Black Ice News

• Added Allied Server links - servers with a blue link between/around them must be hacked at the same time, and their minions are allied!
  
• Enemies are
• much* better at climbing up things, and more of them can be active at once with
  
• Completely redid the tutorial, to help ease players into the game.
  
• Ziggurat buildings >>
  
• Added a loading screen with hints while buildings are spawning
  
• Added a glitch effect to the screen when the player takes damage. This can be disabled under Video Options
  
• Added more terrain types - now the world isn't just a flat plane with a single hill, it can have many hills of multiple types, as well as some steppes. More to come!
  
• Added "pie slices" to the controller inventory and shop menus, to really emphasize that it's a radial menu
  
• Added a scrollbar to the controller inventory and shop menus, so you can see how far down the list you are
  

• Added a toggle option to stop menu movement
  
• Tutorial and UI now understands when you remap keys
  
• Reflections now are off by default, and require the highest quality setting. They severely affect performance, so try turning them off if you are having any lag at all.
  
• Only new characters go through the tutorial now. Any character can skip the tutorial, but you should do it at least once!
  
• Servers you hack, as well as the SHARK, now drop loot that you can either equip immediately or within 3 levels
  
• Toggle Heal items now scale 100% better with level!
  
• Enemy blood particles no longer glow so brightly in large quantity
  
• GITSfish are much better at pushing players out of the hack radius
  
• The player can jump higher by default
  
• The player can step over taller objects without issue
  
• The hack radius now "woops" out toward you when you start a hack
  
• There are less dangerous things near the spawn point, such as Dark servers.
  
• Items dropped by the player can be picked up faster, especially in single player
  
• The controller gui now shows item rarity colors
  
• Scrolling through items on a controller is faster now
  
• Buying an item with a controller while an empty slot is selected will attempt to equip the item immediately
  
• Shops can now be lots of different levels
  

• The Puss-Puss super-rare unique minion no longer describes itself as a GITSfish
  
• The Kokinator unique shotgun now properly shoots both missiles AND fireballs
  
• GITSfish will no longer rocket players up into space
  
• The "Boosh" achievement will now only trigger from
• player* mines
  
• Enemies can no longer fly after climbing a building
  
• Enemy lasers no longer make a loud annoying sound when the player dies or pauses the game
  
• Info box screens no longer stay visible after their server is hacked
  
• The UI no longer switches immediately to the mouse/keyboard UI when the mouse moves a tiny bit (like if the table shakes)
  

• Servers spawning on steppes might hang over an edge a bit, it should be fine
  

As always, I'd love to hear your suggestions, so please post on the forums, email me, or tweet me! Especially if you have ideas for building shapes or terrain types - as long as it doesn't require an overhang!

That's all for now! Check out the Black Ice Twitter for more frequent updates about the game!

Edit: Just patched a few more things on top of this:

• Shops will spawn more frequently
  
• Shops will no longer spawn above level Finality's level
  
• The damage taken glitch effect will no longer invert the camera
  
• Light blue (miniboss) servers will show correct colors now
  
• Old save files with minions in them will work again
  
• Colorized enemies with the Huebris perk should no longer be converted permanently
  

• Added Allied Server links - servers with a blue link between/around them must be hacked at the same time, and their minions are allied!
  
• Enemies are
• much* better at climbing up things, and more of them can be active at once with
  
• Completely redid the tutorial, to help ease players into the game.
  
• Ziggurat buildings >>
  
• Added a loading screen with hints while buildings are spawning
  
• Added a glitch effect to the screen when the player takes damage. This can be disabled under Video Options
  
• Added more terrain types - now the world isn't just a flat plane with a single hill, it can have many hills of multiple types, as well as some steppes. More to come!
  
• Added "pie slices" to the controller inventory and shop menus, to really emphasize that it's a radial menu
  
• Added a scrollbar to the controller inventory and shop menus, so you can see how far down the list you are
  

• Added a toggle option to stop menu movement
  
• Tutorial and UI now understands when you remap keys
  
• Reflections now are off by default, and require the highest quality setting. They severely affect performance, so try turning them off if you are having any lag at all.
  
• Only new characters go through the tutorial now. Any character can skip the tutorial, but you should do it at least once!
  
• Servers you hack, as well as the SHARK, now drop loot that you can either equip immediately or within 3 levels
  
• Toggle Heal items now scale 100% better with level!
  
• Enemy blood particles no longer glow so brightly in large quantity
  
• GITSfish are much better at pushing players out of the hack radius
  
• The player can jump higher by default
  
• The player can step over taller objects without issue
  
• The hack radius now "woops" out toward you when you start a hack
  
• There are less dangerous things near the spawn point, such as Dark servers.
  
• Items dropped by the player can be picked up faster, especially in single player
  
• The controller gui now shows item rarity colors
  
• Scrolling through items on a controller is faster now
  
• Buying an item with a controller while an empty slot is selected will attempt to equip the item immediately
  
• Shops can now be lots of different levels
  

• The Puss-Puss super-rare unique minion no longer describes itself as a GITSfish
  
• The Kokinator unique shotgun now properly shoots both missiles AND fireballs
  
• GITSfish will no longer rocket players up into space
  
• The "Boosh" achievement will now only trigger from
• player* mines
  
• Enemies can no longer fly after climbing a building
  
• Enemy lasers no longer make a loud annoying sound when the player dies or pauses the game
  
• Info box screens no longer stay visible after their server is hacked
  
• The UI no longer switches immediately to the mouse/keyboard UI when the mouse moves a tiny bit (like if the table shakes)
  

• Servers spawning on steppes might hang over an edge a bit, it should be fine
  

As always, I'd love to hear your suggestions, so please post on the forums, email me, or tweet me! Especially if you have ideas for building shapes or terrain types - as long as it doesn't require an overhang!

That's all for now! Check out the Black Ice Twitter for more frequent updates about the game!

Edit: Just patched a few more things on top of this:

• Shops will spawn more frequently
  
• Shops will no longer spawn above level Finality's level
  
• The damage taken glitch effect will no longer invert the camera
  
• Light blue (miniboss) servers will show correct colors now
  
• Old save files with minions in them will work again
  
• Colorized enemies with the Huebris perk should no longer be converted permanently
  

Hi everyone! First off, you might notice that Black Ice is listed under Super Duper Game Company now. Don't worry, that's still me, Super Duper Garrett Cooper, I just built a company around the game!

Also, there's cool stuff coming just around the corner! I've been talking for a while about linking multiple servers together for added challenge, and the gif above is how it's going to look when two servers are allied. That's going to be one of at least two types of server links - and feel free to suggest more in the forums!

Of course, the next patch will come with a ton of bug fixes and improvements. For instance, I finally figured out why GITSfish could launch you into space. I've got more up my sleeve, so stay tuned!

If you're at RTX in Austin, Texas next weekend, be sure to stop by and say hi!

Check out the Black Ice Twitter for more frequent updates on the game!

• CHROMA SUPPORT - Black Ice now has Chroma support for Razer Chroma products like the Razer Blackwidow Chroma - watch as the colors on your keyboard and mouse react to the game! It even has your cooldowns!
  
• (and other brands listed here!) Thanks to C63 Industries LEDL plugin for all the glowing support :D
  
• Server Visual Update - Server lines now come in more interesting shapes, sometimes with slopes! The lines on them are also much cleaner. I generate the meshes by hand at runtime now! Hurray, trigonometry!
  
• Desaturation - The color drains out of the game when you're at low health now!
  
• Valuable Information - Weird stories have been going around the grid. Now you can find them and sell them for bitcreds!
  

• The main menu GUI has been updated (more awesome work by Metkis) but it's not done yet
  
• Pathfinding update - Enemies are better than ever at climbing all over things and finding you quickly
  
• The game world now expands infinitely by default in both single and multiplayer. This can be lowered in single player by going to advanced options when starting the game.
  
• Physics tweaks to how the player falls and handles slopes - feels better now!
  
• Stores are less common now
  
• View distance (specifically for servers) is higher now
  
• Player Health, RAM, and RAM Regen are higher at level 0
  
• Player Health scaling is higher across the board - try a tanky build!
  
• Instant Heal items are stronger
  
• Jetpacks don't go quite as high now (but are still super fun and useful)
  
• Lasbreakers do a lot more damage now
  
• The Crosshair is slightly larger and is much easier to see in all situations
  
• RAM Returned has been renamed RAM Regen for clarity
  

• Players can no longer blink under the hill. If you haven't played in a while, there's a hill now! More terrain later!
  
• Holding down the button for an instant heal item will no longer repeatedly play the error sound
  
• Falling off a building no longer makes you fall really quickly
  

• Chroma colors current do not understand key remapping - this will be fixed!
  
• Valuable Information doesn't display properly on controller-specific GUIs
  

That's all for now, but stay tuned! I might not always be posting them on Steam, but I'm working on updates almost every day! Check out the Black Ice Twitter for more frequent updates on the game!

Alright! It's been a little over a week since I released the giant 0.7 patch and showed off the game at RTX, and a few of you have reported some bugs. So I took this week and focused entirely on fixing bugs! Here's what I got done.

• Steam Achievements are working again! Your achievements from the demo should transfer over to the full version
  
• Slowing projectiles no longer cause enemies to rocket off into space
  
• Minion items can no longer have a minimum damage which is higher than their maximum damage
  
• Homing projectiles no longer track friendly minions
  
• Spider Mines no longer corrupt saves
  
• Visual quality settings now load on startup
  
• The Ice debuff goes away faster
  
• Minions are now colored white properly
  
• Mines now color properly (so you can tell friend's from foes'!)
  
• Enemies no longer set off each other's mines when in the same faction
  
• The extremely rare random framerate losses should no longer occur. If you see issues like this, please delete and redownload the game (you can copy your saves out first, but the Cloud Saves should re-download them). Apparently Steam doesn't update the game properly.
  

• Shops now restock every 5 minutes instead of every 1
  
• While in full screen, the game no longer darkens other windows (good for streaming!)
  
• The quality settings are now numbered from worst to best (0-5, 5 being best)
  

That's all for this week! Thank y'all for supporting the game.

Happy Hacking! ːwebcrawlerː