Version 1.2.0 of Lord Hyperion Star Hammer is now LIVE!

I'm freaking pumped to release these latest changes into the wild. From the start, a major goal of mine was to make the game FUN first and foremost. I wanted to craft a game progression that makes the player feel powerful as they accrue more and more upgrades. And with this, the game difficulty also ramps linearly, giving the player more of a challenge in later levels.

I know I'm heavily biased... but I feel like the latest changes pack a lot of punch in terms of making the gameplay fun && immersive.

Opening sequence for newest level

There's a bunch of new content in the new release, including:

• Brand new level!
• New music!
• New bosses!
• New upgrades!
• More enemy waves!
• More VFX!
• More Juice!
• More INSANITY

Destructible structures!

The hardest difficulty in the game I dubbed "Insane" mode, inspired by Halo's "Legendary" mode. At times victory seems impossible, but you clench your butt cheeks and make it through to the end.

There are some known bugs I want to address - I'm pretty sure something is wonky in the scoring system. Eventually I want to add a leaderboard, so I'll address that when working on that feature. Right now score is nice but kinda pointless without being able to vie for that #1 spot against your peers.

The Gauntlet

I also want to add more features. I still think the tutorial could be improved a lot. I'm a big fan of "show, don't tell." It's easier said than done. When done well, the player learns the game's mechanics effortlessly, but let me assure you that a LOT of effort goes into making it that way.

I did also add more juice to the game as well, including more screenshake, particle FX, tactile feedback (though sadly gamepad vibration does not work in WebGL), etc. I'm especially thrilled with how the explosive tips for the machine gun's max upgrade worked out. It feels SO DAMN GOOD to play with that upgrade.

Also, I'm really friggen happy with the last boss battle, especially the agro mode where it breaks away from its constraints and starts chasing the player around the screen!

Boss --> Mucho Agro

I really want to move onto learning intermediate / advanced Unity architecture, but it makes sense to add some final polishing features to the game to make it a solid gamedev portfolio item:

• Online Leaderboard
• Better in-game tutorial
• Adding player lives to Hard and Insane difficulties
• New music (currently re-using several tracks)
• Tweaking enemy waves to better pace the game
• Balancing weapons, enemy health, difficulty, etc.

But I'm interested to hear what you think about the game - if you would like to leave a comment, please hold nothing back. I can only get better as a gamedev if I hear the harsh truth. :)  (Annnnnnd of course feel free to say nice things if you like the game!)

Here's to keeping the dream alive!!