Black Ice News

Welcome to the Black Ice "Disconnected" Patch! I've got a ton of great stuff in this one, aimed primarily at making the world feel more alive, game feel, and quality of life. Check out the features below!




The Supermesh just got a lot more dangerous! There are now enemy ice patrolling the map, trying to protect their territory. Ambush them as they patrol, or sneak past them - just make sure you're safe before starting a hack, or they might sneak up on you!

Fort Servers are a new type of server which spawn enemies continuously to protect themselves. You can take out the enemies and get by, but in a minute or two, they'll be back. If you hack a Fort server, however, it will spawn friendly ice to help you fight in the surrounding area! It's like having a few extra minions! Look for the crenelations!




Who likes headshots? Enemies now have weak points which take triple damage from any hit. Additionally, they now have proper hitboxes, which means you'll be able to hit them in their legs or tentacles or whatever other creepy thing they might be crawling around on.

Player projectile speeds have also doubled, and the projectiles now hit things matching their visuals. The end result is that it's much easier to hit things accurately at range, and you no longer feel like you missed something by a few nanometers.

To balance all that out, your weapons now have an accuracy spread over time. This means that the longer you shoot, the less accurate your weapon will be, recovering over time. Snipers, of course, are the most accurate, but also take longer to recover their accuracy. Additionally, enemies move faster and have more hitpoints.

The end result? It feels even more awesome to kill things now.


The Super Duper GITSfish now roams the world, and spawns from high level miniboss (light blue) servers. With massive stature and a frontal shield, he can be a beast to deal with. He's pretty slow to turn around, though, so you'd better hit him from behind!




The UI has been completely overhauled for the inventory and shop screens, with gorgeous new icons for all items by James Hostetler. The new Virtual Cursor for controller users is particularly useful, as it's easier to understand and use. There's also a new comparison system, which will show the difference in *actual* end-result DPS and health for any particular item swap.

On top of all the new UI goodness, there are custom sounds for both the game and the UI. They were made by excellent sound designer Jocelyn Reyes, who also worked on Overland and Looty Dungeon. And she's not even done yet - there will be more sounds in the next few patches.

• New Perk! Double Barrel, which doubles your shotgun's number of projectiles at a cost of attack speed and accuracy
  
• Map changes! There are new ramps and things all over the place, including in the arena server on the rim
  
• Aggro! Enemies now have a proper aggro system, and will prefer enemies that have damaged them or their allies. Minions will attack enemies that attack you!
  
• Minions now scale with player HP, damage, and attack speed (converted to damage)
  
• Loot Find Buff! More better items faster!
  
• Optimization! We converted the ENTIRE GAME from JavaScript to C#, added a bunch of multiplayer improvements, and enabled more enemy death particles to boot. Better framerate for everyone!
  
• Bug fixes like you wouldn't believe.
  

As a special treat for reading this far, I'll tell you what I'm working on next. I've got not one, not two, but SIX new enemies planned for the next few months. They're being created by the radical Ethan Redd, and will have different move patterns and methods of attack. Additionally, we will soon be working on quests and plot!



Enjoy! :gitsfish: And please take a second to review the game and tell your friends. It really helps!

Thanks for checking out Black Ice! I've got another big patch coming up soon, but I want to playtest it first at RTX (July 7-9) before I post it. I should be posting the patch around mid July, but you can already play it on the Indev beta branch right now if you'd like a sneak preview!

• A new enemy - the Super Duper GITSfish with a frontal shield and massive scale!
  
• Shooting Mechanics Upgrade - Headshots, Projectile Spread, and Proper Hitboxes, oh my!
  
• Wild Enemies roam the map, making it much more dangerous to run around
  
• Fort Servers - these crenulated servers keep a few enemies around to guard them. Hack it, and the guards will spawn as friendlies to help with nearby servers!
  
• Brand new UI, with a virtual cursor for controller making it a lot easier to use
  
• Brand new custom sounds from awesome sound designer Jocelyn Reyes, who also worked on Overland and Looty Dungeon
  
• We've started work on quests!
  

In addition to all that, there's multiplayer enhancements, new icons, tons of bug fixes, and the whole game runs on C# now. Even the tutorial is getting updates. We've been busy!

As always, I'd love to hear your suggestions, so please post on the forums, email me, or check out the Black Ice Twitter for the latest updates!



That's all, folks!

Thanks for checking out Black Ice! I've got another big patch coming up soon, but I want to playtest it first at RTX (July 7-9) before I post it. I should be posting the patch around mid July, but you can already play it on the Indev beta branch right now if you'd like a sneak preview!

• A new enemy - the Super Duper GITSfish with a frontal shield and massive scale!
  
• Shooting Mechanics Upgrade - Headshots, Projectile Spread, and Proper Hitboxes, oh my!
  
• Wild Enemies roam the map, making it much more dangerous to run around
  
• Fort Servers - these crenulated servers keep a few enemies around to guard them. Hack it, and the guards will spawn as friendlies to help with nearby servers!
  
• Brand new UI, with a virtual cursor for controller making it a lot easier to use
  
• Brand new custom sounds from awesome sound designer Jocelyn Reyes, who also worked on Overland and Looty Dungeon
  
• We've started work on quests!
  

In addition to all that, there's multiplayer enhancements, new icons, tons of bug fixes, and the whole game runs on C# now. Even the tutorial is getting updates. We've been busy!

As always, I'd love to hear your suggestions, so please post on the forums, email me, or check out the Black Ice Twitter for the latest updates!



That's all, folks!

I think y'all are going to really like this one! This update has been months in the making, with updates to many of Black Ice's core systems, a ton of added content, and literally too many bug fixes to list. Let's get into it!

• World Overhaul - The world is now hand-crafted, with lots of verticality, secrets to find, and lots more fun areas to kill things in. More details in the patch preview.
  
• Arena Servers - Two boss arenas in which you must fight
• inside* the server! More to come!
  
• Drastically Enhanced Mobility - Double Jumps are now standard, and you can grab ledges and climb up on anything!
  
• AI Update - The AI have never been better at climbing, chasing, jumping, and hunting you down.
  
• UI Overhaul - The UI is in the process of being completely redone, by a real artist instead of me this time!
  
• Powerups! - The world now has fun little powerups or items to discover, including a 2-minute movespeed buff, items, and XP!
  
• Controller Vibration
  
• When multihacking, enemies can kill each other and level up, retaining XP
  
• Motion Blur - try turning this to about 8 (or max!) in video options. Off by default.
  
• Ranged enemies try to hide after firing
  
• Melee enemies try to flank
  
• Enemies can be seen through walls after a hack is completed
  
• Increased the number of supported controllers
  
• Aim Assist is drastically enhanced
  
• Tutorial Overhaul
  
• Added Triple Jump unique
  
• Lots of little visual updates!
  

• The player now automatically gets +5% damage per level (up to level 50)
  
• The Damage Returned perk now also increased DR range
  
• Hack Links are no longer visible except for Lasbreakers (to account for the new terrain)
  
• Leveling is faster! Talents are twice as effective, but the limit is now at 50 points
  
• Condensed talent list to six options (much less confusing for new players)
  
• Aimbot projectile slowed to encourage dodging
  
• Reduced Aimbot and Scorporation damage
  
• All icebreakers have longer range
  
• Homing is drastically enhanced
  
• Reduced the number of affixes per rarity on items (so each feels more unique)
  
• Reduced the number of items dropped by dropping XP instead of a third item
  
• Shotguns fire more projectiles
  
• Shotguns and Snipers are now slower and have an attack speed cap (making them feel more like shotguns and snipers)
  
• Shotguns now have damage falloff, but do much more damage at close range
  
• Rocket splash radius increased to 2m
  
• Normal lasers are now sometimes Orange, green, purple, and blue, in addition to red
  
• Teleport items no longer go through buildings, but can still go through enemies/players
  
• Teleport visual upgrades (which are disabled during Photosensitive mode for those who get motion sick)
  
• Servers stay solid after hacking (so you can still climb on them!)
  
• Added a few new random hacker names
  
• Piercing projectiles now only go through enemies but not walls (except for railguns, for now)
  
• Enemies will respawn if they get stuck
  
• Knockback effects on the player have been reduced (to prevent the player from clipping through some walls)
  
• Loot now drops toward the player
  
• Other minor balance changes
  

• Multiplayer stability improvements
  
• Aimbots can now properly fire all machine gun / sniper / weapon projectile types
  
• Hardcore mode should function properly
  
• Disco Deathball now syncs properly in multiplayer
  
• Holding tab in a multiplayer game now properly pauses all items
  
• Monitor resolution should make more sense
  
• Toggle sprint option works a lot better now
  
• Music now properly resets on death and going to the main menu
  
• Loot cubes from shops and missiles from shotguns are no longer deafening
  
• Many more!
  

Known issues:

• The game sometimes crashes on quit. I'm still working on figuring this out, but it doesn't affect your save.
  
• The SHARK is on a vacation, but will return!
  

As always, I'd love to hear your suggestions, so please post on the forums, email me, or check out the Black Ice Twitter for the latest updates!



That's all, folks!

I think y'all are going to really like this one! This update has been months in the making, with updates to many of Black Ice's core systems, a ton of added content, and literally too many bug fixes to list. Let's get into it!

• World Overhaul - The world is now hand-crafted, with lots of verticality, secrets to find, and lots more fun areas to kill things in. More details in the patch preview.
  
• Arena Servers - Two boss arenas in which you must fight
• inside* the server! More to come!
  
• Drastically Enhanced Mobility - Double Jumps are now standard, and you can grab ledges and climb up on anything!
  
• AI Update - The AI have never been better at climbing, chasing, jumping, and hunting you down.
  
• UI Overhaul - The UI is in the process of being completely redone, by a real artist instead of me this time!
  
• Powerups! - The world now has fun little powerups or items to discover, including a 2-minute movespeed buff, items, and XP!
  
• Controller Vibration
  
• When multihacking, enemies can kill each other and level up, retaining XP
  
• Motion Blur - try turning this to about 8 (or max!) in video options. Off by default.
  
• Ranged enemies try to hide after firing
  
• Melee enemies try to flank
  
• Enemies can be seen through walls after a hack is completed
  
• Increased the number of supported controllers
  
• Aim Assist is drastically enhanced
  
• Tutorial Overhaul
  
• Added Triple Jump unique
  
• Lots of little visual updates!
  

• The player now automatically gets +5% damage per level (up to level 50)
  
• The Damage Returned perk now also increased DR range
  
• Hack Links are no longer visible except for Lasbreakers (to account for the new terrain)
  
• Leveling is faster! Talents are twice as effective, but the limit is now at 50 points
  
• Condensed talent list to six options (much less confusing for new players)
  
• Aimbot projectile slowed to encourage dodging
  
• Reduced Aimbot and Scorporation damage
  
• All icebreakers have longer range
  
• Homing is drastically enhanced
  
• Reduced the number of affixes per rarity on items (so each feels more unique)
  
• Reduced the number of items dropped by dropping XP instead of a third item
  
• Shotguns fire more projectiles
  
• Shotguns and Snipers are now slower and have an attack speed cap (making them feel more like shotguns and snipers)
  
• Shotguns now have damage falloff, but do much more damage at close range
  
• Rocket splash radius increased to 2m
  
• Normal lasers are now sometimes Orange, green, purple, and blue, in addition to red
  
• Teleport items no longer go through buildings, but can still go through enemies/players
  
• Teleport visual upgrades (which are disabled during Photosensitive mode for those who get motion sick)
  
• Servers stay solid after hacking (so you can still climb on them!)
  
• Added a few new random hacker names
  
• Piercing projectiles now only go through enemies but not walls (except for railguns, for now)
  
• Enemies will respawn if they get stuck
  
• Knockback effects on the player have been reduced (to prevent the player from clipping through some walls)
  
• Loot now drops toward the player
  
• Other minor balance changes
  

• Multiplayer stability improvements
  
• Aimbots can now properly fire all machine gun / sniper / weapon projectile types
  
• Hardcore mode should function properly
  
• Disco Deathball now syncs properly in multiplayer
  
• Holding tab in a multiplayer game now properly pauses all items
  
• Monitor resolution should make more sense
  
• Toggle sprint option works a lot better now
  
• Music now properly resets on death and going to the main menu
  
• Loot cubes from shops and missiles from shotguns are no longer deafening
  
• Many more!
  

Known issues:

• The game sometimes crashes on quit. I'm still working on figuring this out, but it doesn't affect your save.
  
• The SHARK is on a vacation, but will return!
  

As always, I'd love to hear your suggestions, so please post on the forums, email me, or check out the Black Ice Twitter for the latest updates!



That's all, folks!