Greetings!
The new 0.4 update for Maze Qore Arena is now available!
Today's update is a very special one. As we focus on the multiplayer side of our game, we decided to review the overall quality of our project. After surveying the game and analyzing feedback from gamers and critics who've tried our game, we realized the previous art style the game released with is not adequate for today's gaming market. We wanted to go for an unlit, cartoon style synonymous with flash games from Newgrounds and with our philosophy, we expected the gameplay to stand out more and make up for the unlit 2D style. This did not seem to work as well as we had hoped. We had also realized we missed many opportunities to improve the gameplay as is to make it stand out from your generic flash game shooter. So we decided to overhaul the graphics and improve the gameplay to make it feel more like a game worth playing.
Here are the changes made with this update:
- Levels have been graphically overhauled, applying lighting effects and reflections whenever and wherever necessary.
- Some effects (like explosions) now glow in darkness.
- Some props (like Black-Ops crates and explosive barrels) now have screen-space reflections.
- Camera shake effects have been applied to the game. Whenever the player shoots, or takes damage, the camera will animate.
- Camera effects vary based on weapons and damage types. For instance, a rifle or pistol will cause a minor shake; machine gun fire will shingle the screen; a hit from a psychic blast will disorient the player.
- Character sprites now blend with the environment.
- Removed a max ammo limit bug with the grenade feature (the limit was meant for multiplayer and somehow it crept into single-player). You should now be able to collect grenades infinitely.
- NPCs health have decreased by either one half or one third (depending on the type of enemies and allies).
From hence on, we do not plan to update the single-player mode from this point save for perhaps a few patches. It seems we've done as much as possible to improve this side of the game. The only possible two updates for single-player remaining are:
- Linux AArch64 support.
- Steam Achievements.
- Any necessary patches for the game.
As also stated in the previous 0.3 update, we are deprecating support for Windows 32-bit operating systems. Epic Games has overhauled the cooking and packaging infrastructure and thus effectively rendered 32-bit impossible to work with it unless we flip a switch in the project settings in Unreal Editor. Since they also stated in their engine version notes they will deprecate 32-bit support in 4.26, and remove it higher versions, we decided to deprecate support now.
As it stands, version 0.4 of Maze Qore Arena will be the final version to support 32-bit OS and thus will be played in single player only. Once MQA reaches version 1.0 (and leaves early access) we will remove 32-bit support entirely. Seems the 32-bit era is sadly coming to an end. Now is the time to upgrade to 64-bit computers if you have not already done so.
If you wish to play the single player in 32-bit after this point, the retail version will still be available on the game's Game Jolt page.
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IMPORTANT NOTE
Singleplayer and Multiplayer builds have been separated and renamed. For those tech savvy, you may notice in the file directory that the Maze Qore Arena folder now has SP and MP folders to separate the two halves, this has as a result broken the save storage for the game so if you have played earlier versions here is how to fix this:
- Access directory
"C:/Users/ <Your Computer Name> /AppData/Local" - Rename the "MazeQoreArena" folder to "MQA_SP"
If MQA_SP already exists. Delete the folder before following the above steps.
Ultimately, it may be best to start anew instead as a few changes in the game has occurred however nothing that should corrupt saves.
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I hope you enjoyed this update and thanks for playing Maze Qore Arena!
- Establish. Explore. Expand.
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EDIT: Bugs found. Patch inbound.