- Universe Exploration patch soon - 30 June 2025
Probably the largest patch since the graphics overhaul is reaching its testing phase soon so I just wanted to post here to let people know progress is still happening. Brand new universe exploration UI with a much more modern feel should make the game feel more approachable to new players, there will also be fuel cost for travel as well as randomly generated events while traveling that could be anything from traveling merchants to combat encounters in your vessel and much more. Solar systems will accurately depict what types of planets are in them from the universe map while planets actively rotate around different types of suns (some of which have effects on the levels in the solar system). The player can now also see what missions are available in what systems and make travel choices based on that, though the missions also have time limits before resetting as well meaning you have to…
- Bug Fix Patch - 31 March 2025
Patch notes -Snow Mines level was spawning without enemies sometimes -Skirmishes would occasionally not end when all enemies were defeated -Skirmishes would sometimes spawn without enemies -Fixed issue with cover/shops blocks routes to new rooms That's all for now, there will probably be another bugfix patch next weekend but those seem to be the major issues that were found. Thanks for playing!
- Ophioc Ship Patch - 29 March 2025
This patch is primarily adding a tile set called Ophioc Ship, it houses a few new enemies and a few old ones from the Ophioc faction. There are some new hidden mechanics on the level as well that I won't list here! Here is a screenshot of the new level alongside a few of the new enemies. On another note, this patch took a lot longer than I expected it to. I am also starting a new job next week which I'm very excited for but will most likely reduce the time I have to spend working on Dead Metal. But don't worry I'm hardly done working, just trying to set low expectations for the timing of the next patch. Speaking of the next patch, finally finally finally getting the new wave defense mode into the game. It would have made it into this patch but I keep finding bugs with it. I think it would be best to focus on it for its own patch as opposed to releasing it alongside the tile set. I am ho…
- New Skirmish level type and new boss - 29 November 2024
The patch todays main feature is a new gamemode called skirmish, this plays out much more like a standard turned based strategy game level where there are a set amount of enemies in a room and you have to kill them all to get out. These levels can currently spawn on most any planet or ship that generates and should be relatively easy to find though they are a bit rarer than the normal exploration missions types. These levels can spawn quite barren as well as with a variety of cover and enemies, it is fairly random how difficult they are though I haven't found it to be unfair in my own testing. Very happy to hear feedback about difficulty though. I wont include any of the new bosses screenshots or how to find the boss as I like to have some mystery waiting for players to discover, but its a low/mid tier boss that should be relatively easy to accidentally bump into on a playthrough. Vario…
- 4k Resolution issue fix - 9 September 2024
It seems the big graphics update patch broke 4k support, this patch is fixing that and a few other more minor graphical bugs. Thanks for playing!
- QOL Patch - 5 September 2024
Small QOL patch fixing a few graphical bugs introduced with the last patch -Walls on Snow and Ship levels will have less (hopefully none) errors in how they generate -New combat text that is easier to read -New item tooltips -SMG no longer gets stuck in animations after shooting -Sniper no longer defaults to left idle sometimes -Escape key once again allows you to go from galaxy back to universe and an unrelated change -tier 1 missions made slightly easier to ease new players into the game As always thanks for playing!
- Graphics Update Finally Arrived! - 31 August 2024
Hello everyone, its finally here. After a solid 4 months of work basically every single piece of art has been redone and it looks a lot better. A lot of bugs have been fixed as well but I was so focused on art that I don't have a great change log for that. Instead I will just post some examples of the new art below! As you can see these are some pretty huge upgrades from the prior art and the steam page has been adjusted to show it off as well. I will be paying very close attention for any bugs caused by this patch as a lot of assets were deleted and replaced, I have successfully played through the game with all bosses cleared once but I intend to do it again to make sure there wasn't anything huge missed. Work will begin almost immediately on a new tileset and a wave defense mission type, the next patch will most likely be in November sometime including all of the above plus a boss or…
- Update on graphics improvement patch - 25 July 2024
Hello, I know I said there would be an intermediate patch with about half the new graphics but the new graphics combined with the old ones look.... silly. So I'm burning through all of it and hoping to be done by August 20th. Progress is still going well and part of the delay is coming in the form of scope creep, for instance now we have shadows rendered under most units and objects. This is a WIP preview of the new art with shadows included, right now all the player character art is done as well as half the tile sets and 4/5 of the units. While it might be a little later than Aug 20th this will be the largest patch yet in terms of effort put in. After that its back to content content content as Im going to be adding a new mission type as well as another tile set before the end of the year. A few bosses should be making their way in as well. That's it for now, just letting it be known w…
- Graphics Overhaul - 25 May 2024
As was teased at in the last update, the next patch has a rather large graphics overhaul for the in level graphics. This includes new unit models new enemy models and new tile sets for all the levels. Right now I have just finished all the character models and am moving on to redoing some of the less sightly (made earlier in the development process) enemies. I'm hoping to patch about half the new graphics in about a month and then do the other half a month after that. As far as new content goes the second of the two matches will be including a new wave defense mission type which will have a snow variant and a abandoned vessel variant. This will feature a few new enemy types as well. Once the art overhaul is done adding the 5th tileset/ 7th boss fight in will be the priority though that's too far out to give a reasonable time frame. That's all for now, just wanted to keep people updated…
- Snow Patch Live! - 5 April 2024
Snow patch is live! A new tile set with new enemies and a new mechanic to get ore faster for upgrades. Ill be fast and go right ahead with the changes below: -Ice planets added to planet list -Ice planets can now spawn 'Snow Mine' levels which have a new mechanic to get ore faster -Some new abilities added for players -Bug with Hulking Masses not dying correctly fixed -Bug with spider mines not moving correctly in MP -Some more QOL changes The new mission type was still a bit too buggy to make the cut, though that will be coming soon along with part of what will be a large art overhaul starting with character models. Below I have an example of the new art coming!
- Pre Snow Patch Bug Fixes - 26 March 2024
Fixing a good number of bugs unrelated to the actual snow patch Bug Fixes - Space Pirates with shotguns' blast sometimes would go through walls - Enemies no longer moonwalk occasionally - Bug causing med kits to become unusable until you hit escape fixed - Yellow targeting frames animations no longer freeze - 'q' options popup now goes away when it should - Now a quest progress popup when you do certain missions and complete an objective - Level up available popup when you click a suit with a level up available (people were not noticing level ups) - Tooltips added to stats on the main inventory screen - Ophioc spore cloud pools sometimes overlapped with other cover - Bug causing turn order to be broken when a 2x2 sized mob died fixed - Sound added for infected screamers - Starting rooms for Ophioc and Zenar levels was too big - 2x2 sized mobs health bars now always go away upon death Th…
- Snow Patch Coming Soon! - 17 March 2024
The next and first major patch of Dead Metal is coming up around the corner, its taken a little longer than expected as last I posted I said it would be ready in mid March at the latest. Now I'm thinking end of March or at worst early early April. This patch will include a bunch of new things listed below: -New tile set and planet type to explore -Snow Ore Mines, which contain ways of getting ore for upgrades much faster than previously -6 New player abilities to be unlocked -2 New base enemy types -Various bug fixes generally to do with MP or the tech items introduced in the last patch Here is a screenshot below of the new tile set: I'm looking forward to releasing the patch and will have another post on what content is coming after once its out! Thanks for playing!
- Added Tech Items - 20 January 2024
Patch Notes -Tech items now added and can drop from appropriate mobs -When you equip a tech item you gain a 5th ability on your equipped suit -Currently 10 tech items in the game though more will be added over time -Tech items only drop on lv 3 or higher maps (with a few exceptions) Today I'm happy to announce that tech items are in the game, items which give you a 5th ability per character when equipped meant for further customization. A few minor bugs were also squashed as well: -Crash when certain items were used on a certain boss fight -Limited per mission use abilities now correctly display "Out Of Charges" pop up when you are out of charges for the mission. Post this I'm going to start work on a new tileset and a new set of mobs for that tileset. The new tileset will be for mining posts on a new type of planet which is currently just being called "Ice Planet". Along with the new t…
- Multiplayer Stability Patch - 16 December 2023
As you may or not have noticed there have been a multitude of small patches going out this month and that will continue until the new year when I go back to working on new features. These patches are improving the multiplayer experience in terms of bug fixes and general stability. ---PATCH NOTES--- -Music now correctly plays on a certain boss -Creating a new dead metal suit in MP will no longer overwrite money -Clients should no longer sometimes get 2 level ups instead of 1 -Correct type of loot box (art not contents, the contents were always fine) will show on each players screen in MP now -2x2 Mob movement is now correctly synced across the board in MP -Psystaff mindbruise effect now correctly updates health bar on other players screens when it damages something -Energy knife stab no longer leaves an incorrect poison effect on enemies on other players screens -Footsteps should now cor…
- Small Bugfix Patch - 9 December 2023
PATCH NOTES -bug that would leave the game in a null state if you quit the tutorial at a specific time then re logged into that save fixed -various small MP desync bugs fixed Just a small patch with some bug fixes, nothing to see here. Thanks for playing!
- Star System/Galaxy screen overhaul - 5 December 2023
As I said in the last patch notes my least favorite piece of the UI was the map enter screen better known as the navigation tab. The UI art for it was lacking and it didn't add any depth of gameplay other than to try to convince the user that at some point real and meaningful universe generation might be on its way. And while I can't yet say that the universe generation is anywhere close to what I want yet, this is the start of bringing it towards that point. This is what I've been working on for the last few weeks since the last patch and while I don't think its a final version of how it will work I do much prefer the art and now the universe generation will name star systems and will generate permanent planets. These planets will eventually matter a lot more (and there are only 3 types of planets at the moment) as only certain levels will spawn on certain planets, I just don't feel th…
- Quests and Bug Fixes - 20 November 2023
Quests are finally in the game and they seem to be working well from the testing Ive done, you will now have a main quest that will generally tell you how to progress in the game as well as 2 side quest slots you can obtain from talking to NPCs in the station. The screenshot above is an example of one of said NPCs. More of these will be added over time of course along with more quests and content. These quests will also aid players in finding hidden side bosses that have yet to be found by anyone. Right now there are three new NPCs to talk to as well as the Kale the merchant on this NPC page, you will have to come through this screen to buy and sell items. There are plans for more merchants with different kind of items for sale in the future as well. PATCH NOTES -3 new NPC quest givers have been added to the game -Main quest has been added to the game -A total of 10 side quests and 3 ma…
- Level Generation and Party Follow - 23 October 2023
Ive been spending some time trying to figure out how to reduce movement woes between rooms when you have to control all 4 party members in single player. I have two solutions that will hopefully work together to resolve this issue. -A large portion of level generation was rewritten to cause much much shorter distance between rooms -You could press X to call your party to you already but now its in much much better working order and (hopefully) less plagued with bugs. I'm hoping that solves it for now, more changes (like a lot more) will be coming to level generation over time but I think this will resolve my primary issue with levels at the moment. More changes coming soon and as always thanks for playing!
- MP Usability Update 1 - 8 October 2023
The last patch fixed a lot of issues with the normal game UI (outside of levels) and this patch is mainly another UI focused one. The multiplayer interface to get into a lobby can be confusing and buggy, this patch as well as another one coming this weekend are seeking to fix that. -You will now be prompted upon launching the game to create a user name for multiplayer, this username will appear when you join a match lobby now so you can see who is in your lobby and in which slot. -You can change above mentioned username from the multiplayer screen, you will find a new button on the bottom right of that screen. -Fixed bug caused when the AI Boss was killed -Fixed issue with game loading other saves bots in strange conditions -Fixed issue causing the new UI screen to go blank when no abilities are selected on your bots -Fixed issue with multiplayer just giving you the tutorial level on sp…
- UI Redo - 15 September 2023
So the majority of the negative feedback I've gotten has to do with the UI... And I agree, it needed work. This update fixes a lot of those issues but not all of them quite yet. The multiplayer lobby host/join system is still in need of an update but the in game UI and starting tutorial is far easier to use/navigate with this update. The Inventory / Stat screen got a 100% rework as well as the days of walking around the station to reach different UI pages is gone. Its all navigated from a (hopefully) easy to use computer monitor that both looks nicer and feels much more intuitive. This is the a look at the new stat screen, all the other UI menus will be updated to this quality over the next week though they already have the same general layout with the different menu options on the bottom of the screen. Coming up next: 1) First off as stated above my next project is the host/join in mul…
