EXAPUNKS news & patch notes

Boot up your Z5 Powerlance and dial into Last Call BBS, the last game from Zachtronics! The Barkeep’s loaded up his retro computer with a full set of puzzle games for you to download and play. No need to worry about copy protection, they’re all fully cracked and ready to enjoy! Includes eight full games:

• 20th Century Food Court: Design factories to produce food just like they did over 700 years ago in the 20th century. Keep your costs low and your machines running fast!
• STEED FORCE Hobby Studio: Assemble robot models based on the anime smash hit Steed Force right on your computer. No sandpaper required!
• X’BPGH: The Forbidden Path: Enter a cursed world and create bizarre flesh sculptures in exchange for eternal life. The master is pleased… but can you trust him?
• Sawayama Solitaire: It wouldn’t be a Zachtronics release without a brand-new solitaire game. This time it’s a fresh take on Klondike, the “classic” solitaire variant.
• Dungeons & Diagrams: Try your hand at these beguiling tile-based logic puzzles. Can you map out the dungeons and steal all the treasure?
• ChipWizard™ Professional: Build integrated circuits using wires, transistors, and capacitors. Wait a second, is this a game or a CAD program?
• HACK*MATCH: The tile-matching minigame from EXAPUNKS, completely remastered with a single player campaign and local head-to-head multiplayer (with Steam Remote Play support).
• Kabufuda Solitaire: Create matching sets of Japanese kabufuda cards in this retro-demake of the challenging original solitaire game that debuted in Eliza.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1511780/Last_Call_BBS/ {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/3949752/7a03bded4c17d67960ecbb5f5ddd32c2b2d855cc.png

Today's update fixes the crash handler and histograms. Nothing else should be affected.

Thanks to the magic of on-demand printing, we're finally able to offer EXAPUNKS zines that are the same quality as our original print run from 2018. They're quite snazzy! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33232253/6bc3897532c2a46f75b041b453b9411ef616b69e.jpg A complete set with both issues is available on Lulu.com and costs about $7 plus shipping: https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/zachtronics-/trash-world-news-issue-1/paperback/product-wke9y4.html https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/zachtronics-/trash-world-news-issue-2/paperback/product-pgyr97.html If you're going to get one, make sure you get them both, as you'll need them both to play the game. Obviously, buying these isn't necessary in any capacity; the game includes high-quality PDFs that you can view on your computer or print yourself.

Today's update fixes a minor graphical issue in the options screen background.

This update fixes an obscure bug where bad histogram data could cause the game to crash.

The same rules apply as last time: you have two weeks to submit up to two solutions for the selected hacker battle (Valhalla). Solutions will be run against each other and hopefully a clear winner will emerge. Full details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/exapunks/comments/9wirk5/hacker_battle_competition_valhalla/ Congratulations to Bacardi (the EXAPUNKS player, not the beverage company), who was the winner of the last hacker battle competition. Statistics and some videos of the best solutions are available here: https://www.reddit.com/r/exapunks/comments/9vf7ue/hacker_battle_kgogtv_results/

Today's update fixes a bug where the game would sometimes fail to detect keyboard input when typing code quickly while the game was running at a low framerate.

If hacker battling your Steam friends on an individual basis isn't dramatic enough for you, consider participating in the first sanctioned EXAPUNKS hacker battle competition! There's a little less than a week remaining for you to submit your best solutions to the KGOG TV battle and see if you're among the best. Read the full rules here: https://www.reddit.com/r/exapunks/comments/9qhwqa/hacker_battle_competition_kgogtv/

Today's update fixes a bug with the hacker battle win counter where it was sometimes off by one but almost completely obscured so that you couldn't see it anyway.

After a few months of bug fixes, feature improvements, and the addition of a new bonus campaign, EXAPUNKS has left Early Access! To mark the release we're offering a 20% launch discount, available for the next week. If you missed the EXAPUNKS limited edition pre-order, we still have a few copies available! The package includes a professionally printed copy of each of the two zines, plus a pair of 3D glasses for the TEC Redshift and the mysterious secret envelope. It does not include the game, which must be purchased separately. Orders are $20 in the USA and $30 outside, which both include shipping. Send me an email ([email protected]) if you're interested.

Today's update includes the following changes:

• Added an animated GIF recorder, which can be used to create animated GIFs of your solutions to puzzles and battles. We're still iterating on the logic that determines which parts are interesting and should be recorded, so let us know if you create a GIF that seems like it could be improved.
• Added the ability to copy test run data from the puzzle completion screen to the clipboard by pressing Ctrl-C in the puzzle completion screen.
• Fixed a bug on Linux where Alt-Tab would step the simulation while switching out of the game's window.

We're currently planning to leave Early Access on the 22nd, so please let us know if you see anything weird in the game that we should fix before then!

Today's update includes the following changes:

• Improved the performance of goal verification, which should hopefully speed up the verification process for late-game puzzles.
• Fixed a bug where some characters were not displayed in the labels of exported Redshift discs.

Today's update includes the following changes:

• Restored the ability to completely collapse an EXA window. You can now click through the collapse settings from full, to condensed, to fully collapsed.
• Decreased the size limit for selenium_wolf's bonus puzzle from 150 to 100.
• Fixed a bug where editing the code for an EXA set to condensed view would always scroll so that the fifth line of code was visible.
• Fixed a bug where an EXA's registers would slide off the EXA window when scrolling while the EXA was holding a file.
• Fixed an issue where shadows were not drawn correctly in x10x10x's bonus puzzle.

Today's update includes the following changes:

• Added a new achievement for beating all of the bonus puzzles.
• Improved the performance of collision detection in the Redshift.
• Fixed a bug where undocked EXA windows would sometimes cause the list of docked windows to scroll.
• Fixed a crash when typing semicolon comments next to macro instructions.
• Fixed the puzzle name for the bonus modem puzzle.

Although this isn't part of today's change, we're going to be releasing a free TEC Redshift Player on Steam in the next few days, as soon as it's approved. This will allow your friends and colleagues who do not (yet) own EXAPUNKS to play Redshift games you create, even in 3D! Although I guess they'd need to track down a pair of red/blue 3D glasses first... Today's update includes the following changes:

• Changed the EXA window collapse behavior so that when you collapse an EXA's window it will now show a small amount of code and automatically scroll to keep the current instruction visible instead of completely hiding the window.
• Added the ability to create inline comments anywhere in your code by typing a semicolon followed by the comment text.
• Tweaked hydroponix's bonus puzzle so that your EXA is less likely to obscure the contents of the #LOCK register.
• Added the ability to make dialogue choices with the number keys.
• Fixed a bug where pasting text on a Czech keyboard would type an extraneous '@' symbol.
• Added information about the upcoming TEC Redshift Player to the Redshift import/export instructions.

Today's update includes the first set of changes inspired directly by player feedback as we get ready to leave Early Access. Full details are as follows:

• Added an animation for when EXAs communicate using the M register.
• Added the ability to click on a puzzle leaderboard in the puzzle list to see the complete leaderboard with all of your Steam friends.
• Added a button to the test run completion overlay that allows you to dismiss it so that you can watch your solution unobstructed.
• Fixed a bug where enemy EXAs would sometimes disappear in hacker battles.
• Changed the EXA / file window highlight to emphasize the entire window, not just the title bar.
• Enabled auto-repeat for the undo and redo keyboard shortcuts.
• Added support for undoing (and redoing) solution name changes.
• Added support for the numpad arrow keys. You should now be able to use them wherever you can use the conventional arrow keys.
• Added support for Ctrl+Backspace in the solution name text field.

If you want to request a feature, or comment on someone else's requested feature, join the discussion in this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/exapunks/comments/9gse3m/last_call_for_early_access_features/

Lots of changes here today, including a brand new bonus campaign with nine puzzles exploring the lives and hacks of the rest of the EXAPUNKS hackers in chat. Build a wardialer with =plastered! Hack a new MMO with mutex8021! All this and more, with full patch notes as follows:

• Added a new bonus campaign with nine puzzles that is unlocked after completing the main campaign.
• Changed size limits so that they only prevent you from submitting your scores to the leaderboards and histograms, not from solving the puzzle.
• Decreased the size limits on numerous puzzles to push back against overly cheesy cycles optimizations. You will need to re-run your solutions for these puzzles.
• Changed the first modem puzzle to be simpler to solve. If you solved it before you shouldn't need to solve it again, but you'll need to write new solutions if you want to continue optimizing it. The specific challenge of the old version (moving an entry to the beginning of a list) has been integrated into one of the bonus puzzles.
• Added a set of buttons to the right side of the desktop that allow you to quickly launch ПАСЬЯНС, HACK*MATCH, the Redshift, and VirtualNetwork+ without having to find them in the content list.
• Changed the behavior of the "run-to-instruction" ability. The default behavior will break on any EXA of that type, while holding the Shift key will limit it to just that EXA.
• Fixing crashes related to dragging EXA windows and playing against corrupted solutions in hacker battles.
• Added support for Ctrl+Backspace and Ctrl+Delete to the code editor.
• Improved the game's loading speed, hopefully.

Today's update includes the following changes:

• Fixed a bug where the game rendered at the wrong size when running on a Mac with a Retina display configured to a non-default DPI.
• Added a setting to the in-game options to force the game to use the low-quality rendering pipeline (2K, not 4K). Most players shouldn't have to change this setting, but some players with high-DPI screens and underpowered GPUs (i.e. MacBooks) might want to try it out and see if the performance improvements are worth it.
• Changed the way that EXA windows are rendered so that the registers are still visible when the top of the window scrolls off-screen.
• Fixed some bugs with invalid hosts in custom puzzles.
• Fixed a bug where popped-out EXA and file windows could be dropped off-screen in a way that prevented you from picking them back up.
• Fixed a bug where the wrong window would receive the mouse click when two popped-out windows overlapped.
• Increased the size limit on the second KGOG puzzle from 100 to 150.
• Modified the test cases for the WorkHouse and final TWN puzzles to be more robust. They shouldn't be disruptive to most solutions, but histograms, leaderboards, and completion flags have been reset.

Today's update includes the following:

• Added an option to increase the size of the code font.
• Added support for pressing Ctrl+O to open the solution browser screen.
• Added support for PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End in the puzzle list.
• Added support for pressing Ctrl+Up or Ctrl+Down to select an EXA window when none is selected.
• Fixed a bug where file IDs allocated by the MAKE instruction didn't always increase.
• Fixed a crash when attempting to nest @REP blocks.
• Fixed a bug with dragging EXA windows on Mac Retina displays.
• Fixed some bugs with improperly escaped formatting characters.
• Fixed a bug where non-Latin characters could not be bound to the HACK*MATCH and Redshift controls.
• Fixed a formatting bug with @REP 0 blocks that went off screen.
• Fixed a bug where the scroll bar would stop dragging if you moved your mouse over an EXA window.
• Added a special fanfare for losing hacker battles.
• Increased the size limit on the US government puzzle from 150 to 200.
• Decreased the size limit on the copy shop, heartbeat, and final TRASH WORLD NEWS puzzles from 100 to 50. Histograms, leaderboards, and completion flags have been reset.

Today's update includes the following changes:

• Fixed a bug that made it impossible to jump to a label generated by a macro from a jump instruction outside of the macro.
• Fixed a bug where the game would freeze when expanding a very large macro.
• Fixed a bug in the GIS puzzles where one host didn't have a visible hostname.
• Fixed a bug in HACK*MATCH where you could indefinitely extend a match delay by dropping or swapping unrelated blocks.
• Improved the visibility of highlighted EXA and file windows.
• Improved the appearance of size score histograms.
• Fixed a bug in the custom puzzle API function requireMoveFile() that prevented it from being used on files starting in the player's host.
• Fixed a bug where selecting a different test run would cause the wrong values to be displayed in the test run data screen.
• Improved the appearance of worst scores in the test run data screen.
• Fixed a bug where attempting to grab a file the same cycle it was dropped would sometimes result in a stall rather than an error.
• Changed the appearance of the task requirement failure icon (X) so that it looks less like the task requirement success icon (check). It's red now. It's just going to say FAIL if people keep getting this confused.

Today's update includes the following changes:

• Added full cycles and activity information to the puzzle completion screen, accessed through the "SHOW TEST RUN DATA" button.
• Improved text rendering for code and files.
• Improved the instructions for a few puzzles.
• Removed an ambiguous test case from the WorkHouse puzzle.
• Fixed a layering issue with the labels in the body-hacking puzzles.

Today's update includes the following changes:

• Added searchable text to the "digital versions" of the zine PDFs. It's OCR so it's not perfect, but it seems to have gotten most of the key text and should be better than nothing.
• Fixed a bug where two EXAs in the same disconnected host (as is the case in the "modem" puzzles) could not communicate if they were in global mode.
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to read two or more values in a single cycle from an I/O table input (the "body-hacking" puzzles).
• Improved the anti-cheat logic in the XLB puzzle.
• Fixed a bug where you could type additional text after a TEST instruction and have it be ignored.
• Fixed a bug where some of the shadows were cut off on the Redshift network.
• Fixed a bug where custom puzzle previews were flipped on Mac and Linux.
• Added support for toggling between hardware and software mouse cursor in the options screen. Unless there's something wrong with your cursor you'll want to keep this set to "hardware". Linux users who are experiencing the "double cursor" bug will need to switch this setting to "hardware" manually.
• Fixed a bug where EXA windows could get stuck to your mouse cursor if the simulation was stopped while dragging them.

Today's update includes the following changes:

• Fixed a bug where you could use M in global mode to communicate across non-existent links, like in the "modem" puzzles. This will invalidate some players' solutions to these puzzles, so the completion flags, leaderboards, and histograms for them have been reset.
• Fixed a bug where you could freeze the game in the last "modem" puzzle.
• Added support for directly entering the test run number into the test run field.
• Fixed a crash when deleting the files for custom puzzles outside of the game.
• Fixed a bug where puzzles uploaded to Steam Workshop would use a different random seed than when they were created. You will need to re-upload your existing puzzles to Steam Workshop to get this fix.
• Improved the rendering of diagonal text.
• Added the ability to turn on top and tenth percentiles at the same time, and made it so that they sort with the rest of the leaderboard scores.
• Added an error to the Redshift when reading from GP or writing to CI.
• Fixed a bug where the Redshift's noise channel would sometimes cut out.
• Fixed a bug where the game's resolution in windowed mode would be reset every time the game was restarted.
• Fixed a bug where you could create more EXAs than there was room for in the player's host.
• Fixed a bug where ADDI M F X and ADDI F M X had different behaviors when holding a file with the file cursor at the end of the file.
• Fixed a bug on Mac and Linux where the framerate would sometimes go far beyond 60 FPS when the window was minimized or unfocused.
• Fixed a small usability issue where held files and unheld files wrapped at different widths, making it difficult to compare the two states.

Today's update includes a mix of bug fixes:

• Improved the descriptions and requirements of a few puzzles.
• Modified the "link ID indicators" on a few puzzles to be more obvious.
• Fixed a bug where EXAs in the player's host did not disappear when "SHOW GOAL" was held, despite their termination being required to complete the task.
• Fixed an issue with a certain file with ID 404.
• Improved the display of Steam usernames with unconventional characters in the leaderboards.
• Fixed a bug where long Steam usernames could overflow the leaderboard UI.
• Fixed a bug where you could VOID entries in read-only files.
• Fixed a bug where colons typed into code would cause further syntax errors to be ignored.
• Fixed a bug in the solitaire win condition where cards sometimes didn't need to alternate colors to count as being correct.
• Fixed a bug on Windows where the game would crash if no audio device was enabled.
• Fixed a bug where the game would consume more resources when minimized than when focused.
• Fixed a bug where Alt+Tab and Alt+Enter would be treated as normal Tab and Enter keypresses.

More bug fixes coming tomorrow.

We've sold out of limited edition upgrades, so we probably shouldn't be advertising them in-game anymore...

Today's update includes the following changes:

• Fixed a bug where files would sometimes overlap when the "SHOW GOAL" button is held.
• Fixed a bug with run-to-instruction when the code contained an error.
• Fixed a bug where '.' and '!' were swapped in the Redshift font.
• Added a new visual effect to the final hacker battle.
• Adjusted the descriptions of a few puzzles.

Today's update fixes a bug where Redshift disc images exported on low-resolution systems would be blurry and a very minor typo in chat. Pretty smooth launch, I guess.