Hello everyone! This week's dev blog is a big one, packed full of juicy details. So let's dive straight in! We will bring you update version 0.6.0.4150 on Monday 29th May 2017 at 9AM UK time, and this is what's new:
It's finally here!
So we asked you to keep a secret and to be honest, not many of you were very good at it! Perhaps our hot air balloon hint was a little too good. Rumors started to fly that we were bringing back Aurora, a much loved space from 'the past'. Finally we can reveal that this is exactly what we are doing! Starting with the Aurora Private Islands Bundle, we are reviving this popular space and bringing it into Atom Universe. It's quite a big project so you can expect much more to happen with Aurora in the future, but for now we would like to invite you to purchase your own Aurora private space and bring all your friends! As part of the bundle you will get two of Aurora's islands to explore; plus two exclusive items, an Aurora t-shirt (just like old times) and a dancefloor for you to place in your Private Islands space (and also somewhere else, but we are going to let you discover that by yourselves). Not only that but you will also receive a set of the famous goggles from Aurora. We are giving you the silver goggles so that when we get Orb Runner up and running you can have a head start in completing the daily challenge! While you wait for Orb Runner to arrive you are going to look so super snazzy wearing them. By purchasing the Aurora Private Islands Bundle you will be directly contributing towards bringing Aurora to Atom Universe for everyone, including minigames, clothing, furniture and more! We are so excited to be able to bring this space to Atom Universe and to share it with you! You can read more about how we made this happen here. Aurora Private Islands Bundle: Private space with two Aurora islands Aurora T-shirt Dance Floor Furniture item Silver Goggles
Collect 'em all!
The exciting news doesn't stop there! We know you have enjoyed playing Holo-Horses to complete the challenges, and now we are going to give you more! In this update we will be adding challenges and rewards to Bowling. Time to spice it up a little. We know that you have mastered each of the mini games in Atom Universe, but now we are giving you some new tasks to complete to show you are the ultimate AU gamer. To earn these rewards it really takes dedication and skill - so if you want to be the best, take on these challenges. Then wear your rewards with pride! We have also created a stickerbook for you to access in game which will show your progress towards all the current challenges, and give you a sticker when you complete each one. In true stickerbook style, some of them are shiny, so make sure you earn them all! We will be adding more challenges over time, so keep an eye on your stickerbook to see when new ones drop. We can't wait to hear about your progress, grab a screenshot and share it with us @AtomRepublic on Twitter.
A little helping hand
We know that it can be a little confusing for new players when they first enter the game. We have quite a few menus to browse through at the start, and lots of options to choose from! So we decided to add a tutorial which will explain things a little and help them get started. The tutorial will play for everyone the first time you play the game after it has been updated. If you are an AU pro, you can skip each part of the tutorial quickly. And if you decide that maybe there is something useful to learn after all, you can make it play again by clicking on the ? button in the bottom left hand corner. Sorted. We love it when new players join our community and we hope that our tutorial coupled with your friendliness will help make AU even better!
I Robot
Look out for these awesome new android costumes, available for Adam and for Eve. They offer two levels of colour customisation for the rippling lights and eye/tattoo features. Maybe you have been sent from the 25th century to wreak some kind of revenge. Or maybe you are a friendly robot just here to dance, that's up to you!
Design Competition
We absolutely loved hosting our first design competition. We asked you guys to design a logo which encapsulated the ultimate summer experience. You lot didn't disappoint, and we cannot wait to hold another comp to see more of your talent. Our winner this time was Latannia Butterfield with the design above. We are already working on it and you can expect to see this in game soon. The t-shirt will be free to all and we love it!
Custom Made
We know that there are some players that would appreciate a much more bespoke experience in AU. We are excited to launch a very special service, where you can request a new item or design and we will contact you to discuss what it will take to get it into the game. Maybe you would like to promote your you tube channel, have a go at creating a cool design, or maybe you just want something that no one else has! You can access this feature via the Item Requests tab in the Avatar menu.
Fly the flag
It wouldn't be a devblog without some clothing updates! This time we are adding more flag t-shirts so that players from the following countries can REPRESENT!!! Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Argentina, Russia, Norway, Mexico, New Zealand, Greece and Japan. Grab yours now!
Phew!
If you read this far you are a true AU hero :) Thanks to those of you who joined us in the Woodland House last weekend for our open house event. We hope to do more of these in the future so keep an eye on our social media channels for more info. Don't forget we now release new content each week, so remember to regularly check in and see what's new. Hope you enjoy all the cool stuff, byeeeee for now!
Bug Fixes:
- Avatar items will no longer reset when you travel to a space or restart the game.
- Other players will once again be able to see what you are wearing correctly.
- Users can no longer preview clothing on an avatar wearing a costume.
Known Issue:
Sometimes when you preview items in the customisation screen they don't disappear when you move your cursor away from the thumbnail. While we work on a fix for this, you can refresh the screen by pressing the touchpad or spacebar to remove the previewed item.