Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for March 13th, 2023, detailing all the changes that have happened since March 6th, 2023. 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.

We've created a forum post asking the community for suggestions on how we can improve gameplay for players with certain conditions such as colorblindness, dyslexia, or anything else that might affect a players ability to use the standard presentation and controls of the game.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, and possible solutions on how to solve a particular issue, please check out the forum post here.


Hey everyone!

The theme for the March/April contest is Tree House!

So, build a house in a tree! You can build your own tree or use one of the existing ones, and feel free to make your tree house in any style.

Also, remember that you can disable collision on items (such as trees) by right clicking and selecting Disable Collision.

The submission period ends on April 10th, 2023 at 11:59 PM.

Read all about the rules and prizes here!


macdguy created a Media Organization shelf, useful for cleaning up all your game cartridges and physical media.

madmijk continued working on MIDI Support.









A preview of MIDI settings for musical instrument items. Displayed are the sound sets that are detected for each of the 16 MIDI channels, using 'program change' events. This information can be used to select which channels to play back on the active instrument.



Now that Libretro support has been released, our focus has turned to SDNL.

macdguy worked on the level design for "Frostbite", adding new structures and fixing platforms, while also identifying where jump pads could go. He also continued on weapon handling.







Nuclearxpotato continued working on the Virus map, "Catzek Temple".

Joshua worked on a new Dragon plush, as well as the other Plaza NPCs.

Lifeless continued working on Part 2 of the Minigolf map, "Dark".

Sketchman continued working on backend improvements and optimizations.

Wheezwer continued working on props for the Virus map, "Theme Park".

Will continued working on SDNL music.

That about covers everything that happened since March 6th, 2023 at PixelTail Games.

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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!
https://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

Upheaval just got a shiny new main menu and super cool new graphics + interface for the journal! Plus, Mac and Linux gamers can now play Upheaval as of Alpha Version 0.0.8, which you can get on https://leonegaming.itch.io/upheaval or Google Play. Try the free demo today!






https://leonegaming.itch.io/upheaval/devlog/501286/upheaval-alpha-version-008-is-available-the-mac-and-linux-update.

With the release of the 4.3 update, we will be saying goodbye to the Manic-5 map. Since joining the Squad map roster with the release of the Canadian Armed Forces faction, Manic-5 was liked by some but overall was recognized by our community as one of the least popular and weakest maps for a variety of reasons. Well we’ve heard you and undertook a mission to rework the map and raise the quality, with that we’d like to introduce you to Manicouagan.

Lore: After making a successful amphibious landing at Goose Bay in Labrador, Canada, opposition forces have pushed south along the 389 Highway into Quebec and seized the Daniel-Johnson hydroelectric dam and the surrounding area. This has crippled the power infrastructure of the northeastern United States and prompted counter-attacks from US and Canadian forces. After a lull in the fighting, US and Canadian forces are making a final attempt to retake the dam.

Manic-5 was originally an experimental map that played around the ideas of creating more linear flow within the game space, as well as experimenting with drastic changes in elevation. And although the most positive element of the map was probably the novelty at how the map felt different from other maps in the game, Manic-5 suffered from numerous design problems such as:

• Poorly flowing paths between points of interest (POIs)
  
• Linear pathing didn’t feel as good as having the freedom to choose an approach to an objective
  
• The drastic changes in elevations tied up potential gameplay area, made traversal tedious and time consuming, as well as created overly powerful overwatch positions which could control large areas of the map

When beginning the rework of the map, the two priorities were to retain elements of the original map and to bring the design more in line with the most enjoyed Squad maps (such as Yehorivka and Gorodok), in particular the concept of allowing players to have freedom when it comes to choosing how to approach an objective or POI.

The first major step in the rework was to clamp how drastic the changes in elevations were. Overall the elevation changes on Manicouagan are roughly 60% of what they were in the original map. This step enabled resculpting of the terrain to allow much better flow between adjacent POIs, open up more area of the map for gameplay, and limit how powerful elevated overwatch positions could be. In order to preserve some of the original spirit of the map, there are still relatively significant changes in elevations, but care has been taken to craft these more carefully to avoid or mitigate the issues we saw in the original. The Daniel-Johnson dam remains on the map but it too was shrunk to about 70% of its original size, and efforts have been made to mitigate it from being used as an overwatch position over the valley below.

Dam - Manic-5


Dam - Manicouagan


After the elevation was reduced, the density and distribution of POIs was pre-planned to improve the balance between having a good variety when random POIs are selected on a game mode like Random Advance and Secure (RAAS), while keeping the distances between points roughly fair and usable for more symmetrical game modes like Advance and Secure or Skirmish. And although lots of new POIs have been created for Manicouagan, many of the originals still exist in some form, although their position or composition may have changed. In general, most of the POIs on Manicouagan will have multiple numbers and types of approaches, these generally fall into three categories:

• Open approach - suited for vehicles or high-risk & high-reward tactics
  
• Covered approach - suited for infantry leap-frogging from cover to cover
  
• Concealed approach -  suited for a disciplined squad to have a chance at sneaking onto the objective before being noticed

Another large part of the Manicouagan rework was to integrate amphibious water systems into the map. The reservoir behind the dam and the rivers that cut through the map have been updated with deeper water. These will provide opportunities for amphibious-capable factions to flank and approach enemy positions from unsuspected directions. Factions that lack amphibious capabilities (such as the US Army or  Canadian Armed Forces) will be limited to making use of the bridges and shallows that form crossing points for their ground assets. In order to prevent factions without amphibious capability from being too punished or bottlenecked at crossing points, the main rivers on the map will be shallower towards the edges of the map to ensure they still retain freedom to access most parts of the map and the coloration of the water on the minimap will reflect this.

Thanks for reading, we’re excited for you to experience the new version of the map and here are a few extra shots of the before and after rework!

Antenna - Manic-5


Antenna - Manicouagan


Firebase Mississauga - Manic-5


Firebase Borris - Manicouagan

• Drawings should now be able to overlap without z-fighting. The ordering of the layers should remain consistent between saves.
  
• Options in the Artwork app now properly update when selecting and deselecting tokens.

What a launch day huh, people have been reporting crashes that hopefully now have been fixed with the new update. I guess that's why day one patches exist. Sorry to everyone trying to play. Please try to update with the patch or uninstall the game completely then reinstall it.

to get the game running on the Deck please use Proton HotfIx in the compatibility settings.

The Tainted Games Team.

The Library of Taborea has opened its gates to the world of knowledge. Seize the chance and improve your skills in battle with a matching encyclopedia! From 14th March at midnight until 14th March 2023 at 11:59 PM (CET), you can find new encyclopedias in the shop. Take a look now and boost your skills for an entire week!The following are just some of the highlight items waiting for you:

• Defense Encyclopedia (7 Days)
• Blunt Weapon Encyclopedia (7 Days)
• Unarmed Combat Encyclopedia (7 Days)

Wishing you lots of fun,The RoM Team

-헥사로직 중, 문서를 확대한 상태에서 조합이 가능하던 버그 수정
-일부 오타 수정

Update
1. The difficulty of stages 2, 5, and 6 has been reduced.

Stage 2
- Increased the time interval between laser generation on each floor.

Stage 5
- Increased the time interval for the scarecrow to use its skill.
- Changed the number of times the scarecrow changes its clothes from random to fixed.

Stage 6
- Shortened the distance between platforms.


Bug Fix
1. Fixed the issue where the slot keys for using skills were changed.

2. Fixed the obstacle bug in stage 5.

4. Fixed the issue where the statue position in stage 2 was slightly shifted to the side.

5. Fixed the issue where the obstacle cannot be crossed from Stage 2 to A8.

This update features French, Spanish, Italian, and German translation.
You can find a new Language section in Settings where you can set your prefered language from the now 5 different languages available.



We only speak English, French, and Spanish, so we hope every other languages translation is decent.
If you find anything odd in the translation of languages we don't speak, feel free to use the Report Panel in Settings to share it with us or reach out directly @StarvingFoxStd on Twitter so we can improve it.

More languages are to come in later updates, we already have a few in mind like Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, but feel free to suggest other languages, we'll do our best to add the most requested ones.

Changelog

Features
French Localization
Spanish Localization
Italian Localization
German Localization
New leaves particles in the building phase
New victory animation, the zglub is now grabbing and eating the yumyum

Improvements
New zglub face icon
Smaller bonus wheel

Fixes
Fixed bomb explosion blocks being anormaly big
Fixed player not touching the blocks when being on top of them in the building phase

• Fixed an issue where the Crosshook was available in every level
  
• The portal's spawning location is now randomized in some levels