After a bunch of false starts, bodged uploads, and some really annoying library wrangling between LWJGL versions, we have finally unleashed the updated Ultrabundle games, Droid Assault, Titan Attacks, and Ultratron. Existing customers can download nice brand new ones from the usual Puppygames locations (keep your old versions hanging around in case, eh?).
AZERTY keyboard users: sorry, but Ultratron is currently going to be pretty tricky to play as it uses WASD – we’ll upload a fix to this in an update probably next week.
What’s Changed
Titan Attacks has received a giant graphical overhaul and grown up into what we now call version 2.00. Now not only does it look timeless it also looks sharp and modern. A nice trick if you can do it 🙂 Three cheers to Chaz for making it look so much more… nice.
Now in widescreen, sort of…
Before and after…
There have also been a few small gameplay tweaks. Firstly, it’s now basically mouse controlled, because that’s how everyone normal plays it, although you can still use the keys if you’re desperate or stuck on a laptop. The mouse however allows you to move the ship at whatever speed you like. This means the ship speed shop item has been replaced with a different upgrade – “Addon recharge” – which governs the speed at which all your addons reload and fire. You’ll probably want to be upgrading it last. Finally, the ship only starts with one bullet, which is a bit more traditional, and gives you an early thing to aim for in the upgrades.
You’ll also notice now that the window is fully resizeable to any size you so desire, and we’ve added a much-asked-for world select screen!
Droid Assault recently already underwent the big graphical overhaul in the previous 1.90 release, so now with 1.90.1, we’ve done a few refinements to it. The maximum zoom of some of the droids was causing some performance issues and sometimes looked a little crazy so it’s been capped. The laser beams and flamethrower and flames have had their effects thoroughly revised. The game has become slightly easier too, with the droid you are controlling given 50% more hitpoints than before. So, a bunch of little tweaklets which should make for a very slightly nicer experience. Still haven’t put fast droid switching back in yet though – sorry.
Ultratron, being the oldest and simplest title, has simply received the ability to resize the window and a little bit of a title screen overhaul. A few tiny weeny tweaks have been made to the powerups – the spidroid powerups will now remain onscreen indefinitely for you to pick them up. Shooting the freeze powerup pauses the enemy robots momentarily, and shooting the three-way powerup causes your shots to split into three! This can give you an incredible amount of bullets flying around on screen but of course you are fairly hampered in your movement and aiming by the need to shoot it. That’s about it for Ultratron.
Unfortunately we’ve sort of lost the ability to redefine the keys along the way which might be a bit of an arse for those of you with AZERTY keyboards or other abominations. We’ll probably have to come up with a fix for that before the forthcoming Steam release.
Oh thank you for Titan Attacks update! That’s the best one from the Ultrabundle IMHO. Thankfully RoTT is also there 😀
And as I’m sure you were asked many times – Desura next by any chance?
You had me nervous for a few seconds. I thought you were going to say keyboard controls were completely gone. I’d have been bummed out if I couldn’t upgrade one of my favorite games on my arcade cabinet:
http://blog.patshead.com/2011/01/native-linux-games-for-an-arcade-cabinet-playing-titan-attacks-without-a-mouse.html
i’m enjoying titan attacks a lot. being able to go to any planet previously played, with your scores saved, makes me run to the bathroom. i kept a x9 all the way to titan and now i can benefit from that.
droid assault keeps quitting when i select a level, haven’t been able to play it (i’m on os x). i think it’s mad because you left out fast droid switching.
i’ve never delved into ultratron, maybe i should give it a whirl.
ay caramba! Sorry! Just uploaded a fixed one. Suppose I’d better update the blog…
cool.
i also can’t upload my scores on titan attacks it’s says:
error unmarshalling return; nested
exception is:
java.lang.classnotfoundexception:
net.puppygames.applet.server.applethisscoreserver_stub
(no security manager: rmi class
loader disabled
oh, good grief 🙁 Why is my build system so broken suddenly?
ah I think you probably want to redownload that too. Version actually up there at the moment is fine.
Awesome!
Congrats for the upcoming Steam releases, you definitely deserve to be on there. Hopefully that’ll send torrents of money your way!
Any possibility of free Steam keys for customers who have already bought the game directly from you?
Of course, as per Revenge of the Titans.
We’re not expecting the Ultrabundle to make much money on Steam unfortunately – the market is fickle, etc, etc.
Damn, sorry to hear that.
At least try to get people worked up for this release! Get Rock Paper Shotgun to make some noise for you as the Steam release approaches, and TotalBiscuit to maybe make a triple “WTF is…” on his Youtube channel. That’d already draw you quite a few customers, if you can get that coverage. I’m sure there are other indie-friendly news outlets that could help you.
Then maybe try to build a little momentum, release the games one by one on Steam while letting people know the next ones are coming soon. That’ll get you more time on the Steam front page. Then shortly after (just on time for the holiday sales?) make a big sale before interest has died down, with a price low enough that people can purchase one game or a 3-pack as an impulse buy.
^This. TotalBiscuit is quite adept at crashing entire sites and boosting steam sales in a matter of seconds. He’d love to do a “WTF is…” on all of them.
Heh, If I could get the Biscuit to speak on the day of the launch that’d be nice but unfortunately I don’t know him personally!
Using Linux(Mint). The originals work, but not he new versions(64-bit on intel), They all stop showing the version and registered to…. I bought Ultrabundle because of Humble Bundle and played Droid Assault till I couldn’t advance any more; The others not so much. Hope you get more attention from this. I only noticed the update, because I read the blog.
Looks nice. Are you working towards making a single Ultrabundle client?
The thought has crossed my mind but I don’t really see much of an advantage to it apart from a tiny saving in disk space and downloads, and plenty of disadvantages such as being forced to do simultaneous releases of all 3 titles.
I was actually thinking that it would make updating easier if it ended up being one engine and several mods. You could still distribute them all separately.
It already pretty much is one engine and several “mods” if you look at the jars 🙂 Java is so nicely modular and reusable like that.
what the eff happen to the zoom with droid assault!?! i don’t feel like god anymore 🙁
i know, i read the blog. but still. what the eff happened!?! it was so fun.
the new laser/fire effects are hella clean. cleaner than your grandmas kitchen.
my favorite right now is titan attacks, only because i can play with one hand – and rock my baby with the other. whatever CPS! you seriously need to market it as a parent friendly game. i also played for 30 minutes with my 4 year old niece who was just controlling the fire button while i steered. every level we beat was an exuberant celebration. she was super into it. quality family bonding.
I might tweak the max range a little more to see how it holds out performance wise. We’ve reclaimed a bit more performance now the flamer and fire emitters are better.
I’m going to think about putting a Kids Mode in Titan Attacks as well. Sat there with my 3yr old I suddenly had a bit of an epiphany watching her play it.
About speed : Most mouse-controlled games with a speed upgrade usually use the mouse to point a target for the ship, which will then move towards it at the defined speed.
That wouldn’t be a bad addition to TA either.
Hm, the idea of Space Invaders doesn’t really gel too well with targeting and auto-aim. Anyway, speed upgrade gone! Replaced with rate-of-fire increase for the addons.
I’m playing on Mac OSX (10.5.8) and can’t play Droid Assault 1.90.1 – I get a message saying “Cannot launch Java application – Uncaught exception in main method: java.lang.NullPointerException, and another window opens directing me to the puppygames.net website. This doesn’t happen with 1.90.
Please redownload – you got the broken one.
Woah, holy crap, PuppyGames is coming to Steam? I already bought your games, but if they’re coming to Steam, I’m gonna by them again just on principle! 😀
Regarding Ultratron– The new powerup behavior is fun, but it can crash the game. Suppose you’ve got bouncy bullets, 4 of the 3-way splitter powerups and another bouncy bullet powerup on the screen. If those are arranged right, you can get a self-perpetuating feedback loop that causes the game to become unresponsive. Screenshot here:
http://www.polyploid.net/temp/ultratron_crash.jpg
I suppose if the program had been able to deal with this, any bots would have been pretty well toast!
whoops! There was supposed to be a safeguard in there for just that but it looks like it didn’t work 🙂
Pretty cool updates, guys! I like those new versions of the Ultrabundle games. One question regarding Droid Assault: Is there any way besides the scroll wheel droid selection (which is missing in the current version) to change the active droid (i mean a hotkeys or stuff like that)?