A PERSONAL UPDATE

I'm back!

I've been gone for such a long time that it makes sense to start out with a little personal update to let you all know where I've been, what's been happening, and why Space Bob is suddenly getting an update after more than three years. If you don't care about the personal stuff, I'll fully understand if you prefer to skip to the What's New section below, but for those that care, here goes.

Even the most hardcore Space Bob fans will probably be unaware that a week after Space Bob's 1.0 release I unfortunately suffered a heart attack. I only previously shared that info publicly with Dr_Doof on his twitch stream.

Solo game development can be notoriously stressful, especially around release, and after eight years of flat out dev work my health, both physically and mentally was in the dumpster. I was emotionally exhausted and by the time Space Bob was ready for release I didn't have the strength left to give the game the marketing energy it deserved. I’d put everything I had into development and made the classic mistake of hoping the quality of the game would sell itself.

The result was that things didn't go to plan, and it quickly became apparent that the game wasn't going to magically find it's audience. If gamers didn't know the game existed then it wasn't going to sell in enough volume no matter how good it was.

Ultimately, that series of events meant that I had no choice but to step away from game development to focus on my health and find a way to pay the bills. I'll be honest and say that after completing the promised six months of post-release content, I simply couldn't face even thinking about game development any more. I was financially broke and burned out.

I took a regular job and started taking proper care of myself. The end result is that I learned some valuable life lessons and I'm now in a much better place both mentally and physically and genuinely enthusiastic about game development again.

SO WHY A NEW UPDATE NOW?

For quite some time, I've been wanting to release a demo for Space Bob. I wanted to give it one last chance to find it’s audience, and it’s too late for a regular marketing push. It would be incredibly difficult to get anyone interested in covering a three year old game, but a demo might encourage more players to give it a whirl and who knows, maybe someone like Giantwaffle might find it, play it, love it, and start a new ball rolling. I can but dream.

Before any of that though I felt like it was essential to make a few tweaks and changes.

A free demo will mean that a lot of new players will likely download and play it on a whim without reading anything about the game and they’ll have no idea how challenging it is/was. Space Bob has a deceptively cutesy looking exterior that confuses too many players into thinking it's going to be an easy casual experience. Many aren't even aware it has permadeath before buying it.

If I didn’t make some effort to solve those issues then releasing a demo could do more harm than good. I also had a number of things that I wanted to tweak or polish and, finally, I wanted to add at least one or two extra features to say thanks to the fans and give them a new reason to save Bob at least one more time. So here we are.

WHAT'S NEW in build 1.43?

• New installs of the game now start on the lowest difficulty setting by default.

• This hopefully allows more players to learn the ropes before becoming discouraged.
  
• Previous builds started with the difficulty slider set one notch higher which was the equivalent of double the incoming damage.
  
• If you are a new player, and prefer a challenge, make sure to move that slider back one notch to the right (it’s just below the Play button).
  

• The tutorial has been tweaked and refined.

Especially the grappling gun section.

• A new visual ‘Getting Started’ panel has been added.

• This points new players in the right direction and gives the early game more focus.
  
• It pops up the first time a player enters the lander after the tutorial.
  
• It looks like this and has five pages of quick visual tips:
  

• The edge of the screen now pulses when Bob is near death.

• The 'You Died' screen has been redesigned and also now includes a tips section.

• These tips can be manually cycled and include tips and clues about secrets that even some of the more experienced players may not know about.
  

• Dave’s message panel has been updated and improved.

• It can now be reopened manually which causes his last message to repeat.
  
• This can be achieved via an onscreen button, a hotkey, or even by simply clicking the edge of the screen near to where the message panel appears.
  
• The font design and coloring has also been reworked to be more readable.
  
• The speed of the dialog appearing has been increased slightly.
  

• The ‘Recent Salvage’ panel has been redesigned.

• Bob’s movement, while walking/running, is now far more responsive.

• Bob now accelerates, and changes direction, more quickly.
  
• This leads to his grounded movement feeling much snappier.
  

• Miscellaneous changes:

• Rask damage has been more than halved from 2.7 to 1.3
  
• Various UI tweaks and improvements throughout the game.
  
• Fixed a rounding bug with the reported temp/perm upgrade values from upgrade machines.
  
• Power Cubes can no longer be salvaged.
  
• The lifting power of the familiars has been significantly increased once they are upgraded.
  
• The default music volume has been lowered.
  

NEW FEATURES

New In-Game Speedrunning Overlay and Leaderboards

This is something I always wanted to add to the game but never had the time to include before.

Throughout the entirety of Space Bob’s development I always planned features and gameplay with speedrunning in mind. From the very beginning I wanted to make a game that could be completed in an hour and this new feature will allow you guys to try and achieve that goal while having a leaderboard to share your progress.

Close to the 1.0 release, I encouraged twitch/DrDoof (who had the the #1 high score at the time), to give speedrunning a try and after a few attempts he set a personal record of 89 minutes. I’m not 100% sure if sub one hour is possible, but I have a hunch that it might be. If you stream your attempts be sure to let me know and I’ll come hang out; I don't care how big or small your channel is.

I doubt we’ll ever get the attention of Summoning Salt or Karl Jobst (love those guys) but I’d be happy if we only had a handful of players actively fighting for the top spots.

There are actually two new speedrunning challenges, each with their own leaderboard. The first is the easy one that just about everyone can get involved with. It’s the speedrun to pass through the Jump Gate as fast as possible and we’ve already seen sub ten minute times on that one during the beta test. The second leaderboard is for the full game and will be far less contested and active.

There’s also a new speedrunning overlay where you can see your current time and split times compared to your previous best at various checkpoints in the game. This is very similar to the most popular external speedrunning overlays but this one is built into the game and triggers the split times automatically. It can be toggled on and off with a hotkey; go to Options/Controls and bind a new hotkey if needed. It’s ‘Y’ by default.

Upgrade machines can now spawn as Epic(10% chance) or Legendary(5% chance)

The upgrade machines that give out permanent or temporary stat bonuses now have Epic and Legendary variants.

• Epic machines increase previous bonuses by 30%.
  
• Legendary machines increase previous bonuses by 100%.
  

BRAND NEW GAME GUIDE:

For more information, plus tips, tricks and videos, on how to not only beat the game but also how to achieve the fastest times on both speedruns, take a look at this guide. It'll teach even the most inexperienced players how to reach the jump gate in under fifteen minutes, and even Space Bob experts will likely find tips and strategies they didn't know before.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2804067995