V0.1.3 Release

Hey all - Tom here! 

We've been a little quiet on socials recently, but don't worry - we're still listening to your feedback and working hard to make ROVA the best it can be.

Two new members recently joined our ranks and they have been a [b]massive[/b] help! Obviously there was a bit of an onboarding process, but they quickly got used to our workflows and have added so much to the project already. I can't thank them enough.

Halloween Content

Being the Halloween Update, expect to see cute costumes and spooky vibes around the colony. Don't worry, nothing scary! 

Our new 3D artist, Leiona, has been the main driving force behind the new Halloween costumes and props you'll see in this update. 

Here's a sneak peak:

I might have made some adjustments to the colonist schedules and added some animations for a party - but you can find that for yourself 😉

You can also find little Halloween scenes dotted around the planet. Can you find them all?

Note: This seasonal content is only available for a limited time and will be removed in a later update. 

Additional Updates/Changes

I've been working closely with our new Unity Game Dev / Programmer, Ethan, on a lot of back-end systems ready for a future large content update. I won't spoil the surprise, so you'll hear more about this in a future post.

Ethan has also put a lot of work into improving UI (and encouraged me to clean up my messy UI code). 

Menu screens are smoother, with nice animated transitions and better feedback. 

He has also updated the main game HUD, with icons that feel more polished than just text.

My hope is the 'Look Home' feature should be more obvious to new players!

ROVA now has better support for alternative aspect ratios, such as 4:3.

Here it is on my CRT monitor:

In a future update we'll be addressing how we handle saving photos, aiming to give players more choice / control.

In the meantime I've made a large, yet simple improvement to saved photos. 

Player photos are now saved as jpg instead of png, making the file size 10x smaller, with no loss in quality. 

Note: This change will not impact images saved before this update.

Community Feedback

As always, community feedback has played a really important role in ROVA's development. Your support means the world to us🪐

If you do have any future feedback, the best place to share it is in the steam community forums.

Feel free to share your ingame photos with any of our socials - We'd love to see what you discover!

Changelog

Halloween Content:

[+] Various new halloween props

[+] Costumes for colonists

[+] Additional Halloween changes to the colony when completing the 'Find edible Flora' quest.

[+] Lighting changes around the colony base, visible at night (will be removed after halloween in the next update)

UI Changes:

[+] Changed all UI canvases to better support alternative aspect ratios

[+] Added menu screen transitions and animations

[+] UI navigation improvements

[+] Updated player HUD to include icons for actions (such as 'looking home')

Additional Changes:

[+] Player photos are now saved as jpg instead of png

[+] Lots of back-end changes ready for the next update (we promise they're there!)

[+] Collision fixes

[+] Various bug fixes