Happy Birthday, MicroWorks!

September 2nd, 2022 - After a long, difficult development cycle, MicroWorks was released out into the wild. This being our first video game ever, I can still recall what a terrifying experience that was, not knowing how the game will be perceived, and whether anyone will enjoy it.

And here we are, a year later already (that was fast...). Our fears laid to rest, wrapped by the most welcoming and supportive community we could ever ask for! Even a year later, MicroWorks continues to attract new faces every day, and if we were to tell our past selves all that has happened throughout the year, they'd never believe us. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. <3

In celebration of this milestone, we're putting the Party Pass on sale for the next week, from September 1st to the 10th!.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2355460/MicroWorks__Party_Pass/

So,

how far has the game gone since its release last year? We haven't been slacking off, and focused on periodic updates with deep focus on what was bugging players during each period.

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Patch 1.01: SWEEP THE BUGS - September 5th, 2022

It is written that no game releases bug-proof, and our first priority was to squash as many as we could.

Notable changes in this update were nerfs to "Reach The End" and "Jetfrogs", new gameplay hints, and improvements to input-based microgames (before this update, if you happened to be moving when a microgame like "Type The Word" showed up, you'd quickly fill up your input with "wwwwwwwwwwwwww").

Patch 1.02: WAIT, DID I MISS A SPOT? - September 9th, 2022

Although this update's focus was originally planned to be on game balance, there were a couple of issues that nagged us too hard not to release earlier. And so, this was released as a complimentary update to the previous one, completing the last batch of fixes for "important" issues. (hence the title!)

Notable changes in this update were new team indicators and off-screen indicators for objectives and obstacles (like the ghost trains), the addition of the Croatian localization, voice chat improvements and many (but not all) game balance improvements.

Patch 1.03: BALANCE IT! - September 13th, 2022

1.03 was the complimentary update to what 1.02 started, rounding off the last batch of balancing issues we wanted to fix. This marked the final update from the "intensive post-release fixing" period, and we could start focusing on other things beyond just bugs and balance issues.

Notable changes in this update were improvements to double jumping (no longer hindered when falling down), Trivia Mastermind spectator support, and many balance changes across the board, such as removing score penalties when dying in Falling Platforms and adding danger indicators to Jump The Rope. Also Standoff finally stopped breaking! A-Almost.

Patch 1.04: ACCESSIBILITY UPDATE - September 23rd, 2022

When initially designing the game, we didn't put certain important things into the equation, and one of them was how people with color blindness or other disabilities can fair with the tasks. This update sought to correct our mistake, adding a new "Colorblind Mode", and an "Enlarge Small Texts" option for people who struggled reading the arguments.

Notable changes in this update were the addition of accessibility options, important bug fixes, and more balances changes to weapons like making the laser pistol faster and increasing the range on the laser pointer.

Patch 1.05: SPOOKAI UPDATE - October 21st, 2022

Our first big update with a spooky twist, 1.05 was a Halloween celebration, transforming the game's environments fittingly for the season for a limited period of time. Kai's shell also melted under the blood moon, revealing the scary skeleton that resided in him all this time. The Halloween event returns this October as well, for the entire month!

Notable changes in this update were the addition of the Halloween event, the Boss Rush gamemode that allowed you to play boss stages exclusively without microgames, big improvements to dynamic difficulty, an entire rework of "Don't Fall" (fixing a lot of the bad design choices that rewarded idling more than playing), and a fix to a beloved bug that allowed players to carry over dodgeballs into the nexus. It was fun while it lasted...

Patch 1.06: KAISMAS UPDATE - December 21st, 2022

Admittedly, the Halloween update didn't do too well, and the decision was made to focus on much more important things. But man, it's Christmas - we'd be forever regretful if we were to *not* celebrate it. And so 1.06 came out with a special Christmas event, adding festive holiday cheer throughout the nexus! The Christmas event, too, returns this December for the entire month!

Notable changes in this update were the addition of the Christmas event, major optimizations and fixes for lower-end hardware, and QoL improvements like visual effects for "Grab a Crab" and for shooting too early in "Standoff".

Patch 1.07: CALIBRATION UPDATE - March 10th, 2023

1.07 was part 1 of our "master plan" for the game. We had to come to terms with the fact there is a major entry barrier issue with the game, and despite our best efforts to teach the game as you play it, MicroWorks just isn't suited for that type of design philosophy. We've spent a LOT of time creating a comprehensive and entertaining tutorial that players can choose to go through before entering the game, and practicing its mechanics before being thrown out into the wilderness.

Notable changes in this update were the addition of the game tutorial, the addition of the Belarusian & Korean localizations (kindly provided to us by the community!), and a whole bunch more QoL additions, like adding health bars to certain breakable objects, and weapon input buffering.

Patch 1.08: FREE 4 ALL UPDATE - May 25th, 2023

And here's part 2, with what is likely the biggest and most important update we've made to the game. "Dead game" was an issue repeated so many times, ever since the game came out, it was ringing in my ears. It was hard to find active servers that weren't password protected or had more than 1 or 2 players in them. It was a difficult dilemma for us, knowing we do not possess the ability to grow the game more than we already did with our limited budget and almost no man power. So we sat down and started mapping out the road that would lead to MW's F2P debut.

This was the scariest, riskiest update we've done, and we were panicking for at least a couple of days after it came out, unsure whether we made the right decision. Today, I can very, very safely say, this was the best thing that happened to our game. In just 2 months, the amount of players grew 20x times, and these complaints evaporated into the wind, while still allowing us to continue turning a profit to re-invest into the game! This update was also, understandably, controversial, as we had to make the brave choice to lock private hosting behind the party pass, to encourage more people to play together. But I do strongly believe that it was the right thing to do, for both ourselves and our players.

Notable changes in this update were the free to play transition, the new leveling and progression system, skins & auras, custom emotes, and a whole bunch of big QoL changes and networking improvements!

Patch 1.09: TAKEOVER UPDATE - July 20th, 2023

And here we are in our latest update. With the big surge of players in the F2P update, a lot of *new* issues started popping up that we haven't accounted for before. For example, full servers kept getting disbanded by a single host, which was understandably upsetting. A lot of toxic people were starting to flood the game, and we were missing ways of fighting them. Therefore, this update focused on improving server experience, making sure that your public game experience is the best it can be!

Notable changes in this update were host takeover (making sure servers persist even if a host quits), moderation system & mutes/bans for players who misbehave, voting system improvements, and more cool QoL stuff like new UI for "Press All The Buttons", a "Double XP" special round, or exposing players' backs in "Robot Rumble" when they're blocking, so it's not just a "god mode" button.

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Phew! And this is only a quick summary of each update, skipping over a lot of the fine details of what they added and improved.

Compared to a year ago, at its release, MicroWorks is a VERY different game. We're lucky to have been able to continue to support it this long and transform it into a game that can be enjoyed by everyone, and we couldn't have done it without everyone else's support.

And aside from just that, making a game was our lifelong dream, and is an incredible achievement for us. There's a saying that goes "every game that gets released is a miracle", and it's true. MicroWorks is Agiriko's miracle, and we'll forever be thankful for this opportunity. We can't wait to find out what other new games lie ahead in our future...?

So one last time:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICROWORKS, AND THANK YOU FOR PLAYING!!!!!!!