next »

[GertyGame]

Hello there and welcome to our devlog thread! To read more detailed updates, our latest posts can be found here http://www.gerty-game.com/?cat=5

Gerty is a rogue-lite shooter game that takes place in caves of distant alien planets. Players must fight and dig their way through the level to find a teleporter that'll take them to the next level. The terrain is fully destructible. You can either dig or use your skills to destroy it.

I will keep on updating this thread to summarize every update we make for the upcoming builds. So the latest build was released about two weeks ago and here's what was changed:

One of the most important aspects of our game is the digging. At some point we realized that we need more things for players to discover to make the digging feel purposeful and exciting. At first we just had monsters, item shops and item chests. It obviously wasn't enough so we then added runes, monuments and a teleporter generator. You can find one of these objects in every level.

Runes are somewhat hidden on the ground and there are three of them. Runes were added a bit earlier already, but we made some changes to them. After the player has activated all of them, the last activated will spawn a horde of enemies. When and if the player is able to defeat the monsters, he/she is rewarded with an item chest!



Monuments can be activated several times and it has multiple rewards and secrets. It's a great way to spend extra currency.



The teleporter generator is protected by two turrets. If the level includes this generator, it must be activated before you can advance to the next level. The turrets offer a fairly good challenge.



We added a new monster type, the ice golem. They hide in a plain sight and are much stronger than the regular monsters.




Besides new content, we made a good amount of general gameplay updates. We gathered some feedback from reddit, and were told that the gameplay was too slow and nothing felt impactful. We then proceeded to speed up the gameplay and added some new effects. The player and enemy characters now flash quickly when taking damage. The enemies are also pushed back slightly.



Read the whole post here http://www.gerty-game.com/?p=1115

[bdsowers]

I think if you want things to feel "impactful," flashing colors are perhaps not enough. Enemies need to be knocked back, stunned, play a special animation, whatever. The push back you have in there is barely noticeable.

One other thought: I think for your common enemies, health bars aren't really necessary. They're just visual noise. And having the health bar attached to the player is a little visually unappealing... I think it just mucks with the aesthetic of games. Maybe this is personal preference, but I prefer a UI health bar in the corner over putting it in the action.

BUT. I think you've got a lot of good progress here, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops.

[GertyGame]

I think if you want things to feel "impactful," flashing colors are perhaps not enough. Enemies need to be knocked back, stunned, play a special animation, whatever. The push back you have in there is barely noticeable.

One other thought: I think for your common enemies, health bars aren't really necessary. They're just visual noise. And having the health bar attached to the player is a little visually unappealing... I think it just mucks with the aesthetic of games. Maybe this is personal preference, but I prefer a UI health bar in the corner over putting it in the action.

BUT. I think you've got a lot of good progress here, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops.

Thanks for the reply!

Yeah the enemies have a little push-back actually but I guess it's even less noticeable :D Gotta work more on that. Good point about the health bars, I think it's pretty usual that the common enemies don't have health bars. That's something we could test.

We have the health bar also on HUD with the skill icons. Can't see them on the gifs though. We'll probably be making some big UI changes for the next build or the one after that. Usually people have hard time to check the HP from the bottom of the screen, since the combat can be quite fast and you want to keep your eyes on your character.

[GertyGame]

After months of hard work, here comes an update! Again to read the more detailed version, head to http://www.gerty-game.com/?p=1230.

We decided to take part in the annual roguelike release party (http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=The_annual_roguelike_release_party) and released a new beta version for the sake of it.

After our previous beta update we got a lot of useful feedback and we've been working mainly on those things. The general gameplay still felt impotent so we obviously wanted to fix that. One of the bigger concerns was the basic attack skills with both characters. They weren't exciting or didn't feel powerful so they were reworked into combo attacks. Third continuous bullet or stab will now be more powerful. We like to think that along with adjusted sound effects, we're heading to the right direction.



Also had the chance to add a pretty cool new enemy type. If you sacrifice your enemies or your own blood to the altar, it'll spawn a huge mini-bossy blood golem. By the way if you're strong enough to beat the big guy, you'll be rewarded generously.



Another cool thing we added was the orbs. To balance out the game and to have another type of reward, the orbs were a good choice. There are three different kind of orbs: experience, stat an perk orbs. Pretty self explanatory, right?



Fog of war used to be blank black and it didn't hide the enemies properly so we fixed dat! Here's a comparison image to see what actually changed. And oh, a gif of course. The fog isn't static by the way, although it might be hard to see in the short gif.




Perk system was revamped and it's no longer completely random in the sense of what perks you'll get to choose from every time. Now it works as a tree structure. Both Magnus and Commando have some new perks and some changes to their old perks. It's definitely getting better.

Playtesters had a hard time to notice when they leveled up so... moar particle effects along wiht some projectiles and health regen! If you miss this, you should probably get new glasses.



"This bomb needs more balls!" - playtester

Well here you go, a screenshake. We added screenshake effects here and there, some are more shaky than the others.



I'm glad to announce that it's also now possible to find your character in co-op after you respawn, instead of just getting confused and lost in the particle storm before you die again.



There are also several new co-op options, general gameplay and balance adjustments, a new menu music and a greatly improved tutorial. I recommend you to check them out yourself. We'd like to get some feedback on the new build so if you got the time, download a build suitable for you from http://www.gerty-game.com/?page_id=11

[GertyGame]

DEVBLOG 42
Graphics squad, reporting in. Sweet visuals sighted, permission to engage.

GRONGO UPDATE
The Boss-man is done! It took some work, but we’re finally happy with the results. Let’s see another comparison between what we had last time and the final product.





In addition to the new graphics, we’ve also revamped Grongo’s gameplay. He’s quite a bit more aggressive, his charge attack has been greatly improved and we’ve added a bit of juiciness here and there. Have a peek:




WHAT’S ON THE MENU
Menus… UIs… It’s all a huge pain in the butt of every game developer. So here we are again, another menu re-design. This time we hope it’s final.





You might notice we have some swanky portrait art for all 4 of our characters. Despite his busy schedule with all his studies, Sampo has managed to squeeze in some work on Gerty. He made us some killer trading card images for Steam, which also work double duty as portraits for the game.

You might also notice we’ve got new difficulty icons, which brings us to…

NEW BLOOD
Our good artist buddy Jokke has joined the team (for a while at least). Long story short, he’s doing some graphic work for us as a part of finishing his degree. His primary task so far has been making us achievement icons and so far progress has been good.



Please note, these are still a work in progress. A bunch of these are getting totally redone (sorry smileys) and there’s a bunch of tweaking to be done, but the style is coming together nicely.

Also, Jokke went ahead and touched up our logo, after which Risto went ahead and spruced it up with some shader magic (which you might notice in the menu pics too)



WORLD 2 STATUS REPORT
Risto and I started laying down all the work still left on World 2 and though it looked pretty harrowing, we’ve been making positively fast progress so far.  We’ve got roughly a third of the monsters done and if things continue at this rate, we’ll have the monsters done ahead of schedule. Hopefully that won’t jinx it, so fingers crossed.



SUMMARY
Though it often feels that progress is slow, things have really been chugging along. Fingers crossed we keep up the pace and get the game done. There’s a whole lot of little things I could go through, but I figured it’d be nice to focus on the bigger visual stuff.

[GertyGame]

DEVBLOG 43

In case it’s not painfully obvious by now, our demo is now available on https://store.steampowered.com/app/455100/Gerty/ If you’d prefer to play Gerty on Steam from now on, your wish has been granted.

BETA 1.7 IS OUT!
Now before you get any funny ideas, the game is still not finished nor released. This is just a new update to our public demo, though it is a pretty considerable one. Now, we did say in the past that Beta 1.6 would be the final public build before full release, but seeing it’s been a full year since that and the game has developed considerably since then (especially visually), it was high time for an update.

Important note: Many of following changes are not available in the public demo. If you are one of the lucky ones who has already pre-ordered Gerty, we’ll be sending a Steam key your way so you can get the “Early Access” version and experience all the goodies. Or are you perhaps a Youtuber or Twitch streamer? Send a message our way and we might give you a key.

As always, check the changelog if you want a more detailed view of all the changes, but before we get to the nitty gritty, here are the highlights:

• Remade all Character/enemy graphics
• 2 new playable Characters
• Re-worked Magnus
• Lots of new enemies
• Re-worked Unlockables system
• Character Challenges
• Updated most Menus & UI

THE GANG IS ALL HERE
To touch on multiple topics at once, let’s start with playable Characters. A lot has happened here, most notably the addition of our two missing Characters, Preacher and Unum, but also the total reworking of Commando and Magnus’ graphics. After we got Preacher and Unum into the game with their new and swanky visuals, it was clear our old guys needed a face-lift to match. Let’s start off with the new guys. We haven’t talked a whole lot about them, so let’s have some pictures do it for us:



The Preacher is a mid-range crowd controller with a lot of firepower. Based on the feedback we’ve gotten so far, he’s an immediate player favorite. His skills (as seen above) are as follows:

• Plasma Shotgun
• Fear
• Tackle
• Grenade Launcher

Unum is a highly technical mid-range fighter, specializing in traps and movement. We actually had some trouble making him intuitive and fun to play, but hopefully we got there. His skills (as seen above) are as follows:

• Plasma Daggers
• Vacuum
• Warp Portal
• Proximity Mine

Magnus has also gone through a noticeable revamp. We’ve talked about it for a long time, but it’s finally here. His core hasn’t changed, but he has become a fair bit tankier if you can play him right. His skills (as seen above) are as follows:

• Magnus Punch
• Shockwave
• Shield Booster
• Mighty Slash

Lastly we have Commando. No gameplay changes here, but just showing of her new visuals.

Note: Only the Commando is available in the Demo

DEADLY ADVERSARIES
To keep this post manageable, here’s a picture from a previous one showing off our current roster of baddies:



And here’s the pièce de résistance, the big bad himself: Grongo the Slayer:



Note: Grongo is not available in the Demo

UNLOCKING THE UNLOCKABLES



Again, this has been covered in a previous post, but here’s the quick rundown: After every run, you’re now awarded with Fame, which you can use to unlock Items, Characters and Challenges. Fame can be gained by the following methods:

• Gathering Juice
• Gaining levels
• Unlocking Achievements
• Completing Challenges
• items

Note: Unlocking Items and Characters is disabled in the Demo

CHALLENGE YOURSELF



Risto has been working long and hard to implement some extra content for the completionist crowd and here it finally is: Character Challenges! Though to be perfectly clear, they’re not unique for each Character. As if currently stands, we have 10 Challenges that you can play through with each of our 4 Characters (provided you’ve unlocked them), for a total of 40. Completing each rewards you with some Fame, so if you’re looking for a quick way to unlock some new Items or the rest of the roster, check them out!

Note: Challenges are not available in the Demo

MENUS & UIS
Lastly, we’ve updated a lot of our menus and UI elements. While a lot of the change are minor, here’s our new Single- and Multiplayer menus which are the biggest improvements:





SUMMARY
There’s a ton of stuff in Beta 1.7 that we really don’t have time to get into in detail, but here’s a little list of important tidbits for those who don’t want to crawl through the changelog:

World 1 is now 6 stages long
The game now has 5 difficulty levels
Single- and Multiplayer now save your progress between stages
Added Friendly Fire -option (enabled by default)
Added localization support (English and Finnish)
Our development speed has slowed down considerably in the past year due to the fact that only Risto and I are working the game full time, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. There are some potentially big news in our pipeline, but more about those if they pan out.

[GertyGame]

Hello!

Risto from Gerty team here reporting for duty. It has been almost 2 years since our last devblog post here and we have had some changes in our game and in our team as well. Previously Teemu has been in charge of posting stuff about our game for the world to read, but he isn't in our team anymore, so I will be taking over that part.

I uploaded couple of our most recent devblogs here and I'm going to post new ones here hopefully the same day when we publish them, so that you don't need to wait 2 years for updates!

If you have any questions regarding the development of Gerty, feel free to ask. I'm going to do my best and engage in these forums to the best of my ability.

- Risto from Gerty team

[GertyGame]

HIGHLIGHT 1/8: COMMANDO

Hello all and welcome to our new Highlight-series!





Since we’re slowly inching towards our Early Access release, we thought it would be fun to take a better look at Gerty piece by piece. And what better way to start this inspection than with our dear “mascot”: the Commando.

As the game’s starting character, the Commando is a versatile all-rounder, who excels in most firefights by utilizing her long range and mobility. Her skills cover a wide range of uses, which makes her quite an ideal character to start learning the game with.

PLASMA REPEATER
Commando’s primary skill is The Plasma Repeater, which has the longest range of all weapons in the game, making it ideal for beginners to keep enemies at bay.



While at first it’s good at taking out single targets, once fully Perked up, even bigger groups become no problem to take down. You could for example, turn it into a Machine Gun.



BOMB
In the right hands, the Bomb is a deadly tool. It excels at destroying tough terrain and taking out groups of enemies in tight spots. As some enemies have the smarts not to walk right into an explosion, it takes a bit of skill to use it to its full potential.



Want to get true destruction? With the right Perks, the Bomb becomes an absolute monster. Just make sure you don’t blow yourself or your friends up (or just turn off Friendly Fire).



DODGE ROLL
It’s pretty important to keep yourself alive in a rogue-lite, which is exactly what the Dodge Roll is for. It provides the Commando a moment of invulnerability, which can often mean the difference between life and death. And once you’ve mastered the Dodge Roll, you can survive even the most harrowing situations with barely a scratch.



FLAMETHROWER
Last but not least is the Commando’s ultimate skill: the Flamethrower. It really doesn’t need much introduction – you fry, they die. The Flamethrower excels in taking out groups of enemies (especially those pesky worms), but also works double duty for melting all that ice in your way.



Want to turn up the heat to 11? Perk your Flamethrower up and your enemies burn to a crisp before you can say “rogue-lite”.



PLAY FOR YOURSELF!
Head on over to Steam, add Gerty to your Wishlist and play the free demo to prepare yourself for the Early Access release on December 3rd.

[GertyGame]

HIGHLIGHT 2/8: MAGNUS

Welcome to the second installment of our Highlight-series, continuing with our second character!





This time we’re taking a look at our number two character: the Magnus, master of melee combat. What he lacks in mobility and range, he more than makes up for in bulk and power. Because of his melee specialization, Magnus isn’t quite as easily mastered as the Commando, but his defensive capabilities make him a quite forgiving option even for beginners.

MAGNUS PUNCH
As his signature move, Magnus’ primary skill is the Magnus Punch. Though its range is limited (it’s a melee attack after all), it makes up for it by hitting multiple enemies at once, provided they’re bunched up close enough. This makes Magnus a deadly adversary in tight spaces.



However, with a couple of strategic Perks, the Magnus Punch gives Magnus a nice boost in mobility as well as some ranged capabilities.



SHOCKWAVE
As a short range character, Magnus can sometimes get overwhelmed in the cramped tunnels. Slam down a Shockwave though, and all nearby enemies get thrown back away from you and get stunned to boot.



Want to make the aliens really regret their life choices? Once fully fully Perked up, the Shockwave brings the pain in a big way.



SHIELD BOOSTER
Since maneuverability isn’t Magnus’ strong point, he compensates by being bulkier than the rest of the roster. While his HP isn’t actually the highest of the group, his Shield Booster skill gives him the ability to freely recharge his Combat Shield, making his effective health rather fearsome.



MIGHTY SLASH
Rounding up Magnus’ move pool is his ultimate skill: Mighty Slash. It slices, it dices and makes short work of groups enemies, or even tougher ones with a couple of swings. As a free bonus, it’s also quite effective at clearing out terrain on the side as well.



What’s that? You want more? How about a literal Tornado of Death?



PLAY FOR YOURSELF!
Head on over to Steam, add Gerty to your Wishlist and play the free demo to prepare yourself for the Early Access release on December 3rd.

[GertyGame]

HIGHLIGHT 3/8: LEVEL GENERATION

This week on our Highlight-series, we’re taking a look at how our levels are created.



At the heart of most rogue-like and rogue-lite games is a procedural generation system. For the uninitiated, this means generating content using algorithms and rules (i.e. it’s not totally random). While it can be used for creating many things (enemies, items, etc) it is most often used in creating levels – which is also the case for Gerty.

BUILDING BLOCKS
All levels in Gerty consist mainly of two types of terrain, which in the first world are ice and rock. While ice is more plentiful, it is also the softer of the two, which makes it easy to dig and shoot your way through. Rock on the other hand is tougher, but also mostly found at the bottom of levels near the Teleporter. To make the actual magic happen, we use some weighted Perlin Noise to generate the shapes for both ice and rock (and Juice) areas separately, lay them on top of each other and BAM – you’ve got the base of a level!



Deeper into the game however, you will start coming across other types of terrain as well. Pits for example are a bit more special. You can’t dig or explode your way through them (they’re pits), but on the flipside, you can potentially snipe enemies from the other side safely. Unlike ice and rock though, we use more hand created functions to generate them, so that they don’t create game breaking dead ends.



Later on you will also find chunks of obsidian, which are effectively indestructible rock. Or is it? Maybe if you had some sort of hammer you might be able to dig through them…



Later still in the second world, you will find yourself in a completely new environment, with new terrain to match. Ice has been replaced with sand, which has a secret quirk of its own… There’s also thorns. Care to guess what happens when you stick your fist into spiky brambles?



LEVEL TYPES
Most levels in the game require you to find the Teleporter to advance. These levels come in two shapes: horizontal and vertical. Horizontal levels tend to be more open for exploration while vertical ones are more straight forward. Sometimes you’ll also have to complete a secondary objective before you can move on.



To break up the pacing, twice per world you’re thrown into a Survival level, where the objective is rather obvious. While staying in the center gives you more space to maneuver, exploration always has its rewards. Survival levels often feature pits or obsidian chunks.



In the middle of each world you will always face an enemy Commander (which you might call a mini-boss) that you have to defeat before the Teleporter activates. As with Survival levels, expect to see pits and obsidian chunks to spice things up.



OBJECTS AND ENEMIES
To reward exploration, levels have several helpful objects for you to find. However, throwing them around haphazardly would not make for an engaging experience so instead we use some clever tricks to spread them out more evenly. First, we divide the level into a grid. Second, we place the start and end Teleporters and mark off the nearby areas so that other objects aren’t right next to them. Them we keep generating the rest of the content: possible additional objectives like Power Disruptors, interactable objects like Runes and lastly Forges and Chests.



Like with the Teleporters, we mark off areas around each object, so that for example you won’t find two Forges right next to each other. The end result is a level that’s fairly evenly filled, but natural feeling in structure.

After all the objects have been generated, we finish the level off by spawning the enemies. In each level we randomize the enemies you face from pre-determined difficulty categories, so that you’re unlikely to face the same foes on every playthrough. Depending on the game’s difficulty, they’re placed in either small or large groups, so that you’re rarely up against just one at a time.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
To wrap this highlight up, here’s a step-by-step recap of how a level is generated:

• Generate ice and rock with weighted Perlin noise
• Generate possible pits and obsidian chunks by hand
• Place objectives and interactable objects all around the level
• Place enemies in groups all around the level

PLAY FOR YOURSELF!
Head on over to Steam, add Gerty to your Wishlist and play the free demo to prepare yourself for the Early Access release on December 3rd.

[GertyGame]

HIGHLIGHT 4/8: CO-OP

Fun with friends is the topic this week on our Highlight-series!



Co-op was planned for Gerty pretty much from the very start and we’ve had a long time to develop and tweak it along the years. Countless difficult choices have been made to make the co-op experience the best it can be. Since bringing in additional players tend to usually make a game easier in most cases, we decided to not fight against it and focus on a fluid and entertaining experience rather than trying to force it to be nail-bitingly difficult.

GAMEPLAY ADJUSTMENTS
A single player game rarely makes the transition to co-op 100% as-is, which is also the case for Gerty. Besides the obvious need for more UI elements and the such, there are a couple notable gameplay related changes in co-op.



The game camera. In single player the functionality is simple enough: keep the camera focused on the player. So what do you do when there’s more than one player? Instead of splitting the screen or changing focus on the fly, we opted for the most seamless option: keep all players on the screen at all times by zooming in and out. While you can still change the minimum zoom level in the Options just like in single player, the maximum zoom changes depending on how far apart the players are from each other. This naturally makes things harder to see at extreme distances, but we feel it’s overall the best solution.



Interactable objects were another point of consideration – in particular Teleporters and Forges. Can one player alone activate the Teleporter? Or open a Forge? This was how we originally handled the situation, but it was not ideal. While it was fun to save your buddies by activating the Teleporter just as they were about to get killed, it also felt just a bit exploitative. And naturally it could also lead to minor griefing is one player alone decided to teleport everyone out without asking. The better (and more co-operative) choice was to require all players to be in proximity to the objects in question. Players are much better oriented after using a Forge if they’re all right next to it, instead of being scattered all over the level.

Naturally there’s also some difficulty tweaks for co-op too, like more threat spawns per player and more enemy spawns in survival levels. Having four times the firepower would make the game a tad too easy without some adjustments after all.

CHOICES, CHOICES
That being said, we recognize that one size rarely fits all, so we have options for friend groups to customize their co-op experience to their preference:

• Respawn during levels (On/Off): Off by default. For those who want a more “authentic” rogue-lite experience. If no-one survives the level, it’s Game Over.
• Friendly fire (On/Off): On by default (for more hijinks). Can be turned off to reduce difficulty (or to save friendships).
• Juice sharing (None/Partial/Full): Partial by default. Set to Full for equal wealth for everyone, or to None for competitive digging and money grubbing.
• Experience sharing (None/Partial/Full): Partial by default.  Changing this is likely to affect co-op balance.

GATHER YOUR PARTY
If you want to play co-op right from the start, you’ll be limited to everyone being a Commando. After gathering some Fame though, you can start unlocking the rest of the characters and making more interesting combinations. Maybe a high damage, short-range party of only Magnus’ and Preachers? Or perhaps instead a long-range, mobile party of Commandos and Unums. Or you could always bring the whole gang!

PLAY FOR YOURSELF!
Head on over to Steam, add Gerty to your Wishlist and play the free demo to prepare yourself for the Early Access release on December 3rd.

[GertyGame]

HIGHLIGHT 5/8: ROGUE-LITE ELEMENTS

What does it mean to be a rogue-lite? That’s the topic of our Highlight-series this week.

It all started with Rogue, a dungeon crawling game in the 80’s. Then came games “like-Rogue”, which eventually evolved into into its own genre, the “roguelike”. But what does it mean to be a “rogue-lite“? In the most simplest of terms, it means taking elements from roguelikes and integrating them in all kinds of games, though the “genre” has developed some common elements of its own too.

However, there is a very common “holy trinity” of elements that are present in most rogue-lites and Gerty as well…

PROCEDURAL/RANDOM GENERATED LEVELS



Though very popular in many games these days, “random generated” levels are widely considered one of the core staples of roguelikes. It’s a relatively cost effective way of adding re-playability to a game and keeping players on their toes from level to level, on every playthrough.

There are many ways a level can be generated. Most often that means creating a fairly random layout and placing items, enemies and such in a more controlled manner. Another popular method is building the level from larger, hand crafted pieces or rooms that are placed in a random order (think Spelunky and Binding of Isaac). On the other end randomization can be used to spice up hand-crafted levels by moving obstacles around and changing item and enemy placement (Left 4 Dead’s AI Director for example).

On a “random vs hand-crafted” spectrum, Gerty leans more towards the random. For a more detailed view of how our level generation is done, read our earlier Highlight on the subject.

PERMANENT DEATH



Having randomized levels wouldn’t really matter much unless you’d be expected to re-play the game a lot. This is where permanent death (aka. perma-death) comes in. Perma-death is another core staple of roguelikes and if the name itself doesn’t give it away, it means you don’t get second chances. When you die, you stay dead… until you restart the game and begin again from scratch.

Perma-death is all about building a test of skill. With each playthrough you learn more and more about the game and its challenges while also honing your skills, so that eventually you’ll have what it takes to make it to the very end in one life. Gerty is also built upon this principle, though we do give you the option of adjusting the difficulty level to your liking. And while you could re-play the same levels over and over each time you die, having new levels with new challenges each time keeps things fresh.

And to keep death from only being a penalty…

META-PROGRESSION



When your core game-loop is all about dying and starting over again and again, having nothing to show for your repeated efforts can get tedious. That’s where meta-progression comes in. Learning from your mistakes is fun, but it’s also great to get something tangible for your efforts.

Meta-progression can come in many styles (in-game shortcuts, permanent upgrades, temporary boosts…), but in Gerty’s case, it takes the form of unlockable content. Is Commando cramping your style, or would you just like to try something new? Unlock one of the other playable characters for a totally different experience! Or do you feel like you’d need just that tiny extra edge in combat to succeed? A wide range of new Forge items are there to help with that! And you can always mix and match characters and items for even more variety in every playthrough!

But this is a topic we’ll be covering in more in detail a future Highlight…

PLAY FOR YOURSELF!
Head on over to Steam, add Gerty to your Wishlist and play the free demo to prepare yourself for the Early Access release on December 3rd.

[GertyGame]

HIGHLIGHT 6/8: PREACHER

Welcome back to our Highlight-series! Time to get back to our playable characters.





Third on the list is our crowd control expert, the Preacher. He’s the rosters’ resident damage dealer and crowd control expert, with medium to close range attacks. His bulk is also next only to Magnus, which combined with his straight forward playstyle has made him an instant fan favorite in our playtests.

PLASMA SHOTGUN
Preacher’s primary skill is his trusty Plasma Shotgun. It easily tears through weaker enemies and due to its bullet spread, its effective against small groups as well.



While Perks don’t give the Plasma Shotgun any game changing effects, they do power it up considerably, turning it into quite the plasma-spewing death machine.



FEAR
Fear is a skill that mixes both offense and defense. It deals a small amount of damage to all enemies in its range, but also sends them running away from you. While it obviously can save your life in a tight spot, it also makes enemies quite vulnerable for attack.



TACKLE
Like Fear, Tackle also works double duty, helping you kill enemies while helping you stay alive. Primarily an offensive skill, it pushes enemies away from you and stuns them momentarily, making them easy pickings if you’re fast enough on the trigger. However, it also allows you move around faster and get out of sticky situations once you master it.



With some helpful Perks, you can turn Tackle into a proper battering ram, pushing through terrain and throwing enemies against walls for extra damage.



GRENADE LAUNCHER
What is a more suitable ultimate skill for an all-around damage dealer than a Grenade Launcher? While it is obviously in its element blowing up groups of aliens right in front of you, taking the time to master its bounce mechanics will allow you to kill your enemies from behind corners and other hard to reach places too.



If you want to increase your destructive powers even further, you can double, or even triple your explosive payloads!



PLAY FOR YOURSELF!
Head on over to Steam, add Gerty to your Wishlist and play the free demo to prepare yourself for the Early Access release on December 3rd.

[GertyGame]

HIGHLIGHT 7/8: META-PROGRESSION

The end of our Highlight-series is approaching. Let’s talk about meta-progressions.

Meta-progression has become a common feature in the rogue-lite genre. Most popularly it comes in the form of new unlockable gameplay content. While this obviously increases replayability, in Gerty’s case it also serves to alleviate two other “problems” players might face:

1. Choice paralysis: Giving players too many choices right off the bat can make them feel overwhelmed, leading to them making uninformed choices. Having players start off with a smaller set of content instead, unlocking more as they play the game is a far better option. In our case we found this to be true with Forges and Items, which is why most Items in Gerty must be unlocked.

2. Unchanging gameplay: Rogue-lites are all about learning and experimenting. However, if every playthrough is the same character buying the same items, fighting the same enemies, it eventually gets tedious and predictable. Unlocking new content like characters and items through meta-progression is a good way of encouraging players to try out new things. And even in the long run, experiment with different characters, perk and item combination is a good way of keeping repeated playthroughs fresh.

GET FAMOUS



Originally we tied all unlockable content to specific achievements, but since not everyone is a fan of achievement hunting, we decided a new system would make more sense. Such was the birth of Fame.

The easiest way to think of Fame is as an “unlock currency” (no real money required). Every time you finish a playthrough – be it by death or completition – you’re awarded with Fame based on your performance. This includes the Juice you collected, your character’s level, the number of levels you completed and the achievements you unlocked. This means achievements are still important in the current system, but not required for those who don’t care for them.

So what can you spend it on?

NEW GEAR



When you’re exploring the deep tunnels of the alien planets you’re bound to come across several types of Forges. Spread across them you’ll find a collection of 40 Items, 24 of which are unlockable with Fame. The Items and Forges are divided into four categories:

• Offence: Damage and effectiveness in combat
• Defence: Healing, enemy debuffs and survivability
• Utility: Exploration and Juice boosts
• Stats: Upgrades and boosts to your core stats

If you feel like you’re in need of a slight edge in combat or just want to find a character build just for you, get unlocking and experimenting!

NEW FACES



If you want to experience Gerty to its fullest extent (or Commando isn’t quite your style), there are three other playable characters available for unlocking:

• Commando: The mobile, long-range all-rounder
• Magnus: The short range master of melee combat
• Preacher: The high damage crowd control expert
• Unum: The teleporting and trap-laying specialist

You can use the links above to check out each character’s respective Highlight (with Unum coming next week).

Each of the characters has a different arsenal and playstyle, so be brave and try them all out – you might find a new favorite. We even have some character specific achievements for the completitionists crowd and Fame hunters, just in case the gameplay variety wasn’t incentive enough.

NEW CHALLENGES



Can’t get enough Gerty and want to sink your teeth into something extra? Is Very Hard not challenging enough for you? We’ve got good news! You can unlock additional character Challenges to scratch those very itches – 10 Challenges per character for a grand total of 40. Most of them limit either your skills or stats in some way, so you can’t beat all of them using the same tricks. If you do manage to beat one you’ll be rewarded for your efforts with Fame. Maybe you’ll want to use it to unlock the next one and see if you’re a bad enough dude to beat them all?

PLAY FOR YOURSELF!
Head on over to Steam, add Gerty to your Wishlist and play the free demo to prepare yourself for the Early Access release on December 3rd.

[GertyGame]

HIGHLIGHT 8/8: UNUM

Time for the Highlight-series finale, wrapping things up with our final character!





Wrapping up the Highlight-series and our roster of characters is the Unum – a specialist of many talents. Though mostly a mid-range fighter, Unum’s range actually varies from short to extreme when his skills are used to their fullest extent. He’s the most maneuverable character of the group and as such specializes in scouting and utilizing his unique skill selection to lay traps.

PLASMA DAGGERS
While very straight forward, the Plasma Daggers are a reliable primary skill, especially due to its piercing Power Shot. While it doesn’t evolve drastically from Perks, it does gain some interesting extra properties that compliment Unum’s specialized move pool.



VACUUM
Vacuum is at it’s core very similar to the Magnus’ Shockwave – dealing damage and stunning enemies in an area. Instead of pushing them away however, it pulls the enemies into a tight group, making them vulnerable for a volley of Plasma Daggers or perhaps a strategically placed Proximity Mine.



And what’s the next logical step up from a vacuum? A black hole!



WARP PORTAL
Warp Portal is the skill that truly makes the Unum what he is. It has lots of utility for movement and survivability, allowing you able to zip from one side of the map to the other in an instant (if you so desire).



However, there is more to the Warp Portal than meets the eye. With the “Xen Node” Perk, it opens up whole new levels of possibility. You will gain the ability to place the Warp Portal ahead of you, perhaps into an unexplored cavern or maybe on the other side of a pit, increasing your movement capabilities exponentially. But wait, there’s more! Xen Node also unlocks a synergy with Vacuum, allowing you to throw your enemies to your Warp Portal location. What sort of devious traps will you come up with it?



PROXIMITY MINE
As his ultimate skill, Unum has a set of Proximity Mines, which are at the core of his trap laying abilities. On their own they’re quite capable of taking out even tougher targets, but they really shine when used in tandem with Vacuum and Warp Portal



If you really want to put your enemies in a pinch, you can upgrade your Proximity Mines into Turret Mines, giving you some extra firepower for a limited time.



PLAY FOR YOURSELF!
Head on over to Steam, add Gerty to your Wishlist and play the free demo to prepare yourself for the Early Access release on December 3rd.

[The Armorman]

this looks perfectly like a psygnosis game

[GertyGame]

Hopefully in a good way

[MegaTiny]

First time spotting this. I love the progress on the character archetypes. Looking forward to playing it 

[Devilkay]

i dunno. it looks strange. a 2d game with 3d elements. now it's going good, but warning. it's not so easy to use this different "style" in the same game 

[GertyGame]

GERTY – EARLY ACCESS RELEASED!

Gerty has hit Early Access on a digital storefront near you!







Gerty is now available for purchase on:

• Steam
• Humble (DRM-Free & Steam-key)
• itch.io (DRM-Free & Steam-key)

If you want to “try-before-you-buy”, check out our demo on Steam or DRM-Free on IndieDB. Here’s what you can expect to see in the game:

EXPLORATION
Dig by hand or utilize your weapons in various ways and explore alien planets to your heart’s content.



COMBAT
Fight your way through hordes of aliens with your upgradeable arsenal and show them who’s the boss.



ITEMS
Power up and upgrade your gear with high-tech tools & weaponry.



PERKS
Level up and become more powerful with a wide selection of Perk power-ups.



ACTIVATABLES
Investigate alien Runes, Monuments and other mysterious artifacts.



WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Get out there and start slaying some aliens! Or even better, grab a couple friends and multiply the fun in local co-op!