Hi all, our programmer Adam is continuing to work through the mountain of tasks in order to get the Combat Co-op Test ready for public consumption, which is his primary focus – it’s getting closer!

Originally, we were thinking that this upcoming combat co-op test would be friends/invite only and thus those people could utilise Discord for voice chat, however we felt that it was important to also test open play, and therefore needed to add in-game voice support. This includes various additional voice-related settings to tweak to your preference.

We also found that when designing how you’d logistically connect and play with one another, we had an increasing amount of questions around how this would work in the full campaign. While we had designs for this, the devil is truly in the details and creating the exact UI flow, answering those specifics and solving those edge cases flushes out all sorts of horrible problems that needed resolution. An added benefit to doing this is that there are some shared assets and code between both the combat co-op test and what will be used in the full game.

Our testing has also thrown up some issues that we’d ideally sort too, things like one player sneaking into the other player’s pod at exact moments and getting stuck.

All told, that’s put us a bit behind where we were hoping to be, but important progress nonetheless. We’re just as eager to get this out as you are to play it; we just need to make sure we do it the right way and not rush something that doesn’t meet your expectations.

With our sole programmer working on co-op, we’ve got Sean and Alex churning through new levels.

With Logistics and Chasm having had multiple playtests and refinements, both have now had their art pass from Alex.

I’ve personally been having a lot of fun with the Vortex Glove, Vortex Grid and Conveyors in Chasm – there’s lots of opportunities to throw enemies into the abyss:

In Logistics, we’ve made the overhead conveyors MUCH easier to hit so they release their crates directly below them. We also made the non-explosive crates they drop stun any enemies they hit, although the image below shows the explosive variety:

We have a reworked Central Processing out with our playtesters. Sean has simplified the routes into the core room and ensured the walls next to the windows were adjusted to allow effective deployable placement when the shutters were closed:

We’re working to close off those long sightlines the enemy had on the core, so they shouldn’t be able to snipe it from as far away as they could previously:

The player spawn area has been completely redesigned. It’s simpler and shorter so you can quickly get back into the action:

All enemy spawns (the old A and C, along with new placements for B and D) are situated in the same cardinal direction, so you're able to better defend on a single front:

That means the old B and D spawns have been removed – we’re thinking the layouts for that side of the original map could be the basis for a future level. Sean talks about some of his workings and thought process here[x.com], if you’re interested.

With this rework of Central Processing, we’ll also use this opportunity to ensure the level has an improved framerate, as it was one of our worst performing levels. And speaking of optimisations, Alex has done a pass over the Crossing, so you’ll see improvements to loading times on that level once the Major Update releases.

Fuel Exchange has also got a design pass to improve it. Some of these original levels may feel acceptable as they are, but as we saw with Mess Hall having a subsequent pass accounting for player feedback can really improve things (although at the time Mess Hall had more overt issues!)

The primary change is around the old Operations room. Whereas three routes used to converge at this point, now the old A spawn meets up with D and the old B and C routes go through here:

I talk about “old” breach points, because we’ve renamed them so that A to D goes from left-to-right as you enter the level. So that means the new A & B (old A and D) are off to the left, while the new C & D (old B & C) are off to the right. A bit initially confusing for veterans, but the objectives are easier to read now.

There’s some good places in the map for the player to rotate between A/B and C/D, some of these are one-way drops:

The new Fuel Exchange hasn’t gone out to playtesters yet, so we’d expect some changes to come from reviewing their feedback.

As with all our new levels, once we’ve had the chance to incorporate playtest feedback we’ll pass it over to Alex so she can finish the art.

As is usual, we’ll finish off the Dev Transmission with some cool stuff from the community.

Discord user TheCartoon1st has drawn one of our enemies emerging victorious from a battle with a turret:

We love seeing this sort of thing, so if you spot anything cool on your travels please send it our way.

Speaking of community, thank-you to those that supported any of the games in the recent Special Effect sale we participated in. All of the games on this event page contribute toward the charity, so hopefully you picked up some good games for less, along with helping a good cause at the same time :)

We track all of your feedback in a big list, so keep it coming! If we don’t respond to every single post/review, be assured we read them all. You can reach us on all these places:

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Thanks for the support, as soon as the co-op combat test is up I’ll be posting about it!