MORSE News

[p]Hey folks! [/p][p][/p][p]So this is a slightly niche but exciting update, hope you find it interesting![/p][p][/p][p]Which means (in theory) folks should be able to connect up their telegraphs easier via third party software. It's still a work in progress feature but wanted to get it out there to see how people got on with it. I'd love to hear from you and how you got on (and would LOVE to see videos of people playing it with their telegraphs), feel free to post feedback/suggestions/experiences in here: Rebind keys to use commercially available USB interface for morse keys / iambic paddles :: MORSE General Discussions[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]So MORSE has had a website on itch for years now, but I wasn't quite sure what to do with it till now. Hosting a web version of the game should hopefully lower the barrier to folks accessing the game and hopefully mean more people who don't necessarily have Steam might be willing to give it a go! The game is nice and small in size so loads quick and because it's built in Stencyl runs pretty smoothly in browser. I've also built a pretty nice site for the game, give it a look: MORSE by Alex Johansson[/p][h3][/h3][p]As a fun experiment, I recently took out a banner advert on popular ham radio website QRZ to reach folks in the ham radio community. The catch? the ad had to be less than 48kb. It was really fun designing something to fit within that constraint, definitely helped by MORSE having a very limited palette. Definitely has a Web 1.0 feel to the design and squeaked in at 44.6kb, I'll be curious to see how it does! Here's what it looks like:[/p][p][/p][p]Finally, MORSE is going to be exhibited at Manchester Megacon Live at the end of the month! I'll be taking my full setup along to the conference on the 26th-27th of July. I'll be bringing different key types for the event and letting people try out expert mode if they fancy the challenge! For a reminder of what the MORSE expo setup looks like, check it out below! [/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]That's all for now, give the new demo a try and let me know how you get on with the new key binding setup. Thanks again and stay tuned! [/p]

[p]Hey folks! [/p][p][/p][p]After a little rest, I got so much useful feedback from the festival and have been working to integrate suggestions and solve bugs, which I'm very happy with! Here's a list of some of the features added: [/p]

• [p]Game Manual: This took a good while to put together, but on the pause menu the player can browse through pages of information about the game and explore some of the more subtler mechanics. Paired with the pages is a 4 frame animation that captures the essence of the topic being discussed. My favourite thing added to the manual was the last page which highlights the next step to potentially find ham radio communities in your local area or nationally and as part of the animation, I included the crests of different national ham radio organisations in a way that was consistent. Have a browse through and let me know if I've missed any information and I'll include it.[/p][p][/p]
• [p]More information: Watching a lot of playthroughs people seemed to struggle to pick upgrades as they didn't have sufficient information to make an informed decision. I've now added descriptions that elaborate when options are selected as well as longer descriptions on the card deck screen. I've also better labelled menus to have less ambiguity and added much more supporting text to give context. [/p][p][/p]
• [p]New Launch System: So I alluded to this in a previous post, MORSE now has dynamic controls for firing ammunition. I've had more time with this mechanic and I honestly feel like it's the missing piece of the project clicking into place. When playing the demo, I've now been able to get over 95% accuracy utilising the ammo select to not waste shells which feels incredibly good. As part of this, the accuracy scale is much more filled up for me on the regular which has led me to do some re-balancing of the ammo feed. I'm considering some kind of bonus unlocked perk if you max out the accuracy scale, but need to do more experiments around it to see if it's unnecessary bloat. Related to accuracy, on the end screen stats I've now added your highest chained combo, my highest chained combo is 45 hits on enemies without missing![/p]
• [p]Ships that blow up: I recently watched a documentary about the battle of Jutland, the biggest naval battle of the First World War as inspiration for the project and there was an interesting discussion about a major cause of lost ships on the British side. When German shells hit British ships, the stocks of cordite, a propellant commonly used for launching shells ignited inside the hull which burned the ships from the inside out. The documentary is worth a watch if you've got an hour spare! With this in mind, I've added a chance that munitions can explode, certain ships with more armaments' are more vulnerable to detonating, such as the dreadnoughts. What's nice is the resulting blast can both damage nearby ships and give you an extra bit of illumination as it explodes. [dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]As a subtle mechanic, I'm considering making the percentage chance of a ship exploding more likely if you land a direct hit on its centre. [/p]
• [p]Narrative Implemented: On the subject of Jutland, I've figured out a very subtle narrative grounding for the game. There was never a serious effort by the German Empire to attempt a naval invasion of the British Isles, but there was attempts such as the Battle of Jutland to break what was known at the time as the Blockade of Europe. This blockade was a unified effort by the Allied powers to stop supplies from reaching Germany. MORSE will focus around a fictional night time breach of the blockade in early 1916, which narratively fits with the use of sea mines and naval warfare. [/p]
• [p]General polish: I've added in a lot of subtle visual additions to add a bit more spectacle to the game. Generally I want to keep the game as minimalist as possible but things like dithering out the "Fog of war" to the right of the map or adding a smoke plume when ship cannons fire really adds an extra bit of detail to the project. [/p]

[p][/p][p]Whilst most of the changes/updates are for the demo, here are a couple of additions for the full game: [/p]

• [p]Iambic Function: I alluded to it in a previous post, but the previous version of the Iabmic keys were focused on tapping left and right to alternate, but Iambic keys involve a large amount of holding or squeezing the paddles. I worked with the subreddit "Amateur Radio" to figure out how to make it feel right and now I'm very happy with the controls. [/p]
• [p]Battlecruisers: These are midsized ships with medium speed and significant firepower that explode violently when destroyed. I'm considering changing the minesweeper slightly to be closer range with higher shooting speed, whilst battlecruisers would have ranged artillery. [/p]

[p][/p][p]This will likely be the last update to the demo for a while now (unless some major bugs come up!) so I can focus on delivering the final game. Priorities include:[/p]

• [p]Implementing save functionality: This is a well overdue job that is unfortunately a real pig to get working and to not break, the game has A LOT of variables to keep track of, reset and log. [/p]
• [p]Getting controls working properly: Whilst MORSE does work on the Steamdeck, it requires players to manually choose an community input from the default settings is automatically assigned. The main barrier to getting this figured out is the tool that I'm building the game in, Stencyl. It doesn't have a clean easy method for integrating the Steam Input API and key binding is technically complicated to setup. This is particularly important as I've had A LOT of ham radio enthusiasts reach out requesting key rebinding to work with their telegraphs and they software they use to convert input. [/p]
• [p]Enemy ship types: There's at least one other ship type that want to add to the game before launch: The submarine or U-Boat is a staple of the era which would be great to implement. They do function differently to other ships in the game so it's requiring a lot of unique design such as its state below and above the waterline.[/p]
• [p]Get Semi-Auto feeling better: The Iambic Key is now working but Semi-Auto is still based on a previous configuration that doesn't feel very good and is quite buggy. Most likely it'll involve adapting a new version from the Iambic key for consistency.[/p]
• [p]Steam Achievements: I've got the variables set up for achievements in game but haven't actually integrated them into Steam. Got some pretty ambitious achievements to for players to go at which I'm curious to how people get on with! [/p]

[p]I've been pouring a lot of effort over the last month into MORSE and with that I've let a lot of my other career obligations slide so I'll likely be quieter on here the next few weeks whilst I catch back up! This will also likely be the last update to the demo before launch (unless some major mechanic like the ammo switch emerges). All in all though, the game is getting pretty close to release, I'll be announcing the release date in the next month so stay tuned for that! [/p][p][/p][p]Thanks and stay tuned![/p][p][/p][p].-[/p]

[p]Hey folks! [/p][p][/p][p]So Steam Next Fest has wrapped up, I just wanted to give a massive thank you to everyone who has checked out the project over the period. It's been so cathartic to finally see the game in peoples hands and see such a positive response to MORSE. I've genuinely had chills reading some of the responses from players, so hyped that the game has hit the mark. [/p][p][/p][p]Thought I'd give a quick summary of how it went:[/p]

• [p]Getting featured in the Steam Next Fest Trailer: This was incredibly exciting, I found out a couple of weeks earlier that I might be getting included in it so was super nervous about whether it'd happen or not, but sure enough I managed to squeeze in just at the end of the showcase! I can't say for certain how much it translated into eyeballs on the project, but it was nice to get a nod from Valve of the game being worth highlighting.[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
• [p]Wishlists and downloads: Over the week, MORSE got 2,316 Wishlists and 3,838 downloads which on the surface seems like a pretty good ratio of those that engaged with it saying they'd be interested in the full thing. Obviously it's a bit more complicated than that but for 7 days those are numbers that I'm happy with. Means that MORSE is now a couple of hundred shy of 10k Wishlists! [/p][p][/p][p][/p]
• [p]Reviews and feedback: More than the numbers above, what really mattered to me this week was seeing how the public responded to the game after all this time working on it. Thankfully the response has been fantastic, had loads of messages of support and in depth feedback and suggestions. The game has had 95% positive ratings on the demo page and so many wonderful messages from players. I've also had plenty of helpful feedback, I've already started making adjustments to the game off the back of recommendations, such as the artillery selector mentioned in my last post. I also set up a feedback form for the project and of the 43 people that filled it out, the rating for enjoying the demo is 4.5 out of 5 and I got a tonne of useful ideas and critique. All in all though, people understood how the game worked, learnt Morse Code and had a great time![/p][p][/p]

• [p]The Stream: I really enjoyed the format of setting up the game with the glowing telegraph and it went well, had some good questions and despite being a bit delirious from tiredness it all went to plan! Definitely interested in doing more Streams soon on Twitch with different telegraphs. Next time I think I will do it a little earlier as 10pm on a Sunday is a bit much! [/p]
• [p]Ham Radio folks discovering MORSE: I've been spending a lot of time recently with the ham radio community which has been both wonderful and fascinating. In the feedback forms in particular I had a number of people signing off with their callsigns which was lovely. I also had someone find the game through other people chatting about MORSE in their ham radio Discord so it seems to be making the rounds of those communities! I also had some ham radio specialists help me figure out what was off with my Iambic key and make it feel much more authentic which was really appreciated, they literally wrote out PARAGRAPHS of notes and CODE to demonstrate how it worked. Really is humbling having their support and feeling them channel that enthusiasm towards the project.[/p][p][/p]

• [p]Pacing myself: I was pretty exhausted going into the event and as a solo dev delivering this, I've been going full tilt on MORSE to get it ready for the event then promoting and doing videos. I'm now absolutely knackered at this point and probably need a week off to recover but I am very happy with how it's gone for MORSE. This has been somewhat of a dry-run for the full release, I can make notes of what I did right/wrong this time to make sure next time it's much more sustainable. [/p]
• [p]Failing to reach out to Press/Streamers: I ran out of time ahead of the event to reach out to Streamers and press, so the amount of people playing it on stream was quite limited. This is a shame as I genuinely love watching people play my games and the event was a good opportunity for that. In hindsight, I should have spent more time sending out press kits but I wanted to make sure the demo was right for the players which was the priority! It's not the end of the world, there's still plenty of people to contact about the game, of the playthroughs that I was able to find, I watched them all through, like this one! [/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]With Next Fest out the way, I now want to contact Streamers who are also ham radio or Morse Code enthusiasts to see if they'd be willing to do a playthrough and what their insights would be! It's genuinely so fascinating seeing their perspectives on a project exploring something they're passionate about.
  
  If any of you happen to watch Streamers or channels you think might enjoy MORSE, I'd really appreciate if you could point them towards the game! Failing that, I'd love to see more videos of people reacting to the game, particularly those who've built a makeshift telegraph![/p]

[p]All in all though, it's been a fantastic week, the positive response from folks has validated the decision to return to the project and I'm so excited once I've rested to power through with finishing the game over the next couple of months. [/p][p]The demo will be staying up past the end of the festival and I'll be doing at least one more update before launch, in particular I want to see how folks get on with the ammo cycle mechanic. BUT FIRST, first I will rest.[/p][p][/p][p]Stay tuned for more updates soon and thanks again! [/p][p][/p][p]Alex[/p]

[p]Hey folks! Got a juicy update for you! [/p][p]I did a playthrough of MORSE for Steam Next Fest, in the video I talk about the origins of the project, the different types of telegraph I have, different mechanics including the new ammo loading system and had some drunk people interrupt the end of it! [/p][p]I'm going to do another Stream on Sunday 15th at 10pm BST with the glowing telegraph again, it'll be late in the UK so the LED rope should look lovely. I'll be chatting more about the project some more and taking questions. [/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]To expand a little more on the ammo load function, one of the recurring complaints from people has been the inability to pick which shell you want to fire. This means having to shoot through shells you don't want to get to the one you want, which wastes precious ammo and also has the potential to break your combo. The key obstacle previously has been my hard limit on just having two inputs for the game, Morse and fire. I worked within these constraints by having variable controls, similar to the telegraph. A tap fires the first ammo in the stack, holding starts a timer that cycles through the shells. Releasing fires the shell the player has stopped on. This requires some skill and timing to master, but from my time experimenting with it dramatically increased my success with the combo meter, where previously repeating shells (e.g. suppressive shot) broke my combo, I could nit pick the shells most appropriate for the target. It feels like the missing piece from the project has clicked into place and I'm very excited to see how people handle this new version! [/p][p][/p][p]That's all for now, have a great weekend and see you hopefully on Sunday! [/p]

[p]Hey folks! [/p][p]Today's the day for Steam Next Fest, but an exciting development is MORSE is FEATURED IN THE OFFICIAL TRAILER FOR THE EVENT! I am over the moon for Valve highlighting MORSE and am incredibly excited to see how audiences on Steam respond to the demo and game. It's genuinely humbling to be included alongside such fantastic projects.[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Here's the list of recent features added to the project: [/p][p]+ Recon shells: This shell type has been a bit of a game changer: A small, low damage shell that has a high reveal rate. Perfect for catching rogue ships that slip by and mapping out the battlefield. A subtle feature of it is that missing a target with it does not break the proficiency chain, which means players can shoot it into an area that they think enemies might be in without being punished for it. This shell type made it into the demo, so give them a go and let me know what you think! [/p][p]\ [/p][p]+ Expert mode: This mode strips out any kind of prompts/help sheets from gameplay, visibility of enemies is extremely limited, only ships that are directly hit are permanently revealed, otherwise ships only flash briefly before disappearing. There's double the number of Dreadnoughts in later waves and the map scales from 3 vertical rows to 10. To counter these difficulties, ammo loads slightly faster, the proficiency scale reaches a higher value (meaning if you can maintain a high accuracy, your shells will load even faster) and you start with double the number of sea mines. The newly designed recon shell is an absolutely critical to use in this mode given the low visibility. It is a brutal fight but beatable, I managed to beat the game in Iambic mode on my Steamdeck which took around 70 minutes. [/p][p]\ [/p][p][/p][p]A major passion of mine is teaching people how to design games interfaces for themselves using craft materials, which I've managed to pair with my other passion for telegraphy in the video below, it provides a tutorial on how to take a pair of nail clippers and a broken mouse and turn it into a working USB telegraph! My hope is people will use the setup to have a more immersive experience of the game and inspire people to venture into ham radio. [/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Thank you again all so much for all your kind words and enthusiasm so far from the initial release of the MORSE demo, it's been so exciting seeing how people have gotten on with the game and I would ask that folks are patient with myself and the project, at this point it is only me developing it so I'm wearing a lot of hats in that process. Stay tuned for more soon![/p]