Monsters Loot Swag News

Behold the fancy HDR shader effects! Marvel at the Physcially Based Rendering of shiny surfaces!

Monsters Loot Swag has been updated to a new engine version, with a new fangled asset system, fancy HDR and PBR shaders, and more *stuff* - dragging it kicking and screaming into the 21st Century!

The previous version of the game has been retired, and so has the demo which is now out of date.

Amongst this change, there has also been a whole sale raft of fixes and improvements.

Update 25: update to v.1.8.0.1

1. Change: Beta Build is promoted to Release Build, old default build based on engine version 3 has been retired.
   
2. Change: Beta Build is now keeping pace with Open Source game engine development and latest build pull is now noted on Main Menu Screen.
   
3. Change: Both Default/Release and Beta Builds now use the same number system for version updates.
   
4. Change: Shader Cache now has a new folder as loca/shaderCache
   
5. New: Added huge preload group to reduce dynamic networked objects first spawn loading stutter at the cost of 15+ seconds addition level loading time.
   
6. Change: Player projectile attacks no longer automatically stagger Bosses.
   
7. Fix: Level 6 Boss, The Head Gardener, was failing to physically spawn the model.
   
8. Fix: Dive Bomber Special Defend Swag was using the client's ID number for damage, resulting in massively inflated damage such as 26004. Now fixed to 50.
   
9. Change: Level 6 player barrier to prevent the player from scaling walls due to impact impusles was too low.
   
10. Change: Converted remaining Waveform files to Theora.
    
11. Change: Re-imported 257 audio files to update asset references.
    
12. Fix: Changed redundant marker class to current in level 2.
    
13. Fix: Changed redundant marker class to current in level 4.
    
14. Change: Reduced shadowMap needlessly drawing an overly large size, resulting in performance boost of up to 19% on some levels.
    
15. Change: Reduced shadow logweight by 10% for crisper shadows in client player's viewport.
    
16. Change: Increased shadowMap resolution for higher quality shadows at the cost of ~80mb memory.
    
17. Change: Frag Special Attack maximum throw force reduced to 8 from 12, grenades should no longer land far behind a huge group of enemies.
    
18. Fix: Fixed the occaissional (but in Level 6 often) SFX Emitter throwing an assert with ghosting whilst toggling when the player was charging/buying swag ... by completely removing the bloody things and replacing them with a client side loopable explosion.
    
19. Change: Open Node audio now plays through own SFX emitter.
    
20. Change: Pumpkin standard damage up 10% as a reward for being an unlockable character.
    
21. Change: Pumpkin heavy damage up 10% as a reward for being an unlockable character.
    
22. Change: Pumpkin special evade damage up 10% as a reward for being an unlockable character.
    
23. Change: Noxious Gas Special Defend is now a self contained explosion for networking.
    
24. Fix: Ban Hammer explosion was not getting position passed.
    
25. Fix: Some scheduled explosions had position and decal passed in reverse order.
    
26. Change: Shaded Level 6 enemies materials to a shade of their glow colour.
    
27. Change: Added a faint glow to all coins and taels.
    
28. Change: Made bronze coins darker and more saturated in colour.
    
29. Fix: Noxious Gas Special Defend was not playing the fart sound.
    
30. Fix: Triple Damage Icon now resets with all other attribute modifier icons.
    
31. New: Players not near the exit when it is opened are now informed with a special fx, previously it was just a message.
    
32. Change: Loading Screen Title now a slightly smaller font size to avoid edge clipping.
    
33. Fix: Achievement UNTOUCHABLE was having a misspelt var passed.
    
34. Fix: Achievement UNTOUCHABLE was checking for the wrong level.
    
35. New: Steam Stats now record if the UNTOUCHABLE achievement has been mistakenly run and will reset it if need be.
    
36. Change: Beta Main Menu Music is now Tōhō-core.
    

Welcome to Early Access Update 24. The majority of this update is dedicated to the Beta build, but the default branch also gets a bit of love and attention.

First up, changelog.

1. Fix: Sound FX Memory Stream had a misaligned pointer on reset.
   
2. Fix: Level 5 Monster Boss, Lula The Non-Resident Alien, was physically failing to load, and spawned only as an invisible collision box, making hitting her a little difficult.
   
3. Fix: Message box for "Game Over" or "World Complete" has been resized better for new text.
   
4. Change: Moved level 6 swag spawn positions slightly more down into terrain.
   
5. Fix: Added "allowPlayerStep" to node objects incase of rare collision issue related to above change in level 6.
   
6. Fix: Momento Mori timer was not displaying countdown due to trying to include minutes, making string too large for display.
   
7. Fix: Player clock was not displaying hours played.
   
8. Change: Altered font size for clock to better fit.
   
9. Change: Altered vertical size and position on clock.
   
10. Fix: Fixed corruption in datablock cache called by changing pack/unpack in cpp.
    
11. Change: Altered values for default level of detail distances to improve performance.
    

I had spent a good amount of time using the engine's own network debugging systems, but found that they weren't actually operating as I had expected. Whilst they tracked packets et al, they didn't give me the information which I had hoped for. PacketData disagreements happened when expected, with objects spawning on the server and then being transmited to the now behind client. However the Net Move Checksums would complain everytime there was an object that wasn't initialized at the birth of the server, eg: whenever the player moved the change in position for each object created AFTER the level had loaded would spam the debugger ... which was not terribly useful ... ːsteamfacepalmː

The good news is that packets were not getting dropped, the bad news was I ended up with a gigantic debugging file of limited value. I also ended up introducing an unitialized variable to my local datablock cache object which produced a bug with particle animated bitmaps, and took a good 3 days to hunt down and fix.

Anyhow, Happy New Space Year 2024. ːhappychappyː

Welcome to Early Access Update 23. The majority of this update is dedicated to the Beta build, and getting assets to preload quicker.

When starting the Beta build there was a noticeable pause between the initital splash screen displaying and the startup sequence loading. This was due to material assets preloading in the background. On Steam Deck this would result in a black screen for a few seconds.

>>> Now a new screen displays, informing the player exactly what is happening, whilst the materials preload. I still need to draw up a dedicated background for this, but in the meantime there is a shrugging catgirl.

The other major change - again for the Beta - is the preloading of asset files when the first level has loaded. Previously there was a noticeable lag when a new asset was loaded for the first time, usually when a new monster spawned. After much searching and trial and error I discovered that for some reason decals were taking far longer to appear than expected.

>>> Spawn time of monsters and general dynamic objects should be much faster now.

All this and a few other bug fixes, most of which are detailed below.

1. Update 23: update to v.1.7.8.0
   
2. Change: Client materials now load after initial start up to prevent a blank screen displaying for multiple seconds, especially on Steam Deck.
   
3. New: Client materials preload now has it's own GUI screen informing the player of load progress.
   
4. Change: Updated DirectX compiler for shaders.
   
5. Change: AI Monsters now have preloaded shapes in the level for instancing.
   
6. Change: Shapes and animations are pre-registered on the server to remove spawn lag/stuter on first instance.
   
7. Change: Relevant decals for FX and monster spawning are now preloaded in the level for instancing.
   
8. Change: Material brightness for some decals which do not recieve lighting has been lowered so they are less blinding.
   
9. Change: Some dynamic objects have had their material brightness reduced to make them more legible.
   
10. Change: Cracked earth decals were not receiving shadows which made them look odd in shadow.
    
11. Fix: Single Use Item "Lava" was not using an explosion.
    
12. Fix: Single Use Item "Lava" was not creating a decal.
    
13. Fix: Single Use Item "Terror Tower" had the wrong decal.
    
14. Fix: Single Use Item "Brass Monkey" had the wrong decal.
    

Merry Christmas - which I am in no way, shape or form ready for, so it's going to be panic stations next week - and a Happy New Year! See you in Space Year 2024.

Hot fix for 2 stats which might not always fire immediately and 1 achievement which fired when it shouldn't.
"TIS BUT A SCRATCH - recieve >1000 damage" was being awarded by mistake, this is now fixed and the achievement will be reset if it was not won fairly.

I was going to save up a few more changes before pushing the next update, however Valve have released a new STEAMWORKS SDK v1.58a ... so here it is!

1. Change: Steamworks updated to v.1.58a.
   
2. Fix: Added missing Angel Cannon model.
   
3. Fix: Added missing textures for Angel Cannon.
   
4. Fix: Added missing particle texture.
   
5. New: Added Angel Cannon model and animation to Special Use Item "Danger Close".
   

A bigger and meatier update to come soon™.

˓˓ฅ₍˄ุ.͡ ̫.˄ุ₎ฅ˒˒
(apparently that's a cat)