Update highlights and new price point for BlastZone 2

A huge amount of work went into update releases for BlastZone 2 over the last year and a half and beyond. This includes new gameplay content, as well as a technical and graphical overhaul. This essentially makes the current state of the game a “Remaster” of what it was at release. The game has reached a higher tier of content quality, bringing it to a new price point at $9.99.

I would like to thank everyone who supported BlastZone 2 all this time to help fund this development. In appreciation for this, we are working on another huge update to the game as a free addon. More info is coming soon about this, watch for it!

Below is a summary of the numerous improvements that have been made to the game since release:

• Added BlastZone 1 to the game; now totaling 6 game modes
  
• Rebalanced the entire game to use native 16:9 gameplay instead of the old 4:3 limits with widescreen viewing
  
• Added a new score multiplier system to Survival mode. This changes the way the gamemode is played by incentivising skilled play while still being accessible for new players
  
• Added a new long range bullet firing enemy type for Survival/Blitz modes
  
• Improved secondary fire controls; the Fire2 button can now be tapped to use it
  
• Numerous gameplay balance updates, including hitbox sizes, stat upgrade potency, and drop rates
  
• Created completely new ship selection menus for both local and online multiplayer
  
• Changed and rebalanced level selection so individual levels can be played in any order, and relevant stat upgrades are given for each area of the game
  
• There are now visual indications on the player ship when Hyper power is charging faster, and when each regular charge level is achieved, streamlining gameplay
  
• Added animation looping support for minibosses so they no longer leave the screen after the animation finishes
  

• Added 4k textures, greatly improving detail
  
• Added many new particle effects for charging, firing, impacts, item collection, attaining hyper mode and more
  
• Improved detail, lighting, and shadows for the home planet environment
  
• Completely redesigned the Outer Space background
  
• Redesigned the Alien Homeworld terrain, adding much more detail
  
• Improved multiple light support for enemies, bosses, and environments, including the Cave environment
  
• Added free DLC for extremely high detail terrain models
  

• Created an entirely new graphics renderer from scratch using OpenGL 3.0+
  
• Reworked the game simulation backend to be highly multithreaded, scaling up to 16 CPU cores if available, and making more efficient use of dual core and quad core CPU’s
  
• Created a new particle system, allowing for over 20x more detail at the same performance levels. Performance scales higher when more CPU cores are available
  
• Huge general optimizations, improving performance up to 300% without affecting quality
  
• Improved netcode, having better packet loss compensation, reduced latency, and added client side interpolation and prediction
  
• Created a new game startup loader, supporting new asset formats, asset swapping, and extreme quality assets. Also greatly improved multithreading support to reduce load times.
  
• Replaced numerous textures in the game with precompressed S3TC textures to improve quality and speed up loading times
  
• Greatly improved frame pacing and animation smoothness, also adding native support for high refresh rate monitors up to 240hz
  

• Complete HUD overhaul
  
• Added 9 new weapons and abilities to the game, including cluster bombs, force fields, wave shots, machine guns, close range melee attacks, and more; brings the total weapon count to 15
  
• Reworked every ship in the game to give each of them unique play styles and weapon loadouts and abilities
  
• Added 55 Steam achievements
  
• Added trading cards, emoticons, and more for Steam
  
• Added native Steamworks multiplayer support