Hi all, Fizz here.
I finally have a number for you. RoboSquare: Recharged will cost $5.99 USD when it launches in Q1 2027. It's a full release, not Early Access, so that's the whole game for the price.
Here's what's gone in since the last post on September 6th.
A new arena
Physics Overload is the third Capture the Core arena. That makes 15 arenas across the five modes.
Roll your bot on purpose
Hold the new roll button (Left Ctrl by default, and it's on controller too). While you hold it, your bot stops righting itself and the movement buttons pitch and roll it instead. Let go and it rights itself again. It's useful, and it's also a very good way to fall off the map.
Controller and camera
The menus now work properly on a controller, including the pause menu, the scoreboard and long lists like the resolution picker.
The right stick looks up and down, and the camera eases back to level when you let go. Forward and reverse moved to the left stick to make room.
The pause menu opens by itself when the Steam overlay opens or a controller gets unplugged. It's an online match, so nothing actually pauses, but your bot stops taking input while it's open.
Cosmetics
Painted variants. Parts from crates can roll with one of 13 paints. A painted part gets its own tile in customization, so a painted Cetane and a plain one are separate items.
Trade-ups. Trade five items of one tier for one item of the next tier up.
An in-game key shop, priced in your own currency through Steam.
New players get a starting loadout before their first match.
How cosmetics work this time
The first game's monetization was handled through an outside partner. They dissolved without paying out, and that was the end of that. This time I built the economy myself, and everything in it can be earned by playing. Most cosmetics are never behind a paywall. Crates and keys both drop from just playing, daily, for everyone. If you don't want to wait, you can buy keys too. That's the whole monetization.
Smaller things
Every chaos event now shows its name in a banner when it starts, so at least you know what hit you.
Capture the Core now tells you your goal by its color ("Slam cores into the CYAN goal"). Teams are named by color too, instead of by numbers that appeared nowhere on screen.
Capture the Core goals now handle the larger cores properly.
Parties can join each other across regions. Before this, anyone whose nearest server wasn't the leader's got "Game does not exist".
Music no longer cuts out in busy rounds. Sixteen hovering bots were drowning it out.
The hover thrusters have engine sounds and a retuned animation, and the menus have sounds now.
Steam achievements are hooked up.
If you played this game, Recharged is the version I wanted it to be. Wishlisting it is the most useful thing you can do for it right now: [dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/4088870/"] And I'm on Discord if you want to argue about any of this: https://discord.gg/cdSTbrM Fizz
