Tower Unite News

We’ve released a new minigolf map, Minigolf: Haven! Putt through a scenic oasis of curvy courses with plenty of obstacles and ramps! Test your hole-in-one skills with plenty of tricky hole-in-one opportunities on this map.




As requested by our players, Media players can now be played in full screen mode! Activate full screen mode by selecting the full screen button on the bottom right of the media queue. Chat is still displayed in full screen mode.



We will be adding full screen mode for Libretro in a future update!


To celebrate Minigolf: Haven’s release, we’re holding a Desert Weekend event with a 1.5x unit bonus for desert-themed maps. This includes Minigolf: Haven, Virus: Desertion, and Ball Race: Oasis.



In this update, we've fixed several SDK issues and added new features for level creators to use in their maps. Virus survivors now have health which can be adjusted by Damage Volumes, there's a new “Weapon Strip Volume” which will let you take weapons from players, there's a new Game Type for SDNL called “Team Last Man Standing” which can be used for team-based maps involving traps, and interactions with traps/trigger volumes now have been expanded and fixed for all the Game Worlds that support SDK right now.

The play test mode also now has a way to swap Game Types for SDNL - so you can see how the CTF flags work when testing your map before uploading.


Changes

• New Minigolf map - Haven!
  
• SDNL: Added new game type - Team Last Man Standing. Team vs. Team, 1 life, no respawn, last team standing wins
  
• Virus: Added health bar to the HUD
  
• Virus: Reduced max rounds to 5 (was 10)
  
• Virus: If there is only 1 infected left, they will always become enraged (fixes issues where if a player leaves and there's only 1 infected left after that)
  
• Little Crusaders: Reduced max rounds to 10 (was 20)
  
• Media: Added Fullscreen mode. You can now click the full screen button (square icon) on the media queue UI to full screen media. Chat will show up above it
  
• Condo: Adjusted load in networking to help reduce freezing on hosts
  
• Bowling: Decreased waiting for players time from 30 seconds to 15 seconds
  
• Trivia: Improved look of Trivia screen UI

Misc Changes

• Condo: Weapons given by Weapon Pickup are now exempt from Condo weapon rules
  
• Condo/SDK: Added new materials - Cardboard Checkers, Plastic Slide, Wavy Glass, Hazard Striped Concrete, Piled Gloop, Wooden Backframe
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Changed the floor materials in the "inside the computer" scene to look more visually accurate to the scene
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Updated the computer and chair models in the bedroom to be higher detail
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Added course signs for the bedroom area of Nostalgia
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Improved the pipe cam's behavior in hole 13
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Improved the camera collisions on the rock ramp in hole 13
  
• Media: Added dynamic media lights toggle button to the media queue UI for easy access to toggle dynamic media lights
  
• Media: Faded out active media volume slider. Pressing Q (inventory key) will make it show up again
  
• Libretro: Improved light gun models and materials

SDK Changes

• SDK/Condo IO: Added Weapon Strip Volume
  
• SDK - SDNL: Added Activate/Deactivate inputs to CTF Flag
  
• SDK - SDNL: Added game type switching during play testing mode. Switch game type using the top left popup during your play test session
  
• SDK - SDNL: Ranged weapon pickup type now works
  
• SDK - SDNL: Changed special weapon pickup type to spawn just Plushy Nade
  
• SDK - Virus: Damage volumes can now damage Survivors just like other games - won't infect the player unless the damage kills the Survivor
  
• SDK - Virus: Play test mode now skips waiting for infected state, and also gives all weapons to allow for easier testing
  
• SDK: Added TeamC filter setting to blocking and trigger volumes (TeamC is used for Little Crusader Ghosts)

Bug Fixes

• SDNL: Fixed collision issues with Bug Buster weapon
  
• SDNL: Fixed oddball collision issues
  
• Virus: Fixed players colliding with TNT
  
• Virus: Fixed players colliding with other players
  
• Minigolf: Improved collision mesh of golf hole to lessen stop balls from getting stuck on the rim
  
• SDNL: Fixed Oddball not returning to gameplay on Workshop maps
  
• SDNL: Added checks to ensure Oddball will always be present, if it's somehow gone, it'll respawn another
  
• SDNL - Meadows: Fixed OOB damage not applying
  
• SDNL - Container Ship: Fixed water damage not applying
  
• Trivia: Fixed trivia screens not rendering at a decent frame rate & optimized screens that are inactive/have no players
  
• Trivia: Fixed a bug with seats that would cause players not to be put into the game and would get stuck unable to play the round
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Fixed a bug that would cause the player to occasionally slip through the boost rings in hole 1
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Fixed an Out-of-Bounds bug on the bouncing plushy segment of hole 4
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Fixed a bug in hole 6 that would occasionally cause the ball to phase through the course walls
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Fixed hole 8's flag from being off-center
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Fixed players getting stuck at the bottom of the boost ramp on hole 9
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Fixed an issue that caused the player to get stuck in the deep/sharp corners of the "inside the computer" scene on hole 9
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Fixed the ball getting stuck on the rim of the flag's hole on hole 12
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Fixed a bug on hole 13 that would sometimes cause the ball to phase through the floor near the flag
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Fixed the ball getting stuck on the rim of hole 15's flag hole
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Fixed the ball getting stuck on the rim of hole 17's flag hole
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Ball should no longer get stuck on the flag hole's rim on hole 18
  
• Minigolf - Nostalgia: Fixed a bug in hole 18 that caused an occasional out of bounds issue
  
• Virus - Subway: Fixed issue where the Hula Doll was difficult to shoot
  
• Virus - Subway: Fixed players being able to get above ceiling in one spot
  
• Virus - Subway: Fixed areas in that could cause players to get stuck inside the construction walls after being shot with a sonic shotgun's blast ability
  
• Condo: Fixed mesh issues on Canvas Elbow (gaps at edges, missing sharp edges)
  
• Condo: Fixed Transdimensional Paintings and Portals rendering even when hidden
  
• Condo: Fixed Size Volumes not resizing player cameras properly
  
• Condo: Fixed Sky Volume issues in Smooth Autumn (Moon being corrupted visually, and Sun being very small)
  
• Fixed Adrenaline not stacking with other speed altering items
  
• Condo: Fixed Holdable Food given by Weapon Pickup taking food out of the player's own inventory
  
• Condo: Fixed ladders not disabling collision when no collide or hide is applied
  
• Condo: Fixed Sky Volume not removing global effects when stashed
  
• Condo IO: Fixed a crash with counters and adding/updating counter
  
• Plaza: Fixed the reels of one of the Wheel of Money machines that were popped out of the machine

SDK Bug Fixes

• SDK: Fixed Game World Events module not reporting game world types properly under certain circumstances. Also fixed gametypes being called during waiting for players state and fixed OnMatchEnd/OnRoundEnd being called before the game even began
  
• SDK - LC/Virus/SDNL: Fixed hidden or no collide objects colliding with players
  
• SDK - Virus: Fixed infected hitting trigger volumes way too often
  
• SDK - Virus: Fixed damage volumes that insta-kill not infecting survivors
  
• SDK - Virus: Fixed damage volumes not updating enraged gameplay states
  
• SDK - LC: Ghosts no longer can interact with trigger volumes, unless TeamC filter is enabled
  
• SDK: Fixed being able to enter NPC camera mode (soft locks you). Now NPCs will show floating dialogue (using the Talked To dialogue) above their head when interacted with to prevent gameplay from being interrupted
  
• SDK - LC: Fixed Laser Beam not colliding with Dragon properly
  
• SDK - Virus: Fixed Laser Beam not hurting infected or survivors
  
• SDK - SDNL/Virus/LC: Fixed Spike Board, Iron Maiden, Guillotine items not damaging properly
  
• SDK - Virus/LC: Fixed Spike Board, Iron Maiden, Guillotine items colliding wrongly
  
• SDK - SDNL: Fixed CTF Flag OnRespawned output not calling when flag was returned by player holding it being killed or when another player returns the flag after being dropped
  
• SDK: Fixed target Game World drop down being reset back to SDNL after returning from a play test
  
• SDK: Fixed Weapon Pickup not hiding the pedestal model when hidden

Join our Discord for development updates and community fun! https://discord.gg/pixeltail
We love awesome people like you!

Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

If you like our game and want to support development, please consider getting a Supporter Pack: Tower Unite - Supporter Pack

Take a peek at what's being worked on every week in our weekly dev logs! There's bound to be something interesting every week! http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

Please report bugs & submit suggestions on our forums. We're active everyday & here to help.
For bug reports: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report/18
For suggestions: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/suggestions/7

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for February 5th, 2024, detailing all the changes that have happened since January 29th, 2024. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

[h2]February 2024 Condo Contest (Kitchen)[/h2]



Hey everyone!

The theme of this month’s contest is Kitchen!

Make or decorate a kitchen! The submission should be something that was made after the contest was announced.

Your submission can be a regular Condo or a Workshop Game World Map.

The submission period ends on February 21st, 2024 at 11:59 PM.

Be sure to look at the prizes and follow the rules here!

[h2]February 2024 Dev Update[/h2]



Earlier today, we released our Developer Update for February 2024. In this post, we thank everyone who supported us via the Supporter Pack and our Patreon, as well as a few ideas for items for the Patrons and supporters. We also gave a quick update on our progress.

You can check out our developer update here.

[h2]Workshop Game World Map SDK Progress[/h2]

macdguy continued working on the Workshop Map SDK, fixing a ton of tiny bugs. He also added a Game Type switcher, which will set up the map to use the appropriate game type (such as Arena or CTF).

Johanna continued working on the course pieces for the Minigolf SDK.

[h3]Minigolf SDK: Ramp Pieces WIP[/h3]

Ramp pieces can be snapped together like other Minigolf course pieces, and have various settings to configure (steepness, walls, wall height, etc).



Various shapes and designs can be made with the ramps.



A random course design using all of the modular pieces snapped together, using the ramps, corners, flats.



Various corner pieces.



[h2]Miscellany[/h2]

Johanna worked on Minigolf: Nostalgia, getting it ready for release, and also worked a bit on Bumper Cars.

Joshua continued working on the new Workshop Skeleton.

Lifeless continued working on Minigolf: Haven and Ball Race: Eruption.

macdguy setup the achievements and leaderboards for Minigolf: Haven. He also worked on the Dedicated Condos, added a fullscreen mode to Media Players, and added a Health Bar to Virus.

Madmijk made some sounds for the retro guitar.

Nuclearxpotato worked on new items and models.

Sketchman continued working on the engine upgrade and CPU optimizations. He also helped work on the Dedicated Condos, and made the achievement icons for Minigolf: Haven.

Wheezwer worked on logos for the new weekend events, made the February calendar, and made some concepts for Minigolf course signs.

Will worked on music for Ball Race: Eruption.

[h3]Minigolf: Haven Achievement Icons[/h3]



[h3]Virus Health Bar[/h3]



[h3]Fullscreen Media Player[/h3]



[h2]Wrap It Up[/h2]
That about covers everything that happened since January 29th, 2024 at PixelTail Games.

---

Join our Discord for development updates and community fun! https://discord.gg/pixeltail
We love awesome people like you!

Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time: https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

Take a peek at what's being worked on every week in our weekly dev logs! There's bound to be something interesting every week! https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

Please report bugs & submit suggestions on our forums. We're active everyday & here to help.
For bug reports: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report/18
For suggestions: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/suggestions/7

Thank you to every one of you who bought the supporter pack! It’s already been a tremendous help! The support we’ve gotten will go directly into Tower’s future. And thank you to those who have pitched in to support development in other ways!

Some updates:

• As requested by our backers, Supporter Speed Shoes now stack with Backer Speed Shoes
  
• As requested, we updated the “No DLC” statement on our store page to reduce confusion. We are still committed to keeping every content update free
  
• We reached out to Steam about the supporter pack not being visible on the main store page, and have now resolved the issue and the pack should now be visible
  
• We also wrapped up the last two gifts we wanted to give in the supporter pack, which are a hat and a placeable plushy. We’ll let you know when those are available to all supporters

When we first brought up the supporter pack, we said we’d give our Patreon supporters a similar gift, since patrons haven’t gotten a physical gift in the game aside from the Patron tag. Our Patrons also have been asking us for updates on this.

We’ve been making progress on this, and the main holdup is the backend work. Our current idea is that Patrons will get a different color version of the placeable plushy that we will be giving to supporters. We also will be looking into other gifts in the future, based on suggestions from our Patrons.

Some notes about the proposed gift:

• We want this gift to be something the patrons will get to keep forever, even if they aren’t a patron anymore
  
• We are planning to connect the gift to the Patron Extraordinaire tier level
  
• Again, we’re still figuring out how it’ll function, but if you’re already supporting us or have supported us in the past at that tier level, you will get the gift as well!

We wanted to give you a quick update on the game’s progress!

Last month, we released Minigolf: Nostalgia and the Alpha release of Workshop Level SDK for Virus, Little Crusaders, and SDNL.

We also implemented and made progress on more in-game EXP / Unit bonus events. Look forward to Ball Race, Virus, Arcade, and Fishing events this month, as well as a desert-themed map event to celebrate the upcoming Minigolf: Haven release!

Speaking of which, we’re currently in the testing/wrap up stage for Minigolf: Haven, which should be out early this month.

As you know, optimization is a constant must for this project, and we’re working on improvements to the Plaza optimization and also Condos. We have a few updates that will be focused directly on optimization, with the first one being towards Arcade physics.

We’re making progress on level SDK improvements, such as better playtesting tools, new features such as custom sounds, moving platforms, and various bug fixes and improvements such as more interactions with IO systems.

We’ve made great progress with Dedicated Condos as well in the past week. Currently, we have a working Dedicated Condo on Linux and Windows that loads in Condo data! We’re working on getting it to connect to our server list backend and working on Workshop mod handling. We plan to get Dedicated Condos out as soon as we can, but it may not have shared inventory support initially.

For Bumper Cars, we’re still working on getting this minigame out. We’ve been touching up some artwork and adjusting gameplay. We also have been in the early stages of an Arcade update with new games.

Progress is being made on the Workshop SDK for Ball Race and Minigolf, including modular course pieces for Minigolf, which we’ll post more in our developer logs.

In other sections of development, we also have been making progress on the new Workshop player model rig, Ball Race: Eruption, and upgrading the engine to 4.22, of which we have a working build.

Also, we are doing a small pass on Minigolf: Nostalgia to fix issues reported by our players, as well as some art polish.

Thanks once again to everyone. Be sure to check our Trello and Weekly Dev Logs to get the most info on the game.

Tl;dr: thank you and we’re cookin’




Join our Discord for development updates and community fun! https://discord.gg/pixeltail
We love awesome people like you!

Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

Take a peek at what's being worked on every week in our weekly dev logs! There's bound to be something interesting every week! http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

Please report bugs & submit suggestions on our forums. We're active everyday & here to help.
For bug reports: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report/18
For suggestions: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/suggestions/7

This update improves SDK tools and fixes bugs from the last update.


We've fixed lots of issues with spawn points, CTF flags, weapon pickups, and fixes for team-based games in SDNL.

We're still improving the Play test feature. In this update we've improved spawn point testing. You can quickly test spawn points by pressing the respawn key (default K) and you can now switch player modes (such as becoming Infected or becoming the Dragon with the L key). More testing tools are being developed to make the process better.


You can now access workshop maps in the Game World menu when you create a game in the map list. Workshop maps now work in Game World ports, previously they were not loading properly.


We have new Canvas Primitives that should really help with more unique geometry.

Canvas Elbow

One-Way Canvas
Useful for one-way walls and platforms that you only want players to see or go through in one direction.

Canvas Statue - New Standing Sprite Mode
In the past Canvas Statue had a Face Camera mode which would make the canvas face the camera, just like a sprite. Now with the new Standing option, you can get the sprite to face your camera but lock upwards, so it doesn't change vertical directions. This is very useful for certain effects like fires, sprite characters, or sprites from 3D games of the 90s.


Changes

• Added Browse for Workshop Map to the Game World map list menu
  
• Added One-Way Canvas Wall, Canvas Elbow to D.I.Y. store
  
• SDK - LC: Added gameplay support for damage volumes (both Knights and Dragon)
  
• SDK: Volumes now have two new filter types - TeamA and TeamB, which can be used to filter out players based on their team
  
• SDK - LC: Added spawn protection to Knights for SDK purposes
  
• SDK - SDNL: Intro animation is now skipped in Play test mode
  
• SDK - SDNL: Added Respawn (default "K") hot key to respawn player to a random spawn point during Play test mode
  
• SDK - Virus: Added Respawn (default "K") hot key to respawn player to a random spawn point during Play test mode
  
• SDK - Virus: Added "L" hot key that toggles infected state
  
• SDK - LC: Added Respawn (default "K") hot key to respawn player to a random spawn point during Play test mode
  
• SDK - LC: Added "L" hot key that toggles between being the Dragon or Knight
  
• Condo: Added item drag slots to Floating Text, allowing you to place it on surfaces more easily
  
• Condo/SDK: New Canvas Statue setting - Keep Upright (w/ Follow Camera/sprite mode). When Canvas Statue is in Follow Camera/sprite mode & Keep Upright is on, the sprite will follow your camera but stay locked on the Z axis
  
• SDK: Workshop map tutorial popup no longer pops up after returning from a play test session

Bug Fixes

• Fixed workshop maps not loading properly when selected in Game World ports
  
• SDNL: Fixed crash related to teleporters when teleporting projectiles through teleporters
  
• SDK: Fixed playing a workshop map not working if you click on Play on the thumbnail (instead of the popup)
  
• SDK: Fixed updating existing workshop maps dialogue not showing your workshop maps if you don't have a condo uploaded
  
• SDK - SDNL: Fixed CTF flags not spawning in custom levels
  
• SDK - SDNL: Fixed Weapon Pickups not spawning correctly in custom levels and not showing the weapon previews properly
  
• SDK - SDNL: Fixed super Weapon Pickups not spawning correctly in the correct game types
  
• SDK - SDNL: Fixed Weapon Pickup pedestal not updating to look like a super weapon pedestal when you set it as a super weapon
  
• SDNL: Fixed players not being able to damage themselves (from explosives) in team-based games
  
• SDK - SDNL: Fixed issues where spawn points would fail on round 2
  
• SDK - SDNL: Fixed Dino Battle not spawning in dinosaurs properly
  
• SDK - SDNL: Fixed music not playing on custom maps
  
• SDK - LC: Fixed Knights not being able to walk up angles
  
• SDK - LC: Fixed Knights being able to walk through blocking volumes
  
• SDK - LC: Fixed Damage Volumes still causing damage when hidden
  
• SDK - Virus: Fixed damage volumes not properly infecting survivors
  
• SDK: Fixed Weapon Pickups being pickupable while in noclip
  
• SDK: Fixed Game World events such as (IsSDNL) not firing off
  
• Workshop Condo: Fixed workshop information intro description not having a scroll bar
  
• Workshop Condo: Fixed workshop information intro description not parsing BBCode to rich text properly
  
• Fixed accidentally closing workshop condo/map info when clicking inside the workshop info box
  
• Condo: Fixed FX Light Beam item not syncing with clients properly
  
• Condo: Fixed Lightbox items cone angles changing when condo is reloaded
  
• Condo: Fixed Light Panel light angles/cone changing when condo is reloaded
  
• Condo: Fixed the default light Radii for the Spacelight and fixed Spacelight radii changing incorrect on condo reload or duplication
  
• Libretro: Fixed game list not restoring scroll position under certain circumstances
  
• LC: Fixed upgrade customization UI not closing the tooltips properly
  
• Optimized Outdoor Light item

Join our Discord for development updates and community fun! https://discord.gg/pixeltail
We love awesome people like you!

Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

Take a peek at what's being worked on every week in our weekly dev logs! There's bound to be something interesting every week! http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

Please report bugs & submit suggestions on our forums. We're active everyday & here to help.
For bug reports: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report/18
For suggestions: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/suggestions/7

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for January 29th, 2024, detailing all the changes that have happened since January 22nd, 2024. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

[h2]Supporter Pack[/h2]



We've released the Supporter Pack for Tower Unite!

If you're like us and you love Tower Unite, please consider supporting us through this supporter pack!

We're a small team that relies on fan support to keep this project alive! Buying this supporter pack will directly help us cover development costs as we work to make Tower Unite the best it can be.

The supporter pack comes with a few gifts to show our appreciation! We tried to keep them similar to other rewards we've given in the past to those who have helped to fund the game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2792910/Tower_Unite__Supporter_Pack/

[h2]February 2024 Condo Contest (Kitchen)[/h2]



Hey everyone!

The theme of this month’s contest is Kitchen!

Make or decorate a kitchen! The submission should be something that was made after the contest was announced.

Your submission can be a regular Condo or a Workshop Game World Map.

The submission period ends on February 21st, 2024 at 11:59 PM.

Be sure to look at the prizes and follow the rules here!

[h2]Minigolf: Haven[/h2]

Lifeless continued working on Minigolf: Haven, getting it ready for release.

[h3]Minigolf: Haven WIP[/h3]



[h2]Workshop Game World Map SDK Progress[/h2]

macdguy continued working on the Workshop Map SDK, fixing a bunch of issues.

Johanna started working on standardizing the snappable pieces used for assembling Minigolf holes.

[h3]SDK: Minigolf Course Pieces WIP[/h3]



[h2]Miscellany[/h2]

Johanna worked on Minigolf: Nostalgia, getting it ready for release, and also worked a bit on Bumper Cars.

Joshua continued working on the new Workshop Skeleton.

macdguy worked on getting Minigolf: Nostalgia released.

Madmijk worked on implementing sounds for the guitar.

Wheezwer worked on logos for the new weekend events.

Sketchman continued working on the engine upgrade and CPU optimizations for the Arcade.

Will worked on music for Eruption.

[h2]Wrap It Up[/h2]
That about covers everything that happened since January 22nd, 2024 at PixelTail Games.

---

Join our Discord for development updates and community fun! https://discord.gg/pixeltail
We love awesome people like you!

Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time: https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

Take a peek at what's being worked on every week in our weekly dev logs! There's bound to be something interesting every week! https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

Please report bugs & submit suggestions on our forums. We're active everyday & here to help.
For bug reports: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report/18
For suggestions: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/suggestions/7