(Showcase of the current state of the game)

Hi and welcome to the 19th development blog post for Unleash!

In general, the past two weeks have been concentrated on art work, including new 3D models, new visual effects, new UI and more iterations on logo and menu backgrounds. Additionally, the work on improving AI has continued, a whole slew of bugs have been slain and we have started work on the first set of achievements.

The art team has continued working towards achieving the more polished, consistent visual identity that we have been yearning for. To that end, one of the most central and important elements is naturally the logo, which has seen a few more iterations since the previous blog post. The latest iteration of the logo has been made in 3D and is shown in-game, responding to lights and shadows dynamically.


(The latest iteration on the logo: Now in 3D)

The in-game Heads Up Display (HUD) has also seen an overhaul, which makes it more consistent with the new menus and overall look and feel of the game. The functionality of the HUD is not meant to change considerably, merely the skinning of UI elements must match the rest of the game. We are in the process of implementing this new UI as I write this.

(The current design image for in-game HUD)

The repair workshop has received new visual effects to make it come more alive and it has a new ‘impact’ effect for when it is healing other structures.


(New ‘idle’ VFX shown for the workshops)

The ‘Lightning’ effects that we use for the Tesla Coil and Lightning Tower, as well as the Cracklecloud, are also in the process of being updated with new textures and more rendering options. Additionally, the Tesla Coil’s idle VFX can also be seen in the below gif.


(Updated lightning effects for the tesla coil)

The lighting for the game scene, as well as the ground texture and other related settings, have all been tweaked with the goal of making towers and monsters stand out more, and providing a more aesthetically pleasing backdrop for playing.


(The scene has seen its ground texture, lighting and ambient VFX updated)

We are very often tweaking the balancing of monsters and towers that we find to be unbalanced through our internal play tests. Most recently, we have elected to increase the price on the Teleporter tower, as it has proven to be quite powerful. Also, since the addition of loadouts to the game, monsters such as the Gemjuggler - with a limited use-case - has seen no use at all. Therefore, we have decided to increase the income that it grants to match normal monsters, which hopefully increases the incentive to use it.

We have sunk more days into developing and tweaking the AIs, especially our “Mr. Think” (Very Hard) bot AI. Continuing from the work started a couple of weeks ago (see previous dev. blog), the AI bot is now even more sophisticated in its way of constructing defenses. It keeps lists of potential structures that it can built, split into damages types and across both main localities (ground and air), so that it can respond with exactly the needed type of structure depending on its circumstances. Additionally, the AI will pursue income leadership more aggressively and the AI schematics, which make up the layout for the AI’s defenses, have all been tweaked and refined upon.

We are working super hard, as fast as we can, in order to complete the visual improvements, along with a range of other features and improvements that we would like the game to have before release, these include: further AI improvements, continued balancing tweaks and general stability, along with Steam Achievements and much more that we have planned. Additionally, the past two weeks have seen a whole army of (technical) bugs slain in glorious battle.

Get in touch with us through Discord, or any of our other social media channels. You can find all of them through our website. Also, you can watch our internal gameplay sessions over at Twitch.

And remember… Monsters never come alone.

(Showcase of the current state of the game)

Hi and welcome to the 18th development blog post for Unleash!

First off, we have decided to cut down the time we spend on writing this blog so that it is now bi-monthly, rather than weekly. This frees up more time for what we enjoy doing the most: game development!

In the past two weeks we have decided to postpone our Early Access release (more on that below), we have been crunching hard on improving all the graphics for the game, and have had time for a myriad of other improvements, including a considerable improvement of the game’s AI bots.

As mentioned in this announcement, we felt that we needed to postpone our planned Early Access release on the 6th of February. The truth is that we welcomed a few new faces in our office - including a new art director - and this naturally and necessarily resulted in a major graphical overhaul.


(The new logo rework has been through several iterations already, and the design is still not finalized)

We began the work on upgrading menus, logos and in-game graphics as soon as possible and have been crunching hard to try to make the deadline. However, in the end we simply were not able to achieve our ambitions with the time available. Instead of releasing a rushed, semi-complete build with an inconsistent visual identity, we felt it better and more responsible to hold back the release until we can complete the graphics work and make an appropriate launch trailer. Stay tuned for an update on the new release date!

The new menus are finally pretty much done! There are still some small bugs that need squishing and more testing is needed to ensure a stable, consistent experience, but we’re almost ready to close that chapter for now. We are however planning to do at least one more overhaul eventually, placing greater emphasis on user flow and user experience. We’re hoping for user feedback on this topic to make it the best it can be!


(The main menu intro)

The new main menu front page sets the tone for the rest of the UI; the green color scheme is consistent throughout the menus. The ‘Play Now’ button expands without changing pages, providing a quicker path to play. Orange flares highlight the buttons when hovering with the mouse to make it clear what is interactable and what is not.


(Scoreboards menu)

The scoreboards follow the same color palette and style, showing 10 results per page and split into the two game modes currently provided: Line Tower Wars and Tower Defense. One’s own entry, if one such exists, is always placed at the bottom so it is quick and easy to compare one’s own standing with the rest of the scoreboard. As previously, each Tower Defense scenario has its own scoreboard.


(Loadouts editor menu)

The loadouts editor has been reworked as well. However, we have not gone through replacing all the monster icons yet, so they still exist in the old format. We will get there eventually, since the ‘old’ buttons currently seem out of place in the new menu look.


(Create menu)

The create menu can be used to create a game of both game modes, as well as sandbox and tutorial games. Blue boxes signify non-interactable elements, and green boxes signify interactable elements, such as buttons, input fields and toggles.


(Lobby menu)

The lobby generally shows the same functionality as previously, but now in a simpler and more clean style, following the general style for the new menus. Additionally, the lobby finally has a countdown with sound, after the host has clicked ‘Start’, thus providing all players with an alert that the game is starting.

We are working hard on improving the in-game graphics. Pretty much every aspect of the graphics are being improved; from towers to monsters, to effects and the HUD. A range of towers have received new models and textures to lift the graphical quality and provide a more consistent visual look. Additionally, we wanted to make each tower more iconic and unique so as to minimize the confusion of not knowing two towers apart from each other.


(The towers that have so far received a visual upgrade in the form of new textures and in some cases new 3D modelsl)

The effects that the towers use to display their attack, e.g. streams of flames and frost and so on, are also being reworked. This process involves quite a bit of experimentation to achieve a look that is both impressive alone, but also works when there are rows upon rows of towers firing at the same time. So far, the Freezer, Diesel, Flamethrower and Frost Cannon towers have received new ‘attack’ effects.


(The towers that have so far received new 'attacking' VFX)

A perhaps little known fact about DeSync Studios is that it was born out of ‘Apex Game Tools’, which specialized in developing AI tools for other game developers. Thus, some of us have been working with and specialized in AI development for years prior to starting development of Unleash. We still have high ambitions for the AI in Unleash and we have a vision of a future where the community can contribute to the AI development in Unleash through various modding features. For now, however, we have resorted to improving the current Utility AI-based AI bots that the game currently provides.

The way that the AI builds is based on what we call ‘Structure Configurations’. They are basically a set of instructions for building a limited set of rows of towers, mostly consisting of walls that may later be replaced dynamically by towers. Previously, these structure configurations were hard-coded and written by hand, which was a lengthy and error-prone process. Now, the AI loads its list of available structure configurations dynamically based on .json files. The configurations can easily be saved by using specific development console commands that we have made. Basically, this means that it is much easier and faster for us to expand upon the set of possible configurations that the AI can choose to build.


(The AI bots can build from a more varied selection of ‘structure configurations’)

Additionally, our ‘Mr. Think’ AI bot, which evaluates the game state and acts accordingly, has been upgraded to be more responsible defensively. This makes it harder to defeat and provides a greater challenge, even for us developers! Mr. Think will build more configurations up-front and be better at responding to specific damage type threats. There are still many improvements that we want to make in time on the AI front, as there are still some obvious shortcomings. Furthermore, we would like to make a truly ‘brutal’ AI at some point which can be challenging to even very experienced players of Unleash.

Even though we reluctantly felt the need to postpone our Early Access release, it may in the end work out for the better. It gives us more time to complete the graphical overhaul and improve upon the game further, which ultimately means a more polished and stable game when we do finally release! Already now we are almost done reworking the menus, we have started a major rework of in-game graphics, we are redesigning the game’s logo and we have had time to carry out some AI improvements that we have had on our to-do list for a while.

Get in contact with us through Discord, or any of our other social media channels. You can find all of them through our website. Also, you can watch our internal gameplay sessions over at Twitch.

And remember… Monsters never come alone.

As Unleash’ development progresses and a couple of new amazing team members have joined the team, we had begun a graphical overhaul of Unleash. With the launch date closing in, we have not managed to complete the overhaul. We thus decided to postpone the release until the process is complete.

We strive to create the exact game we envisioned from the beginning of the development. With each day we become more experienced and we also get more ambitious with our goals. As we want to offer the best Tower Defense and Line Tower Wars experience possible, we have decided to postpone the release of Unleash until we will have a version that we feel will be good enough for you; the players.

Be sure to keep updated about the development process, and don’t forget to wishlist Unleash on Steam or subscribe to news about Unleash through our website or through our Discord server.

Hi everyone!

We are super busy hard at work finishing up for release on the 6th of February!

Therefore, we have decided not to write a proper dev blog for this week. Stay tuned for the next weeks to read about all the changes leading up to our Early Access release.

Happy gaming!

And remember... Monsters never come alone.

(Showcase of the current state of the game)

Hi and welcome to the 16th development blog for Unleash!

This week is once again mainly in the name of polishing. However, we have also managed to complete a new set of tutorials for new players, as well as hooking up online gameplay to three regionally based servers. Additionally, we are currently in the process of reworking our menus visually, we have carried out a number of minor balancing tweaks for more balanced gameplay, a new very easy bot has been introduced, and finally we have come up with a new scoring algorithm for the line tower wars game mode.

As mentioned in the previous development blog post, we have been working on a new tutorial for the game. As also previously mentioned, we have decided to split up the tutorial in three parts, making it faster and more manageable to go through each part. Additionally, gamers who feel like they already intuitively know the basics can jump directly to the ‘defense’ or ‘line wars’ part, only spending the minimum time needed to learn the game.


(A small snippet from the start of the ‘Defense’ tutorial)

Unleash will be hosted using cloud servers regionally placed around the world. With the next update, the first three cloud server regions will be used. The first three regions are EU, USA and Asia. These three regions should ensure that anyone in the world can play without unplayable latencies. In the longer term we are aiming for even more cloud server regions, depending on the amount of players in Unleash. Obviously, the more different servers we provide, the more fragmented the playerbase becomes, since cross-server play is not possible.

Our art director has been hard at work coming up with new menu screens, which look more aesthetically pleasing. Additionally, we are attempting to make the menus more intuitive and easy to use, even for newcomers. We are also reworking the logo for the game, and the menus are made using the same color palette to ensure a consistent look.


(The main menu ‘Play Now’ section as it currently looks - work in progress)

The functionality for the menus will generally - for now - stay the same, but the visual implementation will be completely different, with a much more consistent and structured style.


(The menus’ ‘Lobby’ section as it currently looks - work in progress)

Several small balancing tweaks have been carried out in the past week, based on our daily internal playtests. The three main flying monsters; Gloomgliders, Barfblobs and Crackleclouds, move slower than previously, having their speed decreased from 6 to 4. The Guardhorn monster now provides increased armor against all damage types, rather than just physical. The Flak 88 tower deals more damage on tier 1. The Blubbertwister tiers 3 and 4 have slightly decreased burrowing capabilities, and the Grumperjumper tier 4 spawns slightly less frequently. Finally, the Teleporter tower now has mixed locality, meaning that it can target both air and ground monsters.

Mr. Builder is really friendly. Actually, so friendly that the bot will never ever kill anyone. It literally can’t hurt an opponent. Mr. Builder will do what it does best; building up bases. It will happily build, rebuild and upgrade, but it will never spawn monsters. Thus, it provides the ultimate easy starting point for new players who want to learn how to spawn monsters that can penetrate an opponent’s base.


(The new Mr. Builder bot only does base defense. It can build, rebuild and upgrade, but it cannot attack)

Once again, the LTW scoring algorithm has been tweaked, since we weren’t satisfied with the previous implementation of only awarding kills and victory based on a hidden rating. The hidden rating is still in place, but it is not used for scoring anymore in the new model. Now, finishing off an opponent is rewarded with one point, winning the game is awarded with points that scale linearly with the amount of players, and finishing as late as possible is also rewarded.

A lot of bug fixes, balancing tweaks and polishing has been carried out during the week. Among the larger topics are: the new tutorials are ready for players to learn the game, multiplayer gameplay now happens on three regional cloud servers, the in-game menus are being reworked completely and will soon be ready for implementation, a new beginner bot that only builds has been added, and finally the scoring algorithm for the Line Tower Wars game mode has been rewritten to hopefully be more fair and rewarding.

Get in contact with us through Discord, or any of our other social media channels. You can find all of them through our website. Also, you can watch our internal gameplay sessions over at Twitch.

And remember… Monsters never come alone.

(Showcase of the current state of the game)

Hi and welcome to the 15th development blog for Unleash!

The previous week has seen a huge amount of small bug fixes, minor improvements and increased stability. In other words: The development is mostly in a ‘polishing’ state. However, there are still a few larger topics, such as a new tutorial for learning the game and the continued implementation of ‘Loadouts’ (see previous development blog post).

We have started work on a new tutorial for Unleash. Since the game can take a little bit of time for some players to get familiar with, a tutorial is definitely beneficial for learning the game - especially for gamers largely unfamiliar with tower wars and tower defense. The old tutorial was one, long mess which easily took half an hour to complete and encompassed all important features of the game. The new tutorial will be split up into separate parts, e.g. ‘Basics’, ‘Defense’ and ‘Offense’. This should make it much faster to complete each part, and also allows for selecting which part one needs help with. Additionally, we will be bringing a visual upgrade to the new tutorial compared to the old one.


(The new tutorial will be shorter, with new visual effects and structured slightly differently - work in progress)

Some more camera options have been added, especially to facilitate screen recording. One new option is the ‘Orbit’, by default mapped to the F4 key currently. This will make the camera rotate around its focal point.


(Camera automatically orbiting the focal point)

Another option is the ‘Smooth Move’, which smoothly moves the camera upwards and downwards in the lane’s vertical direction. This allows for smoothly tracking over a base, or follow a group of fast monsters.


(Camera smoothly moves up and down the lane)

We have, for some time, had a ‘Follow’ option - which has now been improved to be more smooth. The camera can follow a monster by holding down the spacebar (currently, by default), or center over a tower by pressing the same key.


(Camera follows a monster as it moves)

Finally, there is also a new ‘Camera Reset’ key, which simply resets the camera to its default state, stopping any orbiting and smooth moving.

The Magmaback monster has seen three of its upgrade tiers receive a visual overhaul with new animated, 3D models. Only the second tier is the same as before. The new models should help in showing a progression from a four-legged animalistic beast, to a humanoid, bipedal, four-armed monstrosity. The Magmaback is one of the ‘core’ monsters in Unleash, and one that has been in the game for a long time.


(The new Magmaback models now ensure that each upgrade tier of the monster has its own unique 3D model)

The new Blubbertwister models (see Dev Blog Week 14) will be accompanied by new visual effects that help to show that they dig into the ground, under towers and walls, and pop-up elsewhere. By accompanying the animations with particle systems and a decal on the ground, it should become much more clear and aesthetically pleasing to watch the monster torment defenses everywhere.


(Blubbertwisters create a pile of dirt where they dig underground - work in progress)

Due to the ‘Loadouts’ feature (working title, see Dev Blog Week 12 and 14), players require a little bit of time in the lobby to make their loadout selection. Thus, if the game host decides to start the game immediately, it could upset players who didn’t get the chance to pick their loadout. To that end, we have implemented a typical ‘Player Ready’ feature for the lobby, where non-host players must click ‘Ready’ before the host can start the game. However, in order to avoid excessive wait times due to players not noticing the button, going AFK or otherwise, a 30-second timer is also present. This gives players 30 seconds from the moment they join to pick their loadout, at which point they are automatically marked ready.


(Players must mark themselves as ‘ready’, or wait for the timer to countdown, before the game host may start the game)

This week has mostly been in the name of ‘polishing’, meaning: bug fixes, minor improvements and better overall stability of the game. However, we have also started work on a new tutorial, implemented new camera options to facilitate screen recording, new visual effects and models and the ‘player ready’ feature necessary, due to the new ‘Loadouts’ feature (working title).

We play Unleash every week, and you can join us for our play sessions. Next one is Tuesday the 16th of January 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:

• Major Change: While in the lobby, players must select a 'loadout' of monsters that become available to them in-game - instead of having all monsters available in-game.
  
• All settings and keybindings are stored using Steam Cloud, rather than only local storage.
  
• The in game menu (Esc) now pauses the game in single player mode.
  
• Added a dropdown list when using the "Fill Bots" functionality, allowing players to select the difficulty of AI, or random.
  
• New animated models for the "Grumperjumper" monsters.
  
• New animated models for the "Blubbertwister" monsters.
  
• New animated models for the "Magmaback" monsters.
  
• New camera options: Orbit, reset camera, move smoothly up/down and follow.

Changes:

• Grumperjumper Tier 4 (final evolution) spawns a special Grumperjumper monster, rather than the normal Tier 3 Grumperjumper.
  
• Rifteye monster description updated.
  
• Updated Maggot icons (the ones that are spawned by Splittercritter).
  
• Line Tower Wars game mode has a completely new method for ranking/scoring.
  
• Some tooltips are slightly delayed now.
  
• Small tweaks to a range of smoke particle systems and other VFX.
  
• Changed the look of Snowrippers' "Ice Shield".
  
• Updated 3D models for "Reinforced Wall".
  
• Status effect particle system VFX is applied at the center of creatures, rather than at their base.
  
• Monsters now spawn directly on top of the spawn gate, rather than in front of it.
  
• Mr. Random (Easy) AI bot can no longer spawn Gobblesmashers or Boombellys, as this proved too hard for newcomers.
  
• A score in multiplayer Line Tower Wars is only awarded if the game lasts a minimum duration.
  
• The TD scoring and ranking algorithm has been tweaked to emphasize killing the monsters quickly.
  
• All TD scenarios now has a "Score Factor" used to multiply players' score.
  
• Numerous balancing tweaks, including increasing creature upgrade costs from 500 to 750, boosting the Rifteye monster considerably and a slight HP reduction for flying monsters.
  
• The Grumperjumper Tier 4 has better timing of its spawn animation and when it actually spawns.
  
• Mr Coincidence AI bot now rebuilds the first destroyed structure, rather than the last destroyed structure.
  
• Mr Coincidence AI bot small tweaks - among them, the ability to rebuild its base faster.
  
• Gobblesmashers and Bumblebeasts (Tiers 2 to 4) have a slight delay between playing attack animation and actually dealing damage.
  
• Players now need to check "Ready" (or wait 30 seconds) before the host client can start the game.

Bug Fixes:

• Selectable AI bot opponents are now sorted using difficulty.
  
• Projectile-based towers (such as the Mortar tower) now correctly counts up kills.
  
• Prevented some rare exceptions from occurring.
  
• Monsters use their current lane's player color for despawning, and their spawner's player color for spawning.
  
• Game overview and end screens for TD game mode have proper icons.
  
• Fixed a bug where MunchMonsters would not release their cargo under certain circumstances.
  
• Fixed some in-game UI inconsistencies.
  
• Adjusted material for Teleporter towers to avoid overexposed reflections.
  
• Use correct font for chat input.
  
• Long monster and structure text descriptions can now be read through tooltips.
  
• Chat log overlays the minimap and hides the menu.
  
• Fixed minor clipping issues between 'audience' and the stand walls.
  
• Tesla coil and lightning tower shoot lightning bolts against the center of their target monster.
  
• Fixed so that game rooms are closed when full of a mix of bots and humans, preventing others from joining.
  
• Prevent players from joining full rooms (e.g. due to two players joining same room at same time).
  
• Fixed an issue where bots did not count as 'player count' for lists of rooms in the join panel.
  
• Fixed an issue with the font used by chat, which only supported a narrow range of characters. Now most unicode characters should be supported.
  
• Prevent duplicate resolutions from appearing in the graphics options.

Due to unexpected challenges with our networking, we have decided to delay the release of Unleash until the 6th of February.
On the plus side, this will also allow us to get a bit more polish done before release.

(Showcase of the current state of the game)

Hi and welcome to the 14th development blog for Unleash!

Since the last game update, we have been working on countless different aspects on the game. Most of the changes, improvements or fixes are relatively minor, but a few larger topics have also been touched upon, including: loadouts, new scoring algorithms, new animated 3D models, integration of Steam Cloud and numerous balancing tweaks.

As mentioned in the previous Week 12 development blog post, we are working on a feature that we are currently calling ‘loadouts’ (a working title). The purpose is to limit the amount of monsters that are accessible in-game, without hurting the tactical considerations prevalent in the game currently. Many players have given us the feedback that Unleash can be overwhelming for a newcomer, especially due to the large number of monsters and towers available. This way, the amount of accessible monsters in-game decreases, so it should make it easier to get started. Thus, players will have to choose their loadout before entering a match. Included in the game now (from the next update) is the ‘loadout editor’, where players may customize or build their own loadouts - a bit like a deck building game! Later on, we plan to add much more to the ‘loadout’ selection. Stay tuned for more on that.


(The loadout editor used to create and customize loadouts and the selection of loadout happens in the lobby)

We have reworked the scoring algorithms for scoreboard / ranking purposes. Especially the overly simplistic scoring model for Line Tower Wars, simply subtracting losses from wins, was nowhere near satisfactory. The new model relies on a number of factors, the most important being how long you last in the game. The more (human) players you defeat, the better your score as well. This makes it possible for us to start building a ‘rating’ for each player, which may later be used for matchmaking. The Classic TD game mode has also seen its scoring model changed, although to a lesser extent. You are penalized less for building excess buildings, and scenarios have a modifiable ‘score factor’ used to multiply the final score of each TD scenario.

Both the Grumperjumpers and the Blubbertwisters have received or are in the process of receiving a complete makeover. New animated 3D models based on new concept art drawings. The Grumperjumpers are basically a type of horrifically mutated mega-flies that easily leap over walls and towers. The Blubbertwisters could possibly see a name-change, since while the old model was a blubbery twisted worm (hence the name), the new model is inspired by a morbidly disturbed, skin-infected very large mole.


(Grumperjumpers and Blubbertwisters have new animated 3D models, based on new concept art)

Starting from the next update, we are now storing personalized settings and data using Steam Cloud, which means that it is linked to your Steam account and not your local PC. All game settings, both graphical, gameplay, UI and audio, etc., are stored in the cloud. All loadouts - customized or created from scratch - are also stored in the cloud. Additionally, any custom keybindings are stored in the cloud, making it a breeze to move between different machines.

We have carried out several balancing tweaks, some quite minor and some more substantial. The tweaks are based on long-time discussions and numerous internal playtests. Most tweaks are just health increases or decreases to attempt a better balance.

The single largest change is that upgrading a monster from Tier 1 to Tier 2 now costs more, from 500 to now 750. This is done to reduce the amount of early rushing of already upgraded monsters, as this proved to be an extremely hard-to-counter strategy. Certain monsters were especially potent when upgraded early on, such as the Bumblebeast, since it gains the ability to destroy wooden walls on Tier 2.

The Rifteye monster has been considerably buffed, since it was found to be grossly underused and just too weak. It now has much more health and starts with 50 % shield, making it much harder to kill. This should increase its usefulness, obviously, since surviving for longer means reaching further into the enemy base, which means unleashing monsters deeper behind enemy lines.


(The Rifteye monster has been considerably boosted, so it should now be worthwhile to employ - if used correctly)

This week has seen a substantial amount of bug fixes, balancing tweaks and small improvements to all aspects of the game. The larger topics were: loadouts, new scoring algorithms, fresh concept art for Grumperjumpers and Blubbertwisters - leading to new animated 3D models, and the Steam Cloud integration for persistence of settings and personalized data.

We play Unleash every week, and you can join us for our play sessions. Next one is Tuesday the 9th of January 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.

Hi and welcome to the 13th development blog for Unleash!

Its Christmas so while we have worked on various task over the week, we will just wish all a Merry Xmas and a happy New Year.