Apr 15, 2020

Tower Unite - PixelTail Games

This update addresses several issues that were recently reported.

Changes

Arcade: Audio volume changes for Arcade. If you are a spectator, or playing the game, or hovered over it, it'll play sounds at full volume - otherwise it'll play at less volume to avoid overlapping audio experiences
Arcade: Planetary Piano audio now only plays if you are looking at the cabinet you are spectating or if you are playing it so that you can hear each player individually
Arcade: Meteoroid Mania now has 3 meteoroids
Plaza: Implemented loading/unloading system for east and west plaza stores (Songbirds, Toy Stop, Central Circuit, Rob's Imports, and Sweet Suite). Improves frame rates when in main plaza
Plaza: Created more LODs for plaza to improve frame rate
Plaza: Improved planters behind tower to fix empty spots
Plaza: Some minor plaza additions (new potted plants and benches)
Plaza: Improved look of the sky in Plaza
First chunk of updated "standardized" condo furniture
You can now color the tricycle (and jump!)
Improved LED tie
Improved Jet Engine jetpack
Improved first person view in vehicles
Work in progress Arcade milestones set up (items don't have icons just yet and some items do not work, releasing these in full in the next hotfix)

Bug Fixes

Improved Whirl-a-Fish, Meteoroid Mania netlag
Optimized networking of Plaza games
Meteoroid Mania: Fixed bug where the ball would not drop if the droppers were opened after the ball is rotating around
Fixed underwater condo being filled with water
Lonely Gun exploit fix
Pluck-a-pal: Fixed an issue where sometimes a plushy farther away from the center of the crane would be grabbed, swapping with a plushy that is right at the center of the crane
Pluck-a-pal: Fixed an exploit
Pluck-a-pal: Crane grabbing is more reliable
Pluck-a-pal: Made it a little more difficult to grab plushies, you need to be lined up a lot more now
Pluck-a-pal: Fixed VIP achievement
Pluck-a-pal: Fixed Friendship achievement
Pluck-a-pal: Stabilized physics of pals just a bit
Fixed Total Efficiency achievement
Fixed Island achievements
Fixed ram plush issues
Fixed various hat offsets
Fixed Pluck-a-pal leaderboard
Fixed Dizzy leaderboard
Fixed Wearable Units Sign not appearing
Fixed throwable fuzzy die texture being corrupted
Fixed LC dragon plushy colorable materials not working properly
Fixed propeller hat icons being switched
Reduced instances of grass clipping into the lazy river in Plaza
Fixed ragdoll being invisible if you die while in first person
Fixed jellybean cat plushy colorable being broken
Fixed easter egg event eggs not spawning if you are in the arcade when the event begins
Fixed Lonely Gun "nice shot" sound not adhering to SFX volume settings
Optimized Planetary Piano networking, which should help with players disconnecting due to packet overflows
Fixed dizzy not landing on the same spot for spectators as the player who is playing
Fixed an issue with achievements and unit payouts

Join our Discord for development updates and community fun!
https://discord.gg/pixeltail
We love awesome people like you!

We're also active on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/PixelTailGames

Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

Take a peek at what's being worked on every week in our weekly dev logs! There's bound to be something interesting every week!
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

Please report bugs & submit suggestions on our forums. We're active everyday & here to help.
For bug reports: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report/18
For suggestions: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/suggestions/7

<3 PixelTail Games

Apr 15, 2020

Demo hit 1k players & Oliver's route now done!

Dialtown: Phone Dating Sim - DirectDoggo

Howdy, folks, Dogman, 'ere. Thought I'd update you all since it's been about a month since my last devlog!

Oliver's route is now implemented!

Yes, folks, it's true. Oliver's route is now implemented, all 5 endings working/in-game!

Here's the ole reliable roadmap. As you can see, 3/5 routes ARE now finished. In terms of endings, that's 19 out of 25 endings. I have a good few months of work ahead of me, getting the final two routes scripted, shot, assets produced, (art, music and voice acting is still to be done), and finally, working and in-game. But, progress has been good!

1k demo players! (and a comment on Dialtown's overall public process.)

Well, I'll keep this short, but over 1,000 people have played (and I hope enjoyed) Dialtown's demo! This is a really weird number for me, because you can look at it in two ways. In a cynical light: DT's demo only made in two months what Dayshift at Freddy's (my last series) makes in 2.5 days!

That's... not so encouraging. In a way, just a teensy bit heartbreaking, actually, as is the fact that only ONE youtuber that's covered DSaF has actually bothered to play Dialtown's demo, with most not even acknowledging my messages at all. (Which I believe to be a major reason for these poorer figures.)

What IS encouraging, though, is the outpouring of fanart, the active discord community appearing for the game, as well as the dedication of the fans that Dialtown DOES have. Phonecord, for instance, Dialtown's discord server (CLICK THIS TEXT IF YOU'D LIKE TO JOIN.) has over 400 members and is incredibly active.

Usually, when a big release happens, there's a jolt... followed by a decline, until something big carries the release to a larger base of people. Dialtown's player numbers have remained CONSISTENT, despite only minor updates occurring to the demo, which is an incredibly optimistic showing of just how much its fans are trying to force the game down people's throats like a regurgitating momma bird help convert potential players to the Dialtown family, which is fantastic to see.

That truly gives me the motivation to finish the game, knowing that not everyone is going to walk away just because I don't do FNaF stuff anymore. Really. I know Dialtown can blow my previous work out of the water in many ways, and I will do everything in my power to make it the best game it can be.

Do YOU wanna make history?

One small final thing, btw: If anyone wants, I have a Patreon now, since I realized that I lacked a real tip-jar. I've got a few ranked pledging tiers, if anyone's interested in any of these things:

Unique role in my discord server!
Have your name in the DT credits!
Have your VERY OWN name easter egg in-game!
Access to a special channel in my discord server where you see bimonthly video teasers!

Any amount is appreciated, ofc, but I figure those tiers might be desirable to some :) If you're interested, you can find that, here. Thanks, and see y'all in the next devlog!

Apr 15, 2020

Jet Lancer: Interview with Fat Bard

Jet Lancer - Conspiracy

This week we're sitting down with the dynamic duo behind Jet Lancer's music and sound design. Meet Zach Fendelman and Patrick Crecelius, a partnership known as Fat Bard.

Photo by Chelsea Dufresne

For the folks reading this who aren't already familiar with Fat Bard, who are you, what do you do?

P: We’re a music composition and sound design duo for a wide variety of games, from indie hits like Crashlands and Battle Chef Brigade, to IP mobile games like Harry Potter Wizards Unite. We both live in St. Louis, Missouri and have been doing game audio for about 8 years now.

Why the name "Fat Bard"?

P: We were trying to come up with a name for ourselves and decided to go the “band name” route, where we’re one entity instead of using our actual names. Like a band name we figured as long as it was something short, simple, and memorable that’s all that really mattered. The name “Bard '' was something we wanted to try using, and we had a few ideas but settled on “Fat Bard”; it just stood out to us as something fun that would stand out. We also thought we could do some awesome branding with the name “Fat Bard”, and we’ve had some great artists do renditions of him.

You really flex your rock and metal skills on the Jet Lancer tracks, how did you decide that was what the "sound" of Jet Lancer was going to be?

Z: When we initially discussed the soundtrack with Vladimir he was interested in a combination of chiptune rock and some heavier metal genres (metalcore, deathcore, and djent for the nerds out there). After creating the first song and figuring out the scope of the game, we realized we’d need a plethora of different styles capturing a wide range of intensity in order to match the increasing difficulty of the levels. From there we started to pull from other genres like math rock, post-hardcore, black metal, and post-rock; not only to create a range of intensity but also to give the player a good variety of songs to listen to. It was also important to us that we add something new to the universe of metal and rock game music instead of just copying successful soundtracks like Doom 2016. Additionally, Vladimir was always open to our artistic vision and allowed us the freedom to experiment, so by the final song we had a wonderfully eclectic OST.

Did you have a particular instrument or preference for how you start writing a track?

Z: Many of the songs either started with a chord progression, a guitar riff, or a drum beat. It’s quite different to make music like this by yourself as opposed to in a band setting, so focusing first on the “hook” of each song was helpful in figuring out how it may evolve. The most important thing for me was to make sure that each song was unique and pulled from a new pool of styles. I grew up listening to a lot of music from these genres so I made a big reference list with dozens of bands to help give us some ideas on overall composition and production.

What's the most fun part of this process for you?

Z: Working through a song and then hitting that “aha!” moment is always special. Sometimes it’s a guitar line that makes me think “that’s so badass”, and other times it’s an obnoxious breakdown that makes me laugh and think “this is so stupid and ridiculous, I love it.”

You both have been writing music for games for a while now, how did you get into music and how did you know you wanted to start composing on your own?

P: I’ve been playing music since I was a wee lad, starting on piano, picking up violin in 3rd grade, guitar in 8th grade, then bass and ukulele in college. I was very fortunate that my parents supported me in wanting to pursue music. After college I started teaching and doing audio engineering for local bands, which is actually where I met Zach. I’ve always been writing music, but in the past always for personal enjoyment rather than for public release. Starting music for games with Zach felt natural and was a perfect creative outlet, as I was feeling a bit stifled at the time.

Z: I loved listening to old rock bands as a kid which led me to pick up the guitar when I was about 13. I started writing my own songs a few years later, formed some bands, and eventually found myself making my first recordings with Patrick. I got into producing through my highschool actually, which offered an electronic music class where you could play around with Garage Band, Logic Pro, and Reason. It was run by the orchestra teacher, who always arrived an hour early to rehearse with the orchestra. I started showing up an hour early and she’d let me into the music lab to work all the way through my first period. This was actually where I made some of the first Fat Bard songs on our initial demo reel. I went to music school at a local college to learn music theory and expand my ideas of what music is and how you can put it together. Since I stayed in town, Pat and I could grow the business and work towards the goal of going full time once I graduated.

Is there a particular game or games you played growing up that made you want to do this for a living? Or a game whose soundtrack is just so downright amazing everyone has to listen to it?

Z: One of the games that really influenced my musical taste was actually Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. That soundtrack has such an amazing collection of bands and artists (Iron Maiden, Less Than Jake, Agent Orange, The Distillers, NWA, just to name a few). As far as original soundtracks go, Digimon World 1 was a huge influence on me as a gamer, and that soundtrack is like a time capsule into my childhood.

P: I don’t think there was a particular moment or game as a kid where I thought that I could compose for games as a career, to be honest I didn’t even consider it until my mid twenties. Goes to show you you’re never too old to start something new! Game music was always important to me though, and was a huge factor for what games I kept coming back to over time. As far as favorite soundtracks it’s mostly SNES/PS1 era RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy Tactics, I’m a sucker for strong melodies with interesting chords behind them.

Sound design is a core part of a great game. What makes a good sound effect? Are there any you're particularly proud of in Jet Lancer?

P: Sound effects should be both satisfying and informing to someone playing a game. It’s got to feel good for the overall artistic direction, but also tell the player what’s going on. It’s always amazing to see games that can be played without sight. My favorite sound from Jet Lancer is the afterburner. I wanted a sort of sonic boom that wasn’t too crazy and pronounced since you’d be performing this a ton in game, and I thought to use a big iceberg crack to get that effect as the main layer you hear, which to me makes it stand out a bit and give that typical thing you’d hear in flight games it’s own flair.

Do you have a favorite song or riff from Jet Lancer?

Z: One of the most intense songs in the soundtrack is influenced by 80s thrash metal as well as the black/death metal band Behemoth. It has these crazy, noise guitar solos and long stretches of blast-beats. I think it’s quite different from the types of extreme metal you hear in other games which is exciting to me.

Last question, if you were an ACE Pilot, what would your callsign be?

Zach: Nebelung

Patrick: My call sign would be Benson.

And that's it! Thank you so much for chatting with us! If people want to hear more of your music where can they find you?

P: You can find us in just about every place you’d find music; Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play, Youtube, Bandcamp, etc. If you’re wanting to stream our music we’d love it if you’d follow us on Spotify, and if you’re thinking of purchasing an album Bandcamp is the best place to do that as it supports us the most financially.

****************************************************************************************************************

That's it for our interview with Zach and Patrick! The Jet Lancer soundtrack will be available on Fat Bard's bandcamp page later this year. We hope you enjoyed this peek behind the curtain, next week we'll be talking with the writer behind Jet Lancer's narrative design, Cory O'Brien.

Over and out,
The Jet Lancer Team

Apr 15, 2020

Virtual Battlegrounds Mantis Patch EA 0.6.2.0

Virtual Battlegrounds - Seanybaby2

EA Patch Mantis 0.6.2

Hello Warriors,

Here's our first big patch update that release today with Early Access! Expect us to be hot-fixing and update the game daily / weekly for at least the next month. After that we'll probably roll into an official update schedule.

New Helicopter

We've replaced the old helicopter with a model that is similar to an Osprey!

Killroom

In an attempt to make waiting for a match more fun, we've built a killroom to kill some time and your friends before the game starts.

Cross Platform Leaderboards

We know that the VR userbase is split up between Steam + Oculus. These players should be able to compete with one another, because of that we've rebuilt the leaderboard system to support cross-platform competition and multiplayer.

Voting Board

Players can now vote for the favorite features they want! We want to work our community to help us design the best VR BR that we can throughout the early access process.

Full list of notable changes.

Full Patch Notes **Mantis EA 0.6.2.0**

New Features:
Added a Voting Board within the game for EA where you can vote for game features for us to add
Added a new helicopter
Added a killroom
Added cross-platform leaderboard support. Accounts automagically sync with Steam + Oculus platforms
Added Vive Cosmos HMD support

Bug Fixes:
Fixed Liv not working correctly
Fixed a bug where you could spawn out of the helicopter
Fixed gunstock settings not saving between rounds
Fixed gunstock weapon smoothing not working correctly
Fixed a bug where you could clip through the terrain
Fixed a bug where some players would not receive an ELO update at the end of the game
Fixed a bug where bots would sometimes not spawn in BOT games
Fixed a bug where squad icons would sometimes persist after entering solos mode

Quality of Life Changes:
Improved games overall performance by about 30%
Added new super low game settings for people with older machines
Seperated squads elo from solos elo
Increased AK recoil
Decreased MK18 and M16 recoil
Made Sam the robot louder in the tutorial
Added head collision.