Reflex 0.40.0 marks the first release using a new set of internal development tools. While developing, we often find ourselves going back to the Steam build to play random peasants and are immediately stuck by how much it sucks compared to the development version we've been using. With these new systems in place, we should be able to release smaller updates more often, instead of holding on to good features for 3 weeks waiting for other features to become shippable. We're not entirely sure what our release schedule will be like yet, but the take away for players is that you can expect to see features within a couple of days of them being ready.
0.39.3 Point Release
Rotations
Performance
Cosmetics
0.39.2 Point Release
Changes
0.39.1 Point Release
Improvements
Fixes
Reflex 0.39 - Arbitrary gibberish
Reflex 0.39 is here with support for Steam Workshop, improved spawns, new Burstgun and so much more that apparently it's too long for me to post the changelog here without Steam getting sad. Check out the full changelog here.
Reflex 0.38.2 Point Release -- Holiday violence!
0.38.1 Point Release
Bugs
Maps
Game
Reflex 0.38 - Gooey
After a few weeks of teasing, its time to release 0.38 on to the unsuspecting public. Some of the major features to check out once your download bar hits 100%:
Primarily though, this update brings a major refresh of our menu system, in preparation for features like workshop integration for maps and HUDs, matchmaking, XP, friends lists, etc -- all the Steamworks features that players have been not-so-patiently waiting for. As the very first step, we've integrated one of the features in surprisingly high demand: cosmetics. We know a small number of players (burned by other games) are a little uncomfortable with the idea, so we'd like to address some of these concerns here (rather than in angry forum posts).
First up, some players feel that it's in poor taste to release cosmetics before the core game is considered complete and historically we've agreed with them. But for this update, we felt the time was right. On the code side, adding this support was pretty trivial, taking only a couple of days. Art of course took longer but with shooter busy on UI, they were a good candidate to be developed in parallel.
During the development of these cosmetics we have also honed our art style to give a much improved look for weapons and we are eager to start applying this direction to the core weapon set. Being able to spend a couple of weeks developing our look like this has been hugely valuable and we've barely scratched the surface.
The cosmetics also give players a way to support the project without us begging for money. We've never been huge fans of taking pure donations and things like Kickstarter or Patreon eat a surprisingly large amount of development time (easily more time than we spent on cosmetics). This is also the idea behind the more expensive, gold, "supporter" editions of some melee weapons -- they're a way for players to throw a bit of extra cash our way to keep us developing while getting some kind of tangible reward.
And of course, any microtransactions in Reflex will *always* be purely cosmetic. We will never have items with different stats because we feel that goes against one of the core values of an Arena FPS -- all players spawn equal. This includes ensuring that no cosmetics ever provide a subtle gameplay advantage (such as reducing your visibility to other players). We will also never use them as a way to paywall off things like modes or maps. If you own Reflex, you'll always be able to play any map or mode in it with anyone else who also owns Reflex.
If at any point in the future we break any of these promises, you are encouraged to track me down and punch me in the face.
