Power of Ten News

NOTE FOR MAC USERS: This update is not live for Mac yet. I had some new issues come up with compiling due to certifications on my Developer account with Apple. I'll be working on the weekend to try and get this out for Mac users.



Losing in games is typically demotivating. Losing in games where you've built up to the point where you feel really powerful is even more so. Most roguelikes mitigate this issue by having really short play sessions. Power of Ten has a bit of a longer play session than most roguelikes out there and I think it's discouraging some folks from starting a new run if they've had a fairly long one already. I want to make it feel more palatable to jump into a fresh run after defeat.

Many roguelites solve this problem with meta power progression. I considered this as an option but I think trying to shove meta power progression in would likely break the game's balance significantly and it'd be months of work to try to get it into a playable position.

I wanted to try something a bit different. The idea is this: If you complete a region (any of the three) and then lose during that run you'll find friendly ships that will give you small power boosts based on how you did in the last run. You'll run into these ships at the beginning of each region and they have some nice upgrades to chose from to help you along your way.



My hope is that these early upgrades spice up the beginning of the game a bit and make starting a new run more exciting. It'll also help players who are struggling get excited about reaching a new point of progression.

Once I introduce harder difficulty options these will be activated on a per difficulty basis. So if you reached the Dread region on a lower difficulty you cannot start a higher difficulty and get the upgrades.

As always let me know how you think this feature is working out in Discord or on the Steam forums. Love to hear from folks playing the game!

That's one major feature update down! Woo! Here's how the roadmap is looking now:



[h2]Core Content[/h2]
We've got a handful of core updates.

• Two new enemy types with a new weapon type
  
• Enemies with turrets attached will sometimes spawn with a new type of weapon.
  
• A new weapon.
  

[h2]Balance + QoL[/h2]
Just a few balance tweaks.

• A quick-start button has been added to the end game screen so you can jump into your next run right away.
  
• Shield Breakers fire more frequently and faster projectiles. (These felt a little like punching bags, I don't want them to be super threatening to the player but they shouldn't be trivial)
  
• Animation for rerolling Gear Containers has been cut down considerably. (The cost of rerolling should be primarily credits, it often feels like the time it takes to reroll is actually a larger cost than the credits themselves)
  
• Mines have a shorter time to activation.
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a crash that happened when you died while charging a weapon.
  
• Sound settings should save properly now so they won't reset when you open the game up again.
  
• Many sounds should fade away the further away that object is from the player.
  

[h2]New mechanic - System Augments[/h2]
Systems can be slightly augmented now. Currently, these include positive augments but the system will likely expand to include a mix of both positive and negative augments. The design goal here is to have a reason to pick larger systems over smaller ones to make that decision point more interesting. Smaller systems are seen as low risk and larger ones are high risk. This system should make larger systems retain their high risk but add more reward to taking that risk.


[h2]Balance changes [/h2]
I've heard that some "optimal" play is to just wait for wave after wave to spawn and reap the rewards from those waves. This strategy is a bit antithetical to the whole concept of the game, so I want to increase the difficulty of this strategy to make it a lot riskier. These changes should keep the early game difficulty similar but discourage "farming" of waves as an intentional strategy.
- The minimum spawn rate for waves has been reduced.
- Health scaling for carrier ships has been increased, each wave will be slightly stronger than the last.
- Increased fire rate for carrier ships.
- Increased damage when ships are set on fire or afflicted by acid (This was a little undervalued so buffing it a bit, should be about 20% more damage).

Additionally, I've heard that farming resources to max after the system is saved is very common. While I don't think it's necessarily bad to have a short farming session to prep for the next system I do think spending the time to fill up on every system gives the game a lot of unnecessary downtimes. There's a mechanic in the game where ambush squads will spawn in the system but it's not strong enough to encourage the player to move on at this point. So I'm ramping that up considerably.
- Enemy ambushes will start spawning sooner and more frequently after a system is completed.

[h2]Overworld[/h2]
I've added a bit of an overworld (or universe in this case) to the transition between regions. This is mostly a small aesthetic improvement but will likely add more story elements here to further the world-building.

[h2]Core Updates[/h2]
- Two new weapons.
- Four new ship upgrades.
- Three new enemy ships.

[h2]Other fixes/additions[/h2]
- Weapons that fire a random weapon will not fire any weapons that could harm the player.
- Non-enemies have a more distinct style to discourage players from immediately trying to blow them up.
- Added the option to change the window size.
- Mouse should lock to the window in full-screen mode.
- Fixed an issue where explosions were getting cut off after they damaged anything. (This probably results in a significant buff to explosive weapons. They were only hitting one enemy so they should hit multiple now).
- Added a UI indicator for final encounter doors.
- Warp gates sustain max speed for longer and slow down only at the very end of the journey.
- Charged Mines take full damage from weapons instead of needing three unique hits so it's easier to detonate with high-powered weapons.
- Fixed an issue where Ninja Stars would "shoot out" when using ship abilities that are not the Swtchbade.
- Fixed a crash when interacting with an item while dying.
- Fixed an issue where napalm would do damage upfront when it should only set the ship on fire.
- Beams fired by enemies will get destroyed if the enemy is destroyed while firing it.
- Imported fresh localization strings from Localizer. https://www.localizor.com/power-of-ten.

DISCLAIMER: Roadmaps are an estimate at best. There's a non zero chance that features or content described here will not get into the game. I will try to keep this updated as best I can but please know there's always uncertainty and risk involved in trying to predict what will go into the game in the future.

I wanted to get some info out there about the high level direction of the game. I'm very happy to be in Early Access and the feedback loop with players is very strong. Within the first two weeks of the game being out I've introduced two medium sized patches that address two of the biggest problems I've heard about, ammo system and the controls, as well as dozens of minor fixes.



From here on out I want to aim at shipping one large patch roughly once a month. This roadmap will give you some ideas about what to expect. These updates will contain a mix of core loop updates and major feature updates. Major feature updates may not appear in every update but I hope to beef up the core loop updates when those are not present.

[h2]Constant Core Loop Updates[/h2]

The core loop is pretty well established, in my opinion. You gather resources, protect civilians, upgrade your ship and repeat until you win or lose. They work well together to drive the pacing and the game play forward.

My plan is to make sure that every time I release a content update the core loop is sprinkled with new elements. Maybe there's a handful of new weapons and upgrades that shake up your previous strategy or maybe there's new events that make you think about how you are going to gather and protect or maybe new enemies show up that you have to learn and adapt to.

[h2]Major Feature Updates[/h2]

Along side these core updates there are several key features I want to introduce during Early Access. Here's the a very high level description of what those are:

[h3]New Game Plus[/h3]
I want to allow players to continue playing the game as long as they are still having fun. As players complete the base difficulty I want them to unlock successively more difficult modes for those ships. These will likely end up feeling similar to Slay the Spire or Hades, where each level of difficulty has a unique mechanic that augments how you approach the game.

[h3]Robust stats + Run History[/h3]
Currently the game just doesn't really remember runs from one to the next. I want to start logging this info so that players can reflect on previous runs as well as know more in depth stats from run to run. I'd love to be able to show things like "most used weapons" to the player.

[h3]New Run Incentives[/h3]
Power of Ten has a longer single run time than a lot of roguelites which makes dying later hard to take and can cause some players to stop entirely. While I don't think the game needs a full fleshed out meta progression system I do want to make it a bit easier to push through the early game (and more exciting). My plan for this is that when you arrive at a new region (filled the saved bar) you will unlock a small perk that you can pick up at the beginning of your next run thus giving you a small power bump that may help players clear that hurdle they've been trying to get past.

[h3]Story Book Ends[/h3]
The story for the game is very light right now. I have a lot more in my mind but it's very high effort to do much more than write text content. I would like to make a couple of short pixel art cinematics to introduce and to wrap up the story after beating the final boss. These would likely be the last major feature implemented before 1.0.

That's it for now! That's the high level roadmap as of this moment. This does not mean development will abruptly halt once all these are complete but I'll be reevaluating at that time what else the game might need. As always let me know what you think Steam or Discord. I'm always reading and listening to your feedback.

Hey folks,

Got a fresh update for you. This one will address controls, game feel and more. I've heard that some think both keyboard and gamepad controls are a little rough. I spent some time digging into why that was and what I could do to fix it.

[h2]Controls & Game Feel[/h2]

First of all I want to clarify that this will, likely, never be a twin stick shooter. I want to capture the fighter pilot fantasy and twin stick just doesn't deliver on that. I'm going Luftrausers, Jet Lancer or Nova Drift feeling not Gungeon or Monolith (All great games, just different vibes as far as controls go). Plus, changing to a twin stick shooter would require a massive overhaul from balance to enemy AI and more.

That out of the way lets talk about the current problems with controls overall that I saw:

1. Turning is hard. Turn rates are an important aspect to the game that should help influence slip second decision making but the way ships swing widely when doing a full 180 turn was a bit hard to take. (How it's being changed: Turning at large angles will slow your ship's speed considerably making turns tighter and help you feel more in control)
2. Strafing is inconsistent and confusing. Strafing is going to be a bit confusing on a 360 degree radius but it wasn't made better by the way I had implemented it. (How it's being changed: Strafing is exactly like forward motion just at a 90 degree angle. No slight movement forward unless you are also pressing forward or backward.)
3. The ramp up to switching directions feels more like a delay. Going from thrusting forward to backward would gradually move your speed from forward to backward but it felt like delay in your input. (How it's being changed: changing directions will now instantly zero out your motion in another direction and build speed in that direction from there. It should be much snappier and responsive)

That's how I'm addressing general controls. Lets talk about gamepad now.

[h2]Gamepads[/h2]

I've overhauled how gamepads work with the game. You can essentially switch seamlessly between using mouse/keyboard and a gamepad at any time. Strafing has been removed from gamepad controls, I can certainly consider adding this back in but I feel like it's an awkward fit with any gamepad configuration and doesn't add a lot overall (Would love feedback on this).

I've added a second control scheme for gamepads. This one is a little more in line with what you'd expect from racing games where you control forward/backward separate from steering vs having steering and thrust controlled with the stick.

Additionally you can adjust the deadzone and rumble amounts for your gamepads. In the future I'm thinking about adding rebindable buttons for gamepad and more controls schemes if folks think they are necessary.

[h2]Fixes + QoL[/h2]

This patch also includes a bunch of fixes and general improvements. Here's the list:

- Game slow has been removed everywhere in the game. This was intentional to make certain effects feel "juicier" but folks feel like it's the game's performance dropping which is never a good trade off.
- Ship select screen has been reworked, you can configure your ship and then press "Start" instead of clicking the ship you want to start the game.
- Fixed a bug with final boss and the upgrade that shoots lasers when hit.
- Exiting the final boss room will give you a small amount of invulnerability and destroy projectiles to keep you from running straight into something dangerous after exiting.
- Enhanced the UI effects when you get set on fire or effected by acid to give an indication of how to avoid damage from those effects.
- Fixed a bug where hitting exit while going into a warp gate would cause you to lose control completely.
- Added a better item container description to clue players into why they should reroll.

If this patch is relatively stable when it goes out I'll be moving on to work on a public roadmap. In the next few weeks I hope to share with you what I have planned for the game and then really get to work cranking it out.

Got a few more critical fixes here for you all.

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a bug that would cause the game to freeze if there was only one uninhabited planet in the system after you complete it.
- Fixed a bug with completing the game Steam Achievements not being given when the game completes.
- Fixed a bug that caused recoil to not be reduced with the upgrade in certain scenarios.
- Fixed a few more projectile hit crashes. Root cause of this is still a little unknown and i know there's one that's still evading me. If you have save files with this crash regularly happening please send it to me.