Welcome to the first update to Ex Vitro on Steam!
There is a significant change related to saving/loading that may affect saves from v1.0 being used in v1.01, with more details at the bottom of this update list.
New Features:
- Crouching Control Update - there is now an option to switch between the 'classic' crouch toggle control and a new, 'hold button' crouching mode
- Hard Mode - added a new difficulty mode that doubles the damage from enemies and obstacles and halves the amount of shields restored from pick-ups (includes a new achievement when you complete the game on this mode!)
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed crash caused by Super Turret enemies if they are killed during charging of attack
- Replaced sound effect on Super Turret during charging
- Fixed sound-duplicating bug on robot enemies that shoot multiple lightning attacks
- Main menu and teleporter crosshairs can now be moved with the D-pad on a gamepad
- Fixed possible crash in rooms with reflective water due to unused controller object still getting referenced
- Fixed crash in scripted ‘Ghost Encounter’ room after beating final boss
- Reduced probability of jumping through walls and ceilings when crouching or crawling through tight spaces
- Fixed respawn location in room before Tesla Drone boss
- Changed how saving/loading works to prevent a bug that regenerates items and destroyed game objects when a new build is uploaded to Steam (SEE NOTE BELOW)
Notes on new save system:
In addition to the more obvious bug fixes, a big ‘behind the scenes’ update is related to the save system. Without getting too technical, the old version of Ex Vitro (1.0) used a slightly unreliable way of saving game objects that were collected/destroyed during the game (any item or door, etc.). While that save system worked fine within version 1.0, uploading a new version of Ex Vitro to Steam causes all of those collected/destroyed objects to be respawned in 1.01. (Something I didn’t realize until I got more familiar with uploading new Steam builds…)
So while the old 1.0 save file retains all of your collected items and abilities, loading that old save while playing the new version (1.01) will repopulate the world with those previously collected items! Theoretically, it may cause some issues with scripted events here and there, and will allow you to go above the ‘maximum’ item count for certain items which may lead to unstable behaviour in some cases.
Apologies for this problem!
Fortunately, I updated the way that saving works now so that for any new version updates it won't be an issue again. It’s only save files from 1.0 that will have this particular bug, and any new items collected will use the correct method of saving. Of course, starting a new game will use the new system as well. Achievements aren’t affected either.
Chalk it up to my inexperience with Steam and live updates!