The day has finally come for Tape to Tape to leave Early Access and officially launch!
Welcome back to our seasoned veterans, and warm handshakes to all the newcomers! We've come a long way, and we're excited to cover everything that's new in this very post.
Here's everything that will be covered in this announcement:
- 1.0 Update: What's New & Content Overview
- Extended Patch Notes for Returning Players
- What's Next?
- Special Thanks
Tape to Tape 1.0: What's New & Content Overview
Whether you've been with us since Early Access or you're stepping onto the ice for the first time, welcome to Tape to Tape 1.0!
Here's what awaits you in 1.0:
- A Completely Remade Roguelite Campaign - Build your team, choose your path, manage your benchwarmers and take on increasingly ridiculous opponents on your quest to save hockey
- 19 Playable Squads - Take on the campaign in 19 different ways, with each Squad introducing its own rules, mechanics and playstyle
- A New Unlock System - Complete challenges throughout your runs to unlock new players, Power-ups, Relics, Squads and more
- Build & Manage Your Team - Hire new players along the way and, when your Squad allows it, use your bench space to bring extra benchwarmers along for the journey
- Loads of Relics & Power-ups - Discover powerful abilities, stack their effects and create game-changing combinations throughout your runs
- Smarter & More Challenging AI - Improved offense, defense, positioning and decision-making make teammates more reliable and opponents more challenging
- Reworked Goalies - Improved saves, movement, positioning, rebounds and puck interactions make battles around the net more exciting
- New & Improved Gameplay Mechanics - Major improvements to physics, puck behavior, controls and the overall feel of hockey
- Complete UI/UX Overhaul - New menus, screens, transitions, notifications, icons and more
- Upgraded Visuals - Improved arenas, rendering and a brand-new set of VFX bring more life to every game
- Upgraded Audio - New music, sound effects and crowd audio throughout the game
- Nightmare Difficulty - Think you've mastered Tape to Tape? Take on our toughest difficulty yet
- And a Ton of Polish - Hundreds of balancing changes, fixes and quality-of-life improvements across the entire game
- The game is now available in multiple languages! – Chinese (Simplified), Czech, Finnish, German, Japanese, Portuguese (BR), Romanian, Russian, and Ukrainian. (More to come!)
Extended Patch Notes for Returning Players
If you haven't played Tape to Tape in a while, nearly every major system has been changed, expanded or rebuilt since the original Early Access campaign. Here's a more detailed breakdown of what's changed in 1.0:
Campaign
- The Roguelite Campaign has been completely rebuilt
- New world map pathing and encounters
- New progression system throughout each run
- New and reworked bosses and elite encounters
- Major balancing changes across all Acts
Squads
- 19 playable Squads
- Each Squad offers a different way to tackle the campaign with unique rules, mechanics, advantages and restrictions
- Different roster and bench configurations
- New Squad-specific challenges and playstyles
Unlocks & Progression
- Removal of the puck currency
- Brand-new unlock system
- Complete challenges to unlock new players, Power-ups, Relics, Squads and Benchwarmers
- Continue expanding your options between runs
Team Building & Benchwarmers
- Hire new players throughout your run
- New and expanded roster management
- Squads with available bench space can bring additional Benchwarmers along for the journey
- Manage injuries and make decisions about who stays in your lineup
- Create new team compositions and discover powerful synergies
Relics & Power-ups
- Loads of new Relics and Power-ups
- Existing Relics and Power-ups have been reworked and rebalanced
- New effects and combinations to discover
- More opportunities to stack abilities and create powerful synergies
Gameplay & Physics
- Major improvements to overall game feel
- Updated puck physics and behavior
- Improved rebounds and puck pickups
- Improvements to passing and shooting
- Improvements to bodychecking and player interactions
- Numerous adjustments to player movement and controls
- New and reworked gameplay mechanics
Goalies
- Improved positioning and puck tracking
- Updated save reactions
- Improved slide movement and butterfly timing
- Reworked rebound control and physics
- Improved puck and passing interactions
- Improved desperate saves and special goalie behaviors
- Goalie difficulty and behavior rebalanced throughout the campaign
AI
- Major improvements to offensive and defensive AI
- Improved positioning and decision-making
- Improved puck pursuit and interceptions
- Improved breakaway behavior
- Better teammate support
- More distinct behaviors and strategies between opponents
Difficulty
- Added Nightmare Difficulty
- Rebalanced Rookie, Pro and Veteran difficulties
- Improved difficulty progression throughout the campaign
- Numerous balancing adjustments to opponents, bosses and encounters
Opponents
- New and reworked opponents throughout the campaign
- Returning teams have received updated mechanics, abilities and behaviors
- New Elite and Boss encounters
- Improved team-specific AI and strategies
- Plenty of new surprises that we won't spoil here!
UI & UX
- Complete UI/UX overhaul
- New menus and screens
- New transitions and on-screen notifications
- New Power-up, Relic and content icons
- Improved readability and navigation
- Updated onboarding and tutorials
Visuals & Presentation
- Improved arena visuals
- Rendering improvements
- Brand-new VFX throughout the game
- Improved gameplay presentation
- Additional visual polish across the game
Audio
- New music
- New sound effects
- New crowd SFX
- Updated gameplay audio
- Additional audio throughout the campaign, events and encounters
Balancing, Polish & Bug Fixes
- Hundreds of balancing adjustments across virtually every part of Tape to Tape
- Numerous quality-of-life improvements
- Performance and stability improvements
- Loads of bug fixes
- Countless smaller tweaks across the entire game
What's Next?
We still have plans for Tape to Tape beyond 1.0! We already have a few things in mind, and we'll be sharing more about what's coming very soon.
Some of our short-term plans include, but aren't limited to:
- Bug fixes and balancing
- Planned quality-of-life features and community suggestions
- More Play Now modes and options, including Eliminator Mode, 16-bit Mode and additional gameplay toggles
- And more!
Special Thanks
As basic as this may sound, we would simply like to thank the entire community for your passion for Tape to Tape. From everyone posting about the game on social media, to streamers and content creators, the Steam Community Hub, and especially our Discord community.
A special thank you to our QA crew, Alpha Testers, Kickstarter Supporters, Beta Testers, Early Access Testers, Campaign 2.0 Testers and, finally, our 1.0 Bug Testers.
It has been a long road to 1.0, and all of your extensive testing and feedback throughout the years has truly been a blessing. We are forever grateful for all the time you guys invested into the game and for helping shape Tape to Tape into what it is today.
And thank you to everyone who took the time to send us a message, write a post or share feedback with us. Whether it was good, bad or ugly, we took it as constructive feedback and used it to make Tape to Tape better.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
We're not done yet...
See you on the ice!
The Tape To Tape Team
