Redux Version Is Here!

Red Tether was quite well received during GMTKJam and even just made it to the top 100. Thanks to everyone who voted! I put a couple more weeks into the game and now you can finally play the enhanced Redux version, vastly extending the game with features I had considered during the jam. Here's a breakdown of whats new.

Enemy Variety and Attachments

Those teethy large ships didn't make it further than being damage sponges during the jam, but now they got some scary rapi-fire point defense cannons, quickly shredding you to pieces if you get too close.

The tracking animations went through a few iterations until I was happy with it. To further improve enemy variety I also put in fleet logistics ships. They serve multiple functions design wise, but most of all are easy sources of damage against other nearby ships. Especially the ones that carry anti-matter explosives.

This ship type was reworked multiple times. Now they make full use of the new attachment system, allowing you to rip off their cargo containers individually and throw them at other targets, or back at the freighter itself. This works on weapon attachments too, essentially allowing you to disarm opponents with some well placed tethers. As you can see here I also extended your moveset with a "stabilize" action. This locks you in place and allows you to pull in objects or rip them off ships. Stabilizing + pull is faster than tethering things together and doesn't depend on other tether targets being nearby, but obviously remaining still for too long in the middle of ship-to-fleet combat isn't always the best idea.

Debris System

Enemy debris has a similar goal in mind as attachments, mainly giving you more things to tether and engage with. It also rewards enemy destruction with tether "ammo" and adds a nice sense of permanence. After clearing a wave you'll often find yourself in an entire field of debris and left over ordnance, fruits of the destruction and mayhem you've caused. Debris even sticks around for the next wave, allowing you to greet newly jumped in ships by throwing pieces of their predecessors at them.

Debris also makes use of a full collision rework I had to do, among other things that allowed for debris to be treated separately from enemies. Essentially, debris doesn't "crash" with other debris, which makes sure it is left intact to be used against actual wave targets.

Lock-On

Due to the addition of small objects like ordnance and ship scrap I also put in a basic lock on system that should making targeting these things more easily. I also really wanted you to be able to grapple missiles out of mid-air. For this I made your target lock stick to small objects for a short period, enabling you to target even fast moving things. Overall this feature isn't really used much yet, but it also provided some design space for adding some short unit and object descriptions, providing a tiny bit of lore between all the explosions.

Ship Upgrades

Every couple of waves you'll now also find special tech transports that carry upgrades for your ship and tethers. So you now get a tiny bit of of progression throughout a run and a few upgrades even provide new effects and mechanics. Upgrade ships will selfdestruct when their cargo is compromised, so you'll have to choose what to take.

Alongside all that there also is a health system now, so you'll no longer die as soon as your shields run out. Upgrade ships always carry some health to, so if you are hurting you might be tempted to forgo power for survivability.

Tutorial And Wave Rework

The original tutorial was thrown in about half an hour before I submitted, so that definitely had to be improved. I tried to cut back on text, as suggested in comments. The lock-on descriptions where used to provide tutorial information, supported by some small holo animations that play in the background.  The tutorial was moved to a small training area on the title screen, this way you can use it to practice movement and tethering without actual combat. You are also no longer forced to go through it on every run this way.

With all the new mechanics and enemies around I also had to rework all enemy waves, extending them in the process. The game now has 18 waves and each has 3 variants. (There where 2 variants for each wave in the jam version too,  but the wave UI didn't really tell you that.) 

VFX/SFX

As a final addition I also tried to juice up the game a whole lot more. A ton of new effects and sounds where added and dynamic mixing of the music track gives the most relevant SFX more space to shine. The UI got a glitch state where I finally got to experiment with some crude rgb shifting (more like ry shifting in this context I guess), something I wanted to try for a long time. But most noticeably of all I added my favorite set of optical flares to the game and applied them to things that should draw more attention to themselves. Ship detonations profited  especially well from this I think.

Well that's it for Red Tether Redux. I'm a bit tempted to put another month into the game and maybe release it as a small commercial title. But I'm not really sure if that is viable, once again. Let's see how things develop.

Full Changelog:

New Stuff

- Destroyed enemies now leave debris and ordnance behind, which you can then sling into other targets

- You can now use tethers to rip attachments from ships, disarming and damaging enemies in the process

- Added custom rip behavior for tethers on attachments (yanks at attachments and ships periodically instead of continuous pull)

- Firing tethers into a single ship now deals minor hull stress damage over time, but also makes tethers quickly expire

- Added enemy PDC attachment (mounted auto-cannon with limited targeting arc that will deal serious damage to you if you get to close)

- You can now stabilize your ship in place (s by default), great for braving those shock waves

- Reeling while stabilized pulls objects towards you, with more power than regular tether connections

- You can also rip attachments faster this way

- Certain lighter objects now get pulled towards you when swinging

- Added player health system as a second line of defense when your shields fail

- Added upgrade systems with collectible containers that alter your ship and tether stats

- Added 3 variants of Serf class cargo vessel:

Heavy Freighter - Comes with cargo containers that you can rip off and use against other ships

AM Hauler - Deals AoE damage when destroyed and carries antimatter containers with a similar effect

Tech Transport - Has multiple upgrades attached, but will self-destruct if it looses control of one

- Added Warrior class primary fleet asset as a new late game enemy

- Reworked tutorial to be less text heavy

- Reworked title screen and made tutorial optional

- Runs now continue up till wave 18 and each wave has 3 variants now

- Added lock-on system that shows object data, aids with targeting small objects and allows to tether missiles in mid-air

- Added pull force direction indicator that gets displayed while swinging

- Added a distortion system that makes UI elements glitch out and red-yellow shift under certain circumstance

- Added hit-flash system

- Added a whole bunch of new vfx/sfx

- Implemented basic dynamic mixing for background music

- Added a config.txt file that allows customizing controls and some game options (check readme for details)

Balancing and general changes

- You now turn faster while reeling in

- Tethers now expire after some time

- Tethers now gain some force as they contract

- Low threat objects now deal less collision damage to the player

- Crash damage ticks no longer destroy tethers

- Enemies dying and contraction to near zero now destroys tethers

- Improved how tethers animate in relation to player/input states

- Differentiated some sound queues

- Improved anti-matter explosion anim
- Adjusted object outlines so that they exclude parts of objects that have no harpoon collision

- Rocket pods are now attachments

- Rocket fire gets more accurate the closer you are to its origin

- Rockets now slightly home in on you while approaching

- Slinger class rocket ships now has two rocket pods that it can fire independently

- Spearliz class light cruiser now fields two PDCs

Fixes

- Multiple tether between the same targets now correctly add up their pull force

- Enemies now deal their intended crash damage to things they are in contact with (instead of a fixed rate for all crashes)

- Wave text should now type out correctly when starting a new wave

- I ton of stuff I've forgotten to log