v0.8.4 Update with Unique Ultra Weapon Upgrades is Live!

Dr. Spacezoo v0.8.4 was released on 2016/09/30 and brings the first set of unique ultra weapon upgrades for the laser and bullet weapons. Also, new enemy art animations were added, as well as new screen transition effects. Read on for some of the more significant changes since the v0.8.1 update announcement.

Unique Ultra Weapon Upgrades:

The unique ultra weapon upgrades are super rare weapon upgrades that a add additional defensive or offensive effect to your laser and bullet weapons. Currently, there are four unique ultra weapon upgrades which include: Push, Force Deflector, Reflections, and Bounces. Each unique upgrade will increase in potency with each of their 4 ranks. The later missions will allow for higher rank uniques than the earlier missions.

Bounces Ultra

Here's an image of the weapon upgrade UI with the Bounces Ultra weapon upgrade selected. The +1 Bounces Ultra allows for each bullet to bounce off a wall once: Here's an example of Bounces Rank 2 on a Bullet Weapon with a lot of +Bullets and some +Homing:

Reflections Ultra

When selecting upgrades for the Laser, the Bounces Ultra will be known as Reflections Ultra, and will add an additional laser reflection for each rank. Here's an example of Reflections Ultra Rank 4: Both the Bounces Ultra and Reflection Ultra are super handy for boss fights:

Force Deflector Ultra

The Force Deflector is back and may be added to either the Laser or the Bullets. The Force Deflector is a periodic proc that will trigger more often as you stack on +Haste. It does a ton of damage to anything caught in its explosion radius:

Fountain Weapon Upgrades:

Fountains aren't just for cover anymore. The sprayers now have a small chance to drop a Weapon Upgrade when destroyed. It's good luck to take coins and upgrades from fountains, right?

Updated Enemy Art:

The sentry, rammer, ranger, and swarmer got new art and animations. Here's a gif of a rammer, ranger, and two swarmers sitting mostly idle waiting on the player to break in and save some space animals: Chaotic action shot of a few sentries, rammers, and swarmers doing their thing, with a bonus appearance by the Force Deflector Ultra:

Screen Transitions:

Added new dynamic screen transitions to make the UI a bit more dynamic:

Screen Resolutions and Aspect Ratios:

Added a new in-game resolution selector to Settings which supports resolutions greater than 1280x720 and non-16:9 aspect ratios (the minimum resolution is 1280x720). Dr. Spacezoo's menus and game are now resolution/aspect ratio independent in both full screen and windowed mode. Also, a new Screen Resolution Based Zoom option was added to Settings, which will show more of the game levels at higher resolutions (uses more CPU/GPU). Here's a wide aspect ratio shot of the Feebot Mk.4 boss fight with the Screen Resolution Based Zoom option enabled: And here's a super tall aspect ratio shot of the title screen: Dr. Spacezoo should work with whatever weird resolution and aspect ratio that you throw at it. Please leave a comment and let me know if it doesn't!

Reminder: Price is going to increase as the game becomes more complete!

The price went up to $8.99 USD with the v0.8.3 update, and will likely raise to $9.99 within the next few updates. If you were waiting for a discount to get Dr. Spacezoo, note that it is already discounted from its final v1.0 target price.

Full Patch Notes for v0.8.4 to v0.8.2:

See full patch notes here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/371380/discussions/0/364040961447595214/ v0.8.4 released 2016/09/30:

• Laser works with the reflection ultra upgrade and has improved beam particles

• Each subsequent laser reflection/bullet bounce reduces damage dealt

• Lasers and bullets only reflect/bounce off of walls

• Reduced force deflector range to better match particle ring

• Unique ultra upgrades stat range will improve each mission

• New sounds for Nali Puki (Space Whale) and Xieri (Space Zebra)

• Debris created during large explosions is throttled to maintain framerate (see Throttle Debris Creation in Settings to limit further)

• Explosion sound is reduced for very large explosions

• Fixed Defense upgrade tool-tip in Power-up HUD

• Fountains have a very small chance to drop a weapon upgrade when destroyed

• Power-up objects properly deactivate after they are collected

• Added a confirmation to the Full Reset menu option

• Reduced bullet homing force for phase 1 of the last Mission 5 boss

• Increased boss activation alert range to activate outside of player weapon range

• AdjustedEnemy converterreduced beam's particle usage and improved performance when no animals are in range

• Added AZERTY mapping for keyboard controls

• Added new transition effect UI screen changes

• Tutorial returns to main menu from level menu since only one mission

• Fixed minor UI issues with non-1280x720 resolutions

• Fixed joystick hint icons display issue

• Many bug fixes

v0.8.3 released 2016/09/23:

• Added Ultra Weapon Upgrades: Force Deflector, Deflector, and Bouncing Bullets (more to come!)

• Bosses drop additional weapon upgrades in co-op

• Additional weapon upgrade rolling bonus based on player's level

• Boss weapon upgrade rolling bonus is applied once per player (destroyed players can refight boss to get rolling bonus)

• Improvements to player's power-up tracker, and added icon indicating weapon upgrades collected

• New ambient animal sounds: Giraffe, Elephant, Rhino, Chicken, Bear, Goat

• New in game resolution selector which supports non-1280x720 resolutions and non-16:9 aspect ratios (min resolution is 1280x720)

• Menus and game are now resolution/aspect ratio independent

• Improved mission selection and level selection icon layouts for non 16:9 aspect ratios

• Added Screen Resolution Based Zoom option to show more of the game levels at higher resolutions (uses more CPU/GPU)

• Improvements to in game camera size and options

• Added Ceres to Story Mode Mission 1 level selection

• Updated player ship art

• Slightly reduced acceleration per rank and power-up, and haste per rank and power-up

• Improvements to Mission 3 tileset's emission map

• Improvements to homing bullets retargeting

• Sticky bullets now have a fixed/shorter duration

• Improvements to debris generation during LARGE explosions to try to maintain framerate (more coming)

• Added even more particles

• Improvements to procedural generation including fix to boss room pillars potentially obscuring animal rooms

• Additional fix for offscreen indicators not appearing for spawned enemies

• More fixes for Xbox One controller on Windows 10 Anniversary Edition

v0.8.2a released 2016/09/08:

• Fix for offscreen indicators not appearing for spawned enemies

• Fix for Xbox One controller dpad navigation on Windows 10 Anniversary Edition

v0.8.2 released 2016/09/07:

• New player ship art and thrust particles

• New enemy art for sentry, rammer, ranger, and swarmer

• Smoothed movement in enemy sentry, rammer, ranger, and swarmer

• Smoothed difficulty on story mode and action mode

• Difficulty now scale enemy health, damage, and firing rate

• Tuned down difficulty on Mission 2 boss fight and lessened starting rocks

• Slightly reduced player per rank and power-up bonus for Acceleration

• Mini-map now properly displays large mission 4 and 5 levels

• Improved weapon upgrade UI (joystick default selects first available upgrade)

• Improved weapon upgrade stat rolling

• Reduced power-up activation force to keep power-ups closer to player

• Fixed boss room barrier activation bug (should not longer trap player)

• Fixed Class 5 Daily Challenge not allocating core power-ups

• Animals are now less clumpy when spawned

• Meow

• Dynamic and static camera improvements

• Added selectable links to About screen

• Linux game launch bug fix for Steam

• Fix for Xbox One controller dpad navigation on Windows 10 Anniversary Edition