Version 1.2 is now available, and there's a 30% discount this week to celebrate! The discount isn't displaying on the game page at the moment, but you can get it here.

Here's what's new...

Performance improvements

I have implemented an 'object pooling' system which results in significant performance boosts, particularly on low-end PCs and especially when there are many objects appearing and being destroyed during gameplay.

Boring technical details: The game now keeps a cache of disabled gameobjects in memory which can be simply enabled/disabled, instead of being created/destroyed which resulted in lots of garbage collection spikes.

Rebalancing

Certain Robot Mod combinations and power-ups could be exploited to make the game too easy and not fun if played in a certain way. This has been addressed with the following changes:

• The power of these Robot Mods has been reduced a little to make this tactic harder to pull off, whilst avoiding making them completely redundant. This affects Snake, Viper, Woodpecker and Eel mods.
• The 'EMP Range' power-up increases your range a little less each time, so it doesn't give you full reach of most of the screen when fully upgraded.
• Using the EMP ability now costs the same amount of battery energy as a Grapple Beam chain pop. So if you are using a Robot Mod than affects the Grapple Beam cost, the EMP will be affected too (rather than it always having a fixed cost).

There are more changes in the works to address other exploits too.

Level boundaries

The edges of the level are now displayed as hazard stripes that only appear when you're nearby, rather than thick black borders around the entire screen.

Note: these borders are only visible using certain display resolutions. If your monitor's native resolution is 1080p then you won't see them. This is normal, because the screen edges are aligned with the level boundaries.

Interface fading

Interface elements now fade away when you go near them. No longer will you fall victim to a cheeky ghost that was hiding behind your health bar or score counter.

Leaderboard filter

You can now filter the Steam leaderboard by your personal high score. This mode is displayed by default.

Bug fixes

• You can no longer move outside the level boundaries when moving quickly.
• You will no longer get stuck outside the level boundaries if you use an EMP when you're in the corner of the screen.
• Standalone builds no longer crash if you have no internet connection when the leaderboard is displayed.
• EMP sound effect is no longer cut off before it finishes.

Thank you to everyone who has supported this game since release last year. It means the world to me, and I hope you enjoy the new improvements in this update!

For more updates please remember to

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• join my mailing list
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Matt