Welcome to the Black Ice "Disconnected" Patch! I've got a ton of great stuff in this one, aimed primarily at making the world feel more alive, game feel, and quality of life. Check out the features below!

Roaming Enemies & Fort Servers

The Supermesh just got a lot more dangerous! There are now enemy ice patrolling the map, trying to protect their territory. Ambush them as they patrol, or sneak past them - just make sure you're safe before starting a hack, or they might sneak up on you! Fort Servers are a new type of server which spawn enemies continuously to protect themselves. You can take out the enemies and get by, but in a minute or two, they'll be back. If you hack a Fort server, however, it will spawn friendly ice to help you fight in the surrounding area! It's like having a few extra minions! Look for the crenelations!

Shooting Feel Update

Who likes headshots? Enemies now have weak points which take triple damage from any hit. Additionally, they now have proper hitboxes, which means you'll be able to hit them in their legs or tentacles or whatever other creepy thing they might be crawling around on. Player projectile speeds have also doubled, and the projectiles now hit things matching their visuals. The end result is that it's much easier to hit things accurately at range, and you no longer feel like you missed something by a few nanometers. To balance all that out, your weapons now have an accuracy spread over time. This means that the longer you shoot, the less accurate your weapon will be, recovering over time. Snipers, of course, are the most accurate, but also take longer to recover their accuracy. Additionally, enemies move faster and have more hitpoints. The end result? It feels even more awesome to kill things now.

New Enemy Variant

The Super Duper GITSfish now roams the world, and spawns from high level miniboss (light blue) servers. With massive stature and a frontal shield, he can be a beast to deal with. He's pretty slow to turn around, though, so you'd better hit him from behind!

New UI and Sounds

The UI has been completely overhauled for the inventory and shop screens, with gorgeous new icons for all items by James Hostetler. The new Virtual Cursor for controller users is particularly useful, as it's easier to understand and use. There's also a new comparison system, which will show the difference in *actual* end-result DPS and health for any particular item swap. On top of all the new UI goodness, there are custom sounds for both the game and the UI. They were made by excellent sound designer Jocelyn Reyes, who also worked on Overland and Looty Dungeon. And she's not even done yet - there will be more sounds in the next few patches.

Other Features

• New Perk! Double Barrel, which doubles your shotgun's number of projectiles at a cost of attack speed and accuracy
• Map changes! There are new ramps and things all over the place, including in the arena server on the rim
• Aggro! Enemies now have a proper aggro system, and will prefer enemies that have damaged them or their allies. Minions will attack enemies that attack you!
• Minions now scale with player HP, damage, and attack speed (converted to damage)
• Loot Find Buff! More better items faster!
• Optimization! We converted the ENTIRE GAME from JavaScript to C#, added a bunch of multiplayer improvements, and enabled more enemy death particles to boot. Better framerate for everyone!
• Bug fixes like you wouldn't believe.

Upcoming Features

As a special treat for reading this far, I'll tell you what I'm working on next. I've got not one, not two, but SIX new enemies planned for the next few months. They're being created by the radical Ethan Redd, and will have different move patterns and methods of attack. Additionally, we will soon be working on quests and plot!
Enjoy! ːgitsfishː And please take a second to review the game and tell your friends. It really helps!

[ 2017-07-28 02:37:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome to the Black Ice "Disconnected" Patch! I've got a ton of great stuff in this one, aimed primarily at making the world feel more alive, game feel, and quality of life. Check out the features below!

Roaming Enemies & Fort Servers

The Supermesh just got a lot more dangerous! There are now enemy ice patrolling the map, trying to protect their territory. Ambush them as they patrol, or sneak past them - just make sure you're safe before starting a hack, or they might sneak up on you! Fort Servers are a new type of server which spawn enemies continuously to protect themselves. You can take out the enemies and get by, but in a minute or two, they'll be back. If you hack a Fort server, however, it will spawn friendly ice to help you fight in the surrounding area! It's like having a few extra minions! Look for the crenelations!

Shooting Feel Update

Who likes headshots? Enemies now have weak points which take triple damage from any hit. Additionally, they now have proper hitboxes, which means you'll be able to hit them in their legs or tentacles or whatever other creepy thing they might be crawling around on. Player projectile speeds have also doubled, and the projectiles now hit things matching their visuals. The end result is that it's much easier to hit things accurately at range, and you no longer feel like you missed something by a few nanometers. To balance all that out, your weapons now have an accuracy spread over time. This means that the longer you shoot, the less accurate your weapon will be, recovering over time. Snipers, of course, are the most accurate, but also take longer to recover their accuracy. Additionally, enemies move faster and have more hitpoints. The end result? It feels even more awesome to kill things now.

New Enemy Variant

The Super Duper GITSfish now roams the world, and spawns from high level miniboss (light blue) servers. With massive stature and a frontal shield, he can be a beast to deal with. He's pretty slow to turn around, though, so you'd better hit him from behind!

New UI and Sounds

The UI has been completely overhauled for the inventory and shop screens, with gorgeous new icons for all items by James Hostetler. The new Virtual Cursor for controller users is particularly useful, as it's easier to understand and use. There's also a new comparison system, which will show the difference in *actual* end-result DPS and health for any particular item swap. On top of all the new UI goodness, there are custom sounds for both the game and the UI. They were made by excellent sound designer Jocelyn Reyes, who also worked on Overland and Looty Dungeon. And she's not even done yet - there will be more sounds in the next few patches.

Other Features

• New Perk! Double Barrel, which doubles your shotgun's number of projectiles at a cost of attack speed and accuracy
• Map changes! There are new ramps and things all over the place, including in the arena server on the rim
• Aggro! Enemies now have a proper aggro system, and will prefer enemies that have damaged them or their allies. Minions will attack enemies that attack you!
• Minions now scale with player HP, damage, and attack speed (converted to damage)
• Loot Find Buff! More better items faster!
• Optimization! We converted the ENTIRE GAME from JavaScript to C#, added a bunch of multiplayer improvements, and enabled more enemy death particles to boot. Better framerate for everyone!
• Bug fixes like you wouldn't believe.

Upcoming Features

As a special treat for reading this far, I'll tell you what I'm working on next. I've got not one, not two, but SIX new enemies planned for the next few months. They're being created by the radical Ethan Redd, and will have different move patterns and methods of attack. Additionally, we will soon be working on quests and plot!
Enjoy! :gitsfish: And please take a second to review the game and tell your friends. It really helps!

[ 2017-07-28 02:37:57 CET ] [ Original post ]