Yikes,\n\nSorry everyone, I introduced a crash when adding the achievement check for the completed devotion. Wanted to get this patch out quickly to resolve the issue. \n\nThe achievement will now trigger any time you hit the start screen, restart not required.\n\nThanks to all who reported the issue,\nMarvin Wizard

Super tiny one here, but with two important fixes.\n\n

\n
• The game now correctly pauses when the steam overlay is triggered\n
• Added a provisional guard rail to ensure victory triggers if the game gets into a state where the wave is over 20. Some players have reported getting stuck on \"Wave 21\" where the final boss is defeated and the clock just ticks forever.\n

A couple more small fixes I wanted to get in today.\n\n[olist]\n

Thanks for all of the great bug reports and feedback everyone. I wanted to quickly get out a couple more small fixes and improvements today.\n\n

Small but important one here,\n\n

\n
• Fixed a bug where certain menu inputs weren\'t working on controllers \n
• Added a setting to adjust camera zoom distance within display options\n

Howdy All,\n\nIts hard to believe launch day is here. This started out as a way for me to learn game dev and somehow turned into a proper game. I truly appreciate everyone who has provided feedback and support along the way.\n\nIm launching with 5 levels, 5 characters, 5 bosses, 5 mini bosses and a spread of unlockable weapons and abilities to get your buildcraft on. There is also a time attack mode with leaderboards available once you clear the final boss (P.S. you can unlock it immediately on your second memory card profile if you want to get straight to it)\n\nIn terms of content updates, I am exploring local co-op and working on acquiring more localizations. I also expect there will be plenty of bugs I did not uncover and balance patches in the coming days and weeks.\n\nSpeaking of which, a few small changes already:

• Strike Reflex proc rate has increased

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• Drain Life proc rate has increased

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• Flurry now increments at 2% per proc down from 5%, still capping at 30%

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• Lethal Strikes now increments at 2% per proc, up from 1%, capping at 30%\n

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Additionally, I wanted to call out a few known issues that I am actively working on:\n\n1. While playing with a controller on PC, sometimes mouse drift can cause wave reward options to appear highlighted twice. Controller input should now immediately fix this, but a more robust solution to cleanly transition between the two and manage UX differences is in the works.\n\n2. Japanese localization has performance issues on Linux related to Godots translation server. This only causes some delay on loading text heavy screens, and does not impact actual combat/gameplay. I am rapidly working on a fix for this.\n\n3. The main game font works great across most languages but is very unwieldy with Cyrillic characters. I have a temporary font right now, but I am working on ensuring the Russian localization preserves the menu aesthetic and is comfortable for players to read.\n\nI hope you all enjoy the game, it has been a blast to make.\n\nYour friend,\nMarvin Wizard\n

Howdy All,\n\nI\'ve just about finished the game, at least as much as I had hoped to have done for launch. I\'ve been focused on testing and balancing things out, and honestly have been having a blast. I\'m really excited for everyone to play the full game. *cough boss rush speed run with leaderboards\n\nI wanted to bring a handful of changes over from the full game to the demo version. Barring any gnarly bugs, this is probably the last update I\'ll make for the demo, outside of adding localizations as I acquire them.\n\nV 0.10.0.19

• Mob coloring consistency, a convention is now consistent where chrome enemies are weaker, purple enemies are stronger/elite variations

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• A brief cinematic now plays when starting the final wave of a level

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• BGM has been moderately adjusted to have a consistent intro and boss track for each level, with shuffled filler between

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• Explosion and various other particles have been updated and improved (hopefully)

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• Various weapon scaling and enemy scaling changes

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• There is now a memory card in the main menu that allows you to swap profiles to have two separate saves tracked & reset progress

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• Revive now grants a period of invincibility and a race condition bug causing it to fail has been fixed

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• The wave intensity scaling has been fixed, so that boss waves now correctly spawn less enemies (previously this was happening on the wrong wave in Ice Caverns, and final bosses waves were slightly over tuned)

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Stay tuned this month for info about launch dates :)\n\nHope everyone has a nice holiday season,\nYour Friend,\nMarvin Wizard

Howdy All,\n\nOverall Next Fest was a great success, many wishlists gained and more importantly lots of great feedback. \n\nRecently I switched from focusing on the Demo to grinding on finishing the broader game. As of this week, every piece of content I intend to launch with has been built, although there\'s much tuning and polish to be done.\n\nI do have a small patch today with a few things for the demo. I\'ll continue to update it as I make improvements to the main game.\n\nV 0.9.1.0

• Removed the temporary buff indicator that showed on the HUD when choosing Shell Hardening (this space is now exclusively to display temporary buffs)

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• Added a buff indicator when Revive is active

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• Added a buff indicator for the thief\'s boost attack speed buff

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• HUD now shows weapon bars indicating ammo/recharging

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• Increased the size of the boost bar and added a flash effect when recharged

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• Tuned various enemy health scaling

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Appreciate everyone who has played and continues to play!\n\nYour Friend,\nMarvin Wizard\n

Yikers , I found a gnarly crash thanks to two folks streaming the game, @Black_Stark2 & @PhriekshoTV. If streamer mode was turned on mid match, a trigger at the end of wave 19 to activate boss BGM was causing a crash. \n\nApologies for the frustrating experience!\n\nV 0.9.0.1

• Mini-boss health bar correctly removed on subsequent waves if the boss is not defeated

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V 0.9.0.2

• Fixed a crash at the end of wave 19 that happened when streamer mode was turned on mid run

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• Slightly reduced player hitbox size on Bloodfang to match the size of the Shell

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\nThanks as always to everyone playing, streaming, and leaving feedback! Appreciate yall.\n\nYour friend,\nMarvin Wizard

Howdy Everyone,\n\nBig patch here with a new level and Shell to play! Have been working on game balance and polishing up the new content for Next Fest. \n\nV 0.9.0.0

• Bloodfang is now playable after defeating Corrupt Bloodfang on Island Ruins

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• The Ice Caverns are now playable after achieving Victory on Island Ruins

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• Devotion to Fury is now available to unlock

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• Devotion to Divinity total block granted has been reduced from 25% -> 10%

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• Bloom Cannon & Geist Rifle have new Potency Effects - Spread & Discharge

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• The Game Guide now has a dedicated section explaining Potency Effects

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• The Stat Panel now includes a section that lists the Potency Effects of equipped weapons

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• Special charges can no longer infinitely stack, drop rate scaling has been adjusted

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• Explosive weapons have had their ordnance hit boxes adjusted to ensure explosions are centered around the hit enemy

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• The cursor is now only captured in the game window during combat

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• Transfixion now fires more projectiles

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• Charging enemies telegraph and charge behaviors have been made more aggressive

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I know I missed last week, but I really wanted to focus on getting this patch nice and tidy for everyone. Can\'t wait to hear what yall think about playing as Bloodfang.\n\nAppreciate everyone who has kept playing and look forward to some new eyes during Next Fest.\n\nYour Friend,\nMarvin Wizard

Howdy everyone, \n\nApologies for the delay on getting these notes up, I\'ve been heads down tidying up some new content for Next Fest. I\'ll be focusing on that for the next two weeks, but still of course addressing any bugs and issues that arise.\n\nV 0.8.2.0

• Increased proc rate of Strike Reflex,

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• Increased proc rate of lethal strikes,

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• Increased hitbox of omega cannon,

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• Rocket Storm now initiates in the direction the player is facing,

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• Rocket Storm explosion impact radius increased,

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• Added setting to toggle auto attacking (Enables full twin stick style controls),

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• Added tooltip explaining reclamation, Sparks recovered at the end of each wave,

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• Adjusted rank thresholds,

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• Added steam cloud support - cross platform/device progress & Demo progress applied to full game

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V 0.8.2.1

• Fixed steam cloud Linux directory, progress should sync between PC & Linux now

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V 0.8.2.2

• When focusing level up choices, the respective stats will now flash on the info carousel.

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• Slightly reduced knockback provided by the Windstone gem.

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• Fixed a bug where the orbs would overlap when applying the Radiation resonance to multiple weapons.

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• Rocket Storm\'s range has been reduced, and its hit box increased. It should now create a more proper ring of explosions around the player.

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• Bosses now drop reroll gems which allow players to reroll on wave and level up rewards. \nNote: subsequent levels include mini bosses which also drop these, increasing their availability as you progress through the game.

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• Final Score calculations have been adjusted to be a combination of total sparks collected via drops & reclamation through wave 19, then a bonus for how quickly the boss is felled on wave 20. The final boss wave can no longer be farmed for sparks, and conversely the player is rewarded for quickly defeating the boss.

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• High scores have been wiped, to ensure new S Ranks are properly saved.

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• Introduced boss music for the final wave. Note: this is a proto version as I explore the Godot APIs for more complex BGM behaviors.

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Thanks for taking a look. I really appreciate everyone playing and providing feedback.\n\nYour Friend,\nMarvin Wizard

Thanks to everyone who has continued to play and provide feedback. \n\nThis week\'s patches were a bit smaller as I have shifted my focus to preparing some new content for Next Fest. There will be a balance patch next week to boost up some the protocols that might feel underwhelming and of course I\'ll continue to address bugs and issues as they arise.\n\nV 0.8.1.18

• Continued fiddling with enemy attack visuals,

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• Windowed mode should relinquish mouse capture when alt tabbing,

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• Windowed mode should no longer launch borderless,

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• Added SFX to Corrupt Bloodfang\'s attacks,

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• Fixed a bug where enemy projectiles could have vertical motion and pass overhead,

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• Fixed a bug where the Koenig base ability, healing on blocks, was not triggering,

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• Altered the motion and speed of pick ups to improve behavior when Range & Movement speed are buffed

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V 0.8.1.19

• Fixed a bug where the game would get stuck paused with only the pause background visible

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Your Friend,\nMarvin Wizard

I can\'t post demo patch notes directly to the demo page, so will periodically update here with changes. I keep things live and up to date on Discord if you\'re looking for more frequent updates.\n\nV 0.8.1.12

• Added the gem unlock for maxing out devotion to Divinity,

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• Altered the fragmentation resonance to also split force weapons attacks into multiple projectiles,

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• Minor buff to force weapon damage,

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• After wave 10 enemies have a chance to drop a new item that attracts crystals,

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• Actually reduced the final bosses HP

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• Adjusted wave reward schedule to have a more consistent pace of macro level build decisions,

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• Weapon choices now indicate what their potency effect is

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V 0.8.1.14 - Small Fix

• Mouse captured during windowed gameplay to prevent clicking outside of the game

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V 0.8.1.15 - Localization Correction

• Fixed the localization descriptions for the 4 color resonance unlocks

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V 0.8.1.16

• Fixed a big where the player could become invincible,

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• Fixed a bug where collection range was not resetting between runs

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V 0.8.1.17

• Fixed a bug where burn continued to tick on invisible felled enemies

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• Audio refactor , balanced audio across the spectrum and made adjustments to prevent audio clipping

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• Added enemy hit confirmation SFX

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• Added player taking damage SFX

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• Added an animation & SFX for picking up specials/health/crystal magnets

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• Adjusted enemy projectiles to (hopefully) improve visibility

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\nHuge thanks to everyone who\'s played and provided feedback, it really helps to drive things forward and refine the experience.\n\nYour friend,\nMarvin Wizard

Graphics Options & Eye Strain

• Added options to toggle pixelation and vertex snapping

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• Updated the mesh of the island ruins arena floor to reduce tearing and overlaps

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• Fixed a bug where options were sometimes not being saved

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Boss Tuning

• Reduced the max HP of Corrupt Bloodfang\n

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The system for recording resonance effects in the game guide introduced a bug where certain dual color combinations weren\'t yielding effects when they should be. Dual color effects should now correctly apply regardless of gem socketing order.

Thank you to everyone who participated, and doubly to those who filled out the feedback form (not too late if you haven\'t already)! Your feedback is invaluable. I\'m excited to look over the gameplay data and everyone\'s responses. Stay tuned for perhaps another Playtest and the coming Demo later this summer!\n\nIf you have any additional thoughts feel free to bring them to the Discord .\n\nThanks,\nVital Shell Dev\n\n

Hi everyone,\n\nIn preparation for releasing a demo, I\'m running a playtest this weekend! Looking forward to getting everyone\'s feedback. There is one character and level available as well as some abilities and weapons to unlock as you play.\n\nI\'m particularly interested in feedback on difficulty as well as clarity of game systems.\n\nGoogle Forms Feedback Link:\nhttps://forms.gle/K4mQCP7NWyAoC1Ca9 \n\nDiscord:\nhttps://discord.gg/aRpTSz5dDM \n\nThank you for your time!

Hi everyone,

This is my first post here on the community page, and I wanted to share a look into the core design of Vital Shell.

A huge inspiration for the game is my love for 90s console classics like Armored Core and Frame Gride. It only made sense to develop Vital Shell with a console-first approach from day one. This means all of the UI is clean, flat, and hierarchy-based, so it feels incredible to navigate whether you're on a big screen with a controller or on your Steam Deck.

Thanks to Godot's focus engine and these design principles, the game worked great with a controller almost out of the box. I've since put in the work to refine the experience, improving modal presentation and ensuring the UI always remembers your last selection when moving between pages. I'm happy to say it's all sorted, and at this point, navigating the menus and playing the game truly feels best with a controller.

Its not just the menuscombat feels just as smooth.

• Movement: D-pad or Left Stick

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• Manual Aiming: Right Stick

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• Special Ability: X Button (or equivalent)

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I'm working hard to get a closed beta ready, which will lead to a polished demo this summer. The best way to stay in the loop is to Wishlist & Follow the game!

Stay tuned!