GIRLDIVERS News

*Some notes thrown in for those who missed yesterday's news!

[h2]Mittens Joins The Crew![/h2]
After Dash realizes that her beloved cat Mittens can be trusted nowhere else but by the side of the Girldivers, Mittens was sworn in & made an official part of the crew!

Once you liberate the planet "Mitten's Cage", rescue Mittens, and thank the poor kitty's protector, you will find that a comfy fuzzball miraculously appears by your bed in the ship.



Now that Dash has brought aboard your new feline friend, you can decide how you want them to participate in the Girldivers program. Stay on the ship and be cute or have them follow you around during your missions.

And don't worry, Super Earth has space helmets specially designed for pets so they can accompany you on Luna missions. Or maybe you think those helmets look fashionable, there's a setting to have your pet always wear their helmet:



Truly, the puurrfect companion!



[h2]0.8.0 Changes[/h2]
We've been hard at work on the game's full release coming November 15th and decided to do something fun for everyone waiting, so we hope you enjoy.

Main

• Added Mittens & their cat bed to the game!
  

Balancing

• All shotguns have had their damage buffed ~10+%.
  
• Buffed Speed Panties speed bonus slightly (5->6).
  
• Haunted Gloves now provide a small speed bonus.
  

New

• Ammo text now changes colors based off of how much ammo you have left.
  
• Added setting to have Mittens always wear their space helmet (including in the ship).
  

[h2]For those who missed it[/h2]
Thank you everyone who participated! When deciding what new diver to add for the full release November 15th, we received an incredible 402 votes on Discord!



The winner with 235 votes was the Spider Girl! We're already deep into the process of getting her into the game for full release including a new campaign path, game sprite, a new cute officer mission, and story shots!

We're also hard at work on the full release update which will have all that content, a new weapon, new gadget, and new features like key rebinding and auto saving.

Join us on 18+ Discord (New art, Updates, Chat) :) View the Demo Full Game

Thanks for reading ;3
~Captain Cake

[h2]The Demo[/h2]
When we first made the demo, it was made as a spin-off of the game. It required new programming & work in order to do it. This meant that we had to make a separate version of the game every time we wanted to update the demo, as a result it lagged behind the updates of the main game.

No more! We spent the time to merge the demo functionality into the main game so that way we can make updates to the demo without needing to reinvent the wheel each time lol. The demo versioning will now match the main game's versioning, and the demo has all at once received the changes that have been done to the game.

Here are all the updates that have now been applied to the demo: Changelog 0.6.9.1 Changelog 0.7.0 "Combat 2 Update" Changelog 0.7.1
(This one, 0.7.5)
TLDR: Tons of balancing changes, UI overhauls & improvements, bug fixes, new settings, quality of life changes, lots of great stuff!

If you enjoy the demo, the game will be going on sale October 13~15th & a sale on full release November 15th.

[h2]0.7.5 Changes[/h2]
We wanted to bring the demo up to date before we pushed the next update we're going to be doing. Although this update is focused on that, we do have one change:

• Fixed a bug where a planet would be counted as being beat multiple times.
  
• Updated Russian & Spanish localization to the game.
  

[h2]Update coming later this week[/h2]
We wanted to release this first since we have an update coming out in the next few days and don't want the demo to keep falling behind the main game. If all goes well, we might even have the update released tomorrow!

We've been hard at work on the game's full release coming November 15th and decided to do something fun for everyone waiting, so we hope you enjoy.

[h2]The Vote[/h2]
Thank you everyone who participated! We received an incredible 402 votes!



The winner with 235 votes was the Spider Girl! We're already deep into the process of getting her into the game for full release including a new campaign path, game sprite, a new cut officer mission, and story shots!

Join us on 18+ Discord (New art, Updates, Chat) :) View the Demo Full Game

Thanks for reading ;3
~Captain Cake

[h2]A New Character Is Coming For Full Release[/h2]
We've begun working in full-swing on the full release. We've even got a date for you: November 15th!

We knew that we wanted the full release to have a new playable character. New content takes time so we want to get started right away. For the character, we need to make the art, sprites, story shots, and side animations. Our lovely & talented artist TopHarlot had a suggestion: Lets run a poll on Discord!



[h3]So we did![/h3]
Click here to join the Discord & vote

This new character will come with new story shots, cute officer mission, and their own path in the campaign.

Happy Voting! ;3
~Captain Cake

(This update adds on to a change started with the last update, you can read the 0.7.0 patch notes here)


Why "Combat 2"? Because the first big combat changes were done for the demo 2.0 release on Steam!
(Which are very interesting, highly recommend you read the Steam patch notes if you want to see how much things have changed to get the game to where it is now).

We continue to be incredibly grateful for the positive response to the game & all of the feedback!
Also love the chats happening in Discord


Highlighted Changes

• Added auto reload feature, on by default, can be turned off in settings
  
• Redesigned the gadget menu
  
• Gadget menu is now toggled instead of held
  
• Redesigned settings display. Now horizontal instead of vertical. New colors. Now organized by category (Audio, Display, Gameplay)
  

Quality of life

• Added "Dont show again" option/toggle to the 'Thanks for playing' screen
  

Fixes

• Removed 2 achievements from the game that couldn't be earned (They were for difficulty 9 & 10 which existed in an earlier version of the campaign). Achievement hunters may now rest easy!
  
• Fixed soft lock in tutorial where you could use supply gadget to kill yourself with grenades
  
• Fixed soft lock in tutorial where you could throw a gadget before you were supposed to
  
• Fixed not getting achievement for buying a character if you used a demo save file
  
• Fixed not getting achievement for a planet if you had completed it in a demo save file
  
• Fixed weapon firing a shot at the same time as gadget throw, resulting in losing some ammo
  
• Fixed weapons that fire multiple projectiles only counting as 1 shot fired in game stats, causing more than 100% accuracy. Accuracy is calculated as (Shots Hit / Shots Fired), so this will fix 'shots fired' moving forward but won't change the number for your existing saves)
  
• Fixed bug where opening the gadgets menu before you received a gadget would result in the gadgets menu showing placeholder data
  

Combat:
I didn't realize how much these 2 changes would effect how I played the game. Originally I was hesitant to add auto reload because I thought it might take away from the experience, but once I did it I am happy that I did. For those who prefer the previous system, I added the ability to toggle it on/off in the settings. I've made it default to on so that it is now the main game experience for players.

The gadgets menu also changed how I played the game a lot more than I thought it would.
You can thank this Steam discussion by ruff1298 for suggesting the change.

The gadget menu being toggled on made me pay a lot more attention to my gadgets, combined with no longer needing to hold down control in order to use gadget hotkeys, I found myself using gadgets way more than I ever did before. And by adding bars, and then coloring them, it's easy to tell the state of each gadget at a glance.

Originally I was going to do away with the control key altogether but I figured making it a toggle instead of permanently visible lets players hide the gadget info if they want to.

Settings:
The settings menu was formerly a big vertical window. I thought it looked cool but around when I added full screen & resolution options, I quickly realized size was going to be a problem. Then, adding 'auto reload' in this update I decided it definitely needed a redesign. This helps to allow more settings on the screen but also, organizing by category just makes it an easier / nicer player experience.

Goal & thanks:
My goal is to start working more on new content, both for Early Access & full release. This might take a bit so I'm happy to get some big changes like this done so quickly.

Your support during Early Access is what lets this be possible, so thank you very much!

Overall, I'm super happy with the state of the game & the positive feedback!

Join us on 18+ Discord (New art, Updates, Chat) :) View the Demo Full Game

Thanks for reading ;3
~Captain Cake

The game's big release on Steam has allowed players a chance to play further into the game content, as well as allow a lot more players to be exposed to it. As a result, we have a lot more feedback than we did with the demos!

We're very happy with the response so far!

Thanks to this new feedback, we're introducing some changes to make the game even better!



Highlighted Change

• You can now use gadget hotkeys without needing to hold down left control. Control is now just used to bring up the menu.
  

Balancing

• Reduced Tunneller projectile collision size
  
• Reduced Tunneller projectile speed by 22%
  
• Increased distance at which Tunneller will start spitting projectiles
  
• Increased Tunneller cooldown between spits
  
• Reduced the damage the player takes from their own rockets by 30%
  
• Reduced the damage the player takes from their own grenades by 30%
  
• Buffed Victoria Gun Run's damage per bullet by 25%
  
• Buffed Victoria Bombing Run's damage per bomb by 11%
  
• Reduced Victoria Bombing Run's damage to the player by 17%
  
• Made the inside of enemy artillery warning circle slightly red (Some users, when first encountering the artillery, thought because it was fully transparent that the inside of the circle was safe)
  
• Increased how long the player is immune to damage after respawning
  
• Reduced Supply Package gadget deploy time (4 seconds -> 2 seconds)
  
• Reduced Hot Shot Rocket gadget deploy time (3 seconds -> 2 seconds)
  
• Reduced Hot Shot Rocket gadget cooldown time (200 seconds -> 120 seconds)
  
• Reduced Extra Life gadget deploy time (3 seconds -> 2 seconds)
  

Fixes

• Fixed pilot dialogue being stuck open if you die before it closes
  
• Fixed Holo Girl tutorial text for gadgets accidentally including control text for [LMB] on the line about being your first
  

Small Changes

• Renamed "Superstar Celebrity Diver" achievement to "Superstar Diver"
  
• Fixed "Council" not being capitalized on line 4 of Dash's lose event
  

Join us on 18+ Discord (New art, Updates, Chat) :) View the Demo Full Game

Thanks for reading ;3
~Captain Cake