Tower Unite News

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for January 18th, 2022, detailing all the changes that have happened since January 10th, 2022. 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]Accessibility Suggestions[/h2]
We've created a forum post asking the community for suggestions on how we can improve gameplay for players with certain conditions such as colorblindness, dyslexia, or anything else that might affect a players ability to use the standard presentation and controls of the game.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, and possible solutions on how to solve a particular issue, please check out the forum post here.

[h2]2022 Tower Connectivity Survey RESULTS![/h2]
A few weeks ago, we asked you guys, the community, on your opinions about connectivity in Tower Unite to help us guide future decisions. A whopping 1,564 of you answered the survey, to which we are very grateful!

[h3]Tower Connectivity Survey Results[/h3]



[h2]Plaza[/h2]

Johanna worked on additions to the Theatre building.

[h3]Plaza: Theatre Building Additions[/h3]



[h2]Miscellany[/h2]

macdguy worked on the 2D map for Track 2 of Sunrise Isles.

There is no major dev updates this week, because we are currently working on a very special update that we're not ready to announce yet. This update will be related to connectivity. Rest assured, you all will be playing this update sooner than you might imagine, and we hope you will love it as much as we do.

[h3]Sunrise Isles - Track 2 Map[/h3]


[h2]Wrap It Up[/h2]
That about covers everything that happened since January 10th, 2022 at PixelTail Games.

---

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

We're also active on Twitter! https://twitter.com/PixelTailGames

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

One of Tower’s original Early Access launch maps, Midori, has gotten a refreshed look! The fuTUre is here! Rush around a lush forest valley overseen by the robot in the sky. Don't tell us why. There have been some adjustments to gameplay, but it's still the same brutally difficult map you love to hate.





We’ve also improved parts of Ball Race, including bonus round improvements, HUD improvements, bug fixes, and new finish cameras.


This update focused on various optimizations to the Plaza, including many optimizations to the players in Plaza to help ensure improved FPS with populated servers.


Changes

• Ball Race: Midori Remastered
  
• Optimized Plaza characters (reducing CPU usage overall)
  
• Optimized Monorail
  
• Optimized Plaza draw calls
  
• Optimized Minigolf: Treasure Cove
  
• Optimized button sounds overall
  
• Ball Race: Added a crown to the HUD that stays lit until you pop, so you can more easily track your King achievement status
  
• Ball Race: Improved finished camera
  
• Ball Race: Improved finish goal effects
  
• Ball Race: Bonus round now shows how many melons are left to pickup
  
• Ball Race: Bonus round now ends when you have picked up all the melons
  
• Ball Race: Updated bonus round graphics
  
• Ball Race: Improved HUD look/fonts
  
• Ball Race: Improved pickup effects
  
• Ball Race: Optimized various network events
  
• Ball Race: Optimized finish goals
  
• Reduced loudness of the slot machine button press sounds
  
• Improved RC plane/minigame plane camera

Bug Fixes

• Fixed tool weapons not being able to interact with Floating Text item
  
• Fixed several reported exploits
  
• Ball Race: Fixed finished graphic overlapping with the ball
  
• Ball Race - GLXY: Fixed level 4 boost having an angle to it
  
• Ball Race - Nimbus: Fixed several level starts being angled when you spawn
  
• Ball Race: Fixed bonus round displaying after the round is over
  
• Ball Race: Fixed "failed" showing up after a bonus round is over
  
• Ball Race: Fixed bonus music just abruptly cutting off if you finish bonus sooner than the timer
  
• Ball Race: Fixed pickup effects not playing if the host picked up a melon
  
• Ball Race: Fixed picking up a mega melon (5 melon points) not counting correctly towards the melon pickup achievements properly (it would only count as 1 melon before)
  
• Ball Race: Improved player respawning to prevent having to reload the player models each respawn
  
• Minigolf - Cove: Fixed out of bounds issue on hole 16
  
• Optimized Candlestick items
  
• Fixed Miniature Ferris Wheel having massive lights
  
• Fixed Grill light intensity being way too much
  
• Fixed jump crouching causing the camera to clip through ceilings
  
• Fixed jump crouching causing the camera to snap down instead of ease back to crouch when landing from a jump crouch
  
• Fixed snowball drawing a shadow in the snowball minigame
  
• Fixed snowball launcher awarding way too many points in snowball minigame
  
• Fixed plane not turning hard when holding down sprint key in plane minigame
  
• Fixed fridge doors not working when you scale the fridge (also improved the lights on the fridge as well)

Post Update Hot Fix

• Ball Race: Fixed finish camera tilting on some levels
  
• Ball Race: Fixed bonus round in Memories not having the correct amount of melons being counted
  
• Ball Race: Fixed the goal position for Event Horizon on the last level
  
• Ball Race: Fixed golden melons being picked up by only one player
  
• Ball Race: Fixed players rolling on their own before the timer starts

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

We're also active on Twitter! https://twitter.com/PixelTailGames

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 10th, 2022, detailing all the changes that have happened since December 13th, 2021. 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]December 2021 Condo Contest Ended![/h2]
The contest has ended, and the winners are @FrasierFan666, @Niz, @cayla, @jamlee11, and @Lady!

The first prize winner @FrasierFan666 won 2,000,000 units!

You can view the condos which won and all of the other wonderful entries here.

[h2]Accessibility Suggestions[/h2]
We've created a forum post asking the community for suggestions on how we can improve gameplay for players with certain conditions such as colorblindness, dyslexia, or anything else that might affect a players ability to use the standard presentation and controls of the game.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, and possible solutions on how to solve a particular issue, please check out the forum post here.

[h2]Plaza[/h2]

Johanna worked on an overhaul of the furniture store.

Wheezwer continued working on the new Plaza signage.

Will continued working on music and sound fixes for the Plaza (fixing holes in the map where there weren't footstep sounds).

[h3]Plaza: Updated Furniture Store Interior WIP[/h3]



[h2]Condo[/h2]

Johanna started converting props from the Minigolf map, Sweet Tooth into Condo items.

Madmijk continued working on improving the instruments and adding MIDI support. He improved the listening experience for other players with instrument items, as demonstrated in the video below. The notes are now played more neatly in the rhythm that the playing user played them.

[h3]Condo: "Circus Galop" demo on the Grand Piano (MIDI input is not yet available and will be released in a future update)[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Condo: Sweet Tooth prop items[/h3]



[h2]Ball Race[/h2]

Johanna started a Ball Race, Paradise art pass, updating the course art, rock work, and color palette.

macdguy fixed a bunch of long standing bugs. He added a little crown on the top left HUD to indicate if the player has died or not (useful for No Death Achievements). The HUD was upgraded and optimized. The pickup system was recoded to fix issues with replication. The bonus stage now indicates how many melons are left to be collected and will end when all of the melons have been collected.

[h3]Ball Race: Paradise Art Pass WIP[/h3]



[h2]Miscellany[/h2]

Caboose700 worked with Sketchman on stabilizing the backend systems.

Lifeless continued working on the Zombie Massacre map, Acrophobia.

macdguy worked on various bug fixes and UI tweaks.

Sketchman worked on stabilizing the backend systems.

[h2]Wrap It Up[/h2]
That about covers everything that happened since December 13th, 2021 at PixelTail Games.

---

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

We're also active on Twitter! https://twitter.com/PixelTailGames

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

This hot fix includes fixes for update 0.14.7.0 along with some additions to the Plaza!


Signs have been added around the Plaza to help you find things more easily. More signs and improvements to the signs will be done at a later date.


A new store is being worked on and the exterior is now complete and available to see.


An art pass to the Poseidon roller coaster has been added, along with other minor changes and fixes to the Plaza detailed below.

Changes

• Plaza: New store interior
  
• Plaza: New store exterior
  
• Plaza: Added new Tower Lobby signs
  
• Plaza: Added new Plaza signs to help with directions
  
• Plaza: Added minigame pad area signs
  
• Plaza: Added boardwalk area signs
  
• Plaza: Roller coaster area art pass
  
• Plaza: Various PBR improvements
  
• Plaza: Added holiday music ambience

Bug Fixes

• Appearance: Fixed Santa Tube scale being slightly different from the other tubes
  
• Casino: Fixed Casino slots missing their paytable graphics and sometimes their jackpot graphics
  
• Fixed Steam Achievement migration not loading properly
  
• Fixed Day Night setting not always updating properly
  
• Fixed Poker table signs being missing
  
  

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

We're also active on Twitter! https://twitter.com/PixelTailGames

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

Wintertime has come to the Tower Unite Plaza! We’ve decked out the island with holiday cheer and brought back all of the classic holiday events. Be sure to drop by Santa Claws’ Workshop for new Condo and Appearance items, and enjoy the festive atmosphere!

Holiday Coins are also back and can be earned by playing any of the games in Tower!




The new and improved Monorail system is ready to take you to all of your favorite destinations around the Plaza. Hop on at one of the four stops and see the island from a new perspective while you ride in style to the stores and games.




Appearance items can now be bought at the new store: Tower Threads! There you can preview appearance items before you purchase them. You can also activate the appearance menu using the store’s high tech equipment! All appearance items that were previously on the appearance menu have now been moved to the new store.



Changes

• Plaza: Holiday 2021 Events Begin
  
• Plaza: New Store: Tower Threads, for all your apparel needs
  
• Plaza: Plaza audio pass. Added sounds to the Bowling Exterior, Casino Exterior, DIY, Franky's Grill, Rob's Imports, Fresh, Songbirds, various room tones, ocean, dock sounds
  
• Plaza: Added new holiday items to Santa's Workshop and Celebrations stores
  
• Plaza: Added Floating Text item to the D.I.Y. store
  
• Plaza: Subtly improved quality of Plaza lighting
  
• Plaza: Tower Lobby small art pass
  
• Plaza: Pool bypass bridge added
  
• Plaza: Updated palm trees
  
• Minigolf - Sweet Tooth: Hole 10 hole-in-one has been adjusted
  
• Condo - Suite: You can now toggle off the upstairs railing
  
• Condo - Suite: Add another light manager for the upstairs area
  
• Condo: Spin to Win Home Edition probabilities changed to completely random instead of favoring "nothing"
  
• Appearance Editor: You can now adjust the camera zoom with mouse wheel
  
• Appearance Editor: Improved lighting and background visuals for the main menu
  
• Appearance Editor: Improved background on the in-game UI
  
• Appearance items are now only located in the new Appearance store: Tower Threads, instead of being available in the appearance editor
  
• Plaza: Tower Threads now has a way to visually preview Appearance items before you buy them
  
• Plaza: Store UI improvements and animations
  
• Condo: Added Canvas materials: Simple Color
  
• Accelerate: First drift boost stage now requires 1.0 seconds to engage instead of just 0.5 seconds
  
• Accelerate: Turn rate increased to allow for sharper turns without the need to drift (sharp turn engages after 0.35 seconds of holding turn down)
  
• Accelerate: Increased ground turn friction to keep the kart from sliding all around, resulting in much tighter controls
  
• Condo: Added five different types of light animations to the Christmas Lights Twinkle
  
• Condo: Added canvas comment support for Canvas Statue and Canvas Theater Frame
  
• Inventory: Improved item edit popup, added separators to make the edit button stand out more from the other options
  
• Inventory: Locking or Disabling Collision on items now automatically closes the edit popup
  
• Inventory: Hot bar inventory now hides while editing items
  
• UI: Renamed C context button prompt from "Actions" to "Character"
  
• UI: Renamed "Set Workshop Player Model" to "Find Player Model"
  
• UI Renamed "Remove Workshop Player Model" to "Take Off Player Model"
  
• UI: Updated font on latest news UI to make it more legible
  
• Items: Improved RC car handling
  
• Items: Reduced Launch Pad sound volume
  
• UI: Some unit HUDs now change for the holidays

Bug Fixes

• Fixed gizmos not working when intersecting with a locked item
  
• Appearance Editor: Fixed the character often times not facing the camera when entering appearance editing mode
  
• Appearance Editor: Fixed the character not facing the camera after manually rotating the character and switching to a new accessories tab
  
• Appearance Editor: Improved the camera overall, adding easing and ironing out edge cases
  
• Appearance Editor: Fixed networking lag that would cause the character head to snap down when entering the appearance editor
  
• Appearance Editor: Fixed large or small characters not fitting within the camera's views (basically appearance editor would completely break with tiny or large player models as the cameras would be mega offset). Now the camera will adjust smoothly to match the size of the character
  
• Appearance Editor: Fixed back camera offsets
  
• Appearance Editor: Fixed right click tool tips for appearance items not showing up properly on the main menu
  
• Appearance Editor: Fixed sell tooltips not closing when you click off them or scroll wheel off
  
• Plaza: Fixed not being able to checkout items while on the store main page category list
  
• Condo - Suite: Fixed seats in couch not letting you get back up out of them after entering them
  
• Workshop: Fixed normal maps clearing when using translucent or masked materials in workshop models
  
• Fixed footstep sounds not playing most of the time while in first person due to previous optimizations
  
• Condo - Courtyard Villa: Fixed missing collision on Shower Base in upstairs bathroom
  
• Condo - Courtyard Villa: Fixed upside down wall in Pantry room
  
• Condo - Courtyard Villa: Fixed wrongly placed gravel texture on the landscape
  
• Condo - Courtyard Villa: You can now edit the baseboards in the hallway again
  
• Condo - Courtyard Villa: Fixed incorrect material on some paving stones
  
• Condo - Courtyard Villa: Fixed shadows appearing in the bathrooms when items are hidden, but the light is turned off
  
• Condo - Courtyard Villa: Removed collision on distant mountains
  
• Condo - Courtyard Villa: Fixed a bunch of item/placeable lights not working in some rooms
  
• Condo - Courtyard Villa: Fixed flashlight not working in some rooms
  
• Condo - Courtyard Villa: Fixed missing support piece
  
• Condo - Courtyard Villa: Optimised lighting a little bit
  
• Condo - Courtyard Villa: Fixed several light managers being stuck in the origin of the map
  
• Little Crusaders - Knightsend: Fixed various camping spots
  
• Little Crusaders - Knightsend: Fixed out-of-line flags
  
• Little Crusaders - Knightsend: Fixed a dragon spawn point that was being blocked
  
• Little Crusaders - Knightsend: Fixed various holes in the world
  
• Condo: Fixed hidden edit item icons (such as placeable lights) not displaying for players who have Edit All Items permission but not Surface Edit permissions.
  
• Condo: Fixed locked doors showing an E prompt in some cases (should just show the words "locked")
  
• Condo: Fixed condo built in lights not having the new light functions
  
• Items: Fixed workshop NPC having loading icons that draw through the world
  
• Items: Fixed Stealthbox not animating the local player when in hidden mode (crouched). Also fixed the local player hiding and added a vignette effect to show the hidden state to the local player
  
• Items: Fixed christmas lights not generating lights properly
  
• Items: Fixed canvas frame color being applied to non canvas frames causing canvases to be tinted upon duplication or load in sometimes
  
• Plaza: Fixed DIY store floor missing footstep sounds and causing vehicles to slow down
  
• Ball Race: Fixed GLXY level 11 rotating platform causing unwanted physics reactions
  
• Inventory: Fixed not being able to open edit menu (right click popup) while currently editing an item
  
• Inventory: Fixed not being able to middle mouse open edit another item while currently editing an item
  
• Inventory: Fixed not being able to readjust the camera with right click while currently editing an item
  
• Inventory: Fixed advanced build mode hiding cursor when it shouldn't be
  
• Inventory: Fixed advanced build mode hiding key prompts for gizmo editor when it shouldn't be
  
• Milestones: Fixed camera position resetting to default angles when placing down the Golf Ball Milestone
  
• Milestones: Fixed Golf Ball Milestone stroke count able to be increased while the ball is in motion
  
• Milestones: Fixed Golf Ball Milestone leaving causing input to get stuck in a weird mode
  
• Fixed being near NPCs causing vehicles to slow down
  
• Plaza: Fixed Pumpkin Pool Tube, Pool Tube, Flamingo Tube, Duck Tube, Donut Tube, and Dino Tube not being in the Oasis store
  
• Fixed emote list sometimes not listing after using a vehicle
  
• Plaza: Fixed placement positions of holiday decorations
  
• Condo: Fixed teleporters not teleporting players if it's placed on a spawn point
  
• Inventory: Fixed tooltip and highlighting features not turning off when hovering over item settings
  
• Inventory: Fixed cursor always being a hand when over item settings
  
• Fixed concrete and other surfaces not having the default foot step sounds (and increased glass footstep sound volume)

Optimizations

• Plaza: Optimized Plaza VRAM usage, saving around 200mb of VRAM
  
• Plaza: Lightmap memory optimizations
  
• UI: Optimized the main unit HUD UI
  
• UI: Optimized button UI across the game
  
• Optimized footstep logic so the server doesn't have to calculate as much

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

We're also active on Twitter! https://twitter.com/PixelTailGames

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