Hey folks,

Just a quick update to mark the start of Bullet Heaven 2.0 Festival. GunSuit Guardians is on sale for the duration of this event.

My sincere apologies for the lack of updates lately, I've been focused on freelance work since last year to keep the bills paid. That work I signed up for is finished now and, while I still need to pursue more freelance jobs soon, I do have an update for GunSuit Guardians in the works. It will be the first to include a new game mode. Watch this space.

Just wanted to let you all know that the game has not been abandoned, but my priorities have sadly had to shift. Such is the way of indie development.

Thank you all for your patience and support along the way, I really appreciate it.

Matt

Hey folks, I'm back.

First of all, sincere apologies for the long delay between updates. There were a few reasons for this long downtime. Firstly, I was committed to some freelance work earlier in the summer. I also personally experienced a bit of burnout having worked so hard and so long to get Early Access released and the several updates that followed that.

And finally, this update is a pretty hefty one! Version 0.41.0 introduces 2 new GunSuits, 2 new Special Abilities, and 4 new Weapons, all of which have a new Achievement required to unlock them.

There's also a change to the way lightning storms work: aliens inside them will regenerate health, but are guaranteed to drop an EXP gem. If you make some smart tactical decisions you can really ramp up the number of gems you accumulate.

Finally, another new addition is the ability to view a breakdown of each of your weapons' stats such as kills and DPS at the end of a run. Useful for gauging which weapons work well for you.

Here's the full list of changes in this update...

• 4 new weapons.
  
• 2 new GunSuits.
  
• 2 new Special Abilities.
  
• 8 new Achievements.
  
• Weapon-specific stats are now visible at the end of a run.
  
• Lightning storms have a new risk/reward effect on aliens.

• Quitting a run now presents a confirmation message.
  
• Swapped order of Weapon and Special Ability when selecting your starting loadout.
  
• Various performance improvements.
  
• Minor presentation change: GunSuits now define 'reload speed' instead of 'reload duration'. This means positive values are better instead of the negative.

Thank you for your patience while I've been working on this update. I really appreciate your support. ❤

Matt

The leaderboards have been reset again for this update. This is to add support for a new feature below. Hopefully resetting the leaderboards won't be a regular occurrance but it makes sense to get the big leaderboard changes out of the way early. Apologies for the disruption. The old leaderboards have been preserved here.

You can now hover over any leaderboard entry to view stats from that player's run.
These stats include: their starting loadout, what upgrades they chose, what level they reached and what wave they got to.

Are there any other stats you'd like to see? Let me know in the comments!

You can now Reroll the upgrades when you Level Up.

At first you need to spend Coins to reroll, and the price goes up every time you do it within a run. But you can also purchase Free Rerolls from the Upgrades meta-shop which grants you up to 5 rerolls per run.

I will probably improve the generation system in future updates (right now it's 100% random, but I'd like to make it more intelligent) but I just wanted to get a basic version of this feature into the game for now as it's been requested a lot.

Here's the full list of changes in this update...

• Reroll added to Level Up screen. Spend coins or use your free rerolls.
  
• 'Reroll' in meta-upgrade shop; grants limited free rerolls in each run.
  
• You can now view details of any leaderboard entry by highlighting it.
  
• Leaderboards can now be accessed from title screen (find in Info Hub).
  
• A floating number pops up when you recover HP.
  
• Darken Background setting in Options menu.
  
• More stats tracked: gems collected, small/giant care packages opened, damage received, health recovered, power-ups acquired.

• Sonic Cannon has larger clip size and faster reload.
  
• Most weapons have better knockback, particularly laser and thermal weapons that typically had none or very low knockback.
  
• Mega-Magnet powerup now pulls all items for 5 seconds instead of triggering once on pickup.
  
• MediBot regenerates a smaller amount more frequently instead of a big chunk after a long delay.
  
• Tweaked Penetrator powerup icon.

• Reduced audio overload when lots of coins are collected in quick succession.

I hope you enjoy this update. I'd really like to get stuck into some more substantial updates next. I know a lot of you have been asking for more content and run variety. I just want to let you know: it's coming!! I'm a solo developer with 2 kids so progress can be a little slow at times, but I do fully intend to expand this game in lots of ways, so please watch this space. 😁

Thanks for your support!

Matt

NOTE: This is the 2nd attempt to publish this update. A pretty nasty bug was discovered shortly after publishing it yesterday. Apologies if you saw the previous announcement and wondered where it went. 😅 Thanks to the folks on Discord who help track down the source of the bug!

On with the original announcement...


The leaderboards have therefore been reset for this update. The old leaderboard has been preserved on Steam. Apologies to everyone who gained a nice score using conventional methods, but you are now all on a more even playing field. That top spot is up for grabs again!

• Power-Ups can now drop from Care Packages (there are currently 4 Power-Ups available).
  
• Magnet now pulls pickups even after they have left its radius.
  
• When EXP gems are left behind they are now gathered into one huge gem of equal value. This huge gem will be dropped by an alien once enough value has accumulated.
  
• Weapon Class is displayed when selecting weapons.
  
• A new system to prevent endless score-farming on the final wave. One minute after the boss appears, the points you gain for each action start depleting. After another minute your score is frozen.
  
• Large gems and XL gems.

• All bosses have lower max HP.
  
• Final boss moves faster and attacks more frequently.
  
• All boss' bullets move faster.
  
• Mid-bosses have lower mass (i.e. easier to knockback).
  
• Final boss gives x5 more points than mid-bosses.
  
• Shiny aliens give x5 points than regular aliens.
  
• Visual FX is more noticeable on shiny aliens.
  
• Shiny aliens now drop more valuable gems, instead of just dropping more gems.
  
• Medium-sized gem now looks more like an actual gem.
  
• Giant Care Packages now drop large gems instead of medium gems.
  
• Big Blue and Big Red aliens no longer always drop gems (they now use the random chance like regular aliens), but can drop more EXP.

• Music no longer cuts out if you level up quickly after selecting an upgrade.

In case you missed the last announcement too, GunSuit Guardians is now Verified on Steam Deck. I've been playtesting the game often on my Steam Deck, so it's great to finally see that big green tick. Hooray!

Please keep the feedback coming. I really love hearing your thoughts, whether it's in a review, a forum post or on Discord. It's all useful information that helps me improve the game. 😁

Till next time,

Matt

GunSuit Guardians has just received its ✅ Verified rating from Valve, meaning you should have a smooth experience running the game on Steam Deck!

Please let me know if you experience any issues and I'll do my best to fix them.

The most recent patch has also just fixed a few problems with controller support too, so most input devices should now work automatically.

It's all looking up for people with thumbs.

This is a small patch to fix problems that some players were experiencing when playing with controllers.

• Generic default button mappings for any unknown controllers. They may not correspond to the controls listed, but this should at least add rudimentary support for any controller that's not recognised.

• Fixed controller input not working when multiple devices were connected.

If you continue to experience issues with controllers please let me know the following information:
1) What controller/device you're using
2) How many controllers you have connected
3) What operating system you are running on (Windows, Linux, Steam Deck, etc)
4) Any special Steam Controller settings you may have changed (if applicable)

OK look, sometimes you play a bit of classic PS1 mech-combat game Armored Core, and you take a liking to their gigantically oversized reticle that fills the entire screen. And sometimes you decide that would be a great design for the crosshair in your own game.

But sometimes, the players don't agree.

So then you quickly patch the game to add an option to change the crosshair to your game and everyone's happy, right? 😇

• Crosshair appearance settings in Options menu.

• Hanzo suit: reduced speed and special cooldown bonus, increased knockback.
  
• Barricade ability: wall object is thinner, expires faster and recharges slower.
  
• Big Red Bubblehead aliens now drop more EXP.
  
• Alien bullets are now visible on top of player's bullets.
  
• Options menu is now divided up into tabs.
  
• Distant objects are now only despawned once per second (optimisation).

• Save data is now correctly written to disk on scene load, game over and when you quit a run.
  
• Aliens now drop the correct EXP amount (the maximum was being capped).

Thanks so much for checking out this game in Early Access! I've been blown away by the positive response the game has received so far.

I'm working hard to address the community's feedback and will continue to update the game over the coming weeks and months. Please share any feedback you have on Steam Discussions or Discord[discord.gg]. 😊

Stay tuned for more updates coming soon.

Matt