*TL:DR* You can contact us and get a near immediate response on Twitter by messaging or tagging @MadFellowsGames.
Our Discord community (discord.gg/aaero) is very active and discussions range from tips, tricks and support, battling for cross-platform high scores to discussing with the devs what you want to see in Aaero2, helping decide the track list and much, much more.
I popped in today to check the comments threads and noticed that a couple of people had commented and we'd not replied. Then someone, quite reasonably, assumed that we had given up supporting the game.
This couldn't be further from the truth.
I've always done my absolute best to be present and responsive to the community. The new topics here on Steam had slowed to a stop as the existing threads and announcements cover all of the main issues we'd heard of. With only 2 of us on the team, it's very difficult to keep up with all the messages from all the sources. I'd obviously left it too long between checks on here.
Massive apologies to anyone that didn't get a swift reponse on here.
Take care,
Paul. x
Having trouble SHOOTING BADDIES, stressed about MOUSE + KEYBOARD support or getting SMOOSHED BY TRAPS? Please read here for answers to your questions. :)
Fortunately, the vast majority of players seem to be having fun with Aaero. As a developer though, it's impossible not to dwell on the negative comments.
I'm seeing a couple of regular gripes with Aaero. I totally, totally sympathise. We wanted to make this game as good as it could be and therefore, here's an explanation to some of our 'less popular' decisions.
First up.
HOW THE F*%$ DO I SHOOT ENEMIES!?!
The truth is, if you get to the point in the first level and you're not expecting enemies to show up... you skipped the shooting tutorial.
I'm not blaming you. It's happened a lot. It's our fault.
We made the tutorial (too) easily skippable. I made the decision that a previous game had a mandatory tutorial and, as a result, suffered the wrath of "I CAN'T EVEN SKIP THE TUTORIAL!!!!" feedback.
If you replay the tutorial, there's a shooting section that explains how to shoot and, as best I could, how to time your shots.
There's a shortened 'quick start' video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHQRJRB8ftQ
THOSE CRUSHING TRAPS ARE SO UNFAIR!!
They're actually pretty easy when you notice they are colour coded. Blue for safe path and red for certain death. I know, I know... it's hard to see that when you're looking at loads of other stuff. My bad again. Hopefully this info will sort you out, though.
A PC GAME YOU CAN'T PLAY WITH MOUSE & KEYBOARD!?!?!?!?!
This has upset a lot of people. Hopefully I can at least explain and answer some of the more common questions.
1) Yes, we are aware it's 2019. (It is 2019, right? *checks calendar*)
2) What we may or may not be smoking wasn't a factor in this decision.
Joking aside, here's the truth of the matter.
Aaero was designed, from the ground up, around using a dual analog controller. We literally sat down with an Xbox controller and thought 'how can we make a music game where using this is better than using a plastic instrument?
We were told, in no uncertain terms, that not supporting mouse and keyboard would be a problem for the PC market. So, our choices were as follows.
1) Come up with a decent control scheme for mouse and keyboard.
2) Not release on PC
3) Release on PC but make it very clear that it needs a controller.
The first is obviously the best. We spent a lot of time looking into it. The main issue is that the game's core mechanics are designed around using two matching circular sticks that re-centre when released.
We had mouse/keyboard support working but it sucked. You can't follow circular ribbons with keys. We looked into auto-targeting, auto-following, even using 2 mouses... mice... mices...? Sure, we could've stuck any of these in so we didn't have to say 'controller only' but our priority is making a good game. Trust me, you wouldn't have enjoyed it. If we'd put it in then I would've absolutely agreed with the backlash we'd have inevitably got.
At this point, we were limited to either 'not release on PC' or 'make it obvious that it's controller only'. We went for the latter.
We added as many warnings as possible. In the descriptions text and then, when I worried that I couldn't read the translations myself, as a graphic image. We also got Steam to add an official notice saying that it needed a controller.
We don't expect everyone to read that. Who reads stuff these days anyway? So we would absolutely expect anyone that missed it to get a refund. We don't want you buying a game you can't play.
A POLITE REQUEST
It's your absolute right to complain if you're not satisfied with a purchase. That is an important right, too. If you've been wronged, I will stand with you to the end fighting for justice....
I'm just asking that you temper your responses a little. I don't want to pull the 'poor little indie dev' card but we're not a big corporation. There's two of us and Dan only reads and writes in machine code so every single comment and review on the whole of the internets is picked up by me personally.
I can 100% guarantee that we want you to have a good experience. We would never get in the way of that or try to withhold a refund to 'take your money'. If you bought it and you're not happy then we're not happy and we want to sort it out.
I've reasoned with a few people on message boards about Aaero. They're usually great people with similar interests to me (gaming and... more gaming) It's usually a misunderstanding, a technical issue or something that can be easily explained. Unfortunately, by then there's already an all caps post about why no one else should play the game ever that's been marked as 'helpful' by others.
If the above info hasn't helped with an issue you have, give me a shout. I answer literally EVERYTHING personally. If we can't resolve it or I'm a dick to you in any way then by all means get that CAPS LOCK on and go crazy!
Massive love and respect to you all. Thanks for giving Aaero a shot and we will continue to try to go from 'most people' to 'all people' being happy with the game.
Come and join the always active community and chat to the developers and Aaero players from around the world!
Get the inside news first and help us shape what Aaero is and the direction it takes in the future.
See you in there,
Paul. :)
Localised prices issue.
Hi there,
I have managed to find out why some regions were missing their prices.
I've submitted the changes needed to fix this and it's just awaiting approval from Steam.
You should see the game become available over the next day or so.
Thanks!
Paul. :)
Aaero DLC is OUT NOW!
Hi everyone,
The first track pack, '1000DaysWasted: Drum & Bass Pack', and the 3 new ships 'Comet', 'Sol' and 'Phaser' are here!
I've been through today and removed any leaderboard entries I could see that showed scores that shouldn't have been possible under normal circumstances.
I should be very clear that this isn't neccessarily the result of intentional cheating and I apologise to anyone whose scores have been removed.
Before the latest update addressed the issue, there were rare cases where a user's soundcard would fail to play the music back correctly. The game would continue to attempt to keep everything in sync and, as a result, players could spend more time on the ribbon and clocking score than would otherwise be possible.
Thanks again to all of you for sticking with us and being awesome about these sort of things.
As always, please let me know if you have any questions.
Paul. :)
Aaero update. v1.39 – 20 Dec 2017
Hi all,
We've released the new Aaero update! This version is in line with the console updates that are rolling out over the next few weeks.
A couple of the these features were already supported by the Steam version but they are now fully tested and approved.
The main focus of the updates is to properly support 4k throughout the game and menus as well as prepare for the upcoming download content.
Aaero v1.39 – Change list
Support for DLC:
Aaero now supports the new DLC we are releasing soon after this update as well as further content in the future.
A link to the store page to view/purchase DLC track packs has been added to the bottom of the ‘Track Select’ screen.
New ship skins are available to download. A new menu to select a skin for your ship has been added to the Main Menu.
The new DLC:
*The following packs will be available to download from the stores in Jan2017:
1000DaysWasted: Drum & Bass Pack. (Contains 3 new song tracks).
‘Comet’ (Ship skin).
‘Sol’ (Ship skin).
‘Phaser’ (Ship skin).
Tutorial:
Added a new tutorial video that explains how to time the shots to get do more damage and get higher scores.
Gameplay changes:
Addressed bumps in the difficulty curve of Advanced Mode.
The ‘wasp’ mini-boss that appears at the beginning of ‘Ill Still’ now telegraphs its attacks for longer before firing, fires fewer shots and shoots less often.
Fixed an exploit that meant some players could gain more time on the ribbons than is intended to boost scores. (The game now calculates ribbon score against music time instead of real world time.)
The leader-boards now track and record ribbon accuracy so you can compare other player’s scores alongside the accuracy they achieved.
Controls are now fully customisable and can be completely remapped using the new control options menu.
Invert one or both analogue sticks.
Switch functionality between analogue sticks.
Set intensity of (or turn off) controller rumble.
Optimisation:
Various tweaks to models to optimise performance (removing polygons that were never seen by the game camera).
Extensive reworking of the culling systems to improve rendering efficiency (particularly in the water themed levels).
Various particle systems reworked to render more efficiently while retaining the same visual effects.
New rendering technique employed to create the same ribbon fuse effect more efficiently.
UI changes:
1000DaysWasted: Drum & Bass Pack is coming soon!
The first DLC pack is nearly here!
I know... I know... it's taken far too long. We've been busy setting ourselves up to self-publish Aaero and its content ourselves. Now we're back up and running, future updates should be a lot more timely.
Anyways, the first DLC pack contains 3 brand new tracks and we're doing our best to get it released for you before the end of year.
It features the tracks 'The Sickness'. 'Rage' and 'Dissonance Constant' from 1000DaysWasted. There's new achievements to get and, of course, leaderboards to battle for the top spots on.
Check out the 1000DaysWasted: Drum & Bass Pack trailer here. And the press release with
DLC Ships are coming soon!
Hey there,
Sorry we've been a bit quiet for a while. We've been busy working on some cool new stuff coming soon to Aaero!
First up, we have this collection of DLC ships that will be unleashed soon.
Named by the Twitter community as 'Sol', 'Comet' and 'Phaser', these ships will give you a chance to switch up the look of your Aaero-craft.
On release of these ships, we'll also be releasing the latest update of Aaero which includes lots of little tweaks and improvements as well as squishing a couple of the bugs we've been chasing for a while.
