Greetings, Hard Chip players!
Let's cover the modifications made in versions 0.0.5.58 to 0.0.5.64 and the move to 0.0.6.0! It has been three weeks since the last update, so this update is packed with improvements, new features, and fixes designed to enhance your experience. Here's a detailed look at what's new:
1. UPDATED Camera controls and keyboard controls
The strongest feedback was about controls: " I love the concept of this game, but the controls are too unresponsive." "Controlling this was..... awful, frankly. I'm really really excited by the concept." "I, too, like the demo but was hampered by the controls."
Okay, controls need reworking! That is precisely one of the past weeks' focus areas. It might be hard to show every change with gifs, but I put every change in the "Changelog" section below for the courageous ones.
Changelog:
- NEW Recenter/Dramatic moves/ShowHideUIElements camera control buttons;
- NEW Key shortcuts 123456 to Traces, PMOS, NMOS, etc...
- NEW Camera Tilt/Pedestal movement on ZC;
- MI Mouse and keyboard revert to a suspended state when the window is unfocused;
- MI Camera finishes its movement even when the window is unfocused; no mouse wheel is captured when the window is unfocused;
- FIX Mouse swing when entering a level;
- FIX Force mouse pos in center to avoid "cropped" moves in FPS phases;
- FIX Camera rubber band movement effect when low framerate;
- FIX Camera center broken after switching from free cam;
- UX When the mouse is locked, last state = current state, to avoid big swings;
- UX UI captures keypress for textboxes only, making shortcuts work even if the mouse is on the UI;
- UX Tab switches between modes;
- UX Rotate camera control button now changes the angular momentum of the camera;
- UX Editor/Freecam button shows the actual mode the cam is in;
- UX Camera zooms when at die level;
- UX Camera movement buttons are now the same as with the mouse;
- UX Camera keyboard maps to the new camera behavior;
- UX Camera framerate agnostic fix for rotation;
- UX Camera angular behavior tweaking;
2. NEW Slots
It's a must-have feature to have for a game like HC. Now you can have up to 3 slots per challenge to test different designs without having to use blueprints as a workaround:
And it allows some cool "side effect" like copying pasting between slots:
Changelog:
- NEW Per slot Undo/Redo stack;
- NEW 3 save slots for challenges!;
- MI Slots for Challenges only;
- FIX Selection now resets when switching slots;
3. NEW 5 Challenges
More challenges were added to the existing ones, bringing the total to 36 challenges (+12 for the tutorial ones).
- NEW Nible multiplier challenge, a good stepping stone to the 8bits multiplier!
- NEW 2/4/8 bits transmitter challenges—those are really useful as a blueprint when you work with buses!
- The NEW 64Bit adder challenge is genuinely enormous; floor planning and excellent blueprints are required for this one! "Work smarter not harder" type of challenge.
4. UPDATED Demos (partially)
For a long time, Demos accessible in the Library in the main menu were disabled. They were built with an outdated HC simulation and weren't functional anymore. That's fixed! Well, almost. They all have properly shaped circuits, but only half are in working condition. So work in progress! But you can have fun with an adder, decoder, and the famous 512-byte RAM module (which is the maximum target size for an HC circuit at the moment).
Here's a now properly shaped demo, but needs rework of part now. Still cool I found:
Changelog:
- MI Demos run the simulation and show readouts now;
- MI Converting all demos to Conducive Gate update and Distinct MOS Connection update;
5. UPDATED MOS Behavior and looks
The demo available during the Next Fest was a fantastic developer experience. The variety of solutions for even the most straightforward challenge (the demo ended after the NAND challenge) was an absolute joy to see!
Some people have even found some nice exploits! For a long time, I didn't want to fix those exploits because you had to think smart to come up with them in the first place. But HC is about being as close to reality as possible, and those exploits didn't reflect reality much.
Here's the set of merge that was working before 0.0.6.0:
As you can see, on the left 2 merge PMOS are still valid. On the right merging PMOS and NMOS isn't possible anymore where previously it was functional.
Changelog:
- UX Gates has the same color as the type of MOS;
- NEW Savefile updater in the settings to allow players to update to Distinct MOS connection modification;
- FIX Merge Gate Exploit;
- FIX Merge MOS Connection Exploit;
- FIX Connected gates rendering are always visually connected;
6. NEW Unconnected indicators and Select Segment
It's a pain to find unconnected transistors at scale. But that's a thing of the past now! Welcome the new "Floating pin indicators," which are visible from anywhere and on top of everything else.
The "Select Segment" isn't a new feature per se but more of a forgotten one. In fact, no one seems to know that it existed! Here's a small tweak to change that:
And the new indicators
Really handy for certain situations! Like here a missed PMOS connection in a sea of wires!
Changelog:
- UX Adding select segment into the selected modal;
- UX Clearer color and blinking selected block indicator;
- NEW Floating pin indicators;
Quality Of Life, Bug, and Crash fixes:
- Quite a lot of additions were made, and more than could be possibly covered in a reasonably short dev blog post. But for reference, here are the rest of the changes made in the last weeks:
- Changelog:
- NEW "Quick updates" panel in the main menu with short instructions for the 0.6 update;
- MI Simulation Deterministic mode is the default for everything;
- MI Readouts are now ulong based (allow 64bits value);
- UX Showing the name of the stage on the report;
- UX Removed unused Save/Reload level button from Component Editor;
- UX Remove shake animation for locked sections in Chip maps and replaced it with a blink instead;
- UX Remove schematic button locator;
- UX Readouts are now stickable to arbitrary positions and can be moved (different than relative to the screen);
- UX Force a resolution in windowed;
- UX Cross to close window library and smaller item height to show more of them at once;
- UX Component Library UI tweaks;
- UX Change indicators don't capture the mouse anymore; Loaded indicators are bigger when focused;
- UX Bonus map tweaks;
- SX Terminal logs when starting the 4bit register chip map;
- MI JKLatch challenge update to use auto-generated inputs (breaking);
- MI Force back mos block to be put only at layer 0;
- MI Basic gates grades activated in bonus map;
- MI All schematics QA pass;
- FIX/NEW Working Undo/Redo with/without slots;
- FIX warning sound when placing a block close to the edge;
- FIX Voxel builder crash fix tentative (reversed collection);
- FIX Validators with any expected do wait for the simulation to settle now;
- FIX Tristate "bufer" typo and wrong wiring in the schematic;
- FIX renders glitches and incoherences;
- FIX Properly show the savefile name in the main menu;
- FIX Matching labels between levels and schematics for latch levels;
- FIX Main title demo not always loading;
- FIX Geometry benchmark generates properly formed mos (no more broken indicators flood);
- FIX Editor hangs when a text input captures focus;
- FIX don't exit challenge on "Save all as blueprint";
- FIX Dlatch in bonus locked out;
- FIX Ctrl-z properly works the first time;
- FIX Ctrl-z doesn't trigger camera tilt;
- FIX Crash while selecting and then cutting (tentative);
- FIX Crash audio after fabricating;
- FIX Clear old floating indicators when restart level;
- FIX Broken mos overlay could get cleared wrongly in some instances;
- FIX Autosave every 60s;
- FIX Audio crash when settings are too high;
- FIX All sounds respect Sound level settings;
- FIX 8bits output multiplier challenge;
- FIX "New Chip" and "New Blueprint" from the Library will force save now;
- FIX "Crossing state" not skippable now;
Your feedback, suggestions, and comments are not just important, they're the lifeblood of this game. We value your input and encourage you to join our Discord server to share your thoughts and ideas!
Thank you for playing Hard Chip, and stay tuned for more updates and new features!