After a couple of years in which I haven't been able to devote any time to this project, I've made the difficult decision to give ROCKJACK away for free. I never expected to make any money with this game, but I've come to the conclusion that charging for it has only impeded the growth of its audience. I do hope to add new features and fix the few bugs that exist in the game, but I won't be too actively updating it. I want to thank everyone who did buy the game, and I will push an update at some point where I add your Steam names to the credits. I will also try to think of some other way to say thank you. Perhaps I will enable some feature only for you in a future push; I don't know yet. Thanks again, and good hunting out there!

I didn't like the way the new shield was behaving, so I fixed it.

With this version, I've updated the Unity version I'm building on, and switched to the new Universal Rendering Pipeline. This entailed rewriting a bunch of code that relied upon renderer features no longer supported, so it took me a while, but in return I believe the game looks better than ever! In addition, I am better insulated against Unity updates breaking the game in the near future.

• Added new sound for when plasma armor takes a hit.
• Added a new debris type.
• Added new asteroids texture for much improved appearance.
• Make more important items easier to see in the minimap.
• Increase rate of neutron armor regeneration.
• When mines or time bombs collide with mines or time bombs, they explode now.
• Seeker Missile improvements: smaller seek window, will not seek powerups.
• Upgraded to Unity 2021.1.7f1 and switched to the Universal Rendering Pipeline for improved graphics.
• Fixed buggy options dropdowns.
• Reduced frequency of Inertial Damper powerup.
• Created new missile bloom/halo effect in URP.
• Created new powerup announcer to work in URP.
• Made asteroid recolor based on resource type work in URP.
• Improved bump mapping on asteroids.
• Improved currency symbol management so that the player can change currency symbol at any time.
• Created new seeker mine and time bomb ping effect in URP.
• Created new exotic asteroid effect in URP.
• Created new plasma armor effect in URP.
• Created new shield effect in URP.
• Fixed a bug: when allocating shield and neutron armor powerups, the player wouldn't get them unless their shield or armor were already depleted.

Greetings, Rockjacks! I have been busy upgrading the game to a newer version of Unity and a new rendering pipeline, and, as often happens with these things, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is, the new rendering pipeline is incompatible with a lot of the visual effects in the game; they have either disappeared or they look lousy, so I'm going to have to do some work to rebuild them. For example, I lost the green glow of the exotic asteroids. The good news is, the game looks absolutely stunning in the new rendering pipeline, and the effects that still work, really pop! So you're going to be in for a treat when I finally do finish the port to the new pipeline! I can't wait to share it with you! In the meantime, I've got a bunch of new gameplay updates incoming shortly. The roadmap currently looks like this: [olist]

Although I'm calling this a minor version, I'm actually really excited about this one, because I've been painstakingly tuning the game lately, and I feel that this update improves playability so much that it deserves its own major release number. However, I'm keeping those for big features, so I hope you'll forgive me and just enjoy the game! Please let me know what you think in the comments!

Player-visible changes

• Missiles will no longer explode upon colliding with explosions. This eliminates the problem of chain explosions, which I liked in the abstract, but in practice it just made the game feel more random than it really needs to be.
• Added some entropy to the powerup allocation process, and spread out the available powerups across a wider range of rounds. This made the powerup process feel more natural and challenging.
• Reduced the frequency of the Extra Ship Powerup. I felt this one was getting out of control.
• Increased the supercooler cooldown time from 0.1s to 0.11s.
• Defer the start of multiple saucers.
• Fixed a bug in the shield meter.

A minor release with a lot of feature polish.

Player-visible changes

I'm very excited to announce this new version of Rockjack! I've swapped out (most of) the old text-based UI that marked the early development of the game, and added a more attractive, colorful, easier-to-read and altogether more professional graphical UI. In addition, I've added a couple of new powerups and modified the bonus ship system, and made a bunch of tweaks along the way to help make the game look and feel more like a professional product!

ROCKJACK RELEASE NOTES

version 0.4.0 - 2021-05-01 Sat

Player-visible changes

I've been working on the UI for ROCKJACK lately, and I wanted to share my progress with you in anticipation of the upcoming release. I'm sorry that I inflicted my MVP ("minimally-viable product") text-based UI on you for so long, and I've finally gotten the chance to make something which is more fun and more appealing. I think you'll agree with me that this will be a huge step forward!
I'm really enjoying this new UI, but as you can also see, it's not complete yet, and I want to get it into a more complete and polished state before releasing it. Along with the UI changes, I've also made some significant gameplay changes which I hope will address mid- and late-game problems I've noticed. I've also fixed a large number of bugs and added a lot of small touches to a bunch of things. Each of those changes don't amount to much by themselves, but together, they really add a layer of shine to the game and bring it closer to looking like a professional product. Thank you all for your patience and your support of ROCKJACK!

I feel the game has progressed to the point where more people should give it a try and let me know where they would like the game to go. Therefore, I'm offering a weeklong discount on Rockjack to help bring new Jacks into the fold. Check it out!

Player-visible changes

ROCKJACK RELEASE NOTES

version 0.3.2 - 2021-02-07 Sun

Player-visible changes

• Added tabs to the Options screen. The options screen was getting pretty crowded, so I broke it into tabs with a selector up top.
• Added a Geiger counter to the game. Your ship is now equipped with a Geiger counter which will click near radioactive or exotic asteroids. There is no impact on gameplay, but I think it's cool and adds some atmosphere to the game.
• Added jump-to-section buttons to the tutorial. Their behavior is still pretty rough and I will need to spend some time improving that, but they work pretty well already.
• Added a reminder to the player that if you have the reverse time powerup, and you pick up another reverse time powerup, the powerup is cancelled (because two negatives make a positive!)
• Made some performance improvements. I'll need to do yet another performance pass soon to hunt for places which aren't well-optimized.

This is a hotfix for a bug identified during testing of v0.3.0. There are also a small amount of performance fixes. Happy Rock Hunting!

I'm very excited to share the v0.3.0 update! I've added a full tutorial, so new players can get up to speed quickly with the game, and I've added a new enemy, the Time Bomb! I hope you enjoy the new changes!

Full Release Notes

version 0.3.0 - 2021-01-29 Fri

Player-visible changes

• Added a tutorial so players can quickly learn everything they need to know to get into the game.
• Added a new enemy to the game - Time Bombs! These are larger than seeker mines, but they also seek the player, and will explode on contact OR when their timer runs out, with a very powerful explosion!
• Added a "power-up!" sound when the player picks up a powerup.
• Made some behavior of unstable asteroids independent of time warp.
• Added HUD scale option to Options Screen.
• Harmonized a bunch of icons so that the same symbol appears on the powerup object as on the scanner.
• Improved the operation of the Advanced Stabilizer so it becomes much more useful and valuable.
• Added an indicator to the HUD for when the player is using the Targeting computer.
• Added an indicator to the HUD to show the time warp factor and the direction of time flow.

... you all know the rest. Changes this time:

Bug fix for when shields and plasma armor active, player ship disappears. Added lights to saucers Improved blink logic for Powerup announcer

Improved Powerup Announcement shows the icon for the powerup just retrieved and a graphical status indicator for permanent acquisition. Improved the power of the Shield Augmenter. Minor efficiency improvements. Added graphics quality to Options menu. Removed Time Warp Precursor.

Responding to User Feedback, I have added some UI goodness to the game and I have continued to implement new powerups. I think you're gonna like this update!

• Some folks wanted a way to better visualize the motion of the ship, as it seemed disorienting to them to have the ship not appear to move when they used their thrusters. In response to this need, I have added a light green grid to the game, which indicates the motion of the player against a fixed coordinate system. Some people will like this, others will hate it, which is why you can go into the Options menu and turn it on or off as you choose.
• The size of the scanner view in the game can also now be tweaked from the options menu.
• I have added a new powerup called DOUBLE SHOTS. It's just what it says: it gives your ship two shots where you previously only had one. Unlike its cousin TRIPLE SHOTS, this one will not be time-limited, and if you stack 4 of these on a single ship, then all your subsequent ships will have this powerup.
• Finally, I'm very excited about another new powerup, called TIME WARP. When you pick this one up, you can change the rate at which time passes based on your speed relative to the point at which you picked up the powerup. You can't stop time altogether, though, and if you speed up fast enough, you can make time move faster than it normally does! - I don't think a lot of you will want to do that. Be careful about collisions, they do have a habit of imparting some impulse to your ship...

I had hoped to make 0.2.8 a more major update, but 0.2.7 introduced a performance issue and I felt compelled to address it. This issue should now be fixed and the game should run as smoothly as ever. If your experience differs, please let me know!

Added new intro music (credit: Theo Griffin) Player ship will morph its texture to indicate the level of damage the hull has received. This is a nice-looking effect which may help the player realized how much trouble they're in before it's too late! Added better-looking plasma armor to the player ship. Added better-looking shield to the player ship. Cosmetic improvements to player ship texture: increased contrast and drawing a spine when the damage code takes too many pixels away from the player texture. Changed default zoom level. When applying powerups to new ships, make sure Powerup Helper, if available, is applied before other powerups which might reference it. Reduced the factor by which the Shield Augmenter increases the size of the shield bubble. Fixed a bug with seeker mine sound prioritized incorrectly.

Added Powerup Helper powerup, which doubles the amount of time which certain time-based powerups are active, e.g. Plasma Armor duration is doubled from 30 seconds to 60. The total number of powerups is now 23. Many more are in various stages of completion. Added Targeting Computer powerup, which replaces the reticle on the HUD pointing to a target with a reticle indicating the direction the player should aim to hit the target (i.e. it takes the target's distance and speed into account). Seeker shots need targeting computer as a precursor. Targeting HUD tracks mines as well as saucers. Many texture updates and fixes for minimap and main screen. Changed some of the availabilities of powerups (first round available and dependencies) to improve game balance. Enforce condition: Big dumb saucer should always be the first one the player sees.

ROCKJACK RELEASE NOTES

version 0.2.5 - 2020-12-07 Mon

I have just pushed v0.2.4, which updates the game so that it also supports Linux + SteamOS. I also removed the Red Pill powerup, which was not really a very good joke.

Rockjack is now available for MacOS! Happy Rock Busting!

ROCKJACK RELEASE NOTES

version 0.2.2 - 2020-11-20 Fri

Thank you everyone for your patience - the game is out now! Please check it out and let me know your comments and reactions!

Hi friends, please forgive the delay, but I believe we are now finally on the verge of releasing the game. I am very hopeful that you will find this little gem to have been worth the wait.