Version 0.9.3 is now live! See below details on this update to Astral Gunners. This update is mostly focused on introducing the real Hyperspace and addressing critiques from players that still needed to be addressed. Thank you for your continued support. [u][b]Hyperspace[/b][/u] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33219254/e77d86cd552757b3160e3f6953acf3d13848679e.png[/img] The true version of Hyperspace finally makes its debut! Right now it's still being used as a placeholder final stage, but will eventually become a secret bonus stage. The overall theme of Hyperspace is that it now utilizes any progression elements achieved within a run. Each shadow fight won creates a new bullet-generating portal in the stage. Assisting NPCs will reappear on this stage to help the player. The bonus waves from timeskips will play out where they left off. Shoot as many UFOs as you can to spawn bigger and bigger ones. And Golden Starshooter is back with a vengeance! A new audio track now accompanies the stage! [u][b]Shadow Fight Updates[/b][/u] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33219254/895a2ee2cee66b9fcce244f0e913eeabccb704bd.png[/img] There was a distinct lack of risk/reward present in the shadow fights. Simultaneously they were also far too difficult for the average player (as of writing this less than 5% of players have been able to clear them at all). Our thinking is this makes the presence of the shadow fights feel mostly like a frustrating addition rather than a satisfying challenge. Overall these changes should allow the shadow fights to actually exist for more casual players, while also providing a more interesting scoring and survival experience for more dedicated players. [b]Special Meter:[/b] Instead of starting the level with only one special charge, atoms now continuously fly across the screen allowing for multiple special uses. [b]Consequences and Continuity:[/b] Instead of being kicked out of the battles upon dying once, you will now have to complete the level before exiting. [b]Easy Mode:[/b] Shadow fights will now be present in easy mode, however it will only be a slightly toned down version of the first phase of each fight. The associated achievements have been updated to require beating these bosses on normal or harder. [b]No more free Barrier:[/b] We tested these levels having a barrier allowing the player to get hit twice before exiting the stage. This never really solved any of the issues we had with the stages and is being removed in this version. [b]Blue and Violet:[/b] The shadow fights for Blue and Violet didn't ever have extra bullets for hard mode. This has now been added. Additionally the Shadow Violet fight has been tuned up a bit across the board. [b]Speed Matters:[/b] More of the challenge has been shifted to winning quickly. The boss timer has been reduced down to 75 seconds, and if you don't defeat them in the timeframe the bosses will leave and the stage ends. [b]Points:[/b] Shadow bosses now drop a treasure chest with medallions when defeated. The base point value on destruction has been reduced from 100k to 25k. It is now possible to enter System Overload on these stages, so while the minimum possible amount of points is lower, the maximum potential has been increased a decent amount. [u][b]Misc Changes:[/b][/u] [b][i][Player Suggestion][/i] Crimson Peaks:[/b] The stage hazards that create flame bullets are now indestructible. The play pattern on this level was somewhat underwhelming on this stage due to the optimal strategy being just to destroy them before they were a threat, despite being designed to be a consistent threat. The middle section where you have to collect parts for the flamemobile should now be appropriately engaging and challenging. There is still one exception to this new rule, however. [b][i][Player Suggestion][/i] Training Mode Special Meter:[/b] You can now set an exact amount for the special meter in training mode. [b]Red Gunner:[/b] We fixed an animation glitch with Red's charge shot that functions as a slight buff. Red now charges their Shot 2 five frames quicker. [b]Samurai Gunner:[/b] Samurai's damage when attacking nearby enemies has been toned down dramatically. The damage total has been cut in half and the frequency of attacks takes four times as long. [b]Orange Worker:[/b] Orange previously did pitiful damage when helping fight minibosses and now does roughly five times the amount of damage. [b]Level Select:[/b] Changed the difficulty info for a few of the stages. Fixed some issues where Dystopia didn't display your assist character and Samurai didn't appear as the assist character in other stages.