After more than a year of development, we’ve finally arrived at the end-game!

World-5 will be the last and final ‘World’ in Gunkid 99. Rather than having a new theme, World-5 will mash-up everything you’ve seen thus far to create the most unique and challenging stages yet.

Because the difficulty has been upped significantly for this final ‘World’, the pacing will need to be adjusted accordingly. As such, there will only be four stages instead of the usual seven.

Here we have the bounce-pads originally of World-4 implanted into World-2’s lava stage. Needless to say, bouncing around in a lava-filled stage is not safest of activity so players will have to pay extra caution to the environment!

Environmental hazards are not the only things that have been mashed up. Enemies too are no longer restricted to their original worlds, so be on the lookout for some unusual combinations as enemies from the four different worlds come together.

In this particular stage, the laser-traps of World-4 have also leveled up into an ‘extreme edition’, with every inch of the stage being reachable by lasers. Certain attack-patterns (like the one above) will force players to utilize the dodge-roll or get hit!

A new enemy?!

Previously, the rule has always been that players will need to collect a certain number of weapons before they can clear a stage and progress to the next one. Well, this rule has been upended in World-5 so get ready for a surprise… ;)

Steam Leaderboards has also been implemented! (only available for Steam version, of course) Pit yourself against other players and compete for the high score! You can try it out on the Steam demo here.

Each stage will have its own leaderboard, with ‘Normal’ and ‘Equipped’ modes having separate leaderboards. This is where customization comes into play, especially for the ‘Equipped’ mode. You can equip yourself with weapons and items that will take advantage of each stage’s unique layout and enemies combinations to get the highest score possible.

I genuinely believe that this is what will drive replayability and hopefully players will have a blast competing on the Leaderboards.

Gunkid 99 is currently having a 15% discount on Itch.io until this Sunday. You can also join the Discord group for updates. There’s currently very few people in the group and honestly not a lot going on but hopefully that will change once the game launches and players start to discuss strategies.

I’m finally nearing the end of development. All that is left now is to tie up loose ends and make sure that the game is bug-free. Release date to be announced soon!!