I am happy to announce that Crashtastic version 0.4.4 alpha is now available!!!

If you have already purchased Crashtastic, you can download it here.

If you would like to buy Crashtastic, click here.

Crashtastic 0.4.4 Alpha Release Notes:

Editor: Updated the UI to be consistent with the other UIs in the game.
Editor: Updated the UI backend, which should fix the annoying can’t press GO issue.
Editor: Added hotkeys for all of the pieces. The hotkey is shown in the editor with an underscore under the hotkey.
Editor: removed W,A,S,D support for camera rotation, arrow keys still work.

Added Ability to tune the power on individual rockets. This is available in every level. You can adjust the power of all rockets by pressing “all” or individual rockets by clicking a single rocket. If you “Lock” a rocket, when you update “All” rockets, the locked rockets power will not be adjusted.

Added the ability on some levels (currently levels #16, 17, and 18) for you to assign keys to individual rockets, so they can be actively controlled. You will see an “Assign Key” field on the pre-simulation screen next to the power slider. I am going to be watching the feedback on this functionality with the thought of possibly opening it up on all levels.

Added Four Additional Levels:

Janky Half-Pipe – a series of broken half-pipes, in a race to the exit.
Target Plateau Again?! – The Target Plateau level you love to hate, with the addition of now being able to use controllable rockets..
U-Turn! – Race to the exit of big U-Turn. This level allows for use of controllable rockets.
High in Sky – Designed with the controllable rockets in mind…. Get to, and stay on the target platform… directly above you.

I know many of you are eagerly awaiting 0.4.4, and let me tell you I am looking forward to being done with this update as well! As a solo developer (working part-time I might add), new features have a tendency to take longer than I would like. I really do appreciate everyone’s patience and encouragement!

An update on 0.4.4:

The key feature as I mentioned before in 0.4.4 is the ability to set the power of individual rockets. While on the surface, it sounds like a trivial addition, when you get down to implementing it there are a ton of things to consider.

The biggest thing when adding a feature to any game is to consider how the new feature will change the game. For Crashtastic, my goal has always been to give people the freedom to create whatever they wanted to solve a given challenge of a level. The secondary goal was to make even failure something that you could enjoy, hence the big crashes with pieces flying everywhere and the robot flopping around like a dead fish. Call me evil, but that just never gets old to me! One of my big fears with adding this has always been that it would trivialize some of the challenges, and as a consequence diminish the amount of destruction and chaos a player gets from failure. After playing around with the new feature, I’m feeling pretty confident that won’t be the case :).

The other big challenge to adding a feature is figuring out how to present it to the player. This turned out to be the biggest challenge. I’ve spent a bunch of time on Crashtastic, trying to keep it as accessible as possible. My biggest fan and best UI tester is my 7 year old daughter. Hearing her feedback during the development of the game, has really opened my eyes to the importance of good UI design.

The UI isn’t quite there yet, but I know what needs fixing to get it there!

So when will it be done? Soon… how soon? Can’t say…. but it is getting close.

Mark