Blackshift News

[h2]Gameplay changes[/h2]

• Some people like lore in their games, so this update adds some. It's mostly optional and hidden. But if you're curious what's going on in this game, you can now find out.
  
• Added more goods to the shops.
  
• Added some extremely hard post-game stuff for the completionists.
  
• Improved input handling; you can press a key a little early (say, pressing “pick up item” a couple frames before you stop moving) and the game will do what you mean instead of ignoring the key press.
  

[h2]Changes to levels[/h2]

[h2]Options and UI[/h2]

• Added some options:
  • Added volume controls.
    
  • Added an option to reset your saved progress.
    
  • Added an option to show an on-screeen timer when playing Level Pit levels.
    
  • Removed the "backgrounds" option.
    
• The game now shows you control hints on the first couple of levels.
  
• Made the "Recent Deaths" list in the Pit more readable.
  
• Improved gamepad navigation in the UI.
  
• Made the pause screen clearer, especially the options page.
  
• Nicer display of gamepad buttons on the control setup page.

[h2]Graphics and audio[/h2]

• New and improved graphics for laser turrets, teleports, pits, grills, power generators, walls, the invincibility item and a couple of the enemies.
  
• A couple of new music tracks, and minor improvements to existing tracks.
  
• Added sound effects for the machine that turns grills on and off.
  
• Improved animation for colour doors and everything else that pops up and down.
  
• Improved the look of the lower resolution modes.
  
• Added Metal support on Mac (see “Mac-specific changes” below).
  
• Added antialiasing (MSAA) support to the DirectX (Windows) and Metal (Mac) renderers. If your graphics card supports this, you'll see an option for it on the Options screen.
  
• Added support for high resolution screens.
  • On Mac, this means you can play on a Retina display at full resolution.
    
  • On Windows, same deal except MS just calls these "high-DPI displays".

[h2]Bug fixes[/h2]

• Overworld
  • Fixed a bug that caused your craft to spaz out for a frame or two at the end of paths.
    
  • Fixed a bug that made the starfield appear to move when the camera performed certain manoeuvres.
    
• Editor
  • Fixed a bug where the preview of your selected object at the bottom left would get lighter or darker as you moved the camera around.
    
  • Fixed a bug where using the delete tool would not auto-save your level like the other tools.
    
  • Fixed a bug where if you made a level with no player, then when the game added the player for you, if you had placed a mirror in that spot, then even though it would delete the mirror to put the player there, it would still act as if there were a mirror there.
    
• Graphics and UI
  • Fixed a bug where colour doors would sometimes have pixely artifacts around the edges of the top circle part.
    
  • Fixed a bug where the screen dimming effect on the pause and get-ready screens wouldn't always reach all the way to the edges of the screen.
    
  • Fixed a bug where the green teleport effect would display incorrectly rotated when using the DirectX renderer.
    
  • Fixed a bug in the Level Pit where level previews would load in reverse order.

[h2]Windows-specific changes[/h2]

• Improved display of non-Latin characters in the Level Pit.
  
• Steam isn't supporting Windows 7 anymore, so I've bumped the minimum Windows version requirement to Windows 10. Blackshift itself doesn't care, so you can try your luck with older Windows if you want.
  

[h2]Mac-specific changes[/h2]

• Added Metal support.
  • Metal is Apple's new graphics API, which is replacing OpenGL on Macs.
    
  • This is now the default, but you can still select OpenGL if you want.
    
• I've bumped the minimum MacOS requirement to 10.14. This is the oldest MacOS I can test on, and Steam is soon going to require 10.15+ anyway.
  

• Changes to campaign
  
  
  
  • Minor changes to levels 1/6, 1/9, 3/8, 5/1, 5/6, 6/5, 7/4.
    
  • Major changes to levels 7/3, 9/3.
    
  • Moved a plasma ball from level 6/2 to 10/10.
    
  • Moved some silicon crystals between levels. This update may affect your crystal count if you had already collected some of these ones.
    
  • The overworld pause menu shows you the total number of silicon crystals you've collected, separately from the number of crystals you're holding right now.
    
  • Added some tooltips to the overworld pause menu.
    
• Level Pit & editor changes
  
  
  
  • Players' flags are now shown in more places throughout the Pit UI.
    
  • Added "Awards" page, which ranks top players by various criteria.
    
  • Added "Recent Deaths" to each level page. You can only see this if you've already beaten the level.
    
  • A tick icon is now shown on levels you've already done.
    
  • The first player to beat each level is now memorialized on its page.
    
  • Player names in the "Best Time" box are now links.
    
  • Added a "Delete" tool to the editor.
    
  • Fixed bug where, when using the "Back" buttons in the Level Pit, you'd sometimes end up on the wrong tab of somebody's user page.
    
  • Fixed bug which caused the "Number of plays" and "number of wins" stats on players' pages to be wrong.
    
• Bug fixes
  
  
  
  • Fixed bug where black rectangles would appear on some floor tiles on Windows.
    
  • Fixed bug that could crash the game if an object teleported to a space that another object was moving into.
    
  • Fixed bug that could crash the game if you deleted the last unpublished level on your user page.
    
  • Fixed bug that made it impossible to unbind gamepad controls.
    
• Miscellaneous
  
  
  
  • If you try to use a gamepad on the main menu without configuring it, a message now pops up directing you to Options.
    
  • The wall-follower enemy has a little bump on one side to show you which wall it follows, but it's always been on the wrong side. This is now fixed.
    

This update fixes a bug whereby exploding objects could cause the frame rate to drop considerably.