Hello everyone. I haven’t posted any updates in a while. Mostly because, I haven’t had much new Gearbits stuff to show. I’ve moved on to new projects and I’m hoping to share those soon. Even so, I haven’t managed to completely “break free” from Gearbits. I’ve revisited the game and I’ve added some new control options. I also have a big announcement to make.

Gearbits is coming to the Nintendo Switch!

Gearbits is getting a switch port by Fuze technologies. This has been in the works for a few months already. But now we’re ready to announce it publicly. We’re looking to release the switch version in the first half of 2025. Fuze is aiming to port the game as faithfully as possible, but they will be making small changes, to make it play well with the Switch hardware and form factor. They’ll be posting about what they’ve added to the game on their own social media channels, so go and follow them.

https://www.youtube.com/@FUZEArena
https://twitter.com/FUZEarena

Just to clarify, the Steam version is still my responsibility. So any bugs or errors found in the Steam version are on me. That said, there is some collaboration between the versions. We’ve traded some code and bug fixes between them. The idea of switching weapons with the right analog stick and the code for the auto-aim icon, came from Fuze.

Here are the new features added to the Steam version with this update.

Controller rumble 

The game now supports controller rumble. It can be toggled on, or off in the options.

Auto-aim icon

There is now an optional auto-aim indicator, which appears when an enemy is withing the weapons auto-aim range. This can be toggled in the settings.

Control options

The game has some additional control options for thruster use and weapon selection.

Control schemes are as follows:

Default: This is the normal way that the game has worked since the beginning. You toggle between the two thruster modes. Mobility: This mode eliminates the toggle. Pressing RB, or Shift automatically switches to and activates hove mode.

Mobility02: The same as “Mobility”, but flight and hover are reversed. Now pressing RB, or Shift automatically uses flight mode. Weapon selection can now be done with the right analog stick, when the weapon “wheel” is active.

“R stick selection: OFF”, is the way the game has worked so far. Weapons are chosen with the face buttons.

“R stick selection: ON” allows you to select weapons with the right stick. Locked or unlocked, determines if the camera moves while the weapon select is active.

Change log for the update.

• Added control setting to pause menu.
• Added auto-aim icon.
• Added controller rumble. - Added new control options.
• Fixed mouse aim working inconsistently if vSync is turned off.
• Fixed granny’s GB getting stuck in mission 14.
• Fixed the game crashing if the player attempts to start a mission with a blank GB slot selected.
• Fixed some typos.

Going through the code was a difficult battle against my past self. I’ve learned a lot about game development since staring the project. Getting a fresh look at my old code, left me wondering how I ever managed to get the game to work.
Oh well. Live and learn I guess. Most likely, I’ll be looking at my current projects the same way in the future. Big thanks to everyone who’s played the game and left reviews (negative reviews also!). Any feedback was helpful in knowing that people cared about the game and it kept me working on it. I hope that you’ll like my next game too. 

Gearbits is available on Steam.