Crab Champions News

Please note that all visuals shown in this update WILL be improved / replaced, this is the last feature heavy update and I expect to show much more polished and refined visuals in future updates. It's been frustrating to have to stick with placeholder everything while designing how the game works but that's just part of development. I wanted to cram as many pending and quality of life features into this update as possible before switching gears into content creation mode in the next week or two. With that said, let's get into it!


Previously, the game had a standard main menu that ended up feeling archaic and unnecessary. If you were in a multiplayer game and and wanted to equip a new cosmetic or view progress on a challenge, you'd have to leave the game, go back to the main menu, check it there and then start the whole multiplayer inviting / joining new lobby process all over again. The main menu was also just a roadblock between loading screens as the 99% of the time when you boot up the game, you tend to want to jump straight into a new run. With this in mind I decided to create a lobby or hub area which acts as a kind of physical main menu but without any of the drawbacks mentioned above (players can now stay in multiplayer parties while changing cosmetics or checking out challenges). In addition to this, when you launch the game you are now right beside a portal to start a new run (this takes about 5 seconds on my test machine).



The lobby consists of several interactables, all located nearby for easy access.

• New Run Portal: Jump in to instantly start a new run
  
• Autosave Portal: Resume your previous run (if an autosave exists)
  
• Cosmetics Totem: Equip crab and weapon skins as well as view all challenges to be completed in order to unlock more skins!
  
• Difficulty Totem: Choose one of the 4 difficulty options for your next run
  
• Leaderboards Totem: View friend and global leaderboards for the currently selected difficulty
  
• Multiplayer Totem: Join a random session with the Quickplay option or host your own game and invite friends
  
• Key Totem: Dispense keys (the currency that persists after runs end) to permanently unlock new weapons, weapon mods, grenade mods and perks, adding more content to the game over time
  
• Stats Pedestal: See stats for all players in the lobby including things like the current win streak or the percentage of challenges completed
  
• Tutorial Portal: Replay the tutorial as many times as you need to (you can set record times for completing it quickly)
  

All of these changes mean that everything that you previously did before in different parts of the main menu are now all in one place in the lobby! Equip skins while waiting for others to join, unlock new permanent loot in between each run: everything is much more accessible and convenient. It also acts as a nice social hub area which I plan on improving with easter eggs in the future. Racing time trials and a 1v1 duel pit will likely be added as part of this lobby in a future update, allowing players to take a break between runs.



Let's first go over the current list of 50 achievements that'll be available to complete from day one of the beta. I tried to avoid grindy challenges that just take time to complete and aren't an actual achievement (like get 100K total eliminations or travel for 50 miles total across all of your runs).

All skin visuals will be improved, these are a proof of concept to give you an idea of what to expect.

[h2]Crab Skin Challenges[/h2]

• Flawless: Get a win on Normal difficulty without taking any damage
  
• Frugal: Get a win on Normal difficulty with 5 or less shop purchases
  
• Millionaire: Get a win with over 1M unspent crystals in your inventory
  
• Unstoppable: Get a win with over 1000 eliminations
  
• Speedrun I: Reach island 30 in 20 minutes or less
  
• Speedrun II: Reach island 50 in 40 minutes or less
  
• Speedrun III: Reach island 100 in 60 minutes or less
  
• Claws Of Fury I: Eliminate 500 enemies in a single run
  
• Claws Of Fury II: Eliminate 2500 enemies in a single run
  
• Claws Of Fury III: Eliminate 10000 enemies in a single run
  
• Outplayed: Defeat a boss on Ultra Chaos difficulty without taking any damage
  
• Bulletproof: Complete the first biome on Nightmare difficulty without taking any damage
  
• Big Spender: Make 100 purchases at shops in a single run
  
• Playing With Power: Level up a mod or perk to level 20 in a single run
  
• EZ: Defeat a boss in under 10 seconds
  
• Marathon: Survive until island 200
  
• Slice And Dice: Survive until island 15 without firing your weapon
  
• Close Call: Defeat a boss when you have 1 health remaining
  
• Ultra Damage: Deal over 100K damage in a single shot
  
• Maxed Out: Fill all mod and perk slots in your inventory during a single run
  
• Solid Gold: Fill all weapon mod slots with legendary weapon mods
  
• Recycler: Salvage 50 pickups in a single run
  
• Greedy: Defeat a boss with at least 5 greed perks in your inventory
  
• Crab Champion I: Get a win on any difficulty
  
• Crab Champion II: Get a win on Nightmare difficulty
  
• Crab Champion III: Get a win on Ultra Chaos difficulty
  
• Skilled: Get 3 wins in a row on any difficulty
  
• Pro: Get 3 wins in a row on Nightmare difficulty
  
• Master: Get 3 wins in a row on Ultra Chaos difficulty
  
• Looper: Get a win after looping at least once
  
• Crab Legend: Complete all challenges
  

[h2]Weapon Skin Challenges[/h2]

• Auto Rifle Master I: Get a win with the Auto Rifle on any difficulty
  
• Auto Rifle Master II: Get a win with the Auto Rifle on Nightmare difficulty
  
• Auto Rifle Master III: Get a win with the Auto Rifle on Ultra Chaos difficulty
  
• Pump Shotgun Master I: Get a win with the Pump Shotgun on any difficulty
  
• Pump Shotgun Master II: Get a win with the Pump Shotgun on Nightmare difficulty
  
• Pump Shotgun Master III: Get a win with the Pump Shotgun on Ultra Chaos difficulty
  
• Burst Rifle Master I: Get a win with the Burst Rifle on any difficulty
  
• Burst Rifle Master II: Get a win with the Burst Rifle on Nightmare difficulty
  
• Burst Rifle Master III: Get a win with the Burst Rifle on Ultra Chaos difficulty
  
• Sniper Master I: Get a win with the Sniper on any difficulty
  
• Sniper Master II: Get a win with the Sniper on Nightmare difficulty
  
• Sniper Master III: Get a win with the Sniper on Ultra Chaos difficulty
  
• Crossbow Master I: Get a win with the Crossbow on any difficulty
  
• Crossbow Master II: Get a win with the Crossbow on Nightmare difficulty
  
• Crossbow Master III: Get a win with the Crossbow on Ultra Chaos difficulty
  
• Rocket Launcher Master I: Get a win with the Rocket Launcher on any difficulty
  
• Rocket Launcher Master II: Get a win with the Rocket Launcher on Nightmare difficulty
  
• Rocket Launcher Master III: Get a win with the Rocket Launcher on Ultra Chaos difficulty
  
• Gunslinger: Get a win with all weapons in the game
  

Players will see what they have unlocked in the Game Over UI.


You may have noticed that there are only 6 weapons: while there were more weapons in the game before, I wanted to ensure that the game launches with a smaller number of distinct weapon archetypes before adding more. Since weapon mods are far more important than the weapons themselves, it's not a huge deal for so few weapons to be in a game designed to be replayed. You'll need to approach each weapon differently when making effective build combos of mods and perks in order to complete all mastery challenges and it's interesting to see how the same mod can be extremely effective on one type of weapon and next to useless on another.

Next, let's talk about meta progression. I'm a big fan of keeping the difficulty of the game the same regardless of how long you have played it (no extra lives, damage boosts or anything similar through grindy meta progression skill trees). That said, it's fun to work toward unlocking new loot to freshen up future playthroughs. As briefly mentioned earlier in this post, players can interact with the Key Totem found in the lobby to permanently unlock a new piece of loot that both will appear in future runs and stay in your inventory when starting your next run. I believe this design is rewarding without giving the player permanent buffs. This all of course means that only a selection of mods and perks are unlocked for your first playthrough and as you unlock more, the loot pool will increase greatly in variety. There is a cap of 15 keys that can be held at once with each unlock at the Key Totem costing 10 keys. This means that only one unlock can be granted per run but there are other ways to put keys to use, even after all content has been unlocked.

• Better Rewards + More Variety
  After a lot of playtesting this month, I realized that some island rewards (mainly keys and armor plates) just didn't feel worth it after working hard to narrowly clear an island. Because of this, there will now always be a choice between 2 portals when moving to new islands: an easy portal with a much shorter and less intense wave of enemies for a lower tier reward (like a heart or a crystal bundle) and a hard portal with much more challenging encounters which guarantee a high value reward (like a weapon mod or perk). This creates a nice dynamic where you can get greedy and keep going for the better rewards (and harder portals) but end up ruining the run. The pacing and distribution of rewards is something that I'm always tweaking and will continue to do so during the beta.
  
  I've also focused on variety with multiple new types of Shop and Treasure islands that players can encounter on their runs. Health Shops / Key Shops allow players to purchase loot using health / keys rather than crystals. Treasure islands now have a wide variety of different layouts including some that are Greed focused (one of the only ways to get Greed perks), some that offer multiple pathways to choose from and some that are simply a huge area full of crystal rocks to destroy!
  
  
• Improved Loot FX:
  Loot now visually jumps out of chests with new FX and nice staggered timing before the loot is revealed: much more interesting than before. Unique sounds also play for each rarity.
  
  
• Flawless Island Clear Changes
  Previously, flawless island clears rewarded crystals which felt "invisible" a lot of the time when playtesting: if you weren't already looking out for the bonus, it was easy to miss it being awarded. In addition to this, simply getting more crystals after an island didn't feel rewarding enough.
  
  You now get an additional reward chest after each flawless island clear which really adds up if you manage to do it multiple times in a biome. This also scales with the Performance Bonus perk (a chance to get an ADDITIONAL reward chest when getting a flawless island clear) which can lead to crazy amounts of loot in the hands of a skilled player!
  
  
• Improved Pacing
  Entering a flow state of clearing islands with an "all gameplay no downtime" design is something that I've worked hard to try and achieve. Ideally there'll be a point where the game clicks for players and even a clearing the first island on a new run will feel skillful and satisfying.
  
  Rather than having to clear 15 islands per biome (which could take up to 20 minutes if playing slowly), I've reduced the number of islands per biome to 10 for a more focused experience. In addition, many issues with how enemies scale as you progress have been fixed to avoid tediously long islands when looping in the late game. Ideally each island is intense and action packed but never feels too long.
  
  
• More Ways For Enemies To Attack
  Enemies can now attack from multiple locations at once: like this skull firing projectiles from both eyes (the eyes even now light up when firing, very important feature!)
  
  
• Better Boss Loot:
  Bosses now physically drop loot pickups when defeated (in addition to the Epic rarity chests that are spawned), making the process of beating a boss much more rewarding.
  
  
• Challenge Crystal Loot
  Challenge Crystals (destructibles that spawn a bunch of hard enemies when destroyed) now drop a random pickup as a reward, making them much more worth the risk of losing health.
  
  
• Limitless Shop Pedestals
  Loot purchased from a shop pedestal can now be repeatedly purchased over and over (provided you can pay the price each time), allowing for some rapid scaling in late game loops where you have a lot of crystals at hand!
  
  
• Final Difficulty Options
  While there has been a lot of back and forth on how difficulty should be handled in the game, I've landed on the realization that it's best to let players learn the mechanics of the game on an easier difficulty and give them the option to up the challenge when ready rather than not having difficulty options and seeing people stop playing out of frustration. For the beta there will be 4 difficulties:
  - Easy: Fewer enemies with less health that deal less damage and attack slower. You start with 250 max health instead of 100.
  - Normal: All values are untouched, a well rounded experience for new players.
  - Nightmare: More enemies with more health that deal more damage and attack faster.
  - Ultra Chaos: Everything cranked up to insane values for the ultimate challenge. Only very experienced players that have mastered the mechanics will be able to survive here- a punishing difficulty for those looking for that kind of gameplay!
  
  
• Multiplayer Loot Ownership:
  A common question that has come up: "can other players steal my loot or does everyone get local loot?"
  
  Since players should be able to be able to view what others are getting from chests, I've made chest loot be protected until the owning player picks it up. They can then freely drop the loot from their inventory for others to pick up if they wish. This prevents people from stealing your loot while allowing them to still see what you got!
  
  
• Multiplayer Portal Voting:
  On a related note, rather than letting the first player to pick a portal determine what the next island will be (potentially while others are still choosing their loot), I've added a system that allows everyone to vote for the portal that they want to go next with a 10 second countdown to allow players to finish looting before moving on to the next island. If all players vote, the countdown ends instantly and the next island portal is chosen without wasting any more time.
  
  
• Loot Pool Improvements:
  Some loot is now unique to certain biomes, making it easier to target specific build options (choosing to go to the Snow biome while going for an ice build will greatly increase your chances of finding ice themed loot).
  
  
• New Chest Animations
  Reward chests now slam down after clearing an island, way cooler than just appearing!
  
  
• Consumable Loot Rarities
  As consumable loot is the least fun to get (hearts, armor, keys and crystal bundles), I've added the chance to get higher rarity variants (Quad Key, Large Crystal Bundle etc.) when opening a consumable chest.
  
  
• Homing Thorns Challenge Modifier
  A new challenge modifier has been added: enemies spawn homing thorns when eliminated that seek you out- keep your distance!
  
  
• Ultrawide Support
  Something that has been frequently asked is if ultrawide monitors will be supported properly: I've been working to ensure that all UI elements will be aligned correctly on ultrawide monitors with no black bars or cropped visuals! All future versions of the game will also be tested with an ultrawide monitor to ensure compatibility.
  
  
• Inventory Quality Of Life Improvements
  You now have the option to drop anything in your inventory to share with teammates or to salvage. Salvaging loot for crystals now requires a 1 second button hold time to prevent accidentally selling something that you didn't mean to.
  
  
• Weapon Movement Speed Changes
  Weapons now affect movement speed with -20% movement speed when using the LMG and Rocket Launcher and +20% movement speed when using the lightweight SMG.
  
  
• Fail Of The Month: First Person Sniper Scope
  Another frequently asked question is if snipers will have scopes: I tried it out but since the game is all about high mobility action, being so zoomed in with tunnel vision just didn't feel good! I may revisit this in the future but for now all weapons will aim in third person without scopes.
  
  
• Improved Armor UI Visuals
  Each armor plate is now represented by a separate blue segment above the main health bar.
  

Thanks for reading the update this month!



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The update this month is a little less beefy than usual as most of my time was spent working through the backlog of remaining tasks needed to ship the beta. While a lot of these tasks are technical and boring, there are a few new interesting additions. I'll keep it short and sweet and then get back to finishing the game- that's where my time is best spent at the moment!


Last month all weapon mods and perks were finalized for the beta- the same was done this month for grenade mods. I tried to focus on more interesting mod mechanics than just plain stat increases: there are some potent new combinations possible with these additions.

• Bubble Grenade: Grenades are surrounded by bubbles that deal constant damage
  
• Spike Strike: Chance for grenades to explode into a delayed fiery spike strike
  
• Imploding Grenade: Grenades deal more damage but have a smaller explosion radius
  
• Firework Explosion: Chance for grenades to explode into a cluster of fireworks
  
• Thorn Explosion: Chance for grenades to explode into homing thorns that stick to enemies and deal damage over time
  
• Glue Grenade: Grenades stick to enemies and deal more damage but there is a short delay before damage is dealt
  
• Crystal Strike: Chance for grenades to explode into a delayed crystal strike
  
• Ultra Mushroom: Chance for grenades to grow a gigantic explosive mushroom when exploding
  
• Shotgun Explosion: Chance for grenades to explode into a huge shotgun blast
  
• Elemental Explosion: Chance for grenades to explode into a random elemental damage area
  
• Cluster Explosion: Chance for grenades to explode into a cluster of bombs
  
• Layered Grenade: Chance for grenades to explode twice
  
• Spore Explosion: Chance for grenades to grow explosive mushrooms nearby when exploding
  

Destructibles have needed some love since they were originally added: they previously were very static and exploded instantly when taking damage. I've added a "leaking" mechanic so that when destructibles take damage, they start leaking from the damage location, rapidly losing health until they explode. This creates interesting situations where an enemy may set off a destructible rock near you while cornered in a cave, creating a ticking timebomb!

Enemies can now also spawn destructibles as part of their attacks such as these new green slug projectiles which grow explosive mushrooms when exploding.


A wider variety of destructibles can also now spawn with black hole and energy ring rocks appearing in later biomes on top of the current roster of crystal, challenge, fire, ice, poison, lightning and health rocks. Finally, destructibles can be attached to enemies by the player with new mods such as Spore Shot, allowing for complex interactions!


More difficult evolved variants of enemies now have a chance (which increases with each cleared island) to spawn instead of vanilla enemies. Evolved enemies have a completely new array of attacks and usually specialize in a debuff like fire or lightning which results in entirely new encounters. This gives end game runs more variety and difficulty rather than just increasing the health and damage of regular enemies. Evolved enemy difficulty lies somewhere between a normal enemy and an elite enemy.


While not the most interesting feature ever, it's something that I wanted to be in the game from day 1, allowing players to pause a run and continue later or to gracefully recover from a crash (it's no fun to lose a long run due to things outside of your control!).

If you have an autosave stored, a red portal will appear in the lobby which will take you right back to the island that the game last saved on. This system will also work if losing connection to a multiplayer match: all players that were in the game can join a new lobby, jump into the red portal and continue where they left off! If it's not possible to rejoin (such as when playing with random players), you can continue the run solo without losing progress.


With the various improvements made this month, I quickly added a few new weapon mods!

• Spore Shot: Chance to attach explosive mushrooms to enemies when hitting them
  
• Torpedo Shot: Chance to fire a powerful homing torpedo along with your shot
  
• Thorn Shot: Chance to fire a homing thorn along with your shot that sticks to enemies and deals damage over time
  

Some of the tasks completed this month aren't super exciting on their own but are essential to ship a working beta! It's encouraging that the main focus is here and away from new features as it means that the game is finally nearing completion.

• Projectile FX Improvements
  Projectiles now have much longer lasting visuals, allowing for players to create unique visual trails when combining weapon mods.
  
  
• Balance Changes
  After dozens of daily playtests, I've found a sweet spot in terms of enemy density, type, health, damage and more! There were many specific combinations of enemies that needed tuning, for example a high number of slugs on smaller islands were causing cascading explosions the cleared the islands instantly.
  
  I've also heavily tweaked how difficulty scales as runs progress, introducing big bumps in difficulty after each completed biome to allow the player to get extremely strong near the end of a biome but to expect a new challenge when moving forward. The pace of each island has been sped up also with the majority of islands being focused on a single intense wave rather than multiple waves in a row which could feel tedious and ruined clutch moments where you just barely cleared a wave but another began right after and you got eliminated.
  
  
• Temple Reward Improvements
  Temples now always offer a choice between keys, hearts and crystals locked behind one way gates- players can only choose one path!
  
  
• Enemy Improvements
  Enemies now have faster attack animations and also spawn more quickly depending on how far into a run you are! Extra elites spawn on Elite islands after each loop for an added challenge. Elites can also start appearing in regular islands on later loops.
  
  
• Quality Of Life Changes - Armor plates have been limited to a maximum of 10 at once as it was possible to get hundreds of plates in a single run which could extend the late game survivability in ways that weren't intended.
  
  - Crosshairs have been updated with a new design and black outlines to make them much easier to see in bright scenes.
  
  
  - The island progression shown last month has been slightly restructured for more action and less downtime choosing rewards. This preserves the flow state of moving from island to island without as much time spent reading loot descriptions. To compensate for this change, when you do reach a treasure island or a shop, there's more opportunity to make multiple improvements to your build at once.
  
  - The camera height has been adjusted to be lower which feels much better when aiming uphill. Aiming field of view has also been boosted for all weapons for a more distinct difference between aiming and hipfiring.
  
  - Destructible crystals now have a tiny chance to drop a random pickup when destroyed in addition to their usual guaranteed crystal bonus!
  
  - New FX have been added for many perks that were previously hard to notice such as all perks that trigger when armor is broken or when an enemy is eliminated.
  
  - The Rare Treasure perk (enemies have a very small chance to drop mods and perks when eliminated) now has FX! This makes it much harder to accidentally miss these rare drops in the chaotic action.
  
  
  - Grenades now have 10 mod slots- the same as weapon mods! They previously had only 6 slots but there are too many fun combos that are lost if sticking to that limit!
  
  - Bosses and other powerful enemies can now attack without requiring line of sight, countering tactics that previously made their fights easier!
  
  - The mod and perk interaction UI has been improved to show more information such as the level that you are upgrading to if the mod or perk is already in your inventory.
  
  - Perks that damage nearby enemies when dashing or sliding no longer affect nearby destructibles which could quickly ruin a run!
  
  - Players now get credit and the usual crystal reward for eliminating enemies by knocking them off cliffs or into hazards.
  
  - Players can now die to fall damage (previously it was possible to cheese certain islands by falling into a hazard on purpose during a tricky encounter with enemies and get respawned in a better position away from the enemies).
  
  - Secret chests (found rarely on combat islands) have had their loot pool weighted more towards lower rarity drops like health or keys and are now free to open if you can reach them.
  
  - The Weak Shot, Charm Shot and Confusion Shot weapon mods have been removed as I felt that they were underperforming even at the lowest rarity. The Weak, Charm and Confusion debuffs still exist however and can be applied to the player from enemy attacks.
  
  - Fixed all remaining bugs surrounding projectiles (not bouncing properly, homing being inaccurate and plenty of other edge case issues that had been on the list for quite a while).
  
  - Specific lighting presets have been added per biome, making it easier to give each biome a more distinct look.
  
  
  - Save files now have safeguards in place to allow for me to make changes in the future without breaking existing saves.
  
  - Underperforming weapons like the crossbow, cluster launcher and orb launcher have received large tweaks to allow them to compete with the stronger weapons and be much more fun to use. For example, the crossbow has been changed from a slow single firing shot to a dual burst shot which makes it much more powerful.
  

Thankfully I'm down to the last batch of code tasks to complete (mostly small things) before moving into 100% content mode- this means that I'm happy with how the game plays and won't be adding any more features (unless absolutely necessary) and instead will be putting all my time into making the remaining FINAL assets for the game: environment art, enemies, island layouts and completely finishing the soundtrack.

Having done so many playtests over the last few months, I've a very clear understanding of the types of level designs that play well and which enemies are fun to fight against so all of that experience will go into making the best final content possible. Ideally I have already come across and fixed the majority of annoying bugs or design flaws and your experience playing the beta will be nice and smooth! As usual I'm not going to give any estimates for the release to avoid further disappointment until there's a concrete beta build ready to go: as soon as there is I'll be dropping it and people can finally get their hands on the game. As always the patience is greatly appreciated!

That's all for this month, thanks for reading!



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As I playtest Crab Champions daily to get it ready for the upcoming beta, one thing that really needed improving was how loot system worked. Previously when you cleared an island, a loot chest would appear near the exit portal: It could be a chest of any type, meaning that you often got a health chest while already at full health which was frustrating. Players also ended up with too much loot early on in a run since they'd get a chest after EVERY island which messed with the balance of the game. I'd rather combat islands be short and sweet with more spaced out loot instead of having to slow down every island, spawning tedious amounts of enemies to compensate for the high frequency of loot.

To solve this issue and also allow for more player choice, I've added a new reward based island type: Treasure islands! When entering a Treasure island, players are given a choice between two pathways, each with a different reward type.



After choosing a pathway, players will find a selection of locked loot chests with varying rarities. Keys are now earned after clearing each combat island and are saved for Treasure islands to open chests.

• Rare Chest - Costs 1 Key: Drops Rare loot with a very small chance of Epic or Legendary drops happening
  
• Epic Chest - Costs 3 Keys: Drops Epic loot with a small chance of a Legendary drop happening
  
• Legendary Chest - Costs 6 Keys: Drops guaranteed Legendary loot
  

Since there are new perks that synergize with keys, it's possible to open multiple chests in a single Treasure island which creates some difficult decisions: "do I spend all 6 of my keys on that Legendary chest or do I open 6 Rare chests?"

You may notice that the Common rarity is missing: I've decided to merge Common and Rare loot as in general getting a Common drop felt very underwhelming. My goal is to make all loot feel fun or useful even at the lowest rarity. All previously Common loot has been heavily buffed and many underperforming mods have been combined together such as Light Shot and Fast Shot to make them more enticing choices.

Overall these changes should help players avoid being at the mercy of RNG while still not having TOO much choice (as there's always fun in not knowing what you'll get). With limited mod and perk slots, the game has several build stages:
- The early game malleable stage where large changes to your build don't matter
- The mid game flexible stage where several potential builds are forming
- The late game hardened stage where you have committed to a specific set of mods and perks that work well together. Changes in this stage are much harder to pull off without messing up your damage output.

This brings a lot of skill into the late game rather than having unlimited slots and just picking up everything and spamming it- you can’t rely on the same strategy to work every run.


Previously after clearing an island, you'd choose a portal to the next island and get a matching reward for clearing it. This caused things to become unbalanced as once you got powerful enough to consistently choose the harder portals, you could get Epic / Legendary loot much more often than intended. Waiting for everyone to vote on a portal also slowed down the pace between islands. There is now a set route of island types but still of course with randomized locations, enemies and loot to make every run different.

• Island 1 + 2 - Horde Eliminate waves of easy enemies (1 key reward per cleared Horde island)
  
• Island 3 - Treasure: Choose one of two reward types to spend your keys on
  
• Island 4 - Horde
  
• Island 5 - Challenge: Face more difficult enemies with a randomly selected challenge modifier active (2 keys reward per cleared Challenge island)
  
• Island 6 - Shop: Spend your crystals (earned from eliminating enemies, getting island clear bonuses and destroying crystal rocks) on loot!
  
• Island 7 - Horde:
• Island 8 - Elite: Eliminate a powerful elite enemy (2 keys reward per cleared Elite island)
  
• Island 9 - Treasure:
• Island 10 - Horde:
• Island 11 - Defense: Hold an area down for 60 seconds against increasingly intense waves of enemies (2 keys reward per cleared Defense island)
  
• Island 12 - Treasure:
• Island 13 - Temple: Navigate through an ancient temple facing powerful enemies (3 keys OR a gold heart OR a large crystal bundle reward per cleared Temple: the player can choose)
  
• Island 14 - Shop:
• Island 15 - Boss: Fight a menacing boss before moving on to the next biome (6 keys, a large crystal bundle and a gold heart reward)
  

Armor is a simple but important addition to the game: players can now find and equip armor plates as part of the health loot pool. Armor is always damaged before your health bar and any excess damage on a hit that breaks an armor plate is ignored, making them a very useful protective tool. Armored enemy variants can now also appear but there are plenty of new armor related perks mentioned below to help counter them!


This month I added all of the remaining perks on my list for the beta. There are over 100 perks in the game now which offers just the right amount of variety that I was hoping for from run to run: enough that you aren't getting the same builds often but not too many that you can't develop favorites and plan out builds. A big focus was on giving players more melee and elemental damage build options as both of these are fun ways to play that didn't have a lot of room to scale up previously.

• Damage Aura: Deal constant damage to enemies near you
  
• Reinforced: Gain additional armor plates each time you pick up armor
  
• Vampire: Heal after each melee elimination
  
• Sentry Gun: A friendly sentry gun spawns at the start of each island
  
• Mortar: A friendly mortar spawns at the start of each island
  
• Explosive Armor: Create a large explosion whenever breaking enemy armor
  
• Flammable Armor: Ignite all nearby enemies whenever breaking enemy armor
  
• Regenerator: Health regenerates over time while in an active island
  
• Clearance: Random goods in shops are free of charge
  
• Power Armor: Damage increased for each equipped armor plate
  
• Regenerating Armor: Gain armor at the start of each island
  
• Double Vision: Chance for loot to be doubled
  
• Critical Thinking: Critical hits deal more damage but non critical hits deal less damage
  
• Red Fury: Damage increased for a short time after eliminating an enemy
  
• Silver Lining: Health and damage increased for each greed perk that you have
  
• FMJ: Damage increased to armored enemies
  
• Thrusters: Dash speed increased
  
• Sledgehammer: Regular enemies (not a boss or an elite) are instantly eliminated when at low health
  
• Damage Control: Incoming damage heavily reduced for a short time after taking damage
  
• Gold Coupon: Your first purchases in shops are free of charge
  
• Freezing Enemies: Enemies freeze all nearby enemies when eliminated
  
• Flammable Enemies: Enemies ignite all nearby enemies when eliminated
  
• Electric Enemies: Enemies shock all nearby enemies when eliminated
  
• Poisonous Enemies: Enemies poison all nearby enemies when eliminated
  
• Sharp Claws: Melee damage increased
  
• Ice Claws: Melee deals ice damage
  
• Fire Claws: Melee deals fire damage
  
• Bonus Keys: Gain additional keys each time you pick up a key
  
• Regenerating Keys: Gain keys at the start of each island
  
• Ice Cold: Increased ice debuff stacks
  
• Firestarter: Increased fire debuff stacks
  
• High Voltage: Increased lightning debuff stacks
  
• Toxic: Increased poison debuff stacks
  
• Dagger Dash: Dashing sends an arc of daggers wherever you are looking
  
• Layered Armor (Greed Perk): Gain 100 armor plates but max health is greatly reduced
  

Last month I mentioned that the final batch of weapon mods for the beta had been added.... but I really wanted to get a few more interesting ones in that weren't just stat increases. These took more time and care to implement than stat increase mods but I think it was well worth it as they open up many new build options.

• Glue Shot: Shots stick to enemies and deal more damage but there is a short delay before damage is dealt
  
• Bubble Shot: Shots are surrounded by bubbles that deal constant damage
  
• Bomb Shot: Chance to spawn bombs when hitting enemies
  
• Health Shot: Chance to heal when dealing damage
  
• Targeting Shot: Shots that hit enemies spawn new shots that target other nearby enemies
  
• Recoil Shot: Shots deal more damage but firing knocks you back
  
• Money Shot: Gain crystals when hitting enemies
  
• Piercing Shot: Shots pierce through enemies (allowing you to deal damage to multiple enemies with a single shot)
  
• Double Tap: Shots have a chance to deal damage twice
  
• Triangle Shot: Fire powerful triangle projectiles along with your shot that regenerate over time
  
• Aerial Shot: Damage increased when airborne
  
• Uppercut: Every fifth shot deals more damage
  

Now that the vanilla mods and perks are finished (other than the last of the grenade mods which will be done early this month), each major update during the early access period will focus on new biomes adding themed enemies, mods and perks to the game with the goal of adding additional content in focused areas without bloating the original biomes and loot pool.


After a lot of consideration I've decided to focus on finishing the beta / early access version of Crab Champions with Survival mode being the main and only mode, and market the game accordingly (as a Third Person Action Roguelike). There are a lot of conflicting opinions on what the game actually is and it's important for me to get a focused game out with bonus modes being a consideration for the future.

It makes little sense to release a deep and fully featured Survival mode with Racing and Duel tacked on as side modes, having a fraction of the content. Both require a good deal more work before they are worthy of being standalone modes whereas Survival mode is in great shape, so it makes the most sense to me to double down on it. Having said that, I still love the Racing mode and it's something that I plan on finishing as a future update when people already have their hands on the game.

As for Duel mode: many of the latest Survival additions do not translate well at all over to Duel mode. That coupled with the fact that true competitive PvP gameplay (requiring dedicated servers, anticheat and many more features which are out of the scope of this project) was never really the plan has made me realize that if I was to release a Duel mode it would need all of these things to be successful. I definitely don't want to disappoint people in this regard, so the game being released and marketed as a PvE game meant to be played with friends will help clear up any false expectations. That said, there'll be a 1v1 area in the Survival lobby so that you can duel your friends while waiting for a run to start- this is exactly the kind of lighthearted dueling that I had imagined when originally announcing the mode anyway, so it's the best of both worlds!

• New Temple Design
  Temples have had a big rework in terms of level design: they are much more tactical than before and offer a refreshing slower pace compared to the chaos of most other island types. Players slowly advance, peeking corners, checking sightlines and playing more carefully in temples- getting knocked off into one of the many pits of lava sends you right back to the temple entrance so skillful aim and movement is required!
  
  
• Survival Victory Crown
  The Survival game loop is now complete! Players can choose to go to Crab Island after beating the Lava biome boss (or choose to keep going endlessly) and end their run by picking up the new gold crown that awaits!
  
  
• New Salvage Feature
  You can now salvage loot directly from chests without having to make room for it in your inventory! This becomes especially useful in the late game when you have no free slots left in your inventory (previously you'd have to just leave loot behind which felt like a big waste).
  
  
• Difficulty Scaling Changes
  I've been making tweaks to how the game ramps up in difficulty after each playtest to try and find the sweet spot between too easy and too challenging while still feeling like you are able to make an overpowered build. I noticed that near the end of each biome, player builds started heavily outperforming enemies so there is now a hefty bump in difficulty when moving to the next biome in addition to the per island scaling.
  
  
• Stats Pedestal
  Some simple player stats have been added to the Survival lobby- nice to compare your own stats with the players that you have matched up with!
  
  
• Damage Area Improvements
  Previously only a single damage area (fire / acid / crystal barrage etc.) could spawn after a grenade explodes. With the changes made this month, any number of damage areas can spawn: this allows for more grenade mod synergies that create potent damage area combos.
  
  
• Jump Flip Animation Returns!
  While the feedback was very positive to the new animations showcased last month, it was clear that the classic front flip animation was missed so I created one with the new rig!
  
  
• Fast Island Clear Bonus
  In addition to the Flawless Clear Bonus (clearing an island without taking any damage), I've added a bonus for players that complete islands quickly. Ideally this is a tradeoff: players that like to play fast but are willing to take a few hits will be rewarded while others that prefer a slower and more careful approach can also get a reward. The most skilled players will be able to consistently get both bonuses!
  
  
• Healing Rocks
  This new rare type of rock creates a healing aura when destroyed, healing anything inside it- including enemies! When playtesting I realized that there was actually quite a bit of strategy around using these effectively: when spotting them on an island I tried to keep enemies away to save the rocks from being destroyed so that I could break them when needed after getting hit.
  
  
• Quality Of Life Changes - Enemies have had a huge balance pass, from health, damage and speed to the minimum and maximum islands that they can spawn on, giving a much more varied and balanced experience
  
  - Enemies now credit the player that damaged them last and award crystals as usual when they are eliminated due to fall damage
  
  - A restart run button has been added to the pause menu to prevent having to go back to the main menu each time
  
  - Confirmation prompts when pressing the restart or quit buttons when paused have been added (I ruined so many runs by accidentally clicking the wrong buttons before this was a thing!)
  
  - New Greed Totem type: Claw For A Claw: Lose 33% of your health but gain a key
  
  - Greed Totems are now free of charge as they all come with a hefty downside
  
  - Health bars are now only visible when you are looking at an enemy instead of all enemy health bars cluttering up the screen
  
  - Damage areas no longer propagate randomly which led to unfair situations, instead they spawn secondary projectiles which explode into matching mini damage areas (this gives you time to dodge before they reach the ground and explode)
  
  - You can no longer dash while shocked, making getting hit by lightning a bit more punishing
  
  - Knockbacks can now only be registered once every 0.1 seconds to prevent spam and to allow for more consistent knockback damage
  
  - Plenty of bugs fixed, new sounds, FX and other visual content added this month also
  

That's all for this month, thanks for reading!



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Animation is by far my weakest area in game development so this overhaul was badly needed. The clunky placeholder animations that have been used for literally years now are finally gone!

[h3]New Grenade Throw Animation[/h3]


[h3]New Slide Animation[/h3]


[h3]New Melee Animation[/h3]


[h3]More Fluid Jumping[/h3]


Have a look at some comparisons of the old terrible animations compared to the new ones! Note that the new animations are not final yet but should be a big step up from the old ones. This animation pipeline is firmly in place now so I'm really excited to improve the enemy models and animations next.

[h3]Walk Comparison[/h3]


[h3]Jump Comparison[/h3]


[h3]Turn In Place Comparison[/h3]


All animations were actually authored in Unreal Engine itself using the amazing new Control Rig toolset. This saves a lot of time as I don't have to go back and forth between external software and import files after each iteration.




Grenade specific mods were introduced last month and are allowing me to create some much more powerful grenade buffs that can really synergize with your weapon to create interesting builds.

Here are some fun grenade mods added this month:

• Crystal Barrage: Chance for grenades to explode into a crystal barrage
  
• Fireworks: Chance for grenades to explode into fireworks that shoot in random directions
  
• Clone Explosion: Grenades spawn more grenades when exploding
  
• Spinning Blade: Chance for grenades to spawn a spinning blade when exploding, dealing damage to all nearby enemies for several seconds
  
• Dagger Blast: Chance for grenades to explode into a cluster of daggers
  
• Crit Grenade: Chance for grenades to crit when exploding
  
• Black Hole: Chance for grenades to spawn a black hole when exploding
  
• Chaotic Grenade: Grenades deal more damage but move in random patterns
  
• Snake Grenade: Grenades deal more damage but move in snakelike patterns
  

The final (for the beta) batch of weapon mods have been added this month! It's been really important to make sure that there are a nice wide range of mods to choose from even during the beta to allow for many different builds. Since you choose a specific weapon before starting a run, some mods are far better or worse depending on the weapon: for example the Uppercut mod deals bonus flat damage for every 5 shots fired: this synergizes nicely with fast firing rifles and is much less effective on slow firing shotguns and snipers.

• Targeting Shot: Shots that hit enemies spawn new shots that target other nearby enemies
  
• Zig Zag Shot: Shots deal more damage but fly in zig zag patterns
  
• High Caliber: Damage increased but clip size reduced
  
• Clip Shot: Damage increased for each bullet remaining in the clip
  
• Leech Shot: Chance to heal when dealing damage
  
• Sharp Shot: Shots deal additional flat damage
  
• Wind Up: Damage increased for each shot fired until reloading
  
• Long Shot: Shots have a longer range
  
• Steady Shot: Damage increased when aiming but reduced when hipfiring
  
• Trick Shot: Damage increased when hipfiring but reduced when aiming
  
• Boomerang Shot: Shots fly back towards you after a short time and have a longer lifetime
  
• Recoil Shot: Damage increased but firing knocks you back
  
• Streak Shot: Crit chance increased for each shot that hits an enemy in a row without missing
  
• Shrinking Shot: Shots initially deal more damage but shrink over time, dealing less damage
  
• Uppercut: Every fifth shot deals increased damage
  
• Precision: Damage increased for each shot you hit in a row without missing
  
• Exploding Shot: Chance for shots to explode on impact
  
• Juiced: Increased damage, fire rate and reload speed
  
• Accelerating Shot: Shots deal more damage but start slow and accelerate over time
  

These new mods below are triggered when firing your weapon: they inherit the effects of almost all other equipped mods: you can get some busted combinations here! All of the FX shown below are placeholder but you'll get an idea of how these mods will work.

• Fireworks: Small chance to fire fireworks with your shot
  
• Crystal Blast: Chance to fire a close range AOE blast with your shot
  
• Mace Balls: Small chance to fire mace balls along with your shot
  
• Sharpened Axe: Chance to fire a spinning axe along with your shot
  
• Fireball Cluster: Chance to fire a cluster of fireballs along with your shot
  
• Dagger Arc: Chance to fire an arc of daggers along with your shot
  

• Survival Enemy Variants
  It's been fun creating tougher versions of enemies that scale all the way up to elite or even boss variants. More of these tougher variants will show up as you get further into a run. Shown above are the new Ice Slug variants that explode into a freezing damage area!
  
  
• Crab Model Improvements
  It's not a very noticeable change but the crab is now fully symmetrical with new claws and has had many subtle texture improvements!
  
  
• Level Design Improvements
  While doing daily playtests, I'm constantly iterating on both how the levels look AND more importantly how they feel to play. Interestingly, wide open beaches seem to be much more fun to play compared to caves and other smaller islands.
  
  
• Survival Difficulty Levels
  I've put a lot of thought into how to make Survival mode challenging but still allow it to be fun and accessible at the same time. While Normal and Nightmare difficulties can do that, I'd like for players to be able to continue to escalate the challenge after each completed run to give them a building sense of mastery rather than going from Normal (a moderate challenge) to Nightmare (extremely hard) in one jump.
  
  To solve this, I'm testing a difficulty levels feature- each level adds a new rule that makes the game harder in some way: which of these rules are fun and also how many difficulty levels there will be is still to be decided (currently looking at about 10-20 difficulty levels). Ideally this system should give players a fun way to earn cosmetics and a reason to replay the game while increasing the challenge gradually rather than all at once. With this in mind, the potential level 20 difficulty is FAR harder than the original Nightmare difficulty was going to be.
  
  
  
  
• Audio Overhaul
  Many placeholder sounds have been replaced this month (crunchy explosions, whooshes while dashing, calming ocean soundscapes and much more!) as well as lots of overall sound mix adjustments to further increase awareness during gameplay. These changes will be showcased in an unedited gameplay video of a Survival run that'll be posted nearer to the release of the game.
  

That's it for this month, thanks for reading!



Join the Crab Champions Discord server: https://discord.gg/crabchampions
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At this point, the game is in great shape: the scope and gameplay loop are locked down and I'm playtesting daily to get it where it needs to be for release. The main things that I'll be focusing on moving forward are presentation and content: 3D assets, audio (including the soundtrack), animations, lighting, FX, levels and generally making the game feel polished (finally I'll be replacing these clunky movement animations!). As you'll see in this update, a lot of the changes come from frequent testing: I want any gameplay and balance issues to be solved BEFORE the game launches where possible and plan on using the early access period to add new content rather than to be reworking game mechanics. With that said, let's get into the new stuff added this month!


Many of the previous challenge island modifiers didn't feel all that challenging (like Low Gravity or Invisible Enemies) so they have been replaced with much more engaging challenge types.

• Mirrored Projectiles: Enemies fire projectiles back at you when hit
  
• Elemental Explosions: Enemies explode into a random elemental damage area when eliminated
  
• Dividing Enemies: Enemies divide into multiple weaker versions of themselves when eliminated
  
• Energy Rings: Enemies spawn energy rings when hit
  
• OTT: All explosions have a 5x larger radius!
  
• Careful Aim: Missing shots damages you!
  
• One Shot: Enemies can be eliminated in one hit but so can you!
  
• Shrapnel: Enemies explode into a burst of projectiles when eliminated
  

Previously, the main way of gaining speed was by sliding which often led to a spam strategy of constantly sliding in circles around enemies, easily dodging most projectiles. I wanted to tune the movement system to be more skill based and require timing, so a dash mechanic has been added as well as removing the ability to infinitely slide (you now lose speed if you slide for too long). Combining these mechanics, you can gain speed but also dodge enemy projectiles if dashing at the right moment. I'm currently finding the sweet spot between dashing and sliding to ensure that you can still have fast and fluid movement without it making the game too easy.

This also opens up a new category of cosmetics: dash trails! More on these in a future update.


Dashing of course nicely integrates with Racing mode, allowing for the optimal strategy between jumping, sliding and dashing to be developed across each course. I'm really excited to see what the speedrunning community will do with it. There have also been new perks added that reduce dash cooldowns and increase the number of dashes, allowing for some overpowered movement options in a Survival mode run!




After a bunch of great playtests, I noticed that when explaining the whole weapon mod / weapon leveling system to new players, it was more confusing than it needed to be. Especially when playing on controller, it felt a bit clunky and slow paced to have to manage your inventory and swap mod slots by hand (It's hard to even realize that you could put weapon mods on grenades for example) so I've settled on a few improvements that make the much game easier to understand and also stop you having to slow down in an otherwise fast paced game.

[h3]1: Grenade Mods[/h3]
Since weapon mods used to be interchangeable with grenades, I was a bit limited with the mod design and many weapon specific mods (like having a larger clip size) didn't make sense on grenades. On the flip side, many powerful mods more suited for infrequent grenades like black holes didn't make sense on fast firing weapons like the minigun. To solve this, I took the best weapon mods that make sense on grenades and added a bunch of grenade specific mods to form a new inventory category: Grenade Mods.

This means that there are 3 distinct "upgrade" pickup types in the game:

• Weapon Mods: Mods that influence each shot your weapon fires
  
• Grenade Mods: Mods that influence each grenade you throw
  
• Perks: Bonuses that don't directly affect each shot you fire but have an overall passive effect (like more movement speed) or are event based (like gaining more damage after finishing each island)
  

To further clear up any confusion between the different pickup types, a chest for a specific type of pickup will drop after each island rather than a chest containing a random mix of pickup types. For example Island 1 may drop a weapon mod chest, Island 2 a perk chest and so on.

Some examples of Grenade Mods:

• Ice Explosion: Chance for grenades to explode into an ice damage area, freezing all nearby enemies
  
• Glue Grenade: Grenades stick to enemies and have a delayed explosion
  
• Cluster Grenade: Throw a cluster of weaker grenades instead of a single grenade
  
• Energy Ring: Chance for grenades to explode into a damaging energy ring
  
• Chaotic Grenade: Grenades deal much higher damage but fly in random patterns
  
• Clone Grenade: Grenades that hit enemies spawn more grenades from the impact point
  
• Deja Vu: Grenades explode multiple times (this scales per level of the mod)
  
• Black Hole: Chance for grenades to spawn a black hole when exploding
  
• Spinning Blade: Chance for grenades to spawn a spinning blade when exploding
  

These mods essentially turn your grenade into a powerful tool to set up synergies with your primary weapon, which brings me to my next improvement!

[h3]2: No More Secondary Weapons[/h3]
In 100% of my playtests, the secondary weapon was ignored as players tend to want to stack all of their mods on one weapon for maximum effectiveness. This means that there's no real reason to have a secondary weapon at all! Since you can throw your grenade and also melee while shooting, you can make use of all of your inventory at once: this feels efficient and fun!

[h3]3: Weapon Selection[/h3]


While many games have lots of different weapons that can drop with fixed behaviors, the focus here is on letting you choose a base weapon and then use the countless combos of weapon mods to turn it into something new. By choosing and sticking with a specific weapon at the start of a Survival run, this functions like a class or loadout, allowing you to spend the run making a build around that weapon rather than constantly finding completely different weapons and pivoting.

Finding weapons mid run would make sense if there were many weapons in the game but since mods give weapons most of their interest, I thought that it was better to focus on a limited selection of core archetype weapons, each with their own set of mastery challenges and skins to unlock! The aim is for players to start coming up with builds for specific weapons as their knowledge deepens playing the game.

[h3]4: Progression[/h3]
With each weapon now offering mastery challenges, the progression system has been updated to help give players more reasons to play Survival runs.

When you first start the game, only 2 weapons will be unlocked: the Bamboo Rifle and the Claw Shotgun. Other weapons as well as mods and perks will be available to unlock with keys: the persistent currency that persists between runs. Keys are earned by completing weapon mastery challenges, as well as by defeating bosses. There'll be more info on the improvements to the progression system soon!


As part of my original plan to support more than just the four elemental damage types previously mentioned (ice, fire, lightning and poison), a new debuff system has been implemented. The full list of debuffs and their effects can be found below.

• Charm (Pink): If enemies are charmed, they heal you with their attacks (but if you are charmed, you also heal enemies!)
  
• Confusion (Multicolor): Movement directions are randomized and spread is heavily increased!
  
• Weak (Red): If weakened, outgoing damage is reduced
  
• Slow (Yellow): Movement speed is slowed
  
• Stun (White): Interrupts and prevents future attacks
  
• Ice (Blue): Prevents movement and attacks until thawed
  
• Fire (Orange): Damage over time is dealt when on fire. Can be extinguished with water
  
• Lightning (Purple): A percentage of damage taken is dealt to nearby enemies
  
• Poison (Green): Increases incoming damage and prevents all healing. Can be washed off with water
  

• New Destructible Rocks
  As part of my effort to add more variety to each island, there are a few more potential destructible rocks that can appear including challenge crystals (breaking them drops a good amount of crystals but summons high level enemies), black hole rocks, healing rocks, enemy spawners and more (in addition to the standard ice, fire, lightning and poison rocks that could show up before).
  
  
• Price Tags, Discounts and New Perks
  A random pickup in shops will be 30% off in each shop, with new UI added to show any discounts. In addition to this, a new discount based perk has been added called "Bargain Hunter" which gives a small chance for goods in the shop to be heavily (-90%) discounted.
  
  
• Faster Loading Times
  A lot of work has gone in behind the scenes this month to make sure that restarting (important to be zippy in a game where you die a lot) and moving from island to island is as fast and seamless as possible. I've been able to hugely cut down on loading times and completely remove loading screens during a Survival mode run. The clip above shows the expected loading time for almost any island, even when playing multiplayer!
  
  
• New Island Type: Rush
  This is a fast paced island type where the only goal is to eliminate as many enemies as possible before a timer runs out! It features a dynamic reward system that gives you the opportunity to score legendary loot if you are quick enough!
  
  
• New Island Type: Treasure
  If you choose the Random portal which occasionally appears between islands, there is a small chance that you'll be taken to a Treasure island which contains 2 free chests of a random rarity. If choosing a Random portal there is of course still a chance that you'll be thrown into a fight with an elite enemy, so come prepared!
  
  
• New Enemy Attack Types
  Enemies now have more attack patterns in their arsenal, from huge circular formations of projectiles to chaotic clusters!
  
  
• Flawless No Hit Bonus: Completing an island without taking any damage now grants a crystal bonus! This bonus increases with each island and is a nice reward for those skilled enough to pull it off.
  
  
• Temple Island Rework
  Temple islands show up near the end of each biome and are a true test of skill before the boss. They feature several areas separated by locked doors and contain enemy spawners that must be destroyed before moving to the next chamber. As mentioned in previous updates, temples are a great source of high quality loot so are well worth the added challenge!
  
  
• Hidden Loot!
  There is now a chance for bonus loot to spawn on each island, though it's usually somewhere hidden, requiring some platforming to find. Some bonus loot won't even be accessible without having several mobility perks (such as on top of cliffs).
  
  
• Soundtrack Update
  I've been chipping away at the soundtrack as usual, 3 more songs have been mastered and completed since the last update: very excited to share them with you!
  
  
• New Portal FX
  
  
• Bug Fixes + Balance Tweaks
  As always, countless bug fixes and balance tweaks have been made after playtesting to improve underperforming gameplay elements. Bouncing Shots for example has gotten a nice buff: as well as giving shots the ability to bounce, damage is now also doubled after each bounce!
  

Thanks for reading and for being patient with the development of the game.



Join the Crab Champions Discord server: https://discord.gg/crabchampions
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