Earth Overclocked News

I am afraid to announce that, after the Linux port and the AI update, Earth Overclocked will not be receiving future major content patches. This means that the Trials expansion has been canceled.

I apologies for this bad news. There are two major reasons why this decision has been made, both listed below.

1. Both the software used to make the game and the engine itself are unreliable.
Since this was the first really big project that the team has made, a lot of mistakes were made during the development of the game, leading to unstable code that is now difficult to maintain support for regarding future content patches. There is also the fact that we are rather unhappy with the software we used to create the game, GameMaker: Studio. GameMaker: Studio is fantastic for creating small, simple games in a very small amount of time. After 3 grueling years of working on Earth Overclocked, however, we learned the hard way that this software isn't well-structured for large projects. I understand that large successful games have been made with this software such as Undertale and Hotline Miami, and good for the developers that pulled that off, but the programmers in the Chronicle Bench team have not really enjoyed using the software ourselves to make a big game.
There is also the problem that as GameMaker: Studio receives more and more updates, it becomes more and more unstable. It has way more bugs than it did a few years ago and my team is basically fed up with poor treatment of the software.
In fact I just loaded up GameMaker: Studio today after a long time of not using it, ready to finish off the AI update and release it after this weekend, and was greeted with this error constantly spamming my screen:



2. We are putting full attention into an entirely new, completely different game.
Right after the full launch of Earth Overclocked, my team has started development for a simple turn-based RPG called Coded Universe. You can read our devlog here: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=54417.0
We are excited to be making this game, since it is my true dream game that tells a very personal story of mine which I created when I was younger. It is dedicated to my coding partner and best friend Aaron Griffin, whom I met through the roleplay that created this story and is currently helping me make Coded Universe a reality. My team wants to put full-focus into this game, and in order to do this we need to move on from Earth Overclocked, which we already completed anyways.

The AI update will still be coming and I will still try to get a Linux port out as well as fix any future bug reports, but major content patches are no longer going to be occurring.

As stated in an earlier news post, before we work on the free Trials Expansion for Earth Overclocked, we want to improve the game. Chronicle Bench has decided to make a pre-expansion update that will focus on enhancing enemy AI. The goal is to ensure that every enemy and boss in the game feel very different from each other. We feel that this improvement will be the most beneficial one for the upcoming expansion.

So be prepared for this update! You may have to change your game plan a bit with the new enemy AI patterns. Some will be smarter, some will be more passive, and some will be completely different altogether.

Here is a demo showcasing the new Plant Wizard AI in Earth Overclocked's secret testing chamber. They now ignore the player completely and mind their own business, but are a bit more aggressive with their minion summoning. Try to avoid getting surrounded!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzNiD-TB80E

As stated in an earlier news post, before we work on the free Trials Expansion for Earth Overclocked, we want to improve the game. Chronicle Bench has decided to make a pre-expansion update that will focus on enhancing enemy AI. The goal is to ensure that every enemy and boss in the game feel very different from each other. We feel that this improvement will be the most beneficial one for the upcoming expansion.

So be prepared for this update! You may have to change your game plan a bit with the new enemy AI patterns. Some will be smarter, some will be more passive, and some will be completely different altogether.

Here is a demo showcasing the new Plant Wizard AI in Earth Overclocked's secret testing chamber. They now ignore the player completely and mind their own business, but are a bit more aggressive with their minion summoning. Try to avoid getting surrounded!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzNiD-TB80E

EDIT: We just released a version of the game that was compiled under an older version of Steam SDK in order to fix the "game not starting" issue on the latest version of the Steam client. The game will run on the latest version of Steam now. There is a small bug involving the game crashing when you try to exit normally, and we'll look into it later. All we know is that this bug is Steam related, and it's pretty harmless.

---------------------

Apparently a Steam update was released that completely keeps our game from operating with Steam, thus keeping the game from working.

We believe it is a Steam-sided issue and will clear this out ASAP.

UPDATE: There is a workaround for Windows users. In the steamapps folder for the game, delete the steam_api.dll. This does mean that achievements won't be obtainable for now.

UPDATE 2: We are recompiling the game under an older Steam SDK to see if this works.

UPDATE 3: It works, but there appears to be a bug. The game crashes when you attempt to exit the normal way. We're trying to address this now, then make it publicly available.

EDIT: We just released a version of the game that was compiled under an older version of Steam SDK in order to fix the "game not starting" issue on the latest version of the Steam client. The game will run on the latest version of Steam now. There is a small bug involving the game crashing when you try to exit normally, and we'll look into it later. All we know is that this bug is Steam related, and it's pretty harmless.

---------------------

Apparently a Steam update was released that completely keeps our game from operating with Steam, thus keeping the game from working.

We believe it is a Steam-sided issue and will clear this out ASAP.

UPDATE: There is a workaround for Windows users. In the steamapps folder for the game, delete the steam_api.dll. This does mean that achievements won't be obtainable for now.

UPDATE 2: We are recompiling the game under an older Steam SDK to see if this works.

UPDATE 3: It works, but there appears to be a bug. The game crashes when you attempt to exit the normal way. We're trying to address this now, then make it publicly available.