Nuclear Throne (Update #91 ARRP) $

[getter77]

http://www.nuclearthrone.com/   $12.99   Humble Store/Steam

Welcome to Nuclear Throne!

Join us while making Nuclear Throne through the livestreams on the game website and be the first one playing new builds every week. We hope you enjoy the ride with us, as we have no clue where we’re going to end up on this project and that’s really fine with us.
At this point, Nuclear Throne includes:

    Four playable worlds to trek through towards the elusive Nuclear Throne.
    Seven playable characters, ranging from the explosive Melting to the almost-retired Fish.
    Two bossfights with the powerful Big Bandit and the rusted corpse of Big Dog.
    A huge range of weapons, skills and randomly generated goodness.

At launch, Nuclear Throne will further include:

    At least four more worlds and an undefined number of secret worlds to explore, both on Earth, other planets and other dimensions.
    Additional characters, B-skins and sound effects.
    Dangerous Crown Vaults to raid for game-changing Crown Modifiers.
    The Nuclear Throne.


Join us on the road to final release by buying into the Early Access Beta build for $12.99. Follow livestreams of development on nuclearthrone.com and play new builds pretty much every week.

About the Game
Nuclear Throne is Vlambeers latest action roguelike-like about mutants fighting their way through a post-apocalyptic world. The radioactive waste in the world allows mutants to get ahead by mutating new limbs on the fly, the abundant availability of powerful weaponry make the quest to become ruler of the Wasteland one frought with peril.
System Requirements

    Minimum:
        OS: Windows XP
        Processor: 1.2Ghz+
        Memory: 1024 MB RAM
        Graphics: 256MB
        Hard Drive: 200 MB available space

    Recommended:
        OS: Windows XP
        Processor: 2Ghz
        Memory: 2048 MB RAM
        Graphics: 1GB
        Hard Drive: 500 MB available space

Frequently Asked Questions
Who are streaming?

The livestream airs twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday from 13:00 - 17:00 CET. In general, Jan Willem from Vlambeer will be the main stream and Rami will handle the chat under the Vlambeer account. Paul, Jukio, Joonas and Justin might stream independently, in which case we'll notify you via stream.
Can I pre-order the game now?

Yes! Join in on the livestreaming madness through Steam Early Access and Humble!
Will the game feature x ?

The honest answer at this point is that unless you see it implemented in the game, we don't know. We design our games flying by the seat of our pants and things change, evolve and adapt constantly. The best way to check whether a feature or option is available is by checking out the livestream twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday from 13:00 - 17:00 CET

Will the game be available on Mac, Linux, Xbox One, Wii U, Wii, 3DS

All we know for sure is that the game will be available on PC and later for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. We should have no real trouble porting to Mac, but as always we're going to be cautious and not announce that fully in case it turns out there are problems with that. Since GameMaker 8.1 doesn't compile builds for most platforms, we won't know for sure until we try. We'll try when we're done with the PC builds.
Will in-progress builds be available for the PlayStation Vita or PlayStation 4?

No, in-progress builds will be offered only through Humble and Steam Early Access.
Will you update the Humble build of the Mojam version of Nuclear Throne?

No. The new Nuclear Throne is a seperate game that'll have months of work in it, the work of many talented people and the costs of development. We're charging a fee for it.

[getter77]

Update #1

Well now, the first week of early access was one hell of a ride. Your response to the game has been overwhelming, and we've worked extra hard to make sure the first update of the game is a good one! The game should run slightly better on Windows 8, we have a whole new interface with cool portal transitions, we have ambient sounds in the levels now, we added some more props (like explosive cars) to the levels, balanced some of the characters and there are two unfinished new weapons (the splinter gun and toxic bow) in there! Other than that there's a whole pile of tiny additions, bugfixes and anything in between.

Content

    new menu & level up interface
    character power preview images (these will be animated eventually)
    basic portal effect inbetween levels
    there are a couple of new skill icons, our artist Paul Veer is still working on making the rest look that nice.
    ambient sounds for all areas, filter on ambient sounds when in the portal
    various new sound effects
    two new work in progress weapons: the toxic bow and splinter gun
    props in sewers (pipes and toxic barrels)
    car wrecks in scrapyard
    it now rains in the scrapyard! poor birds

Characters

    steroids throne butt changed, now makes all weapons fully automatic and 1/5 of shots don't cost any ammo!
    fish now rolls in movement direction instead of towards mouse
    plant throne butt now makes the snare kill anything under 1/3 health instead of dealing damage

Bugfixes

    you can now add a file called "nomusic.txt" or "NOMUSIC.TXT" to the game folder to mute the music.
    there should be less crashes at level loading.
    game no longer stays in 4_1 after first loop.
    more impact effect tweaks, causing less of a delay when hitting a pile of maggots with a melee weapon.
    big dog gunangle bug when player dies before he "wakes up" fixed
    fire traps no longer damage props or wake up the big dog
    shotgun bullets should no longer clip through walls
    weapons should no longer rotate like crazy when stuck in walls
    music no longer stops when quick restarting
    hopefully fixed the shotgun crashes
    various random optimization things and small fixes

Balancing

    slightly more ammo for energy weapon pickups
    melee weapons only deal damage once now
    ever so slightly lower assault rifle rate of fire
    slightly lower slugger rate of fire
    lower triple machinegun spread, making it actually useful
    slightly more screwdriver range

Misc

    radiation canisters now glow
    HUD is now shown when loading/leveling
    skill icons on the HUD now drawn closer to the side
    robot now INSTALLS UPDATES instead of SELECT MUTATIONS
    debris now disappears after a while
    enemy slash animation is longer
    grenade launchers no longer automatic
    lower sound effect volume
    changed the character descriptions around a bit

On our wishlist for next week
Things that are definitely on the list for this week are looking at our possible solutions for the screenshake discussion, fixing that the game shuts down on Escape and probably a new look at fixing the controller support. A real, actual option screen is on our wish-list and of course we'll keep plugging away on problems with Windows 8, too.

Please keep telling us what you think of the game, what you feel should be different and don't forget to join us for the livestreams again on Tuesday and Thursdays 1PM CET.

That'd be all,

Thanks,
--
Rami & JW

[getter77]

Update #2

CONTENT
-options screen
-gamepad support (with sliiiight autoaim)
-options and stats are now saved
-escape no longer ends the game, goes to a placeholder pause screen
-crisp scaling

BUGFIXES
-crowns no longer travel with you after quick restart
-guns no longer travel with you after quick restart
-potential steam overlay/screenshot fix
-potentially fixed yung venuz airhorn crashes
-possibly fixed the double player bug (kinda sad to remove this... such a cool bug)
-you now always fight mixed enemies when looping (instead of having 1 level with desert enemies first)
-broke and then fixed the boss intros
-game is now smarter with memory use, should increase performance for some people!

BALANCING
-laser sword now costs 2 ammo per swing (needs testing)
-LUCKY SHOT now gives you ammo more often
-more accuracy with EAGLE EYES
-even less accuracy for steroids
-big bandit can now drop ammo and health instead of just ammo.
-lower sewer pipe hp
-eyes now attracts chests with telekinesis

MISC
-big dog waking up should make ravens fly
-some new robot texts
-added number of loops to the gameover screen
-quit button in the menu
-added total loops and best loops stat
-new euphoria icon
-big dog no longer fires missiles after death
-[E] to pick up becomes [X] with gamepad
-renamed RECYCLE GUT into METAL TEETH
-gamepad set to 0 when not detected at startup
-sliiiightly bigger maggot hitbox
-shift and control also pick up weapons

NOTES
-when playing with gamepad, plug it in and make sure it's active before starting up the game.
-the pause screen doesn't work properly in the dark levels.
-in the options screen, you can't directly control the SFX volume yet. We'll look into a way to get this working eventually.
-gamepad controls have been designed for xbox 360 controller. We'll eventually add customizable controls. For now: left stick moves, right stick aims, right trigger/bumper fires, left bumper for special, x to pick up weapons, y to swap weapons, start to pause.
-the whole options screen will eventually get an overhaul to make it look and function a bit better. we'll then also add gamepad support for the options screen.


NEXT WEEK:
We'll be getting back on the content boat. Hopefully we'll get some more mysterious things in the game.

[getter77]

Update 3

This week was a weird one, with Rami in the hospital for an emergency surgery - but Jan Willem took over and made sure we made a lot of progress regardless. As Rami is writing this right now, we can certainly say that we're back in business for real in November.

Despite the oddness of the week, update #3 is not lighter than normal. A lot of work went into making sure there's enough new to do: Blast some enemies in your looping rounds with new high-level guns, enjoy a load of cool new props & stare at some new art. Besides that, there's a whole pile of bug fixes and small little changes.

    Content
    wave gun
    plasma gun (needs sound effects)
    plasma cannon (needs sound effects)
    sentry gun (very unfinished)
    plant b skin
    new props (rotting cacti and -CLASSIFIED- in the desert, tires in the scrapyard, cocoons in caves)
    some new mutation icons

    Fixes
    fixed some music memory leaking
    you can now use the mouse in the menu while in gamepad mode
    quick restarting no longer gives you big weapon chests
    fixed music stopping at quick restart
    menu no longer crashes when pressing escape at the logo
    characters can be selected again in the menu
    picking up a weapon with control no longer does that every frame
    fixed young venuz airhorn and metal hit sound effects.
    big rats can no longer be killed with the snare.

    Misc
    gamepad quick restart with (A)
    toxics should now disappear when portal spawns
    added "fit to the screen" option
    slightly updated logo with better kerning
    splinter gun changed around a bit
    robot description now says "EATS GUNS", way cooler
    cave sparkles
    new pipe graphics
    less energy weapon screenshake
    lots of crown vault work, not public yet, sorry

    Notes
    save file will be reset, sorry. we probably won't have save files that transfer between builds until we get character unlocks in.

November for us is very much a 'systems' month - we want to get the game closer to containing all the intended features and not worry too much about content. That doesn't mean you don't get new content - on the contrary - you'll get loads. What we mean with systems is that we want to start implementing I.D.P.D., Crown Vaults, Crowns and 'proper looping'.

Oddly enough, to get that going, next week we'll start working on a bit of content - we'll need a brand new type of enemies.

[getter77]

Update 4 IDPD

This week's update brings you the beginnings of a brand new faction: The Interdimensional Police Department. They'll warp in from mysterious origins through some sort of portals and try to stop you from reaching the newly implemented Crown Vaults. Enjoy a brand new mutation, the appearance of Mysterious Statues, and a large amount of tiny fixes, features and balancing.


    Content
    you can visit the mysterious Crown Vaults, even though there is not much there yet.
    new mutation that might still need some work: Impact Wrists. makes corpses fly further and deal more damage on contact.
    plant now has an idle animation in the menu.
    the I.D.P.D.
    mysterious statues.

    Balancing
    bandits no longer shoot when you're standing super close.
    changed the Discgun a bit, should no longer kill you randomly.
    Plant's Snare now kills anything with less than 50% health when upgraded with Throne Butt.
    Big Bandit should no longer drop nothing sometimes.
    nerfed Fire Eater (now Boiling Veins) to lowered damage from explosions, no damage from fire.
    slower Splinter Gun rate of fire.
    nerfed Rabbit Foot, it now gives 60% more drops now instead of 100% more.

    Fixes
    clicking a volume bar in the options menu now instantly sets the game to that volume.
    music volume settings now also work for menu & boss music.
    Flame Trap no longer make sounds when the portal has spawned.
    portals no longer kill enemies.
    corpse hitting something plays the hit sound effect.
    double clicking now only works if you do it half a second before reload. shovel etc. won't give as much trouble now.
    fixed nomusic.txt!
    missed Plasma bullets no longer give people ammo with lucky shot.
    fixed a bug with Scrap Yard boss spawning/making ravens fly when player is dead.
    Sticky Grenade depth is now on top of enemies.

    Misc
    renamed some mutations.
    props now mirror randomly.
    new campfire, barrel, torch graphics.
    Plant's Snare now stops fire from traps.
    Telekinesis now works on small pickups and weapons too.
    Telekinesis now works on all non-player projectiles, including flame traps & toxic gas.
    health pickups are now hearts instead of red crosses.
    rolling with Fish while standing still rolls towards the mouse.
    logo now pulsates instead of wiggles.

Update 5 The Frozen City

This is our fifth update already! It feels like we went live on Early Acces just last week, even though lots of progress has been made already. Thanks for joining us on this crazy ride!

This new build is very exciting to us. We're introducing a brand new area, the Frozen City. It's filled with beautiful, deadly, programmer-art robots that are very much work in progress. Getting to the Frozen City won't be as luck-dependent as it used to be, because we did some balancing on Big Dog, giving you more of a fighting chance. You'll also be able to get your hands on three brand new weapons: The Chainsaw, Energy Hammer, and the already-Vlambeer-favorite Flak Cannon. We've also finally created a bolt-based mutation, called Crossbow Lungs, which probably needs a better name.

Let us know if you get to the Frozen City, and beware of those robots, they have some nasty tricks up their sleeves!


    Content
    A new area, the Frozen City, featuring two new enemy types.
    New weapons: wreak melee havok with the Chainsaw and Energy Hammer or use the new favorite here at Vlambeer, the Flak Cannon.
    New mutation: Crossbow Lungs. Makes bolt-based weapons slightly homing towards the mouse. Probably still needs some work.

    Balancing
    Snipers will wait a bit longer before firing at the start of a level.
    Plant's snare no longer stops enemies completely, they can now escape given enough time.
    Some small Big Dog changes. You now have some time to escape after it dies, it spams less missiles, and spawning next to it won't trigger it right away.
    Slightly more screwdriver damage.
    Impact Wrists now deals a bit less damage. Still needs some work!
    The I.D.P.D. is no longer interested in the mysterious statues collecting rads, instead damage to the statues will sound their interdimensional alarms.

    Fixes
    There should be no more enemies in Crown Vaults after you loop the game.
    Vaults now return you to the next area instead of 4_1.
    Killing props in a Vault will no longer spawn portals.
    Getting Boiling Veins and walking into fire will no longer shake the screen like crazy.
    Fire Trap scorchmarks are now also visible on grass.
    Game no longer crashes if you kill Big Dog & it spawns a portal.
    Some investigation into causes of lag/memory leaks. Will take a while to improve, but we're working on it.

    Misc
    Cars now move slightly when hit.
    The statue only spawns in X_2 areas now. No more cave statues.
    Changed some character & skill texts.
    Some of the contrast on Desert tiles has been changed.
    Renamed Laser Sword to Energy Sword.

This thing is really banging out on the progress.   

[getter77]

Update #6 Smooth Animations

Wow, look at those brand new walk cycles! While this update might not bring that much new content (partially because we were busy launching Ridiculous Fishing on Android, and speaking/receiving an award at Control Conference), Paul did manage to overhaul a lot of animations. We also have two brand new songs by Jukio
'KOZILEK' Kallio, one for Frozen City, and one for the Crown Vaults. They're pretty amazing.

    Features
    music for Frozen City and the Crown Vault.
    new character walk animations.
    new enemy walk animations.
    a very basic early version of the Frozen City boss.
    art for the snowbots.

    Balancing
    no melee for snowbots carrying cars.
    some I.D.P.D. spawn tweaking.
    snow tanks now have a max range, and a longer startup time before they fire.
    less accuracy for the minigun.

    Fixes
    various tiny fixes
    fixed the Scrapyard rain to also fall on top of the level

    Misc
    new color for Robot's B-skin and energy weapons
    some preparation for the crowns
    new sniper gun
    some extra tips during level load

That was quite an overwhelming week for us, and we'll try to catch up on our schedule a bit next week. We'll be taking a bit of a break in terms of updates in December for obvious reasons with the holidays and all, although we will definitely have members of the team streaming. For now, we'll do our best to make the next update a bit more exciting and we hope you have fun with this update!

[getter77]

Updates 7 and 8

As promised, we tried to get loads of new features in this week, and we're happy to tell you that through herculean effort and diligent work, we've succeeded! Amongst a ton of stuff, we made a whole new mutant you can play as. And golden guns. And crowns that actually do something. Actually, feel free to stop reading this and start playing right now!

    Features
    Chicken! A katana-wielding mutant that can slow down time.
    Crowns now work! They still need a lot of work, and some of them are horrible or unbalanced, but you can find them in the Crown Vault and mess around with them.
    Gold weapons! That will start spawning after you loop the game.
    A new B-skin.
    Loading texts can now be based on the weapon you're carrying.
    A secret, new, rare enemy in levels after Desert.

    Balancing
    Crossbow Lungs renamed to Bolt Marrow, now makes bolts jump straight into nearby enemies. Lots of fun!
    Plasma weapons now deal splash damage making them not quite useless.
    Frogs walk away from you at spawn.
    Less accuracy for the Auto Crossbow.
    Ammo starting amounts are different.
    Steroids ammo starting amounts are different.
    More range for the Snow Tanks.

    Fixes
    Weapons should no longer go through portals after death.
    Portals should no longer spawn outside of levels.
    Frozen City enemies now spawn when looping.
    Gators no longer spawn inside walls.
    Gators & Assassins now give Rads when killed before activated.
    Health can no longer be negative.
    When carrying a melee weapon only, the bullet ammo type no longer lights up on the HUD.

    Misc
    Snowbot finalization & car pickup/throw animations.
    Snow and ashes in the Frozen City.
    A couple of new Frozen City props, including 2 rare ones.
    Renamed Crossbow Lungs to Bolt Marrow.
    Cool pedestals in the Crown Vaults.
    Snowbots now leave dust trails when attacking.
    Smoking Gators now carry their shotgun on their back.
    Some more loading screen texts.
    Snowtank graphics!
    Y.V. now starts with a gold revolver.
    Chainsaw is now a Jackhammer.
    Big Dog corpses look slightly different.

We hit 10,000 sales earlier this week and wow, thanks so much for getting the game to such a staggering number so quickly! We're super humbled and thankful to everybody in the community.

We said we'd be slowing down a bit for the holidays in December, but somehow a lot of new stuff still managed to slip into this update. Now that Joonas Turner, our sound designer, is back on the project, we've suddenly got (updated) sound effects for most enemies right up to Big Dog and a couple of weapons! As always with SFX, the differences are subtle, but they give the game so much more soul and atmosphere. In the meanwhile, artist Paul Veer finished all the mutation icons, and Lil' Hunter got quite an update.

We also did some balancing for melee weapons, and changed Boiling Veins again, now allowing for the oldschool "run-into-things-while-firing-grenades" tactics while still being interesting. And we added a Nuke Launcher.

    Features
    All mutation icons!
    More weapon sounds!
    More enemy sounds!
    Nuke Launcher. NUUUUUUKE LAUNCHER!
    Lil' Hunter got updated a lot.
    Throne Butt now tells you what it does for your current mutant.
    Some very mysterious changes to the Blood Launcher.
    Loading screen now has support for "rare tips".
    Lil' Hunter now has an intro like the other bosses.

    Balancing
    Lower damage but higher rate of fire for the Katana.
    Higher damage but lower rate of fire for the Sledgehammer.
    Higher rate of fire for the Screwdriver.
    Boiling Veins now makes you immune to explosions and fire when under 50% health.

    Fixes
    Sword icon changed a little bit.
    Props with text on them will no longer flip.
    Fixed spawning a bit for that secret enemy we added in the last update.
    Portal spawn locations fixed a bit.

    Misc
    Weapon reload now has more contrast on the HUD.
    New icicle graphics.
    More loading screen tips.
    Shells now disappear with a slightly random interval.
    New ice tiles in Frozen City.

Things will probably slow down even more for the next update, as more of the team take a bit of a breather during December. Streams will continue according to schedule and we'll be around on the forums, but we'll be using the rest of this month to recover from all the hard work, and to prepare taking the game to whole new levels as soon as 2014 hits!

[getter77]

Update 9 Corpses Everywhere

Another slow December week filled with cool small things. Things got a bit crazy in the last week, with Jan Willem being called away to do some urgent stuff and Rami launching a small side-project, but Jan Willem worked all day today to get this update ready for deployment and Rami uploaded this during his short December break, from a little room somewhere in the heart of Copenhagen. It's a bit late, but we hope you can forgive us for being a tad late considering the circumstances.

Thanks so much for your massive support during the streams earlier this week. The viewercounts have never been as high, with a small 75,000 people watching Rami streaming his indie games Q&A and live interview with VG247 on Tuesday and Joonas Turner streaming his SFX Q&A on Thursday. Your feedback and support during the livestreams are what keeps us capable of reaching new players, getting front-page featuring on Twitch.tv and a large part of the motivation to keep working on this.

Without further ado, Update #9, which features a lot of corpses/

    Features
    New corpse sprites for most mutants.
    New corpse sprites for most enemies.
    Sounds when you swap weapons, conveniently letting you hear what weapon type you're equiping. Other than sounding great, this might save you some accidental explosion deaths.
    New sounds for opening chests, and picking up weapons.
    Some changes to the frog enemies.

    Balancing
    Lucky Shot now gives you ammo even more often!
    Crowns now undo stuff if you equip a different one. You'll get HP back from the Crown of Life, and lose a skillpoint from the Crown of Destiny. Crown behaviour is still very much work in progress.

    Fixes
    The Crown Vaults now work with gamepad!
    Chicken's slow-motion now works properly with gamepad.
    Chicken Sword now slashes in the right direction when standing close to the mouse.
    Enemy speeds are capped on collision, possibly fixing enemies spawning outside of the level with the Crown of Blood.
    Lil Hunter no longer gives errors when you die.
    The Crown Vault will no longer kill you if you spawn close to the Crown.

    Misc
    Gamepad autoaim now also targets props. Have fun shooting explosive barrels!
    Updated Melting's image in the character select.
    Plasma weapons now have a reload sound.
    Lil Hunter now has blue fire.

Next week will be our last update until January, because Jan Willem will fly out for a short vacation as well. We'll try and make it a good one to carry you across new years'. The streams will continue as usual, and the way things seem now you can look forward to live development with Jan Willem on Tuesday and an illustrations Q&A with artist Justin Chan on Thursday.

As always, we'd love to hear your stories, unfortunate deaths, suggestions, problems and unprobable survivals. Keep sending those fanarts, Let's Play videos and wiki updates. We're super excited for how far this project has come already, and we're looking forward to pushing it much further with all of you.

Anyway, the best way to check out the new corpse sprites is by shooting things. Have fun!

[getter77]

Update 10 "Voice of a Generation"

The last update before we all take a 2 week break! The streams will continue every Tuesday and Thursday, but we won't see any game updates till January.

Anyway, as promised, it's a good update.

We're very proud to introduce new sounds for most of the characters. All mutants except for Y.V. and Chicken now have their own, distinct voices, and will say things upon entering levels, being low on ammo or health, death, and other types of interesting events. Joonas also made sound effects for the I.D.P.D. and the Frozen City enemies.

We also spent time on spicing up the portals and main menu a bit. Both of these might still look a bit messy, but it's a small step in the direction we want to take things.

Oh, and remember that issue with Big Rats spawning an infinite amount of fast rats? They'll do something else now instead.

    Features
    Voice acting for Fish, Crystal, Eyes, Melting, Plant, Robot and Steroids!
    Campfire idle animations for every character!
    Chicken now has a TV. See if you can recognize the movies she's watching.
    Portal debris & lightning effects. Still very work in progress.
    Sound effects for the Snowbots, I.D.P.D., and Snow Tanks. Sound effects for assassins have been updated.
    Sounds to notify you of low ammo and HP.
    An Ion Cannon.
    Big Rats have been changed a bit.
    Robot now plays a cool animation when eating.
    Updated I.D.P.D. explosions, plasma explosions and Maggot Spawner art.

    Balancing
    Lil' Hunter has been nerfed. He dodges and falls a lot slower now.
    Tweaks to the city algorithm.
    Lots of tiny things we forgot about.

    Fixes
    Characters in the main menu should no longer be sitting on cacti.
    Lil' Hunter getting killed now stops the boss music.
    No more errors when music or ambient volume is set to 0.
    Lil' hunter no longer gives error messages when killed after player death.
    Fixed some game over sound bugs.
    Freed some audio memory.

    Misc
    Several minor tile art updates.
    Chicken now plays a sound during slow motion.
    Statues now sit on Crown Vault tiles.

Please do tune into the livestreams on Tuesday and Thursday, and tell your friends about the game, tell us about your best (or worst) runs and keep sending feedback if you have thoughts. If you want to make Let's Play videos of the game, remember that we have a complete Monetisation Agreement that allows you to monetize the videos available on our website.

Anyway, enjoy the game while we enjoy a break! The entire team wishes you happy holidays, and we'll pick up to the usual 102% speed in January.

[getter77]

Update 11 and 12:

Let's see. How does this work again? It's been a while since we last pushed an update. Long flights and large amounts of rest have exhausted us, so it's been slightly hard for us to get any work done this week. We did our best to get you some solid new content anyway. Joonas completed his work on the voices, so you can also listen to the maniacal Chicken, and we approached Doseone to reprise his role as the voice and soul of Yung Venuz. We also could not resist the temptation of adding a Quadruple Machinegun, which brings us to almost 50 weapons already!

    Features
    Sounds for Chicken.
    Sounds for Yung Venuz by Doseone.
    Sounds for Lil Hunter.
    Quadruple Machinegun!
    The stats for best kills, loops and difficulty now show what mutant you were playing with.

    Balancing
    Lower damage for the Snowbots.
    Y.V. with Throne Butt now gets an even faster reload rate.

    Fixes
    The low ammo sound effect no longer plays twice.
    No more errors when doing quick restart from the pause menu.
    Level generation has been optimized a bit, should be slightly faster.
    Eagle Eyes now affects the spread of triple and quadruple machineguns as well.

    Misc
    Eyes now gives a tip about Telekinesis.
    First work on a new area started, but the Labs aren't far along yet to make them accessible. Soon.
    Added Doseone to the credits.
    Plasma bullets now leave some smoke.

If last week was us getting back into our groove of updating every week, this week is us being back at full speed. Rebel joins the roster of mutants, with a powerful ability to spawn fellow rebels to help it out, and the very first version of the character unlock system has been implemented. We've gone back and cleaned up a whole lot of things, and progress on the Labs area is ongoing as you could see during the livestream.

    Features
    A brand new playable character, Rebel. Rebel can spawn allies at the cost of some health, and has a defensive ability that triggers each time it is hit.
    The basic system for character unlocks is now in place! The unlocks are tied to level progress for now, but there'll be more specific ways to unlock characters.
    Most mutations now have their own sound effects, courtesy of Joonas.
    Paul created beautiful new icons for the mutations in game.
    Fire-based weapons, such as the flamethrower.

    Balancing
    Enemies now spawn a bit further away from the player, and no longer directly besides, above or beneath the player. This is an experiment, as we want to see if and how this influences the fairness of spawns.
    Fish now has a completely new Throne Butt, called Water Boost.

    Fixes
    The Crown of Destiny no longer gives you infinite mutations, just one.
    You can no longer select characters hidden under buttons in the menu.

    Misc
    Extra Stomach has been renamed Second Stomach.
    There's a little (!) on characters indicating you haven't played as those yet.
    The debris flying through portals has been tweaked a little bit and should look a bit better now.
    More hints related to weapons while loading.
    The Radiation Canisters now have proper perspective.
    The Super Frogs now have their own death sound.
    A subtle sound effect plays when there's only one enemy left.
    Lil' Hunter now screams at you when he's at 50% health.
    New sounds for the portals.
    New sounds for the Proto Statues.

[getter77]

Update 13 and 14

Apologies for the late upload, as you might remember Rami's computer melted down during the Thursday livestream. Everything is replaced now, so we're happy to announce that this weeks update features lots of fixes! We intended to get the first secret level in this week, but because Jan Willem suffered from some weird flu and migraines those haven't made it in yet. Instead we present you some updated music from Jukio, proper wall collisions and a pile of fixes that should hopefully increase stability across the board.

Features
The player no longer weirdly slides along walls when pushing against them. The new system will still get a little work to help you walk around corners, but should at least stop you from getting killed because the game thinks you want to walk into a Scorpion.

This change will obviously impact a lot of the game, so we're going to go and make this the main change for this week to see how that resolves.

Other Features
Mysterious music could appear in Frozen City now.
Tips can now be based on your current Crown and Mutations.
The Desert music got a small update.

Balancing
We made unlocking Rebel a lot easier for now. The unlock system works, so until we've decided upon what to do with the system we'll leave it like this.
Shotguns have been buffed a bit, now having 1 extra pellet per shell fired.
Crown of Life now gives you +6 HP at the end of each level.
Hyper Rifles and Gold Weapons spawns slightly later.
Flame weapons spawn earlier.

Fixes
The Statue now always spawns in the 2nd level in a world after the first Desert. No more sad empty tiles!
Looping into an area lower than the area needed to unlock a character now also unlocks that character.
Debris should cause a lot less slowdown.
Some changes and fixes to the level generation.
Fish is no longer invulnerable after getting hit once while rolling/using his Throne Butt.
The volume for the Boss Killed jingle is now the same as music volume.
The game now frees memory used for music before shutting down.
Enemy SFX are no longer all preloaded, probably freeing some CPU and fixing music issues for people.
Even more tinkering with audio memory stuff...
Mimics now also spawn in Desert after looping.
There are no longer holes in the grass in Scrapyard.

Misc
We started work on the first secret area. Not implemented yet.
The way tiles are handled is now a bit more versatile and perhaps even faster.
The ambient tracks for Frozen City & Scrapyard have been updated.
Fire now lights up the darkness.

Okay, something big has happened this week. One of the things we've been wanting to implement for a very long time, is in the game now: Secret Areas. Somewhere in the depths of Nuclear Throne, you can now reach one. We won't tell you where, and we won't tell you how. All we can tell you is that we are super excited for all of you to start looking for it.

Other than that, we have some pretty good changes: Rebel has been changed around a bit, with (smarter) allies now healing whenever you spawn a new one, and a different kind of attack on the passive ability.

We also added a new high-level melee weapon and a new enemy in Frozen City, which should make that area feel a bit more complete. Other than that, usual bugfixes and a whole load of new sound effects and graphics! Enjoy.

    Features
    A very secret new area.
    Robot Wolves now roam the Frozen City.
    You'll be able to find the deadly Energy Screwdriver in later areas.
    Sound effects for fire weapons.
    Allies now heal whenever you spawn a new one as Rebel, and her passive now spawns Ally bullets instead of Blood Explosions.
    Loading screen portals now look different depending on where you're going!

    Balancing
    Mimics have been made a tiny bit more rare, to catch players off guard more often.
    Enemies in caves now drop a bit less radiation.

    Fixes
    Enemies should no longer spawn inside walls, which should also fix the portal not spawning when all the enemies seem dead.
    Chicken should no longer teleport around when slashing near walls.
    Shovel now works with Long Arms.
    Ally AI has been improved.

    Misc
    Debris now disappears into smoke, not dust.
    Tiles can now support more than 4 different images.
    Tiles in Crown Vaults have been updated a bit.
    New prop in Scrapyard.
    Rebel now has a campfire animation.
    Robot now has a simpler, less ridiculous campfire animation.
    The Frozen City wall art has been changed a bit.
    More loading screen tips have been added.
    Big Bandit's death animation has been updated.
    We worked a bit more on Labs, which should be in the next update!

[getter77]

Update 15

Are you ready for a pretty huge update? Yes? Good.

For starters, we bring you the Hyper Launcher. An incredibly powerful high-level explosive weapon, shooting instant hit grenades. Happy with this weapon? Then you should totally get yourself the brand new Crown of Hatred. This crown replaces all Weapon Chests and Radiation Canisters with Ammo Chests! Perfect for those who never want to change their equipment. We also have two new B-Skins for you, and some very subtle, but important tweaks to the floor tiles in most areas. They should now look less repetitive and more interesting!

Let's see, what else... We buffed a lot of mutations. Gamma Guts & Laser Brain now both deal more damage, and, good news for Minigun fans, Recycle Gland now gives you ammo whenever you hit something, instead of whenever you miss.

Oh yeah, one last small thing. We added a whole new area called Laboratory, filled with 4 brand new enemy types and a whole load of scientific props. You'll be fighting several types of Mutated Mutants and something so sinister we can't begin to describe it. The Labs will be the transitional area to the "final" area, so you're all getting closer to the Throne! Don't worry about the game being close to finished, because some of this week was spent sketching out what is left to do, and there is still a giant amount of stuff we want to add. The game now only has a fraction of the secret content we want it to have, and we're still working on a whole load of meta- and endgame additions. Other than that, we're preparing for some pretty big code changes to finally make the game run better for everyone. It'll take a lot of effort, but it's something we'll have to do some time in the following weeks.

Thanks for joining us on this ride, and enjoy your update!

    Features
    Laboratory!
    Two brand new B-Skins!
    The Crown of Hatred.
    The Hyper Launcher, which is JW's personal favorite.
    Some significant changes to the tiles in Desert & Sewers, making them look less repetitive.
    The screen now shakes whenever Yung Venuz uses his air horn.

    Balancing
    Gamma Guts now deals more damage to enemies.
    Lasers & Energy slashes last even longer with Laser Brain.
    Recycle Gland now gives ammo on hits, instead of on misses.
    Enemies in Frozen City drop more ammo.
    Alligators have slightly less HP.
    Mimics now drop more radiation.
    Flamethrower spawns slightly earlier.
    Auto Crossbow spawns slightly later.
    As requested on the forums, the Wolves & Frogs now wait a bit longer before their AI kicks in.
    B-Skins have been made slightly more rare.
    The screen now shakes whenever Yung Venuz uses his air horn.

    Fixes
    After trying the new movement system, we listened to the feedback and made some fixes. On top, players will no longer get stuck on corners.
    Rad Canisters finally have a corpse! No more checking the whole level to see if you opened it or not.
    The enemies in the secret level have been fixed, solving some weird collision issues.
    We fixed some typos.
    Crossbows no longer kill you or your Allies.
    Lil' Hunter no longer gives an error when shooting at an already dead player.
    The screen now shakes whenever Yung Venuz uses his air horn.

    Misc
    The way the darkness is handled has changed a lot. There is now a smaller bright circle around the Player, but the circle around that is now less dark. The amount of light objects give has also been changed. We're looking forward to how this change affects the game's balance.
    A new prop in the secret area.
    Something in the secret area now looks more fancy.
    The screen now shakes whenever Yung Venuz uses his air horn.

[getter77]

Update 16

This week brings two brand new high-level systems to the game. Both have something to do with the Crowns. One of them is very cool, the other is very mean. We love both. Expect some more cool changes to the Crown Vaults next week, as Paul has been working on something very exciting for that.

Joonas also finished all the mutation sounds this week, which is a good reason to pick some you normally don't go for!

Other than that, we now have a new Crown that deals damage over time but gives you ammo and sometimes even weapons, sounds for Wolves and Lab enemies, the very powerful Laser Cannon, and some notable fixes to the way Plant's camera behaves! That's beside the usual load of fixes, balancing, and small additions.

Anyway, we'll stop writing so you can get to playing with over fifty as soon as possible. Please don't forget to share the word about the game, and let us know what you think on Twitter, Facebook and on the forums!

Features
Something very mean waiting for you after the first Crown Vault!
Something very mysterious waiting for you in the second Crown Vault!
Unique sounds for all mutations!
Crown of Hatred is now the Crown of Love. There's a new Crown of Hatred that deals damage over time in exchange for drops.
A Laser Cannon, lifted straight out of Super Crate Box!
Sounds for the Wolves & all Lab enemies.

Balancing
Ravens now no longer shoot you from point-blank range.
Plant's camera now only locks to the Snare when the right mouse button is held. This doesn't work with gamepad yet, but we're planning a big update to overhaul all the input code soon that will fix that.
The Opposite Crown has been removed. For those wondering what it even did, it made the rare floor tiles common, and the common floor tiles rare. Something that wasn't very interesting, didn't look very good, and messed up the gameplay.

Fixes
Eyes' Telekinesis no longer works on enemy lasers.
IDPD no longer shows up in Crown Vaults because that's disrespectful.
For the third time: Chicken no longer teleports...
Lil' Hunter now plays its own sound at appearance instead of Big Bandit's.
Secret level now loads up to 100%.

Misc
A little effect when healing.
Lab enemies now appear after looping.
Some changes to the walls in Crown Vaults.
Chests now have their shadow 1 pixel higher and it looks so much better!

Enjoy, and sorry for those mean things!

[getter77]

Update 17-19

After the mysterious chests in the crown vaults, we've now added Crown Guardians to your high-level Vault Runs! These Guardians are not only very dangerous, they also bring a couple of changes to the ways Crown Vaults & Crowns work. They even have their own music!

To help you fight these giants, we've got a brand new mutation: Stress. Stress improves your rate of fire as your health lowers. As you might imagine, 1HP Y.V. with Rhino Skin and Stress is a glorious thing. Other than that, you'll run into more I.D.P.D. after the Crystal Caves, a lot of bugs have been fixed, fire traps now shoot slower fire, energy weapons now receive more ammo, and the Sewers are now covered in a smelly fog!

Features
Crown Guardians! These dangerous foes will be found in Crown Vaults after the first one.
A great new track for the Crown Guardians.
Stress. This brand new mutation gives you a higher rate of fire when your health is lower. A great match for characters such as Rebel and Chicken!
Stinky fog in the sewers.

Balancing
Drops now give you more energy ammo. The ammo cap is still the same, so this should work well with the high ammo use nature of energy weapons.
Fire from the Traps has been made a bit slower.
You no longer take damage when big enemy corpses bump into you.
Sight range in dark levels has been reduced, but Eyes now sees even more.

Fixes
Grenades, slugs, and shotgun pellets are now deflectable.
The Proto Chest should no longer spawn on top of the Crown.
Fixed the way levels are loaded, so that it no longer rains in the secret level.
Big Weapon Chests no longer appear in the secret level.
New collision masks for the plasma weapons.
The Proto Chest no longer gives an error when the player dies.
You can no longer walk past Trap fire. Can't believe we didn't find out about this earlier!
Made some small fixes to the way Big Health Chests spawn.
Labs should no longer start with an activated portal.
Chests sometimes spawned with a bit of wind next to them, this should no longer happen.
Cursed Chests no longer turn into Big Weapon Chests when opened.

Misc
Some minor changes to the enemy shooting code.
Allies now show a heal effect when healed.
Chests after the Crystal Caves now spawn with I.D.P.D. Grunts instead of Bandits.
The secret level music has been updated.
The ambient tracks for Laboratory and Scrapyard have been updated.
Freaks now sometimes fly through portals heading to the Laboratory.

First of all, the characters now all have their own animations to play when selected in the main menu. Scrapyard and Frozen City both now have decals a bit like the bones you find in the desert.

The game now also sounds better! We have a first sketch of what Rebel will eventually sound like, and every boss has gotten their very own theme. Fighting Big Dog and Lil' Hunter will never be the same again.

The code also got a big overhaul, with all new input code. This fixes some major bugs and also opens up cool future possibilities like customizable controls. It should significantly increase performance for a small group of players

Of course we also have gameplay things for you! Two very challenging types of I.D.P.D. have been added. The Shielders shield and carry heavy machineguns with them, while the Inspectors have powers you are probably familiar with and come equipped with lethal sluggers.

Finally, we bring you a very work in progress Lightning Pistol! Enjoy.


Features
All characters have their own selection animation for the campfire scene now. We are incredibly happy with how this turned out.
Rebel no longer sounds like Fish! She now has her very own voice. This is not her final voice, as we intend to get a voice actor, but should give you a first impression of what she´ll sound like.
Two new types of I.D.P.D. troops: Shielders, and Inspectors. Both should seem pretty familiar...
Every boss now has its own musical theme.
The way player input is handled has been redone from scratch. This does a couple of things. First of all, performance should be significantly better for at least a small portion of our players. It also fixed the infamous "Crystal Shield Bug" where keys did not register when pressed during the small pauses that happen during explosions and the like. Finally, it will also make some planned features such as customizable controls a bit easier to implement.
Scrapyard and Frozen City now have decals like the bones in Desert.
A Lightning Pistol! Still very work in progress, but this should give you an idea of the lightning type weapons we're planning.

Balancing
I.D.P.D. explosions now blow up walls, but Grunts (and Inspectors) no longer have infinite grenades.

Fixes
The blood launcher can be used without fear of errors again.
As mentioned above, keys pressed (or released) during freezes are now registered. No more Crystal getting stuck in shield mode!
Some players should experience a significant performance increase.

Misc
You can now set the amount of auto aim for gamepad support in the options menu. It can be set from 0-200%.

Features
New decals in the Sewers and Caves, and an alternate version of the Frozen City decals have been added.
Walking on spider webs now slows you down. Sorry.
Lightning Rifle!
Lightning Shotgun!

Balancing
Explosive weapons now get more ammo from drops!
The Crown of Hatred now gives you radiation over time instead of damage, and can no longer kill you.
The I.D.P.D. Shielder now idles a bit longer after leaving shield mode.
The Splinter Gun now shoots an extra splinter!
The Toxic Bow now deals more damage on impact.
Leveling up now spawns I.D.P.D. after level 4.
Leaving a Crown Vault with a Crown now spawns I.D.P.D.
Plasma Guns are now slightly more accurate.
The Laser Cannon now pushes enemies away more while charging.
Wolves now deal a bit less melee damage.

Fixes
You can now use the Flare Gun without fear of errors.
Toxic Barrels no longer spawn in certain places.
You can use the arrow keys for movement again.
Gamepad should be usable again in the menu.
The Crown of Destiny can now be used with gamepad.
You can now pause the game again with the gamepad. Unpausing doesn't work yet, sorry for that. use the keyboard for that.

Misc
The Double Shotgun, Super Slugger and Super Crossbow now move you back a bit when fired.
The way lightning weapons and the lightning pistol work has been updated. Lightning weapons now also look cool!
Chicken's slow motion now influences rain and snow!
Radiation flies out of enemies with a bit more speed.

[getter77]

Update 20-22

Thanks so much for your patience as we at Vlambeer have been scrambling at our post-GDC activities. Jan Willem has been working overtime to get a big surprise ready for saturday, while also porting over the game to GameMaker: Studio. Rami has been working on talking to YoYo Games to support that, while arranging a whole lot of things with Steam, PlayStation, Twitch and the Penny Arcade Expo for later this weekend. The entire team, Paul, Jukio, Joonas and Justin have been working around the clock to get things ready for these announcements, and we're so happy that everything is slowly falling into place. Exciting things are happening.

Nuclear Throne is now live and should be stable on Mac. It's also live for Linux, but we can't promise stability (or even functionality) just yet, but rest assured we're working closely with YoYo Games to make sure the Linux build will be up to speed. If you own the game on Windows, the Mac and Linux builds should show up on Steam right around now, and the Humble builds will be uploaded later.

Note that the switch to GameMaker: Studio means that some things don't behave perfectly yet. We're working on ironing out the final problems, but we wanted to get this into your hands. It should fix many performance issues, audio issues and other random bugs people were having.

We've worked as hard as we can, and we realise we're somewhat late with our update this week, and that we missed a stream yesterday (and we might miss tomorrows', but we're working on trying to get someone to do that one). We hope that, by the end of week, when we take a deep breath and look back on the events and announcements of this week, you'll all agree it has been worth the wait.

Known problems
Some enemy types that can switch 'state' still assume a death and trigger an explosion.
Gamepad state is not saved at the end of a game.
Boss intros don't work at the moment.


Nuclear Throne now supports local cooperative play for two players. We've made minor bugfixes, fixed some of the crashes, worked on some performance issues and made some headway on restarting our normal schedule and programming.

If you haven't bought Nuclear Throne yet, it is now also available through Twitch.tv with an added subscription to our Twitch channel. If you want to buy the game through there, head for the brand-new nuclearthrone.com and check the buying options there.