Major Update: Message from the Mayor of Survival Quiz City!

Hello Survival Quiz Citizens!

This is Yusuke Shigeta, Director of Survival Quiz City. I want to extend my sincerest thanks to everyone who participated in the last Playtest. It was exciting to set everyone loose in this wild Quiz City we've dreamed up.

And you won't have to wait too long to return to Survival Quiz City! Another Playtest is right around the corner! Please keep an eye on Steam and social media for more updates.

We learned a lot during the last Playtest by watching our Citizens use their wits and weapons to survive the barrage of questions and explosions. Based on your feedback, we have made a ton of improvements to the game that we think everyone will enjoy for the next playtest.

Riddle me this! Updates to Quizzes
The areas that we received the most feedback on were the difficulty level of the quizzes and the quiz answer method. Initially, we put more weight on action than quizzes in the development process, but at the time of the April Playtest, there were so many people who played the game expecting it to be a quiz game that we decided to raise the importance of quizzes and aim to create a balance where both quizzes and action can be enjoyed.

As a first step, we've implemented a new type of quiz: the Quick Push Quiz. We've also made some improvements to quizzes that were generally too easy and improved the overall difficulty balance and variety of the quizzes.

About "Quick Push Quiz”
At the start of the game, a series of quick quizzes will be given. The top few players who can answer questions first will be able to leave the gate early. During the quiz, there is no need to move the characters or perform any other operations; it’s a test of how fast you can answer the questions, not get to the correct platform like the regular “Dash Quiz” at the start of every match.

As you'll see in the next Playtest, we've improved the balance of "Quick Quiz" and "Dash Quiz" questions. We'll continue to increase the number of variations of quiz answers with each Playtest.

About the Quiz Questions
The questions that were used in the last playtest were designed by the development team, but for the upcoming playtest we've enlisted the help of Cubist Inc., and CIT-Quiz Research Group! They've been hard at work crafting a range of questions to test our eager Citizen's mettle.

Win, Lose Or Lose: Adjusting Game Balance
Another area that we received a lot of comments on was the disparity between the "winners" and the "losers" after the Quizzes. Many Citizens who failed to answer the Quizzes correctly were left to lose, with no way to climb back up the rankings. We tried to make the disparity between the "winners" and "losers" enjoyable, but once you're on the losing side, it's quite difficult to turn things around.

Therefore, in the upcoming Playtest, we've made various adjustments so that the balance will be such that Citizens can become a winner even if they fall into the losing group.

More Money, Less Problems
On the loser's course, we've placed a coin in front of the goal that can only be won by the Citizen who gets there first. There’s a 3000-point coin in Round 1, a 4000-point coin in Round 2, and a 5000-point coin in Round 3. These coins won’t respawn once picked up, so only those who reach the goal quickly will reap the reward!

We’ve also shortened respawn time for all the coins on the loser course so more money can be earned. There will be more opportunities to increase your net worth and rankings while you're dodging bombs and bullets from other Citizens now.

In addition to the above, we've also added a new feature to allow you to collect more expensive coins in the lobby and store area. Among the regular low-value coins that spawn, high-value coins, such as 500 or 1000 coins, will now randomly appear.

Someone Set Us Up the Bomb
Explosive weapons were too strong in the April Playtest, so we’ve weakened the bombs and bazookas a little and strengthened the machine guns, which had a poor usage rate. We also adjusted the mines, which were not so easy to use, so that they explode immediately after stepping on them.

Here are more details on Weapon balances implemented:

[Machine gun]

Increased the bullet speed
Reload time has been shortened

[Bomb]

The explosion range has been narrowed and the power has been reduced
Shortened the time it takes for a bomb to explode
Reload time has been shortened
Reduced the number of bombs that can be thrown during the "chance time" at the end of a round

[Bazooka]

The explosion range has been narrowed and the power has been reduced
Reload time has been shortened
Increased the bullet speed
Reduced the number of bazookas rounds that can be fired during Chance Time

[Mine]

If Citizens step on a mine, it now explodes immediately

Welcome to the Next Stage
During the April Playtest, lots of Citizens who failed Quizzes were forced to brave the losers course were often stuck at choke points created by smarty-pants winners raining down destruction with bombs. This made it almost impossible to proceed for some. Construction crews have redesigned those areas to account for this by widening the paths or creating alternate routes.

We’ve also added more Quiz City Approved Respawn Points to the stages. If you fall to your death in the middle of a stage you can now respawn from one of the several, more convenient respawn points. This is yet another example of your Quiz City Tax money being put to good use!

Push the Tempo!
Quiz City Citizens can be a demanding bunch, which is why we strive so hard to keep them entertained! In the last playtest, we received some comments that the game tempo was a little too slow, so our City Engineers have made some adjustments to event timings throughout Quiz City.

Shortened the waiting time before the quiz starts.
Shortened the time between the announcement of the correct answers to the quiz and the start of the game.
Shortened the time limit for stages.
The results display has been simplified and the display time has been shortened.
Shorten the shopping time between rounds.

And what would an update for our next playtest be without some general Quality of Life improvements for our Citizens! We've listened to your feedback and improved the following things:

You can now open the menu in the in-game and adjust the sensitivity of the controller.
When the camera sensitivity is set to low, the camera will not rotate too much.
The colors of the names of the winners and losers have been changed.
The names of other players can be toggled on and off by pressing the CTRL key / L stick.
In the survival rules, if you leave the game after becoming a spectator, the result screen will now be displayed.
We've made it so that spectators can't emote.
In the final round of the survival rules, a bug that allowed people to survive by getting caught on a slope has been fixed.

We're looking forward to welcoming everyone back into the Survival Quiz City for the next Playtest!