Gravitus has grown into 51 missions across five worlds, and the latest development work has been about giving those missions room to breathe. There are new rescues to attempt, better reasons to return to a favourite route, and a few changes to how much punishment the game hands out when things go wrong.
Time to find your own way
The biggest change is that time limits have become par times. The clock counts up, and getting home quickly still earns a bonus, but passing par no longer ends the mission. That gives you time to explore a difficult cave, work out a door sequence or recover from a mistake.
This grew out of playtesting. Some missions allowed far more time than they needed, while others were too tight once you started finding your way through them. A route-checking tool has helped compare the layouts, but flying them remains the important test. The aim is to make a good time worth chasing while letting a first visit be a first visit.
More than another room
Ten new missions, two in each world, bring rising liquids into the rescue routes. Suddenly, the order in which you collect the terraformers matters rather more. The early encounters introduce the idea gently; later ones ask you to plan ahead and keep moving.
I design and manually edit the levels. Those ideas go through plenty of reshaping in GameMaker. A route can be technically possible and still need a lot of work before it feels like a place worth exploring. Wet Feet has been through several versions while I worked towards that balance.
The first world is now called Eidolon, with individual mission names replacing the old training labels. Across the game, gas and timed doors have also had attention: clearer warnings and more forgiving openings should give you a better chance to understand what happened when a flight goes wrong.
Putting the game down shouldn’t cost a life
A run can now be saved and resumed from the title screen. Returning to the title during a mission keeps the run without taking a life; resuming takes you back to that mission’s briefing. It isn’t a save of the ship’s exact position halfway through a cave.
Previously, leaving through the menu could cost a life even though closing the app did not. That was an odd penalty for stopping properly. Restarting a mission still costs a life, but taking a break no longer does.
There is also a continue option after Game Over. It restores three lives and retries the mission, at the cost of half the score carried into it. You can keep working towards the end, while a strong uninterrupted run remains a separate challenge. The One Credit achievement recognises finishing the game from the beginning without continuing.
A reason to fly it again
Ghost ships let you race your own best mission runs. They make improvements visible: a cleaner turn, a shorter approach to a landing pad, or one less correction before the exit. There is also a bonus for fuel dumps you leave untouched, giving confident pilots another reason to think about their route.
Finishing the game unlocks New Game+, which mirrors the missions from left to right and keeps its own best times and ghosts. Familiar routes need thinking through again. A more detailed GarGar route option also becomes available after completion.
Keeping a few surprises
The instructions now grow as you play. Unfamiliar dangers stay hidden until you encounter them, then the game flags the discovery and adds the explanation. The new Help screens follow the same rule, so opening the manual won’t reveal everything waiting in the later worlds.
Help, What’s New, About and acknowledgements are accessible from the Credits screen on every device, with menu entries on Mac and iPad too. The title screen has also gained a more deliberate arcade rhythm, cycling through high scores and an automated demonstration flight. The Commodore presentation is still getting attention alongside the missions themselves.
Getting the supporting pieces in place
Game Center setup now includes 31 achievements with their artwork, plus score and time leaderboards for all 51 missions and an overall high-score board. All 103 leaderboard names have been checked against the current worlds and mission names, so the online records match the game.
The development build also includes iCloud syncing for progress, scores and ghosts across Mac, iPad and iPhone. That still needs proper cross-device testing, alongside save/resume, continues and the newer mission layouts. The latest additions are development work, rather than an announcement that a new public build is available. Next comes more hands-on flying, checking the awkward corners and finding out which rescues still need another pass.