It's been great getting the latest version of the demo out to everyone for Steam Next Fest. I wanted to show you all what I've been working on for the full version of the game lately, starting with new characters and persistent upgrades!

New Characters

The starting character, ever-heroic Jeremy, has a pretty simple charge skill: Focus Fire. For the second character I wanted to have a skill that pretty dramatically changes the play-style.

Meet Wally and his shield!

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45651965/90de468675af6df9ec90c297f76a93370bf9e1ec.gif"][/img]

It only adds to your break meter when taking a hit, but two hits will be enough to break a block entirely. On break you drop a temporary shield wall.

A shield's pretty powerful in a shmup, but this is also much larger than your standard weak spot (the pupil). I think this is a fairly balanced place to start, but will certainly keep an eye on how this plays out.

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45651965/99d6f23c4d0e9127832086297b10e2ff00fb3c19.gif"][/img]

This is Perry!

Persistent Upgrades

You'll be able to spend the ichor you accumulate across runs on persistent upgrades. They'll make you more powerful and give you more options on your next run.

The best way to show that off quickly is... a gif of UI. Delicious.

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45651965/93212a132d5dc1486e431feaa43040d88933f50e.gif"][/img]

Besides what's pictured I'm also planning on upgrades that affect the kinds of encounters that spawn, your ability to reroll your upgrades on level-up, and a good few other ideas. But these six are a good place to start for now!

I'll be posting about the game's third level and new enemies/minibosses next. Thanks again for your feedback, wishlists and demo reviews! They're a huge help for this tiny team.

Tyrus Peace plays Match Shot Chimera! Don't worry, I'll fix that bug later. And that one, too.

As always, you can get the latest version of the Match Shot Chimera Demo right here:

[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/3730320/Match_Shot_Chimera_Demo/"][/dynamiclink]

If you haven't tried the demo yet: please do! It's the best way to try out this lil' match-3 shmup at the moment, and I'd love to hear what you think so far.

I've improved the effects for matching blocks and player damage explosions quite a bit in this update, which should improve the game's feel and make getting damaged much more noticeable!

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45651965/0e2839f3451ce7212491131f17afbf295bb44a85.gif"][/img]

I've used some of that same tech to improve the "colored vector" render style, as well!

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/45651965/cbb93400620b2fd7e0a516740efdf689331dbc88.gif"][/img]

There are a lot of other changes I've made recently which are focused on the upcoming early access release. I'll detail those in another post soon! But there are many fixes and improvements to the demo in this update, as well. I've included more comprehensive patch notes below.

alpha 0.6 Patch Notes

• Improved effects for match explosions

• Improved damaged player effects

• Improved colored vector render style

• Improved UI scaling, especially on Steam Deck

• Fixed enemy bullets disappearing early

• Fixed unreliable break meter display

• Title screen now only plays cutscene on first load

• Settings UI arrow buttons now repeat while mouse down

• Added controller binding for style swap

• Fixed UI hang while generating keyboard binding graphics

• New save data format

• Ichor is now awarded at the end of a run (not spendable in demo!)