Wings Of Bluestar gets its first update in 8 months
Hi pilots, long time not seen!
Since the last update, which was around December 2023, both the game engine and Steam did get a lot of patches and updates. Unfortunately, these changes do not bring greatness to old game, but rather bugs. Which is the case for Wings Of Bluestar.
For a solo indie developer like myself, 4 years is an eternity. Only big studios can afford patching and keeping games up to date for many years. However, I'm back and I'll be fixing the game. I spent the whole day trying to make the game launches on the newest game engine, which is the first step towards my goal.
The biggest bug the game encountered is the gamepads no longer supported. It wasn't my fault, but Steams. They included a new gamepads system, which broke the old one. But I fixed it.
Another major bug I did fix in this patch are the crushes on both stage 6 and stage 8.
Other bugs are fixed, like: - The game exit message refusing to close. - The game always selects player 1 despite player 2 being selected. - And others I can't remember.
There are still a few minor bugs that I'll be slowly fixing. Yep, slowly, because I have two new games I'm working on. Like some broken achievements and some issues with occasional weird player respawns.
With that said, please let me know if there are still major and game breaking bugs, so I can take care of them. Those are my priority right now.
PS: if you liked Wings Of Bluestar, please make sure to check my newest shmup "Shockwave Triggers". A demo is already available on Steam. It's a vertical pixel art shmup. I do appreciate all types of support.
Finally, back to bug fixes and updates!
Hello everyone,
Thanks a lot for the support and for playing Wings Of Bluestar.
As you know, the game got very old, almost 4 years now. And you also may have noticed, updates and patches did also stop a long time ago. Latest update was on February 2023.
The reason for the lack of updates is the game engine itself and also Steam. Both of these are getting regular updates and changes, especially the game engine, to the point that the newest update no longer supports the game. And even when I use an old version, I get issues with Steam. That's why it was very hard for me to keep patching the game.
But recently, I managed to make the game work again on the newest game engine. Which means I'll be able to work on it and make patches. I won't work on it full time though, because as a solo developer with two new projects, it's hard.
This game was my first project and I've made a lot of mistakes. The game is full of bugs due to bad codes and the lack of budget for player testers, again, I'm a solo developer.
However, it was a great learning experience and I'm glad that people liked it so far, despite the flaws. That's why I decided to be back and fix all major bugs.
Thanks again for the support and I'll do my best to fix the bugs.
Shinu Real Arts
GAME UPDATE 30
Hello pilots!
This is another regular update, in which a few bugs are fixed.
As a few may have noticed, the game was released on consoles 12 days ago (Yeay). And this was a perfect opportunity to get more people to try it out and in the process, some new bugs where reported, as well as new feedbacks.
After finishing work on the console version, I moved to this version and implemented a few fixes.
Thanks again for the support pilots! have a nice day!
Shinu is out (resuming work on my new game project...)
Game Update 29
Hey there pilots!
Still working on your bug reports and fixing as many as I can.
Here are the fixes that come with this update:
1 - Pause menu eventual bug during story mode. 2 - Ship 2 loses the ability to charge after killing a boss and charging during the result menu. 3 - Boss 1 death no longer soft locks the game. 4 - Power ups and other items scrolling is fixed to match the stages.
PS: technical explanation for most of these bugs for people interested in coding:
As a few of you know, the game was made in an old engine GMS 1.4. Then ported to a newer engine (at that time) GMS 2 when it was around 90% done. All worked fine till an update in the engine changed some vital functions, one of them is that the engine now stores all values of the game, as long as it is running, without the need of a save system. This wasn't the case in the version in which the game was built; the old version doesn't save anything unless it's part of the save system the developer creates.
Due to this update, a lot of bugs did happen. And the majority of bugs reported by you guys are related to this issue. I'll keep doing my best to fix all of them.
This is a random portrait of the character from my new games, she does look like Aya Morobito and the games share the same world :)
Thanks a lot pilots!
Game Update 28
Hello pilots!
This another regular bug fixing update following the previous one.
As mentioned before, I'm still having issues with the outdated engine, no wonder, the game is 2 years old now and the engine got tons of updates.
I managed to get it to work properly, but at a cost; this new game update may brake your save file. Let's hope it won't.
Other than that, the following bugs are fixed:
1 - Game crushes during Boss Rush when using ship 2 (Altair). 2 - Ship 2, no fire, auto fire or special when player exits to the title screen during gameplay. 3 - Many graphics broke in the gallery menu.
Please let me know if everything works on your side.
Thanks in advance!
Regular Game Update And Bug Fixes
Hey Pilots! long time not seen.
Sorry for the lack of regular updates, but I have some technical issues with the game engine.
In order to work on the game I need to use an engine that is by 2022/2023 standards outdated. I can't use the recent version of the engine because they removed/changed a lot of functionalities.
This wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't for the old engine now broken and the developers won't fix it because, obviously, it's outdated. The big issue I'm having with it is that it won't save anything done to the project and I have to put a lot of work just to make it save and compile. Hence it's now taking me a lot of time to fix bugs.
However, I managed to fix a few recently, here is the list:
- Ship 2 (Altair) not showing at stage 3. - Stage 3 brakes if the player restarts it. - Boss timers no longer loop.
Issues that player thought are bugs:
- No start/pause menu during the visual novel mode:
I didn't add one because those are short and player can always use the auto text option to skip fast to shmup gameplay. If in need of pausing, the player can just stop playing, the story mode won't progress.
- Some choices in the story mode are gray and have no select arrow:
Those need a certain circumstance to be available, player mostly needs to clear the story once to get access to those.
Other bugs that I couldn't duplicate:
- Boss Rush crashes the game: Works fine on my end.
Other than that, the outdated engine is still giving troubles to work with and the game may get some new bugs. Please bear with me and keep reporting them, I'll do my best to fix them.
Thanks a lot for the support pilots and happy celebrations!
Shinu
Just a regular bug fix
Hi there pilots! how is it going?
This is just a small update with some little bug fixes.
I'll be making a larger update soon, in which I'll redo the whole achievement system and fix the remaining bugged achievements.
Cheers,
PS: Working hard on my new game btw, looking forward to your support once a demo is ready.
Just a regular small update
Hello pilots!
This is a regular patch/update, in which I made the following:
- A new artwork in the gallery to unlock, it was a commission I made for a fan. I got the permission to put it in the game. - The boss time no longer loops after the time is out. - The boss timer no progresses the story further when it times out. I asked the community about this and the majority opted for this. - Story mode, in stage 5, the game no longer soft locks if you use auto text. I disabled auto text during that story phase, whiting to find a proper fix for it.
With that said, thanks for the support!
Shinu
Just a regular update
This update tries to fix the newly reported bug in stage 3 where the stage soft locks and stops progressing. I tried my best to reproduce it on my end, but no success, it's always working.
So I decided to update the with the latest version I have, hoping it will solve the issue.
Cheers!
Just a regular bug fix update
Hey pilots! this is just a regular bugs fix update. Let's hunt them all!
Bugs fixed:
Story Mode save system. Stage 7 crash to desktop. Boss 7 short lasers. Boss 8 weird lasers. Training mode; lives and credits reset when you go back to the stages selection.
