Hey all, this update has been in the works for a while now and while there's still a ton of work to do I'm happy to finally share it with everyone.

First off, let me say that this update drastically changes the base game. I recognize that these changes might not be everyone's cup of tea, so I've made some of the more recent builds available for free on the game's page (the builds are listed as demos). 

Changelog

Updates:

• Levels 1 - 3 are now playable
• New enemies
• Certain enemies will now trigger bullet cancels
• Gold bars now drop as a pick up and contribute to score
• Added a proper loading screen
• New weapons and items
• Updated the player's hitbox sprite
• Added the ability to continue once you've run out of lives 
• Redid Vaktern's artwork (for the 3rd and final time)
• Added a Stage End screen
• Added an extend item (grants the player an additional life)
• Score-based extends (grants the player an additional life if they reach certain scores during a run)
• Pity extends (grants the player an additional life if they reach the end of the level with 0 lives remaining -- only occurs once per run)
• Brand new weapon slot and shared energy system
• Power orbs now drop as an enemy takes damage
• New chain-based scoring system with multipliers
• Steam Deck support (I've tested it on my own device and the game seems to run fine, although I'll admit I did very little to achieve this)
• New bullet art

Some things I'd like to note from the above:

• Weapons, Items, and Passives are all dropped after defeating a boss.
• Weapons and Passives will increase in level based on how many times they've been acquired. Meaning, if you pick up the Drone Passive 3 times, it'll be upgraded to Level 3. 
• The player can now only have 2 weapons equipped at a time and their energy bar will contribute to both. 
• Gold bars will eventually act as currency and will be used in-between runs to unlock new content.
• Once a Continue is used after receiving a Game Over, the player's score is reset.
• Currently the player starts with 3 continues, but this number will probably be adjusted in later updates.
• Some bosses have been removed for now, but can still be played via Practice mode. However I'm not confident that they'll all properly work given the sheer amount of changes the game has undergone. Practice mode could also use some additional updates as well.
• Stage End bonuses are calculated based on how many enemies the player destroyed, how many times the player took damage during the level, how many times the player was forced to warp during the boss fight, and how long it took the player to defeat the boss.

Going forward, I plan on building out each level individually with unique enemies, bosses, environments, and story dialogue. This means that every future update should include a brand new level (starting with revamping Level 1). I expect this to be a slow going process while I figure out the dialogue system and create more detailed environments. Ideally, these environments will make for much more dynamic gameplay and give each level a bit of a facelift. 

In the pipeline:

• New Level 1 boss fight
• New Level 1 environments
• New Level 1 enemies
• Story content for Level 1
• New weapons/items

As always, if you find any bugs or issues please feel free to drop a comment here or message me on discord!

Discord