16/11/2020
Version 0.3.46 (Open Beta) is out!
This version brings an onslaught of new features, improvements and bug fixes
New Features
Next Puzzle
You've asked for it. You've asked for it again. And then you asked for it even more. As we're closing to the final release, we can focus on Quality of Life improvement features, and this one has been in the list for quite some time. You can access it when you finish a puzzle and after the point rewards screen as now you have the option to either go back to the Home screen, or play the Next Puzzle. The Next puzzle will always be of the same difficulty level as the one you just finished, and once again it will be selected randomly from the available puzzles. If there are no more available puzzles you will get a message as per usual.
Audio Enrichment
The new sound effects initiative has grown a bit and now there are sounds for actions that were previously missing (such as when you view a player's profile). The sound you hear when you complete a tournament has also been changed into a more satisfying fanfare! Additionally, whenever the game sound needs to stop (viewing an ad, or putting the app in the background) it will now fade out (and back in when you return) instead of getting abruptly cut.
Thank you for Beta
As you all (hopefully) know, when the game gets officially released, all scores, stats, unlockables, puzzles etc will be completely wiped and reset for all users and everyone will start from the beginning (Your accounts however will remain with the system). As a token of appreciation however for all of you who have helped me test the game and squash bugs these past 6 months, you are getting two special and exclusive avatars that are only available to players who have joined during the beta.
Speaking of Avatars
We can't have enough of them. So a few more have been added, and a few have been redesigned, including animation 🙂. Also, if you missed any previously unlockable avatars on earlier levels, those are now automatically unlocked for you.
What's your name?
You can already change your name through the account screen (accessible by tapping on your avatar), but quite a few players seem to totally miss that feature and keep sporting themselves as random Pixels in the leaderboard. Now, when you reach level 3, (if you haven't changed your name already) you will be asked to enter a name for yourself. Additionally changing your name now comes with a gem cost, to discourage players from using the name change for malicious purposes. The first time you change your name is free. Subsequent changes cost 500 gems.
Background Patterns
The pixels background pattern in game is very fitting, but cosmetic item beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. As such, we've added quite a few Background Patterns for you to choose from. You can see and change to the one you like in the Account Section, and buy more in the Shop.
More shop items
There's been a focus on powerups, tools and avatars in the shop. Now the shop also includes additional background patterns, background colors and pixel colors to purchase and use during the game.
Image Diet
All puzzle images have gone through a strict diet (optimization) and are now 40 to 70% smaller in file size. This drastically reduces the time required to get new puzzles, sync or recover your account, and loading of the Trophy Case. It also drastically reduces the amount of space required to store those on your phone, which is especially helpful for players with devices that have little available storage space. Finally, it should improve the game speed, especially on older devices.
Random Puzzles get even more Random
You always get a random puzzle for the next one you'll play, but those were always being selected of a pool of puzzles that the game downloaded from the server in sequence (in batches of 10), so even with the random selection in place, all players would play pretty much the same puzzles in the same order. This has been changed and batches of puzzles coming from the server will be totally random for all players.
Touch it
The vibrations (haptic feedback) you get from touching various items in the game have been worked on to make them more streamlined and meaningful.
Easter Eggs
We can't have enough of them! Of course we are not going to reveal where to find them, as that would defeat the purpose. Let's just say that this time around they come in with a buzz!
Responsiveness
A couple of in-game optimizations have been put in place, resulting into more responsive gameplay, especially on slower devices.
Bug Fixes
Back in your place
During the game over sequence, the portion of the screen that would get darkened was slightly off position. It has been put back in its place.
White Screen of Death
Sometimes, if you opened the tournament screen and closed it too fast, the screen would go completely white and the game would get stuck there. This has now been fixed. You can be as fast as you want!
Empty Lines in Puzzles
While we do have a mechanism that tries to prevent puzzles from having totally empty lines (which have no clues at all), a couple of puzzles managed to slip through the cracks and ended up in the puzzle rotation with empty lines in them. While the puzzles are still playable and solvable, puzzles with empty lines were never supposed to be available for play as their difficulty level is significantly lowered in comparison to other puzzles. These puzzles have been removed from rotation, and the empty line detection mechanism has been strengthened to detect and eliminate those puzzles even better.
Axel is Dead. Long live Axel
Axel the Pixel, the bot in our Discord server suddenly stopped working, due to changes Discord implemented in their api. We have Axel however his pills, and he's now back at work!
Push It!
Whenever the keyboard appears for you to type things in (like your name, or to fill out support requests) several text fields might end up behind the keyboard with no way to access them. Now these fields get pushed up gracefully.
Spin the Wheel ads
The Spin the Wheel button will now fade out if no ads are available to show (for instance if there is no network connection). It will also now work properly again if you decide to dismiss an ad before the reward time threshold has passed.
Stop that Sound
Game music will no longer keep playing if you put the game in the background while viewing the Tutorial.
Desync issues
Sometimes your account might get out of sync with the server, especially if you try to play with the same account simultaneously on two devices (as only one device is per account is allowed to communicate with the server at any given time). While the game will still keep functioning in that case, any score and progress you do will not be saved on the server, causing you to have to replay puzzles on your other devices. Now, in the case of such an event, the game will automatically take you to a lock screen informing you of the desync and preventing you to play more under this state. To continue playing you will have to restart the game and have it open on just one device at a time.
