Multiverse Designer News

Hi everyone! It’s been an intense week hard at work here at Toopan Games. We continue working on Criteria (don’t forget to check the first entry of the Criteria Course!), but in parallel, we are working on improving and/or expanding some features of the gaming module. We’ll go into more detail when all this is ready to be implemented in the next update, but we want to give you a small sneak peek at what will come next to Multiverse Designer.

The first thing we’ve worked on lately seems very simple, but it’s actually very important, as it’s one of the things you’ll do the most when playing: rolling dice! In a nutshell, we’re making our dice roll faster. We realized (and some of the feedback we received during the Next Fest pointed in this direction too) that it took too long for dice to finish rolling. Funny thing is that our dice rolls aren’t just for show, that is, we don’t produce a random number in the back and then show a dice rolling animation just for show: we’re actually simulating the physics of a dice rolling in order to get better randomness. Random number generator are never truly random, and use a numeric seed to produce their results, which can have problems further down the line: if you know the seed you can predict its results. To cut a long story short, we’ve improved the rolling simulation so it goes faster.

We’re also implementing new visuals for spell area effects. Like this!

Here it comes...

...and it goes boom!

And talking about areas, another thing we’re working on is trigger areas: basically, spaces in the map that trigger a specific effect when you step into them. Useful for traps, cinematic effects (like a wall crumbling in front of you or a roof collapsing right after you leave a room), reactive spells, and a long list of other cool things to t̶o̶r̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶e̶r̶s̶ create interesting situations in your adventures.

Finally, we’re implementing weapon selection for almost all characters – until now, in the beta your character model had a default weapon and you couldn’t change its visuals: if they were armed with a sword but your character sheet said it was a warhammer, you could change the stats rule-wise, but visually it would still be a sword. To do this, we searched the assets in the game and extracted about 200 weapons and shields from several of them. Then we created a system where players can choose which weapon will be in each hand. These aren't necessarily medieval gear, as you can see in the pictures below...



And that’s all for today! As always, we invite you to join our community on Discord, wishlist Multiverse Designer on Steam, and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. See you in our next update!

PS: Friendly reminder, please redeem your Steam keys, and if you haven’t seen yours in your inbox, send us a DM through Kickstarter so we can send it to you. Have a nice day!

Hi everyone! Now that the dust of the Steam Next Fest has settled, it’s time to resume our usual schedule of updating you about what we are working on in Multiverse Designer. Before moving on, though, we want to thank everyone who downloaded the demo and tinkered with it for a whole month, and of course, all the people who wishlisted it on Steam. The Fest was a massive boost for this project, and we appreciate all the attention, support, and useful feedback that we have received.

Now, if you have checked, you will have realized that the demo isn’t available anymore – we de-listed it a few days ago, because we’re working on new features and soon it would be outdated. And what are we working on, you are surely asking? Well, there’s some cool stuff about spell effects, trigger areas, and weapon selection, but we will talk about that at a later date (probably next week). Because this week we will be focusing on something else that we are working on: we have started to implement D&D 5ed rules in Criteria, so Multiverse Designer can automatize game rules for you – that is, do the bookkeeping of keeping track of things like initiative, HP, skill checks, attacks, spells, resistances…

But the short-term important consequence of this is that we are using these efforts to record an in-depth course on Criteria, so you all can learn how to use it to implement your own rules (or to tweak the ones that we’re implementing when the time comes). With this course, modders will be able to create and implement whole rulesets (which then can be shared through Steam Workshop!). As an example, we’re posting the first video here, where we explain how to create a character sheet – that is, not how to fill a character sheet, like when you’re rolling a new character, but how to design one from scratch.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This is an essential part when implementing the rules of a game – on the one hand, you have all the abstract rules, like “to hit an enemy, throw a dice, add your attack stat, and if it’s higher than the enemy’s armor class, throw the damage of your weapon”. On the other, character sheets give you the information that you need to interact with these rules: in this example, what’s your attack stat and your damage output, and what’s your enemy’s armor class.

This Criteria Course will always come in two forms: a step-by-step video tutorial, where we will explain how to do something from start to finish, but without going into the fine detail of every single thing we’re seeing. Then, after we have explained the big picture, we can go into the finer detail of explaining what everything is and does. And we will also keep updating and expanding a glossary with the definition of every term that we have mentioned in the tutorials, which is easier to access for reference and quick searches to refresh your memory further down the road. Sometimes these explanations will be double, giving you the definition of a term within the general context of tabletop RPG as well as its definition within the specific context of Criteria. You’ll understand the format when you see it! We’ve posted the first video here for your reference, but go to the Steam Guides section to see the first chapter of our Criteria Course.

We can’t wait to see what our wonderful community does with Criteria when it’s fully implemented and documented!

Hi everyone! We're very happy to report that we just released the anticipated new update that we recently talked you about. It's one of the most important updates since we made the beta available to backers: you'll finally be able to play in the maps you have created with Multiverse Designer!

As we already explained, along with the gameplay module we're implementing the first rules created with Criteria, although they're still very basic: rolling dice, HP and initiative tracking, movement, basic actions, character sheet editing, up to 20 common skills, and 3 spells. There's lots of work to do in terms of implementing rulesets, but at least now you can play and have the computer do the basic bookkeeping for you. This update also implements the Character Forge; check out how to access it in our latest post (and do send us your creations, you can get an extra invite to the beta!)

As you know, this update also comes with two ready-to-play encounters: a fight against a wyvern (we recorded ourselves playing it, you can watch it here) for the duration of the Steam Next Fest; we'll update it to Youtube when it's over). The second fight is against a group of humanoid enemies. We have also implemented tutorials to help with the landing -- Multiverse Designer is a powerful tool with many features that can be overwhelming at first, so we hope these tutorials can help with feeling the ropes of our tool. And finally, the Campaigns, a way to create an overall script for an entire module or campaign, as we also explained here.

Along with these new major features, we've also worked on improving stability and quashing some rebellious bugs; you'll see a more detailed changelog below these lines. That's all for today! See you on our Discordserver -- you can also follow us on Instagram and now Bluesky. See you in our next update!

PS: Remember that we have sent you the Steam keys that will unlock your Kickstarter exclusive content further down the road. Please check your inbox and spam folders, and send us a DM through Kickstarter if you can't find them, so we can re-send them to you. Have a nice day!

[h3]CHANGELOG[/h3]

• First version of Criteria
  
• First version of the gameplay module (create and join campaigns to play together)
  
• Character Forge: Avatar and character sheets editors
  
• New animations for the Character Forge character
  
• Basic in-game tutorials
  
• Full Steam Workshop integration
  
• New assets from Kitbash3D (Atlantis, Shogun e Shangrila)
  
• Several fixes in character animations and collisions
  
• Several fixes in the asset search tags
  
• Kickstarter add-ons badges are now showed in the main menu along with the tier badge (keys must have been redeemed for that)
  
• Terrain bases on some assets can now be customized or turned invisible
  

Hi everyone! First of all, we want to thank everyone for what’s been an incredible start to this Steam Next Fest. The number of downloads and wishlists has blown away all our expectations, and we have received very positive feedback and very interesting suggestions. We are incredibly grateful for your attention and kind words. Welcome to everyone who’s discovering Multiverse Designer now – and let’s keep it up, we’ve got 6 days to go!

Having said that, there is a feature in the demo that we fear might pass under your radar, as we realize only now that it’s a bit too hidden. We’re talking about the Character Forge, which allows you to customize your in-game avatar. You can try to make it as close to that mental picture you have of your character – or let your imagination go wild and have fun creating the most bizarre characters! To highlight this feature, we want to propose you a creative contest: send us your best creations through social media (Instagram or Bluesky), or share it with us on our Discordserver. The best ones will get an invite for the Multiverse Designer beta.



So, here’s how you can access the Character Forge. First, in the Main Menu of the demo, click on Avatar – that allows you to create the character you will use in your games. For now, Avatar creation is tied to a set of Criteria rules: that is, you create a character for a specific game. We will look into letting you access the Character Forge separately, so you can create a character appearance that you can save as a preset that you can then apply to characters in any game. Once you click on Avatar, you will have to select which Criteria rules you’ll be creating the character for; for now we only have the rules for the two pre-made encounters in the demo, so select Demo and click the folder icon to proceed.



Now, when it loads, you have to click in the tool icon at the left side of the screen, and then in the face that will show up in the upper left corner (both things highlighted in orange in the screenshot below). That will create a 3D model that you can put in the map. And when you have put the model on the screen, double-click on it and click on the “Change” button next to the first item “Appearance”. That will open the Character Forge.





Send us via social media or through our Discord server your best creations! Hit us up with your wildest or most bizarre characters, crazy monsters, and charismatic heroes! We hope you have fun letting your imagination run free in Multiverse Designer. See you soon!

Watch us playing a full encounter in Multiverse Designer: a barbarian, a wizard, and a paladin against a mighty wyvern!