Eggy Swarm is now planned for a full release on October 15th.
Development is still very much ongoing, and I am not comfortable releasing Swarm simply because it has already reached the point where it has enough features to sell. It has grown into a much larger project than I originally expected, and I want the first stable release to properly reflect that.
Before release, I still want to add more gameplay variety and more long term reasons to keep coming back. Some of the additional features currently being considered or planned include Time Attack, Boss Rush, Survival, Horde or Last Stand style modes, Score Attack, rotating gameplay mutators, further Story campaigns, additional characters, arenas, enemies, bosses, achievements, challenges and Shop content, along with a future expansion of the credit system so site owners can potentially offer paid credit packages directly through the Swarm Shop.
Those are only some of the ideas currently on the table. There are other features I have not announced yet that I also want to develop before release.
Current feature set
Classic gameplay
Eggy Swarm already includes a complete live gameplay system with full runs, checkpoints, run submission, results handling and persistent player history.Players can choose their character, arena and difficulty, enter a live Swarm run and build their character during play using weapons, passives and evolutions.
The game includes enemy AI, bosses, elite enemies, projectiles, status effects, shields, regeneration, lifesteal, area attacks, chain attacks, meteors and a range of other combat mechanics.
Run progress and results are tracked server side, including kills, bosses, damage, duration, score and other statistics.
Story Mode
Story Mode currently includes a complete 15 chapter campaign with its own dedicated Story hub and gameplay flow.Story Mode supports:
- 15 individual campaign chapters
- Chapter progression and unlocking
- Story specific objectives and mission mechanics
- Save and Exit
- Continue and resume support
- Story checkpoints
- Death handling
- Story completion tracking
- Independent Story progression
- Dedicated Story results
- Chapter replay
- Play Next functionality
- Dedicated Story achievements
The current campaign includes:
Chapter 1 through Chapter 15, ending with Heart of the Swarm. The live database contains all 15 Story levels, Story progress, Story saves and completion tracking.
Three Story difficulty levels
Story Mode supports three separate difficulty paths.Standard uses the original Story balance.
Onslaught increases enemy health, damage and spawn pressure while also tightening mission timers.
Extinction is the highest difficulty and increases enemy strength and pressure considerably further while also reducing player recovery and making applicable mission timers more demanding.
Progression is tracked separately by difficulty, meaning completing chapters on Standard does not automatically complete them on Onslaught or Extinction.
114 achievements
Eggy Swarm currently includes 114 enabled achievements.This includes a wide range of gameplay, progression and challenge based achievements along with the newly added Story achievement system.
Story Mode adds 18 dedicated achievements.
There is one achievement for completing each of the 15 chapters:
Chapter 1 completed through Chapter 15 completed.
There are also three full campaign achievements:
Signal Restored
Complete the full campaign on Standard.
Against the Onslaught
Complete the full campaign on Onslaught.
Extinction Denied
Complete the full campaign on Extinction.
In game achievement notifications
New Story achievements now trigger directly inside the game.When a player earns a Story achievement for the first time, an ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED notification appears in game showing the achievement they have earned.
Achievements already owned do not repeatedly trigger the same unlock notification on replay.
Challenges
Eggy Swarm currently contains 72 configured challenges across several challenge types.These include:
- Daily challenges
- Weekly challenges
- Monthly challenges
- Repeatable challenges
- Timed challenges
- Seeded challenges
- Community challenge support
Challenges can include their own goals, attempt limits, rewards, rules and scheduling.
Leaderboards
Swarm includes dedicated leaderboards for competitive players.The leaderboard system is backed by its own repository and can use run and player performance data to rank members.
Leaderboards can be enabled or managed by the site owner through the ACP.
Permanent progression
Players can earn and spend credits on permanent progression upgrades that improve their Swarm profile outside an individual run.Permanent progression includes its own player page and ACP controls so site owners can tune or reset progression values where required.
There is also dedicated permanent progression tuning in the ACP.
Codex
Eggy Swarm includes a dedicated Codex where members can access information relating to game content and discoveries.Run history and player statistics
Members can view their run history and player profile information.The ACP also contains dedicated player management, run history, run moderation and statistics areas.
The backend tracks accepted runs, victories, kills, boss kills, damage, playtime, arena usage and character usage among other statistics.
Current playable content
The current live content system contains:
- 14 characters
- 12 weapons
- 15 passives
- 12 weapon evolutions
- 7 arenas
- 18 enemies
- 8 elite modifiers
- 5 bosses
- 5 generic difficulty definitions
All of these are currently enabled in the live content database.
Custom characters
Site owners can add and manage their own characters through the ACP.Characters can be integrated into the wider Swarm ecosystem and can also be used with Shop ownership and achievement requirements.
Custom weapons
Weapons have their own ACP management system and can be created, edited and configured by site owners.Passive upgrades
Passives are separately configurable and form part of the in run progression system.Weapon evolutions
Weapons can evolve into stronger forms through the evolution system.Evolution content is independently managed from standard weapons and can also be tracked through player discovery data.
Custom arenas
Site owners can create and manage additional arenas.Arenas are full content definitions and can be used across live gameplay and other game systems.
Enemies and elite modifiers
Swarm includes configurable enemies and elite modifiers.Site owners can manage enemy definitions and elite behaviour through the ACP without having to modify the core game manually.
Bosses
Bosses have their own content management system and are integrated into live gameplay.Boss statistics are also tracked during player runs.
Difficulty system
Classic gameplay has its own configurable difficulty definitions.Story Mode uses its own Standard, Onslaught and Extinction progression system on top of the existing game architecture.
Full Swarm Shop
Eggy Swarm includes a dedicated Shop where members can spend earned credits.The Shop currently supports:
- Purchasing items
- Ownership tracking
- Equipping items
- Unequipping items
- Purchase history
- Shop item requirements
- Custom site owner items
- Character content
- Arena content
- Cosmetic content
- Achievement locked items
The current live database contains 213 Shop items.
Achievement locked Shop rewards
Shop items can require ownership of a specific achievement before becoming available.
This means site owners can create their own Story progression rewards.
For example, a custom character could require the Chapter 7 completed achievement before the member is allowed to use or purchase it.
This is not limited to Story Mode either. The Shop can use achievement requirements as part of the wider Swarm progression system.
Shop ownership management
The ACP includes a dedicated Shop ownership area.Administrators can inspect ownership and manually grant or revoke Shop items where required.
Shop purchase history
Site owners can review Shop purchases from the ACP.Purchase records are stored separately from current ownership, allowing the system to retain purchase history.
Credit system
Swarm includes its own credit system.Credits can be awarded through gameplay and other systems and can then be spent inside the Swarm Shop or used for progression.
Site owners have dedicated ACP Credit Logic controls for configuring how the credit economy behaves.
Cosmetic stat tuning
The ACP includes dedicated cosmetic stat tuning.Site owners can configure cosmetic stat behaviour, edit individual tuning values, configure limits and reset tuning where required.
Game Asset Manager
Swarm has its own ACP Game Asset Manager.This gives site owners control over game assets without having to manually replace files.
The current database contains 64 managed asset records.
Music and audio management
Swarm includes configurable audio and music systems covering areas such as:
- Main menu music
- Arena music
- Boss music
- Victory music
- Game over music
- Run complete and run failed audio
- Achievement audio
- Challenge audio
- Level up audio
- Ambient audio
- Environment loops
- Other game events
Custom audio can be managed through the Swarm asset system.
Mobile support
Swarm includes dedicated mobile runtime support alongside the desktop game.Mobile specific JavaScript and responsive behaviour are part of the current canonical codebase.
Player administration
The ACP includes full player management.Administrators can view players, edit player data and manage activity relating to Swarm.
Run moderation
Runs can be reviewed through the ACP.The backend includes support for accepted, pending and rejected run states along with administrator moderation.
Statistics dashboard
Swarm includes backend statistics for site owners.Tracked information includes player counts, runs, victories, kills, bosses, damage, playtime, arenas and characters.
Achievement management
Achievements can be created and managed directly through the ACP.Achievement definitions support a much wider system than simple one time unlocks, including progress tracking, thresholds, repeatability, maximum awards, cooldowns, availability windows, secret achievements, rarity and sorting.
Challenge management
Challenges can also be created and managed from the ACP.Administrators can configure challenge type, metric, target, dates, seed, reward credits, attempt limits, rules and availability.
Content management
The ACP provides management for:
- Characters
- Weapons
- Passives
- Weapon evolutions
- Arenas
- Enemies
- Elite modifiers
- Bosses
- Difficulties
- Challenges
- Achievements
- Game assets
- Permanent progression
- Cosmetic stat tuning
- Shop items
- Shop ownership
- Shop purchases
- Players
- Runs
- Statistics
The current ACP exposes dedicated actions for all of these systems.
Maintenance tools
Swarm includes its own ACP maintenance area and maintenance execution tools for ongoing administration.Still growing before release
This is the feature set as it stands today, not the final October 15th feature list.There is still more I want to add before I am comfortable calling Eggy Swarm finished for its first stable release.
More game modes are one of the main areas I want to expand next, particularly modes such as Time Attack, Boss Rush, Survival, Horde or Last Stand, Score Attack and rotating gameplay mutators.
I also want to explore additional Story campaigns, more custom content, more progression rewards, further Shop integration and a larger variety of characters, arenas, enemies, bosses, achievements and challenges.
A future expansion of the Shop and credit system is also being considered that would allow site owners to offer real money credit packages through their own payment configuration, while keeping those credits inside the Swarm ecosystem.
And even that is not the complete development list.
There are other features and improvements I have not announced yet that will continue to be developed before launch.
Planned full release: October 15th.
Until then, Eggy Swarm will remain in active development and testing.