We are happy to announce that Neural Shock is coming to mobile soon - the target schedule for the release is by end of May. Closed Beta playtest is now open and accepting testers on Android and iOS. If you are interested in participating in the testing, please sign up to receive an invite using the form below: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HGVTPpEHLmRKk4-mTbp8TzCH9EvYfjFg7gFOcrkS7-E The testing is mostly focused on Android at this stage. For Android testing, you will need to purchase the game on Play Store after receiving the invite. As a reward for the playtesting, you may choose to

• Receive a free Steam key for Neural Shock (if you already own the game, you may also gift it to a friend)
• Get your name or nickname in the game credits in a future patch

Thank you to the Neural Shock community for your continued support for the game! Over and out, Hardwired Studios

[ 2025-04-24 09:41:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where turrets with sector aiming could not be placed without softlocking the game unless the option Open Upgrade UI After Building was enabled

[ 2025-03-29 06:10:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Features / Improvements

• Added sector aiming for some turrets in place of line aiming: Rifle Turret (90 deg), Chaingun Turret (30 deg), SMG Turret (60 deg), Antimateriel Turret (30 deg), Shotgun Turret (30 deg)
• Improved Sniper Rifle 1's fire rate, improved the damage and range of Engineer Pistol 1 and range of Pistol 2
• Increased the damage of Chaingun Turret, Flame Turret and Blade Trap
• Buffed the scaling by level for Spike Trap, Rifle Turret and Flame Turret
• Implemented a new upgrade for turrets: Increase Projectile Speed
• Changed Add Stun Chance of Crippled Target to Increase Projectile Speed by 200% for Sniper Turret (Level 4 Upgrade)
• Added lighting on Flame Turret's flame
• Adjusted camera auto-pan margins on different resolutions to prevent jittering motion of the camera
• The Keep Upgrade UI Open After Upgrading setting is now enabled by default
• Minor performance improvements

Bug Fixes

• Attempt to fix a target prioritization issue which may have caused some auto-aiming turrets to stop shooting despite a target being in sight

[ 2025-03-27 07:58:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Features / Improvements

• Changed projectiles to spawn from the center of the character / turret sprite to avoid issues where enemies couldn't be shot if they were on top of the character or turret
• Decreased the camera auto-pan margins so that the panning is triggered only very near the edges

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the in-game timer kept running while the game was paused (this affected "Complete mission under x minutes" Challenges)
• Adjusted the muzzle flash position of Engineer's Weapon 4 to the correct position in all poses

[ 2025-03-19 07:48:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Features / Improvements

• Added a new setting: Camera pans automatically when the player character moves close to the borders of the screen (can be toggled on and off)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where sometimes the player character could get "stuck" i.e. stop moving when running against a wall diagonally. This happened more often when the game speed was increased to 3x
• Fixed the sight range calculations for turrets. This change was not properly applied in v1.1.2 due to a human error

[ 2025-03-17 11:12:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Features / Improvements

• Reduced the skill costs of Trap and Turret Skills. Increasing the skills now costs 1 point until 18 points have been spent, after which they will cost 2 points up until they are level 24.
• Increased the overall experience gained in Chapter 2 by 66%
• Reduced the enemy resistance scaling with the Deranged modifier to a more reasonable level: +0.8% -> +0.1% per character level
• Added an option in the settings for toggling Windowed mode (Alt + Enter works as well)
• Renamed Cold/Physical/EW Mastery skills to Cold/Physical/EW Mastery I and II correspondingly, based on the amount of damage they add and availability in the skill tree
• Fixed some minor issues with the Chem Storage map's Special Ability tutorial tooltips

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where enemies opening a side door could cause a massive increase in the number of spawned enemies
• Fixed a bug where Cold Mastery did not affect Frost Lance properly
• Fixed turret sight range calculation for Shockwave Coil and similar turrets which have the Larger Radius upgrade

[ 2025-03-13 08:52:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Features / Improvements

• The weapon (trap / turret) information now properly displays the effect of Engineer's buff when the player is in vicinity
• Adjusted the attack range of Putrid Roach from 10 pu to 12 pu

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the Auto-Shoot Mode for Engineer
• Fixed an issue causing a crash when using the "Neural Shock" Active Skill of Engineer
• Fixed a crash that was sometimes occurring when opening the upgrade interface
• Fixed a crash which sometimes occurred when a burn effect was erased after a new burn effect overwrote the existing effect

[ 2025-03-08 14:56:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Main Features

Since Neural Shock launched, we have been listening to all of your feedback and reviews carefully. The Total Destruction update is our answer to your suggestions, commentary and concerns that we have heard along the way. The core priority of the update is to provide players with more interesting gameplay content, improve the replayability of previously completed missions, increase the variety of viable builds in the endgame (making also the low-tier weapons endgame-viable), as well as to give the game the finished look, feel and sound that it deserves. The main features introduced in the Total Destruction update are: Chapter 2 that offers 15 even more challenging Missions than before, new Enemies, a new Challenge mechanic, Active Skills & Skill Tree Overhaul for the Player Characters, Weapon & Armor Equipment Rewards for the characters, new unlockable Mission Modifiers, as well as an overhaul of the game engine's lighting system, soundtrack, visual effects and textures. Full feature list, detailed changelog and balance changes are found below. The full list of balance changes is found in https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2862970/view/562489816939233299

Features

The following features have been added in the Total Destruction Update.

• New Chapter with 15 Missions
  • Night City, Facility and Dungeon Missions
• New Monsters
  • Psycho Prime
  • Gargantuan
  • Cyborg
  • Boomer
• Mini-Bosses (Elimination Targets)
  • The Demented One
  • Behemoth
  • Cyber Tyrant
• Challenge Mechanic
  • Complete additional Challenges in Missions to earn Rewards
  • Turret / Trap Rules, No Damage Challenges, Modifier Challenges, Time Challenges
• Character Equipment Rewards
  • Earn new Armors and Weapons for your Characters by completing Challenges
• Character Skill Tree Overhaul
  • The Skill choices in each characters' Skill Trees have been overhauled while respecting old play styles
  • Added Choose-One type Passive Skill Choices
  • Added Choose-One type Active Skill Choices. Active Skill is activated with a hotkey and has a skill-specific cooldown
  • NOTE: Your Character Skill Choices will be resetted and the points will be refunded after the update
  • More details are found below in the Balance Changes section
• Increased Skill Caps of Turrets & Traps
  • Tier 1-4 Traps/Turrets have a Skill Cap of 24, Tier 5 Traps 20 and Tier 6 Traps 18
  • After allocating 12 points, the Skill Point cost is doubled, and after 18 points it is tripled
• Turret & Trap Upgrade Level 4
  • After allocating 24 Skill Points on a Turret or Trap, a new Level 4 Upgrade is unlocked
• New Passive Turret & Trap Skills
• New Resource Pick-Ups
• New Mission Modifiers
• New Experience Factors
• Statistics View at the End of Mission
• 45 New Steam Achievements
• 14 New Songs added to the Soundtrack
• Enemy waves in the last missions in Chapter 1 overhauled
• Lighting and visuals in all Chapter 1 missions revamped

Improvements

The following gameplay improvements and performance optimizations have been added in the Total Destruction update.

Gameplay Improvements

• The trap and turrets' stats are now shown also while in a mission when selecting a trap or a turret. When clicking on an upgrade, the changes are reflected in the stats view
  • The stats view can be toggled on and off with a hotkey to reduce UI clutter on screen when required (Default: T)
• Added visualization for the player character's weapon range. Range visualization can be toggled with a hotkey (Default: R). Range visualization is toggled off by default.
• Added a Respawn button for confirming the Respawn after dying. This allows players to ensure they have selected a safe spawn point before the character respawns
• Top stats for a completed mission are shown in the mission selection screen: Top Damage, Top Time, Top Kills
• Explosive projectiles (rockets, plasma cannon etc) now explode when they reach their maximum weapon range if they had not impacted anything before
• Improvements to wave spawning mechanics:
  • Some missions now have "Special waves". These waves will always have a fixed number (unaffected by mission modifiers) of certain special enemies that will always spawn at an exact point of time in the wave
    • E.g. mini-bosses, rarely spawning enemies
  • Adjusted the intervals of enemy spawning so that there should never be a huge clump of enemies spawning at the last second of the wave even with a high enemy count
• Added New Turret and Trap Upgrade Effects
  • +X% damage when target is under Bleed/Freeze/Burn/Cripple/Stun effect
  • +X% damage per each Stack of targets' Bleed/Freeze/Burn/Cripple/Stun effect
  • +X% Chance to cause Y status when under Bleed/Freeze/Burn/Cripple/Stun effect
  • Convert projectile into a different type

Performance Optimizations

• Initial loading time of the game is vastly reduced. Some of the gameplay assets are now being loaded in the background while in the menu, and the loading is finalized when first starting a mission
• Added a Lighting Quality slider in Options. On low-end GPUs (e.g. integrated GPUs), adjust the slider to lower quality to improve performance
• Major performance improvements and optimizations to
  • Gameplay performance
  • NPC pathfinding & processing logic
  • NPC wave spawning logic
  • Performance of blood splatters
  • Processing of graphics / rendering pipeline
  • Lighting processing

Visuals

• Lighting update: Added new lighting types, improved existing lighting and their performance
• Remodeled the lighting and sceneries in all of Chapter 1 Missions
• Added Camera Shake effects. Camera Shakes are caused by explosions and strong weapon kickbacks
  • Strength is dependent on the distance between the player character and the source of the shake
• Texture improvements
  • Updated the UI element visuals in the mission selection screen and skill trees
  • New sceneries, new mission tilesets
  • Added a "shine" effect on traps / turrets which indicates when the traps or turrets are upgraded to Level 4

QoL Improvements

Indicators / Visual effects

• Added Player character weapon range indicator (See Section: Improvements)
• Added a field in the turret/trap information that shows the attack style of the weapon: Line shooting, Auto-Aiming, AoE or floor trigger
• Added texts in the main Loading Screen that indicate the progress of the game's loading
• Added a Camera Pan Speed slider in the Options
• Added Camera Panning by holding MMB and moving the mouse
• Added a light that surrounds the player character which automatically adjusts its brightness according to the lighting of the surrounding area

Skill Trees

• Logic for picking skills in the skill trees changed: Left-click to increase skills, right-click to decrease
• Shift-click the skills in the Turret & Trap skill tree to quickly add or decrease skills by 5 points at a time
• Added numbers to indicate how many skills have been allocated in each of the skill trees' branches
• Skills that have been leveled in the skill trees should now visually be more clearly distinguished from skills that are not yet picked
• Added color indicators to skill levels to indicate when the skill cost is increased in the Turret & Trap skill tree (Green = Normal Cost, Orange = x2 Cost, Red = x3 Cost)
• Added a reset button for the character skill tree

Menus

• Shift-click the mission page selection arrows to quickly move to the beginning or end of mission list
• When opening the in-game menu while in a mission, the current total time spent in the mission (excluding when the game was paused) is shown at the top
• Pressing ESC while in game now also opens the in-game menu instead of just pausing the game
• Added sounds and visuals that play when hovering over the main menu buttons

Sounds & Music

• Remastered all existing songs to improve the sound quality
• Adjusted music sound levels to align better with sound effect levels
• Added 14 new songs. New genres include: darksynth, acid techno, melodic metal and psychedelic rock
• Added cross-fading of music tracks when the tracks change
• Updated music playlists: Instead of randomly playing a song one after another, each mission now has their own playlists that feature different styles of music, better aligned with the mission's atmosphere
• Removed overlapping for some attack / hit / death sounds to reduce super loud noises caused when playing exact same sounds simultaneously
• Added a separate "Victory Music" that plays when the mission was successfully completed
• Increased the hearing distance of the player character

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bugs related to NPC pathfinding: The NPCs should get stuck much less frequently and they should not be warping due to having been stuck anymore. Note: If you still see warping enemies in v1.1, please report it in our Steam discussions page. A video showing the situation would be ideal
• Fixed NPC attack range calculations
• Fixed an issue where traps were not always immediately updating their animations after upgrading
• Fixed an issue where the weapon stats or the turret/trap stats were not updated in the stats view properly after the character got new skills
• Fixed an issue where multi-shot stats were not shown properly for all turrets & traps in the stats view
• Fixed some issues where game was not logically paused / unpaused after completing some actions
• Fixed some minor memory leaks
• Fixed potential issues which could have caused the game to crash
• Fixed an issue which could have caused some NPCs to be in a deadlocked state
• Fixed an issue where the selected mission was still highlighted after closing the mission information screen, or returning to the menu from the mission
• Fixed projectile speeds when x2 or x3 speedup is enabled - bullets were traveling faster than they should have at higher speedups
• Fixed an issue where High Value Target II skill did not apply correctly if weapon did not have a base crit chance
• Fixed an issue where the player could pick trap skills from a tier with a high skill requirement and then unpick the previous tiers' skills and still be left with the higher tier skills even after they were locked

Minor Changes

• Adjusted the character and command center hit effect from white to red tint
• Adjusted some tutorial texts and tooltip positions
• Changed the default sound volume and music volume to 50 if not set previously by user. (Previous default was 100 for both)
• Changed the default shoot mode to Click-to-Shoot
• Changed the default Blood Splatter amount to 1 (previously 3)

Balance Changes

Changes related to gameplay mechanics, player characters, skill trees, enemies and traps & turrets. Full list is found in https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2862970/view/562489816939233299

Gameplay Mechanics

• The cost penalty for building traps/turrets of the same type is now steeper than before. Additionally, the cost penalty maxes out at 6x cost - previously the cost was 3x at a maximum.
• Mission Modifier changes
  • Murderous
    • Damage Modifier changed from +80% to +60%
    • Enemy Move Speed Modifier changed from +60% to +10%
  • Insane
    • Enemy Move Speed Modifier changed from +70% to +20%
  • Frenzied
    • Enemy Move Speed Modifier changed from +80% to +20%
  • Added 2 new Mission Modifiers (unlocked by completing Chapters)
    • Deranged
    • Hurried

Character Base Stat Changes

• Sniper
  • Increased the Base Damage of the default Sniper Rifle from 10-16 to 16-24
  • Increased the Move Speed from 25 pu/s (pixel units / second) to 29.4 pu/s
• Engineer
  • Increased the Base Damage of the default Engineer Pistol from 2-5 to 4-10
  • Increased the Move Speed from 27.8 pu/s (pixel units / second) to 31.3 pu/s

Character Skill Tree Changes

The Character Skill Trees were substantially revised in order to make the different branches more meaningful and to add more interesting Skill choice aspects into the design, so that even at a higher level there can be different builds which change the gameplay style of the character class. While some skills have been removed in order to accommodate for the changes, many of the skills have merely been relocated to different tiers, or had some alterations to their stats. These changes were required to balance the skill trees with respect to the newly added Passive and Active skills explained below, but the goal with the revision was to allow players to build their characters in a similar style as before.

• There are now Choose-One type Passive Skill Choices on Tiers 2 and Tier 7. Only one passive skill can be chosen per Tier. Unlocking the Passive Skill choice requires you to pick skills from the corresponding branch before that Skill. After choosing one of the branches' Passive Skill, you may continue on any of the branches below it.
• Additionally, there are Choose-One type Active Skill choices on Tier 5. The Active Skill is activated with a hotkey, and has a skill-specific cooldown. (Default: G)
  • Note that the Active Skill is different from the Special Ability of each character, and they are not mutually exclusive. The Special Ability works similarly as before.
  • After choosing one of the branches' Active Skill, you may continue on any of the branches below it.

Note: below, the notation "Removed skill: Add Damage (3, relocated)" means that an Add Damage skill with a skill cap of 3 has been removed from that Tier, and placed in another Tier or Branch in the Skill Tree. Note #2: The changes to the Character Skill Trees require that your skill choices will be resetted after the update. If you wish to write down your build, you should do it before applying the update.

[ 2025-03-07 17:52:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Neural Shock: Total Destruction Awaits

... INCOMING TRANSMISSION ... The radio towers have been restored and the communication channels are functional once more. Stand by for more information on your next assignment.

Release Date

The first major content update for Neural Shock designated as Neural Shock: Total Destruction (v1.1.0) is now scheduled for release. The confirmed release date for the update is 03/07/2025 (March 7th, 2025).

Main Features

Since Neural Shock launched, we have been listening to all of your feedback and reviews carefully. The Total Destruction update is our answer to your suggestions, commentary and concerns that we have heard along the way. The core priority of the update is to provide players with more interesting gameplay content, improve the replayability of previously completed missions, increase the variety of viable builds in the endgame (making also the low-tier weapons endgame-viable), as well as to give the game the finished look, feel and sound that it deserves. The main features introduced in the Total Destruction update are: Chapter 2 that offers 15 even more challenging Missions than before, new Enemies, a new Challenge mechanic, Active Skills & Skill Tree Overhaul for the Player Characters, Weapon & Armor Equipment Rewards for the characters, new unlockable Mission Modifiers, as well as an overhaul of the game engine's lighting system, soundtrack, visual effects and textures. Full feature list, detailed changelog and balance changes are found below. The full list of balance changes is found at the very end.

Features

The following features have been added in the Total Destruction Update.

• New Chapter with 15 Missions
  • Night City, Facility and Dungeon Missions
• New Monsters
  • Psycho Prime
  • Gargantuan
  • Cyborg
  • Boomer
• Mini-Bosses (Elimination Targets)
  • The Demented One
  • Behemoth
  • Cyber Tyrant
• Challenge Mechanic
  • Complete additional Challenges in Missions to earn Rewards
  • Turret / Trap Rules, No Damage Challenges, Modifier Challenges, Time Challenges
• Character Equipment Rewards
  • Earn new Armors and Weapons for your Characters by completing Challenges
• Character Skill Tree Overhaul
  • The Skill choices in each characters' Skill Trees have been overhauled while respecting old play styles
  • Added Choose-One type Passive Skill Choices
  • Added Choose-One type Active Skill Choices. Active Skill is activated with a hotkey and has a skill-specific cooldown
  • NOTE: Your Character Skill Choices will be resetted and the points will be refunded after the update
  • More details are found below in the Balance Changes section
• Increased Skill Caps of Turrets & Traps
  • Tier 1-4 Traps/Turrets have a Skill Cap of 24, Tier 5 Traps 20 and Tier 6 Traps 18
  • After allocating 12 points, the Skill Point cost is doubled, and after 18 points it is tripled
• Turret & Trap Upgrade Level 4
  • After allocating 24 Skill Points on a Turret or Trap, a new Level 4 Upgrade is unlocked
• New Passive Turret & Trap Skills
• New Resource Pick-Ups
• New Mission Modifiers
• New Experience Factors
• Statistics View at the End of Mission
• 45 New Steam Achievements
• 14 New Songs added to the Soundtrack
• Enemy waves in the last missions in Chapter 1 overhauled
• Lighting and visuals in all Chapter 1 missions revamped

Improvements

The following gameplay improvements and performance optimizations have been added in the Total Destruction update.

Gameplay Improvements

• The trap and turrets' stats are now shown also while in a mission when selecting a trap or a turret. When clicking on an upgrade, the changes are reflected in the stats view
  • The stats view can be toggled on and off with a hotkey to reduce UI clutter on screen when required (Default: T)
• Added visualization for the player character's weapon range. Range visualization can be toggled with a hotkey (Default: R). Range visualization is toggled off by default.
• Added a Respawn button for confirming the Respawn after dying. This allows players to ensure they have selected a safe spawn point before the character respawns
• Top stats for a completed mission are shown in the mission selection screen: Top Damage, Top Time, Top Kills
• Explosive projectiles (rockets, plasma cannon etc) now explode when they reach their maximum weapon range if they had not impacted anything before
• Improvements to wave spawning mechanics:
  • Some missions now have "Special waves". These waves will always have a fixed number (unaffected by mission modifiers) of certain special enemies that will always spawn at an exact point of time in the wave
    • E.g. mini-bosses, rarely spawning enemies
  • Adjusted the intervals of enemy spawning so that there should never be a huge clump of enemies spawning at the last second of the wave even with a high enemy count
• Added New Turret and Trap Upgrade Effects
  • +X% damage when target is under Bleed/Freeze/Burn/Cripple/Stun effect
  • +X% damage per each Stack of targets' Bleed/Freeze/Burn/Cripple/Stun effect
  • +X% Chance to cause Y status when under Bleed/Freeze/Burn/Cripple/Stun effect
  • Convert projectile into a different type

Performance Optimizations

• Initial loading time of the game is vastly reduced. Some of the gameplay assets are now being loaded in the background while in the menu, and the loading is finalized when first starting a mission
• Major performance improvements and optimizations to
  • Gameplay performance
  • NPC pathfinding & processing logic
  • NPC wave spawning logic
  • Performance of blood splatters
  • Processing of graphics / rendering pipeline
  • Lighting processing

Visuals

• Lighting update: Added new lighting types, improved existing lighting and their performance
• Remodeled the lighting and sceneries in all of Chapter 1 Missions
• Added Camera Shake effects. Camera Shakes are caused by explosions and strong weapon kickbacks
  • Strength is dependent on the distance between the player character and the source of the shake
• Texture improvements
  • Updated the UI element visuals in the mission selection screen and skill trees
  • New sceneries, new mission tilesets
  • Added a "shine" effect on traps / turrets which indicates when the traps or turrets are upgraded to Level 4

QoL Improvements

Indicators / Visual effects

• Added Player character weapon range indicator (See Section: Improvements)
• Added a field in the turret/trap information that shows the attack style of the weapon: Line shooting, Auto-Aiming, AoE or floor trigger
• Added texts in the main Loading Screen that indicate the progress of the game's loading
• Added a light that surrounds the player character which automatically adjusts its brightness according to the lighting of the surrounding area

Skill Trees

• Logic for picking skills in the skill trees changed: Left-click to increase skills, right-click to decrease
• Shift-click the skills in the Turret & Trap skill tree to quickly add or decrease skills by 5 points at a time
• Added numbers to indicate how many skills have been allocated in each of the skill trees' branches
• Skills that have been leveled in the skill trees should now visually be more clearly distinguished from skills that are not yet picked
• Added color indicators to skill levels to indicate when the skill cost is increased in the Turret & Trap skill tree (Green = Normal Cost, Orange = x2 Cost, Red = x3 Cost)
• Added a reset button for the character skill tree

Menus

• Shift-click the mission page selection arrows to quickly move to the beginning or end of mission list
• When opening the in-game menu while in a mission, the current total time spent in the mission (excluding when the game was paused) is shown at the top
• Pressing ESC while in game now also opens the in-game menu instead of just pausing the game
• Added sounds and visuals that play when hovering over the main menu buttons

Sounds & Music

• Remastered all existing songs to improve the sound quality
• Adjusted music sound levels to align better with sound effect levels
• Added 14 new songs. New genres include: darksynth, acid techno, melodic metal and psychedelic rock
• Added cross-fading of music tracks when the tracks change
• Updated music playlists: Instead of randomly playing a song one after another, each mission now has their own playlists that feature different styles of music, better aligned with the mission's atmosphere
• Removed overlapping for some attack / hit / death sounds to reduce super loud noises caused when playing exact same sounds simultaneously
• Added a separate "Victory Music" that plays when the mission was successfully completed
• Increased the hearing distance of the player character

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bugs related to NPC pathfinding: The NPCs should get stuck much less frequently and they should not be warping due to having been stuck anymore. Note: If you still see warping enemies in v1.1, please report it in our Steam discussions page. A video showing the situation would be ideal
• Fixed NPC attack range calculations
• Fixed an issue where traps were not always immediately updating their animations after upgrading
• Fixed an issue where the weapon stats or the turret/trap stats were not updated in the stats view properly after the character got new skills
• Fixed an issue where multi-shot stats were not shown properly for all turrets & traps in the stats view
• Fixed some issues where game was not logically paused / unpaused after completing some actions
• Fixed some minor memory leaks
• Fixed potential issues which could have caused the game to crash
• Fixed an issue which could have caused some NPCs to be in a deadlocked state
• Fixed an issue where the selected mission was still highlighted after closing the mission information screen, or returning to the menu from the mission
• Fixed projectile speeds when x2 or x3 speedup is enabled - bullets were traveling faster than they should have at higher speedups
• Fixed an issue where High Value Target II skill did not apply correctly if weapon did not have a base crit chance
• Fixed an issue where the player could pick trap skills from a tier with a high skill requirement and then unpick the previous tiers' skills and still be left with the higher tier skills even after they were locked

Minor Changes

• Adjusted the character and command center hit effect from white to red tint
• Adjusted some tutorial texts and tooltip positions
• Changed the default sound volume and music volume to 50 if not set previously by user. (Previous default was 100 for both)
• Changed the default shoot mode to Click-to-Shoot
• Changed the default Blood Splatter amount to 1 (previously 3)

Balance Changes

All of the changes that affect gameplay balance are detailed below. This includes changes to gameplay mechanics, player characters, skill trees, enemies and traps & turrets.

Gameplay Mechanics

• The cost penalty for building traps/turrets of the same type is now steeper than before. Additionally, the cost penalty maxes out at 6x cost - previously the cost was 3x at a maximum.
• Mission Modifier changes
  • Murderous
    • Damage Modifier changed from +80% to +60%
    • Enemy Move Speed Modifier changed from +60% to +10%
  • Insane
    • Enemy Move Speed Modifier changed from +70% to +20%
  • Frenzied
    • Enemy Move Speed Modifier changed from +80% to +20%
  • Added 2 new Mission Modifiers (unlocked by completing Chapters)
    • Deranged
    • Hurried

Character Base Stat Changes

• Sniper
  • Increased the Base Damage of the default Sniper Rifle from 10-16 to 16-24
  • Increased the Move Speed from 25 pu/s (pixel units / second) to 29.4 pu/s
• Engineer
  • Increased the Base Damage of the default Engineer Pistol from 2-5 to 4-10
  • Increased the Move Speed from 27.8 pu/s (pixel units / second) to 31.3 pu/s

Character Skill Tree Changes

The Character Skill Trees were substantially revised in order to make the different branches more meaningful and to add more interesting Skill choice aspects into the design, so that even at a higher level there can be different builds which change the gameplay style of the character class. While some skills have been removed in order to accommodate for the changes, many of the skills have merely been relocated to different tiers, or had some alterations to their stats. These changes were required to balance the skill trees with respect to the newly added Passive and Active skills explained below, but the goal with the revision was to allow players to build their characters in a similar style as before.

• There are now Choose-One type Passive Skill Choices on Tiers 2 and Tier 7. Only one passive skill can be chosen per Tier. Unlocking the Passive Skill choice requires you to pick skills from the corresponding branch before that Skill. After choosing one of the branches' Passive Skill, you may continue on any of the branches below it.
• Additionally, there are Choose-One type Active Skill choices on Tier 5. The Active Skill is activated with a hotkey, and has a skill-specific cooldown. (Default: G)
  • Note that the Active Skill is different from the Special Ability of each character, and they are not mutually exclusive. The Special Ability works similarly as before.
  • After choosing one of the branches' Active Skill, you may continue on any of the branches below it.

Note: below, the notation "Removed skill: Add Damage (3, relocated)" means that an Add Damage skill with a skill cap of 3 has been removed from that Tier, and placed in another Tier or Branch in the Skill Tree. Note #2: The changes to the Character Skill Trees require that your skill choices will be resetted after the update. If you wish to write down your build, you should do it before applying the update.

Sniper Skill Tree

Defender Branch:

Tier 1: - Changed: The Increase Damage skill's cap from 2 to 3 Tier 2: - Added a Choose-One type Passive Skill: Untapped Potential (Retain Special Charge Upon Death) - Removed: Max HP 15% (3, relocated), Increase Range by 5.0% (3, relocated) and Reduce Trap Cost by 3% (3, relocated) Tier 3: - Added Increase Range by 8% (4, relocated), Reduce Revive Time by 5.5s (3) - Removed: Add Damage by 3 (3, relocated), Increase Move Speed by 7.5 (3) and Penetration (1, relocated) Tier 4: - Added: Penetration (1, relocated) Increase Max HP by 20% (5, relocated) and Add Damage by Flat 3 (3, relocated) - Removed: Max Armor 15% (4, relocated), Add Range Tier 5: - Added a Choose-One type Active Skill: Rapid Regeneration (Activate to quickly regenerate HP and Armor) - Removed: Command Center HP 50 (3, relocated), Max HP 20% (3, relocated), Armor On Penetration 2 (3, relocated) Tier 6: - Added: Max Armor 20% (4, relocated), Reduce Trap Cost by 3% (3, relocated), Command Center HP 100 (3, relocated) - Removed: Increase Critical Damage by 50% (3), Penetration (1, relocated) Tier 7 (New): - Added a Choose-One type Passive Skill: Armor On Penetration 5 (1, relocated)

Hawk-Eye Branch:

Tier 1: - No Changes Tier 2: - Added: Choose-One type Passive Skill: Reduce Normal Resistance (Reduces Normal Resistances of all Enemies by 10%) - Removed: Special Crit Chance 25% (3), Reduce Trap Cost by 3.0% (3, relocated) and Increase Bleed Chance by 60% (3) Tier 3: - Changed: Special DMG 50% (3) -> 30% (4) - Removed: Add Bleed Chance by 3.5% (3, relocated) Tier 4: - Added: Increase Critical Damage by 40% (4, relocated), Reduce Trap Cost by 3% (2, relocated) - Removed: Special Cooldown Reduction On Crit by 30 (2) Tier 5: - Added a Choose-One type Active Skill: Rapid Fire (Activate to boost Rate of Fire by 150% for 12 seconds) - Removed: Add Bleed Damage by Flat 2 (3, relocated), Increase Damage by 10% (5), Penetration (2, relocated) Tier 6: - Added: Add Bleed Damage by Flat 2 (4, relocated), Penetration (1, relocated), Add Bleed Chance by Flat 5% (4) - Removed: Increase Critical Damage by 80% (3, relocated), Add Bleed Duration by 3s (3) Tier 7 (New): - Added a Choose-One type Passive Skill: Adrenaline Shock (each Special Level you had left unactivated upon death reduces your respawn time by 15 seconds)

Marksman Branch:

Tier 1: - Changed: Increase Rate of Fire skill's cap from 3 to 4 Tier 2: - Added a Choose-One type Passive Skill: Penetration (Adds one penetration to your shots, relocated) - Removed: Add Damage by Flat 2 (3, relocated), Reduce Trap Cost by 2.5% (3, relocated), Increase Critical Damage by 40% (3) Tier 3: - Added: Add Damage by Flat 2 (3, relocated), Reduce Trap Cost by 2.0% (3, relocated) - Removed: Penetration (1, relocated), Add Critical Damage by flat 5 (3), Increase Damage by 20% (3, relocated) Tier 4: - Added: Penetration (1, relocated), Increase Damage by 10% (4, relocated) - Changed: Increase Critical Chance by 40% (2) -> 20% (5) - Removed: Increase Range by 10% (3) Tier 5: - Added a Choose-One type Active Skill: Frag Grenade (Activate to throw a Frag Grenade with high AoE damage and shrapnels) - Removed: Increase Damage by 30% (4), Add Critical Chance by 5% (3), Penetration (2, relocated) Tier 6: - Added: Monstrosity Specialist 5% (5) - Changed: Add Critical Damage 10% (2) -> 8% (2), Increase Critical Damage by 80% (3) -> 40% (3) Tier 7 (New): - Added a Choose-One type Passive Skill: Special Level III (You may now reach Special Level 3 when you gain enough Special Charge)

Engineer Skill Tree:

Builder Branch:

Tier 1: - Added: Command Center HP 40 (4, relocated) - Removed: Reduce Trap Upgrade Cost by 5% (3, relocated) Tier 2: - Added a Choose-One type Passive Skill: Untapped Potential (Retain Special Charge Upon Death) - Removed: Reduce Trap Cost by 3.5% (3, relocated), Reduce Trap Cost Penalty by 5.0% (3, relocated), Command Center HP 50 (3, relocated) Tier 3: - Added: Reduce Trap Cost by 3% (3, relocated), Reduce Revive Time by 4s (3) - Removed: Max Armor 10 (3), Reduce Trap Upgrade Cost by 10% (3), Reduce Trap Cost Penalty by 10% (3) Tier 4: - Added: Reduce Trap Upgrade Cost by 5% (4, relocated), Reduce Trap Cost Penalty by 5% (3, relocated) - Removed: Reduce Trap Cost by 5% (3) - Changed: Increase Initial Resources by 500 (5) -> 600 (3) Tier 5: - Added a Choose-One type Active Skill: Turret Controller (Take control of the aim of all turrets in your Aura Radius and increase their Rate of Fire by 70% for 12 seconds) - Removed: Increase Trap DMG by 5% (2), Reduce Trap Cost by 6% (3, relocated), Command Center HP 100 (3) Tier 6: - Added: Reduce Trap Cost by 6% (3, relocated) Tier 7 (New): Added a Choose-One type Passive Skill: Reduce the Normal Resistance of all Enemies by 15%

Combatant Branch:

Tier 1: - Changed: Increase Move Speed by 5% (2) to 4% (3) Tier 2: - Added a Choose-One type Passive Skill: Epinephrine Shot (Allows Instant Respawn if you had 2 Special Levels upon Death.) - Removed: Max Armor by 15 (3), Increase Range by 5 (2), Special Charge 10% (3) Tier 3: - Changed: Increase Rate of Fire 5% (3) -> 7.5% (3) - Removed: Special DMG 20% (3, relocated) Tier 4: - Added: Special DMG 25% (3, relocated) Tier 5: - Added a Choose-One type Active Skill: Turret Rampage (When activated, gives all Turrets & Traps in your Aura Radius a 100% boost to their Damage) - Removed: Increase Range 15 (3), Add Damage by Flat 2.5 (5, relocated), Max HP 20 (2) Tier 6: - Added: Add Damage by Flat 2.0 (5, relocated), Support Aura Radius 5 (3) - Removed: Special DMG 50% (3) Tier 7 (New): - Added: Choose-One type Passive Skill: Reduce Enemy Explosion Resistance (Reduces the Explosion Resistance of all Enemies by 30%)

Chief Engineer Branch:

Tier 1: - Changed: Support Aura Radius skill's cap from 3 to 4 Tier 2: - Added a Choose-One type Passive Skill: Grunt Specialist (All your weapons deal 10% Extra Damage against all Grunts (Heavy, Tough included) and Juggernauts) - Removed: Max HP 10% (3), Increase move Speed 10% (3), Increase Trap Critical Chance 10% (3) Tier 3: - Removed: Reduce Trap Cost by 5% (3, relocated) - Changed: Support Aura Effect from 10% (3) to 5% (3) Tier 4: - Added: Reduce Trap Cost by 5% (3, relocated) - Changed: Support Aura Effect 20% (3) -> 10% (3), Support Aura Radius 5 (3) -> 3.5 (3) Tier 5: - Added a Choose-One type Active Skill: Neural Shock (Enemies inside your Aura Radius are subjected to a 35% slowdown and Damage-Over-Time effect. Affected by Support Aura Effect skill.) - Removed: Supported Traps Give Armor per Kill 3 (2), Trap Rate of Fire 10% (3), Trap DMG 7% (2) Tier 6: - Added: Support Aura Effect 12.5% (3) Tier 7 (New Tier): - Added a Choose-One type Passive Skill: Reduce Enemy Fire Resistance (Reduces the Fire Resistance of all Enemies by 25%)

Turret & Trap Skill Changes

Increased the maximum skill caps of Turret & Trap Weapon skills from 12 to: 24, 20 and 18 depending on the Tier of the Turret / Trap. Tiers 1-4 max skill is 24, Tier 5 is 20 and Tier 6 is 18. Blade Trap: Bleed Chance per Skill Point 10.0% -> 7.5% Chopper: Damage per Skill Point 5.0% -> 10.0% Plasma Ripper: Fire Rate per Skill Point 10% -> 5.0% Piercing I: Critical Chance of all Traps and Turrets that can crit 3.5% -> 2.0% per Skill Point Piercing III: Critical Damage is increased by 10.0% -> 5.0% per Skill Point Physical Mastery: Increases Damage caused by Physical Tree Traps and Turrets by x% - 5.0% -> 2.5% at Tier 4 - 3.0% at Tier 5 (New) - 3.5% at Tier 6 (New) Rifle Turret: Increases Critical Chance -> Increases both Critical Chance and Critical Damage. Value per Skill Point 2.0% -> 8.5% Shotgun Turret: Damage per Skill Point 5.0% -> 7.5% SMG Turret: Modifies Fire Rate -> Modifies both Damage & Fire Rate. Value per Skill Point 5.0% -> 3.5%. Handcannon Turret: Critical Damage per Skill Point 10.0% -> 7.5% High-Value Target II: Increases Critical Chance by 10.0% per Skill Point -> Add Flat Critical Chance by 2.5% per Skill Point Anti-Materiel Turret: Fire Rate per Skill Point 10.0% -> 12.5% Rocket Turret: Fire Rate per Skill Point 5.0% -> 6.5% Laser Turret: Damage per Skill Point 7.5% -> 5.0% Big Guns I: Reduce Resource Cost of HW Upgrades by 5.0% -> 4.0% per Skill Point Big Guns II: Reduce Resource Cost of HW Traps & Turrets by 2.5% -> 2.0% per Skill Point New Passive Skill EW Mastery: Increases Damage caused by Energy Traps and Turrets by x% - 0.5% per Skill Point at Tier 4 - 1.0% per Skill Point at Tier 6 Shock Trap: Damage per Skill Point 12.5% -> 7.5% Scorcher Trap: Burn Duration per Skill Point 10.0% -> 3.5% New Passive Skill Fire Mastery: Increase Damage caused by Fire Traps and Turrets by x% - 2.0% per Skill Point at Tier 5 New Passive Skill Cold Mastery: Increases Damage caused by Cold Traps and Turrets by x% - 2.5% at Tier 5 - 4.0% at Tier 6

Turret & Trap Base Stats changes

Rifle Turret: - Critical Chance: 15.0 % -> 10.0% Flame Turret: - Weapon Range: 40.0 pixel units -> 48.0 pixel units - Max Damage: 5.0 -> 6.0 Shockwave Turret: - Weapon Range: 40.0 pixel units -> 30.0 pixel units - Critical Chance: 12.5% -> 8.0% - Critical Damage Mod: 1.5x -> 3.0x Rocket Turret: - Fire Rate: 1/6 seconds -> 1/5 seconds (0.17 RPS to 0.2 RPS) Laser Turret: - Projectile Speed: 300.0 pu/s -> 400.0 pu/s Plasma Cannon: - Projectile Speed: 150.0 pu/s -> 250.0 pu/s Chopper: - Base Stun Chance: 0.0% -> 5.0% Pyro Cleaver: - Base Burn Chance 55.0% -> 15.0% Sniper Turret: - Damage: 25-35 -> 35-45 - Resource Cost: 1500 -> 1800 - Critical Chance: 60.0% -> 50.0% Shock Trap: - Shock Effect is triggered every 350 -> 150 ms (trap now triggers its damage 6.7 times per second instead of 2.9 times per second) - Stun Duration 2.0 s -> 3.0 s - Min Damage 6 -> 3 - Max Damage 20 -> 8 - Resource Cost: 1500 -> 1800 - Developer Note: The average DPS is virtually unchanged, but the trap is more likely to hit its targets more often, and there's a higher chance to stun enemies due to the increased RoF Blade Trap: - Critical Damage Mod: 0.0x -> 2.5x - Critical Chance: 0.0% -> 10.0% - Bleed Chance: 40.0% -> 25.0% Cold Ring: - Freeze Chance: 70.0% -> 30.0% Scorcher Trap: - Burn Duration: 7.0s -> 4.0s

Turret & Trap Upgrade changes

Turrets and Traps now have a Level 4 Upgrade, which is unlocked when the player has spent 24 points on the corresponding Trap/Turret Skill. Changes and new upgrades found below. Spike Trap: - Level 2 Bonus Cripple Chance: 20% -> 10% - Level 3 Bonus Cripple Chance: 50% -> 40% - Level 4 Upgrades: * Increase the Cripple Chance against Bleeding Targets by 200% : Costs 1200 * Increase the Damage against Frozen Targets by 300% : Costs 1200 * Increase Rate of Fire by 100% : Costs 1000 Blade Trap: - Level 2 Increase Damage by 50%: Cost 600 -> 400 - Level 2 Increase Bleed Damage by 80%: 80% -> 65% and Cost 800 -> 500 - Level 2 Add Cripple Chance (40%) changed to Increase Rate Of Fire by 80%, Cost 600 - Level 3 Add Freeze Chance: 50% -> 25% - Level 3 Add Bleed Duration: Cost 1000 -> 800 - Level 3 Increase Bleed Damage: Cost 1200 -> 800 - Level 4 Upgrades: * Increase the Bleed Chance against Frozen Targets by 400% : Costs 1200 * Increase Bleed Damage by 100% : Costs 1000 * Increase the Damage against Burning Targets by 300% : Costs 1200 Spear Trap: - Level 1 Increase Damage: 40% -> 20% and Cost 450 -> 300 - Level 1 Increase Critical Damage: 60% -> 100% - Level 4 Upgrades: * Increase the Critical Chance against Bleeding Targets by 300%: Costs 1300 * Increase Damage by 80% : Costs 1200 * Increase Damage by 80% for each Bleed Stack on the Target (Max 240%) : Costs 1500 Chopper: - Level 3 Increase Stun Duration by 60% -> Increase Stun Chance by 80% : Costs 1060 - Level 4 Upgrades: * Increase the Stun Duration of Crippled Targets by 300% : Costs 1800 * Increase Bleed Chance by 80% : Costs 1300 * Increase Flat Base Damage by 6 : Costs 1300 Pyro Cleaver: - Level 3 Increase Bleed Duration by 80% -> Increase Burn Chance by 100%: Costs 1200 Shock Trap: - Level 3 Increase Critical Damage: 200% -> 400% - Level 4 Upgrades: * Increase Stun Chance against Bleeding Targets by 400% : Costs 1000 * Increase Critical Damage by 600% : Costs 1400 * Incrase Flat Base Damage by 3 : Costs 1200 Flame Turret: - Level 2 Increase Burn Duration by 80% changed to Add Burn Chance by 20%, Cost 600 -> 800 - Level 3 Add Critical Chance by 40% changed to Increase Burn Duration by 80% : Costs 800 - Level 3 Increase Range by 80% changed to Increase Burn Chance of Crippled Targets by 300%, Cost 1000 -> 1000 - Level 4 Upgrades: * Increase Damage against Bleeding Targets by 300% : Costs 1200 * Increase Burn Chance against Crippled Targets by 400% : Costs 1300 * Increase Burn Damage by 100% : Costs 1300 Shockwave Turret: - Level 4 Upgrades: * Increase Critical Chance against Burning Targets by 500% : Costs 1500 * Increase Radius by 25.0 pixel units : Costs 1200 * Add Burn Chance by 50% : Costs 1200 Cold Ring: - Level 2 Increase Radius: 15.0 -> 10.0 unit pixels - Level 3 Increase Freeze Chance by 100% changed to Increase Freeze Chance against Burning targets by 400% - Level 3 Add Cripple Chance: Chance 80% -> 40% - Level 4 Upgrades: * Increase Freeze Chance by 120% : Costs 1500 * Increase Damage by 100% : Costs 1500 * Increase Radius by 15.0 pixel units : Costs 1500 Scorcher Trap: - Level 1 Increase Burn Chance: 35% -> 45% - Level 2 Increase Rate Of Fire by 70% changed to Increase Radius by 6.0 pixel units - Level 3 Increase Radius by 30.0 pu changed to Increase Burn chance by 65%, Cost 1200 -> 1300 Frost Lance: - Level 2 Add Critical Chance by 35% changed to Increase Critical Chance against Frozen Targets by 300%, Cost 700 -> 1100 Rifle Turret: - Level 3 Add Critical Damage: Damage 40 -> 10, Cost 1200 -> 900 - Level 3 Add Bleed Damage: Damage 10 -> 3, Cost 1160 -> 700 - Level 4 Upgrades: * Add Flat Base Damage by 25: Costs 1000 * Increase Bleed Chance of Stunned Targets by 300%: Costs 1200 * Mini Rockets: Cost 1000 SMG Turret: - Level 3 Add Bleed Damage: Damage 2 -> 3 - Level 3 Penetration: Cost 600 -> 1600, - Level 4 Upgrades: * Increase Damage against Stunned Targets by 300%: Costs 1200 * Increase Bleed Chance against Frozen Targets by 250%: Costs 1200 * Auto-Aim: Costs 1800 Shotgun Turret: - Level 4 Upgrades: * Add Armor Bypass Chance against Bleeding Targets by 100%: Costs 1500 * Increase Critical Damage by 300%: Costs 2000 * Auto-Aim: Costs 2500 Sniper Turret: - Level 1 Increase Critical Chance: 30% -> 40% - Level 2 Increase Critical Damage: 80% -> 100% - Level 4 Upgrades: * Add Flat Base Stun Chance against Crippled Targets by 40%: Costs 1000 * Increase Damage against Burning Targets by 350%: Costs 2000 * Increase Fire Rate by 100%: Costs 1400 Chaingun Turret: - Level 4 Upgrades: * Increase Damage against Burning Targets by 300%: Costs 2300 * Add Flat Base Bleed Chance by 10%: Costs 1500 * Add Flat Base Damage by 2: Costs 1500 Rocket Turret: - Level 4 Upgrades: * Increase Damage by 200% for each Cripple Stack on the Target (Max 600%): Costs 2000 * Increase AoE area by 100%: Costs 2000 * Increase Cripple Chance against Burning Targets by 200%: Costs 2000 Proximity Charge: - Level 3 Increase Critical Chance: 70% -> 50% - Level 4 Upgrades: * Increase Damage against Bleeding Targets by 200%: Costs 2300 * Increase Radius by 25.0 pixel units: Costs 2000 * Increase Critical Damage by 250%: Costs 2300 Anti-Materiel Turret: - Level 3 Add Critical Chance 80% -> 25% - Level 4 Upgrades: * Add 3 Partial Penetrations: Costs 2000 * Increase Damage by 200% for each Freeze Stack on the Target (Max 600%): Costs 2000 * Increase Critical Damage by 200%: Costs 2000

Enemy changes:

Psycho: - Increased the Walk Speed from 17.2 pu/s to 19.2 pu/s - Increased the Run Speed from 21.7 pu/s to 23.8 pu/s Creep: - Increased the Fire Resistance from 15% to 95% - Increased the Explosion Resistance from 0% to 50% Tough Grunt: - Increased the Fire Resistance from 20% to 40% Heavy Grunt: - Increased the Walk Speed from 15.3 pu/s to 20 pu/s - Increased the Run Speed from 19.2 pu/s to 21.7 pu/s Juggernaut: - Increased the Walk Speed from 20 pu/s to 21.7 pu/s - Increased the Run Speed from 22.2 pu/s to 23.8 pu/s Tough Spawn: - Increased the Critical Resistance from 0% to 10% Mutated Spawn: - Increased the Fire Resistance from -5% to 15% - Increased the Critical Resistance from 0% to 20% Hunter: - Decreased the Walk Speed from 33.3 pu/s to 31.3 pu/s - Decreased the Run Speed from 40.0 pu/s to 37.0 pu/s Nightstalker: - Decreased the Run Speed from 38.5 pu/s to 35.7 pu/s

[ 2025-02-21 16:59:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where clicking a turret upgrade button may have caused the underlying tile to be selected after confirming the upgrade
• Fixed an issue where succesfully defending side doors was not rewarding experience correctly at the end of the mission
• Fixed issues with the enemy spawn timer and player respawn timer
• Disallowed pressing restart/quit/menu while the mission completion screen is pending

[ 2024-11-30 09:27:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

True Indies Bundle Released Today Oct 4, 2024

Happy to announce that weve made a bundle with Neural Shock + 1BIT CASTLE REMAKE by Kantal Collective and published by Indie Kraken! The bundle provides you with a -20% discount on the other game if you already own one of them - or if you buy both of them together. 1BIT CASTLE REMAKE is a charming minimalist fantasy Tower Defense game with innovative gameplay that youve likely not experienced outside of the 1BIT CASTLE franchise. In it, you get to choose from various heroes, strategize your defense and protect your treasures. I have been following the 1Bit Castle for a long time now and as the remake turned out great on release, I was stoked to finally get to collaborate with the team and create a bundle together. If youve liked Neural Shock, Im sure youll love 1BIT CASTLE REMAKE. Please find the True Indies Bundle below: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/45838/True_Indies/

[ 2024-10-04 11:01:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Features / Improvements

• Adjusted some weapon attack sound volumes

Bug Fixes

• Fixed font loading on MacOS
• Fixed an issue where character and turret/trap attacks & animations were repeated back-to-back without cooldowns on some machines

[ 2024-08-15 20:18:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Features / Improvements

• Adjusted upgrades and fire rate of Pyro-Cleaver to rebalance it after the latest bug fixes: Add Bleed Chance 40% -> 30%, Add Cripple Chance 100% -> 20% and cost 1800 -> 1300, Increase Bleed Duration cost 1500 -> 1200, Add armor bypass chance cost 1800 -> 1500, Add Freeze Chance 80% -> 30% and cost 2000 -> 1600. Pyro Cleaver's base Fire Rate slowed down.
• Changed High-Value Target II skill from 15% -> 10% increased Critical Chance.
• Graphics improvement: Added anti-aliasing filtering to smooth out pixel distortions and make texts more readable
• Added an options setting for changing the font. Changed the default font to a more readable one
• Adjusted sound volumes so that click sounds and weapon sound volumes should be better balanced now
• View scrolling is now slightly smoother
• Added an explosion effect when the base gets destroyed

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a recently introduced bug where the Weapon Stats Display was not updating after picking new turret/trap skills
• Fixed an issue where some stats were overlapping the Resistances in the Enemy Stats display
• Fixed an issue where the Engineer skills Trap Critical Chance and Trap Bleed Chance were not displayed in the Stats view
• Fixed High-Value Target II skill
• Adjusted shotgun's muzzle point lower since it could not shoot through narrow doorways properly
• Fix mission failed text position

[ 2024-07-25 08:02:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Features / Improvements

• Improved UI and visuals in the Main Menus and in-game Added a background image and new logo Added new click sounds for buttons Added transition animations for different user interfaces
• Minor improvements: Click-to-shoot mode now draws the crosshair at the cursor Allow using Escape to leave Turret & Trap Skill Tree view Mission completion screen now appears after a short delay after the last enemy has been killed (~3-4 seconds)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed applying cripple, armor bypass/penetration and critical effects on melee/AoE turrets (Chopper, Pyro Cleaver, Plasma Ripper, Shockwave Turret)
• Fixed automatically opening the upgrade interface after building floor traps when the "Open Upgrade Interface After Building" option is enabled
• Attempt to fix shared library search paths on Linux build - libsteam_api.so should now be found without modifying LD_LIBRARY_PATH manually

Known Issues

• At some angles, the player character does not shoot exactly in the direction of the crosshair in Click-to-Shoot mode

[ 2024-07-18 07:22:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Features / Improvements

• Added Turret / Trap Range visualization. The range is visualized as a circle around the weapon when it is selected. For weapons which shoot in a line, the line is also visualized. The range visualizer is updated when a range or radius increase upgrade is selected in the upgrade interface.
• Added a Character Stats display on the Character Skill selection screen. The Stats are updated when the player picks new skills, so it is now easier to see the effects of different skills.
• Added an Options setting for Player Character's Shoot Modes. Auto-Shoot (default) is the automatic shooting mode, Click-to-Shoot mode is a new mode in which you can use Left Mouse Button to shoot. When Click-to-Shoot mode is active, the build menu and the upgrade menu are opened with Right Mouse Button.
• Added Move Speed on the Monster stats display interface
• Adjusted Sniper's Trap Cost Reduction skills: Tree A: 3.5% -> 3.0%, Tree B: 3.5% -> 3.0%, Tree C: 3.5% -> 2.5%.
• Adjusted Sniper's Hawk-Eye skills: Special Critical Chance 10% -> 25%, Add Bleed Chance 5% -> 3.5%, Increase Bleed Chance 10% -> 60%, Special DMG 20% -> 50%
• Adjusted Engineer's Trap Cost Penalty Reduction skills: 15% -> 10% and 10% -> 5%
• Always show Crit DMG for weapons which have Critical Chance
• Minor adjustments to some bullet animations

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the Support Aura Effect skill (Engineer skill selectable on the skill tree) - the skill did not produce the correct buff previously.
• Fixed some bullet spawn points (muzzle points) for turrets and characters

[ 2024-07-13 07:26:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hotfix v1.0.14

• Fixed the Engineer Trap Fire Rate skill for Floor Traps as well - this was missed out from the last patch (v1.0.13)

[ 2024-07-09 18:47:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Features / Improvements

• Adjusted the wave groups in Missions 23, 24 and 25 to make the difficulty curve at the later levels more linear. The difficulty was increasing too much starting from Mission 23 previously
• Added Trap Cost Reduction skills in Sniper's skilltree. Removed Skills: Command Center HP (Tree A, Tier 2), Add Melee Damage (Tree B, Tier 2), Increase Critical Chance 25% (Tree C, Tier 2)
• Reduced the Trap Cost reduction skill of Engineer (Tree C, Tier 3) from 10% -> 5%
• Increased the Laser Turret's Damage output and Fire Rate. Adjusted Laser Turret's upgrades: Changed rate-of-fire upgrade on Level 3 to Penetration. Increased Damage in the Damage upgrades
• Adjusted the Pyro Cleaver's Level 1 Radius Upgrade: Increased radius from 10 -> 16
• Adjusted the Pyro Cleaver's Level 3 Upgrade: Armor Bypass Chance increased from 30% -> 50%
• Adjusted Nightstalker's stats and movement speed: Normal resist reduced from 70% -> 60%, HP 560 -> 460, Armor 520 -> 420, movement speed slowed 15%

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the Engineer's Trap Fire Rate skill - The skill's effect was accidentally slowing the fire rate down instead of increasing
• Fixed some wall hitboxes in Mission 24 to prevent turrets from shooting through walls
• A small fix to the logic for turrets on checking whether shooting is blocked by e.g. a wall
• Minor adjustments to turrets' attack range calculations. This change adds some range on e.g. melee / AoE turrets on one side - the range calculation was asymmetrical previously. (Please note that the attack range visualization feature is still in progress - it is coming as soon as possible)
• Fixed an issue where the trap upgrade interface was not always centered on the screen
• Fixed lighting shaders and hit effects on MacOS build

Known Issues

• The Engineer Trap Fire Rate skill issue seems to be still affecting Floor Traps. This will be fixed in the next update.

[ 2024-07-09 16:01:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Features / Improvements



• Added a 10% Cripple Chance on Proximity Charge
• Adjusted the Level 3 upgrades for Scorcher Trap - Decreased the Radius upgrade from 60 -> 30 - Damage upgrade increased from 80% -> 90% - Burn Duration upgrade cost decreased from 2000 -> 1600
• Turrets with Auto-Aim or 360-degree AoE do not require setting the direction anymore since the direction does not matter for them

  Bug Fixes

  
  
• Fixed a bug where Floor Traps were activating only once after they were placed
• Fixed the Pyro Cleaver turret/trap skill - the Fire Rate was not updating properly previously
• Fixed the flat Cripple Chance of Explosives II to 2.5% - previous % was below 1% in actuality
• Fixed Scorcher Trap's Burn Duration upgrade from 700% to 70% as intended
• Fixed an issue where the Engineer's Turret/Trap Fire Rate skill was not correctly applied
• Fixed a visual issue where the experience bonus for completing a mission was not displayed correctly - the mission modifiers were not taken account in the text, although for the actual reward the modifiers were accounted correctly
• Fixed the text of Semi-Automatic I skill to indicate it only affects Traps and Turrets

[ 2024-07-08 18:15:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features



• Added hotkeys for setting the Game Speed Down / Up (Q and E)
• Added an image to show the keybinding for the Pause button (Spacebar)

  Improvements / Fixes

  
  
• Recompiled the Linux build with Ubuntu 22.04 to support distributions with older versions of GLIBC (2.35 or newer) and GLIBCXX (3.4.30 or newer)
• Fixed blood splatter amount setting not being saved/loaded properly
• Fixed the experience bar's visual scaling. Previously the size of the bar did not visually correspond to the actual percentage

[ 2024-07-01 07:50:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Balanced the Sniper's early level skills and base stats



• Increased the base movement speed, Max HP increased from 50 to 66, average Base Damage increased from 9 to 13
• Adjusted the Sniper's early skills to increase the damage output earlier

  Quality of Life improvements:

  
  
• Allow cancelling turret/trap placement in case of errors: - Turrets & traps can now be destroyed without any penalties to the refund cost if it has not yet attacked. The upgrade costs are not refunded, as it was before
• Added hotkeys for selecting uprades: Use Numbers 1-3 to select the upgrades and Backspace to Destroy the Turret/Trap
• Added options for disabling the requirement for an extra click to confirm selecting a trap's direction or upgrades.
• Added an option for keeping the upgrade interface open after selecting an upgrade if there are more upgrades availablle
• Added an option to allow using WASD for selecting a turret's direction when the direction selection interface is active
• Allow selecting the turret/trap to place with hotkeys: Use Numbers 1-6 to select the Turret/Trap when the selection interface is active

[ 2024-06-27 15:59:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Re-applied the fix for Explosives I and Explosives II - the last fix was not properly set
• Fixed a crash in the Linux build when trying to open the Turrets and Traps screen

[ 2024-06-26 14:00:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed the MacOS executable

[ 2024-06-26 07:37:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are happy to announce that we have added Linux and MacOS support for Neural Shock today on June 26th, 2024. Linux support is 64-bit only, MacOS support adds support for both Intel and ARM64. Get shooting, soldier!

[ 2024-06-26 07:02:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added Linux and MacOS Support
• Fixed Explosives I, Explosives II and Energy Weapons I Skills display values

[ 2024-06-26 06:57:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Performance optimizations related to pathfinding and NPC processing - improvements should be observable when there are a large number of NPCs simultaneously in a mission (> 100-200)
• Added an option to control the amount of blood splatter generated
• Fixed a crash when user was switching playback devices while the game was launched

[ 2024-06-25 09:16:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed the handling of Semi Automatic II skill - range increase was not being updated properly after setting the skill
• Fixed an issue where in some rare cases the turrets stop could shooting at their targets for a while and then restart
• Fixed an issue where enemies could be knocked back inside walls
• Minor balance changes to the Small Arms tree: - Reduced the damage bonus of High-Value Target I skill from 10% to 8.0%. - Reduced the flat knockback and stun chance increases of Handcannon's second level upgrades from 100% -> 70% and 100% -> 80%, and reduced the upgrade costs in similar manner. - Increased the Penetration and Stun Duration skill upgrade costs of Handcannon from 2000 -> 2500 and 1200 -> 1500.
• Minor fixes to maps

[ 2024-06-24 16:32:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Minor changes to fullscreen and alt-tabbing behaviour
• Adjusted the Initialization text position on different resolutions

[ 2024-06-20 10:48:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added a text indicating the game is initializing while loading assets when launching the game
• Fixed an issue where a command prompt was opened when launching the game
• Fixed issues where monsters could sometimes attack slightly out of their actual attack range
• Fixed loading an icon for the game
• Fixed an issue where music would not continue playing if master volume was set to 0 before entering a mission and then adjusting master volume while in the mission

[ 2024-06-20 07:47:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Neural Shock released today, Wednesday June 19, 2024, on Windows PC - start blasting mutated specimens now with the full arsenal of weapons and traps at your disposal. The full release introduces two playable characters: The Sniper and the Engineer. The Sniper class is aimed towards players seeking more action and maneuvering, while the Engineer's talent tree serves a more traditional Tower Defense type of gameplay with boosts and discounts to the traps and turrets. There are a total of 27 missions available in the full release, loaded with devious challenges and exciting side objectives. Each of the four turret & trap skill trees has more than 5 different weapons to unlock, bringing the total number of weapons available to over 20. For players seeking extra challenge for bonus experience, we have added exciting but challenging difficulty modifiers which can be activated for each mission as desired. The full release also contains a time speedup feature that now lets you slaughter the mutants at 2x or 3x speeds! What could be more exhilarating? Lock and load, soldiers.

[ 2024-06-18 09:06:14 CET ] [ Original post ]