Space Bob vs. The Replicons 
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Minor Audio Hotfix - 12 Aug 2022Aug 12, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsA bug introduced in Major Update 14 disabled sound effects from some environmental objects and also disabled Replicon 'chatter' sound effects. This little hotfix resolves that issue. This also brings the main branch version in line with the newly released demo.Main Update 15 - Now LiveJun 22, 2022 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31791001/27d7a153c3870b832ff3104cacc4acf59129e194.png Introduction: If you haven't played in years, it's time to take another look. If you're thinking about picking up the game, you couldn't have picked a better time. Take a look at the brand new 'Funky Gameplay' trailer and then read on to see how it shaped the very fabric of this update. Main Update 15 - Weapons & War Overview: Double the Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew and more Replicons to Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew!! More bullets, more explosions, more enemies, more variety, more carnage. Everything has been tweaked to make combat faster, more fun, and more exciting and, by making the player more powerful, it's allowed for far more diversity and unpredictability in Replicon combat behavior without increasing the overall difficulty. There's also a brand new predictive camera system blended into the existing framework and a host of other quality of life improvements suggested by the players. Thanks everyone who offered such great feedback after the most recent updates. You were an inspiration. Weapon Overhaul The fire rate of all the weapons have been doubled! Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew. The fire rate of the lander's gun has been doubled. The damage of all weapons have been reduced by approximately 40-60% to compensate. The time that Replicons are shocked has been reduced to compensate. The energy cost of firing each weapon has been halved to compensate. The recoil push back for each weapon, on the player, has been tweaked on a per weapon basis. Self damage from the rocket pistol has been reduced to trivial levels. The rocket pistol's knock back has been doubled. This thing is a beast now. All the weapon visual effects have been juiced up. Combat Overhaul Replicon spiders now scuttle around much faster like real spiders. The maximum number of Replicons on any given planet, at any given time, has been increased by 40%. The spawn rate in order to reach that maximum number has also been increased by approximately 40%. The shield values for each Replicon have been altered to suit the new weapon damage values. The Replicon Invasion speed (how quickly they spread across the system) now ranges from 75% - 200% normal speed based on the game's difficulty. (This only affects Invasion Mode. This was previously 50% on the easiest difficulty and 100% on all other difficulties.) Replicon combat AI, behavior, and movement characteristics have been significantly updated. Replicon spiders can now move at a variety of different speeds - often faster than Bob. Replicon rasks can now move at a variety of different speeds - rarely but sometimes faster than Bob. Replicon wasps can now move at a variety of different speeds - occasionally faster than Bob Replicons shock duration is now varied creating more combat unpredictability. Replicons now react in various ways after being shot. They might start dodging, become even more aggressive, turn away, or simply carry on as before. Replicon rask jump trajectories ar...Patch 1.443 Update Notes - Now Live.May 24, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsIntroduction Hot on the heels of Main Update 14 last week (announcement here) came a flurry of little patches to quickly address some smaller issues and now we have a much bigger one. Combined they offer new features, new crafting, and even more QOL improvements in preparation for the upcoming demo release. Other than a few minor bug fixes all the changes since Main Update 14 can be seen below. Don't forget you can come join us on Discord now for all things Space Bob and to keep up to date on the development of the new game. I'll even be offering the community the chance to create some of the new game's content sooner than you may expect. Patch 1.443 - New Features & QOL improvements. • Default max grapple length reduced from 40 to 30. • New Craftable Upgrades Added. Grapple Length Extender (doubles max grapple length to 60) Grapple Length Maximizer (triples max grapple length to 90) This allows grapples to reach the planet from orbit and opens up new gameplay options and strategies. • The grapple physics system has been reworked and tightened up to resolve some edge case issues and ensure consistency throughout all actions. Fixed unintended grapple pull speed reductions witnessed with very long grapples. Grapple pull speed is now consistent at all lengths. This makes upgrading grapple pull speed far more noticeable. Fixed a bug that could cause long grapples to extend when viewed at large distances under heavy load. • QOL - The grapple gun and the grapple rope selection systems have been redesigned, rewritten, unified and improved. This is a big qualitiy of life improvement that makes selecting grapples easier, faster and more intuitive. The grapple attached to the players grapple gun now highlights whenever it is the active grapple line for consistency. Cycling through grapple connections now includes the grapple line attached to the player's grapple gun. The active grapple now highlights green when idle or expanding, and yellow when shrinking. Using either grapple cycle hotkey will now automatically highlight and activate the last previously highlighted grapple. • Bob's jetpack thruster audio now cuts out correctly when he has no jetpack fuel • Bob's jump height has been increased. This is most noticeable when his jetpack is out of fuel. Increased from 25 to 40. • Further refined and tweaked the new system that automatically slows Bob near points of interest in the refinery ship (added in patch 1.434 below) • Fixed issue where some text elements could randomly disappear on the System Map panel at specific windowed resolutions. • Dave's first message, after starting Act 2 for the very first time, has been rewritten to give the player a better sense of what is happening and what they need to focus on next. • When extending a grapple line, the grapple ghost no longer disappears when reaching maximum length. • Fixed a bug introduced in Main Update 14 that caused Steve's messages to slide off the screen on a timer like Dave's messages. This was uni...Main Update 14 - Now Live.May 16, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsA PERSONAL UPDATE I'm back! I've been gone for such a long time that it makes sense to start out with a little personal update to let you all know where I've been, what's been happening, and why Space Bob is suddenly getting an update after more than three years. If you don't care about the personal stuff, I'll fully understand if you prefer to skip to the What's New section below, but for those that care, here goes. Even the most hardcore Space Bob fans will probably be unaware that a week after Space Bob's 1.0 release I unfortunately suffered a heart attack. I only previously shared that info publicly with Dr_Doof on his twitch stream. Solo game development can be notoriously stressful, especially around release, and after eight years of flat out dev work my health, both physically and mentally was in the dumpster. I was emotionally exhausted and by the time Space Bob was ready for release I didn't have the strength left to give the game the marketing energy it deserved. I’d put everything I had into development and made the classic mistake of hoping the quality of the game would sell itself. The result was that things didn't go to plan, and it quickly became apparent that the game wasn't going to magically find it's audience. If gamers didn't know the game existed then it wasn't going to sell in enough volume no matter how good it was. Ultimately, that series of events meant that I had no choice but to step away from game development to focus on my health and find a way to pay the bills. I'll be honest and say that after completing the promised six months of post-release content, I simply couldn't face even thinking about game development any more. I was financially broke and burned out. I took a regular job and started taking proper care of myself. The end result is that I learned some valuable life lessons and I'm now in a much better place both mentally and physically and genuinely enthusiastic about game development again. SO WHY A NEW UPDATE NOW? For quite some time, I've been wanting to release a demo for Space Bob. I wanted to give it one last chance to find it’s audience, and it’s too late for a regular marketing push. It would be incredibly difficult to get anyone interested in covering a three year old game, but a demo might encourage more players to give it a whirl and who knows, maybe someone like Giantwaffle might find it, play it, love it, and start a new ball rolling. I can but dream. Before any of that though I felt like it was essential to make a few tweaks and changes. A free demo will mean that a lot of new players will likely download and play it on a whim without reading anything about the game and they’ll have no idea how challenging it is/was. Space Bob has a deceptively cutesy looking exterior that confuses too many players into thinking it's going to be an easy casual experience. Many aren't even aware it has permadeath before buying it. If I didn’t make some effort to solve those issues then releasing a demo could do ...Beta Build 1.43 Now Available:May 10, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsBuilds 1.41, and 1.42 were minor hotfixes, released last week, that only contained minor tweaks and bug fixes. Build 1.43 deserves it's own announcement as it brings much bigger changes that may go unnoticed otherwise. Speedrun Changes: Main update 14 introduced two new speedruns that in hindsight had too many restrictions. These restrictions have now been removed. The 'Full Game' speedrun can now be completed on any difficulty. You can save your game, go through the jump gate and die as many times as you like and it will still register to the leaderboards once you finally beat the game. The timer starts at the beginning of Act 1 and keeps ticking until you defeat the mothership. Due to this change, the Jump Gate speedrun should now be done from the start of Act 1 because if you try to do it in a later act it will include the time spent playing through the previous acts. See below for how to reset the timer. IMPORTANT: If you were in the middle of a game, prior to build 1.43, it will not register to the Full Game speedrun leaderboards in build 1.43 UNLESS you had never died or used the Jump Gate while playing on the previous build. If in doubt use the new Reset button to start a new game, or ask for more info. The new Reset button: This can be found in the Invasion Mode section on the game select screen. Holding the button for four seconds will reset Invasion Mode back to Act 1, reset your speedrun timer and wipe Dave's memory. If you have played a lot of Space Bob, and Dave isn't saying much anymore, this button will make him forget he ever met Bob and he'll be full of small talk and advice once again. Please be aware that wiping Dave's memory affects Survival Mode too, so you may find Dave repeating tips and advice he's already told you in that game mode too. It doesn't reset anything else in survival mode though. This button replaces the old semi-secret "hold 'F7' at the main menu" developer tool that also reset the game. Rask damage has been more than halved: Rasks are the jumpy, rolling purple Replicons that everyone hates. Well they became sad at being so hated and decided to be a bit more friendly. Their previous damage of 2.7 has been reduced to 1.3 after some dedicated playtesting. Yes, they did too much damage. They were always meant to be deadly, but their damage comes from a time when the whole game was far more dangerous. Damage throughout the rest of the game was slowly reduced but the Rasks remained a little too lethal especially if they managed to attach themselves to Bob. It's now possible to shoot them off and survive as long as you're quick and you're are wearing at least some form of armor. If you get a chance to test this change let me know what you think. I want them to remain feared and dangerous, but I don't want them to cause quite so much frustration as before. This build is a release candidate: No more changes are planned for Main Update 14 and so if you find any last minute issues let me know. If all goes well the plan...Main Update 14 Beta - Now LiveMay 4, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsWhooah. New build? Cool. Wasn't expecting that. Let's Go! The public test for Main Update 14 is now live in the public test branch. Full patch notes are available in game and will be released publicly here on Steam when this build goes officially live for everyone (probably next week). The major new features of this build are based around speedrunning. There are new speedrunning leaderboards and a speedrunning split time overlay. There's lots of other tweaks and improvements too. For more information, download the beta and check the 'What's New' tab on the main menu. Have fun, let me know if you find any issues and if anyone needs help accessing the public test branch let me know. Note: Everyone can try out this public test prior to it's full release next week. Simply swap over to the publictestbranch in the game's beta options and use the password 'iunderstandthisisatest'. Oh, and twitch/Dr_Doof will likely be doing some speedruns and testing of this new build over the coming days so pop by and say hi. If he's playing Space Bob, the chances are I'll be hanging out with him too.Main Update 13 - Now LiveMar 1, 2019 - Community Announcementshttps://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/31791001/17535227389b543d512f2756b5068a33b2d21eb2.jpg Survival mode is here, Bob! Main Update 13 is a complete game changer. For everyone who likes their games to last for tens of hours, survival mode is here to save the day. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/780390/32988f5a810614ef56282ca185883f0b3345b45f.jpg Survival Mode Highlights: Unlike the short-term rogue-lite mechanics of the original Invasion mode, where time would continually reset when traveling through the jump-gate, in survival mode the jump-gate is gone. Well, to be more precise, the Replicons have shrouded it's jump beacon meaning Bob can no longer see it. If he's going to have any chance of finding his way home, he's first going to need to spend hours collecting the materials required for a massive sensor upgrade. This makes Survival mode a single huge continuous game mode that will take tens of hours to complete. You can play it as an open ended traditional sandbox survival game or work towards the long-term goal of escaping. Return of the Life Saving Teleporter: Survival mode completely replaces the old Exploration mode and only the emergency teleporter survives this huge change. This is great news for those who aren't the biggest fans of the permadeath mechanic because as long as Bob has enough energy to power his emergency teleporter (and that's easy to do at the lower difficulty levels) then he'll be teleported to safety a moment before he dies. He can even collect enough energy to stockpile multiple 'lives'. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/780390/c60843974f753df427352d77c8067a5834448e42.jpg Crafting Remix: Another big change - in Survival mode - is a dramatic increase in the number of materials required to craft the various upgrades. This suits the slower pacing perfectly and you will also find that the difficulty slider has a much bigger impact on gameplay than you are used to. Dynamic Difficulty: On the lower difficulty levels you can kick back and relax with Replicons that not only do less damage but also invade far more slowly. However if you enjoy a more serious survival challenge then at the higher difficulty levels the cost of the teleporter becomes so prohibitive, and crystals and other resources become so scarce, that you'll need to rethink everything in order to survive. With six difficulty levels available you should be able to find one that perfectly suits your mood or ambition. Respawning Resources: Survival mode brings another new feature in the form or respawning crystals and illmenite. This takes many hours but it means Bob could technically survive forever. Realtime Leaderboards: There's also new leaderboards for survival mode but unlike invasion mode your score updates every few seconds so even if you die your score will still count. Craftable Lander, Grapple Cycling, and much more.... It doesn't end there though as the base ...Main Update 12 Now Live!Jan 11, 2019 - Community Announcementshttps://i.imgur.com/klyc1d1.jpg It's been a busy month, with many long days, but here it is! Main Update 12 is live. https://i.imgur.com/gSrAjtL.jpg Overview Main Update 12 brings some big changes including a new atmospherics system which improves the look and mood of almost every planet. See below for more details. Eleven completely new planets were also added which is a huge milestone as it means that every planet is now unique! There's no longer any need to reuse the same planet design more than once in a single game. This in turn allows for every planet to finally have it's own name and basic description. https://i.imgur.com/YqPzymQ.jpg Twin Stick Controls - Behind the back aiming Then we have a much requested feature that allows Bob to shoot behind his back. This works automatically when using mouse and keyboard but requires a new twin-stick control scheme for gamepad users. WARNING: There are numerous reasons why twin-stick controls were not chosen as the default control scheme for Space Bob. Although it allows for independent movement and aiming it is significantly more difficult to learn. It also means that the hatch and zoom controls needed to be moved to the d-pad which makes it very difficult to simultaneously perform these actions while moving. For that reason the original single stick control scheme remains unchanged and is still the default recommended control scheme. But, for those that want to experiment with dual analog controls they can now be enabled easily in the 'Controls' panel. Tip (How it's meant to be played): To aim and move in different directions while using single-stick controls, use the 'Disable Movement Hotkey' while aiming and shooting in the air. Updated Skid Physics Another new feature is a small but often requested improvement to how Bob slides around. A new extension to the physics system has been added that only triggers when Bob begins to slide. The amount of slide can now be altered to allow for precise tweaking on a surface by surface level. To that end, every surface in the game has been updated to work with this new system. More info below. https://i.imgur.com/1pgWKTF.jpg Build 1.2 Changelog New Features All planets have been visually updated: A new visual effects system has been added. This allows for a variety of new atmospheric effects to be implemented. Planets can now appear bright and sunny or dreary and overcast. Some have effects like fog, mist or sand storms, while others have caves that get darker the deeper Bob descends into them. Most planets have been updated to take advantage of at least one of these new visual effect layers. The various effects for planetary collisions, including footsteps, have been reworked and improved. Various tweaks and improvements have been made to rain, snow and hail on a per planet basis. Grass generation has been updated to allow grass to generate only on specific parts of a planets surface. Fixed two nebula textures that were half of their intended resolution. Fr...Development News - Main Update 12Jan 3, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsFirst up, I hope you all had a fantastic holiday season and happy new year! https://i.imgur.com/JddS1bY.jpg Before I share some dev news can I say a big thanks and welcome to everyone who picked up the game during the Steam Winter sale. https://i.imgur.com/PYLI44W.jpg (Open images in a new tab to see full size versions) Here's the news: 100% Unique Planets coming in MU12 The primary focus for Main Update 12 was to add the final planets necessary to make it possible to generate systems where every single planet is unique. It's technically possible for a system to generate with 54 planets so to be certain that every planet could be unique we needed 54 base planet designs in total. Main Update 11 added a few more but we were still only up to 43. Main Update 12 will fix that. 11 new planets are already finished bringing us up to the magic number 54. This change also means that planets can now all have unique names instead of 'Planet 2' or 'Planet 34' etc. Believe it or not, this feature to name planets has been coded into the game for nearly 3 years but until this point didn't make sense to use. There's still a couple of days work ahead to implement the new system generation code and to individually name all the planets but this will definitely be included in MU 12. If there's time, the plan is to update the planetary notes for each planet too so that they don't start blank but instead have some very basic info. This might seem like a small job but with 54 planets it's going to take some time so it might need to wait until MU13. We'll see. https://i.imgur.com/gzfQiwe.jpg New Atmospheric Effects While creating the new planets I experimented with an idea suggested here in the forums to make a 'dark' planet (see example pic above). You probably already realize that Space Bob's art style doesn't use lights so it's not as simple as turning off a light to make things dark. Instead I experimented with overlaying dark transparencies to create the illusion of darkness. This worked surprisingly well to alter the mood and atmosphere especially on the asteroid planets. My experiments with this lead to trying out similar effects to create a type of hazy dust over the surface of a planet and then to the opposite effect of brightening up a planet so it looked like it was in bright sunlight. All of the new planets already include some form of the above experiments with atmospheric effects and they really do add another lovely layer of atmosphere (no pun intended) and visual variety to the game. This system is planned to be extended across many, if not all, of the older planets too over the coming days so that the whole game has a fresh new look for MU12. The screen shots included in this post will give you an idea of some of my experiments so far. https://i.imgur.com/SEF4Fqv.jpg Twin Stick Control System This has been requested many times and it's now a reality. MU12 will allow rebinding of the aim controls on gamepads allowing for a twin-stick control scheme where ...Build 1.101 Hotfix NotesDec 13, 2018 - Community AnnouncementsBuild 1.101 Changelog: • Bug Fix: Player written notes for the new planets, added in Main Update 11, no longer overwrite notes for other planets or each other. Independent notes can now be written for each of these new planets. Ooops. Unfortunately Main Update 11 went live without giving the new mushroom biome planets their own unique note ids. This meant that if you tried to change the planet notes for one of these new planets they would overwrite the notes for another planet. Some of the mushroom planets even shared the same incorrect id causing them to overwrite notes for each other. This update solves this issue but please be aware that you will need to write new notes for all affected planets. Development Update: Main Update 12 is already well under way and should be released around the middle of January if everything goes to plan. It's going to be a surprisingly big one. :DMain Update 11 is Live!Nov 30, 2018 - Community Announcementshttps://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/780390/011dee28091561a34373a297b4a20a6f2e5b116d.jpg It's here! The first significant content update since the 1.0 launch. Rather than spoil all the surprises, with overly detailed patch notes about the new content, here's a quick summary: New Equipment to discover and upgrade. New Highly Hostile Biome New Hazardous Liquid - Acidic Goop New Planetary Hazard Types New Stalagmite Type New Highly Toxic rain variant New Flora 5 New Planets New Secret Areas New Mysteries to solve New Dave Dialog 12 New Challenges/Achievements (Achievements have been renamed to Challenges) https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/780390/08cac9505e376bd021a33081ebf3a7cfc561f2dd.jpg Fog of War state is now saved and recreated upon reloading. Methane liquid damage increased by 50% Stalagmite drip damage tweaked to create more variance between biome types. Fixed grass generation when loading from a save which could cause grass to incorrectly generate over some objects. Increased the bonus score value for the radioactive Archic salvage items. Permanent upgrade statistics are no longer reset after defeating the mothership and completing the game. They are now truly permanent and never reset. Increased the maximum values that various combinations of permanent and temporary upgrade bonus' can reach. Tripled the bonus score when finding a bonus upgrade machine with a stat that is already maxed out. Archic balls no longer need to be filled with the Archic refueller before being placed into the mega Archic refueller however their resulting value is based on the quantity of resources they contained before conversion. Grapple connections attached to the lander no longer automatically detach when entering/leaving the refinery ship unless the lander has a downward trajectory allowing the player to attach objects to a docked lander and fly out of the refinery ship without the grapples automatically detaching. Areas and caves that disable Bob's jetpack also now disable his lander thrusters. A new HUD icon has been added to indicate when Bob's jetpack or lander thrusters have been artificially disabled. The lander hatch now detects if something is blocking it's ability to close and will stop with a warning sound. Added a larger smoke effect to toxic stalagmite drips as they hit the ground. Additional spawn points added for Archic balls Additional planets are now considered essential and will exist in every game. This ensures that all three of the Archic refuellers are guaranteed to spawn in every game and that the new familiars can always be found and fully upgraded in every game. Many of Dave's dialog messages are now preceeded by various sound effects to draw attention to important messages or warnings. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/780390/fbb831932233a364124a23cd51acbfeb361e72c8.jpg Fixed a bug that prevented the 'Required Materials' panel and 'Upgrade Now' bu...Build 1.02 Now Live - New FeaturesOct 26, 2018 - Community Announcementshttps://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/780390/50a5d97b74a8145350bb02f5b63710a788126835.jpg There's some good news and bad news. The bad news is we found a bug that needed a hotfix. The good news is that along with the hotfix this build contains two highly requested new UI features: a new waypoint system that allows the placement of destination markers while using scan mode, and a new UI that lists all recently salvaged materials. We weren't planning to release these features for another few weeks; they are technically the first part of the upcoming Main Update 11, but seeing as they were ready, and we were releasing an update, we thought why not let you get an early look at them. If you have any suggestions on how to improve these features or run into any issues, leave a comment below. As always, have fun and take care of Bob. Build 1.02 Changelog Oct 26th HUD indicators have been implemented pointing towards the Refinery Ship, Bob's Lander, and Bob himself whenever they are off screen. Three user defined HUD waypoint indicators have been implemented that can be manually placed while in scan mode to mark potential destinations. A recently salvaged materials UI has been added. This appears automatically whenever an item is salvaged. Each new item salvaged has it's materials added to the list and refreshes a 3 minute timer. It will fade off screen after 25 seconds but can be reactivated by toggling in and out of the menus. After the 3 minute timer expires, the list is reset to zero and will not appear again until a new item is salvaged. If it's possible for Bob to craft a new upgrade this UI will now also display the message 'New Upgrade Available' The labelling for various hotkeys on the Controls panel has been tweaked to include the new waypoint setting hotkeys. The swap weapon hotkeys are no longer active while in Scan mode. Fixed a bug that caused the anomaly icons on the system map to be too large when loading from a saved game. (Retro-active fix) Fixed a bug that could cause the anomaly icons to be invisible on the system map under certain circumstances when loading from a saved game. (Retro-active fix) Build 1.021 Changelog Something was left activated that should have been deactivated so it was deactivated. It was nothing exciting, it simply caused the new target indicators to be visible at the main menu and during the tutorial. This would have confused new players so it needed a quick fix. Build 1.022 Changelog (Oct 30th) Fixed a bug that caused keys to sometimes no longer register in locks. This resolves an issue where power cubes would sometimes not automatically fit into the mega power cube. Fixed an issue where keys stored in the refinery ship could sometimes take up to 30 seconds to work in locks after arriving at a new planet. The hotkey to remotely control the lander now has a 1 second delay between activations. This prevents unwanted, and sometimes glitchy, behavior that can occur when spamming this key e...Main Update 10 - Now LiveOct 5, 2018 - Community AnnouncementsThis update is a combination of a number of hotfixes that addressed a few bugs and added a handful of tweaks that have or requested by players since the 1.0 release last week. Although it contains no major new content this announcement helps to keep everyone informed about the recent hotfixes and also offers the opportunity to let you all know how the launch went and how it has forced overall development plans to change for the foreseeable future. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. I want to be as transparent as possible so you know exactly what is going on. The various changes released since launch can be found below: Builds 1.014 & 1.015 & 1.016 (15th, 19th & 22nd Oct 2018) Edit: Since the initial release of Main Update 10, two further builds have been released. The changelogs for both updates can be found HERE) Main Update 10: Full Changelog Build 1.013 Changelog: Overview: Game physics engines are usually great but they are only approximations of real physics and sometimes glitch out and do crazy things. Space Bob uses Unity's Physx engine created by Nvidia. Even a power house like Nvidia can't create a physics engine that is 100% accurate and glitch free. Due to this, under extremely rare situations, things can go wrong and Bob can find himself stuck in a wall or falling out of his lander. Thankfully, these situations are so rare that most players will never experience them but they can happen. Build 1.013 includes new tests that either automatically fix these situations or allow the player to resolve them when they happen. Reduced the friction in the main ship to allow Bob to walk up slopes properly again. The game now continually tests if Bob has become trapped inside another object. When this happens a message will be shown to the player allowing the option to reset Bob's position back to the refinery ship. Resetting Bob's position is not currently automated to ensure that it doesn't happen at the wrong times. When Bob is considered to be potentially trapped he will no longer take damage. This prevents death in these situations. Under some extremely rare circumstances Bob could fall out of his lander. The game now detects when this happens and automatically puts him back inside. The player will be unlikely to notice that this even happened. Build 1.012 Changelog Fixed a bug in the tutorial that would allow Bob to grab the grapple gun before he was meant to. This would allow skipping an important part of the tutorial. Increased the friction on all surface in the main refinery ship. Bob will no longer slide around so much in there. This also makes stepping on to his repair platform much easier. Increased the friction on the conveyor belt and also added a little bounce to it. Added missing friction to the tutorial planet surface to match recent changes to friction on rocky planet surfaces. Added missing friction to the tutorial planet metal surfaces. Build 1.011 Changelog Fixed a bug that made the Mega Power Cube, found ...Space Bob leaves Early AccessSep 28, 2018 - Community AnnouncementsIt's time! It's been 6 months since Space Bob entered early access, 18 months since the free open alpha became available for download, and 2.5 years since development first began, but Space Bob has now gone gold and left early access today. It's been a fantastic journey and I've met so many great people along the way who helped to shape the game at every stage of development. I can't thank each and every one of you enough for showing support and making Space Bob what it is today. I hope I did you all proud but our journey is far from over. Like Bob reaching the jump-gate, it's is only the beginning. I have some wonderful ideas brewing for post release content and you can expect updates and new features to continue to appear as often as they did during Early Access. There are still so many cool things to explore in the world of Bob and I could happily work on expanding it for years to come if there's enough support. Whatever happens in the future, I'm extremely proud of how Space Bob turned out and now it's time to have some fun and make it even better. Thanks again and here's hoping for a successful launch. Edit 3: Good news. Steam solved it's issues with the New Releases listings within 24 hours and we hit New and Trending on the front page for many people today. :) I'd also like to thank everyone who rallied behind the game over the past 24 hours. It made a huge difference and once again I can't thank you all enough. Edit 4: Build 1.01 Patch Notes can be found HERE. ______________________ Edit/Update 1: (Original edit) Oh dear. Steam has changed so much since the release of my last game in 2015. New games no longer get a spot at the top of the new releases list on the front page, so Steam is generating very little traffic to us here. This is very concerning for me right now. Views are only about 5% of what I was expecting based on previous experience. If you can help to spread the word about Space Bob's release today it would be very helpful otherwise the game is going to disappear before anyone even knows it exists. Somehow we need to get it trending to grab that front page spot. Edit 2: Things are starting to make sense. It turns out there are some problems with Steams New Release buttons on the front page. None of them take you to an actual list of New Releases. At best it will show a list of popular new releases only, and when it attempts to show actual New Releases it shows a list of games that are not even released. Some even have release dates of 2015 and are still not released. The only place I could find Space Bob in a new releases list was in a place that is not even flagged as being a place to see new releases - by clicking directly on the Games tab near the top of the front page. In there we are in the list of New and Trending but we don't appear in the New and Trending list on the front page itself. Go figure! I've contacted Steam about this with lots of examples of what's wrong. Hopefully they can solve the issue but it might be t...Main Update 9 - Now LiveSep 11, 2018 - Community AnnouncementsSpace Bob's journey through early access has been incredibly useful in helping to smooth off the rough edges and the full 1.0 release is now just around the corner. This update includes the final balance tweaks and changes before that happens along with a couple of cool new features: hazardous weather and procedural grass. https://i.imgur.com/8UHa6mS.gif Don't expect to find hazardous weather on every planet, or even most planets, as this would soon become more annoying than fun. Instead you'll run into the non-hazardous hail and rain far more often than the new hazardous heavy hail and acid rain. You'll be able to spot the differences easily though. Heavy hail is much bigger and acid rain is not only green but also fizzes into puffs of smoke as it hits the ground (see the GIF above). Needless to say, don't spend too much time in those conditions and get Bob underground quickly. There was also a significant update to the score multiplier system in this update. The starting multiplier has been increased to encourage playing at higher difficulties by offering much higher scores for doing so. If you are looking to climb the leader-boards you'd be wise to increase the difficulty especially if you are an experienced player. Build 0.99 Changelog Hazardous weather added - Acid rain and heavy hail. Procedural grass added to appropriate planets - (Every blade of grass is an individual polygon) Camera shake added to explosions and various other game events. The game now has a new logo. The Start Menu has been redesigned to include and suit the new logo The Start Menu now has a new button - Tips (a quick overview for new players) Replicon expansion speed increased slightly. They now appear a little sooner after starting a game. Act 3 Power Cube cave cable damage reduced by 33% Increased the volume on the pistol select audio effect. The first planet that the player sees on their very first game is now always the same to ensure a consistent first impression and experience. Slight visual improvements to the pistol and plasma gun impact effects. The starting score multipliers for higher difficulties have been increased. (Eg. The highest difficulty setting @300% damage now rewards a 8x starting multiplier). Rocket Pistol crafting recipe altered to require nanotechnology Tier 3 Jetpack thruster crafting recipe altered to require nanotechnology Drop rates for nanotechnology altered (The main sources are now high level Replicons, MegaCube casing pieces, and some random archic loot items) Savannah worm spawn frequency increased significantly. Various UI cosmetic tweaks and changes A non-family friendly word removed from one of Dave's messages. Fixed a bug that would continually reset the permanent fuel optimisation bonus stat when launching the game. Fixed a bug in the tutorial where under rare circumstances the sleepy sequence could start when Bob wasn't properly docked in his lander Fixed a bug that would play the 'score updating' audio ping once per second during...Release Date AnnouncementAug 28, 2018 - Community AnnouncementsI'm excited to announce that Space Bob vs. The Replicons will be leaving Early Access on September 28th. Space Bob originally launched into Early Access in February 2018 with all of the major gameplay mechanics and story-line content already in place but Early Access offered a fantastic and unmissable opportunity to work directly with the players to polish off any rough edges while adding the remaining planned features and content. Space Bob would be a very different game today without all of your input and suggestions and I can't thank you enough for sharing your thoughts on what needed to be changed or improved. With that said, game's like Space Bob are never truly finished. I could easily spend another two years adding new features and planets to explore but those pesky things called bills need to be paid. The good news is that everything that was originally planned is now complete and we are more than ready for a 1.0 release. The even better news is that development is not going to stop any time soon. Bob's world has so much expansion potential that it would be a shame to stop here and the plan was always to continue development, adding new content and features, for a minimum of six months post release. I'm hoping this can extend much further but that is entirely down to you the players. If the game gathers enough support and momentum I can see development continuing for years to come. Time will tell. So what's next? In a couple of weeks we'll see the final early access game update. This will essentially be the 1.0 release candidate. This is going to include some last minute balance tweaks, new hazardous weather effects, and something that I've been wanting to see in Space Bob since development first began: procedural grass. https://thumbs.gfycat.com/GoodSphericalHippopotamus-size_restricted.gif (HD Link : https://gfycat.com/GoodSphericalHippopotamus) I'm so happy that I was able to finally solve how to pull this off without significantly impacting performance and I feel it adds a wonderful new level of detail and atmosphere. Along with this update will come new branding which will include a new trailer, new screenshots, new promotional gifs, and a new logo. This is what I've been working on recently to get everything ready for release and it's why we haven't had a game update in a few weeks. Any help you can give in playtesting the release candidate build will be massively appreciated so check back soon for the update and start spreading the word. Launch initialization procedures activated: T-minus 31 days to take off!Main Update 8 : Linux & Mac Support + MoreJul 23, 2018 - Community Announcements(Edit: Build 1.01 is live and addresses a few bugs found over the launch weekend. The changelog can be found HERE) Linux and Mac support became the primary focus of this update cycle but there's still plenty of tweaks and updates for everyone here. A huge shout out must go to the redditors from r/linux_gaming and r/macgaming who volunteered to help out and especially to those who sent in their compatibility and bug reports. The Mac port worked flawlessly first time and although we had a few hiccups on Linux we were able to get them resolved and everything is now ship shape and looking great. Space Bob is now available on 64bit PC, Mac and Linux systems with this build! https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/780390/7fe1ec6694182a80fcdb47d08b3c2d59f63aaa69.jpg Build 0.85 Changelog During the implementation of Mac and Linux support a number of small hotfix builds went live that also included a handful of other gameplay tweaks. Changes in those smaller updates are included here. Linux and Mac support added. New Antialiasing option added. FXAA is now an additional option. This is not as effective as any of the regular 2x, 4x, 8x options which use the far superior MSAA. However, MSAA is hardware dependent and is not supported by many integrated graphics chips. If the MSAA options fail to work the inferior (but far better than nothing) FXAA option is now available. You can now write personal notes for each planet on the system map. Please be aware that the contents of planets are procedurally generated so these notes are not planet specific but planet 'type' specific. If you have two planets in a system that use the same base planet 'type' they will share the same notes. These notes are persistent between games whether you live or die. Significant update to the on-screen scoring UI. New animations and sound effects have been added as the player's score increases. Higher score increases result in larger more impressive score animations and sound effects. Substantial rework of the Bonus Upgrades systems: The chance for Archic Upgrade Dispensers to spawn on small planets and asteroids has been increased by 20% The effect of 'temporary' upgrades has been increased significantly to make them far more useful immediately. Due to the increased effect of temporary upgrades the dispensers now have a 50/50 chance to spawn temporary or permanent upgrades. (Previously 75% chance to be permanent) These upgrades are now all shown in the UI as percentage based increases. Some previously used abitrary numbers that only made sense to the most experienced players. Permanent upgrades are now saved immediately upon activation to prevent being lost if Bob died soon after unlocking them. The Statistics Panel in Bob's main ship has been completely redesigned. The data now includes a breakdown of temporary, permanent, and total values for each statistic type. The panel now includes icons for all craftable upgrades that start greyed out but activate as...Main Update 7 - Now LiveJul 6, 2018 - Community AnnouncementsLet's turn a few recent frowns into smiles. Main Update 7 brings many difficulty tweaks to the standard game, player controlled difficulty settings, 9 new planets, and a host of other tweaks and changes. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/780390/fcf507250905c9b9d4109723111d8f751b45785c.jpg If you've written a review discussing the game's difficulty please take the time to update it after trying out these changes. Let's get that review rating back over 90%. Here's the TLDR changelog. A full explanation or the new systems and the reasoning behind them, can be found below. Main Update 7 (Build 0.84) Changelog. 9 new planets added. Difficulty sliders added Collision damage reduced by 30% Additional collision damage reduction with refinery ship, planet surfaces, stalegmites, crystals and illmenite. Per frame damage cap added to particle based damage to help reduce one-shot deaths. Boss 2 laser damage reduced by 20% Act 3 power-cube cave cable damage reduced by 33% Jetpack thrust power increased to lift more. Replicon expansion speed increased Upgrade descriptions updated to be more informative. Damage ring threshold added to show only significant damage. Time between non-critical Dave messages increased by 50% Bubble plant lifting power increased by 60% The 'Play Now' button now reads 'Continue' after exiting via the jump-gate Bob can now slide down steeper slopes without taking damage. Fixed a bug that caused a power-cube cave to be not have a fog-of-war and no jetpack disabling effects. Fixed a bug with archic resource balls giving 2000 micro-electronics rather than fuel or energy. (Leaderboards scores using this bug will be removed) Added a failsafe to prevent a crafting bug exploit. Fixed the cave entrance on one planet that could cause the lander to get stuck. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/780390/0170a1e17e27fe31c422adb10d93d2a957e13203.jpg Patch Notes Full Information and Reasoning Difficulty Sliders Added Space Bob's design philosophy was always to keep things simple and clean and so difficulty options were resisted up until this patch. In hindsight, the benefits of offering the player the choice to change difficulty outweigh the desire to keep things simple. I think the chosen implementation is super clean and intuitive to use while also adding more strategy and depth to the end-game. On the game select screen, each game mode start button now has a slider below it which allows the player to alter the difficulty of the game. The slider for each game mode has 6 settings. 50%, 100%, 150%, 200%, 250% and 300% incoming damage. At 50% damage, the score multiplier system is disabled. This mode is great for practicing the game but not good for setting highscores. For each additional 50% damage over the base 100% damage, the score multiplier will increase by 1. So for example at 200% damage you will start the game with a x3 score multiplier. A similar difficulty system was used in my pr...Achievements and Leaderboards are new!Jun 30, 2018 - Community AnnouncementsUpdate 0.8311 is now live. It contains only a new warning on the leaderboard and achievement panels to stress that the results only represent a tiny percentage of the game's user base. Only 1% of players have replayed the game since the last update so only 1% of players have completed any achievements. This update was necessary due to the recent negative review trend warning that the game was too difficult based on the assumption that only 1% of players had unlocked any achievements. It also likely explains why we've had a recent flurry of negative reviews complaining about various difficulty related topics when this was never a problem in the past. Please update your reviews if you made this incorrect assumption because it's hurting the game. If you personally find the game too difficult then please share your thoughts in this feedback thread dedicated to discussing the game's difficulty. Negative reviews dramatically effect whether other players buy and support the game. If you enjoy the game, and want others to play and support it, but you also want to share feedback, writing a negative review is not the best place to do that. Please share your thoughts in the discussion area instead. I read and seriously consider everything posted there. Thanks. NOTE: This update is 10Mb because it also contains some new planets that are not yet enabled. The next 'main update' will include these new planets and many more. Space Bob needs your help!Jun 29, 2018 - Community AnnouncementsI would have prefered to not need to create this announcement but Space Bob needs your help. A wave of negative reviews have suddenly appeared and although they complain about many different things they essentially all say the same thing in various ways: The game is too hard. This has caused the game's 91% positive review rating to drop to 77% in a matter of days. Visitors to the store page have fallen off a cliff because of this and sales have all but stopped. Needless to say this is a very bad situation and totally unexpected. I thought we had the difficulty balance about right. The difficulty of various elements of the game have been discussed here on Steam and tweaked many times so it was a complete surprise to suddenly see a flurry of negative reviews out of the blue all complaining about difficulty. (Edit: It turns out at least one of these recent negative reviews was based on the fact that only 1% of players have completed the first achievement. The truth is that only 1% of the player base has replayed the game since achievements were added last week in the latest update. Things are starting to make sense.) As a solo developer, one of the biggest problems we must deal with is that we know every inch of our games. We know how every mechanic works and so the game always feels too easy. We never get the opportunity to play a new feature or mechanic without already knowing a way to beat it or how to avoid it. I'm not trying to make a super difficult game. The goal was for it to be challenging but only so far as to be consistently rewarding. Ideally I wanted it to be playable by every skill level. I've made a topic in the discussion area to discuss the subject of difficulty and would seriously appreciate your support by getting involved. Unsurprisingly, sales have dropped dead after the negative wave of reviews and it could spell disaster if we don't get this resolved. There's a link to the discussion below. If the game really is too hard for most of you, and more frustrating than fun, then tell me! This is news to me. That's why the game is in Early Access: to get player feedback and make any necessary tweaks. So please, speak up. Have your say. Let's get this fixed. If you want to see Space Bob succeed please get involved and share your thoughts and experiences with the game. Here's a link to the discussion on this subject. https://steamcommunity.com/app/780390/discussions/0/1727575977555648848/ Thanks for any feedback you can share on this subject.
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