It just doesn’t feel like Xmas unless I am rushing an update out for Amazing Frog?  - And So Flight School is now available in SwindonShire.

The doors to flight school can now be opened.  Learn to be a pilot also if you are really committed to the fly, you may be able to earn your wings…

Had a lot of fun making this one and to be honest some of the new stuff is a little experimental and honestly, I am not sure what's going to happen to a lot of if. Riding the Alligators is now more as we wanted, I should have fixed that ages ago. The trouble with Xmas updates, in fact, most updates for Amazing Frog? is there is always something else that can be added or fixed!

Ultimately We are going to need a bigger boat.

We put the grotto back in the town centre if you feel like thrashing around in the snow…Also, it gives us a reason to do another update to move the grotto back to the mountain. Don’t forget to check the changelog

(PS V3 Winter update is also close, I’ll write more about it all when I have had some sleep)

Welcome to The First V3 Beta. You can access it by selecting  " v3_public_betas" You can access Betas by right-clicking the game name and going to properties. There should be a tab to Betas. Select the 'V3_public_betas' option. If you cannot see the beta in the list try restarting Steam.



It's in beta so we expect things to be a bit unstable, please let us know of any problems. Currently, we have only built support for Windows 64 bit. This is only the beginning, there is a long way to go, but there will certainly be a lot more regular updates from here on.



I don’t really have the words to explain just how excited Hal and I are about this milestone. We have been trying to get V3 into your hands for ages, this is just the beginning though and I expect it won't work for everyone, but we are going to resolve that.



Although I will probably start on the from tomorrow ...

First off sorry for the silence. We have been busy with Amazing Frog? development and I never really know when is a good time to share. I want to tell you about what we have been up to since April It's basically all been about getting a V3 update out there. We are pretty close now and the release of our first V3 update feels like a big milestone for us. Before I talk about what's coming up in the next update I feel like its worth a look back at the time Amazing Frog? has spent in Early Access. Since we are really hoping to come out of Early Access very soon.  So we scribbled down some thoughts of our Early Access Journey into a cheap sketchy timeline.



Of course this timeline you can pretty much see in the ChangeLog. This is not an app we intend to abandon in the upcoming Updates (some we will lose). As we move into V3 The Change Logs will persist as will (hopefully) most of the save data. I am looking forward to writing the f0.3.1 entry ( I may skip the letters at the end of the versions moving forward but…)




Well the natural progression for us after the Drone update was to continue with Helicopters and airplanes, it just didn’t work out like that. What it eventually came down to was the real purpose of adding helicopters. They are needed to pick up large objects and move them around, swing giant wrecking balls etc…We wanted players to be able to move things around more easily. It got to the point where we couldn’t see it happening using the "old school physics” of Unity 4, I mean the more recent V2 blimps could have been much better. Basically, we had taken V2 as far as we could. We toyed with the idea of making a definitive V2 “Gold Master” version that we could distribute on other platforms, but, ultimately the natural progression is only forward and on with V3,  to secure Amazing Frog? s ongoing development….So Flight School had to be postponed
As you can see from the timeline entries of V3 attempts, the scary problem was that we had not actually been able to produce the same level of ‘fun’ with the newer versions of Unity. Every route that we had tried to build Amazing Frog? into newer versions of Unity had always resulted in rigid, realistic, but ultimately, unstable physics.  It was great how things look and some of the newer features and capabilities of the more recent versions of Unity are super helpful and have led to so many possibilities for loading and managing content and just simply put all the boring stuff that makes games happen that we don’t often talk about but is insanely important. Yet with every encounter of the newer versions of Unity, It was almost like the physics was forcing us to be too “real world”.
So In March I decided to Start again line by line, system by system and rebuild. I’m not going to lie, it took a while and I often had this nervous feeling that I was taking us down a path that may end up leading nowhere. When we got to summer things started to look much brighter. The project was intact, I could make builds, and most importantly the frog was behaving like “Amazing Frog?” and not generic rag doll biped individual. Now we have a more stable “Amazing Frog?” with a more sustainable future proof environment to continue the development of the Universe. After all, to continue the development of what we think is the most important thing we have ever made is all we really wanted.


I wish there was a magic brush where I could convert every aspect of V2 into V3, but it doesn’t really work like that. Fortunately, much of the stuff since Grapple hooks has been programmed to exist in more recent versions of Unity and is less difficult to keep, but some of the older stuff is difficult to retain. But the benefits of much of the rebuild are now becoming more apparent. For example the water physics, You will have to wait to “see”( or play) that to see how different it is, but it just feels worth it. On the downside, it also means everything in the sea needed reprogramming or restructuring. Or the lighting V2 was dependant on static lightmaps baked into the environment, V3 we have a day-night system… but that means many objects like cars or lamposts and all sorts of ‘other’ things need daytime aware programming. That's just the tip of the iceberg.



Having said that, we are trying not to lose stuff. Even though you will encounter many changes to an already established environment,  we are also taking steps to keep older features active. Take for example the new frog. Just like the sharks and alligators, the water physics-ness had to be rebuilt for the frog, but also the look. The situation with the frog’s new clothes demonstrates some of the wider issues we have been facing in this upgrade process. The new frog has interchangeable clothes with physical rendering, puffa jackets, T-shirts hoodies, etc.. but most of the characterization of V2 worked through a more old school “skins” process. It's going to take a long time to recreate all of those “outfits” with physical (modeled) clothing. ( we will… we will, but not all at once) In the meantime, we came up with a way for the new frog to “wear” the old frog if that makes sense. But since the old outfits that you may have unlocked would not be able to work moving forward in the new Frog wardrobe system we came up with a way to physically archive them and still have access to them.




There are many established activities in Amazing Frog? Getting to The Moon, Unlocking the Magical Mystery Toilet, killing the Megladon, discovering the balloon jetpack, many of which we will have to divert or close off for the first few updates. We have even been debating if the Moon can work or if we even want to keep the Moon at all and if we do in what format. So we may need to lock some things off ...even if just temporarily. There are many things we just don’t know what the deal is yet. Take for example the Magical Mystery Toilet… We have put a few things through in our testing but we can’t be 100% sure what will happen with everything anymore (as if we ever knew)


I don’t really like making promises for an update date as I hate disappointing people if I fail. But October seems as good a month as any to get an update out. Last year I think we launched a Halloween update on the 1st of November which is pretty typical for us… and it was a bit broken :) But I want to get something "playable" for you all within a couple of weeks. I can’t promise what shape that will take. I may close off a lot of the world or features, but if I close off too much I will launch a beta rather than a replacement update... I DON'T KNOW, but it's only in the past few weeks that I have felt capable to commit to saying something like this and so write a "Frog Blog"
Also, for those who read this post on https://amazingfrog.com/amazing-frog-frog-blog-031-october/ I am trying to be a little more organized with posts. I always end up posting something at 3 am on a Friday night when it's just finished. As we move forward will try and post to Steam at better times :) If you want to get ahead of the game follow me on twitter or instagram. @fayju or get on the discord, If I post a premature beta it will appear there then I​ will get the assets together afterwards to make a "post"

Firstly, welcome to the new Drones Update for Amazing Frog?. We have wanted to include drones in the game for some time now. Not just because we wanted to use them to generate fancy cinematic camera angles to make a decent trailer ( …still pending… ), but also because you get to fly around like a maniac and explore Swindon Shire in a whole new way. You can explore areas you might want to be able to go. Part of Amazing Frog? has always been that as a new player it's difficult to escape Swindon. We used to enjoy that there would be an element of surprise when you eventually scaled the wall and realized you were in a larger world.





There are two types of Drones, one is more like a traditional camera drone with stabilization and has simpler controls, the other is more of a freestyle drone with twin stick controls. The freestyle one can be a bit tricky to master, but we have been finding it a lot of fun especially threading the multi story car park.





Obviously, it's an Amazing Frog? update … so there are some other things in there to discover. The pigs have not returned yet, we are working on something that will bring them back to SwindonShire and that will be available soon… In the meantime,  if you need to get somewhere snappy,  you might be able to find something else you can hitch a ride on.



The other main purpose of this update is that it contains some fixes and stabilization, I don’t think the last version was working particularly well. Had I not been so wrapped up in V3 and all the multiplayer code, I might have noticed sooner. Thank you to everyone who reaches out to me from the community to tell me about issues with the game, like leaving out the FrogMilk Coffee Co App Activation… Doh!  Also, genuinely, I’m really sorry I left Santa’s Grotto in the car park until March. (…again…) I think subconsciously, I just want to prolong Xmas because it's my favorite time of year.  Realistically, I just got distracted with development and was spending my time in a completely different environment where frogs actually have fingers.

So what have we been up to? Well, we launched the pocket version of Amazing Frog? on iOS at the beginning of January and then we began working exclusively on the multiplayer side of V3. We have been trying to push to a place when we can release the first alpha of V3 with online multiplayer. I won’t bore you with screenshots of that activity, because it would be mostly of code and a bit of me crying... The cost of V3 dev is that it can be very absorbing and almost grinds V2 progress to a standstill. This might not be a problem if we were done with V2, but we are not.  You will be seeing some more updates in the next few weeks/months.

Ultimately, our goal is to take V2 out of Early Access soon. I guess we could have done that already. Looking forward, I don’t anticipate leaving Early Access will change the way we develop and we are still creating and planning new content for V2..oink. It's just that Early Access is not a label we are totally comfortable with anymore. Mostly, because we have been in Early Access since 2014 and other peoples reactions to the phrase “Early Access” is weird. There were always certain things we wanted to do in Amazing Frog? before we left Early Access, or at least what our definition of Early Access is/was. We need to implement structures in the game design that make the world feel more complete. On the one hand, this is about facilitating the growth of the world, but on the other, it's about reinforcing the underlying narratives that already exist in it.  Also, we want to give a clearer picture of how we feel the world fits together, the companies, the activities etc. I touched on this in some previous dev blogs.



We are also trying to tidying some/many of the "rough edges" and refine the overall product of Amazing Frog? You may have noticed that we changed the capsule Artwork on the Store page. This is the first time we have done this since launch ...mainly because any time we had, we would spend on adding weird stuff to the actual game. I will also need to rewrite the description so it's more up to date.

Next week we head to San Francisco with the rest of the Game Dev world for GDC. GDC is a big event in the Game dev calendar where devs learn, meet and I dunno be a massive group of Game Developers, So hopefully we can find some stuff that helps Amazing Frog? overall.

Thanks again you guys for Playing, also thanks to everyone for the tweet and insta nudges to make a devblog or fix stuff or  just sharing what you are playing. Awesome :)

Phase two Update for Santa’s Swindon Snow Storm Update is available now



I love making Xmas Updates. Its a good chance to play around with some stuff. Also its a great way to say thanks to every one for playing Amazing Frog?



So go grab the presents and unlock a preview of something we are working on. Hopefully its a nice surprise :)



I always seem to be leaving things to the last minute, I think its mainly because we always seem to be able to think of "just one more thing” ***to add in. ***Columbo



yeay...





I hope you all have an awesome xmas! We will come back soon an write a more formal devblog about what the plans for 2019 are, where V3 and multiplayer is. Its all happening still and we very excited about what's coming up



I’m gonna go eat some chocolate.

Its time for the Holiday Update and this time its a real Swindon Snow Storm! Fart propelled sledging is always lovely this time of year



Obviously the Holiday period isn’t for every one, but we tried to make accommodations for them.





driving can be hazardous in these conditions, please be careful not to hit snowy pedestrians.



Grow big Snow Balls!



This is phase 1 of the xmas update, the next bit should be swinging around real soon.



Seasons Greetings !

Ok, so maybe it was a bit harsh banning jetpacks and balloon packs from the blood covered streets of Swindon…



I mean you can actually have a lot of fun with a jetpack when the streets are filled with blood and you guys worked so hard to get the backpacks you may as well get some fun out of it. We were just a bit too worried that having them would make it too easy to unlock Satun.



SO here is a Hot fixes Update to the Mystery Halloween Box. Among other things, we added a few more pumpkins to make a nice round number of 300. And added a few more things to the blood world.



We've been enjoying it so it's likely we will add more to it in the future. Please check the in-game changelog. For now Happy Halloween!

Here’s a bloody Update. Perhaps I should have called it that, “Another Bloody Update”

And there I go mentioning the blood and ruining the mystery, I feel like such a muppet



Currently my favorite outfit… well perhaps with exception of the fireproof one you can unlock in the mystery box.



To be Honest, I don’t really know what to say about this update, it's pretty late here and I've spent too much time playing around in it that I haven’t found the time to write much, so this time I think I will just let the update speak for itself.



we’ll be back pretty soon with more updates and then I’ll write something more Game Devilish stuff.

You know what ? it feels really good to be putting updates out again. I mean over the past few months we’ve been dealing with some pretty complex stuff with V3 and V2 and iOS… getting our ducks in a row, as it were. But, today looking through recent screenshots for the new stuff makes me super happy. Also just messing around with content again is so much more fun that underlying systems and junk. I mean you can’t Instagram a feckin’ serialization process or a new design pattern that I created by accident while dreaming. I love my work, truly I do.



There is an element if chaos to how we go about developing things, but we are heading somewhere so don't worry. That somewhere is V3.

So, what was I saying? ... I’m really sorry about the mouse not locking and hiding thing, please let me know if you are still having problems after this update. This is the second of our October updates for V2. “The Other Blimps". Was going to call it A Blimp with more bite not sure why :) .







So be sure to check the in-game changelog… (I think I updated that …) there's some more stuff to find do and play with.

I’ll keep this post short, I did want to say thanks to everyone for pointing any issues in the last build. There are some which I Have not got around to resolving like the horizontal split screen I will get that one in the next update. So any outstanding issues please fire them at us.

Finally! we are in a position to start rolling out some updates, sorry it's been blimpin’ ages.

The first of a series of V2 updates is now available and this first one is called the "Leftfield Edition”

Let's be clear- this is a V2 update, We have reprogrammed the camera systems and UI, using techniques and code that we have been developing in V3 and implemented more stable graphics with less flickering etc and generally made it more stable, better looking and improved the underlying architecture to enable us to try out a month of rapid content expansion updates.  :)







So what's a “Leftfield Edition”? What an attractive looking question, Gaz. Thanks for asking… Basically, its called that because its pretty much the version we showed at EGX on the Sega sponsored Leftfield indie game booth thing. In terms of content, there is not a great deal of new stuff, this was mainly about presenting the fixed version of V2. In fact, you may find that some things are missing or even completely replaced. Don’t worry about this as we will be updating V2 multiple times in October and we have some interesting surprises lined up. Having said that Pocket mode is pretty new, accessible from the main menu and might worth another look...





For some time had been PONDering the possibility of Amazing Frog? V2 leaving Early Access, it's a weird situation, because we are also building V3 and you guys haven’t got your hands on that yet. We are not sure we even know what Early Access means anymore. We are going to be adding updates to both versions of Amazing Frog? for some time. You could say Amazing Frog? will always be in development, with that in mind we are not sure if “Early Access” applies to us anymore. What do you guys think?  We don’t anticipate that V3 will replace V2. We expect them to exist side by side for a while. For us, we are starting to think of it more like a sequel even though it won’t be presented as such. Ultimately it's just me and Hal, we don’t have anyone advising us, no publisher skimming the cream or twisting our arm to break our integrity, we just try and do what we think is right for Amazing Frog? and it's players.



On a side note - Online multiplayer for V3 has been going really well and we are indeed closer to dropping the V3 Online Beta, Hal and I have been doing to distance network testing and the results are pretty encouraging. but I am sorry to say that we are just not ready to share it yet.

Sorry if it looks like we have been away for a while…. we haven’t. I’ve still not started Mario Oddessy, Hal is still yet to face Ganon. Also, someone mentioned there was a cowboy game coming out soon, but it was only available on consoles so I won’t be playing that any time soon so get ready for some updates! We’re really excited to be able to have output again :)