Vertex Pop Puts Out a New Update for Graceful Explosion Machine

One of the most fun arcade experiences on the Switch eShop right now can be found in Graceful Explosion Machine, as stylish ‘shmup that likes to tempt you into going back for just one more try. The game is almost entirely centered around its leaderboard and ranking system, and now that vertex pop has put out a new update, it’s easier than ever to share your best moments in game and to keep track of your performance in each level.

Version 1.1.0 is now available for download and brings with it a decent selection of tweaks to the game. The score screen has been redesigned to show a more detailed breakdown of things like how much each weapon was used and how many times you got hit. In addition to this, a “Play of the Game”-like AI has been implemented to screenshot the most impressive part of your run for sharing later on. Also, the already decent load times have been nearly halved. Here’s what the developer had to say:

After launching GEM, we were overwhelmed with how enthusiastically everyone took to high score chasing, S-ranking, and sharing scores on Twitter, so we started thinking: how can we make this even better?

We started by redesigning the score screen to give a clearer breakdown of your score, weapon usage, and additional stats that better reflect your play style. It’s both fun and functional.

We also wanted to make it easier to capture and share those clutch GEM moments. Once you’re in the zone, we know it’s hard to stop the game even for a few seconds to grab a screenshot, so we had to come up with a really creative solution.

Or, more accurately, a really technical one: We designed an AI system to pinpoint the most exciting moment of your run, which we then automatically screenshot and display on the score screen. You can fullscreen it, add it to your Album, share it, etc.

(Oh, one more thing! I got really excited looking for a new programming challenge one day and optimized the heck out of the loading code. It started as a quick, easy-peasy thing, but then it kinda spiralled out of control. Long story short: the game loads almost twice as fast now.)

What do you think? How have you been liking Graceful Explosion Machine? What else would you like to see in future updates? Drop us a comment in the section below.