Spacebase DF-9 hits v1.0, free copy of Hack 'n' Slash for current owners

Spacebase 1.0

As of yesterday, Spacebase DF-9 is now in version 1.0, and while it's not quite as feature-packed as many were expecting, developers Double Fine have thrown in a little treat for current owners that might help to smooth things over a bit. If you bought the sci-fi base construction management sim during its Early Access phase, you should have just received a copy of Double Fine's Zelda-like Hack 'n' Slash on the house.

The same is true in reverse, meaning that owners of Hack 'n' Slash have just been given Spacebase for free on Steam as well. Moreover, the two games are now available in a double-pack, if you want both and have neither, and you can live with DF-9's dialled down ambition. There's a healthy 40% discount in place for Spacebase on Steam over the next week, and this applies to the double-pack as well.

We weren't too fussed on Hack 'n' Slash in our review, stating that it "starts as a clever game about game design, but ends up feeling like homework". You'll find our thoughts on Spacebase DF-9's Early Access version here.

What does update 1.0 add? Well, it adds a tutorial mode, a new goals screen, and a "Pirate Megafleet", in addition to the following list o' stuff.

  • All “Famous Citizen” tier customer names added to Credits and random citizen name pool.
  • Disaster Menu can be enabled with a secret key combination and used to unleash disasters on your base.
  • Many new sound effects, including crowd noises in rooms based on their current population.
  • Many small UI polish items. Look and feel of UI in the Citizen/Zone/Object Inspectors is now more consistent.
  • Brig and Residence assignment UI improvements: X button to clear an assignment, clicking the assignment button a second time cancels out of pick mode.
  • "Execute" button in citizen action tab causes security to immediately target this citizen. Use responsibly!
  • Asteroids are treated like walls for the purposes of object placement.
  • Citizens who are sleeping in beds that get destroyed wake up and become annoyed.
  • Clicking an object in the Contents section of a container’s Stats Tab selects it.
  • Improved mouse wheel, middle mouse, and keyboard view zoom behaviors.
  • Vaporizing a wall with an object hanging on it vaporizes the object and refunds its matter.
  • Dropped research datacubes will preserve their “claimed for research” state. Scientists will try to drop them off somewhere in the base even if there isn’t a Research Lab.
  • Citizens flee when someone is having a tantrum nearby.
  • Emergency Alarms in rooms with no/disabled alarm panels turn off.
  • Price of Dark Matter Reactor increased from 450 to 600.
  • Tooltip for a research datacube shows the blueprint it contains.
  • New Spaceface logs: cuffed, escaped from brig, needs shelving, security starts exploring a beacon, security finishes exploring a beacon.
  • Duty skill increases when morale is high, up to a 25% bonus per duty task.
  • Security citizens take their helmets off if they get into a brawl with another citizen.
  • "Flavor" text and descriptions for all objects that were lacking them.
  • Start new bases with time paused.
  • Balance: Many small changes to citizen morale and duty efficiency.
  • Balance: Turret damage output increased.
  • Balance: Buildable objects are more resilient.
  • Fixed: Dozens of crashes and AI issues.
  • Fixed: Scrollable views such as the Job Roster don’t display correctly in non-16:9 aspect ratios.
  • Fixed: Decals remain after a tile is vaporized.
  • Fixed: On loading a savegame, citizens who were sleeping are awake and restart their sleep cycle.
  • Fixed: White helmets display on citizens when playing certain animations.
  • Fixed: Citizens exercise, play games, and hang out in functioning airlocks.
  • Fixed: Lower right UI buttons shift to left even if there are not enough alerts to warrant this.
  • Fixed: Job Roster columns highlight on hover incorrectly.
  • Fixed: Non-citizens in unclaimed derelicts do not react to dangerous situations.
  • Fixed: Botanists do not repair damaged or destroyed hydroponics cultures.
  • Fixed: Citizen talk and thought bubbles do not draw correctly.
  • Fixed: Exiting Job Roster / Research Assignment screens minimizes the Hint pane.
  • Fixed: Killbots bleed.
  • Fixed: Killbots get sick.
  • Fixed: Player can hover and select some objects or rooms within hidden areas.
  • Fixed: Security duty citizens flee in rooms with active alarms while doing certain tasks.
  • Fixed: Removed debug power visualization mode.
  • Fixed: Security Beacon location isn’t preserved across save+load.
  • Fixed: Flipped text on the Alarm Panel.
  • Fixed: Turrets in space can’t be deactivated.
  • Fixed: Breach ships don’t play VFX when taking damage or exploding.
  • Fixed: Text overlaps UI in several miscellaneous places.
  • Fixed: Matter counts up/down from previous session’s total when starting a new base.
Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.