The team has really pulled together quite the game experience for our Game-Only Edition that is coming out… well, just stay tuned this week 🙂 Please help us by playing the Primoid and let us know your thoughts and issues you run into in the Contributor Community Discord server (find access to it on the Steam Forums here once you log in!). Better yet, build or improve existing areas with the Crush2D tools and show us your ideas! If we like them enough, we’ll see about integrating them and giving you official credit in the game.

Changelog highlights:

• Massively improved all existing areas of the Primoid
• Added new very WIP South Hub and Mountain areas
• New Wrangleoid minigame Planetoids
• Automatic save game system
• Improved Pioneer locomotion: proper jump, slide, uphill walk etc
• Completely overhauled and much nicer sounds for material impacts, etc
• Reverb system with echo depending on distance to walls
• New much more robust physics solver and other performance improvements
• Activity editor target system and IO system to easily make everything trigger anything without code
• Redesigned background art in lots of the old Planetoids
• New loot system with tiered weapons and different new loot items
• Lots of new and improved Blueprints (including new enemies like zombies!)
• As always, more bug and crash fixes than we can list. See the repo echo bot for details

We are nearing the launch of our Early Access game-only preview, which will cost a lot less than the special Contributor Edition! (however, it won’t include editors or access to the Contributor Community) In preparation for this, we have been busy building the real caves and challenges that will eventually fill the “Primoid” Planetoid completely. With this fourth update to the Contributor Edition, we invite everyone in the Contributor Community to use the built-in feedback forms to tell us, but also wield those Crush2D editors to show us what you would change or improve!

Highlights of the goods:

• A good THIRD of the entire first adventure Planetoid, aka the “Primoid”, now has playable content and is ready for your feedback and improvement:
• Tutorial, where baby Pioneers learn how to walk
• North Hub, which connects several areas. Also serves as a rocket silo, suitable for the eventual construction and launching of a reusable spacecraft. You will need that to escape this rock in and complete this first Planetoid’s Robinson Crusoe-esque scenario.
• half of Carbon Cave, where deadly organic creatures lurk, ready to tear you apart.
• half of Metals Mine. Remains of a mining operation by humans to get the Aurium buried deep inside this Planetoid. They seem to have dug too deep and bad things happened. Various robots and mining machinery can be found here, useful for collecting the resources you need for building that rocket.
• and the Surface, a terribly dangerous gauntlet in a vehicle, and downright suicidal without one. Creepy fauna and natural obstacles present extreme hazards, but it’s the only way to get to the southern hemisphere (for now).
• Playtesting feedback forms integrated into the game at the end of each area named above – can you get to all four? Tell us directly what you liked and what you’d like to see improved.
• Massively improved locomotion mechanics of the Pioneer, also consistent over all the main Pioneers
• Lots of improved creature behavior (bird pooping AI is a go)
• A massive amount of bug fixes and betterment everywhere as we “eat our own dog food” producing the real game content with the Crush2D editors
• Breakable lamps make for fun target practice. Also, atomize them for resources, and Assemble them wherever you want to improve the ambience. Or toss one at a monster, maybe it will scare them. (light-sensitive creatures may be a thing)

Spoiler Alert!

To get an overview of what we’re planning for the entire Primoid, and an up-to-the-minute state of development, go check out our Trello board here

Your wait is over: both for this fresh build of your old faithful game, and also for the next frames in the heat of the fiercest battle! Don’t wait to get a copy for yourself or a friend, since the massive 85% OFF sale will only last for a few more days…

Here’s what’s fresh, thanks to Evgeniy “Weegee” Vigovskiy, Jesús “GranPC” Higueras Pica, and Chris “Montdidier” Kruger:

Performance

• Cortex Command now pumps up to 2x more frames per second!!
• Game activities no longer slow down when played for too long.

Gameplay

• Added keyboards shortcuts for weapon switch, reload, drop and pickup actions (also works with gamepads).
• Gib editor now rounds all offsets.
• Deployments can spawn flipped for non-flipped actors.
• It’s easier to find out how many gamepads were detected and who moves the cursor in UIs.
• Limbless actors will inevitably and quickly die.
• Reworked Test Activity to act as an ordinary GAScripted and execute Global Scripts (good for testing and debugging global scripts).

Content

• Bunker breach can be used with randomized bunkers.
• Added randomized fortresses for Bunker Breach.
• Added new skirmish activity Siege, which uses Bunker Breach maps.
• Nerfed heavy ronins a lot.
• Added global script, which gives 3x more gold when digging.
• Added infinite ammo global script.
• Added invincible crafts global script.
• Added instant and delayed delivery global scripts.

Bugfixes

• Added range checks to functions, which take Team as parameter to avoid memory corruption.
• When brain actor is deleted, MovableMan checks if it’s a brain and if it is, set’s this brain to 0 to avoid crashes.
• Dead actors no longer roll and scream infinitely
• Dead actors reduce their AngularVel.
• Fixed crashes in allegro and luabind.
• Vanilla activities now count used MOIDs on per-team basis.
• Fixed the shield-related crash in Campaign.
• Primitives are no longer drawn on top of game UI elements.
• Fixed a bug, which caused a crash in buy menu.
• Fixed crash caused by digging.

Lua binding improvements:

Scene:

• function GetOptionalArea the same as GetArea, but does not render scene incompatible for Activity if specified area is missing

SceneMan:

• function RestoreUnseen(const int posX, const int posY, const int team)
• function RestoreUnseenBox(const int posX, const int posY, const int width, const int height, const int team);

FrameMan:

• function DrawTextPrimitive(Vector start, std::string text, bool isSmall, int alignment) , alignment 0 = left, 1 = center, 2 = right
• function DrawBitmapPrimitive(Vector start, Entity * pEntity, float rotAngle, int frame)
• function CalculateTextHeight(std::string text, int maxWidth, bool isSmall)
• function CalculateTextWidth(std::string text, bool isSmall)

GameActivity:

• function int GetActiveCPUTeamCount()
• function int GetActiveHumanTeamCount()

HDFirearm:

• property FiredOnce, r/o , Whether at least one round has already been fired during the current activation. May be 0 because weapon might have activated but no actual rounds were fired yet.
• property FiredFrame, r/o, Whether at least one round has already been fired during the current frame. Use this to check if weapon fired something.
• property RoundsFired, r/o, How many rounds were fired during this frame.

GameActivity:

• property BuyMenuEnabled, r/w, Whether buy menu is enabled for this activity

Actor:

• property AimDistance , r/w
• property SightDistance, r/w

AEMitter:

• property BurstDamage, r/w
• property EmitCountLimit, r/w
• property EmitDamage, r/w

INI changes:

PEmitter:

• Lightweight, non-rotating MOSParticle-based emitter

MovableObject:

• DamageOnCollision 0,1 – When it’s != 0 actors takes health damage on collision with this MO, without penetration
• IgnoreTerrain 0,1 – When it’s 1 MO ignores any terrain collisions and travels right through them

Settings.ini:

• PreciseCollisions 0,1 – When off uses experimental simplified MO collision model which may improve performance up to 30%

Once again, just as you thought we’d given up on Cortex Command, Evgeniy “Weegee” Vigovskiy, Jesús “GranPC” Higueras Pica, and Chris “Montdidier” Kruger bring you a juicy update for the holidays! This time it’s mostly focused around massive performance enhancements. With the new build coming out in a couple of days, you can have hordes of little guys going at it, without much slo-mo action kicking in:

So keep an an out for it dropping this weekend, right before the year ends!

Speaking of which, Cortex Command can be bought for LESS THAN THREE DOLLARS on Steam right now during the Winter Sale HERE. Only until the 2nd of January, though… so this is a good time to spread the carnage; buy a copy for a friend!

If you have been tempted to take the plunge with the one of the world’s most powerful 2D physics engine and tools, right now is a good time to jump since the Planetoid Pioneers Contributor Edition is a solid 20% off this weekend!

With it, you get a killer game development environment seven years in the making, and now also a real juicy preview of what the game we are building with it will play like. As a Contributor, you have a real chance to take an active part in the development of this unique action adventure!

The newest version with much of the content and features we put together during our team’s summer sprint called “Project Slovakia” is in this Contributor Build 3 (already available to our Contributor Community for a few weeks now).

Some of the highlights:

• New local PvP game mode/Planetoid (“Carnageoid”) with three arenas
• New tutorial segment on the “Primoid” Planetoid
• Visual overhaul of many Planetoids
• Smooth zoom out on large Planetoids, minimap overview system
• Blueprint mass scanning unlock sytem
• Refined pioneer controls and behaviours
• Massive optimizations everywhere, and more to come
• Pio can pickup any assembly up to 150kg
• Pio and creatures can get knocked out by hard hits, especially to head
• Pio can carry 200kg lumps of resources and throw them
• Pio automaticaly prints lumps when he cant carry more resources
• Pio can stow things on back, swap them with what is held in hands
• Pio can use one-handed tools
• Improved AI systems with behavior Zones in scene for simple setup
• AI and Pioneer team tag system – build pets and helpers!
• Improved player feedback via HUD
• Tons of new and improved blueprints like tools, weapons, and structures
• Fancy new particle systems, terrain assets, sounds
• Hundreds of bugfixes, see them all here: https://twitter.com/DataRealmsDev
• Lots of new useful Lua functions

So we’re a bit late with this one – it was supposed to be out a month ago, but we had several (good!) things distract us, like preparing for our two-month sprint with the core team together in a cabin in Slovakia, which is now ongoing:
ProjectSlovakia images on Twitter

Anyway, we did have some great feature news to share even back then, like:

• New Labroid Planetoid Scene and Activity, with a monster boss battle in the core
• Several new Blueprints like teleporter, flamethrower trap, new chests, etc.
• Pioneers can now pick up and throw smaller, circular resource chunks (200kg) vs the huge and frankly unrealistic 1000kg ingots before (which required physics cheats to be lifted). The large ingots are still useful for storage and maybe for towing in a mining cart that is pushed or pulled by a robust Rover.
• Entire Asteroid Belt maps can (theoretically) be completed now and are shown as such on the metamap. They are completed by successfully finishing all the Planetoids in them.
• BP Fauna Knuckles: The first AI that is mountable, rideable, and controllable after having been printed (so it is friendly toward its creator). KNUCKLES SMASH!
• Most printed AIs now ignore the Pioneer that printed it.
• Abstracted out and added a generic biped move-behavior to the lua folder. Used both by Bot Flip and the new blueprint, Bot Sentry.

So go forth and enjoy the above in the latest build in the main (non-beta) branch on Steam!

The first major build of Planetoid Pioneers Contributor Edition has been released, and it’s a juicy one! Major improvements include:

• Primoid gameplay runs much faster
• All Editor modes run the simulation MUCH faster
• Carnageoid with last-man-standing gameplay
• Lots of Scene Editor improvements and added layer control features
• Steam controller support now works again
• Better full-screen handling; two alternatives with Alt+Enter and Ctrl+Enter
• Screen shake!

There’s plenty of other changes based on Contributor feedback, so head over to our repository twitter stream for the nitty-gritty details.

ALSO, we have opened up our beta branch for those of you who want the very latest features straight out of the oven! Just right click the Planetoid Pioneers entry in your library list and go Properties in the drop-down, and then opt-in to the beta under the Betas tab. (leave pw blank)

That’s all for now! Next major update will be gameplay and content-focused, so stay tuned ~

– the Data Realms team

The core team at Data Realms just spent the last three months working together at Stugan, showcasing during Gamescom, PAX Prime, and also having a series of meetings with platform holders including Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Valve, and several others. The responses were very positive, telling us that we have achieved a great foundation and direction for the project. However, it was also made clear that expectations have escalated for Steam Early Access, and we received wise recommendations to build more game content and polish before pulling the trigger. So, we have come to the conclusion that we should postpone the Early Access release of Planetoid Pioneers to early next year, instead of rushing it out the door this fall.

In the mean time, we will be updating the Pioneer Program test builds – if you are interested in participating, sign up at http://signup.planetoidpioneers.com