Escape From Mandrillia News

Tiny hotfix: fixed visual bug that caused the poison smoke FX to instantly disappear as soon as the poison status effect stopped, instead of slowly fading away

Small update with a polish pass on the upgrades, trying to make them all worth their prices and fun for both the Mandrillians and the Robot.

• Healer turned out to be quite OP after the last buffs, allowing a single Mandrillian to infinite-combo the Robot. Healer price now increased from 400 to 600 points; Healer cooldown increased from 15 (yeah, I know) to 25 seconds
  
  
• Firebomb Upgrade now can be aimed up and down using the Mandrillian's crosshair, instead of just left and right with a fixed elevation angle
  
• Firebombs now get launched twice as hard
  
• Buffed Firebomb's fire damage (until now the Robot needed to be hit by 2 firebombs to overheat)
  
• Firebomb Upgrade cooldown now 20 seconds instead of 25
  
  
• Added a slight aim assist to the Plasma Gun Upgrade: every time you fire (while aiming), there's a shotgun-like cast of 50 rays checking for valid targets in a 7.5º angle cone; if they hit, it will sort all valid targets by distance and aim the shot at the closest one. Valid targets include the Robot, Turrets, and Insectoids. The fact it is a shotgun spread raycast cone means your chances to trigger the aim assist are higher the closest to the target you are and the closest to the laser the target is
  
• Plasma Gun Upgrade non-laser-aiming accuracy increased by 1 degree (just to make it less annoying to shoot barrels at short range)
  
  
• Reworked the way the Jammer works: instead of having a single "jamming pulse" after 1.5 seconds of fake scanning, now the scanning is actually representing of the jamming capabilities: the scan will last for 1 seconds during which 3 pulses will fire off
  
• Removed the "red wave" FX for the Jammer pulse, replacing it with a subtle shockwave effect
  
  
• Armor Upgrade price reduced from 1000 to 800
  
  
• Fast, Medium and Slow Berserk charge times changed from 30, 220, 300 seconds to 45, 200, 240 seconds
  
  
• Flamethrower direct damage changed from 1 to 2, giving a bit of an upside to direct-hitting a Mandrillian instead of using the sticky flame mechanic
  
• Robot-induced fire damage for Mandrillians now applies to whatever specific body part it hits, instead of always applying to the main body health pool
  
  
• Fixed Robot's damage sounds stacking when hit by explosives (which caused them to play at a louder volume than intended)
  

Hello! This one is a package of a lot of stuff I've been doing that deserves to be pushed to main.

There's some bug fixing, and a lot of improvements for both Insectoids and Mandrillian Bots.
I've also improved the ambient sounds for the main scene, and included a toggle to turn music on or off if you prefer a more tense atmosphere.

Stay tuned!

• Fixed potentially game-breaking bugged rumble settings that would break some damage types if playing with a controller with no player 2 present
  
• Fixed bugged logic regarding endgame split screen management and other endgame corner case situations
  
  
• Both Mandrillian Bots and Insectoids will try to avoid fire and smoke clouds. Insectoids will do a terrible job at it.
  
  
• Increased Insectoid hitbox size, they are now way easier to hit
  
• After attacking a Mandrillian, Insectoids will be highlighted in a red light for 5 seconds (only visible to Mandrillians), making it easier to see where that bite came from if you're in pitch dark
  
• Crossbow bolts now annihilate insectoids
  
• Insectoids less prone to attack/dodge. You'll see them doing their little threat display more often, giving you time to deal with them if there's not too many surrounding you
  
• Insectoids now hit slightly harder: getting swarmed is not a situation you want to end up in
  
• Improved Insectoid behavior related to their tiny vents
  
• Insectoids now appear on the Map Stations as tiny dots
  
• Insectoids are now fat enough to trigger the final elevator's overweight alert
  
• Insectoid now make a faint noise when walking while agitated (very quiet, but loud enough to notice there's an angry insectoid near you)
  
• Insectoids can now jump across the holes in the walls at the Canteen and the Observation Chamber walls
  
  
• Improved Mandrillian Bot aiming skills, especially in tight corners -this made them quite accurate, so I added a chance for them to actually fumble their attacks
  
• Fixed Mandrillian Bots not behaving correctly when set on fire (they went to the vents and hesitated between healing powerups and never actually healed)
  
• Fixed long standing bug with Mandrillian Bots that caused their attacks to not connect if the Robot was rubbing a wall
  
• Drastically improved Mandrillian Bot behavior regarding vents -no longer will they insist on jumping up and down a specific vent while patrolling
  
• Improved overall Mandrillian Bot navigation, making them be a little bit less predictable when chasing a Robot
  
• Mandrillian Bots can now get overconfident and walk instead of run towards the Robot -they will quickly stop doing that as soon as they get hurt (they will also stop doing that as the match progresses and they get closer to losing)
  
• Increased the chance of Mandrillian Bots to walk or sneak while patrolling, instead of them running 90% of the time
  
• Mandrillians (both human and computer-controlled) no longer continuously grunt while on fire
  
  
• Added actual ambient noises all over the main scene
  
• Added a toggle for Music on/off at the Main Menu
  
• Music is now a bit quieter than before
  
  
• Flamethrower's sticky flames have been reworked: they can no longer be stacked infinitely if you keep firing at a specific point (there's now a small area where only a single damaging flame is allowed at a time)
  
• To balance for this, individual sticky flames do 3x damage and last for a little bit longer; this should make them feel way more consistent
  
• Flamethrower initial delay halved from 0.4 to 0.2 seconds
  
• Mine blip now triggers between 5-8 seconds instead of 5-12 seconds
  
• Added 1 extra meter to Mandrillian Aim Assist for the 3 point attack -this will keep increasing until morale improves
  
  

Small one here, made the landmines have a tiny light that flashes randomly every 5-12 seconds when armed. They are still very hard to see in the dark, but it rewards observant monkeys; it could be pretty annoying to get blown up by a landmine that was literally impossible to see in the dark even when you were being careful.

The old stealthy mine experience is still available as a cheat code toggle SNEAKYMINE, that will persist between sessions.

Added a new setting: Mandrillian aim assist. It is enabled by default but counts as a "preference", which means you can turn it off and it will stay off across sessions. The idea behind it is to both help with Remote Play input lag and to make it easier to onboard newcomers. I have set it up in a way that will allow for potential different aim assist levels in the future.

How it works: every time you release an attack, the assist will check if the robot is within a 80º cone in front of you. It will also check the distance (higher distance for stronger attack types), and if all parameters are met, it will steer the initial pounce at the handy "lead target" the VR player has that I've been using for the Mandrillian Bots.

The aim assist does not work on cloaked robots (unless they're leaving a smoke trail or have a flashlight on), and the Stealth Skin halves the assist angle.

I've also added a blinking light effect that flashes very 1.5 seconds for armed C4 charges.