GunSuit Guardians is back! Thanks for your patience and thanks to everyone who was posted words of encouragement. It's been a long time since the last update, and while I can't promise regular updates with any certain frequency, I can say this particular update is the biggest one to date.

What's New?

LockZone Mission

LockZone is a new unlockable mission with a faster pace where combat is confined to a small arena. Instead of choosing upgrades as soon as you Level Up, your selections are only available at the end of each wave.



The original mission is now labelled 'Skywatch'.

Bosses & Boss Redesign

2 new bosses have been introduced to 2nd and 3rd tier encounters. They both have new attacks, special attacks and new animations. The final boss now amalgamates all the attacks of earlier bosses.



In addition, boss behaviours were revamped:

• Bosses can now be put into a "Staggered" phase by dealing a lot of damage over a sustained period. When in this state they cannot attack or move, they take more damage and they drop EXP gems when hit.
• Bosses will enter a "Desperate" phase if you fail to defeat them before the standard wave timer has ended. In this phase the creature will attack with more aggression, but it can be staggered more easily.
• Boss waves now last until the boss is defeated, instead of the next wave rolling in even if the boss is still alive.

These changes are designed to make the boss encounters more like intense showdowns that resolve quickly, rather than drawn-out stalemates for underlevelled players. They also reward powerful, aggressive play.

Hero Rank System

If you're looking for new ways to brag, look no further than the new Hero Rank system. Pilots who have unlocked everything in the shop now have the option to increase their Hero Rank, which resets your shop purchases but grants a small score bonus and a special perk with each tier. Your rank is displayed as an emblem next to any high scores you post on the leaderboards.

Difficulty Selection

You can now play on harder difficulty settings. Each new level is unlocked by beating the final boss of the previous one (with a new achievement too). Each difficulty level also has its own leaderboard.

Gameplay Changes

There have been several noteworthy changes to general combat gameplay:

• Sonic weapons now destroy enemy bullets.
• Ballistic weapon bullets now expire after a fixed duration (making projectile speed upgrades more valuable).
• Knockback effects are now much more powerful, especially for Sonic weapons.
• Enemies now catch fire based on a percentage chance system, determined by each weapon's Burn Chance stat. The game previously used a overly-complex 'heat' based system.

Unlocks & Achievements

There are several new unlockable items and changes to existing ones:

• 3 new Weapons: Prism (laser), Sunbolt (thermal) and Warhead (explosive).
• 3 new Suit Buffs: Blast Radius (increases size of explosions damage area), Burn Rate (fire inflicts damage faster), Combustion (adds a chance for bullets to ignite enemies).
• 'Damage' Suit Buff is now split into three separate buffs which affect specific weapon classes: Impact (increases damage of Ballistic weapons), Resonance (increases damage of Laser and Sonic weapons), Payload (increases damage of Thermal and Explosive weapons).
• 9 new Artifacts to be uncovered (side note: you can now view your equipped Artifacts in the pause menu, and all discovered Artifacts in the Info Hub of the main menu).
• 15 new Steam Achievements, tied to unlocking the aforementioned items, the newly-added LockZone mission (see above) and new difficulty levels for each mission.

Minimap

You can now unlock a minimap by purchasing the Scanner from the shop. Upgrading it further will reveal more item types on the map and improves the refresh rate.

Leaderboard Improvements & Scoring

The appearance of the leaderboards has been improved, with your selected GunSuit displayed alongside your score. If you had raised your Hero Rank at the time of posting your high score that will also be displayed as a ⭐ special emblem.



You can also view all leaderboards from the Info Hub in the main menu, cycle through missions, difficulty levels and Hero Ranks. Leaderboards now display 50 entries at a time instead of 10, and you will see the leaderboard for the current mission just before you begin.

Finally, scoring has been tweaked and you can gain special bonuses if you complete a wave without taking damage or defeat bosses quickly.

Full Changelog

ADDED

• LockZone: a new mission with a faster pace. Combat is confined to a small arena. Upgrade selections only occur once you have completed each wave. Original mission is now labelled 'Skywatch'.
• Hero Rank system: a new long-term reward system for players who have unlocked everything and want bragging rights on the leaderboards. Includes new Hero Token currency which can be used to buy meta upgrades.
• 2 new difficulty levels (unlocked by completing a run).
• 2 new Bosses.
• 3 new Weapons: Warhead, Sunbolt and Prism.
• 3 new Suit Buffs: Blast Radius, Combustion and Burn Rate.
• 9 new Artifacts.
• 15 new Achievements.
• Minimap (unlocked via Shop menu).
• 'Equipped Artifacts' list added to Pause screen.
• 'Discovered Artifacts' list added to main menu Info Hub.
• Score bonuses for fast boss kills and clearing waves without taking damage.
• Upgrade Shop now displays bonus gained from each purchase.
• "Don't show again" option to developer showcase screen.
• 'Best run' stats are now saved for each mission.
• New music for final boss wave.
• New warning audio when inside hazard zones.
• Added 'logs_and_saves_shortcut' to build folder.
• New leaderboards for standard mission, new LockZone mission, and each new difficulty level.

CHANGED

• Boss overhaul: major redesign of Boss behaviours, including new Staggered and Desperate phases.
• Revamped new game flow with tab headers for quicker navigation.
• Sonic weapons now destroy enemy bullets.
• Knockback effects are now much more powerful, especially for Sonic weapons.
• Ballistic bullets now expire after a fixed duration.
• Increased speed of Wing Cannon and Tornado Cannon bullets.
• Reduced maximum radius of Flak explosions.
• 'Damage' Suit Buff is now split into 3 class-based buffs: Impact (Ballistic), Resonance (Laser and Sonic), Payload (Explosive and Thermal).
• Damage-based Suit Buffs (see above) now give a greater bonus (20% instead of 15%).
• Reduced stackable limit of weapon class based damage buff Artifacts. Each one now buffs by 25% instead of 20%..
• Leaking Snailshell artifact now kills 20% of aliens instead of 5%.
• Affected, equipped weapons are now displayed next to Artifacts and Suit Buffs that rely on certain weapon classes.
• Giant Care Package HP now scales with player level.
• Damage dealt by Fire now scales with player level.
• Fire is now based on chance-per-hit instead of previous convoluted heat-based system.
• Purchasing loadout items now has a confirmation step.
• Refunding items in the Upgrade Shop can now be done via mouse-friendly buttons.
• Reduced saturation of orange and red sky colours in later waves.
• Level Up screen now shows number of remaining upgrade choices when several are queued.
• Jammed weapons message is now bigger and more noticeable.
• Boss lurch attack direction indicator now changes colour when it locks into movement.
• Fire appearance now uses a simplified sprite animation instead of particles, resulting in better visual clarity when many aliens are on fire.
• Renamed 'Pheromone Grenade' to 'Phero-Grenade' to avoid text wrapping to new lines in various places.
• Hero Rank, GunSuit and Difficulty are now displayed on leaderboard entries.
• Leaderboard is now displayed when starting a new game.
• Leaderboards display more entries.
• Revised 'health critical' HUD display, and it only appears when health is below 20% instead of 30%.
• Revised 'wave complete' HUD display.
• Quitting a run now goes through the standard end-game flow so you don't miss out on rewards, stats are logged, and you can restart a run faster.
• Current mission and difficulty are now displayed on Pause menu.
• Many more stat tweaks and balance changes.

FIXED

• Coin sound no longer stacks to painful volume levels.
• Fixed hazard stripes disappearing when you moved a long way from the start position.
• Fixed some particles rendering behind sprites.
• Fixed "mission failure" text sometimes showing placeholder header text.
• Fixed damage numbers moving with camera view.
• Fixed aliens still following expired Pheromone Grenades.