https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBZprZeheIE
Hi there Sleeper Games crowd. To be a part of Steams ongoing Deckbuilder Fest I put together an early experimental demo for Hyperspace Deck Command, my upcoming sci-fi deckbuilding roguelite that will also be the third entry in the Hyperspace Anthology. You can try it right now here on Steam.

The game has only been in development for 5 months now, so this is still just a small part of what is yet to come. In the demo you can fight your way through 5 different simulation encounters using a randomized starter deck, culminating in an super long final battle hat requires a powerful fleet and proper mastery of the games fresh dual-use status effect system. A lot of main features (starting deck selection, card upgrades, stores) are still missing though, but I hope you get a few hours of fun out of it regardless.

I'm sure it makes up for the lack of content with an abundant supply of bugs, so feel free to contact me on discord with reports (link in the pause menu). I'm looking forward to your general feedback too! Please wishlist the game on Steam if you want to support its development.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2711190/Hyperspace_Deck_Command/
Cheers!
Stefan Sleeper Games

After spending some time on post-launch content for Swirl W@tch and Red Tether last year I have now finally settled on what Hyperspace Anthology Vol 3 will become. The game will be official announced this Friday.

In the process of getting there I produced yet another (probably to be abandoned) prototype that didnt make the cut. I also revised a lot of older prototypes and small experiments that didnt go anywhere either. Looking over all this stuff was weird but also fun and I now I really just want to dump all those gifs on you too. So join me on a journey through roughly 3 years of my life that went into making game content that will likely never be released. \_()_/ Its hard for me to not see this as wasted time, but then again many things youll see here made it into other games in some way or form, so it's not all lost.

Hyperspace Admirals was planned to be a tactical captain sim, basically FTL with fleets that I worked on with a small team for about 18 months. A lot of foundational conceptualization for the Hyperspace Universe was done as a part of this game. I also made a ton of ship designs in those days that Im continuously reusing and redesigning till this day. Hyperspace Anthology Vol 3 is turning out to be somewhat similar to this game, so we kind of came full circle here.

The whole thing didnt even make it to a fully playable combat encounter after a year, but in retrospect Im not sure the whole design would have worked out anyways.

Apparently we got semi-dynamic ship destruction working just before we axed it.

We made a lot of fancy promo art for it. As you can see here, the Contempter armada was basically fully formed already when I started Red Tether much later. The soundtrack that was commissioned for HA was used for HDog instead, hence why it is weirdly chill for an action game.

I also wrote thousands of lines for never to be seen multiple choice events. \_()_/

We stopped development on this cause the team drifted apart (one member started uni, one had a kid) and my programming skills where not sufficient to continue this on my own.

After releasing HDog I briefly experimented with a 2d tile based lighting system for a hypothetical station exploration roguelite, including multiple vision modes.



Advanced Hyperspace Wars mockup.


Hyperspace Watch was a space rescue roguelite I worked on for about half a year. It was based around randomly generated vessels in peril.

You would then control a group of rescue workers tasked with evacuating any survivors aboard these vessels. This is the point when I really go into putting parallax objects everywhere for when using top down perspectives.

Your emergency personnel was able to maneuver in zero g but when entering ships theyd just walk with mag boots. There where various time based interactions you would need to perform to progress through the ship and youd have to manage your crews stress levels as well. Atmosphere and depressurizing aboard the ships was already fully modeled. Later in the game youd have to work around other ship systems too, with reactor meltdowns adding time pressure or breaches needing to be sealed to preserve atmosphere etc.

This I canceled cause no fun core gameplay was forming and I wasnt sure if anyone would even want to play this. Also the subject matter was kinda dark and got me down after some time and I didnt really like the artstyle either. Missed my chance to do 2d Shipbreaker 3 years before that game released. \_()_/

Hyperspace Harvest was a otherworldly farming sim I worked on for about 16 months. It even got a Steam page.
The game had you grow bio-engineered crops on the skin of a massive lifeform that had its own weather system and season-like life cycle.

There was a probably overly complicated gear design system where everything (crop seeds, tools, character upgrades, weapons) are made from combining and augmenting whale bio code. I especially liked the aspect of allowing you to design your own crops for farming.

This extended to complex crop interactions where you could mod some crops to buff others on the same hex-tile.

There was a nice mall to get genetic code to engineer new plants and bio-organic weapons for your character.

And minegames. So many minigames.


Of course there was fishing too and many of the creature designs for that mysteriously resurfaced in Swirl Watch and Red Tether (V-Fish). One of the many other things you could spend your ingame day on was venturing into the whales body to basically fight corrupted cells and gradually cure the whales disease. The lighting system I made earlier was used for some areas.

Combat required you to go into melee from time to time to get energy for recharging ammo and shields.

Different levels would take place in specific parts of the whales body, featuring enemy types specific to that organ or tissue. Didnt get further than doing bloodstream and vegi-lungs.

There where some fully developed boss fights though and you could mod your melee to extend cross the entire arena of course.

This was canceled cause it looked like it would even be finished if Id spent yet another 16 month on. The whole thing started to feel way to ambitious and I seemingly was unable to create much interest for the game. I started to worried that sales would never come close to justify this long of a development cycle so I got out while I still could. This experience led me to releasing Red Tether 1.0 in 7 months and I think that worked out way better. Nowadays I get pretty anxious if development of a new thing exceeds even just a single year. Making more focused, smaller games (I mean in terms of development time, not content) ultimately worked out better for me and Swirl Watch is yet another reminder that I should probably stick with making leaner games. \_()_/

Untitled Space Forklift Game was cargo management space-life sim I worked on for 3 months in late 2023. One core system was delivering incoming and outgoing cargo in an open hangar bay, with you deciding how to store, sort and manage your ever changing inventory.

There where hundreds of cargo types planned, with individual handling requirements and hazard ratings, which would also define your pay. Eventually youd get tasked with towing ships in and out of moorings too. I planned to add ship-breaking and block-based zero-g farming as separate work-shifts you could spend your ingame days on. And during your shifts you would explore various story lines of other people aboard the mega-structure. The art got a major rework about one month in.

This is yet another thing I stopped working on because no clear core gameplay loop was forming and there didnt seem to be that much interest in the concept, which was hard to sell anyways. Also it looked like it would get way bigger than I thought one months in already. Once I prototyped the farming portions I started having Hyperspace Harvest flashbacks and I knew I had to get out. After that I spent 3 months now on what is locked in to become Hyperspace Anthology Vol 3. So stay tuned for the official announcement later this week!

Bonus:
Game Jam stuff I made over the years. Red Tether and Swirl Watch started like this, but these are jam games that I didnt develop into full titles.

Hyperspace Blast Wave A surf shooter where your speed is your health and you need to catch waves to survive. The first thing I made as a solo dev.
[previewyoutube=v0UCBp1UVfo;full][/previewyoutube]
Rogue Signal Unicorn A pretty simple rhythm game where you have to sync your inputs with the beat to hack your way through network nodes and defense programms.
[previewyoutube=dQns0lwjOiA;full][/previewyoutube]
Mech Revenant: Input One A endless runner where you control a mech using only a single input.
[previewyoutube=xYJNOuy64_k;full][/previewyoutube]

Dual Feder A game about a badminton variant that I play IRL, featuring 2 player teams and 2 shuttles. You only score if both shuttles count against a team simultaneously and you can pick up and re-enter shuttles into the match at any point.
[previewyoutube=XnFkebrTZco;full][/previewyoutube]
Dice Loader A tense management game about delivering the right combination of dice to cargo ships.
[previewyoutube=xyO-5DN-0uc;full][/previewyoutube]
Opponent 1 A boss battler where you deploy swarms of drones against a single evolving player craft.
[previewyoutube=4mE-VC8hQAQ;full][/previewyoutube]

Minor changes on some waves in interception mode.
-Databases now start to unlock earlier (20 upgrades acquired) and successively unlock on steps of 20 upgrades acquired.
-Heavy Duty: Reduced range penalty (-20% --> -10%) and top speed penalty (-20% --> -15%).
-Technophage Sample: Now also affects attachment stress hp, but has reduced effect (-10% --> -8%).
-Destroyer Chassis is now considered uncrewed.
-Fixed hazard squad endless unlocks not taking effect.
-Fixed a problem with parallax object fading during transit.
-Fixed some potential irregularity with health ui when having 0 max health.
-Fixed some uninteded behaviors in waves that start with reinforcements.

Wielding shield projectors now overcharges your shield instead of just restoring it.
-Shield Purger overcharge nerfed (100%-->50%).
-Final boss in endless mode now has mass multiplier 0.
-A certain attack of the final boss in endless mode is more predictable now.
-Fixed a problem preventing Cybernetik H-Bait from forcing fish spawns (?)
-Fixed a UI issue when reducing max health bellow zero.
-Fixed an issue with how improvised armor conversion is handled.
-Fixed a problem where touching an upgrade the moment it is recycled would grant both recycle charge and the upgrade (?)
-Fixed bad spawns in some waves.
-Fixed a performance issue due to excessive solar flare creation on zones that are near the system sun.

Markers for enemy reinforcement and certain other actions now have an additional contrast layer now.
-Condition overload now also sends out lightening bolts to nearby ships which inherit the condition overload explosion damage.
-Frost Stalker Skin coolant venting now works on a 40s cooldown.
-Shock Spire attack delay nerfed (2-->10)
-EMP Torpedo Tube and Electric Wave Gun are no longer electrified.
-Ultra Autocannon damage vs hostile nerfed (8-->4)
-Ultra Infrared Laser damage vs hostile increased.
-Fixed an out-of-spawn-are spawn object on wave 25 d-route.
-Fixed bad spawns in some waves.
-Fixed wrong fish portrait on a datasheet.
-Fixed a tether state problem related to multishot and ship changes.
-Fixed instant retreat on wave 1d (?).
-Fixed constant "Breaking!" text if pulling a fish too long.
-Fixed an unintended fish player avoidance behavior if player has temporary stealth.

Attention all RTP members.
It appears another branch of GC's unofficial clandestine service has infiltrated Con space alongside the Red Tether Protocol. So far their activities have gone unnoticed by both us and the Contempter, but now the program has entered its main phase: Millions of Void-Fabricated Interstellar Subversion Helpers, or V-FISH have hatched all across the Contempters systems. These bio-mechanical agents are now attempting to cause chaos and hinder fleet movements.



It is unclear whether the V-FISH will have any noticeable impact on our mission, we'll need to study them to learn what they can even do. The fish creatures are technically on our side, but they are not particularly smart agents and will attempt to evade capture by us. Youll need to hit them with a harpoon, reel them in and tire them out before you can catch them. Let them slip away and theyll escape into hyperspace. You can probably guess from that fact alone that their tech is way more advanced than what we can rip from the Contempter. Catching V-FISH can yield some powerful upgrades for our ships.



In an attempt to deal with the V-FISH complication, the Contempter have altered some of their deployment patterns. You will encounter a whole bunch of new wave configurations when visiting certain regions during your fleet interceptions runs.

Lets hope this fishy business can turn the tide in our favors. Good hunting and stay tethered!
(Full Changelog)

New Stuff
-Added 3 new variants per wave (135 total). This new d-route waves are unique to the Scrapyard, Chemical Spill, Charged Nebula and EM Industrial Zone.
-Some waves now spawn with reinforcement markers that add additional enemies to the wave after a considerable delay. Smaller ships arrive faster.
-On rare occasions, you can now encounter one of 14 V-FISH after a wave.
-Stick V-FISH with your harpoon and reel them in to catch them. But beware, you need to tire them out first by dragging them down, until then they can easily outrun you.
-Catching V-FISH yields one of 14 powerful bio-mechanical upgrades.
-Added unlockable squid companion that chills on the title area and likes to play catch with you.
-Added an additional upgrade that helps with getting more fish encounters.
-Added new black boxes with V-FISH lore, as well as data sheets for each V-FISH
-Added V-FISH item database (all north of your main dock).
-Added compacted scrap asteroid variant that mostly appear in the Scrapyard and EM Industrial Zone (lower collision damage, but creates debris on destruction).

Balancing
-Tesseract Heatsink now also grants +10% engine heat capacity.
-When engine overheat is enabled, boost ignition now causes minor engine heat.
-Bomber damage VS hostile reduced (16-->8).
-Brawler Class HP reduced (105-->40) and armor increased (2-->8).
-Added rip resistance to laser attachments (0-->10).
-Adapting Fender shield gain now triggers on less damage taken (100-->50).
-Jump Markers fade in faster now.
-Several other minor balance changes.

Fixes
-Fixed a problem with zone 5 playlist overtaking soundtrack for zone 4.
-Fixed Collector Sockets unable to accept magnetic generators.
-Fixed a problem with how Gravit Lasso pull movement.
-Fixed dying on title screen deleting your current saved run.
-Fixed erroneous float text when exiting a certain boss fight.
-Fixed some problems related to ship swapping on title with multi-shot enabled.
-Fixed acid never wearing off on enemy attachments.
-Fixed sawblade sounds not stopping in certain situations.
-Fixed Thermal Threading triggering on single hull tethers.
-Various other fixes.

Red Tethers next content update is in the works! This one will focus on the often teased harpoon fishing system. On rare occasion youll encounter bio-mechancanical fish-creatures in-between waves. Harpoon them to initiate a high speed chase! Drag them down to wear them out enough and you might just be able to reach and catch them, granting unique new upgrades to your ship. There will be a whole bunch of creatures to catch, with many only being found in specific zones.

Due to the nature of the base game, the fishing system integrates completely seamlessly. You wouldnt even call this a minigame I think. A ton of upgrades that help with tether combat will also benefit you when harpoon-fishing.

Fishing opportunities are fairly rare and generally you will only get one or two during a run. So since this update focuses on a not-so prevalent main-system Im also throwing in something that I have saved for such an occasion: The complete D route.

This will bring 3 new wave variants for each wave in interception mode. These new waves will be specific to one of the 2 zone variants of each zone, setting these apart even more. The old waves will be assigned to one of the zone variants, but some might get reworked to be more in line with the zone type. Zone 1b (Scrapyard) is also getting a slight rework to distinguish it better from Outer Dust Cloud.

As with previous content updates, 1.3 will be added to the game for free. The update is about halfway done and will release in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Cheers
Stefan Sleeper Games

Multishot charges 30% faster now.
-Reduced EMP buildup from a certain hazard.
-Colliding with electrified objects now causes minor EMP buildup.
-Fixed instant hull damage from colliding with certain electrified objects.
-Fixed Hull Ripper Hooks damage not being affected by frail multiplier.
-Fixed Front Loader tooltip.
-Fixed enemy sawblades interfering with player sawblade recall.
-Fixed Field Crystallizer granting incredible shield overcharge in situations when the player takes extreme behind the scenes damage.
-Fixed endless unlocks for two ships being swapped.
-Fixed one shield care unlock triggering repeatedly.

Reduced End-Tech Refit Kit shield bonus (20%-->16%).
-Chainsaw Garrote now also grants +5% range.
-Increased acid time inflicted on caustic gas launcher (16-->28) and sludge pump (18-->22).
-Caustic gas launcher AoE increased (3-->3.5).
-Fuel rod missile damage reduced (4-->2).
-Fuel rod missile move rate reduced (1.08-->1.05).
-Cryo missile AoE reduced (2.5-->2).
-Cryo missile damage reduced (3-->2).
-Cryo missile move rate reduced (0.9-->0.85)
-Increased all railgun damage VS hos by 50%.
-Engineer class sawnado blades damage increased (6-->8) but balde now only deal a single instant of damage.
-Fixed engineer sawblade sound continuing to play after zone transit (?).
-Fixed Contortion Strings damage bonus overwriting base single hull damage.
-Fixed bunker class not getting correct shield deplete threshold assigned.
-Fixed engineer boss spawn rate not applying correctly after loading a run.
-Fixed another instance of target text scrambling become permanent (?).
-Fixed a problem with acid shield ui.

[h3]Attention All RTP Members![/h3]
Its a surprise content update! 1.25 Shield Care has just been released, adding 11 new upgrades to better protect your ship. Alongside some new ways to increase your shield hp you can now also get overcharged through various means, temporarily increasing your shield beyond your maximum (returning feature from Hyperspace Dogfights). Overcharged shields deplete over time, so you need to get into the action to make the best use of your boosted defenses. And with the new stuff comes another round of fixes and balance changes. Enjoy!



Cheers and stay tethered!
Stefan Sleeper Games

New Stuff
-11 new upgrades added, mostly shield related.
-Added shield overcharge system.
-Improved background object fading when camera is zoomed out a lot.

Balancing
-Several shield items rebalanced.
-Collector Sockets now also allows picking up heatsinks (to get cooldown rate and stealth) and magnetic generators (to get kinetic deflect chance).
-Crash Optimizer now also affects speed collision damage (>>>).
-Onboard Cornucopia stacks no longer provide additional printer charge per recycle.
-Onboard Cornucopia can no longer recycle as long as you have max charges stored (+3 per stack). This does not limit gaining printer charges from other sources.
-Abyssal Material revive now heals +30% of your max hearts per stack.
-Thermal Threading now only exchanges heat and cold between large objects, debris etc is unaffected.
-Magnetic Inductor field size and persistence now scales slower with stacks.
-AM Auto-cannon damage VS hostile increased.

Fixes
-Yet another attempt at normalizing cargo spawns in endless mode.
-Fixed a problem with zone selection.
-Fixed pickups excluded from printing appearing multiple times in inventory even though no printer charge was used.
-Fixed interceptors applying missfire chance incorrectly.
-Fixed a problem with Plush B reward spawns.
-Fixed multishot cut cancel not working.
-Fixed a problem when wielding ultra auto-cannons.
-Fixed performance issues related to situations in which glitch ambience sfx plays (player in magnetic fields etc).
-Fixed a situation in which printing more Alif Strand than your max tether count would prevent alif conversion from taking effect.

Balancing
-Hardlight Arms wielded damage bonus increased (100%-->150%)
-Chainsaw Garrote no longer triggers on single hull tethers.
-Emergency Beacon now has a fixed chance to trigger per stack and stacks come with dimishing returns.
-Emergency Beacon no longer provides additional supplies per stack.
-Emergency Beacon can now only trigger once per wave.
-Contortion Strings now deal single hull damage based on tether length (+4 damage per 100% length).
-Bootleg Jump Drive now triggers threshold reduced (40%-->30% shield).
-Increased initial cooldown for Flaring Hardlight effect after firing harpoons.
-Hull Ripper Hooks rip damage conversion reduced (100-->75%).
-Igniting booster harpoons now has attached magnetic fields dissipate, booster harpoons can no longer spawn magnetic fields when ignited.
-EMP explosions now cause 100% EMP buildup instead of always triggering EMP, allowing you to resist the effect with Shock Shielding.
-Reduced rip hp on early game melee attachments.
-Increased damage VS hostile on all elemental turrets.
-Electric Wave Gun shot speed increased (600-->650).
-Magnetite Orb-Gun field range increased.
-Coolant shot freeze increased (0.2-->0.5)
-Reduced max ammo of all Hyperdeath turrets by 50%.
-Hyperdeath Disruptor range increased.
-Death shot can no longer apply to minor objects like debris (this includes death shot transfer from Contained Death Machine).
-Hazard no longer display on-screen warnings while you have hit-invincibility.

Fixes
-Fixed some new enemy variants not spawning or spawning in wrong zone.
-Fixed too close enemy spawns in some interception waves.
-Fixed irregular Courier Class spawns in endless mode (?).
-Fixed bad spawn position for Rupture Filament explosions on booster tethers.
-Fixed missing EMP resistance on high value debris.
-Fixed Crash Hammer self damage increase apply even if colliding with object that do not make you bounce.
-Fixed Crash Hammer armor strip not applying correctly.
-Fixed Hull Ripper Hooks tooltip not mentioning rip parent damage bonus.
-Fixed a rare ship during a certain wave not being considered as a wave target.
-Fixed adaptive force Constructor not spawning cargo ships if it takes place on loot waves.
-Fixed Remote Projection tether cooldown triggering when firing at inactive H-Grid Moorings.
-Fixed some problems happening when wielding Ultra Auto-cannons.
-Fixed AM Diffuser causing bomber crafts to always misfire.
-Fixed Jam Towers inflicting permanent targeting text glitch until wave end.
-Fixed boosters on pieces of freshly hull-ripped debris receiving bad boost speed.
-Fixed item databases not reading gear get state or always always available items correctly.

Removed cursor smoothing on controller.
-Controller input binding now accepts input from axis that do not have 0 as their default state.
-Fixed a problem with how stick dead zone affects controller inputs being registered.
-Reworked mouse and controller inputs to use a unified system that allows mouse and controller inputs to register simultaneously.
-Fixed a visual problem with certain impact anims on certain elemental shots.

Attempted to overall make both zone 4 variants more even in terms of difficulty.
-Added 2 new magnetic attachments
-Added 3 new enemy variants.
-Mag-Charge Railguns now fire 3 shot bursts and target faster.
-Consecrated neutronium missile move rate reduced.
-Acid spills can no longer apply acid once they are mostly faded out.
-Hangar and mine layer attachments no longer prevent retreat while active.
-Adjusted jump jammer limitations and description.
-Increased stealth reveal time on tug targeting.
-Attempted to fix a problem related to how player self-pull force is taking effect.
-Fixed situations in which both an EMP wave shot and the electric arc could hit you on the same frame, leading to instant EMP. (?)
-Fixed some bad tooltips.

EM Industrial Zone spawns additional magnetic enemies now.
-Administrator class magnetic carrier now carries interceptors instead of scouts.
-Saint class is now so blessed that it no longer requires shields to defend itself.
-Neutronium missile move speed reduced. (0.9-->0.85)
-Fixed AM Anomaly and FloAux bomber attack not taking effect.
-Fixed AM Autocannon attacks not detonating when firing while wielded.
-Fixed hyperdeath autocannon not applying all its effects when firing while wielded
-Fixed player self damage from wielded electric wave gun arcs.
-Fixed pacification sheers erroneously requiring a full retreat to trigger reward spawn.
-Fixed pacification sheers reward threshold scaling incorrectly after spawning reward.
-Fixed title hazard containers not unlocking correctly.
-Fixed problem with EMP Seeker electrification after they have been intercepted.
-Fixed minesweeper EDR being able to target EMP seekers.
-Fixed EMP seekers not detonating correctly.

Currier class cargo ships now have a good chance to drop health if they are destroyed by anything but self-destruct.
-Sludge Pump fire rate increased (1.4-->1.2)
-Attempted to fix a bug causing the first upgrade in a run to not take effect.
-Fixed bad collision on messy barb harpoon anim.
-Fixed empty entry in tether item database orb.
-Fixed Puppy Renegade B crash self damage not resetting correctly on ship selection update.
-Fixed bad collision on tanner class hazard carrier.
-Fixed a couple ambiance sounds using the wrong channel, potentially overwriting other sounds in specific circumstances.

1.2 Hazard Zone is here and it brings B variants for all player ships, 33 new upgrades, new zone variants with new hazards and a tough new boss encounter that is key to unlocking the new ship variants.

Flawless play is now rewarded with additional loot choices on cargo ships. Zone variants are more distinct now and I tried to tone down the difficulty spike related to zone 3 freeze effects yet again. Combined with both new and amped up challenges in zone 3 this should hopefully lead to smoother difficulty curve across a run.

If you want to know more about the new features you can check the original announcement post. There is also a full change-log available.

A quick heads up for long time players:
The size of this update required reworking a big part of the unlock progression. Most noticeably you now also get unlocks for flawlessly defeating bosses.
To easy in new players, some pre-existing upgrades that have more complex functions now require unlocking. So you might see some already known upgrades popping up as boss unlocks. Additionally, a few selected boss defeat unlocks have now become boss flawless unlocks instead.
Items that have changed unlock conditions will not require you to unlock them again, but this also means that some bosses wont have flawless rewards if you already unlocked their item. Check the item database orbs to see how unlock conditions have changed in detail.

As with my previous content updates, 1.2 Hazard Zone is available for free. Have fun experimenting with all the new upgrades and mechanics and please consider leaving a review if you had a good time with them game so far. Also, the game is 25% for the ongoing summer sale, so now is the time to tell everyone to get it. :p Up next for Red Tether is a much smaller update. 1.250 Shield Care will focus on adding some much needed defensive upgrades to balance out the loot pool, probably arriving later this year.

Cheers and stay tethered.
Stefan - Sleeper Games

[previewyoutube=uG6jCj6lK7U;full][/previewyoutube]

[h3]New Stuff[/h3]
-Added a new boss that has a small chance to spawn in zone 2, 3 or 4 (becoming more powerful the later it is encountered).
-Added B variants for all ships, unlocked by defeating the new boss. Ships that you have defeated a general class with are more likely to find the new boss encounter.
-Added 33 new upgrades overall.
-Added new status effects (acid, critical condition, magnetic field) that can affect both enemies and the player.
-Reworked some zones (Chemical Spill, Ionized Nebula, SRM Mines and Industrial Zone) to feature new status effects.
-Both variants of zone 4 now also focus on specific status effects each.
-Zones that got reworked all got a new music track each.
-Added 8+ new enemy variants that use new attachments and can inflict new status effects.
-Added new zone modifiers, most of which use the new status effects.
-Added a whole bunch of new elemental effect combos and interactions.
-Added a couple new vfx to various situations.
-Added some new elements to the training area.

[h3]General Changes[/h3]
-Reworked unlock progression to included unlocks for flawlessly defeating bosses.
-Some items that where always available now require unlocking, unlocked items will stay unlocked even if their conditions changed.
-A few boss defeat unlocks are now boss flawless unlocks.
-Updated item database orbs with new unlock conditions.
-Ships select texts now flash if you have won an interception run with that ship.
-Cargo ships now carry up to 2 additional upgrade to choose from as long as you haven't taken heart damage in the current zone/your current run.
-Enemy melee strikes can now damage most things (except the ship that attacks.)
-Turrets no longer enter tracking state while you have temporary stealth.
-Elemental destroyer variants are no longer immune to their own effects. :]
-EMP and nova-bomb Minelayer variants are now exclusive to certain zones.
-Salvager boss and refinery boss now slowly turn on their own power to create more dynamic safe zones.
-Changes some on-screen hazard warnings to better differentiate them from new ones.
-Chunk Sacred traded ship model with Knife Diva, who's ship got a complete redesign in turn.
-Pause screen now eventually stops displaying additional stacks if you collect very large amounts of a single upgrade (purely visual, item tooltip and stats will still count as usual).
-Shield UI now reacts faster when DoTs are applied to the player ship.

[h3]Balancing[/h3]
-Burning damage shield delay increased (1s-->1.25s).
-Freeze effects now work on a gradual thawing system again, reducing the shield limit as you thaw (also more similar to how the effect works on enemies.)
-Individual coolant shots now only inflict a 20% shield reduction instead of the full 50%.
-Coolant effects no longer cause tether cooldown.
-Impact rip damage from harpoons can now instantly rip an attachments (previously another regular rip damage tick was required.)
-Harpoon impact damage, rip damage and armor strip can now only trigger once every 4 seconds.
-Impact rip damage is now affected by rip resistance.
-Chain-linker now generally treats all chained tethers as connected to your ship, enabling it to multiply certain effects.
-Buffer tanks now also increases acceleration by 5%.
-Messy Barbs now also increases damage ships take from getting an attachment ripped off by a flat +10 (and now comes with a custom harpoon sprite.)
-Unstable Arc Coil damage nerfed (16-->12).
-Displacer Sheath charge time increased (6s-->8s).
-Gravity Anchor now requires a 12s cooldown to charge and gets +1 max charge per stack.
-Tug Targeting now also periodically reveals stealth objects.
-Shock Shielding now also reduces any EMP buildup by 40%.
-Connecting your ship to electrified objects now causes 100% EMP buildup instead of directly triggering EMP, allowing you to resist the effect with Shock Shielding.
-Getting EMPed now also disables many passive effects like minesweeper EDR etc.
-"Ionized Clouds" wave modifier now also causes minor EMP Buildup.
-Mines that spawn as part of a wave now persist for much longer.
-Sector Defense Laser range increased (600-->700)
-Infrared Autolaser range increased (700-->800)
-Emperor Class Hypercarrier health reduced (2800-->2400)
-Emperor Class Hypercarrier now adjusts its phase progression better to loosing attachments.
-Ultra Launch System damage vs hostile nerfed (30-->18).
-General Class health and armor increased (5500-->6000; 4-->8)
-FloAux interceptors now launch with their jump on a much shorter cooldown (6s-->1.5s)
-FloAux bombers now launch shielded and keep shields up for 12 seconds after launch.

[h3]Fixes[/h3]
-Fixed inaccuracy in how facing swing target is considered when swinging around very large objects.
-Fixed overdrive heat vent sound not playing.
-Fixed some turrets not being affected by targeting time delays.
-Fixed Tug Targeting displaying actual attachment hp as bars instead of current stress hp.
-Fixed homing harpoons leading to weird debris creation when the harpoon also activates Flaring Hardlight during flight.
-Fixed limiting stats related to Slayer Glacier A's secret mechanic not being saved and loaded correctly.
-Fixed a problem with how printer charge is applied and stored on run save/load.
-Fixed endless run saves being erroneously labeled as interception runs.
-Fixed slayer glacier stealth duration not resetting correctly when being selected repeatedly on title screen.
-Fixed wrong variants of the stealth ship having tac-jump capability.
-Fixed orphaned harpoon flares appearing if entering transit sequence while tethers are deployed.
-Fixed end tech wreckage being able to drop health.
-Fixed a sound issue on wire explosions.
-Fixed too long explosion delay on nova bombs.
-Fixed projectile deflection still affecting some elemental attacks.
-Fixed wave 44c medic class not being considered a wave target, leading to instant wave completion.

[previewyoutube=uG6jCj6lK7U;full][/previewyoutube]

After wrapping up the Swirl W@tch release I finally found some time to put together the next content update for ---Red---Tether-->. This is the big one, adding a ton of stuff that I had been considering and planning since launch.

The star of the show will be the new B variants for all player ships, featuring starting upgrades that try to add a fresh spin on the original ships play style. Some highlights: Puppy Renegade B gets Crash Hammer, amplifying Speed-Crashes even more than Crash-Saw, but also causing you to bounce back from colliding with large things. Shackles Flora B does something quirky with tether connections again, starting with a Multi Projector that allows you to charge up and fire additional harpoons, which are then all tethered to the next one you fire. This allows to quickly concentrate a lot of rip or pull force on a single object, but also has a lot of unexpected synergy-potential. Knife Diva B again gets an alternate means of offense: Hardlight Arms allow you to yield any weapon attachment that you have ripped from enemy ships. Fire them till their ammunition is depleted, then throw them at whatever is left for a final burst of damage.
Chunk Sacred and Plush Revolved where in a bit of a tough spot for getting an alternate play style. There is only so much you can do with tanky ship and glass cannon ship, so I opted for them to stray much further from their A variant. In the end they both got things that invite you to pretty drastically change how you play a run.

The B variants will require looting ship design data from a new boss that is only sent against ships that have already managed to win an interception run. Getting the new ships can be considered the new late game.

But there is a lot to find for new players too. Many more upgrades will make it into to the loot pool, about 30 new ones total, a third more of what the game previously had. Further more, Zone 2, 3 and 4 are all getting a rework. The goal there is to make their two zone variants much more distinct. The Refinery Complex is still the fuel zone, but Chemical Spill now focuses on a new acid hazard for example. There will be three new hazard mechanics for you to counter and exploit in these reworked zones. As with the existing hazards, they can affect both you and the enemy fleet. New enemy variants and wave modifiers will also make use of these new systems. And you can probably guess what the B variants of the hazard squad ships are all about.

Alongside the new content the game will also get some minor bug fixed, additions to the training area, quality of life tweaks, new lore and balance changes. Most noticeably you will get additional loot choices on cargo ships if you havent taken heart damage during the entire run/the current zone respectively. The zone rework will also aim to even out the zone 3 difficulty spike.

---Red---Tether--> 1.2 Hazard Zone was a blast to make and is already feature complete. Im doing some final additions and testing during the next weeks. The update will then release on June 29. As with my previous content updates, it will be free of charge.

Cheers and stay tethered!
Stefan Sleeper Games

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2081970/Swirl_Wtch/
[previewyoutube=BZCXX7_GOro;full][/previewyoutube]
Attention all RTP affiliates: The next entry in the Hyperspace Anthology has arrived: Swirl W@tch shares the top-down perspective, game world and art style with ---Red---Tether-->, but explores a completely different genre. You will stealth-infiltrate the ravaging industries of Cloud 2, a vibrant gas-giant that has become the new Floatoid home-world. Use sonar to track corporate guard forces, eliminate or capture ships using a plethora of gadgets and grow the resistance movement to unlock new gear.
Swirl W@tch is available for Windows PC and Linux. If you decide to get the game then please consider leaving a review, reaching at least 10 reviews is crucial for the game right now.
A thousand limbs uplift you!

As for ---Red---Tether-->: Im still considering how I want to structure the upcoming content updates, as in what will get added in what order. Stay tuned for more infos in the upcoming months.

Cheers
Stefan Sleeper Games

Turns out ---Red---Tether--> is already out for one year now!?! Im was pretty busy with my next game release so I kinda missed that, but I made time to put together a small content update. Version 1.140: Anniversary extends the game soundtrack with 7 new music tracks! The update is available for free on all platform.

There also have been a lot of smaller patches during the last months, thanks to increased community feedback. Alongside smaller fixes, these updates also eliminated some difficulty spikes, made certain items more usable and reworked the progression to give better mid game rewards. You can check out the whole changelog here.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the game so far! Red Tethers moderate success keeps the studio going and your reviews play a part in that. And Im still looking forward to adding some more meaty content to the game later this year!

Cheers and stay tethered!
Stefan Sleeper Games

Balance
-Hornetric Needle recall homing increased (20-->30).
-Harpoons recalled with Hornetric Needle now deal +20 rip/hull on impact. This damage scales with ship pull force.
-Wire Guidance harpoon turn rate increased (90/s-->120/s) and range bonus buffed (+10%-->+15%).
-Overdrive Ignition nerfed (passive top speed/acel 10%-->5%, overdrive top speed +60%-->+40%, overdrive acel 30%-->20%).
-Turbine spindel top speed penalty reduced (-10%-->-5%).
-Heavy Duty now also increases rip damage when pulling with your ship by +50%.
-Thruster Set nerfed (top speed +15%-->+10%).
-Engine Overwrite Kit nerfed (top speed +25%-->+20%).
-Cooldowner tooltip now mentions that it affects engine cooling as well.
-Base engine cooling rate reduced by 25%.
-Savior Class Battleship is now a zone 4 boss (was zone 3).
-First jump of the Savior Class chain-jump attack needs longer to charge up now (1s-->2s).
-Savior Class now skips remaining chain jumps if it manages to damage you.
-Emperor Class carrier now spawns with a stronger, larger carrier group.
-Emperor Class carrier now deploys way more fighter wings.
-Emperor Class carrier armor and health increased.
-Bunker Class shielded station now has stronger defense units and more non-shield health.
-Nano Singularity damage nerfed.

General Changes
-Improvised armor conversion now has you retain any excess health above conversion threshold.
-Fuel spills created from the destruction of a burning object now auto-ignite.
-Early waves in endless mode should be less asteroid focused now.
-Endless spawn pattern 7 now creates the two fleet groups closer together.
-Autopause option now makes the game pause whenever your cursor leaves the game window and takes effect in fullscreen too

Fixes
-Fixed high level carriers being able to spawn way too early in endless mode.
-Fixed loading an endless mode run delaying next loot ship.
-Fixed a problem causing mobile refinery boss to not target it's broadside attack correctly.
-Fixed homing harpoons getting stuck in mid air if their target is disabled with EMP from any source.
-Fixed items duplicating in inventory when loading a save.
-Fixed wrong track playing when pausing during the advanced battleship fight. (?)

Greetings RTP members.

My next game now has a release date! Swirl W@tch aims to take stealth-infiltration gameplay to a fresh new setting: The crushing depths of an over-exploited gas giant. Use sonar and lidar to track guards, employ a wide variety of tactics and gadgets against them and grow the movement to unlock new gear.



Swirl W@tch releases on February 21st. After ---Red---Tether--> this will be the second entry in the Hyperspace Anthology, a collection of top down sci-fi games that will share a similar artstyle, but will explore vastly different genres. If you got something out of ---Red---Tether--> then please consider wishlisting the game. I'm very much dependent on what little launch visibility my games can get and wishlists features into this substantially as far as I can tell.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2081970/Swirl_Wtch/

And for actual ---Red---Tether--> news: There are things planned for 2023, but I'm not sure how much time can dedicate to extending the game (somewhat depends on how Swirl W@tch does on launch). The thing that irks me the most about RT right now is that too much content is locked away behind endless mode and that interceptions runs are pretty long depending on how you play. So a general game-mode rework is on the table. As for content I still want to add more context to the game's events, in the form of item descriptions and pilot banter. And down the line there I'm looking at concepts for ship b variants and more distinguishable zones 4 and 5 in terms of hazards and enemies.

Cheers!
Stefan - Sleeper Games

-Coolant missile direct damage nerfed (6 --> 4, ultra version unaffected)
-Zero Scatter-System attack cooldown nerfed (2 --> 2.5, ultra version unaffected)
-All coolant shot damage nerfed (3 --> 2)
-Saw Friend rev up rate now scales with ship pull
-Saw Friend global damage vs hostile buffed (+33%)
-Saw Friend is now affected by Sharp Tips (base damage), Hammer Lance (armor stripping) and Tug Targeting (crit chance)
-Hacked Cargo Rail now holds fire while you are near upgrades to avoid unfortunate accidents
-Increased initial attack delay for warrior class spawns
-Increased lock on range for all small craft (+25%)
-Made one hazard squad unlock a bit more obvious
-Fixed planet-killer asteroid being able to call in new honor guard while previous one isn't completely defeated yet
-Fixed explosion shield impact sfx not being affected by sfx volume option
-Fixed run load being enabled after returning from interception/endless victories
-Fixed noticeable inconsistencies with harpoon effect timeout on builds that have 1s+ tether cooldown (?)

Attention RTP Members

My gas-giant-stealth-infiltration-immersive-simlet Swirl W@tch got a new demo out. Head over to the game page if you want to give it a try and maybe whishlist it while you are there. Also I'd love to hear your feedback! <3 <3 <3

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2081970/Swirl_Wtch/

[previewyoutube=2nFGIEiEVBY;full][/previewyoutube]]

Stefan - Sleeper Games

[previewyoutube=2nFGIEiEVBY;full][/previewyoutube]

Hi Everyone
It has been six month since the release of ---Red---Tether--> and my next game is now well underway. Im happy to officially announce Swirl Watch, a stealth-action roguelite that takes place in the dense atmosphere of an over-exploited gas giant. If you want to know more you can check it out here on Steam. Please wishlist to support its development.

Swirl Watch is about 60% complete and I plan to have a demo available in September. The game uses a similar art-style and perspective as ---Red---Tether-->, but explores a vastly different genre, something I might continue with further games so that they form sort of top down space-game anthology. I hope you get something out of Swirl W@tch once it is finally complete.

Cheers
Stefan Sleeper Games

New Stuff
- Added 3 new ships that carry elemental-based upgrades
- Added 9 additional upgrades to unlock
- Added a separate hazard storage section to the starting area that houses the new ships
- Added a new boss to zone 2 that focuses on chem burn attacks
- Reworked and buffed Unknown Ship Class boss, now revolves around coolant attacks and appears in zone 3
- In the starting zone, the game now shows the furthest wave you've reached

Changes/Balancing
- Engine heat is now a separate stat that affects various things like de-freezing, engine overheating and fuel spill ignition
- Engine Overwrite Kit now increases engine heat by 5% and emission mask reduces it by 10%
- Speed-crashes now damage tethers (with base tether hp that will destroy them after 3 crashes)
- Removed speed bonuses from Crash-Saw
- Docking with H-Kite Assemblies now extinguishes fires
- Coolant effect wearing off now causes 1s shield delay
- Added custom shield warning sfx for freeze effects
- Enemy attack delay from stealth now also affects fighter crafts
- Emission mask: Targeting delay reduced (1s-->0.5s) but also grants +10 second targeting delay on wave start now
- Missile launchers are no longer affected by stealth
- Wire mines are now immune to most status effects
- Debris is now immune to EMP and electric damage
- Most ultra attachments are now immune to EMP

Fixes
- Fixed railgun shot flares not being removed if railgun shots happen to hit a shielded enemy
- Fixed boss waves still spawning wave hazards
- Fixed lightning hitting EMP immune hulls showing ~0~ damage instead of RESIST!
- Fixed Alif Strand not providing intended tether hp bonus

1.1 Hazard Squad just released, that is ---Red---Tether's--> first free content update! The titular Hazard Squad consists of 3 new midgame ships for you to unlock. The new ships revolve around elemental effects, being able to inflict them on both enemies and on themselves (which isnt always as detrimental as it might seem.) Get ready to overheat your engines, conceal yourself with coolant or electrify your tethers! Beware though, youll need to reach somewhere between wave 10 and 30 in to unlock these ships and youll only be able to do so one at a time.



As with all previous ships, you can unlock their signature starting items by interception mode wins, adding the item to the loot pool for others to find, or to stack it on themselves on subsequent runs. 9 additional upgrades also made it into the loot mix, some as endless mode victory unlocks, some as zone discovery rewards and some unlocked by default.



Please let me know if you encounter any problems in 1.1 Hazard Squad. Ill make room for a quick patch should the need arise. Further content updates for ---Red---Tether--> are conceptualized, but I have no clear plans yet for when those will happen.

The next game of the hyperspace anthology is coming along nicely, heres a sneak peak on how the stealth mechanics for Swirl W@tch are shaping up.



You can get both ---Red---Tether--> and Hyperspace Dogfights at a discount during the current Going Rogue Sale. So if you havent tried one or the other, now is your best chance.

Cheers and stay tethered!
Stefan Sleeper Games

Engine exhaust now helps thawing your ship: coolant effect wears off 100% faster when stabilizing but 50% slower when not boosting at all
- Hit invincibility now also clears coolant effects
- Cryo launch system missile speed, explosion size and coolant blob shot speed increased
- Ultra auto-cannon explosion size and wave speed increased
- Overall smallcraft lethality increased
- Endless mode: You can now challenge the war factory earlier (starting wave 30)
- Fixed some inconsistencies regarding where the endless boss fight takes place in relation to coordinate healt lvl
- Fixed Minesweeper EDR not targeting missiles
- Fixed Minesweeper EDR still targeting EMP mines (without effect)
- Fixed a problem preventing final boss music from initializing
- Fixed a problem causing some attack tells to attach badly to large bosses (?)
- Fixed ending stabilize re-applying certain movement forces with incorrect dampening
- Fixed hp bar not initializing correctly on boss attachments

Nearest Threat/Retreat Rework
- Lowered the minimum time in a wave before the fleet will consider retreat (60s --> 30s)
- Instead of specific ship types, any ships that no longer has weapons, upgrades or boss status can now retreat
- This means you can make large sections of a wave retreat just by disarming ships (retreat still only happens once no combat ready enemies remain in a wave)
- The threat direction indicator now only points towards combat-ready ships
- If only non combat-ready ships are nearby, the threat direction indicator will now point you to the nearest combat-ready ship
- The threat direction indicator will now point to stealthed ships as well, but it'll be less accurate

Balancing/Adjustments
- Chainlinker now also grants +10% rip damage
- Tethers now briefly stop flashing when hit by melee
- Max tethers! message now gets displayed on ui overlay instead of inworld layer
- Fuel spill ignite text now also telegraphs ignite source
- The game now makes it more obvious how to extinguish ! CHEM BURN !
- Having Emission Mask now prevents your engine exhaust from igniting fuel spills
- Coolant Asteroids are now immune to coolant :o
- Heavy Railgun shield delay increased (3s --> 5s)
- Tech Vault now comes with two militia classes on long range scouting duty that will eventually tac-jump back to defend the vault
- Clarified some tooltips

Fixes
- Moved collider closer to tether attach point on non-standard harpoon animations, hopefully counteracting situations in which tethers could not contract to zero correctly
- Fixed steer right key not being rebindable
- Fixed heart ui sometimes showing as empty when random ry shift triggers
- Fixed potential target text load error when targeting an objects the same frame it jumped in as reinforcement
- Fixed non-emp explosions being unable to ignite fuel spills (?)
- Fixed Swordbreaker harpoons being able to parry a single melee strike multiple times
- Fixed obsolete unlock trigger for ship 4 still taking effect
- Fixed bad collider on one debris animation
- Fixed a problem causing simultaneous fuel spill ignitions to sometimes cause one spill to become permanently unignited

1.010 (Launch)
- Slightly increased lock-on distance for in-flight missiles to make doing cool stuff a bit easier
- Reworked PDC attachments and all missile projectiles to be somewhat easier to spot and target
- Added outlines to payload debris
- Fixed loading a run multiple times not loading gear from earlier auto-saves correctly
- Fixed health max gained from improvised armor not being included in auto-save
- Fixed bad target text portion on ---saved---run--> ship
- Fixed old wire explosion system still taking effect when ships with tethers in them get destroyed
- Fixed some theoretic scenarios in which the game would calculate time in a wave incorrectly

1.010 (Launch)
- Slightly increased lock-on distance for in-flight missiles to make doing cool stuff a bit easier
- Reworked PDC attachments and all missile projectiles to be somewhat easier to spot and target
- Added outlines to payload debris
- Fixed loading a run multiple times not loading gear from earlier auto-saves correctly
- Fixed health max gained from improvised armor not being included in auto-save
- Fixed bad target text portion on ---saved---run--> ship
- Fixed old wire explosion system still taking effect when ships with tethers in them get destroyed
- Fixed some theoretic scenarios in which the game would calculate time in a wave incorrectly

1.011 (Launch)
- Fixed a upgrade sequence load problem that happens after loading a run 3 or more times (?)
- Silker Refit: Now does fixed stat changes instead of being unnecessarily complex
- Nerfed all speed bonus upgrades
- The game now autosaves when entering a new zone
- Fixed Emperor Class Carrier playing PDC phase tell sfx even if no PDCs remain
- Fixed Emperor Class Carrier not restocking squadrons in hangars when switching to next small craft phase
- Fixed a certain ship you need to recover still being flagged as instacrash, making retrieval a bit difficult :(
- Fixed adaption antenna immediately granting shield up when loading a saved run
- Fixed Tech Scanner not correctly revealing tooltips for auto upgrade cache contents
- Fixed Hammer Lance displaying 0 dmg text on targets without armor
- Fixed enemy retreat flag not being set correctly

Launch week concluded it actually went a bit better than I would have though. My thanks goes to everyone who covered the game on youtube and twitch! That actually had a major impact in terms of people learning that the game exist at all. ---Red---Tether--> shipped 400+ copies so far, about what my previous game did in its first year. I also didnt expect ---Red---Tether--> to be quite this well received and it makes me very happy that the core gameplay and stuff like the overall sound design really seems to work for people.

Also thanks to everyone who reviewed the game! That will be a major factor in how itll do in the future and getting to 10 reviews was a nice milestone. If you got something out of the game and havent reviewed it yet then please consider doing so at some point. Specifically reaching 50 reviews would be huge, since that opens up some more visibility on Steam to the best of my knowledge.

Another round of thanks goes out to everyone who reported bugs before and after launch. These reports where invaluable for identifying and fixing some issues I had missed. I hope that I got most major quirks ironed out now, but please bear with me and report if anything new pops up. (There is a feedback option in the pause menu if you need to contact me or just want to join the community.)

[h2]Future Plans: ---Red---Tether-->[/h2]
Half way through development I started to seriously worry that the game would be perceived as too small and the later part of the dev cycle was spent counteracting that. I still had to cut stuff for time at the end, so at some point there will be at least one content patch that includes some of these unexplored ideas. More specifically these three RTP members might find their way into your unit:

Internally they are titled the hazard squadron, since all three come with signature tech that can inflict elemental status effects, both on themselves and other ships. All three also come with additional effects somewhat related to their elemental alignment. Youll have to progress to the mid-to late game in order to unlock them.

There are tons of other plans, but ideas are cheap so Ill keep this short. If at all, these things will come as free content patches, way in the future.
- Black boxes are nice but IMO the game could provide more context for what is going on. Working towards this Ive already prototyped a comms system that lets ships captains talk during combat. Extended item descriptions, shown in the item databases, are also on the table.
- More hazards like acid and radiation are planned, allowing for new interactions. These could also serve to better differentiate later zones.
- Some challenges the game throws at you arent explored by bosses that much, the game is lacking a small-crafts-only boss for example.
- This game has harpoons and lines, but not the obvious thing to use them on: cybernetic hyperspace-capable fish-things that are also upgrades you get on catch. 0/10.
- Being able to unload weapons after you ripped them from enemies might be an interesting concept for a ship.
- The game doesn't have enough saw blades.

Also (if you dont mind spoilers and hasty, messy notes) you can even have a look at the games public dev board, that has most of my ongoing plans for the game listed.

[h2]Future Plans: Sleeper Games[/h2]
Committing to a full release of ---Red---Tether--> was meant as trial run for making smaller, faster, better games, to stand a better chance on Steam through getting launch visibility more often. I think that ultimately worked out and I want to keep this momentum up in 2022. And the way ahead is already planned out.
In fact, ---Red---Tether--> was intended as the first part of trilogy of games from the get go. Lets call it the Hyperspace Trilogy for now. These games will all feature top-down 2d space gameplay in a similar art style to tie them together. But they will explore vastly different mechanics and genres. And the second game is already planned out. In fact it even has a prototype, made before ---Red---Tether--> in 2021 as part of another game jam:
[previewyoutube=-n4dPjHf2_0;full][/previewyoutube]
Swirl W@tch will be a ship-to-ship stealth action game that takes place deep inside the pressure hell of resource-rich gas giants. Itll enter pre-production next week and will hopefully get released in 2022 still. The current prototype is pretty action oriented and has a defense based objective, but I want to move towards more stealth-focused core gameplay and infiltration missions. The final game might play quite differently than what is shown here. But again, ideas are cheap, so Ill get back to you with a full steam page once I have something tangible to present. Till then, I hope you enjoy exploring everything the first part of the Hyperspace Trilogy has to offer.

Cheers and stay tethered!
Stefan Sleeper Games

Adjustments/Balancing
- Picking up health while at max now grants improvised armor that acts like regular health, but is lost on zone transit
- Reaching 3 hearts of improvised armor converts them into a single filled heart container
- Ship 3 unlock now requires filled heart containers instead of just increasing your max
- Increased damage ticks enemies receive from burning (3 --> 4)
- Buffer Tanks: now grants a filled heart container (instead of empty one)
- Punishment System: max shield bonus increased (20% --> 25%)
- Silker Refit: shield penalty per sacrifice reduced (20% --> 15%)
- Background color option now also affects color change during heart damage invincibility
- Slightly increased collider size on most debris
- Increased health drop rate (in terms of how health drop chance gets reduced after health is droped, -100% --> -50%)
- Ripping upgrades now delays wave spawns and picking up upgrades resets the delay, reducing situations in which you would get pressured before picking up your tech
- Elite Destroyers: Increased delay between jump position marking and actual tac-jump (1.5s --> 2s)
- Elite Destroyers: Brawler Custom now carries hardlight horn instead of shock spire; also has more specific target text now
- Elite Destroyers: Brawler Custom melee projectors go on cooldown when jumping
- Elite Destroyers: Arbalest Custom A now carries regular PDC instead of ultra variant
- Planet Killer Asteroid now calls in the big guns if you manage to use up all asteroid ammo without destroying the big rock itself
- Advai has a couple new tips in store

Fixes
- Removed pitch change from reel sfx (potential crash cause on a small portion of systems)
- Fixed float text from harpoon impact effects not being displayed at harpoon position
- Added some safeguards to revert endless target text glitching (source yet unknown)
- Added fallback for situations when the game fails to spawn a boss in wave 20 (cause yet unknown)
- Fixed top speed limit taking effect even when boosting counter-directional to your inertia, leading to occasional uncontrollable drift
- Fixed screenshake option not taking effect
- Fixed player still having collision and taking damage after ship destruction (?)
- Fixed optical flare from datasheets sometimes remaining in scene after transit (?)
- Fixed some potential problems when multiple reinforcement marks exist simultaneously


Known issues:
-Turns out some controller models use axis combinations not currently supported by the game. To accommodate this, I'll be switching to a system that lets you bind left/right and up/down axis separately, hopefully with the next patch.
-Chainlinker sometimes doesnt work after loading from a save (?)
-Items sometimes don't show up on the pause screen (circumstances yet unknown)
-Fuel spills rarely don't get removed after burning, or never ignite (cause yet unknown)
-Pause rarely has the game continue in the background until paused again (cause yet unknown)

1.004 (Launch)
- Restructured tutorial circuit a bit
- Advai has a whole bunch of new tips in store
- Chemical Spill zone now uses darker background by default
- Fixed a bad variable check when initiating stabilizing (addressing potential crash)
- Fixed controller ZAxis not registering when bound to certain actions (?)
- Fixed missing tutorial message about cutting all tethers
- Fixed screen glitch option saving as ui glitch option instead
- Fixed increased turn speed when swinging not taking effect when playing with controller
- Fixed missing cloud gen value in industrial zone, leading to too much clouds
- Fixed background planet scale not being correctly adjusted to zone progression
- Fixed changing background options while on wave 0 not removing existing parallax objects

1.005 (Launch)
- Removed sound pitch changes during stabilizing in an attempt to resolve related crash
- Fixed Armored Shields granting full explosion immunity
- Fixed elite destroyers sometimes dropping health
- Fixed (homing?) tethers becoming locked in place when deflected by wardog melee (?)-
- Fixed upgrade ships not being excluded from boss adds seppuku protocol
- Enemy railguns now lead their shots while you are boosting

Please note that I'll be attending Global Game Jam this weekend and can't push another update till next week. Please report any issues you find and I'll to resolve them after Sunday.

1.002 (Launch)
- Fixed shield overlay not scaling to resolution changes correctly
- Fixed pause music changes affecting main track instead of pause version
- Fixed an item ID specific bug

1.003 (Launch)
- The game can no longer detect UVAxis on controller due to inconsistent 0 state across controller models (potential fix for current controller problems)
- Added hidden 2 frame micro cooldown to firing harpoons to counteract issues with extremely rapid inputs
- Excessive harpoon spam now overheats projectors and causes tether cooldown
- Added option that makes the game pause automatically when clicking outside the game window
- Attempted to fix crash when stabilizing by reworking how forces are applied and stored
(please report if this still breaks, can't reproduce the crash myself)
- Tapping stabilize multiple times now makes you break faster (also added minor visual indication for stabilizing having stronger ignition)
- Adjusted pitch on some pause sounds
- Final tether warning sound will no longer play if you can only deploy one tether
- Fixed jump counter damage affecting all objects in the current wave
- Fixed some sounds not being affected by sfx volume setting correctly
(please report should this persist on any more sounds)
- Fixed brief fullscreen toggle when returning to title
- Fixed bad Z-layering on player engine flares
- Fixed some typos

.980 (Ignition)
Content
- Reworked unlock process for most late game ships
- Shield UI now also telegraphs elemental effects (fire shows how much burn damage you will take etc)
- Added EM buildup mechanic for rare electric attacks (those no longer instantly trigger EMP)
- Added lock-on range and auto-aim option for easier controller usage
- Jump capable enemies might now try to reposition if they are crashing into other ships

Balance/Adjustments
- Wire guided harpoons now only adjust course as long as your cursor is in front of them
- Heavy Duty: Range penalty decreased, force bonus when pulling at things increased
- Revised spacing for many mid and late game waves in interception mode
- Added custom death tips for when dying while on fire or frozen
- Plasma shots now ignite fuel spills
- Wire explosions can no longer ignite fuel spills
- Reworked how zone type affects boss pick rates
- Optimized the way fuel spill ignition is handled
- Turrets on stealth ships no longer longer show attack tells
- Missiles/torpedoes fired by stealth ships now have their danger marks fade out rapidly
- Prototype cruiser is way less likely to jump into it's own missile barrage now

Fixes
- All existing object now go on a longer collision timeout when a new wave spawns
(Prevents existing objects from damaging incoming enemies, but still allows them to get destroyed by jump-in collisions)
- Fixed harpoons becoming stuck in homing state if a homing target is hit and additional harpoons are still homing onto it
- Changed some harpoons colliders to eliminate situations in which harpoon structure would interfere with pulls
- Fixed single tethers on attachments leading to self propelled tethers after rip
(You can no longer put single tethers on attached attachments since that has no purpose anyways)
- Fixed freeze effects completely disabling shield regeneration
- Fixed inconsistent fuel spill ignition by explosions
- Fixed stabilizing while reeling leaving pull direction indicator visible
- Fixed elemental missile destroyer variants spawning wrong death ordnance
- Fixed speed collision damage not being affected by frail damage multiplier
- Fixed bad blend mode on hostile direction arrows


0.981 (Ignition)
Stuff
- Added auto-lock and aim assist options
- Added option for configuring stick dead zone
- Controller: Smoothed out cursor movement
- Improved controller pause navigation

Fixes
- Fixed pause initialized non-pause version of music tracks if a new track is started during pause
- On controller: Fixed cursor position glitches when exceeding harpoon range along diagonals


1.000 (Launch)
Adjustments
- Removed hitlag on firing homing harpoons
- Increased speed of homing harpoons, especially against close homing targets
- Increased chance of tac-jump capable enemies attempting to jump out of crash collisions
- All turrets now start on a longer cooldown
- Stealth enemies now try to adjust to ambient heat levels, making them stand out a bit less on brighter zone backgrounds
- Nerfed emission mask stealth bonus

Fixes
- Fixed pause initialized non-pause version of music tracks if a new track is started during pause
- On controller: Fixed cursor position glitches when exceeding harpoon range along diagonals
- Fixed Kinetic Curving sound playing doubling up when rapidly procing deflects
- Fixed certain ignite events changing object color even if it is immune to fire
- Fixed all boss music being overwritten by regular zone tracks :o
- Fixed wave header not adjusting to health bar size changes correctly


1.001 (Launch)
- Database unlocks are now based on upgrades acquired across all runs and get hinted at in title area
- Heavy Duty: Speed penalty decreased (-25% --> -15%)
- Rupture Filament now builds up explosion damage over time and triggers on any tether destruction if at least 10 damage is accumulated
- AM-React Armor damage increased (25 --> 120)
- Rip Lines bonus rip damage on player pull increased (15% --> 40%)
- Instant EMP effects now also change shield ui to electric warning
- Added sound tell for meteorite shower hazard
- Meteorite shower hazard is targeted less directly at the player now
- Incendiary missile move rate and damage nerfed (1.1 --> 1.08 / 5 --> 4)
- Nerfed elemental enemy variant spawn rate
- Wave modifiers now only start appearing after wave 4
- Reduced cloud/dust density for some zones
- Applying resolution now turns fullscreen off, counteracting some situation in which resolution wouldn't get applied correctly
- Fixed boss waves not resetting previous wave modifiers
- Fixed some extremely evil pixels on the planet killer asteroid that did not adhere to the games color palette
- Fixed unlock problems on Black Ops Codes and Buffer Tanks
- Fixed all player collisions smothering fires instead of just high speed ones

1.002 (Launch)
- Fixed shield overlay not scaling to resolution changes correctly (sry)
- Fixed pause music changes affecting main track instead of pause version
- Fixed an item ID specific bug

[previewyoutube=-uMTRZNrWMk;full][/previewyoutube]
After about 1200 hours of dedicated dev time, Red Tether 1.0 launched today! The game now features 6+ player ships, 70+ upgrades, 10+ zone variants and over 16 different boss battles. Autosave, basic controller support and many new visual and assist options are also included in the 1.0 release.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the playtest and shared feedback! I'm not aware of any major bugs right now, but if anything pops up after the launch Ill try to take care of it as quickly as possible. Please let me know should you encounter any new bugs.

Overall Im very happy with how the game turned out. Red Tether isnt quite as content rich as my previous game (yet), but overall RT feels much more... idk consistent? I'd like to claim the design is more focused, both visually and in gameplay. Less messy than Hyperspace Dogfights was at times I think. Well, Ill never be able to look at it like a new player would, so youll have to decide yourself if it is worth your time.

If you end up getting Red Tether then please also consider leaving a review. Reaching to at least 10 and then 50 reviews increases visibility on Steam and is very important for the game.

Ill give you a rundown of latest developments and future plans for the game later this week. For now I hope you all enjoy some action packed, viciously punishing Red Tether 1.0 runs.

Cheers
Stefan - Sleeper Games


day 1 prototype VS now

General
- Added 12 new basic upgrades
- Slightly reduced the amount of debris spawned by mid and late game enemies
- Harpoon swapping now resets the swap charge gain cooldown
- Vastly increased spawn rate for mine upgrades
- Wire mines now have some armor, making them less susceptible to being randomly destroyed
- Sawblade self damage is now affected by melee resistance
- Sawblades no longer despawn on wave advance if they are close too you
- Sawblades are more easily moved now, both towards you and enemies
- Sablades now strain tethers when connecting with enemies, leading to them expiring faster
- Chainlinker: Destabilizing your chain now reduced tether hp to +10% per stack instead of nearly 0
- Added some additional outlines to databases
- Optimized the way in which crash collisions are handled
- Optimized the way in which harpoon impacts are handled
Fixes
- Fixed cut key not being loaded from config
- Fixed fullscreen not taking effect when entering title scene
- Fixed Kinetic Curving providing 1000% deflect chance
- Fixed PDC type attachments targeting being broken by stealth bonuses
- Fixed zone based music playlists not taking effect (?)
- Fixed objects being able to collide with player during zone transition (?)
- Fixed rupture filament triggering more than intended
- Fixed remote reel sound not playing correctly if close to a maxed out tether
- Fixed remote reeling affecting tethers that aren't actually contracting
- Fixed sawblade damage not being affected by enemy armor and frail damage multiplier
- Fixed harpoon swap placing harpoon incorrectly
- Fixed harpoon swap charging too quickly
- Fixed harpoon swapping allowing for one additional swap (when at 0)
- Fixed loot printer showing "Printed!" text even on pickups that it doesn't actually print
- Fixed pause being disabled until intro sequence is complete
- Fixed title splash background not scaling correctly on larger resolutions (?)
- Fixed pause not muting sound loops
- Fixed some instances of sfx not being affected by vol option
- Fixed controller cursor being inactive on item screen
- Fixed controller inputs hijacking mouse cursor
- Fixed bad collider on warrior class ships
- Fixed some tooltips

--Red---Tether- now has a final release date: January 18th! The game is feature complete and fully playable already, but there is still some more content I want to add and feedback I want to implement.
To get more of the later Ill be running an open playtest here on Steam. Feel free to opt in if you dont mind some bugs and unfinished edges. :]

The playtest features:
-7 player ships that come with distinct core upgrades
-50+ upgrades to find and unlock
-8+ boss encounters
-12 zone variants
-50x3 premade waves in interception mode
-New endless mode with an optional final boss
-Freely combinable challenge modes for endless runs
-New video options for better visual clarity
-Experimental controller support

The playtest has everything unlocked by default, but if you want to go through the game normally you can disable this in the game options. Im looking forward to your feedback!

In closing here is a quick rundown of what Ive been working on in the last months.


A whole bunch of new mid- to late-game enemy types and mechanics have been added. Carriers send out various types of small craft to hunt you down, ranging from melee troopships over chaingun scouts to deadly interceptors and bombers. New homing torpedos require you to have harpoons ready to counter them. And in beyond wave 40 youll start to see shield piercing beam attacks.


An ongoing goal was to improve combat pacing and make battles a bit more dynamic. Most direct attack enemies will now start to chase you down via tac jumps if you spend a while in a wave. Additionally, certain ships that cant fight on their own will now jump out once all their escort is gone, eliminating situations in which you had to mop up passive cargo vessel or asteroid to progress.


As mentioned above, the game now has an endless mode that dynamically generates enemy waves. These waves can also have random modifiers to spice things up. Some wave modifier can work in your favor, others very much not so.


Endless mode also comes with a new launch area and its own custom final boss. Defeating whatever that is unlocks coordinates, ---Red---Tethers--> system for challenge modes. Activating coordinates in subsquent endless runs brings you closer to the Contempter homeworld, but also grants broad bonuses to the opposition.


The game now contextualizes your runs a bit more and has you travel through various zones within your target system. You start up in asteroid fields and ice clouds, go through various industrial areas and eventually end up near the systems sun. Right now these zones mostly just represent a visual change, but some can trigger certain wave modifiers more often (In the scrapyard youll encounter more waves with the [debris field] modifier etc.). Expanding on this is one of my goals for the final month. I want to add distinct modifiers for all zones and I also want them to affect enemy types.


Visual clarity was an ongoing concern especially in regards to background visuals and contrast. So I added some options that allow you to freely customize how the game displays backgrounds. If you find the background to distracting you can make it darker or turn objects and dust off entirely. You can even play the entire game in a high-contrast, dark void, which I find looks pretty neat in its own minimalist way.


To further improve readability I also added some additional dark outlines to all ship assets. I hope this allows to identify them more clearly on any background.


And last but not least I added in a whole range of new player upgrades to collect. I also increased the frequency at which tech-ships appear, allowing you to upgrade faster. Boss fights also spawn their own type of upgrade ship now, which always forces you to choose between an offense upgrade and health. Im considering dropping even more additional upgrades during combat, to get upgrade progression going even faster.


To keep track of your ships capabilities I also added an item screen to the pause menu (similar to how Hyperspace Dogfights handled this, but essentially combining the pause screen and intermission stat sheets into one overview). Not seen here is that this also shows full tooltips on items and all your stats in one sheet when selecting your ship.


The new items again come in various shapes and functions, some provid basic stat boosts, others extend your toolset with whole new functionalities. There is still a whole set of basic upgrades in the pipe and three new elemental-based ships are in the works to carry some of them.


The game now also has a system for displaying unlocks during a run. And if you go for 100% there are databases to unlock, indexing all items of individual categories, while also showing unlock conditions. These will be available to ponder near the title screen hangar.

If you want to try all this out right away feel free to opt into the playtest. You feedback would be much appreciated!


Cheers!
Stefan Sleeper Games

Message to all members of the ---Red---Tether--> protocol

---Red---Tether--> is featured during the ongoing Steam Next Fest and it just had its Demo released! Id love to hear your feedback if you give the game a try. It got a new teaser too:

[previewyoutube=ZqNXep-u9Ak;full][/previewyoutube]

The game is quickly approaching completion, but I still feel like it needs more content to be a full experience. So Ill give it one more month, focusing on late game challenges and unlockable content. Here is what happened in the last weeks:


[h3]Player dockyard and tutorial finalized[/h3]
I put some finishing touches on the title screen and reworked the tutorial/training area into a concourse that is less separated from your ship selection space. So even after you got the basics down, the training area is easily accessible to try out new ships or mechanics. Some ships underwent minor rebalances but Ill need more feedback to really get that down.
I also implemented an inworld text box system that will later serve to give you more context on world. Right now it mainly serves to display pilot dossiers in the dockyard.


[h3]Parallax scenery[/h3]
The game now has more depth due to parallaxing clouds and dust in the foreground and background. Potentially there will be an option to turn this off, but so far Im happy with how it turned out. Enemy destruction spawn additional parallax debris that lingers and creates a deep debris field as battles increase in size.


[h3]New enemy attachments[/h3]
I felt like missile spam was way to prevalent and gave enemies a whole bunch of new thing to point at you in the early game. This was pretty straight forward to implement, since I already had planned to give all enemy chassis multiple variants. In the early game you now face gunboats that deal little damage with their kinetic disruptors, but delay your shield regeneration for a long time, setting you up for follow up attacks. Melee projector attachments give enemies a short range stun strike, potentially making ---Red---Tether--> the first game where asteroids can punch spaceships. Later in the game you face heavy damage railguns that try to take you out from extreme range, but will hold fire if you position yourself behind other ships.



[h3]Bosses incoming[/h3]
Currently Im working on boss enemies that will be featured in both wave and endless mode. Most enemy ships will have an extensively modified boss variant, at the same time there are a lot of custom boss structures and ships in the works. Making these has been quite interesting so far. In -R-T> player offense capabilities largely depend on having things to tether or rip at hand. Creating varied ways for the player to fight bosses got just as important as designing the bosses mods of attack.

Ill try to wrap up boss work in the next week and after that there are still endless mode and a ton of new player items left to integrate. Not sure I can make it by November but that is what Im currently aiming for. Stay tuned and whishlist pls!

And in case you are new here and havent played my previous games: Hyperspace Dogfights is 30% off for the occasion, starting Saturday 2nd.

Cheers and stay tethered!
Stefan Sleeper Games

--Red---Tether--> will come to Steam Next Fest in Oktober and the plan is to have a nice little Demo build ready by then. The game made some nice progress in the last weeks and might even be ready for release by the time of the festival, but I want to give it another couple weeks after the demo is out to implement feedback. Heres a breakdown of what Ive been working on recently and what is still to come.



Mid Game Opposition
About 10 new enemy classes got added, focusing on mid game challenge. New asteroid variant come armed, or filled with coolant. Hazard tugs and refinery ships carry dangerous cargo, ripe for being spilled on their escorts. Minelayers deny areas with seeker mines. Stealth ships are hard to identify until you rip their H-heatsinks off. Late game combat ships might carry antimatter auto cannons or heavy railguns, allowing them to fire at you from mid and long range.

The new ships also come with new defensive attachments that interfere with your tether attempts. Shock spires electrify ship hulls when harpooned, giving you a narrow window to remain tethered to ships that carry them. Shield generators block tethers altogether, the generator itself remains vulnerable, but is anchored heavily into the ship and requires multiple tethers to be ripped off.



These defenses arent just detriments though, you can turn them against other ship too. Using electrified hulls to shock and disable other attachments is the obvious options. But the increases HP of shielded ships also makes them ideal anvils you can use to crash weaker ships against, if you find creative ways to get them there. These are just a few of the systemic interactions I intend for the game, more enemy and hazard mechanics are still on the way.



Options Menu
Other than that I also threw in a basic options menu, wanting to get that done way before the demo. As with my previous game, the glitch and feedback stuff will be freely customizable. And Im considering some accessibility options like a hight contrast mode for later.



Hangar Base And Ship Unlocks
And lastly I started working on hangar base and unlockable player ships, with some parallels to Hyperspace Dogfights in that regard. Ships all come with signature items that can be unlocked for other ships to find on their run. The second ship you'll get will most likely be again one that grants random upgrades on launch. Your starter ship is carrying Chainsaw Field as its signature item, offering an easy fallback method of dealing damage with high powered speed-collisions. Overall I'm leaning towards ship concepts with more distinct signature items this time. 7 ships are planned for the initial release.



After that I still want add a few more things. Therell be a black box system that gives you some unlockable lore to collect and slowly reveals context on the game world. Late game enemies and bosses are still in the pipe. And to wrap it all up I want to implement an endless mode that features randomized waves instead of the pre-made ones the game is currently using.

Stay tuned for the demo in October, allowing you to explore some of this first hand!

Cheers and stay tethered!
Stefan Sleeper Games

Hi All

---Red---Tether--> just got announced and Id like to give you a quick rundown of where the game is actually at. I know a trailer featuring ALPHA GAMEPLAY isnt ideal on Steam, but the whole page is only up already because I want to apply for Steam Next Fest. The game has actually progressed way beyond whats shown in the trailer, but itll be while till I can update that. I can dump a whole lot of work-in-progress gifs on you though! So here is what Ive been working on during the last weeks:

The attachment and rip-off system is fully implemented and you can disarm opponents by tethering their weapons to something heavy.


There is a lock on system that makes it easier to tether onto smaller objects, including mid-air missiles. You lock sticks to small objects for a few milliseconds unless you target something else in that time. The lock-on time can be freely configured, lock-on also displays some basic informations on targets.


Your ship can stabilize itself in place with forward boosters. You can use this to pull on something or to brace for shock-waves.


Tech transports that carry ship upgrades can be found at regular intervals during runs. The self- destruct if their cargo is compromised, so youll need to choose what to take.


The game got a small tutorial area that is always accessible before launching a run. It uses holo-animations to showcase the games mechanics, triying to not rely on text too much. You can also use the tutorial area to train your harpoon-shooting and tether-swing skills on dummy object.


There is a system of hazards and status effects that become more relevant in the midgame.


Once you get there, ships and objects will not only have better means of offense, but also counter your tether attempts in various ways. The game aims to eventually evolve into a more complex combat puzzle where you need to make careful decisions amid the action in order to effectively dismantle the fleet.


The whole glitchy UI thing is something I still want to push further. Youll be able to turn this off though. The latest addition to the ui was some visualization of you current shield hp. Like in Hyperspace Dogfight, you have hearts as a second line of defense.


The art pipeline for the game is also fairly streamlined, so there are tons of new enemy types on the way.

Enemy variety is also what I will work on next. After that I still want to add endless mode, alternate player ships with new tether behaviors and a black-box system that allows you piece together the games lore by sifting through enemy debris.

If you are at all interested in Red-Tether please consider whistling and otherwise engaging with it on Steam. That would please the algorithm-overlords and I long for their attention. For I am a mere shell of a human, sacrificing content at the altar of front-page visibility.

Anyways, for those of you who wonder what is happening to Hyperspace Harvest: Development is currently paused, since Im not really sure if the whole thing is going anywhere. I want to experiment with smaller, faster releases. So I'm giving that a try with ---Red---Tether-->. I really like how the art and gameworld for Hyperspace Harvest has developed and I want to return to it, but Im a bit burned out on long projects and overall I dont think what looks like a 3 year dev cycle will be worth it in then end. \_()_/

Stay tethered everyone!
Stefan Sleeper Games