Hi all! This update's a big one, and it's taken longer than originally planned, so thanks for your patience. We've got a video explaining most of the details below - check it out here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxByx-OBrv0 There are two major parts of this update, and a big announcement too. First and foremost - Sublevel Zero is now available on Mac and Linux! Feels good to finally get these out the door :) Specific release notes are at the bottom of this post.

Challenge Rooms

Secondly, we've added an entirely new feature to the game - 'challenge rooms'. To reward exploration, the game will now often put one of these rooms at dead ends. When you go into a challenge room there are no enemies. But when you use or shoot the loot chest, the door locks and enemies spawn. You're locked in until you kill all the enemies, but you'll get a load of nanites and loot for your trouble. Furthermore, sometimes there'll be a miniboss in the room, which when killed drops a bonus nanocart to buff your ship! We think this adds an extra bit of variety to the combat, and we really hope you have fun with it! Remember that these are optional though - if you want to take it easy, maybe think twice before shooting that chest :p We've also added 20 new rooms to the procedural generation :) Finally, the announcement. It's a pretty big one.

VR Beta

On Monday, we'll be launching the Oculus Rift beta. If you own a DK2, you'll soon be able to fully immerse yourself in the glowing, low-poly, 6DoF world of Sublevel Zero! A few caveats - it is explicitly a beta! There are issues with it, we can't guarantee it'll run perfectly all the time, and there are a lot of features we plan to add. Minimum specs are of course higher than the 2D version of the game - we aim to hit Oculus' recommended minimum spec. The VR build will be Windows-only, as the Oculus runtime no longer supports other platforms. We aim to come out of beta when the consumer version of the Rift launches next year. This is a huge new frontier, so we're really looking forward to getting feedback from you guys to help us develop it!

Release Notes

Linux

• Some AMD cards and drivers (particularly, in our experience, the proprietary drivers) crash when using antialiasing in Unity. If you experience this, try to run the game with "-screen-quality noaa" minus the quotes. If this doesn't work, we recommend trying the open drivers.
• Some users may have issues with switching resolutions. As far as we can tell this is also a Unity-wide issue.
• Volumetric lighting is bugged on most cards/drivers. It's turned off by default in the Linux version but you can still try it from the Video menu if you like. You're likely to get white flashes and/or strange black triangles appearing. We're looking into solving this.
• Mice will tend to be less responsive. We recommend increasing sensitivity in the control options for now. We're actively working to fix or work around all of the above!

General We've also fixed some small bugs and generally improved performance on all platforms. Much of this is small and won't be particularly obvious, but the main ones are fixing the drop rates of hulls, and improving stuttering when picking up/comparing items. Thanks again for your patience on this one - we think it's been worth the wait, and we hope you agree!

[ 2015-11-19 17:41:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Sublevel Zero is a first-person roguelike six-degree-of-freedom shooter set in a universe where reality is falling apart. Take control of a lone gunship pilot whose mission is to loot and craft ancient technology. Descend into a vast underground facility, fighting through procedurally generated zero gravity environments to recover the technology you and your clan need to survive.





Your gunship is free to fly and rotate in all directions. You can attack from any angle, and so can your enemies. Inspired by classics such as Descent and Forsaken, Sublevel Zero’s retro gravity-defying combat is driven by modern looting and crafting.


No lives. No saves. Fight your way through a different procedurally generated environment every time. Make every shot, every decision count. A wide range of environments stand in your way, from industrial zones to mining caverns. Think on your feet and adapt to each one’s hazards before it’s too late.


Collect a wide range of randomly-generated weapons, upgrades and game-changing items. Craft them together to equip your gunship for your play style. Unlock more items and blueprints as you play and keep those unlocks across playthroughs.


We'll have more to share about our plans for VR post-launch!