On the 16th of January players will return to an abandoned Earth to challenge each other on a journey full of monsters and massive weaponry. Unleash establishes the player as a competitor in a life and death galactic tournament where the goals are to build up defenses for your base and to spawn hordes of abominable monsters to attack and destroy everything in their way through the enemies’ bases.

  The game’s character arises from its ability to gracefully combine the gameplay of classic tower defense with competitive, thrilling, and intense combat. Furthermore, Unleash facilitates epic scale brawls between eight contestants, creating a unique approach towards the tower defense genre and more importantly, a unique experience for the player. In the early access stage players will encounter at least two distinct game modes : Classic Tower Defense and Line Tower Wars. Classic Tower Defense offers a nostalgic true-to-the-genre experience, while Line Tower Wars immerses you in an aggressively competitive free-for-all atmosphere.

  Published and developed by DeSync Studios, Unleash redefines the tower defense experience for both seasoned players as well as newcomers. The game seeks to revitalize the core mechanic of Warcraft 3’s and Starcraft’s custom mod called Line Tower Wars. We envision Unleash to stand as the spiritual successor to those community driven games. We plan to give the players the freedom to contribute to the longevity of the genre through in-game editors.

  The title is published and developed by DeSync Studios. For the latest updates and information, check out Unleash on Steam and our website, or follow Unleash on Twitter, Facebook, Twitch and on Imgur. Unleash is scheduled to release on the 16th of January 2018, for Steam Early Access on PC. For additional information and questions, contact us at info@unleashgame.com or join our Discord channel.

  DeSync Studios are a group of young and passionate indie developers, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. People of vastly different backgrounds have joined together to pursue a common dream. Unleash takes an established genre and evolves it into a captivating experience full of surprises, running at a tooth-grinding intensity which will require players to make split-second strategic decisions. They will have to manage actively between reinforcing their defensive capabilities and besieging the enemy.



© 2017 DeSync Studios. Developed by DeSync Studios. Published by DeSync Studios. Unleash and the Unleash logo are trademarks of DeSync Studios. All rights reserved.

(Showcase of the current state of the game)

Hi and welcome to the tenth development blog for Unleash!

The game has seen a myriad of bug fixes during the week, as well as three game updates - including the one today. A lot of our work this week has been on preparing the game graphically for the launch trailer, which we have started working on as well. We need a new and better launch trailer before we release the game in Early Access. Some of the graphical refinements include new models for the Teleporter Tower and an animated audience present on the stands.

Our old gameplay trailer has become very outdated, as it is based on the old UI and the old lighting model, with no image effects on the camera yet. Thus, the game looks quite differently today than it did at the time of recording our first gameplay trailer. Therefore, we must have a new launch trailer in place before releasing in Early Access, so that we can show players exactly how the game looks and what state it is in.


(A very early test made with Cinemachine and Timeline to prepare for actual work on the Launch Trailer.)

The launch trailer is meant to show in-game footage captured in the game engine, but in a more cinematic way than the first gameplay trailer did. The idea is to show the game from an empty arena to a final state with huge bases and massive monsters. The camera is not restricted to normal gameplay and can for an example move in between towers and monsters, showing the game from their point of view.

Scoreboards have been upgraded with nicer, more consistent UI, and a much nicer list view for selection of TD scenario. Additionally, scoreboards are now available for all TD scenarios and for the Line Tower Wars game mode. Together with the ‘game overview’ screen received after completing a match, it is possible to view the relevant scoreboard for the played game. Thus, ranking is now fully implemented for Unleash in its current state, although we are still considering how to structure Line Wars scoring practically for the future.


(Scoreboards are now accessible in-game through the overview screen after completing a match.)

The Teleporter Tower now has new, unique 3D models for each tier, where it previously only had one model that was scaled across tiers. Thus, each upgrade level for the tower can now be distinctly recognized and there is a clear progression in the way that the models are made. They use the same particle systems, which should help with a sense of connectedness. This also means that all towers have unique models for each upgrade level as of today’s update.


(New Teleporter Tower Tier 2 and Tier 3 models in action.)

We have been working on the map design for weeks. This week we reached the point where we could release the first version of an audience or crowd with our own custom 3D model and animations. While they are still lacking sound and more variety, this first implementation shows the concept at work and helps reinforce the idea that the battle takes place within an arena of sorts.


(First version of a crowd/audience cheering the battle on.)

As mentioned a myriad of bug fixes were implemented during the week, including but not limited to: A range of fixes for the Classic TD game mode means that the game mode is finally fully playable in multiplayer with the new UI. Stats recording was also fixed, enabling scoreboards for Line Tower Wars game mode. Additionally, all button icons are now stored with high quality compression to avoid an unacceptable loss of quality in-game.

This week saw a lot of stability improvements, bug fixes and small upgrades. The larger theme is preparation for Early Access release, which includes preparations and testing ahead of a launch trailer. Additionally, scoreboards are now pretty much fully implemented, bringing ranking to all relevant game modes in Unleash.

We play Unleash every week, and you can join us for our play sessions. Next one is Tuesday the 1st of December at 17:00 / 5 PM (CET). Join us online for a multiplayer Unleash match!

If you want to see how we play, but cannot join the play session, you can watch gameplay videos without commentary through our Twitch profile. We live stream almost every session.

And remember… Monsters never come alone.

Additions:

• New Teleporter Tower icons that match the model better, especially with the addition of new Teleporter Tier 2 and Teleporter Tier 3 models.
  
• Scoreboard is now available in-game for Classic TD and Line Tower Wars game modes.

Changes:

• New models for the arena stands, which reduces the amount of crowd / audience on the stands - for better performance.
  
• Monster spawn VFX is now player colored.
  
• Increased wall-smashing damage of Bumblebeast tiers 2-4.
  
• Reduced the effectiveness of the diesel tower's burn-over-time effect.
  
• Reviewed and standardized the size of all monsters across all tiers for more consistent sizing.
  
• Scoreboards UI has been reviewed, tested and improved; Including a nice list view for TD scenarios.
  
• All TD scenarios now have a fixed random seed, which should give more similar replayability.
  
• Temporarily removed the "Tutorial" button, since the tutorial is completely broken after the UI overhaul.

Bug Fixes:

• Removed the background terrain again since it decreased performance too much.
  
• Fixed Cracklecloud dot color to match its locality (air).
  
• All button icons for structures and creatures are now compressed to high quality, preserving a better look.
  
• Public/Private game state only available to the host/master client.
  
• All players in multiplayer TD receives the game end screen now.
  
• "Show all structures" button is not needed for TD scenarios and has thus been removed from the TD game mode.

Additions:

• New models for the Teleporter Tower's Tiers 2 and 3.
  
• Scoreboard for Line Tower Wars game mode implemented (score is only recorded if game has more than one human player).
  
• New terrain added as background behind and beyond the lanes.

Changes:

• New model for the 'cheering crowd' which is more in line with the game.
  
• All new spawn particle system VFX, showing a 'portal' rather than just a light effect.

Bug Fixes:

• Multiplayer TD can now be joined via Play Now without being told the scenario does not exist.
  
• Fixed critical bug that broke the UI sometimes.
  
• Fixed stats recording.

Additions:

• Added the first version of a 'crowd' standing and cheering on the stands.
  
• Leaderboards for Classic TD.

Changes:

• New in-game UI is in place for the most part.
  
• A number of updates to networking and the lockstep system.

Bug Fixes:

• Multiplayer Classic TD actually works now.

(Small animated gif to showcase the general current state of the game)

Hi and welcome to the ninth development blog for Unleash!

The new UI, previously mentioned multiple times, is finally nearing completion. Additionally, we are working on finally bringing leaderboards into the game visually.

We have implemented the bulk of the in-game UI, and are now in the process of testing it. It needs to be thoroughly tested over some duration of time to ensure that there are no breaking changes. The new UI is vastly different from the old UI in look and feel, even though the functionality has generally stayed the same. There are still a number of fixes and tweaks needed, before the new UI is ready for public release. However, having it implemented in the game means that it is testable, so this is a major step for the game.


(The pool menu UI for all monsters.)

With this new UI, we can easily show more monsters than we could previously. Additionally, the floating elements without backgrounds means that the background is partially visible behind the buttons.


(The pool menu UI for all structures.)

The structure pool menu is functionally and visually as close to the monster pool menu as possible, in order to have consistency in the UI look and feel. The red buttons are tinted due to me not being able to afford the structure at the time I took the screenshot.


(The game state UI showing your own resources, as well as the resources of your assailant and target.)

The state of the game - your own resources, life, spawned monster count and the countdown till next income - is now grouped together with the bulk of the UI in the bottom of the screen, and the amount of colors in it has been reduced.


(The new minimap UI.)

The minimap is so far still pretty much the same. It has been given a colored border. Eventually we will probably have some background texture for the minimap to make it more interesting.

Leaderboards (ranking) is also a feature that has been underway for a while. Since the new UI is settling in, the time has come for implementing the visual representation of leaderboards. The first step for leaderboards will be limited to the Classic TD game mode. Each TD scenario has its own leaderboard, and we are thinking to show the leaderboards through their own menu point in the menus, as well as when a TD scenario game ends. The functionality for the leaderboards is more or less finalized, but the UI is still very much in progress.


(Work in progress for leaderboard UI.)

UI, UI and even more UI. We are working hard to finish up the implementation of new in-game UI and leaderboards UI. We have reached the point of being able to test the new UI internally, so a public release is not far away.

We play Unleash every week, and you can join us for our play sessions. Next one is Tuesday the 28th of November at 17:00 / 5 PM (CET). Join us online for a multiplayer Unleash match!

If you want to see how we play, but cannot join the play session, you can watch gameplay videos without commentary through our Twitch profile. We live stream almost every session.

And remember… Monsters never come alone.

(Small animated gif to showcase the general current state of the game)


Hi and welcome to the eighth development blog for Unleash!

The past week has been focused on two main areas: new map design and new UI. While the new map design is already partly released - there is still more to come in this regard - the UI is still very much in progress and may still be some time away from a public release. Additionally, the Teleporter tower has received some much needed visual effects.

As mentioned in the previous development blog for Week 7, we have been working on a new map design for a few weeks. Finally the first iteration of the new map design has been released today. It features the ‘arena’ or ‘stadium’ inspired look, mixed with a fantasy / sci-fi setting. The spawn gates, for example, can appear somewhat futuristic. The new map design boxes the playable lane in much more and shows more clearly the extents of the buildable lane.


(The new map design from end-to-end.)

The first iteration on the new UI design has been completed, and is now in the process of being implemented into the game. The new UI features are much more sleek, minimalistic and modern look, with simple buttons, rounded corners and floating elements. Additionally, most of the UI is shown at the bottom of the screen, so as to minimize the distance that your eyes need to travel to get an overview of the game state. We are hoping that the new UI will solve or at least alleviate some of the challenges associated with being a new Unleash player, which can for some be a daunting and overwhelming experience.


(Comparison of the new UI (top) and the old UI (bottom))

The ‘Teleporter’ tower has been in the game for a while now, but it has been lacking a very clear indication of whether it is charged and ready to fire or still under cooldown. Additionally, it was using the same ‘lightning bolt’ effect that other towers use, only in a different color. Now, finally, it has been given its own dedicated trail effect when firing, as well as a visual effect that only shows when the tower is ready to teleport a monster.


(The teleporter tower with its VFX.)

We are currently working on a new iteration for the ‘Grumperjumper’ monster, based on new concept art. Its functionality will stay the same, but the model will be more monstrous to look at. The concept art is done, and the monster is currently being modelled and animated in Maya.


(New ‘Grumperjumper’ concept art and 3D model - work in progress.)

New map design, new UI and many small additions, bug fixes and improvements - such as the addition of visual effects for the Teleporter tower, were implemented or worked on during this week.

We play Unleash every week, and you can join us for our play sessions. Next one is Tuesday the 21st of November at 17:00 / 5 PM (CET). Join us online for a multiplayer Unleash match!

If you want to see how we play, but cannot join the play session, you can watch gameplay videos without commentary through our Twitch profile. We live stream almost every session.

And remember… Monsters never come alone.

Additions:

• New lane/map "gate" with visual effects showing where monsters spawn and where the player's "life shield" is. Thus, removed the old "pipes" system.
  
• New lane/map "separators" (before, between and after individual lanes) based on the idea of a tournament arena.
  
• Teleporter tower has a visual effect playing when it is "charged" and ready to teleport a monster. Also a trail particle has replaced the previous 'lightning bolt' used.
  
• Flak 88 has new Impact VFX.

Changes:

• New Razorlegs Tier 4 model with special animations for climbing and descending structures, as it runs directly towards the goal.
  
• Minor balancing tweaks for: Teleporter, Gloomglider, Barfblob, Razorlegs Tier 4, Snowripper and Magmaback.
  
• With the new map design which no longer utilizes Tesselation, we can reduce the DirectX requirement to 9.0c (Shader Model 3.0).
  
• Monsters have only 1 row they may spawn on, and that row is narrowed in by one cell. This is to make it look better with the new spawn gate.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug with a missing material for Boombelly's death VFX.
  
• Skyhook, Tesla Coil, Lightning Tower AA and Teleporter target creatures' center with their hook and lightning bolts, rather than at the base of creatures.
  
• Skyhook's harpoon is hidden while hooking a creature.
  
• Minor performance improvement for Crackleclouds.

(Small animated gif to showcase the general current state of the game)

Hi and welcome to the seventh development blog for Unleash!

This week has mainly revolved around more polishing and basically making ready for the public Early Access release. To this end, we are working on the map design, resolving outstanding networking issues and doing small general tweaks and visual improvements.

The new map design includes new “lane separators” - to visually separate the lanes of individual players. This replaces the “mountain range” that we have previously had, with ‘tournament stands’ inspired by sports and gladiator- stadiums. Eventually we will investigate whether we can GPU simulate a crowd of people on the stands, accompanied by the sounds of a cheering or booing crowd, depending on the player’s performance. We will also want a system to support variance in the stands, as currently it is the same model and textures being tiled.


(Shows the new separators - inspired by stadium ‘stands’. Also teases the new gate with a pulsating, animated emission color. This is still a work in progress.)

Additionally, the new map design includes new spawn and lifeshield ‘gates’ - where monsters emerge from and enter into. The new ‘gates’ are meant to look like a sci-fi inspired teleportation gate. Currently, it is missing a particle system-based VFX resembling a type of ‘force field wall’ between the gate pillars, but that will be implemented in some form before releasing this update. The assailant’s player color is shown in the spawn gate, so the gate’s color indicates which player spawns against you. The life shield’s color is your own player color.


(The new gates with pulsating, animated emission color. We are still using the old pipes, although to a less extent. This may change though. This is still a work in progress.)

The final advantage gained from this new map design is that we can reduce the DirectX requirement to version 9.0c - Shader Model 3.0. The old map design’s separators - the ‘mountain range’ - was generated at runtime through GPU tessellation, which required at least DirectX 11 - Shader Model 4.0. Thus, any players who may have previously seen the map as a great big red smudge, should now see the correct rendering - assuming they have a graphics card that isn’t very old.

We are using a third party software to power our deterministic, lockstep-based networking model. Through close collaboration with them and many iterations we have been working to improve the stability of the network and avoid as many fallouts as possible. A part of this has been focused on updating our implementation in the game to the newest provided version of the library, which has been done this week. Thus, our internal tests indicate that the networking stability of the game is reaching a satisfactory level.

Certain towers utilize a ‘lightning bolt’ VFX or similar for their targeting / shooting. Previously, they would generally hit at the base of monsters. Now instead they will target the center of monsters, which visually makes more sense and looks more correct. This is especially visible in the case of certain flying monsters versus Skyhook towers. The center of the monster’s collider is now used as the targeting point, instead of the base of the model.


(Monsters are targeted at the center of their model, rather than at the base of it as previously.)

Polishing and map design were the main points for this week. Some networking issues were resolved, lots of bugs were fixed and the new map design should make for a more aesthetically pleasing map, in addition to reducing the DirectX requirement to play the game.

We play Unleash every week, and you can join us for our play sessions. Next one is Tuesday the 14th of November at 17:00 / 5 PM (CET). Join us online for a multiplayer Unleash match!

If you want to see how we play, but cannot join the play session, you can watch gameplay videos without commentary through our Twitch profile. We live stream almost every session, although it has been a few weeks since last, we plan to stream again - starting with this next session.

If you haven’t already, get your free Unleash beta Steam key through our website. The free open beta will run for a limited time period, so use the chance to try it out now for free with your friends!

And remember… Monsters never come alone.

(Small animated gif to showcase the general current state of the game)

Hi and welcome to the sixth development blog for Unleash!

This week has been focused on bug fixing and improving the stability of the game. The two main areas for bug fixing were networking, as we are in the process of updating our networking libraries, and the AI desynchronization issue that we have been aware of for a few weeks, but only now have had the time and opportunity to look into seriously. While bug fixing may not be particularly “sexy” to write or read about, it is of paramount importance for games so that the game runs with as few technical issues as possible. We are however also working on new graphical content, including a new fully upgraded Razorlegs model, new level design and leaderboards.

Desynchronization issues in a deterministic game are generally horrible to debug and correct. There are so many things that can go wrong; the slightest floating point error or minor logical fallacy may result in completely desynchronized game states, which obviously breaks the gaming experience, when you and your mate both believe yourself to be the winner. We have known about a desynchronization issue with our AIs for a while, but we didn’t know why or where specifically the issue came from. Today we finally found the issue and luckily it was extremely simple to fix; it turned out to be a particular AI type (Mr. Think) accidentally using the local (human) player’s state, rather than its own. Since local players may have vastly different states (e.g. creature and structure state), this obviously lead to desynchronization. Now that the issue should be resolved, it is safe to play multiple humans vs bots again in Unleash!

We have been working and investigating AIs based on machine learning for some weeks now. The prospects are phenomenal: Truly learning AIs that improve over time as more games are played, constantly learning from each other and real players how to play Unleash and win. However, the road ahead is still long before we see them actually playing any public games. The topic of machine learning AIs is huge and famous implementations include Google’s image recognition and autonomous vehicles, but we don’t know of any “real” (commercially viable) games that actually utilize machine learning, even though we think the prospects in this regard are absolutely fantastic. Hopefully, Unleash can start a new trend with totally awesome, always challenging and evolving AI in games.

We are working on leaderboards currently, using Steamworks functionality to achieve it. The idea is that each Tower Defense scenario will have its own leaderboard, and Line Tower Wars will of course also have one. Leaderboards will keep top 64 or possibly more globally, but we also want to show both your own rank and those immediately around your rank, in addition to your a leaderboard with just your Steam friends. Leaderboards are a part of an attempt at facilitating more competitive gameplay. While the implementation is fairly close to being ready, we don’t have any UI in place to show it yet. Thus, for now this is just a pre-teaser.

Our level design has been a bit of a pain point for us, for a while now. We feel like our levels are too simplistic and ‘bare’, rendering them a bit boring to look at. Therefore we have been discussing and prototyping solutions for level design. We have a few concerns in this regard: Levels should first and foremost be pleasing to look at, without taking away too much attention. The game is already quite colorful through our monsters, towers and visual effects. The level should not steal that attention away. Additionally, the level need to be low-budget on performance, so that they don’t cost too much precious processing power. Finally, it is our hope that we can release a ‘map editor’ eventually, enabling our players to design and create their own custom levels. These requirements obviously pose some interesting challenges that we are attempting to solve through prototyping.


(Screenshot of a work-in-progress for a possible new design of the lane separators)

We are working on a new version of the final evolution of the Razorlegs monster, which visually better reflects its function: Running directly towards the end of the lane at a relatively high speed. To that end, the idea is that it should have very long and spiky legs that can reach the ground, even as it moves above towers and walls. Additionally, we are experimenting with different ways for the animations to behave while the monster is above a structure.


(Current work-in-progress of new Razorlegs Tier 4 animated model)

This week saw a large amount of bug fixing and stability improvements, including a solution to the identified AI desynchronization. Additionally, we are working on new features such as leaderboards, smarter AIs and new levels, which may take several weeks before being ready for release.

We play Unleash every week, and you can join us for our play sessions. Next one is Tuesday the 7th of November at 17:00 / 5 PM (CET). Join us online for a multiplayer Unleash match!

If you want to see how we play, but cannot join the play session, you can watch gameplay videos without commentary through our Twitch profile. We live stream almost every session.

If you haven’t already, get your free Unleash beta Steam key through our website. The free open beta will run for a limited time period, so use the chance to try it out now for free with your friends!

And remember… Monsters never come alone.