Swarm Grinder News

Hello again all!

Today is the day we’ve been waiting for! As promised, Swarm Grinder will be leaving the realm of Early Access and venturing forth into Full Release. Buckle up, this is going to be a long one:

So, here’s a summarized list of what awaits you in the Full Release:

• The Garage: That one section we had disabled for the 0.7 patch where you’ll be able to equip items to get stronger is now unlocked.
  
• Items: now you’ll have new items that you earn through character masteries and in-game. Equip them in the Garage to empower you through missions. Mix and match to see which ones fit your playstyle the best kind of thing, yeah?
  
• Character Masteries: Unique side missions presented to you for each character. You can raise the mastery rank of the characters by completing these missions and you’ll be rewarded by new bioshards, items and more.
  
• The Operator: You’re not alone anymore! Welcome the lovely little lady that will guide you and interact with you throughout your missions. Listen close and you might hear a thing or two about the bug infested planet you somehow keep landing on.
  
• New Gadgets: We now introduce 6 new gadgets in addition to the Dash and Expanding Trigger. Some are Flamethrower, Drill Call and Pet Drone. The rest, you shall see for yourself.
  

For the players who have been practically begging for it, we will be making our Original Soundtrack available for purchase. We know our soundtrack is super cool, you’re welcome. Thanks Onur (our music guy).

Also, we’d like to emphasize again that we have improved our game drastically thanks to all the positive and negative feedback that came from you guys. People who haven't been able to enjoy the game because of its shortcomings seem to be enjoying it now. Why else would the negative reviews turn positive, eh? People who have wishlisted our game but were hesitant to buy it, we can say with utmost joy that you can actually go for it now (winky face). We’re absolutely certain that it’s better than it has always been.

Last but not least, the thank you section. We’d like to start by thanking all our current and future players. Also we’d like to thank; (taking a deep breath here) our close friends, people who have supported us through hard times, our investors, playtesters, people who have believed in us and our game, energy drink brands, people we pestered during gaming conventions, the publishers that we insistently bothered, content creators, influencers, the marketing mail people that we kept ignoring, our coffee machine, that one crow that brought me a bottle cap in the balcony, the barista from the coffee shop we always go to, our cleaning lady, Kağan’s, Beste’s and Ezo’s cats, our families who have supported us mostly unwillingly, my highschool physics teacher and lastly, the Moon for not crashing into the Earth while we were developing this thing. That’s almost all, the rest you can read at the credits of the game.

PLS BUY N EMJOY THE BIG FUN SHOOTY GAIM. ALSO DO A POSITIVE COMENT PLS. KTHXBYE.

Hello all!

The day, finally, is upon us! With the deepest pride and greatest pleasure, Last Bite Team proudly presents:

SWARM GRINDER - FULL RELEASE
APRIL 22

We have come a long way since the time we went into Early Access and now we're here with a game that we're proud to call ours. We thank all our players for all the feedback, the discussions and the support. We know it's as cheesy as it gets, but we wouldn't be here without your help.

Also special thanks to all those who took their time to write detailed negative comments and ripped us a new one. It has helped us improve, a lot. We're glad to see that most of those comments turned positive as we kept developing. We'll keep doing our best.

Enjoy!

Hey there, thanks for playing v0.7.0 and giving feedbacks. This hotfix (more like warmfix now) should solve these problems:

1. We hope, problems with last drill area are solved. Now you can find and open the cells on last drill area without any problems.
   
2. Late game waves are harder. You won't make it out alive.
   
3. Tentacle attack and Vortex Blade pull areas are now correctly represented.
   
4. Cursed Chests can be see from a bit farther.
   
5. Cursed Chests now open instantly. Some players stop expecting the game to stop instantly and enemies would catch up and damage the player.
   
6. Some little quality of life and text improvements:
   

• Hp regen upgrade in Workshop now correctly displays health regen, from 0.4 to 0.2.
  
• Main Menu -> Back to Lobby in Run End Screen
  
• Confirm prompt for refunding Workshop purchases
  
• Hovering over Gadget and Evolution selections in Selection menu now selects them and updates info text.
  
• Sometimes WASD and gamepad navigation would stop working in specific menus. They should mostly be fixed now.
  
• Some more unmentioned text and bug fixes.
  

We are aware of the issue preventing the game from opening only on the Mac version, and we are still working to resolve this issue. Thank you for your patient waiting, and we apologize for this unexpected problem.

v0.7.0


After Early Access, along with the feedback we received, we thoroughly reviewed the game to chart a roadmap for ourselves. We had a beloved gimmick, but the enhancements in the game were still rudimentary and superficial. Without making significant changes, none of the content we added would make the game satisfying in terms of depth and entertainment. So, we started working on a major rework where we revamped all the enhancements. This patch includes some significant extras along with the completed parts of this rework.


[h2]SUMMARY[/h2]

• The Dash gadget has been added, and a feature for extending the range of the Manual Trigger has been added.
  
• New soundtracks have been added.
  
• New upgrades have been introduced including specials, offering entirely new gameplay styles.
  
• The difficulty balance of the game has been overhauled.
  
• Reroll option has been added for abilities and upgrades.
  
• All menus in the game have been redesigned, and the ability to view the results of upgrades in-game menus has been added.
  

To make all these changes, we had to postpone our plans to expand content such as maps, characters, and modes that we had in mind. However, we are currently working on a content expansion that we want to present to you soon. The newly added Dash gadget is just a small part of this.


[h2]DETAILS[/h2] GADGETS

The Dash gadget has been added to the game with the revamp of the gadget system, first of many gadgets to be added to the game in full release. Now, when you find yourself in a tight spot or want to make faster progress in the game, you can dash in the direction you're moving by pressing the "Gadget Key". While the Dash gadget refills over time naturally, you can speed up access to it by opening cells!

Additionally, we've updated the Manual Trigger gadget to increase its trigger range per cell opened. This transforms it into a more tactical gadget in the early stages of the game and allows for triggering more enemies towards the end.

SOUNDTRACKS

New soundtracks have been added, including tracks for the final boss as well as for the Cave and Garden maps.

NEW UPGRADES AND PLAY STYLES

30 upgrade options have been added or reworked into the game, providing numerous different gameplay styles. Each ability now has at least two special upgrades. We plan to have three special upgrades for all skills in the full version of the game.

GAME DIFFICULTY

Alongside the new gameplay styles, we've reevaluated the game's difficulty. Dying has become much more challenging, but so has killing enemies. Our aim is to encourage players to explore gameplay styles that may break the game. Additionally, we've meticulously reviewed the waves, which we intend to be the game's primary challenge.

SKILL AND UPGRADE REROLL

We've introduced a much-needed Reroll feature to the game, free to experiment with until it will be unlockable using Bioshards in the full release. Currently, you have 2 Skill Rerolls and 3 Upgrade Rerolls that refresh at the start of each hand. This makes experimenting with play styles much more manageable.

MENUS AND UI

We've completely revamped the main menu, workshop, character, and map selection screens. Our goal is to make everything much clearer and selection much more comfortable before entering the game.

Before acquiring an upgrade in-game, you can now see exactly how that upgrade will change which ability. Additionally, from the pause menu, you can see the contents of all upgrades acquired and how they affect your abilities.

OTHER NOTES

We removed the Fuel Station from the game as it was emphasizing certain gameplay styles too much.

We are continuing our tease from last week! These changes will be coming with the next major patch in a week or two. Let’s see what we have…

MENUS OVERHAUL

Main menu is changing completely. We wanted more authentic, fresher look while also improving the ease of use.

Workshop now has a dedicated menu with a more meaningful setting.

IN-GAME UX IMPROVEMENTS

Upgrade descriptions used to be too similar to the upgrade effects under them. This feels a little awkward, so we are changing it. Upgrade descriptions are less filled with text and are easier to read. Just sentences with upgrade numbers embedded in.



Also, now we show how stats will change in the upgrade selection window! Now you will see the before & after of an upgrade before selecting it. This was hard to implement because of so many ways stats might change, and so it was hard to detect the before and the after, but it is finally here.



Build display in the Pause Menu now reads directly from the upgrade, so it will be consistent and more thorough. It will be able to show previous levels of the upgrade as well. That will come in handy during build theory-crafting.

As mentioned in the last week, rerolls are coming!