Zenodyne R 2025 Beta Update

Hi everyone, Banshee here with a new update - Zenodyne R now has an updated beta branch available to anyone interested enough to try it! You can access it by using the password 'yesimadebackups' in the Steam Betas tab for the game, just make sure you live up to the password and backup your files first to be safe. Feedback is welcome through the usual channels and bug reports in the Troubleshooting pinned thread in the discussions forum.

For those who didn't see the Zenohell update from last year, this is basically part of a long-term plan to get the majority of games I was involved with running on modern GameMaker with quality-of-life fixes. I'm most of the way there with this one, but help from fresh eyes would be much appreciated.

Summary of changes listed below:

• GameMaker engine migration (2024.13 from GMS 1.4) means game should no longer have FPS timing issues on Windows 10/11 as well as improved controller support. Note that this makes the game also pure 64-bit

• Quality of life features brought over from newer titles - adjustable bullet colours and wallpaper options, etc

• Rebuilt the collision walls for stage 3 and 6-1, improving performance

• Changed 6-1 special camera to maintain x axis with player, making death recoveries easier to handle visually

• Overhaul of techpoint handling, fixing incorrectly displayed earnings and making sure stuff saves properly at end of stage/game over

• Overhaul of Steam achievement handling and updated Steamworks DLLs

• Overhaul of file and music operations, game no longer uses third-party external DLLs other than Steamworks

• Moved Arcade/Expert choice menu to the Main Menu and added description text

• Prepwork for Steam Deck support

• Significant unseen code overhaul and miscellaneous fixes from various development time periods post-2016

Worth noting that the save location for unlocks and highscores will change with this build - they'll still read old files from the program install folder but will write to `%LOCALAPPDATA%\\Zenodyne_Remake`, and Cloud Saves have been updated accordingly.

In other news, I've also started work on a Boss Rush mode to add something interesting for the 2025 update, but it isn't quite ready for the prime time yet. I'll post an update when that's ready.