Beta 2.8 Release

As the countdown to launching Recolonizer on Steam and Kickstarter draws near, I took some time to patch up a few glaring issues and add some much-needed polish. The seas were getting a bit choppy with these lingering problems, so I spun up Rider once more and got to work. Here’s what I tackled:

• Fixed some cursed Cinemachine migration bugs.
• Gatling gun bullets no longer behaving like drunken cannonballs.
• Gave all levels a visual overhaul for a more cohesive look.
• Overhauled the old, janky graphics settings menu. Which has been hidden for a few versions now.
• Added placeholder music—because silence be the true enemy of atmosphere.

Cinemachine Migration – A Treacherous Journey

Cinemachine, in its infinite wisdom, offered a handy button to convert all cameras in the scene. I, like a fool, clicked it. Immediate failure. Project corrupted. Mutiny in my own codebase! After re-cloning the project, I had to manually redo every single Cinemachine camera in every scene. A painful voyage, but the ship is now sailing steady once more.

Gatling Gun Bullets – From Clunky to Deadly

Previously, Gatling gun bullets relied on physics, leading to some downright bizarre behavior. I scrapped that approach and made them raycast instead, with a chance to ricochet at reflective angles. This tweak turned out to be quite fun, adding an extra layer of mayhem to the mix. Still missing some proper visual effects, but that’ll come soon enough!

Visual Alignment – A Dash of Atmosphere

I took a good, hard look at the game’s visuals and decided it needed a proper polish pass. Here’s what changed:

• Added a day-night cycle to most levels, making battles feel more immersive.
• The sun’s angle in the second level now subtly reveals incoming ships—an accidental but awesome bit of emergent gameplay.
• Improved fog, skybox, post-processing, and lighting, making the game look leagues better.

Not gonna lie, it’s starting to feel a lot less like a back-alley prototype and more like a proper game!

Music – Filling the Silence

Sailing the silent seas was getting old, so I plundered some royalty-free tracks from incompetech.com. They do the job for now, but these are just placeholders. The plan is to eventually create a dynamic soundtrack that scales in intensity with the action—if I can find the time (or a good bottle of inspiration).

Options & Settings Menu – Finally Functional

With music added, it was time to rewrite my old, broken settings menu. Players can now:

• Adjust music volume (or turn it off entirely, ye heartless scallywags!).
• Tweak graphics settings to improve performance on low-end devices, especially for the web version.
• Toggle fullscreen and resolution settings—though this turned out to be trickier than expected.

There’s still a weird DPI issue where switching resolutions makes the game blurry, even when returning to fullscreen + native res. Resetting player preferences fixes it, but I’ll deal with that mess when the Steam launch approaches.

That’s all for now, mateys! With each update, Recolonizer gets closer to setting sail on Steam. Stay tuned for more improvements, and as always—keep yer cannons loaded and yer islands defended!