Happy October! Doborog has been heads down hard at work on the epic final Story Mode chapter—see update on timing of that below—but we’re taking a pit-stop to put out an update of some improvements we wanted to get out ASAP!

🛡 Spear and Shield Overhaul!

In response to feedback, we’ve decided to refresh the Spear and Shield mechanics! Many didn’t like combat with the spear—to the point it was banned from fan tournaments due to flicking. We hope this update helps these weapons become a fun part of competitive play once again.

• The Spear damage area (the part that destroys voxels) has been changed to wide instead of long, making the spear more effective when it travels forward, and worse when it travels sideways.

• Spear flicking was still possible in multiplayer, so we have restricted it even more. Let us know how it feels!
• The Shield is now breakable! That’s right. The shield no longer protects you forever, but takes damage whenever a weapon hits it. This makes combat more interesting, and opens up for strategies that are less about going around the shield, and more about whittling it down to get past it.

🌏 Japanese (日本語) and Korean (한국어)!

Yes! More human languages for the communication bank. The robots now support Japanese and Korean subtitles.

Like with the other languages, we would love to hear your feedback to improve the quality of the translations. Let us know if something doesn’t feel quite qilsnib enough.

Quality of Life Improvements

Better Crosshair for Spear and Bow

The crosshair on the bow and spear could previously be hard to see depending on the situation. The bow and spear now have a new crosshair that’s bigger and inverts the colors behind it for maximum contrast. Let us know how it feels!

Arrow Rotation now SNAPS

Arrow rotation now snaps instantly between vertical and horizontal mode, giving you unprecedented tactical control for how you deal damage. Hotshot Arrow-Shooting Tip: Spidertrons mainly bob up and down.

Head Damage: Not always fatal!

Has THIS ever happened to YOU: 3 decorative voxels get taken off the beautiful horn attachment of your robot head, and you fall down on the ground, dead as the day you were harvested?

Now head damage is only fatal if it damages the important cubes sitting near where your central processing unit resides (a 2×2 cube 3 voxels above the neck).

Helping Stationary Bow1s Un-stick in Twitch Mode

In Twitch Mode bow1s now walk towards you if they’re the last type of enemy in the level, which should cause fewer issues with them landing on pillars and taunting your inability to destroy them.

Fix for Armor Exploit in Last Bot Standing

It used to be possible to acquire armor in LBS, leave and re-join the match, and continue to have that armor for zero upgrade points. No longer!

Chapter 5 – New Release Date

We are still hard at work on Chapter 5, and we’re now aiming to release it early next year.

Why the delay? A few reasons combined made it a choice we hope you can appreciate:

• Scope/Quality/Time balance – As some say, pick two 😅. While we could have rushed the final chapter update out sooner, we felt that adding a bit of time lets us get closer to the updates the game deserves for its exit out of Early Access. This includes the quality of life changes in this update, and epic-ness of Chapter 5 🙂
• Making a big splash with full release – We are planning a big push to share the game more widely with the full release, and (you might have noticed) the end of this year is packed with the releases of new games and consoles. We want to harvest and upload the minds of as many humans as possible into the arena at release, and we’ve learned choosing the date wisely is part of that. We will announce more about the release here at a later time, too!
• Console requirements – We are planning to launch on (at least) 3 different consoles! Parallel to Chapter 5, our porting team has been working tirelessly towards making sure the game has the features required by consoles.

As always, for those of you who live on the bleeding edge, you can follow our development live on Twitch, and even try out the current (very buggy!) build in the experimental branch. While we know how it can be disappointing to have release dates slip, we hope you all can appreciate where we’re landing!

Thank you all for being amazing OG Clone Drone community members! We are so glad to have those of you who have stuck with us throughout the long development process with us during launch and beyond. 💙

Co-op is coming next Thursday, September 5th!

Grab your favorite friend, sibling, twin, clone or machine learning algorithm and see you then!

We're baaaaaaaaaack! We've been working on some awesome stuff the last few weeks, so figured it's high time for an update post!

New Upgrade Room!

Following up on the new Arena design detailed in our last preview, the upgrade room and spawn areas are being given face-lifts of their own.

Can you spot the difference?

The TVs now also show a preview of the next level!

New Difficulty Tiers: Uranium and Insanium!

Clone Drone is "TOO EASY", you say? Well, now you've done it. We're adding two new difficulty tiers: Uranium and Insanium. Good luck.

Fresh Level Layouts!

As part of the all-new Arena design detailed in our last preview, we're working through all of the existing endless levels and enhancing them with the power of awesome new art and the last two year's worth of level editor improvements.

Before & After:

Twitch Extension Beta, sign up to help test it out!

We'll be including a Twitch Extension update alongside the next update, and will be starting a beta test of the extension before then. Shoot us an email with your Twitch stream URL and we will send along a link to the experimental beta extension once it's approved for testing by Twitch (late this week or early next week, hopefully!).

The updated Twitch Extension will feature:

• a new Enemy Spawn Queue in the extension will let viewers see exactly which enemies will be spawned next and their current position in line. No more trying to time your spawns for the next round or "maximum enemies have been spawned this round!" warnings!
• for Twitch Affiliate/Partner players, you can now use Bits from the extension to cheer for the streamer on top of your enemies. There will also be an optional "Bits-Only Mode" for large streams
• Level Editor: new ability to mark your Endless levels as "Twitch-only" or "Exclude from Twitch". (These won't require re-beating the level, so will be easier to toggle on and off)
• Level Editor: new TwitchSpawnPoint objects that allow for more viewer spawns per round and configuration of where different types of viewer enemies should be spawned
• instead of just some enemies being viewer-driven, ALL enemies will be dynamically spawned by the audience. If not enough viewer spawns are available, the game will automatically spawn enemies for you.

These features are still under heavy development, and during the beta will require using a separate test Twitch Extension app, so wait for the extension beta instructions if you'd like to try it early!

Don't forget, Co-op is coming this next release!

We've been having a blast playing co-op, and these arena and level changes have been making it all the more fun.

As always, Doborog is streaming development live on Twitch! https://twitch.tv/doborog

As we noted last time, on the stream page you can also find a link to access the latest experimental builds, which include progress on co-op and the new arena. (As the description notes — these builds are under heavy development and will contain lots of bugs! So proceed with caution :D)

We are aiming to release the co-op update before the end of August. It's going to be a big update!

Until then!!

Happpppy Summerrrr! We've been hard at work on some fun new things for our next major update, so we figured now would be a good time to share some peeks at what's in store.

Co-op Endless Mode!

Co-op has been one of our most requested features since we added multiplayer support last year. Now that we've started building it, we get it -- it's really fun! For the past few weeks we've been working through the various parts of endless mode to make them multiplayer co-op compatible.

Co-op places you and a partner in the arena for some tag-team robot slicing. Clones are shared, and if you run out, your partner's last-ditch combat may be the only thing standing between glory and humiliating defeat.

Our initial "tests" are revealing Co-op is a great mode to play with a friend and jam on for a few hours. Yes... "tests"... (we may have become a bit addicted...)

Arena Makeover!

Gary has been applying his voxel skills to refresh the Arena!

Ooh... pretty!

The audience! What is this?

They're doing the SIN() wave!

Spider-tron Legs!

As part of upgrading spiders-tron to work well in multiplayer for Co-op, we're making their legs smarter! Gone are the days of spider-tron falling over at the slightest gust of wind.

What wonderful inverse kinematics!

Twitch Mode Update!

We <3 Twitch mode! It's been a while since our last major Twitch-related update, so this update we will be doing a refresh of Twitch mode and the Twitch Extension. If there's something you'd like to see in Twitch mode, now's a great time to let us know, too!

If you're a Twitch streamer and interested in trying out betas of the extension update, email us with your Twitch stream URL and we will get you hooked up to try the latest!

Streams and Experimental Branch

Did you know?! Doborog has been streaming co-op development daily! If you would like to follow along with the latest, check out the Twitch stream here: https://twitch.tv/doborog

On the stream page you can also find a link to access the latest experimental builds, which include progress on co-op and the new arena. (As the description notes -- these builds are under heavy development and will contain lots of bugs! So proceed with caution :D)

We're expecting to ship this update some time in August, and will share more on release as it's closer to complete.

Until next time!

Holy cow, Chapter 4 was a big update!

Between the new enemies, mind transfer mechanic and spear / shield, we decided to put together a quick mini-release to add these elements throughout the game. (We also took this as an opportunity to do some extra bug fixing and optimization!)

Spears in Multiplayer & Last Bot Standing!

Spears and shields... over the network?!?! Yes!

The basic spear costs 1 upgrade point, which introduces many opportunities for interesting spear-combination builds.

All out of upgrade points? There is now also a Max Spear drop in Last Bot Standing!

New endless levels!! ...and Death Cube 3.0

This update adds a fresh batch of endless levels that feature the new enemies introduced in chapter 4. You'll find these levels are chock-full of spear and fleet command / analysis bots.

Look for these levels in Endless and Twitch modes (and in the workshop challenge below). Keep your head down!

Spears on Twitch!

We released an updated Twitch extension (0.0.7) with the new enemies from chapter 4.

We also:

• Updated the Twitch extension's "Allow Access" hint to reflect Twitch's new layout
• Updated the "Configuration" page with extra helpful getting started steps and support for Dark Mode
• Enabled spawning kick bots on flame raptors from the extension, since we hear it is "the ultimate troll move"

Optimized lava!

No longer must you fear lava causing the game to grind to a jittery halt! (Now you can fear it just because it might set you on fire...)

Less Garbage Setting!

Not a fan of garbage? There is now a setting to limit the amount of robot garbage the game keeps around the level. This is especially useful for Twitch Mode, or other custom levels with tons of enemies.

Loading bars for Chapters 3 & 4!!

We decided Chapters 3 and 4 are levels so big, they deserve their own dedicated loading bars. Now you can cheer on your computer while the bar fills up!

Challenge Modifiers: Random Upgrades & Mind Transfers, & more!

You can now enable any of the following in your workshop challenges:

• Mind Transfer mode
• Random Upgrade mode
• Greatswords for all
• Armor for all

Set these in the Level Editor under Challenges -> Config! We are looking forward to seeing what folks make with these new modifiers!

Bonus: Random Upgrade Challenge 2.0!

To demonstrate the Random Upgrade modifier for Workshop Challenges, Doborog put together a Random Upgrade Challenge 2.0 workshop challenge that features new endless mode maps from this update (including Death Cube 3.0)!

Subscribe on the Steam Workshop and play the challenge it under Challenges -> Workshop!

We hope you enjoy this update, & up next: Co-op!!

Hey forestherd, shoot me an email support@doborog.com and I'll sort you out! :)

Wait no longer, Chapter 4 has arrived!

Note: if you originally purchased Clone Drone in the Danger Zone on itch.io, redeem a free Steam key by following these instructions. If you already installed the game on Steam, all you have to do is update!

Story Mode Continues

With your mind now transferred into the Fleet, make your way through one of the fleet's most heavily defended ships.

So many new things!

Mind Transfer!

With no Clones or business transfer stations in the Fleet, you're going to need a backup plan. Mind Transfer gives you a lifeline and opportunity to fight as a variety of enemies.

B

Spear and Shield!

Stab enemies in the face with the new laser spear! The spear rewards precisely aimed stabs, and just feels dang satisfying.

Spears are now available as an upgrade in endless mode, the Spear Only challenge (which unlocks the Flame Spear), and in a number of enemies you can transfer in to in Chapter 4.

Zero Gravity Combat!

Grab your gravity boots, we're going outside! Chapter 4 features zero gravity combat, which makes for beautiful floating bouquets of voxel destruction.

Awesome Animations!

One of the major innovations in the development of Chapter 4 is the addition of a Level Editor Animation System. This is also available for use by level editors! Check out this demo video with some more details on how to use it!

Amazing new art! Spaceships! Gary!

This chapter is our first since the talented Gary Lucken joined the team! Gary's incredible voxel art is featured heavily throughout chapter 4.

Pretty!

Robot Enemies that SAY STUFF!

Look who's talking too! Combat robots in Chapter 4 feature a primitive voice system that allows for dynamic commentary. (This is also now available for use in the level editor!)

New Enemies & Epic Boss-fight

Chapter 4 features a number of new enemies, culminating in an epic battle with some fresh new faces. Good luck!

New Challenges: Spear-Only & Mind Transfer

In the Mind Transfer challenge, death is only the beginning. Can you make it to Titanium armed only with the ability to transfer your mind into enemies??

The Spear-Only Challenge puts your spear skills to the test. Beating it unlocks the flame spear.

Today: Bug Fixes! Later: Mini-Update!

Today we've already released some bug hotfixes, but if you encounter anything / get stuck in the game and can't continue let us know in the community Discord or at our support email. You can always try going back to the main menu, changing difficulties, or restarting Steam to see if there's been a game update that fixes your issue.

We'll likely put out another mini-release integrating some of these sweet new features elsewhere in the game (like adding the spear to multiplayer!)

Fresh robot combatants.

A laser spear.

Gravity-defying space-boots.

Giant.

Transport.

Tubes.

Chapter 4 Releases THIS THURSDAY, May 2nd

Can't wait? Follow Doborog's dev streams for a sneak peek.

Prepare for mind transfer!

Just about two years ago when we first started on Early Access, we included these two puppies on our FAQ:

Turns out, eventually is NOW!

Controller Support!!

Clone Drone now supports a wide variety of game controllers! You may now lean back and bask in the glory of playing Clone Drone in the comfort of not-with-your-keyboard-and-mouse.

The game's UI buttons are fully navigable by your controller's left stick or D-pad, and they come with visual selection and sound effects to make it clearer which button is selected.

Pretty!

Controller hints throughout the game have also been updated to use icons for the specific controller you are using. It will even swap hints in real-time if you change controllers or move back to using mouse and keyboard:

Thanks to everyone who helped test the controller support while it was in its infancy (shout-outs to Myriad453, AwesomePants, GeekCrafter412, Stealth000, Arcylic, davy jones locker, JustASloth, Jelley, theyummyoyster, RedCreep, X606, Dat Alpha Waffle, Niek_Alexander, LagTeam Leader & everyone from the Discord #controller-testers channel!). This rag-tag crew of brave experimental branch testers was super helpful in tuning the default set of buttons to something that was not just usable, but some may even say preferred!

Let us know what you think! And if you try it out with an esoteric flight pedal or Guitar Hero controller, send us a clip, because that's just awesome.

Key Remapping and Customization

Dvorak, Colemak, and AZERTY friends! No longer must you suffer the indignation of switching keyboard layouts or using external utilities prior to becoming a sword robot.

With the new Edit Controls menu, you may now remap in-game actions to whatever key (or controller button/axis) you would like. Let us know if there are any actions you would like to see made configurable in this menu!

BONUS! Another quick Chapter 4 Sneak Peek...

While Brian was working on getting controller support and key remapping hooked up, Erik has continued adding mind-blowing new mechanics that will be featured in chapter 4, like low gravity combat:

We're anticipating launching Chapter 4 and some new bonus challenges towards the end of April, if all goes to plan.

Until next time!

We figured it’s about time for another UPDATE POOOOST!

We’ve been hard at work constructing a mind-bending Story Mode Chapter 4 with completely new weapons, environment art, interactive story animations and characters. If you thought Chapter 3’s journey outside of the arena was a step up from the first chapters, wait ’til you experience this next chapter 😀

We are expecting Chapter 4 to release some time in April, and we will follow up with more details as we are closer to wrapping up its development.

Controller support (yes, controller support!) should come out some time in the next couple of weeks. See below for more details!

Chapter 4 Sneak Peeks (Spoiler Alert!)

Check out these tubes! Erik has been taking the level editor’s new in-editor animation system and using it to bring Chapter 4 to another level. Watch for even more immersive, surprising moments during this chapter.

One request we’ve gotten from players since we started in Early Access has been to tighten up the graphics a bit. With the incredible Gary Lucken now part of the Doborog crew, Chapter 4 is bringing the game’s visuals to another level!

Another feature of the new level editor animation system added for chapter 4 is the ability to animate LIGHTS!

Pretty!

Controller Support: Coming Soon!

(Even before Chapter 4!)

One of the top requests we’ve gotten ever since we entered Early Access has been support for game controllers & key remapping.

As fans of playing games with controllers on the PC ourselves, we always suspected Clone Drone would be a great fit for controller support, but couldn’t be sure until we tested it out to confirm. (That’s why we were always careful not to promise controller support, in case it didn’t fit with the gameplay!)

Turns out, it works, and it feels great! (Some may say it’s even better than keyboard and mouse. But those people would be heretics.)

Here’s VastLite slaying at the game while twiddling his thumbs:

Bonus: Control Scheme / Key Remapping!

No QWERTY? No problem! One of the things we’re adding in the process of adding controller support is the ability to re-map in-game actions to whatever keys or mouse buttons you’d like.

Dvorak, AZERTY, and non-US keyboard users, rejoice!

(Now we haven’t tried it with a Guitar Hero controller yet… but we can’t say that it WOULDN’T work…)

Want to help try Controller Support + Key Remapping Early?

We’re working with some early testers to whittle down a default control set that feels great across the gamut of controllers out there.

For those interested in trying the controller support + key remapping development pre-alpha early, join the #controller-testers room on the community-run Discord and we’ll put instructions there on how to test the controller support branch out. We’d love to hear what controls you find the most intuitive / enjoyable as you play. Note: the controller branch is still under heavy development and not quite feature-complete, so it may change / break your game data, so be sure to back your save data up before trying it out!

Thanks and <3

For long-requested, larger features like this, it’s taken a bit longer between updates than we’d otherwise prefer. Turns out — constructing a mind-blowing chapter with all-new enemies, environments, animation system, weapons, etc, takes a single developer while! & so does re-vamping the game’s input system and UI navigation to support a variety of controllers. 🙂

Rest assured, we’re well on the way to concluding the game’s epic tale and rounding out the rest of our planned major features for the game!

To all of you who have been with us in Early Access, diligently trying updates as we’ve continued developing the game — who continued streaming, sending in bugs, moderating community spaces, creating incredible workshop maps and blowing our minds with what’s possible with the tools we manage to share — thank you!!

Stay awesome, and watch for updates here soon!

Nope, it's just for you! If you're having any trouble email me support@doborog.com!

Hey gorobod -- did you ever sort this out? If not, email me support@doborog.com and let's sort it out!

Sounds like you are looking for a different game, I wrote up this guide for Clone Drone in the Danger Zone itch / Steam keys in particular. I'd contact the developer of the game you purchased, they should be able to help you out!

This past weekend we held another Last Bot Standing playtest, it was a lot of fun! Thanks everyone who came to the stream to play test the levels.

In the spirit of the season, we've added FOUR new maps to the Last Bot Standing rotation today, and may add one more over the holidays pending a couple of small level tweaks.

We mentioned for last playtest that our level themes are just suggestions to inspire those who don't have an idea to start with, so you'll see non-METAL-CHRISTMAS-themed maps sprinkled in we think you will still enjoy! So if you have an idea for our next Last Bot Standing playtest, no need to wait for the next theme, you can start building now!

New levels live now!

Santa's Arena (Christmas Special!!) by Mr. Aurash

Ho-ho-ho-ly mother of Christmas decorations! Lots of nice Christmas touches throughout this map. Grab a gift from on top of one of the gifts. The combat area is cozier than most maps, so watch your back!

The Otherworld (Violetite) by BinaryPanic8347

If you like lore, you're going to love this level's background story. This level's unique layout and stylish jump pads make for a fresh new environment to battle in. Watch your step and survive the harvest!

Christmas In Town Square by Dr. Peppermint

This level has so much character and hilarious elements, we really want to add it to the rotation, so we're circling back with a few tweaks needed to get it ready for prime time. There were many deaths during the playtest caused by gawking in awe of the hilarious level elements.

And in the corner, what is this?! A gift, for me, from Doborog?!?! Aww, you shouldn't have.

Ironwake's Fortress (LBS) by BinaryPanic8347

You really don't see enough laser-sword-robots hanging around castles these days. This blast from the past level sports a dangerous courtyard surrounded by places enemies could jump down from. This results in a very different feeling combat experience.

May be Added Soon!

Christmas: Dust2 by BuH4eCTeP

I mean, doesn't the name here say it all? (radio) GIFT HAS BEEN PLANTED.

Ho! Ho! Ho-norable Mentions

There were a bunch of other fun METAL CHRISTMAS-themed levels we had fun playing on Saturday! These levels were very close to being included as well, and deserve to be mentioned:

• Santa's Lair by Sir Kotok - awesome Christmas decoration!
• DannyBot & Clones Salvaging Co. by fencing_vogel - featuring some mega compound-traps that are really fun to destroy your robot body with
• Long Live Metal Christmas by niekalexander - this level's layout elements call to mind pixel art and voxel games like Minecraft. Beautiful work!
• Christmas Fight: Day Version by Sir Kotok - includes a fun factory to battle on!

Thanks everyone for making such cool levels and participating in the event!

Next Playtest: in a month, theme TBD!

These playtest events have been a ton of fun, so we're gonna keep doing them! Some have asked that we give a bit more time between playtests, so we'll be doing the next one in about a month. We'll announce the next theme in an upcoming blog post, so watch for it!

What's next: Chapter 4, Controller Support, and Multiplayer Regions!

If you missed our last update post, Erik has been building a brand new weapon and enemy for Story Mode Chapter 4. Watch for another post in the not too distant future on a neat level editing tool he's adding to make the chapter even more dynamic than the others.

Brian's been adding controller support to the game and UI, and some say it might feel even better than playing with a mouse + keyboard (sacrilege!). That will be shipped alongside a change to our multiplayer system to support more regions to hopefully improve pings for those of you in US-West and possibly other regions.

Watch for our next update, and have a very happy holidays & new year! <3

Email me support@doborog.com and we'll figure out what's going on!

Hey Joey - did you ever figure this out? Email me support@doborog.com and I can help sort it out for you!

We just released a cheeky update!

Introducing...

The Laser Challenge!

Surprise! We were fixing a laser bug this update, so we figured, why not make a challenge that uses it! Practice your laser skills with 10 fresh laser-forward levels.

Will you earn the new laser challenge trophy?

Last Bot Standing Workshop levels!

Some of you were asking if you could make and play your own Last Bot Standing multiplayer levels. Now you can!!

With a single click, your work in progress level is on a dedicated multiplayer server and ready to play-test. We now wish this was in every game's level editor!

Once you're happy with your level, upload it to the Steam Workshop. People can then use your levels in...

Private Last Bot Standing matches!

Create your own private Last Bot Standing matches with up to 15 of your closest friends. Download some new levels from the workshop and try them out!

Don't have any friends to try out new level with? Join our...

Live Community-Created Level Play Tests!

You may notice a new countdown at the top of the game.

We're going to get everyone together and test out some of the latest Steam Workshop levels on a Twitch stream together. The first one will be at Saturday November 17th at 10am PST. Load up your game then to try the community-created levels we're testing!

Win Counting - Unlock sweet transport bots!

What's better than ultimately futile human combat? Memorable ultimately futile human combat!

Now when you win a public match with more than 5 players in it, your new Win Counter will go up. Once you reach a certain number of wins, your Transport Bot will automatically be upgraded to a new, more intimidating model.

You may notice this includes a macho mustache garbage bot. Are you happy, cogitoergosum?! Look what you've made us do.

A New Level!

As part of testing the new ability to play-test Last Bot Standing workshop levels, we've added a new map to the public Last Bot Standing rotation called Rising Tide.

As lava rises up, the level's combat surface grows progressively smaller. Kill your opponents before you drown in lava!

Other Cool Stuff!

• We added a Setting to select an override region for matchmaking. Hope this helps those of you who were having trouble pinging regions, or couldn't find enough matches in your own region. Let us know!
• We added a news widget so you can see what our latest updates have been (like... this one!!) You may also notice some cute little buttons right below there, including one to some Clone Drone merch from Design By Humans. Fresh.

Coming up next!

There's so much we want to do next, we're going to parallelize the next bit of development!

• Erik will begin work on Chapter FOURRRRRRRR! No firm release date for it yet, but we will share info once we start in on it! We're make sure to share some teasers along the way. We've got some fun plans for it!!
• Brian will continue upgrading our multiplayer server and matchmaking system to support a US-West region!

Don't forget to come join our play test on Saturday November 17th at 10am PST! Add it to your calendar, and see you next update!

And remember, all itch.io game purchasers can redeem a Steam key for the game for free: https://itch.io/t/67604/how-to-get-a-steam-key-from-your-itchio-purchase

Thanks THE EMPEROR! Check out the new planning post I just published -- we're planning a lot of that stuff! Great minds think alike :)

BTW, we should have arrow deflection while respawning in respawn area (the spawn shields), did the deflection not work for you, or did the shield not show up at all?

What a fun week! We’re finding Last Bot Standing is so much fun with full 15-player matches! If you haven’t seen it yet, update your game & come play, or check out this fun video from Draegast!

Thanks everyone who shared ideas & concerns with us this week, it really helped us prioritize! We did a bit of planning after this release about what we’ll be working on next, we hope you will like it!

Here’s what we’re planning:

1. Address the most pressing issues with Last Bot Standing!
2. Make Sure Last Bot Standing stays fresh while we add……
3. Chapter 444444444444444444!!!!!!!!!!

Address the most pressing issues with Last Bot Standing

Start taking direct Submissions of Last Bot Standing levels, trying some of them out on live streams! More details on how that will work, soon. :)

Add US-West Support! To do that, we’ll be switching up how we manage our dedicated servers. That will ALSO give us the opportunity to re-evaluate what regions we have. The goal will be to minimize player pings without splitting people into games that are too small!

Laser Improvements! Currently the laser sometimes damages things that are below the beam — we didn’t have time to fix that for release, but we’re gonna fix it now!

(Though it’s kind of cool…)

Make Sure Last Bot Standing stays fresh

Your Wins will Matter! We will start keeping track of wins, and display them in cool ways in the game :)

More Variety! Aside from including some Workshop-created levels (see above), we’ll be doing some fun stuff that makes the game even more different to play at times.

& then… Chapter 4444444444444444444444!!

Obviously no spoilers but, it’s gonna be coooooool! More details closer to starting it :)

Shower in garbage, human!

Unless, of course, you get smashed to bits in Last Bot Standing, the brand new game mode for Clone Drone in the Danger Zone.

Join as 15 human minds trapped in shiny robot bodies fight to the death! Claim the powerful upgrade drops falling from the sky, but be warned; There are not enough for all humans.

Inform your fellow humans that you will soon shower in their garbage remains. Update your game now, and come fight!

(And all itch.io game purchasers can redeem a Steam key: https://itch.io/t/67604/how-to-get-a-steam-key-from-your-itchio-purchase)

Update your game this Friday at 2pm PST (countdown / convert to your timezone), and come play!

(Steam is required to play multiplayer! If you purchased the game on itch.io and need a Steam key, you can redeem one for free using this guide: http://clonedroneinthedangerzone.com/steam-key-from-itch )

New Game Mode Details

The new game mode will be called Last Bot Standing.

Confirmed:

• Ceremonial garbage bots
• 15 players per match
• Shower in a rain of garbage
• 5-10 minutes per play session
• Ride fire-breathing raptors

See you Friday!

Holy progress, Commentatron! There is so much new stuff from the past few weeks, we figured it’s way past time for an update post!

We’ve been working hard on creating a super fun Battle Royale game mode, and it’s turning out AWESOME! It’s hitting that point where play testing is becoming fun enough to become an actual development distraction (always a good sign).

If you’d like to try out the work-in-progress development branch with Battle Royale or otherwise follow ongoing development, check out Erik’s Twitch stream & our development branch guide!

New Movement Mechanic: The Dash

The Dash ability will launch with the Battle Royale game mode, and will be available in all game modes (even single-player).

The Dash ability (SHIFT + direction) allows you to perform a quick, short leap in a given direction, provided you have the energy to use it. Combined with a well-timed swing (or used to avoid one), it can become a very powerful addition to your combat toolbelt.

It also makes you look pretty cool.

We’ve already been finding the dash’s quick, punctuated motions make combat feel more dynamic and fun, and helps avoid chase scenarios where both players are running at the same speed — now there’s some excitement to it!

More Lag Compensation!

We’ve been continuing to improve the “hit feel” of multiplayer combat, and the Battle Royale update will introduce two major improvements: (1) cranking the server & client-side network send rate up from 20 packets per second to 60, and (2) using a hybrid client/server hit reporting mechanism that should help hits register more often while still detecting cheat attempts.

Erik has been using this cool visualization of sword hit detection to test out different lag compensation techniques:

Maybe in a future game, you’ll just draw flowers with your sword…

Beyond that, we still have even more ideas for how to improve the networked melee hit feel (including getting US-West region support, our provider suggests it’s coming soon!) — & this update should be a nice step forward!

New Levels and Battle Royale Improvements

Screw launching with one gigantic map, Clone Drone Battle Royale will will launch with a bunch of medium-sized maps!

These maps will take advantage of some newly added level features, such as…

Laser Kills, Shrinking End Zones!

You may notice some levels have laser cannons on them.

Don’t fall off the edge of the map.

Spectate Mode

Just because your robot body has been sliced to bits doesn’t mean you can’t keep enjoying the game!

Now you can fly around, follow players and watch the game (starting with whoever killed you).

Level Editor Additions

While we’ve been working on these new levels, we’ve been making some pretty cool additions to the level editor (which will become available to Steam Workshop creators when we launch Battle Royale)!

Multi-select, Align Tools

What’s better than the ability to move an object? How about the ability to move ALL THE OBJECTS?!

Those of you familiar with Photoshop, Flash, etc. will appreciate these other handy tools which will be available in our next release (align, distribute, chain). Here are some outrageous things VastLite has been making with them:

Move Groups

When we added Moving Platforms, we were amazed and a little disturbed by what players were able to accomplish with such a simple feature.

Move Groups takes that to another level. You will be able to move not just platforms, but other objects in the level with these groups.

Look what X606 made using move groups (in the development test branch):

Stay tuned for the upcoming release of Clone Drone in the Dancing Zone.

Just kidding.

Maybe.

Playtest with us & let us know what you think!

Come watch Erik live-streaming developing the Battle Royale game mode LIVE! & join one of the beta branch test matches to try it out yourself.

Otherwise, see you in the arena September 21st!

Will YOU be the last human standing? We're excited to announce that the next major multiplayer game mode will be... Battle Royale!

Wait... like... another Battle Royale??

If you're expecting 100 players to drop from a sky thing and then sneak around a large island with human houses... that is not what we're doing. :)

Clone Drone's take on the popular game mode instead builds on our learnings from Long Live Santa!, the merry Christmas game we prototyped last December.

We're placing a strong emphasis on fierce action, tactical trade-offs and contested upgrade drops.

Contested Power Upgrades!

Powerful upgrades become available after the match starts. To get them you must be the only living player inside of their capture zone for five full seconds!

These drops help drive players together, providing an interesting trade-off between risk and reward. You can avoid the fight entirely with just your starting upgrades, but as more competitors are eliminated, you'll really wish you snagged some power upgrades!

Power Upgrade: Flame Raptor!

Have you always wanted to ride a fearsome fire breathing robot raptor? Of course you have. Ridable Raptors is the first Power Upgrade in Battle Royale!

We're also thinking about the best way to introduce ridable raptors in singleplayer, but have yet to decide the exact shape that will take.

Power Upgrade: Mega Size!

Tower over your enemies and strike them down with your superior reach! It's fun to be a big bot.

Power Upgrade: Energy Laser!

Overpowered? I don't know what you're talking about.

Follow our progress!

Since multiplayer is way more fun to develop alongside real, live humans, you'll often find us developing it LIVE on Twitch -- and we've set up a beta branch where you can play along with every change we make. It's already getting quite fun -- come play and help us make it even more awesome!

• Watch us develop live on Twitch: https://twitch.tv/doborog
• Join the Multiplayer Test Build: http://clonedroneinthedangerzone.com/multiplayer-test-builds/

See you in the arena, or for our next update post!

(Note: All itch.io Clone Drone game purchasers can redeem a Steam key to play multiplayer: https://itch.io/t/67604/how-to-get-a-steam-key-from-your-itchio-purchase)

On April 18th, 2018, the average time played for Clone Drone somehow went up from around 20 minutes to an HOUR.

What the heck happened on 4/18/18??

If you guessed "Doborog & co. launched multiplayer after 4 months of extreme game-overhauling development", you'd be right!!

While we've had a blast playing against everyone after launch, and many of you had kind words about the new game mode, the day after launch we were left not-yet-satisfied with the overall feel of combat. Multiplayer hits often felt unfair, random, or surprising. At times, it felt like the best strategy was to swing blindly and pray to the server gods!

Before moving on from 1v1 duels, we wanted to improve client and server performance and responsiveness, and making melee hits feel more fair and predictable.

A few weeks in, we've got a fun update ready with a game feel we are thrilled with. Improving combat feel will be an ongoing effort for us, and this should be a healthy start!

Introducing the Greatsword!

Replacing the old sword in multiplayer, the greatsword is bigger and has a longer windup time.

Why the longer windup? It gives us the power to compensate for lag!

The problem: Attacks landing at different times!

"My sword passed right through them!" was a common reaction to our first version of multiplayer.

Although we used to start showing a swing right away on your computer, the server wouldn't start its swing until after receiving your computer's "swing now!" network event. By the time the server tried to deal damage, your opponent might have moved out of the way!

What's worse -- when your hits did land, your opponent would often get killed before they even got a chance to see your swing start. "How did that kill me??"

The solution: Eat the lag in the windup time!

Our goal is to make sword swings land at the same exact time. Your head should appear to fly off at the exact moment you see your opponent's sword pass through your neck.

To achieve this, we start with an alternative set of animations with a powerful windup sequence. Each strike takes note of and sends along its synced-up start time -- letting the server and your opponent both skip forward to the exact right time in the swing animation when they learn about it.

The result is that both you and your opponent see the strike land at the exact same time. It's like TIME TRAVEL FOR YOUR SWORD!

In play-testing, we've found it feels much better than before, and results in many more epic moments of "OH GOD THE SWORD IS GOING TO HIT ME" (and then the sword hits you). Let us know what you think!

The Greatsword Challenge!

Since the Greatsword has a longer wind-up and thus a new timing to master, you'll need some practice with it. We've added a new Endless Challenge where every sword is a Greatsword!

Multiplayer bow now works at close range!

Multiplayer kicks feel better!

We expanded the multiplayer kick collision box and added lag compensation similar to that of the Greatsword!

Duel Invite Match Customization

You can now customize the number of starting clones and skill points for custom duel matches!

Optimizations and Various Fixes

• Optimized the game to load 6 times faster and use 1/3 of the memory than before!
• Made multiplayer jump pads trigger quicker.
• Optimized landing in lava to no longer cause extreme lag in multiplayer.
• Fixed issue where game settings could override system screen refresh rate.
• Fixed server crashes related to fire (aka "the frozen robot then server shutdown bug").
• Optimized server build so games start up quicker (and not cause lag on other games when starting up!)

More fun stuff coming, stay tuned!

We have some exciting plans for the next multiplayer update. :)

If you're feeling extra adventurous and want to test bleeding edge versions of the game before the next update, follow our development on Twitch and watch for opportunities to try out what we're building next, live!

Hey kentono, is this still happening for you? Can you email me support@doborog.com with the crash info?

Today we launched 1v1 multiplayer duels on Steam! (And all itch.io game purchasers can redeem a Steam key: https://itch.io/t/67604/how-to-get-a-steam-key-from-your-itchio-purchase)

And look — our servers scaled up without exploding!

So go ahead, tell your friends! Challenge your neighbors!

Next Update: Improving Lag & Performance!

While many players are enjoying multiplayer, there are a few things we want to do to get pings lower and make the combat feel much more responsive. We’re going to be doing a mini-update next, with:

1. (Soft) Ping-based region-locking for matchmaking — right now you’ll create matches in your closest region, but might end up joining a far away one if someone else is waiting. We’ll add some smart logic around how we handle that.
2. Lag compensation for sword / hammer / arrow hits. This will help hits feel more fair!
3. Optimization so new games starting up doesn’t cause other games on the server to chunk for a few seconds (you might notice your game freezes a bit — this should fix that!)

This was a BIG update (including an overhaul of so much of the single-player tech as well) — so let us know if you come across any new bugs or have issues with the game!

HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who tested the multiplayer beta over the last three months, who is hanging out playing duels this launch weekend, and for generally making this crazy dream of multiplayer Clone Drone a possibility for us!

Once 1v1 is feeling great, we’ve got some fun new plans for multiplayer on deck 

Multiplayer launches on Wednesday, April 18th!

Bring a friend!

(to kick into a giant laser)

Sad to say (largely due to how we need to authenticate players), it will not! But all itch.io game purchasers can redeem a Steam key: https://itch.io/t/67604/how-to-get-a-steam-key-from-your-itchio-purchase

That said, our current plan is to continue updating the itch.io version, just will not include the multiplayer section (similar to how Steam Workshop integration is hidden from the itch version).

Ahoy friends! We’re super hard at work on Multiplayer Duel Mode, but wanted to take a quick second to update everyone on our progress!

tl;dr: We’re making good progress! We’re shooting to officially launch 1v1 in April (later than we’d hoped!), but in the mean-time you can follow along with Erik’s live dev streams and try our bleeding-edge development test version!

What’s Done!

The Duel Match Structure

We’re zeroing in on a final, fun match structure for duels. Each player starts the match with 3 lives, and after deaths, players get to pick an upgrade!

Picking upgrades after death adds another layer of strategy to the game, letting you react to your opponent’s choices and the map you’re on!

Multiplayer-ifying Upgrades, Weapons, and Hazards!

As part of making the game work for multiplayer, we’ve been converting everything over to be multiplayer-compatible, including nearly every upgrade (hammer, bow, jetpack, kick) and hazards (sawblades, spikes, moving platforms over dangerous lava). While you may have kicked a Sword 1 robot or two into sawblades before, we’re finding it’s a totally fresh experience sending real human-controlled robots to their doom. Practice your maniacal laugh, you’ll need it.

Dedicated Servers!

When we built Long Live Santa! as a test game, we used a direct peer-to-peer connection for matches. While this worked okay (and cost a good bit less) — players who were acting as the host would sometimes drop, some hosts would have inconsistent internet connections or high pings to others in matches, and in some cases use their position as server host as an unfair advantage!

For Clone Drone’s multiplayer, we’re pulling out all the stops and hosting our own full-on auto-scaling dedicated servers! While the development branch is currently targeting a single region (US-East), soon we will support servers in regions worldwide, so not only should gameplay be nice & fair, but hopefully pings will be buttery-low!

What’s Left to Do!

While we’d love to launch right now, we’ve got some things to do before shipping multiplayer to everyone!

• Add some awesome multiplayer arena levels! While we have a few early level ideas, there’s a lot of potential for fun new combat levels. Some will even take place outside of the classic arena!
• Make all of single player work again! In the process of multiplayer-ifying everything, there are some things in single-player that need a bit of updating to work right again. On the bright side, this will make adding co-op much quicker once we get to that 
• Stability, anti-cheat security, performance, etc! We want to make this release as solid as possible, and lots of things have changed!

The up-shot of all this is — once we’ve developed this core fighting experience, other game modes will become easier and quicker to add! We’re super excited about what’s next for multiplayer (and shared some of our ideas in this other post), and can’t wait to start slicing you all in half with our laser swords.

Follow Along and Let’s Do This!

• Come watch Erik develop the game on Twitch! Say hello and some words of encouragement!! 
• Try the multiplayer development branch (warning: quite buggy, and not many players on it yet!). We update it many times per day with our latest development progress.

We’re getting there! Thanks for everyone who has been testing out builds and following along our development!! We can do this!!! YEAHH!!!!

The wait is over, chapter 3 has landed! :D

Here is what's new:

Story Mode Continues!

Venture into the Fleet Communications beacon on a desperate quest. This is our most cinematic chapter yet, with many twists and turns!

Armor up!

The main new game mechanic this update is Armor. Protect your limbs from being instantly destroyed by death robots!

Armor is available:

• In Story Mode Chapter 3
• As an upgrade in all non-story modes (Endless, Challenges, Twitch Mode)
• In the Level Editor: Check a box and any robot in the game is suddenly armored!

Rise of the Fleet Overseer!

Long did the voices cry out for some sort of boss. The Fleet Overseer is finally here to shoot a giant laser at those voices! BOOM!

While she mainly appears in Chapter 3, other areas you can play with her are Twitch Mode and the Level Editor!

Allies!

A major new feature in Chapter 3 is playing with your trusty AI companion. Stand back and watch them wreak havoc.

Allies are also available in Twitch Mode! Simply type !spawnally fleetoverseer KappaPride to give your favorite streamer a helping laser beam! We initially restricted this to Twitch subscribers, but decided to open it up to everyone. Enjoy!

Aim Time!

Aim time is an awesome upgrade that's been in the game for quite a while now!

We've made it even more useful by making it not trigger automatically when you draw an arrow back. Instead: right click to aim time with an arrow drawn!

This has the great advantage of not wasting energy until you really want to aim, for all you energy-frugal archers out there. Hurray!

What's next: A small update with more stuff!

As is often the case, we could have easily worked on this update for another month without running out of high priority tasks to do.

But instead WE SHIPPED IT! Being in Early Access we strive to deliver you a rough, but satisfying experience in a timely manner. :)

The result is that we have a few things we wish we would have had time for, that we're gonna scoop up into a delightful update coming out 2-3 weeks from now:

• Chapter 2 Overhaul: The game has come a long way in terms of the quality of our levels. We redesigned all levels of chapter 1 for this update, but ran out of time to revisit chapter 2.
• Armor in Endless Mode: Endless Mode is completely untouched by this update. We're gonna fix that!
• Level Editor items: We've created a ton of cool new assets used in chapter 3. Expect to see things like glass, doors, lights etc. added to the level editor in the next update!
• General bug fixing: We know of plenty of bugs that we want to fix. If you find one email bugs@doborog.com

This is awesome! We're using it for the subreddit now: https://www.reddit.com/r/CloneDrone/

I think Erik is still playing with different player armor acquisition mechanics, it's pretty powerful so he's got a tough balance to strike! :)

Check out his livestream and you may catch him working on it!

If anyone prefers itch forums over tweeting, feel free to post your #TwitchCon Twitch clip here!

Ahoy!! As Erik mentioned in our last update, we've been super-duper-heads-down-focused on finishing up Story Mode Chapter 3 -- our most ambitious update yet -- a multi-stage adventure chock full of fresh new gameplay elements!

And we've set a final date for release! The Story Mode Chapter 3 update will be available on Steam and Itch on...

📅 September 29th! 📅

Until then, we thought you might appreciate a sneak peek at:

Armor!!

Armor, which will be introduced in chapter 3, covers sections of your body -- stopping blade cuts and breaking apart on impact.

Yes, YOU get to wear it, too!

"But wait...", you might ask. "Can ALL the enemies wear armor?"

...

🎷 YEAHHHHHH! 🎶

Come visit us at #TwitchCon, & ticket giveaway!

We will be hosting a live Clone Drone Twitch Mode stream from our booth at TwitchCon 2017! If you'll be there this year, come visit us!! Otherwise, play along online at http://twitch.tv/doborog during the event!

What: #TwitchCon

When: Oct 20-22

Where: Long Beach, CA

On top of exhibiting the game and Twitch Mode there, Twitch has kindly given us two TwitchCon tickets to give away!!

If you stream Clone Drone's Twitch Mode between now and September 25th and tweet out a clip from playing, you'll have a chance to get one of the tickets!

To participate:

1. Stream Clone Drone Twitch Mode at some point between now and the deadline (that's two weekends from now!).
2. Snag a Twitch clip of the game from your stream!
3. Tweet out your clip by the deadline: Monday, September 25th at 2pm PST / 5pm EST (convert to other time zones). Important: include #CloneDroneClips and #TwitchCon in your tweet!

And we'll contact the winners that week! It's a great excuse to try streaming on Twitch, or Clone Drone, for the first time!

Surprise, it's a mini-update!

While Doborog starts in on building Story Mode Chapter 3 (and begins teaching his own clone how to do things), we couldn't help but release our latest batch of Twitch improvements ASAP!

Share Your Workshop Levels With !suggest

Sharing your sweet workshop levels with Twitch streamers used to be a pain -- you had to:

1. Send your streamer a link (which would usually get auto-deleted...)
2. Convince them to open a browser and subscribe to it.
3. Hope and pray your level would eventually show up in the random Twitch rotation.

Not good enough!!

Now you can send levels directly to your favorite Twitch streamer! Just type:

!suggest [workshop ID]

and streamers will instantly see:

When accepted, levels will auto-download and become the next level in the rotation. Neat!

To get your workshop level's ID, go to its workshop page and grab the number from the id= part of the URL:

So go to your favorite Clone Drone Twitch stream and send em a level to try from the Workshop!

Level Editor: Twitch Spawn Areas and a Raptor Statue!

Tired of Twitch enemies spawning to their deaths or to un-reachable locations on your levels? Now you can configure Twitch spawn areas, so all Twitch enemy spawns on your level will target the areas you set!

What you do: Just drag a few of these areas out, and Twitch enemies will spawn there!

Pro tip: the vertical position of the spawn area is ignored, and spawn positions are found from top-down, so you can put these hints floating above the level if it's more convenient to lay them out like that.

How it works on Twitch: when spawning an enemy, the game will randomly select one of the spawn areas you've laid out, and then randomly select a position within that.

"Remember Me" for Twitch Logins

There's now a handy checkbox to save your Twitch username/auth token! No more fumbling around with your browser and clipboard when trying to connect live on stream.

Twitch "Up Next" and "Spawning Allowed" Notifications

Twitch mode will now tell the audience what level is up next (and if it's from the workshop, a link to the level), and when it's OK to start spawning. Especially on big streams, it used to be hard to know exactly when to begin !spawning to get in before the limit gets hit.

We've included a built-in delay roughly matching the stream delay so it doesn't spoil the outcome of the round you're watching.

Happy !spawning!

Big Stream Throttling & High Traffic Mode

Before this update, Twitch Mode on gigantic streams would usually result in streamers being temporarily global-banned from Twitch chat due to high # of messages the bot would send in a short period of time. 

With 0.9.1, Twitch mode will queue and throttle messages to keep you under the 80-message-per-30-seconds-in-your-own-channel limit, and when things get busy, enter a high-traffic mode, where:

• !coins reports get collated and sent in batched reports.
• "Too many enemies have been spawned" messages show up just once per round.

If you've got a really big stream and still see issues, email us support@doborog.com and we'll figure out how to tweak it to make it work for you! (And if you'd like to be added to our streaming press list for updates as well, let us know!)

Bug Fixes!

C'mon, you know we can't help smashing at least a few bugs!

• Twitch Mode now shows "Now Playing" TVs and UIs, so you can tell which workshop items you're playing.
• Fixed a bug where endless workshop levels with multiple difficulties would always select the first difficulty, which resulted in hard levels in easier tiers!
• "Workshop and Normal Levels" now alternate between workshop and non-workshop levels when they have been played the same # of times, instead of just playing a single workshop level and then only normal levels.
• The default endless workshop policy is now "Workshop and Normal Levels" instead of "Workshop only"
• Level editor: make zooming in exponential, so you can zoom in to see much smaller things.
• Fix rare crash that would occur when unsubscribing from currently played workshop level while in Twitch mode.
• If levels on the workshop have no enemies, the game will now skip the level & send us a report so we can investigate and remove them from the workshop.

Go check out some Twitch streams streams, find some cool levels in the workshop and suggest them! And watch for our next post with details on Story Mode Chapter 3, coming late August!

Note: If you'd like to subscribe to and play Steam Workshop levels and you purchased the game on itch.io, follow these instructions to redeem a Steam key from your itch purchase:

https://itch.io/t/67604/how-to...

Hey Drew, are you still having this issue? Can you email me support@doborog.com and I can tell you how to fix it? This was an issue a few players hit when we used to allow spaces at the end of folder names, which Windows does not like.

This release, we've added FLAME RAPTORS, 2 new raptor-based challenges, and a "repair" upgrade!

Flame Raptors!!

Flame Raptors are the most versatile enemies yet -- they breathe fire:

Enemies ride on top of them:

And they'll whip you with their tail!

The Raptor & RAPTOR INSANITY Challenges!

We added two new challenges featuring the flame raptors:

- Raptor Challenge - Ten fun levels with brand new raptor-appropriate layouts!

- Raptor Insanity - A VERY HARD challenge. We decided to try splitting this challenge into an easy and hard version, since we know not everyone enjoys getting slaughtered repeatedly. ;)

You'll also find raptor levels in higher tiers of endless mode, and you can even spawn them with riders on Twitch streams!

"Repair"

Lose your arm, and can't use your bow? Tired of hopping around on one leg?

Well, would you look at that!

Weird -- wonder why there are scare quotes around "Repair"...

Other small improvements!

We also made a handful of smaller improvements we thought our wonderful fellow players would enjoy!

• Workshop levels can now use enemy deaths as triggers! (I think we may be getting close to Turing-completeness...)
• We fixed a bug with moving platforms resetting after death in workshop levels!
• You can no longer escape your damaged robot body by exiting and re-starting the game -- player voxel damage now persists!
• Hammer blows to enemies faces are now consistently lethal!

And as always, we're excited to subscribe to & play the awesome things you make next in the workshop! (If you want to play workshop levels, follow the guide to get a Steam key from your Itch purchase!)

Have fun with the raptors, and watch for our next post about what's next!

An unannounced update?? Wha-a-a-a-t?

We decided to put out an update with some of the smaller bits and bobs we've been fixing since 0.8.1 so you can enjoy them NOW!

This update includes: Level Editor Improvements, Bug Fixes, and "Now Playing" interfaces!

Level Editor Improvements

Custom Colors!

Now you can re-style any re-skinnable level item with the new Custom Color picker!

The Corner Wedge

Unassuming yet powerful, the Corner Wedge is perfect for smoothing out the sharp edges of level elements.

Resize it, and it still looks good. Wow!

And it comes in 10 sleek styles!

The Light Pillar

It's light, in that it is lighter than the dark pillar. And it emits light.

Pretty!

Bug Smashing

We smashed a bunch of bugs!

• Head kills now require 3 or more head voxels to be damaged. Shave carefully!
• Arrows you JUST deflected should not hit your body after deflection -- and, conversely, arrows that already hit you should not be deflected). Your death should feel normal! (We're still hunting down one more edge case of this, but should happen way less often. Holler if you see it!)Quality Assurance
• Player movement while on overlapping moving platforms should work better!
• Swinging forwards with block arrows should now always block arrows in front of you.
• Free Clones at the beginning of the first plays of challenges should now be properly gifted! <3 <3 <3
• Author names for workshop items should now consistently show up.
• The Level Editor Inspector now SCROLLS! So you can now have a ton of trigger zones and be able to use them when configuring moving platforms.
• Mousewheel scrolling the level editor zoom is faster!
• Mousewheel scrolling for the Level Editor Library now works and feels good! And doesn't zoom the level in and out!
• Ctrl + D to duplicate does not pan the level editor to the left anymore.
• Restarting an endless playtest when you have upgrade points will now re-spawn you in the upgrade room (so you can use your points!)
• You can now type decimal numbers 0.___ in the Level Editor's Scale fields without it annoyingly putting 0.01 when you type 0.
• Have a ton of levels? The level list for the challenge creation screen now has a scroll bar!

Find a new bug or the recurrence of one we thought we fixed?! Upset we didn't fix the one that is bugging YOU? Send it along to us! We'll make sure it's in our bug tracker, prioritized relative to everything else we want to add to / improve in the game, and Erik and I may even get around to SMASHING IT!

Now Playing

It used to be impossible to tell what workshop endless level you were playing, let alone rate or unsubscribe from them quickly.

Now you can just check the TV:

Open the Escape Menu...

Beat the challenge:

Or just wait for the insta-voter to slide out after you beat the level! (Vote quickly using your keyboard!)

So efficient!

Subscribe to a bunch of endless levels and challenges to try it all out, and share your opinion on workshop levels!

http://steamcommunity.com/app/597170/workshop/

Note: If you'd like to subscribe to and play Steam Workshop levels and you purchased the game on itch.io, follow these instructions to redeem a Steam key from your itch purchase:

https://itch.io/t/67604/how-to...

What's next??

We wanted to get this mini-update out ASAP so you can start playing with it all now, but this is not all we've been working on. The next major update launches on June 25.

And we're posting a preview of it... very soon! Watch out for it!

(gif from The Cats’ Arenas by Deside)

WOW! In the two short weeks since we launched the Level Editor and Steam Workshop integration, FELLOW CREATIVE HUMANS created over 1,000 challenges and 1,000 endless levels!! Many even took the new enemy wait and move platform trigger elements from last Friday and made mind-blowing contraptions.

Note: If you'd like to subscribe to and play Steam Workshop levels and you purchased the game on itch.io, follow these instructions to redeem a Steam key from your itch purchase:

https://itch.io/t/67604/how-to...

In the Clone Drone Steam Workshop, you’ll now find beautiful creations:


The Dark Knight by FrafMonster


Mini-Bow Challenge by SiggiSuffkopp (even has a YOUTUBE TRAILER!!)


Level Pack 1 by Random Commander

Unique gameplay challenges:


The Gauntlet by DarkEmperor118


Ring of Fire Challenge by VastLite

And some simply all-around fun, well-crafted challenges!


The Factory by Pudding (with an ENEMY KILLING MACHINE)


The Cats’ Arenas by Deside


The Lava Temple by Silva (with a BOSS BATTLE!)

Wanna play some awesome new challenges and endless levels?

• Pick some challenges and levels to play from the workshop!!
• Having trouble choosing?! We collected some lists of challenges you can quickly subscribe to:
  • Just plain FUN challenges
  • BEAUTIFUL challenges
  • BRUTALLY difficult challenges
  • Challenges with funky gameplay (fire floor jumper?! conveyor lava dodge??) and ones that are just cool hacks (an automatic robot killing farm??).
• Wanna be a hero? Mine for gold in the NEW ITEMS list and provide kind words of encouragement and positive feedback to creators just getting started!!

And when you try levels, don’t forget to:

• Rate and comment on the challenges in the workshop! Let your fellow humans know what you liked about what they made!
• Use Photo Mode to take beautiful screenshots! (capture and upload your screenshot by hitting F12 in Steam). You can then upload the screenshots and send the links to the creator! It’s so fun to see people playing your creations!!

Made or found a level or challenge you’re really excited about?
Share it here! I’d love to take a look!

What’s next?!
We’ll continue to improve the level editor going forward, including making some improvements in our next small update (especially since we’re using it to make levels too, now!).

And we have some some pretttttt-ty exciting non-level-editor things in the works, so stay tuned!

Note: If you want a Steam key and you purchased the game on itch.io, follow these instructions to redeem a Steam key from your itch purchase:

https://itch.io/t/67604/how-to...