I probably say this every month, but again I'm extremely happy with the progress made in the last month of development. After pushing out the last update I immediately went to work on changing a major core system that I've been working with for over a year, thanks to some feedback from a friend. Previously, titans would lose energy automatically at a constant rate, which would intentionally limit the play time, but had the unfortunate side-effect of making the game seem unfair or arbitrary with regards to your titan's damage/health. So the first thing I did this month was rip that out, and make all the adjustments I needed to in order to get the game feeling balanced again. There's still work to be done on that, but playing the game now I think it feels much more satisfying. Here's a simpler breakdown of most of the latest changes:

- Energy Drain and Max Stamina stats have been removed as they are no longer relevant. All titans have equal stamina.

- Stat mutations are balanced, meaning that if one stat goes up, then that increase will be reflected in a decrease in other stats. This is to make stat mutations more of a strategic process, instead of waiting for a titan to show up with perfect stats across the board.

- Losing a limb will cause the titan to lose energy at a constant rate, making limb loss more lethal, and giving players less time to play with titans that have lost their full functionality.

- Better enemy AI, humans will find their way around faster, and enemy vehicles use standard traffic nodes to more effectively traverse the map.

- Hazard resistances are capped at +/-75% to avoid total immunity to any single hazard type.

- New SFX, from Caleb Winters, as well as a new titan voice generation system.

- Particle limiting system should greatly improve overall performance of the game.

- Random weather system introduced to the missions. This does not have an impact on gameplay.

- 6 new missions, including a brand new 'Survival' mission type which challenges the player to outlast the clock while being hunted by law enforcement.

- Missions are divided into an early loose 'Act' system where some lab upgrades will be locked behind progression now.

As I mentioned above, talented sound designer Caleb Winters has graciously agreed to help out on Test Tube Titans by creating SFX for the game. His contributions have already been excellent as you will notice in game, and I'm excited to hear what he comes up with next. His aesthetic has perfectly captured the atmosphere that I'm going for and I'm very fortunate to have him working on this project.

That's all for this month, let me know what you think!