Rogue Wave (Alpha) - Nifty November Release

Welcome to the November Alpha release of Rogue Wave, the First Person Roguelite Horde Shooter. This update has focused on player experience as we move towards the full demo release. The next few releases will obsess over getting the enjoyment levels even higher through game balancing and polish.

Changelog for Rogue Wave: Nifty November (2024)

Here’s a quick summary of the changes in this version. Give it a play and let us know what you like, what we should do more of and what you aren’t so impressed with. We would love your feedback via our anonymous feedback form and/or our the less anonymous Discord Sercver.

Game Play

• Added 5 minute timer to levels, can now succeed by destoying the spawners or surviving 5 minutes
• First level contains a large purpose built area to provide player interest
• Portal level contains a large purpose built area to provide significant player challenges
• Synthos is available in level 1 (does not need to be bought)
• Lots of balancing TL;DR the game is now much harder (too hard?)
• Enemy death explosions no longer damage the player but damage other enemies more
• Fireballs no longer damage the player
• Hipfire accuracy of assualt rifle reduced

Upgrades and Achievements

• Resource rich players can now call in additional upgrades in the Hub screen
• New upgrade to decrease all build times
• If no upgrades are available in Hub, player is presented with options to try
• Fixed bug that could cause players to go into negative resources when purchasing a stackable that was already in the permanent upgrades collection
• In-game offers now pause until the player has chosen an option, Nanobot upgrades are stacked if necessary

Enemies

• Targetting lasers now telegraph intent more clearly
• Added barks to enemies that do not have a drone
• Only enemies nearest to the player will emit their drone or barks

Player Experience

• Improved colours of Gems to be more colour blind friendly because they are similar shapes
• Tutorial removed and replaced with loading screen hints
• Intro scene removed, now placed straight into the action
• Music settings are now respected across game reloads and all level loads
• Almost all visual FX improved
• Enemy and Level Challenge Rating calculations improved, now more reflective of the real challenge presented
• Inventory now remains on-screen to aid player in weapon selection
• Added more tooltips to the UI screens

Engine and Tooling

• Created a highly configurable system for setting up test environments to aid in bug hunting and promo image generation
• Added pre-defined blocks to procedural levels for designed areas to engage player
• Exceptions thrown during gameplay are now anonymized and logged with our servers (when player permits)
• Completely rebuilt the enemy weapon system to allow significantly more customizable weapons
• Added automated tests for objects in the game, hoping to catch misconfigurations before they go in a build

Miscellaneous

As always there are a raft of smaller bug fixes and tweaks too.

Feedback Please

We would love your feedback on what you like or don’t like, via our anonymous feedback form and/or our the less anonymous Discord Sercver.