BlastZone 2 News

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.36.0.0) This update adds another new game mode, Mission+ Mode! This works similar to “New Game+” in other games, as it starts Mission Mode from the beginning, but with all weapons and abilities unlocked, and all stat upgrades at level 3. To keep the difficulty balanced, this mode is always played at Veteran difficulty, and with fewer lives to start. This mode can only be unlocked once Pilot Mission Mode is completed.

Here are the full release notes for v1.36.0.0:

• Added the Mission+ game mode
  -Starts the Mission campaign with all weapons and abilities unlocked, and level 3 stat upgrades
  -Always uses "Veteran" difficulty and fewer starting lives, to offset the more powerful starting loadout
  -This serves as a new way for advanced players to play the game
  -Requires completion of Pilot Mission mode to unlock this mode
  
• Added new local highscore categories for the singleplayer and multiplayer variations of Mission+ Mode
  -Automatically migrates local highscore data from previous versions on startup
  
• Added world leaderboard support for Mission+ Mode
  
• Slight optimization for preparing draw calls
  
• Particle system optimizations when spawning new effects
  
• Fixed mismatched drawing parameter count for some objects
  -Fixes potential visual inconsistencies for some objects
  
• Upgraded a few 3rd party libraries:
  -Curl v8.0.1
  -FreeType v2.13.0
  -libPNG v1.6.39
  -libVorbis v1.3.7
  -SteamAPI v1.56
  
• Updated vertex shaders for the GL 4.X renderer to prevent potential rendering issues
  
• Fixed debug frame data briefly showing zeros for most stats when first opening it
  
• Fixed some Mission Mode script playback not being stopped when entering the gameover screen
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.36.0.0” or higher. Enjoy!

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.35.0.0) This update adds a brand new game mode, Turbo Mission Mode! The goal of this mode is to add an alternative high difficulty way to play the main campaign that is very fast for advanced players. This increases the speed of the player ship, enemies, and enemy bullets by 35%, but keeps the ‘Pilot’ quantity of enemies, similar to the Turbo modes for Survival and Blitz. New highscore categories and leaderboards have been added for this new mode as well. Enjoy the new mode!

Here are the full release notes for v1.35.0.0:

• Added Turbo Mission Mode to the game
  -Increases the speed of enemies, enemy bullets, and player movement by 35%
  -Uses the same enemy formations and quantity as 'Pilot' difficulty
  -This new mode serves as an alternative way to raise the difficulty for advanced players
  
• Added new local highscore categories for the singleplayer and multiplayer variations of Turbo Mission Mode
  -Automatically migrates local highscore data from previous versions on startup
  
• Added world leaderboard support for Turbo Mission Mode
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.35.0.0” or higher. Enjoy!

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.34.2.0) This update focuses on rebalancing the Training difficulty of Survival and Blitz modes. This involves several aspects, including enemy spawn rates, bullet firing rates, difficulty scaling between waves, and messaging to the player. The difficulty of earlier waves have been reduced, but later waves maintain their difficulty and there are fewer starting lives to balance the overall experience. This was done to help ease new players into the game and learn its systems before the difficulty ramps up.

This update also includes localization fixes, a new command console, and a crash fix. Here are the full release notes for v1.34.2.0:

• Rebalanced the Training difficulty for Survival and Blitz modes
  -Greatly reduced the enemy spawn rate baseline for waves 1 and 2
  -The spawn rate significantly increases each wave until wave 7 and 8 nearly reaches the spawn rate of previous versions
  -Reduced bullet firing rate of Type A Enemies
  -Reduced starting lives from 5 to 4
  -Added a popup message when entering wave 7 to instruct the player to use charge weapons here
  --Charge weapons are stronger in Training mode, and can break through large groups of enemies
  
• All Type A enemies in Survival/Blitz modes now wait a short period of time before starting to fire bullets
  
• Added support for centered message text during gameplay
  -Ship/Mode/Difficulty unlock messages now use centered text
  -The new Training mode Wave 7 message uses centered text
  
• Addressed text that was not localized for Ship/Mode/Difficulty unlock messages
  
• Unlocking a new ship now immediately saves progress to disk
  
• Fixed a rare crash bug when closing the game
  -Was caused by a rare thread collision when shutting down Steam services
  
• Added a new command console interface
  -Press the tilde '~' button to access it
  -Displays a history of previously received messages
  -Press up or down to access previously entered commands
  -This makes it easier to text chat with other players in online multiplayer games
  
• Added input support for several special character when sending chat messages in online multiplayer
  -Includes the top number bar of special characters, and slashes, brackets, colons, quotes, etc.
  -Double quotes are disabled to prevent packet parsing issues in multiplayer
  
• Optimizations for the particle system
  -Improves framerate and update time consistency
  
• Changed menu item and description text for friends list and online lobbies multiplayer
  
• [hotfix] - Fixed duplicate incoming chat messages in the command console during online multiplayer
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.34.2.0” or higher. Enjoy!

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.34.1.1) This is a smaller update that includes optimizations, bug fixes, and refinements. The full release notes are listed below:

• Improved event timing when doing screen wipes
  -Ensures the screen is always fully obscured when loading is taking place
  
• Optimized the damage flashing effect for enemies, bosses, and the player ship
  -Previously used 2 passes to create this effect, now its all done with 1 pass
  -Generally provides a minor performance boost, but can improve performance by up to 5% for bosses for some systems
  -This optimization only works for the OpenGL 3.0 and 4.6 renderers
  --The OpenGL 1.5 renderer reverts to the old 2 pass approach, slightly reducing performance
  
• Fixed the player ship being occasionally being stuck in a glowing state during the ship selection screen
  -This would occur when leaving a previous game while the player ship is taking damage
  
• The debug frame stats display now uses commas for the draw calls and particle count displays
  -Also updated spacing for the particle count displays
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.34.1.1” or higher. Enjoy!

A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.34.1.0) This primarily adds a few new sound effects to the game, including a new flurry weapon firing sound, bullet hit sound, and new sounds for achieving each level of weapon charge. A few sounds have been shortened as well, including menu sounds and item pickups.

There are a few other changes included as well. Here are the full release notes for v1.34.1.0:

• Added new sounds to the game
  -Flurry weapon firing
  -Flurry bullet impact
  -Charge level 1 attained
  -Charge level 2 attained
  
• Shortened a few sounds
  -Menu open
  -Change menu option
  -Select menu option
  -Collect health pickup
  -Collect points pickup
  -Collect stat boost pickup
  
• Music now changes to the appropriate tracks when changing backgrounds after Wave 8 of Classic, Survival, and Blitz modes
  
• Updated the particle effect after attaining charge level 1 while charging for charge level 2
  
• Improved debug frame data
  -No longer displays immediate values for every frame
  -These values often changed too fast to be legible in great detail anyway
  -Collects data every frame, but only updates the values on screen 3 times per second
  -Added average value displays
  -Averages frame data from the last 60 frames
  -Added max and min value displays
  -Evaluates the last 60 frames of data to calculate these values
  

As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.34.1.0” or higher. Enjoy!