Impaler Gold News

Hey all!

Welcome to Update #4, also know as the (Unreal Tournament voice) M-m-m-m-monster Update!
This time we're introducing a completely new monster, adding new mechanics to some of the monsters, and making the Demoness no longer an optional monster. She's here to stay in the Impaler roster.

We're also taking a look at offerings, and having some fun with them. We hope you'll find them cool and exciting!

We always like to talk about the next updates in the patch notes, however the plans for Update #5 are not set in stone yet, the general idea is to take a look at weapons, but we'll keep you updated on that once we have more firm things to share.

Here are full patch notes:

[h3]New Content[/h3]

• New monster - Pig Man
  
• New “platinum” offering variant
  
• Jumper monster given a new sprint ability
  
• New "Hazard" kill type and scoring
  
• Revamped demoness monster + new balance + new audio + healing ability
  
• Numerous art and animation upgrades

[h3]Balance/gameplay[/h3]

• Offerings now appear on all stages > 2 except boss and miniboss
  
• Offerings are now present on the first combat stage (if not a first run / tutorial)
  
• Offerings no longer self destruct at the end of a round
  
• Pushing offering into monsters does 40 damage instead of 20
  
• Special kill icons on boss map are no longer showing (because they don’t contribute to score)
  
• Reworked evil offering so its mechanics are clearer and more consistent
  
• All pickups now share a 15s despawn (formerly 12s and 16s for health and coin)
  
• Slightly increase effectiveness of heat upgrades
  
• Hazards will not destroy crates and barrels
  
• Reduced minimum fall speed for stomp attacks
  
• Offerings move away from walls more quickly
  
• Normalize the monster spawns for more consistent scoring (reduce randomness of melee monsters)
  
• Gold score multiplier reduced to 5 from 10
  
• Poison spikes contribute to hazard kills along with saws, lasers, and pulverizers
  
• Sawblades have more generous no-damage period so you don’t die randomly on entry / exit
  
• Plasma nade upgrade no longer damages the player
  
• Reduced duration of bullet time by 50% to be less annoying and not slow down gameplay as much
  
• Normalized stomp behavior - no “mario” bouncing when a monster is killed (you will still bounce if its not a kill)
  
• Current score is now visible in the pause menu
  
• Barrels are now only destructible by player bullets (immune to enemies / stomps / spikes)
  
• Added more spikey obstacles to protect the boss’s head
  
• Clearer health bars for monsters with shields - now shows an orange bar until depleted
  
• Prevent wardens from shooting when the platform is retracting and entering after taking damage
  
• “Retractor” obstacles will now lower when touching the player or an offering

[h3]Audio/visual[/h3]

• Crate and explosive barrel glows are more subtle
  
• Improve smoke trails on cannon projectiles
  
• New audio roll-off and visibility functions for for improved audio balance
  
• Visual enhancements to the boss stage (moodier lighting + improved particles)
  
• More diverse map lighting combinations
  
• Improved art and animations for boss
  
• Art enhancements to flying monsters
  
• Art enhancement to grenade launcher monsters

[h3]UI/UX[/h3]

• Updated special thanks section
  
• New HUD elements for displaying offering progress
  
• New settings / options:
  
  • Enable / disable round timer
    
  • Option to disable crosshair via settings
    
  • Option to disable HUD via settings

[h3]Bug fixes[/h3]

• Fix big slimes creating a small slime after end of round
  
• Fix monsters not gibbing at the end of the game
  
• Fix movement physics when using “move at full speed in bullet time” upgrade
  
• Re-roll will no longer present the same upgrades (unless none remain)
  
• Fix upgrade re-roll perk being usable multiple times per stage
  
• Fix some issues with volume of some audio sources
  
• Fix positioning of health bars to be better aligned with monster

As always, please share Impaler with your friends and leave a Steam review if you’re enjoying the game to help us reach even more players.

Also, be sure to check out our bundles with extra discounts for explosive boomer shooter deals.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29360/Project_Warlock_x_Impaler/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29427/PROJECT_WARLOCK_II_x_Impaler/

See you in the next one.

Apptivus and Retrovibe

Hey all!

Update #4 is getting ready to get out of the oven, and we feel comfortable enough to launch it on the beta branch to gather as much feedback as possible.

This update is focused on monsters revamp, offerings mechanic rework, and more.

You can check out work-in-progress patch notes here for more information: https://bit.ly/Update4_Changelog


Reminder, to access beta branch, right click Impaler in your Steam library, go to Preferences > Betas, and choose beta_branch from the dropdown menu.



We'd love to hear your feedback on our Discord server, or the Beta Branch Feedback Steam Forum.

Have fun!

Apptivus and Retrovibe

Hey all!

Welcome to our first ".5" update! While we're hard at work on the Update #4 which revolves around the monsters of Impaler, we've prepared something really cool for you!

Introducing: Leaderboards. From now on your high scores will be placed in the worldwide leaderboard, where you will compete with other players.

We've also prepared a short list of balance updates for the Boss level!

Here are full patch notes:
[h2]IMPORTANT[/h2] As we've announced, old high scores will be cleared due to balance / scoring changes and the introduction of leaderboards

New Features / Content

• High score leaderboards implemented

• Main menu shows your leaderboard rank
  
• Score summary shows the total run time (for speed runs)
  
• In-game run time can be shown via config file “show_run_timer = 1”
  
• Added config file entry to disable crosshair “disable_crosshair = 1”
  
• Config file instructions

Audio / Visual

• “Evil” offering is now green to be more visually distinct from other game objects

Balance / Gameplay

• Boss stage balance improvements (harder now)
  • Boss fireballs are green and homing
    
  • Monsters spawning on boss stage have shields
    
  • Monsters no longer spawn in the group of spikey obstacles and insta-die
• Stomp kills are now x50 score instead of x70
  

Bug Fixes / Technical

• Fixed bullet-time accidentally activating when unpausing

As always, please share Impaler with your friends and leave a Steam review if you’re enjoying the game to help us reach even more players.

Also, be sure to check out our bundles with extra discounts for explosive boomer shooter deals.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29360/Project_Warlock_x_Impaler/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29427/PROJECT_WARLOCK_II_x_Impaler/

See you on the Leaderboards!

Apptivus and Retrovibe

Hey everyone!

Leaderboards are coming to Impaler! In the next patch you'll be able to compete in the worldwide ranking against other players! We're aiming to launch this update by the end of this week!

There's one thing we need to do to ensure a fair and square competition.

[h3]We will be resetting your High Scores when the patch goes live.[/h3]

If you'd like to save your score for boasting purposes, make sure to screen shot it, and maybe share it in The HIGHSCORE Thread on our forums.

Hey all!

Thank you for your continuous support and feedback. This time around, for the first time, we've launched the patch on the beta branch a week ahead to gather feedback. Special thanks to those who helped us test the patch and tinker with the balance. We'll definitely be making the beta branch a regular thing.

We skewered a lot of features and content for this patch, so an update to our 2023 Roadmap is due!



Check out the full patch notes:

New Features / Content

• 9 new stages
  
• 6 new upgrades
  
• 3 new map hazards / mechanics
  
• 2 new achievements
  
• 2 new pickup variations
  
• 1 new monster variant
  
• Tougher late-stage monsters
  
• Destructible / shootable enemy projectiles
  
• New quality settings menu (for tuning performance)
  
• New gamma setting to adjust game brightness
  

Balance / Gameplay

• Game is generally more challenging now
  
• Upgrades increase in price (50, 55, 60, …)
  
• Reworked the bullet time AOE upgrade (drops grenades around you now)
  
• Improvements to the slime and grenade attacks
  
• Improved object spawning logic (does better job not spawning things too close to the player)
  
• Monsters can now trigger “spikey” obstacles
  
• Large variants of enemies have less health now
  
• Stomp AOE and stake damage reduced
  
• Reworked the recoil and screenshake animations - less annoying now
  
• Enemy missiles explode instead of despawning
  
• Stone head monsters have slightly less health
  
• Large versions of monsters have 20% less health
  
• Overheat mechanics slightly more forgiving (faster cooldowns)
  
• Enemy missiles are no longer homing
  
• 15% increase in healing
  
• Stone head monsters and turret monsters will not attack player with projectiles if player is above
• them
  
• Map hazards (like sawblades) do 25% less damage to player
  
• Offerings destruct at the end of rounds and drop their contents (instead of despawning)
  

Audio / Visual

• Art upgrades
  
  • Monolith obstacle
    
  • “Stone head” monster
    
  • Coin crate
    
  • Explosive barrel
    
  • Spike kill iconography
    
  • Stakes
    
  • Boss
    
  • Pulverizer obstacle

• Sound upgrades
  • Revisions to existing sounds
    
  • New audio for various monsters
    
• Various visual enhancements to boss stage
  
• New game icon
  
• Added muzzle flashes to some monsters
  
• Made the red damage overlay more subtle and removed the blood splatter (less visual clutter)
  
• Improved visibility of monsters when looking down at them - much easier to see now
  

Bug Fixes / Technical

• Performance improvements / optimizations
  
• Fixed jump pads sometimes spawning on shrines
  
• Fixed coin HUD not showing in some cases (now shows red text until you have enough gold for an upgrade)
  
• Fixed bug allowing config file to disable weapon recoil
  
• Fixed incorrect rendering of certain effects on top of HUD elements
  
• Fixes issues related to pressing escape in the upgrades menu
  

Thank you all for getting through the patch notes, make sure to let us know what you think about the changes and new features on Steam forums, or our official Discord server.

Now, it's time for a little teaser. The next update is monster-focused. It's going to be bonkers!

As always, please share Impaler with your friends and leave a Steam review if you’re enjoying the game to help us reach even more players.

Also, be sure to check out our bundles with extra discounts for a number of great indie titles.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29360/Project_Warlock_x_Impaler/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29427/PROJECT_WARLOCK_II_x_Impaler/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29426/BLOOD_WEST_x_Impaler/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29424/INCISION_x_Impaler/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29425/POSTAL_Brain_Damaged_x_Impaler/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29385/Pixelated_Milk_Bundle_x_Impaler/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/29361/Impaler_x_NecroBouncer/

Don't. Stop. Impaling.

Apptivus and Retrovibe