Breaking Survivors is now 1 year old! Or well in 3 days to be precise, but I chose to roll the update early as the game was going on sale with the Autumn Sale today. Anyway, the 1-year anniversary is here and with it come a rework of the Freeze Line artifact, improvements to the leaderboards with support for switching it to Friends only, a setting to freely pick your starting artifact (through rerolls) and some other minor improvements as well as a couple bug fixes. Also, the game is going to be on sale at -40% for the next 14 days, first as part of the Autumn seasonal sale and then as part of the Bullet Heaven Fest 2.0.

Changelog

Rework - Freeze Line Artifact

• Freeze Line's freeze duration can't be upgraded anymore.
• Freeze Line's Tier 2 and Tier 3 now add extra freeze lines above the initial one.
• This is a big buff of the artifact overall, going from a 2.5/3.75/5s freeze used in a single go to a total of 2.5/5/7.5s freeze but in 1/2/3 go.
• You can find a bit more details on the thoughts behind this rework at the bottom of this post.
• Used Freeze Lines are now greyed out rather than disappearing until the next wave.

New Feature - Friends Leaderboards

• Steam leaderboards can now be filtered to show only your friends.
• You can switch between Online, Friends & Personal leaderboards at any moment through the Settings menu. This will change the leaderboards displayed in the Leaderboards menu and on the Game Over screen.

New Feature - Starting Artifact Rerolls

• Added a Setting to be able to Reroll freely your starting artifact in runs.
• Starting Artifact Rerolls setting is off by default.
• This doesn't change anything balance wise and is more of a quality of life feature if you want to start with a specific artifact, as you could just go back to the menu and relaunch the run until you'd get the right one.

Other Stuff

• The Stats UI was completed with Health per Heart, Health Drops, Health To Shield, Base Shield, XP Duplicaion, XP Magnet Range & Danger Zone Slow. All of these except Health per Heart are only shown once you pick the related artifacts.
• Triggering a Freeze while another Freeze is ongoing will now add to the current freeze duration rather than overriding it. This can pretty much only happen if you level up and use the freeze powerup while the bricks are already frozen through Freeze Line.
• Lowered the volume of Menu SFXs slightly.
• Wave Start/End announcements now adapt to Danger Zone, Freeze Lines & Lower Limit to avoid any overlap between them.
• Slight improvements to the Pause & Game Over menu.
• Made the background of the Game Over screen leaderboards slightly more opaque to improve readability.
• Fixed 4+ digits ranks overflowing in the Leaderboards.
• Fixed the Upgrades Roll animation glitching upon rerolling before it was finished.
• Removed a couple unused Unity packages from the build, leading to a ~0.5MB file size improvement.

As some might have noticed, the game was delisted from the store for the last couple weeks and is now back under the new name Breaking Survivors. So, what happened ? I won't go much in detail with the legal stuff but here are the rough events of the last few weeks :

• Game received a DMCA takedown for copyright infringement
• Steam unlisted the game from the store (standard procedure, they have to do it preventively)
• Discussions with my lawyer and the other party
• DMCA takedown got withdrawn with a trademark infringement replacing it
• I changed the name of the game to comply
• Steam relisted the game as everything was fine now

This month's update brings quite a few things. Content-wise, there is a new artifact that adds more replayability and should deepen your build options. Another new feature are the Personal Leaderboards that come in addition to the existing online ones and can be used to look at your history of runs. Another big change is an overhaul of the controller support, especially with PS Controllers to ensure full compatibility. To celebrate this update, the game will be on a -20% sale for a full week (23rd February - 1st March).

Changelog

New Artifact - Early Barrage

• Launches a Barrage upon Wave Start.
• This artifact doesn't have any upgrades linked to it as it scales with ball related upgrades already.
• It is unlocked by clearing Quick Mode's first 12 waves perfectly. Unlocks aren't retroactive and players who had the achievement already will have to do it again to unlock the artifact sadly.
• It has no incompatibilities.

New Feature - Personal Leaderboards

• Personal Leaderboards keep tracks of your runs and only your runs.
• You can switch between Online & Personal leaderboards at any moment through the Settings menu. This will change the leaderboards displayed in the Leaderboards menu and on the Game Over screen.
• Your runs are registered on both leaderboards, regardless of the setting you're using. If you're on the Personal leaderboard, your runs still get uploaded to the Online one. And if you're using the Online leaderboard, your runs still get listed in the personal one.
• Personal Leaderboard can be used to look at your history of runs, compare some of the builds you've tried, etc... or if you just want to hide the online leaderboards.
• Previous runs made before the update weren't saved and so won't show up on the personal leaderboards.

Improved Controller Support / PlayStation Controller Support

• The game now fully supports PlayStation Controllers without the need of Steam Input.
• Added an UI Buttons setting for Gamepad (in the Controls tab) to force either Xbox or PS glyphes. It is by default on Automatic detection which should display the right glyphes for your controller.
• In case you're using Steam Input with a PS controller, the Automatic detection will fail as Steam Input emulates a generic controller with a Xbox layout. You should then use the above setting to force PS glyphes.

Other Stuff

• Barrage icon was reworked and should be clearer.
• Various parts of the UI (mainly Tabs like in Leaderboard or Settings) now reset their state upon switching between menus.
• Fixed a certain number of SFX not having their volume affacted by the SFX Volume Setting.
• Fixed certain Audio Tracks getting out of sync overtime.
• Fixed your own score flickering upon loading the leaderboards.

• Fixed Chaotic Random Ball Tier 3 not applying T3 effects.

A new update for Breakout Survivors is out and it brings a new artifact that will open lots of build options as it interacts with balls. The update also brings a couple balance changes and an improved Upgrade Choices UI.

Changelog

New Artifact - Tier 3 Balls

• Unlocks Tier 3 Upgrades for your Balls but you are limited to 4 Balls Types max instead of 5.
• The Artifact itself doesn't have any upgrades (as it unlocks upgrades for balls instead).
• It is unlocked by Beating Wave 20 in Quick Mode. Unlocks aren't retroactive and players who had the achievement already will have to do it again to unlock the artifact sadly.
• It has no incompatibilities.

Gameplay & Balance

• Freeze Line's duration has been increased from 2/3/4s to 2.5s/3.75s/5s.
• Heart Drops will now trigger immediately upon picking the artifact. If you aren't full health already, that is.
• Fixed upgraded Phantom Ball spawning slightly in the player.

UI & Menus

• Reworked the Upgrade Choices UI.
• Upgrades now feature a colored border with the color based on the 'type' of upgrade. Orange = artifact, blue = permanent upgrade, white = late game powerups
• Increased opacity of the Upgrade Choices' background. This should help a bit with readability.
• Increased opacity of the Leaderboards' background. Same, slightly better readability on the game over screen.
• Fixed Wave Start text showing up in the background during Artifacts selection.

The end of year celebrations are here but so is Breakout Survivors' first content update since its release ! This update mainly brings in the XP Duplication artifact which brings you more XP from bricks and could be used as either an alternative to the XP Magnet or in addition to it to maximize your XP and leveling. Other changes include an updated display order for the artifacts, some slight FX improvements and a number of bug fixes.

Changelog

New Artifact - XP Duplication

• XP Duplication Artifacts gives you a chance to have double xp dropping from bricks.
• Initial artifact upgrade gives a 20% chance for XP to be double. Tier 2 and Tier 3 increase this chance to 35% and 50% respectively.
• It is unlocked by Clearing perfectly the first 8 Waves in Quick Mode. Unlocks aren't retroactive and players who had the achievement will have to do it again to unlock the artifact sadly.
• It has no incompatibilities.

Miscellaneous

• Displayed order of the artifacts in Collection has been changed. Artifacts are now regrouped by themes, ie. health-related, shield-related, xp-related, etc...
• Added some slight variations to the Ball Hits SFX so they're less repetitive.
• Hit & Death VFX for Splitting Ball's Small Balls are a bit smaller.
• Hit & Death SFX volumes for Splitting Ball's Small Balls are lower.
• Disabled the Resolution menu item while in Exclusive Full Screen.
• Fixed Resolutions not getting updated properly upon switching display.
• Fixed Balls' Hit Effects sometimes not triggering on Walls.
• Fixed Leaderboards crashing upon loading scores featuring artifacts/balls that are available in future versions. Not retroactive. Ie. previous versions of the game won't load leaderboards properly with scores featuring the new artifact.

• Font size in longer tooltips have been increased by 10-20%. This should improve readiblity of smaller texts on Steam Deck & Laptops screens significantly.
• Number of slight UI changes in the Collection menu & Upgrades popup window so tooltips look better.
• Fixed the first Upgrade Option being slightly smaller than the others in the upgrades popup window.
• Fixed a number of overlapping texts in French, Spanish and German.
• [DE] Renamed Health to Shield artifact to "Leben zum Schild" (prev. "Umwandlung von Leben in Schild").
• [DE] Fixed Boomerang Ball's description being incomplete.
• [DE] Fixed Danger Zone's description being incomplete.
• [ES] Shortened Health Drops' additional upgrades' title.
• [ES] Shortened Danger Zone's slow upgrades' title.
• [ES] Fixed Danger Zone's slow upgrades' description being only partially translated.
• [FR] Shortened Danger Zone's slow upgrades' title.

• Fixed a very rare bug that could block the main menu from showing up with some setups. Thanks to Azithea for his help in testing & identifying the source of this issue.

• Leaderboards now show up to 6 Artifacts.
• Fixed an issue where the wrong artifacts were registered to the leaderboards after picking certain artifacts (Freeze Line, Danger Zone and Health to Shield). This means a number of the current scores have the wrong artifacts showing up in the leaderboards.
• Fixed issues with Mouse control not working properly in case of very high framerates.
• Fixed the Mouse Cursor getting locked if you were to pause & resume the game during the upgrade pick.

A very small update. 1.1b was initially meant to only have changes specific for the Itch.io version of the game that is releasing today, but I had time to add in a few minor improvements and fixes while at it, so here it is.

Changelog

• Reworked the Brick Destroy VFX. Main change is that the explosion now follows the direction the ball/damage came from.
• Fixed the Reinforced Waves' Big Bricks' explosion VFX having an incorrect size.
• The Extra Ball tooltip has been slightly changed to be more explicit.
• Reduced a bit the 'hitbox' width of buttons' menu.

It's been one week since the release and it's been great seeing the positive feedback from the community on the game since. Now, it's time for the game's first real update though it's a rather small one as I spent a bit of time after release working on hotfixes then took a few needed days of break. The main addition coming in this update is adding support for Mouse as a way to control the paddle meaning the game can now be played solely with the mouse if you want so (just like it can be played with keyboard only). Other improvements is adding a 'proper' support for Spanish - Latin America, as the game supports Spanish but wouldn't default to it for Latam users, fixing a few minor UI issues with the localization and improving the Steam Rich Presence. You can read the full changelog below :

Changelog

Mouse Input (experimental)

• Mouse can now be used to control your paddle. Just move your mouse left/right and the paddle will follow accordingly.
• Added a setting to control the Mouse Sensibility for Paddle. It only affects the paddle control and not the mouse in menus.
• Mouse's position is now at the center of the screen when upgrades appear or when you pause the game.
• Mouse is considered as experimental for now and there might be some changes to it depending of feedback. If you run into any issues with it or have suggestions for improvements, feel free to make a post in the Steam Forums.
• Mouse as an input for the paddle can also be disabled in the Settings. This might not stay long-term.

Localization

• Added proper Spanish Latam support.
• The game's language will now default to Spanish for Spanish Latam players. This will only affect new players.
• Steam Rich Presence will show up in Spanish for Spanish Latam users.
• [FR] Fixed a typo in Quick Mode's description.
• [FR] Fixed a typo in Destroy Bricks' recurring upgrade description.
• [DE] Fixed the Game Mode tooltips overlapping in Play Menu.
• [DE] Fixed "Punktzahle" column title going over 2 lines in the leaderboards.

Miscellaneous

• Added a new Controls tab in the Settings menu. Gamepad Settings were moved to that new tab, along Mouse settings
• Steam Rich Presence now includes the current Game Mode in addition to the Wave #.
• One score was removed from the leaderboards due to either cheating or bug abuse.

What's Next ?

• Fixed Steam Integration on Linux. This caused a number of steam features not to work properly on Linux/Steam deck like Steam Leaderboards, Achievements, Cloud Saves or Rich Presence.

• Fixed Chaotic Random Balls duplicating themselves on bounce under certain conditions.
• Fixed a bug where balls could go through the left or right walls in rare occasions.
• Fixed a potential crash with Splitting Balls in case of very low frame rates.

• Fixed Bigger Hearts artifact, Backstab Ball & Chaotic Random Ball not unlocking properly on Quick Mode's Waves 8/12/16. If you did get the corresponding achievements already, you'll still have to redo a run where you beat those waves to properly unlock the artifacts and balls.
• Fixed Steam Cloud not being active.
• Fixed Steam API not being closed down properly.

Breakout Survivors is finally out ! There is also a launch discount of 10% to celebrate the release. Check out the Launch Trailer : [previewyoutube=hBGOvJjx-Cc;full][/previewyoutube]

It's only one week left until Breakout Survivors' release, so it's time for another sneak peek at the content from the full version of the game.

Reworked Variants System & Collection Menu Overhaul

Chaotic Random Ball

Duplicate Ball Artifact

Bigger Hearts Artifact

Health To Shield Artifact

With Breakout Survivors' release being in two weeks (30th November), it is time to showcase some of the content that wasn't in the demo and that will be available in the full game.

Quick Mode

Backstab Ball

Danger Zone

Freeze Line

Breakout Survivors is part of the Bullet Heaven Fest going from 6 November to 20 November. Bullet Heaven Fest is an event celebrating the recent Bullet Heaven or Survivors-like genre with nearly 200 games taking part in it. Lots of these games will be on sale or have demos available during the next two weeks. Check the full event here. For the occasion, the game's demo is receiving an update. It mainly brings in a fully reworked collections menu, a slight rework of the Boomerang Ball and minor QoL & improvements. However, there's no major content addition in the update as new balls & artifacts are saved for the game's full release. See the full changelog below.

Demo Update Changelog

New Collections Menu

• Collections Menu has been reworked from the ground up !
• When hovering the Collection Menu Button, the current balls & artifacts set-up is shown.
• A full list of the Balls/Artifacts & their state (selected/not selected/locked) is now displayed at the top.
• Additional Upgrades (Balls' Tier 2 & some Artifacts extra upgrades) are now showcased when you're selecting a Ball/Artifact.
• Your Balls/Artifacts set-up is now saved & kept between game sessions or throughout your devices (through Steam Cloud).
• Collection menu also shows some of the balls & artifacts that'll be part of the full game, but are locked.

Gameplay

• Improved/Reworked Boomerang Ball's player homing. It doesn't always aim for the player's center anymore meaning it is a lot easier to put effects into it and send it with an angle rather than vertically.
• Fixed Combo Ball not working properly with Random Ball and always having a multiplier of x1/x2. Combo Ball from Random Ball now have the right multiplier for the amount of times you've caught that ball.

UI & Menu

• Artifacts' Icons are now colored.
• When using the Freeze Bricks late-game powerup, the freeze timer is now shown next to the Limit Line.
• The Spawn line that appears at start of waves/when no bricks are below it is now dotted.
• On the Main Menu, quitting the game now requires pressing Escape (keyboard) or B/Home (Gamepad) twice unless you're already on the Quit button. First key/button press will move the 'cursor' on the Quit button. This avoids closing the game unintentionally while navigating menus.

Miscellaneous

• Random Balls Variants now have distinct names. "Random Ball" is the one that changes upon bouncing on the player, while the one that only has random at spawn now is "Light Random Ball".
• Few minor changes to some balls/artifacts/upgrades' descriptions & localization.

Steam Next Fest is coming to an end and it was a blast seeing so many people test the game and enjoying it. As of writing this post, over 380 players have tested the demo since last sunday, doing nearly 1.9k runs and clearing 8.9k waves (73% of which were perfect clears). Out of all those runs, exactly 100 went past Wave 20. I was also quite surprised to see Wave 25 getting beaten with user PahiChannel being the first (and so far only one) to get past it with the current highest score in the leaderboards. I received lots of positive feedbacks as well as a number of issues and bug reports throughout the week which will help me improve the game. The demo will not only remain available after Next Fest but is also getting an update fixing some of the bugs that were spotted as well as bringing an improved Leaderboard menu which now includes Artifacts as well as a few minor QoL improvements. You can find the full list of changes further below. Now, the main issues that were raised about the game/demo were that there's too few content right now & that the collections menu was quite unclear. Adding new balls & artifacts to give the game more strategical depth and a better replayibility will be my focus for the next few weeks. I've already got a few fun new balls and artifacts planned & designed that only need to get implemented in the game. The collection menu will also get a full overhaul along the way as it is very basic in its current state, but will get expanded as it won't be just picking balls/artifacts but also unlock new ones and I'll try to make things there a lot more clearer. Next major update to the demo will come in early November for the upcoming Bullet Heaven Fest, then the full game is planned to release on November 30.

Version a14 Changelog

Gameplay

• Fixed Random Balls' 2nd Chance losing their Random component upon running out of lives.
• Shortened and thinned the trails of Splitting Ball's children. This should make these small balls stand out a bit less & make it easier to spot other balls amidst the mess.

Leaderboards

• Leaderboards received a major overhaul and now include Artifacts.
• Balls column has been renamed Build.
• Hovering/Navigating to an entry in the leaderboard will now expand the entry and show the artifacts next to the balls. Runs that were made before tuesday's small update will only show a "+" there as artifacts weren't saved along scores at the time.
• Leaderboard Lines now have alternating background colors.
• Your own entry in the leaderboard is now showcased in blue rather than being in italic. This makes it easier to spot yourself.
• Fixed a bug where your score would be sent several times at once to the server, leading to the score being ignored by the server.
• Fixed Names with non Latin characters not showing up properly in Leaderboards.

Other Menus & UIs

• Score Gain from Perfect Clears & Extra Score upgrades is now shown as a "+XXX" next to the score.
• Score text 'growth' animation is now more emphasized on big score changes (like perfect clears & extra score upgrades).
• Perfect Clear & Reinforced Waves texts are slightly bigger.
• Fixed Menus' Tabs (such as in Leaderboards or Settings) not working correctly when interacted with mouse.

A quick update bringing some minor improvements to the leaderboards.

Changes

Leaderboards

• Leaderboard on the Game Over screen is now centered on your score rather than always showing the top 10.
• Artifacts are now saved along scores for newer runs. They're not displayed in the leaderboards for now.

Breakout Survivors will be part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest, starting 9th October. A demo will be uploaded by the end of the week and will be available during the next fest as well as the days after it. I've also posted a Roadmap listing some of the features that'll come to the game on the community hub which you can find here : Roadmap.

Features

• Easy to play with simple and fun controls
  
• Fight against procedurally generated waves of increasing difficulty
  
• Improve throughout your run through dozens of upgrades
  
• Select your weapons from a wide choice of powerful balls
  
• Unlock new kind of Balls and try new strategies
  
• Compete for the High Score in the Online Leaderboards

• OS: Ubuntu 20.04 (64 bits) or equivalent
• Processor: Intel i3 or equivalentMemory: 4 GB RAM
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: OpenGL 3.2+ or Vulkan-capable
• Storage: 250 MB available space

• OS: Ubuntu 20.04 (64 bits) or equivalent
• Processor: Intel i5 or equivalentMemory: 4 GB RAM
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: OpenGL 3.2+ or Vulkan-capable
• Storage: 250 MB available space