Escape: Space update for 7 September 2023

Hello there, mercenaries.

The past days have been crazy for me since the release of Escape Space in Early Access. I would like to thank all of you who played the game and sent a lot of very insightful feedback, you are legends!

Now, let's talk about some cool stuff! Here is a breakdown of changes brought by this new update.

Patch notes

New features:

• Reintroduced power ups: depending on your faction reputations, new faction-themed power ups will spawn - if you've unlocked the related upgrade.
• Added new enemies to the game.
• Added a new weapon: Tandem.
• Added a new priority mission: Shiny Rubies.
• Current level cap has been moved to 30.

Improvements:

• Reworked existing enemies and waves! Forget everything you know about them and check out their new behaviors.
• Reworked the survival missions behavior: now, long press the input to tell the game you're going to stay, and exit the mission by default.
• Added 16:10 screen ratio support (Steamdeck).
• Reworked the options UI.
• Reworked the audio feedback of the main hub screen.
• Reworked the pause menu to include audio settings, quick mission summary and the ability to leave a mission.
• Changed the colors of friendly units's rounds to blue (applies to "Bill-E" and the units called by mods).

Balancing:

• Firestorm: increased damage, reduced rate of fire, increased heat generation.
• Hellstorm: increased damage, reduced heat generation, reduced cone of fire.
• Obliterator: increased damage, increased rate of fire, reduced heat generation.
• Devastator: reduced damage.
• Supremacy: increased rate of fire, increased amount of projectiles, reduced cone of fire, increased bullet velocity.
• Vainquisher: reduced damage, increased bullet velocity, reduced heat generation, increased rate of fire.
• Seeker: reduced damage, increased bullet velocity, reduced heat generation, increased rate of fire. Also added the ability for the bullet to aim for elite enemy weapons.
• Lancer: increased damage, reduced heat generation, increased bullet velocity.
• Oblivion: increased rate of fire, reduced heat generation.

Fixed issues:

• Fixed an issue where the game could be stuck with a time scale of 0, freezing it totally.
• Fixed a missing translation in the mods selection screen.
• Fixed an issue with the collect missions still spawning collectibles and an extra waves even if the amount of items to grab has been reached.

Community spotlight

• Thanks to Jiti for their awesome article about Escape Space! You can read it here (in French): https://jiti.me/escape-space-un-shoot-em-up-independant-et-original/.
• Thanks to Matt From The Awesome Duo for a very cool video they made about the game (in English): watch the video on YouTube.

Wanna be featured in the next update annoucement? Send us your videos/articles at shidygames[AT]gmail[DOT]com!

Thank you for reading!

As always, thank you a lot for the support. As a solo developer, it means a lot.

Please continue reporting feedback and/or issues on Discord, it helps me to better prioritize what the next move will be in terms of development!

And if you want to follow me on the journey of making this game, I'm streaming the process every Tuesday/Thursday at 9pm Paris time on Twitch!

Wanna discuss? I'm also on Twitter/X. Come say hi!

See you in space, mercenaries.
ShidyGames.