Fireworks Mania News

Hey!

Its been another month and time for an update from the developer - aka me 🤓

In case you missed it, Public Multiplayer Beta is open!
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/6242613536165636826

[h2]July is vacation time[/h2]
July has been and is a bit low on "game dev time" for me as its vacation time in Denmark.
So I recharge my mental batteries by prioritizing family and "away from the PC"-stuff.

But enough about that - what's next?

[h2]Singleplayer and blueprints[/h2]
As the name "multiplayer-beta" suggests, my main focus has been and really is on adding multiplayer features to the game. However, not all want to play multiplayer, so the game need to have a singleplayer mode too.
Right now, you can kind of do singleplayer by creating a host and make it private. This however isn't intuitive and there are more to singleplayer than just playing in "private".

So next up I will focus on getting singleplayer to work, which will require some UI and code changes - hopefully it shouldn't be too hard.

Once that is working its also time to get blueprints to work again, as people playing singleplayer will expect that obviously. What we do with blueprints in multiplayer I don't know yet, but I have gotten some good suggestions on how it could maybe work without being the spammers best friend, but blueprints in multiplayer will be later.

So hopefully in one of the upcoming updates you should start to see singleplayer working in the new "multiplayer-beta" version.

[h2]New settings UI[/h2]
In the last Developer News I mentioned I would be looking into the settings UI.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/4158592372449011630

The reason was that the settings UI almost haven't changed since original release 3 years ago and it was starting to show.
Both in term of the basic look and feel, but also in the limitations in how the UI was made - I couldn't really add more new stuff to it.
Therefore I have been looking into that since last Developer News and a first version of the new settings UI is now part of the latest multiplayer-beta updates.

Here is how it's currently looking as of v2024.7.1.


Its no secret that UI isn't what I'm best at, so I'm really happy with the new look!
As there are now sub-menus I have a way to group settings and the actual settings to the right is in a scrollview so as I add more you can just scroll.
So basically there are no limit to how many settings I can add.

For now I haven't actually added that much new, other some Display settings, so we now have Fullscreen Window mode + most settings you don't need to hit apply anymore, you just change them and it takes effect immediately.

As the settings UI is both a part of the Mainmenu but also the Ingame-menu, the entire ingame-menu (not only the settings part) had to be updated too to match the new look and feel.




[h2]Change log[/h2]
I have pushed the following updates since last Developer News.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/4221643401498925331
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/4221643401460186006

This is all for now - need to get back to work on the next update :)

YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord

- Enjoy!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/

IMPORTANT: Due to the underlaying changes to how the settings is stored, you will have to accept the mod.io Terms before mods will be loaded. Its basically because the game "forgot" you already did and because this is still a beta I didn't wanted to spend time making transition nicely.

### Changed
- First draft of new settings UI (which also includes a new look of the ingame menu). This is both the actually UI but also how it works behind the scenes. Expecially the resolution/fullscreen mode implementation is different, meaning we now also have borderless mode! In this version its minimal what is new, but the UI and system behind is now much easier for me to add new settings to, as you will see in the future
- Updated badwords list

### Fixed
- Fixed Screaming Pal explosion effect as before it was pink by mistake
- Fixed issue where the chat would show ontop of inventory and ingame menu
- Fixed issue where version could sometimes briefly be seen when ingame menu was closed

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/6242613536165636826

YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord

- Enjoy!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/

## Added
- Added new 4th of July decorations

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/6242613536165636826

YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord

- Enjoy!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/

Happy 4th Of July!

I know, I know, it's not the 4th yet!

However, for you to prepare your 4th of July firework shows, you need decorations right?

So for that exact reason, I have pushed, just now, an update to both "normal" and "multiplayer-beta" version that add some cozy 4th of July decorations.


"Multiplayer-beta?" you might ask, yes I'm working on multiplayer, check it out:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/6242613536165636826

Anyway, the decorations are added to Town, Ranch and City in the "normal" version of the game and only to Town in "multiplayer-beta" as it's the only standard map that is added to that version for now.

That's really all I wanted to share this time.

For the once who celebrates, Happy 4th!!

... and to the rest of us - go shoot off a virtual firework anyway, will ya?
(I know you don't need a reason anyway ;))

YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord

- Enjoy!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/

Hey!

Its been another month and time for an update from the developer - aka me :)

In case you missed it, Public Multiplayer Beta is open!
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/6242613536165636826

[h2]Upcoming 4th of July[/h2]
4th of July 2024 is coming closer!

In case you don't know what "4th of July" is - here is a little history lesson on the topic - NERD!


Anyway, I'm from Denmark and therefore don't celebrate it - however, who says no to celebrate something with digital fireworks? That's what I thought!

Last year, we had a time limited open-alpha of the multiplayer version of the game, so all of you could try it out. I even did a live stream where we tried to stress test it - ahh the good old bean days - where you there?

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This year, 2024, the multiplayer version is out as an public-beta that all can give a try if they want - so if you haven't give it a try :)

Soon I will enable 4th of july in both the multiplayer-beta and the normal version of the game, to get into that epic mood - keep an eye out for updates when we get a bit closer.



I hope to see some of you in game around 4th of july :)


[h2]Status on default maps in multiplayer[/h2]

The Town map is now almost fully working in multiplayer, which is a big thing. The thing is that these native maps have destructible objects, which I had to completely rewrite to make it work in multiplayer.


So far I have only worked on Town, but I assume Ranch and City will be easier (famous last words), as all the heavy lifting have been done as part of making Town.

When I say "almost fully working" it's because there still are some tiny things. Some are technical that you don't see, but one that is visible is fire. Fire is not yet working synced in multiplayer, but it's something I will look into soon. Well, there is some fire, but now really multiplayer-synced.

Anyway, getting into too many details here I think, just wanted to mention it, in case you were missing fire in Town. :)

[h2]Next step - settings UI & singleplayer[/h2]
I haven't changed the settings UI at all in the multiplayer development, which is why it's starting to look at bit out of place as I have updated almost all other UI.

However, not only the UI itself needs to be updated, but also how the settings work internally. The reason is that there will be many more options and settings in the game in the future and we need a UI that can handle and scale with that need.

I only just started on this, but here you can get an idea of how its going to look and work.


Singleplayer need to work too soon, as even though multiplayer is a very requested feature, a lot of players still like to just play alone in singleplayer. Therefore it of cause have to work too..

[h2]Change log[/h2]
I have pushed the following updates since last Developer News.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/4158592372457518434
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/6211107361531204940
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/4173227802713366883
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/4173227802705954382
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/4173227802702435500
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/4157464570512522374
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/4157464570508833981
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1079260/view/4179981934826362715

This is all for now - need to get back to work on the next update :)

YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord

- Enjoy!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/