Tinkertown News

Greeting Tinkerers,

Thank you for reporting the new issues after the update yesterday. We worked hard to release a hotfix promptly to resolve those issues. Your quick feedback is greatly appreciated. You are truly amazing!

Hotfixes:

• Fixed a bug where players would not be able to talk to the NPCs
  
• Fixed a bug where sometimes townian quests would not proceed after building the house
  
• Fixed a bug where it was not possible to interact with fast travel stations
  

Known Issues:

• The dialogue windows cannot be closed properly. (Rare issue: A small chance to encounter)
  • Workaround: To close it, you can either use the Tab or the ESC button (back or menu button on Gamepads, respectively)
  • After closing the window this way, chances are that you are in the wrong Input State and cannot interact with anything.
    • Workaround: Press the inventory/menu (Tab) button until the window opens.

We apologize for any inconvenience that these issues may have caused and appreciate your ongoing support.

Have a wonderful weekend!
The Tinkertown Team

Greetings Tinkerers,

We're thrilled to announce an exciting new update! Now, players can access the world map using a hotkey before opening or closing the minimap. Additionally, this update includes various enhancements and quality-of-life improvements. Your feedback is crucial to us, and we'll keep you updated regularly.

Fun Note: We accidentally created a new "feature" while fixing some of the issues. Who knew that bamboo fences could fly away like that!? 😅



Full Changelog:

• Added the World Map to the Players Hotkeys: (New Feature!)
  • Players are now able to open the World Map when using the Hotkey previously reserved for opening and closing the minimap
    
  • Once the Globe has been crafted and players can see Dungeon Entrances, the Player World Map will be updated accordingly showing the Dungeons as well
    
  • As with the Minimap toggle, the World Map Hotkey can be bound to any other key.

• Fixed Equip/Unequip issues some players experienced
  
• Armor Effects will now also be visible when equipped in the cosmetic slots.
  
• The Elder Dragon Beam Attack is now shown correctly where Players will be hit.
  
• Fixed items with visual effects sometimes not showing up when carried
  
• Adjusted the Room players find the NPC Siamun at, to make sure he can be interacted with any time, when walking inside it.
  
• Fixed Tina the Farmers Reward Items. Some of the NPC's items crafted did not work as intended.
  
• Fixed Bestiary entries in Journal

We hope the new feature and recent changes are to your liking. If you have any feedback or suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact us on our Discord channel. We value your input and will do our best to implement any ideas you may have.

Have a safe adventure!
Your Tinkertown Team

Dear Tinkerers,

Our team has had an eventful month since we launched Tinkertown into the wilds of version 1.0. We spent over three years developing this game, and the amount of love, support, and hype we have received since its release has been truly amazing. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Our Discord and Steam forums have been overflowed with your enthusiasm, ideas, and questions. We are truly thankful for all your engagement, and we have once again seen how special the Tinkertown community is!

When we say engagement, we mean ALL engagement. Feedback is the cornerstone of not only Tinkertown but also of the entire company of Headup Games. So besides all encouragement and love, we also value constructive criticism very highly. That's what makes us better and keeps us in touch with our dear community's wishes!

So if you are not already on the Tinkertown Discord, please join it and talk to us about all your ideas.

With the full release of Tinkertown, there's still a long way to go and plenty of exciting new content to come. We'll be making both big and small updates, including quality-of-life changes and improvements based on the suggestions you've provided since launch.


It means the world to us that you are on this journey together with our team. Thank you for being Tinkerers!

Your Tinkertown team

Greetings Tinkerers,

We are excited to announce that a new update has been released! We appreciate all the feedback we have received in the past few days, and our team is working diligently to fix any issues and make improvements to enhance your experience.

If you have any great ideas or suggestions, please feel free to join our Community Discord. This is a great opportunity for you to directly communicate with our team.

Fixes and changes:

• Fixed a bug where Quests would be shown wrong/not shown at all in NPC's dialogue windows + could not be completed/did not give rewards
  
• Changed NPC state to no longer be dependent on housing state but on the state of their housing quest
  
• Added recipes for quest rewards so that players that were not actively involved in questing are still able to obtain the reward-items
  
• Added rooms with portals to the boss rooms of the God of Death and Heart of the Forest that teleports the player back out
  
• Also added said portal to the Haven area players get teleported to after fighting the Shrine Maidens in the Ice Dungeon.
  
• Re-worked the Forest Dungeon layout to be more streamlined + placed Juggernaut inside the prison area in front of the door that leads to the Castle
  
• Fixed a bug in Forest Dungeon with weird and unexpected knockback behaviour when fighting Skeletons on the bridge before the castle
  
• Fixed some issues with our font in certain languages
  
• Minor fixes
  

Until next time
Your Tinkertown Team

Dear Tinkerers,

In the past few days, we have received several reports from you regarding our game unintentionally accessing your microphone data and collecting data from you during gameplay. To avoid confusion, we would like to address these raised concerns clearly and explain exactly what happened in this case.

• Due to a bug in version 1.0, PlayFab’s voice chat feature could be enabled in multiplayer under certain circumstances, putting you in a private voice chat lobby.
  
• With version 1.0.1, this bug was fixed. According to PlayFab, no audio data is stored or processed. We have never had access to audio data.
  
• The option to share anonymized user data with us via Unity Analytics is unrelated to the microphone bug.
  
• We cannot attribute this anonymized user data to any natural person.
  
• The shared data contained only in-game events like items crafted, quests completed, etc, which would have helped us balance the game.
  
• Since version 1.0.2, we have completely disabled the option to share anonymized user data via Unity. In 1.0.2 it was greyed out, and later completely removed in 1.0.3.
  
• With the latest update, you will find an EULA at the beginning of the game. You now have the opportunity to trace in detail which data Tinkertown accesses and whether and how it is processed by us or external partners.
  
• This EULA must be accepted to play Tinkertown. You can read it beforehand on our homepage.
  
• We’re sorry for any confusion and inconvenience this may have caused.
  

[h2]Microphone Usage in Tinkertown[/h2]

To enable multiplayer sessions in Tinkertown, we utilize the "PlayFab" service from Microsoft Azure. This SDK supports the ability to access your microphone for features such as in-game voice chat or text-to-speech analysis. Version 1.0 of Tinkertown contained a bug that could activate your microphone under certain conditions and started a private voice chat within PlayFab, even though we had no intend to use this feature. After you brought this issue to our attention, we fixed this bug with version 1.0.1.

We consulted with PlayFab regarding the implications for your data. PlayFab assured us that voice audio is never stored anywhere. If the network connections were relayed connections, the voice data would have passed through the nearest Azure region used by PlayFab’s service, determined by QoS latency measurements per player. Since Tinkertown never used any accessibility features like speech-to-text, the data would not have been processed at all, only relayed.

If the players were connected through a peer-to-peer network, their voice data would not have passed through the relay at all and would have traveled via the internet. Approximately 92% of connections were P2P in the last 6 months. All traffic sent via Party, including voice, is encrypted.

Our team never had access to your voice transmissions at any time, and we still do not have the ability to access your voice data.

[h2]Shared User Data [/h2]

To continually improve Tinkertown, there was an option for you to share anonymized data with us via Unity. Until version 1.0, this option was enabled by default. The anonymized data helped us make adjustments to the player experience and fix bugs. This anonymized data could not be attributed to any specific player.

With the release of version 1.0, some users raised concerns that this option was enabled by default. With version 1.0.1, we added a pop-up dialog at the first game launch, asking if you would like to share this anonymized data with us or not.

It is important to emphasize once again that the anonymized data you could have shared with us had no connection to the microphone bug. These are two completely unrelated topics.

However, due to the confusion caused by these reports we have decided, as a precaution, to completely disable the option to share anonymized user data with version 1.0.2. Consequently, the option in the menu is currently grayed out. Since version 1.0.2, there is no way to share user data. This means that when you start Tinkertown now, you do not need to decide whether you want to share anonymized user data because we aren’t collecting user data.

[h2]What Happens Next [/h2]

First and foremost, we would like to apologize for the inconvenience caused. It took us some time to recognize and address all the issues and seek advice on how to handle such cases. Our team has made significant efforts in improving this situation in the past few days. We understand that you were and still are concerned, and we would like to prevent that from now on with the latest update.

From now on, when you start the game for the first time, you will find an End User License Agreement (EULA) where you can read all the details about how services can access data from Tinkertown and in what manner. This EULA must be accepted to start playing Tinkertown. If you do not agree to the EULA, you will not be able to play Tinkertown. With this approach, we aim to provide the highest level of transparency, allowing you to play Tinkertown without any uneasiness. Within the EULA, you now have the opportunity to trace in detail which data Tinkertown accesses and whether and how it is processed by us or external partners.

We hope that this step will help us regain your trust. The reviews criticizing our game have deeply affected us. We would like to ask you to give Tinkertown a second chance, and we would be grateful if we could alleviate your concerns about your data through this explanation.

If you have any further questions, we are here to assist you.

Your Team at Headup