Star Explorers News

The testing version of Star Explorers has been updated. It is probably the smallest update ever. Only one thing has changed.

As you should already know, when you are exploring, you can use the scanner tool to drop map icons. These can be used for whatever you want, to not locations of treasure chests, determine where you took a turn, etc...

Well, prior to this update, there was a limit of 25 such icons you could drop. Now you may drop up to 500.

If you do try this out, let me know if you experience any trouble...

I have updated Star Explorers to version 4.2. Existing players will once again, not experience any changes. However, for new players, the game will default to the "Old-School Pixel Graphics" shader.



Why the Change?
You may also notice that the store page and trailer have been updated to represent this pixel shader look. There are two main reasons I have done this.

• I like it. Ever since I added the shader to the game, I have liked the look of it. It gives me a nostalgic feeling of the good old days of gaming. Even though 3D graphics were not really done this way back in the day, it still has this effect on me, and I'm hoping other players will respond similarly.
  
• Setting expectations. I may have done this myself a few times, but Star Explorers seems to get compared to No Man's Sky quite a bit. This is unfortunate, as that game is an amazing technological achievement that took thousands of man hours over a period of three years and a team of up to 13 full-time developers. The game costs $50 and I think it is an unbelievably cool game. Since Star Explorers has a similar premise, it seems natural to compare the games. However, Star Explorers is much smaller in scope, and was made by a single developer (me) working in his spare time. I am hoping that giving the game a more retro look will set player expectations accordingly. I really do not want to misrepresent what this game offers.
  

How Can I Stop This?
If you prefer the original look of the game, you can easily un-click the "Old-School Pixel Shader" in the Video Options menu. Again, old players should not have any change, as the game should load your existing settings.

Star Explorers was not starting up for an unfortunate player. However, he had the good sense to let me know about it. By getting a little bit of feedback and having him run an updated version of the game under the testing branch, we were able to zero in on the cause.

4.1A includes this slightly modified script that should mitigate the issue for any future players who may have encountered the problem.




For anyone interested, the problem was caused by a script that looks at the available monitor resolutions on the host computer. For reasons I cannot remember, the script only allowed up to 29 different resolutions. This caused the script to get stuck in a loop when it was run on a computer with a higher number of possible resolutions. I have increased the number of possible resolutions to 300, so hopefully it will not happen again.

I will be having a closer look at that script though, since it should not have behaved that way to begin with. It would be best if it did not have any limit to the number of resolution ratios, to keep it future compatible.




If you are someone who purchased the game, and were not able to start it, please consider trying it again now. I know a lot of people who encounter a crash like this, and I don't really blame them, will simply leave a negative review and get a refund.

But, I am grateful to all of you folks who brought the problems in this game to my attention. In this case, it was actually pretty easy to fix. Sometimes these things can be tougher and take more time and patience. In any case, this game would never have become what it is today without the help of players who give feedback. So I thank you all!

I just updated the game to address a problem pointed out by a player. It seems, if you entered a cave, then died before leaving the cave, items like crystals and minerals that appeared in the cave on your first visit would no longer be there if you reloaded the game and went back. Furthermore, any crystals or items you picked up would also have disappeared from your inventory.

This is a big problem, but it is something I actually addressed in a previous update ... or so I thought. In fact, I did create the functionality for items to be saved properly, but I only implemented it for treasure chests. I had somehow forgotten to add the code to the crystal and mineral objects.

4.1 addresses this issue, and from now on any caves you discover and die in, should reload with the same items in place.

It will not, unfortunately, fix caves where this problem has already occurred in an existing game.

https://www.twitch.tv/gamervictorious

Watch him live, trying to navigate the game's complex UI. I am trying to offer some help through the chat.