Hyperslice News

[p]I've been working on new enemies, new upgrades and new balancing for the game. It's a lot of changes so I want to run a small playtest first to validate everything before updating the demo. I'll clear the leaderboards for the playtest as the demo will be around 15 waves long instead of 27. [/p][p][/p][p]I'll run the playtest for at least a week, implement the feedback and then push everything to the public demo. This means the demo leaderboard will also be wiped before updating the demo. [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]You can register right now, head over to Hyperslice page and click register! You'll be notified when the playtest starts.[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink] See you soon 👋[/p]

[p]I just updated the demo with a lot of changes and I’m pretty excited for you to give it a go![/p][p]This new version fixes a bunch of stuff, changes the push mechanic, modifies the waves and adds gambling, choices and in wave challenges. I’m not going to list all the changes but here are the main differences and then what you can expect for the next update.[/p][p]If you prefer, you can watch my latest devlog here which discusses the changes I’ve made.[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][h3]Push[/h3][p]The push doesn’t damage enemies anymore when they collide with walls, it stuns them. The goal is to make the push more of a control mechanic and invite the player to use both the push and the slice together. For example, you can push an enemy to stun it, giving you time to focus on another one or to slice it if it’s too fast for you.[/p][p]With that, I also introduced upgrades to increase the damages of both the slice and the push. This means you’re still able to deal collision damage with push, just not by default.[/p][p][/p][h3]In wave challenges[/h3][p]When a wave starts, you’ll see a popup at the top screen with a challenge and the reward you can expect. The reward is automatically given the moment you validate the challenge. You’ll see it turn green when validated or red when failed. Right now, there’s a very limited amount of challenges, but I’ll add more soon.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Challenge (more difficult waves)[/h3][p]There’s now a small probability to have a challenge portal next to the next wave portal which allows you to face a more difficult wave (faster enemies, enemies with more health, shielded enemies, more hazards). If you win the wave, you get a reward.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Gambling[/h3][p]Similarly to the challenge portals, gambling portals can spawn before moving to the next wave. The portal will show you what you can win or lose and the associated probabilities. Just slice it and wait for the animation to finish to get your reward.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Reward scenario[/h3][p]Whenever an upgrade portal is spawned, there’s a small chance to also have a reward portal. You can decide to get this reward instead of an upgrade. A reward scenario will give you gems and it’s a safe area. Right now, I have only one reward scenario where you have to grab as many gems as you can before the timer runs out.[/p][p][/p][h3]Payload[/h3][p]I introduced a new mechanic where you have to protect a payload. This can be seen during normal waves, where a payload is spawned and enemies will attack it first. At the end of the wave, you get a reward in gems corresponding to the health of the payload: 0 = nothing, 6 = max amount.[/p][p]There’s also a special scenario, where your only goal will be to protect a payload from missiles. Same thing here, you get rewarded based on the health of the payload, but with upgrades this time.[/p][p][/p][h3]What’s next[/h3][p]I’m working actively on enemies at the moment with the goal of releasing a new demo update soonish. I’m trying to make the enemies more interesting and challenging. I’ll talk about that more in depth in the next update. [/p][p][/p][p]Wishlist & try Hyperslice ⚡[/p][p]https://s.team/a/2977820[/p][p][/p]

Since the last post, I continued working on different things to make the Hyperslice gameplay loop more interesting and diverse.

[h3]Eliminate enemies within time frame[/h3]

Similar to the countdown wave where you have to survive for X seconds, I introduced waves where you must defeat enemies under a time limit. If you manage to eliminate enemies fast enough, you get a reward (only gems for now). If you don't, enemies are killed and you move to the next wave without rewards. The goal is to have a slightly different wave, where you're encouraged to go fast and take more risks if you want a reward. If you don't feel comfortable, you can avoid enemies and just try to survive. This is a small change but combined with all the others modifiers and events that can happen, I think I'm starting to have a pretty cool loop.



[h3]Protect the payload[/h3]

The other thing I introduced is the payload. My original idea was to add it randomly to waves as a secondary objective. You'd need to protect it until the end of the wave. If you manage to keep it alive until the end of the wave, it would open to reward you. The reward would depend on the life it has at the end. When testing, it proved a bit difficult to juggle both killing the enemies and protecting the payload, especially since enemies would target the payload constantly.



Before trying something completely different I implemented two things to make it more manageable. The first is the usual "projectile when pushed" which allows the payload to deal damage to enemies when pushed. This makes moving the payload around both a defensive and offensive move. The second is simply allowing you the ship to move the payload on collision. This makes it easier to adjust the position more precisely, which might be especially important for another idea 😉.



I still have to do more testing but I think these two fixes are a good solution for now, especially if I combine it with a big enough arena.

Another idea is to setup a special scene where the only goal is to protect the payload. This could be a great change of pace and I could use things I already have as threats such as missiles or lasers. This allows to focus on a more difficult protection challenge as you don't have to care about enemies.



This is not yet available in the demo build as I'm doing lots of changes at the moment, but I'll probably do a playtest soon! Stay tuned 😉

Wishlist & try Hyperslice ⚡
https://s.team/a/2977820

My goal recently with Hyperslice has been to add more choices during a run. I wanted the experience to vary a bit and also give the good players more stuff to do. For that, I added three new things 👇

In-wave challenges



Every new wave, a random challenge is selected and you get rewards if you complete it. These challenges should give good players more things to do in the first waves and can also influence the way you play. You can be asked to take no damage, only use the slice, do a multikill, etc... These are completely optional and you can just ignore them if they're too overwhelming.

Choice for reward



There's now a random chance for a challenge portal to appear in between waves. I already implemented different types of challenges and rewards: upgrades, health or gems. A challenge wave can include more hazards, stronger enemies, reduce your health to one for the duration of the challenge, etc...

If you have ideas you'd like to see, please share them below!

Gambling!



And for the last mechanic, I introduced gambling 😲

There's a random chance a portal will appear before going to the upgrade or shop scene. It tells you the odds and you can decide to gamble or not. You can win/lose upgrades, gems and health. This can be especially interesting when you have a really good run and want to push your luck or if you have nothing to lose!

This is not yet available in the demo build as I'm doing lots of changes at the moment, but I'll probably do a playtest soon! Stay tuned 😉

Wishlist & try Hyperslice ⚡
https://s.team/a/2977820

I just pushed the 0.0.47 update which fixes some bugs and adds small QOL features. I'm going to make a lot of modifications in the future, especially regarding the game loop. It should make the game more interesting and more "roguelite" so stay tuned!

Also, the Next Fest is over but I'll keep the demo up for now because I love seeing you play and getting new highscores in the leaderboard!



[h3]Additions/modifications[/h3]

• Update controls: A,B to dash, more sensitive trigger thresholds, bigger threshold for mouse movement,
  and mouse middle click for ultimate
  
• Wave 19 is a bit easier to avoid a big difficulty spike
  
• Custom cursor
  
• Hide cursor when playing with gamepad
  
• Update localization, fixing typos and bad descriptions
  
• Health regen ugrade can now be stacked
  
• Display "?" if a character isn't supported in the leaderboard
  
• Minor leaderboard UI tweaks
  

[h3]Bug fixes[/h3]

• Upgrades in the shop can be purchased even if you don't have enough gems
  
• 4th option in the shop upgrade doesn't add a 4th option
  
• Push bounce ability doesn't stop multikill
  
• Last enemy of the wave doesn't count in combo
  

Thanks everyone for trying the demo, see you in the leaderboard 😉