Blocktowhat? (not a Pokemon)

#Blocktober (initiated on Twitter by game designer Michael Barclay) celebrates the art of "blocking out" levels in video games.

“Blocking out/in” an area in a game is done to show the scale of an area and to plan how the player will move through it.

It's one of the earliest stages of the level design process where level designers visualize how players will interact in the map and move through. Everything is extremely rough. There is no art, texture work, lightning and other pretty nice details.

To celebrate the Blocktober 2019, Simon (level designer) shares with you the creative process of the 'lava to stone' mecanic (in the last levels of the Mountain of Fire world).



"This feature was initialy conceived a long time ago when pitching ideas for the levels. The idea was that the player could get the Iron Fan from King Bull’s wife (Princess Iron Fan), and that it was so powerfull that it could cool down lava. In the original story, Wukong uses it to cool down the whole mountain.

So it was rappidly prototyped as a mockup, without great precision. The idea was that it was a platform that you could activate when a lava jet was coming out of the lava, it stayed for a few seconds, then it cracked, and after a couple seconds more the lava jet was flowing again. And for some lava jets, the platform created was breakable blocks by blocks, so sometimes you had to break your way through to go high enough to reach the next platform or to open up a way.
It was presented to the team who found it cool, but it wasn’t the priority to make this level at the time as it was one of the last levels of the game.



After that, at least 6 months passed until it was time to develop this level. Since 6 months had passed, we had even less time to code the thing and it was almost scrapped. The design team pushed it because we knew it was full of possibilities. So it was decided that we had to prototype the mecanic again but with a behavior that could be easily transposable in every way needed in one single object. And it had to be perfectly ready to be implemented in a finalized level until it was coded, and could be easily replaced by the final object without making changes to the level.



Then, a new prototype arrived, made with our visual scripting tool "Playmaker", but with cooler mecanics, like a physical behavior that made other blocks fall down, and you could break the lava column blocks by blocks but with smaller blocks than initially prototyped, respecting the size of the smallest hit of a player. You could also freeze the lava at any point from the beginning of its flow.

This prototype was rappiddly done as well. And it showed how much possibilities it really had. You could put it in all directions, you could make a wall through which you had to dig, you could wall jump between them, you could make timed challenges. A whole level was made using it in a lot of different ways, like all good GPEs.

But once it was given to the programmers, they said it would be a really complex object to make. It took much longer to code than to prototype, but of course, the coded object would be more optimized than the prototype. Because making every blocks of a column fall at once was costly on the CPU. So it was decided that the blocks would shake and then explode. This was cool because it allowed new variants in gameplay where you could stand on a rock floating in the air before it exploded.

Also, on the art side of the object, the lava flow was originally supposed to be organic. But since it would be made of blocks, it would have been even more complex to do it like it was originally thought. So it ended being lava blocks. And finally, since it respected LD rules, and was already put in the level as the prototype, once the object was coded, the prototype was easily replaced in the whole levels, and...it worked!"

With the Challenge Update, the Emerald Rank has been changed.
Now you just need to do the best time (despite of getting all coins in the level as well as doing a perfect time). But, don't forget you mustn't die more than 2 times.
See what you can do! 💪⏱️

It's getting hot in here! Finally summer is here which means ==>>> SUMMER SALE!
🔥Get Unruly Heroes 30% OFF right now! 🔥



We’ve just released a patch to fix a few bugs and issues. You can read the see the full changelist below!

If you've encountered an issue or think you have found a bug, please let us know in the Report A Bug forum here on Steam.

Thanks!

⬇️Changelist⬇️

BUG FIXES:
- Skull Canyon : Fixed a camera blocker that can prevent the player to continue the level.

NEW MUSICS:
- New musics have been added in various places in Skull Canyon levels.

NEW OPTION: RUN AT FULL SPEED!
- New feature has been added in the option menu: you can now change the speed of the game (up to 150%)
NOTE: Please note that this feature is still WIP and some issues may occur when using it.

Hey friends!
Set out on a journey with the brand new free Challenge Update content for Unruly Heroes! Hope you’ll enjoy it!


- 2 new difficulty modes : Easy (enjoy a cool trip) and Hard (warm up your fingers)
- New level completion rankings - a more balanced Emerald rank updated and new Diamond rank (only hard mode) for fierce competitors
- Additionnal Level timer to see your speedrun skills
- Moves List Menu to perfect your kung fu movements / actions.
- Photo Mode to capture your best exploits: don't hesitate to share it in the Screenshots category or on social networks.
- New character skins
- Fast forward any cinematics.
- Gameplay tweaks focusing on controls
- Various bugfixes

https://youtu.be/9E04jV_x-L8


- 600+ collision issues fixed, quality of life improvement.
- Visual feedback added when player dodge / dash. Change the invulnerability granted during these actions.
- All attacks now cancellable by Dash / Dodge
- Changed enemies life scalling in multiplayer ( Smaller increase)
- Changed default keyboard bindings
- Improved soul pattern making it come back more often toward the player
- Improved stick sensibilty for specific attacks
- Enemies now have more effect to feedback when they are hit.
- Modified Enemies that were not behaving correctly - Chief Chomp has a new attack / Rhynehard has more chance using the charge attack / The bat ennemy has more time being on hit animation and water projectile does less damage / Wolves and lizards try to dodge player / Dolfink projectile's trajectory changed / goat projectile slower
- Medals / Ranks are now assigned only with timing and player death, doesn't count coins anymore.
- Redid all Levels' timing to go with new system

- Dodge and dash are now faster to perform ( but less invulnerability)
- Improved Air Control for all characters
- Reduced Jump total time for all characters
- Fixed Jump Apex floatyness in general
- Fixed precision of wolf's spear throwing

- Taoist Temple: Fixed a collision issue preventing the golem to follow the player in "HuangHua temple"
- Taoist Temple: Fixed a bug respawning lizard but not triggering the fight in "The doomed Jungle"
- Taoist Temple: Fixed a bug making the fog disappear permanently in "Into the mist"
- Underworld: Fixed Soul issues causing some unintentional wobble.
- Underworld: Fixed collisions issues of red pillars not killing the player.
- Underworld: Fixed a bug making the player fall through the map in "Receiving docks"
- Skull canyon : Fixed the collision of the spiked roots 
- Skull canyon : Fixed some collision issues of the Rhynehard attackings in "Wolf Camp"
- Skull canyon : Fixed a bug causing the controllable wolf to have incorrect jumps and dodges in "The way of wolves"
- Mountain Fire : Fixed a bug preventing King Bull to spawn or launch the fight in "Belly of the beast"
- Mountain Fire : Fixed a bug preventing player to grab onto a ledge with the Lava columns
- Mountain Fire : Fixed a bug making King bull stay  in the lava in "Lava Falls"
- General : Fixed a bug causing unplugged controller to not be registered
- Player : Fixed the collision of Kihong when floating.
- PVP : Fixed a bug causing peaches to not be registered

Dear community,

We have an important announcement: Some foreign currencies have not been correctly converted on the launch day of Unruly Heroes and we'd like to sincerely apologize to gamers from these respective countries. We were not able to change them during the first 30 days due to the Steam policy.
Now, we can!
The new pricing will be updated this week end or early next week (pending Steam approval)

UPDATE March 12th: The new pricing has been updated March 10th.

Please find as below the pricing list of the currencies concerned:
· Russian Rubles
· Brazilian Reals
· Indonesian Rupiah
· Malaysian Ringgit
· Philippine Peso
· Thai Baht
· Vietnamese Dong
· Ukrainian Hryvnia
· Mexican Peso
· Indian Rupee
· Chilean Peso
· Peruvian Sol
· Colombian Peso
· Saudi Arabian Riyal
· Israeli New Shekel
· Kazakhstani Tenge
· Kuwaiti Dinar
· Qatari Rial
· Costa Rican Colon
· Uruguayan Peso

If you bought Unruly Heroes on Steam before March 7th 2019 with one of the above currencies, you can ask for a refund of the price difference until April 7th 2019.
The refund will be done with the corresponding amount in Steam gift cards.

Please, follow up mandatory requirements.
- Send an email to support@magicdesignstudios.com with the object title "Steam Refund Unruly Heroes"
- Provide the proof of purchase (steam support order confirmation email) cf. image below

- Indicate your full name and your steam account details (steam ID and corresponding email address)

Thank you again for your understanding and for your support. The game couldn't be here without the community.

MDS Team

Hello there!

We’ve just released a patch with gameplay tweaks and fixed few bugs and issues. You can read the see the full changelist below!

If you've encountered an issue or think you have found a bug, please let us know in the Report A Bug forum here on Steam.

Thanks!

Changelist:
1- Fixed collision issue with Rhynehard (mini-boss)
2- Fixed collision issue with Lady White Boss’ horizontal root platforms
3- Fixed collision offset on inflated Kihong
4- Fixed root of player character offset during some animations
5- Fixed an issue when playing PvP Harvest mode with empty gaps between players slots leading to some players being unable to pick up fruits
6- Damage received when playing with 3+ players has been tweaked
7- More intuitive default keyboard control scheme
8- Enabled switching connected gamepads in the controls menu
9- Player can now cancel combo finisher by dashing
10- Players souls now move toward the player more often when playing in solo
11- Made the stick direction change more responsive when it comes to direction sensitive attacks
12- Fixed dash animation
13- All Attacks can be canceled except for Wukong’s Bird and Sanzang’s Heavy Down attack
14- All Air Combos and first attack generate more stun value.
15- All finishers have maximum stun value
16- Sanzang’s Air Combo is faster and deals more damage
17- Sanzang’s second attack in his moving combo is faster
18- Buffed SandMonk’s Heavy Down attack
19- Air combo from a launcher is easier for KiHong & Wukong
20- Sanzang’s launcher can be canceled earlier
21- Fix several issue that happen with wireless controllers

You thought that the Gold Rank was the best scoring in the game? Well, this is a good rank sure, but maybe not enough for competitive gamers.
Check out the requirements to get the Emerald Rank. This should keep you busy :)
Warm up your fingers and good luck!