Thank you for your extreme patience as I continue to bumble along with this game in what spare time I have. Last update, I suggested that I’d get Gauntlet mode’s World 1 finished, and then work on the framework for Gauntlet mode iteself. In the end I decided to get the first two worlds done first, since both will be needed for a playable release of Gauntlet anyway. I’ve now got the content for the first two worlds complete.

The Gauntlet mode worlds will be loosely themed on the classical Greek elements: Earth, Water, Wind, Fire. Earth and Water now have all their content, and if I give them three levels each, that’ll be enough for an initial release of the new game mode that you can try out. As in an actual game update, not just more progress news like this. What I still need to do first is write the framework around the new mode: How you enter levels, progress through them, repair between levels etc. It’s stuff that’s mostly in the game already but it needs to be strung together correctly and have some new concepts added. At the moment to test Gauntlet mode, I use dev tools to select a vehicle and drop into a level manually. I’m afraid I don’t have a release time estimate because the amount of time I have for Scraps currently varies a lot week by week. It’ll get done.

I’ve also been making a few other changes to the game as I go, that’ll make it in when Gauntlet launches. One I can show off is a new primary firing mode:

It’s something that was brought up in the forums a while ago. People were carefully building vehicles that didn’t have quite enough power supply for their weapons, so the weapons would end up dropping down into a sequential firing mode instead of all firing at once – meaning less recoil, and more spread out power and heat. Now that mode can be automatic, but the old mode is still there as well. There isn’t really any additional complexity to worry about for the player – left-mouse will be the new mode, or right-mouse will fire using the all-at-once mode that’s in the game now.

Some new screens of the Gauntlet worlds I’ve been making

EARTH is sort of the Green Hill zone of the thing. It’s grassy hills and rocks and trees, and combat is against lewer-level enemies: Basic machine gun turrets, mostly micro vehicles, hover drones.

WATER is snow and ice. AI vehicles are more expensive and more frequent, turrets are more powerful, and drones are less common. But your vehicle will be more powerful too.