The first playtest showed some unexpected player behaviors that required me to scrap 20% of the level design and completely rearrange the levels .
Player Side:
New menus Better tutorials Making the UI animate in order to improve the "notifications" the player receives New HUD with item icons instead of text and many new warnings Players are now warned if they are flying/drifting away from the map Prompt fixes for multiple items - making it way more understandable and context sensitive New Icons for story specific malfunctions Game stability and cohesion - updated multiple systems to initialize correctly Player can now use or scraps items without picking them up , streamlining te the following steps :See Item you want to scrap> Inventory full cannot pickup > selection item in inventory > dropping the item to free a slot > picking up the new item > using it
CUT the ball puzzles- where the player plays a 3D pool and ricochets between surfaces - I really wanted to keep it and improve it since it was a major part of the first game and I can imagine it being cool once or twice , but upon replaying the original I found it unpleasant and just way too much. If there is a place where it will work well I will bring it back but I will not actively seek to do so.
Players now can Opt-in to recycle every item and risk not being able to progress but being rewarded with extra materials. Its more fun replaying the game this way.
Reworked the way parts are explained to the player :Player now has a smart device where there is a catalog with all the legal parts shipped to the station and how they look
The Max scrap is smaller but upgraded with each new suit - this is to stop the players from vacuuming all the objects
Simulation of atmosphere when opening doors to space will now suck the player and items into space A placeholder debris belt round the station
You can no longer eat while you are in space with your helmet on
Very Updated levels post the player test feedback New endgame concept that should be more fun and challenging Amazing new reflections
Developer Side:
I created a lot of proprietary tools that help me work faster Refactored the way time passes to be better in every way Created a tool to take pictures of all the objects I made a really smart way to hide and show the cheat menu without any risk of it being "forgotten on" when shipping the game updated the cheat menu to have 3x the amount of debug options Refactored game saves to improve startup and reset consistency but still not satisfied with the way progress is loaded for the scripted parts of the game new physics glitch detection , which allows for more player agility Started transition to Niagara for the particle system Tweaked some materials so I can later implement raytracing natively
Preparing the game for players is my main focus right now.
Update Time:
[Alpha Iteration 182]
With playtesting in mind I reworked a lot of the menus, created a feedback system, made a build for the game, and playtested it, submitting feedback with the new system, later addressing it to stress test the new system. For the player side I focused heavily on: - Removing friction - by improving startup times, a simple way to set the graphics, reducing the number of clicks to starting the game - Decreasing learning curve - by improving menu consistency, gameplay consistency - Feeling good to play - by removing as many things that I found to be annoying or unrewarding
Player Side:
Reduced the starting Inventory side yet provided more upgrade options. Now the player earns the improvement and it feels much better
Starting to replace bits and pieces with the final materials and more accurate meshes.
Players now can post anonymous feedback
Worked on the subtle hints that guide the player to their next goal
Malfunctions can now show signs that someone before you tried to repair them
Improved navigation by adding a lot of swinging handles near malfunction and critical zones
Improved navigation by making the cables that twist and turn in the tunnels grabbable and swingable
A more unified experience in the menus of the game. The graphics menu was completely deleted and will be made into a slider with more than enough options to run the game on a lot of PCs yet keep the look and aesthetic. There will be an exposed "ini" like text editor in-game so people still edit the settings.
There are cutscenes after major events to better separate and highlight player progression
The "final challenge" will now require you to gather parts from all of the station's biomes
Developer side:
Created the feedback backbone - it allows to gather and display feedback tickets from hundreds of players in the editor and while playing
Refactored the "Ball" puzzles use 5 times less code.
Major optimization over the Code of the original game reducing loading times on Samsung 970 NVMe SSD by 5-7 seconds. The game can now boot to the playable level in around 3-4 seconds.
Resolved over 100 errors/warning caused by objects and maps
Optimized the player character loading some variables twice Optimized the player character so I can edit it better
Refactored the settings code More work on the accessibility settings
Removed the old triangular meshy "orb" from every interactable object they will be better integrated now.
Refactored malfunction and Container logic
Giant refactor of the Junk spawner. Objects in the original game often spawned one inside the other and it was possible to spawn inside walls. this is now all fixed.
- I also coded the foundation for some cool features that I will implement soon
Refactored the way the insanity scribbles work, now they can be integrated into the materials of the ship while before they were just stuck on top of things
Created a really nice material that blinks out of sync on different objects while still rendering as one draw call.
Added the volumetric for the open areas that have an atmosphere. It was really hard to make it not spill in the vacuum of space.
I've been working on a remake of deORBIT for a while now.
Update Time: [Alpha Iteration 80] I took December and January off, and did no work. I switched from laptop to desktop and the "iteration number" now shows 80. I should probably use 50+80 =130 iterations but I will go with 80 for simplicity on my end. The exciting news for me is that the game is almost ready for playtesting and balancing (which I find the most challenging). After some balancing is done and testers are able to finish the game I will start working on the visual bling. I plan on implementing Raytracing, but it will never be a requirement.
Player side:
Converted all 3d icons to UI with pretty cool animations. Since I want them to be very crisp and not to interfere with the screen space reflections
Changed the collision of the player. While less realistic it comes of more natural and should ease the player into the game.
Added some nice effects when the player receives damage, is in space or in a poison atmosphere.
Reworked the fast forward code so it no longer simulates the world on 10x speed, instead it calculates it. The result is there is no more stutter.
Reworked accessibility options to allow for Realtime preview.
When things break in the station, there is camera shake to subtly communicate this to the player
Story progress loading is now implemented. It was so hard that I had to code it twice.
Tweaked the available items so they make more sense in the context of the game. The original game never had a "water" as a thing to consume.
Developer side:
Updated to UE4 4.26 going to use the Raytracing, Particle and Destruction systems.
Changed the class of the camera builder object so its easier to manage
Optimizations and cleanup of most actors
Tons of bugfixes
Removing textures and meshes from the old deORBIT games since they will not be used and are less optimized
Major optimization of interactable objects. Changing the properties is no longer done on the CPU.
Reworked the save reset logic to be easier to use
Follow us on facebook and twitter and help us shape the games you want to play
Hey guys we have started some social network pages. At first we will be sticking to Facebook and twitter . Later we will expand to YouTube and even twitch to do some live gamemaking.
https://www.facebook.com/ZeroDollarz/
https://twitter.com/zerodollarz_
That's all, have a great day!
PS: All of our tweets will automatically upload to Facebook, so if you don't have/want twitter account you wont miss anything.
WARNING! Due to steam policy we are currently unable to hide this IP from the store and we feel obligated to warn you. The rights to this game have been acquired by Zero Dollarz and we are further developing it right now. DO NOT BUY IT IS NOT FINISHED ! Thank you!
WARNING! Due to steam policy we are currently unable to hide this IP from the store and we feel obligated to warn you. The rights to this game have been acquired by Zero Dollarz and we are further developing it right now. DO NOT BUY IT IS NOT FINISHED ! Thank you!
It really is quite hard to get a game that has been released off steam while you "repair it". We are not happy with the current state of deORBIT.
We would have liked to hide it from the store ( but not remove it from the libraries of the users ) , fix what we don't like and then show it again with some marketing and price cut. BUT we cant do it , valve needs to do it. A similar case we found they advised the developer to just warn the users.
YOU will NOT have to buy the game again.
Merry Christmas Folks!
I just want to wish you happy holidays and thank you for making my dream a reality. Each copy I sell helps me and I am already making concept art for the next game.
Cheers!
Update 107
Hi guys a mini update for the Autumn sale :
- Redesigned inventory full message (user suggestion)
- Improved the fog according to the atmosphere
- New more optimized dust particles effect
- Tweaked levels
PS: HUGE, LIKE MEGA HUGE Thanks to all of you buying the game, I really helps me a lot!
Update 106
Hi guys you spoke - I listened and the new 106 update features:
- Super sampling (set render resolution to 200 and kill ur GPU)
- Responsive design implemented in menus
- Responsive design implemented in HUD
- New tutorial
- Tweaked levels
PS: HUGE, LIKE MEGA HUGE Thanks to all of you buying the game at full price, I really helps me a lot
Update 105 is Live ! (new save system)
Hi guys as I reminded you I had to change the way the game saves and there was no way to convert the old saves to the new system.
It sucks that you lost your progress but I am sure that you will catch up in no time, and that you might discover some alternative paths while you replay.
Whats new:
Redesigned HUD: Better performance , shows more information
New save system implemented allows for saving individual items health or state(on/off) and more...
Improved quests
Fixed audio bugs
Updated some levels
PS: HUGE, LIKE MEGA HUGE Thanks to all of you buying the game at full price, I really helps me a lot
Just a reminder...
Just a reminder, the small update coming between 3 and 7 of November will erase the save data of the game since I am moving it to more optimized system.
