In this update7
Full notes
Full ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH update
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What changed
- Maps
- UI and audio
- Fixes
- Gameplay
- Balance
- Performance
ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH changes
Changed in 0.14.0
NEW FEATURE: Biomes
Biomes are something new introduced in this update.
The town in the two new biomes is the same as in the original one, but due to the mysterious events in the alternate history timelines they are in, the town in these other biomes is more transformed.
New Biome: "Desert"
New Biome: "Lava"
Added Biome selection to the "Start Run" dialog
Made the "Start Run" dialog slightly darker
Make some buildings and props look like they are partly swallowed by snow/sand to better integrate them visually into the levels
CHANGES TO SNOW BIOME
The classic/default snow biome got a small facelift along with new biomes being added.
New trees!
Tweaked the snow on the level
Other small visual tweaks
UNLOCK CHANGES
The small "unlock points" box in the level HUD doesn't have the progress bar anymore and it doesn't show popups about new unlocks anymore. While this was helpful information, the downside was that it made players quit the runs mid-way. You can still exit the run and unlock mid-way if you want, but the game doesn't advertise it.
Fixed an issue where the unlocked icons would stay grayscale after unlocking
Fixed the issue with the "New Unlock Points" dialog, where the sounds would still be audible even if the dialog was closed mid-way through the points animation.
Tweaked the "New Unlock Points" dialog appearance
Group unlocks so that there is only one unlock type on each page in the Unlocks dialog
DIFFICULTY CHANGES
Enemy Health Multiplier can now increase multiple steps at once, if the multiplier has increased consequently on previous levels
After the first loop, start spawning waves faster in the Invasion level type
After the first loop, start having elite enemy waves also on Normal difficulty
ENEMY TWEAKS
Back in the day when the new enemies were added, there was no good unlock system yet in the game, so all four big enemies were made so that you can see them in the first playthrough, which was not optimal.
Enemies are now unlocked gradually, to hopefully have the feeling of discovering something new gradually.
"SwordEnemy" now unlocks on Desert Biome and "Roller Enemy" unlocks on Lava Biome
VISIBILITY TWEAKS
The units don't show anymore the wobbly outline on the ground, but you still see the red/pink "danger area" when the units are on top of a dangerous area.
Enemies now always show an outline, for better visibility
Made the enemies damage area slightly darker blue, so that it's better visible on new biomes
Make Turrets cast shadows on the ground
OTHER CHANGES
Only show topics and places on the first loop of the snow biome, not on other biomes
Minimap now renders the ground as a simple constant color, instead of rendering the actual ground
Fixed the issue of unit-bar not making the unit icons smaller if the list gets too big. There is now a minimum size for the icons (very small), so the bar will get bigger, but only if you have a huge amount of units. This was already fixed once before, but got broken again at some point.
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That's it for this release. I'm really happy about the biomes being added to the game, as it was one of the biggest "missing pieces". I hope you all like the biomes too!
This version didn't have the leaderboard scores cleared, but the leaderboard reset might happen on the next release.
As always remember to give feedback!
See you in the next update!
jounitus
Source
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