Update Archive

This page covers all updates involving Crab Champions since it was revealed.

## 2019

### March 2019

On the 31st of March, one day before the first anniversary of Crab Rave's release on April Fools, Noisestorm teased the game's reveal in a tweet on his personal account. This tweet had the caption "Tomorrow a new adventure begins".

### April 2019

On April 1, 2019, Noisestorm released the Reveal Trailer for the game. In a tweet, he told fans to "prepare for a legendary crab tournament, an original crabby soundtrack and ultimate crab parkour".

By April 3, 2019, the Discord server had 2,300 members. Noisestorm made an news update mentioning this as "incredible". He also said that after reading so much positive discussion, he was highly motivated to implement a lot of new features based on said feedback. He also said he would begin posting sneak peeks and progress of the game occasionally.

On April 7, Noisestorm made another Discord update thanking everyone for 600K views on the Reveal Trailer and 14K members in the Discord. He mentioned how "things [were] blowing up so much bigger than [he] ever could have expected with [the] project." Finally, he assured fans that he was "working very hard every day to deliver a quality game". This update came along with a sneak peek showing off the golden crab dabbing (presumably an emote).

On April 10, Noisestorm celebrated there being 1 million views on the trailer and over 20K members in the server. He assured people that he had been "working like crazy since the trailer launched", and trying to stay updated on discussions about the game. He stated that since the most requested featured had been multiplayer, he had been rewriting the core game from scratch to support it. He admitted that the game would now take longer then if it had been a purely single player game, but he thought the extra time would be well worth it. He also admitted that since he had been hard at work reworking the core systems, he wouldn't have much more flashy gameplay to show until it was done. He then offered to show an video of an older test, which featured a larger fight on an island at nighttime with many enemies. (Also notable are "the work in progress animations, and the fact that the shotgun is a rocket launcher.")

On April 25, Noisestorm posted an image teasing the Volcano Biome, along with the caption "It's getting hot in here!"

### May 2019

On May 15, Noisestorm wrote that he had finally come to the end of re-writing the code of the game to support multiplayer and expressed that he had no regrets about doing it, as it would end up being the foundation for the entire game. He also once again said that he was sorry that there was no visual content, but it allowed the rest of the game to be made. He then clarified that the game was still not close to coming out, as although the core of the game was done, a lot of side content still had to be made ("maps, weapons, animations, sounds, music, etc.") This meant that more visuals could be shown, which meant more frequent updates. He then stated that he was aiming for a release before the end of 2019, "as soon as the game is ready and polished to a good standard". "There are only so many hours in the day and games take time to make, especially if doing it solo as is the case here." He expressed satisfaction at being able to move back to visuals after staring at code for 14 hours a day for over a month. He said he really appreciated the patience and understanding of fans and that most of them agreed that "a game that takes longer to release but is made carefully is far better than a rushed and poorly made one." With him being the sole developer of Crab Champions, things would take longer if he wanted to maintain a level of quality, particularly when you added multiplayer into the mix. He wrapped the update up by saying that he had been testing multiplayer daily and had put in a lot of effort to decrease lag. He said that the goal was "to provide a fun and smooth experience even when playing on high ping with friends from around the world."

### Summer 2019

On June 12, Noisestorm made an update to explain what he was focusing on due to there being many questions about the game since the last update. He began listing what he had been working on...

* **UI** (he claimed the prototype of the game's HUD would be shown soon)
* **AI** (he was making enemy crabs lifelike and challenging when playing offline)
* **Asset creation** (he had to create islands, cliffs, rocks, pebbles, foliage, fish, birds...)
* **Animation** (a new movement system had been made with smoother transitions, as well as more ways to move. This also came with a generally more polished animation set)
* **Materials** (he had made a much better ocean with new underwater areas; improved wind so that it affected trees, water direction, sand gusts; etc. - with the purpose of tying the world together and making it feel alive)
* **Lighting** (he had "[tested] different light scenarios out" and worked to ensure that it both looked good and made it easy to spot faraway enemies)
* **Sound design** (he had to make sound effects for the ocean, wind, sand, crab footsteps, gunshots, etc.)
* **Music** (the "soundtrack structure [had been] taking shape as [he] [refined] existing ideas and [made] new songs as needed for the game")
* **Gameplay rules** (Things like how much health enemies had, weapon damage, and the amount of rounds in a match all had to be tuned to find a balance which was both fun and fair)

Along with lots of bug fixes and general cleanups. His short-term goal had been to get the Duel mode fully completed, as it was the best place for him to finetune movement and combat mechanics. He said to expect the next update to "feature an early look at some Duel gameplay" due to this. He then went on to explain once again that due to there being lots happening simultaneous, large progress updates would be less common; "[he] [wanted] to share updates more than anyone but [he] [had] to stay patient and keep working consistently on it." "With constant testing after each change, the game [was] feeling + looking better every day."

On the 26th of July, Noisestorm posted a teaser for the Crystal Caves biome. In the image, it's shown that the biome will consist of several huge crystals with a purple-magenta lighting.

On the 3rd of August, Noisestorm posted a gif with a caption saying that a lot has changed since the last time he has posted any gameplay gifs - thousands of gameplay adjustments to camera angles, combat, movement mechanics and so much more to get the game closer to the fluid fast experience "that I set out to achieve". On top of that, he said that the initial UI has been built, enemy AI has been created, level design and visual asset production was in full swing and the soundtrack was getting done slowly but surely. He announced that at that time, he was putting his focus on revamping the movement system and animations for the crabs.

### September 2019

On the 22nd of September, Noise announced that lots of progress has been made since the last update he posted, mostly on the soundtrack, showing a snippet of a track of it: Jellyfish. It was also announced at this point that the soundtrack would be copyright free.

## 2020

### January 2020

On the 8th of January 2020, Noisestorm posted a gif of the upcoming Racing Mode along with apologizing for the lack of updates, but noting that he's "been working as hard as ever". He also said that he prefers posting "visual eye candy when possible" and has done nothing other than rewriting the AI, mapping controller support, challenge and save systems, and etc. In the gif, it's shown a new snow biome. It also shows a crab cosmetic: a wavy blue and purple skin.

### March 2020

On the 31th of March, Noisestorm announced the Gameplay Trailer would be released the day after.

### April 2020

On the 1st of April, Noisestorm released the Gameplay Trailer on YouTube.

On the 4th of April, Noisestorm opened the Steam page for Crab Champions to the public. He also announced that it would release as Early Access on August 20, 2020.

### June 2020

On the 15th of June, Noisestorm posted a gif showcasing a new type of enemy, the Flying Skull. Along with that, he announced that he's been spending every waking hour developing the game: "every minute counts!".

On the 25th of June, Noisestorm revealed that he was working on a Target Practice minigame, along with a clip of said minigame.

### August 2020

On the 12th of August, 8 days before Crab Champions was supposed to go into Early Access, Noisestorm announced that the game would not release on August 20 due to him needing more time, although "development [was] going great and the game [was] really shaping up. As there was only so much time he had, as well as the fact he was constantly implementing new features and ideas, the amount to test, balance, and polish grew constantly. He "[had] set a high standard for the game and [intended] to release it as close to [his] original quality goal as possible." He empathized with those who were looked forward to the release but guaranteed that them getting a game with much more content, variety, and polish then was originally planned "[would] be well worth it".

On the 23rd of August, Noisestorm showed off some ocean visuals he was working on. These were shown along with the reveal of another song in the soundtrack, Zodiac.

### October 2020

On Halloween (October 31), an update was released that showed off the Flying Pumpkin enemy with the caption "Smashing pumpkins".

### November 2020

On the 1st of November, Noisestorm showed the Flying Pumpkins, like the day before. This clip was released as a Tweet and had the caption "Smashing more pumpkins".

Also on the 1st of November, Noisestorm released Development Update #1.

### December 2020

On the 1st of December, clips of the Flamethrower were released with the caption "Burn burn burn". Also on December 1st, Development Update #2 was posted.

## 2021

### January 2021

On New Year's Day (January 1st), Development Update #3 was posted.

On the 5th of January, Noisestorm showed off some combat on a horde island and commented on how he felt it was actually "starting to feel chaotic".

On the 27th of January, Noise released the first mini-update to "post some of the smaller day to day things [he was] working on for those interested". He said he was doing a large amount of work on the Survival mode game loop, as well as "playtesting new builds daily". He also listed some new changes:

* A shop that contained guaranteed weapons, perks, and other loot was added to maps.
* A new achievement, "Defeat The Shopkeeper", was added.
* Chests could be opened with keys that either dropped as loot or were purchased in a shop. Crystals were announced to only be spent in shops.
* Chests could come in 3 sizes, as well as drop multiple pieces of loot (The list of potential drops at the time were weapons, perks, keys, crystals, health potions, and hearts).
* Randomized chests could be purchased at the shop, which could drop up to 6 pieces of loot.
* Health regeneration was disabled in order "to stop players being able to run away from the action and heal up" and "to support some of the new loot types".
* Health potion (which would refill a percentage of your health) and heart (which would add an additional 50 HP onto your max health) consumables were added
* "The core game loop [was] changed: previously there were 5 waves on each island that would happen one after another, but there was very little incentive for players to move around the island especially if playing fast."

He also revealed that "3 high intensity hordes must be cleared at different locations on each island (chosen randomly) in order to complete the island". The player would be constrained to an area around said locations while fighting, and they couldn't leave the area until either A: the horde is cleared or B: the player is eliminated. After completing all hordes, a chest containing rewards would be dropped - all these collectively greatly improved the variation of an island and also helped let there be a more intense and action-packed game loop. Finally, there was "less downtime searching for chests which felt a bit tedious" despite the multitude of hidden chest and secrets throughout maps that could be found if one bothered to look.

### February 2021

On February 1st, Development Update #4 was uploaded.

### March 2021

On March 1st, a short clip featuring the Gravity Cannon being used against a pufferfish was shown.

That same day, Development Update #5 was posted. On there, a beta was announced.

Gameplay of the sword in action was also uploaded for the first time shortly after, still on March 1st.

On the 2nd of March, Noisestorm thanked everyone for "for the amazing response to the development update". He said that "due to the interest in the small closed beta that is planned, [he'd] created a channel where [one] can register interest to [potentially be given beta] access when it launches in the next few months."

### April 2021

On April 1st 2021, Crab Champions and Crab Rave's anniversary, Development Update #6 was posted. To celebrate the anniversary, Noisestorm posted a small gif showcasing the game's timeline.

Various GIFs and mini-updates were posted on Discord throughout April, including an FX gif showcasing the new lighting for chests, a new song (currently unnamed), the return of aiming down sights (which were removed sometime in August 2020), and some various visual updates.

### May 2021

On May 1st 2021, Development Update #7 was posted. Like April, various visual improvements were posted on the mini-update channel on Discord.

On the 22nd of May, Noisestorm posted a statement regarding Perks. He stated that, while it can be fun getting stronger with perks, the same strategy "across all runs stayed pretty much the same: pick up as many perks as you can and have them all going off at once", making runs and matches feel repetitive. To combat this, Noise made a new system that would allow weapon-specific perks to be their own; he called this system Modifications, or Mods for short.

This is a possible weapon mod combo described by Noisestorm; with a minigun, you can:

* apply ice bullets to it
* fire an extra bullet per shot
* have a chance to spawn a small blade that will deal AoE damage to enemies near you after every hit
* have a chance to spawn a black hole after every hit
* deal extra damage to frozen enemies
* make enemies explode into a huge ice explosion, damaging near enemies as well

Every single Perk and Mod can now also be crystalized, meaning you'll get a sum of Crystals if you'd like to remove some undesired Perks and/or Mods.

Apart from that, an inventory system was announced and then revealed later in a GIF.

## References

1. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord
2. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord
3. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord
4. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord
5. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord
6. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord
7. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord
8. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord
9. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord
10. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord
11. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord
12. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord The link to the video is this.
13. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord
14. ↑ Noisestorm's message on Discord The link to the video is this