ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH v1.0 Early Access Exit & Retrospective
Retrospective on the Game
Hello all!
ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH has finally exited Early Access and graduated to the 1.0!
About three years ago I started working on something that would eventually evolve into the game it's today.
About two years ago I released the first playtests and demos to the public.
About a year ago the game started the Early Access journey.
When the early demos/prototypes were released two years ago, seeing your favorite youtubers playing the game was a very surreal feeling. This together with the feedback from the players encouraged me to work more on the game.
After the first demos and playtests I decided to spend a year before even launching it in an early access. In hindsight I could have probably launched the early access earlier after the initial exposure, but I wanted to add more of the ideas I had for the game and polish the game before launching the early access.
The great thing when launching the early access is that you got a lot of feedback in a short amount of time time and you were able to see some features or fixes requested more over the others.
Things added and changed during Early Access
During the early access I tried to make it so that most of the updates released would be based on the feedback received from the players when the early access was released.
Some of the Features added during the Early Access, most based on the player feedback:
BIOMES (Originally there was only the snow biome when Early Access Started)
Multiple fixes to hopefully improve the unit visibility in the middle of the action and explosions
Made the game slightly more challenging
Movement Tweaks (now "lag" less behind other units and removed the "stand still to attack")
Custom sprites for all the units
Achievements
Leaderboards
Keyboard Keybindings
Graphical Improvements (especially the icons/ui)
Stats Screen that shows the damage done by units and various other stats
More Enemies
More Units
More Items
Localization to 11 new languages
Thoughts about feedback etc
I appreciate all the feedback received, even when I couldn't add everything requested to the game, I think all the feedback was really high quality and I could see the point from the player's perspective from the feedback.
It's also important for the players to give criticism since that's the best way for the developers to know how the players feel. I think it's good to try to see all criticism as something positive as long as it's something constructive.
I was surprised by how nice everyone has been and how encouraging people were especially during the early steps of the game. I hope that everyone knows that generally people are very nice, polite and well-meaning.
So thank you everyone who's been here for this journey, it has been a great motivator to know that people are interested in this game!
I hope everyone has had fun playing the game and those who have not tried it yet, will have fun playing it.
- jounitus
1.0.0 - Early Access Exit and Small Localization Fixes
Hello!
As stated previously, this release to exit the Early Access is mostly a version number change.
My hope is that Steam Algorithm Gods are on my side on this day and the stars are correctly aligned. I also hope that my marketing efforts have had some effect. Thanks to everyone who has streamed or made a video of the game previously or will make one in the future, it means a lot!
Changed in 1.0:
Changed the version number to 1.0
Small localization fixes
I will post a small retrospective of the game after this for you to read, after I have pressed the button to exit Early Access, stay tuned!
The game will exit Early Access on January 12 2024!
Hello All!
ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH will exit early access on January 12 2024!
As mentioned in the earlier post, it would have been nice to officially exit the Early Access before the Steam Winter Sale with the previous big localization release a few days ago, but I wanted to spend time promoting the game before that.
The 1.0 version will be content-wise mostly the same that is already released.
Very happy about this "milestone" after three years of the development of the game!
- jounitus
0.23.0: Big Localization Update - 11 New Languages Added
Hello all!
As one last bigger update before leaving early access, localizations were added to the game.
The game now has localizations for 11 languages.
French
German
Spanish
Polish
Russian
Brazilian Portuguese
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Turkish
Japanese
Korean
I hope adding these localizations will boost the sales at least a little bit and that more players can enjoy the game.
Even before entering Early Access I was wondering if I should add localization BEFORE entering the early access, but I decided to postpone it to the end of Early Access, since I worried making updates would have been more difficult with the localizations in the game.
At some point I however did remove all the hard-coded English texts from the code so that eventually things would be easier to translate.
Even after receiving the translated texts, it was still a bit of work to make sure all the texts fit the UI and the fonts render correctly etc.
Leaving Early Access
As said earlier this was the one last big update before leaving the early access.
My plan is now to focus on marketing the game, so that I don't have to rely on just hoping the Steam algorithm blessing the game and the stars being aligned correctly, when the transition happens.
I could have left the early access already before the Steam Winter sale (which would have been nice), but then there wouldn't have been time to promote the game, so I decided to move it to 2024. I think it's also nice to have translations out for a while before the exit out of early access.
The move out of early access will be mostly changing the version number to 1.0 and clicking the button on Steam to get out of early access, as the majority of the players still have a lot of content to unlock in the game. There might be small patches before that, if necessary.
Thanks everyone for the support. I appreciate everyone who's been here during the Early Access!
- jounitus
0.22.0 - Juhani Removal / Achievements for Starting Units / Movement Tweak
Hello!
As the game is moving towards the 1.0 release out of early access, I've had to put some thought into what to do with some of the existing features in the game.
Removal of Juhani
One of the features I was originally really excited about was "Juhani". You could visit Juhani's home and he would tell you about the places and events around the town.
Although I originally liked the idea, the feeling that you have to visit Juhani's home in the middle of the run started to feel like a slog, and visiting Juhani took you out of the core gameplay.
Also, Juhani's description of events and places was maybe a bit too wordy and didn't leave too much to the imagination.
"Places" Tweaks
Juhani -feature was developed close to the "Places" feature which was to give a bit more variety to the snow biome (back then there was only the Snow biome). When the additional biomes were added I think it gave more variety to the runs which I was happy about.
Discovering these places would give you an achievement for finding them, but some players reported that it was unclear what was the point of discovering a place.
The places are still in the game to give some variety for the snow biome, but they don't give the achievements anymore. I hope this makes the game more straightforward and makes the game less confusing.
Achievements for Completing Runs with Starting Units
For each run you complete with a specific starting unit, you now get an achievement.
The only requirement is that you start with a specific unit, but the game doesn't force you to have only that specific unit until the end, for example.
I hope that this still incentivizes players to try out different units that they would not otherwise try.
Movement Tweak
One of the feedback from the players has been that it can feel unfair when the unit members die because they lag behind the other units when running around the level.
The game has now been tweaked so that the unit members lag less behind others and they stay as a closer group even when running long distances.
Other Fixes
[community feedback] Make dragon damage area slightly smaller
Fix the issue where it looked like XP points flew below the ground when collected
Thanks again everyone for your support and feedback so far!
- jounitus
0.21.2 - Difficulty Tweaks and a bug fix
Hello!
On the previous 0.21.0 the difficulty was probably made a bit too hard, so here is a small update to hopefully tweak the game to a bit more enjoyable direction.
Change enemy spawn distance back to 50 (from 30): Now the enemies should spawn a bit further away, to give a bit of breathing room.
Now the enemies attack at the same speed as before the previous update. The previous 0.21.0 update made some enemies attack 50% faster, but that change is now changed back.
[community feedback] Fixed a bug where the small enemies wouldn't spawn any green XP on start of the run, if they were one-shot killed (for example with missiles)
I didn't want to change too many parameters on this update, since it's always a bit risky. It's possible to tweak things further, depending on how this update feels.
Note: You will probably still take more casualties than before, but the changes in the previous update (like more default coffins and new items) should hopefully balance that.
Please keep giving feedback, I do read all of them. It's important to know how players experience and feel about the game and a lot of players might experience things differently, so all the feedback is always welcome.
I've mentioned this before, but the goal is that everyone (including the casual players) would enjoy the game, so the game is not targeted just for the hardcore players.
In this update, the goal was to give a small extra strategy layer in terms that you can now gain new empty coffins during a run (not just four hard-coded coffins as previously) and there are a few more items to help with the survival too.
Enemies were made slightly more challenging to compensate for the new items. A lot of time was spent trying to find a nice balance with the difficulty, but please give feedback if the game feels too difficult.
New Items
Invincibility Length - How long units are invincible to damage after the first casualty
Extra Coffin - Gives you an extra coffin
Extra Crematorium Chance Up - Increase probability of extra Crematorium
Two owned unit types in Ale-Pub - Chance of seeing two already owned unit types in Ale-Pub
Enemy Tweaks
Increase the number of enemies per wave on later levels, but decrease the maximum number of waves
Increase most enemies attack rate slightly.
Slightly increase Sword Enemy damage area size
Increase Walker Enemy movement speed
Default Coffin Count Increased
The default coffin count is now increased from 4 to 6.
Extra Coffins
You can now find extra coffins (an item) from Chests and S-Market.
Crematorium Updates
Crematoriums now cremate one coffin per crematorium.
There is a new item, which allows you to get a second crematorium on level.
You can also get an extra crematorium from the secret underground construction bunker.
Ale-Pub Updates
The Ale-Pub got overhauled in what sort of units it now provides.
Now there is a higher chance that at least one unit is one of the ones that you have already hired. I hope this makes it a bit easier to get the builds or units you want.
There is also a new item that improves the chances of Ale-Pub offering TWO of the units you have already hired.
Leaderboards Cleared
The leaderboards are now cleared, since the game difficulty changed in this version.
Thoughts about 1.0 version
About a week ago the game reached ONE YEAR in early access! I think the game has made great progress in early access and I'm pretty happy with the game.
Although there is no real urgency to release the 1.0, I also don't want to drag the game too long in the early access.
Currently, my thought is to release the 1.0 at the end of this year (2023) or somewhere at the start of the next year.
I'll post more information the closer we get to the 1.0 release!
Other Changes
Move the camera a bit closer to the action
Refactor Ale-Pub to more likely show units that are already hired
Fix the stat name of "Extra Ale-Pub Chance Up" item from "Extra Mercenary Chance" to "Extra Ale-Pub Chance"
That's it for this update. Please give feedback on the new difficulty.
If the difficulty feels too difficult, as a temporary workaround you can use the "coffins" accessibility setting in the Settings dialog to give extra coffins for the run.
Custom keybindings have been requested multiple times during the early access, and now the feature is finally here!
Currently, only keyboard keybinds can be configured, but I think most of the players use the keyboard to play the game and the gamepad layout works pretty well out of the box.
You can find the keyboard configuration from the Settings dialog.
All the keyboard settings are saved locally (the same way as with the graphics options), so if you use multiple devices, you have to configure all of the devices once.
The default keyboard bindings got a bit simplified, so if previously the "Dash" was on both Left Shift and Space, now it's only on Left Shift. So if you used the Dash on space, you can now reconfigure it yourself (or reconfigure it to use any button you want, except ESC).
I appreciate any feedback if this feature works as expected from those who want to reconfigure the keys.
Thanks again!
- jounitus
0.19.0 - UI and Icon Visual Revamp / Item Pool Tweaks
Hello All!
The original goal of this update was not to go so heavy on the UI improvements, but this update ended up being a bigger visual revamp (in terms of UI and Icons).
The UI and Icons have been a bit of an eye-sore in the game and there have been comments about it during and before the early access, but now with this update, I hope things look a little better in the game.
It might take some time to get used to the "new look", but I think things are now more pleasing to the eye.
"Behind the Scenes" the code that handles Unit and Item configurations (and game configurations in general) got a big refactoring that I've wanted to make for a long time, this makes working with the game more pleasant.
Graphical Tweaks
All the icons (units/items) now have mostly the same color scheme as previously, but all icons now have gradients of colors and a few other effects to make them look more pleasing
Some of the icons got slightly tweaked and simplified since some of the icons (for example the assault rifle unit) had too much detail for the small size the icons are shown in.
Most of the Tooltips and Windows now use the dark -background version, I think this makes everything more eye-pleasing and a bit easier to read.
Big Headers for example with windows now use a more "stylized" font. Previously the default font that came with Unity was used, which was probably a bit easier to read, but also a bit boring in general.
All the Building Dialogs got changed into a more "dynamic" layout format, which makes it a little easier to update the texts etc., without worrying the layouts will break.
Update objectives list header
Added shadows and outlines to all fonts
Added shadows for the unit and item icon holders
Tweak fonts in the stats sidebar in the level HUD
The buttons in the main menu got re-arranged (I hope it's not too much of a shock!)
The "Dear Friends/Welcome Text" on the main menu got removed, this was originally added mostly for early playtests and demo versions to communicate with the players (as it's a bit of a pain to communicate on Steam if the game is not released), but now it's nicer to use these posts for communication.
Item Pool Changes
The goal of these changes was to make the item selections in the S-Market a bit more interesting. Now the S-market tries to prioritize showing items that the player has not yet selected.
Item Shops / S-Market try to prioritize showing items that are not yet acquired
Items are removed from the possible item pool if they are shown enough times in S-Market but never selected
Other Changes
Make sticky bombs larger so that they are more noticeable
Show the "Biomes Unlocked" counter on the Start Run dialog
That's it for this update, I hope the game looks a little better now in terms of UI and Icons. Thanks everyone for your support!
- jounitus
0.18.0 - Selectable Starting Unit / Unit Visibility Tweaks / Portal Bug Fix
Hello all!
Selectable Starting Unit
You can now choose a starter unit for the run (instead of the default assault rifle unit), this has been one of the requests during the early access.
All units can be selected (including the rare ones), except those that can't move (for example the Sniper unit).
Unit Visibility Tweaks
One of the major points of feedback during the early access has been, that the gameplay can get a bit noisy with all the effects and it's hard to tell where your units are etc.
There have already been a few updates to address this previously, but here's another update focusing on the specific effects for the units.
Following units' effects got tweaked:
Flamethrower Unit
Meteoroid Storm Unit
Fire Arrow Unit
Fire Arrow Storm Unit
Bazooka Unit
Heavy Artillery Unit
Also following tweaks were made for better visibility:
Shortened how long the flying enemy body parts emit particles
Limited maximum concurrent number of various explosion effects
I hope this is a big help, but please continue to give feedback if things get too noisy and which units/effects you feel are the cause for it.
Other Updates
[community feedback] Dragon Enemy should be now easier to kill, for example with Sticky Bomb Unit
[community feedback] Hopefully fixed the bug, where the enemy wave wasn't correctly marked as finished and prevented the spawning of the portal
A Dialog for achievements is now shown on the main menu (only for the "skill" based achievements, not for example unit unlocks etc)
Units now should move more "smoothly" when there are only a few units on screen / should be less janky at the start of the run
Removed Bazooka and Flamethrower units from the demo version
Lowered Unit Transformer building chance from 30% to 20%
Remember to give feedback, thanks everyone for the support!
