PeriAreion
Mawrth Load Crash
Currently working on an issue that crashes the game when loading Mawrth Vallis. We will keep you posted hopefully have a patch out ASAP.
-Cameron
Patch 5.0.2
- added final gameplay articles to the PeriAreipedia help menu.
- new sample cases/rock meshes for POI sites
- fixed a crash with the PC version on loading the game
If you are still experiencing the PC game crash you may need to delete your local content and reinstall the game.
Keep the bug reports coming by posting here or emailing us at admin@tbagames.net so we can keep fixing.
Thanks,
PeriAreion Development Team
PC Version Currently Crashing Fix on the way
Cheers,
PeriAreion Development Team
Update 5.0.1 Ice Hotfix
- Ice should now filter correctly. It takes 1-3 Ice to create 1 water ration (1-2 ice with fully upgraded tanks)
- The POI tutorial should no longer display after building the water tank
More updates and fixes to come...
Cheers,
PeriAreion Development Team
Ice Filtration Bug
It has come to our attention that Ice filtration is not working properly (namely consuming all your ice and giving no water) we are working on a patch right away to fix it. Please bear with us as we patch these issues and keep reporting them to us either by commenting on posts or emailing us at admin@tbagames.net
Cheers,
Cameron
Patch 5.0.0 Notes
Here's whats new:
- New 3D art! Modules, colonists, terrain: everything just looks better.
- In-game popup video tutorials that are hopefully both quicker and more enlightening than the separate tutorial level/walls of text in the original game.
Usability. Complete overhaul of user interface. - Replaced the old “drag and drop” system of getting colonists to perform tasks inside modules. Now, nearly all activity happens outside in the game world rather than in confusing menus with lots of tabs. Just click on a module to see the tasks your colonist can perform within it.
- Less micromanaging. Colonists will now perform certain tasks continuously until they run out of resources or are ordered to stop.
- Refill air without leaving your EVA suit! Colonists can now pop by the lander to top up their air.
- Dual Rovers. You can now unlock a second rover from the research tree.
- Teamwork added accidentally! Due to a bug, Colonists can now work together to mine a resource node. This functionality was 100% unintentional but since we always wanted it that way so we left it in.
- New navmesh and better pathfinding for colonists.
- New portraits for all colonists. Tilde still looks like a man, though.
New colonist model and new animations, including a more dramatic death animation. - New voices for the Chinese, Australian, German and Jamaican colonists thanks to some amazing volunteers. Also, new credits thanking said volunteers.
- Completely new HUD-- now 94% less confusing than original HUD!
A new resource, “Parts”. A general term for components your colonists can manufacture using in-situ resources. Used to repair broken bits on modules and equipment. The Geology module now has the main task “Manufacture Parts” rather than the ability to repair other modules (which never made much sense). Repair is now an additional option in the module task menu for each respective module. - New improved models and textures for all modules. No more “handpainted by a small child on an ipad” aesthetic.
- Terrain textures on all maps have all been repainted and normal mapped to make the terrain appear more realistic than before.
- ICONOGRAPHY FOR EVERYTHING! Colonist abilities, resources, research tree, maps… you name it, we’ve made an icon for it!
- New map screens, now accessible through a compass at the top of the screen.
- Rebalanced research tree upgrades.
- The rover no longer moves on its own or stalks people. We think.
Known issues:
- PeriAreipedia Gameplay Articles are still being finished/dropped in so some are locked at the moment. All the science articles are in.
- The info box at the bottom left hand of the screen sometimes stays up when it should not be up. Mousing over any HUD button or environment object should fix that.
- Mars has 1/3 the gravity of Earth, although the Rover has less than that. Ramping over hills will cause it to glide.
- Colonists will stand for a second before bending down to interact with a POI. We're working on refining animations and adding some nicer visuals to all colonist actions.
- Missing SFX on some of the UI/environment objects, audio pass is on the list of to-dos
- We're reworking the cutscenes and still adding some animations to make landing, receiving payloads/colonists from Earth, and winning/losing more exciting and less anticlimactic.
- When Ling dies her name still shows up as "Pang" on the memorial
If you encounter any other issues, please let us know! Contact us at admin@tbagames.net, or via our website.
PeriAreion ReLaunch! Major Patch 5.0.0 Now Live
This last year we had the amazing opportunity to work on some VR apps for NASA/KSC (which, being complete space nerds, we were ecstatic about).We got that contract partly due to the research and work we did on this game (the fact that both of us rambled on endlessly about space all the time probably didn’t hurt, either). The contract finally gave us the funding and experience we desperately needed. After several months developing space station and moon-related games, we realized how much we missed Mars.
So we went back and revisited it, which was a little painful and embarrassing. But we feel like we owe it to all of you who supported us and purchased PeriAreion to finally give you the game we originally intended to make… before we realized that we kinda suck. The improvements are vast: we have overhauled every piece of art and nearly every major game system. This is the main reason why it took so long to finish this patch. We set out to change a few assets and retool some systems and basically ended up remaking the whole game. We never seemed to be at a point this year where we could release what we had.
The game is still far from perfect. We want to do so much more (a landmark discovery/naming system, custom base building/placement, colonist customization, etc.) but we are still only two people living off of second jobs and cheap noodles. We will, however, continue to support for as long as we can, as long as even a couple of people are still playing the game.
PeriAreion is important to us because it was our first game and how we got our start. It’s important because our purpose, as a team and as individuals, is to promote science and space exploration. We hope that it has achieved that in some small way and invite you all to give it another go. Please send us feedback at admin@tbagames.net and we’ll try to personally respond to whatever comments, concerns, or suggestions you might have.
Thanks for playing our game, and see you on (a slightly more realistic-looking) Mars!
All the best,
Cameron and Erica
(the PeriAreion Development Team)
PATCH 5.0.0 IMMENENT!
Sorry you guys haven't heard from us in a while, we have been super busy with all sorts of projects not least among them, the complete overhaul and rework of PeriAreion!
I know it has been a long time coming but we got a contract working on some games for NASA and had put some of the PeriAreion patchwork off. Additionally we increased the scope of the changes to PeriAreion because we were not happy with leaving some stuff in there the way it was.
So this patch will touch on everything. Graphics wise, the whole game has gotten a fresh coat of paint. Every environment texture has been redone and every model has been remade and painted. These new models have ambient occlusion, spectral, normal, and diffuse with reflection probes so they should look a lot more realistic and more along the lines of the art style we originally wanted but couldn’t do because we didn't know how.
The 2D art has all but been replaced with a brand new HUD. The HUD is easier to access at the top of the screen, cleaner, and neatly displays resources on the left, rations on the right, and your map/build/research buttons in the middle. The colonist portrait along with the return to base button and a new cycle colonist button have moved to the bottom right corner. We have also added a permanent stats display button to see colonist stats.
The notification system and information display has been reworked. Now all information you will need about pretty much everything will appear in the bottom left corner along with the action you can take. Notifications are smaller and will no longer interfere with the HUD and will display until dismissed. All text is now legible at any resolution.
We have added support for all aspect ratios without the pillar boxing we had in before. So play in glorious 16:9 to your heart’s content.
The ant artic training tutorial is now gone. It has been replaced with an in-game tutorial notification system that can be toggled on/off from the options menu.
The biggest gameplay changes come with the addition of parts as a resource. Parts are used to repair other modules and manufactured from the geo module. The base screen is gone, you now interact with your base from the outside by right clicking any module and selecting a task to perform.
The Rover no longer has any limit on number of colonists on board and must be driven by a colonist at all times. The unmanned rover research upgrade has been replaced and will now spawn a second rover. Additionally the rover will not spawn until you build a level 2 Geo module changed from level 1.
New voices have been added for the Chinese colonist, Jamaican colonist, and German colonist with voice actors matching those accents. We will hopefully get a full complement in there eventually but for now you have less repeated voices.
Other changes include new colonist select screen, pause menu/periarepedia HUD reworks, notification animations, cloud system, skyboxes, and color corrections.
Known issues right now: the PeriAreipedia. Obviously since we changed everything the gameplay articles don't match or are entirely irrelevant. Hopefully we can get those fixed before we release but that might have to be a later update since it does not affect gameplay at the moment.
We are testing right now and making tweaks. We have an event on the 9th where we will be presenting the game, so we would like to be released shortly after, although we will not release until we are completely satisfied that everything has been tested and is working.
Cheers,
PeriAreion Development Team
PeriAreion Patch Delays...explained!
First we would like to apologize for not releasing the new PeriAreion patch yet. We worked nonstop with several 24 hour crunches to get everything complete by the end of June but missed the mark. The reason we missed our deadline and haven't been able to continue work on the patch yet are one in the same: the studio has moved from Orlando, FL to Los Angeles, CA!
The move was quite stressful and our work definitely took a hit but we are finally settled into a new place here in California and have begun work on the patch once again. Our plan is still to finish the art overhaul as quickly as we can and then move onto the HUD and gameplay updates. We are going to make as much progress as we can this next week and see where we are at with the art update. So please stay tuned and we will get another update out as soon as possible!
Again we are sorry for the lack of updates, that was mainly due to not having a place to live for the past three weeks.
Cheers,
Cameron
Developer TBA Games
Upcoming PeriAreion Update Information
We just wanted to give a quick update on the status of the latest (and greatest) PeriAreion patch!
This is going to be our biggest patch yet, overhauling key gameplay mechanics, implementing a new HUD, and updating almost all the art of the game. The main reason we are doing this is that the skills of our team have grown tremendously over the last few months and it only felt right to put in the time to use some of these abilities to improve our first and favorite game.
Here are some improvements we have been making:
Texturing
Every model in the game is getting a shiny new coat of paint.
3D Modeling
While every module is being repainted, some are getting entirely new model designs.
2D Art
Besides the new HUD, the colonist art is also being touched up
Gameplay
Most importantly we are making gameplay changes to address feedback and hopefully make everything a little more intuitive
We will be posting more about the changes (especially the gameplay ones) as we get closer to the release of the patch. We have had to move the launch back about two weeks due to work running over on another project but we expect to have the patch done by the end of June. As always we are VERY excited to release this update but we want to take our time and make sure that it is properly tested and polished.
We will keep you posted!
Cheers,
PeriAreion Development Team