Changes

• Full translation for Polski (pl) .
• Fix missing textures in demo builds.
• Fix main theme music popping playback issues.
• Update code dependencies and compile with rust 1.80.1.

Robo Instructus was released 5 years ago today, time flies! To celebrate the game will be on sale for a week & new 1.35.1 update is available. Read more in the (probably final) devblog post & sales report. Changes

• New (zh-TW) translations for company messages, code primer, and function documentation. Now missing only colony messages.
• Update steam sdk.
• Update window libraries & other code dependencies and compile with rust 1.79.

Changes

• Improve save io efficiency, reduce writes to disk.
• Linux: Raise minimum glibc to 2.27 / ubuntu:18.04.
• Macos: Fix software rendering.
• Update window libraries & other code dependencies and compile with rust 1.74.1.

Changes

• Fix menu background flickering issue on some platforms.
• Reduce size of demo build by ~30%.
• Linux: Enable wayland by default (Opt out with WINIT_UNIX_BACKEND=x11).
• Linux: Remove ssl bundled libs.
• Update window & audio libraries, other code dependencies and compile with rust 1.68.2.

• Build using "fat" link time optimisation for best performance.
• Update steam sdk.
• Update window & audio libraries, other code dependencies and compile with rust 1.63.
• Linux: Native wayland support is now fairly good, opt in with env var `WINIT_UNIX_BACKEND=wayland`.

Changes

• Add new "Autocomplete" option On which enables the return key to always trigger completion, instead of only in certain contexts. The default remains On using tab to complete.
  
• Accept either return key or tab key for completion when triggered manually with ctrl space. This also works this way after the completion menu has been interacted with.
• Improve scroll bar mouse interaction. Scroll bars are easier/wider to grab, they visibly expand to 2x width & are highlighted when hovering over them.
  
• Add missing CJK support in code branch menu.
• Update code dependencies and compile with rust 1.55.

Changes

• Full translation for (zh-CN).
• Support CJK text for intro, company messages, documentation, credits & partial support in code comments.
• Optimise CPU random generation of colony encoded text characters.
• Update code dependencies and compile with rust 1.54.

• CJK text support in the code editor is limited to `#` comment sections only and is not fully supported for editing.

Changes

• Full game translation for Espaol (es).

Changes

• Update Espaol interface translations.
• Update code dependencies.

Robo Instructus has been out for 2 years today. To celebrate it's on sale for the next 7 days. Have a look at the blog to see how the game has done over the year.

Changes

• Linux: Improve initial window creation / prevent error fallback.
• Update window libraries, other code dependencies and compile with rust 1.53.

Changes

• Fix sound initialization panics & fallback to non-default sound devices.
• Update code dependencies and compile with rust 1.51.

Changes

• Windows: Fix hangs related to minimising.
• Update window libraries, other code dependencies and compile with rust 1.49.

Changes

• Linux: Fix missing textures related to shader `discard` usage.
• Reduce game size (200-300M -> ~150M).
• Update code dependencies and compile with rust 1.48.

Changes

• Fix game being always on top when fullscreen after alt-tabbing.
• Fix missing trailing newline on paste.
• Update Steam sdk to 1.50.
• Update audio stack, window libraries + other code dependencies.

Changes

• Full game translation for Deutsch (de).
• Update code dependencies and compile with rust 1.47.

Changes

• Update de translations.
• Update dependencies & compile with rust 1.46.

Changes

• Fix panic/crash related to transmission between probe & robot after the robot has fallen off the level.
• Update dependencies & compile with rust 1.45.2.

Changes

• Auto-scroll to errors that occur during the code run.
• Auto-scroll to cursor when code is edited with "undo" or "redo".
• Auto-scroll to the paused code position after `pause()` function executes.
• Improve auto-scroll to code parse errors (scroll down a little bit extra to see the actual error faster).
• Fix issue when a `receive(subject)` call could lose data if interrupted mid-call by the robot being launched.
• Improve lang parsing to allow more expressions in function arguments positions. e.g. `fooFn((1+1)/2)` wouldn't work previously.
• Update audio stack.
• Update dependencies & compile with rust 1.45.0.

Changes

• Fix issue with game hanging after launching from steam on Windows 7 by downgrading winit library.

Changes

• Rewrite the text rendering stack improving performance & supporting otf fonts in addition to the ttf fonts the game previously used exclusively.
• Text tweaks for "company" messages for all languages.
• Add new fonts Exo2-Bold.otf & Exo2-BoldItalic.otf for Cyrillic languages, in particular the "company" message rendering. This should better match the English look and feel (the fonts used there don't have Cyrillic glyphs). The idea is also to subtlety distinguish from the colony message text.
  
• Reveal 2 previously hidden dark stages in Double Detective so this level will have 2 extra visible stages. This should help players getting stuck in the dark on that level.
• Support some more missing demo translations.
• Update dependencies & compile with rust 1.43.1.

Changes

• Automatically follow execution when paused. So whenever you step forward, or step over, the code view will adjust to where the code execution has moved.
  
• Rework window resizing event handling again, this should fix grey screen issues.
• Avoid/minimise window flashes of white rectangles at startup before the game is ready to render.
• Windows: Toggle fullscreen/windowed without restarting the game.
• Update dependencies & compile with rust 1.43.

• Reveal a previously hidden dark stage in Map The Way so this level will have an extra visible stage. A few solutions were getting stuck on the subtle differences of this stage.
• Update code dependencies.

• Add auto-correction for window resizing issues causing grey screens & improve related error logging (reported on macos).
• Update dependencies & compile with rust 1.42.

If you're spending more time inside, it's a good time to code.

• Fix join issues between facility view background textures, particularly visible at ultra wide aspect ratios on the left hand side repeated textures.
• Update dependencies & compile with rust 1.14.1.

• Update window library (winit 0.19 -> winit 0.21). Rework window resizing event handling, this should fix some rare game & window out of sync sizing issues.
• Handle sound initialization panics.
• Update dependencies & compile with Rust 1.41.

• Update ru translations.
• Update code dependencies.

• Support translations for "initial code" & "last level code" static branch names.
• Update ru translation.
• Update code dependencies.

• Switch live stats font, size and shadow to improve readability and support translations.
• Support translating the save/load branch UI.
• Use thin space (U+2009) separators instead of commas as this is more natural to more languages and still looks fine in English.
• Optimize max speed compute by reducing stack analysis & profile update impact at very high computes per second.
• Add infinite loop? hint when hitting a dark stage power failure.
• Update (ru) translation with the new bits and improvements.
• Update & remove some unneeded code dependencies.

As an early holiday gift to Russian robo instructors we have the very first full game translation. Let me say a huge thanks to those that helped translate, in particular Henry Steinway who appeared this week and translated a ton of text pushing the ru work over the line. As this is the first completed translation there are likely a few spots left with untranslated text & some more improvements to be made to the translation itself. If you see issues or want to improve this, or another, translation head over to big-ab-games/robo-instructus-translation.

• The first full game translation for (ru).
• Fix some logic issues when changing language.
• Support Cyrillic company text & level names.
• Improve some handling of level names & statistic labels when they're too wide to fit normally.
• Update code dependencies and compile with rust 1.40.

• Optimise draw performance for 4th act tile assets, reducing draws from ~55 -> ~20 per frame.
• Update code dependencies.

1.17

• Make a particular dark stage visible in Remember Your Discoveries so this level will have an extra visible stage. A few solutions were getting stuck on the subtle differences of this previously hidden stage.
• Remove a pathing cycle in the dark stage of Leap Of Logic. Some otherwise perfectly good general solutions were getting stuck here. After updating players will see the level has become incomplete but running any previous working solution should still work.
• Update code dependencies.

• Prevent edge case panic/crash when filtering out score outliers for very low numbers of varied scores.

* Update German language UI translations. Thanks Squirkyy. * Update code dependencies.

• Remove a possible pathing cycle in the dark stage of Launch Safety that unfairly caught out a couple of legitimate solutions. After updating players will see the level has become incomplete but running any previous working solution should still work.
• Update code dependencies and compile with rust 1.39.

• Tweak Map The Way dark stage so that there are no non-unknown exit tiles, for consistency with the visible stages. After updating players will see the level has become incomplete but running any previous working solution will still work.
• Update & translations.
• Update code dependencies.

• Support CJK translations in colony messages, function docs, score screen & primer.
• Update & translations.

• Prevent input of unprintable characters in the Co private use unicode category. These can be input when using arrow keys in macOS, now possible as non-ascii chars are generally allowed since 1.12.

• Allow non-ascii character code input, e.g. Cyrillic.
  
• Replace Exit Level text button with icon, which will work consistently for all languages.
  
• Translation project big-ab-games/robo-instructus-translation now has the colony messages available to translate. This final piece means the game may now be fully translated by the community (but isn't fully there yet for any non-english language).
  
• Add a missing Deutsch label translation.
• Update code dependencies.

• Add Deutsch Function docs translation.
  
• Fix missing translated title in de Primer.
• Fix `probo_scan()` short doc to correctly reference "current tile".
• Improve some de grammar.
• Update code dependencies and compile with rust 1.38.

• Add Deutsch Primer translation.
• Update code dependencies.

After a couple of weeks with unofficial builds and no major issues Mac builds are now officially supported!

• Make Mac support official.
• Add new visible stage to Melting Pot to make it possible for players to debug a scenario where a few players were getting stuck in an infinite loop there.
• Fix example code block rendering issues with text wraps, particularly noticeable with translated comments.
• Add Russian full Primer translation & almost complete function documentation translation.

This week's update lays the ground for improving localization.

Changes

• Add information about the current status of partial translations into the game settings menu. This should give a better idea how well a given language is supported.
• Dependency updates & code cleanups.

Community translation

Mac support

• Native Mac builds are available on Steam. Mac support is not yet final or advertised on the store page as I'd like for the builds to get a little more testing. Let me know if they work! Report any issues at #229, mac builds are also available there for testing.
  
• Game settings can now be selected from the menu during unlocks.
• Optimise compute loop, lowers CPU usage / increases max speed performance a little.
• Export discrete gpu hint symbols on Linux & Mac for multi-gpu setups.
• Allow some usages without render hardware acceleration, mostly for mac testing.
• Auto pick low render settings when lacking hardware acceleration.
• Update dependencies & steam sdk.
• Support "Primer" translations. Awaiting community translation work, see big-ab-games/robo-instructus-translation

• Rework editor key hint to use non-mono font with better support for translated text.
  
• Switch up threading to compute & handle window events on main thread & render off main. Lowers CPU usage. Required to run on mac.
• Fix some deprecated OpenGL shader usage.
• Updated translations
  • Add de, fr, ru editor key translations.
  • Add partial sv, pt-BR editor key translations.

Mac testing

• Add the `pause()` function what when called will pause the code execution in a similar way to the pause button.
  
• New message unlock when starting The Ring about `pause()`.
• New message unlock when starting Orienteering related to direction data stores.
• Show editor keys hint when the editor is empty.
  Currently just English awaiting translation in big-ab-games/robo-instructus-translation.
• Improve audio format detection logic, may fix sound with some hardware.
• Tweak snow pipeline to avoid larger floats that can cause rendering inconsistencies.
• Update dependencies & compile with rust 1.37.
• Update interface translations.

• The game's OST composed by Richard Thomson is now available for all game owners.
  • Steam: Available in the "soundtrack" directory next to the game files.
  • Itch: Available as a separate downloadable.
  • Format: ogg vorbis.
    • Main Theme (1:24)
    • Ice World (3:26)
    • Underground (3:59)
    • Deep (3:21)
    • Lava (3:41)
    • Overworld (2:37)
• Improve Franais interface translations.

Scores can now be compared with your friends & graphs now show the global lowest/best scores in each category. Read more in today's devblog.

• Compare best scores against Steam friend scores to the right of the score graphs (shows only when friend scores are available).
  
• The left most graph bar range will now start from the global lowest/best score.
  
• Fix parser allowing `else` in incorrect places when nested inside an `if`.
• Add new Portugus-Brasil company message translation.
• Update Chinese interface translations.

This update addresses a bunch of issues I've noticed since release. This should be a nice improvement for optimisers. More details in today's devblog. The translations have also improved thanks to the amazing contributors. All game translations are made by the community at big-ab-games/robo-instructus-translation. I've recently added all company message text there. If you're multilingual and want to help, please do!

Changes

• Prevent graph squashing by filtering out score outliers. Scores which are 2.5 standard deviations worse than the mean will be hidden by default. All scores can be toggled back on by clicking Show outliers.
  
• Show score comparison with your best, or previous best. Hover over the new +/- numbers to get an explanation.
  
• Persist Change Game Speed overlay tutorial until clicked to ensure this isn't missed.
• Prevent some edge cases with frame buffer dimension != window size.
• Increase dark stage run size power limit.
• Tweak score hover text padding.
• Add some basic dark stage failure tracking to help track down the harder edges players are hitting with dark stages.
• Fix snow shader issues, particularly with Intel GPUs, that cause the snow to repeat too much and ends up looks very wrong.
• Fix minor z draw ordering issue in the credits.
• Improve translated overlay shadow rendering.
• Extract company messaging to the big-ab-games/robo-instructus-translation. These messages are now ready to be translated by the community.
• Update robo-instructus-translationto 0982a3a.
  • Add Portugus-Brasil language support, interface & store description translations.
  • Add Deutsch company message translation.
  • Add a bunch of new & missing translation pairs to all languages.
• Add dark stage failure overlays to explain what this means.

The game is out, but the weekly updates are not over! I'll be looking to further improve the game, fix issues and react to feedback. One thing I noticed confusing some is how the score bars work. This image tries to clarify what the bars mean.
So basically if your score sits in the lowest bar you should be decently satisfied that it's a good one! Notice in the image the solution is actually the most optimised one, as this level is very simple, so in reality no-one got better than 3525/9/9.

Changes

• Update robo-instructus-translation -> `5f93370b` improves de, ru & zh-CN.
• Use robo-instructus-translation repo credits.txt in the game credits.
• Squash menu option labels when they are too large to fit on the screen, ie after translation (looking at you " ").
• Improve handling of some sound system initialization panics, in these rare cases instead of exiting the game keep running with sound disabled.
• When sound is disabled show this in the Audio menu.
• Add experimental fix for sound system failure due to invalid default output format.
• Fix some overlay tutorials showing over the code reference when they don't make sense there.
• Show game speed tutorial even if you ignore the previous tutorials in Keep Going!.

1.1.1 Update

• Fix primer & message typos.
• Prevent some edge cases where initial code scroll line is incorrect.
• Fix world width miscalculation that can cause rare level title misalignment.

Now available for Linux & Windows. For the story behind the solo-development of the game checkout Robo Instructus: Behind The Scenes.

Changes since Beta-3.3.2

• Use lz4 compression on all textures & fonts. Reduces binary size.
• Linux: Compress dwarf debug data. Reduces binary size.
• Fix some narrative copy errors.
• Add robot falling animation.
• Fix dark stage compute speed on probe levels.
• Remove reveal unknown tile on fall (no longer needed with fall animation).
• Fix dark stage button showing red on visible stage fall.
• Fix robot fall after launch animation.
• Fix error underline & selection overlapping code entry.
• Widen errors when they are very close to the right edge so the messages are readable.
• Fix selection code entry overlapping.
• Fix escape & double-click handling when in menu & in company inbox.
• Fix rare render bugs caused by outdated buffer usage after resizing the game window.
• Optimise gaussian screen blur effects, these now scale with _Effects_ setting & are generally twice as efficient.
• Rework stat graphs colours, fonts, sizes and tweak alignments.
• Fix some holes in _Optimizer_ & _Serial Optimizer_ achievement logic.
• Hide probe pause button when probe has stopped but robot is still running.
• Optimise usage of frame instant for fade effects.
• Fix startup resolution / buffer mismatch that can cause game render size bugs.
• Steam: Use steam API to set initial game language.

This update is the last before the beta keys are deactivated on Monday. Robo Instructus 1.0 will be released on the 16th July 2019. One final weekend to fire up the beta, send me feedback and be immortalised in the game's credits. The feedback I've received over the beta phase so far has been totally invaluable, particularly as I'm a solo dev. So thank you to everyone that sent me their thoughts! Along with this update the game has new store art.
Also find a detailed look at the new "Dark Stages" in today's devblog.

New features

• Add "Dark Stages" to all levels from Into The Unknown onwards. These extra stages are very similar to the others, but their actual details are hidden. Solving these encourages a greater focus on general solutions.
  
• Add new game logo to title screen.
  
• Add Vsync option the Video menu.
• Support page up & page down code navigation.
• The menu screen now supports keyboard left/right to control sliders & language selection.

Other changes

• Windows: Fix game window not starting maximized.
• Windows: Reduce the "white rect" appearing at/before startup.
• Optimise compute logic when resizing the window, particularly improves resizing performance on Windows.
• Optimize frame time by batching draw calls.
• Fix edge case company inbox message scrolling issue.
• Fix max speed robot compute panic.
• Fix `path[].remove(path[].size()-1)` code parser bug.
• Fix a minor level design bug in Orienteering.
• Capitalise "The" in Into The Unknown.
• Fix branch selection blocking clicks when not open.
• Fix probe API summary clicks not working.

Some nice new features in this one. Read more in today's devblog. Reminder: The beta will end on 24th June 2019.

New features

• Robot & probe teleportation effects.
  
• Score statistic tooltips now appear when hovering over level scores. For time score this includes a full function breakdown.
  
• New company inbox button in the facility (level selection) view. Here you can re-read all the company messages received so far.
  

Other changes

• Tweaks to story text.
• Fix facility fog not showing when snowfall was disabled.

This update brings improvements to level selection and more. Read more in today's devblog. Note: The beta will end on 24th June 2019.

New features

• Improved facility view level selection.
  • New level node art.
  • Hovering now renders the name of known levels.
  • Final quality facility background art.
  • Facility fog below known levels.
  • Improve new game highlighting of the first node.
  
  
• Add Italiano & interface translations.
• Add Credits menu option when in the title screen.

Other changes

• Add Big AB Games splash screen at startup.
• Use stripped down menu variant in final cutscene.
• Explicitly opt for double buffer rendering, may help some systems.
• Reduce alpha of high speed foreground snow so it's less "in your face".

This update is a big one. It brings the final game levels, all levels are now playable in the beta. Read more in the devblog. Note: The beta will end on 24th June 2019.

New features

• The 4th and final arc of levels is now available.
  • Finish the story over the course of 8 new levels.
  • A new kind of robot to code for.
  • A shift to a concurrent coding challenge quite different to the previous levels.
  • New challenge level Robo Pinball.
  • New music & art.
• Add new achievements for completing the game, and the final challenge level.
  
  

Other changes

• Fix launch fx drawing order issues.
• Lower default music volume.
• Fix some story typos.
• Fix some issues where company messages would keep appearing.

Beta-3.0.1

• Fix intro words appearing in title screen.

This update is smaller as the current focus is finishing the final game act's content. Read more in today's devblog. The devblog also announces that the beta will end on 24th June 2019. We have 1 month of beta testing time left. After this time the game will be removed from your steam libraries in readiness for full release. Everyone that sent in useful feedback during the beta will have a chance to receive one of a limited amount of full game keys, and you'll all be in the game credits. So if you haven't tried the game yet, you still have 1 month to fire up the game, send me your thoughts and be immortalised in slowly-scrolling white text.

Beta-2.2 Changes

• Teleporter fx will now pulse (a small part of the graphics improvement work for the final act).
• Code reference & message archive buttons now work when level code is running and stop the code run if clicked.
• Fix potential indexing panic when uncommenting a block of code.

  
  

Robo Instructus now has achievements. Read more in today's devblog.

New features

• Steam achievements. 8 all new achievements are now available to unlock for progressing through the levels, optimizing solutions & completing optional challenge levels.

Other changes

• Fix best "run size" score not updating when making non-score affecting changes.

Issues & Feedback

If you've got to the end of the current levels and want more, this update is for you. Read more in today's devblog

New features

• The 3rd "arc" of levels is now available.
  • New story & functions over the course of 7 new levels
  • "Launcher" tile which is both a tool for navigating gaps and a problem unto itself.
  • New challenge level The Maze.
  • New music & art.
• Improved interface translations. 9 languages have now benefited from community improvement at big-ab-games/robo-instructus-translation. As a result the game can now support interface translations for , Nederlands, Portugus, Polski, , , Franais, Deutsch & Svenska. A huge thanks to all the contributors!
• Add overlay tutorial to mention the alt pause buttons.
• Autocomplete now includes a tab key hint and will render correctly when near the right border of the code input.
• A small rework of story unlocks in arc-2 (underground levels), including new story unlocks.

Other changes

• Fix hotkeys span toggling functionality like holding esc.
• Fix last level code to select the preceding level that has code.
• Fix some overlay tutorials sticking around too long.
• Selected language is now saved and will be used next game start.
• Fix code input modification when pressing keys in menu.
• Fix code indent/wrapping markers rendering outside the code input area.

Issues & Feedback

• Can't click on code reference/message archive while code is running #185

Today's update takes baby steps towards translating Robo Instructus. Initially it's only part of the interface seeing translation into 3 new languages. But this can be improved to full interface translations in every language people are prepared to help me with. This leaves the much more difficult story translation, but one step at a time. Read more in the devblog.

New features

• Interface machine translations for , Polski & Deutsch. Language can be selected by going to menu > settings > language. Coverage is limited to tooltips, menus and overlay tutorials. The translations are currently poor quality as they are machine translations. Check out big-ab-games/robo-instructus-translation if you'd like to help improve them.

Other changes

• Fix text glyphs stretching issues when resizing in rare cases.

Issues & Feedback

This update beefs up the ability to save & load solutions to a particular level. This UI appears when you start Use Your Powers Wisely along with a new overlay tutorial to explain it. Read more in the devblog.

New features

• Save different solution approaches to a level with custom names.
• Reload the initial code for levels that start with some code.
• Load previous level code, for building on your last solution instead of starting from scratch or copy-pasting.
• New level menu Settings for game options with new option Autocomplete allowing players to disable the autocompletion popups while typing.

Other changes

• Remove Reset Level Code menu option, replaced by new initial code loading.
• New overlay tutorials for the new code save/loading menu.
• Disable autocomplete while typing comments.
• Fix some render blending issues.

Issues & Feedback

This update brings a new feature for players that like optimizing, plus some smaller improvements.

New features

• Load and code from your best solutions in terms of time, solution size or run size. After completing Use Your Powers Wisely players will be able to access a new menu. This allows players to load the code that achieved the best score for each of the 3 score categories. So if you tried different approaches to a level, say trying to optimise the time score then later trying to shrink your code into as small as possible solution size, you'll now be able to switch between them and continue improving them.

Other changes

• Remove loading splash, as loading is generally too fast to see it now.
• Improve/reword overlay messaging about re-running code at each stage.
• Clarify in function docs that location ids are always positive and non-zero.
• Improve 'not' primer explanation.
• Improve Try using else & comparison message placement.

Issues & Feedback

• Improve/clarify "safe" tile meaning #182

This update switches all textures to GPU compressed versions significantly reducing the load time & VRAM usage. Read the devblog for, probably too much, more info.

New features

• All game textures have been converted to GPU compressed formats. This drastically reduces VRAM usage & load times while retaining high quality visuals. The Textures video menu option has been removed as now everyone will use high quality GPU compressed textures.
• Click/drag scrolling of scroll bars with the mouse. This is particularly useful for the code reference & message archive.

Other changes

• Fix typos in company message B.
• Improve game error logging to include more info.
• Fix opengl crashes due to texture dimensions.
• Optimise render performance when in the menu.

Issues & Feedback

• Game recording with plays.tv on Windows
• Introduce code re-running more clearly at "Keep Going!"

This update improves the VRAM usage of the game, fixes panic error logging to help solve future issues and more. I also worked on eliminating scenarios that could cause save data loss. Read the blog for more.

New features

• Reduced texture VRAM usage and new Video menu option Textures for selecting the texture size/quality. The new default (High) has been optimised for 1440p screens and should almost totally indistinguishable from the Max setting (previous default) at this, or lower, resolution. As such Max is only offered on higher than 1080p resolutions. A Low setting is also provided to try and minimise VRAM usage at the cost of image quality.
• Improve incorrect code indent error messages. Importantly the offending line is no longer covered up by the error message, the message itself is also more helpful.
• Add new tile effect for robo_location(), robo_forward_location()
• Add a sneak peak of the next chapter of levels in the level selection screen after finishing the currently last level.

Other changes

• Allow `while` to meet the `else` usage requirement in Testing Grounds.
• Use tailed arrow icons to represent keyboard arrows.
• Provide Native Effects option only when running the game at over 1080p resolution, as under this native is identical to High.
• Clear autocomplete options when running code.
• Set Textures option to Low after a VRAM allocation panic to avoid similar panics on next startup.
• Await image processing at startup avoiding early texture pop-in & potential music stuttering.
• Fix some unexpected behaviour changing volumes after using the mute functionality.
• Fix unexpected code speed selection behaviour when going to/from pause speed.
• Rework progress saving with the aim to prevent data loss if killing the game (i.e. from a power cut / OS crash).
• Ensure only a single game process is running to prevent save write co-ownership, which could potentially cause save progress loss.

Issues & Feedback

• Support custom key bindings for hotkeys #172
• Explain code-execution speed #173
• Tile breakpoints #174
• Allow disabling autocomplete when typing #175
• Show parse errors more eagerly #176
• Catch some typo ids with the parser #177

This update brings new story, graphics effects & autocomplete improvements. Read more in the blog.

New features

• New messages to unlock revealing more of the story of the Bright colonists. For players that have already completed the levels with changed unlocks an exclamation mark is shown over the level, open the level to re-view unlocks.
• New graphic effects - robo_scan() - robo_use() - robo_detect_adjacent()
• Autocomplete comparisons '>', '<' etc. Suggest 'is'/comparisons when typing '=' or '==' which are not equality operators.

Other changes

• Move primer unlock about functions earlier after completing Sense Of Direction.
• Optimise CPU compute/allocation, lowers general CPU usage / speeds up full-speed compute.
• Improve code error hints for 'is is' misuse.

Issues & Feedback

• Add level selection names on hover #168
• Add company message archive #169
• Show mute/unmute icon/notification when toggling #170

New features

• Autocomplete. Code completion suggestions will now appear as you type, press tab to use. Completions are generated from a lexical sweep of your code plus language keywords and external (ie robo_*) functions. The following shorthands for external functions have preference so will always come top in the suggestions and can be used like macros/snippets. Type the shorthand and press tab. Shorthands are generally the significant letters of a function:
  • rf -> robo_forward()
  • rl -> robo_left()
  • rs -> robo_scan()
  etc See new autocomplete keys in the game directory README.txt.

Other changes

• Fix company message _acknowledge_ not always working causing the message to reappear.
• Clarify robo_use() additional runtime documentation.

Issues & Feedback

This week's update brings many quality of life improvements to the game based on the feedback I've received. More info on these changes will be published a little later today in the devblog.

New features

• Levels now have names. These will appear above the levels and in the score screens.
• Profiles can now be deleted in the title screen. Click the bin and confirm by clicking the red tick. Take care as this cannot be undone.
• New editor keyboard shortcuts see the README.txt file in the game directory for a list of all hotkeys.
  • `ctrl insert`, `shift insert`, `shift delete`: copy, paste, cut.
  • `ctrl /` comment/uncomment the current line or selection.
  • `ctrl d` can now duplicate all selected lines.
  • `ctrl t` toggles code pause, instead of just starting the code paused.
• Mute sound hotkey `ctrl m`.
• Add level stage navigation hotkeys `alt `, `alt `.
• Include a power switch in Melting Pot.
• New company message (B) after completing all aboveground levels.
• Move the first direction data-store level underground.
• Move robo_location() discovery to after Gatehouse.
• Add video menu option `Snowfall` with options On, Background Only, Off.
• Windows: Add NvOptimusEnablement & AmdPowerXpressRequestHighPerformance link exports to prefer dedicated GPU usage on laptops. This should address performance issues on bad+good GPU laptops.

Other changes

• Improve button click responsiveness when cursor is moving.
• Improve initial robo_use() message.
• Improve power switch explanation message clarity.
• Add extra clarification around code re-running at each stage in Keep Going!.
• Reduce Hello Robo tutorial to add only 3 lines.
• Tweak company message A.
• Avoid "read about comparison" overlay covering text if possible.
• Rework level statistic totals placement.
• Rename "nodes" to "phrases" to make more immediate sense.
• Show speed tutorial in Keep Going! even if the 1st run solves the whole level.
• Improve video menu presentation, align options consistently and use dim colour when disabling options.
• Add GPU vendor/renderer info to F10 debug.
• Reword unsatisfied level requirement message.
• Save panic traces to an error.log file.
• Tweak sequence overwriting code example for clarity.

Issues & Feedback

• Improve new game first level button visibility #139
• Highlight current cursor indent marker line #140
• Show editor hotkeys in game somehow #141
• Add vsync setting #143
• Allow zooming UI-scale bigger #144
• Add next/previous level button for quick navigation? #147
• Fix code-speed unpause speed selection when selecting speed #150
• Compare scores with steam friends #151
• Manage multiple solutions, auto save best scoring solutions #153
• Level selection: show level preview on hover #154
• Avoid texture pop-in #156
• Code input/code reference drag/click scrollbar scrolling #157
• Add optional performance targets/rewards #160
• Steam achievements #161
• Improve data store message explanation #162
• Offer to import previous solutions in some early levels #164
• Improve 'Function not available' messaging #165
• Improve title screen #166

A week ago I was working with a group of 32 semi-active alpha testers, now over 2000 beta testers have signed up to try Robo Instructus. I've already received a lot of great feedback that will help improve the game. Thanks very much to everyone that sent in their thoughts! One main theme that's coming through is the learning difficulty spike that happens at the 5th level. Improving this, then, is the main objective of beta-1.2. This version adds new levels & reworks some to spread out the cognitive load of learning the new concepts. It also better explains variable scoping which becomes quite important around this point. So please try out these new levels and features and let me know what you think. Steam should update the game automatically.

Beta-1.2

New features

• Add new usable tile "power switch" and new level designed to better introduce the robo_use() function in isolation from other new concepts.
• Rework (previously 6th) level to incorporate power switches and location data stores.
• Add "Scope" primer explaining variable scope rules.
• Rework the first level with direction data stores, try to simplify the necessary concepts used here.
• Reorder code reference primer sections to be less confusing.

Other changes

• Rework first level tutorial. Remove initial code which can cause confusion.
• Move game speed tutorial to during 2nd level.
• Don't auto increase from speed 1 -> speed 2 after completing first level.
• Fix error sound triggering twice in some cases when the robot falls.
• Fix render bug in title screen after viewing the code reference.
• Linux: Build with older glibc to support Ubuntu 16.04.
• Replace message images with actual in-game renders.
• Fix quoted message display issue.
• Avoid mipmapping where possible to lower VRAM usage.
• Improve company message wording.
• Move loop-III tutorial one level earlier.

Feedback

New issues to investigate

• Support more languages #120
• Tutorial about alternate debugging keys #121
• Auto-correct capitalisation errors #122
• Change flow so unlocks happen after scores #123
• Improve hint explaining the program restarts at each level-variant? #125
• Add copy/paste from code reference #126
• buttons clicks sometimes not working #128
• Improve pause code-phase highlight #129
• Investigate jerky performance (texture vram usage?) #130
• Allow custom color themes #131
• Add profile deletion #133
• `if robo_scan() is 1 or 2` error message missing suggestion #134
• Name levels #136
• Intel shadow image render bug #137
• Index for code-reference primer sections #138

The Robo Instructus beta is now available