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Hello everyone! This is the biggest update so far in the 1.x era. We've read your feedback in the reviews and made many changes to the game's feel, speed, and features. First and foremost, we've introduced a new gameplay mechanic: Gems! Gems have a chance to spawn when a block gets popped, and will fly out of the arena. Walls don't stop them, so make sure to grab them, because now you unlock all the goodies in the game with the gems you've collected! You can also gain 50 gems instantly just by sharing Mondrian on Facebook and Twitter from the main menu.
On top of the gems, we've completely revamped paddle controls and made them much smoother, with lower initial speed, higher top speed, MUCH greater precision on minor movements, and another acceleration step. You can also now use your controller's bumpers or triggers (a long overdue control scheme) or the A/D keys to move the paddle as well. Ball behavior has also been slightly modified and the size of the Breakerball has been cut in half in an effort to make the game less frustrating at higher difficulties.
This is just a taste of what's new. You'll have to read through the patch notes to see the rest. A big thank you to everyone who supported the game during the recent Holiday Sale and Pay-What-You-Want deal, and a big welcome to all the new players! We also want to thank everybody who stopped by the table at Indie Arcade: Coast to Coast and tried out the update before it went live. We couldn't have made this update this in-depth without your help.
Features:
- Gems! Gems have a chance to fly out of a block when popped. Spend gems in the Boutique to unlock paddles, balls, levels, visual effects, and more
- Boutique! The Boutique is where you now unlock everything for the game. We'll be building the Boutique out even more in the coming updates
- Added Facebook and Twitter share buttons to main menu, as well as +25 gem bonus per share. Buttons are on a 5 minute timer
- New gameplay mode: Gem Hunt! Collect gems in the first level, and go Double-Or-Nothing in subsequent levels
- A shiny new Gameplay Options screen, which now includes Level Packs and Visual Styles (previously Effect Select), as well as new graphics to demonstrate every option
- Remade tutorial and reduced game to just one tutorial, introducing basic movement and mechanics
- Added New Gameplay Option: Erase Data. Start fresh with 0 unlocks and 0 gems. Available in the Gameplay Options menu
- Added controller bumper buttons, triggers, and keyboard A/D as paddle control varieties
- Replaced Progress Check screen with a Gem Chest to show you how many Gems you've collected
- Added dedicated sound effect and midscreen animation for Wildcard
- Added a Warning before a Challenge Level
- Added WASD and Space as controls for Museum
- Added Space as control for the Options menu
- Four new Piet Mondrian quotes
Changes:
Bug Fixes:
- Explored a fix to a bug that would cause the selector on the main menu to not scroll down
- Fixed a bug where walls would not rotate in certain challenge modes
- Fixed a bug where Opponent wall rotation, if not unlocked, wouldn't reset the rotation type properly
- Fixed a bug where hitting a Wildcard powerup would not set the paddle's side detectors to the proper position
- Redid controls in Museum for better controller compatibility
- Fixed a bug in the Museum where Escape would always go back to the
- Main Menu, instead of closing a gallery when one is open
- Fixed a small bug where gallery controls wouldn't immediately respond upon viewing a gallery
- Fixed a big bug where some levels would not read unlock states correctly, causing a loading loop
- Fixed a bug where setting Default Options would not set Sound Volume,
- Music Volume, and Screenshake levels to default values
- Fixed a bug that would prevent the game from loading on the very off-hand chance that no levels were activated
As an aside, if you disliked or were on the fence about the game to begin with, we'd love for you to give it another shot and update your review if you feel like the improvements we've made warrant changing your criticisms. Either way, thank you all so much for the feedback! There will be more updates on the way in the coming weeks/months, so stay tuned.
- Danny
Quick Update: several day-of-update bugs have been squashed, so the game should be good to play now. We've also removed the achievements related to beating the tutorials, as now there is only one tutorial. New achievements related to the gems and other incoming features will be included with 1.3.