Hello everyone! I hope that you are enjoying all the recent changes and additions to Rock 'N Roll! Update 1.15 brings with it a couple of important
changes to how to your games will work as far as game balance and how the
Smasher power up looks differently than before..
Here is the NEW SMASHER look which when seen resembles a mallet or hammer smashing a rock into pieces:
Here are the important balance changes made to the game which will very likely not only affect your scores, but also how well you perform while playing:
BOUNCER SHOT CHANGE:
Bouncer Shots now work much more closely to what was originally intended. Before this patch, you could fire shots around the screen and each bullet would bounce off the edge of the screen until an asteroid or enemy was hit. The unintended problem was that once something was hit by a single bullet, all of your bullets on screen would disappear and you'd need to fire more bullets again.
Bouncer shots now will now fire bullets and when something is hit by one of your bullets, it will no longer cause all the rest of your bullets on the screen to disappear. The result of this change is a MUCH different (and more powerful power-up) as your bullets fired with Bouncer Shots will correctly bounce all around the screen and each bullet will continue bouncing around the screen until it either hits an enemy or an asteroid OR until the Bouncer Shots power-up time ends. When the power-up time is over, all bullets currently bouncing around on the screen will then be removed from play.
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BASE ROTATION SPEED WHILE NOT THRUSTING HAS BEEN INCREASED:
You minimum rotation speed (while not moving) has been increased by about 7% from the start of the game to provide you a little faster movement when needed. Keep in mind that much faster rotation speeds both while thrusting and not moving forward is available in the Ship Upgrade station between levels for a cost. Also remember that you will always be able to rotate your ship much faster while thrusting forward and the faster you thrust forward, that faster your rotation speed will be magnified.
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ACCURACY BONUS AFTER EACH LEVEL HAS BEEN INCREASED:
The accuracy bonus has been beefed up by about 30% to give you a heftier bonus for scoring over a 25% accuracy on any given level. Also note that using the bouncer shots power-up as of this update will help you score a much higher accuracy because each bullet will not miss now and will continue bouncing around until it hits something or until the power-up ends.
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MORE POINTS FOR SHOOTING ASTEROIDS WHILE MOVING:
You'll now be award more points for moving while shooting asteroids. The faster you are moving when you shoot an asteroid, and the smaller the asteroid is while moving, the bigger the bonus. This only applies to your bullets hitting asteroids, ie smashing an asteroid with a Spi-Roll or a power-up such as smasher or cannonball with your ship will NOT give you bonus points. The A55 Kicker hitting asteroids while it is moving will also not score you any more bonus points, as this bonus only applies to YOU and your bullets while you are moving.
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END OF LEVEL TIME TO BEAT IS MODIFIED BY A55 KICKER ASSISTANCE:
If you have an A55 Kicker helping you blast asteroids, your level time to beat (to score a time bonus) will be reduced by the amount of time you had an A55 Kicker helping you out. If you have two A55 Kickers, the time you had each one helping you will be calculated and reduce your goal time for a bonus even more.
Not that power-ups such as Rapid Fire, Smasher, and Cannonball used during the level will NOT affect or reduce your goal time, so these are great power-ups to use to clear rocks quickly and help you get this bonus!
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RESOURCE VALUES IS NOW MUCH LESS PREDICTABLE:
The points value and cash values of each resource sold at the Galactic Selling Station has been changed to be much less predictable than before. You'll notice that each resource now has a much bigger variance each time you visit for both point values and cash values than ever. This should stop the overall predictability of which ones are "better to sell for points" and which ones are always "better to sell for cash". Hopefully this change adds a little more intrigue in what might happen and how you sell each resource type each time you visit the selling station between levels.
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FINAL PERFORMANCE GRADE CHANGES:
With all of the recent additions to the game, including nerfing the overall speed of asteroids, adding the Mother Sucker power-up and the A55 Kicker to aid you meant that the game performance formula needed tweaking as well. It is now much harder than ever before to score a high grade. Getting a a D- or even a C is about the same as before, but scoring a B or an A grade requires much better scores and game progression than before this update.
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GAMBLER POWER-UP FIXED:
The Gambler power-up since the previous update 1.14 sometimes would not give you anything, and this has been fixed. Gambler can now give you some of the new power-ups added recently such a M.E.S.A. shield protection, an A55 Kicker, or a Mother Sucker.
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A55 Kicker Being Hit Sound Tweaked:
The sound made when the A55 was either continually being hit by your bullets of when it got stuck under your ship or under an asteroid has been tweaked to not "wig out" and repeat so often in these situations.
I think that about covers the changes made in this update!
Please continue to leave your feedback and bug reports as they greatly help me enhance and fix the game to make it a better experience for all players world-wide.
As always, Rock On! Have fun and good luck when it comes time to choose the right Earth reflection(s) to save with those G.E.O.S. gems! :-)