Phobos Down 0.1.0 beta released
This update to Phobos Down is a big one! Although the development slowed down during the summer, the list of changes is exceptionally long.
There are many small visual improvements like added variation for the vegetation, lightning arcs for stun effects, shadow issue fixes and improved anti-aliasing in the UI. First version of the full intro sequence has also been created. This update also adds three completely new enemies and a minefield creating device.
One change worth a special mention is the target movement prediction for the auto-aiming. This makes hitting fast-moving enemies much easier, especially when they move up or down hills. This is something that should have been there from the start. Better late than never, I guess.
I have made some significant changes to scoring. The maximum amount of enemies per wave has been decreased which shortens the average mission duration and lowers the maximum possible score from direct enemy kills. Enemies now drop a bit more score items and all score rewards have been almost doubled to compensate with the lower number of enemies. This should lead to more variation in the final scores as lining up enemies for multi-kill and kill streak events is much better rewarded.
Here are all the changes since the last alpha version:
- Added a tip message on medical station usage.
- Added circular equipment quality level progression indicator.
- Improved anti-aliased line rendering.
- Predict target movement in auto-aim with direct firing weapons too.
- Added more confidential documents with backstory bits to destroy.
- Added initial version of full intro sequence.
- Show version on number in main menu only.
- Fixed initial window size on first run too big for 1080p display.
- Toggle full-screen mode with Alt+Enter and F11 too.
- Improved controller guide layout.
- Turned devices into movable rigid bodies.
- Added lightning arcs for stun effect from explosions and devices.
- Fixed shadow quality degradation when fragments/gibs fall outside of terrain.
- Fixed hit streak tracking not counting reflected/pierced projectiles.
- Added a plant variant that shoots spikes around when exploding.
- Fixed obstacle placement not obeying set terrain height limits.
- Added two more tree mesh variants.
- Added visual wave effect to lure devices.
- Reshow intro after 5 minutes without user input in menu when running in demo mode.
- Added two new walker enemy types.
- Implemented an alternative high score initials entry for the arcade cabinet.
- Added new flying boss enemy type.
- Play additional sounds when a boss enemy spawns or dies.
- Destroyed enemy weak points now drop additional score items.
- Fixed log spam and slowdown with more than 128 walker legs on screen.
- Lowered maximum enemy wave length.
- Increased some enemy score rewards slightly.
- Doubled "no damage to player/containers" score rewards.
- Increased termination streak detection time threshold a bit.
- Increased all termination score bonuses significantly.
- Mention protecting containers first in mission objective text.
- Fixed generating bad triangles at terrain edges where height is zero.
- Added one more clustered plant variant.
- Made the first medical station device drop sooner at mission start.
- Increased delay from wave reward drops to extraction zone appearing.
- Fixed mouse control mode unintentionally activating at game start with gamepad.
- Limit initial score item velocity to prevent them from flying too far from the source.
- Shortened tip texts shown at mission start.
- Fixed mission info animation not playing when running at low frame rate.
- Added separate more visual control guide version for the arcade cabinet.
- Handle WASD keys using physical key codes to support non-qwerty keyboards.
- Added a mine field laying device.
I decided that the game is now ready enough for beta testing phase. In practice, this does not change much but from now on I will be focusing more on balancing and issue fixes. There will be new content like more enemies, modifiers and devices, but I'm not planning to make any big gameplay changes anymore. Now is a good time to report all those issues and annoyances you've encountered.
This update is now available on Itch.io and Steam.
Posted on 2025-09-08