Zaxterion - Space Frenzy News

Hello all,

In this big update to Zaxterion: Space Frenzy!, I've addressed several bugs that mostly dealt with the most newly added baby spider hordes that I added last summer to the game. It's been several weeks making this update, so I'm honestly void of exactly what bugs I fixed now, but I assure you that those baby spiders are still a massive pain to deal with! The best bet is to not let that spider lay too many eggs in his web without taking care of them!

The main part of this patch adds two brand new ships to the game that you can earn and play forever once you earn and purchase them! ..Remember that the game saves all of your earned Zaxterion in the game and all of your purchased ships you use that Zaxterion to buy!


"Crazy Kyle!" is the first "ship" you can purchase and yes, you see that correct if you think you just see a dude in standard clothing and a propeller attached to his head! ..Notice in the ship stats that he also has a slow shooting speed and ZERO armor! ..This guy is just for "fun" and/or for bragging rights if you happen to find this game just "too easy"!

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"The Swagger" is the second new ship that I've added to the game in this update, and you might have noticed that this ship has NO standard shooting! This ship is all about using your path to double up on your trail to set it ablaze which can not only harm all asteroids and enemies in the game, but also damage YOU if you run into it! Be careful with it, learn how to use it, and I'm sure you'll fall in love with the new "Swagger" ship with it's unique powers!


These two ships now make to the total number of ships 12, and should help add to the replay value of a game I already feel has extremely high replay-ability! I hope you enjoy them!

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The Assassin: New Stealth Enemy

The Assassin is a brand new enemy that will make loops and shoot out deadly missiles in many directions as it loops!


The Assassin will also stealth itself whenever it detects that you've fired at it! Discovering exactly how to take on this stealthy and crafty new foe is all up to you!

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The Healing Angel Power-Up:

The Healing Angel is a brand new power-up that can be found on the Mother-ship on occasion whenever it visits you at the cost of some of your gold.. or sometimes found in loot chests as well! It only lasts for a brief period of time, but during that time, it will follow you around and heal you much like a Cleric in a classic MMORPG!


As with most indie games, this new content will need to be tested and played by many players over time and there will likely be some in-balances and bugs found. Please help me by posting any problems you find either in the comments below or in the forums for this game to help me put out hot fixes and updates to make your experience better!



Thank you for reading!

Have Fun!!


Sincerely,

ZaxtorGameS ... (Solo Indie Game Developer)

Yes, you read it right! As if Zaxterion: Space Frenzy! didn't have enough threats to worry about, now you'll need to be wary of the spider lurking in his corner web. He's always been a threat if you got too close, but no longer can you just stay on the opposite side of the screen as if you do, he will slowly form an army of eggs in his web that he'll protect with protective webbing until eventually they will be unleashed! Once this happens, you'll be relentlessly swarmed and mercilessly attacked by the spider demons and have to fight for your life!

To prevent this insane and deadly chaos from occurring, you'll need to attack the Death Spider before he has a chance to form and protect the eggs that can quickly accumulate and spell your doom!

Here's a look at the new content:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakwe6F_lvI

..This is exciting new content and has been added in this update and is completely free!

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Other changes made in this update:

* Gold nuggets now wrap around just like asteroids and all enemies and your own ship. Before this update, gold nuggets would disappear forever if they went off the screen. This means more gold is now available for you.. and that dreaded goblin too!

* The prices have increased for most of the power-ups that can be purchased from the mother ship that visits at the top of the screen. This was to ensure that some of the strongest power-ups in the game cost more than more common power-ups. (Note: health costs have NOT increased in price)

* The mother ship that visits you at the top of the screen and the brother ship that visits and the bottom of the screen now could visit you from either side. Before this update, the mother ship only came in from the left and the brother ship only came in on the right side of the screen. Now, both of these ships could visit you from either direction.

* The Poggers DLC ship hasn't been changed mechanically at all, but shooting a skull no longer shows a "Pow! /Blam! / Zonk!" type of cartoon word. That kinda of old Batman TV show type of word now only shows up when you use your power bounce to smack a skull for damage rather than simply shooting it. ..I think that this fits my vision of what the Poggers ship and my old 2019 Poggers Steam game much better!

* Some details of the mother ship have been enhanced to make it more visually appealing.

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Enjoy fighting the hordes of eight legged freaks!


Sincerely,

ZaxtorGameS .. (Solo Indie Game Developer)

Update 0.94 brings on intense new battles for your gold dropped from asteroids and chests with the new and improved goblin!


The goblin has new improved skin that gives him about 20x the natural armor as before! ..It will take either a hell of a lot of regular shots or the help of power-ups to take him out now! It's up to you to learn what the most effective methods of giving him the most pain will be!

The goblin will now keep cycling back across your screen stealing your gold until you take him out!

The goblin will now stop and use your stolen gold to cast an assortment of spells to try and destroy you and end your game! ..and of course he has even more evil and sinister laughs then ever before!

One of these new spells the goblin can cast is spawning the Eye, an enemy that has been lurking in development hell since this game launched! The eye will give you an all new challenge as it takes control or nearby asteroids and hurls them at your ship at high speeds!

- You now get a satisfying "Intercepted" on screen display whenever you intercept a gold chunk that the goblin is pulling in to himself!

- Many new sound effects and new music has been added to the game for this update!

- The goblin now shows multiple stages of damage to help you get a sense of how much you've damaged him.


I'm sure that this update will present undiscovered glitches and bugs as well as some balance issues that will need to be ironed out. As with all my updates and all my games, I'll be playing and watching this closely in the coming days and weeks and updates will come as needed.

I hope that you enjoy the new challenges that this update and the new & improved goblin will bring!


Sincerely,

ZaxtorGameS ... (Solo Indie Game Developer)

It's been a few months since I've made an update to Zaxterion: Space Frenzy, but I think there is some good stuff here!



* 38 New Steam Achievements: The Valorox ship now has many all new achievements to match all of the existing achievements for the Reliant default ship, the Poggers DLC ship, and the Halycon ship. Many more Steam achievements are in the works, but I"ll need Steam to approve my recent request to allow me to add more than the 100 Steam achievement limits per game.

* Added a new message that will display how much longer it will be until the Mothership will visit you again with its health restoration and power-up services that it offers. The message will display towards the top of the screen when the Mothership starts to leave and also when the Big Brother ship departs.

* The Mothership, starting with this update will now take an additional 2 seconds to re-visit you every time it departs. This change was made to help add a slowly increased challenge to players as they master the game.

* The message that appears when the Goblin leaves the screen will now tell you both how much gold he stole from you and also how much total gold he holds. In an upcoming update, the Goblin will start being able to spend your stolen gold to spawn new enemies and cast spells to try and thwart you!

* A bug was fixed that would sometimes cause two of the same music track to play simultaneously which definitely sounded odd when it happened.

* A bug was fixed that would sometimes cause a gold chunk that you collected to be worth zero gold.

* A bug was fixed that would cause the spider to re-spawn much sooner than intended after you killed him.

* An issue was resolved where you could try to buy health via the Mothership when you were already over 100 health, and both your gold would be taken and your health would be reduced to 100. This has been changed to simply not allow you to purchase health if you have 100 or more health when you move up through the Mothership 'buy health' side.

* The Fusion ship has been changed back to its original "super sonic" speeds that it had last fall. A previous update had reduced its speed due to a single complaint but that change made the Fusion so it simply felt too much like all the other ships. The Fusion was intended to make you feel raw power and speed and to have "fun" with, however it is intended for experienced gamers.

* The spiders web that captured your ship has been changed to have a new improved look.

* A bug was fixed that would allow you to rez at full health and go below zero in Zaxterion. This Zaxterion "debt" was never intended and has been fixed. If you try to buy a full health rez that you cannot afford now, the game will simply buzz at you to let you know that you do not have enough Zaxterion to pay for the full health resurrection.


I think that is about all for this update. More updates are expected soon.. so keep an eye out if you are a fan of this game! =)


Sincerely,

ZaxtorGameS ... (Solo Indie Game Developer)

Hello gamers,

In this update, I've been working to balance the game, the ships, and making the game look better.



Before this update, the large asteroids were stretched by the game code to about 3x the size I originally drew them at. This was never intended to be left this way forever as I was just trying to focus on getting the game up and working during development. Now, I've finally re-drawn all of the large asteroids to make them look MUCH better and cleaner in this current build. I've also shaded both the large and small asteroids to give each one it's own individual color shade.

There are still three options for what kind of look you prefer for the asteroids. These are found in the OPTIONS before you start a game, and I highly recommend you try them all out to see the differences in the game and which look you like the best!

- Several of the ships have had their special powers and/or speeds and armor levels changed to try and balance them better. This will continue to be an ongoing process as development on this continues over time.

- Health leaf spawns from destroyed asteroids have been significantly reduced. Due to old testing code I accidentally left in the game, the drop rate was about 1 health leaf out of every 22 asteroids destroyed. This was never intended to be left this way and the now deleted 'testing' code means the overall spawn rate of health leaves dropping from asteroids at about 1 health leaf in every 75 asteroids destroyed. This was the original intended drop rate for health leaves on asteroids and will likely make a pretty big difference in the overall challenge of this game. Health leaves do drop much more frequently by killed enemies than by destroying asteroids, and this is exactly as it was intended.

- Skulls and Space Birds can now destroy large asteroids with their shots. This means that if a spider is on an asteroid and you are choosing to try and avoid the spider by avoiding shooting that asteroid, you may now be in for an unwelcome surprise visitor!

- The spider crawling on large asteroids has been completely redone to look better than ever!

- Many other balance changes and small bugs that have been found while playing have been made to the game in the past couple of weeks, and if I remember them and anything major that I forgot to mention here, I will edit this update.

For now, just know that Zaxterion: Space Frenzy! is continuing to evolve and become and better game with each new update. There are still TONS of updates and new content I have planned to add that is only partially completed and/or isn't fully tested yet. Look for these changes in updates in the near future and until them, I hope you are enjoying my game!


Sincerely,

ZaxtorGameS .. (Solo Indie Game Developer)