Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for September 16th, 2019, detailing all the changes that have happened since September 9th, 2019. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

Johanna continued working on the Shooting Gallery for Arcade.

wheezwer worked on cabinet art for the "Destroy" cabinet, and started working on the art for the "House of the Zombies" cabinet.

madmijk continued working on the gameplay code for "Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano", along with implementing the animations.

Gloves continued working on animations for "Lonely Gun".

Sketchman continued working on achievement icons for the Arcade.

JJosh continued working on new plushies for the Arcade, as well as some props for the Shooting Gallery.

macdguy worked on improving Ring God gameplay, finishing off Newton's Apples, and reworking the physics pickup system to allow for multiple arcade physics items to be held at once (so you can throw 5 rings at once for Ring God).


"Destroy" Cabinet Art WIP



Arcade Plushies and Shooting Gallery Props WIP



macdguy started work on a 2D map of Lobby 3, which will be used in-game for a fast travel system.
Chris continued working on boats for the boat rental system.

2D Plaza Map



Boat Rental Boats WIP



macdguy spent a little time updating the logos on the Tower Unite Steam store page.

Updated Tower Unite Store Page Logos



macdguy finished refactoring the poker UI system, which will allow for non-poker specific card games (such as blackjack); as well as decoupling the betting system to allow for non-card based betting games. Work on endless Texas Hold'em is now complete.

Lifeless continued working on Acrophobia.

Sketchman continued working on fixing the networking issues regarding workshop models.
Caboose700 continued working on the in-house server browser solution.

That about covers everything that happened since September 9th, 2019 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for September 9th, 2019, detailing all the changes that have happened since September 3rd, 2019. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

Johanna continued working on new machines for the Arcade, working on a Maze Spinner game.

wheezwer worked on art for the Shooting Gallery and the "Destroy" arcade cabinet. She also started cleaning up art for "The Offering" cabinet.

madmijk continued working on the gameplay code for "Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano", along with implementing the animations.

Gloves continued working on animations for the arcade, this week working on animations for "Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano" and "Lonely Gun".

Sketch worked on achievement icons for the Arcade.

JJosh continued working on new plushies for the Arcade.

Arcade Achievement Icons WIP




Untitled Maze Spinner Arcade Machine WIP


Arcade Plushies WIP


macdguy continued working on improvements to the Casino. He worked on optimizing the backend code to make it easier to implement other card games, such as Blackjack and Five-card Draw. Five-card Draw gameplay code has been completed.

Lifeless continued working on Acrophobia.

Sketch continued working on bug fixes and optimizations in several areas of Tower Unite. This week he worked on replacing the networking for how player models get sent, in the ongoing quest to fix the workshop model loading issues.

Lifeless worked on fixes for Emission, smoothing out curves and fixing issues with the bridges.

That about covers everything that happened since September 3rd, 2019 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for September 3rd, 2019, detailing all the changes that have happened since August 26th, 2019. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

This weekly dev log was released later than normal, as September 2nd was a national holiday (Labor Day).

Johanna continued working on new machines for the Arcade, last week working on a unnamed game in which a coin is inserted, travels down the chute, goes into a funnel, and lands on a revolving wheel which determines your ticket winnings.

wheezwer worked on the Dragon's Treasure art, a backdrop of Salmon Says, and heavily cleaned up and updated the Little Birde Feeders machine art.

madmijk continued working on the gameplay code for "Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano".

Gloves continued working on animations for the arcade, this week working on animations for "Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano" and "Candy Slam".

Sketch worked on achievement icons for the Arcade.

Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano Endless Mode Gameplay
https://youtu.be/jxe3Pczdca0

Arcade Achievement Icons WIP


Unnamed Coin Drop Arcade Machine WIP





macdguy continued working on improvements to Poker. The improvements to Poker include a new UI, Spectating Support, and the Endless Poker mode. You can now also join and leave the table at anytime. If you join during a game, you get put in waiting for the next hand. And if you leave early, you are considered folded.

The casino multiplayer game base was made more expandable to allow for additional multiplayer casino games such as Blackjack and Roulette.

Although not in any of the media shown, there is also now a separate log of all player actions in poker to refer back to at any point.

New Poker UI / Gameplay WIP
https://youtu.be/3zXLj013fm4

New Poker Spectating System WIP
https://youtu.be/0NSE5q8z1_g

New Poker Spectating Screen WIP

https://youtu.be/h1WbsLV3oWY

Poker Spectating Test
https://youtu.be/AwiHA8gXUIk

Sketch continued working on bug fixes and optimizations in several areas of Tower Unite.

• Added a player mesh manager component to help make model setting code cleaner/more consolidated
  
• Made player mesh manager enforce an ordering to model setting (i.e. last model requested will be set, not the last to finish loading)
  
• Made model switching effect

That about covers everything that happened since August 26th, 2019 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for August 26th, 2019, detailing all the changes that have happened since August 19th, 2019. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

Johanna continued working on new machines for the Arcade.

wheezwer worked on mural art for the Arcade.

Madmijk continued working on the gameplay code for "Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano".

JJosh continued working on new plushies and a Radio for the Arcade.

Gloves continued working on animations for the arcade, this week working on animations for "Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano".

Sketch worked on achievement icons for the Arcade.

Arcade Achievement Icons WIP


Arcade Items WIP




macdguy worked on improvements to Poker, remaking the UI and working on a system for spectating. Work is also being done to include Endless Poker. He also started working on a spectating system, that would allow non-players to view all the cards as they would be if they were in the game. Spectators can only see cards that everyone else can see. They won't have an advantage over players who are in the poker game.

These Poker improvements and fixes are now planned to be released alongside Village.

New Poker UI WIP



Poker Spectating System WIP


Lifeless started working on a remastered version of the Zombie Massacre map, Acrophobia from GMod Tower.

Zombie Massacre: Acrophobia Remaster Very Early WIP


macdguy worked on improving the Jetpack networking logic, as well as adding new Jetpack models such as the GMod Tower Jetpack, a Rocket Jetpack, and a completely invisible Jetpack.

You can now also propel yourself forward with the Jetpack by holding down crouch while in the Jetpack state.

GMod Tower Jetpack WIP


Rocket Jetpack WIP


Gold Jetpack Emissive Fix WIP


Various Jetpack Skins WIP


JJosh worked on an improved ghost model for Little Crusaders. We plan on having additional facial expressions in the future.

Improved Little Crusaders Ghost Model
https://youtu.be/fYaDM4UqoHA

Sketch continued working on bug fixes and optimizations in several areas of Tower Unite, most notable Workshop.

That about covers everything that happened since August 19th, 2019 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for August 12th, 2019, detailing all the changes that have happened since August 5th, 2019. Note: Devs that don’t appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn’t need to be detailed. (sorry for the delay for the Steam post)

Last week, we released the survey results for our July 2019. Over 1,600 Tower Unite players participated in this survey. You can check out the results here.

wheezwer continued working on art for the "Coloracle 2: Whose Hue?", "Ball Bounce", "Dragon’s Treasure", and "Meteoroid Mania!" arcade machines.

madmijk continued working on the gameplay code for "Captain Calypso’s Planetary Piano".

Coloracle 2: Whose Hue? Art WIP



Ball Bounce Art WIP


Meteoroid Mania! Art WIP


Dragon’s Treasure Art WIP



macdguy started working on a brand new scoreboard for Tower Unite, designed to be familiar and as functional as the one from GMod Tower.

Revamped Scoreboard


Sketch continued working on bug fixes and optimizations for several areas of Tower Unite.

• Fixed an issue that caused workshop models to enter an infinitely loading state.
• Fixed a long standing issue that caused Steam inventory consolidation to crash our backend servers.
• Fixed item exchanging not working in certain situations if your items weren’t in separate stacks.
• Fixed a network bug that caused players to not properly load their workshop avatar when initially joining a server.

That about covers everything that happened since August 5th, 2019 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!

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. Workshop player model issues should now be resolved, along with workshop editor importer fix. Developer logs will continue next week.

Changes

• New condo map select UI

Bug Fixes

• Fixed workshop player model loading issues
• Fixed workshop editor importing issues
• Fixed Altitude achievements
• Fixed Altitude lighting being too bright when on lower graphic settings
• Fixed Minigolf - Treasure Cove: Hole 4 camera issue
• Fixed Minigolf - Treasure Cove: Hole 11 not triggering OOB near the end of the hole
• Fixed Minigolf - Alpine: Hole 7 HIO camera angle
• Fixed Minigolf - Alpine: Hole 17 HIO camera angle
• Fixed Minigolf - Alpine: Hole 18 HIO not working
• Fixed Woodlands rocks being small for non-hosts
• Fixed floating door in Theater condo
• Fixed hole in collision on Arcade building
• Fixed invisible water in transit station

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.

Breathe in that naTUre and enjoy the remake of Grassworlds from GMTower, featuring new levels and a brand new song.




Altitude was completely remastered with tons of bug fixes and design changes.
"I did it again hope you like it" - Lifeless


In this update we've also enabled PAK by default. PAK is a compression method that will greatly decrease load times for everyone (HDDs and SSDs).

However, PAK requires downloading the entire game for each update. We recommend users who have metered internet or low bandwidth internet opt out of this PAK version. You can opt out by right clicking on Tower Unite in your Steam library, click on properties and then the betas tab. Select the "lowbandwidth" beta branch via the drop down. The low bandwidth branch will download only the changed files in updates, drastically reducing download amounts - but will also increase load times.

Changes

• New Ball Race race map Woodlands
• Minigolf: Altitude - massive visual overhaul
• PAK is now default, greatly decreasing load times (opt out by switching beta branch to "lowbandwidth")
• Added "next event/minigame" HUD element for Plaza
• Fishing: Increased sea dollar spawn rates
• Fishing: Adjusted very hard difficulty to be more forgiving and less likely to happen
• Balloon Shoot now has combo support
• Virus - Subway: Widened a corridor entrance to allow infected to access an area easier
• Virus - Subway: Added some paneling near the main ticketing area to block a long viewpoint to prevent infected from being sniped off as easily
• Optimized the main menu a ton, should help boot up times (no longer loads in things it shouldn't need to). Also no longer loads the player model unless you are in appearance mode (menu fps speed up)
• Reduced chainsaw volumes
• Sea Dollar now shows up in the collection book

Bug Fixes

• Optimized PAK File: Assets in PAK are now arranged by load order
• Fixed workshop RAM/VRAM leaks
• Fixed various memory leaks
• Optimized more Plaza code
• Fixed collision issues with pool noodles
• Fixed inventory collision issues with fishing rod
• Minigolf - Garden: Fixed hole 4 pipe being too slow
• Minigolf - Garden: Fixed hole 5 HIO not being reliable
• Minigolf - Garden: Fixed hole 12 pipe issues (also added a camera for better viewing)
• Minigolf - Garden: Fixed hole 13 HIO not being possible (or unreliable)
• Minigolf - Garden: Fixed hole 13 out of bounds issue (near the HIO area)
• Minigolf - Treasure Cove: Fixed hole 1 tube being too slow
• Minigolf - Treasure Cove: Fixed hole 4 HIO not being possible (or unreliable)
• Minigolf - Treasure Cove: Fixed hole 5 tube being too slow
• Minigolf - Treasure Cove: Fixed hole 12 HIO not being possible (or unreliable)
• Minigolf - Treasure Cove: Fixed hole 13 left cannon causing out of bounds
• Minigolf - Treasure Cove: Fixed hole 13 HIO not being possible (or unreliable)
• Minigolf - Treasure Cove: Fixed hole 15 HIO not being possible (or unreliable)
• Minigolf - Treasure Cove: Fixed hole 16 not having effects for the barrels being spawned
• Minigolf - Treasure Cove: Fixed barrels on hole 16 being removed too soon
• Minigolf - Emission: Fixed hole 16 laser bridge bouncing balls out of bounds
• Fixed Alpine minigolf leaderboards not loading properly in the collection book
• Virus - Fixed a crash related to adrenaline

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.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for July 22nd, 2019, detailing all the changes that have happened since July 15th, 2019.

Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.


Wheezwer and Johanna continued working on the Arcade Machine art.

Johanna worked on a 4 player arcade cabinet for 2D/3D multiplayer games, along with finishing the new Whack-a-mole cabinets.

Wheezwer worked on artwork for two Whack-a-mole machines, Whack-a-mole and Bug Bytes, and two new arcade posters. She also continued working on the murals for walls of the arcade.

macdguy worked on the logic for Whack-a-mole, Bug Bytes (multiplayer whack-a-mole), and Tornado machines. He also continued improving feedback for Ring God and The Offering (Ball Toss). Work was done on the arcade base, adding multiplayer scoring. He also worked on some fixes for Garden, Treasure Cove, adjusted sea dollar earn rates to be easier, and added Balloon Shoot combo support.

Madmijk continued work on the Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano, creating a solo play mode.

Gloves continued working on animations for Arcade.

Will finished the Woodlands song and continued working on sounds for various arcade machines.

Several machines were worked on this week.

Whack-a-mole & Bug Bytes WIP Artwork




Planetary Piano WIP Gameplay Solo
https://youtu.be/oekMge8HP2w

Whack-a-mole WIP Gameplay
https://youtu.be/uaLThz0U1Qs

Bug Bytes (multiplayer whack-a-mole) WIP Gameplay
https://youtu.be/Vl0fbNUK5ng

The Offering (ball toss) WIP Gameplay
https://youtu.be/z02xDGoFTic

Little Birde Feeders WIP Gameplay
https://youtu.be/-iC3WigBte8

Ring God WIP Gameplay
https://youtu.be/27V4u7TL9a4


Lifeless has been been working on another Accelerate level. This one is one based off our early Kickstarter level we showed off.

Super Early Screenshot



Sketch fixed a typo in the new Tiny Potion ad.




Sketch finished work on the memory leaks and optimizations for now. This week he fixed an audio related leak, various async leaks, and resolved Workshop VRAM issues. All of these fixes are now part of the Woodlands update. He also finished the workshop culling optimizations, which we'll be putting out a patch for soon. And lastly, he fixed issues with related to dev-builds that prevented us from performing certain types of debugging/profiling.

That about covers everything that happened since July 15th, 2019 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for July 15th, 2019, detailing all the changes that have happened since July 8th, 2019. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.


Wheezwer and Johanna continued working on the Arcade Machine art. Signs for Skee Ball, Super Hoopers, Tornado, Salmon Says, and Stack'em were created.

Wheezwer worked on art for the Skee-ball backboard, finished art for Tornado, and started work on art for the "Jar Toss" game, another "Ball Drop" game, and the "Pachinko" machine.

macdguy worked on the logic for Wheel of Fire (90% done), Pluck-a-pal (80% done), Tornado (80% done), and Whack-a-mole (90% done) machines. He also continued working on Ring Toss to make the gameplay better and added effects. He worked on improved LED effects for Skee-ball and Little Birde Feeders. Work was done for the 2D/3D base, creating weapon support (w/ networking). He worked on the overall Arcade base, adding debug visualizations to help with optimizations, remaking the seat/multiplayer system, and overall improvements. He also started working on the gameplay for Lonely Gun 30XX.

Madmijk continued working on the shader and gameplay for Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano.

Gloves continued working on animations for Arcade, working on Stack'em and Skee-ball.

Will continued working on sounds for Skee-ball.

Skee-ball with Updated Backboard and Sign WIP


Super Hoopers Logo and Sign Art WIP


Stack'em Sign Art WIP


Dizzy Sign Art WIP


Tornado Cabinet and Artwork WIP



The Offering Cabinet and Artwork WIP



Unnamed Ball Drop Cabinet Model WIP


Little Birde Feeders Light Animations WIP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwzQS1oMCvs

Skee-ball Light Animations WIP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D6itG1SZ88

Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano Gameplay Demo WIP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3UvBvR2fFA

Arcade Shooter Demos WIP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb2jW9AszMw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ty_oEcK5d8

Pluck-a-pal Crane Machine Physics Demo WIP


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3JIrf7JF5o

Wheel of Fire Gameplay WIP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YZ4iO3jqyE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El-u-utzlQY

Tornado Gameplay WIP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0alvcShJ5us

Whack-a-mole Gameplay WIP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE7GImIuAto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBXUi3YZDjI

Salmon Says Logo Artwork WIP


RC Tank Item WIP



Lifeless made some slight changes to a couple hallways in Subway, to make them less campable.

Virus: Subway Hallway Changes WIP


JJosh continued working on new Plaza Transportation Items, such as the Skateboard and Three Wheeled Trike.

Plaza Transportation Items WIP


Sketch worked on updated Plaza Banner Art, such as The Stray advertisements.

Updated Plaza Art WIP




Sketch continued looking into the memory leaks and optimizations. This week he implemented Axis Aligned Bounding Box calculations for Workshop Item meshes, which will be very useful for culling and performance optimizations.

Workshop Item Bounding Boxes WIP


That about covers everything that happened since July 8th, 2019 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for July 8th, 2019, detailing all the changes that have happened since July 1st, 2019. Note: Devs that don’t appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn’t need to be detailed.

Last week we released the Summer Update, which introduced two new minigames Chainsaw Deathmatch and Booze Bash, along with a bunch of new pool tubes and other summer accessories. You can read all about the update here.

A couple months ago, we introduced another version of Tower Unite which used PAK files to contain all of the game data. When using the PAK method, loading times are dramatically reduced.

During our testing, before the PAK version, it would take our Hard Drive test computer 2 minutes and 45 seconds to load into the Plaza. With the PAK version, it takes only 24 seconds. This speed increase is also found on SSDs, going from 43 seconds to only 7 seconds. You can read more about our testing in the original thread.

One of the downsides with the PAK version, is that while the files are compressed which helps loading times, this compression results in having to download the entire game (around 8GB) every time there is a new update to Tower Unite.

This week, we’ve decided we’re going to be making the PAK version the default version of the game. However, we do recognize that there are many players out there with slow or heavily capped internet connections. For this reason, there will be a new “lowbandwidth” branch of Tower Unite, which when selected, will revert to how the game is currently packaged. This will save on your internet bandwidth, but you won’t get any of the speed improvements.

We’ll make another announcement when the “lowbandwidth” branch is released, so that people have time to switch over before we make the PAK default live in our next update.

TL;DR: We will be swapping the PAK version from opt-in to opt-out. There will be a new branch that you can opt-into if you have slower or metered internet. The branch is currently available called “lowbandwidth”, so you can opt-into it now before the next update.

We’re still holding a short survey for feedback about the game until the 26th of July. Your input really matters, so if you have a chance you can fill out the survey here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xRONXJWae6DEuqDNmjZ8sAAs4IJN_9srGqcW1pqTwvQ/viewform?edit_requested=true

So far we’ve had over 1,200 responses, making this our most popular survey by far.

Wheezwer and Johanna continued working on the Arcade Machine art. Work was completed on the Lonely Gun 30XX and Captain Calypso’s Planetary Piano machines. Work began on another “Ball Drop” arcade machine.

Wheezwer worked on Mural Art for the Prize Redemption areas, along with a logo for the WarpZone arcade and posters.

macdguy worked on the logic for the Pluck-a-pal Claw Machine, Ball Toss Fish Bowl, Wheel of Fire, and also improved networking events for scoring so there is no effect/sound delays for the player who is playing the arcade machines.

Madmijk continued working on the shader for the Captain Calypso’s Planetary Piano machine.

Claw Machine Logic WIP
https://youtu.be/px9Rrmi-S4w

Prize Redemption Mural WIP


Lonely Gun 30XX Cabinet Artwork WIP


Captain Calypso’s Planetary Piano Cabinet Artwork WIP


Captain Calypso’s Planetary Piano Cabinet Shader WIP
https://youtu.be/7y2CKoJiCw4

"Ball Drop" Arcade Machine Cabinet WIP


Arcade Mural WIP


Arcade 4K Screenshot

4K Version

WarpZone Logo WIP


Arcade Poster WIP


Chris continued working on karts for Accelerate.

Accelerate Karts Untextured WIP


Accelerate Karts Textured WIP


Accelerate Karts Closeup WIP





Josh started working on a Drivable Scooter for the Plaza as part of a set of transportation items.

Drivable Scooter WIP


Sketch continued looking into the workshop memory leaks and optimizations.

That about covers everything that happened since July 1st, 2019 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!