Hey all! I wanted to get this out yesterday but day time job took up my time so here we are.

This update is about balance. Cavity Busters is a two toe experience. The first toe is about getting tons of upgrades and walking into a room and Thanos toe snapping your enemies out of existence. But the other toe - probably the little toe that doesn't get enough attention, and starts to grow a weird nail, but also where is the nail? - is about intricate hand crafted bullet patterns. This manifests pretty well in early levels, but by the late game, you barely see enemy bullets. So this update introduces a toe I mean, an game mode to push that feeling into late game content.

(Why toe analogy for game about teeth.)

First and foremost, this mode is completely optional. So getting completely OP and decimating bosses as soon as you enter the room is unchanged. High five? High five! But with toes. Glob, stop.

Ok, so balance mode does make things a bit more difficult. First of all, enemies all have a slight damage cap. I promise this isn't too aggressive. There's a nice balance of letting bosses show you the cool bullet patterns they have while crushing them with your over powered build. The next thing is, most upgrades will require some sort of payment to pick up. For instance, you may need to part with some health or mints.

I have to admit. A lot of the stuff that's getting fixed or changed, should've been done back when I was in full development of this game. But I think I burned out back then. So I'm fixing things that have bothered me for years. The changes below are listed in order of coolest. At least I think they're cool.

• added a game mode that balances out the game for a slightly harder but fair experience
  
• harvesting crops now saves rewards so you can exit or switch characters without losing anything. Then you receive the rewards at the start of your run
  
• changed background art on tutorial rooms
  
• auto aim for controller is much better now
  
• added a hp bar to shard crystal fight
  
• added some feedback and sound fx for when you can't do certain actions like healing or jumping or purchasing an item
  
• added a little effect after beating a round to show stars achieved
  
• added some ui to show items that effect active healing
  
• when wall bashing into an enemy, you have a bit more control over your gummy while in the air
  
• Necrotizing Fasciitis and Deadly Needle chance of firing have been reduced again and made it so they can't insta kill bosses or mini bosses
  
• lowered crit tickles chance for crit hit
  
• changed double damage bullets color slightly
  
• updated game modes sprites color
  
• poison wont affect player in jack npc room now
  
• parasite upgrade does a bit more damage now
  
• embrybro and squeezy toy are no longer tied to active heal use. i mean squeezy toy is, but also to other things
  
• key bindings should now properly load for each save profile
  
• mega drill draws over the top of walls when it's available to use
  
• when wall running duration runs out, gummy will hop off the wall more smoothly
  
• lowered the default starting sound and music on a new save file
  
• lowered the default screen shake amount on a new save file
  
• completion stars a bit smaller on upgrades on the ground
  
• sneeze diseases will not move towards the player while transitioning to new levels and looping

• fixed a crash that would happen when you had the face mask
  
• fixed a bug where orby gummy could use shot gums without using goop
  
• fixed a number of bugs where the sound fx would get really loud
  
• fixed pick up item text being all over the screen in bigger rooms
  
• filling monster will push out of walls and holes better
  
• spikey monster won't spawn on top of exchange monster
  
• fixed an infinite goop exploit
  
• i think i fixed a couple door bugs - i think

And that's it! Remember to leave a review! I really gotta get back to working on Gum Flesh but I'll be around to fix bugs and probably do some more balancing.

https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/2946900/Gum_Flesh/

Enjoy!
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