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Hey everyone! We thought it's finally time to let you all know some of the things we've been cooking for ACT2.
Work has been progressing steadily, we've almost wrapped up the gameplay part, this includes all the new enemies and bosses, character movesets, stage gimmicks, new mechanics and level blockouts. From here on one of us will be working on implementing the remaining elements while the other will work on level art and cutscenes. There's still a mountain of work ahead of us but we're starting to feel optimistic.
for new enemies mechanics and player weapons, we won't be touching up anything story related, but if you wanna go full blind, here's your heads up.
Now then,
Following Blue's secondary weapon, Red's got another whole moveset with his brand new weapon:
Red can now use a giant shield he can throw at enemies, while weaker than his gloves, they make up for it with increased range and crowd control as the shield will drag enemies with it, keeping them at bay.
But of course a shield's main job is to block attacks and this weapon changes how the mechanic normally works. By holding the block button Red will protect himself until the button is released, this makes it easier to block in general but it has the added benefit that the player gets to decide when they release the shield, allowing them to block+counter much faster, even between enemy attacks. Blocking many attacks will charge up the shield.
Perfect Block works as it always has, raising the shield right as an attack comes will count as a perfect, parrying/staggering and filling your Flow gauge, BUT it'll also charge the weapon instantly.
The size of the blades depending on shield charge.
One of Punk Star's Flow attacks is called Counterblast, this move will instantly shoot a large explosion in front of Red, the size and power depends on the charge level (No charge, Level 1 or Level 2) which will be consumed on use. The charge is kept even if you switch characters.
You can imagine the synergy already, block a bunch, risk some perfect parries and get strong punishes as reward.
We might go into more specifics of its Flows and combos in a future update, but for now let's jump onto Yellow!
We finally got to expand on Yellow's moveset from the little teaser you guys got in the Prologue and she is a beast to play as. Think of her as the berserker of the group.
Yellow's giant hammer, it is the strongest weapon in the game and also the slowest, all of its attacks are able to guard-crush enemies, allowing her to interrupt a lot of enemy attacks and break through their armored states (more on that later).
Her Flows include a variety of spins and flips that end with her either crushing downwards, blasting enemies away or taking them for a ride.
Sure, she is slow but here's where her main gimmick comes into play:
This single Flow deserves its own section due to how versatile it is. Yellow is not particularly right in the head, and this is the gameplay reflection of that. Activating this Flow ability will make her enter a Frenzy state that will last for 5 seconds, it can be stacked it up to 3 times for a total duration of 15 seconds. During this state all of her moves will get a speed boost, her basic combo will get extra attacks and each Flow will get a different buff.
She will however take double damage during it. But there's more, and here's probably the most fun aspect of Yellow's toolkit.
When Yellow is Frenzied, switching to another character while she is attacking will make her continue to attack until the Frenzy runs out, if she was using her basic combos, she will chase down enemies and continue to attack non-stop, if she was using Flows she will repeat them until she runs out of Frenzy or sucks up the Flow gauge completely. This will vastly raise the DPS dealt as Yellow can be out Frenzied while Blue and Red do their own thing. Just keep in mind the double damage, she can be devastating but having her completely unchecked might shave off most of your health bar if something big hits her.
Yellow's second projection is a colossal chainsaw, the weapon is fully implemented but we won't go much into details to keep some surprises for you all to explore. We'll say its main gimmick is that it attacks by holding the button, dealing sustained damage. It's really fun to use on its own but its especially brutal when combined with Frenzy as you'll see Yellow shredding up enemies around the other characters.
Most of ACT2's enemies are complete and we're really happy with the expanded roster. ACT2 also includes more bosses than 1, so look forward to that!
Because we don't wanna spoil too much we'll focus on one miniboss today:
The second largest creature you'll find in ACT2, Crushers are towering colossus with an armor made up of highly compressed zenodian blood.
Here's where one of the new mechanics comes into play. There's a new blue bar under the enemy health (and that beautiful placeholder texture for the portrait), this their armor bar. You won't be able to deal damage to them unless you use guard-crushing moves like Red's charged fists, some of his Flows and of course, our MVP for ACT2, Yellow.
Enemies with armor won't get staggered by attacks so timing and positioning is required to break through them, once you do, the slimey monster underneath will burst forth and you'll be able to defeat it.
Be careful that if you take too long, it'll regrow the armor!
ACT1 covers chapters from 1-7, ACT2 will go from 7-14.
This is the part that's still heavily WIP. We do have all the layouts blocked in and we can play the whole ACT2 from start to finish... but it looks like ass.
Doing an art pass of all these levels will take considerable time, especially since a lot of them have brand new asset kits and set pieces. You will have to wait a little longer to see that.
In terms of gameplay, we decided to make the Double Jump an unlock after beating ACT1 so we could expand on the verticality for ACT2 onwards. These newer levels have more cool platforming sections where you'll be able to zoom around using your extra height. Early playtests are very promising!
Because our focus is and always will be gameplay, they've been pushed to the end of the cycle, if something needs to be cut short or scrapped, we prefer it be narrative than new enemies or areas.
We'll start working on them as soon as the levels are looking presentable. Really looking forward to bringing back the VA gang!
We're aiming to release ACT2 by the end of the year. That's the goal, so far so good, we're halfway through the year and we're 50-60% done. It's gonna be close but we'll do our best!
For those of you that are in Spain. We'll be attending Iris Games (Málaga, 3rd of July) because Genokids has been nominated for Best Indie! How cool is that? https://www.premiosirisgames.com/
That next sunday (July 5th), we'll be back in Valencia to attend OWN, where you'll be able to play the game and chat with us. https://www.openworldnow.com/
Speed up a bit the automatic graphics quality selection process.
Moved the sprite textures used on cutscenes to assetbundles, which was needed to fix a problem with incompatible texture formats on some GPUs. This has allowed compressing them with L4Z, which has reduced the size of the game on disk from 3.44 GB to 1.52 GB.
Disabled automatically pausing the game when losing focus, which was problematic for streaming.
Relaxed some invisible walls in Chapter 1.
Added countermeasures to avoid dying just after winning a chapter.
Fix sometimes being unable to get grounded after jumping towards a ledge and hitting it at knee height. Instead of completely going over the ledge, the character gets stuck on the ledge itself and has to either stop running towards the ground and fall or double jump.
Fix headlights not illuminating characters.
Reverted Japanese localization changes introduced when the French and Russian localizations were added.
Fix game crashes on computers that don't support BC7 texture compression (which requires DirectX 11) and have 8 GB of VRAM or less (or RAM when using an integrated GPU), as in this case Unity decompresses the textures in RAW format before uploading them to RAM, which results in an out of memory crash or even freezing the computer.
Fix void out and go back to previous checkpoint doesn't work when continually tagging to other Genokids while falling off them map.
Fix Eurobeat music doesn't play on the last fight in Chapter 3's circuit after dying and retrying or when continuing a savegame from that point.
Added French localization (thanks to Kévin Valmar and Jeanne de Troie).
Added Russian localization (thanks to Daniil "Sidiusz" Kuznetsov).
Added the same sound effect of locking a target to cycling between locked targets.
Added the ability to go into hyper mode and back on the skin menu.
Added the option in Gameplay settings to show a small UI flow bar next to the Genokid.
Added UI to the end screen that shows which buttons you can press to get out of it.
Small optimizations.
Increased slightly the effect of the skills magnet and magnet+.
Blocking on the ground now enables the flag "stick to ground" which prevents the Genokid from being pushed off a ledge, fall and stop blocking.
The game now pauses when it loses focus (Disabled "run in background").
Included the new localizations into the credits.
Darkened the background of UI bars (health, flow, hyper in the Genokid and enemies) to make them more readable.
When running up a wall by holding jump next to it, the Genokid will now keep going up after reaching the time limit instead of jumping backwards if the top of the wall is very close and we can go over it. This prevents jumping backwards right next to the ledge instead of jumping over it.
Updated Discord's link to one that goes to a channel accessible to new members so that it doesn't look like it's broken.
Improved a bit the first cutscene of Chapter 04.
Removed the ability to use secondary weapons, flow and ego in the secret 04.
Fixed position/alignment/size of some localized texts.
Fixed typos.
Fixed going to chapter select while fighting Candy's second phase doesn't reset the ambience audio.
Fixed grounded and aerial dodge invincibility duration still wasn't the same after the previous update.
Fixed Swordmachine skin voice effect is too loud sometimes.
Fixed Swordmachine skin voice is not applied when setting the skin from a secret door until Blue's entity gets disabled due to tagging to other Genokid or entering a secret.
Fixed Swordmachine skin has a visual effect while in hyper that gets smaller when viewing it from up-close.
Fixed secrets 01 and 02 have invisible walls around the arena which can receive decals.
Fixed Fatty doesn't know how to count up to 3 while rolling attack.
Fixed Fatty doesn't understand that the ground isn't a wall, so it can collide with it.
Fixed Red can move around while holding an attack charge by taunting, then holding the attack button and finally move around.
Fixed camera can go through walls when using the flow specials Pain Storm and The End.
Fixed culling issues.
Fixed the customize skin menu shows the characters blurred when accessing it from the chapter 07 menu.
Fixed Kirie's skin isn't pixelated when inspecting it from up-close in the customize menu after opening this menu in any chapter, then loading a different chapter and entering again the customize menu.
Fixed hypermode audio effect doesn't loop correctly.
Fixed dynamic bones in characters could collide with disabled colliders.
Fixed purple mini ego clumps aren't animated and look dark when see from afar.
Fixed disabling the camera assist prevents the camera from automatically look up/down when locking an enemy.
Fixed softlock UI shows sprite images that shouldn't be there when the gameplay setting to show the enemy's health on the lock-on UI is enabled.
Fixed Flow box UI doesn't flash green/red when trying to perform a flow special with Red.
Fixed can't hardlock enemies while the Flow special Razor wings is being held with Blue flying around.
Fixed chasing an enemy with Blue while using the scythe sometimes doesn't hit immediately after reaching the target.
Fixed transitioning from a chase hit animation to landing animation doesn't happen immediately after touching the ground, delaying getting grounded.
Fixed can't attack just after a chase hit if the attack button is pressed immediately after.
Fixed some of the Blue's combat voice lines were played at a higher pitch than normal.
Fixed situations in which enemies can get out of bounds if grabbed using an attack while next to a wall and are pitched looking down.
Fixed main menu can lag when the interface shows up.
Fixed the moon's eye keeps moving while on the pause menu.
Fixed forcefully closing the game while the first cutscene of chapter 01 results in a crash.
Fixed sprites on the first cutscene of chapter 01 shake slightly.
Fixed font Bowlby, Capitalized E with tilde "É" has the tilde too high up when compared to all other capitalized vowels with tildes.
Fixed duplicated sprite in the first cutscene of Chapter 02.
Fixed flow increasing while on secret 02.
Fixed goop detection in some places to avoid getting resetted when not actually touching it.
Fixed Bully's punch hitbox stays too long and reaches a bit too high up.
Fixed Candy's lock-on pop-up tutorial reminder stays in the middle of the screen for too long (4 seconds now down to 0.5 seconds).
Disconnecting a gamepad pauses the game. Now it also shows an image signaling this fact to give feedback on why the pause menu was opened.
Increased the invincibility duration of the grounded dodge from 0.24 to 0.3 to match the duration of the aerial dodge, now both last the same.
Now Razor wings, both in normal and hyper, contribute to revenge value.
Fixed Candy's Lightning strike, hitbox is a bit too large for each lightning.
Fixed Candy's Thunder Dance, it's hitbox now hits every 0.66666 seconds instead of 2 times per second.
Fixed Candy's Thunder Dance, it now tries to go away for a moment after hitting you instead of staying next to you.
Fixed rotating the camera using a gamepad doesn't always work when the stick is moved nearly completely horizontal or vertical, with the value reported in that axis being not 0 but very close to it. It was easier to encounter the problem with a gamepad with joystick drift or when using Steam Input.
Fixed missing outline on some texts.
Fixed some props can't go through the ocean goop.
Increased healing from clumps.
Disabled managed stripping from the build.
Lowered the intensity of the low health effect.
Offscreen attacks are now represented by a similar warning image than the onscreen attacks but on the border of the screen and pointing towards the attack source, instead of a red flash on the border of the screen.
Added Vulkan to Linux, now OpenGL is the fallback. Reverted on v1.0.87 to OpenGL, resulted in stutters and crashes on Steam Deck.
Fixed Candy's last attack on easy, it's damage was too high.
Fixed some of Candy attacks were targetting the closest Genokid to her instead of the current one.
Fixed UI, when the Hype bar is full and life is in between 40% and 25% the label MAX doesn't pulse.
Fixed typo in the credits.
Fixed the math checking if an enemy is close enough for a chase wasn't the same when using soft-lock and hard-lock.
Fixed some culling issues disabling some objects that were still visible.
Fixed the ferry's wheel collision to better match the render.
Fixed entering a bumpercar with Red while unarmed and then getting hit while driving lets him attack without using his gauntlets.
Fixed in some cases Blue's second weapon was the default when switching to her instead of always defaulting to her sword.
Fixed switching Blue's weapon during the flow The End doesn't switch it visually until the next attack.
Fixed some culling problems.
Fixed opening the pause menu during a chapter, then trying to leave the chapter, then going back to keep playing the chapter stops the music.
Fixed a barrier in Chapter 2 making it bigger to avoid Chamans from scaping.
Fixed style's cooldown calculation isn't correct, resulting in attacks like Waning Vortex not awarding style.
Fixed Waning Vortex flow doesn't flow chain.
Fixed OpenGL issues with some texts writing to bloom and some alpha tested shaders writing to depth.
Fixed UI's Gamepad layout tooltip stays after leaving the menu.
Fixed on the last cutscene of Chapter 1 there's two subtitle lines that overlap when the previous one should have already been disabled.
Fixed softlock in a fight in Chapter 7 that can happen when being a monkey flying around.
Fixed missing barrier in the last fight of Chapter 5.
Fixed "CHALLENGE" popup message in front of a secret door wasn't translated.
We couldn't be happier seeing all of you having fun! Of course you found bugs while doing so, but that was expected, and that's why here's a batch of changes and fixes.
Screenshake's intensity during gameplay can now be changed and disabled in the Gameplay settings menu.
Fixed when using OpenGL (The default on Linux) attacking with Green or having too many dynamic lights in the game at the same time results in part of the map becoming black temporarily.
Fixed gamepad layout Default B description is wrong.
Fixed the collapsable Flow help-box UI and other UIs sometimes don't update the button icons when setting new bindings on the settings menu.
Fixed sometimes can't scroll with the mouse wheel on the input keyboard rebinding menu.
Fixed it's possible to go out of the map through two small alleys by adding an invisible wall.
Fixed rebinding left and right mouse button incorrectly doesn't show that there's a conflict warning.
Fixed when using OpenGL Kirie's skin is inverted when the camera is close enough.
Fixed when in training mode, opening the pause menu, selecting the leave button and holding it a bit results in going back into the training mode.
Fixed the Jester enemy is able to get out of bounds in some cases.
Fixed Candy's CallThunder sound was playing 5 times at the same time instead of one.
Fixed skipping the menu intro sequence at exactly a transition point results on only the UI skipping.
Fixed dying with a Genokid that isn't the current one results in a soflock.
Fixed screenshake can carry on to cutscenes, making them unwatchably shaky.
Fixed style points not resetted to the amount on the last check point when dying, accumulating indifinetly.
Fixed japanese translation doesn't show up on tutorials and parts of the end screen.
Fixed secret mission in Chapter 3 disables Red when exiting it.
ACT1 is out, which is around 1/3 of the game we have planned. We hope you will enjoy it as much as we did developing and playing it.
Destroy all those aliens in your path and try not to die many times 😏
About
This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for Genokids, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main Genokids statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.