all goes to plan, I expect this update to be ready in about a week, but it could be sooner. I've also been working on the next playable character, which will be part of the first major update, which I expect to be close to the beginning of September. But as always with game development, delays are inevitable, I just wanted to let everyone know the game is being actively worked on, and those who gave feedback have been heard :)

I'll try and keep everyone updated like this every week or so, so keep an eye out for future posts. Also, if you'd like to follow the development of the game, you can follow me on Twitter @SpargitStudio, and if you'd like to help build a community for Mechabot Defender, head to the Discord (which you can access through the Steam page).

Best,
Spargit

My Arena-Survival game, Mechabot Defender, is finally out! If you enjoy the game, don't forget to leave a review, it helps the game so much.

If you encounter any bugs, or have any suggestions, head to the Discord and leave your feedback there :)

(you can get to the discord by clicking the Discord banner on the Store Page!)