Hi Everyone,

It's been a while since we shared an update on Autonomous Anarchy. We decided to take an extended break last year to focus on our personal lives, which were getting very busy. Now with the start of the new year, we are getting back at it and want to share our plans for the future!

Release Date

First we want to let you know what we are planning in terms of a release date. We would like to release the finished game in August 2022, around the same time we released the first version nearly 2 years ago. We aren't sure if we can make it in August, but we are aiming for the end of this year at the latest. We aren't planning to release any more updates in itch.io in the meantime, so we can focus on getting the game done. That being said, we will keep you more updated than we have in the past, with updates every 2 weeks or so on the progress of the game.

Final Release Contents

These are our current plans for what the final release will contain. They are of course not set in stone and could change in the final release, but we will stick loosely to these ideas, some of which are already implemented.

Areas

The final release will have 3 more areas compared to the current release that is available, for a total of 5. We have nearly finished the third area, the Railway Rampage, and the other two are in the planning stage. 

Area 3

Area 3, the Railway Rampage, is nearly finished. Your tank takes a ride on massive trains over 10 rooms. This area is much more dynamic than the previous ones, with trains passing by full of enemies and the rooms connecting seamlessly with each other. The railway goes through the forest from Area 2, then takes a bridge across an icy sea and finally ascends into the snowy mountains. The only thing needed for Area 3 is the boss, which is nearly done being drawn and will hopefully be functional in a few weeks time. We will show it off when it's ready. 

Area 4

Area 4 will switch things up a bit and introduce some shmup action! It will be similar in structure to Area 3, in the sense that it will be essentially one long level with 10 save points, and of course a stage boss. Originally we were planning to have this area and Area 3 as one, but we decided to split it up. This will probably be the shortest area, and will feature all you would expect from an auto scrolling vertical shmup.

Area 5

Area 5 will be the biggest and final area in the game, and takes place in a giant city at night. We are planning this area to have 15 rooms spread across a variety of city and futuristic environments. We will likely work on this area before Area 4, so stay tuned for more information coming soon.

Final Boss

The final boss will almost be its own area, split into 5 or so save points. We are planning for it to be a complicated boss fight, but haven't got anything really concrete to share at the moment, as it's a long way off.

Power Pods

We showcased the power pods some time ago, but now we've actually finished them aside from balancing, so here's the updated information on them. 

Power pods are the new system for upgrading your tank. They are split into three parts: bombs, passives, and abilities. They will be unlocked after beating the Area 1 boss, and from then on each boss will give you another new part of the system. Once you unlock a part, you can choose from three different types, and combine them with other parts for plenty of different strategies. These parts can be changed at special terminals found throughout the rooms starting in Area 2. The systems are as follows:

Bombs: 

We are moving the bombs we introduced from Update 2 into the power pods system. They function exactly the same, except that you can only have one bomb active at a time, and there is a universal bomb pickup that acts as bomb "ammo", and can be used with any bomb type. These are unlocked after the Area 1 Boss.

• Electro Bomb: Zaps up to 10 enemies for high damage.
• Fire Bomb: Deals medium damage to all enemies in your line of sight.
• Stun Bomb: Stuns all enemies on screen for 5 seconds.

Passives: 

These are unlocked after you beat the Area 2 boss, and gives a passive bonus to your tank.

• Speed Passive: Gives your tank 25% extra base speed, which stacks with other speed bonuses
• Missile Passive: Your pod will periodically shoot tracking missiles at nearby enemies
• Lifesteal Passive: Every enemy you defeat will drop an orb that gives 10% of their maximum health

Abilities: 

These are available after the Area 4 Boss, since we are treating the Area 3 boss as a Mid-Boss (more on this later). Each ability will automatically charge over time, and can be charged faster by defeating enemies. We may change this out for an overall decrease in ability charging time.

• Dash Ability: Your tank gains a short burst of speed in the direction you are moving, and damage immunity during the dash. Has a short cooldown.
• Turret Ability: You can place an indestructible defensive turret that targets nearby enemies for 12 seconds. Re-firing the ability will blow it up, returning a small amount of charge. Has a long cooldown.
• Shield Ability: Gain a high health shield that absorbs 100 damage and slowly depletes over 10 seconds. Has a medium cooldown.

Mid-bosses

We are planning to add mid bosses to several of the areas, as well as spruce up the earlier levels with some better graphics and more interesting environments while keeping the structure of the levels largely the same. These mid bosses will prevent you from continuing through the level until you defeat them, and will introduce a bit more action into the areas.

Story

We want to integrate a bit of story into the game. We are working on special areas of the levels that are related to the story, and text which can be found at certain consoles which related to the overall story.

Other Game Modes

We also want to add more game modes, because more is better! We have plans for a bunch, but they likely won't all get into the final release, and we may add them in as free updates later on. We are currently planning to release Turbo Mode and Challenge rooms with the release.

Turbo Mode

This game mode takes place in slightly altered versions of the normal mode rooms and areas. You start with all powerups unlocked at level 1, a 25% boost in speed, and all power pods unlocked. While this might sound easy, the catch is that enemy spawners will spawn nearly instantly, and with much higher spawn limits. We are also planning to update the boss fights to make them more challenging.

Challenge Rooms

Challenge rooms will be a set of extra hard rooms separate from the main game. They are not linked up, and the challange is only to clear the one room. There may be extra conditions, such as only certain power ups will be allowed, or you start with a certain power pod arrangement. These can be completed in any order.

2 Player Coop

We would love to add 2 player couch coop, and we think it's possible with controller support being updated. This is something that might get delayed to a later update, but we really do want to add it.

Summary

If you actually read through this entire longwinded post, we would be extremely humbled. It's so long because we are cramming 4 months worth of updates into one post, and if it's too much to take in at one time, we will be posting separate updates as time goes on. The main takeaway is that we have lots of ideas for the game, and hope that we can actually release it this year. As always, make sure to follow our Twitter and Youtube accounts for more details, we promise to update them more regularly going forward. In the meantime, check out the version we currently have out, and make sure to give us any feedback you have so we can make this game the best it can be.

Thanks for reading,

Orabidon Games