Hello!

Clone Drone is being featured in the Steam Fighting Sale. We are celebrating this by live streaming the game for 3 hours starting at 5pm GMT / 12pm EST on Saturday 14th!



Josh will be playing the Battle Royale, Duels and some single player so if you'd like to battle against one of the team, make sure you join us!

- Josh, Community Manager at Doborog

Happy October! Doborog has been heads down hard at work on the epic final Story Mode chapter—see update on timing of that below—but we're taking a pit-stop to put out an update of some improvements we wanted to get out ASAP!


In response to feedback, we've decided to refresh the Spear and Shield mechanics! Many didn't like combat with the spear—to the point it was banned from fan tournaments due to flicking. We hope this update helps these weapons become a fun part of competitive play once again.

• The Spear damage area (the part that destroys voxels) has been changed to wide instead of long, making the spear more effective when it travels forward, and worse when it travels sideways.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Spear flicking was still possible in multiplayer, so we have restricted it even more. Let us know how it feels!
  
• The Shield is now breakable! That's right. The shield no longer protects you forever, but takes damage whenever a weapon hits it. This makes combat more interesting, and opens up for strategies that are less about going around the shield, and more about whittling it down to get past it.
  
  

Yes! More human languages for the communication bank. The robots now support Japanese and Korean subtitles.

Beautiful!



Like with the other languages, we would love to hear your feedback to improve the quality of the translations. Let us know if something doesn't feel quite qilsnib enough.



The crosshair on the bow and spear could previously be hard to see depending on the situation. The bow and spear now have a new crosshair that's bigger and inverts the colors behind it for maximum contrast. Let us know how it feels!



Arrow rotation now snaps instantly between vertical and horizontal mode, giving you unprecedented tactical control for how you deal damage. Hotshot Arrow-Shooting Tip: Spidertrons mainly bob up and down.




Has THIS ever happened to YOU: 3 decorative voxels get taken off the beautiful horn attachment of your robot head, and you fall down on the ground, dead as the day you were harvested?

Now head damage is only fatal if it damages the important cubes sitting near where your central processing unit resides (a 2x2 cube 3 voxels above the neck).


In Twitch Mode bow1s now walk towards you if they're the last type of enemy in the level, which should cause fewer issues with them landing on pillars and taunting your inability to destroy them.


It used to be possible to acquire armor in LBS, leave and re-join the match, and continue to have that armor for zero upgrade points. No longer!


We are still hard at work on Chapter 5, and we're now aiming to release it early next year.

Why the delay? A few reasons combined made it a choice we hope you can appreciate:

• Scope/Quality/Time balance - As some say, pick two 😅. While we could have rushed the final chapter update out sooner, we felt that adding a bit of time lets us get closer to the updates the game deserves for its exit out of Early Access. This includes the quality of life changes in this update, and epic-ness of Chapter 5 :)
  
• Making a big splash with full release - We are planning a big push to share the game more widely with the full release, and (you might have noticed) the end of this year is packed with the releases of new games and consoles. We want to harvest and upload the minds of as many humans as possible into the arena at release, and we've learned choosing the date wisely is part of that. We will announce more about the release here at a later time, too!
  
• Console requirements - We are planning to launch on (at least) 3 different consoles! Parallel to Chapter 5, our porting team has been working tirelessly towards making sure the game has the features required by consoles.

As always, for those of you who live on the bleeding edge, you can follow our development live on Twitch, and even try out the current (very buggy!) build in the experimental branch. While we know how it can be disappointing to have release dates slip, we hope you all can appreciate where we’re landing!

Thank you all for being amazing OG Clone Drone community members! We are so glad to have those of you who have stuck with us throughout the long development process with us during launch and beyond. 💙

Hello humans!

We've been building a lot of cool tools for Chapter 5!
While we work on the chapter, we thought it would be fun to share them with you in a little update.


While you could already play existing animations on characters, now you can go a step further and make granular adjustments to a character's pose directly inside the Level Editor!



This is great for cinematic moments (we're using it for Chapter 5) as well as creating new and interesting attack / movement patterns for the enemies of the game, specific to your level.




So how do you make crazy new animations? We made a tutorial! :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az-vqwRkY_0


Now you can organize all your animation tracks in handy folders! This is great for big and complex animations.

Ever wanted to make the players of your level press a button? Now you can.

This might seem like a minor change to highlight, but this confused a lot of people!
If you want to triggers things when the player walks into an area, use the AITriggerArea.

We fixed a number of bugs with this release:

• Exploit in LBS: You can no longer get both Armor and Sword.
  
• Twitch Notifications in the game are back! You can now see when both developers and other streamers are live.
  
• Fixed a terrible crash bug happening to people in Story Mode.
  
• ...and many other small things.

That's it for this update. Let us know if you make a super cool animation with the new tools! :D

Chapter 5 will bring us to the final showdown of the Clone Drone storyline.

We've been working hard on laying down the foundations, exploring new game mechanics and expanding our level editor technology to raise the quality of our content even higher.

One of the key questions we asked ourselves at the end of Chapter 4, was how to proceed from its cliffhanger of an ending. We could move the plot along using cutscenes, but I'm happy to announce that instead you'll be able to have full control of your new battlecruiser in glorious 3D space combat!!!



With the release of the final chapter of the story mode we're also going to be launching the game out of Early Access!

We'll likely put out an update or two after launch, but after four awesome years of development we're starting to look ahead towards what other cool games we can build. We hope you'll join us on that journey when the time comes! :)

We're super excited to tell you that Clone Drone will be coming to Xbox One, Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch!

While the main team finishes up Chapter 5, the talented people at The Knights of Unity are hard at work making sure the game integrates smoothly with all the major consoles.

We're aiming to launch both Chapter 5 and the console releases in in one glorious update sometime around October.

Note: This date is not confirmed and might change, but that's what we're aiming for right now.

The experimental branch has a preview of space combat here:
http://clonedroneinthedangerzone.com/experimental
We'd love to know what you think of it so far. :)

As always, you can follow the progress of Chapter 5 live on Twitch right here: https://www.twitch.tv/doborog

Let us know if you have any questions! <3

Hello humans!

Good news! We just added 5 new delightful Last Bot Standing levels, and introduced several balancing changes.

Have you ever observed other players spinning around crazily and somehow killing people?
We have, and it's not much fun to be on the other side of.

The new update introduces restrictions on how far you can turn while swinging your weapon.
Our goal has been to maintain a good range of motion, so you can still rotate towards your target and strike with great precision, but discourage flailing around wildly around in an attempt to make the hitbox make accidental contact with your opponent.

All weapons have this new restriction, but the one where it was used the most was probably the spear.

To illustrate what we're talking about, here is a demonstration of flicking the spear around:

(thanks Gontarekt + Niek Alexander!)

And here is the fix:

The camera still moves to not interrupt your flow of motion.

The spear is of course not the only weapon this applies to. Hammer + Sword can no longer spin around wildly either.

Other multiplayer balancing changes:

• Sword attack cooldown increased from 0.6s to 0.7s to make it slightly less easy to spam attacks.
  
• Raptor kick cooldown increased to 2s, leaving a small opening for attack in between kicks.
  
• Kick + Dash: Kicking in the middle of a Dash no longer cancels the Dash momentum

A final note: We don't resent anyone who may have flicked their spear around or rotated their hammer wildly in the past. If the game allows you to do it, it is a legitimate way to play! It is our hope that these changes make for a more predictable and fun multiplayer experience for everyone. Let us know what you think! :)

Five new levels has entered the permanent Last Bot Standing rotation!

The risk/reward of getting upgrades is turned TO THE MAX in this level where the floor goes away when you stand on it.


Jump around these pretty walkways.


What is better than a Death Cube? ALL THE DEATH CUBES!


Vast height differences and moving platforms makes for an interesting time among the cliffs.


Do you like playing in the Waiting Room? Now you don't have to leave it!


You can now push garbage around.
Help the garbage bots keep the arena clean! 🚮🚮🚮


We've also fixed a multitude of bugs, including:

• Armor was completely not working against the hammer in co-op!
  
• Hammer bots can no longer kill you while returning the hammer to the idle position
  
• Numerous crash bugs!
  
• Many minor localization updates based on your excellent feedback. Thanks everyone for your reports!

The time has come... for CHAPTER 5!!!

We'll be ramping up development for the final story chapter in the coming weeks.
This is going to be an epic chapter, so expect a release date many months from now.

More info when we have it! :)

Do you like to consume content in a rich variety of human language?? Now it is possible!

We just added 8 wonderful human languages:



For most of them we have translated all of the UI and added subtitles. For French and German we have also installed voice translators in all the robots!

To celebrate our new communication capabilities we made a brand new gameplay trailer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szuv_8YGwLY

Let us know if we missed your language or if you have feedback on the translations! <3

Hello human!

We did not expect to be writing a news post today, but then the game started crashing on startup for EVERY PLAYER.

We just put out a hotfix that makes it not do that.



In other news, the translated version of the game will launch on Friday the 14th!

Some of the new features and bug fixes made their way into this hotfix. Enjoy the overhauled Upgrade UI, and the rest of it will launch on Friday. :)

Let us know if you experience any issues with the new update!

Hello!

It has come to our attention that humans speak more than one language!?

To help you understand the fine nuances of how your robot body will disintegrate in the arena, we have decided to translate our communications.

And we want your feedback!

So far we have translated:

• All of the UI
  
• Story Mode Chapter 1.

Since we normally only speak in binary, we need some human opinions on whether things sound right!

You can try the translated version of the game by enabling the experimental branch:
http://clonedroneinthedangerzone.com/experimental

If you see something odd, please deliver your feedback using this handy form:
https://forms.gle/NPz1jVuBh5kKwW5H7

To start with we're going to translate everything into the following languages:

• English
  
• French
  
• Italian
  
• German
  
• Spanish (Spain)
  
• Spanish (Latin America)
  
• Simplified Chinese
  
• Russian
  
• Brazilian Portugese

Did we miss your favorite language? Let us know.

Once we've gathered some initial feedback, we'll move ahead with translating the large amount of excellent commentary in the game. For most languages the game will only support subtitles for the spoken words.

Until then, please try Chapter 1 in your human language and use the feedback form to let us know of any issues!

A new build is now live that fixes a variety of bugs!

Some highlights include:

• Private Last Bot Standing and Private Duel games now work again!
  
• The "Power Overwhelming" Achievement was not always awarded when you got the last upgrade.
  
• The "I think it's dead now!" Achievement is no longer awarded for using the hammer normally.
  
• Spider-trons definitely die from lava!
  
• More info added for players who can't play multiplayer due to Steam connection issues.
  
• A lot of crashes should no longer happen.
  
• A lot of Server Disconnected bugs should no longer happen.

Achievement progress is no longer counted on Workshop maps.
We saw some levels pop up that pretty much gave you achievements for doing nothing, which goes against the spirit of Achieving things.

Thanks to everyone for reporting bugs. :)
If you encounter a bug or a crash, emailing bugs@doborog.com is a great way to let us know about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qluG68Xtovo
It's here!

Update 16 adds the following awesome things:

• Achievements!
  
• Emotes!
  
• Skins!
  
• Co-op Challenges!
  
• A variety of Co-op focused improvements!

Let's break it down!


We've added 43 new achievements!
They are a mix of delightful small things like kicking a kickbot, to major accomplishments like defeating Story Mode on Insane Difficulty.

Each new achievement unlocks either a robot Skin or an Emote, letting you enhance your multiplayer presence in delightful ways.



You can see a list of all achievements here: https://steamcommunity.com/stats/597170/achievements


Ever since we added multiplayer we've received requests for being able to communicate with your fellow players. Emotes is the answer.

With a default set letting you say Hello, Goodbye, Where is the Water? etc you can let your fellow humans know you see them right away.

The real fun begins once you unlock the ones hidden behind the new Achievements. Flap your arms like a bird, or dance delightfully across the arena floor on your way to victory.




No, not human skins! Why would you THINK THAT??

Unlock a variety of cool robot models that you can customize by selecting your favorite color. By the power of voxel technology, all the game's robots are given new life along with a new color scheme.




Now you have even more ways to co-operate with your fellow humans. Tackle one of the game's many Challenges together!



We've also added a brand new Co-op exclusive challenge in the form of the One Weapon Challenge, where each human must specialize in only one weapon.


In addition to all of the above we've added:

• More upgrades bots for co-op matches!
  
• An AFK timer that automatically teleports slow moving players to the elevator.
  
• Quick Join buttons that check all game modes to quickly find a match where players are needed.
  
• Overhauled the settings menu to finally use tabs.
  
• All swords now glow with the favorite color of your robot!
  
• Improved spear collisions at close distances.
  
• Increased the cost of Spear and Shield in Last Bot Standing to 2 points each.
  
• Removed public matchmaking from Duels. With a finite amount of players and the addition of co-op challenges we decided it was time to remove it in order to emphasize the other game modes. Private Duels still work.

This was a massive update, and we want to thank everyone who played the beta and gave feedback and support along the way!

Do you have thoughts on the new features and changes? Let us know in the comments! :D