REPO’s latest community update video made me laugh so hard that the top half of my head almost fully flapped backward, much like the yapping mouths of the game’s own pedal bin-shaped robots. This wasn’t due to the video’s typically goofy opening, though I did crack a slight smile at the introductory silliness. Rather, it’s because presenter and semiwork designer Pontus spends the first half of the update talking about balance, then reveals a new weapon so powerful it risks obliterating the concept of balance from reality.
Posted on Friday, the video initially discusses REPO’s infamous health glitch, which, through a somewhat convoluted process, allowed players to completely refill their health between levels beyond what a health pack normally provides. Semiwork recently patched out this exploit to the chagrin of some players. But the glitch’s popularity convinced semiwork to take a fresh look at REPO’s health system.
This resulted in an array of planned adjustments. An unspecified future update will boost the recharge given by the REPO truck’s health beam, while also adding a team discount on health kits. As Pontus explains: “The more players there are, the cheaper the health kits will get.”
This isn’t the only balance change coming soon to REPO. The developer plans to make the game’s enemies easier to stagger for players below level five, thus giving new semibots a better chance of fleeing from the game’s creepy foes. Pontus also states that the game’s crystal items will also be receiving a rework, though he doesn’t specify how.
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All of this, Pontus says, forms part of semiwork’s reactive, community focussed design, constantly tweaking and adjusting the game so that it fits with what players like. “We always take a look at glitches that become popular, or even mods. And we take that as a sign that we need to tweak or change the gameplay design, or add to it.”
Immediately after saying this, Pontus reveals the cart cannon.
Described by semiwork as “the most powerful weapon in REPO yet”, the cart cannon is basically a turret that you mount inside the bed of the trolley used to transport valuable items back to your truck. The cannon has two fire modes. The first is, uh, canonically cannon, launching heavy projectiles that burst on impact. The second is a ferociously powerful laser beam that destroys anything caught in its path (including other semibots). Whichever you prefer, Pontus states the cannon will effectively “turn your cart into a battle tank”.
As mentioned, it’s the contract that I found so amusing, the sudden switch from deeply sensible balance chat to going absolutely hog wild with a massive gun that seems, at a glance, preposterously OP. No doubt semiwork will device some clever limitations on the cart cannon’s function, though part of me hopes it doesn’t. I’m here for games that occasionally throw caution to the wind, letting you cackle like Hank Scorpio as you annihilate your foes.
This is all for the future, though. At the moment, semiwork is testing REPO’s first major update in open beta. The update adds a bunch of major features like a new level, several new useable items, and a mechanic called overcharge that allows enemies grabbed by players to repulse them after a certain amount of time. But it seems that overcharge was itself a little overcharged, making it the first target for tweaking following player feedback of the beta.
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