Swarm Grinder News

v0.5.0

[h2]SUMMARY[/h2]

• An Endgame Boss has been added to the Mining Expedition mode.
  
• New types of enemies have been added.
  
• In-game events have been added.
  
• Small adjustments have been made to game balance.
  

[h2]CHANGES[/h2] Meet Lecronator!

• To complete the Mining Expedition mission, you now have to confront and defeat the Lecronator, who appears in the Final Mining Zone.
  
• The Lecronator currently has two types of attacks. In the first attack, when the character approaches, it strikes around itself, creating a rush wave. In the second attack, it generates tendrils that attack the character.
  

In future updates, we will be adding different attack types and phases to the Lecronator. Please share your feedback with us!


New Enemy Types

We are adding 5 different types of enemies to the game. We are distributing them across the maps and evolution levels. Now, the basic enemies on the maps are different, and a new enemy type is added to the maps every 3 evolution levels.

• Scorpion enemies spin around for a while before targeting the character and attacking. They have similar health and damage values to regular enemies but are much faster.
  
• Slime enemies move in random directions after emerging from cells. They have high health.
  
• Fly Thrower enemies take a certain distance from characters and throw fly enemies. Fly enemies follow the character, and if they collide with the character, disappear and deal damage.
  
• The Slowdown Explosive enemy type creates a slowing area where it explodes. If the character comes into contact with this area, they are slowed down.
  
• The Poisonous Explosive enemy type creates a poison area where it explodes. If characters and enemies come into contact with this area, they take damage.
  

We have designed the new enemies to be strong against different builds, so don't hesitate to try different builds if you encounter a difficulty you can't overcome!


In-game Events

We are introducing 4 types of in-game events that can strengthen your character in various ways. These are Upgrade Parts, Station Areas, Cursed Upgrades, and Temporary Buffs. All in-game events are scattered randomly across the map.

• When you collect 3 Upgrade Parts, you receive two upgrades for the ability that your character is closest to getting a special upgrade for.
  
• When you enter a Station Area, your character benefits from the buff of the Station Area they are in.
  
• Cursed Upgrades are available in the game starting from the 2nd Evolution Level. Cursed Upgrades greatly enhance some of the character's attributes while significantly reducing others. Discretion is advised. 🙂
  
• Temporary Buffs are available in the game starting from the 5th Evolution Level. To obtain temporary buffs, you need to destroy Crystal Enemies with buffs on them.
  

Balance Adjustments

• Early and mid-game damage dealt by enemies has been reduced.
  
• Health drop chance of enemies has been decreased.
  
• Awarded bioshard for every run has been increased for every evolution stage.
  
• Prices for Workshop upgrades have been raised.
  
• Knockback Distance upgrade of Project Lute in Workshop upgrades has been strengthened. Burn Duration upgrade in the same project has been changed to Burn Chance.
  
• The base penetration value of the Spiral Shot ability has been increased, and the cooldown time has been reduced.
  
• The quantity of the Vortex Blades ability has been increased by 1, but the cooldown time has also been slightly increased.
  

v0.4.1


SUMMARY

• 2 new maps
  
• 10 new evolution stages
  
• The range of skills that each character has access to has been updated
  
• Spaceship Artillery Updated
  
• Achievements Updated
  

CHANGES

New Maps

• Two new maps named "Labyrinth" and "Garden" have been added to the game. You can access the "Labyrinth" map by unlocking the "Devotion" achievement, and the "Garden" map by unlocking the "Pesticide" achievement.
  
• We built the Labyrinth map upon walls that serve as an impassable obstacle for both characters and enemies. These walls have transformed the map into a claustrophobic environment and introduced new dynamics to the gameplay.
  
• In the Garden map, we have introduced new cells referred to as "Allium", which can be described as poisonous cells. When triggered, these cells create a poison area that inflicts damage to both enemies and characters. Moreover, we have completely repositioned the enemies for this map. It offers a slightly higher level of difficulty compared to the Plateau and Labyrinth maps.
  

Evolution System

• The evolution system has been added to the game as a mechanism that allows players seeking a challenge to gradually increase the difficulty. Currently, this system features 10 different difficulty variables. Some of these variables increase the required number of excavation tools to unlock, some enhance the enemies' strength, while others accelerate the map's spread rate, as well as the number of drills required to win.
  
• Winning on any map while an evolution stage is turned on unlocks the next evolution level for all maps. This allows you to play each evolution level on every map.
  
• We are planning to increase the number of evolution levels and add different content to these levels. We have ideas such as introducing new events, bosses, and various enemy types as additional content. Stay tuned for updates and follow our progress!
  

Character Skills

• We have changed the accessible ability sets for characters. Now, each character has access to 5 active and 5 passive abilities that they can utilize.
  
• Characters will now have access to only two types of active abilities. For Bulletstorm, these are "Rapidfire" and "Blades," for Butcher, "Blades" and "Launcher", and for Bombard, "Launcher" and "Rapidfire" labeled abilities.
  
• The reason for this change is that we've observed stronger interactions between abilities with the same label, and players have been constructing builds using these shared label synergies. Now, you'll be able to select up to 3 abilities simultaneously from both "Rapidfire," "Blades," and "Launcher" categories, allowing for more diverse and powerful combinations. This change is somewhat experimental for us as well. Therefore, we eagerly await your feedback. You can reach out to us through the Steam community and our Last Bite Games Discord channel. Your comments and insights are highly valuable to us!
  

Spaceship Artillery

• The base damage of Spaceship Artillery has been increased from 15 to 30. It seems hitting the ability is a bit more challenging than we initially thought 😄
  
• We forgot to add fuel consumption to both using and upgrading Spaceship Artillery. This has now been fixed. 🧁
  

Achievements

• With the changes to the evolution system and the character ability sets, some achievements have been modified, and we had to remove one achievement from the game. Don't worry, more achievements are on the way, so stay tuned!
  
• The Labyrinth map is unlocked with the "Devotion" achievement, while the Garden map is unlocked with the "Pesticide" achievement.
  
• The "Omnivore" achievement has been removed from the game. Now, the "Fast Feet" achievement unlocks the Bombard character.
  
• The "Valiant Glory" achievement is now unlocked when you reach the 10th evolution level in the game.
  
• The "Ace Pilot" achievement is now unlocked when you win the game at the 5th evolution level without spending any points to Workshop upgrades.
  

Greetings, we have come bearing big updates! Prepare for an explosive update that introduces thrilling new content to your gaming experience. With our latest patches, new and challenging achievements, the "High Difficulty" mutator, and our newest addition to our roster, “Bombard” has been added to the game along with many significant improvements! Join us and experience what we have been so excited to bring to you. Tell us what you think about the updates in our Discord channel!


[h3]v0.3.4[/h3]

Fuel System Changes

• Active skills now increase fuel consumption rate by 2/s instead of 3/s when first obtained.
  
• Both active and passive skill upgrades now increase fuel consumption when first obtained, but they do not increase fuel consumption when the level of the upgrade is increased.
  

Skill Changes

• Spiral Shot now fires its bullets in smaller angular intervals to complete one full rotation.
  

Skill Upgrade Changes

• Negative aspects have been removed from most skill upgrades, but to maintain balance, some upgrades that had their negative aspects removed have been slightly weakened.
  
• The first level of upgrades is now much stronger compared to the second and third levels, due to the change related to fuel consumption.
  

Workshop Upgrade Changes

• The issue of the "Burn Duration" upgrade resetting the duration of the skill instead of increasing it when given points has been resolved.
  
• The fuel reduction amount of the "Overcharge Consumption" upgrade has been reduced.
  

Mining Expedition Mode Changes

• The map's growth rate has been slowed down by 10%.
  
• The spread rate of cells has been reduced.
  
• The probability of empty cells transforming into full cells has been decreased by 25%.
  
• The attack speed of melee enemies has been reduced by 35%.
  
• There is now a higher probability of Bio Shards dropping enemies appearing in the early stage of the game.
  
• The Bio Shards mode bonus for normal difficulty has been removed.
  
• The amount of Bio Shards dropped by crystal enemies has been reduced.
  
• High Difficulty Mutator for Mining Expedition Mode
  
• A "High Difficulty" mutator has been added to the Mining Expedition mode. You can experience the game at a higher difficulty by enabling this mutator.
  
• When High Difficulty mutator is on, you need to clear 30 Mining Zones instead of 25 to complete the mission.
  
• Enemy cells grow 15% faster compared to normal difficulty.
  
• Enemies have 40% more health compared to normal difficulty.
  
• Enemies deal 20% more damage compared to normal difficulty.
  
• Enemies are 30% faster compared to normal difficulty.
  
• The last Mining Zone grows 33% faster than the rest of the map.
  
• More Bio Shards dropping enemies appear compared to normal difficulty.
  
• You earn 2 Bio Shards per minute survived.
  
• When you play with High Difficulty mutator on, you receive a 30% Bio Shards bonus at the end of the run.
  
• Successfully completing the mission gives a 50% Bio Shards bonus.
  

Achievements

• An achievement has been added for killing a certain number of enemies by dropping the Drilling Station on them during a run.
  
• An achievement has been added for completing the game with the "High Difficulty" mutator on.
  
• An achievement has been added for completing the game with the "High Difficulty" mutator on, without distributing points to any Workshop upgrades.
  

UI/UX Improvements and Fixes

• The issue of the "Critical Explosion" upgrade description not appearing in the Build Display screen has been resolved.
  
• The description of the "Global Count" Workshop upgrade has been updated to be more understandable.
  
• The term "Attack Delay" has been changed as "Firing Interval" to make it more understandable.
  
• The Terms box that appears on the right when a new skill or skill upgrade is obtained can now be scrolled.
  
• The issue of some upgrade levels not appearing in the name on the skill upgrade obtaining screen has been resolved.
  
• On the game end screen, you can now see how many Workshop upgrades you can unlock with your total Bio Shards.
  
• A "Kills" counter has been added. You can enable this counter in the "Options/Interface" menu.
  
• The "wrap around" feature while navigating with a keyboard or controller in the Workshop screen has been removed.
  

Other

• The game's performance has been significantly improved.
  

[h3]v0.3.5[/h3]


Skills

• The Vortex Blade skill has been removed from the Bulletstorm character and replaced with a new skill, Feather Blades.
  
• The Torch skill has been removed from the Bulletstorm character and replaced with a new skill, Pacemaker.
  
• The Gatling Gun skill has been removed from the Butcher character and replaced with a new skill, Railgun.
  
• Two new upgrades have been added to the Mortar skill.
  
• The Heal on Kill upgrade from the Arsenal skill has been moved to the Pacemaker skill.
  
• Two new upgrades have been added to the Arsenal skill.
  
• A Cast Time has been added to the Mortar skill. Now, even if the Cooldown is equal to zero, a minimum amount of time will have to pass before it can be used again.
  
• The Global Damage given by Arsenal when first obtained has been reduced to 20%.
  
• The Global Damage multiplier provided by Final Touches, the special upgrade for Arsenal, has been reduced to 1.75.
  
• The base damage of Homing Missiles has been increased to 20.
  
• The base damage of the Gatling Gun has been decreased to 7.
  
• The cooldown period for Vortex Blade has been reduced to 2 seconds.
  
• Base explosion damage has been reduced to 5.
  

Visual Fixes and Improvements

• All special upgrades now have their own icon.
  
• The visuals of explosion effects no longer cover the health bars.
  
• The issue with the hit area showing up when the Boss first arrives has been fixed.
  
• The problem of the selection frame in the Available Skills section being under the icons has been resolved.
  

UI/UX Fixes and Improvements

• The option to hide the skill name written on the icon of skills dropped from the Drilling Station has been added. You can access it from the "Options/Interface" menu.
  
• The problem of the maximum health sometimes being shown incorrectly at the start of the game has been solved.
  
• The problem with incorrect input hints appearing on the Workshop screen has been solved.
  
• While in the main menu, if you switch to a different window, the issue of button sounds being heard while navigating with the mouse, even though the game is not in focus, has been solved.
  
• The reward title of achievements that don't give rewards has been removed.
  

Achievements

• 8 new achievements have been added. You can check the details in the Codex/Achievements section.
  
• The amount of rewards given by most achievements has been reduced.
  

[h3]v0.3.5f1[/h3]

• In the Arsenal skill, the issue of the Initial Strike and Global Knockback upgrades appearing together, as well as the problem of the Special Upgrade not appearing despite these two being received a total of 6 times together, have been resolved.
  
• The issue of the Duration information always appearing as "1 sec" in the Invulnerability upgrade of the Pacemaker skill has been resolved.
  
• The description of the Treasure Hunter achievement has been corrected.
  
• The issue of the Memento Mori skill not working properly has been resolved.
  

[h3]v0.4.0[/h3]

• The Bombard character has been added to the game.
  
• Along with the Bombard character, the Spaceship Artillery skill has been added.
  
• The enemy evolution speed in the High Difficulty mutator of Mining Expedition has been slightly reduced.
  
• The end-of-game mission briefing text now appears as an animation.
  
• The issue of inputs getting temporarily locked when switching between mouse and the other devices has been resolved.
  

Looking forward to hear what you think!

Skills

- The Vortex Blade skill has been removed from the Bulletstorm character and replaced with a new skill, Feather Blades.
- The Torch skill has been removed from the Bulletstorm character and replaced with a new skill, Pacemaker.
- The Gatling Gun skill has been removed from the Butcher character and replaced with a new skill, Railgun.
- Two new upgrades have been added to the Mortar skill.
- The Heal on Kill upgrade from the Arsenal skill has been moved to the Pacemaker skill.
- Two new upgrades have been added to the Arsenal skill.
- A Cast Time has been added to the Mortar skill. Now, even if the Cooldown is equal to zero, a minimum amount of time will have to pass before it can be used again.
- The Global Damage given by Arsenal when first obtained has been reduced to 20%.
- The Global Damage multiplier provided by Final Touches, the special upgrade for Arsenal, has been reduced to 1.75.
- The base damage of Homing Missiles has been increased to 20.
- The base damage of the Gatling Gun has been decreased to 7.
- The cooldown period for Vortex Blade has been reduced to 2 seconds.
- Base explosion damage has been reduced to 5.


Visual Fixes and Improvements

- All special upgrades now have their own icon.
- The visuals of explosion effects no longer cover the health bars.
- The issue with the hit area showing up when the Boss first arrives has been fixed.
- The problem of the selection frame in the Available Skills section being under the icons has been resolved.


UI/UX Fixes and Improvements

- The option to hide the skill name written on the icon of skills dropped from the Drilling Station has been added. You can access it from the "Options/Interface" menu.
- The problem of the maximum health sometimes being shown incorrectly at the start of the game has been solved.
- The problem with incorrect input hints appearing on the Workshop screen has been solved.
- While in the main menu, if you switch to a different window, the issue of button sounds being heard while navigating with the mouse, even though the game is not in focus, has been solved.
- The reward title of achievements that don't give rewards has been removed.


Achievements

- 8 new achievements have been added. You can check the details in the Codex/Achievements section.
- The amount of rewards given by most achievements has been reduced.

Active skills now increase fuel consumption rate by 2/s instead of 3/s when first obtained.
Both active and passive skill upgrades now increase fuel consumption when first obtained, but they do not increase fuel consumption when the level of the upgrade is increased.



Spiral Shot now fires its bullets in smaller angular intervals to complete one full rotation.



Negative aspects have been removed from most skill upgrades, but to maintain balance, some upgrades that had their negative aspects removed have been slightly weakened.

The first level of upgrades is now much stronger compared to the second and third levels, due to the change related to fuel consumption.



The issue of the "Burn Duration" upgrade resetting the duration of the skill instead of increasing it when given points has been resolved.

The fuel reduction amount of the "Overcharge Consumption" upgrade has been reduced.

• The map's growth rate has been slowed down by 10%.
  
• The spread rate of cells has been reduced.
  
• The probability of empty cells transforming into full cells has been decreased by 25%.
  
• The attack speed of melee enemies has been reduced by 35%.
  
• There is now a higher probability of Bio Shards dropping enemies appearing in the early stage of the game.
  
• The Bio Shards mode bonus for normal difficulty has been removed.
  
• The amount of Bio Shards dropped by crystal enemies has been reduced.
  

• A "High Difficulty" mutator has been added to the Mining Expedition mode. You can experience the game at a higher difficulty by enabling this mutator.
  
• When High Difficulty mutator is on, you need to clear 30 Mining Zones instead of 25 to complete the mission.
  
• Enemy cells grow 15% faster compared to normal difficulty.
  
• Enemies have 40% more health compared to normal difficulty.
  
• Enemies deal 20% more damage compared to normal difficulty.
  
• Enemies are 30% faster compared to normal difficulty.
  
• The last Mining Zone grows 33% faster than the rest of the map.
  
• More Bio Shards dropping enemies appear compared to normal difficulty.
  
• You earn 2 Bio Shards per minute survived.
  
• When you play with High Difficulty mutator on, you receive a 30% Bio Shards bonus at the end of the run.
  
• Successfully completing the mission gives a 50% Bio Shards bonus.
  

• An achievement has been added for killing a certain number of enemies by dropping the Drilling Station on them during a run.
  
• An achievement has been added for completing the game with the "High Difficulty" mutator on.
  
• An achievement has been added for completing the game with the "High Difficulty" mutator on, without distributing points to any Workshop upgrades.
  

• The issue of the "Critical Explosion" upgrade description not appearing in the Build Display screen has been resolved.
  
• The description of the "Global Count" Workshop upgrade has been updated to be more understandable.
  
• The term "Attack Delay" has been changed as "Firing Interval" to make it more understandable.
  
• The Terms box that appears on the right when a new skill or skill upgrade is obtained can now be scrolled.
  
• The issue of some upgrade levels not appearing in the name on the skill upgrade obtaining screen has been resolved.
  
• On the game end screen, you can now see how many Workshop upgrades you can unlock with your total Bio Shards.
  
• A "Kills" counter has been added. You can enable this counter in the "Options/Interface" menu.
  
• The "wrap around" feature while navigating with a keyboard or controller in the Workshop screen has been removed.
  

The game's performance has been significantly improved.

Link to latest roadmap details that's arrived --> Roadmap with the changes