Gravity Ace
v40-EA
New and updated:
- Polished up nice looking icy asteroids
- Added ice asteroids near icy cave walls
- Added sound effect for bullet impacts on ice walls
- New theme-based dust particles for icy blue cave walls
- Added dust poof when player explodes on a wall
- New ice blue wall theme
- Added scanlines to the ghost shader
- Show random astronaut dialog when no dialog has been connected in the level editor
- Improved laser animation so that the player can better see when lasers are about to turn on
- Added username prompt on gameover screen
- Improved the look of the 3D planet hologram in the level chooser
- Added basic sound effect when reactor and player beam out at the end of the level
- Added "how to play" tips to letterbox at level transitions
Fixes:
- Fixed leaderboard configuration
- Fixed dust poofs when the player dies
- Fixed rounding error in time
- Fixed letterbox flashing on before it fades in
- Fixed game losing focus and pausing when using PrtSc for screenshots
v39-EA
New and updated:
- Added over 400 interesting names for astronauts
- Added over 500 landform names in the editor for every cave wall
- Added shield energy gauge when shooting; Added a visible gauge that appears when shooting; When gauge is depleted, shield turns off; Gauge refills when player stops shooting
- Center window in non-fullscreen mode
- Updated options screen
- Updated tractor beam noise and "out of fuel" alarm
- Improved flow through Ancient Worm Cavern at full speed; Lengthened two hallways to get better timing on the gates
- Vents are synchronized! Laser gates are synchronized! Everything is synchronized!
- Warning and Danger fuel gauge no longer blinks
- Changed fuel threshold so the fuel gauge is green more often
- Show rank instantly if skipping gameover
- Highlight missed items on gameover screen when receiving NO RANK
- Initial Nakama server implementation for leaderboards and level sharing; Implemented 4 leaderboards per level and saving scores
- Merged Nakama client for leaderboards and shared levels so it can be merged; inactive until the server piece is running
Fixes:
- Fullscreen hotkey F11 works everywhere now
- Fixed bugs in laser gates and vents that should make them deterministic between runs; May have changed the timings slightly as a side-effect of the fix but it looks pretty minimal if it's there at all. This also fixes the visual glitch where lasers would sometimes blink but not change state.
v38-EA
New and updated:
- Added rank to level chooser screen
- Drones show smoke when they are damaged and hit
- Added option to turn off asteroids
- Crates move more when shot
- Dead drones can be used as clubs to kill other enemies
Fixed:
- Fixed keyboard focus issues on howtoplay and other screens
- Fixed bug where some buttons would still make noise when SFX volume was 0
- Fixed coin spawning into walls
- Fixed continue button advancing to next level when sector not unlocked
v35-EA update
New and updated:
- Added tractor beam sound effect (on the fence about this one, let me know what you think)
- Highlight missing items on gameover screen
- Added social links
- Added button for campaign reset on level chooser screen
- Record best time with score and best score with time for each rank achieved in every level
- Changed "Continue" button on gameover to go immediately to next level
- Added "Levels" button on gameover to return to level chooser
- Added speedrun section to options
- Added option to disable dialog
- Dialog doesn't appear if Dialog setting is off but still responds to and activates event triggers
- Reduce coin explosion radius for slightly easier pickup
- Enhanced speedrun timer with new timer background art, new position
- Laser gates and steam vents reset timings to original values on level restart
- Updated build to use headless Godot
Fixed:
- Fixed shield bug when out of fuel and shooting
- Fixed rapid clicking on Go button on Ready screen
- Fixed clicking things behind Ready screen
- Fixed timer reset on level restart (visual)
- Fixed collision from laser beams in editor
v34-EA update
New and updated:
- Updated controls for advancing dialog. SPACEBAR and ESC augment X. Classic mode shooting moved to SHIFT and ENTER
- Added special S victory music
- Esc key pauses, Esc key advances dialog
Bug fixes:
- Fixed "back to menu" softlock. Caused by pausing the scene transition scene
- Fixed the sound effect slider. Sound effect slider now changes volume for everything that is not a music including the UI
- Fixed muffled audio bug. When pausing and then going to gameover, the audio would remain muffled until restart
- Fixed how to play scene. Removes all game objects from How To Play scene so they cannot interfere with game world. Fixes continue double-input on How To Play
- Fixed red/blue chromatic aberration doesn't go away
- Removed obsolete SDL controller mapping
- Fixed missile sound too loud. Was on wrong audio bus
- Fixed coin counting bug on restart
- Fixed tractor beaming hidden enemies
Early Access October 22!
The current game is fully playable with a 24 mission main campaign, fully integrated level editor, highly polished art and sound, and a great soundtrack. But it isn't done yet! I want Gravity Ace to be a satisfying and rewarding experience for new players and fans of the amazing classic arcade games it's based on. Community feedback has been vital during the development process. I'm looking forward to expanding the community through Early Access and using your feedback to shape and balance Gravity Ace so that it's as fun and polished as it can possibly be.
I have big plans for Early Access! I want to add new enemies, bosses, more levels and campaigns, fix bugs (of course), and add a local multiplayer mode for player-vs-player battles. A major component of Gravity Ace is the built-in level editor. The editor is very robust and allows anyone to make levels just like the ones included with the game. I plan to enhance that by allowing players to share levels and entire campaigns with one another through a central hub. The plan is that you'll be able to play other players' shared campaigns which will add a continuous stream of new content for you to enjoy.
It's going to take another 6-12 months to finish all of that work. I need your help! Please tell everyone you know about Gravity Ace! Help me spread the word and ask people to add it to their wishlist! The more of us there are, the better the game, and the more fun it'll be. It's been great fun so far and I'm looking forward to what's ahead.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you!