Gamma 2.2.9 Released

What's New

• Lots of graphical improvements. There are very few placeholder graphics left now.
• New items
  
• Added some white arrow floor tiles.
• Added green bombs. These aren't proximity-sensitive, and explode after a delay when shot or a nearby bomb explodes.
• Gameplay changes
• Made bullets faster.
• Colour door locks can now be triggered by explosions.
  
• Overworld and level changes
• Lots of changes to levels 1-100. I now like almost all of the levels.
• Some changes to the overworld layout, to make the earlier islands more linear. Nonlinearity is great but I think it should be introduced after the player gets the hang of things. This lets the earlier “teaching” levels build on each other.
  
• Added shops to the overworld, where you can spend your silicon crystals.
• Added nukes, which are available in shops. If you get one, you can use it from the pause menu to blow up the level you're on.
• Added a save crystal, available in a shop. Use it from the pause menu to create a temporary save point.
• Added a hardball detector, available in a shop. As long as you have it, you can see from the overworld which levels have remaining hardballs hidden on them.
  
• Hardballs no longer respawn if you've already collected them. If you collect one and die before finishing the level, there's now an animation of you dropping it, to make it clear it didn't count.
• Once you've put all the hardballs on the pedestals, the game remembers and you don't have to do it again.
  
• Bugs fixed
• Fixed bug where, if you restarted from the pause menu, the level wouldn't end when you won.
  
• Scrolling with a mouse wheel (not trackpad) on Mac is no longer very slow.
• Game no longer fails to register picking up silicon crystals in caves.

Update: Found a couple of bugs in this release. These have already been found and fixed for the next release:

• Graphical glitch when orange pegs and some other kinds of doors are lowered
• Pedestal shadows sometimes render as big black squares
• Level 5/7 has been made impossible by the bullet speed change. Find a nuke and nuke it until the next release comes out.