Logic World News

[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]

[p]Is it Wednesday again already? Yes it is. Wow. Nice. Cool. Good.[/p][p][/p][p]We're basically done Logic World update 0.92.1, which fixes many minor issues with update 0.92. We intend to release 0.92.1 next week.[/p][p]You can test the almost-finished update right now in the [c]public-previews[/c] branch. Instructions for that along with a changelog for today's preview update are at the end of this post.[/p][p]Are there any last minute changes or fixes you really want to see in this update? Let us know![/p][p][/p][p]Logic World uses an "outline" effect to highlight certain objects in the world. The outlines have been problematic recently and so this week I staged an intervention.[/p][h2]A brief history of outlines in Logic World[/h2][p]In the earliest prototypes for Logic World, then called The Ultimate Nerd Game, I used a library called Outline Effect by Cakeslice. When I had performance problems, I ended up forking Outline Effect into a library called Outline Effect But It's Faster. This was my very first time doing open source work![/p][p][/p][p]Later, TUNG/LW was moved to Unity's Universal Render Pipeline, which broke all graphics effects made for earlier Unity versions, so we had to find a new outline solution. We ended up going with a modified version of PRO Outline by Knife Entertainment.[/p][p][/p][p]However, PRO Outline was made before 2020. In 2020, Unity broke all graphics effects made for earlier Unity versions (again). We put off updating Unity for a long time because of annoying crap like this, but in Logic World 0.92 we finally updated Unity and so PRO Outline didn't work anymore and we had to find a new solution.[/p][p]We ended up going with the Wide Outline from Ameye's Linework, which uses a really cool jump flood algorithm to give us exceptionally high-quality outlines.[/p][p][/p][p]While these outlines look great, they unfortunately have some performance issues. Lag from these outlines is especially noticeable by folks on integrated GPUs and especially when there are a lot of outlines visible simultaneously (such as when using the Resizing building mechanic).[/p][h2]Fixing the lag[/h2][p]To improve performance on the devices that aren't suited to the new and expensive outlines, I decided to add a new setting to choose the outline algorithm the game uses. We'll keep the existing outlines around as the high-end option while adding an option to use a faster outline method instead.[/p][p]Initially I wanted to code up a brand new outline system for this, with a balance of visual quality and performance perfectly tailored to Logic World's use case. I started working on this, but it was taking way too long, and I sort of lost motivation on it because A) Unity's APIs are super annoying to work with and B) this system, being closely tied to Unity APIs, would have to be completely thrown out when we switch to Godot in 0.100.[/p][p]So I instead looked into premade options for outlines, and I determined that the best option was to add the other two outline options from Linework. The old jump-flood outlines are now called "Beautiful", and there are two new options: "Balanced" which looks fine and is much faster, and "Fast" which looks like crap but has only a very small performance impact.[/p][p]In this table you can see what the new outline options look like and their relative performance. I've elected to do this comparison with the Resizing UI since that's where you see some of the most technically complex outlines in the game.[/p][p]Seeing these numbers, I decided to make Balanced outlines the new default. If you want to retain the same outline visuals (and performance impact) from 0.92, you'll have to manually change the Outline Style setting to "Beautiful" after updating to 0.92.1.[/p][p]This should solve all those performance issues for people! Now, hopefully I don't have to touch outlines ever again. Until we move to Godot and it has to all be redone from scratch.[/p][p][/p][p]A few days ago I was browsing the Logic World Discord server and noticed a few people iterating on the design of a circuit, sharing each attempt as a subassembly on the Hub. When I opened each one to see the implementation, I realized that it would be great if you could properly link two creations and say "this one is based on that one" without having to manually write this in the description and add a link.[/p][p]Thus, when uploading a creation you may now specify which existing creation it is based on (or "remixing"), which will show a link to the original creation on the sidebar of the new one:[/p][p][/p][p]Pictured: @CrispyPin's Game of Life: 36 components[/p][p]It's worth noting that this is different from the concept of creation versioning (which will be coming soon 🤞): a remix implies that the new creation is based on another but doesn't unconditionally improve on it (maybe different tradeoffs were made, e.g. it's faster but also bigger), whereas a new version means that the older versions should generally not be used and that the new one is plain better (e.g. it fixes the output not being correct).[/p][p][/p][p]Here's everything new in 0.92.1 Preview 41, since Preview 21 last week. You can play it right now by opting into the 'Public Previews' Steam branch. opting into the 'Public Previews' Steam branch.[/p][p][/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]Changed the minimum outline thickness from 1 to 2.[/p]
• [p]Changed the maximum outline thickness from 50 to 20.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a visual issue where the color of outlines would be affected by the Resize Component UI.[/p]

[p]Other stuff[/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 the Back Mouse Button and Forward Mouse Button being swapped on Linux.[/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 StackOverflowException when a very large number of pegs are connected.[/p]
• [p]Slightly improved the performance of calculating the circuit graph (disclaimer: you won't notice).[/p]

[p][/p][p]Editing to add this section 2025-11-15: we just released Preview 54 as a followup to Preview 41. Here's what's new.[/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]Outlines[/p]

• [p]Balanced outlines no longer have configurable width. Their width is locked to a low value to ensure good performance. (Other outline styles don't get significantly slower with high widths, but it absolutely tanks performance on Balanced.)[/p]
• [p]Reverted the changes to min/max outline thickness from the last preview.[/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]Miscellaneous[/p]

• [p]Added settings preview image for Outline Style.[/p]
• [p]Added settings preview image for Realtime Reflections Enabled.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the text box for sliders sometimes showing the wrong value after manual modification.[/p]

[p]Hello gamers! It's been two weeks since update 0.92 came out. We've seen a positive reception to it, with player numbers we haven't seen since launch and many new people joining the Logic World discord. Most of all, we've enjoyed all the subassemblies you've uploaded to the Creation Hub. Thank you for playing![/p][p][/p][p]Despite 0.92 not being very old at this point, we have already noticed and fixed a few issues for 0.92.1, as you can see in the remainder of this section. On this note, when you read this, the new preview version should already be live, so if you want to help us test (or would like the latest fixes and are not afraid of potential new bugs), please, once again, select the [c]public-previews[/c] branch in steam.[/p][h2]Networking - GHXX[/h2][p]Almost 30 years ago, IPv6 was conceptualized and now, thanks to a new modem, it appears that I can finally use it. Logic World also supports IPv4 and IPv6, but in 0.92 (and before) preferred IPv6 if both were available. There was no real reason for this choice, however it does pose a bit of an issue if a server is wrongly advertising that they support both v4 and v6 (by having an A and AAAA DNS record respectively). This is because Logic World at some point needs to decide between using the v4 or v6 address when connecting, and may choose the wrong one. Technically both should work, but in this special case the v6 address for some reason did not work, likely due to a networking issue unrelated to Logic World. Unluckily, as the DNS entries are provided by a third party, it is not possible to remove the AAAA (IPv6) entry and thus fix the problem. Regardless though, preferring v4 by default is probably a better approach any way as v4 is supported everywhere whereas v6 is not, and as a side-effect, it also fixes that one misconfiguration. Therefore Logic World now prefers v4, unless only v6 is available.[/p][p]Speaking of preferring v4, turns out that the secret setting [c]MHG.Networking.Secret.InternetProtocolOverride: IPv4[/c] was also broken if v6 was available, but that is also fixed in the preview version.[/p][h2]World loading - GHXX[/h2][p]On Saturday, one person also reported that they could not load their modded save file anymore, as it turns out the Logic World save loading code somehow only supported components with less than 256 outputs due to a tiny oversight, but that is fixed now, so now you can make even crazier modded components![/p][h2]Dedicated server cleanup - Ecconia[/h2][p]Not sure if you've been affected by it. There was some confusion because the dedicated server binaries were stored in versioned folders ([c]net6.0[/c] through [c]net9.0[/c]). We did this a while ago to take advantage of the latest .NET performance improvements and still allow players to use Harmony, which required an older version. We've reverted that change. The folder with the server binaries is now called [c]Server[/c] again, same as in the normal game.[/p][h2]Circuit state chaos - Ecconia[/h2][p]The never-ending hunt for circuit states that visually have the wrong state... This week @colon_three managed to reproduce a bug that led to wires and pegs showing the wrong state — thanks a lot. This has now been fixed. But I bet there are still more bugs causing incorrect circuit states.[/p][h2]Old settings startup issues - Ecconia[/h2][p]We have a lovely, capable settings framework. But it wasn't designed to handle value migration between versions. However, the game breaks if you update from the last main version to the current one. This was because the setting for [c]ShadowCascades[/c] used different values. When we updated Unity, those values changed, causing a crash. To fix this, we renamed the settings key for shadow cascades. That way, the old value is no longer parsed. We so gonna improve this with Godot rewrite.[/p][p][/p][p]Here's everything new in 0.92.1 Preview 21, which you can play right now by opting into the 'Public Previews' Steam branch.[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Fixed broken world loading for modded components that have more than 255 outputs.[/p]
• [p]Fixed client-side configuration of 'MHG.Networking.Secret.InternetProtocolOverride: IPv4' not working in a certain edge case.[/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 a bug where a peg which got moved had visually wrong state, when a wire powering it got deleted by the move.[/p]
• [p]Corrected server startup argument description for working / root directory.[/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]Renamed the setting [c]MHG.Graphics.ShadowCascades[/c] to [c]MHG.Graphics.ShadowCascadeCount[/c]. This prevents the game crashing trying to parse the old value.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Our Steam page hasn't really been updated since the early access launch in 2021. It's looking pretty outdated and crufty, which is bad for us. We want people arriving to the Steam page to have a good impression that makes them likely to wishlist or purchase.[/p][p]Thus, we're going to overhaul the Steam page, and we've already started experimenting with a new capsule image (brighter, more "fun") and a new short description (less cringe, more descriptive).[/p][p]Something I'm interested in hearing from you: what qualities of a Steam page make you want to wishlist/purchase a game? What could we change about Logic World's steam page to make it better, in your opinion?[/p][p][/p][p]We'll keep working on more fixes, as we've got a pretty long list of details to tidy up. We're also working on some bigger things for beyond 0.92.1, but we will tell all about them next Wednesday -- see you then :)[/p]