We have been very busy the last few weeks, focusing on the Steam version of the game. This is why there hasn't been any update of the Pocket Edition on iOS and Android - yet. The Pre-Alpha PC Press Build is soon to be ready for Press and Youtubers to enjoy! It was supposed to be ready within the next few days, but we have taken the decision to delay it a bit more. For the next development update, during October, the Pre-Alpha PC Press Build will be ready.

Movement & Controls Rework

Instead of releasing the Pre-Alpha PC Press Build in the next few days, we took a hard decision: Player movement and controls on PC were working OK. But they weren't perfect. And that was the issue. After a lot of hard work and time spent fixing issues, tweaking and trying to make them perfect with the current system, we finally decided that it would be best for our players to actually completely rework the movement, jump, gravity, jetpack and moving platforms system. What does this mean? Well, as we were adding features and perfecting the player experience, the current system proved to have flaws. Flaws that couldn't be fixed. There would still be situations where we'd be unhappy with the result. That comes from the fact that this game was first started a long time ago, and was not ready to support the new features we have added since. This means that the entire controls and movement system has been restarted from scratch. It's a long process, and a lot of work, yes, but it had do be done at some point. The reason behind this decision is that it was too hard to achieve a smooth, reactive and completely bug-free experience with all 3 input systems: touch controls, keyboard & mouse combo and gamepad. We want YouTubers and Beta-Testers to have the best experience possible for the early PC build. After this huge rework, the result will be:

• Global movement feel and experience will be the same regardless of input system: touch, gamepad or keyboard & mouse
• Acceleration and deceleration of the character will feel much more natural on all platforms
• Jump will be smoother
• Additional PC-exclusive features will feel more polished
• Bugs regarding moving platforms will be fixed
• Moving platforms will now give velocity to the player and objects placed on them
• Objects will now have momentum and will be thrown with player's current velocity
• Falling from a platform or ground will result in a smoother fall trajectory
• Jetpack will feel more smooth and gravity applied while using the jetpack will feel more realistic
• We will have the same experience with all 3 input models

This development update is mostly about telling you what we are working on; it's something that cannot be seen or explained easily, but will be felt as you play the game. However, below are some new screenshots of improvements and levels for the PC version, and a few new features announcement!

Zero-Gravity

Another nice PC-exclusive feature we are working on is Zero-Gravity rooms with their associated puzzles!


This requires a lot of re-work of the controls and physics handling for movement, jump, jetpack and objects. Handling player collisions has been painful. This is also one of the reasons why we chose to rework the movement system; it makes it easier to support this features.
It's starting to work pretty well, and we hope you'll enjoy it on the PC Pre-Alpha Press Build!

Visual & Sound Enhancements

We have reworked most 3D assets to look better, be more visible, and show more instant feedback to the player. For example, cubes, switches, cameras, ammo packs and health packs are more visible in dark areas, and their current state is more understandable using more visible color changes:

Pocket Edition: 100 000 Downloads

We are super happy to say that we have finally reached over 100 000 Downloads of the Pocket Edition on Android! This is great news for us, because we wanted to achieve that. Considering we have zero budget in advertising and marketing, we are very moved and very happy to have reached this number only by having people play the game and talk about it to their friends. We would like to say "Thank You" to everyone, every single 100 000 of you who have downloaded and played the game. We are extremely grateful to each of you who have taken the time to rate and / or comment our big project that we love :)

Next Steps

We will release a new Development Update when the Pre-Alpha PC Press Build is ready. Once we have reached this point, we'll then move back to the Pocket Edition to update it with bug fixes, the new systems discussed here and enhancements.
Once this Pocket Edition update is rolling out, we'll return to working the PC version, completing the rework of Chapter 3, 4 and 5 and fixing the bugs the Press players and beta-testers will have discovered ;) Thank you all, see you next month and Happy Gaming! Charles from Haze Games

[ 2016-09-24 18:48:22 CET ] [ Original post ]