Hi!

Short update while we wrap up v1 changes. We're super excited to release our game soon!

• The game is short and sweet - around 1-2 hours in most cases. We currently plan on releasing for $3.

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Demo

• We are a tiny dev team - 2 people. To best focus on the full game and finishing our plans we're planning on taking the demo offline 11/14/25. Thank you to everyone who tried it out!

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Controls & UI

• Supertemp Zone deploy remapped to right stick click (controller) by default

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• Sector report can now be dismissed with Spacebar by default

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• Scrollbars added to unlock screens and layout polished

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Gameplay & Balance

• Rebalanced unlockable weapons

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• Electrical Tether now breaks on armored enemies

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• Auto-Drone reduced to 2 ranks (fires both hot/cold by default)

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• Adjusted upgrade stat pacing and shop costs

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• Hints can now be toggled off in the Settings menu

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• D.Rone tutorial text and hints have been polished up so they get right to the point!

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Zones & Maps

• Added Titans Rest zone, new boss and maps. Intended to be played after Shattermist Nebula. It's challenging!

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• Rebalanced maps for smoother progression

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• Guaranteed hot/cold ammo drops in initial sector to prevent slow pacing

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• Updated lighting and backgrounds for a bunch of sectors

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Final Boss Updates

• Complete overhaul with new attacks

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• Smoother animation, synced firing, improved visuals and camera feedback

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• Movement rebuilt for cleaner collisions

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• Fixed animation and bullet pooling issues

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Fixes & Polish

• Corrected unstable energy region hitbox

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• Improved input handling and UI logic to prevent unwanted weapon swaps in menus

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• Fixed controller navigation and shop input issues

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Cheers!

[h4]Misc[/h4]

• Updating steam stats

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Cheers!

\[h4]Tutorial Updates\[/h4]

• Moving the tutorial steps forward is now spacebar by default

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• Streamlined portions of the tutorial

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Cheers!

[h4]Tutorial Updates[/h4]

• Added a button to skip the tutorial during the tutorial if player's decide they don't want to complete it right now

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• Added some steam stats on tutorial step completion

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Cheers!

Bug fix

• Fixing an edge case that could result in a loop while upgrading stats in light jump portals

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Balancing

• Increased the size of Barry-er's hitbox

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• Added some steam stats on sector counts

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Cheers!

Bug fix

• Working on better support for ultrawide resolutions

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• Increased default health by 1!

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Cheers!

Hotfix

• Some steam stats were not registering when expected

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Cheers!

Hotfix

• Player bullet shield intermittently didn't catch bullets

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Cheers!

Hotfix

• Slow zones were not detonating properly when firing by elite mosquito nests

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• Some changes around general weapon cooldown to avoid edge cases when trying to fire weapons simultaneously

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Cheers!

Hello!

We've been working on tons of stuff, bug fixes and visual polish in the demo! Thank you so much for all your feedback!

Gameplay & Balance

• Stationary Turrets: Slightly reduced health for faster TTK.

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• Phasebeam weapon:

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• Increased scorch scaling for higher precision damage.

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• Slightly increased toughness to improve overall TTK.

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• Easier to hit small enemies and overheat targets.

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New Stats & Upgrades

Added several new temperature-based stats:

• Frost Harvest: Chance for credits when frozen enemies are destroyed.

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• Freezer Burn: Cold weapons apply Scorch, reducing enemy armor.

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• Ice Lock: Higher crit chance for cold weapons.

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• Permafrost: Extends cold zone duration.

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• Frost Nova: Cold zones explode into ice shrapnel when destroyed.

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• Heat Burst: Superheat zones detonate on deploy with heated shrapnel.

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Upgrades shown in Portals can now have BONUS upgrades attached to them!

Temperature System

• Ship temperature gauge now dynamically updates with hot/cold upgrades which means...

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• Superchill and Superheat thresholds shift based on equipped upgrades!

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• Added tutorial steps for new Supertemp mechanics.

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UI & UX

• Overhauled upgrade tooltip system for clarity and consistency.

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• Added randomized perk borders, glow effects, and detailed tooltips on portal upgrades.

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• Enhanced upgrade store tooltips to match portal upgrades.

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• Active status changes now bounce visually so it's easier for the player to see they are changing during combat

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• Added Skip Tutorial button and tutorial access from main menu.

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• Added option to disable all tooltips in settings (thank you for your feedback on this!)

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Visuals & Lighting

• Lighting improvements across all maps while messing around with what looks good and what doesn't.

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• Updated Hivemind boss tileset so it looks better.

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• Fixed multiple lighting issues (ice shrapnel, scorch rays, portals, lasers, debris, supertemp zones).

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• Reduced light intensity in magnetic fields and supertemp zones so things don't wash out.

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Controls

• Fixed controller aim assist not applying correctly in some cases.

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Tutorial

• Can now SKIP the tutorial if desired (thanks for your feedback on this one!)

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• Rebalanced early tutorial flow to better explain weapon systems and Supertemps.

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• Fixed multiple tutorial-related bugs around sfx and progression

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• Updated tutorial tips as the game has evolved.

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Performance & Stability

• Fixed performance issue caused by tooltip garbage collection when hovering over portal stat upgrades

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• Fixed various overlapping tween animations causing bounce effect issues when active status effects changed.

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Maps

• Added and adjusted tilemap obstacles across multiple maps for extra variety:

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• Four of a Kind, Frozen Heals, Split Blackholes, Trinest, Mosquito Nesting, Triturret.

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Miscellaneous

• Removed outdated crew log collectibles.

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Cheers!

Visuals & Lighting

• Major lighting pass across maps, enemies, shrapnel, and effects.

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• Fog density reduced; new adjustments to turret and enemy lighting.

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• Added/adjusted lighting for explosions, shopkeepers, beams, and temp zones.

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• Improved freeform lighting on map obstacles.

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Bug Fixes & UI

• Session Review now shows only Sector ID, Map name, and overall grade.

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• Fixed issues with nebula reports (accuracy not loading in some cases).

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• Fixed SuperTemp zone interiors looking too "blob-like" when overlapping

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• Fixed multiple lighting issues across enemies, bullets, maps, and temp zones.

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• Fixed unstable energy bursts hitting multiple times at once.

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Gameplay & Balance

• Splitfrost shrapnel is now tracked as part of Accuracy score.

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• Thermal Accelerator circuit now only boosts matching weapon type.

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• Destroyers speed slightly slowed.

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Cheers!

We have a ranking system now!

• Gives a grade based on speed of clearing the Sector and overall weapon accuracy

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• Shows a score breakdown per Sector

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• Saves your personal records

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Bug Fixes & Improvements

• Controls & UI

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• Fixed issues with Control Mapper (closing, restoring defaults).

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• Upgrade tooltips no longer clip off-screen.

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• Fixed navigation issues in a couple menus with controller.

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• Session Review screen score breakdown cleaned up and easier to read.

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Cheers!

Bug Fixes & some minor balancing

• Clicking done button in control mapper does not close it

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• Fix bug where intermittently unable to restore default keybindings

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• On pause healbot sfx still plays

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• Stat upgrade shop item costs balanced

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• Phase beam weapon upgrade not always shown in ship upgrades panel

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Cheers!

Bug Fixes & some VFX Updates!

• Fixed level-up sound cutting off when the panel appears.

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• Fixed ship upgrade tooltips bleeding off the screen.

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• Fixed Total Circuits per Session mod so it correctly increases the number of max circuits dropped per nebula run.

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• Fixed certain upgrades incorrectly showing in Active Effects UI.

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• Control map panel now shows non-movement buttons at the top.

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• XP bar now flashes at 80% fill, resets on level-up.

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• Added particle burst when leveling up to make it more noticeable.

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• Fixed shop bug allowing duplicate item purchases in certain cases where player has many credits.

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• Fixed intermittent shrapnel bullet pool error that would happen shrapnel enemy bullets are destroyed.

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Cheers!

Hey there! Our demo is now available to try!

WHAT'S IN THE DEMO?

• The first 10 waves and a boss - Rescue the first crew member to unlock their ship!

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• Over 20 playable maps!

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• 8 unlockables - Over 60 upgrades in the full game

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• 4 different thermal weapons - 1 unlockable

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You can try it here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3958810/Nebula_Cleanup_Crew_Demo" style="button" buttoncolor="#598b19"" style="color:#bb86fc;text-decoration:none;">Nebula Cleanup Crew Demo

New Trailer!

Check out the new gameplay trailer here:

Thank you!

We're super excited to have you give our game a spin!

Cheers!

Hi everyone!

Planned Demo Release Date - Updated 8/28/25

Update: To add some more polish and balancing we're going to push our demo out just a bit. We're aiming for September! Thanks!

Old: We're aiming to release our demo August 29, 2025 and are super excited to get feedback! The Steam page will be up soon.

Sector VFX

We've added new themes for Sectors depending on whether or not they're hot or cold:

New Trailer Soon(TM)

Along with our demo a new gameplay trailer will be uploaded!

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Controller D-pad menu navigation in menus now supported

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• Hot, cold, and neutral themed maps environments now better match their zone type.

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• Steam Cloud save support enabled

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• Shimmer fx on certain level-up choices thermal level-up choices are now more obvious.

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• UI scaling overhaul menus, HUD, and tooltips now scale properly at various resolutions

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• Cleaner tooltips smaller, delayed, and less intrusive

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• Boss fight UI updates smaller warnings, better health bars, and bosses can now be frozen/overheated more easily.

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• Pacing tweaks faster early leveling and shorter enemy stagger times

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• Controller stability PS4/PS5 controllers now connect via Bluetooth without switching input modes mid-game.

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• Enemy movement mosquitos no longer jitter, and magnetic fields no longer yank wall-clinging enemies off surfaces.

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• Repulser blast knockback now behaves as expected.

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• Shops tightened up collision boxes with purchasable items.

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• Foggy maps now actually have fog machines for better atmosphere.

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One Year of Progress

We recently uploaded a video showing the progress on our game over the last year:

Cheers!

Hey there!

It's a been a while since our last update, but we've got some news!

Weapon Stagger Effects

Prior to this update you could FREEZE or OVERHEAT enemies based on your active weaponry, but now weapons have additional properties that cause extra effects (some damaging, some buffing) to you or enemies.

For example: FREEZING an enemy will put them into a STAGGERED status. Then, hitting them with a weapon that has SCORCH causes the FLARE stagger effect. This can be triggered each time the enemy is hit with a SCORCH weapon while FROZEN. See some more examples in the video below!

Controller Support

Controller support is here! We're now a fully twin-stick shooter.

We're super close to releasing our demo and plan to be in the October Steam Next Fest! The demo will contain 5 weapons, a boss, several unlockables abilities/upgrades and a bunch of maps!

Cheers!

We're back with another update as we work towards a demo!

Combat Balancing

• Every weapon has been rebalanced so no single weapon is better than all others in every situation

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• Each ship now has it's own Thermal Special Attack, starting with Rookie's Fusion Bomb (see below)

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• Cold weapons are always fired from the new cold weapon slot and Hot weapons from the new hot weapon slot instead of equipping them in either a primary or secondary slot

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• This allows us significantly expand on mechanics that encourage using both hot and cold weaponry

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Fusion Bomb - Rookie's Thermal Special

We've kitted out our first pilot with a Thermal Special that can be used when Rookie's ship is superchilled or superheated!

• Not all playable ships will have a Thermal Special that's usable when your ship is superchilled or superheated. Rookie's special.

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New hazard

Indestructible Orb

• Gets in the way to ruin your day. Dash around it maybe?

  

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• Extreme temperature zones can now flip to the opposite temperature as well as change sizes

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• WIP - Making moving extreme temperature zones

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Low Visibility Areas

We've been messing with this simple mechanic for a bit and currently have settled on flying through dust clouds causing low visibility. Certain upgrades may help with this!

New Upgrades

Hot and Cold are the core of our game and these new upgrades help showcase that:

• Player can "flip" all extreme temperature zones to their opposite at once via an ability

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• Bigger is better - Player bullet size while in an extreme temperature zone increases

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• Enemies accumulate frostbite while in a superchilled zone

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• Enemies accumulate scorch while in a superheated zone

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• Dual wield hot or cold weaponry for a short time while in an extreme temperature zone!

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• Increase the size of all extreme temperature zones for a short time

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• This makes it easier for the player to get damage and temperature buffs!

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Gameplay Changes

Aside from all the weaponry balance changes...

• Upgrades offered at the end of a Sector are now always 1 heat upgrade and 1 cold upgrade. Player still chooses a single one

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• Maps can now be rotated in 90 degree increments

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• Many maps now have multiple Player spawn points

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• Player can have 3 circuits equipped at once instead of 2

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• Rewrote the UI for equipping circuits so it's more intuitive

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Cheers!

Hi everyone! It's been a bit longer since our last devlog, but we've been hard at work adding new features and polishing existing ones!

Shattermist

Unlockables

CRT scanline FX

Maps

Crew Logs

Other (Demo is WIP!)

Boss Upgrades

New Enemies

Missing Crew Members

New Unlocks

• Reroll Levelup upgrades
• Get a damage boost when you have 1 hot and 1 cold weapon equipped
  

Other Updates

• Baseline boost speed is now stronger
• Your ship is now recolored based on the currently equipped weaponry
• Continuing to balance weaponry and stats (Splitfrost, Frostbite, Beam, Cryo all received changes this week)
• Overhauled the way bosses are chosen so their "lairs" can be more handmade