UPDATE 1.28 - Big Changes to Scoring For Saving the Earth AND Smasher & Cannon Ball Bug Fix!
Hello everyone. This is a pretty big change to the scoring based on when you are successful at saving the Earth with a G.E.O.S. gem you collect in your games.
As I was about to play my game, I looked at the global high scores here on Steam to see that a couple of people having scored higher than my current 3rd best high score. I saw a problem however when I checked out these scores. While I usually play on difficulty 2 myself, I wondered if the two scores above me were obtained on difficulty 1, a much easier experience mainly because there is absolutely no threat of ever having to face the most deadly enemy in this game known as the VDS. ..Perhaps though they played a higher difficulty and got such high scores because of higher scoring awarded in game for taking on the challenge of higher difficulties. ..I just didn't know!
Update 1.28 changes that, and now it will be very obvious what difficulty was played by anyone who succeeds in the main objective of saving the Earth in the normal game mode.
In the above game code, the code I changed in this update is shown. The event where this code occurs is just before the final statistics are shown on the end game screen. The variable "global.saved" is only set to 7 at this point if the player succeeded in saving the Earth with a G.E.O.S. gem. The variable "global.points" is the player score, and the variable "global.lvl" is the difficulty the player had selected before their game.
So where this code had previously just awarded 50 million points to the player if they saved the Earth regardless of what difficulty they had selected, you'll see that now the bonus for saving the earth is 100 million points multiplied by the difficulty they selected before their game. (the * means 'multiply' in the line of code shown)
I think this change is a good change to the scoring that will help all people looking at the top scores to easily see on what difficulty each was achieved on. It will also help encourage people to take on the challenge of higher difficulties if they want to be "the best of the best" on the Steam global high scores for this game. Keep in mind that this scoring only applies to games where you are successful in saving the Earth with a G.E.O.S. game.
There was also a bug fixed that would happen when you sometimes might have a Smasher or Cannon Ball power up and collect another power-up while in the middle of one of those power-ups that would end your Smasher or Cannon Ball power up early. Hitting a power-up like K-OS while using one of these two power-ups could lead to a confusing and unexpected death! This has been fixed by making collecting any power-up time power-up impossible while already using a Smasher or Cannon Ball. Note that you should still be able to collect power-ups like an extra Spi-roll, an extra ship, MESA, an A-55 Kicker, and Mother Sucker while using either a Smasher or Cannon Ball power-up.
Also changed in this update was the game information on the difficulty selection screen to give more detailed information about the importance of the G.E.O.S. gems and the new scoring system if you are successful at saving the Earth in your game.
As always, have fun when you "Rock 'N Roll" and Happy Holidays to you all!
UPDATE 1.26 - Updated Asteroids For More Appealing Overall Look
This patch simply adds new hand drawn graphics for the bigger asteroids in Rock 'N Roll. Hopefully you like the difference in both this image showing a few of the "old vs new" rocks and also in the game itself! Let me know in the comments below!
Game on and Happy Holidays to all!
Added 13 New Achievements For the Hard Rock Mode!
13 new achievements have been added to Rock 'N Roll to test your lasting and scoring skills in the Hard Rock game mode. Combined with the 3 achievements added earlier today in update 1.25, this brings the new achievement total in Rock 'N Roll to 85! ...85 Steam achievements now, and I remember when I first launched it in early access making a sticky post letting people know that achievements were not a priority for this game, hehe.
Here's what will get you a new achievement in the Hard Rock mode as of this small 506kb patch:
Achievements if you can last exactly 8 seconds before dying as well as lasting over 30 seconds, over 45 seconds, over 1 minute, over 90 seconds, over 2 minutes, over 3 minutes, over 4 minutes, and at least 5 minutes.
You'll also get an achievement in the Hard Rock mode for scoring 1,000 points, 2,500 points, 5,000 points, and 10,000 points.
Have fun out there and HAPPY THANKSGIVING and HAPPY HOLIDAYS to all!
UPDATE 1.25 - 3 More Achievements + Power-Up Time Fix
Hello everyone. Update 1.25 is just a minor update that bring 3 new Steam achievements for Rock 'N Roll. These new achievements are given when you pass 2 million earned cash in a game, when you destroy 5,000 asteroids in a game, and when you destroy 10,000 asteroids in a game. With the A55 Kickers helping you wreck asteroids and you getting credit for the asteroids your A55 Kickers destroy, it only seemed to make sense to add more achievements for total rocks busted.
The only bug fix in this patch should fix the Galactic Upgrade Station sometimes telling you that you only have 30 seconds of power-up time when you had previously bought power-up time upgrades. This bug didn't affect your actual power-up time, but just caused the Upgrade Station to sometimes tell you that you only had 30 seconds when you had purchased additional seconds.
Keep Rockin'! Keep Rollin'! Have fun! :-)
UPDATE 1.24 - Adjustments to Invulnerable Player and Asteroid Collisions..
This update is just more adjustments to the collisions when you use either a Smasher power-up, a Cannon Ball power-up, or a Spi-Roll attack against asteroids. Many complex formulas now try and determine the asteroid breaking and each pieces direction and speed.
The problem I had back before I started working on these collisions before update 1.23 is that too often when using one of those methods I mentioned above is that your speed was faster than all of the break-off chunks causing you to not even see the asteroid breaking up. As a result, this caused using the Spi-Roll attack, the Cannon Ball power up and the Smasher Power-up as well to be over-powered in a way as breaking asteroids using these methods was too rewarding point wise, and didn't present enough additional threat. (Remember my whole "Risk VS Reward" element being the most important aspect of my game from the very beginning of development)
After this update, I think it is now better than it was, but more adjustments to these collisions will likely be made in the near future.
I've heard that a good developer is just never happy with his game and these refinements go to show that might just be true. I'm starting to think that I'll never be 100% happy with the code and aspects of my game as it seems there's always something I want to adjust, balance, add, fix, or alter.
Hopefully this determination to make Rock 'N Roll better all the time will serve the people who play and experience my game well.
