ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH — patch notes and updates
Stored observation / content update:
Dated developer announcements recorded from Steam. Open the source for the complete update.
| Update | Date | Excerpt / source |
|---|---|---|
| New jounitus game: Finger Party available! | 2026-01-14 | Hello!A new game by me has just been released on steam and is available to buy: Finger Party!On a surface level, Finger Party might look a bit different than ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH, but I think if you give it a try, it is very much a jounitus -style game.Please check the steam page and try it if you find it interesting!There is also now a bundle that I think will give you a slightly better discount on Finger Party if you already own ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTHThanks!- jounitus |
| Demo for upcoming game: Finger Party released! | 2025-08-25 | Hello!So nice to see you!Just wanted to let you know, that a demo for my new upcoming game Finger Party was just released!Download the demo here: Finger PartyPlease go check it out and give feedback, much appreciate it! - jounitus |
| New Game Announced: Finger Party! | 2025-02-10 | Hello all, long time no see! After working for Arrival: Zero Earth for three years I was happy to start working on new game prototypes. Today I'm happy to announce a new game: FINGER PARTY! If you found Arrival: Zero Earth interesting, I think Finger Party will also float your boat! I hope I've been able to use some of the lessons learned from working with Arrival: Zero Earth to make this new game. Thanks again everyone for your support with Arrival: Zero Earth, it was quite an experience to work with it from start to finish. I've written a bit more on the official announcement on the Finger Party Steam page, please check it out! Thanks! - jo |
| ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH v1.0 Early Access Exit & Retrospective | 2024-01-12 | Retrospective on the Game Hello all! ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH has finally exited Early Access and graduated to the 1.0! About three years ago I started working on something that would eventually evolve into the game it's today. About two years ago I released the first playtests and demos to the public. About a year ago the game started the Early Access journey. When the early demos/prototypes were released two years ago, seeing your favorite youtubers playing the game was a very surreal feeling. This together with the feedback from the players encouraged me to work more on the game. After the first demos and playtests I decided to spend a year bef |
| 1.0.0 - Early Access Exit and Small Localization Fixes | 2024-01-12 | Hello! As stated previously, this release to exit the Early Access is mostly a version number change. My hope is that Steam Algorithm Gods are on my side on this day and the stars are correctly aligned. I also hope that my marketing efforts have had some effect. Thanks to everyone who has streamed or made a video of the game previously or will make one in the future, it means a lot! Changed in 1.0: Changed the version number to 1.0 Small localization fixes I will post a small retrospective of the game after this for you to read, after I have pressed the button to exit Early Access, stay tuned! Edit: Here's the link the the retrospective: http |
| The game will exit Early Access on January 12 2024! | 2023-12-21 | Hello All! ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH will exit early access on January 12 2024! As mentioned in the earlier post, it would have been nice to officially exit the Early Access before the Steam Winter Sale with the previous big localization release a few days ago, but I wanted to spend time promoting the game before that. The 1.0 version will be content-wise mostly the same that is already released. Very happy about this "milestone" after three years of the development of the game! - jounitus |
| 0.23.0: Big Localization Update - 11 New Languages Added | 2023-12-15 | Hello all! As one last bigger update before leaving early access, localizations were added to the game. The game now has localizations for 11 languages. French German Spanish Polish Russian Brazilian Portuguese Simplified Chinese Traditional Chinese Turkish Japanese Korean I hope adding these localizations will boost the sales at least a little bit and that more players can enjoy the game. Even before entering Early Access I was wondering if I should add localization BEFORE entering the early access, but I decided to postpone it to the end of Early Access, since I worried making updates would have been more difficult with the localizations in |
| 0.22.0 - Juhani Removal / Achievements for Starting Units / Movement Tweak | 2023-11-15 | Hello! As the game is moving towards the 1.0 release out of early access, I've had to put some thought into what to do with some of the existing features in the game. Removal of Juhani One of the features I was originally really excited about was "Juhani". You could visit Juhani's home and he would tell you about the places and events around the town. Although I originally liked the idea, the feeling that you have to visit Juhani's home in the middle of the run started to feel like a slog, and visiting Juhani took you out of the core gameplay. Also, Juhani's description of events and places was maybe a bit too wordy and didn't leave too much |
| 0.21.2 - Difficulty Tweaks and a bug fix | 2023-10-26 | Hello! On the previous 0.21.0 the difficulty was probably made a bit too hard, so here is a small update to hopefully tweak the game to a bit more enjoyable direction. Change enemy spawn distance back to 50 (from 30): Now the enemies should spawn a bit further away, to give a bit of breathing room. Now the enemies attack at the same speed as before the previous update. The previous 0.21.0 update made some enemies attack 50% faster, but that change is now changed back. Fixed a bug where the small enemies wouldn't spawn any green XP on start of the run, if they were one-shot killed (for example with missiles) I didn't want to change too many pa |
| 0.21.0 - Difficulty Changes / Leadersboards Cleared / Early Access update | 2023-10-16 | Hello All! In this update, the goal was to give a small extra strategy layer in terms that you can now gain new empty coffins during a run (not just four hard-coded coffins as previously) and there are a few more items to help with the survival too. Enemies were made slightly more challenging to compensate for the new items. A lot of time was spent trying to find a nice balance with the difficulty, but please give feedback if the game feels too difficult. New Items Invincibility Length - How long units are invincible to damage after the first casualty Extra Coffin - Gives you an extra coffin Extra Crematorium Chance Up - Increase probability |
| 0.20.0 - Keyboad Configuration / Custom Keybindings | 2023-09-04 | Hello again! Custom keybindings have been requested multiple times during the early access, and now the feature is finally here! Currently, only keyboard keybinds can be configured, but I think most of the players use the keyboard to play the game and the gamepad layout works pretty well out of the box. You can find the keyboard configuration from the Settings dialog. All the keyboard settings are saved locally (the same way as with the graphics options), so if you use multiple devices, you have to configure all of the devices once. The default keyboard bindings got a bit simplified, so if previously the "Dash" was on both Left Shift and Spac |
| 0.19.0 - UI and Icon Visual Revamp / Item Pool Tweaks | 2023-08-30 | Hello All! The original goal of this update was not to go so heavy on the UI improvements, but this update ended up being a bigger visual revamp (in terms of UI and Icons). The UI and Icons have been a bit of an eye-sore in the game and there have been comments about it during and before the early access, but now with this update, I hope things look a little better in the game. It might take some time to get used to the "new look", but I think things are now more pleasing to the eye. "Behind the Scenes" the code that handles Unit and Item configurations (and game configurations in general) got a big refactoring that I've wanted to make for a |
| 0.18.0 - Selectable Starting Unit / Unit Visibility Tweaks / Portal Bug Fix | 2023-08-02 | Hello all! Selectable Starting Unit You can now choose a starter unit for the run (instead of the default assault rifle unit), this has been one of the requests during the early access. All units can be selected (including the rare ones), except those that can't move (for example the Sniper unit). Unit Visibility Tweaks One of the major points of feedback during the early access has been, that the gameplay can get a bit noisy with all the effects and it's hard to tell where your units are etc. There have already been a few updates to address this previously, but here's another update focusing on the specific effects for the units. Following u |
| 0.17.0 - Multiple Biomes per Loop / Removed the Manual Selection of Biomes | 2023-07-18 | Hello! Now a single loop contains multiple biomes! This is how I envisioned things originally, but now it's actually in the game. I think having multiple biomes per loop adds a bit of mystery and variation to the runs, which has been one of the points of the feedback from the players during early access. The biomes that appear during a loop are currently randomly selected from the unlocked biomes. Now the first three biomes are automatically unlocked, instead of just one. To unlock more biomes, a successful run must contain a biome that is listed before the biome you want to unlock in the biome unlocks list. So if you are wondering why there |
| 0.16.6 - New Achievements! | 2023-07-08 | Hello! One of the requests during the early access has been to have more "skill-based" achievements, in addition to the achievements already in the game. I hope you all like these! New Achievements: Kill 1000 enemies on a single run Kill 2000 enemies on a single run Kill 5000 enemies in total Kill 10000 enemies in total Kill 20000 enemies in total Have 10 God-Tier units during a single run (triggered when upgrading the units) Finish loop 3 During a Run Finish a Run without using a Crematorium (only works on runs started with the new versions) Finish a Run without any casualties Please give feedback if you think there are any issues with these |
| 0.16.4 - Fix for the Places/Lore/Juhani not working | 2023-06-28 | Hello all! This patch should fix the issue where the places or the story wasn't working in some cases. Note: The places and the story sequences are all currently on the Snow -biome and they only appear on the first loop. You also need to visit the Juhani -place (the building with the Yellow cube) for the next places to appear on the next runs. Please let me know if there are still are issues with the places or the story. Thanks to everyone who reported on the issue! - jounitus |
| 0.16.2 - Unlocks Bug Fix / Collect Radius Changes / Unit Visibilty Change | 2023-06-26 | Changes in 0.16.2 Fixed a bug affecting unlocks in the unlocks dialog Updated the audio SDK to a newer version Refactored how the game is built (should have no effect for the player) Increased the Units' collect radius to compensate enemies now spawning XP and Unlock Points further Show Units as green overlay behind the bigger enemies (Dragon / Air Ship / Boss) to help with the visibility of the units - jounitus |
| 0.16.0 - New Biomes / New Enemies / Difficulty Tweaks / Accessibilty Setting | 2023-06-11 | Changed in 0.16.0 NEW BIOMES: "Hell" "Concrete" NEW ENEMIES: "Vulture" - Unlocks in Concrete Biome "Dragon" - Unlocks in the old Lava Biome NOTE: The "Roller" enemy was moved to unlock in the "Hell" biome, since it's more thematically fitting to it. Difficulty Changes A Large part of the feedback during the early access has been, that the game feels very easy until the final boss fight, which then can feel extra difficult. So the balance has been a bit off. There have been a lot of changes to the boss fight during the early access, and I hope the boss fight is currently a pretty pleasant experience, compared to what it has been previously. Bu |
| 0.15.0 - New Biomes / New Enemies / New Units / Leaderboards Cleared | 2023-05-02 | Changed in 0.15.0 NEW BIOMES: RINGS BIOME: A distant planet with overgrown vegetation with mysterious giant well rings. CAVES BIOME: A giant cave system under the town where the action takes place in the original biome. Major "plot point" of the game that includes the "incubators". NEW ENEMIES: "DRILLER ENEMY" (unlocks in CAVES BIOME) "AIRSHIP ENEMY" (unlocks in RINGS BIOME) NEW UNITS: LIGHTNING BALL UNIT TESLA COIL UNIT AIR STRIKE UNIT - A unit version of the Air Strike Item that is already in the game. Now shows the actual aircraft too. CLEARED LEADERBOARDS: The leaderboards are still a bit "experimental", so let's see what will happen with |
| 0.14.0 - Biomes! / Visibility Tweaks / Difficulty Changes | 2023-03-29 | Changed in 0.14.0 NEW FEATURE: Biomes Biomes are something new introduced in this update. The town in the two new biomes is the same as in the original one, but due to the mysterious events in the alternate history timelines they are in, the town in these other biomes is more transformed. New Biome: "Desert" New Biome: "Lava" Added Biome selection to the "Start Run" dialog Made the "Start Run" dialog slightly darker Make some buildings and props look like they are partly swallowed by snow/sand to better integrate them visually into the levels CHANGES TO SNOW BIOME The classic/default snow biome got a small facelift along with new biomes being |
| Changed in 0.13.2 - Lowered Boss Enemy Health | 2023-03-14 | Changed in 0.13.2 Changed: The boss health is now lowered by 50% from 10k to 5k. On the previous 0.13.0 update, the unscaled/non-multiplied boss health was already lowered from 18k to 10k. But probably due to the changes in how the fire units deal damage, the boss fight actually felt harder. Hopefully this update makes the boss feel less bullet spongy. The next regular update will also have changes to difficulty, but hopefully this patch will help those who found the boss too difficult, before the next update is released. Thanks to everyone who gave feedback! - jounitus |
| Changed in 0.13.0 - Show Run Stats / Leaderboards / Units Give Stat-boosts / etc | 2023-02-21 | Changed in 0.13.0 NEW FEATURE: Some units now also increase the "shared" stats Non-rare/regular units now also increase the "shared" stats, for example "Xp Multiplier", "Speed" and "Fire Rate". Hopefully, this will make non-rare units more interesting and valuable, since usually they do less damage than the rare unit types. Also, hopefully, this will make transforming the units a bit more interesting, since this might have an impact also on the stats. NEW FEATURE: Increase enemy health based on player performance Previously it was "hard coded" how much the enemies health increased during the run, so always on the level 5 for example the healt |
| Small Update - 0.12.2 - Fix for the Unlock Button Bug | 2023-01-18 | Changed in 0.12.2: FIXES: Fixed an issue where it was possible to click the unlock button repeatedly, with each click costing the unlock points Made a fix so that if the unlock points are negative (due to the previous issue), they are set to zero Thanks everyone for all the great feedback on the previous update! - jounitus |
| Regular Update - 0.12.0 - Unit Sprites / Remove "Stop to Shoot" / etc. | 2023-01-15 | Changed in 0.12.0: NEW FEATURE: Custom Unit Sprites for each unit type One of the long-running requests has been to make each unit type visually distinct compared to the other unit types. And now finally it's done. Visually distinct look for all the 15 units Each unit also has a small bouncy animation while walking to make them a bit livelier. There is now a visible "mist" emitting from the units when they breathe. The death animation got also tweaked a bit FEATURE CHANGE: Remove the "stop to shoot" feature One of the more prominent features of the game has been that you've needed to stop and stand still for the units to attack the enemies. I |
| Regular Update - 0.11.0 - Visit Juhani, a local UFO enthusiast! | 2022-12-13 | There have been requests for the game to show more of the lore. The previous update with the discoverable places was already part of the lore-building. I have wanted to show the characters in the game for a long time in some way. I have previously internally experimented with different ways to show characters and dialogue, but the previous methods didn't feel good so I didn't release them. This way of showing characters is finally the one that I feel good about. It is a bit more work to do the dialogue and lore this way, compared to for example just showing a static character portrait and text on top of the normal gameplay UI (which is also a |
| Regular Update - 0.10.0 - Discoverable Places / Fixes / etc | 2022-11-10 | Changed in 0.10.0: NEW FEATURE: Discoverable Places The main goal for this update was to add places that might have something to do with the lore or just "special" places of the town where the game takes place in. Originally the idea was that each level on a run would feature one unique place (that's why previously the Mansion and the Observatory were always on levels one and two), but in hindsight, the places would quickly become stale if all of them are shown immediately during the first run. The new idea is to unlock these places gradually and show them more sparingly, so that there would be something fresh to see until everything is unloc |
| Early Access post-release thoughts | 2022-10-15 | Hello All! Now that the game is finally released to early access, I thought I'll write something here. The last month went mostly on preparing for the release and doing marketing. In terms of development, the time was spent mostly just making a few patch releases. The past month was a bit "hazy" preparing for the early access release, it was a bit stressful, since it was a big step for the game and there was a lot of doubt and uncertainty about how things would go. Luckily the game release went pretty good! Not knowing what to expect when going to look at the Steam reviews, my heart was filled with extreme warmth with the great reviews everyo |
| Small Patch - 0.9.10 - Boss fight tweaks and small fixes | 2022-10-14 | Changed in 0.9.10: CHANGES: Return back to the main menu after the game over, instead of starting a new run automatically Don't show the "wishlist" button in the main menu in the full version of the game Change the boss fight, so that after the 4 initial waves of enemies have appeared, the concurrent count for the "extra" enemy waves are capped at 2 (instead of 3), except if the timer runs out Make it likely that there is The Podium / Unit Upgrader on the boss fight level Remove old text about rotating the camera from the first level tutorial texts |
| ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH now released as Early Access! | 2022-10-11 | Hello All! After two years of development ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH is now finally released as Early Access! Please keep giving feedback, it's the best way for me to know how everyone experiences the game. Thanks for all the support so far. Hopefully you will all enjoy the game! All the reviews for the game are much appreciated here on Steam, the reviews do matter a lot! - jounitus |
| EARLY ACCESS Release Date Announcement + Steam Next Fest | 2022-08-31 | GREAT NEWS! ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH will release to Early Access on 11 October 2022. The game will also participate on STEAM NEXT FEST starting on October 3rd 2022 and the Early Access release will be after the Steam Next Fest has ended. The game has been in development for over two years now and it's exciting (and a bit scary) to finally release it to early access! A year a ago back when the original demo was released, I was definitely surprised with all the attention the game received from Youtubers and all the players that came along. I felt like I got extremely lucky with that and I was not expecting that! Since that, I've spent a year adding |