ExtraGalactica News

Hey folks!

It's your friendly neighborhood indie dev, Dante! I just wanted to touch base real quick and provide some information around the changes/fixes that have gone out in our most recent update this week.

We've been listening carefully to our community members and actioning upon their feedback where ever possible. This has lead to a re-design of the tutorial for shooter gameplay to help streamline things and clarify a few things better.

We also have had some fixes and balancing work in this update which have forced us to make a tough decision as we have closed our leaderboards that have existed in the game thus far. These leaderboards are now locked to maintain the integrity of the work people put in to achieve these scores. They will remain viewable in game as well as in the Steam Community interface.

BUT FEAR NOT! We have rolled out a new batch of "phase 2" leaderboards that function a little differently from the previous set. These leaderboards have a hardcore and casual versions depending on whether you have the Auto-Barrel Roll option off or on (respectively).

Other notable changes/fixes:
- Exit button added to main menu
- Pause menu updated in gameplay to show active gameplay
- Pause menu in gameplay now also includes an option to restart your round of Infinite Mode
- Rework/balancing for Dipper, Hyper Rush and Deftkruiser
- Ship Invincibility VFX have been updated to be more apparent
- Fixes around the spiral attack while Super G
- Leaderboards added to front end menu for easy access
- Round Start menu added to Infinite Mode to allow players to select a weapon system skin and view leaderboards before starting gameplay
- Carousel Mode - With this new mode activated, your weapon skin will randomly shift to another skin you have unlocked after each use of your Super G Ultimate attack to help keep rounds interesting and fresh
- Windowed Mode - ALRIGHT FINE. I did the thing. I didn't want to but I did anyways 😂😂 Never say I don't do anything for the community ❤️ (Jokes aside, you can now select fullscreen or windowed mode in options in the front end or in options in the Round End Screen of Infinite Mode
- Tutorial Pop-up - I have things set up now so that the tutorial option that appears while loading into Infinite Mode will stop appearing once you have passed a minimum score threshold. The tutorial can always be accessed from the Options Menu in the front end if you need a refresher
- Additional Boss audio assets added to gameplay

I'm not sure if I am missing anything on this list but please know that we intend on doing another update soon to get our Simplified Chinese localization caught back up ASAP. Please let us know if you hit any new issues in this update so we can get things squared away for you!

Take care!
Dante Campana

Hello all!

Dante here!

I just wanted to take some time to put together a written progress update after E3 and Steam Summer Sale had wrapped up. We've been hard at work on some really great community feedback that we have gathered from folks who have been nice enough to stream ExtraGalactica on Twitch and Facebook Gaming. This includes adding access to leaderboards in the front end, adding some settings that can be adjusted before the first round of Infinite mode in a game session, and some much needed adjustments to our tutorial.

This has not been without difficulty, though. As is the nature of indie game development, with only three sets of hand actively working on the project we are bound to hit issues from time to time that none of us have the skill set to handle immediately. In those cases, we often must pick up a new skill set or go through lengthy processes to find the cause of the issue. Throughout the majority of July and August, we have been plagued with these types of issues but we believe we've made it through the woods.

This process has made us update our Unity Engine and Wwise Engine versions which has also forced us to redo some previous work once the solutions had been identified. Unfortunately, as a result of this work, we will also have to reset everyone's statistics and retire our current leaderboards. These retired leaderboards will be locked at their final standings with the next update. They will still be viewable in-game and on Steam, but scores will no longer update. A new batch of leaderboards will be released with the next update which will kick off Phase 2 of Early Access for ExtraGalactica.

As we are now unblocked on most areas of our work, we are focusing on finishing up the community feedback mentioned above. After this next update we will continue focusing our work between Campaign Preview and Local Multiplayer modes so we can get something fresh in the community's hands ASAP.

Thanks again for all of your patience, feedback, and support!

We're so excited for what we have coming next for y'all!!

-Dante Campana

Hey all!

Dante here. On the heels of our E3 interview schedule winding down, Matt and I returned to our Unity session with a renewed spark for the work that awaited us... and then that funny indie developer thing happened.

We were watching old clips of the local multiplayer mode that was in the original arcade cabinet for ExtraGalactica and we had this feeling in our gut to try and prototype it real quick. It is something that we have planned as the beginning of our multiplayer modes for some time now, but it had previously been slated for further down the line.

That prototype came together way more than we had anticipated for just a week's worth of effort. At this point, we feel it is probably best if we try to finish the first iteration of multiplayer and get it in the community's hands ASAP. So dust off your fingerless gloves and get ready for local multiplayer!

Here's a small teaser gif so you can see what we're cookin' up! (Subject to plenty of change as we move into polishing)

Hello all!

We are so excited to be a part of the Indie Game Showcase at E3 this year! Last week we released our most recent update for Infinite Mode which is chock-full of fixes, balancing, new features such as a playable tutorial, and improved art/audio. At E3, we will be sharing a sneak peek of our upcoming Campaign Mode which we hope to add as a playable demo in an update this Fall (or sooner if time permits).

We would like to thank everyone for sharing their excitement, feedback, and enjoyment with us on this journey so far! Once the demo for Campaign mode has been added to the game, we will be listening closely for feedback as we continue to build the rest of the Campaign. As of now, the first full episode of the Campaign is slated for release next year.

On a more personal note, we appreciate everyone's patience as we work to build a game that our community will love as much as we do! Please keep the feedback coming and check out our E3 booth and check out our teaser trailer below!

[previewyoutube]our new teaser trailer![/previewyoutube]










Dante Campana
Ghost Street Games

Hello all!

We have finished our update for Infinite Mode! Work is still in progress for new content to be localized into Simplified Chinese so there will be another small update in the next few weeks to cover that, but all the other main features of this update are now available in build!

As a side note (some of you may already know), we will be at this year's E3 Expo where we will premier new footage of our Campaign Mode! We're very excited to share this with you and we hope you enjoy the sneak peek!

Infinite Mode Update:
- Audio and Visual updates to Front End
- New (Playable) Shooter Tutorial
- Removed COVID ships and replaced with a few new enemies
- Added Randomized Meteor Showers
- Full update to all music in the game
- Sound effects have been added to all weapon system skins (ultimates included)
- Menu updates for Leaderboards
- Removed old tips and tricks sections (all this info is in the tutorial now)
- Adjustments to Boss attack patterns to remove some less-than-fair moments from gameplay
- Various bug fixes for UI navigation and gameplay

Please reach out to us if you see any issues so we can get them fixed between now and the next update! Thanks and enjoy!