Nova Drift News

Hello Drifters,

If you can believe it, Nova Drift launched into Early Access almost 4 years ago! We always knew the price would increase a few times as we approached full release, but for some reason we never got around to it, until now... and the time for the first increase is coming soon: January 16th to be exact. After that the game will go from $14.99 to $17.99 USD, and all other currencies will increase as well in a similar proportion.

If you are reading this before January 5th, 2023, then you still have time to get the game at 50% off, which will be about as cheap as the game will be for quite a while. If you own it and have a friend with it on their wishlist, it might be a good time to let them know!

Thanks again for the support.

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Hello Drifters!

It's been awesome watching everyone's reaction to the new update! We've been reviewing all of the feedback you've given us, especially as it relates to the challenge of the last two updates, and decided that another difficulty balance patch could go a long way to improving new player experiences and veteran grievances both. Here's what we did:

Enemy Balance Changes

• The Crucible boss now has a longer wind-up for its single burning hoop attack
  
• The Crucible boss's single burning hoop attack now ramps up its targeting over a second instead of immediately having good targeting, but also lasts a little bit longer before degenerating
  
• The Crucible boss's burning hoop attacks have a more clear indicator of the trajectory at which they will be fired
  
• Tracer spawn quantity, at the mean and especially the high-end, has been reduced
  
• Tracer orbs, when combo'd, now release 4 sub-projectiles instead of 5
  
• Tracers will no longer "exert" themselves to combo their projectiles until a certain amount of time has passed and they no longer have shields ("exert" means gain bonus cooldown when they detect a combo they could make)
  
• Reduced the cooldown bonus that Tracers gain by "exerting" to make a combo +200% -> +150%
  
• Tracer bullet damage 25 -> 12
  
• Tracer bullet "burning wake" damage -7.4%
  
• Tracers now wait an additional 0-.5 seconds before acting
  
• Hammerheads now only deal blast damage on collision while they are charging
  
• Hammerhead death clusters damage -12.5%
  
• Hammerhead initial death explosion, preceding the clusters, now deals zero damage but still knocks you away from the epicenter
  
• Champion Juggernaut shot and missile rate of fire -15%
  
• Prevented any one dynamic spawn event from creating two or more Juggernauts of the Champion variety. If it happens, one will be demoted to Elite
  
• Myrmidon bomb cluster damage -12.5%
  
• When the shooter of a Myrmidon bomb dies, the bomb's targeting decays over time
  
• Myrmidon and Cherub healing auras no longer heal themselves, just other units
  
• Champion Shredder Mine sub-spike damage reduced 14 -> 11
  

Thanks for playing!

Updated localization for Brazilian Portuguese, Traditional Chinese, French, Japanese, Korean, and Polish

Hello Drifters,

We've just launched another major update aimed at increasing build diversity and run variety. Encounter new huge bosses on your journey or jump right into late game with the new Draft Mode, pre-constructing a 35 upgrade build. We've also continued to refine the difficulty curve based on your feedback.

The Breakdown:

• New Challenge Mode: DRAFT
  
• Three new alternate bosses can be encountered with Challenge Mode: NEMESIS enabled
  
• Mine overhauls and a comprehensive Drone rework
  
• Ultra-Rare Wild Mods: Ricochet and Challenger have been added to the game
  
• Super Mods: Charged Shields, Infuse, and Strafing Strikes have been added to the game
  
• A huge amount of game balance changes
  
• New power ups
  
• New background music
  
• Spanish localization
  
• Steam Deck is now fully supported!
  

The complete changelog: https://steamcommunity.com/app/858210/discussions/0/3658515990056189069/

Read about new content in detail:
Blog: https://blog.novadrift.io/nova-drift-2022-upcoming-content/
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/858210/view/3345626689187069638

Next Up: Enemies 2.0, Part 3
Including more alternate bosses and Challenge Mode: Boss Rush!

Join Our Discord
We've got quite an active discord with a very chill and inclusive community. This is our main hub of player communication, and our devs are also pretty active there. We've got channels like #ask-the-devs, #weekly-discussion, #frequently-asked-questions, and #feedback. I'm also quite proud of the #game-dev-help channel, which is a space for current and aspiring developers to learn and collaborate. So... come chat with us!

Want to help Nova Drift grow?
Steam Reviews really help! As a tiny operation, Nova Drift relies on its quality and reputation to sell, and reviews also encourage the Steam algorithms to show the game to more people. Please do take a moment to fill out a short review, even if it's only a few words. It just might make a big difference.

Thanks for reading. Best wishes,

Chimeric / Jeffrey Nielson

Hello Drifters,

The next major update is upon us, and if all goes as planned, it will be launching in a couple weeks. In the meantime, if you want to give it a go, head on over to the BETA branch on Steam, which should give you version 0.33.22 at minimum.

Here are the patch notes: https://blog.novadrift.io/patch-notes/

The major bits:

• Challenge Mode: Draft has been added to the game! Jump into end-game (wave 120) with 35 upgrade points to spend. If Draft mode is enabled, it will use separate leaderboards for "Draft" and "Wild Metamorphosis Draft"
  
• Added three of the five alternate bosses that may be encountered instead of standard bosses if the NEMESIS Challenge Mode is enabled:
  
• A new alternate boss: Ceratotitan (wave 20)
  
• A new alternate boss: Crucible (wave 80)
  
• A new alternate boss: Glaucus (wave 100)
  
• Added new BGM & SFX for all new boss fights
  
• Ultra-Rare Wild Mod: Ricochet has been added to the game
  
• Ultra-Rare Wild Mod: Challenger has been added to the game
  
• New Super Mod: Charged Shields has been added to the game
  
• New Super Mod: Infuse has been added to the game
  
• New Super Mod: Strafing Strikes has been added to the game
  
• Added a new power-up to the game: Armor Fragment
  
• Steam Deck is now fully supported
  
• You can now enable "Large Text" from the settings menu. This also compacts the upgrade layout, which is also useful for very low resolutions or window sizes. With Steam Deck, this will be enabled by default
  
• Spanish localization has been added
  
• Drone Reworks
  
• Mine Rework & Balance
  
• Construct Quality of Life
  
• Balance tweaks, bug fixes and more...
  

As usual, leave us feedback and bug reports on the Steam forums or on Discord: https://discord.gg/Zp2MkPJ

-Miles @ Pixeljam