Hello! SmoothBrainDev here, reporting at the end of E2M4 update's development. How have you been? It sure has been a while, huh? Ever since Christmas I've been working on E2M4, Transient Termination, and the first EP2 boss, The Death-Filth Child. Along with those I've implemented one new mid-boss that will test your skills brutally and mercilessly, and there is also a new melee ability that may help even out some of that challenge.T his update is now finished on my part and is simply waiting to be released along with a trailer by Hyperstange. I believe it will be released very very soon! [b][u]The next Termination Update[/u][/b] E2M4 is a sort of mausoleum-furnace, a place where the Malichant store their dead in stasis, and dispose of their own kin in pits of lava and crushers. Much of their habits are a mystery, but if you trust intuition and follow the lorebits it will all make sense eventually. As always, INCISION piles on the mysteries and gives crumbs so players will have room to imagine and daydream about its story and events. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41123101/2196711f76a2c5421bfa49f37e626982209ba3c6.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41123101/9e51191be19b94cec4e7e9bd46b7e4a8b8eefcd1.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41123101/8d45067c18bd5d5b76213f20e66eb0d417519fe6.jpg[/img] The level is dark and grim and you will meet the midboss "The Sentinel" (or as I internally call him Gigachad) a few times in this level. He can slow the player down with projectiles, and immediately goes for brutal melee berserk when the opportunity arises. Luckily for you, you can parry his melee attacks with your spear. This is where the new ability comes to play: Mighty Spear. The Mighty Spear is engaged by holding "kick" down for a split second. It is a wide-arcing powerful move that can kill most enemies at point blank range, and parry The Sentinel's melee attacks. It has a 15 second cooldown to balance its damage output. It is also designed to soften the difficulty curve a bit in the early levels as it can dispatch many of the squishier enemies easily if player dares to approach them. Remember, INCISION is a game that does not seek to imitate the difficulty and playstyle of other boomer shooters. It aim to be unique while still recognizable. There is no shame in playing it on lower difficulties. As the levels get harder, you should always aim to replay them starting on lower difficulty level and then raising the difficulty as your skills improve. [u][b]What have I been working on outside of this update?[/b][/u] I have also worked on cutscenes. I've planned to add two pre-rendered deliciously crusty retro cutscenes at the beginning and end of each three episodes. The intro of EP1 is ready, but will not be part of this update as I want to finish EP1-EP2 cutscenes fully and release them all in one package. The intro is almost *4 minutes long*. Looks like I became a movie directorwriteranimatordesigner this year! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41123101/6ccea4c0bd3f3db79ffd20b0bd7cf086dd30c4c5.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41123101/ff0da761ba545f23880dbe758221f92d036d761e.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41123101/e75fad8984095dd3cfac4e6b5531834862aa594d.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41123101/dee0a8194665930833d53a260cccde5d51472aa6.png[/img] E2M5 is also almost finished. While waiting for music, QA and going through life changes I focused on that and learned new important skills to speed up game development. I've also started a Youtube series where I play through the game one level at a time and talk about its development, my ideas on game development, how it all came to be etc. It's very amateur stuff, but fun to make nonetheless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af2X7pjJB2E [u][b]What comes next?[/b][/u] Late this summer, august - september, I'm aiming to release the rest of EP2. Here's what it will contain: E2M5 - The Ruptured Idol E2M6 - ??? E2Boss2 - The Matriarch Four cutscenes, intro and outro of both episodes Possible small balance updates and fixing of old bugs. After these are out of the way I have a clean slate to start wrapping up the game by moving onto EP3's development. I dream of releasing the 1.0 of the game in summer 2025, and immediately move onto a second project, possibly a sequel. The updates after that will be in two chunks: First and second half of Episode 3 instead of releasing each level seperately, adding the EP3 cutscenes to the final 1.0 update as well. I want to give players more to experience, more to replay, to talk about, to experiment with in each update and the plan to release each level seperately was just a way to make the development easier for me after the burnout. I'm over the burnout and now developing stronger than ever! I hope this was not too weird ranty, rambly post. I've wanted to give my fans a public update for a very long time now, but I decided to wait until this E2M4 update was ready. Again, I thank everyone for their amazing love, understanding and patience as I make this massive game alone and seek to give everyone the best experience that stays truest to my vision. Have a great summer, everyone, and let me know what you thought of this upcoming update!! - SmoothBrainDev