Mysterious Space
0.9.4 release?!
don't worry: 0.9.3's save games are compatible with 0.9.4. the reason I jumped up a whole version number is that this isn't just a bug fix release! it adds a VERY IMPORTANT FEATURE:
custom key bindings! (for keyboard only.)
thank you to everyone who's hassled me to implement this! :P it's never been high on my priority list, but after hearing from a couple people who REALLY NEEDED IT, I realized it should have been! so I got it together as quickly as I could, and rather than wait until the end of the month to release it, you get it now!
the system could use a little polish, to be sure - I'll get to that for the next release - but it works!
there's also a couple little UI fixes, a little buff to the Angry equipment (added for fun, not because I felt the buff was necessarily needed), the usual bug fixes, and some other tidbits.
you can find the full changelog here: https://mysteriousspace.com/changelog/0-9-x/
thanks for reading, and thanks for playing Mysterious Space! :)
0.9.3 released!
that always drives me a little bit crazy.
(I would never do that to you. I love you too much.)
Mysterious Space 0.9.3 has been released! this is a very "miscellaneous" release, with a variety of unrelated tweaks and changes, and, of course, a few bug fixes!
- the full changelog can be found here: https://mysteriousspace.com/changelog/0-9-x/
- a list of outstanding issues is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qYQTPi98z37dyb17OeRebql1gZgvIvQBm5_ji4o4ECI/edit?usp=sharing
- and the Mysterious Space Kickstarter (that's related, right?) is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/benmakesgames/mysterious-space you may note it's not going so well :P I'm still e-mailing blogs and review sites daily (notes on that are also in that Google spreadhseet); maybe something cool will come out of that. we'll see!
if I had to pick a few of the most-exciting changes for 0.9.3 it would beeee... hm...
- the title screen has a planet on it, and the menu items curve around it. for extra fanciness.
- various tweaks to how lightning works, mechanically. also: lightning now actually looks like lightning, instead of just white lines >_> I also changed the Overcharged Shield blessing to zap things with lightning, because more lightning = more better :P
- Alien Teleporters now have an alternate mode, which allow you to teleport a short distance in the direction of your choice. both modes can now also be used by orbitals in co-op!
- the blessing/curse effects for RNG blasters - "something good happens" and "something bad happens" - have been made available to other parts of the code. there's a new accessory - the Deck of Many Things - which you can use to try your luck at good and bad things, and the Alien Artifact which used to clear bad status effects now makes "something good happen", instead. because just clearing bad status effects was rarely worth holding on to.
thanks for reading, and thanks for playing Mysterious Space! :)
omg: Mysterious Space Kickstarter *is a little nervous*
goodness!
everything is finally in place - updated Steam store, Kickstarter approval, etc - and so the Kickstarter has been launched!
NEVER FEAR: regardless of this project's success, Mysterious Space will continue to receive my support and continued development! :) however, if the Kickstarter succeeds, I will quit my day job and work on Mysterious Space full-time for a year! (currently, I put in... maybe 1-2 hours per day, on average.) besides all the usual stuff, and fulfilling the backer rewards, I'd love to code live (probably on twitch.tv) for a few hours twice a week, to get feedback and suggestions, and answer questions, and all that. I think that could be a lot of fun :)
I'm fortunate in that my livelihood is not dependent upon this project's success, but still: there's amount of emotional investment, so doing this whole Kickstarter thing is little scary in that way - haha.
as always: thanks for reading, and thanks for playing Mysterious Space! :)
P.S. and here's a link to the Mysterious Space Kickstarter project one more time. just in case :P
0.9.2 released!
here are some highlights:
additions:
* added haunted worlds, and a new mini-boss which may sometimes appear there: the ghost baleine
* a new mini-mini-boss: Mini Menkalinan
* a new type of crate, and a chance to find weird crates just lying around on planets
changes:
* the appearance of mini-bosses (the big flying ship, the whales, the worm, etc) is now a bit more regular. you can expect to fight a few in every game!
* the placement of shops is now a bit more regular; you'll hopefully encounter them more frequently, and not all bunched up in a clump
bug fixes:
* electric crates were dealing way too much damage; this has been fixed
* fixed a crash related to selling weakened regenerating armors (thanks to a mysterious someone for reporting this via the crash reporter!)
again, check out the changelog for the full list of changes: https://mysteriousspace.com/changelog/0-9-x/
and thanks - as always - for playing Mysterious Space! :)
trading cards are live!
I'd like to give a shout-out/thanks to everyone who urged me to implement these! Steam trading cards aren't a thing I'm personally interested in, so I would have never "bothered" to implement them for Mysterious Space, if left to my own devices. so thanks for not leaving me to my own devices :P all feedback about the game - from bug reports to feature requests such as this - is great: it helps make Mysterious Space better! I like a better Mysterious Space :) so again: thanks to everyone who requested these!
and thanks - to everyone - for playing!
P.S. the end of the month fast approaches, and with it, a new Mysterious Space release, including, among other things, haunted worlds, and a new bone-throwing whale spirit mini-boss!
good luck, pilot!
trading cards are almost ready!
here's a sample card:
I'll post again when the cards are live!
I also spent a little time making achievement graphics, but in the end, I was only happy with one... and even then... I dunno, man... haha >_> somehow, I seem to find these achievement graphics really hard to make. I'll try to get a few more in over the course of the next couple weeks, though :)
of course, I've also been working on the next release itself, which will come out at the end of this month. nothing HUGE this time: there's a number of bug fixes, some UI improvements, a new enemy, a new crate (... yep!), and some other miscellaneous tidbits.
as always, I hope you're looking forward to it! thanks for reading, and thanks for playing! :)
another little bugfix release
this latest bugfix - 0.9.1.3 - is the largest, and hopefully the last?? although I would not be surprised if couple more little issues popped up >_>
I've made efforts to preserve save game compatibility throughout these bugfixes (save games for 0.9.1 through 0.9.1.3 should all be compatible), but it's difficult to thoroughly test. definitely let me know if you encounter any problems there.
the full changelog is here: https://mysteriousspace.com/changelog/0-9-x/ but here are the highlights:
<*> orbitals (in orbital co-op) were way too strong after the damage/health change. they essentially had their firepower doubled. I didn't want to reduce the fire rate of the bullets, however, so I did someting weirder: their guns now fire for a full second, followed by a cooldown for a full second. incidentally, Aiming Altair (that obnoxious square that fires EMP bullets at you) uses the same gun, so has received this same nerf... which I think I'm okay with :P
<*> the Shield Rerouter accessory hadn't been adjusted for the new system, and I couldn't think of a good way to make it fit, so I simply removed the item entirely! I've kept the code around, both in case I can find a good way to bring it back, and to maintain compatibility with saves which already have Shield Rerouters in them.
<*> Vampire Shields HAD been adjusted for the new system, but perhaps not enough! with a good Vampire Shield, it was almost impossible to get killed. so they now have only a % chance of granting a bonus shield. (they may STILL be too strong; I'll have to play more to see.)
<*> the red mushrooms were dealing TONS of damage, and were basically guaranteed to straight-up murder you! sorry :| this has been fixed!
sorry about all the bugs in this last update, but I think MOST of them were making the game easier, rather than being murderous (except that red mushroom one >_> sorry again), so I hope it's been a relatively smooth transition.
I'll keep be keeping an eye out for more issues, but otherwise, I hope to start working on next month's release soon :)
anyway: thanks, as always, for reading; and thanks for exploring Mysterious Space :)
0.9.1 released!
but here are the highlights:
<*> damage and health numbers have been totally redone, basically from scratch. importantly, the numbers are all WAY SMALLER than before. for example, you now start with a shield that can take 3 points of damage in a world where enemies are dealing 1 point of damage per hit. there were a lot of other tweaks that were made to support this new scale of numbers... too many to mention here.
<*> bullets are now color-coded depending on whether an ally or enemy fired them. enemy bullets are red (normal), purple (bouncy), or blue (EMP); allied bullets are green (normal & bouncy), or cyan (EMP)
<*> you can now play local 4-player split-screen co-op. this allows up to 5 simultaneous players including an orbital (4 controllers, plus a keyboard). the game can theoretically support up to 8 (4 ships, each with an orbital), however the MonoGame library restricts the number of gamepads to 4 for reasons unknown.
<*> fixed a few uncommon crashes, made another attempt at fixing game shutdown issues for some playesr, and added more logging, to hopefully help with identifying some crashes.
the damage and health change was HUGE, and I think that, in the end, the game has become a little easier than before! this is either a good thing or a bad thing depending in your point of view :P I'm not too worried about it: the game's difficulty definitely changes from update to update based on new equipment, etc. for next month's release, though, I'll definitely try to inject a little more difficulty back into the game :)
finally, I should have a donation update by next weekend.
thanks for reading, and thanks for playing Mysterious Space! :)
this isn't an april fool's post
I just wanted to let you guys know that the next Mysterious Space release - which you might have reasonable expected to have come out today or yesterday - will be delayed until this weekend.
and not for silly april fool's reasons!
I've made a large change to how health and damage is handled in the game! basically, the numbers are now way smaller! instead of your weapon dealing 50 damage, it deals 1. instead of starting with a 60-point shield, you start with a 5-point shield. etc.
this has all been done to increase the clarity of what's happening, and allow you to more-easily predict the outcome of certain actions. for example, if you were ever surprised by how much damage you took by colliding with something, or never knew that the same enemy might have slightly different weapons with slightly different fire rates and damage amounts (enemies get procedurally generated weapons, just like yours!) hopefully this update will fix all that!
I tried to create a video about it a couple times, but my mic quality is just SO BAD. I didn't want to subject anyone to that. not even on april fool's >_> I keep NOT buying expensive, studio mics <-- this is apparently a bad way to live life.
anyway, as this has been a big change, there are still a few kinks to work out! (for example, from my list of notes right now, the Advanced Tech that's supposed to deal enough damage to you to reduce your hull to 1 is currently just straight-up killing you. probably because it's dealing hundreds of damage to your ship, which now starts with a total of 11 HP (5 shield, 3 armor, 3 hull; assuming the standard ship with no subroutines)).
sorry about the delay; sorry that the rest of the internet is trying to deceive you today; and thanks for playing and supporting Mysterious Space!
0.9.0 released!
Mysterious Space 0.9.0 has finally been released! :P
thanks for waiting an extra month; I hope you'll find the changes were worth the wait :)
the full changelog can be found here: https://mysteriousspace.com/changelog/0-9-x/ but here are the highlights:
* a ton of bug fixes, including fixing buttons which were being placed in inaccessible places, and a potential fix for a crash some players were having when quitting the game
* the sector map is completely different now... it'll be better if you just try it and see :)
* killing enemies is worth less points than before, but there are now point pickups placed in various places around each planet, particuarly at the ends of many tunnels, and near spiky walls.
* a new ship!
* tweaks to existing ships, including a fairly significant rehaul of the Heavy Head of Hydrus (I hope it's a better ship now!)
* some tutorial changes
I've spent the last couple days primarily playtesting it (instead of playing Stardew Valley! urgh! :P), so I hope this will be a relatively bug-free release, but I'll of course be keeping a careful eye on the forums and crash reports these first few days, and fix up any particularly-nasty bugs as quickly as possible.
FINALLY: an update on donations! I'm still catching up with the Mysterious Space sales made at the end of last year! I've donated to three more non-profits, am ready to donate to a fourth, and am still looking for two more!
the three donations were made to:
* Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics
* National Society of Black Engineers
* Games for Change (which I may have mentioned before)
as always, information about donations are available here: https://mysteriousspace.com/donations/
thank you guys, as always, for playing, providing feedback, and sticking with me!