Hi everyone! These past couple of weeks were mostly focused on both getting the game back to a more stable state (if youve experienced freezes and crashes, you know what I mean haha) and on acting upon ideas and discussions that came while showing the game at BGS 2019. As usual, items tagged as [COM] were changed based on community feedback.
THE WHALE IN THE ROOM We know that this game could sometimes be pretty heavy on your computer. Many have experienced frame rates dropping while playing for a long period of time and, most recently, some freezes and/or crashes. Firstly, we are really sorry if this happened to you! As soon as we saw the bug reports on this we started investigating the issue. The community helped a lot and we managed to at least notice a correlation between audio issues and the crash itself. The team, then, started working like crazy on optimizing Out of Space, something that would be good for the game, even if it didn't totally fix those problems. We still dont know for sure what caused the crashes and the performance drops, but here are a few things we did as an educated guess-kind of bug fix:

• Weve updated our audio engine (FMOD) to a new version;
• Players are now audio listeners to the game, something that should be working like this for quite some time, but we never managed to make work properly in the last version. This will make audio feedback more consistent and 3D audio work better;
• Walking Aliens are now capped to send two walking animation SFXs at once, reducing the number of overlapping sounds that harmed performance so bad;
• Players need to be a bit closer to a sound source to listen to it, something that also reduces the overlapping sound issue;
• Weve removed many checks that were processed every frame so the game eats less processing power at any given time;
• Things that would grow in numbers through a match, the Aliens for instance, were optimized in a way that having an overcrowded ship wont necessarily mean a 70% performance drop anymore :) The game still becomes a bit slower as more things are being processed and rendered on screen, but not as drastically as before.

Please, remember to tell us if these issues persist. UNLIMITED POWER! [COM] Weve added a new item to the shop: an Outlet Extension! The idea is to allow players to expand a rooms range of possibilities and test out new setups for appliances. Now, theoretically, any room can become a 4-bikes-money-making-powerhouse or have several Pumpkin Gardens to be sure no one will ever die from hunger in that game. It is a pretty simple and easy to understand feature that increases the possible strategies for players.
MORE DOG FEATURES BECAUSE YES I think we are pretty happy with where the Dog is right now, so we might start designing other pets instead from now on. Regardless of that, here are a couple of things we did to the good boy in this patch:

• [COM] The Dog can now also eat food from the floor;
• [COM] Now it now eats salad as well as other food types;
• Now its boxes have a different model;

CHANGES AND ENHANCEMENTS Interface

• [COM] We changed the categories from a few items in the shop to better fit their requirements:
  • The Sink is now in the first tab, aside the Bucket and the Mop;
  • The Cleaning Robot is now in the electrical appliances tab, since it requires energy to work;
• All the information balloons were reduced by 30% in size, due to some situations in which they would overcrowd the screen;
• Now the first option in ship size is small (better for quick local matches, doesnt change much for online games);
• Hunger and Fatigue balloons reduced by 7% to make the colored bar clearer;
• The controls tooltip now works with every language properly (can be open by pressing zero);
• Pause screen got a new title;
• The Polish language was added to the game (thanks to the community <3);

Balance

• [COM] *TEST* The values earned from recycling objects in the Recycler got rebalanced to better meet players expectations when playing. We are waiting for feedbacks on this to know where to take this specific balance, but for now the changes are:
  • Pumpkin value decreased from 8 to 4;
  • Salad value decreased from 11 to 8;
  • Cooked Alien value decreased from 13 to 10;
  • Alien value increased from 3 to 5;
• [COM] The Sink doesnt need power anymore, coming back to its previous state;
• [COM] Boxes no longer take more time to be recycled than other items;
• [COM] The Dog now eats salad as well as other food types;
• Garden Pumpkins can no longer come as a random drop;
• The Exercise Bycicle was added to the possible random drops;
• We removed the random drops from the first room;
• Becoming tired now slows players for only 10%, in oposition to the 20% we had before;
• Enemies no longer run away from players that are not dangerous to them (like those who are not carrying a Mop or a filled Bucket);

General

• [COM] The Shower was completely remade as an attempt to make it work properly;
• The Refrigerator now changes its lights to communicate if it is powered or not, in contrast to just showing if it had some item or not;
• [COM] The interactions with the doors now hold you in the opening animation to avoid accidental double clicks that would close the door again;
• [COM] Players that join local matches after they began get a random character with clothes colored corresponding to the active controller (instead of always spawning as a blue beaver);
• [COM] Cocoon now also indicates the Recycler as a possible solution in its balloons;
• Now eating only requires a button press instead of holding it down;
• Some appliances textures got reworked to have a better contrast with the floors;
• Player Cocoons got a new texture that creates a better connection between the cocoon and the alien goo;
• Trash bags have a new texture as well;
• [COM] Boxes now have 3 different types: the common, the dog box and the energy box (for items that require energy to work). The second type is definitely our favorite;

BUG FIXES General

• Mop and Bucket balloons no longer rotate along with the models when they are dropped in the floor;
• [COM] A new check has been added to the doors in online games in order to make sure they are synchronized;
• [COM] Players that fall from hunger can no longer have items other than food given to them;
• [COM] Fixed bug that caused the Recycler to have an indestructible item in it;
• The Cleaning Robot no longer cleans the floor while being held by other players (I wish I knew this was a thing before);
• The Cleaning Robot no longer breaks after being stored in refrigerators or tables;
• [COM] Fixed issues where some players would not be cleaned by the bucket in the porch (again);
• Fixed an issue that caused the shaking doors animation not to play right before the door closes (the duration of this anticipation was also increased);
• TV can no longer try to give a discount for items the player havent unlocked yet;
• Shaft now properly pauses along with the rest of the game in the pause screen;
• [COM] Both the Dog and the Cleaning Robots wont break anymore if the host leaves an online game;
• [COM] The long doors no longer have a collider issue that enabled players to leave the ship through the walls;
• The characters eyes close when sleeping and eating as they should, now;

If you want to know more or participate testing features before release, please join us on our official Discord Server .

[ 2019-10-18 21:00:59 CET ] [ Original post ]