- Cubed and Dangerous Update - 10 April 2026
Hey everyone, back with another Cubed and Dangerous update to fix some of the most recent bugs and improve some stability across more varied hardware.Bug FixesWave levels had an issue where they weren't resetting the stuck enemy sweep timer correctly. This is originally intended to catch enemies that are spawning out of level bounds but hanging onto edges of the map (rare) or enemies that are otherwise too far or unreachable during a wave (also rare). The bug would not consider a new wave as... a new wave. This would result in waves sometimes considering newly spawned enemies as stuck because they hadn't had a chance to move due to the timer issue.The result was levels 'clearing themselves' sometimes, usually after a wave that ended very quickly (common on large AOE builds, or very high move speed builds). This shouldn't happen any more, or should at least happen significantly less than…
- DLC Save File Migration - 19 November 2025
Hey everyone, there was a bug in the previous build of the game that may have impacted the way that save files were migrated from the base game to the DLC.Essentially when running the game for the first time after installing the DLC, the game is supposed to migrate your save file forward from the old format to the new one which the DLC runs on. This is a one time trigger that happens the first time you run the game. Because the game uses Steam Cloud to keep all your devices in sync, this had a negative side effect of the game considering the Steam Cloud save as the current data.This would result in your save appearing to be erased, with a brand new set of data when loading up the game.Good news: If you haven't run the game yet, or are a new player reading this, the bug has been fixed and this issue won't affect you at all.For everyone else...Option Added to Re-MigrateThe game has been u…
- Small Post-DLC Balance Update - 28 October 2025
Quick fix to Player and Enemy Damage numbers: - Reduce late game (Act3+) enemy damage scaling by 5% - Increase damage (5% to 10%) for all knockback based weapons and reduce base knockback slightly
- Quick update - 23 October 2025
Added some integrated quick tutorialization in the first level of the game. Nothing too intrusive, and if you're on a second run you'll be blowing through this level pretty quick anyway so it's like a little extra flair.
- New Leaderboard Features - 17 October 2025
Welcome to another update!For a while now, there's been some feedback around the leaderboard implementation. I've been testing around with a couple solutions and ended up on a score abstraction which I think is working well, so it's in the live build now! Also I've enabled global leaderboards and friend leaderboards so you can compare within your circle and see how your scores are ranking globally. Though right now everything has been cleared so jump in and set your scores... also a good excuse to check out all the new features if you haven't played in a while.Old LeaderboardThe problems with the old leaderboard were two-fold. The first issue was that it was tracking your highest level reached, which gave you incentive to push into infinite mode (yay!). Unfortunately it didn't account for the challenge level you were playing on, so there wasn't much of an incentive to push challenge mod…
- Cubed and Dangerous 1.6 - 14 October 2025
Thanks everyone for all the feedback, along with the bug fixes and performance enhancements over the last couple of days, I'm happy to announce Cubed and Dangerous 1.6!New MissionsI've cleaned up some of the work in progress code for the new mission types, and added them back into the game. Here's a brief overview of the new types:Escort: This was in the launch version of the game, escort the Very Important Cube to the exit while blasting through a gauntlet of enemiesWave: Clear ever increasing waves of enemies, classic wave clear styled missionEscort has been updated to not reflect damage from the escort to the player, so you can spend more time focusing on blasting a whole through the cube wall in your way.Scout missions have been updated to more distinctly highlight the mission objectives, making it a bit easier to tell what needs to be done during the heat of battleMusic and PolishN…
- Optizimations for all Hardware Classes - 14 October 2025
Back again today with another optimization patch. The game's physics engine and enemy AI have been optimized significantly in the past, so there shouldn't be any significant CPU bottlenecks but if you run into some definitely let me know! I'm very curious to hear from anyone trying to play on CPUs 5 to 10 years old if you're out there!OverviewThree major areas have been improved or optimized in some way:Character shader texture fetches have been significantly reduced, several effects were using triplanar mapping for simplicity but have been converted to basic UVs without any degradation in visual qualityOffscreen render buffers downscale when needed (picture in picture camera for switches, portrait and others, briefly touched on in previous post)Framerate caps are more intelligently set in an effort to support displays with vastly differing refresh ratesSteam Deck / Laptops / Integrated…
- Bug Fixes and Optimizations - 14 October 2025
Quick patch to fix a few bugs related to offscreen rendering (collection window, field manual, map, inventory portrait). Additionally optimized some shader code around the outline pass, and improved frame capping for high refresh rate monitors.Edit: There was another small change after this one to adjust the volume of a couple of the new sound effects. Editing this post to mention them instead of spamming with another quick update post.
- Balance and Feedback Update - 10 October 2025
Hey everyone, I released an update today from some of the collected feedback and bug reports over the last month or so. Below you'll find some of the ideas behind the changes, and some other surprises!Weapon BalancePlayer weapons have had a small balance patch. Most weapons haven't changed and are in a pretty good spot across all challenge levels and meta progression as tested. Flamethrower based weapons still have a bit of a DPS and range problem, considering how dense and chaotic the late game can get. To compensate, I've increased damage across all three variants and provided a very small damage boost. Overall I think the average DPS increase on these weapons is around 10%, with Flamethrower and Water Cannon getting the bulk of the DPS increases.Gun and Missile drones had their DPS reduced by 5%, they were just a little better than turrets and turrets are already very good for boss a…
- Update to Previous Build about Music - 3 September 2025
Doing a wild thing and defaulting the new music tracks to "on" for the main build! If you want to go back to original music, you can still toggle it at the main menu with the "]" key. I'll be adding some more tracks throughout the week, and doing a big full post about this when the whole thing is wrapped up. Although there's a good chance even after that there will be some new tracks added as well, hop in and check out the stuff!
- Secret Cheat for a Music Test - 2 September 2025
Hey everyone, as some loyal fans have pointed out, the gameplay music (particularly the non "chase" gameplay theme) is a bit too tension oriented and less action oriented which sets the wrong pace for the game. This potentially sets incorrect expectations of the gameplay from the start, and fails to live up to the action later in the game as well. I'm testing a new gameplay track I've composed for the game, to see if the higher action / rock feel works better in the context. By default the original music will play, but on the main menu screen before starting a run if you press "]" on your keyboard, you'll see a popup that you're using the new gameplay music. Now when you enter a mission you'll hear a new higher tempo and action track to play to! Right now: - There is only 1 new track (I think probably having 2 or 3 that rotate each level will ultimately feel better) - The mini boss and…
- Some dead-end Consolation Prizes - 27 August 2025
Quick change to itemization in levels to help with the dead end problem. There are still some dead ends possible, and I think this is good for the risk / reward of exploration and weighing that against the escalation time. But now collectibles are a bit more likely to spawn in rooms that don't have objective's in them. It's now up to you to decide if you want to fully explore levels and risk the timer, or stick to the objectives only. This is an indirect buff to escalation time perks as well, since those will now result in a slightly high loot collection rate. Additionally, bosses and mini-bosses have an additional item drop added to them to balance this out a little and make the loot-splosions more exciting.
- Feedback improvements for Combos and Consumeables - 27 August 2025
Combo: - Increased time between hits to feel better when you cross the gap to keep the combo running - Added a combo timer bar to visual show how quickly it is decaying - Fixed the alpha fade to be less linear and grouped to the low end of the bar Consumeables: - Fixed a bug with some data tracking that could result in consumables not being applied - Added text to show if a consumable is active when hovering in inventory
- Small Perk Update - 27 August 2025
Some quick updates to the "Second Wind" Legendary perk: - Change from 20 health, to 25% health so it will scale a bit later in game to offset scaled enemy damage - Add additional invulnerability frames to avoid immediate damage or multihits - Add a knockback effect to push enemies away - Add a text toast "Second Wind!" on the player so it's clear what happened I'm also testing around with some additional visual effects, but these changes make it significantly better to play with and more clear when it happens.
- Cubed and Dangerous Version 1.5 - 21 August 2025
Hey everyone, the game has received quite a bit of renewed attention this year and that's produced a lot of great feedback to help improve the game. Today I've deployed version 1.5 of Cubed and Dangerous to accumulate all of the changes for feedback collected so far. Hope you enjoy the updates!Many pieces of feedback were beautifully delivered in Steam Reviews, and remains a great way to support games you love, the steam community and help developers learn and grow. So thank you everyone who has done that so far!Here's a high-level summary of what you can find in this new update.DifficultyOnboarding new players has been an interesting tug-of-war in the realm of difficulty balancing. Some players are finding this game (or other twin stick shooters) for the first time, having been exposed to more survivor likes or bullet heaven games. Others are here because they've played classics like N…
- Econ and Itemization Improvement Patch - 27 June 2025
Hey everyone, I've just made some significant changes to aspects of the game's economy and itemization today. This set of changes is focused around improving the shop experience, balancing some aspects around economy focused builds, and some other new changes!What Isn't ChangingIn a previous news post I had mentioned that vendor inventories were going to change. I explored some ways to improve it and did a few rounds of playtesting with the changes, and players felt that it reduced some of the surprise in shops.Therefore, in this patch today I've focused on improving the town / shop experience with some of the other changes and left the specific inventory changes to a future patch to give it some more time to bake with playtesting. Don't worry though, the other changes in combination with each other are a significant improvement in the experience.Shops and TownsTowns have been reduced i…
- Town Improvements Coming Soon - 23 June 2025
A Cubed and Dangerous Update is coming very soon. It may be available during the first couple days of the Summer Sale if I can manage it, but there are a few bugs with the update that I don't want to risk destabilizing the game over.What's ComingThe patch is focused on making the global shop, town map nodes, and vendor in-level spawns more impactful. There might also be some other goodies added along with it if I can get them working in time.Global ShopThe global shop, and town shops, will be changed to provide a quality and rarity boost to items. You'll still be able to find of the common items in the shops, but they will be compensated with higher quality (star rating) to make even the lower level gear more exciting to see in shops. To compensate for the balance change, the cost of items in the shop may be increased a little after more testing. This should help support shop-based stra…
- Balance and Bug Update + News - 12 May 2025
Hey Everyone, I've been busy working on some of the core mechanics and fixes for Sheep for the Stars ahead of Steam Next Fest, and have been accumulating some changes and updates to Cubed and Dangerous that just went live. Thank you all for your continued support and feedback on the games. This support and feedback is instrumental in ensuring this game can reach towards it's utmost potential. I really sincerely appreciate all of it, keep it coming! General Balance Updates - Reduce spike damage from Living Bomb enemies by 10% in lower difficulty levels - Fixed an issue with level generation that could result in extended mission playtimes (bug fix impacts balance) Weapon Balance Updates Based on feedback from players along with some distributed playtesting and modeling, some of your favorite weapons were found to be a bit under the general expected effectiveness bar for weapons in the gam…
- Consider Leaving Your Thoughts in a Review! - 29 March 2025
I humbly thank all of your for following along on this journey. Cubed and Dangerous has changed so much since early inception, through to playtesting, release and beyond. Your feedback has been immensely valuable in shaping the game into what it is today. Many players already have enjoyed it, and the game's player-base at large has benefited from all the great suggestions and bug reports we've gotten through reviews, discord, and more. I fully intend to continue supporting all games launched by Ace High Arcade, and that includes this one! The best way you can help the game improve and reach more people is to leave some quick thoughts in a review for the game. I read each and every one of them, and take all the words seriously (positive and negative). They are used as a source for improvements to be made, or great features / systems people love to help double down on in the next update.…
- Bug Fix: Difficulty Scaling and Smoothing - 13 March 2025
Hey everyone, Just deployed a quick bug fix to the game. There was an issue with how difficulty scaling was being applied at cumulative challenge levels below 5. This fix corrects the calculation, and will make challenge level 0 behave closer to the intended design, but we'll monitor closely to make sure it's not the only issue impacting the early game content. Specifically, Challenge Level Zero is how the game starts for new players. Once you complete the campaign, you'll unlock more challenge levels that can be selected when starting a new run (you'll see the option at the bottom of the skill select screen during character select). This challenge level was incorrectly applying an enemy scale to damage, and health (along with some other stats, secret shhhh). The bug fix ensures this is not applied on this level, and smoothly ramps up to applying to subsequent levels 1 through 5. After…
