Today's update brings a few quality-of-life improvements for added convenience, specifically zoom and auto-scroll, along with a few other things.
Before we get to the heart of the matter, a brief word on the thematic background: For nostalgic reasons, the game tries to emulate a vertical height of 200 pixels from the old 320x200 VGA resolution, so-called "Mode 13h". Even though we know that not everyone likes this, all of this was and remains intended. For matches on large maps, there is a (manual) scroll function to shift the view sideways. Admittedly, that was more of a hassle than anything else.
Feature updates
- We have gone ahead and now added a zoom feature for matches where the game world exceeds the screen size. In doing so, we’re also addressing community requests again, at least between the lines. We remain of the opinion that the huge virtual pixels on your screens are not an argument for this, no, that pixelated look is still intentional. But we ourselves certainly agree that it can be sensible and convenient to be able to grasp the world in its full expanse at a single glance. However, the virtual resolution remains limited to multiples of whole physical pixels. Consequently, there is no continuous zoom, but the world can be zoomed out in whole pixel-size steps. Rendering pixelated graphics on a subpixel-filtered level would be blurry und look like crap.
- In addition to the manual scrolling and new zoom capability, we have added another quality-of-life feature: automatic scrolling. In matches played on large maps, especially in simultaneous and real-time modes, it can be stressful trying to locate your own tank or keep track of the action with all the projectiles and explosions. While the zoom feature has kind of solved this issue, there is now also an auto-scroll function that keeps the focus on your tank, bombs, and "booms". Players can still grab the view themselves as usual, auto-scroll is then deactivated for a certain amount of time.
- On a completely different note, we have switched from legacy DirectInput to Steam Input. Since Steam tended to intercept game controller inputs anyway, controller functionality may have been somewhat impaired recently, aside from Steam's own built-in mouse emulation. This change should resolve those issues and make gamepad controls more "complete" and feel a bit more "native" again now.
Visual updates
- We have also added input hints and controller glyphs here and there for use with game controllers. For now, we have limited this to Xbox glyphs. Other controller types will work, but the glyphs might not yet match perfectly (e.g., PlayStation controllers). Glyph support for these will be added later. Steam input devices are essentially a superset of the Xbox layout, so their glyphs should already match anyway.
- As part of the improved scrolling, we incorporated parallax effects for the firmament and celestial bodies, as well as perspective-based water movement, rather than simply shifting the entire finished scene left and right in a crude manner.
- To make it even clearer which tank is yours, we have also introduced a bouncing arrow that briefly indicates the active tank at the start of each turn.
- It’s hardly worth mentioning, but we’ve made some very minor visual tweaks to the Settings menu in a few places.
Just take a look at it!