EA Update 01: Living World

Welcome to the first major update for Slingbot Survivors, "Living World"!

We've been hard at work to deliver more fun experiences to our awesome community, and our first update aims to do just that: More things to do, activities to complete, hazards to avoid, and of course, rewards to be gained!

You can check out the new features highlighted below, or simply scroll to the bottom for the full patch notes.

[h2]4 new environmental objects[/h2]
First, we aim to make our environment more rich and varied, and enhance your traversal experience, using fun new interactable objects scattered throughout each level! Including new challenges, rewards, powerups and hazards, exploring each level will never feel the same!

[h3]🏁Ring Race🏁[/h3]

Put your skills to the test with our new races! During a race, you'll need to pass through each ring and reach the end in time, where you'll be rewarded based on how quick you completed it!

[h3]🕸Infested Hive🕸[/h3]

New hives will discovered across the planet, where our enemies gather their forces and multiply before their next assault. Find them, smash them into pieces, and reap precious rewards!

Just be warned, because it will definitely draw their attention...

[h3]🍄Bounce-Shrooms🍄[/h3]

These juicy plants possess powerful bouncy properties, and by extracting their energized juices, you can gain a powerful, bouncy shield to use against your enemies!

[h3]💣Bomb-Sacs💣[/h3]

Be careful around these things! Scattered across the level, these volatile plants react to the slightest touch, triggering a powerful chain explosions! However, the resourceful Sling-Bot could surely use them to their advantage...

[h2]🍃The world comes to life🍃[/h2]
Also, after much hard work and black magic from our resident lead developer, we've unlocked the technology to animate the environment! Each vine, coral and egg-sac will now react, bend and bounce when you pull it!

Together with various new balance improvements and a slew of QoL features, we hope this will be a patch fit for our awesome community!

[h2]PATCH NOTES - VERSION 0.32.0 (29-05-25):[/h2]
[h3]🆕NEW CONTENT🆕[/h3]

• The Ring Race, Infested Hive, Bounce-Shroom and Bomb-Sacs have been added to the game.
  
• The flora has been bestowed with new animated properties (the plants now go bounce).
  
• The Lighting Gun has undergone a complete overhaul, and became a "Rail Gun" that targets the highest health enemy in range (it also got some spicy new augments).
  

[h3]🤖GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS🤖[/h3]

• The community's cries have finally been answered, and you can now upgrade your Grappling Range and Pull Force! (which is effectively your movement speed).
  
• The "V0ltron" character now starts with the Static Field.
  
• Significantly improved the UI navigation experience using a controller.
  
• Balanced audio levels throughout the game.
  
• Reduced the HP of the purple eggs in the tutorial, which were higher than normal eggs (creating an annoying experience for new players). However, the first "tutorial egg" will now always die in EXACTLY 2 hits, to steamline the tutorial experience.
  
• Added a 3rd egg to the tutorial level, on the ceiling
  

[h3]🎨VISUAL IMPROVEMENTS🎨[/h3]

• The progress fill of the Biofuel drone is now much more clear and accurate.
  
• Slightly reduced the VFX size of the various explosions to better match their actual hitbox.
  
• The Firefly's projectile got a major makeover, and are now as slimy and dangerous as ever.
  

[h3]⚖️BALANCE CHANGES⚖️[/h3]

General:
• Increased shop prices by 10% (to balance the increased currency gained from the Ring Race and Infested Hive)
  
  Player:
• Reduced EXP required to level up after level 15 by around 10%.
  
  Quests:
• Increased the Biofuel’s required amount scaling per level
  
• Increased the required amount of power gems to collect from 6 to 8
  
  Environment:
• The eggs no longer also drop percentage-based EXP (in addition to the flat EXP they drop)
  
  Enemies:
• Slightly reduced enemy amounts and increased movement speed at higher difficulties.
  
• Further reduced enemy spawn amounts in the first level by about 15%-20%, to make the difficulty curve more forgiving and give players time to breathe.
  
• Lowered the maximum amount of active enemies from 400 to 300
  
• Reduced the rate at which the enemies' health & spawn numbers increase during the boss fight (when they "Enrage"), but also slightly increased the rate at which their movement speed increases.
  
• Increased the distance between enemies and their hitbox size (so it's easier to hit them)
  
• Increased the Firefly's (ranged enemy) projectile size by 20%, damage from 7 to 10, and the Firefly's lock-on range
  
• Increased Fireflies' base HP from 170 to 200, but reduced their base contact damage from 7 to 5
  
• Increased the fast enemies' base HP from 100 to 120, damage from 7 to 8, and dropped EXP from 100 to 200.
  
• Made fast enemies fly through all other enemies (except other fast enemies), as they used to do. No escaping from them!
  
• Slightly increased the damaging hitbox of the tier 1 normal enemies, tier 2 normal enemies, fast enemies and tanks.
  
• Tier 1 Normal enemies now drop 150 EXP at a 50% rate, instead of 100 EXP at a 75% rate (so same rate overall, just less EXP particles).
  
• Tier 2 Normal enemies now drop 200 EXP at a 50% rate, so 30% more than the tier 1 ones (they used to drop the same amount as them)
  
• Reduced magnet drop rates on normal enemies from 1/2000 to 1/4000, but increased them on Tanks from 1/750 to 1/500.
  
  WEAPONS: Bubble Gun:
• Increased projectile velocity by 33%.
  
  Rotaser:
• Increased duration from 3 to 4 seconds, but increased cooldown from 8 to 10 seconds. Overall this is a buff to the weapon's lifetime, intended to make it slightly more reliable at earlier levels.
  
• Removed the "B.F.G" augment's +30% damage bonus and +50% rotation speed bonus. That gun was just too f**king big.
  
  Orbital Saws:
  
• Reduced its base status potency when augmented with Cold by 35%.
  
• Reduced the rotation speed granted by the "Accelerated Engines" augment from +100% to +75%.
  
• Increased the damage penalty of the "Pocket Saw-Mension" augment (that grants another layer of saws) from -50% to -65% (Sorry for all the saw enthusiasts in the crowd, I had to do it do 'em).
  
  Shotgun:
  
• Lowered the base damage from 70 to 60 (because it overperfomed a little too much, especially in the early game, allowing you to kill bosses far too quickly)
  Static Field:
  
• Increased base damage from 10 to 12, and base status potency from 6 to 10 (to help it out in the early game and improve its viability as a primary weapon)
  

[h3]👾BUGFIXES & OPTIMIZATION👾[/h3]

• Greatly improved the performance of the game (you can now achieve a smooth framerate on the Steam Deck).
  
• Fixed ranged enemies firing at a faster rate than intended.
  
• Fixed floating main menu items no longer animating when re-entering the main menu.
  
• Fixed bug that caused the compass pointer to point to the wrong direction at first.
  
• Fixed bug that prevented the spawning of a single enemy
  
• Fix Rotaser beam count updating during fire.
  
• Generally improved the stability of the game.
  

That's all for now, but don't worry: In our next major update (coming in a month or so) we're gonna answer many of your other requests for the game, so keep on the lookout! We're planning pretty spicy things ahead...

(And please join our Discord! We have memes!)