Myco-eve: Employees, Weapons & Grenades

Happy Myco-Eve everyone!

This feels like a good excuse to gush about the NEW STUFF we’ve been cooking up. I am of course referring to a whole new character, as well as a new gun and a new grenade.

One of the things that crept up on us a little was how much our past content would stack up. Since launching into EA we’ve added a lot of new upgrades and skins, which can give new content a bit of a hollow feeling when it doesn’t have that history behind it…

So we just had to add it in :p

We’re very happy with the care that’s been put into these new additions. And can confidently say that the new stuff is coming with a healthy suite of upgrades AND skins that feel at home with everything else. For the new employee specifically this means she’s got versions of most event skins AND an Amalgamation exclusive character upgrade (I got to make more tentacles for it, it’s sick).

Snowball Grenade

Starting off with the Snowball Grenade, I will say that likely no one’s surprised that cryo made it into the game. Once you have an elemental system, it’s only a matter of time before something ice related shows up. It is, however, probably the largest surprise to US as the devs. We hadn’t originally planned on making two new grenades before final release. One maybe, but TWO?! You gotta be joking, that’s like, two of them.

We appreciate the early feedback we received about grenades and elemental uniqueness. And while there aren’t any plans for changing how existing statuses behave, we wanted to make the Snowball Grenade and, and cryo in general, feel sufficiently different. Somewhat on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Photon Disc, the Snowball’s got an incredible CC ability that helps control the pace of a fight instead of just killing things (which it also can, very effectively).

It's got a lot of cool upgrades, which I don’t wanna spoil, but I WILL say that my personal favorite allows you to roll it down a hill like to gain size like a cartoon.

The Diffraction Driver

NEW WEAPON WOOOOOO!

I love the Diffraction Driver, this thing’s sweet. Our design principle for weapons has always been to make something that’s unique enough on its own without any upgrades, which really comes through with this one.

By default it’s a wide-cone shotgun that provides incredibly consistent damage within a good area, making it an excellent middle ground close quarters weapon between the Jackrabbit and the Carver. Holding alt-fire though will spin up its halo, tightening the spread and increasing the range when higher accuracy is in demand.

The New Employee

Our FIRST new employee is now my favorite employee.

The design philosophy for the original cast was centered around giving everyone a different way to help their team, which worked really well for tightening up the original version of the game. With those four walls being quite solid, we found ourselves without an obvious niche that needed to be filled. Turns out that meant we could get FREAKY with it, and just make an employee that’s FUN, based generally around the idea of: ‘what if someone got fungussed, and lived?’

As a result, she’s been shuffled around quite a bit since her original concept, but what didn’t work for her base kit often made for an excellent upgrade which allowed us to flesh her out very quickly. And we’re happy to finally have a place for the Infection mechanic (which started as a generic debuff), as a manageable resource that gives fun synergies to her upgrades and combat pacing.

It is with the utmost pleasure that we can put the Mycologist in your (capable) hands TOMORROW!!!

A Supporter Pack

Along with 1.0, we’re releasing a super special supporter DLC that comes with some fun goodies, including a chrome skin for each employee, some sick reload animation variants, and two exotic skins that give Glider and Scrapper new character models! But really, this pack is meant to be a way for you to support us if you love what we’re doing :3

And if you don’t want it, we still love you, and so does Roachard.

See ya’ll then!