Logic World News

[p]For the first time ever, Logic World is on sale! Until January 5, you can save a massive 42% on the best 3D logic simulator around. [/p][p]If you don't own Logic World yet, you can get it now for an incredible bargain![/p][p]You can also get Logic World for your friends! Studies show that Logic World makes the perfect holiday gift. Plus, when both you and your friends have Logic World, you can play it together in multiplayer![/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]

[p]Hey gamers! There's a new Logic World update out, and you can download and play it now.[/p][p]The highlight of update 0.92.2 is the Demo World. This is a world we've put together to introduce new players to the game. It's got information about how to play Logic World, a guide to getting started with digital logic, and a bunch of cool things to check out as you wander around.[/p][p][/p][p]In addition to the Demo World, this update has a number of minor tweaks and fixes. As usual, you can read the full details below :)[/p][p]Let us know in the comments what you'd like to see in the next Logic World update![/p][p][/p][h2]Full 0.92.2 changelog[/h2][p]Demo World[/p]

• [p]Added the Demo World, a pre-built save file with an introduction to the game and some cool stuff to look at.[/p]
• [p]The first time you start the game, there's now a little bubble on the main menu that says "Check out the demo world!" which points to the 'Singleplayer' button.[/p]
• [p]The Demo World can be reset by deleting the save, or renaming the file on disk, and restarting the game.[/p]
• [p]Added secret setting: [c]MHG.Secret.RecreateDemoWorldWhenNotFound[/c][/p]

[p]Graphics[/p]

• [p]Tweaked Ambient Occlusion to look better.[/p]
• [p]Ambient Occlusion is now enabled by default again.[/p]

[p]Building[/p]

• [p]You can now confirm a Grab or Clone placement by pressing the return key.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where wire ghosts could display the incorrect state.[/p]

[p]UI[/p]

• [p]Action Wheel: changed the default size of the Action Wheel from 1.0 to 0.85.[/p]
• [p]Color picker: changed the default value for the setting "Quick Picker Open State" back to "Always Open to Quick Menu".[/p]
• [p]Chat: fixed a crash to error screen if you receive a chat message while you have the UI hidden.[/p]

[p]The number of this week's LWW is a Mersenne prime. Savour the feeling, because this may be the last time it will ever happen.[/p][p][/p][p]Logic World is extremely cool once you sit down and spend several hours building stuff, but when you first start playing, it's pretty empty and unexciting. While there's a certain charm to watching everything grow from nothing, and bringing about that transformation entirely by your hand, the initial emptiness is a pretty bad and underwhelming experience for new players who are just getting started with the game. We can definitely do better.[/p][p]If you ever played TUNG, the old prototype for Logic World, you may have fond memories of the "Demo World" that we built for that game. When you start up TUNG for the first time, it prompts you to "Check out the demo world!", and in that demo world there are a series of simple circuits laid out for you to explore, analyze, and learn from.[/p][p][/p][p]We're brining this idea back in Logic World. We're making a new demo world for players to drop into when they first boot up the game. It has an overview of the different features of the game, an introduction to some beginner digital logic concepts, and a few big & complex circuits to show how cool the game can get. We hope it'll be a great introduction to Logic World.[/p][p]In the long term, we'll be adding interactive tutorials, challenges, and a campaign mode to give people a rich and polished first-time experience, but that will all take a while to design and develop. In the short term, adding a demo world is something we can do pretty quickly to dramatically improve the first-time player experience.[/p][p]Here's a quick teaser screenshot of the demo world we're working on:[/p][p][/p][p]We're trying to move fast with this. We aim to release a preview version of LW with this demo world in the next few days, then release it as a finished game update next week.[/p][p][/p][p]The Logic World trailer, and the screenshots shown on the store page, are some of our most important marketing assets, giving many people their first impression of the game. Both of these have not been updated since 2021, before the game first launched in Early Access. I'm working on a new trailer, and a new set of screenshots, to better showcase the game and reflect the changes to Logic World over the last four years.[/p][p]So I'm asking you now: have you built something cool in Logic World, or do you know of a cool build, that you'd like to see in official promotional material? I'd truly love to include your work in the new trailer, and make it a showcase of this community's best creations.[/p][p]Let me know in the comments, or DM me on Discord.[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p]That's all for today! See you next week for Logic World Wednesdays #2^7.[/p]

[p]Welcome back to Logic World Wednesdays, your weekly digest of everything the Logic World team has been up to.[/p][p]We released update 0.92.1 last week, and it seems to have gone over well, with no reports that the update catastrophically broke anybody's computer and deleted all their data. Hooray![/p][p]Anyways, here's what's new with us.[/p][p][/p][p]Our ambient occlusion has looked kind of grainy and bad ever since we updated to Unity 6. This week I took some time to tweak it and reign it in to look more normal and good.[/p][p]You might have to open these images separately to see the difference; it's pretty subtle. Look at the edges where two surfaces meet.[/p][p][/p][p]This week I added a highly requested revision system for creations that allows you to upload an improved version of your world or subassembly without having to make a separate creation:[/p][p][/p][p]Pictured: @Sc0ttB0x's Hard disc V1[/p][p]This means that it's now much easier to fix an issue about your circuit that you only found after uploading, all you have to do is click the "Upload new revision" button in the revisions tab of your creation, then go back to the game window and upload the subassembly or world as usual.[/p][p][/p][p]We also hope to use this system in the future when mods are introduced to the Hub, along with some improvements like more granular version numbers and game compatibility.[/p][p][/p][p]I've been working on our Steam store page. My goal is to present Logic World in a way that efficiently communicates what's so great about this game. It's an important part of my broader goal to increase revenue from Logic World enough to cover my rent and groceries. When people who would enjoy Logic World see the store page, I want them to think "this game looks great, I will buy it immediately!"[/p][p]The most notable change since the last LWW is that I redid the "About this game" section. I completely rewrote the text, and I recorded + edited three videos of LW gameplay to embed in the text.[/p][p][/p][p]My favorite part is a section I added at the end with three of my favorite quotes about Logic World. I'm very proud to have received these endorsements, and I personally think this section is quite convincing![/p][p][/p][p]I'd love to get your feedback on the store page. In particular, I'd like your opinion on whether three embedded videos right next to each other is too overwhelming, or whether it works for you.[/p][p]Please check it out and let me know what you think: [/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]On Saturday, we hosted a multiplayer server and invited anyone who wanted to join. The purpose was to get some screenshots and videos of multiplayer gameplay for use in promotional materials.[/p][p]We announced this casually on Discord a few days in advance, so I figured maybe four or five people would show up. Instead, TWENTY-EIGHT PEOPLE JOINED THE SERVER.[/p][p][/p][p]This was astonishing and utterly chaotic. We absolutely smashed the world record for the most people on a single Logic World server, which I think was previously around ten.[/p][p]You can clearly see the event in this graph of the Steam player count, courtesy of SteamDB:[/p][p][/p][p]Thanks to everyone who joined! Some of the footage from the event is already live in the "Multiplayer" video if you scroll down on the Steam page. Maybe you can spot yourself there?[/p][p][/p][p]The previous heading was a lie. There were actually a lot of bugs. People were out of sync with each other, there was severe server lag, and occasionally people's games would straight up crash.[/p][p]Most of the issues seemed to stem from our networking stack. We use Lidgren.Network for networking, and neither Lidgren itself nor the way we're using Lidgren are well-optimized for a large number of players. When we stress-tested the game by connecting 28 players to a single server, the networking just couldn't handle it.[/p][p]In the long run, this simply won't do. Our ambition for this game is to scale it to MMO levels, with hundreds or thousands of people playing in one shared world.[/p][p]We've been discussing what our next-gen networking solution will look like for a while, but as we watched the current networking solution fall apart this week, those discussions became a lot more serious and we started forming an actionable plan.[/p][p]It looks like we're going to write a brand new, bespoke networking library that's tailor-made for Logic World. It's very early right now, but we have three goals with this project:[/p]

1. [p]It must have extremely high performance.[/p]
2. [p]It must have excellent scalability, handling a large number of connections and a large amount of data throughput with ease.[/p]
3. [p]It must have a great API, so it's easy to add new features to our game and refactor old ones.[/p]

[p]We're building this first and foremost for Logic World, but if we do our job right, it'll end up being a great and useful tool that anybody can use to build real-time networked applications. We intend to release it as open source when it's ready.[/p][p]There's only one problem: we can't decide on a name. That's why we're asking you, the community, for help: what should we name our networking library? Here are some names we're considering:[/p]

• [p]LogicNet[/p]
• [p]BobbyNet[/p]
• [p]Pretty Okay Networking for Gamers (PONG)[/p]
• [p]Mousehatgames Megacool Multiplayer (MMM)[/p]
• [p]HatTrick (because it achieves "three goals"!)[/p]
• [p]Untitled Networking Library[/p]

[p]Let us know your thoughts in the comments!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![/p][p][/p][p]Setting up dedicated servers comes with quite a number of things to do, i.e. configuring the firewall, etc., but also logging in with Steam to prove that you actually own the game.[/p][p]In way this is pointless as the dedicated server is not exactly usable if you don't have the corresponding client to play on it. So we are proud to announce that you can now download the server anonymously via SteamCMD. Simply log in as 'anonymous' and you should be good to go. :)[/p][p]For those stumbling across this blog post while setting up a server, the command would now be [c]steamcmd +force_install_dir // +login anonymous +app_update 1252670 validate +quit[/c], which should run without any user interaction, so you neither have to type in your password nor your Steam guard code. Head over to the Dedicated Server Setup Guide wiki page for more details.[/p][hr][/hr][p]If you made it this far, you are a True Gamer. Thanks for reading.[/p][p]See you next Wednesday![/p]

[p]Hello! We're releasing a game update today to fix some issues. There isn't much else to say about it so I'll wrap it up here lol. More updates soon![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Here's everything new in 0.92.1:[/p][p]Outlines[/p]

• [p]Added setting: "Outline Style"[/p]
• [p]Added two new outline styles, "Fast" and "Balanced". These are alternative outlining techniques that look worse in exchange for more performance. The old outline style is now called "Beautiful".[/p]
• [p]The default outline style is now "Balanced".[/p]
• [p]Changed the default outline thickness from 5 to 4.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a visual issue where the color of outlines would be affected by the Resize Component UI.[/p]

[p]Graphics[/p]

• [p]Fixed some shadows not disappearing if you disable shadows after they were previously enabled.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the hole at the top of the mountain in the Test World not rendering correctly.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the multiplayer avatar preview looking like crap if accessed in the main menu with SHINY BOBBY enabled and real-time reflections disabled.[/p]
• [p]Realtime reflections are now disabled by default.[/p]
• [p]Added settings preview image for Realtime Reflections Enabled.[/p]

[p]Help menu[/p]

• [p]Flip is now shown while placing/grabbing/cloning a flippable object.[/p]
• [p]Board Rotation Up/Down is no longer shown when placing/grabbing/cloning a flat board.[/p]

[p]UI[/p]

• [p]Fixed the text box for sliders sometimes showing the wrong value after manual modification.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a small booger-shaped visual artifact in the text box for sliders.[/p]
• [p]Fixed not being able to bind some keys (i.e. Escape, Back Mouse Button) because they close the keybind edit UI.[/p]
• [p]Fixed some UI errors when selecting certain languages in the Languages menu (Estonian, Brazilian Portuguese and Hebrew).[/p]

[p]Networking[/p]

• [p]The client now prefers connecting via IPv4 if both IPv4 and IPv6 appear to be available for the client and the server that you want to connect to.[/p]
• [p]Fixed client-side configuration of 'MHG.Networking.Secret.InternetProtocolOverride: IPv4' not working in a certain edge case.[/p]

[p]Protocol[/p]

• [p]The Download Menu now supports [c]logicworld://[/c] v1 links.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue with incorrect protocol handling when the game is launched with a [c]logicworld://[/c] link.[/p]

[p]Building[/p]

• [p]When you place a subassembly with multiple roots, the game now properly saves the placement info (i.e. rotation, flip state, etc) for all the roots. When you place a multi-root subassembly multiple times, all roots will be placed the same way you set it on the preceding placement.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug where a peg could visually show as being in the wrong state after it was moved, if the move deleted a wire that was powering it.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a StackOverflowException when a very large number of pegs are connected.[/p]
• [p]Slightly improved the performance of calculating the circuit graph.[/p]

[p]Miscellaneous[/p]

• [p]Fixed an issue that prevented worlds from loading if they contained a modded component with more than 255 output pegs.[/p]
• [p]Improved the code for verifying player identities, which appears to have fixed an issue some people would sometimes see where attempting to join a verified server would fail with a "failed to obtain challenge response" error.[/p]
• [p]Improved the help text for a few command-line parameters of the dedicated server.[/p]
• [p]Changed the internal name of the Shadow Cascades setting, which prevents errors with trying to parse the old value.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the Back Mouse Button and Forward Mouse Button being swapped on Linux.[/p]