Hello everyone! This is Tim - the founder of Axol Studio, LLC and the lead developer on Bring It On! I wanted to take some time to talk to you about the status of the game, and the plans for the future. We’ve been working on this game almost non-stop since the end of February. After taking a “break” to work on our Game Jam game: [url=https://axolstudio.itch.io/starmander]Starmander[/url] two weeks ago, and then taking another week-long break from that break, I thought it would be as good a time as any to update everyone on how and where things are going with the game. [h1]Next Update[/h1] Our next update will introduce a new level: [b]City Streets[/b] This level will take place in the streets and narrow alleys of a crowded city, and, as with our other levels, will include 2 new bosses and a new unlockable character! We want to try something new and different with this level and give you a sense of the claustrophobic and cramped feeling of the city. Combat will be squeezed into narrow vertical and horizontal corridors instead of being spread across the whole screen. We also want to try to take some of what we learned with the Major Boss in the Fetid Fields and have boss encounters that contain multiple entities. I’m not 100% sure what form that will take just yet, but we’re working on it. We are also planning to implement a feature that I have wanted to get into the game for a long time: [b]Chests[/b]! Defeating Elite Enemies and Bosses will now drop chests of varying levels: Common, Uncommon, and Rare! By standing next to a chest, a countdown will appear, and when the countdown reaches 0, the chest will open - with rarer/better chests taking longer to open. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//42495108/498f5d87ca2843d6ab529a28a59bbf6d0ba5245e.png[/img] Chests can contain various amounts of Experience Gems, Soulstones, or sometimes a [b]Relic[/b]! Relics are going to be a new item that can be collected while playing in a level. Relics will be fairly rare - you might only see one or two of them in a level, but they will have some WILD effects. Some good, some… well, interesting. Relics will bestow passive, ‘game changing’ effects once they get picked up and can increase your score at the end of the level. Some example Relics might include: [list][*][u]Volatile Oil [/u]- ALL Enemies Explode when defeated dealing damage to the player AND other enemies[/*][*][u]Repulsion Charm[/u] - Critical Hits will knock back enemies 1000%[/*][*][u]Inferno Boots[/u] - Leave a trail of fire wherever you walk that hurts you as well as enemies.[/*][/list] These are just a few examples that may or may not make it into the next or future updates. We have several more planned, but we want to keep them a surprise. [h1]Future Updates[/h1] In the long-term, we have a lot of things planned! In addition to several more levels, many more characters, bosses, weapons, and items, we have a few major features that we’re working on. We’re working on a special collectable item: [b]Arcana[/b] These will be picked up from chests, like Relics, but will be 1-use items with powerful effects. You can hold onto one Arcana at a time, and there will be some input to trigger it. Arcana will have effects like: instantly kill all enemies on the screen, or slow down all enemies for a short amount of time, etc. We have some plans for a new section of the game: [b]The Smith[/b] Between games, you can visit the Smith to unlock new weapons and items - or ‘activate’/‘deactivate’ weapons and items from showing up as upgrade choices. Currently, the plan is to have these cost Soulstones, but we might introduce another kind of currency as we test this feature out. Do you want to try your hand at some shorter, more interesting, and more skill-testing gameplay? How about [b]Side Missions[/b]? In addition to filling out the map with new levels, we intend to add new pips on the map that will appear after clearing a level that will allow you to revisit a level with various special rules, constraints, objectives, or other fun differences. Maybe revisit the Grasslands level but the only enemies are the bosses and you have to defeat them in 10 minutes or less? Or you have to take on both bosses in a level at the same time? We hope this feature will add lots of new, fun ways to experiment with different builds or fun, crazy rules. We’ve got some more work to do to get these features implemented, so don’t expect them for another update or two. Well, that’s all I have to say for now. There are more ideas in the works, but we’ll save those for another time. As always, thank you for your continued support! If you have any questions or suggestions, we’d love to hear them! Contact us at [url=mailto:info@axolstudio.com]info@axolstudio.com[/url] Until next time: play on!