Hi there, Fractal Space players! New update 0.52 of the PC version is finally live on Steam! This update includes many changes, improvements and bugfixes!
MAJOR CHANGES | RESET SAVE
This update contains many bugfixes and changes to make the game more stable, and fix various gameplay bugs & additions, and save system reworks.
IMPORTANT: These changes imply that a full RESET SAVE is required for the game to function properly. We strongly recommend you press the !Reset Save! button in the main menu after the update!
CHAPTER 1 | DIALOGUES
Chapter 1 had many old dialogues coming from the Pocket Edition, and most of the new PC-exclusive dialogues were simply not present.
We have added the missing dialogues in Chapter 1 for PC; they are silent – and this is not a bug.
As we are reworking them all in the game, please ignore the fact that the audio is not yet recorded, and read subtitles meanwhile.
Please note that new dialogues are not yet localized, and they should not yet be translated as they are liable to still change. Some lines are the same as on mobile – good chance these will change as well in the future. They will only be added to the Localization Sheet when they are considered to be final.
In addition to Chapter 1 dialogues, there are also many new dialogue events. Here are a few examples:
- Dialogues for first Upgrade Terminal discovery
- Dialogues after taking an upgrade
- Dialogues for approaching already used Upgrade Terminals in New Game+
- Dialogues which only exist in New Game+, or changed for New Game+
- Dialogues for trying to get out of the level (relocation system)
SPEEDRUN | DIALOGUES
Speedrun Mode now disables many dialogues in Chapter 1 (around 60% are disabled) to prevent having too much talking during Speedrun sessions. If you want to test the new dialogues (silent, only subtitles for now), please play without Speedrun Mode first. This will be applied to all Chapters in the future.
LEVEL | CHANGES
Many changes were made to various areas in most levels – sometimes these are small changes and fixes, and a few larger ones:
- Chapter 1: Cutscene that shows the door closing in front of you in 1..2.. SLICE room has been removed, to allow skip using HyperSpeed without the need to disable cutscenes.
- Presure Plates: Reworked in Chapter 1 before Taser Room in order to solve many bugs with their logic. They now enter lockdown for the second time you enter that room, after picking up Taser, preventing many possible bugs, and making them inactive (intentional).
- Chapter 2: A room now has higher ceilings to avoid the feel of being “too constrained”.
- Chapter 3: First breakable wall with Upgrade Terminal has changed into Bonus Room 6; now also contains a recording and has been rebuilt differently.
- Chapter 3: The corridor with the breakable wall above now has higher ceiling
- Chapter 3: The area in which you must destroy the Generator to disable the laser field, before the Sequence Room, has changed a bit
- Chapter 3: The Bonus Room 7 next to the Sequence Room area has been built and should be functional
END GAME | NEW GAME+
The End Game was one of the main game systems that was not yet functional – and it is now! There might be bugs with this, but the main logic is implemented.
The End Game system is activated when the player has found all Upgrade Terminals in the game, and none are available to use:
- Makes all terminals available for a second upgrade
- These terminals will now provide you with missing upgrades
- When the player acquires all upgrades in the game, all terminals become unavailable
- Selecting New Game also resets all picked up Recordings and Color Packs (intended). Only New Game+ keeps upgrades and collectables. Selecting New Game+ should never reset anything.
NEW UPGRADE
A new Upgrade has been added to the game!
SCANNER
This upgrade helps finding Recordings, Upgrades Terminals and Color Packs. It has 2 levels of upgrade:
- Level 1: Be notified when an Upgrade Terminal is nearby
- Level 2: Be notified when Recordings or Color Packs are nearby
NEW | CHAPTERS PAGE
The Chapters page has been reworked to be more suitable to PC and gamepads. Each Chapter now has a specific image and loading image.
It now also displays new stats for each Chapter:
NEW | STATISTICS
This update introduces new statistics available in the Pause Menu. Later on, we’ll rework the interface display to be easier to read, but for now it’s important to check it regularly to see if it displays accurate information at all times:
Both stats of your current Upgrades (left) and the current Chapter are displayed (right)
IMPORTANT: It’s intended that Chapter Stats (right side) are NOT DISPLAYED on the first run of the game. Upgrade stats are displayed after acquiring your first Upgrades.
UPGRADES | CHANGES
Changes and fixes were made to various upgrades.
HOVER | FIXES
- Level 3 Upgrade of Hover had a bug, and felt like walking freely in the air because of perfect air control. Changed to feel like hovering, while still having more air control than previous levels.
JETPACK | HYPER-SPEED
- Jetpack light and gauge color now yellow to make it easier to distinguish between health / hover / hyper-speed and another element to be revealed in Chapter 5
- Health Backpack and Hyper-Speed display improvements, now above health gauge
- Health gauge now becomes blue while Hyper-Speed is active, and becomes red when not enough health to activate Hyper-Speed. The gauge and buttons now look like it has been “Toggled On”:
AIM | STABILIZER
Many improvements were made to the Aim Stabilizer upgrade mechanic:
- Now shows “Stabilizing…” gauge when auto-aim is starting and waiting for you to stop moving the camera. Any camera movement will cancel stabilization. it will resume if you stop moving the camera again. This will allow you to still play normally with Aim Stabilizer, and only use it by not moving the camera and prefer to wait for Aim Stabilizer to perform.
- Longer delay before auto-aim kicks in.
- Will no longer instantly auto-lock while in air / hovering / using Jetpack, in order to avoid unintentional instant auto-lock. Instant auto lock now only works if you aim close to the target while on the ground.
- Instant auto-lock when starting to aim close to a target to now exclusive to Aim Stabilizer Level 2.
CROUCH | SPRINT
Many bugfixes and improvements were made to Sprint and Crouch mechanics for this update:
- Requesting to Crouch shortly after touching the ground wouldn’t be taken into account properly. It will now work and crouch as expected.
- Holding the Sprint key would not always work if the character could not sprint at that moment (cannot stand up or other scenarios). Any Sprint request should now always be performed as soon as possible.
- Crouch: TOGGLE mode is now the default mode.
- Crouch: Various bugs fixed cause by alternating between crouch and sprint
CHAPTER 5 | PROGRESS
If you have played Chapter 4 on PC, the word “Progress” might ring a bell 
Work in progress | Chapter 5 PC
Chapter 5 is a lot of work, just like Chapter 4 on PC was. We’re gradually getting there, though. We’re getting more rooms functional. There’s a few new features that were added for this Chapter, and creating rooms, puzzles and traps that use them takes time.
We’re hoping to have a first playable of Chapter 5 in Experimental Builds in April. Thank you for your patience!
FUTURE | PC TASER
We have started to rework the Taser-Gun exclusive for the PC version. It will have the following major improvements over the current (mobile) version:
- The Taser model have better visuals
- All Taser–related Upgrades will have a visual impact on the Taser in-game: Batteries will be added, scope attachment, etc.
- Ammo will be displayed more clearly as a number instead of gauge
- Taser Customization will affect more parts of the Taser
- Reloading system: Batteries will be ejected and replaced
- New animations
- Taser Power Level 2 and 3 will be replaced by a “Charged Shot Level 1 and 2″ mechanic. A Charged Shot will consume more ammo, but will break walls (Level 1) and destroy cameras (Level 2) . This will allow you to still choose to only stun a camera, even after reaching max Taser Power level, by not charging the shot thus saving ammo. This change will also make Taser Capacity and Taser Backpack upgrades more meaningful.
The new Taser system requires a lot of work as well, in parallel of Chapter 5. The first playable version is planned to be tested at the same time as Chapter 5 PC. If it’s ready before CH5, it will be set live before
BUG FIXES | IMPROVEMENTS
Here’s a list of the many other various bugfixes of this update – many more have been fixed, only listing the major ones here:
- Crashes & Optimization: GPU memory load has been improved for all Chapters. Crashes on old graphics card should occur less often when loading next chapters. Chapter 4 might still have issues, thoughm as there is still work to do for this one. Let us know how it goes!
- Subtitles: Could sometimes display slowly or with wrong timings with Hyper-Speed active – should now work fine in all cases
- Jump: Low framerate would make it impossible to jump quite often, usually after interaction. Should now be at least reduced, or fixed – let me know if it still happens
- Fast Moving Platforms / Smashers / Lifts: Reworked to ensure smooth movement while standing on them, and avoid going through them at low framerate. Please don’t jump while in accelerated lifts for now, still not perfect
- Water: Would only be rendered if Depth of Field was Enabled, or Reflections was set to Dynamic. Should now always be displayed, as intended.
- Triggers / Events: A bug could provoke some triggers / events to be activated twice, when they should only work once. This could create many level bugs, like unexpected relocations.
- Save System: After loading a save, some triggers or objects could be enabled when they shouldn’t be – would create unexpected random level bugs
- Aim Stabilizer: Could continue trying to aim after stopped aiming Taser.
- Jetpack: Starting using jetpack when a vertical moving platform just started to move upwards would provide massive boost to jetpack.
- Jetpack: QuickSave / Quickload will keep Jetpack Fuel at time of save (avoid exploits). For Auto-Saves / Last Checkpoint, fuel will now be fully recharged
- Exit Crash: Fixed crash that could occur upon game exit
- Shadows / Reflections: Many reflections / shadows fixes that were reported
POCKET EDITION | CHANGES
The Pocket Edition has been updated a lot on both Android & iOS recently, with many bug fixes and adding new FRACTALXMAS and FRACTALOWEEN events, that can now be played anytime!
In addition, a HINTS system and various improvements were made to the game to help the many players who remained stuck in the main puzzles in the game. New Controls options were added.
More details on the dedicated page for latest changes on the Pocket Edition.
Thank you for reading, and see you next time!
