Hello Everyone!

It's been a long time since we posted an update on Autonomous Anarchy. We've been working steadily over the past few months and we want to share the new additions and improvements we have made. The biggest piece of news we have today is that the official free demo version is now available! This demo contains the first area (15 levels) of the Seaside Scrapyard, as well as all of the improvements we have been working on lately. This demo is 100% free, so that you can decide for yourself if you like the game enough to buy the full version (which is still in development at the moment). We will go over more plans of the final game later in this post. Let's get into the improvements coming to the game!

Overhauled Weapon System

By far the biggest change we have made is the improvements to the weapon system. If you never played the beta version, the game originally had 4 different weapons that could be leveled up five times, increasing the weapon's damage and rate of fire. The new system completely removes the leveling component and allows you to collect up to two different weapon types, which can be combined to create a unique weapon combination. We have also increased the number of base weapons to 6, allowing for over 20 unique weapon combinations. Some of these weapons include piercing lightning beams, shotguns, flamethrowers, and bouncing lasers. This change is too complicated to completely cover in this post, so look out for a specific post going over everything in detail in the next few days. The main takeaway from this upgrade is more weapons, more fun.

Seaside Scrapyard Rework

Another big change we've made from the beta is reworking the first area, the Seaside Scrapyard. These reworks consist of improving and completely changing some of the rooms, as well as adding much more visuals and decorations to the rooms. We've also added a mid-boss fight, so look out for that! Beating the new mid-boss will unlock the bombs that were featured in beta update 2. There are three types which all have unique effects. The lightning bomb arcs through walls dealing high damage, the fire bomb deals medium damage in a huge area, and the stun bomb temporarily stuns all enemies on screen. 

Here is a list of the rooms that have been majorly updated:

• Room 1: Completely changed, now is much bigger with more areas to explore.
• Room 2: Completely changed, similar size but more detail.
• Room 6: Completely changed to be larger and have much more detail.
• Room 7: Altered to accommodate the new mid-boss.
• Room 8: Reworked the structure to flow a bit better in the later half of the room.
• Room 9: Completely changed, removed the confusing puzzle elements and made it a bigger room with more detail.

Red Consoles

Starting in room 7, you can find red consoles in various locations throughout the rooms. These consoles allow you to change the effect of the bomb power up, as well as containing a shop, where you can buy items for intel. Intel can be collected by defeating enemies and from pickups scattered throughout the rooms. You can buy more bombs, more continues, and a random weapon power up. These consoles add a bit more strategy but also some convenience if you collect enough intel.

Balance Changes

Since we've changed the weapons so much, we also made some changes to the enemies to counteract the increased attack power of your tank. Some of the notable changes are increasing the health of stationary enemies and spawners, as well as increasing the damage of certain enemies such as the Demo RCs and Rocketeers.

Enemies:

• Turret: Increased health 30 > 50, increased damage 12 > 16
• Mortar: Increased health 30 > 60, removed direct damage and integrated it into the area damage portion of the projectile
• Gunner: increased damage 5 > 6
• Enemy Tank: increased health 30 > 35, increased damage 6 > 8
• Rocketeer: increased damage 14 > 22
• Demo RC: increased damage 10 > 40
• Enemy spawners: increased health 30 > 50
• The Disposal Duo (Area Boss): increased crane health slightly, increased the damage of several of the attacks. 

Bombs:

• All bombs destroy enemy projectiles
• All bombs can now be used when fighting bosses

Other Changes:

We have made a few other changes to make the game a better experience:

• You can now choose your starting base weapon. This weapon will be what you start with when you respawn as well.
• Your health has been reworked slightly. You can no longer keep gaining health above the starting health you choose. Instead, the starting health is now your maximum health. You can still collect more health than your maximum, but it will slowly decay until you reach the maximum. You can only collect up to double your maximum health.
• Updated the in game UI to better display your stats, and you now have a health bar instead of just the number.
• Controllers will now have a cursor to indicate where you are aiming, which should make it a bit easier to aim.

Future Plans

We are still working away on Area 3: The Railway Rampage, with progress mostly complete. The area mainly just needs more polish and the area boss to be complete. We are also planning to update the Rainforest Redoubt rooms with improvements to room layout and additional graphical upgrades. We also are thinking about adding a mid-boss and five more rooms to bolster the area. We hope to release all three areas in an early access version some time next year. We will be posting more information as we get closer to the release. After this early access version is complete, the final game will have 2 more areas after this for a total of five. More details about these areas will be shared when we get to that point.

Thanks for reading this update devlog, we hope you enjoy the enhancements in the free demo.