- Hand Cannon Relaunch Part 1! New mechanics first pass - 1 November 2024
Hello! So sorry this update comes so late and so randomly. Wanted to cover one thing first which is that I owe everyone a big apology for the sudden lack of updates and radio silence. TL;DR, after early access started I got my first job in games. It ended up being hard to balance the new job and this solo project so I sort of just fell off the wagon. I do think I've found a good balance now and don't anticipate this being an issue going forward but wanted to apologize. Thank you all for your interest in the game, I am still very much committed to finishing it and will do my best to communicate in a prompt and straight-forward fashion going forward. Now, on to the fun stuff! What's in this update? This update basically contains a solid chunk of iteration on what I'm starting to think of as a "remastered" version of the game and the base of what I'm planning to iterate on for the full rel…
- Patch 12-30 - 31 December 2021
First part of a broader refresh of the game's lore. Will post more detailed notes in next full content update! * Game now takes place at the Twilight Tower (no longer an academy. I was sort of finding that setting to be limiting) * The Twilight Tower was built by the ancients and filled with legions of automatons to protect secrets of untold power. * Climbers from all across the land come to the tower in search of truth and treasure. * Refreshed characters and dialogues in line with updated new lore. * Updated intro cinematic * General made intro cinematic and tutorial shorter/faster to get through
- Update: Boss fights overhaul - health bars, new attacks, and lots of bug fixes - 28 December 2021
Howdy all! Hope you all have enjoyed the holidays :^) Just shipped a big update today, it's all about boss fights. What's New Boss Fight Overhaul The game's boss fights were feeling unpolished and buggy relative to the rest of the game, so I gave them a fresh coat of paint. I think the boss fights feel more challenging now but at the same time more fair because they are less buggy. General improvements Bosses now have health bars. Bosses now play an animation when they transition from one stage to the next. Made Corridor of Shadows boss fight smaller. Boss spawns (turrets, landmines, etc.) now disappear when boss is defeated. Giga Tank Giga Tank is now smaller and faster. Added a new attack that fires 3 smash attacks instead of one. Added a new attack where Giga Tank fires a flurry of laser bolts from its eye. Generally tuned logic for when Giga Tank fires certain attacks. Chef Bot New…
- Update: New stats system (Power/Processing/Durability) and melee weapon revamp - 19 December 2021
Hi all! Hope you all are enjoying the holidays! Have been trying to focus on polishing systems, new weapons, and new enemies. Here's what's new New stats you can upgrade during runs This update adds 3 new upgradeable stats to help scale your build during your run. The new stats are: Power: Increases damage dealt by all weapons, powers, and utilities. Processing: Increases attack speed and crit rate. Decreases cooldowns and cast times. Durability: Increases max health, damage resistance, and smash attack damage. I'm planning to add some cards that scale uniquely with these stats in the future. Upgrade kits To upgrade each of the stats above, you need to find Upgrade Kits, a new rare loot that drops from enemies and can be used to upgrade one of the three stats. Melee weapons are now gadgets Instead of cards, melee weapons are now gadgets that you can pick up and sheath/unsheath as much a…
- Update 09/06 - New Floor Type + Walk/Sprint/Jump Locomotion for Oculus - 12 September 2021
Hi all, First off just want to apologize for the lack of updates since February. TL;DR, I started a new job in February and getting up to speed on that took a lot of time away from the project. Now that I've gotten settled in at my new job I should be back to having more time for Hand Cannon Virtuoso. Not exactly sure what the schedule will look like going forward but it should be something closer to the old cadence of bi-weekly updates. Anyways, here's what's new... From the May update I forgot to write patch notes for: Added new floor type - the Corridor of Shadows. New in this update: Updated Oculus locomotion (coming to other headsets except Vive soon): Can now jump by pressing bottom button on right controller. Can now "ledge grab" to climb up onto a ledge by pressing jump when nearby to and facing a flat ledge. Can now sprint by pressing down on the analog stick. Bottom button on…
- Update: Grappling Gun and Reordering Weapon Cards - 3 February 2021
Hey everyone! Tadatoto here :3 Just letting you know I shipped a new update on Sunday. It adds a couple new gameplay features I am pretty psyched about. What's New Grappling Gun Locomotion Shooting at Grapple Points will now deploy your Grapple, which can be used to swing or reel yourself towards the point. This feature took quite a bit of experimenting. The system I found that I liked best works like this: Climbable objects now also serve as Grapple Points If you point at a Grapple Point and pull the trigger, instead of firing your cannon it will fire your Grapple (unless there is something in the way like an enemy, obstacle etc). Once the Grapple has attached, your Booster button for that hand will reel in the Grapple instead of Boosting Releasing the trigger releases the Grapple Attaching to a Grapple Point re-ups your boosters same as landing While Grappled you can still use your ot…
- Update: New environment art for The Lobby, Menu, and Tutorial + a Shooting Range - 19 January 2021
Howdy everyone :) Hope your 2021s are off to a good start. Just shipped a chunky update to Hand Cannon. The big focus of this was on refreshing some of the game's environment art - especially in recurring hero environments like The Lobby. Pretty happy with how the refresh turned out - I'll be trying to apply a similar level of polish to all environments going forward. What's New The Lobby - New Environment Art The Lobby is the hub world where students rest between attempts to climb The Academy. In this update, I did a huge refresh of The Lobby. I hope you'll find the new environment much richer and enjoy exploring it a bit. Card Console, Shooting Range, and Practice Course The updated Lobby now also includes: A Card Console that lets you try out the different Cards you've unlocked. A Shooting Range for you to take target practice with them. A Practice Course for practicing your maneuver…
- Announcement: Free demo now available! - 19 December 2020
Ho ho ho! Happy holidays everybody! I'm feelin' full o' good cheer. Excited to announce a couple of things. Free demo now available on the store page! I added a free demo which you can download from the Steam storepage. The demo let's you play through the tutorial and the first floor of the tower as many times as you'd like. You'll get a taste for the combat/locomotion system, first floor enemies/environments, and how the game works more generally. Want to see what lies beyond the first floor? Pick up an Early Access copy to keep climbing. Thanks, Tadatoto Join the Discord
- Content Update: New Enemies, New Music, More Bullets - 10 December 2020
Howdy doody y'all, Who likes new enemies? I like new enemies. These are patch notes from the 12/8 Content Update! Here's What's New 7 New Practice Bots Scaling out enemies and bosses is a big priority on the Early Access Roadmap. This update adds 7 new enemies. I tried to ensure each of these new enemies contributes some new feel to the game. They each have unique quirks for you to learn and master. I have also been leaning in more and more to the 3D bullet hell direction, so a lot of these enemies feature bullet hell inspired projectiles and attack patterns. Bounce Bomber A tanky ranged enemy that fires bombs which bounce multiple times before exploding. The bouncing bombs introduce a little more chaos than your standard Grenadier bots. Smallclops A tiny cyclops with a fighting spirit. Fires bullets at you from it's single eye. Triclops A three-eyed bot that fires a spread of bullets a…
- Content Update: Themed Floors (Part 1), Walking Locomotion, Elite Enemies + more - 12 November 2020
What's up Climbers :3 These are patch notes from Monday morning's Content Update! Sorry it shipped a little late - ready for some cool stuff though? Here's What's New Walking Locomotion Much requested feature - you can now use Walking Locomotion to control your movement more precisely while on the ground. Works with all controllers that have analog sticks. As part of this update I also added some additional flavor to movement via skid sound effects that play when you skid to a halt and speed line visual effects that activate whenever you are moving fast in some direction. The only controller I'm not yet able to support Walking for is the Vive Wands. It's just pretty tricky due to the limited controller real estate (they just have the touchpads and not much in terms of utility buttons unfortunately). Overall pretty happy with this feature, hope you like it. Themed Floor System (Part 1) S…
- Content Update! New Environments + Enemy, New Cards, Introducing Artifacts - 23 October 2020
Howdy Climbers 😤 Pushed the bi-weekly Content Update last night! Just posting notes now to let you all know what's new. What's New Key Card Combat Tests + 4 New Rooms! This Content Update adds Key Card Combat Test - a new type of room that require you to fight enemies and find a Key Card to unlock the exit and proceed. There are 4 new Key Card rooms you can now encounter during your Climb. These 4 new rooms will fall under The Plaza floor theme once I move to the themed floor system. I am pretty happy with how these rooms came together. They incorporate some new randomization logic so the enemies, key card, etc. aren't always in the same place. My level design chops are improving a bit as well, so I think they are more interesting to navigate than some of the existing rooms. 3 New Cards! Dynamo, Spare Magazine, and Pot Shot This Content Update also adds 3 new Weapon Cards. All 3 of the…
- Content Update! Comfort Settings, Launch Feedback, New Stuff, and Beta Branch. - 11 October 2020
Howdy All 👍 Today I pushed the first Content Update of Early Access. Given this is the first updates since launch, it focuses on addressing post-launch feedback more than new game content like Cards and Environments. That said, Cards, Environments, Enemies, etc. remain a major focus of Content Updates in the near future, as noted in the Early Access Roadmap. New Stuff More Comfortable by Default There were a few controller settings, display features, etc. that I'd gotten enough feedback on that it was a no brainer to just add/update them. Specifically: WMR controllers can now snap turn using analog sticks. Index controller defaults just more comfy than they were (grip boosters less sensitive by default, touchpad no longer causes sporadic turning). Still need some work on climbing. Main Display now follows player's HMD instead of their hands. Comfort Settings In addition to making the d…
- Announcement - Early Access Roadmap! - 4 October 2020
Hi Everyone, First off, just want to start by saying wow, holy crap!! The last few days since launching Early Access have been an absolute blast. This is my first release so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I am so grateful to see I wasn’t the only person wishing there were more VR Roguelites and can’t thank you enough for taking time to check out the game. To that end, I wanted to give you a rough idea of what to expect in the months to come. I’ve put together this Early Access Roadmap which represents my current thinking on content goals between now and a 1.0 launch sometime next September 2021. https://www.tadatoto.com/roadmap This content will ship via bi-weekly Content Updates (actually new content, cards, weapons, environments, etc.) every other Wednesday and Patches (urgent fixes, bugs, non-content feedback) whenever they are ready. The roadmap is extremely tentative and I expect ma…
- Patch! New Tutorial - More Doing, Less Reading - 2 October 2020
Do you know who likes reading walls of text? Pretty much nobody, I think lol. Some great initial feedback I got was that the game's tutorial requires way too much reading. I think this feedback was spot on, so I reworked the tutorial yesterday and just pushed an update. The new tutorial focuses on learning by doing rather than reading. There is still some reading, but the "time to fun" is much shorter now and you'll get jump into some light action pretty quickly. Some fun facts about the new the tutorial: The Orientation Instructor is no more. Sorry if you liked him talking your ear off, but alas he has retired. Don't worry though, there are many other Helper Bots to meet throughout The Academy. This update cut about 1500 words or about 5 minutes of reading I'd estimate. It's miles, miles better and now I feel like a crazy person for having it the way it was, so thank you again for that…
- Content Update! Crystal Trials 💎 The Infirmary 🏥 and Balance ⚖️ - 28 September 2020
Hey gang! Just shipped the 09-27 Content Update 👍 This was the last pre-Early Access Content Update! Early Access for Hand Cannon Virtuoso will go live this Wednesday 09/30 at around 12pm PST! Can't thank all of you who took time out of your lives to try the beta enough - your support has been extremely motivating and the game is going into Early Access in great shape as a result of your feedback. If you've been enjoying the beta and know anyone at all who you think might be interested, spreading the word about launch is a great way to support the game! Anyways, here's what's new: New Content New Death/Respawn Experience: The Infirmary The Infirmary was the last bit of the core gameplay loop I really wanted to get in before Early Access. Basically, The Infirmary is an end-of-run experience that clarifies how you performed (end of run stats pertaining to total run time, floors cleared,…
- Content Update! New Weapons🤺 Skill Tests 🤻 and Index Support 🥽 - 11 September 2020
What's up party people 🥳 I shipped the 09-09 Content Update last night, should be queued next time you open Steam 👍 Per the #dev-schedule channel in the Discord, these Content Updates ship every other Wednesday and Patches ship as soon as they are ready. The main difference is that Content Updates will always have new content (levels, weapons, enemies, etc.) whereas Patches may just be bug fixes/addressing quick feedback/etc. New Content Valve Index Support! Self-explanatory - my Index controllers got here and I was finally able to add Index support to the game :D Huge thank you to the Index beta testers who helped me test drive things! 6 New Weapon Cards! Phantom Fists - Conjures ethereal fists that deliver powerful AOE smash attacks. Laser Cannon - Chargeable laser blast that blows away your opponents. Freeze Ray - Zaps enemies with a frosty bolt. Snow Launcher - Launches globs of l…
- Content Update! 🔫 Unlockable Weapons/Gadgets ⚔️ - 27 August 2020
Howdy all 🤠 I shipped the new Content Update last night, there should be an update queued next time you open Steam 👍 Per the #dev-schedule channel in the Discord, these Content Updates ship every other Wednesday and Patches ship as soon as they are ready. The main difference is that Content Updates will always have new content (levels, weapons, enemies, etc.) whereas Patches may just be bug fixes/addressing quick feedback/etc TL;DR - New Content Added an actual ending if you clear the tower :) You now unlock Weapons/Gadgets gradually by collecting stars Added 2 new Combat Modules New Weapon Card: Sonic Waves - cuts through multiple enemies with soothing sound waves Relaxed difficulty curve based on beta feedback (first floor should be less intimidating now) Here's a fun GIF of the new Weapon Card - Sonic Waves: How to Play the Content Update If you want to play new content as Content…
