Shardpunk News

[h3]1.0.31.6 PATCH NOTES[/h3]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed an issue that could randomly not spawn a loot point that was necessary for the tutorial level.
  

Hey everyone!

As we mentioned in the past, we are dedicated to release regular updates for Shardpunk and work on additional content.

Since launch, Shardpunk: Verminfall has been accompanied by a free DLC, Blood Pack, which added a layer of gore to the game. It allows you to splatter the rats all over! If you haven’t yet, make sure to check it out!

Shortly after the release we started working on additional features we could introduce to the game as regular updates, but also began work on a more substantial addition - such as a DLC. That DLC was one that we felt would be something that would come with a reasonable price tag and be available sometime after launch. Player response, reception and feedback shared both on Steam and Discord steered us in a direction of adding a new playable character, as well as a new enemy type and elite variants of already existing units.

Last month we announced Rat Pack at Tacticon, giving you a glimpse of what’s coming. Now, it’s time for two key pieces of information regarding Rat Pack's launch.

First: Rat Pack will be available on June 29, a week from now. It is the first DLC to introduce a brand new squad member and new enemies.

Seeing you all excited about the game, sharing your experiences in the reviews, on the forums, and on Discord, led us to a decision to make Rat Pack completely FREE for everyone!

[h2]Rat Pack Content[/h2] [h3]New playable character - Leah, the Electromancer.[/h3]

She’s a truly shocking addition to the Shardpunk roster.

She mastered the power of electricity and wields it to fight off the vermin hordes.

Her abilities include:

• Shock Trap: Stuns enemies who enter its range
  
• Blink: Teleports Leah to a selected tile in range
  
• Life Drain: Drains life from enemies, damaging them, and healing Leah
  
• Sacrifice: Grants Leah additional AP at the cost of HP
  
• Energy Discharge: Damages and stuns multiple enemies around Leah.
  

[h3]New Enemy Type - Stun Lancers[/h3]

Rat Pack introduces a brand new type of enemy - Stun Lancers, melee enemy units that stuns your squad members when it gets too close. When encountered, it’s best to keep them at a distance… as if being a rat didn’t make them repelling enough.

[h3]Elite Variants[/h3]


Stun Lancers enter the roster of the vermin horde accompanied by Elite variants of Grunts, Shotgunners, Machinegunners, and Snipers. Elite units can appear as a part of a special encounter in map location. They are a bigger challenge, but drop more useful loot.

Check it out in action: https://youtu.be/duZSgiZ0yJk


We hope you’ll have tons of fun playing Leah and plowing through new Rats while we are working on future updates and content for Shardpunk!

[h4]Join our Discord community ⬇[/h4]



[h4]Connect with us on our official channels:[/h4]

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Hello everyone! Let's get straight to the interesting part - here are the release notes for 1.0.31 version:

[h3]1.0.31 PATCH NOTES[/h3]

Difficulty/balancing:

• Added an Ironman mode, which prevents the players from reloading a mission. Actually, that was the default way the game was played until now, so maybe the correct way of saying should be "added a non-Ironman mode".
  All existing saves are treated as Ironman modes. Non-ironman mode allows the player to restart any mission (except the tutorial one). Unlocks and achievement progress does not get rolled back though (as they are bound to a profile, not the current game-in-progress).
  
  Ironman settings in the difficulty window. The window has been expanded, as more stuff will start to appear there.
  
  
  
• Increased the number of enemies that can appear in chapters 2 and 3.
  
  
• Increased the base HP of chapter 2 boss.
  

QoL

• Added a numeric HP display in combat. It can be altered in the Gameplay Settings.

Numeric HP display mode. Some might love it, some might hate it. Do let me know what you think!


New content

• Added explosive barrels on maps. A map can spawn a random number of such barrels. Barrels will appear in existing saves as well from now on.

BANG

Balancing

• Rose: “Salvage bandages” shelter action has been replaced with the “Heal everyone” shelter action, which allows to heal every character in a shelter. In existing saves, the old action has been replaced with the new one.
  
  Stryk3r has fairly ranked Rose quite low in this awesome Guide to Characters, so maybe this will help making her better.
  
  
• Rose: “Rush It!” action now simply grants a regular extra AP instead of adding that “non-movement AP” thing.
  
  
• Hector: increased the amount of enemy misses in the “untouchable” skill.
  
  
• Michael: “Clean weapon” skill now adds extra damage (it was extra max damage until now), but the bonus is reduced.
  

Note to localization modders: when an action description changes, its translation key gets changed in the localization file. If the game does not find a matching key, it falls back to the English translation. Therefore, if there's no matching translation to, say, an updated skill description in the game, it will be displayed in English (instead of showing an outdated translation).


As usual, thanks for playing Shardpunk! And do share all your thoughts/ideas on the game! Take care!

Hi! A new language has arrived and the gamepad controls have been tweaked.

[h3]1.0.30 PATCH NOTES[/h3]

Localisation:

• Added Polish language version.
  
  

QoL

• Improved controller support - the game should be now playable without the occasional mouse support.

I'm starting to work on new features and balancing updates now. Take care!

Hi! I have recently started working on adding the "more rescuable characters" thing to the game, and I would like to share some of my game design thoughts on this topic.

(before I continue, I wanted to mention that the next game update will include improved gamepad support, localization fixes, and hopefully, Polish language support. It should be released in a few days!)

Anyways, back to the game design talk: one of the things I wanted to change, based on your feedback was making sure that you can encounter more rescuable characters along your way.



Currently, if your party is not at full strength (meaning less than four characters plus an automaton), there is a chance of finding a survivor. If you manage to reach and revive them, they will join your party. However, once your party is at full strength, you will no longer encounter any more survivors.

To make the runs even more enjoyable and diverse, I wanted to modify this system. The change seemed simple: survivors would appear during combat even if your squad is at full strength, and players would be able to choose who stays in the squad. However, this raised several design questions:

When should the players be allowed to change the squad composition?

Should it be right after reviving the fifth member? At the end of a mission? After the shelter phase?

The game's UI was not able to display six character portraits in the top-left. While it seemed like it could handle it:



the game also needs to work with 16:10 aspect ratios:



and it needs to look good in gamepad mode:



Requiring the player to reorganize their party immediately after reviving an additional member would solve the UI issue (as there'd never be more than five characters in total), but it didn't feel right. The player might be in the heat of battle after rushing to revive the survivor. Introducing a "reorganize your party NOW" dialog window in such a moment would be off-putting.

So, I ended up cleaning up the UI:



And the player will be able to reorganize the squad at the end of the mission, just before the shelter phase.

I could allow the dispatched character to still be present during the shelter phase, but the player wouldn't care about that character as they would be dispatching them anyway.

Should the difficulty change when you have five characters plus an automaton?

After you revive the extra survivor, you might be slightly overpowered - after all, you're running around with one extra character. Should the game try to be tougher during that time? I think that it shouldn't - after all, if you've decided to take a chance and dash to revive that survivor, here's your short OP moment for the remainder of this encounter.



What should happen to the upgrades?

Ah, yes. After finishing a mission with one extra squad member, you need to dispatch someone. The thing is, characters can have their weapons upgraded. A player wouldn't want to let go of a squad member if it meant losing all of their weapon upgrades, especially since it's possible to remove upgrades during the shelter phase.

I've decided that a character being let go will have their weapon upgrades automatically removed. It may seem unfair for that character, but I couldn't see any other way to handle it. The player really doesn't want to lose their weapon upgrade points.



What should happen to the dispatched character?

So the player has reorganized their squad, and let one of the characters go. Should that character somehow reappear again? If that's the case, should they have the same skills the player picked previously? If that's the case (and I think it is the correct approach), the save system needs to be expanded to take care of this.

As you can see, even a relatively minor change in gameplay rules can trigger a multitude of smaller decisions that need to be made. And I suppose that's one of the reasons why I love game design so much!

Thanks for reading and for playing my game! You all rock, take care!