After seeing how my game took off lately, I actually feel very motivated talk about the next (not-so-major) update of the game. I have some plans and tweaks to improve the overall quality and balance. I barely had much time for testers before the Christmas SAGExpo demo came out, so there was a lot of things I felt was left for desire.

Firstly, I am going to touch up the level design: Abandoned Mines especially in particular, wasn't as well put together as the rest of the game. It will receive minor touch ups *before* a huge rehaul for the next major update. It was a level that I ported most of its layout over from the 2012 builds of the game so a lot of it is kind of outdated compared to what I'm more capable of doing. The minecart will definitely stay, as its own level (merging both segments from the current demo along with some other changes to make them flow into each other)

Most levels in general were kinda brought over from those builds too but had the opportunity to redesign them to fit in a newer standard. Midnight Summit (Stage 1 Round 3) was the only level entirely done from scratch post-developmental reboot. (Most of its level design came from the tail end of the 00s era, so...).

Some enemies will get slight redesigns too. Tortoisebot now has the gun exposed at all times so it better informs the player it'll shoot. The angry orb enemy in Molten Factory will get a bright outline to blend less into the background and some slight touch ups (its sprite came from the 2012 build of the game mostly untouched, so I never had the chance to improve it).

I am also going to mess around with the weapon balance and some general visual improvements as well. This major demo introduced two new weapons: Scatter Blast and Squeeker. Both are kind of unbalanced in opposite ways. Scatter Blast is a bit *too* good, which kind of reduced the need of other weapons while Squeeker had no good use for it. The changes might involve changing some of the enemies too as an incentive to use various weapons you have on yourself.

In speaking of enemies, I might also buff the contact damage on most enemies so people can't just damage boost through the levels. Drillmole will also be redesigned ot have more utility to what it does such digging through specific walls and I also want to make it so if you slide into its drill, you both bounce back from each other. Meaning... you have to shoot it *or* slide from behind (if you're skilled enough to, given its turn speed). I feel like enemies should be more threatening, otherwise they'll just kinda exist as a nothing obstacle. But don't fret, I don't plan to make the game overly hard, just a little more engaging!

After this update comes out, I'd love to hear feedback on the game design! I also plan the last major demo of the game later this year before finally finishing it. :)

What you think of the current plans? I'd love to hear feedback on this post.