Hey everyone! Today we are releasing an update for Galacide, which will introduce Steam achievements as well as a brand new Puzzle Play game mode. We’ve also changed the ship requirements, meaning that the Freighter and Phase Ship must now be unlocked prior to use.
Steam Achievements
We have added 21 achievements to unlock, some of which include reaching a certain score in endless mode or completing a certain level.
Puzzle Play
A new game mode called Puzzle Play has been added. Puzzle Play features 30 puzzles that are arranged in 5 tiers based on what mechanics they test. Tier 1 tests basic matching skills, including morphing. Tier 2 focuses heavily on morphing. Tier 3 challenges the player to create multi-matches. Tier 4 tests the player’s ability to predict how Linking Turrets will reconnect when their connected turret is destroyed, and introduces bombs. Finally, Tier 5 tests players’ knowledge of the most advanced concepts of Galacide.
Updated Particles
We have performed a major particle overhaul for Galacide. We’ve added new particles for events such as when the player ship is heavily damaged as well as a spark effect when bit arms spawn. There have also been several major revisions to the projectile particles for both player and enemy ships. We’ve also made it so that when you destroy an enemy ship, it will spawn debris.
Optimization
We’ve optimized a lot of the assets for Galacide, which should lead to players achieving higher framerates and smoother performance overall.
Additional Changes
Added 21 Achievements to Galacide!
- Combo Breaker – Get a combo of 5. (Your combo increases as you make additional matches within a short time.)
- Combo Master – Reach a combo of 15.
- Combo Legend – Reach a combo of 25.
- Big Plays – Get a clear of 10 or more bits, 10 times.
- Automotive Professional – Complete a Multi-Match. (A multimatch occurs when the player shoots additional scrap onto a set of clearing bits of the same color to connect a separate group of bits into the match.)
- Multi-Master – Complete 10 multi-matches.
- Snake Charmer – Beat the snake boss!
- Space Truckin’ – Beat Level 2 (Mine Entrance.) Unlocks the Freighter.
- Set Phasers to Kill – Beat the boss and get to Threat Level 6 on Endless Play. Unlocks the Phase Ship!
- Threat Level Midnight – Get to Threat Level 10 in Endless Play.
- War Rig – Store 3 bombs in the Freighter’s cargo.
- Taking Out the Trash – Clear 500 bits in one level.
- We’ve Got Hostiles – Get 250 kills in a level.
- Bombastic – Destroy 3 enemies in a bomb’s explosion.
- Hat Trick – Kill 3 enemies in one Phase Ship charge shot.
- 1 Up – Get 500,000 points in Endless Play.
- High Roller – Get 1 million points in Endless Play.
- Scholar of the First Bit – Clear all puzzles in Puzzle Mode.
- The Final Frontier – Travel a total distance of 100,000.
- Bit by Bit – Clear 25,000 bits total.
- Galacide – Kill 10,000 enemies total.
Implemented Puzzle Play!
- 30 Puzzles arranged in 5 Tiers of 6 puzzles which test different mechanics.
- Tier 1: Basic – Tests basic knowledge of matching bits and building off of existing bits to create a match. Later puzzle require some morphing.
- Tier 2: Morphing – Tests knowledge of morphing with a focus on circuit-completion. (When you morph, your ship counts as a bit in the matching sequence if there are already 3 or more bits.)
- Tier 3: Multimatching – Tests knowledge of multimatching and stacking. (A multimatch occurs when the player shoots additional scrap onto a set of clearing bits of the same color to connect a separate group of bits into the match. Stacking is shooting scrap onto a set of clearing bits of a different color, to set up for clearing bits of the stacked color.)
- Tier 4: Linking Turrets – Tests the player’s ability to predict how Linking Turrets will reconnect when their connected turret is destroyed. Also introduces Bombs into the later puzzles.
- Tier 5: Advanced – Tests knowledge of the most advanced concepts in Galacide.
Player Ships:
- Locked the Freighter and Phase Ship. They are now unlocked through the achievements listed above.
- Fixed visual “pop” on Mining Vessel jets when entering/exiting warp.
- Updated player ship colors to be more vibrant.
- Added lighting to the player ships so they stay bright even in darker environments.
- Updated low health smoke particle effect.
- Increased Phase Ship ability cooldown to 8/7/6 sec per level. (Was 6/5/4.)
- Phase Ship warp drive disabled during phasing cool down as well as while phasing is active.
Enemies:
- Adjusted distribution of destruction particle effects.
- Added mesh debris objects to enemy destructions.
- Fixed vertex normals on Turret model so it responds to lighting properly.
- Modified Linking Turret connection search to more consistently find the closest connection when multiple turrets are searching simultaneously.
- Reduced enemy health scaling by difficulty to 10% per difficulty level. (Was 25%)
Boss:
- Fixed bug with Mini-Boss collision.
Bitwall:
- Bitwall performance optimizations.
- Added spark effects to bit arms upon spawning.
- Slowed down the spawn and morph animations.
- Bit Columns now spawn all the way to the edge of the screen each frame instead of one column per frame.
Maps:
- Optimized background assets in the Asteroid Field level.
- Entering a level now displays the level name in a popup.
Misc Balance and Numerical Changes:
- Increased bomb damage to 500. (Was 200.)
- Increased combo reset timer to 5 sec. (Was 2 sec.)
- Combos past 5 now reduce the combo reset timer by 5% (was 2%) down to a minimum of 3 sec.
Misc:
- Updated Leaderboard background to the new version.
- Overhaul of all in-game particles.
- Applied LOD to more particles.
- Game now saves whenever you pause in addition to after completing a level.
- Fixed issue with coloring of gunfire particles.
- Added a particle management system to prevent early removal of particles with no attached actors.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed bug which caused the scrap spawned in the tutorial morphing/tractor beam step to be destroyed immediately after spawning in resolutions higher than 1920 x 1080.