Droid Assault – tweaked!

News

And it is a proper tweaking. Firstly and without further ado, go and download it and while you’re waiting read about what we’ve changed.

Why we’ve tweaked it

Before I tell you the exact nitty gritty of what’s changed you might want to know why we went monkeying with the secret sauce with one of the greatest videogames ever made, eh? Well, it all stems from the fact that Droid Assault is going to wind up on Steam in the not-too-distant future, and your average Steam punter is perhaps a little more discerning (or shall we say, “scathingly critical”), en masse, than you delightful and forgiving Puppygames fans are.

Droid Assault suffered a few arbitrary and unnecessary limitations in various areas. Firstly it was designed around a rather crappy 320×320 display area (along with our other two minigames, Titan Attacks and Ultratron). The window was fixed, square shaped, and decidedly a bit weird. In this modern day and age it seemed a little incongruous.

Also, the game did rather suffer from being somewhat mindless. It started off reasonably sensible but by the time you got to, say, two thirds of the way through the game, it became an almost random frenzy of blaster fire; 90% of the droids were blown up, including often most of your own droids, in the first 10 seconds of the level, leading to a couple of minutes of relative tedium. Again, this probably wasn’t going to satisfy the relatively eclectic tastes of the Steam demographic, many of whom clearly prefer deeper, more involved games, as our runaway success Revenge of the Titans has shown us.

So, I wanted to make the game a little deeper and more tactical than it used to be, and the following raft of changes is chiefly aimed at getting depth and tactics into this game to replace the random destruction.

All right, what changed then?


Firstly you’ll notice the window is now fully resizable. This in turn means you get to see a lot more of the map than you did before. However, we’ve balanced this by introducing three tactical considerations:

  1. The droids in the game always did have a scanner range and attack range. If you were within scanner range, they’d be able to chase you (or they would that is, if they had dual-core or multi-core brains). The attack range was the range at which they’d actually start shooting. You can now hover over your captured droids to see what these ranges are (red for attack range; where scanner range is greater, it’s shown as a dim cyan). The descriptions of the droids usually give a good indication of what their scanner range is going to be like. When you transfer to a droid, the map now zooms in or out to reflect the droid’s scanner range!
  2. You can no longer see enemy droids round corners! So you’ve no idea what droids are lurking around what corner, or where they are exactly, when you go charging around a bend. I’ve already had one complaint about this, but I’m afraid it’s here to stay: IMHO the game becomes vastly more tactical when you have to dodge round a corner to see what you’re facing. And tense 🙂
  3. Similarly the ability to quickly scroll through your captured droids is, and with great deliberation and consideration, no longer available. You control but one droid – if you want to transfer control to another of your friendlies, you need a line-of-sight and to use the transfer beam. It’s still free to transfer to friendlies, and you still randomly auto-transfer if your controlled droid buys the farm

Those changes in themselves already represent the most significant change in the overall feel of the game, bringing much more serious consideration to the physical tactic of approach and destroy.

We’ve also added a neat little feature: you can take cover behind crates and terminals and shoot over them. If you are standing directly behind an obstacle you can shoot straight over it. Unfortunately the enemy can do exactly the same thing to you, although they don’t have the brains to deliberately take cover.

If you are a proper badass you will find that you can quickly blast 10 droids to smithereens in the space of a few seconds. Every time you blow up a droid inside a small time limit (which has increased slightly since the last version), your score multiplier increases. This is good, because you score loads of points for multi-kills. (Pro tip: shoot little droids first then blow up big ones worth more points at the end!) However, if you reach x10 multiplier, the level goes into red alert and a squad of nasty droids is beamed in to clear you out!

The distribution of droids on levels has now changed somewhat so that there are a few more of the lower ranking droids and very few badass droids. They are now rare. Not only are they rare, but they are also considerably more expensive to capture. Previously you only needed to score 1000 points to earn a transfer point; now you need 1000, 2000, 3000, and so on; saving up to get yourself a K911 is going to cost you 45000 points now! Not only that but they take rather a lot longer to capture. This would suck greatly, were it not for the following mitigating factors:

  • The big droids, being quite rare, are also less likely to be shooting at you, as well.
  • Higher security class droids now have loads more hitpoints, meaning they are much more resilient to damage than before, and hence last a lot longer in a firefight.
  • The rate of permanent decay of higher security class droids has been slowed a tad, so they last longer under your control.
  • The ordinary health powerup has changed: it now restores 25% of your shields, and it repairs your permanent chassis degradation by the same amount. That means your super-buffed battledroid can be kept alive a whole load longer than they used to!
  • Because they are rare and expensive, they are things of great value, and much more interesting to capture.

This fundamental shift in the balance of the game promotes tactical metagaming decisions besides the increased tactics you need to employ to destroy the enemies in relative safety. Do you save up for a B821 or do you just keep getting crappy M511s and hope to survive? Is a B821 really worth it? etc.

And finally here are a bunch of more trivial, miscellaneous enhancements:

  • Some droids are now flameproofed and naturally, this can also be picked up as a powerup.
  • The spreader cannon and assault cannon and ripper cannon now all cause stun, momentarily stopping enemy droids in their tracks. They also do more damage and stun the closer you are. The spreader cannon and assault cannon are now multi-tap rapid fire weapons like the ordinary blaster – seriously powerful.
  • Even invulnerable targets are eventually damaged by weapons that normally deflect off their armour.
  • All of the weapons have been buffed somewhat when used by you directly. Although the game is now more tactical and sneaky, we’ve made up for it by giving the weapons battery and recharge boosts to make sure there’s plenty more shooting to make up for it when a firefight actually occurs 🙂 In particular the relatively crappy multi-blaster now has a mahoosive clip, and the double versions of ordinary blasters are no longer nerfed by clipsize; so they are indeed genuinely weapons worth having, even in weedy droids
  • A few of the droids have been subtly altered or tweaked to make them a little more unique from each other.
  • Dotted all around the map are little invisible barriers that the enemy droids cannot cross, keeping them penned in to certain areas. These barriers are now removed if you enter red alert status, or if the number of droids remaining on the level does not outnumber your infiltrating force by at least 2:1. So you’ll suddenly find droids running even more amok.
  • Sadly we had to change the blaster noises 🙁 But the previous ones were of, ahem, unknown provenance, and almost certainly ripped out of a certain film involving wars in stars or something. So whilst we lament their loss, at least be cheered that the new noises aren’t half bad either. And now they’ve got variation too!

    There are a ton of other code changes under the hood to keep things up-to-date but I won’t bore you with the details unless you’re a geek. In which case you might be interested to know that the entire sprite engine now uses VBOs and GL_TRIANGLES only; no more GL_QUADS, in preparation for OpenGL ES, which doesn’t have GL_QUADS. A major irritation if you make a sprite engine, it turns out.

    Now go forth and find bugs! And save your whining, because it’s too late, and we’re not changing it back. Keep the old version hanging around if you feel nostalgic.

84 thoughts on 'Droid Assault – tweaked!'

  1. I finished Revenge of the Titans today, but am glad that the older games still get some love 🙂 I’ll definitely play Droid Assault again once i can add it to my Steam collection 😀

  2. Yay for this! I hope you’ve got plans for Titan Attacks as well 😀

    Right, now to play and experience some bugs ;D

  3. Great job on the new version!
    I really liked the demo.

    No big deal to download the Java Runtime for Mac OS X Lion either (which I need) since it came up automatically.

    Hope you can find someone to make the iOS ports to your games (maybe you have?).
    I’m just starting out a little on Objective-C so I’m not the right one (yet…). 🙂

  5. interesting changes! i love the shoot outs, the scaled back perspective, the reduced number of droids, and that captured droids last longer. battles seem more epic. the closest single core range is really annoying. i understand the intended disadvantage of playing with a single core bot, but it’s messing with the esthetics and gameplay. i would be a fan of getting rid of the scaled perspectives altogether and keeping the view that the toaster looking dual blasting multi-core bots have. i LOVE the gameplay then (to me it gets a little far away beyond that, but still really enjoyable). you could also have the visibility thing improve, so really advanced droids could “see” all the droids on the screen, while more simple droids “see” much less, while the perspectives of the two droids stay the same. also, the danger thing that happens at the end of certain levels is confusing, not challenging, and often is over before i can fire off many shots (i’ve only played to level 18 or so)

    yeah, i don’t love the invisibility thing. i am intrigued by the challenge, and like the concept. i think with my suggestion of having visibility improve with more advanced bots, it could be cooler.

    i look forward to playing it more! nice work!

    1. There are some droids that have x-ray sensors that allow them to see through walls… Also, the brain type has nothing to do with the scanner range; it’s completely independent.

  6. i’m at level 39. i’m really enjoying this game. the laser! OMG!

    i like the new level of strategy. i’m getting more of a hang of the invisibility, although not getting shot while running around a corner can be hard and frustrating.

    i’m surviving pretty constantly on 1-3 droids, while provides much more of a sense of a scrapper team of bad a droids, but i do feel like i’m struggling a little to “stay a float”. taking over a droid takes much longer which i think i like the challenge of. it can be really teeth clenching in the heat of battle.

    a big down side of only being able to beam to another droid with line of sight is at the end of a level, say 39, with multiple rooms and you’re trying hook up your other droid with some health and you can’t freakin’ find him. a medium size inconvenience.

    i like being able to see the entire map. it’s actually awesome. like pac man on illegal steroids. but the game play gets very different and precise. it’s harder to target things. on the other hand, having the advantage of seeing the entire map coupled with a bomber droid that can pierce through walls, and you can clear all the turrets in the level and half the droids. pretty fun.

    health actually heals you! all the time! i love it.

    fighting the bosses is a little tedious. i think you should be able to hold down the fire button until after 5 seconds or so and power up a ultra damaging shot. if you hold it down too long and you explode. and skillful players could use this to beat bosses faster.

    anyway.

    i love this game ever more now. i do.

  7. It’s not starting for me. There are no error messages whatsoever. The previous stuff worked. Btw. it’s a deb on Linux.

  8. im going to still play the old because it has all my saved data on it
    is there any way to get the saved data on the new version from the old
    also,is this the new droid assault game you were talking about because i really wanted a sequel

  9. Repost:

    “Really, really, really not loving the new invisibility-thing you’ve got going on. It complicates things greatly, yes, but not in a good way. It doesn’t really seem to add anything pleasant to gameplay, whatsoever. It makes it more frustrating without making it even remotely any more entertaining, in my personal opinion.

    That said; I can see the value of it as an alternative gamemode. Perhaps something for fairly skilled players to give things an extra bit of complexity, or perhaps people who has beaten the game once and want to go through it again, with more of a challenge. Something like that.

    So I suggest you make it optional. Something you can switch on and off in the Options -menu, or something like that. Perhaps when you start a new game, you’ll get a screen asking “Do you wish to play with Fog of War? (Y/N)”. Stuff like that.”

  10. with the music and sound fx off the boss noise still can be heard. i noticed that from the previous version as well.

    i got a triple 10x danger zone which was confusing and awesome.

    you should be able to see all of your bots. they’re on your team, you should know where they are. and beam to them across walls. i’ll go even further and say every droid on your your team should have line of sight, uncovering enemies that they see even if you’re not controlling them.

    i know that’s probably too much processing power, but conceptually speaking, i had to say something 🙂

  11. “You should be able to see all of your bots. they’re on your team […]. I’ll go even further and say every droid on your your team should have line of sight, uncovering enemies that they see even if you’re not controlling them.”

    Yes, for fuck’s sake. Yes.

    1. Sort of 🙂 Titan Attacks is coming out first to see what the general market is going to be like for us. Unfortunately it so far looks like we will have to sell 50,000 units to break even so far.

  13. taking over a bot takes too long. if it’s going to be that long it should partially/fully recharge health to the new bot. i don’t know how many times i’ve taken over a bot only for it to be killed right away. and now that transfer points are scarce, it makes it all the more devastating.

    now that we can see more of the map i would love a little more gun range (why not as far as possible?) you could even reduce the damage at farther targets (similar to the spreader cannon, which i love that it’s multi-fire)

    i hate the closest perspective. i looks ugly and it isn’t fun to play. similar the most distant perspective isn’t that fun either. you start to lose tactical advantage because it’s just so far away. with these extreme perspectives, the game lacks a visual cohesiveness. there’s a certain sweet spot in the perspective (with the ms69 and others) where i get absolutely giddy while playing. but it’s at the point where i don’t want to play with certain droids because of the aesthetics and hindered game play. i don’t understand why we can’t have one perspective and limit individual droid’s capabilities (mainly it’s ability to “see”) in other ways.

    i’m not going to talk about the invisibility thing. i’m just not. i hate it. so i’m not going to talk about it anymore.

    there’s something about this latest version, even though there are moments where it’s more fun to play than the previous, where i find that it’s a chore to play it through. the pervious version was easier to play. not easier in terms of difficult, but more accessible.

    1. cas, i don’t mean to gripe…no i do.

      i’ve been playing the current version of droid assault a lot now. not being able to have access and visibility of all your droids is my biggest wining. it’s totally messing with my tactics, and your trying to make the game more strategic. so say i start out with an emp droid to run around and clean up a little, then try and switch over to my long range floater dude who can pierce through walls, but i can’t find him!! what’s the point of souping up our bots if we can’t even use them when needed? more often than not, i no longer feel like i’m commanding a team of droids, which was a lot of the fun of the previous version.

      i’m pretty good at this game and i keep on getting shot when pulling around corners – by little stupid droids as well. it’s frustrating. and sometimes the closest invisible enemy isn’t the enemy you should be tracking (i’m not going to try and explain that, just know that it happens around skinny walls.) i know all this is suppose to make you more careful and strategic, but there’s already PLENTY of strategy without making enemies invisible (btw it seems like the bosses shoot at you while invisible which just annoys the heck out of me “you can see me but i can’t see you!?”) the point is, i don’t care about the surprise of want’s lurking around the corner. i wanna see everything, shoot them, and feel powerful commanding my army of droids while my 7 month old sleeps for 20 min. i don’t want him waking up to a disempowered dad. see, look at what you’re causing 🙂

      also, more importantly, command q doest quit the game at the title screen. i does in the previous version. i’m on os x

      1. I might put the droid switching back in place. I’ll have a look at cmd Q, not sure why that broke. LOS is here to stay though, coz I like it 🙂 Currently trying to figure out a nifty visibility effect based on it too.

        1. if you do reinstate it, one annoying aspect of switching was it wouldn’t evenly shuffle through all the droids and you often had to keep switching more times than you had droids to get to the specific bot that you were looking for.

          1. between you and me that’s why I took it out 😉 and then I never got around to fixing it. But I think yes reinstating it is probably a good plan.

            1. yay reinstation!

              damn this game is awesome. i should probably take a moment and breathe some nature.

              1. Alright sherfumarcus and the rest of you million scorers.. care to share some of your secret droid-ninja techniques ? I’m badly plateaued here.

                  1. Smash the Macbook with a hammer and buy a faster one 🙂 Or, maybe wait till the next little update, where Chaz will fix the flame emitters and phaser bomb emitters so they don’t gobble fill rate!

                2. i assign roles to the different bots. i usually have 1 to 3 “souped up” droids with lots of upgrades. I try to use them briefly, switching away to other droids as soon as possible. i also make sure i have some fast, high damaging droids to do the dirty work. they are more expendable. they also are key in getting higher scores. avoid getting 10x when really nasty droids will beam in. you know which bot will beam in because it’s the most powerful droid in the level, and there’s only one of it. btw, i never avoid getting a 10x. try not to stay too long on one droid, switching between droids quickly is a good way to confuse the enemy, and stay alive when you’re surrounded. you have to think ahead. know the levels and bosses. certain droids will make your life a lot easier.

                  1. Thank you!

                    I’ve been practicing, and I’m quite a bit harder to kill. Except when that ONE DROID, instead of exploding, totally screws up my plans, I go after it in a senseless vendetta, find myself in a nest of trouble, etc.

                    I still get to 40 only about 1 in 10 or 20 times and have not yet beaten it (in the new version, starting from 36, 31 or 26). Doing this reliably is quite an interesting challenge. DA is like a series of mini-chess problems wrapped in a shoot-em-up. It’s impressive that this game is still fun given the time I’ve already put in.

                    Puppy Games folks, you wrought well! Thank you! Alas, I am wiping it from my disk right now, as it’s just too tempting. Will try again anon. 🙂

  14. how bout online multyplayer modes,everybody whould buy it then!survival mode were you play with your friends
    team battles,ahhh think about it

    1. bon chance, neil! Chaz and I are talking about our next game which is looking like we want it to be all the things that aren’t in Droid Assault – eg. random generated maps, RPG stats, loot, and 4 player co-op.

      1. so thats a yes,in the next game of somesort there will be co op
        this is awsome
        my friend will be the next costermers of yours,and me of course

  15. Up to level 31 or so. It’s a tough fight, nursing those transfer points and your battered droid squad along.

    I like the range of zooms very much, it fits very well with the rest of the game. Playing low-range droids you feel half-blind and pixelated, you say ? Perfectly appropriate, they are souped up cleaning robots. When you get control of something smarter, there’s a rush as high-grade sensors kick in and the battle becomes a small melee in the corner of your god-like awareness.

    I think the visibility is fine. This is how it was in paradroid AFAIR. You can still see smoke from an invisible droid, maybe that’s intentional ?

    Agreed about cmd-q on mac, getting out of the game in a hurry is harder than it should be.

    I just noticed the target range readout and tried to use it to avoid round-the-corner deaths during tense duels. I wonder if making it more visible, eg getting louder/brighter/redder when target is very near, would help reduce those sudden deaths. On the other hand they are kind of funny…

    NOT agreed about bosses shooting at you when “invisible”, of *course* they can see you, they’re BOSSES and have “radar”. 🙂

    Awesome. I hope this game keeps growing and getting more mindshare.

    2. you’re right. i mainly just wanna be able to access that god like awareness when i so choose. and that’s hard to do when you can’t find the freaking droid!!

  16. I wish I could comment on the changes but the only thing I’m staring at is it no longer launches:

    java.io.IOException: Stream closed
    at java.io.BufferedInputStream.getInIfOpen(BufferedInputStream.java:134)
    at java.io.BufferedInputStream.fill(BufferedInputStream.java:218)
    at java.io.BufferedInputStream.read1(BufferedInputStream.java:258)
    at java.io.BufferedInputStream.read(BufferedInputStream.java:317)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream$PeekInputStream.read(ObjectInputStream.java:2265)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream$PeekInputStream.readFully(ObjectInputStream.java:2278)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream$BlockDataInputStream.readShort(ObjectInputStream.java:2749)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readStreamHeader(ObjectInputStream.java:779)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream.(ObjectInputStream.java:279)
    at com.shavenpuppy.jglib.Resources.load(Resources.java:291)
    at net.puppygames.applet.Game.init(Game.java:705)
    at net.puppygames.applet.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:86)
    No game info log
    Couldn’t write log – no filename

  17. the 10x on later levels is epic. you thought you were something with your rag tag gang of special droids? think again. it’s very demoralizing when your whole team is just…gone (and good way to control high scores 🙂 but what’s cool about this latest version of DA is you can come back from that. it was a harder thing to do before. i will say there is a huge range between getting a 10x on level 4 verses on level 35.

    right now i’m in the early 40 levels and things get really crazy. like, old school times. i’m enjoying it.

  19. flying the A665 assault i could take out turrets until i got rampage and then the turrets became invulnerable.

    sometimes i swear i’m targeting a droid, or more often a boss, but the bullets go through them. maybe i’m not being precise enough with those father away perspectives.

  20. I’m unable to play the Linux version. I’m running 32-bit Ubuntu 11.04, and I downloaded both the Linux .deb and .tar.gz versions. I have no problems playing Revenge of the Titans on this system.

    When I start the game, the Puppygames splash screen shows, and loads normally. Then it displays the dialog to enter your email address. As soon as I click in the dialog to do ANYTHING, the game hangs. I can’t click “No Thanks” or in the text box without causing the hang.

      1. Any ideas? I rather like the Windows version, and I’d consider purchasing the game if it worked for me 🙂

        1. hmm. No 🙂 When you say hang does the whole system hang, or just the game? Does any music play? Does the system say the app’s not responding? etc. Anything in the revenge.sh.log file?

        2. Also, try it with OpenJDK and see if that works any better. The new Droid Assault differs from Revenge of the Titans in that it has a new windowing system allowing resizing etc etc. which might be implemented in a cranky way in the IBM JVM.

          1. I tried the Sun JRE and Open JDK, and got the same result.

            What’s rather interesting is that the game doesn’t exactly “hang”. It’s just that it seems unable to redraw the screen properly. If I alt-tab away from the game and back again, it’s able to draw a single frame. If I do this enough times, the box to enter your email address is eventually replaced by the “Buy Droid Assault” box.

            I see this in my droidassault.sh.log file now:

            settingsDirName=/home/xxxxxx/.droid_assault_1.90.0
            dirPrefix=/home/xxxxxx/.droid_assault_1.90.0/
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Game: Droid Assault 1.90 [1.90.0]
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Serial 7317358975007278080
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Game resource: game.puppygames
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Starting Droid Assault 1.90 (language: en)
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Initing sound
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Loading: net.java.games.input.LinuxEnvironmentPlugin
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Failed to open device (/dev/input/event4): Failed to open device /dev/input/event4 (13)
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Failed to open device (/dev/input/event8): Failed to open device /dev/input/event8 (13)
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Failed to open device (/dev/input/event7): Failed to open device /dev/input/event7 (13)
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Failed to open device (/dev/input/event6): Failed to open device /dev/input/event6 (13)
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Failed to open device (/dev/input/event5): Failed to open device /dev/input/event5 (13)
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Failed to open device (/dev/input/event3): Failed to open device /dev/input/event3 (13)
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Failed to open device (/dev/input/event2): Failed to open device /dev/input/event2 (13)
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Failed to open device (/dev/input/event1): Failed to open device /dev/input/event1 (13)
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Failed to open device (/dev/input/event0): Failed to open device /dev/input/event0 (13)
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:08 EDT 2011 Linux plugin claims to have found 0 controllers
            Thu Sep 15 22:35:10 EDT 2011 GL Vendor NVIDIA Corporation, GL Renderer Quadro FX 570M/PCI/SSE2, GL Version 3.3.0, GL Driver NVIDIA 270.41.06

            1. In which case we can discount the GL drivers (which are known to work properly), the JREs (which are known to work properly), the game logic (which is known to work properly). This just leaves LWJGL 2.7, which is generally reliable on Linux, or some other oddity in your system you’ve got installed. My bets are on the latter.

              1. I did some more experimenting, and I managed to get the game to create a javacore today.

                0SECTION GPINFO subcomponent dump routine
                NULL ================================
                2XHOSLEVEL OS Level : Linux 2.6.38-11-generic-pae
                2XHCPUS Processors –
                3XHCPUARCH Architecture : x86
                3XHNUMCPUS How Many : 2
                3XHNUMASUP NUMA is either not supported or has been disabled by user
                NULL
                1XHEXCPCODE J9Generic_Signal_Number: 00000004
                1XHEXCPCODE Signal_Number: 0000000B
                1XHEXCPCODE Error_Value: 00000000
                1XHEXCPCODE Signal_Code: 00000001
                1XHEXCPCODE Handler1: B74B649B
                1XHEXCPCODE Handler2: B748F915
                1XHEXCPCODE InaccessibleAddress: A13FC984
                NULL
                1XHEXCPMODULE Module: /usr/lib/nvidia-current/libnvidia-glcore.so.270.41.06
                1XHEXCPMODULE Module_base_address: AB4A7000

  21. Have there been any changes to the effects for, say, the flamethrower?

    One of the many things I love about your games is that they can run on my POS laptop and still look and play fantastic. However when trying out the Droid Assault demo I discovered that anyone firing the flamethrower weapon on my screen instantly caused my FPS to crash to near 0.

    Is that problem still going to be there when this comes to Steam?

  22. Thanks for the “remaster”, nice work! Just for nostalgia sake – is there any way to download the most recent pre-tweaked version?

    1. No, that’s gone forever now. Unless you’ve got a backup of it.

      It’s not anywhere near as good though so not sure why you’d want to 🙂

      1. i’ll definitely hold on to the pre-tweaked version.

        it’s gone forever but those beefy hi-scores are still with us. maybe give them a clearing?

  23. there’s weird laser depredations and screen artifacts that occur when you get a 10x and the big monster laser droids beam in and start shooting.

    did you mean for the laser to be that big? at first i thought it was cool but now it’s seeming like it might be a bug.

    i have my current game paused now, i’m waiting for the hi scores to get cleared 🙂

    1. the laser rendering is buggy. I’m looking at getting a fix up for that soon ish.

      Hiscores cleared 🙂 There were 27,000 of them!

          1. Something’s not right with the world, then. 🙁 Have you considered hiring some really good marketing help ?

    1. coolio, and you said something erlier about 4 player co-op
      is this true?will there be that in the next game
      maby, maby not

  26. sometimes it’s difficult to transfer to a new droid without the first one getting shot, and if weaker, killed. this is particularly hard when you’re down to one droid with no health.

    it took me awhile but i like now how long it takes to transfer to new droids, and that powerful droids take longer to overtake. i thought it would be interesting to “pause” the clock on the multiplier when transferring between droids. it would make for some pretty creative maneuverings. this would no doubt boost scores, except for the fact that you have some pretty dominating checks and balances worked in. the 10x multiplier when the bots with the grenades beam in ALWAYS reduce my team to nothing.

    i still really miss not being able to access all of my team unless in line of sight. i can’t wait for droid switching to come back 🙂

  27. I noticed a RotT achievement on Steam recently. Could this mean that you’re working on an update that adds more cheevos? 😀

    1. Yep, all 50-or-so cheevos in the game, plus cloud support! Will be a few weeks – got to figure out Mac OS builds, await new LWJGL 2.8 libraries, make distributions, deploy, etc.

      The Ultrabundle games which are all coming to Steam imminently as well will all have cloud and cheevos.

    2. yes!this this mean people who bought the game from puppy games ill be able to do the acheivment

  28. Cool – this update looks great 🙂 Only just discovered this game after playing Revenge of the Titans and at first thought it was an expansion for RotT but it’s even cooler – I loved Paradriod! 🙂

    Any chance of getting this via Desura (or bundled with a Desura key?)

  29. wowza! I just discovered this update, and I’m super excited. I’ve had Droid Assault for ages, and its been one of my favoritest games. I got to level 50 and beyond multiple times, and keep coming back to it. My main complaint was always that when I got to around 35-40 or so, things were getting haphazard and it was easy to get killed just fresh into a new stage because everything was so hectic. I’m so happy this is resolved! I played to level 10 right now, and the changes look fantastic! I can’t wait to see what it’s going to play like on later stages!

  30. I like the new version *a lot*. Only got to level 35 so far (starting from level 1 each time), which is funny, since in the old version I was pretty consistently getting from level 1 to level 40 with no big problem. On the other hand, I feel like every time I get killed, it’s because I screwed up, as opposed to the old version, where you would be in some hopeless battles that you can’t win. It’s harder to take over new droids now, and the inability to see around corners gives some nasty surprises.
    \
    In my most recent run-through I got a maxed-out anti-grav bot of the kind that shoots purple bullets (level 3, pretty basic). With all the extras, and wall-piercing, everything. It was epic. Got killed when going around a corner. I almost set up a memorial page for it. It would fire and never stop, I could literally clear whole levels with it. I don’t know how I lost it, really.

    Anyway, really enjoying the new version!!!

    1. I’m extra glad you enjoy it 🙂 Right now I’m just finally fixing mouse tracking so that it uses your desktop settings, which will be a nice little bonus.

      1. yes! rather than mourn the loss, i like to celebrate their long and happy life dedicated to massacring lesser droids.

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