BlastZone 2

Matt Edzenga · Edzenga Labs LLC

Released: Feb 19, 2015
Platforms: Windows
Last updated: 04 Sep 2026, 22:53 GMT

Updates & announcements

20 posts

07 Jul 2026Developer post
v1.38.5.0 - Improved multithreading, online multiplayer bug fixes
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.5.0) This update improves multithreading performance and thread prioritization. It also fixes a few online multiplayer bugs. Full details are below: Improved thread parallelism in many areas of the game Improves performance
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.5.0) This update improves multithreading performance and thread prioritization. It also fixes a few online multiplayer bugs. Full details are below:
Improved thread parallelism in many areas of the game
Improves performance for processing all enemies, item drops, player bullets, and enemy bullets
Also improves performance when processing all objects on the client side in an online multiplayer game
Reduces processing times of affected areas by up to 25% when there are many enemies/bullets on screen
Improved thread prioritization in several areas
Increased Render thread prioritization to further improve frame pacing
Increased the main Particle System thread priority to event prioritization with other systems
Generally places threads in P-Cores and E-Cores more appropriately for CPUs that don't have a symmetric core layout
Fixed lingering enemy bullets on screen during the wave splash screen when leaving a previous game session, then starting a new one
Fixed the remote player ship not moving in online multiplayer games
Fixed an occasional hang bug on the client side when starting a new online multiplayer game
Fixed a small P2 ship erroneously being shown in the online multiplayer lobby screen before a client player joins
Fixed the second player ship selection screen occasionally not showing the ship when the second player is mouse controlled
Improved how the ship flyin animations are handled in online multiplayer games
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.38.5.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
03 Jul 2026Developer post
v1.38.4.0 - Greatly improved motion fluidity, new sound system cycle rate option
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.4.0) This update greatly improves motion fluidity by improving internal thread timing, and improved frame time consistency. This update also adds a new “MT Sound Cycle Rate” option that allows for selecting between several c
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.4.0) This update greatly improves motion fluidity by improving internal thread timing, and improved frame time consistency. This update also adds a new “MT Sound Cycle Rate” option that allows for selecting between several cycle rates for the sound system. Higher cycle rates reduce sound effect latency, but at a slight cost to CPU power. Full details are below:
Converted the "Sound Multithreading" advanced option to "MT Sound Cycle Rate"
Allows for setting the sound system cycle rate to 60hz, 120hz, 240hz, or synced
Higher sound cycle rates use more CPU power, but reduce sound latency
The "synced" value is equivalent to "off" from previous versions
The new "MT Sound Cycle Rate" option no longer requires a game restart to take effect
Updated the external configuration program to utilize the new "MT Sound Cycle Rate" option and work with the update config file format
Improved frame time consistency when using frame caps, improving motion fluidity
Improved high frequency update timing precision, improving motion fluidity
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.38.4.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
11 May 2026Developer post
v1.38.3.0 - Improved cave environment shaders, kb/mouse latency, texture loading
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.3.0) This update improves the cave environment shaders, keyboard and mouse latency, and compressed texture memory consumption and loading times on game startup. Full details are below: Big improvements to all the cave enviro
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.3.0) This update improves the cave environment shaders, keyboard and mouse latency, and compressed texture memory consumption and loading times on game startup. Full details are below:
Big improvements to all the cave environment shaders
Improves lighting quality of the cave backgrounds
Improves shader performance of the cave environment by about 30%
Improved keyboard and mouse player control latency and rapid action handling when using update rates higher than the frame rate
Gamepad input already takes advantage of this and didn't need to be updated
Optimized the compressed texture loading process
Uses 33% less system memory per texture during the loading process
Improves compressed texture loading times
Texture VRAM usage during gameplay is unchanged
Renamed the "auxiliary threads" advanced option to "boost threads"
Updated localization in many areas for many languages
Refactored areas of the codebase
This shouldn't affect the game experience at all, but improves code design to make it easier to maintain moving forward
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.38.3.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Below shows the difference with the new cave shaders. The old shaders had overblown specular highlights, and the new shaders are more accurate. This was done with a ~30% performance boost at the same time.
Original post
06 Apr 2026Developer post
v1.38.2.0 Hotfix update
A hotfix update has been released for v1.38.2.0 of BlastZone 2. Improved how data is managed between game threads, also improving multithreading efficiency Updated many shaders for the OpenGL 3.0 and 4.6 renderers to fix potential graphics driver compatibility issues
A hotfix update has been released for v1.38.2.0 of BlastZone 2.
Improved how data is managed between game threads, also improving multithreading efficiency
Updated many shaders for the OpenGL 3.0 and 4.6 renderers to fix potential graphics driver compatibility issues
Original post
19 Mar 2026Developer post
v1.38.2.0 - Gamepad handling, config file improvements, fixed demo exploder shot
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.2.0) This update improves gamepad handling, fixes the exploder shot animation for the demo version, makes a few improvements to config file parsing using a new format, and updates a few libraries. Full details are below: Rew
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.2.0) This update improves gamepad handling, fixes the exploder shot animation for the demo version, makes a few improvements to config file parsing using a new format, and updates a few libraries. Full details are below:
Reworked much of the gamepad input handling code
Improved data locality to slightly improve performance
Improved general code design to prevent potential bugs
Fixed missing expanding sphere for the exploder shot for the demo version
Upgraded config file data parsing
There are now discrete field names for all config parameters
Config parameters can now appear in any order in the config file
Config parameters can now be individually deleted from the config file to reset individual options to defaults
Config file parsing is much more robust now and less prone to errors if elements of data are malformed
The new format is easier to extend now without risking migration issues when upgrading to newer versions of the game
*NOTE: Upgrading to the new config file format will reset gamepad and keyboard controls to defaults, but this is a one time issue and won't occur again in the future
Upgraded the configuration program to work with the new configFile format and support all the same features as the main game
Supports config parameters in any order, missing parameters, and extra parameters
Fixed a few crash issues for the configuration program when parsing malformed data
Did a refinement pass through much of the codebase, doing small optimizations in many areas, and made the code generally more robust, reducing the possibility of potential bugs
Upgraded FreeType library to v2.14.1
Upgraded LibPng16 library to v1.6.55
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.38.2.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
18 Dec 2025Developer post
v1.38.1.1 - Improvements to muzzle flashes, particles, and loading bars
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.1.1) This update makes improvements to muzzle flashes, particles, loading bars, and optimizes a few systems. Full details are below: Added gradient effects to the startup loading bar and the leaderboard score submission prog
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.1.1) This update makes improvements to muzzle flashes, particles, loading bars, and optimizes a few systems. Full details are below:
Added gradient effects to the startup loading bar and the leaderboard score submission progress bar
Added muzzle light flares for Normal Bolt and Flurry Shot player weapons
Optimized all particle vertex generation, reducing CPU usage for particle system updates
Optimized charge particle creation for all player charging effects, and wave intermission booster charging effect
Fixed command console misalignment when running a resolution taller than 16:9
Refactored how coloring is calculated for all particles across all effects
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.38.1.1” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
22 Oct 2025Developer post
New game announcement - Axial Rift - Wishlist now!
Announcing my new game project, Axial Rift! This game uses the groundbreaking voxel rifting mechanic to combine isometric adventure with side scrolling platforming in the same game world! Slice the world at any point, in any direction into sidescrolling sections; creating entirel
29 Sep 2025Developer post
v1.38.1.0 - Improved player weapon firing rate consistency across all framerates
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.1.0) This update improves player weapon firing rates across all frame rates. Previously, low frame rates would have slow or irregular player weapon firing rates. The issue was most noticeable around 20-30 fps, but also had a
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.1.0) This update improves player weapon firing rates across all frame rates. Previously, low frame rates would have slow or irregular player weapon firing rates. The issue was most noticeable around 20-30 fps, but also had a subtle effect for the 30-59fps range. Now, all frame rates have precisely the same, consistent player weapon firing rate.
Here are the full release notes for v1.38.1.0:
Greatly improved player weapon firing rate consistency across all frame rates
Previously, running at a low frame rate (20-30fps) would fire player weapons at a slower, irregular rate
This would make some weapons less effective, unintentionally increasing the game difficulty
Now, all frame rates (20-240+ fps) fire player weapons at the exact same rate, and at an even rate without irregularity
This improvement is most noticeable for high firing rate weapons, such as Flurry Shot and Forcefield
This improvement is the result of multiple combined factors:
Eliminates a single frame of delay after each weapon fire before the framerate-independent timer takes over, which would scale differently based on the frame rate
Simulates bullet fire event timing at much higher precision, allowing them to occur between frames or simulation steps
This ensures all time tracking is preserved down to a fraction of a millisecond
These events would previously only occur at render time or simulation step time
When new bullets are spawned, a micro simulation is performed at a sub-frame level to ensure the new bullet is placed precisely where it should be since the inter-frame firing event occurred
Increased the Burst Shot range for 2 of the outer bullets by 33%, increasing effectiveness at moderate range
Slightly optimized collision detection for players, enemies, bosses, and all projectiles
Added support for single channel textures as a form of lossless texture compression for applicable grayscale textures
Converted specular maps and emission maps for all player and enemy ships to use this texture format
Reduces vram usage by ~1.1mb without any loss in image quality
Reduces game filesize by ~97kb
Slightly reduces memory bandwidth usage for rendering player ships and enemy ships, slightly improving performance
Improved specular highlight accuracy and quality for all player ship and enemy ship rendering
Several optimizations for the matrix calculation system
Slightly optimized water shader rendering for the home world environment
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.38.1.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
28 Jun 2025Developer post
v1.38.0.0 - Improved responsiveness, motion smoothing, fixed time distortion
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.0.0) This update improves motion fluidity for all objects in the game, including the player, enemies, bosses, projectiles, terrain, and more! This also makes the game feel more snappy and responsive while the frame rate is f
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v.1.38.0.0) This update improves motion fluidity for all objects in the game, including the player, enemies, bosses, projectiles, terrain, and more! This also makes the game feel more snappy and responsive while the frame rate is fluctuating.
The purpose of motion smoothing is to even out position deltas of objects between frames, because when a frame hitch occurs, the larger gap in object positions after the hitch is more noticeable than the frame hitch itself. Now, the drawbacks of doing this are completely gone!
The time distortion issue of motion smoothing calculations has been fixed, using much tighter timings than before. This would manifest in slight speedups and slowdowns in object movement during fluctuating frame rates. Refinements have been made so all object motion is integral-correct as well, improving the accuracy of object velocity and acceleration. This improves the consistency of object movement and improves control responsiveness. Also, motion smoothing is now applied at all frame rates, including high refresh rate displays. It was previously limited to 60fps or below to mitigate side effects.
Here are the full release notes for v1.38.0.0:
Greatly improved the motion smoothing system, affecting everything in the game
This system is used to smooth out the appearance of frame hitches by seamlessly transitioning time deltas between frame updates
The time distortion issue for fluctuating frame rates has been resolved by tightening up evaluated frame samples to only neighboring frames
Motion smoothing is now applied to all frame rates, including high refresh rate displays
Previous versions only supported motion smoothing up to 60fps to prevent worse time distortion issues at high frame rates
Refinements have been made to ensure integral-correct time updates, improving the accuracy of object movement, including acceleration and velocity updates
Tightens up control responsiveness of the player ship, particularly during fluctuating frame rates
Improves motion consistency and fluidity for all objects in the game, including:
Player ship(s)
Player projectiles
Enemy ships
Enemy projectiles
Bosses
Item pickups
Terrain movement
Water ripple movement
All particle movement
Camera movement
Client side prediction for online multiplayer
Moved all player ship and boss matrix calculations from the render thread to the update thread
This significantly improves cpu thread workload balancing, improving overall performance
A substantial rework of the player ship handling code in particular was required to make this possible
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.38.0.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
07 Jun 2025Developer post
v1.37.2.1 - Fixed external key installs, discrete gfx prioritization, crash fix
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.37.2.1) This update fixes a potential crash bug for CPUs that support the FMA3 optimized code path, as well as an optimization for that code path that results in a ~1% gain in overall performance. This update also prioritizes hi
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.37.2.1) This update fixes a potential crash bug for CPUs that support the FMA3 optimized code path, as well as an optimization for that code path that results in a ~1% gain in overall performance. This update also prioritizes high performance discrete graphics hardware for laptops using a hybrid graphics setup. Previously, some laptops would erroneously use the slower iGPU, which would greatly reduce game performance. A broken install issue has been resolved for some users who purchased Steam keys from outside Steam. The 64bit binaries are now part of the primary Steam repo, so all users will have them by default, unless 32 bit binaries are needed instead. Previously, both the 64bit and 32bit binaries existed in secondary repos, and some users who purchased Steam keys outside of steam wouldn't have access to those repos, making the game unable to launch. This issue has now been resolved, apologies for the inconvenience! All high quality terrain DLC has been merged into the primary repo, so the "VeryHigh" and "Extreme" quality terrain settings are always available now. These DLC packages have always been free, but were made as optional downloads to cut down on drive space, and using them had high system requirements at the time of release. However, since those DLC packages were released, the assets have been updated to use a new compressed format that greatly reduces drive usage, and have been greatly optimized so they run fast on the vast majority of systems. Some users also didn't know to download the DLC, so having it part of the main repo makes the process more convenient when downloading a new install of the game. The total game size with all content downloaded is now ~500mb, which is reasonable for modern systems. The high quality DLC repos still exist, but they are empty now. This is to ensure migration compatibility for now, but they may be removed in the future.
UPDATE: The leaderboards server went down recently, but it has now been restored! Apologies for the inconvenience!
Here are the full release notes for v1.37.2.1:
Game rendering now prioritizes high performance discrete graphics hardware for laptops with a hybrid graphics setup
This greatly improves performance for hybrid graphics laptops
Fixed a potential crash bug when running on CPUs supporting FMA3 instructions
Improved performance for all matrix operations
Eliminated a data copy operation for all matrix transformations, including translation, rotation, and scaling
Only affects the FMA3 CPU code path
Improves overall performance by ~1%
Fixed screen fade out animations occasionally being skipped or played too fast
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.37.2.1” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
02 May 2025Developer post
v1.37.2.0 - Improved vertex transfer performance in many areas
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.37.2.0) This significantly improves vertex transfer performance for several areas of the game. This includes all particles, bullets, HUD elements, menus, text, clouds, water, beams, and more. This results in better overall perfo
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.37.2.0) This significantly improves vertex transfer performance for several areas of the game. This includes all particles, bullets, HUD elements, menus, text, clouds, water, beams, and more. This results in better overall performance, and reduced hitching, especially on older or slower hardware.
Here are the full release notes for v1.37.2.0:
Improved the performance of vertex data streaming
Reduces hitching and slightly improves overall performance
Has a more noticeable effect on older, slower systems
Affects several systems and effects, including:
Clouds
Enemy bullets
Text
HUD
Meter bars
Particles
Beam weapon animations
Water animation
Title screen animation
Slightly optimized gamepad input handling
Slightly optimized spatial audio positioning calculations
Improved the cleanup process for game threads when shutting down the game
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.37.2.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
13 Dec 2024Developer post
v1.37.1.0 - Upgraded particle system and improved explosion particle effects
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.37.1.0) This upgrades the particle system to support a 2-pass approach to particle rendering. What this means is, most particle effects now share a unified alpha channel, and separate the alpha render pass from the color render
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.37.1.0) This upgrades the particle system to support a 2-pass approach to particle rendering. What this means is, most particle effects now share a unified alpha channel, and separate the alpha render pass from the color render pass. This allows most particle effects, such as enemy explosions, to maintain their ‘melding together’ effect of adjacent particles, while also being more prominent from the background. The previous additive-only particles would sometimes get blown out or lost in bright backgrounds, or colors closely matching the color of the particles. This new approach leverages multicore CPUs to neutralize much of the increased workload, resulting in only a minor net increase in particle processing time. The rendering side does have an increased load, but is still low enough overall that virtually all systems won’t see a slowdown. A few bug fixes and optimizations are included in this update as well. Here are the full release notes for v1.37.1.0:

Upgraded the particle system to support 3 categories of particles; Additive, Subtractive, and Sorted -The new category introduced is Subtractive -Mirroring particles in both the Additive and Subtractive categories can be used to improve particle image quality --Doing this melds together unified color/alpha channels for groups of adjacent particles, while keeping them prominent from the background --This works great for volumetric effects, such as explosions --This prevents the particle colors from getting washed out when used with certain backgrounds -The particle multithreading system has been extended to run the new Subtractive particle category in parallel with other categories of particles --This allows CPUs with 4 or more cores to run the additional load with minimal performance loss
Upgraded several particle effects to take advantage of the upgraded particle system, using the new melded/unified approach to alpha channels -Enemy explosions -Boss explosions -Bullet trails -Bullet impacts -Bullet firing -Attaining charge levels -Holding charge levels -Item pickups -Final player death -Enemies impacting the mother ship in Classic modes
Fixed the cloud unlock data getting reset when starting the game from a fresh new install
Fixed the autoplay demo from always using the Homeworld background
Fixed the autoplay demo from erroneously using music from the selected background, now maintains the menu music as intended
Optimized all non-gameplay states of the game by eliminating elements of gameplay rendering that are not needed in these cases -Improves performance by up to 5% in these cases
Improved accuracy of render thread time readouts when showing debug frame stats
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.37.1.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
19 Jun 2024Developer post
v1.37.0.0 - 3D positional sounds, buffed exploder shots, and many improvements!
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.37.0.0) Substantial upgrades have been made to the OpenAL sound system for this update. This includes 3D positional sound sources, tracking object movement for attached sounds, and remastered sound assets that are compatible wit
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.37.0.0) Substantial upgrades have been made to the OpenAL sound system for this update. This includes 3D positional sound sources, tracking object movement for attached sounds, and remastered sound assets that are compatible with the new system. Also, surround sound speaker support has been added, but all the action is in front of the camera. Sound source velocity and doppler effect support has been added to the sound system as well, but are not utilized yet. This update also dramatically cuts down on disk space usage, bringing the maximum install size from 1.4GB down to about 530MB. The greatest disk space savings is for when all high detail terrain DLC is installed. This was accomplished by taking full advantage of custom built asset compression formats for the game engine, and maintains identical quality for all assets in the game. This update also includes many other improvements, a few bug fixes, and optimizations. Here are the full release notes for v1.37.0.0:

Added support for 3D sound positioning -This affects all sounds generated by the player, enemies, bosses, or item pickups -These sounds will spatially blend between stereo speakers based on the in-game position of the sound -Surround sound speaker systems are technically supported, but are not utilized because sound producing objects are never behind the game camera -Also supports moving sounds, including tracking the player ship's position while charging up a power shot -Supports sound velocity and doppler effects, but these are not utilized yet -All applicable sound assets have been downsampled from stereo to mono to be compatible with positional sound -Numerous sound assets had their volume levels increased or reduced to work better with positional sound -Several sounds, including menu actions, screen wipes, and bonus feedback are not affected by this upgrade, and will maintain their non-positional stereo mastered playback -Much of the OpenAL sound system and data pipeline was upgraded to support positional data attached to sounds and handle the playback of that data
Reduced baseline volume for all music and sound playback -Is now at 1/5th the volume it was originally -This brings the overall volume of the game closer to most other games at default settings
Improved high frequency update support -Improved timing of each update subcycle -Evened out the simulation delta of each subcycle -Fixed a rare stutter issue for heavy update workloads -Increased the update rate limit from 200 up to 800
Slowed down all exploder and cluster projectile explosion progression by about 50% to boost their effectiveness for groups of enemies
Improved the wave intermission blastoff animation -The player ship now flies further in the distance before the screen wipe -The whole animation now lasts about 1 more second -The screen wipe duration has been extended so it is less abrupt -The blastoff sound effect now fades out as the screen wipe occurs -The next level now always loads when the screen wipe is at full opacity, ensuring a seamless transition
Replaced the menu selector movement sound with a new sound asset
Tightened up the Flurry Shot bullet trail particle effects -Condensed the particles closer to each bullet, to make it clearer where each bullet is
Slightly optimized player bullet particle trail cpu usage
Lengthened the particle bullet trails of slow moving player bullets, such as burst shot projectiles
Increased the size and length of exploder projectile particle trails
Added a "/10" suffix to music and sound volume config options
Choosing the "Ship Selection" option from the gameover screen now switches to the menu music
Fixed a bug that wouldn't properly stop charging sounds when both players charge at the same time during a multiplayer game
Fixed a bug what wouldn't stop charging sounds for the final player death animation in a single player game
Fixed burst fire enemy bullets not playing sounds for Survival and Blitz modes
Fixed some single fire enemy bullets not playing sounds for Survival and Blitz modes
Fixed incorrectly rendered particle trails for exploder projectiles fired by the player
Fixed an occasional music playback stutter when starting a new Area/Wave in a new environment
Fixed an occasional enemy bullet flicker issue when running high update rates, or for slow CPUs
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.37.0.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
08 Mar 2024Developer post
v1.36.3.0 - Added high frequency update support, improving responsiveness!
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2. (v1.36.3.0) This update adds high frequency update support! This means, even if the game is running at 60fps, the game input and simulation could be running at up to 200hz. This allows for the responsiveness of a high refresh rate d
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2. (v1.36.3.0) This update adds high frequency update support! This means, even if the game is running at 60fps, the game input and simulation could be running at up to 200hz. This allows for the responsiveness of a high refresh rate display without the need for one. This is similar to other low latency technologies, such as Reflex or Anti-Lag, but this is a single solution effective across all graphics vendors. Other game engines require synchronizing input and simulation updates with the render frame rate, but the BlastZone 2 game engine has been architected in a unique way. It allows for the rendering and input/simulation systems to run completely asynchronously from each other, making high frequency updates possible. This is an exciting new technology, and I can’t wait to hear about everyone’s experience with it! This update also includes a few bug fixes. Here are the full release notes for v1.36.3.0:

Added support for independent update rates from the frame rate -Allows for running the game/simulation update at a much higher frequency than the frame rate -Allows for snappier, more precise controls, even for low frame rates -If the frame rate exceeds the target update rate, the update rate will dynamically increase as well to prevent duplicate frames --The target update rate acts as an update floor, only taking effect for frame rates below it -Defaults to a 60hz update rate, but can be adjusted in the range of 30-200hz -In previous versions, enabling game update multithreading had a small latency penalty in exchange for higher performance --Running a higher update rate allows for having the performance benefits of multithreading, with lower latency at the same time
Doubled bullet firing density for the Boss 4 first bullet firing pattern -Addresses a safe area exploit that made this area too easy in previous versions
Added an "MSAA" suffix to all applicable antialiasing settings
Fixed bugs that would occasionally make the player ship too large or too bright during level intro/flyin animations
Fixed broken enemy bullet rendering when disabling the VBO render code path
Slightly optimized enemy bullet rendering
Updated the external configuration program to support the new UpdateRate setting
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.36.3.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
20 Dec 2023Developer post
v1.36.2.0 - Improvements to multithreading and performance
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.36.2.0) This update focuses on multithreading improvements, and a few performance improvements. This includes reduced frame hitches, up to 10-25% particle system performance gains from improved memory bandwidth efficiency, and a
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.36.2.0) This update focuses on multithreading improvements, and a few performance improvements. This includes reduced frame hitches, up to 10-25% particle system performance gains from improved memory bandwidth efficiency, and a general 10% performance gain from adding support for SIMD FMA cpu instructions. Here are the full release notes for v.1.36.2.0:

Most of the advanced multithreading options can now be applied without restarting the game -This includes the following options: --Game Update Multithreading --Particle Multithreading --Auxiliary Particle Threads -Core elements of multithreading management were updated to make this possible -The "Sound Multithreading" option still requires a game restart at this time
Improved thread management of the particle system -More of the startup loading process is done asynchronously, slightly improving the game startup time -Reduced frame hitching when many particles are on screen
Optimized memory bandwidth performance for the particle system -Results in up to a 10-25% particle update performance gain -Greatly cut down on memory fragmentation
Added support for SIMD FMA CPU instructions -Improves general performance by up to 10% for CPU's that support these instructions -Matrix multiply operations on the CPU side benefit the most from this, being over 100x faster -Uses an SSE2 fallback for older CPUs that don't support these instructions
Enabled anisotropic filtering for several HUD elements and sprites to improve sharpness of them
A few small optimizations to render matrix calculations
Small optimizations to localization text data management
Fixed a few potential bugs
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.36.2.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
17 Sep 2023Developer post
Small maintenance release
This is a small update that makes the following changes: -Cleaned up a few unused data files -Added particle aux thread runtime readouts for the ingame debug display
04 Aug 2023Developer post
v1.36.1.1 - Several improvements to the 2nd person shooter Mission sequence
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.36.1.1) This update makes several improvements to the 2nd person shooter sequence in Mission Mode Area 5, including fixing enemy bullet bugs, and fixed effect alignment and timing. This gives an overall more polished sequence as
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.36.1.1) This update makes several improvements to the 2nd person shooter sequence in Mission Mode Area 5, including fixing enemy bullet bugs, and fixed effect alignment and timing. This gives an overall more polished sequence as you dodge from enemy fire, while you’re in their sights! Here are the full release notes for v.1.36.1.1:

Improved enemy bullet firing behavior for the 2nd person enemy in Mission Mode Area 5 -Fixed alignment issue between the "charge up" animations and fired bullets from the enemy -Slightly reduced the enemy bullet speed in this sequence -Improved timing for charging/firing bullet events, improving animation smoothness
Improved enemy tracking bullet behavior for varying framerates
Fixed incorrect Z tracking behavior for tracking enemy bullets -This is most noticeable for the 2nd person sequence in Mission Area 5 -This makes each tracking bullet enter the gameplay plane multiple times
Fixed some stationary enemy bullets disappearing too quickly -Also fixed these bullets quickly shrinking after being fired, even when they are supposed to increase in size -Many of these bullets are used in the 2nd person shooter scene
Fixed a 'divide by zero' bug when spacer sections are used for enemy firing scripts -These are generally used when there is a long waiting period between enemy bullet firing -Generally applies to bosses and mini-bosses
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.36.1.1” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
13 Jul 2023Developer post
v1.36.1.0 - Improved physics, smoother frame rates, optimizations
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.36.1.0) This update adds several technical improvements to the engine. This includes improved, more accurate and consistent physics across any frame rate. There are also a few improvements to frame time consistency, reducing fra
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.36.1.0) This update adds several technical improvements to the engine. This includes improved, more accurate and consistent physics across any frame rate. There are also a few improvements to frame time consistency, reducing frame hitching that existed in specific situations for some systems, and an improved frame limiter, for a smoother overall experience. This update also includes particle system optimizations, using an additional CPU thread for spawning particles, and reducing frame hitches when many particles are on screen. Here are the full release notes for v1.36.1.0:

Improved physics in a few areas of the game -More accurate movement calculations when accelerating objects -Fixes slightly different movement behavior for different frame rates -Affects these areas of the game: --Player throwbacks when firing big weapons or getting hit --EnemyC Behavior 4 (bouncing movement) --Many particle effects, including explosions, bullet trails, bullet impact buffs, etc.
Improved particle spawning performance -Uses an additional thread to run particle spawning in parallel to other particle operations -Reduces particle update hitches when numerous explosions occur at once
Reduced render frame hitches when many particles are on screen -Dynamically allows more time to buffer particle data into vram when many particles are on screen
Improved CPU thread management to improve frame time consistency and reduce hitching -Better matches the number of active threads with the number of available CPU cores/threads -Ensures the graphics driver has enough CPU resources to maintain consistent rendering performance
Improved precision and accuracy of the frame rate limiter -Uses 64 bit operations for the whole frame limiter process to improve precision -Reduced computational overhead for calculating the timing of each new frame
[Hotfix]-Fixed Mission+ mode erroneously being unlocked by completing Survival mode
[Hotfix]-Fixed some mode/ship unlocks occurring after Wave 6, now consistently requires Wave/Area 8 completion in all modes
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.36.1.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
02 Jun 2023Developer post
v1.36.0.0 - Mission+ Mode Released!
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.36.0.0) This update adds another new game mode, Mission+ Mode! This works similar to “New Game+” in other games, as it starts Mission Mode from the beginning, but with all weapons and abilities unlocked, and all stat upgrades at
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.36.0.0) This update adds another new game mode, Mission+ Mode! This works similar to “New Game+” in other games, as it starts Mission Mode from the beginning, but with all weapons and abilities unlocked, and all stat upgrades at level 3. To keep the difficulty balanced, this mode is always played at Veteran difficulty, and with fewer lives to start. This mode can only be unlocked once Pilot Mission Mode is completed. Here are the full release notes for v1.36.0.0:

Added the Mission+ game mode -Starts the Mission campaign with all weapons and abilities unlocked, and level 3 stat upgrades -Always uses "Veteran" difficulty and fewer starting lives, to offset the more powerful starting loadout -This serves as a new way for advanced players to play the game -Requires completion of Pilot Mission mode to unlock this mode
Added new local highscore categories for the singleplayer and multiplayer variations of Mission+ Mode -Automatically migrates local highscore data from previous versions on startup
Added world leaderboard support for Mission+ Mode
Slight optimization for preparing draw calls
Particle system optimizations when spawning new effects
Fixed mismatched drawing parameter count for some objects -Fixes potential visual inconsistencies for some objects
Upgraded a few 3rd party libraries: -Curl v8.0.1 -FreeType v2.13.0 -libPNG v1.6.39 -libVorbis v1.3.7 -SteamAPI v1.56
Updated vertex shaders for the GL 4.X renderer to prevent potential rendering issues
Fixed debug frame data briefly showing zeros for most stats when first opening it
Fixed some Mission Mode script playback not being stopped when entering the gameover screen
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.36.0.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post
21 Apr 2023Developer post
v1.35.0.0 - Turbo Mission Mode Released!
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.35.0.0) This update adds a brand new game mode, Turbo Mission Mode! The goal of this mode is to add an alternative high difficulty way to play the main campaign that is very fast for advanced players. This increases the speed of
A new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.35.0.0) This update adds a brand new game mode, Turbo Mission Mode! The goal of this mode is to add an alternative high difficulty way to play the main campaign that is very fast for advanced players. This increases the speed of the player ship, enemies, and enemy bullets by 35%, but keeps the ‘Pilot’ quantity of enemies, similar to the Turbo modes for Survival and Blitz. New highscore categories and leaderboards have been added for this new mode as well. Enjoy the new mode! Here are the full release notes for v1.35.0.0:

Added Turbo Mission Mode to the game -Increases the speed of enemies, enemy bullets, and player movement by 35% -Uses the same enemy formations and quantity as 'Pilot' difficulty -This new mode serves as an alternative way to raise the difficulty for advanced players
Added new local highscore categories for the singleplayer and multiplayer variations of Turbo Mission Mode -Automatically migrates local highscore data from previous versions on startup
Added world leaderboard support for Turbo Mission Mode
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.35.0.0” or higher. Enjoy!
Original post