Scouts!
Let's assemble once again. After a few hotfixes and smaller updates our team has finished the second bigger update to Lumencraft. Once again we did our best to get rid of the bugs, do lots of tweaking and fix what needed to be fixed. Publishing a new major update means that new features are coming to the build. Santa came earlier this year. π
Firstly, sit comfortably and watch the video πΊ we did celebrating releasing the update number two. The commentary was recorded by PaweΕ MogiΕa, Lead Software Architect of our team πΊ.
Are you excited? We can’t wait to see you paving your way with flamethrowers and running away from the turtles!
To sum up, what we added:
- new base defense map: Underground Survival,
- Turtle monster,
- Flamethrower weapon is now officially in game,
- widescreen support,
- Lava Cooling technology that allows to cool lava with repair tool,
- a warning message when trying to load a save slot from earlier version,
- unique game over messages for different fails,
- screen mode selection (windowed, borderless windowed, fullscreen),
- performance options: Ray Tracing Steps, Shadow Render Resolution,
- glow customization options: Glow Type, Intensity, High Quality Glow,
- indicator for finished maps,
- secret achievement π,
- Editor: Monster Nest is back,
- Editor: added rotation preset buttons,
It’s time to write more about some of the most important changes in the game.
NEW MAP πΊοΈ, LAVA π, AND HI-RES TEXTURES πΌοΈ
New episode (map) with new assets will bring 10+ more hours of gameplay. In total, it is several dozen hours already. The new map is 4x bigger than First Encounter. There are less resources than on a typical Lumencraft map, what’s more - they are scattered here and there, which forces the player to reach places far away from the base. Waves of enemies are delayed in time, so a player won’t be too stressed getting the resources. Generally speaking, lack of them means that the pace of the gameplay is slower. Scouts have to choose wisely how they should spend metal and Lumen. New more detailed terrain textures are not only just a hi-res pack of textures, we made them for a better representation of what’s going on on the screen.
You'll face questions like: is it better to bunker yourself in the base or to boost the Scout's upgrades to get resources located close to enemies more easily? How about rushing the upgrading of the drill without focusing on the defense? The new map should bring you more than 10 hours of playtime. There are places with new kinds of nests spawning monsters, but on the other hand - you can venture through gates hiding valuable items (if you got the key), and the lava is not so stiff anymore: it can catch you off guard. There’s a solution to this problem - you can now cool lava down! After that, just drill through it.
ENEMY: TURTLE π’ | WEAPON: FLAMETHROWER π₯
Turtle is a new enemy that is tanky. It will require dealing a lot of damage to put him to eternal sleep. Turtles are like battering rams - they are slow, but they destroy the base walls in no time, to let the other types of Swarms penetrate the base. Turtles usually force dealing with them in the first place, leaving many types of monsters for later phases of the encounters. Unless you get the Flamethrower - a new weapon awaiting you in the Lab. Its short reach distance is a powerful tool for fighting against the hordes, but it consumes the napalm, so the usage of Flamethrower is a bit costly.
WΜΆiΜΆnΜΆdΜΆ π List of changes:
- changed some terrain textures,
- mouse cursor is now locked to window while the game is unpaused,
- using quickslot buttons no longer shows inventory,
- Buggy was completely erased from existence,
- reworked wave spawn marker logic. Only the position where,
enemies come from will be marked, unless spawn point is,
random - then question mark will be shown over all spawn points,
- enemy spawn markers will now always be visible before the upcoming wave and some time after the wave starts,
- spear combo nerf.
π List of fixes:
- saving: fixed fog of war re-appearing when it should be disabled,
- saving: fixed rotation of walls saved during construction,
- weird bug when screenshot would grab not what is not on screen,
- red lamps disappearing,
- optimized light performance,
- optimized mushroom performance,
- poured napalm showing as terrain on minimap,
- improved loading of some resources to avoid performance hiccups,
- held item not updating sometimes,
- outdated description of Extraction Efficiency,
- health bars displaying wrongly on colored monsters,
- reporting tool will no longer freeze forever when there is no connection,
- Spear Workshop still having unused screen,
- Lumencraft icon not appearing in the window title bar,
- Steam: added a timeout for sending score,
- Editor: fixed not being able to easily type numbers in some fields,
- Editor: fixed Hole Trap parameters not adjustable for swarms,
- Editor: fixed some values not being saved on some occasions,
- Editor: fixed building disabling not working,
- Editor: fixed empty spawner selection when adding new wave enemy,
- Editor: fixed fog of war still covering map when disabled.
We would like to say that our team appreciates community engagement and every type of feedback that’s reaching us. ππ» We can see how important is for you the implementation in our game of the progression and procedurally generated levels.
<snares> π₯
So we decided to focus on it before the next major update! ππ» We mentioned some of the upcoming changes in the video at the beginning of this news, but in case you missed it…
We’re working on a new, great User Interface (UI) πͺ.
What’s more, get ready for the robotic helpers π€ and their workshop as a new building, coming soon to the game!
There’s more, as usual.
We will do our best to include online multiplayer in our roadmap.
Currently there’s a local shared screen or Steam Remote Play co-op for 2 players.
Please don’t cry, we didn’t want to deal EMOTIONAL DAMAGE.
Get your copy:
π Steam: bit.ly/3Bz2HQG
π·οΈ GOG.com: bit.ly/3IvFj8k
Follow us on SteamβοΈ, join our Discord π§ server and follow us on Facebook π and Twitter π¦.
