- added option to skip whole tutorial section - there's SKIP TUTORIAL button now available on the screen
- when player starts the arcade level for the first time, tutorial for controls pops up automatically explaining how to control your ship and use weapons
- chnaged the way how credits are presented - cool new effect is added for displaying credits
Zotrix
Patch v0.03
Patch v0.02 - gamepad controller issues addressed
Major part that we were addressing with this patch is poor end user experience
when it comes to configuring your gamepad controller as well as
sluggish and not intuitive control of the ship on the arcade level.
There is no need anymore for configuration screen because game now auto detects your
gamepad controller and its button and axis mappings.
Focus was on primarily supporting X360 and compatible controllers.
We are aware there might be controllers which might not work.
This patch is addressing following issues:
- Removed gamepad configuration screen
- Gameapd controller mapping auto detection system integrated
- Default gamepad mapping is set for X360 controller
- Fixed crash when entering Equipment Store in Linux and Mac versions
- Nuke destroying the cargo ship issue fixed
- Losing a life when losing a decoy bug fixed
- Boss HealthBar length issue fixed
- Decoy destroying the boss by drain bug fixed
- Wrong route descriptions on the Entropy station bug fixed.
- Help message on the Armory screen on how to add/remove items to the weapon slot has been adjusted.
Instead reporting each separate case with controller issues, I will pin discussion point, so please if anything you need to report in regards the issues related to gamepad controller report it there.
This way it is much easier to track the issues and we will have all information in one place. This will allow us to better understand all the issues and to fix them properly.
Vedran Klanac
Creator of Zotrix
Linux version - Full Release
I'm happy to announce that Linux version is also as of today released
in full capacity as PC and Mac which were released on Friday 24th July.
Build also contains patch v0.01 which you can read about in previous announcement.
Vedran Klanac
creator of Zotrix
Patch v0.01
This patch is addressing following issues:
- fixes issue with oversensitive dead zones for gamepad - this should help the game controls working much better (especially Logitec F310 and X360 controllers)
- allows text being skipped on mouse click or gamepad button press, during quest and mission presentation
- fixes bug with endless arcade levels
- disables "Test Ride" under Equipment Store until we fix properly the bug with vanishing equipment, at least this way you won't be able to lose them
- minor spelling errors fixed in mission descriptions
We are aware of the issues with gamepad controllers and this patch should improve the behavior.
We are not happy with gamepad configuration screen as it is too complex and it's not straight forward. We are working this week on redesign of the sequence to make it much better for a player.
Thanks guys for reporting issues, we are listening to all what you encounter and are actively adding those to our task list.
This is it for now, stay tuned for further updates.
Vedran Klanac
creator of Zotrix
Leaving Early Access
that day has come. We are leaving Early Access and Zotrix is going to full release.
It took us 9 months up to this point.
52 days in Greenlight. 5 months in Early Access and here we are.
During last 5 months we got ton of valuable feedback from the community and I'll be honest, this game is now in such shape and form that I didn't expect it to go that way. I mean, it's that good :)
You guys got us fantastic ideas how to turn the whole experience into something more. Thank you all for being supportive, reporting issues, helping over email, broadcasting your gameplay on private chat and helping us resolve bugs, sending suggestions, writing reviews....
All that was great experience for me and my whole team and we are trully thankful to such a fantastic community.
Game is now set to version 1.0.
As of today for PC and Mac and next week also for Linux.
Linux version still stands at version v0.07 as we had some last minute issues which we need few more days to iron out.
Game is now available in full capacity and it features:
- 60 arcade levels
- 40 quests
- Steam Trading Cards
- Steam Achievements
- Steam Cloud Save
- Full gamepad support
Another great news is, that we have signed a deal for PlayStation 4 version with UFO Interactive from L.A. and we are now working on that version.
PS4 version will be special with extra game modes and more content.
We expect PS4 version to be available around Christmas 2015.
Development and updates for Zotrix will continue. We still have number of known issues and we are actively working on fixing them.
More about that will be discussed on forums.
Until next time please recieve warm regards from whole ZeroBit Games team.
Best,
Vedran Klanac
creator of Zotrix
Tutorial Added
Tutorial is primarily focused on part of the game outside the arcade mission.
Tutorial is integrated for following sections:
- Mission Control
- Equipment Store
- Trading Room
- Map
- The Armory
We got numerous comments and questions how these areas work, I hope this tutorial explains it
in more detail and gives you perspective how to use Trading Room and how to navigate through Equipment Store.
Bug fixes
Mission rewards
There has been a discussion about should mission rewards be function of your performance during the mission and in the end we decided to drop that idea to work like that.
So, rewards will be delivered as they are described and if you finish the mission, no matter with what success rate you will get whole reward.
Crashing bug or huge annoyance when starting the game and having an issue with initializing screen resolution
We have number of players reporing following issues:
- game hangs when wants to start for the first time
- game starts but main menu is scaled and you can't access menu items
- game starts and mouse cursor is locked in upper left quadrant of the screen
We added option to start the game in windowed mode and then you will be able to go to Options menu and choose your proper screen resolution.
The issue described above is mostly happening on nVidia GTX 900+ series of graphics cards and on tablet PCs such as Surface 3 and Surface 3 Pro.
How do you run the game in windowed mode?
Go to Zotrix in your Steam client Library and get pull down menu on Right Mouse Button click.
Go to Properties -> Set Launch Options...
Punch in there following command line option: -windowed
This will force the game to be started in windowed mode and it will allow you to adjust your screen resolution.
Shortcut for invoking Change Screen Resolution at Main Menu
While you are at the main menu, press tilde '~' key and screen where you can change screen resolution will pop up.
That's all for today's release. Other bugs which are reported, mostly related to gamepad controller issues, we are still working on those.
The update is released on all three platforms: Linux, OS X and Win.
One more thing.
Next week we are going to FULL RELEASE and leaving Early Access ! :)
Zotrix Development Team
Steam Cloud support
This feature works for now on Windows only and by end of this week we plan to enable it also for Mac and Linux versions of the game.
MAJOR UPDATE: Full gamepad support
The big thing we have for today is full support for the gamepad controllers!
With this feature you can now fully enjoy playing the game in Big Picture Mode, where available.
Under the Options menu you are now able to switch your controls between:
- mouse + keyboard
- gamepad contoller
Next to gamepad controller you will notice new "Settings" button which will take you to
full gamepad configuration screen.
Gamepad configuration screen allows you to map your gamepad buttons the way you want.
It also allows you to configure your analog axes and it will detect dead zones for each axis.
Default button and analog axes mapping is based on Xbox 360 controller.
We have tested controllers from various other manufacturers and they worked just fine, once configured within the game.
change log for build v0.06:
- added gamepad configuration screen
- changed fire mechanic for gamepad controller to be more intuitive
- at MissionControl screen renamed button "Upgrades" to "Equipment Store"
- equipment items in Station Store are now showing if they are "permanent upgrade" or "expendable equipment"
- game is prepared for localization to other languages
We are working on remaining of the content for the game. Once that is finalized we are going into Full Release.
This is planned to happen finally in July and the whole team is quite excited about this.
Stay tuned!
Zotrix Development Team
Linux version released
Linux version is available as of today.
This is important milestone in our plan because now we cover all three major desktop platforms.
Since this is our first ever Linux game, we do expect there will be bugs and whichever issues.
Please report them and we will do our best to provide proper fixes and solutions.
We have tested the game on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and it did work just fine.
Our next step is upgrade of the whole game with quest system and conversion to full release.
April is at the door and it will be a busy one for whole ZeroBit Games Team.
Thanks everyone for the support, speak to you very soon.
Zotrix Development Team
Roadmap to Full Release and beyond
Our general idea was to get response from community and overall to make a better game.
We wanted to figure out in what direction to go with the features or storyline, should we have more story, or less, should we lean towards arcade missions only or adding more juice with other features and things like that.
In other words, we wanted to get a sense what is the right mix for this game.
Up to this point we have released 6 updates with various fixes and features based on the active feedback from you guys.
That’s what we plan to do in the future as well.
We have gathered a lot of feedback which came to us via discussion forums, direct emails and most of it on private chat here on Steam.
After analyzing all that, we came up with roadmap for full release of this game and what would happen next.
Before game converts to full release two more updates are planned, #7 and #8.
Update #7 (ETA by end of March 2015)
linux version of the game
Update #8 (ETA by mid April 2015)
full gamepad configuration / calibration settings
keyboard key mapping settings
Full Release (ETA by end of April 2015)
We will be adding additional layer of depth in the game, and we plan to do that by introducing quests.
Quests are actual high level goals for a player to accomplish in order to get some kind of reward.
What’s more important, quests will be story driven where more active role is given to Space Station Commanders.
There will be new section on every Space Station where you will be able to check status of active quests and monitor your progress.
The whole idea around quests is that if you want to follow the story you can do so and go in specific order accomplish quest by quest, if you want just to play arcade game, you can pick your own course through the game and play it that way.
When we decided to introduce quests, next natural step is to tie them with rewards which will come in form of Steam Achievements.
Routes between stations will stay as they are except arcade missions itself will be redesigned to extent to avoid such repetition as it is noticed right now.
During this final stage we have decided to start localizing game into other languages and we are doing that with great help from the community.
So far we plan to cover following languages for full release:
- Russian
- Chinese
- German
- Polish
- Spanish
- Turkish
- Hrvatski
- Bosanski
- Arabic
It is possible that some of these languages won’t be available in the version which is called “full release” as we depend on availability of translators, but we will make sure these languages become available via updates which will follow after the release.
There are more languages we plan to cover in future updates, languages we listed above are the ones where we have arranged and organized people who will help us. We are still looking for volunteers to help us cover other languages.
To summarize all the new elements we will introduce to full release of the game:
- full content as planned in start with total of 60 arcade missions / routes
- quests system with over 60 quests
- refreshed arcade missions
- Steam Achievements
- additional languages
What happens after full release?
Our plan is to release at least one DLC by August 2015 and hopefully another one by November 2015.
That will depend on many factors but mainly on resources available on our end because...
...there is new game we are working on, Solar Division, and that game is heavily related to Zotrix.
There will be an interesting interaction between these two games.
Stay tuned and thanks a lot for the support and feedback, it means a world to us.
Zotrix Development Team