Hi, the free Swarmlake 3.0 Update is out now:

• Added player health
  

  Improves understandability of game overs which was by far the most common complaint since release. In the past the binary nature of one-hit deaths resulted in frustrations as there was no warning possible. Also increases the elasticity of the game challenge. This will affect the gameplay dynamic as it is now possible to intentionally take damage to get to a bomb.

• Added bowl-shaped arena wall
  

  Removes the punishing nature of falling off the arena while keeping effectively the same playspace as the recently introduced arena limit. As a reminder having a limited arena reduces the amount of invalid options such as running infinitely backwards/forwards or making too big of circles. Since the game gets harder over time this only ever resulted in slower and more frustrating deaths which were not obvious to understand. It also increases the required decision making and adds more positioning and meaning to space. So overall this improves the depth tree for both beginner and expert players.

• Added wall jump
• Added bomb detonation healing a fraction of health
• Added health bar display
• Added player damage audiovisual feedback
• Added player top percent display to leaderboard
• Added leaderboard rank display
• Added settings tab to hide individual HUD elements
• Improved enemy jump sign display
• Improved shard despawn warning feedback clarity by increasing flicker speed over time
• Improved sound effects mix clarity
• Improved milestone score visual effect
• Improved startup speed
• Fixed startup delay if loading showcase failed
• Reset leaderboard and settings
• Decreased fire rate by 10%
  

  Better fits expectations of when taking damage relative to enemy density. Also increases decision making by having to avoid enemies more and adapting to their patterns. This changes game feel so it might take some time to get used to it.

• Increased bomb spawn height variation by 20%
  

  Encourages more vertical play and reduces repetitive single jump strategies.

• Increased enemy spawn scaling by 25%
  

  Speeds up pacing and balances out the increased survivability of the player due to adding health.

Unfortunately the leaderboard also had to be reset.

Swarmlake has continuously evolved over time with the goal to make it more fun for more players by always keeping player feedback in mind. I am aware that people dislike change and I am sorry for the frustration this can cause.

Thank you
– Dominique

This update Swarmlake 3.0 Out Now first appeared on Survivors-likes List.

Hey all, Swarmlake 2.14 is out to improve understandability and depth:

• Added arena limit
  

  Increases the required decision making and adds more positioning and meaning to space. It improves the depth tree for both expert and beginner players. For the latter it reduces the amount of invalid options such as running infinitely backwards/forwards or making too big of circles. Since the game gets harder over time this only ever resulted in slower and more frustrating deaths which were not obvious to understand.

• Improved enemy spawning to be independent of player look direction
  

  Less punishment and more freedom of where players look. While this increases uncertainty of where enemies spawn there is still no randomness as it is the same sequence for everyone. Especially players now need to adapt more to reach bomb enemies which makes the game more dynamic.

• Improved avoider (orange) enemy projectile avoidance to be a bigger threat
  

  Makes this enemy more noticeable and reduces situations where player vision is completely blocked by enemies.

• Improved bomb min move height (now can trigger without jumping if pulled down)
  

  Increases discoverability of detonating bombs. If a bomb is not hit by a projectile and therefore possibly pulled down they still require jumping to detonate.

• Fixed jumping off of bombs
• Fixed showing wrong leaderboard avatar in rare cases
• Removed replacing bombs on spawn limit (now pauses spawning at limit)
  

  Encourages more dynamic player movement patterns. In the past players could ignore existing bombs and move in an infinite circle as the farthest bombs would despawn and new ones would keep spawning in front of them.

• Removed score-based fire-rate (now always at max rate)
  

  Increases death consistency as it is tightly linked to fire-rate. This also makes the early game easier.

• Removed doubled enemy spawn scaling after 10,000 score (now as before 10k)
• Reset leaderboard

Please keep in mind that the max highscores will be lower now due to the gameplay changes. Unfortunately the leaderboard also had to be reset.

Congratulations to the top ten players and everyone else who competed the past year:

Swarmlake has continuously evolved over time with the goal to make it more fun for more players. I am aware that people dislike change and I am sorry for the frustration this can cause.

Thank you
– Dominique

This update Swarmlake 2.14 first appeared on Survivors-likes List.

Hi, Swarmlake 2.13 is out to improve clarity:

• Added bomb projectile attract feedback
• Added death player hitbox pulse
• Added descriptions to settings and tutorial UI
• Improved fading out bomb shockwave
• Improved all UI icons
• Improved controller support
• Fixed bomb shockwave model size
• Fixed UI interaction with right mouse button

Thank you
– Dominique

This update Swarmlake 2.13 first appeared on Survivors-likes List.

Hi all, Swarmlake 2.12 is out to improve depth:

• Added bombs moving slightly to player on each projectile hit
• Added pulling shards vertically up to player on jump
• Added grace time to enemy jump
• Added enemy jump sign on UI
• Improved consistency of attracting shards vertically
• Improved death camera by adding vertical offset
• Improved replay compression
• Reverted constant bomb movement from last update
• Reset leaderboard

Unfortunately the leaderboard had to be reset due to the gameplay changes.

Thank you for your understanding
– Dominique

This update Swarmlake 2.12 first appeared on Survivors-likes List.

Hey, Swarmlake 2.11 is out:

• Added gun muzzle flash
• Added slight horizontal bomb movement (reverted)
• Improved bomb spawn interval consistency
• Improved visibility of shadowed enemies
• Improved visual clarity by reducing enemy explosion size
• Improved floor model
• Fixed orbit camera ground collision by keeping player centered
• Fixed floor springs being able to clip into third person camera

Thank you for your feedback and support
– Dominique

This update Swarmlake 2.11 first appeared on Survivors-likes List.

Hi, Swarmlake 2.10 is out to improve clarity:

• Added third-person death camera
• Added replay orbit camera mode
• Added 8x replay speed
• Added showcasing always a top 10 replay at game start
• Added gun fire rate display to UI
• Added first bomb movement to improve tutorial
• Fixed rare visual bomb spawn glitch
• Fixed immediately stopping sound effects on pause
• Tweaked visual player model
• Tweaked visual enemy explosion sizes
• Tweaked visual enemy sizes to better fit their collision sphere
• Removed visual sun object
• Removed score-based bomb spawn limit

Some of the listed changes were already included in unannounced updates over the past months.

Thank you for your continued feedback
– Dominique

This update Swarmlake 2.10 first appeared on Survivors-likes List.

Hey all, Swarmlake 2.9 is out aiming to improve the game based on recent feedback:

• Decreased distance of replacing bomb on spawn limit when far away from player by 40%
• Decreased time-based enemy spawn scaling by 20% (same as before 2.8)
• Readded score-based bomb spawn limit (reverted)
• Fixed replacing farthest bomb on spawn limit in rare cases
• Removed replacing invisible bomb on spawn limit
• Reset leaderboard

Touching bombs is one of the core tensions of the game. Interesting decisions emerge from moving towards bombs (reward) while judging (uncertainty) how to best avoid enemies (cost).

Having bombs move to the player undermines this dynamic as it was better to move in an endless circle and ignore bombs until they were close. Players wanting to win were forced to play this way which reduced depth. Therefore bomb movement was removed in the recent updates.

However this increased uncertainty due to the increased time to reach bombs. This update aims to address this.

Unfortunately the leaderboard also had to be reset.

Thank you for your understanding, feedback and support
– Dominique

This update Swarmlake 2.9 first appeared on Survivors-likes List.

Hi all, Swarmlake 2.8 is out to improve balance:

• Increased time-based enemy spawn scaling by 20% (reverted in 2.9)
• Decreased fire-rate increases to 1,000, 3,000 and 6,000 scores
• Decreased distance of replacing bomb on spawn limit when far away from player by 20%
• Readded avoider (orange) enemy intercepting the player (same as in 2.5)
• Fixed spawning bombs too close to each other in rare cases
• Removed bomb movement
• Removed score-based bomb spawn limit (reverted in 2.9)
• Removed score-based bomb spawn frequency
• Moved slowmo from fire-rate increases to 10,000 score intervals
• Reset leaderboard

Thank you
– Dominique

This update Swarmlake 2.8 first appeared on Survivors-likes List.

Hey, Swarmlake 2.7 is out to improve balance:

• Decreased bomb speed by 95%
• Increased bomb to bomb avoidance radius by 100%
• Increased bomb spawn frequency by 20%
• Added replacing bomb on spawn limit when far away from player
• Improved bomb spawn height variation
• Removed slowing down bomb on projectile hit
• Removed bomb itself dropping a shard
• Reverted avoider (orange) enemy intercepting the player (reverted in 2.8)
• Reset leaderboard

Thank you
– Dominique

This update Swarmlake 2.7 first appeared on Survivors-likes List.

Hi, the free Swarmlake 2.5 Update is out which improves balance based on player feedback:

• Readded fire-rate increases at 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000 scores (same fire-rate as before 2.4)
• Added time-based enemy spawn scaling
• Added score-based bomb spawn limit until 4,000 score
• Improved movement of avoider (orange) enemy by intercepting the player
• Increased crystal attract speed by 100%
• Increased swarmer (white) enemy max speed by 10% (same as before 2.4)
• Removed slowmo outside of fire-rate increases
• Reset leaderboard

Thank you!
– Dominique

This update Swarmlake 2.5 first appeared on Survivors-likes List.