A big new gameplay update has been released for BlastZone 2 (v1.27.0.0) that reworks and rebalances the entire game to primarily target a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. This expands the range of movement and gameplay area over previous versions and expands many of the menus. One critique I’ve heard about BlastZone 2 is the limited movement range; it was put in place to ensure a similar gameplay experience between 4:3 aspect and wide screen monitors. Now, horizontal movement and gameplay space has been expanded to the full viewable 16:9 aspect area and the game always runs in widescreen mode, even for 4:3 resolutions using letterboxing. This is beneficial for all players because 4:3 users gain a wider field of view, and widescreen users benefit from their entire viewable space being utilized for gameplay. This also equalizes the gameplay advantages and disadvantages that previously existed due to different aspect ratios.
As for vertical movement limits, Mission mode was completely designed with the original vertical limits in place, so expanding them would break many of the levels, allowing the player to easily skip significant areas of gameplay. Completely redesigning all of Mission mode to accomodate a larger vertical space was outside the scope of this update. Mission mode still benefits from increased horizontal movement though.
The Survival and Blitz game modes now take advantage of the full vertical and horizontal space of a 16:9 aspect ratio. This involved not only updating player movement limits, but also reworking all enemy movement and spawning patterns to take advantage of the larger gameplay area. This opens up more control flexibility for strategic options. A lot of work went into rebalancing these modes to make them more fun to play, so I hope everyone enjoys them!
Classic A/B modes received small updates as well, allowing for increased vertical player movement, but enemy spawning patterns haven’t been changed to preserve the existing gameplay balance.
A number of menus have been updated to take advantage of the wider aspect ratio as well. Some of the menus were previously somewhat cramped and had abbreviated labeling to fit everything in a 4:3 space, such as ship selection screens, so those look much better now. The ingame HUD has also been updated to work better for widescreen.
This update addresses another criticism of the game, which is that minibosses had a time limit and would leave if the player couldn’t defeat them in time. This has been rectified by adding a new feature to the enemy scripting system. Now, enemy behaviors can have looped sections and can stay on the screen battling the player forever until the player wins or dies. This gives the satisfaction of overcoming the challenge of each miniboss and not merely lasting long enough for it to leave.
Here are the full release notes:
- Increased the playable area to fit the entire screen -Allows ship movement to all edges of the screen in Survival and Blitz mode -Removed old movement restrictions that disallowed movement to the far bottom, left, and right of the screen -Adjusted enemy ship spawning and movement in Survival and Blitz mode to take advantage of the expanded gameplay area -Mission mode only expands the horizontal movement area, as all the mission levels were designed for the restricted vertical space -Classic A/B modes allow for expanded vertical movement, but enemy spawning hasn't been changed so difficulty balancing isn't affected
- The game always runs in 16:9 widescreen mode now -When running a 4:3, 5:4, or 16:10 resolution, the game runs in 16:9 widescreen letterboxed -This eliminates the FOV disadvantage that 4:3 and 5:4 monitors used to have -This ensures that all aspect ratios maintain the same gameplay experience
- Changed the default resolution to 720p -This is now a primarily widescreen focused game, so this is a more fitting default resolution
- Updated a few menus to take advantage of widescreen better -Single player ship selection -Local multiplayer ship selection -Online multiplayer lobby screen
- Rebalanced enemy spawning patterns and behavior in Survival and Blitz modes to work better with the new play area
- Updated the HUD to take advantage of a wider screen space
- Added looping support to the enemy scripting system
- Updated the Area 1, 3, 5, and 7 minibosses to infinitely loop and not fly off the screen on their own anymore
- Fixed a bug that would flicker the lights in the cave background when switching ships in the single player ship selection screen
- Adjusted the sun graphic position in the Outer Space background
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, start the game and check the lower left corner of the title screen for “v1.27.0.0” or above. I hope everyone enjoys the new gameplay improvements!