I've had a few requests to schedule regular tournaments, so people can rock up and get some games in easily.

The question is simple: what Day/ Time is best?

Let me know in the comments below, and I'll get something scheduled!

My new chums at FrozenByte have handed over a load of keys for their gorgeous SMASH HIT game “Trine 2”. And I’m giving them away.

What do you have to do to win one? Simple. Beat the Dev at Gun Monkeys.

I’ll be generally online in EU1, taking on anyone who wants to try. You’ll have to notch up a few wins first, I’ll be checking your scorecards thoroughly.

In case you’re concerned it’s impossible because I know all the code: don’t worry! Within about 8 hours of launch there were all sorts of young people with nimble fingers who could absolutely thrash me. I am old now, and quite quite frail (33)

If I’m not online, throw me a challenge on Twitter and I’ll hop on if I can: @danthat

Make sure you're a member of the Official Gun Monkeys Group, so I can hand over a key nice and easily when you beat me.

Hello! Exciting news: Tim has been solidly looking into the worrying issue of connections dropping in some instances. I got an email from him at about 4am a few days ago saying he was increasingly confident the problem wasn't our code, it was server side. A few emails with the Photon Server guys later, and we're confident it's fixed. Hopefully you now won't have an unusual level of fluffed connections, but if you have any problems, do let me know!

I've also been paying serious attention to all the feedback I've been getting, and have been tweaking the gameplay here and there to suit you guys better. Again, let me know what you think!

Make sure you're running the latest version or you might not be able to find other players- quitting out of Steam through the taskbar and restarting tends to do the job.

@danthat

Here's a changelog, in case you love reading changelogs. I know some of you do:

Changelog for v1.4a
*Fixed a bug that could cause the game to end on one client, but not the other
*Fixed a bug that could cause matchmaking to fail when players change the region they are playing on
* Fixed some achievement vanishing from players accounts

Gameplay Tweaks:
* Increased chance of JETPACKS
* Increased camera zoom speed when you've got homers/ sniper/ big nuke
* Gibber bullets now have limited range
* Few tweaks to stop cubes tunnelling slightly into level geometry
* Tweaked damage dealt by Snipe-o-tron

Other Tweaks:
* Removed Steam group channels, to hopefully focus players into a single server
* Added a chat system to the lobby.
* Added "idle mode" to the lobby menu, for quick and easy backgrounding of the game while you wait on challenges
* Added the ability to turn off shaders to improve performance on lower-end GFX cards

Hello! Man, we have *not stopped*. When we opened up Gun Monkeys to the world, it turns out the world all had even more combinations of computers with different types of internet that we possibly thought. Bugs have been fixed, networking holes have been plugged. If you were one of the unlucky ones having problems, you should find the game much more stable!

[Here's what's new!]
We've fixed up a few more instances where games would have connection problems - hopefully that's everything plugged now and it should be much smoother sailing from here. If you do have any problems at all, please do feel free to email me: dan at size five games dot com. If you could pop into ProgramFiles/Steam/Steamapps/common/GunMonkeys and zip and send me the dated folder (it'll start with a 2013) we can get a good look at what went awry.

Lag detection has been significantly reduced - we thought it'd be horrible and unfair playing against someone with a ropey internet connection, so implemented a cool "no harm, no foul" system that'd pull you both out if things got to an unacceptable level of laggy. Seems this was annoying people more than it was fixing problems, so we've *massively* dropped what the system deems unacceptable. If you think this move has caused problems and laggy matches are ruining things, email me: dan at size five games dot com and let me know what happened, and I'll look into what we can do.

Tweaks and Balancing - you bastards. Gun Monkeys' perks system was based around a thoroughly rigorous mathematical formula. But you 'humans' and your 'feelings' got in the way and I've had to wiggle it to suit your fleshy emotions. Lower level perks are now cheap enough for noobs to afford without feeling overwhelmed, and higher level perks are now hugely expensive and have been nerfed a little, so they're more 'perk' and less 'massive overpowered upgrade'.

Furthermore, I've tweaked bombs so hopefully they're less exploitable. They're more expensive to lay, and you can't lay as many as often. So players who used bombs too much will find their power levels rapidly dropping.

Empty Servers - I'm all too aware it's hard to swan into a server and get a game at the moment. It's odd, because Gun Monkeys is selling well and people seem to be enjoying it, but I guess the ratio of "Copies Sold : People Hanging Out On The Server At Any One Time" is just even more massive than I'd anticipated. I'm hoping there'll be an influx of players soon, thanks to some press, a new trailer, and a SteamGifts promotion, but in the meantime if you're frustrated because you can't get a game, email me a screengrab of your Steam account showing you've bought the game, and I'll gladly gift you a couple of keys so you can play with friends. Just until the ball starts rolling.

Hope you're enjoying the game. Do feel free to email me with any comments you may have. Apologies for Wall of Text.

@danthat

Hello! We’ve been working 24/7 all weekend, and have patched Gun Monkeys to v1.2b.

Thank you for your patience, I’m aware there have been some weirdy-beardy connection issues and a few annoying bugs. The good news is we’ve (hopefully) addressed the sweeping majority of problems.

I’m not going to present you with a long boring list of each fix no one’ll read, so in short:

// Network connections should crap out less often. It’s possible you’ll still get a Black Screen of Death, it was sadly unfixable for this update but we’ll be back on it tomorrow_
// Loading times should be much smaller_
// Fixed a host of minor niggles, from ladder collision problems to menus_
// In terms of gameplay tweaks: perks are cheaper at lower levels, the stronger perks have been tweaked to be less dastardly, the amount of $ you lose if you lose the bout is less severe, and bombs should be less exploitable!

Thank you all for playing. Hope you’ll get a more stable game going now :)

Any problems, let me know, ideally through the Size Five forums at this link.

Enjoy :)

[nb if you helped us test v1.2 earlier on today, you will presumably have to opt out of the beta again to download this version to your library proper]

That's it! We're live!

I’m declaring Gun Monkeys launched in an ultra-special “Gamma” phase of development: technically it’s Gold, it works beautifully, but please don’t shout at me just yet if there are a few teething problems. Frankly, if the likes of EA and Blizzard can’t launch an online game without any server hitches whatsoever, I stand no fucking chance.

Hopefully it's all fine, but do drop me a line if you have problems. Enjoy!

Hello! Please see the Size Five Forums for bug reporting, that sort of thing.

Secondly, please join this group. It'll make finding others to play against WAY easier!

Finally; THANK YOU. Your help is very much appreciated.

- Dan