Pilots, this is a big one.
The latest updates bring a massive round of gameplay enhancements, visual upgrades, and VR improvements — all aimed at making the experience smoother, fairer, and more intense than ever before.
🎮 Gameplay Overhaul
Enemy behavior has been significantly upgraded. With the new formation system, enemies now attack in more structured and challenging patterns — especially in later levels like Level 7 and the all-new Level 10 pyramid formation.
Combat feels more dynamic thanks to:
Lead targeting & configurable shot spread
Improved difficulty balancing across multiple levels
A reworked restart system for better flow across game modes
Enhanced scoring system, including a revamped Perfect Clear bonus (+100,000 points + extra life!)
We’ve also made controls more consistent with framerate-independent input, and added satisfying new mechanics like camera shake and weapon recoil.
Smarter, Fairer Enemies
No more cheap hits — enemy shooting is now independent of framerate, ensuring fairness across all systems. Early levels have been tuned to ease players in, while later levels will push your skills to the limit.
🕶️ VR Improvements
VR players get a huge upgrade:
Full enemy explosion effects restored
RightHand Motion Control plus Thumbstick XY and Steering by Head Movement
New thumbstick zoom, improved movement damping, and better control scaling
Added recenter detection and a more natural neck model
Visual improvements including brightness processing for both eyes
Visual & Audio Upgrades
The game now features a brand new Retro Shader for a clean, oldschool pixel look — along with smoother transitions and improved lighting
Audio has also been expanded with:
New enemy hit sounds
Enhanced positional audio
More impactful explosions and feedback
⚙️ Quality of Life & Fixes
We’ve tackled a wide range of issues and improvements, including:
Memory leak fixes & performance optimizations
Improved collision detection (now supports rotation!)
Better UI clarity (multipliers, tips, HUD updates)
New Game Options menu and brightness settings
Tons of balancing tweaks across levels
This update is all about polish, intensity, and immersion — whether you're playing on desktop or in VR.
👉 Jump back in and experience the difference.
See you in space.
ChangeLog in Detail:
# Changelog
## Version 0.9.5
### 🎮 Gameplay
- **Enemy formation system** introduced — Level 07 now uses configurable formation patterns
- **Level 10** gets a brand new **pyramid cube formation**
- **Level 3** enemy movement timing and acceleration tuned — harder now!
- **Level 10** enemies slow down in Z-axis when only a few remain
- **Level 2** made more challenging
- **Level 7** balanced — lowered acceleration so last enemies don't overrun you
- Enemy **lead shots** added — enemies now aim slightly ahead of your movement
- Enemy blasts now have a configurable **spread** per level
- Enemy blast **probability now independent from framerate** — fairer on slower machines
- **Camera shake** (translation & rotation) added for nearby blasts, player death, mothership and enemy explosions — all weighted differently
- **Recoil mechanics** added for player blasts — configurable direction, duration and smoothing
- **Random enemy orientation** added as a level parameter — used in Level 5
- **Restart logic** reworked: Training and X-Battle restart the level keeping lives, points and X-Run; X-Competition restart costs 1 credit and resets to Level 1 X-Run 1
- Perfect clear bonus reworked: now awards **+100,000 points AND an extra life**
- Minimum **wait times** between game state transitions added — no more missing what just happened
- Mouse movement now **framerate-independent** — feels consistent at any FPS
- **Mothership backdraft effect** added to rendering
- Mothership **lifetime set to 4000ms** across all levels (Level 06: 2500ms)
- Mothership explosion improved visually
- Mothership rockets made louder
- Mothership eye painted darker
- Mothership attack penalized when spawning close to the player
- New **"kill player jingle"** sound effect added
- Third **"kill last enemy"** sound effect added
- VR explosions re-enabled for all enemies — previously only the last enemy exploded in VR
- **Level tips** added to Level 7; general tips improved with special VR tips
- **Congrats sound** now also plays on Level 10 completion
- Point multiplier UI text updated: now shows `x100` instead of `100XP`; X-Run now shows `xrun 5` instead of `X5`
- Point multiplier no longer resets when you miss your first shot — persists correctly
- Level multiplier base points adjusted to better reward skilled play
- **Lead and spread parameters** added to several levels
- Level 1 and 2 **lead shot reduced** for a fairer early game
- Level 6 player **blast rate** adjusted
- Level 1 enemy blast speed rebalanced
- **VR thumbstick zoom** added with debounce timer
- VR trigger now maps to turbo (LSHIFT)
- VR recenter event detection added
- VR neck model implemented for more natural head tracking
- VR movement damping improved when menu is open or paused
- VR thumbstick sensitivity scaling adjusted for better control
- VR turbo thrust behavior adjusted
- Brightness post-processing now applied in VR for both eyes
### 🔊 Audio
- Positional audio scaling added for enemy and mothership blasts
- Blasts now audible when menu is open or game is paused
- 2 new **hit enemy sounds** added
### 👁️ Visuals
- Brand new **Retro Shader** — smooth oldschool pixelated look on the background sphere
- Pixelation transitions are now **faster and smoother**
- **Pixel shader intensity** improved — engine intensity no longer changes while menu is open
- Default brightness increased to **1.7** for better out-of-the-box visibility
- New **VR help screen** and images added
- Corrupted explosion cubes fixed
- **Rank names** renamed to more descriptive titles
- Dynamic pixel shading on spheres added
- Player profile now displayed dynamically
### 🛠️ Fixes & Other
- Fixed wrong level tips being shown
- Fixed memory leaks
- Fixed level reset happening when it shouldn't
- Fixed corrupted explosion cubes
- Collision detection improved with **bounding box rotation support**
- Performance scaling algorithm further improved
- FPS calculation fixed
- Various level header updates and balancing tweaks
- Linux Steam build updated
- Minor logging and stability improvements
## Version 0.9.4
### 🎮 Gameplay
- **Level tips** now shown during Training mode to help you improve
- **Level 2** difficulty increased
- **Level 7** balanced — last enemies no longer rush you as hard
- **Countdown** animation scaled, repositioned and timing set to 750ms
- **Zoom bonus** and tutorial message added
- Extra lives now awarded after destroying **3 + X-Run count** motherships
- **Mothership blasts** now auto-steer toward the player more accurately
- **Level 1 mothership** tweaked and rocket fix applied
- **Brightness setting** added (range 1.0–2.0, default 1.5)
- New **Game Options** menu added; items reorganized from video settings
- Get-ready label animations refactored and improved
- **Gamemode** now shown in the HUD top-left corner
- New and improved **bonus messages** with adjusted sound pitches
### 🔊 Audio
- New **engine start sound** and fade-out logic when turbo is released
- New **engine burn sound effects** added
- New **"kill last enemy"** sound effect added (with improved 3D audio)
- New C64-style **highscore music** cut
- Improved sound bonus and pitch behaviors across events
- Random enemy sounds added during the title screen
- **Zoom label** alpha and animation improved
### 👁️ Visuals
- New **engine glow shader** with turbo-based intensity and time-based flicker
- **Explosion shader** tweaked and tuned
- Enemy fade-in effect fixed
- Enemy explosions tuned for better feel
- Lighting changes applied
- Bonus text repositioned slightly upward in the HUD
### 🛠️ Fixes & Other
- Fixed ingame music not resuming correctly
- Performance scaling algorithm improved using **headroom as scaler**
- `ZoomLabel` added and integrated into get-ready animations
- Timing statistics functions optimized
- Various minor fixes and level header updates