Utopia Must Fall News

Hello all,

As you may or may not know, Utopia Must Fall was created in our new vector game engine we call V99 - and we're making multiple games with it.

Today we just released version 1.0 of GRID RANGER, an intense shortform 3D shmuplike featuring mouse-centric controls and classic arcade 'dodge & blast' action:



Grid Ranger's Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2964400/Grid_Ranger/

If you already own UMF, you can get Grid Ranger as part of a bundle for a deeper-than-normal discount: Click here to check it out.

Thanks for reading, and take care,

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Hello all,

Things are moving along with the next major content update. We hear your requests for more early-game variety and we are focusing on this alongside a ton of smaller improvements.

Here is a preview of the battle drones, which will be available in week 1. Build an enthusiastic little buddy to help fight for humanity right away, and steadily upgrade to a small army of automatic alien-slaughtering robo-beasts:



The ever-popular skill tree is also coming together well. The bottom part of the tree in red (institute of automation) will eventually be filled out to be as beefy as all the other major branches:



We expect this update to be in beta testing by April, and launching in early May.

Also, if you haven't yet, please leave a review for the game! Every little bit helps get the game out to new players, and we'd love to hear from you.

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Hello All,

On February 15th, we will be increasing the price of Utopia Must Fall to $6.99 USD. We plan on upping it by a dollar for each major content update until it sits somewhere around 10 or 15 dollars total. We look forward to having 10+ dollars worth of content for 1.0 release, whenever that may be.... probably some time in 2026.

Important: when we do price increases, Steam auto-suggests prices in every other region, and we generally just set it to what it suggests. But sometimes it suggests something that players in that region feel is way too high (often in Argentina, Turkey, Indonesia, etc). If you notice the price of the game in your region rise to something that feels unbalanced with what the game offers, please contact us! We're always open to reducing prices in other regions so that all may enjoy the game.

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Here is what we're thinking about working on next... not set in stone, but likely:

• New weapon upgrades to increase the early-game build variety
  
• Aerial battle drones (deploy and watch them fight for you)
  
• More cities to defend
  
• A free browser-based demo (with a slight spin on the game mechanics to keep it fresh)
  
• And of course the visualized skill tree
  

++++++\\\\\\-------

And finally, since we were nominated for an IGF award recently, we had to make a video showing the lead developer (Datassette) talking about the game for one of their showreels. Datassette is usually pretty camera-shy, but we managed to convince him to do it, and here is a peek!



Nice work, Datassette :)

Thanks again for the support,

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Greeting fellow UMFers,

We're pleased as porridge to announce that the first major content update for Utopia Must Fall is live.

Read the full changelog here.

Highlights:

• New upgrade: Graphene Tipped Rods, cobalt projectiles are slowed and become superheated on contact with nuke fireballs, passing through enemies and dealing damage multiple times (hot bullets)
  
• New upgrade: Full Graphene Coating (hermit only), hot cobalt bullets melt through 50% more enemies
  

• Nullifiers now absorb a limited amount of nuke fireball energy before collapsing into a temporary wormhole releasing a swarm of Anemones
• Anemones congregate above the city leeching shield energy. If the shield is offline, life force is drained directly from citizens
  

• All unshielded enemies (except Nullifiers) can now be killed with nukes, those previously fully immune are now between 80% and 98% resistant
  
• All enemy shields are now destructible with bullets, lasers or flail strikes
  
• Cobalt Coil Gun deals 2x damage to enemy shields
  
• Two rare attack wave variants added (Mini Rebel Centipede, Contracting Nuclear Polygon Squad)
  

There are also scads of balance adjustments, engine improvements, new sound effects, new music, and a few new achievements as well:

• Gonnahavemesomefun - destroy a cloaking enemy before it had the chance to use its cloaking ability (enemies that enter already cloaked don’t count)
  
• Hard Boiled - break an enemy shield using superheated projectiles
  
• Seafood Platter - destroy an entire swarm of inter-dimensional Anemones
  
• Blissful Ignorance - survive 14 days without taking any shield damage
  
• Pretty Decent Innit? - suffer 3 shield breaks in one day
  
• Bookworm & Bohemian rewards / achievements brought back
  

BONUS BESTIARY

This will be in-game soon, but for now enjoy this handy guide to all that ails your precious city:



WHAT'S NEXT?

New upgrades, new cities to defend, new enemies, and the ever-popular visualized skill tree:



WANT TO HELP?

Please consider leaving a review if you have not already. And for those that like to get more involved, join our discord server (go to the umf channels).

Thanks again for the support, as well as the valiant effort to save humanity!

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Hello all,

We're about to drop the first major content update for Utopia Must Fall. Check it out on the BETA branch (Version 0.666) if you want a sneak peek before we make it live. We've been testing extensively with a smaller group of people, and it's now ready to run the Steam Community gauntlet. Here are the major changes, but a full changelog will be available soon:

Enemies:
- Nullifiers now absorb a limited amount of nuke fireball energy before collapsing into a temporary wormhole releasing a swarm of Anemones
- Anemones congregate above the city leeching shield energy. If the shield is offline, life force is drained directly from citizens
- Falling enemy gibs are now non-lethal to an unshielded city
- All unshielded enemies (except Nullifiers) can now be killed with nukes, those previously fully immune are now between 80% and 98% resistant
- Enemy shields are now destructible with bullets, lasers or flail strikes

Upgrades:
- Cobalt Coil Gun deals 2x damage to enemy shields
- Cobalt Coil Gun more likely to appear for Hermits
- New upgrade: Graphene Tipped Rods, cobalt projectiles are slowed and become superheated on contact with nuke fireballs, passing through enemies and dealing damage multiple times (hot bullets)
- New upgrade: Full Graphene Coating (hermit only), hot cobalt bullets melt through 50% more enemies
- Institute of Automation more likely to appear in the first week (Bookworm reward achievable again)
- Adaptive Beam Focusing removed, range vs damage outpost setting is now always available
- Shield capacity upgrades (hermit only) now give an instant recharge, are more generous, and display percentage values relative to initial maximum (numbers go above 100%)

Rewards / Achievements:
- Hard Boiled - break an enemy shield using superheated projectiles
- Seafood Platter - destroy an entire swarm of inter-dimensional anemones
- Blissful Ignorance - survive 14 days without taking any shield damage
- Pretty Decent Innit? - suffer 3 shield breaks in one day
- Bookworm & Bohemian rewards / achievements brought back

Other Improvements:
- Many nerfs and buffs, everywhere (we'll get more specific in final changelog)
- V-Sync timing mode now uses variable timesteps and allows framerates anywhere between 60-200hz (needs further testing, Delta timing is still the default for Windows installs)
- In-game FPS counter available via [c] key
- Fixed rare crash during shift-zoom transitions

Let us know what you think in the feedback channels on the forums, or in comments here.

-Miles @ Pixeljam