Bugs generally come first and foremost, particularly if they have any impact to a majority of player\'s experience.

Planned feature updates and major mechanics updates will be developed and tested until they are ready and will have announced release date targets. Any major feature that is outright broken, is untested, or needs more time will not be moved into stable releases.

General content, stage changes, behavioral improvements to enemy logic, User Experience and UI. Everything from Dialogues and Debriefs to New Enemies, Bullet Patterns and Behaviors. This is where things will change

Prototyping new systems, effects, features and performance improvements will always have some time scheduled every week, but not take up too much time at the expense of the above priorities. I feel experimentation is still very important part of allowing game-play depth to grow and identify fun new mechanics. This is a great place to welcome new ideas from players, try them out and iterate on feedback in Public Test.

Any content\'s first release does not mean the element is \"complete\" or will not be changed or improved later. This is particularly true for visuals and audio, which I expect to be part of continuous improvement and polish.

Game Direction

My vision for the development direction of the game includes plans for features and content including the additional enemies, bosses and stages. There are also areas such as new weapons and game mode mechanics which I want to introduce. I am very interested in exploring feedback and ideas from the community whenever possible. Two prototypes being tested with promising results:

• Stage branching - this has been prototyped and the result is more dynamic stages with additional side area choices providing more varied, difficult and rewarding routes. These add \"opt-in\" to harder areas which could affect allies and impact game endings but also have additional enemies, pickup items or bosses. This means some routes can also be more beginner friendly, to allow players to learn and grow into choosing harder routes.

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• Rank based Hyper Augments - a new tier of ship powers available by using Grappling Hook throws and combos. By building the Hit Counter, then performing a throw, grapple, or multi-kill the player is awarded with a hyper power such as a shield, focus aura damage, supercharged weapons, missiles and option drone abilities. These powers fade over time after the Multiplier has been lost.

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Week 1 Update - Public Test Branch Notable Changes

• New Enemy - Gunboat - this large ship is equipped to blast its way through asteroid fields. It is equipped with a fast turning double turret and a spinning volley turret.

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• Enemy round bullets changed from yellow to pink. Players reported some visibility problems with the yellow bullets. A feature to allow player to change color of enemy bullets is coming soon.

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• Aimed bullet graphic has been adjusted to be slightly longer to increase visibility. Hit box has not changed.

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• When player uses the Vulcan Cannon, bullets are light blue, allowing a bit more visibility to enemies\' projectiles.

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• Improvements to placement and pacing of all enemies in all stages. Pacing and balancing will continue to be improved including lane adjustments to enemy waves. Some areas are harder right now.

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• Cooldown for Grappling Hook deployment and throwing has been reduced by 50%

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• Egg Pods \"Wake up\" when hit by player\'s projectiles, making them more of a threat.

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• Explosions of enemy ships and missiles inherit velocity from the ship or missile at the time they were destroyed

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• Improvement to Cargo boxes near Crane Mid-boss fight. Boxes now come into the foreground when picked up - changing to a brighter color and displaying on top of background elements

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• Split-fire bots now enter the screen instead of just \"floating in\"

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• Laser Miners move to fire on the player more quickly, avoiding situations where they never fired if the player was constantly moving.

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• Player ship banking animation sped up - The time before the player ship\'s begin banking during movement has been reduced, which looks more responsive.

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• An issue where some thrown objects were not contributing to the player\'s Hit Counter has been addressed.

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• An issue causing collision effects to continuously be created intermittently has been corrected.

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• Collisions for the V-Spec Mk. I\'s Crush Shell have been improved

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What\'s Next?

Here are the current plans for next week

• Maintain a roadmap for the next 3 weeks of development

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• Game Public Branches - Public Test and Previous Stable

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• Balancing for Hard Mode - some enemy waves will be adjusted to hard mode, and hard mode pacing in Stage 1 through 3 will get some additional attention.

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• Training Mode to allow stage selection

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• High Score screen controls, navigation and ability to support Hard Mode in the future

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• Additional enemies and segment layouts for Stage 3\'s planetary approach section.

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• Improvements to the Clamps Boss and Lab area

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• More laser sounds

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• Design & Planning for tutorial updates & improvements.

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