BlastZone 2 News

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.29.3.1) This one is focused on making several changes based on feedback and observations from the AVGC BlastZone 2 was shown at. This includes difficulty balancing, streamlining menus, screen wipes, improving ingame text, bug fixes, and more. This is a relatively small update, but it addresses many small things to improve the experience as a whole. Thanks a lot to everyone who dropped by our booth and helped contribute to making the game better!

Also, UAC access requests have been removed from the game, which may fix antivirus false-positives and administrator requirements. BlastZone 2 never made use of UAC access, but the access request is a compiler option that was never supposed to be enabled. Another long running bug that has finally been fixed is the 4k render scale issue. People running 4k monitors or high DPI scaling will now display the game properly. Any feedback on how well these fixes work for you is welcome.

Here are the full release notes for v1.29.3.1:

• Increased hyper power usage for the OmegaCannon from 200 to 250
  
• Increased all ship damage for Mission Training mode to make enemies easier to kill
  
• Player 2 exploder shots are now easier to see
  
• Changed the wave intermission weapon unlock text to be more exciting
  
• Increased starting stat levels for a few level select options
  
• Removed screen wipe animations during the level select screen
  
• Removed the Local/Online selection menu when playing a multiplayer Kiosk game
  
• Fixed incorrect game render scaling when Windows is set to a high DPI render scale above 100%
  -This fixes rendering issues with many 4k displays
  
• Removed UAC access requests
  -This fixes administrator requirement issues with some systems
  -This fixes some antivirus false-positives
  -UAC access was never used in BlastZone 2 and the access request in the executable manifest was left in by accident
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest version, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.3.1” or higher. Enjoy!

BlastZone 2 has a booth at AVideoGameCon (AVGC) 2018 this weekend Sept 15-16 in Secaucus, NJ! In celebration, there is a 25% sale on the game all weekend for everyone. Pick it up while the sale lasts!

For more information about the convention, visit the website at: http://www.AVideoGameCon.com

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.29.3.0) The biggest part of this update is a completely new packet compression system for online multiplayer games. The primary benefit of this is a significant reduction in latency and CPU usage, and packing higher precision floating point values while keeping bandwidth usage about the same. The amount of latency reduction varies depending on CPU power. The time to generate a packet with the old code ranged from 2-16ms, but the new code ranges from 0.25-0.75ms, a huge difference! The old way to compress packets was done by a zLib post process after each packet was created. This was a very CPU intensive operation for the use case. The new compression system has been created from scratch and is done while each packet is created. It uses fast bit-level compression specialized for the way BlastZone 2 packets are constructed.

Another notable part of this update is a new command ship to defend in both of the Classic game modes. This gives better context for the goal of the game, instead of abstractly needing to prevent enemies from passing by the player. Now, the game plays like an escort mission; if too many enemy ships crash into the command ship behind you, it explodes, causing a chain reaction making your ship explode as well. This in combination with the new weaving enemy type in the previous update makes the Classic A and Classic B modes more engaging and fun to play.

A few other fixes and improvements have been made in this update as well. Here are the full release notes for v1.29.3.0:

• Created a completely new netcode packet compression system
  -Reduces latency by 2-16ms depending on system specs
  -Significantly reduces CPU usage during online multiplayer games
  -Uses similar bandwidth to the old system, but with higher data precision
  -Uses lightweight specialized compression logic as each packet is built instead of running an expensive post operation
  
• Added a command ship you need to defend in Classic A and Classic B modes
  -Converts the game mode into an escort mission instead of abstractly preventing enemies from passing you
  
• Updated Classic mode help screens to reflect the new objective to defend the command ship
  
• Added support for the Classic A/B death sequence on the client side for online multiplayer
  
• Corrected kill counts for Survival and Blitz modes in the help screens
  
• Fixed a few rare multithreading crash bugs
  
• Fixed the disconnection option not working correctly in the gameover screen when playing a Steamworks multiplayer game
  
• Improved multithreading concurrency in a few areas to improve performance
  
• Optimized the final death explosion sequence
  
• Added "Help", "HighScore", and "Credits" main menu options to the Kiosk version
  
• Renamed the "Config" menu to the "Options" menu
  
• Removed bonus lives and unlock messages from the Kiosk version
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest version, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.3.0” or higher. Enjoy!

Also, the new website for BlastZone 2 has launched! It includes an improved design, interactive buttons, bandwidth saving features, and better news page navigation. The leaderboards page has been significantly improved as well, with better category selection and data caching. The website has been brought up to modern standards in many ways and thanks a lot to Kevin Edzenga for all the hard work to bring this to fruition!

visit the website here:http://www.BlastZone2.com

A big new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.29.2.0) The biggest part of this update is to add a new ship unlock progression system. New players will now start with the A2, A3, and B1 ships, with the rest of the ships being locked out. Players upgrading from a previous version will have additional ships unlocked if they have Mission Veteran mode or Blitz mode unlocked. To unlock a new ship, the player needs to surpass Wave/Area 8 in Mission, Survival, or Blitz mode, and this can be done multiple times until all the ships are unlocked. Also, unlocking a ship in one game mode will unlock it for all game modes. This way, the player can focus on their most proficient game mode to unlock ships to help out with other game modes. The goal of this update is to make the content progression more gradual by making the player earn the more powerful ships through proficient play. This also helps newer players focus on the more basic ships to start with to build up gameplay skills.

This update includes a new enemy type for Classic A and Classic B modes that moves up and down. This new enemy is introduced a few waves in to the game and gradually increases spawn frequency as the game progresses. This mixes up gameplay by having to track enemies in more ways than the old horizontal linear movement.

This update also includes emissive lighting improvements for the OpenGL 3.0 renderer. Item drops now have the same emission animation as the OpenGL 1.5 renderer, as this capability was previously missing from the GL3.0 renderer. The new emission maps for enemies and bosses are now animated as well, improving visual fidelity. Each item drop, enemy, and boss now have their own unique emission material that can work independently of each other.

This update also includes many other improvements, bug fixes, and tweaks. Here are the full release notes:

• Added a ship unlock progression system
  -The game now starts with only the A2, A3, and B1 ships available; the rest are locked out
  -Surpassing Area/Wave 8 of Mission, Survival, or Blitz modes unlocks new ships
  -Unlocking a ship in one mode will make it available for all modes
  -Anyone upgrading from a previous version will start with additional ships unlocked based on other progress
  -Having Mission Veteran difficulty unlocked will unlock an additional ship
  -Having Blitz mode unlocked will unlock an additional ship
  -If one of the above conditions are met, the B2 ship will be unlocked
  -If both of the above conditions are met, the B2 and A1 ships will be unlocked
  
• Integrated all unlock text displays into the general messaging system
  
• Added new unlock text displays for each ship unlock event
  
• Added a new EnemyB type to Classic A and Classic B modes that also moves up and down
  -Gradually introduces this new enemy type in later waves
  
• Added per-object material emissive lighting support to the OpenGL 3.0 renderer
  -Light emission now works correctly for item drop models, just like how the OpenGL 1.5 renderer behaves
  -The amount of light emission can now be different for each enemy model
  -Light emission is now animated for enemy and boss models
  
• Disabled the "kills left" display during the outro screen for Survival/Blitz/Classic modes
  
• Optimized matrix operations for several object types, such as particles, bullets, and enemies
  
• Improved packet loss tolerance in a few areas, including ship selection, ship size, current health, and boss/player state
  
• Reduced multiplayer item drops by 25% overall and by 50% when one player runs out of lives
  
• Fixed a bug allowing ship changes after selection in the local multiplayer ship selection screen
  
• Fixed a broken lighting bug when switching from the OpenGL 3.0 renderer to the OpenGL 1.5 renderer
  
• Fixed screen shakes not affecting the player booster
  
• Fixed screen shakes affecting the wave splash screen and dialog box when it is not supposed to
  
• Fixed a wave progression bug for online multiplayer games
  
• Fixed incorrect player 2 animations for some wave splash screens
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest version, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.2.0” or higher. Another update is in the works that greatly improves the netcode and improves the Classic game modes. This will be released within the next week or so. Enjoy!

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.29.1.0) The main additions in this update are 4 new enemy spawn patterns for Survival and Blitz modes. These include curved or angled waves of fast enemies, or large groups of seeking enemies.. There have also been a few balance changes for general enemy spawn patterns for Survival/Blitz modes and increased kill counts per wave. The goal of these changes is to increase progression of complexity to keep gameplay interesting.

This update also includes lighting improvements and optimizations for Player/Enemy ships and cave background. All Player/Enemy ships now better display normal mapped specular highlights and enemy and boss ships now use emission maps to improve visual fidelity. The cave background lighting now has corrected normal values for each vertex, which better calculates how lighting should look based on the position and orientation from the camera and light source. Specular highlights have been added to the cave background as well.

This release also includes updated 3rd party libraries for things like texture loading, fonts, music, and leaderboard communication. Since the last set of library updates were integrated, there have been a number of new releases to fix security issues, improve performance, and fix bugs.

In preparation for AVideoGameCon, improvements have been made to the Kiosk mode of BlastZone 2 to make it more accessible on the show floor. The main improvement allows for a second player to join midgame without waiting for the current player to be done first. Also, the game trailer now automatically plays when the game is idle for a while. For more information about this convention, check out the website here:
http://www.avideogamecon.com

Here are the full list of changes for v1.29.1.0:

• Added 4 new "enemy wave" spawn patterns for Survival/Blitz modes
  -New pattern #1 simultaneously spawns several quick enemies in a symmetrical angle shape
  -New pattern #2 spawns many quick moving enemies sequentially in a curving wave
  -New pattern #3 spawns many regular heatseeking enemies
  -New pattern #4 spawns many vertical tracking enemies
  
• Made several balance changes to the Survival/Blitz game modes:
  -Adjusted the proportional frequency of each enemy spawn pattern to be more evenly distributed
  -Adjusted the times when each new enemy spawn pattern is introduced
  -Increased the overall frequency of enemy spawn patterns by 67%
  -Increased the kills count per wave
  -Survival Singleplayer: 40->50
  -Survival Multiplayer: 60->70
  -Blitz Singleplayer: 80->100
  -Blitz Multiplayer: 120->150
  
• Made numerous realtime lighting improvements
  -Added Emissive lighting to all enemies and bosses
  -Improved interaction between diffuse and ambient lighting for all objects
  -Improved specular highlights for player ship rendering
  -Corrected cave background vertex normal values, fixes how lighting should behave relative to the light source and camera
  -Added specular highlights to the cave background
  
• Added scripted fly in animation when starting new waves in Classic/Survival/Blitz modes
  
• The ViewDistance and ParticleDetail settings now default to "VeryHigh" to take advantage of recent optimizations
  
• Terrain positioning is no longer affected by the ViewDistance setting
  
• Optimized ship and cave background shaders
  -Eliminated a few redundant per-pixel calculations that can be calculated per-object instead
  -Eliminated multiple light calculations when only a single light is active for the cave background (ships already have this optimization)
  
• Reorganized and updated the credits screen
  
• Cleaned up a few areas of code to prevent potential bugs and memory leaks
  
• Combined separate color and alpha textures for all wave intro splash animation textures
  -Reduces startup load time
  -Reduces memory usage on some systems
  -Slightly reduces CPU overhead for rendering the wave intro splash animation
  
• Updated Kiosk mode to allow for the second player to join midgame
  -The second player gamepad needs to press the 'A' button to join
  -Added text to the HUD to reflect this
  -The joining player will start with the same number of lives the first player currently has
  -The joining player will be given the A3 ship as there is no opportunity for ship selection
  -This update does not apply to the standard game to prevent highscore exploits
  
• Updated Kiosk mode to play a trailer video after idling for a while
  
• Migrated to newer versions of a few 3rd party libraries
  -libPng v1.5.30; Used for loading textures
  -FreeType v2.9.1; Used for generating fonts
  -LibOgg v1.3.3; Used for music playback
  -LibVorbis v1.3.6; Used for music playback
  -cURL v7.61.0; Used for leaderboard uploading/downloading
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest version, launch the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.29.1.0” or higher. Enjoy!