Since we unfortunately missed the 'Winter Sale', we bring a New Year's Discount. BiOTOPE will be available at a discount for two weeks starting with the 30th of December.
Development update
Work on the new state variable submersion depth is nearing completion. This will now allow the simulation to understand when objects are only half submerged or not submerged at all. To get one thing out of the way: A non submerged heater will not suffer any damage. We don't have a generic damage model for equipment just yet. That will come later ... :)
Dynamic Water Displacement
A sneak preview of the next iteration on the topic of variable water levels: displacement!
Going forward, the calculation of the water levels will also take into account how much space the objects take up in the aquarium.
So, in the future, if you have a lot of stuff in your aquarium, you won't be able to put as much water into it — although you won't have to go to such extremes as in our preview picture to notice the effect :)
Version 2022.1 (7688)
This version is a major update that we proudly managed to put together against all odds recently, celebrating our regained independence!
New feature: Variable water volume
From now on, the amount of water in the aquarium is no longer constant but can vary over time. This leads to new gameplay challenges and increases interactivity. In the first iteration, we focus mainly on the effects that a variable amount of water has on the simulation and handling. For example, the amount of water decreases over time due to evaporation and must be re-filled manually.
New display page: Heat balance
The heat balance, which is the basis for computing evaporation, can now be viewed on a separate statistics page. On the "Balance" information page, there is a new tab to display the flow of heat between sources and sinks. These calculations have always been done to determine temperature, but were never displayed. Motivated by the variable water volume, we wanted to make these calculations transparent to the players.
Redesign of water change: separation between refill and drain
Until now, a water change was an abstract process without visual feedback. Due to the variable water level, it is now possible to model draining and refilling as independent actions. The player must first perform a drain action, which visibly lowers the water level, and then perform a refill action. To this end, the "water tap" icon in the inventory has been repurposed. In addition, there is a new permanent inventory item, the "bucket", which stands for drainage of water by means of a hose and bucket.
New fish model: Mikrogeophagus Ramirezi
The Butterfly Cichlid (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi) is a new fish model, and the first new model ever since first release. Say hello to the butterfly cichlid!
Full change log
New features
Coupling of the visible water height to the actual amount of water present
Calculation of density, salinity, volume and evaporation of water
Display of the actual water level on the info page
Display of the heat balance on a separate statistics page
New inventory item "Bucket" to symbolize the draining of water by means of hose and bucket
The faucet item now only symbolizes filling up water, not the water change as a whole.
Adjustment of simulation code, fish behavior, particle effects, glass reflections, and falling physics to the fact that a fixed amount of water can no longer be assumed
Other changes
OpenGL 1.3 compatibility mode has been removed. OpenGL 3.2 or higher is now mandatory to run the program.
Improvement of texture compression quality, and subsequently a re-export of all textures as well as all inventory icons.
Fixes of serious bugs
Crash when pressing the escape key while moving an object with the mouse button held down
Crash when loading a profile while a previous load operation was not yet completed
Crash when a savegame contains invalid floating point values
Other bug fixes
Collision geometry for object "Exotic Totem"
Overlong title label in the status panel for the T5 light
The marker line from the status panel is pointing in the wrong direction
Bad textures (mipmaps) for the fish model "Hemichromis Stellifer"
Bad textures (specular map) for the fish model "Hemichromis Letourneuxi"
Improvement of physics stability and performance since the last update
Water evaporation was calculated incorrectly
Glass reflections sometimes flicker
Compression artifacts on texture for object "Blue Life 'Clean' 300 internal filter"
Scrollbar of listboxes sometimes can't be clicked
Transfer of Ownership
This is a notice about a changed legal situation around BiOTOPE.
The developers of the aquarium simulator "BiOTOPE" - MBL Development - and the previous publisher - 2Tainment GmbH - have mutually agreed to terminate the existing publishing contract and return all rights back to the developer.
We would like to thank 2Tainment for the great support that accompanied our ambitious simulation from vision to Early Access on Steam, especially in the early stages of development. However, the time has now come to go our separate ways.
From now on, the MBL team will independently focus on improving the simulation with regular updates, creating new content, and following our roadmap, working towards version 1.0. We will always incorporate community feedback and make BiOTOPE what it was always meant to be: a fun yet scientifically solid aquarium simulator!
The MBL development team, November 2022
Version 2020.1 (build 7369)
This is a patch to address the DPI scaling issue under Windows, that happens on 4K displays and maybe others.
Going fullscreen on a monitor with active DPI scaling should no longer result in the game window being oversized and only partially visible.
Version 2020.1 (Build 7369)
This is a patch to address the DPI scaling issue under Windows, that happens on 4K displays and maybe others.
Going fullscreen on a monitor with active DPI scaling should no longer result in the game window being oversized and only partially visible.
Version 2020.1.2 (7369)
This is a patch to address the DPI scaling issue under Windows, that happens on 4K displays and maybe others.
Going fullscreen on a monitor with active DPI scaling should no longer result in the game window being oversized and only partially visible.
Version 2020.1 (build 7351)
This is a small maintenance update.
Serious bugs
Fixed an engine issue that could lead to invisible items after loading a game, or to the game crashing after switching saves.
Fixed a physics glitch were objects were able to fall through the floor.
Fixed a possible corruption of item positions after importing a save game into an active slot.
Fixed a possible corruption of the game state by an undo action that changes the installed hardware.
Fixed the zip importer that was not able to read zip files created on the Mac.
Clipping Bugs
Fixed wrong reflection of the lamp in the water surface.
Fixed wrong double reflection of the heater in the side walls.
Fixed that plants and other items were partly rendered outside of the tank.
Other changes
Fixed screen position of the oxygen concentration in the analyzer view.
Fixed several typos and text appearance errors.
It is no longer possible to select items while the main menu is active.
Holding the space bar for quick select is now ignored when the main menu is active.
Version 2020.1 (Build 7317)
This is a small maintenance update.
Savegame management
New options have been added to delete, import or export save states.
Save and exit: After saving, the player now has the option to return to the game.
The Newgame Assistant will now switch to the selected save slot only upon completion, and not before.
The tutorial notifications are now reset correctly when changing save games.
Other changes
The sex selection (♂/♀) for the species Maylandia lombardoi has been corrected.
The history curves now have labels.
The category and topic selection in the Lexicon is now properly highlighted.
The notification window now has a close button.
Fish and plants in the player inventory now correctly display a given name (if they have one).
The 'Buy' button is now grayed out if you already have 5 or more tanks.
Fixed possible crackling noises during sound playback (audio codec issue).
Version 2019.4 (Build 7216)
This is a small maintenance update.
Community Feedback
The current version and build number is shown in the settings under the tab "general".
A 500 W heater was added.
Other changes
The pH value in the tutorial was errorneously 11, this was corrected to 7.
The quest conditions for the quest "Botanist" now show the correct number of days.
The quest "Time Lapse" can now only be completed with the fastest time lapse.
Names with umlauts or other special characters can be entered.
Sex selection will no longer be reset after each purchase.
