Suit for Hire News

Hey everyone!

We'll keep this short, we found a bug that was impacting players so we want to make sure it's resolved ASAP.

The bug happened when you melee'd (like kicking/punching) and then reloaded immediately thereafter, after that you wouldn't be able to shoot until you rolled or did an action that would reset it. This bug should be fixed in this new patch.

Additionally we've been working on controller support in the menus, we do acknowledge an issue where you can navigate to the Level Select with a controller even if you don't have it unlocked- we'll have this issue fixed in the next update.

Thanks for your patience, we hope the reload mechanic is working well for everyone.

Cheers and have a great day!

tl;dr
FIXED Reloading after a punch/kick caused you to not be able to fire
ADDED Progress with full controller support in the main menu
KNOWN ISSUE Level Select (when locked) can be navigated to with controller

Hey everyone!

It's spooky season, you know what that means... an update (unrelated to Halloween sadly)!

It may not be a Halloween update, but it's an update that we think many people will enjoy playing with. In this update, we introduce the new [EXPERIMENTAL] Reserve Magazine- allowing players to hold one magazine so you can quickly reload in a pinch.

NEW: Reserve Magazine [EXPERIMENTAL]

First off, you're probably wondering what Experimental means- for future mechanics that we're uncertain about and need players to provide heavy feedback on, we'll be marking them as Experimental so players understand that it may get massive changes (or be removed altogether if it's that bad of a concept).

In this case, we've added the Reserve Magazine, the reserve magazine allows you to carry one magazine for your protagonist's primary weapon- which in this case is the Pistol.

You can gain a reserve magazine by picking up ammo boxes or executing enemies. If you don't have any ammo in your Primary, it'll instead reload into your weapon right away so you can quickly get back in the fight. Having any ammo (even just one bullet) will instead add a reserve magazine, the player only has a limit of one of these magazines so you'd have to work around and plan how you'll be executing levels.

We hope this mechanic improves the overall game as we've seen quite a few complaints about the gameplay loop being too 'melee-focused'- that being said, the mechanic is still very Experimental so we're looking for any feedback and bugs that you may come across.

Testing Melee Combos

As a fun thing to try out, we've added a couple melee combos which involve roundhouse kicks.

After the 3rd/4th punch, immediately hitting the kick key afterwards will do a roundhouse kick- of course, we won't expand upon this in this announcement because it's not completely finished.

We still need to add the kick key to our buffer so you don't have to spam the kick key and there's a few visual things we'd like to change with the kick, however it's one step forward towards making our melee system a little more interesting.

Adjustments and Improvements

With every update, we always try to add QOL improvements and adjustments that will better the game in the long run, here's this updates improvements:

• Optimized vehicles a bit by reducing the amount of lights
  
• Added a faster way to respawn by hitting the Reload key [Default: R]
  
• If you're not moving and you hit the dodge key, you will dodge-roll in the direction you're looking
  
• Added two new settings in the Video settings, Anamorphic Lens Flares and Comic Wired Effect (perfect things to disable if you have a lower-end PC)
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the Left Hand IK activating during the throw animation
  
• Fixed being able to spam the spacebar key to open the campaign menu
  
• Fixed dying while resetting level
  
• Fixed melee attacks near walls/surfaces causing issues when hitting enemies (let us know how melee feels in this update)
  
• Fixed the stamina bar increasing while the game is paused (visual issue)
  
• Fixed being able to move around in the main menu
  
• Fixed a teleporting issue when attacking an enemy at a specific angle near a wall
  
• Fixed an issue where enemies that threw grenades could throw two if you shot them while they threw the grenade
  

We won't hold you any longer, try out Update 7 yourself and let us know what you think through our Discord and Community Hub!

If your curious about the future of the game and what plans we have for it, be sure to check out our latest Status Update.

Other than that, have a great start to the month!

Hey everyone!

It's been nearly a month since we've released Suit for Hire on Early Access and oh what a busy month it's been.

We're super happy to see how much potential people see in the game and the amount of support we're getting to work on the game is next level.

Originally posted by Crimson

I was expecting a lot more unhappy people, but I'm glad I was proven wrong- thank you to everyone who's sticking with us as we work towards improving the game and adding more content/mechanics.

- Lead Developer, Crimson

In the past month, we've done a range of things to improve the game and its foundations:

• Fixed ~33 bugs in total
  
• Worked on ~35 QOL improvements and adjustments
  
• Added widescreen support
  
• Added Tutorial
  
• Added explosive barrels
  
• Added the ability to throw/drop your secondary weapon (even at enemies' faces)
  
• Artstyle adjustments
  
• Lots of controller improvements (and more to come)
  

This is only the beginning though, currently we're working on a reserve magazine which should be included in the upcoming update for Friday and many more fixes and QOL improvements!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

As you may have noticed, we haven't been particularly focusing on new content just yet- our goal at the moment is to flesh out some of the game's mechanics like the reserve magazine for example. That being said, we are starting to get to a healthy stage in the development where more content can be added.

We have a few plans on how we'll be adding more content and replayability to the game, including new mechanics. We'll be releasing a full roadmap soon, we're just fleshing out all of the details- for now here are a few things we have planned:

• After adding and polishing the reserve magazine mechanic (based on player feedback), we'll be working on a counter-attack of sorts- this will be the beginnings of our Enemy Grapple system (we'll release more details on this planned mechanic in the roadmap)
  
• A Challenge Mode which will be a big series of levels that are essentially smaller campaigns/single missions, this includes levels that may require you to survive waves of enemies, fight your way across a train, and much more. The Challenge mode will also have sub-challenges within each level so players can work towards gaining awards
  
• Customization/cosmetics are also planned for the future, cosmetics will be gained through playing the game and completing challenges/achievements
  
• More levels within the Campaign
  

This is a small part of what we have planned for the game, we'll be releasing a more fleshed out roadmap (hopefully soon) going through all of the details, please bare with us as we're getting all of these details written out- we want to make sure we're not giving blank promises but actual actionable promises for the community.

We hope that players continue to provide feedback and bug reports, we're always listening to what our playerbase has to say as we want people to have the best experience. Let us know if you experience any issues through our Discord or the Community Hub.

Other than that, if you're interested in seeing the development of the game live, you can tune in on Crimson's Twitch stream. That's it for this month's status update, we're excited to add more to the game and release a roadmap so all of you can be excited alongside us!

Hey everyone!

It's that time again for a new update, this time a little earlier than intended. We planned on releasing this update tomorrow (Friday), but there are some fixes in this update that we felt needed to be released ASAP.

Without further ado, let's get into the patch notes for Update 6:

New Loading Screens and Level Select

We've made some small changes to the loading screens and the level select menu- the loading screens will now show a small preview of the level you're loading, and the loading screens will show the same as thumbnails so you know what you're selecting.



Improved Weapon Throwing

In the last update, we added Weapon Throwing- a mechanic that allowed you to throw your secondary weapon at enemies or drop it earlier if you so wished. Of course, with any new mechanic being added to the game there were some issues, but in this update we wanted to make sure we fleshed out the mechanic further and improved some of the issues you may have encountered.

• Improved the Animations for weapon throwing, this will change based on the size of the weapon you're holding or the type of weapon- for now they're all playing the new one set of animations
  
• You should be able to now throw a secondary weapon right next to an enemy, the overall throwing/trajectory should be improved- let us know if you experience any issues with weapon throwing!
  
• Fixed a bug where you wouldn't be able to fire your weapon if you throw your weapon while it being low on ammo or tried to throw it and died in the process
  
• Added a simple trail when weapons are thrown
  

Aim Assist (again)

Aim Assist for controllers has been adjusted and should give a bit more snappy assist- as per usual when it comes to controller support, feedback from the community is crucial to give us an idea of how to improve it even further and bring it to the best spot it can be at.

If you're having issues with this, you can disable it in the settings menu- however please let us know what you think of it or how it gets you killed, etc. any information helps us figure out the best way to improve it!

Improvements and Changes

We've made some general improvements and changes to certain things as well that should make things better for players:

• Readded a 7th enemy in the Intro for Clean Suit
  
• Made it more apparent when you're abandoning mission/going out of bounds
  
• Early access popup should only show up on initial startup now
  
• Replaced the Restart Campaign/Run button with a Retry Level button in the Pause Menu
  
• Increased the out of ammo sound effect for the protagonist's handgun
  
• Improved the laser aiming a bit during trickshot pose
  
• Added a splash screen (not at 100% volume, luckily)
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with Time Focus causing issues while being inside of a camera adjustment overlap box
  
• Fixed an issue with the final boss, if you kicked the grenade at the very last second, the boss wouldn't play the proper phase
  
• Fixed some collision issues at the beginning of the Courtyard level
  
• Fixed some camera issues/clipping in the first City level
  
• Fixed a couple issues with the run time not showing the proper time
  

There were a few other changes that we haven't completely noted down, but we hope these changes improve the overall playing experience for all of you.

As per usual, please let us know if you experience any issues through our Discord or the Community Hub. We're always keeping an eye in those places and talking with the community!

Thanks again for all of your support, we'll continue to improve Suit for Hire so it can be the best it can be.

Hello players!

Hope you're doing well, we've been hard at work on the game as per usual. This time we've done some big adjustments that you'll most likely notice right off the bat including a new mechanic which includes the ability to throw your secondary weapon at enemies.

Without wasting any of your time, here are the patch notes:

Artstyle Changes

You may notice that we've made some small changes to the game's style, before this update we had a pixel texture style but we felt that wasn't the best for a game that's going for a comic-book/movie style look.



We've also enabled Anti-aliasing by default- this can of course be changed in the settings menu if you liked having that crisp look in prior versions, the other AA options are also exposed like MSAA and TAA.

We'll be playing around with the artstyle and trying to improve the overall visual fidelity of the game throughout Early Access, so be prepared for more updates to the visuals.

Weapon Throwing

People didn't entirely like not being able to put away their secondary weapon in the past game versions (e.g. Assault Rifle, SMG, etc.), so what better way to get rid of a gun than by throwing it in a merc's face.

We've always intended on adding this but we tried to get it out of the way ASAP, hence including it in this update. You may notice some issues with it, and if you do, please let us know as it helps us make the game better! The animations are also temporary and will be upgraded by our very own animator, Kyle.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Players can easily do this by holding G or the Face Button Up key on their controller while having a secondary weapon in hand.

This will also work great when we add melee weapons like knives, we'll be making it so throwing a sharp weapon into an enemy has a chance of sticking in them which will deal additional damage and stun them for a longer duration. Melee weapons aren't in the game yet though, we'll be working towards that.

Improvements and Adjustments

We've also made some improvements based on your feedback.

• Placed explosive barrels where they should be, more to come
  
• Improve the Rooftop environment to not have void gaps during the boss fight
  
• Reduced the radius of explosive barrels from 450 to 350
  
• Increased the rotation rate for mercs to better match how they aim at the player
  
• The camera will readjust at the bottom of the elevator in L11
  
• Adjusted the lighting of L11 to be more clear (hopefully)
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed mercs sometimes not shooting at you in some locations due to overlap boxes (let us know if this keeps happening)
  
• Fixed melee enemies being able to hit you through corners/walls
  
• Fixed the music resetting when you die/respawn
  
• Fixed grunt enemies not dropping the grenade if they die while about to throw it
  
• Fixed being able to... punch the money?
  

That's the patch notes for this update, let us know if you have any feedback or bug reports. We'll be keeping an eye out and improving the game more and more.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!