This is our first Easter themed event, so we hope you enjoy these little games. This update also includes a Plane War minigame which will run in normal non-event rotation from now on.


We have more news with the release of this update. We've conducted some research into the PAK format which Unreal Engine allows us to package our game in. In conducting this research, we've found that PAK files can significantly reduce the loading times of the game, with some drawbacks we’ll detail below.

We tested how long it takes to load into the Plaza from the Main Menu. The test was conducted on a Intel Core i7-5820K, with a Intel 750 Series 400GB PCI-E SSD and a Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 7200 RPM HDD. Of course, keep in mind that your results may vary from our tests.

• Hard Drive with PAK File: 24 seconds to load into the plaza.
• Hard Drive without PAK File: 2 minutes 45 seconds to load into the plaza.
• SSD with PAK File: 7 seconds to load into the plaza.
• SSD without PAK File: 43 seconds to load into the plaza.

There are some drawbacks to using the PAK file however, which is why this will be available via an opt-in process.

• Due to how the PAK file is generated, any change to the game will require a full re-download of Tower Unite.So for example, if we push out a small patch that only changes 25MB, the non-PAK users will only have to download the 25 MB that changed, while the PAK file users will have to download 9.8 GB.
• The PAK file is compressed, which helps reduce the amount of data that is required to be loaded, but comes with a small CPU overhead, which we weren't able to measure, but it could be an issue if the computer is lower powered.
• As the build times are slightly longer, when an update is released, there might be a small delay in when the PAK version of the game will be pushed out.

If this sounds fine to you, here's how you can participate. In your library, right click Tower Unite, and click Properties. Then, click the BETAS tab and select defaultpak. This will start downloading the PAK version of Tower Unite.

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Changes

• Added new Easter themed items (available in the easter egg hunt event): Bunny Ears, Catsack Bunny, Plush Rabbit, Basket, Throwable Eggs
• New Easter Egg Hunt event
• New minigame: Easter Egg Fall
• New minigame: Plane War
• Improved Fruit Frenzy minigame
• Removed trampoline from Fruit Frenzy and instead added increased jump height for all players in the minigame
• Fruit Frenzy now gives all players an air dash item that allows players to dash through the air
• Minigame HUD now shows who killed you last
• Minigame HUD now has kill feed

Bug Fixes

• Fixed workshop player models sometimes not loading in!!!
• Fixed Adrenaline milestone not working after first use

You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap



You can follow our weekly developer logs here:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

You can report bugs on our forums:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report

Or you may also report bugs on our Steam community, but please expect slow response time.

This update addresses several issues that were recently reported.

Changes

• Ball Race: Event Horizon - Changed some death walls to not punish shortcutters as much (Mostly in Levels 1,3,11)
• Ball Race: Event Horizon - Changed an accidental WAY too good shortcut on Level 12, it will still be possible, but much more difficult
• Plaza: Detail pass for Rob's Imports

Bug Fixes

• Ball Race: Event Horizon - Fixed Death walls overlapping platforms on Level 14
• Ball Race: Event Horizon - Reduced chance of flying through the finish line without actually finishing on Level 13
• Minigolf: Alpine - Fixed hole 18 missing ice material
• ZM: Fixed a bug where the camera wouldn't always switch off the upgrades camera during a boss battle
• Fixed teleporters not teleporting RC vehicles or orbs properly sometimes
• Fixed Dampe achievement issues
• Fixed achievement: Laser Tag Master
• Fixed minigames not loading teleport arenas (snowball battle fix)
• Fixed RC dragon inventory collision issues
• Fixed RC helicopter player name position
• Fixed RC plane controls being inverted (also added plane sound effects)
• Fixed RC plane turning issues when turning and going down at the same time
• Fixed RC vehicles bleeding
• Fixed ferris wheel carriages popping off sometimes
• Optimized teleporter items
• Optimized RC dragon, RC orb, and orb milestones
• Fixed an exploit with minigames

You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

You can follow our weekly developer logs here:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

You can report bugs on our forums:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report

Or you may also report bugs on our Steam community, but please expect slow response time.

Major Changes

• Added new Ball Race map - Event Horizon!
• Plaza: New Bait Shop & Boat Rental (for the upcoming fishing update)
• Plaza: Added detail to Fresh store (part 1)
• Plaza: Added new upgrades store window displays
• Plaza: Added private theater entrance area (for upcoming private theater feature)

Changes

• Plaza: Moved the boat launch building over to give the new bait shop & boat rental building more space
• Plaza: Cleaned up the railings around the boardwalk
• Plaza: Added more night lighting around boardwalk
• Updated the targets in Target Practice to be visible during night time better (they no longer appear dark at all). Also updated the effects for the special targets
• Added target lifetime indicators to Target Practice so you can tell when a target is about to remove itself
• Updated the lighting in Minigolf - Forest to look much better
• Updated leaderboard scoreboards screens in Plaza to show top 10 instead of just top 5
• NPC item no longer shows prompt for talking to them if they have no dialogue lines at all
• NPC item no longer shows leave dialogue if there is no dialogue lines
• NPC item no longer shows talk button if there is no dialogue lines
• Collection book now remembers the last scroll bar position after you've closed it and reopened it
• Improved the look of the diamond golf ball
• Updated engine sounds for RC golf cart
• Added a setting to enable dynamic weapon scopes (like the crossbow) for better performance
• Added a gameplay reset option to reset all plaza trackers (plushies, info markers, and camera spots)
• Updated diamond jetpack trail
• Reduced the scale of the RC car

Bug Fixes

• Plaza: Added collision to the plaza road's trim so players can no longer fall through it when using the tiny potion
• Plaza: Reduced texture data from ~760MB to ~740MB which will very slightly improve load times (ongoing process)
• Plaza: Added collision to a metal wall behind the tower that did not have collision
• Plaza: Fixed a gap in the escalators
• Fixed a bug leading to plaza minigame payouts not always working
• Minigolf - Sweet Tooth: Fixed the tubes getting players stuck by redoing them entirely
• Minigolf - Altitude: Fixed Hole 18 being the absolute worst
• Ball Race - Khromidro: Reduced the chance of falling through the finish circles without actually finishing
• Ball Race - Summit: Fixed various different areas where you could get stuck
• Virus - Hospital: Fixed an issue where you couldn't infect players in certain areas
• Virus: Fixed workshop models sometimes loading in after the virus player model is set, causing infected players sometimes not being the infected model
• Fixed a couple exploits with vote kicking
• Fixed a couple exploits regarding upgrade items
• Fixed Throwable Popcorn and Camera weapon shadows drawing when they shouldn't be
• Fixed Casino anti-macro check breaking equipables when it failed to verify
• Fixed first person legs causing players to be headless while using RC vehicles
• Fixed monster potion creating lag and preventing switching monsters after doing the attack animation
• Fixed achievement: Ribs Grow Back You Know
• Fixed achievement: Big Bucks
• Fixed achievement: Casino Addict
• ZM: Optimized boss intros
• ZM: Optimized monster materials and textures

You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

You can follow our weekly developer logs here:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

You can report bugs on our forums:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report

Or you may also report bugs on our Steam community, but please expect slow response time.

This update addresses several issues that were recently reported.

Changes

• Little Crusaders: Disabled bhopping
• Little Crusaders: Updated dragon bite to account for knights that are above the dragon
• Virus - Overtime: Added an extra route up to a known camping spot
• ZM: Increased blade rotation rate for blade trap level 4

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug leading to plaza minigame payouts not always working
• Fixed join player messages not always showing the player names
• ZM: Fixed helicopter decal missing material issue
• ZM: Fixed player rotation in Gasoline being offset
• Little Crusaders: Fixed dead knights blocking bites sometimes
• Little Crusaders: Fixed being able to tailwhip dead knights
• Little Crusaders: Fixed bird not flying away when bitten
• Little Crusaders - Toy Room: Fixed a camping spot
• Little Crusaders - Market: Fixed a couple camping spots
• Highrise: Fixed weird dark shadows and updated lighting

You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap


You can follow our weekly developer logs here:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

You can report bugs on our forums:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report

Or you may also report bugs on our Steam community, but please expect slow response time.

This update addresses several issues that were reported. All unit transactions have been moved to the new backend which should make everything a lot more stable now.

We've reworked the payout system to use the new backend, ensuring you'll be getting payouts for all games properly from now on.

This change also should see faster connections to the new backend.

With this change we also reduced store transaction errors and made the store transactions better by using the new backend.

You can also sell multiple of an item thanks to this new backend from your inventory directly in the game. A feature many of you have requested for a long time now!

Changes

• New payout system
• New store buy and sell system
• Added the ability to sell up to 10 of an item at a time
• Optimized start up load time
• Updated client system to handle backend downtime better (queuing up achievements and exp so you'll never lose track of them when the backend goes down)
• Ball Race: Added golden melon HUD element so you can better track which ones you've gotten
• Updated Housewarming achievement description to be more descriptive
• Updated Human Blur achievement description to be more descriptive
• Updated "I Can See My House From Here" achievement description
• Added RC controller icon for remote controller items (such as RC orb) to avoid icon confusion
• Added display types for achievements that have seconds or meters
• Increased EXP earn rate for Typing Derby and Trivia
• Added ability to jump with RC orb milestone
• Added new effects for Gold and Diamond jetpacks

Bug Fixes

• Fixed lag related to displaying server lists
• Fixed first person legs breaking when holding a weapon
• Fixed Minigolf par achievements (like actually this time)
• Fixed achievement: Around The World
• Fixed achievement: Socialite
• Fixed achievement: It's a Party
• Fixed achievement: Get Together
• Fixed achievement: Movie Night
• Fixed achievement: Count of Amphitheatre
• Fixed achievement: Amphitheatre Beast
• Fixed achievement: Long Putt
• Fixed achievement: Long Drive
• Fixed achievement: Trivia Brainiac
• Fixed achievement: Long Shot
• Fixed achievement: Fields of Green
• Fixed achievement: Weird Science
• Fixed achievement: Homerun
• Fixed achievement: Ribs Grow Back You Know
• Fixed achievement: Wheel of Nothing
• Fixed achievement: Drop And Roll
• Fixed achievement: Kingpin
• Fixed achievement: Smarty Pants being the incorrect amount
• Fixed achievement: Trivia Show Off
• Fixed being able to sell Sonic Shotgun milestone
• Fixed TNT milestone issues
• Fixed Ball Race orb milestone jump not working in Plaza
• Fixed Galaxy Orb textures missing when broken
• Fixed Galaxy Orb missing icon on Steam
• Fixed laser tag symbol milestone taking input away from reload
• Fixed Zombie Massacre trophies missing collision
• Fixed Plasma Autorifle milestone ammo issues
• Fixed Typing Derby HUD "ending typing derby" element colliding with EXP HUD element
• Fixed Bowling Ball Rack duplicating itself when moving it

You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

You can follow our weekly developer logs here:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

You can report bugs on our forums:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report

Or you may also report bugs on our Steam community, but please expect slow response time.

This update addresses several issues that were reported, including many of the crashes people have been reporting.

In this patch we focused on fixing several of the crashes related to achievements.

Changes

• Plaza: Adjusted trees' leaf color to be a bit more green and less yellow, and slightly more colorful
• Plaza: Subtly warmed the lighting in the outdoor areas of the plaza (less "blue tint")
• Plaza: Added night lighting around the plaza
• Plaza: Converted the event-Tower Lobby doorway to an open-air design
• Plaza: Changed the plaza roads on either side of the gameports building to follow the buildings more elegantly

Bug Fixes

• Fixed additional crashes related to achievements/EXP
• Fixed Trivia join issues when joining from a game invite
• Fixed player ghosts displaying in Bowling
• Added a spawn point for Birb milestone and also fixed the Birb not removing when you remove the item
• Fixed coming soon leaderboards not being that great looking UI wise
• Updated gold melon collect description text to be more informative
• Fixed 9MM milestone not having a world model and also running out of ammo
• Fixed RC plane remote model issues
• Fixed gold melons for Khromidro being out of order
• Fixed achievement: Stuffed Discovery
• Fixed achievement: Explorer
• Fixed achievement: Photographer
• Fixed achievement: Housewarming
• Fixed achievement: Natural Jackpot
• Fixed achievement: Pianist
• Fixed achievement: Drumm
• Fixed achievement: You Are Dead
• Fixed achievement: Drunken Afterlife
• Fixed achievement: Socialite
• Fixed achievement: Float Denier
• Fixed achievement: Wordsmith
• Fixed achievement: Gone In 60 Seconds
• Fixed achievement: Derby Winner
• Fixed Survived [insert Virus map] achievements being the incorrect amount
• Fixed achievement: Taunting Death
• Fixed achievement: Casino Addict
• Fixed achievement: Overdose
• Fixed achievement: Druggie
• Fixed Master of [insert Ball Race map] achievements
• Fixed achievement: Count of Amphitheatre
• Fixed achievement: Amphitheatre Beast
• Fixed finished achievements showing the wrong percent sometimes
• Fixed achievement: Ultimate Devourer
• Fixed achievement: Quick Draw
• Fixed achievement: Dodge This
• Fixed achievement: Long Putt
• Fixed achievement: Long Drive
• Fixed achievement: Speedster
• Fixed achievement: Home Away From Home
• Fixed achievement: Coaster Addict
• Fixed Minigolf par achievements
• Fixed Ball Race leaderboards being off by one level (once again)
• Plaza: Fixed several holes and collision issues
• Plaza: Fixed a viewfinder on the monorail bridge facing the wrong way

You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

You can follow our weekly developer logs here:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

You can report bugs on our forums:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report

Or you may also report bugs on our Steam community, but please expect slow response time.

This update addresses several issues that were reported and brings achievements and EXP back online.

Please keep in mind that the servers are currently being hammered and we're still working on the backend to make it an enjoyable experience. As such, we'd like to let you know a couple things when this patch is out:

• Please wait until you see a green dot in the top right of the pause menu before attempting to collect achievements or EXP. The green dot is right next to the build number.
• When the update first releases, it could take about 10-20 minutes for the systems to be fully functional due to the initial traffic. So please be patient. Again, if you see the green dot, you're connected.
• If you unlock an achievement in-game and it's not unlocked on Steam, please wait about 10-20 seconds until it unlocks. During this time, try not to close your game as it it'll sync your status with Steam automatically. We are working on making this better in the backend.
• We're constantly monitoring the backend and making adjustments to improve stability, but we can only do this while it's live.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. We love you all.


Changes

• Re-enabled achievements and EXP systems

Bug Fixes

• Backend only: Solve achievement connection issues
• Fixed crashes related to achievements
• Fixed player ghosts showing up in Trivia
• Fixed player ghosts showing up in Theater
• Fixed player ghosts showing up in Minigames
• Fixed theater media player bounds
• Fixed being able to walk through a wall in trivia
• Fixed being able to walk through a wall in bowling (shoe rack)
• Fixed achievement: "Ultimate Cape Crusader"
• Fixed achievement: "Eat All the Knights" achievements
• Fixed achievement: "Ultimate Devourer"
• Fixed achievement: "Behind The Scenes"
• Fixed EXP in Little Crusaders
• Fixed "Gold Golf Ball" not being on the milestone list
• Fixed player names colliding with badges in Minigolf scoreboard
• Little Crusaders: Fixed camping spot in Market
• Fixed leaderboards in collection book only listing 5 entries (now lists 50) and also shows your current ranking
• Fixed Ball Race leaderboards being off by one level
• Fixed being able to enter games while in a remote-controlled vehicle from game invites

You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

You can follow our weekly developer logs here:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

You can report bugs on our forums:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report

Or you may also report bugs on our Steam community, but please expect slow response time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6tgL1te1PU

That's right, Lobby 3 is finally here! This is the first phase of Lobby 3. That’s right, while we’re ready to release this phase of Lobby 3, there is much more detail and optimizations in the pipeline for future phases. This is by no means the final version of Lobby 3.



Faster Load Times
The Plaza has been created completely from scratch, which let us spend lots more time optimizing the models and materials, something that was difficult to do with the old Plaza.



Complete Redesigns
Including optimizations, the Plaza has been completely redesigned with a brand new layout, which helps brings all of our plaza activities to the forefront, while cutting down on wasted space.



New Pool Area
Lobby 3 introduces a brand new pool area, complete with a lazy river and the waterslides back from the GMT days.






Achievements
No longer will your accomplishments in Tower Unite be ignored, with achievements, you’ll get a shiny new badge when you perform amazing tasks. There are a total of 348 achievements so far!

Collection Book
The collection book allows you to see all your achievement, badge, milestone, and stat progress all in one convenient place. We'll be using this book more in the future!

EXP & Badges
Level up per game by earning EXP from playing the games or getting achievements. As you level up, you'll earn badges which will display next to your name on the scoreboard for all to see. Each game has dozens of badges to unlock.



Milestones
Once you level up, you'll also be rewarded with milestone items. Milestones are items that are unique to each game and are highly interactive items such as an RC dragon from Little Crusaders or a drivable helicopter from Zombie Massacre. There's over 70 unique milestones to earn.

Leaderboards
In this update we've also added leaderboards. You can view the leaderboards in the Plaza, but also in the collection book. There's quite a few for each game.

Stats
And if that's not enough, we also track tons of various stats in the game now. You can see how many catsacks you've opened, how many steps you've taken, and tons more!


Remote-controlled cars and boats are now available at the Toy Shop. We've also added an RC plane and an RC UFO. You can drive all the remote-controlled vehicles in both Plaza and Condos!

This is one of our largest updates to the game yet! Many of our backend services had to change to make this update possible. As such, please be aware there could be some bugs and some issues. So please report any issues and we'll fix them as soon as possible! Thank you all!



Changes

• New plaza - Lobby 3!
• Completely redesigned all of the plaza
• Optimized the plaza
• Added achievements
• Added milestones
• Added EXP & badges
• Added stats
• Added leaderboards
• Added an option to draw your legs in first person (experimental and still has some issues, but working for the most part)
• Pool tubes now have unique poses while swimming in water
• Added a new store, D.I.Y. which now has all the canvas and building blocks items
• Added Camera item to Electronics store
• Added upgrades menu to appearance, for when upgrades is available. Some milestones use this menu already
• Implemented the internal upgrades system, stores are coming soon as we are still making upgrades

You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

You can follow our weekly developer logs here:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

You can report bugs on our forums:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report

Or you may also report bugs on our Steam community, but please expect slow response time.

This update addresses several issues that were reported. This update was primarily to prepare for the achievement update as it has several backend changes.

You can now vote kick players out of Game World servers. Vote kick requires a 2/3 majority to confirm the kick. You can start a vote kick by clicking on a player's name in the scoreboard and clicking on Request Vote Kick. After that, other players can vote yes or no with F1 and F2 keys.

Changes

• Snow has melted in the Plaza
• Added the ability to vote kick in Game Worlds
• You can now see the name of the player who is hosting a game server from the server browser
• Condo chat now defaults to local chat
• You can now toggle which global chat Plaza regions you'd like to see (default all on)
• Reworked official server list so we can easily add/remove official servers without needing to push out an update
• Updated Minigolf customize UI, now more widescreen than tall
• You can now use the appearance editor in games, but it disables all the tabs except for the upgrades tab
• Added current players / max players to the active server information UI (shows player count on waiting for players and scoreboards)
• Reworked Game World voice system to always work regardless of game states (fixes waiting for players or post game voice not working)
• Reversed wording for disable chat filter and disable chat
• Appearance editor was updated to show more upgrades for each game, in preparation for the upgrades update
• You can now zoom with the crossbow in the Balloon Shoot minigame
• Typing Derby: Pressing space on a incomplete word will no longer wipe all word progress.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed not being able to right click on items that are in your hot bar
• Fixed active server information not actually being accurate (server title should always display now)
• Fixed change log buttons for hotfixes not disabling when switching between each
• Virus: Fixed an exploit
• Virus: Fixed not being able to respawn if you died by your own TNT
• Little Crusaders: Fixed bug with chat not opening if you had it bound to T
• ZM: Fixed helicopter damage particles

You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

You can follow our weekly developer logs here:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

You can report bugs on our forums:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report

Or you may also report bugs on our Steam community, but please expect slow response time.