Fixed issue in cup where Tournament final stage would not be Stardom Stadium as intended
Attempted to fix crash at the end of some mid match instant replays
Fixed issue with spin on some Super moves (Urnest, Rhapsody)
Crabhammers Hyper move max duration reduced from 360 frames to 300 frames
Crabhammers Hyper move duration reduces by 10 frames every time the flippers connect
Crabhammers Ball gravity direction set correctly
MENUS
Fixed crash when creating a new profile
Fixed issue with Xbox Series S/X controllers being able to join multiple times in multiplayer
Movie Night - v0.7 Replay Cinema Added
Heya everyone,
v0.7 is here and with it comes the addition of the Replay Cinema. This room, accessible from the Museum Gallery was previously inaccessible, but now it's open for business.
At the end of any Match Maker match you'll have the option to save a replay of the entire match. Once saved you can view this match with the same controls as when you watch back instant replays after a Zone Break!
Not content to just make the replay menu a normal menu, just like the rest of the game I completely overscoped and turned it into a cinema. You'll even get curtains close when you pause during the playback, and quiting the replay will take you back to the cinema in one nice smooth transition.
There's also a bunch of fixes for a some other stuff that I noticed over the last month and a bit, and I'm experimenting with some minor gameplay balance tweaks.
And so with this update, I now only have one more major feature to add to the game. This one will take a little while as it's quite a lot of work. Plus the holiday season beckons and there is other stuff I must do this month as a result. So sit tight, and I'll get this feature added early next year, followed by some sound work and just a ton of fixes for things I'm sure I've managed to miss up until now.
Peace & Love, Paris x
ZONERS v0.7 Patch Notes ADDITIONS
Added the ability to save Match Maker matches as fully viewable replays from the now unlocked Cinema inside the Museum Gallery
FIXES & CHANGES GAMEPLAY
Reduced player hit pause after hitting a ball with a melee by 50%
Doing a projectile during the end lag of a melee that has connected with a ball or projectile now reduces that projectile moves buffer frames to 1
Reduced all characters projectile moves buffer, active and end lag frame lengths by approximately 25% on average
Improved replays in general
Fixed bug where going from the Parry Advanced Tutorial to the Clashes Advanced Tutorial wouldn't load the opponent character
MENUS
Fixed bug with Jan the Janitor in the museum gallery where they would get stuck in one of the non-idle animations
Updated museum gallery paintings menu to include spot for Dum-E painting
Renamed the Museum Gallery's "The Gallery" menu to "Vault"
Fixed bug where Crabhammers' Hyper Move name wouldn't display correctly during activation
Fixed issue with colour picker in player profile settings not working as intended at all after 2v2 was added to the game
MISC
Fixed issue with Xbox Series S/X controllers being detected twice when connected
Dum-E Springs into the Game! - Zoners v0.6
Hello lovely people,
Paris here with a major game update. You read the title, you saw the picture, that's right, there's a new playable character to unlock in Zoners!
INTRODUCING DUM-E... AGAIN?
Most of you would have encountered Dum-E when you used them during the games Basic and Advanced tutorials instead of one of the cast. In that mode, they had a very simple moveset designed to be easily used and understood by beginner players.
And that moveset still exists... HOWEVER, once you've unlocked Dum-E for use in ALL modes, they won't play quite the same.
MOVESET ROULETTE When you play as Dum-E in a Match Maker match or the Zoners Cup campaign, every single match your moveset will be randomised between all 9 playable characters. I'm not just talking about getting a single characters moves, I mean each individual one is randomised!
For example, you might have Piro's Melee, Bzzt's Projectile, Ringressa's Super, Gluup's Hyper & Princess' Spin properties. You won't know what you've got until you start using it, only for everything to randomised the next character you face. This also includes Dum-E's original moveset in the randomisation, just for extra fun. You might be completely overpowered, or struggling to make it all gel, but that's half the fun!
SO. MUCH. WORK. Being a 2D sprite based game, this required a LOT of forethought and execution in order to get functional. Some of the groundwork was laid for this last year when I completely rewrote how the moves were written and referenced. However, this gimmick makes Dum-E a real wild card that adds something unique to the cast you can't get from any of the others.
STORY TIME And let's not forget they have their own story and ending in the cup too!
CONCLUSIONS
Really glad to have this character properly playable in the game at last. If you want to know how to unlock Dum-E, read the patch notes below for the full details.
There's also the usual smattering of fixes and tweaks, so make sure to see if any issues you had are covered.
Hoping to get the next update out before the end of this month if everything goes to plan, so keep your eyes peeled.
Peace & Love Paris
ZONERS v0.6 Patch Notes
ADDITIONS
New playable character Dum-E is now unlockable. Dum-E is the training dummy character you use during the tutorials, and they are out for revenge! However, unlike their training mode form, the fully playable version of Dum-E has a unique gimmick. Every new match their Melee, Projectile, Super, Hyper and Spin type each individually get randomised to one of the 9 playable characters moves. You might be overpowered, or underpowered, who knows?! They also have their own cup storyline and a surprising ending screen.
Unlock them from the shop via one of the following methods: Play a complete match on the Hologram House stage in Match Maker mode 10 times OR Complete the cup with all characters on any difficulty
FIXES & CHANGES GAMEPLAY
Fixed crash when projectiles that aren't the players destroy in the tutorials
Fixed bug where King battle would only do same move
Dum-E colours for various effects and UI changed
MENUS
Controls overview and "Player Ready" now displays in 2v2 Match Maker matches as well for up to 4 players
When backing out of the Jukebox in the Gallery you can no longer go out of the gallery before the transition animation has played
Fixed multiple bugs when using keyboard to name a new custom match template
Hall of Fame colours collected stat now updates correctly
Hall of Fame various misc stats updated to reflect game additions
MISC
Playing 2v2 with 3 or 4 human players counts those additional players character uses to milestones
One of the Stardom Stadium stage unlock in shop requirements has been reduced from completing the cup with every character to completing it with 4 characters
Condenced save files into one "save.ini" file, excluding "options.ini". You will lose any current suspended cup progress and saved custom match templates from any previous updates as a result of this change the first time you boot the game, everything else should carry over and work as normal.
New Intro, FX, Music, Animations & Logos - v0.5
Hello my lovelies,
First update in a while huh? I'm sure all 90 of you had me in your mind this whole time haha. I'm kidding of course, but hey, I'm ready to see this through now. Not a huge update today, but some enjoyable additions...
New Intro
I finally got round to creating/implementing the last of the assets needed to create the brand new intro sequence. I'm pretty proud of it if I'm honest. Another one of my unnecessary flourishes I guess, but it helps better set the tone and point of the game!
New Logos
My old individual and collective logos felt severely out of date considering all the changes I've been through. So I refreshed them to something that will now stick :)
New Ref Animations
The match ref now has a few new animations in and out of matches just to add a touch more personality to this helpful character(s)
New Sting Text Animations
When you score a Zone Break the old messy text is gone and a new full screen effect happens. On top of this there's also a new slomo text sting display for Extra Time and Sudden Death, just to add a bit more dramatic flair to your proceedings.
New Ambient Stage Particles All stages now have new unique ambient particles on them to add a touch of extra atmosphere
New Music A new song plays when you get the milestone notifications.
What's Next? Well I'm on the finishing straight now. This update is a bunch of fixes and some smaller mostly aesthetic additions, but I've already put quite a few hours into the next update. That one will add a whole new character to play as!
After that there are two major game additions to get implemented: Reply saving and viewing in the gallery cinema, and the tons of in game collectable trading cards to collect and view (complete with additional lore!)
After after after that... It's getting the remaining missing sounds done and implemented, all the audio levels balanced (I'm aware they are all over the place currently), and then just a thorough bug fixing session.
Until next time...
Peace & Love Paris x
ZONERS v0.5 Patch Notes
ADDITIONS
Brand New Intro animation
Updated Paris Stalker & all in indie logos
REF the Referee has new animations in and out of matches
New match sting text animations for Zone Breaks, Extra Time & Sudden Death
New unique ambient stage particles added to every stage
Added music for when milestone and unlock notifications play
FIXES & CHANGES GAMEPLAY
Fixed issue where Piro's projectile would not be the right colour when playing with alternative colour palettes
Fixed issue where characters would be drawn upside down when electricuted by Bzzt
Crabhammers Hyper move ball gravity changes should now correctly revert when it ends, including if multiple of the same move are active
Applied a general fix where some character's supers or hypers would not deactivate sometimes after a Round End. In some cases this would make the move untriggerable in future rounds
Fixed crash when a gamepad got disconnected during a match and the game tried to pause for the disconnected player
Character aiming and sprite rotation is now influenced by gamespeed
Fixed issue where character sprite rotationg/scale would be incorrect during some specific hit pause contexts
MENUS
Fixed bug with bonus money for milestones when multiple milestones are triggered at once
Fixed bug on first time playing when using keyboard input and selecting to view tutorial for the first time from the notification prompt
Reset everyone's music collection to set the music data to be correct from now on with updated list
Fixed bug in Museum Gift Shop where the very last possible item in a category would not be visible
When selecting the Special Items category in the Museum Gift Shop, your selection will always start at the top of the available list of items
Fixed bug in Academy when going back from Zoners Cup registration where the tab menu buttons would be wrong
When returnting to Academy from a tutorial, the song display text now draws over the tutorial menu
Fixed bug where Options menu would draw incorrectly if when accessing it from the Plaza and a milestone notification had appeared in the room beforehand
Fixed position of menu REF when returning from Match Maker to Plaza
Dialogue boxes now extended if max sentence length is too close to box width
Fixed issue with loading Dum-E's pause screen moveset during tutorials and Crabhammers in all scenarios
MISC
Optimised hit/explosion particle fx and improved colour behaviour
Fixed missing text for Dum-E training character's Hyper move
Fixed bug where match countdown start sound would play when king grants wish
Fixed issue where if you started a Zoners Cup after playing Match Maker with player 2 using a palette colour other than the default one, the first CPU opponent would have the wrong colour
Added missing music Artist credit in Intro sequence
Time to Get Moving & Scoring!
Hey everyone,
Dropping a hefty patch size wise this time (around 63mb). There's a metric ton of fixes, many of which are all thanks to bug reporting by the key art creator who created the gorgeous character hyper move portraits and most of the titlescreen art.
Improved Bonus Games But that's not all, we've got revamped versions of all 3 bonus games, They are SO much more fun now. Totally worth unlocking them for freeplay in the Academy. They pay for themselves quite literally!
Secret Tips I've added a bunch of Pro tips to certain screen transitions. These often bring up secret techniques or mechanics the game doesn't teach in the tutorial. There's 23 of them, so get reading. But if you're done with them and don't want to press 'A' to proceed anymore, you can turn these off in the options menu.
Just go to Options -> Game -> set 'Show Tips' to off
Pause Screen Move Sets Now when you pause the game, in most circumstances, you'll be shown the pausing player's move set! Along with the move name, input and a short animation of it in use, you'll also get a brief description of how it works. Super useful when you're getting used to a new character's quirks, especially when you've gathered friends together :)
Actually, most of the bulk of this patch download size wise is from this, as all the little move animations had to be image sequences to avoid platform compatibility issues and poor quality later down the line. I think it was worth it though as they go a long way to making the game more understandable.
You can see what this looks like in the video linked below.
Conclusions As I said, there is TONS of fixes as well. Some of these are pretty major, so have a read through the patch notes if you're curious.
My list of things left before v1.0 keeps slowly shrinking. A lot of the remaining elements are quite time consuming, but I'm determined to get them done.
If you encounter any bugs or crashes please let me know so I can fix them!! Every time someone shares one in detail, I often track it down and fix it.
I think next I might finally get round to adding in the new intro sequence I've had the assets for for a while. This will also mean I can update my splashscreen logos to better reflect the person I am today and the goals I have. It'll be personally satisfying as well as really making that intro POP. First impressions amirite? Haha.
Well until next time amigos, Peace & Love, Paris x
ZONERS v0.45 Patch Notes
ADDITIONS
Character moveset information is now visible when pausing the game. The information displayed will be dependent on which player paused the game. These have move names, a simple explanation and an accompanying animation
One of 23 game tips are now displayed in some screen transitions. These tips mostly cover gameplay and some tell you things the game didn't tell you before! The game will wait for your input before carrying on. You can turn these off completely in the options menu.
FIXES & CHANGES GAMEPLAY
Bonus Games (All) - Current combo is displayed on holofield and not just in the top right
Ring Rally - Targets now move constantly, and gets faster every 5 hits
Ring Rally - New objects added to the back of your side of the court that slows the ball and drop its power level when the ball bounces into it
Ring Rally - Scoring revised from (20*combo) for normal and (20*combo)+200 for bonus to (50*combo) for normal and (100*combo) for bonus
Ring Rally - Attempted to fix issue where the ball could hit the ring target multiple times in one collision when it hit the edge from sharp up or down angles
Sphere Smasher - You now get double points when hyper state balls blow up the bubbles
Sphere Smasher - Bubble reset timers reduced from 10 seconds to 9 seconds
Target Takedown - Changed combo system to be hitting consecutive targets within a time limit. This time limit is represented by a draining meter on the field and gets shorter the higher the combo.
Target Takedown - Bonus coloured targets now only give 2x points rather than 3x
Target Takedown - Base points per target changed from 5 to 10
Target Takedown - Added 4 new types of target waves and changed the wave randomisation to a bag system rather than pure rng
Target Takedown - Changed the explosive target sprites to a bomb like sprite and the target sprites to... targets!
Target Takedown - Explosive targets no longer count towards a wave clear
Target Takedown - Fixed issue where some projectiles like Gluup's would get stuck bouncing on the Projectile Bouncers in some instances
Urnest - Fixed crash that could trigger when Urnest's Super connects with a hitbox that has just finished hitting a ball
Urnest - Fixed bug on The Clawcade when possessing the ball with Urnest's Hyper move and touching a stage hazard bumper would cause it to get stuck
Rhapsody - All notes in her projectile can now hit targets in the Target Takedown bonus game
Rhapsody - Fixed issue where characters that were in the daze state from Rhapsody's Super when instant replay starts would still be stunned afterwards
Crabhammers - Fixed issue where Crabhammers' Hyper move mech would still be visible after an instant replay
Crabhammers - When using Crabhammers' Hyper move and the ball was at 0 speed, the ball will now fall towards the Player rather than getting stuck bouncing up and down vertically
Crabhammers - Hyper move active portion reduced from 8 seconds down to 6 seconds
Fixed issue where players or AI would move during instant replay match transitions
Attempted to fix issue where ball would move whilst still in the reset state after a Zone Break
Attempted to fix issue where round wouldn't start and player would be softlocked
MENUS
Changed the default starting position when entering the Academy Career menu to be on the Zoners Cup
Fixed loading of bonus games from the free play bonus games menu
Fixed issue where Target Takedown and Sphere Smasher were the wrong way round on the Bonus screen menu
Removed highscore display during character select in bonus free play menu that was showing cup highscore
Fixed issue where bonus game name wouldn't display when loading bonus game from free play bonus game menu
Stopped issue where quickly entering and exiting the bonus games menu in the Academy could cause the looping sound of Sock spinning to stack up and never end
Fixed issue where exiting career menu when Puppet hadn't returned to original position and re-entering would cause unintended behaviour
Fixed bar tab menu when going back from zoners cup registration to career general menu
Fixed issue where some menus wouldn't let you back out correctly under certain circumstances
MISC
Fixed major issue where data wasn't being saved
Added Dum-E Hyper Move key art and animation
Added new energy strike effect when performing hyper moves
Fixed issue where SFX volume affects music and sfx
Fixed issue where match intro music would be affected by sfx volume rather than music volume
Fixed issue where ball clash sound wouldn't be stopped if instant replay was ended during clash
Stage specific sfx are now effected by the SFX volume
Fixed issue where the holofield graphic for a Clash would be scaled incorrectly for one player
Attemped to fix bug where sometimes music wouldn't play between rounds/matches until a Hyper move or Zone Break happened
ZONERS v0.44.1 Patch Notes
- Fixed crashes during cup dialogue with certain characters - Fixed issue with Gluup's projectile explosions in Target Takedown bonus game
VFX For Days - v0.44 Out Now
Greetings everyone!
Today's update is a pretty exciting one. We've got tons of fixes and changes, a brand new tutorial & probably best of all a whole host of new FX work that makes matches in ZONERS even more satisfying.
VFX
Every character now has brand new hit fx for all of their moves and a ton of moves have received additional animations like projectiles ending etc. These FX made in conjunction with Gabriel Lima have added a ton of impact and personality and finally remove some of the last match placeholder assets visually
New comic book style text effects appear alongside various actions in matches! These are exciting colourful additions that again add even more visual spectacle. I'll be allowing players to turn these off in a future update
These images genuinely don't do the new VFX justice or the breadth of the improvements. So you'll just have to jump in and see how they are!
New Tutorial
The Basic Tutorial has been completely redesigned and is way clearer and more in depth on all of the game's core systems and rules.
Before I didn't really explain the goal system or some of the details, and during testing I kept witnessing the same confusion and difficulty. I believe this was a big hurdle to people enjoying the game, and it felt kind of cheap compared to a lot of the rest of the package.
Across the whole game I've also introduced new control sprites for gamepad facebuttons that make the whole thing much clearer. I'm hoping the onboarding for the game is much smoother for people now :)
Other Stuff
There's also loads of other smaller stuff, like balancing and bug fixes. With the new FX the King boss match at the end of the higher cup difficulties is even crazier. That's if you're good enough to get there of course ;)
Well check out the full patch notes below for a full list of what's shaking in v0.44. We genuinely are starting to get there aren't we? Let's do this thing!
Love & Peace Paris
ZONERS v0.44 Patch Notes
ADDITIONS
Brand new melee and shot hit FX for every character, including King boss battle
New mid hit melee FX in 3 flavours (slash, blunt and magic)
New comic book style sound texts added to tons of match actions
Updated/Removed/Added new to the Holofield text gfx (such as Block, Super, Hyper)
Completely reimagined Basic tutorial that much more completely and clearly explains how the game works
FIXES & CHANGES GAMEPLAY
Piro Hyper active period increased from 60 frames to 75 frames
Ringressa shot now fires for its full duration but ends quicker when making contact with another player or ball
Ringressa shot is now more accurate length and slightly stronger
Ringressa shot has new effects at its end
Ringressa shot should now be cleared if round ends whilst one is in the middle of firing
Gluup projectile has destroy FX
Gluup Daze animation was missing, has been readded
Urnest projectile has new particle system attached
Rhapsody Projectiles and Super have destroy FX
Rhapsody Hyper shockwaves fixed issue where ball wouldn't be hit by last shockwave
Rhapsody Hyper shockwaves travel 42% further
Crabhammers bumpers and pieces now have hit and destroy fx
Princess projectile now has destroy fx
Dum-E Super now creates a cluster explosion effect for 60 frames where it stops and the life timer for each explosion is very slightly randomised making it more like a shotgun
Dum-E Hyper has been changed so that rather than dashing forwards with the punch, they now throw the giant boxing glove punch ahead of them on their spring arm as a disjointed hitbox
King Tennis projectile attack sprite updated
King Tennis projectile no longer gets smaller during rally
All King projectiles now have destroy FX
King's Spear attack has been fixed so it collides with player again but also there's more time to react between it appearing and flying across the screen
Fixed display of damage values to king when Hi-Res fonts are turned on in the options
When deflecting projectiles the effected character will now skip to the end of their melee animation
Stopped parries working on balls during match breaks (e.g during match start countdown)
Changed Clash graphics to appear on top and not on the back holofield to make sure info can be seen
Fixed Hologram House stage displaying in the wrong version when doing the tutorial.
Fixed drawing of the goal points when using hi-res fonts
Fixed drawing of aiming reticle when using KB+M controls during tutorials
Edited the Melee & Projectile Spin Advanced Tutorials so you can no longer move or dash to make it clearer how to play
Fixed issue with Clawcade bumpers not always "triggering" when ball bounces off them
Goal shields now reset at the start of every round rather than wait for a timer
MENUS
Updated all instances where face button controls are displayed to show controller specific sprites (Nintendo, Xbox & Playstation) and not just generic unmarked diamond buttons
Updated most holofield text fx with a new style
Fixed audio ducking of character themes during cup dialogue emote sfx so it happens again
Slightly brightened the blue text highlight that can appear in textboxes
Fixed issue when quitting the cup in the middle of the King match battle and trying to do the training
Fixed crash when setting a specific profile's automatic assist set ups in the profile options menu
MISC
Font for Hyper Move name displays changed to brand new one
Hyper move portraits and names now display in instant replays too
Fixed a bunch of crashes that happened during instant replays
v0.43 Patch Notes - Tournie Unlock & Alt Stage
ADDITIONS
Can now select Hologame House alternate version that appears in the Bonus Games as a stage variant. No gameplay differences
Added "Tournament Unlock" button to the Options menu, under game settings. This unlocks all character colours and stages but disables saving until resetting the game
FIXES & CHANGES MENUS
Fixed dynamic music shifting in 2v2 mode
Updated the ball power colour for level 4 in the custom match settings to reflect changes to colour spectrum from last year
MISC
Fixed the background displays on Hologram House to match the character palette swaps
Fixed display of Hyper move names when starting a Hyper move with Hi-Res fonts turned on
v0.40.1 & v0.41 patch notes
MENUS
Fixed crash when trying to open the options menu after a single player match of some description (cup, training etc)
Fixed textbox sizing and dynamic line length coding for character textboxes when using the hi-res fonts so that line are correctly placed and new ones made in a similar manner to the original pixel fonts
Fixed display of the input keyboard when using the Hi-Res fonts options, where before the lettes would be abnormally large and make it impossible to discern
Fixed display of other text elements when input/changing a name in profile menu with hi-res fonts turned on
MISC
Fixed crash when starting a new game and it creating a new save file
Fixed issue with game display when any size that isn't a standard width ratio. The game should now display correctly on all aspect ratios, even with multiple monitors
Fixed issue where you couldn't drag around the windowed mode window when the last input was keyboard and mouse
It's Good To Talk - v0.4 Out Now!
Greetings ladies, aliens and all in between,
It's time for v0.4 and with it we finally add all the additional plaza staff menu interactions and a couple of extra achievements are now unlockable.
It's Good To Talk Now when you choose to chat to any of the menu characters you'll get a new menu with a whole load of new dialogue options to choose from! As you complete the cup with more characters you'll also unlock more dialogue for each of them.
This dialogue is not only neat flavour text, some of it has some additional information and opinions of the other characters. I've also made this text all work better than it did before in both display and interaction. Nice!
Achieving Greatness There's also two of the hidden achievements now unveiled and ready to unlock. One of them, "The Hidden Chest" is especially difficult and will require you reading dialogue to maybe solve a puzzle. "A puzzle?! In ZONERS?" Yeah, just a small one. I'm curious if anyone will solve it!
What's Next? Probably fixing up the Bonus Games so they are more balanced and fun is next on the agenda. I'm also going to maybe take a look at redoing the Basic Training so it's much more engaging and makes a lot more sense.
Love & Peace, Paris
ZONERS v0.40 Patch Notes
ADDITIONS
Added many new dialogues for all the plaza menu characters. There is now multiple dialogues from the start and more will unlock as you complete the cup with more characters. This means there's a minimum of 8 new dialogues to see for Cent, Gossloth, Jan and Sock & Puppet
Achievement "Chatterbox" is now unlockable by seeing all the staff character's dialogues
Achievement "The Hidden Chest" is now unlockable
FIXES & CHANGES MENUS
When hovering on the "Chat" option on the bar tab menus, a pointer will display on the character you'll be chatting to
When you select the "Chat" option from the bar tab menu, a new menu will appear that will let you select which dialogue you wish to view
When chatting to any character in the menus, their textboxes will behave the same way as when viewing pre-match dialogue in the cup, allowing you to speed up the text and proceed as normal
When chatting to any character in the menus they will now all have emotes display when appropriate
Jan & Gossloth now have new non-talking idles when chatting
Slightly adjusted behaviour of voices and animations when talking to plaza staff
The Bonus Games option in the Academy registration is now selectable even if none of the bonus games have been unlocked by the player yet
A secret has been added to one of the menus tied to the new achievement...
Changed the display of locked bonus games slightly so the name of the game is still readable
