Rocket Bear Games Blog

I’ve been quietly plugging away at Infested Planet, alongside the other project that I’m working on.  For the most part, I’ve been working with my audio engineer to add new sounds to the game.  The marines now have voice barks when you select them and order them around.

We just finished an audio milestone over the weekend, so I’ve decided to package all the work and put out a patch.  Expect it sometime this week.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m doing the programming for Eets: Munchies.  One of my good friends is doing the design for it and I really wanted to work with him.  Plus, I get to see how other programmers do their thing and learn new tricks.  Unfortunately, that has also meant that Infested Planet has taken a back seat.

The good news is that I’m going to resume work on Infested Planet soon.  It never really stopped 100% – I’ve been working with an audio engineer to make it sound awesome all along.  Now I have more time to improve the campaign and fix some bugs.

I don’t have any concrete patch dates, but I’ll let you know what you can expect once I get some work done.

I wanted to give everyone an update on how Infested Planet is going.  My two audio contractors are blasting away at the sounds and music.  That’s proceeding at a good pace.  As for myself, I’m extremely busy with Eets 2.

We’re in crunch mode right now for Eets and all of my energy is going towards that.  What does this mean?  There probably wont be patches in Feb, though I might have time to update the audio.

Once the Eets 2 craze dies down, I’ll leap back into Infested Planet and finish things off.

The new patch is here!  It’s mostly bugfixes – the map generation bug was pretty big.

Patch Changes

• Changed hive spit mutation

• Fixed resolution issue with campaign and options UIs
• Fixed random map generation
• Fixed surrendering on the first map
• Fixed end of mission conditions when a burrowing hive is made

To update, just re-download the game using the link you got in your purchase email.

If you don’t have a copy of Infested Planet, go to the website and get it HERE.

It’s late Friday, but I promised that a patch would go out and here it is.  Lots of changes in this one.

Patch Changes

• Added experimental multithreading for alien crowding
• Added CPU core use and world detail to options screen
• Some awesome new sounds from Matthew Marteinsson

• New campaign interface
• Added Crow’s Neck mission
• Added Sudden Strike mission

• Revamped victory screen
• Lots of small UI tweaks

• Fixed issue with running away from ammo packs
• Stopped alien mines from exploding underfoot
• Made genetics increase respawn by 50% instead of halving ammo
• Increased the mortar’s deadzone

• Art changes: robopod, growing towers; icons
• Added bright decals for dangerous structures
• Slightly increased the visual bullet size of turrets
• Added a wave effect when you capture points
• Removed capture annoucements

• Misc Bugfixes
• Fixed options button hilighting for Graphics option
• Fixed memory leak on mission restart
• Fixed (hopefully) issue with missing audio libraries on Mac and PC

To update, just re-download the game using the link you got in your purchase email.

If you don’t have a copy of Infested Planet, go to the website and get it HERE.

EDIT: It looks like there’s a bug with random map generation that snuck in – capture points are placed too closely fairly often now.  I’m on it guys!

I’ve had a couple of people report problems with the most recent patch.

If you read the patch notes, you saw that I overhauled the audio system to use OpenAL.  Unfortunately, that has caused a couple of bugs.  If you most recent patch broke things for you, try installing OpenAL:

http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/Downloads/oalinst.zip

That should fix things for the short-term.  Once I have all the problems licked, I’ll release a patch that should solve them for good.

Also, if you’re running the Mac version and getting a crash at startup.  Send me an email and I’ll give you a version with a test fix.

The patch to fix this stuff will come out this Friday (23rd).

Hello Infested Planet players!  I’ve been quietly working on a new patch for you, with some goodies.

Patch Changes

• Tweaked Robotics Pod – the robot can’t be healed any more and detached pods don’t produce robots
• Lowered genetics cost to 5
• Changed ammo crates to spit out ammo right away as ammo packs
• Adjusted grenade tutorial for new ammo crates
• Changed ammo packs to move toward whoever’s picking them up

• Switched sound to OpenAL and added pitch shifting

• Improved build UI – various small fixes, like a warning if you build in a wall
• Added ability to print bullet points in text and adjusted some tooltips
• Updated dispersal tooltip with building armour effect

• Added graphical options page
• Added detail slider for particles
• Added detail slider for splatter
• Adjusted damage particle effect for protohives
• Killing aliens is now more particle-licious
• Added green trails to small alien spit
• Tweaked decal fading

To update, just re-download the game using the link you got in your purchase email.

If you don’t have a copy of Infested Planet, go to the website and get it HERE.

I’ve been quietly plugging away at the next Infested Planet patch, adding things like meatier alien deaths and a new audio system.  You can expect it next Friday.

For now, I’ll leave you with a picture of aliens closing in on my exhausted marine team.

I got several reports about a crash during the Research tutorial.  It only happened on Macs, and so slipped through the cracks.

Patch Changes

• Fixed crash during Research tutorial

To update, just re-download the game using the link you got in your purchase email.

If you don’t have a copy of Infested Planet, go to the website and get it HERE.

You’re probably wondering how Infested Planet is doing.  I don’t have any new features for you guys, so that’s why there was no patch recently.  There are some very good news though.

I’m close to signing contracts with two guys who will do audio miracles for the game.  I really look forward to them making Infested Planet sound great.

When all of the paperwork is settled, I’ll get back to the bi-weekly patch schedule.