Electro Havoc News

First off, a huge thank you to all of you who have added Electro Havoc to your wishlist. Your +1's are a strong indicator to me that I'm working on something exciting, and reinforce the conviction I have in what I'm building.

To the playtesters who've reached out personally, via Discord and other means -- your feedback is invaluable! I'm taking it all to heart and adding it to my issue and feature tracker (available here) to stack rank, ideate and plan for. Unfortunately, the improvements you've asked for have influenced me enough to delay the game to Q2-25. I was really, really pushing to get this out for the Steam Spring Sale and in time for the upcoming Game Developers Conference in 2w, but if I did, I'd be pushing out a subpar product that I knew I could bar raise.

So, I'm going to keep the playtest open and instead of pushing out the "final" product, I'm going to push out a major update that includes a new player ship that ties into the Electro Havoc avatar, improved game visuals, and tons of quality of life updates.

More on all of that soon, but I just wanted to reiterate my appreciation to all of you on the feedback you've provided. And if you've signed up for a playtest but haven't actually played yet -- please jump in!

This all started when I foolishly entered a game jam sometime mid-2023 and I decided to challenge myself by learning a new engine (Godot) and language (GDScript) at the same time. The “game” I built, dubbed “Electro Havoc”, was inspired by the Geometry Wars easter egg minigame in the Project Gotham Racing 2 game for the OG Xbox back in 2003. When I stumbled on it back then (and rediscovered the sequel more recently on Steam), I was hooked on the simplistic yet satisfying game loop, rockin’ soundtrack and retro aesthetic. Shockingly, I managed to score second (of four submissions…) in best use of graphics and audio and dead last for the other voting categories.

Here’s a preview of what I built in ~2 hours in Godot 3.5.2 some years ago:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

So as you can see, it was a looong ways away from an actual game loop but it was demonstrative of what I had in my head (a scary thought). The prompt for the game jam was “chain reaction” and I had intended for the enemy explosions to generate splash damage and destroy other enemies… but couldn’t get it working in the time allotted.

After much irl got in the way, I decided to pick the project back up and see if I could deliver on my original vision. So much time had passed that Godot 4.2 was released since I was last in the editor, and thankfully, some of the major bugs I was running into had been fixed, namely support for 2D navigation mesh baking so enemies would no longer get stuck on the edges of a tilemap (seen in the video above).

Fast forward many more months, countless bugs, and much anxiety, I'm ready to open up my first indie game to the onslaught (and love!) that is the Steam community. I'd very much appreciate any constructive feedback you may have before I open up for early access next month sometime before the Game Developers Conference (GDC) on Mar-17.

I know the game could benefit from more enemies, diverse attack patterns, new level designs, and more power-ups but I'm really like your feedback on how the game feels and whether it's addictive and fun. That sentiment will provide the encouragement I need to continue experimenting and investing in it.

And with that, happy playtesting!