Nova Drift News

Hello all!

We're doing a developer stream TONIGHT, Wednesday, 9:30 PM EST at https://www.twitch.tv/pixeljamgames.

Come hang out with me (Miles), who is not the lead dev by any means, who will be video hosting Jeffrey, who by all means IS the lead dev.

Miles will be fiddling with the new Visual FX Generator, working with Jeffrey to find interesting and beautiful presets to plug into the game. Jeffrey will be answering all your questions, provided they are about the game and not random life advice, which Miles will answer because he has more bandwidth for that type of thing.



See you then?

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Hello all,

Work continues on the upcoming update. Here is what you can expect when it drops in a few weeks:

• Massive balance adjustments
  
• Gear & Mod reworks
  
• Improved visual effects (more on that below)
  
• A new music track & expanded pool of musical options for Wild Meta mode
  
• Speedrun Mode!
  

[h2]Leave a Review[/h2]

Reviews by existing players make the game more discoverable to new potential players, which results in wonderful outcomes for everyone involved! Here's a quick link if you are feeling like leaving one right now: https://store.steampowered.com/recommended/recommendgame/858210/

[h2]Soundtrack Discount[/h2]

The OST is currently having its biggest discount ever (50% off), ending this Monday, March 15th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1156340/Nova_Drift_OST/

[h2]FX Generator Preview Livestream[/h2]

One of the big features of the next update is improved visual effects, aided by a nifty mini-program created by one of the coders at Pixeljam. One week from today, on Wednesday night, March 17 at 9:30 PM EST, we'll be doing a twitch stream showing off the capabilities of the FX generator and chatting with lead dev Jeffrey Neilson (Chimeric) as well! Stream will be at https://www.twitch.tv/pixeljamgames. We also have regular Music Production streams every Wednesday at 3 PM EST at that same URL.



That's all for now... thanks for the continued patience and support!

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Hello Drifters, new and old:

The last month has seen a lot of new players enter the arena, so we'd like to welcome you and make sure you know what's coming up:

[h2]ROADMAP[/h2]
First, let's look at the big picture:


[h2]ENEMIES 2.0[/h2]
This is a massive overhaul & update to the types of enemies that you encounter and how they behave.
Nova Drift usually gets a significant content update every 2-3 months, but Enemies 2.0 is *so very big* that it may be a while before the final iteration is available to all players. We are still trying to figure out if it's possible to release Enemies 2.0 in multiple updates, or if it just needs to be one massive patch. More info on it can be found here, in the second half of this blog post.

Almost all of the new work being done on the game is Enemies 2.0, so expect more info about it soon!

[h2]REVIEWS[/h2]
Please leave a review for the game, if you have a moment: https://store.steampowered.com/recommended/recommendgame/858210/. This helps new players discover the game as well.

[h2]F.A.Q[/h2]
Got a question about the game? It's probably answered in the #frequently-asked-questions channel of our Discord Server, which is the main community hub for the game outside of Steam.

[h2]SOUNDTRACK (DISCOUNT & STREAMING)[/h2]
Did you know that the OST currently has 27 tracks and grows with every major content update? Check out the OST on Steam if you haven't yet, it's currently 45% off for the next 2 weeks. If you'd like to see how the music gets made, follow the Pixeljam Twitch Account to be notified when music production streams go live.

[h2]LOCALIZATION[/h2]
If Nova Drift is not available in your native language yet, head on over to Localizor and see if you'd like to contribute. German and Korean seem to be the languages that might get implemented next.

[h2]GLOBAL SCOREBOARD[/h2]
Being able to track scores and share and import builds(!) across all platforms is something that has not been talked about much, but it's also in the works, and ties into the upcoming Draft Mode. More info on that as it develops :)

Thanks for reading... and here's to much more drifting in 2021!

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Every major set of new features usually requires a bit of tweaking after its release, and today we made live the latest tune-up to the Azimuth update:

FEATURES

• Outrage Module fires in the direction of the incoming hit!
  
• Evolutionary Niche & Bravado now scale Research's power-up duration bonus
  
• Upgrades and Rerolls numbers are blue once again for visibility
  
• Guardian Ally now wants to be further away from the player ship when it has Decoy Signal
  
• With Leviathan:
  - Deadly Wake emits from the tail body segment
  - 2/3 of Scorching Wake emits from random body segments
  

FIXES & UNDER THE HOOD

• Continued making Bastion and Blades less of "special snowflakes", removing some bugs in the process
  
• Fixed Bastion taking too little damage from Burnout Reactors
  
• Fixed a strange interaction between Bastion and Stealth
  
• Fixed Bastion triggering shield break effects when its down and you gain a level
  
• Fixed Volatile Shields from triggering too many times with Bastion and Shielded Constructs
  
• Homing Strike Blade projectiles now return to their launcher
  
• Fixed a typo that was preventing the custom banish keybinding from being saved
  
• Fixed many cases of upgrades not applying until your next upgrade
  
• Fixed the formatting of end-of-game unlock messages
  
• Fixed several problems with Interceptor Ally configurations
  
• Adjusted position and size of construct count numbers so they're more legible (especially double-digit counts)
  
• Reduced depth of player-related objects by 100 so they're less likely to get obscured
  
• Fixed the level up notification not appearing under certain conditions
  
• Hive continuously reduces emission rate as spawned count increases (This prevents the number of Hive Drones from growing as uncontrollably)
  
• Optimized Hive swarms
  
• Fixed Viper granting inconsistent damage reduction
  
• The pause menu now considers Viper's bonus to ignite duration
  
• Overseer now displays the Apex Machinery Supermod combo
  
• Retribution now displays Apex Machinery and Vital Bond Supermod combos
  
• Fixed an outdated appearance of the old interceptor icon
  
• Fixed a depth sorting error with Blade & Shield artwork
  
• Fixed Outrage Module not firing forward in cases where it should
  
• You no longer recoil with no weapon, if something makes you fire without one
  
• Small code optimizations
  
• Fixed a few minor text issues
  
• Improved translations: Japanese
  
• Improved translations: Brazilian Portuguese
  
• Improved translations: Simplified Chinese
  

Hello new and old players,

[h2]STEAM AWARDS[/h2]

If you are enjoying the game, we'd like for you to consider nominating Nova Drift for the "Labor Of Love" award - we've been working on the game for the past 6 or 7 years, with many more to come! Make sure you actually click and highlight the "Labor Of Love" text when you nominate it, else you will see an error screen. Nominate it here if the link doesn't appear above: https://store.steampowered.com/app/858210/Nova_Drift/



[h2]ROADMAP[/h2]

Here is what's still planned for the final launch and beyond:




[h2]NEW BETA[/h2]

If you are feeling adventurous, check out some brand new tweaks and features in the BETA branch:

Features
* Outrage Module fires in the direction of the incoming hit!
* Evolutionary Niche & Bravado now scale Research's power-up duration bonus
* Upgrades and Rerolls numbers are blue again for visibility
* Player Mines can now show damage floaters
* Guardian Ally now wants to be further away from the player ship when it has Decoy Signal
* With Leviathan:
- Deadly Wake emits from the tail body segment
- 2/3 of Scorching Wake emits from random body segments

Fixes
* Continued making Bastion and Blades less of "special snowflakes", hopefully removing some bugs in the process
* Fixed Bastion taking too little damage from Burnout Reactors
* Fixed a strange interaction between Bastion and Stealth
* Fixed Bastion triggering shield break effects when its down and you gain a level
* Fixed Volatile Shields from triggering too many times with Bastion and Shielded Constructs
* Homing Strike Blade projectiles return to their launcher
* Fixed a typo that was preventing the custom banish keybinding from being saved
* Fixed many cases of upgrades not applying until your next upgrade
* Fixed the formatting of end-of-game unlock messages
* Fixed several problems with Interceptor Ally configurations
* Adjusted position and size of construct count numbers so they're more legible (especially double-digit counts)
* Reduced depth of player-related objects by 100 so they're less likely to get obscured
* Improved translations: Brazilian Portuguese
* Improved translations: Simplified Chinese

Finally, please leave a review for the game if you have not yet - this helps us out a lot: https://store.steampowered.com/recommended/recommendgame/858210/

Many more updates and surprises await in 2021 and beyond. Thanks again for the support :)

-Miles @ Pixeljam