Space Grunts 2 News

Where last weeks update was a lot of fixing and tweaking, this weeks update comes in with a lot of new stuff. New aliens are added, new alternate-levels to be found, a new event or two and a bunch of new cards being sorted into your deck!

I'm not going into any details on these alternate-levels, as it's part of discovering it yourself as a player, but I might eventually do some work on some sort of Wiki pages (cause I usually forget about these secrets myself over time!)

I've been adding a bunch of alien-specific cards to the game, so that aliens now have a bit more choice during battles without having to resort to weird human like weapons.

Make sure to check out last Thursday's vlog showing the creation of the boss:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

and let me know if you already encountered him! ;)

Full changes list:

• added: Alternate area: Ancient ship
  
• added: Alternate area: Spidernest
  
• added: better highlighting of selected cards (especially for mouse/touch controls)
  
• added: new card Scavenge Box
  
• added: new card Forcecon
  
• added: specific cards for Blob-boss
  
• added: HP point changes now also visible in herocards (HUD)
  
• added: new cards for the Aliens
  
• added: Mimic alien
  
• added: Tentacle alien
  
• added: Spider-om alien
  
• added: "Game Saved" dialog/tutorial
  
• added: loading/new-game hints prompts
  
• added: Event - Infestation - wall-creepers all over!
  
• added: new card - Genocide Device
  
• added: Wall-creepers
  
• added: Spiderwebs - halt you for 3 turns
  
• added: Critero alien
  

Fixes and tweaks:

• fixed: cards floating off when interacting with doors/walls/non-violent-entities
  
• fixed: improvements to card drag-drop systems
  
• fixed: starfield rendering
  
• fixed: save games didn't restore the correct level (always 1 too soon)
  
• fixed: description of Survivor card now says "last safe spot" instead of "Random spot"
  
• fixed: hidden wall has no card/codex-image
  
• fixed: rescue-pod has no card/codex image
  
• tweak: balancing of mimic-spawns
  
• tweak: made stronger aliens slightly weaker when they appear as rare-alien in the levels (before their normal level)
  

Sooo, not a very big list of new stuff this week, but there is one HUGE addition to the game and that's an end-boss! Defeating the boss doesn't really do anything yet, so that's something I'll be working on for next update ( an actual ending ) and I'll also start working on more alien-specific cards, especially for the boss battle.

Besides adding a boss to the game, there's also a collection of new cards and effects and a few big changes in balancing the whole game, I've personally been enjoying this version more than the previous ones due to the balancing in card-drops and alien encounters.. so let me know what you think!

There are now just a few big things left on my to-do list, first one is making an actual ending to the boss-battle , second is adding more cards but also alien-specific cards. Still a few events I want to add, and a couple of hidden/alternate area's for players to encounter and venture into.  And finally get some daily-challenges up and running.

Of course I'll also keep balancing and tweaking all the other stuff based on feedback and my own play-throughs!

Now go check out v0.4.0 captains!  -   Next week the price of the Early Access will also increase !


PS: check last Thursday's dev-vlog on the game's development. It talks about getting the game playable on the move, but also some of the new events in the current version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yR1y87YbQw Next Thursday will show the creation of the boss which you can encounter in the game starting now!


Full changes list:

• added: new card - Scope
  
• added: new card - Infection
  
• added: new card - Berserker
  
• added: new card - Freezeray
  
• added: new card: Invisibility
  
• added: new passive card - Fighter
  
• added: light to flames and burners (especially in dark-zone)
  
• added: little jingle when finding a secret area
  
• added: small plants now leave just a small spore area
  
• added: End-boss: The Blob
  

Fixes and tweaks:

• fixed: explosion sound triggered too often on cards that didn't need it
  
• fixed: invisible aliens still show the "anger/sick/confused" twirls
  
• fixed: babygon now also shuts-down when near EMP
  
• fixed: if killed at idle entity, cards stay in view
  
• fixed: invisible blockades popping up after fire or explosions
  
• tweak: small improved mouse controls
  
• tweak: soften/smoother lights
  
• tweak: slight increase in harder opponent spawning earlier in the game
  
• tweak: slight increase in higher-skilled weapons dropping earlier
  
• tweak: balancing on drop-rates for all items
  

Another week, another big update coming in the form of v0.3.0.  With this update I added a whole new control method for mouse-players. The click on a card is replaced with a little drag+drop action, you don't have to drag them a lot, but you do need to drag them a bit towards the played card area. 

The main advantage is that there will be less "wrong-card" moments which happened a lot when having to just click to play the cards. Now you can always drag the card back down and it won't be played.  

I also hustled the order of the special "infinity" cards a bit, so that the "Skip" turn card is placed at the end of your hand and not at the start. This gives your actual deck more a focus, and hopefully also makes the player more aware of these cards being special in a way.

Besides that there's a bunch of new game-events,  and I lowered the amount of Comets in the Comet event (was a bit much).  Damage area's of everything are also now much more visual, so Comest, bombs, plasma-bombs, they all clearly show their danger area, making it easier to navigate out of the way.

Check the full list below on all the many changes and improvements made in the last week.  For next week I'll be focussing mostly on the important tasks of adding a bunch of new cards, more special cards, and possibly start working on adding an actual end-goal (boss battle).

Full changes list:

• added: Event - Blazing - Sun is dying, causing open fires across the planet surface
  
• added: event Darkness - first space-station area is covered in darkness
  
• added: flame-exhaust obstacles
  
• added: card-effects (like burning cards from incinerator)
  
• added: Drag-drop cards instead of clicking (mouse and touch controls). Makes it less likely to play/use the wrong card.
  
• added: item Screw Driver - fixes damaged cards in your whole deck
  
• added: item Syringe - selection of random effects when used
  
• added: tutorial for first "inventory-card" being added
  
• added: tutorial for "Infinite" cards like Fist, Skip, Exit, etc
  
• added: safe-spots now also add message in HUD
  
• added: tutorial for "Angry" creatures
  
• added: deck-size now also shows max
  

Fixes and tweaks:

• fixed: added more animation to start of a card-screen
  
• fixed: special cards aren't unlocked yet for codex
  
• fixed: damaged-cards now actually do self-damage when used
  
• fixed: damaged-item tutorial shows wrong avatar
  
• fixed: teleport-card played by aliens doesn't work (Scavenger)
  
• fixed: when player is walking a path (mouse-controls) and mouse-clicks, player should stop/halt
  
• fixed: idle card seems to ignore first card in hand
  
• fixed: corrected Comet-impact location and added highlighted damage map
  
• fixed: when inventory is full, red-key card still shows up in HUD but isn't added to inventory
  
• fixed: some tutorials would be missed due to multiple tutorials triggering
  
• tweak: both cards in a battle are now properly played at same time.
  
• tweak: acid on floors will vanish over time (48+ turns)
  
• tweak: eased up on the comets in Comet event
  
• tweak: unified the look of "infinite" cards like Fists, Tricorder, Skip and Exit
  
• tweak: moved "Idle/Swap" card to end of hand
  
• tweak: movement is now instant (when looking left, you can move right without first having to "turn")
  
• tweak: metal-crates now don't have a minimum-damage-at value (less confusing)
  
• tweak: "Angry" aliens now less stronger (depending on their initial strength and species)
  
• tweak: increased spore-spawn chance on plants
  

Version 0.2.0 comes in HOT! With a bunch of great new features, one of which is the Comets Event!  Right now the comet event has a fairly big chance of happening in a game, this will be more balanced over time as there will be more events added, and I'm still finding the right balance between having events and no-events at all.

I've also added a dialog-system to the game, which comes with a bunch of tutorial like instructions and information text left and right. 

And the game now has a continue/save game feature! It auto-saves between levels, but when you die, the save-game will be deleted (permadeath!)  I might make it an option later on to toggle perma-death on and off, but for now you at least get to take a break on longer runs! 

Besides those main things there's a bunch of other stuff added, fixed and tweaked, so for the full list check below.  This also marks the first price-increase for Early Access.

Full changes list:

• added: dialogs + tutorial instructions/explaining things that happen, with avatar (doc)
  
• added: first "Event" - Comets - has comets randomly dropping around the planet region
  
• added: a map screen
  
• added: continue/save game
  
• added: bigger hero avatars (used in hero-card and dialogs)
  
• added: changed XP-bar rendering (replaced text with visual bar)
  
• added: skill-levels to the players status-bar
  
• added: safe teleportation spots (require a "beam me up" card)
  
• added: new card: Teleporter
  

Fixes and tweaks:

• fixed: quick-teleport won't teleport if danger is gone (opponent died)
  
• fixed: some light/visible-area issues after doing a quick-teleport
  
• fixed: speed improvement on FOV calculations
  
• fixed: radar rendered slightly lower (not to overlap with card-deck counter)
  
• fixed: metal crate debris looks like acid
  
• fixed: improved burning-floor effects
  
• fixed: Cybergon now uneffected by it's own bombs
  
• fixed: door near bomb was still visible but not solid
  
• fixed: player-avatar in dialogs is the wrong one
  
• fixed: FIST disappeared at reshaper
  
• fixed: improvements to card-selection with mouse
  
• tweak: Martian was too strong for early levels, now shows up later in the game
  
• tweak: item-drop rate now includes specific-skills of player
  
• tweak: HP given by transporting to next level now depends on class (tech get's more, grimm get's less)
  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Z8x947d-w

Wooaah! I forgot to do a written post for Devlog #11 !  Luckily there was a video talking about the A.I. and how I made them slightly smarter (still needs work).

This weeks video talks about the "big features" that still need to be done before I can call this game "complete". Which doesn't mean I won't be adding new stuff after that, but these are the minimum features I want to add, and after that it fully depends on how many people keep playing the game and if I can come up with interesting extra's.

Most of the big features mentioned in the video are fairly easy things to implement, with the exception of "The Ending" but the hard part there is mostly coming up with the idea, not so much the code behind it.

With the codex/stats screen I mentioned in the video, I might also try and create a little "wiki-extractor" which pulls out all that informations and dumps it into a HTML format that I can use to create a wiki-page on the Orangepixel website. I did the same thing with the Sir Questionnaire Wiki and basically it generates all that informations from a little function I added to the game. It then also generates all the .png images required and correctly links to those, leaving me with just a silly FTP upload to get it all up on the server.

The reason I put this work in wiki's and codex systems is mostly that I often forget a lot of the things I've put in a game, so when players ask for support or help in X amount of months from now, I'll need some sort of reference myself because I probably forget about all of it before then !

Anyway, based on these final "big features" I expect the deadline of end-November is very do-able, I'll be pushing out updates once a week (on Tuesday's) to Steam Early Access, with probably the exception of a one or two weeks where I'll be working on getting the mobile ports up and running and won't have as many new features/changes every week.

Exciting to see the game come to life in such a VERY short time, and still have such a completely different game as the original Grunts was.. I might try my hands on a card-battle Heroes of Loot after this !