Follow what’s new in each version of Storm Chaser.
v0.8.12Current version
Oceanography, a fleet and life inside campus
The final test release before 0.9.0 takes research out to sea: assemble mooring lines, pilot vessels and deploy buoys. Step inside the Sensor Workshop, Datacenter and Forecast Center, with all 24 scientists working in 3D.
Oceanographic Center
The southeast corner of campus reaches the sea, with a quay, pier, mooring workshop, boatyard and lighthouse. The center unlocks at level 4 for 50,000 gold. Both of its games award XP and gold.
Mooring contracts ask you to assemble instruments, floats, a release and an anchor to measure at the requested depths. Current tilts the line and changes instrument depth, so buoyancy is part of the plan.
To deploy buoys, steer against wind, current and waves and hold position inside the target area for 5 seconds. There are ten levels, with waves up to 5 m. Levels 4, 7, 9 and 10 involve deploying an array of buoys.
Fleet and rogue waves
Start with the coastal launch. Buy the research boat for 20,000 gold, the 18 m research vessel with an A-frame for 70,000, or the 30 m ocean-going vessel for 160,000. The ocean-going vessel has dynamic positioning: at zero throttle, it holds position automatically.
Engine, bow thruster, crane, stabilizer and navigation upgrades apply across the fleet. Radar and DGPS show your drift track.
In rough seas, rogue waves can reach 1.6–2.3 times the height of surrounding waves, with an on-screen warning. Beyond a vessel's limits, it takes on water or capsizes and the level ends without payment. Facing into the wave helps; small vessels can enter difficult levels, but only the ocean-going vessel can withstand all conditions in this release.
Workshop, Datacenter and Forecast Center
The Sensor Workshop displays all three instrument families in common and robust versions. Click a sensor to move the camera closer and open its purchase panel. A technician works at the bench, and instruments have animated parts.
The Datacenter grows at 30%, 60% and 90% collection milestones, adding racks, cooling, a second row and a console. LEDs blink, and the cyclone bay accompanies the Hangar.
The Forecast Center has a wing for each team, with expansions costing 6,000, 15,000 and 30,000 gold. Each hire needs a complete workstation — desk, chair and computer — costing 2,500. All 24 scientists work in 3D; existing saves receive workstations for scientists already hired.
Campus, avatar, interface and music
The pavilions, Administration, background buildings and Hangar have new models. Campus gains an observatory, textured ground, planters, solar panels, lights, benches, a bus shelter, gas spheres, a control tower and an airstrip beside the Hangar.
The Farmadores de Aura duo becomes Farmador de Aura: the blond man from the portrait. His avatar and name also change here on the website, preserving the selection for players already using this character.
The extreme-event banner is now translucent. Its X collapses it into a countdown icon; clicking the icon reopens the warning and the option to join the event.
Main Theme by MG — the trailer music — opens the menu. Trilha 03 by Chiarelli Beats follows, then the previous tracks.
Still being refined
Sea, engine and operation sounds are still to come for the center. Prices and difficulty are being balanced; the campus pier still shows the research boat even when another vessel is selected. Some screens, such as the hurricane basin, may be cropped at a 16:10 aspect ratio.
Oil-spill containment is an idea for a future expansion and is not part of 0.8.12. Windows and macOS builds were compiled and checked at the file level, but were not run on their respective operating systems in this review.
Tornadoes, damage by intensity and the final rooms
Tornadoes gain a new look with spiral bands and dust at the base. EF3 tornadoes remove roofs and strip trees. Your career reaches the Postdoc and Professor rooms, and your office window follows that progress up the building.
New tornado visuals
The funnel has an opaque slate-grey body, upward-spiralling bands and dust matching the ground. Violent tornadoes are darker and wider; EF5 uses a widened version of the EF4 body. The rain-wrapped tornado no longer has a tall cylinder of rain around it.
The previous look remains available: turn off the new tornado test option in Settings to compare.
Damage by intensity
EF1 breaks branches; EF2 bends trees and tears off roofing; EF3 strips trees, removes house and barn roofs, and knocks down poles and fences. EF4 and EF5 break trees and demolish buildings, including those already unroofed by an EF3.
Houses in Bangladesh and Punjab do not yet support destruction in this version.
Postdoc and Professor
The Postdoc room requires level 20 and an extreme-event score. It brings a three-monitor workstation, whiteboard, display cabinet, tornado simulator and mini-cluster. The Professor room requires level 30 and Forecast Center level 3, with a wall radar, meeting table, two display cabinets and a board showing your team's portraits.
The Professor receives a rotating tank and a supervisor's mug; the 3D printer is now in the shop. The anemometer, radar model, rotating tank and simulator vortex are animated.
Your lit window moves up the building with your career: basement for undergraduate research, ground floor for Master's, first floor for PhD/Postdoc and top floor for Professor. The courtyard view changes with the height. Wide posters no longer overlap furniture, and posters of matching sizes are aligned.
v0.8.10
A personal room, daily missions and a new entrance
Every chaser gets a room on campus that grows with their career and can be decorated. Three missions a day build a streak with rewards, the campus entrance has been rebuilt, the card has eight illustrated backgrounds, and sensors come in common and robust versions.
Personal room
In the campus courtyard, the lit basement window leads to your room. It grows with your career: Undergraduate research from the start, Master's at level 6 with the Great Plains completed, and PhD at level 12 with 27 data points collected.
The Items button decorates the desk, shelves, walls, display case and floor. The room shop sells furniture and posters, and collectibles come from achievements, hurricane flights, miniatures of your vehicles and your daily streak.
Daily missions and streak
While signed in, the computer in your room shows three missions a day, one easy, one medium and one hard, chosen for your level and what you have unlocked. They renew at 00:00 UTC, and only chases and flights played while signed in count.
Completing all three adds a day to your streak. Every 7 days in a row earns a rest day, up to 2, which covers a missed day. Milestones at 3, 7, 14, 30, 60, 100 and 365 days award room items, and your current and best streaks appear on your profile here on the website.
Campus and card
The campus entrance has a facade with stairs, a ramp and a glass lobby. Reception moves the camera to the desk and opens the card; Trophy panel takes the camera inside the lobby. The campus also gains a Doppler radar, a balloon shed, ipê trees, a coffee kiosk, a notice board, a bike rack and a minibus.
Eight illustrated card backgrounds: money tornado, vortex blueprint, equations board, star trails, hurricane from orbit, trophy hall, vintage map and medal rain. Each has its own unlock, and the Reception background list now scrolls.
Sensors, tornadoes and leaderboard
Each sensor has a common and a robust version, each with its own look on the vehicle. In the Sensor Workshop you equip or unequip each version; only equipped sensors collect data, and only robust ones work in F4–F5 tornadoes. The radiosonde launcher and turtle probes appear on the vehicle again.
Tornado damage now depends on intensity: EF1 breaks branches, EF2 bends trees and tears off roofing, EF3 knocks down trees, poles and fences, and EF4 destroys buildings. Debris flies around the funnel, and storms are taller.
Runs played offline are sent to the leaderboard automatically within a minute, from any screen.
v0.8.9
Music, landscapes and new portraits
The menu gains music and custom sounds, the regions receive new scenery, and the scientists appear in illustrated portraits. Clouds, tornadoes, hail and the Blindado vehicle also get visual updates.
Menu music and sounds
The menu cycles through We Have a Problem by MG, and Tensa V.01 and Tensa 02 by Chiarelli Beats. Both Tensa tracks are still test versions, with final production to follow.
A card in the top-right corner shows the track and composer. Click it to turn music on or off; your preference is saved.
Chiarelli Beats also created the interface sounds: moving across the buttons plays notes that form a musical phrase.
Regional landscapes
New trees, houses, barns, crops and animals help distinguish the regions. Trees move with the wind, and Dixie Alley's vegetation is lower and more spread out to improve visibility during a chase.
Storms and vehicles
Cloud bases and the tops of tornado funnels sit higher. Hail uses smaller stones and falls within the hail band, without passing close across the camera.
The Blindado vehicle receives a new textured model.
Scientists and credits
The 24 scientists receive illustrated portraits, also available on leaderboard cards and profiles here on the website. The two old generic avatars are replaced by the Farmadores duo.
The game credits highlight the musicians and link to the full model and font attributions here on the website.
v0.8.8
A photo camera and a weekly contest
Every observation now also takes a photo of the storm. Keep the best ones in the campus album and send one a week to the contest: the community votes on the website, and the author of the most-voted photo earns a medal and a card background in the game. The contest arrives in beta.
Photo camera and album
Every observation (E) during a chase also takes a photo from roof height, with the vehicle in a corner and the storm or tornado in the frame, without the interface.
When leaving the results, “Photos of this chase” shows them side by side: Enter keeps the chosen one in the album, Esc skips.
The album is in the campus Administration building and keeps up to 300 photos, with the chase, region, date, distance, storm phase and points.
Weekly photo contest — beta
In the weekly event, while signed in and after completing the chase, choose “Send to the contest”. Each player has one photo per week; a new entry replaces the previous one.
Each week’s photos are voted on here on the website during the following week, in the leaderboard’s Weekly photos tab. Every registered player has one vote, cannot vote for their own photo, and the count stays hidden until voting closes.
The most-voted photo becomes the Photo of the week; in a tie, every tied photo wins. Its author earns a medal in the game with the week and year, which accumulates on the Reception card, plus an exclusive background. The announcement appears when entering the campus.
The first vote covers week 42’s photos, from 19 to 26 October.
Fixes
In the weekly event’s cyclic supercell, each tornado descends from its own wall cloud; before, seen up close, the second funnel’s top ended in open sky.
Inside a tornado, the chase shows only the most serious warning, which previously stacked with another and overflowed its text box.
v0.8.7
A new interface, progress in the cloud
The interface has been refreshed throughout the game. Sign in with an email code and save your progress to your account, or keep playing offline. Accounts and cloud progress arrive in beta.
An interface for every stage of the chase
The menu, campus, map, garage, forecast, chase, results, pause screen and flights gain glass cards, pill buttons and new fonts. Radar, satellite and hodograph displays keep their instrument appearance.
The “This week” card on the menu shows the weekly event, region and your best attempt.
Accounts and cloud progress — beta
When opening the game, choose Sign in with email or Play offline. Sign-in uses a six-digit code sent by email, with no password, and the session is saved.
While signed in, progress is uploaded in the background and can be used on another computer. At first sign-in, if local progress already exists, choose between the computer’s progress and the account’s; the other is kept in a backup file.
The leaderboard now uses this account. Reception no longer generates pairing codes in 0.8.7; players on 0.8.6 can still connect through the website. Rankings remain in beta and will reset at the official launch.
Campus and fixes
A meteorological research station, with colours assigned by element, occupies the area south of the Hangar.
The H key only hides the interface during chases and flights, never while you type. The trophy screen’s Leaderboard button no longer covers the balance, and medal criteria are centred in the forecast card.
v0.8.6
Your chases on the online leaderboard
Online rankings arrive in beta: connect your account, submit your weekly runs and follow the standings in the game and on the website. Punjab is back on the map, clearing the way to complete the campaign. The beta rankings will reset at the official launch.
Online rankings in beta
At the Gatehouse, open Reception and choose Connect. The game shows a code and opens the website with it filled in: sign in through the link sent to your email, choose a nickname and confirm. Your email does not appear on the public leaderboard.
Once your account is connected, weekly runs are sent automatically to the server, which checks the week, seed, rules, duration, score and recorded route. When offline, submissions are queued for later.
The results screen shows both local and online positions. View the weekly and overall standings under Trophy Display → Ranking → Online ranking, or through this website’s Leaderboard menu.
Final positions and podium bonuses count towards Score after the weekly close, scheduled for Monday at 00:05 UTC. The rankings are in beta and will reset at the official launch.
Punjab back on the map
Fixed the region 6 marker, missing from the world map since 0.8.3. All five Punjab chases are now accessible, allowing you to finish the campaign and unlock the weekly event by earning at least bronze in every chase.
Forecast and campus
The sounding no longer overlaps the legend and medals at forecast levels 2 and 3. The legend has moved to the bottom of the map, and sounding text adjusts to the available space.
The Gatehouse trophies stand upright along the shelf. The parking ramp has been replaced with stairs matching the entrance.
v0.8.5
A new chase every week
Photograph both tornadoes of a cyclic supercell in the weekly event and customise your chaser card at the new Reception. This first stage works offline; online rankings are still in development.
The cyclic supercell challenge
Complete the entire campaign with at least bronze to unlock the Weekly Event button on the map. Everyone gets the same storm that week, and each player uses their own vehicle.
An EF2 touches down at 20 seconds and an EF3 at 45 seconds. Each tornado lasts 50 seconds: photograph both during a chase lasting 2 to 2.5 minutes.
The region changes each week between the Great Plains, Dixie Alley and Pampa. Your best attempt counts for the week; runs are saved locally for future integration with online rankings.
Your card at Reception
The former Trophy Room is now the Gatehouse/Reception, with a glass hall, ramp, turnstiles and trophy display. Click the building to choose Reception or the Trophy Display, which opens the local rankings.
Choose a male or female chaser avatar and a background for your card. It brings together your name, level, campaign medals, Score, successful chases and flights, and weekly event history.
Backgrounds are photographs taken in the game. Some can be purchased at Reception; others are earned through events and challenges.
Level and Score
Your level grows with XP: completing the campaign takes you to level 6, while level 30 requires continued play. Score combines 0.1% of campaign points, 0.3% of extreme event points and 1% of weekly event points.
Chase adjustments
All tornadoes deal 40% less damage. Extreme events already recorded in the rankings now pay the intended repeat reward.
The sensor panel is larger, with room for the anchoring claw and all three sensors at once.
v0.8.4
Inside the eye of the hurricane
Research takes flight: pilot the Petrel and Fragata on missions in North Atlantic hurricanes. On land, tornado shapes reflect their intensity and storms dissipate in a new way.
A season in the Atlantic
Build the Research Hangar on campus for $100,000 to unlock the North Atlantic base and start hunting hurricanes.
The season runs from June to November, with around 14 named storms and a September peak. The calendar advances 2 days per land chase, 5 per flight and 1 per day spent waiting at the base.
Two aircraft, two missions
The Petrel enters the hurricane at around 10,000 feet, following an alpha pattern. Locate the centre, release dropsondes in the eye and eyewall, and collect data with SFMR and AXBT.
The Fragata flies at around 45,000 feet around the hurricane, releasing dropsondes in a surveillance ring without entering the core. These data improve the storm's track forecast.
Follow the flight with C-band radar and infrared satellite imagery. The eyewall brings turbulence, wind pushes the aircraft off course, and manoeuvres put stress on the airframe.
Tropical forecasts and data
The Forecast Centre now has a tropical cyclone tab with its own team of up to 12 scientists. They narrow the forecast cone and detect extreme hurricanes that rapidly intensify to Category 5, with a ×1.5 reward.
The module has 30 dedicated data records, organised by category and collection method.
Storms on land
Up to EF2, tornadoes have cone-shaped funnels; at EF3, they widen near the ground. EF4 and EF5 form dark wedges with debris collars beneath wider, taller parent clouds.
During dissipation, flank towers fade first, the base flattens, and the orphaned anvil spreads out until it disappears.
The F5 forms earlier. Derechos move more slowly, and their rain now falls beneath the cloud, following its bow shape.
New trees bend in gusts, cattle have been remodelled, and a mesonet kit appears on campus and in the Sensor Workshop. Vehicle headlights work again.
v0.8.3
New signals on the radar
Radar reflectivity in dBZ, multiple storms in one chase and a new region: Punjab and the Himalayan foothills.
Read the storm on radar
Reflectivity uses a colour scale from 5 to 75 dBZ, with a legend beside the radar. The image updates with each sweep, and the target storm's peak appears beside its direction.
Supercells show a hook echo, inflow notch and forward flank. Squall lines show the convective band with stratiform rain behind it; derechos form a bow echo.
Large hail can exceed 65 dBZ and produce a three-body scatter spike (TBSS) on radar.
Choose which storm to chase
Bangladesh and Punjab have two storms per chase. The forecast shows each storm's parameters to help you choose a target.
The minimap shows every storm. Click a letter or press Tab to switch targets; press M to enlarge the minimap.
Photos and data from another storm earn points, but do not complete the target storm's objectives.
Punjab and the Himalayan foothills
The new region adds five chases without tornadoes, featuring andhi — a wall of dust arriving before the rain — and giant hail.
Explore wheat fields, canals with brick bridges and the mountain foothills to the north.
Changes in the field
The derecho's bow shape also appears in its damage pattern. Storm cores only cause damage from hail, gusts or tornadoes, and only during the mature stage.
Bangladesh now has rivers, roads sit flush with the ground, and distant clouds use fewer resources when multiple storms share the map.
v0.8.2
A new sky to explore
Growing clouds, slower storms and a camera aimed at the sky. Chases also gain new garage options and a less intrusive interface.
Evolving storms
Cloud towers now grow and feed the anvil while keeping the low-poly style. Shelf clouds and wall clouds have also been renewed.
Squall lines now combine several cells. The derecho is larger, with a bow-shaped front.
Storms move 25% more slowly, giving you more time to follow their development. The F5 also moves more slowly.
Cloud bases and tornadoes are taller. Tornadoes no longer have subvortices and now carry smaller debris.
Rain follows the storm in curtains beneath the cloud, and hail accumulates on the ground along its path.
New viewpoints
The Hunter camera replaces the Chase view: it sits lower and faces the storm.
Press H to hide or show the interface for screenshots and videos.
In the garage and in the field
Every vehicle can now be fitted with an anchoring claw, purchased in the garage. It can be deployed even while moving.
The pickup is now called Ranjona 2000, the TIV becomes Blindado and the Uno becomes Unim. Paint colours can be selected in the garage.
Cattle now appear on the maps.
More comfortable visuals
Lightning flashes are subtler, damage warnings appear at the screen edges and taking a photo no longer triggers a flash.
Storm interiors are brighter.
v0.8.1
A new fleet, closer to the storm
Redesigned vehicles, more detailed instruments and adjustments for facing the wind and knowing when to retreat.
Vehicles and instruments
The Scout, pickup, van and TIV have new models with more detail and mesonet instrument masts.
The Uno with Ladder appears in the garage, still locked. Assembling it with parts from extreme events is planned for a future version.
Wind, damage and durability
Strong tornadoes pull the vehicle, making close approaches more dangerous.
Tornado damage is now concentrated near the funnel.
Vehicles are now twice as durable.
During play
The visual damage warning is less intense.
Model and font credits are now available from the game menu.