Heat Signature Receives Big "Fair Points" Update

On Wednesday, Tom Francis unveiled the next big update for Heat Signature. In a blog post titled “Fair Points Update: Reacting To Good Reviews”, the developer explained that he had read a lot of the criticism levied at the game and made appropriate adjustments. In my own review, I praised the game for its exciting, fast-paced action and fantastic use of its space setting, but criticised its difficulty and lack of late-game variety. With this update, it seems many of my problems have been solved.

To combat the massive difficulty spikes, Francis has added Liberator characters that will appear after a certain number of mission failures. Liberators come equipped with high-end gear, designed to make tackling those trickier missions and strongholds a little easier. The addition of new Acid and Crash traps will make disposing of armoured and shielded enemies possible a lot easier. Furthermore, the pre-mission information will now display exactly how many of each enemy archetype is on the ship.

The second most common criticism was that permadeath led to players just taking the easy missions. To solve this, the game now features a new “Glitchback Guarantee” mission modifier that warps your character off a ship the moment they take damage. If that isn’t enough, Francis also added a cheat to totally disable permadeath across the board.

Finally, the issue of visual clarity has been alleviated by a new “Simple Art” mode. This mode makes walkable areas significantly less busy and walls easier to discern.