An all out blitz is the best way to describe what is happened in these final weeks before launch. These patch notes are bustling full of bug fixes and a significant feature which has allowed all mobile builds of Particle Shield to shine. We are now five days away from launch! Enjoy the new promotional video which is featured as the App Preview on the iOS build. Additionally, Particle Shield has been submitted to the 18th Annual Independent Games Festival!
UPDATES (26 October 2015)
- Game Modifications
- Railguns have been reprogrammed to have better accuracy on their first shot after sitting inactive.
- Optimized and compressed graphics to improve mobile play.
- Object Pooling
- If you are unfamiliar with this you can find details here. This is a massive modification to the game and has allowed for tremendous optimization for all devices. All enemies, most projectiles, and explosive particle effects now utilize an object pool.
- Assets using Object Pooling
- Antimatter orbs
- Antimatter explosions
- Alpha Particle (Enemy)
- Beta Particle (Enemy)
- Gamma Particle (Enemy)
- Neutron Particle (Enemy)
- Particle explosion
- Particle spawn
- Streamlined and finalized the assets which are included in the final build.
- Removed old and unused rendering components from enemies.
- Increased the effectiveness of regeneration hexagons on enemies.
- Formatted text within the credits to emphasize roles.
- Included the version number in the bottom of the credits screen. Current builds will all read v 1.0 in anticipation for launch.
- The success and failure splash screens will now block out particle effects such as explosions and multiplier graphics that were previously appearing through the UI.
- Adjusted the quantum computer super ability to cover the entire grid.
- Mobile devices now allow you to flip the portrait orientation.
- Created marketing assets for the iOS and Google Play stores.
- Increased the size of the settings and achievements buttons for mobile use.
- QA/Testing
- Added additional testers to the closed Beta testing.
- Updated Credits to reflect new test members.
- Level Adjustments
- Increased the initial pause length for all levels.
- Decreased the difficulty on the following levels:
- Argon
- Krypton
- Caesium
- Slightly reduced the difficulty on the following levels:
- Bromine
- Xenon
- Lithium
- Sodium
- Radium
- Hydrogen
- Silicon
- Germanium
- Arsenic
- Polonium
- Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug which prevented the placement of turrets on Mac.
- Fixed a bug where lasers, railgun, and antimatter projectiles would appear within the UI.
- Fixed a bug where the kelvin generator would continue to have the 'slow' impact on enemies after being sold.
- Fixed a bug where the audio clip "Standby for Particle Shield" would play incorrectly if the first wave was sent early.
- Fixed a bug where kelvin generators would continue to slow enemies outside their effective range.
- Fixed a bug where the score was not being tracked properly.
- Fixed a bug where regeneration hexagons would not work on fast moving enemies.
- Fixed a bug where Astatine would not show an icon upon level completion.
- Fixed a bug which allowed the "Atomic Destruction" achievement to be earned without meeting the requirements.
- Fixed a bug that made the achievements and credits window incorrectly cycle when pressing the back button.
- Fixed a bug where enemies would continue to be sucked into the previous location of a black hole after the black hole disappeared.
- Fixed a bug where selling an antimatter turret in the middle of an active super ability would crash the game if any enemies were being sucked into the black hole.
- Replaced an incorrect upgrade graphic on the railgun.
- Fixed a bug where enemies would spawn smaller after being sucked into a black hole (object pooling related).
- Fixed a bug where antimatter turrets could stop firing after the black hole disappeared.
- Corrected a typo within the credits.
- Fixed a bug where graphics overlapped with the loading text.
- Fixed a bug which prevented level completion on iOS.
- Fixed distorted graphics for level success, failure, and high score on iOS.
- Fixed flickering graphics for certain UI elements on iOS.
- Fixed a bug which prevented the kelvin generator super ability from impacting new enemies.
- Fixed a bug which made super ability timer get stuck with 1 second remaining on the countdown.
- Fixed a bug which made Magnesium and Arsenic show the wrong completion status.
- Fixed a broken animation which caused the difficulty selection menu to display incorrectly.
- Fixed a bug which prevented enemies from receiving speed boosts.
As you can see, a lot happened since our last update! If you aren't following us yet on Facebook, please do!
