4.20.2018 - WEEKLY MUTATION ROUNDUP
Another busy week! Here's a quick update on our progress:
Fear the mighty MEGACOMBO! This is a Carnage Item which you power up by collecting the Carnage created by doing cool moves and combos while fighting. MegaCombo slows time and sends you into a super-flurry of 12 attacks on nearby enemies when activated. In this clip, you can also see some prototype vivisection action on the dying mutants that we're experimenting with. More to come on that in the future!
MegaCombo converting Carnage into...well, more Carnage.
The Bugzapper is another new item that has been created for all your shock treatment needs. This Carnage Item plants a charged post in the ground which zaps nearby enemies for damage. Mobs touching it directly are given a healthy jolt and walloped away, making it an excellent target to fling enemies into.
Bugzapper should help you deal with larger pests.
Several new bomb-based mutations were also added this week:
Breaching Charges - bombs are key, aren't they?
Breaching Charges - Your bombs/missiles/etc. will now unlock any locks within their explosion radius. This includes chests, locked doors, spiked doors, you name it! If it has a lock, it'll get opened.
Tar Bombs - Every time one of your bombs explode, it leaves a big pool of enemy-slowing tar where it went off.
A combinatorial note: These bomb mutations work with different standard bomb types (i.e. missile bombs), as well as any explosive projectiles you may create. For instance, the Bomber mutation lets you blow up baddies by changing your projectiles to be bombs, and these are affected as well. Yay, synergy!
A few other mutations that were added this week:
Longarms mutation in action.
Long Arms - Your arms (and thus melee range) grow to ginormous size.
Precognition - Reveals the bosses and quirks (NPC buffs, special rooms, etc.) of future levels.
Blood Famous - Now that picking up Carnage grants bonus viewers (you have been watching our Thursday 5pm PST streams, right?), this gives even more bonus viewers for cool moves and combos. Groovy!
Adaptive - Future mutations picked up take effect twice, for good or for ill! We'll probably have a version of this that just affects the next one to two mutations, which should make for some interesting strategical timing choices.
Genetic Tinkering - A repeatedly found mini-mutation located in areas like Medlabs. They randomly give a stat up and a stat down. Since these stat changes are visible before you acquire the mutation, it gives some agency in customizing your stats as you ascend.
And of course more! We're Long Arms deep in creating all the creatures we'll need for Early Access later this year as well as grey-modelling our other tilesets, so not every level will look like a prison. If you watch our weekly streams you can see hints of these in the Medlab, for instance.
Things are moving fast! As usual, we're happy to answer any questions you have on reddit, during our streams, or in the comments below - and thanks for the feedback so far, we thrive on it!