The Update v0.31 of ZONERS is now available and finally makes Rhapsody a fun and engaging character to play as with a rebalanced, patched and aesthetically cool new self. The deeper we get into the roster it seems the more they are benefitting from all this animation and balance work!
There's also a bunch of other smaller fixes, mostly regarding the King boss battle in the cup as well as a few other bits and pieces. Read below for the full patch notes.
What's Next The plan is to get Crabhammer's and Princess' melee animations done pronto so that one of my other artists (Kevin Butler) who did the beautiful end card art work, has all the necessary references to make some new art that'll be used for the titlescreen and a few other small places. Adding some juice!
I'll then jump straight onto finishing the rest of Crabhammer's animations and moveset tweaks. Expect to see some changes to the core moveset here, particularly the Super which I remain unhappy with as a move. I'm really excited to show you all the fun things he'll do when animated. Slowly but surely the whole cast is being brought to life :D
The BG and FX artist (Gabriel Lima) has been inundated with other work due his work on ZONERS, so there's a bit of a delay on the Credit's assets being updated and more FX work being done, but they guy works so hard all the time, you gotta give him his due! It'll be worth waiting for, I promise!
Fixed Gluup's projectiles doing additional hits on the King boss battle
Fixed rhapsody's projectiles not connecting with the King
Fixed issue with the drawing of the ball when the King is holding it in place
Fixed issue where the king's pets could stick around after being beaten
Fixed crash when the hitting the king with some projectiles at certain times and the game would try to grab a variable from a projectile that no long exists
Fixed crash when suspending cup from within king battle
Near Zone Break slo-mo no longer happens when the ball is moving away from the goal and also doesn't get stuck in slo-mo until the next gamespeed alteration like it sometimes used to
You can now skip instant replays quicker by pressing the relevant button during the first screen transition
Attempted to fix occasional bug where ball would begin moving at the start of a new round before the countdown had finished
Ball's electrical status effect now ends after making contact with a player or goal
Rhapsody's Super changed so no longer physical again but spin when contacted by projectiles or the ball to make this interaction more intuitive
MENUS
Increased Draft emote sprite size by redrawing it so it's more visible
MISC
Stun smoke clears when performing a quick recovery for a wall smash
Stun smoke no longer appears when electric
Clashes now have speedlines
ZONERS v0.30 Patch Notes
ADDITIONS
Added Rhapsody's Melee, Projectile, Super & Dash animations and updated sprites for Rhapsody's projectile and super projectile
FIXES & CHANGES GAMEPLAY
Fixed crash when pressing melee during contact with with ball collision
Amended keyboard aiming to account for fullscreen and window sizes greater than 720p
Fixed issues with Rhapsody's projectiles sometimes destroying each other during hit stops
Rhapsody's projectile notes now always display facing the correct way
Rhapsody's Normal projectiles and Super can now be dodged with a dash as intended
Rhapsody's Super now interacts with other projectiles in the normal way e.g it will destroy normal projectiles but can be stopped by other Supers
Rhapsody's Super will now hit the ball as well
Fixed bug with Rhapsody's Super where you could no longer use it for the remainder of the match if a round ended with them active
Rhapsody's Super projectiles can now be returned with melees more consistently if you are in the active part of the melee. You will still be dazed if you try to auto-deflect
MISC
Tweaked draw order and display of the middle shield
ZONERS v0.29 Patch Notes
ZONERS v0.29 Patch Notes
Fixed some major bugs, done some light balancing and added the first of Rhapsody's animations
ADDITIONS
Rhapsody Idle & Move animations added
Middle shield effect appears when a player is near the centre line to more clearly show it cannot be passed
[FIXES & CHANGES] GAMEPLAY
Changed Piro's projectile so it gradually gets smaller over the course of it's lifetime so it's more obvious when it's about to end
Reduced Bzzt's total dash travel distance
Improved Urnest's Hyper move early discharge and reduced range it can begin ball possession
Fixed some issues with Rhapsody's projectile not working as intended when fired at angles
Fixed issue where sometimes perfect parries would not actually hit the ball with the melee even when triggered
Reduced area of effect of perfect parries so you have to be more accurate
Made it so that if you touch the ball during the start of the buffer of a melee you will stop the ball briefly stopping it from zipping passed you
Touching an electrified ball from a bzzt move during the buffer part of a melee no longer causes the electric status
Fixed bug introduced in last update that caused the instant replay function to not work as intended
Fixed major bug that stopped bonus games working at all
MENUS
Updated Rhapsody's Key art and CSS icon to reflect new animations with microphone
MISC
Improved Urnest's Hyper move presentation overall
"Back for more, A galactic tour" - ZONERS v0.28
Hello!
It's good to be posting an update again after all this time. I'm officially back on the dev train and have been doing a smattering of additions, tweaks and fixes. This update has a fairly substantial patch note list but it mostly concerns QoL and polish. There are a few new additions to boost your gameplay though.
Please note that due to the move there will be a slightly delay on getting the linux version of this update out as my setup has changed and I need to figure out a more convenient method of building out to Linux.
Urnest's Animations The main new stuff is all of the grumpy ghost Urnest's animations are now in game as well as the moves being generally tweaked and improved to add more clarity and fun to his moveset.
FX Work On top of that, the wonderful artist Gabriel Lima, who did all the background art until now, has been working on a whole bunch of FX work for the game, elevating the feel of the game. For the full list check out the patch notes below.
Credit Where Credit's Due And finally, I've added in a playable credits sequence at the end of cup runs as an opportunity to score some extra money. This is skippable of course, but it does feature a brand new cheesey song by Bruises and yours truly, that I think you're gonna love. The assets on this one are placeholder, this whole sequence will be slightly expanded in the future, but for now it's perfectly functional and does the job. Of course, the new music is also unlockable after viewing the credits once.
Fixes Fixes Fixes As always, there are a whole host of fixes and minor changes that come as part of this update to improve your general experience. Read through the patch notes below to see the full extent of these.
ZONERS v0.28 Patch Notes
[ADDITIONS]
Urnest Move, Dash, Melee, Shoot, Super, Hyper, Hit, Stun, Wallstun, Ukemi, Electric & Dazed Animations anims added to the game
Added character specific aura effects for every character for when the ball has it's special aura that deflects projectiles and increases speed before slowing down
Credits sequence at the end of the cup has been added with placeholder assets. This is an interactive sequence that can earn additional money. This will be slightly expanded upon in a future update to track highscores and have some other additional elements as well as proper assets. Features a brand new song which is also unlockable for the jukebox after viewing the credits once
[FIXES & CHANGES] GAMEPLAY
Urnest Super projectile can now make contact on it's way out
Urnest Super projectile no longer has a gravitational vortex as it has a larger sprite hit box instead
Urnest Super projectile will try to reach 15 speed even after being deflected by a weak move
When possessing a ball using Urnest's hyper move, you can now press the dash, melee or projectile buttons to end the possession early and launch the ball in the direction you're aiming
Changed the highest non-hyper state ball power level colour from black to white and added some rainbow effects when in this state
Updated the basic ball aura to have two states that reflect speed and improved the special aura end animation fx
Fixed issue where ball could still be hit by projectiles when in its special aura state
Improved the visuals at the start of the Basic Training to make it more clear the player is supposed to move towards the targets
Reduced the amount of score that is taken away when continuing from a loss in a cup
Fixed crash when beating the King boss at the end of the cup
In response to observations during testing over the years, when using a gamepad, letting go of the stick no longer resets your aim to straight ahead
Fixed issue where when using KBM controls the starting aim is in the wrong place
When using KBM controls and aiming, if your character has some momentum, the cursor will move relatively to the characters speed
MENUS
Fixed crash when completing an advanced training tutorial
Updated the Character & Arena select menus to have new fixed position and improved character select icons and mini stage pics as well as simplify the character information that is displayed in the Match Maker
Fixed bug where player 2 could not back out of being ready with their character
Fixed a bug that meant player 1 couldn't select their character as quickly as player 2
Fixed names of seer paintings in the shop not showing up correctly
In the Hall of Fame changed the "special items collected" stat to "songs collected" and made it reflect total songs collected
In the Hall of Fame fixed the win percentage calculations in the character match up chart
Money breakdown displayed at end of a match maker game is now shown in correct positions
MISC
Optimised drawing of ball auras
Fixed small issue where the ball's fake self shadow effect would leave some unshaded pixels at certain angles
The ball now hovers slightly up and down whilst tilting when in a 0 speed or goal paused state
Updated ball wall hit and goal score fx
The ball now leaves a small damage sprite relative to the material type of the wall when bouncing off a non-goal part of a wall
Corrected the material type for some walls on some stages so the correct sfx play and vfx show
Updated/added character dash fx including a small general animation for the brief window when a dash will parry
Updated all smoke & dust fx
Fixed issue when using alternative colour palettes where characters and objects that were associated with the palette would appear in base form when the character had flashing fx active in any capacity
Fixed a number of issues of character colours & themes and other music not unlocking when completing the cups under certain circumstances
Next on my list is to start animating Rhapsody. Really want to get the rest of the cast finished off to complete phase 1 of Early Access. Then we can start looking at adding some genuinely new content and unlocking some of those locked off slots. Other than that, Gabriel will be working on the Credits assets in the near future and with any luck I might also have some very exciting news for the game as a whole soon...
Peace & Love, Paris
Personal Update: Moving House
Hello all,
Just wanted to update you on personal circumstances that are temporarily effecting development of Zoners. After the last update on the 5th of May, I had to focus all my energy on finding a new place to live and then subsequently moving into that new apartment as the tenancy for my previous place was due to end on June 3rd and I could no longer afford to stay there on my own since my ex partner left.
As a result, there has been minimal time to work on the game. I have now successfully moved with the unpacking done and various bits sorted. However, I won't have Internet until June 17th. Therefore, it is unlikely much will be done before then. Once I've settled in properly I will begin working on the game again all the same and try and get some updates put at the regular pace of every month or two. I'd say the conservative estimate is to expect the next drop to be sometime in July.
I'm keen to get back to it! Apologies for the delay, a result of effects from my earlier breakup, but it is an unfortunate element of being an indie dev that life circumstances can have a dramatic impact on your ability to work as you don't have a large team to make up for short fall. Nor am I funded and so continue to have to work an ever more demanding job for minimal pay.
On the other hand, I'll have new music in the next update and will begin animating Urnest in line with the other recent character improvements. I'm hoping to add an interactive credits sequence in the next update too to earn extra points at the end of a cup. If not then the next larger update after should include that bit. There are also some errors in the Hall of Fame I wish to fix. I have begun working with Gabriel, my BG artist, on the in match FX as well, so we should see some nice improvements to the visual impact of a lot of elements in the coming months.
I hope you look forward to the future updates and as always, if you're enjoying the game make sure to tell all your friends and family and help the game spread.
Many thanks for your patience and understanding in the mean time.
Hello everyone, Paris back with another ZONERS update...
Everyone's favourite genderless sentient goo has finally got the love they deserve in this update. Gluup is more or less fully animated and has a bunch of small balance changes and tweaks.
There's quite a bit more to this update than just Gluup's animations though. I encourage you to read through the patch notes below to get a sense of all the changes and fixes.
Every update brings us an inch closer to the final game I envision. I hope I can continue to surprise and delight you with my hard work along the way.
Spectators added to the Hologram House stage's control booth
Added multiple tiers of trophy threshold for the Hall of Fame stats, which includes a set of 4 new trophy designs that show up
When finishing a match in match maker you will now see a breakdown of the bonus money you earned for it, similar to the way your earnings breakdown is shown in the cup mode
[FIXES & CHANGES] GAMEPLAY
Ringressa's Hyper animations changed slightly so the portal she spawns near her and her own draw angle are detached to better express what is happening. Also very slightly improved the animations for all parts
Fixed some incorrect colour palette issues with Ringressa's Hyper
Gluup's melee now has a fixed hitbox size rather than slightly growing over it's active frames
Gluup's charged projectile now "powers down" to it's non-charged state after bouncing off a wall
Gluup's Super projectile now explodes at the same pace whether it's contacted a ball or not and the actual projectile stays visible
Gluup's Hyper move has been changed to "Buff Love". Gluup will pull three muscle poses, launching three hyper property rocket fists within 5 degrees of your aim angle that will linger about for a bit before launching off. This should be a much more consistent and dangerous move than how it was working before
Fixed issue with Princess' melee not always connecting with the ball and also sometimes moving it around in unintended ways
Changed Princess' projectile completely. It is now always tangible and moves a fixed distance before stopping temporarily in place and then firing off again. If spin was applied it'll stop in the same place and do the usual hold spin. Please note the sprites and values for this are not finalised, but I wanted to get it in game to get more live testing done
Fixed a number of character's directional facing during Hyper moves
Have tried to put in some extra checks on While loops in code to see if can avoid an instance one player had where the game hung for a few seconds when characters were moving near a wall
Changed the way Bonus games are stored in suspended cup data so that quitting the cup and reloading save doesn't give you a different bonus game. If you have an existing suspended cup you will initially get the same game for both bonus games, but any new cups will have the proper behaviour
MENUS
Fixed some of the bonus money calculations at the end of a match maker match and made the category and numerical values justified left and right respectively
The placement of the winner's sprite and the menu buttons alongside the bonus money are now changed depending on who won the match
At the end of match menu any player can now interact with the end of match menu rather than just the winner
Updated the medal sprites used in various places in the game to have proper spinning animations
Updated the money symbol to have a proper spinning animation in most places it shows up
Fixed issue where finishing an advanced training level would automatically progress to the menu screen without input from the player
Rebalanced some of the Hall of Fame base thresholds for showing a trophy for that stat
Fixed bug when getting a notification for unlocking some of the music the song name was displayed incorrectly
Fixed some minor menu issues with the jukebox
Fixed character highscore rim appearing in the wrong place in the Bonus Games freeplay menu
MISC
Fixed Switch Pro Controller Plus button input after recent software updates broke it
Fixed issue when switching type of controller from Switch Pro or Dualshock 4 to a standard Xbox or other gamepad where the start button wouldn't be updated back to the correct button
ZONERS v0.26.1 Patch Notes
[FIXES & CHANGES]
GAMEPLAY
Fixed issue with Ringressa's Super when playing on the right hand side where it would suck in the ball or disconnect as if it was being placed by a left side player
Fixed issue with Crabhammers Hyper where if it was active when an instant replay is ended it would invisibly slow the ball down during normal play until the next time it was used
MISC
Bonus points for goals at the end of a match in the Cup mode are now for the total goals you scored and not just the goals you scored in the final round
Fixed steam achievements not activating due to outdated steamworks extension
Made all unlockable steam achievements no longer hidden in the steam menus
v0.26 - Ringressa Animations & The Gallery is Open!
Hey all, chip, chip, chipping away at ol' Zoners over here when I get the chance.
INCLUDED This update includes a number of fixes, all of Ringressa's new animations, a change to Urnest's Super & probably the biggest addition of all the Museum Gallery is now open! (Full patch notes at the bottom!)
THE GALLERY In the museum Gallery you can view unlocked ending cards in the form of paintings that you've purchased from the Gift Shop, listen to over 30 unlockable songs from the game's soundtrack on the Jukebox or chat to Jan.
In the future I'm planning to also include in this room the ability to view collectable trading cards and access the Cinema to watch saved match replays, but these are both quite a ways a way for now.
The Gallery wasn't a planned feature until phase 3, but I wanted to give you players more to unlock and mess about with in the form of the endings and music and so I juggled it's implementation alongside various other bits and pieces.
MARCHING ONWARDS Slowly but surely the game is really becoming fleshed out with content, more than game's of its type typically have, and yet we're still in Early Access! Of course it'll be up to you, the players, whether you think the content in the game adds to the style, world building and atmosphere of the game enough to raise it up your rankings, but I hope you continue to dip in from time to time and enjoy this ridiculous project.
Next on my agenda is to continue working through the character animations. These animations add so much to the readability of each character, let alone personality, so I'm keen to get them done. It's a time consuming process as I animate each frame by hand, but when they're all wrapped up I'll be able to focus almost entirely on new content, so it's a worthy goal! Well until next time...
The Museum Gallery is now accessible from the Museum Lobby. In it's current state you will be able to view unlocked character end cards, listen to unlocked music and chat to Jan the Janitor. Please note that there are currently minimal/missing sfx for this room. More features will be added to this room in the future.
Added 30+ unlockable songs to the Museum Gift Shop. These various songs will be become available in the Gift Shop after fulfilling various simple conditions in single and/or multiplayer. Once purchased go to the new Museum Gallery and listen to them as much as you want on the new in game Jukebox
Added 8 character end cards to the Museum Gift Shop. Beating the Zoners Cup on any difficulty with a character will make a painting appear in the Museum Gift Shop that can be purchased and then viewed whenever you want by visiting the Museum Gallery
Added one additional steam achievement for unlocking all of the available music
[FIXES & CHANGES] GAMEPLAY
Fixed bug where Bzzt's melee would always electrify the ball after one charged melee had been performed, instead of only during charged melees
Ringressa's Super portal no longer disappears completely when being hit from behind by the ball, and instead disconnects temporarily
Ringressa's Hyper move functions pretty much identically to before but instead of summoning one large portal, it summons a smaller portal that follows the nearest ball's Y position
Urnest's Super has been modified so that when the conditions were met that would see it return along the path it was sent out, it instead is "released" and continues along the trajectory it was going before until it hits a wall. If it is dragging a player with it it will slam them against the wall. This should make it more intuitive to use and generally more dangerous and useful in more contexts
Fixed a bug whereby trying to melee a ball being sucked into Urnest's Super would cause the game to get stuck infinitely creating explosions
Fixed issue where Urnest's Super wouldn't travel as far as intended when it bounced
Fixed issue where Urnest would be drawn slightly transparent when the rainbow glow of a full meter is on top of them
Rhapsody Projectiles can now be deflected properly as intended and the front notes get destroyed by other projectiles
Projectiles no longer get progressively smaller as they are deflected by melees
Fixed light source issues with projectiles effecting players from too far away and always being at max strength
MENUS
Fixed a bug where unlocking the 7th colour for a character via the character usage in Match Maker method would not display which character's colour is unlocked in the notification
Added scroll bar to the Hall of Fame stats viewers
Fixed bug where the "new" indicator clearing for new shop items when hovered on would not be saved, meaning it'd always show up as "new"
ZONERS v0.25
[FIXES & CHANGES] GAMEPLAY
Fixed numerous bugs that could trigger when trying to do a melee or projectile move during the end lag of a super or hyper move
Fixed various issues where ball was snapping to unexpected positions when doing a melee and sometimes not getting hit as intended because of this
Fixed a bug with Perfect Parries for a number of characters whose melee attacks hitboxes change over the course of the melee
Added a small buffer of 3 frames from releasing a melee where you can still start a dash if you haven't connected with a ball and fixed issue where you couldn't dash straight away when in the buffer and charge phase of a melee
Further balanced AI ball clash mashing ability
Slightly improved AI's ability to aim at the ball when dashing
Increased melee charge time for Bzzt
Stopped Gluup's hyper missile from exploding because it's near any goal and now only when time is up or it's near opponent's goal
Gluup's hyper missile now starts off at a slower speed and accelerates to it's max
Fixed bug that would cause Crabhammer's Super objects to not despawn
MENUS
Fixed bug when going back from P1 vs CPU or CPU vs CPU to P1 vs P2 where the profile selection screen wouldn't display correctly
Fixed bug where ball base power was not being saved in custom match templates
Fixed bug where loaded custom match templates would show the wrong thing on the ball gravity button if the saved gravity was "OFF"
MISC
Removed all the HPF and LPF versions of the match songs from the game and reduced the overall size of the game from 310mb to 266mb
ZONERS v0.24 Patch Notes - Small Fixes
[FIXES & CHANGES] GAMEPLAY
Fixed crash on Advanced Training Ball Auras caused by changes to FX introduced in last patch
Fixed numerous crashes on King boss battle caused by changes to FX introduced in last patch
Fixed Ringressa & Princess' projectiles on Target Takedown spawning a child projectile when connecting with a bouncer not instantly destroying
Ringressa & Princess' projectiles can now be deflected by melee attacks like other projectiles, creating a child projectile
MENUS
Fixed drawing of Sphere Smasher ball outline on Cup level progress screen
Fixed bug where particles on match transition screen weren't drawing
MISC
Fixed bug where bonus game highscores were being saved and checked for unlocks based on the total score after rank multipliers rather than before
Fixed bug where sphere smasher and target takedown highscores and combos were being saved on each other's spots rather than themselves
