Development Blog

Player

• Gun no longer stops shooting when held down. Instead, fire rate slows and accuracy decreases
• Animations re-sprited for landing, fast-falling, jumping, and dashing
• Reduced fast-fall speed
• Window to input fast-fall increased to just before peak jump
• There is now a very short time between pressing shoot and the player actually shooting
  • This is is too reduce firing in unintended directions
• Shot SFX will now pitch lower the longer you hold the fire button
• Dashing from a fast-fall will always produce a max dash
• Jump buffer added when attempting to jump while player is under a ceiling
  • The jump will occur after the player clears the ceiling

Level Editor

• Beamer added
  • Can be toggled to always on
  • Can be rotated
• Floatee added
  • Can adjust direction and speed
  • Can be set to stationary
• Motion Gate added
  • Set toggle key for specific doors
• Pelter added
  • Can set shooting speed (0.75 second intervals)
  • Can set shooting angle
• Line indicators for toggle objects and doors now has dark -> color gradient. Dark always starting at the toggle and going to the door.
• Editor will warn if user will paste objects out of bounds
• A grid overlay can be toggled
• Current editor level name and level size now appears on the info bar
• Removed budget constraints
• Cursor position is always shown

Objects

• NEW Beamer!
  • Will blast lasers at you if you get too close.
• NEW Floatee!
  • Friendly floating platforms that will assist you along the way.
• NEW Motion Gate!
  • Pass through triggers that will open doors
  • Will detect the player, enemies, and floatees
• NEW Pelter!
  • Stationary enemy that fires at a constant rate
• Shifter will not expand if player is colliding with it

Sound

• New musical scores for each world
• New music for editor
• New music for level select

Shell/UI

• Depending on world completion, players can now select a tile theme from extras menu
• Can view Level Times by navigating to extras on the main menu
• Levels generate extra details
• Level backgrounds generate on load and match theme
• Level select visuals update
  • Grass applied to sides of block represent level objective completion

Enemies

• Deploy animation for Heavy Enemy is cancelled if the player lands on top before shooting animation

Levels

• Considering adjustments to levels and new world sets, the alpha season (00) has been reset
• Added Expert difficulty with 18 new levels
• Added Master difficulty with 20 new levels
• Added 2 new levels in Novice
  • “Juts” and “Outbox”
• Added 1 new level to Proficient
  • “Air Circuit”
• Changes made to “The Basics”, “Osmosis”, “Topsy Turvy”, “Bit More”, and “Shooting the Breeze”
• Moved levels to Competent
  • “Block Me One More Time” and “Alternation”
• Moved levels to Proficient
  • “Wing Chaser” and “Edge Out”
• Moved levels to Expert
  • “Close Quarter Clockwork” and “Gunrobatics”
• Added GrandRunner difficulty with 10 new levels

Various bug fixes and visual improvements.

Player

• Fastfall can now be buffered out of hit stun
• Can now buffer a grounded dash after falling from an airdash

Shell/UI

• New “LS” & “RS” stick icons for gamepad
• “cancel” and “confirm” changed to “back” and “continue” respectively
• Level select screen visual improvements
• “Press to Start” option added to settings
  • Allows player to start level at own discretion
• Local world time added to world select
• New “extras” option on main menu
  • Shows player and enemy stats

Levels

• All levels can now be gilded (all objectives achieved at same time)
  • Gilded levels now have their own leaderboard

Various bug fixes and visual improvements

Player

• Dash can now be buffered before hitting the ground for an immediate no impact dash

Level Editor

• Pylons have been added
  • Press “<“, “>”, or “m” on keyboard, or use the dpad on gamepad to adjust the timing
• Results screen show up in editor

Objects

• NEW Pylon! It is an editor defined time trial
  • Shoot it to begin the timer
  • Reach the exit or a checkpoint to save the remaining time
  • Shoot multiple pylons to add remaining time with new time
  • Failing (not reaching the end gate or checkpoint before time up) will reset all pylons
  • Reach End gate with remaining time and all pylons shot to achieve objective
• Checkpoint now properly saves objectives, buttons, and pylon states

Shell/UI

• Completed levels shows a pole on level select
• Completed objectives like poke and passive will be attached as flags on the pole
• Times are now only recorded in seconds
• End of each level now shows a results screen
  • Frames: Total frames from player start to end gate touch
  • Speed efficiency: percentage of official time spent in a dash or fastfall
  • Input: Any movement or gun input
• Changed “quit” to “exit game” in menus

Enemies

• Edge Enemy laser hurtbox reduced
  • Time of quick rotation when locked on player also reduced

Levels

• Pylons added to every level in Novice and Competent

Various bug fixes and visual improvements.

Player

• Added a 1 Frame turn around animation when on ground
• Easier to dash/jump into or over small gaps

Level Editor

• Directional Pad buttons now control object modifiers (was stick clicks)

Objects

• NEW blocker object
  • Shoot to expand as a wall object
• Reduced size of Gate bounding box for world select and level gates

Shell/UI

• Background generation now follows the view around
• Keyboard and Gamepad controls can now be remapped in settings
• New toggles in settings
  • Submit times
  • Show leaderboard
  • Generate clouds
  • Generate background
  • Pixel scaling (1x – 3x)

Enemies

• Heavy enemy is not a vertical mover with a standbox
• Reduced hitbox size of Fly enemy
• Reduced hitbox size of Crawl enemy
• Reduced hitbox size of Basic enemy
• Basic enemy now falls if there is no floor below it

Levels

• Some levels moved to new difficulties
• Current levels with Heavy enemy reworked
• 9 New levels

Various bug fixes and visual improvements.

Focused on small QoL changes to prepare for Playthrough 2019. Find our booth at the Raleigh Convention Center March 30th – 31st.

Changes to GunnRunner

• Dashing into small areas and over gaps is easier.
• Collisions with the Basic enemy are more consistent and should result in less unfair deaths.
• Proficient difficulty levels opened and 7 new levels added.
  • Difficulty adjusted for various levels
• Player starting direction can now be modified in editor
  • Facing direction applied to appropriate levels in current worlds
• Fly enemy pellets should communicate their effective range better.
  • Range of pellets have also been reduced
• Crawl enemy mines have a small delay before becoming deadly
• Player can no longer dash into enemies with shields to destroy them
  • This mechanic was never used and only confused most players

Player

• Shield level visualization is now in the avatar’s face mask
• Improved visualization for fast-falling and fast-dashing
• Gun overheat visualized in avatar hands
• Dash activation visualized in avatar legs
• Must now dash into enemies to Shield-bash
• Player will no longer accelerate passed a maximum fall speed
• Bullets now have pixel perfect collision
• Sword damage is now consistent

Level Editor

• Pressing T will toggle controls overlay
• Checkpoints and Buttons now save properly
• Two-way platforms can now be placed
• “Delete all objects” button added (found in the change grid tool)
• Levels can be deleted from the load screen
• Last Played and Last Deleted levels are automatically saved for convenience
• Tool buttons now highlight when selected
• Visualization for cut/copy
• Player can now pan view by moving cursor to window edge
• View pan now has acceleration

Objects

• New doorway and button toggle
  • Doorway will destroy both Player and Enemies if it closes on them
  • Doorway blocks enemy bullets
  • Doorway can be sliced open with sword
• New bullet redirector
  • Can redirect  player and enemy shots
• New Phaser
  • Players can shoot through it, but not move through it
  • Enemies can move through them

Shell/UI

• Each level now has two optional objectives
  • Passive: Complete level with no enemies damaged or destroyed directly by the player
  • Poke: Complete level with no shield pokes
• Leaderboard saving is now active for every level
  • Will save automatically update on level completion (if record made)
  • View top 15 on level select screen

Enemies

• New bullet art and patterns for all enemies
• New EDGE enemy
• New RAILER enemy
• Basic Enemy can now be stood on
• Fly enemy now shoots in 4 diagonal directions (up from 2)
• Sitting under Fly enemy no longer stops it from shooting
• Heavy enemy moves continuously

Levels

• All levels reworked
• 29 New levels

Various bug fixes and visual improvements.