Tower Unite News

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for January 13th, 2020, detailing all the changes that have happened since January 6th, 2020. 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.


Last Friday, we conducted a developer stream showing off our progress on the arcade! You can check it out below!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


We're working on releasing update 0.8.8.0 soon, which includes the new Little Crusaders map "Knightsend-By-Sea" and preliminary controller support for Minigolf and Zombie Massacre. This update also includes better notifications and error feedback for condos, and fixes several bugs from 0.8.7.0, such as the canvas surface saving issues.

You can read more about what will be in this update here.

Johanna worked on the "Gears of Coin" sign, and fixed collisions and lightmaps in the arcade level.

Madmijk continued working on "Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano", fixing various bugs and adding three new melodies.

macdguy worked on finishing the logic for the ticket eating machine, along with fixing a bunch of small issues that cropped up during the developer stream.

Wheezwer worked on re-doing the "Wheely Rigged" art along with "Dragons Treasure".

[h3]New Wheely Rigged Art WIP[/h3]


[h3]Old / New Dragon's Treasure Art WIP[/h3]


[h3]Gears of Coin Sign WIP[/h3]


[h3]New Ticket Effects / Ticket Eating Machine[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

JJosh has been working on new items for the Cooking feature.

[h3]Cooking Items[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Sketchman continued working on some plaza art, specifically art for Horizon Condos.

[h3]Horizon Condos Art WIP[/h3]



We're going to start working on merch for Tower Unite, and would love to hear your suggestions on what types of merch you'd like to see? What designs from the game would you like to see on a shirt, or a mug? Let us know here!

We hear you guys about Catsack plushes or other plushies, and while we love the idea and totally want to look into it in the future, we're just focusing on shirts and other merch first!

Sketchman continued working on improved moderation handling, along with looking into long standing issues and bug reports before starting work on the 4.19 upgrade.


That about covers everything that happened since January 6th, 2020 at PixelTail Games.

After getting feedback from various community members, we've adjusted most of the holes and difficulty in the Kingdom minigolf map. You can read more about all the changes in the change log below.

Canvases can now be animated! We've added the ability to animated canvases by allowing the use of sprite sheets in the canvas system. There are many online tools to convert GIFs into sprite sheets that we suggest you use to take advantage of this new system. We highly suggest using JPGs for your animated canvases to keep file size low.

We've also updated the canvas parental controls to block animated canvases (by default they are on) separately from regular canvases.



We're also releasing a beta version of advanced condo edit mode. When advanced condo edit mode is toggled on, you will enter an editor-like state where your mouse cursor is always enabled for better manipulation of items (Q does not need to be held!). You will automatically be put into noclip, HUD/hot bar will hide, and you can move the camera up and down with Q and E buttons (similar to workshop editor). Holding right click will allow you to rotate the camera. You can also toggle off surface editing so it does not get in your way. We will be continuing to improve this mode over time.

We hope this mode will allow for less frustrating building.

Including in this, we fixed various long standing bugs with editing condos in general, such as improving the reliability of the lock feature and various UI improvements.

You can now use many of the textures and materials that were previously available for editing walls of the condo with all canvas primitives (such as canvas cube and canvas walls).

We also added some additional surfaces such as glass, water, and special effects like force shields and fences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipm9fFesEag
We also added various new canvas types such as screen and glass. With canvas glass, you can set images and make custom stained glass.


[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Kingdom Quality of Life Update
  
• Plaza: New DIY store exterior
  
• Plaza: Start of appearance store exterior
  
• Plaza: Massively improved lighting in Bowling, along with adding some improvements to the windows and some models
  
• Added Face item equipping in Minigolf
  
• Added beta version of advanced condo edit mode
  
• Locked items no longer highlight or show tool tips while being locked
  
• Added surface material support for Canvas cubes, walls, and other shapes
  
• Added animated canvas support (requires sprite sheet). Yes, you can disable them in parental controls
  
• Added new canvas types: Glass and Screen
  
• Added several glass, water, and misc FX surface materials to condo surfaces
  
• Added new icons for items that were hard to see visually in the hot bar: Fishing Rod, Golf Club, and Double Barrel
  
• Disabled workshop model loading during PVP-only Plaza minigames
  
• Reworked condo surface editor UI to be easier to use
  
• Increased scale of unit HUDs just a tad
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Plaza: Fixed the extremely dark transitions during sunrise and sunset
  
• Plaza: Fixed the odd concentric rings/banding effect in bright lights (especially the sun)
  
• Fixed Cigar and Red Nose wearables being too large in Minigolf
  
• Fixed 2020 Glasses, Christmas Bowtie, and Reindeer Antlers not being correctly positioned on Minigolf balls
  
• Fixed string lights turning lights back on when you edit any property
  
• Fixed an issue with the hot bar category filters not updating, preventing new items from showing up (unless you switched categories back and forth)
  
• Fixed christmas tree item model being incorrect
  
• Reduced toy train sound volume
  
• Fixed Candy Cane weapon having a shadow even when not equipped
  
• Fixed incorrect warning text when prompted to leave a minigame
  
• Fixed Theater (and other media players) not allowing players to queue up videos in Plaza
  
• Fixed string lights not always reaching their destination
  
• Fixed day night override resetting upon death in minigames like Snowball Battle
  
• Fixed scope weapons having a weird fade box issue
  
• Fixed wreath tube size being too small
  
• Fixed new christmas particles being a bit too small
  
• Fixed players being small scales in minigames and Laser Tag
  
• Improved visibility of death markers in ZM and Plaza minigames
  
• Fixed a typo with Holdable Beer item
  
• Fixed not being able to join minigames with the notification prompt
  
• Fixed an issue where if you right click to view yourself then enter first person, your movement can be reversed
  
• Fixed inventory hot bar not updating after making a purchase
  
• Fixed inventory hot bar not clearing out holdable items (such as beer and hot dogs) after using them
  
• Fixed leaderboard listings showing a loading icon that does nothing
  
• Fixed leaderboard listings not displaying player avatars
  
• Fixed awful lag when viewing Condo server listings
  
• Fixed button highlight effects not always unhighlight in most UI
  
• Fixed some checkbox UI not toggling properly when you click on the text label
  
• Fixed a bug where items that are locked could still be dragged under certain circumstances
  
• Fixed bug with Disco Duck item where it plays the music (even if it's turned off) everytime you load up your Condo
  
• Fixed a bug where if you drag an item into the world (without placing it down) and back into the inventory to stash it, it would still place down the item (now it doesn't place down the item)
  

[h2]Kingdom Adjustments[/h2]

• Adjusted overall map lighting
  
• Changed the color of moving platforms
  
• Added light bulbs to the lamps in the city
  
• Hole 2: Moving platforms on the sides slowed down by 25%
  
• Hole 3: Moving platform slowed down by 25%
  
• Hole 4: First moving platform slowed down by 25%
  
• Hole 4: Second moving platform slowed down by 50%
  
• Hole 4: Spinning hole slowed down by 50%
  
• Hole 5: Slowed down first moving platform by 25%
  
• Hole 5: Doubled height of the moving ball stopper to make it more visually noticeable
  
• Hole 5: Widened the entrance into the hole platform to reduce the odds of falling into the river in the final shot
  
• Hole 5: Reduced the support beam structure's height below the second moving bridge to stop the ball from being incorrectly marked as out of bounds
  
• Hole 5: Slowed down the second moving platform/bridge by 25%
  
• Hole 5: Added a back wall behind the hole to prevent the ball from bouncing out of the hole
  
• Hole 7: Slowed down moving side walls by 25%
  
• Hole 7: Slowed down beginning moving platform by 33%
  
• Hole 7: Added an indentation in the platform before the backwards-ramp to prevent very difficult situations where a player has to bounce backwards onto the end lane from one of the far ends
  
• Hole 8: Slowed down moving platforms by 25%
  
• Hole 11: Fixed the odd geometry on the ending ramp
  
• Hole 11: Increased par by 1.
  
• Hole 11: Reduced moving platform speed by 20%
  
• Hole 11: Added a booster to ensure the player makes it all the way around the curved section
  
• Hole 13: Decreased the speed of the moving barrier near the first geyser.
  
• Hole 13: Added a booster along the length of the failure pit to move the player closer to the first geyser area so they can see the moving barrier
  
• Hole 13: Increased the height of the first geyser's moving barrier to make it more visible
  
• Hole 15: Added a wall barrier on one side of the first moving platform to decrease the difficulty of making it across
  
• Hole 15: Decreased speed of the second moving platform by 20%
  
• Hole 15: Decreased the speed of the final two moving platforms
  
• Hole 16: Increased the length of the bounce-back barrier at the beginning by 25%
  
• Hole 17: Removed the arrow from the indicator at the beginning. This was removed to clarify that the indicator is meant to simply display the current location of the moving platform, and is not meant to tell the player when to putt
  

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 6th, 2020, detailing all the changes that have happened since December 16th, 2019. 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.



Work continues on getting Update 0.8.7.0 out the door as quickly as possible. This update includes a bunch of fixes for issues caused by the Holiday Event 2019 update, along with a few new features.

A noteworthy feature being added in this next update is the beta version of the Advanced Condo Edit mode. When this mode is enabled, the condo owner will enter an editor-like state, where the mouse cursor is always enabled for better manipulation of items (Q does not need to be held down). The condo owner will automatically be put into no-clip mode, the HUD/hotbar will hide, and the camera can be moved vertically up or down using the Q and E keys (similar to the workshop editor). Holding right click will allow the condo owner to rotate the camera around, and you can toggle off surface editing so that it does not get in your way. This feature will be improved over time as the game progresses.

We also added some new canvas types (Glass and Screen) and also added in functionality for Animated Canvases.

And if that's not enough, we also added support for surface/materials on all canvas primitives (such as the canvas cube and canvas wall items)!


[h2]Advanced Edit Mode (cursor is off in the recording, sorry)[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Canvas With Surface Support & Additional Materials[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

You can read more about these features and the other changes in this update here.



We will be conducting a livestream on Friday, January 10th at 4PM PST to show off our progress on the arcade!

Make sure to follow our Twitch channel so you don't miss it! Of course, we will be uploading a VOD to YouTube if you can't make it.



macdguy finished the ticket currency, and created a mechanism to buy and sell items using the tickets. He also finished the the token system and hooked up ticket earning to arcade machines.

Johanna continued working on art for the Arcade.

Jjosh continued working on items for the Arcade while also creating descriptions for various items.

will worked on creating music for "Bug Bytes" and created token sounds for the token machines. On top of this, he continued working on fixing existing sound bugs.

wheezwer redesigned the Arcade carpet and continued working on pixel art for Destroy and Galaxy Police.

[h2]Arcade Carpet Redesign (Before / After)[/h2]



[h2]Arcade Store WIP[/h2]



[h2]Arcade Ticket Animation WIP[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



Lifeless has been working on a brand new Little Crusaders map, Knightsend-By-Sea.

[h2]Knightsend-By-Sea Screenshot[/h2]





Sketch continued working on improved moderation handling, along with looking into long standing issues and bug reports before starting work on the 4.19 upgrade.

Caboose700 continued working on the improved Server Browser API backend and also looked into new server hardware for the Plazas.



The Christmas Condo Contest 2019 has concluded, and the winners will be announced tomorrow on our forums. You can checkout more details about the contest here.



That about covers everything that happened since December 16th, 2019 at PixelTail Games.

We've got over 51 new festive items for you. 31 of them are exclusive to this event, and the rest will stick around all year.

This year we wanted to roll out a popular suggestion - christmas string lights. Now you can decorate your condo with various string light items with ease using the new Targeter tool.

Collect Holiday Coins, the currency used for exclusive holiday 2019 store. Grab them by playing games, grabbing presents around the Plaza, talking with Plaza event characters, or by fishing them up!

We've also added a few New Year's items to celebrate 2020.




[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Collect Holiday Coins, the currency used for exclusive holiday 2019 store. Grab them by playing games, grabbing presents around the Plaza, talking with Plaza event characters, or by fishing them up!
  
• New placeable and adjustable string lights item types are now available in Celebrations!
  
• Added 31 items to Santa Claws store (Holiday 2019 exclusive store): Holiday Cheer Gun, Holiday Ice Gun, Jinglebell, Plush Reindeer, Plush Red-Nose Reindeer, Elf Hat, Red Nose, Reindeer Antlers, Popcorn Necklace, Christmas Lights Necklace, Candy Cane Backpack, Candy Cane Particles, Gingerbread Men Particles, Jinglebells Particles, Christmas Extravaganza Particles, Christmas Bowtie, Christmas Bowtie Head, Wreath Tube, Candy Cane Stick, Christmas Tree with Train, Nutcracker, Nutcracker Hat, Ice Potion, Snowball Pet, Jinglebell Pet, Christmas Toy Train, Santa Plushy, and Jinglebell Gun
  
• Added 16 items to Celebrations: Christmas Lights Bulbs, Christmas Lights Twinkle, Christmas Lights Globe, Christmas Lights Bulbs Half, Christmas Lights Twinkle Half, Christmas Lights Globe Half, Ornament String, Decorated Garland, Garland String, Jinglebell String, Wreath, Candy Cane, Popcorn String, Christmas Candle, Happy New Year String, and Flag Rope
  
• Added 4 accessories items: Cigar, 2020 Glasses, Fancy Top Hat New Years, and Party Hat New Years 2020
  
• Snowball Battle is now back for the season
  
• Added a new condo tool - Targeter. Allows for easier setting of targets for items that have targets to point to (string lights, teleporters)
  
• Optimised Condo lights
  
• Added cursed remains to holiday converter store
  
• Virus: Enraged HUD message is now red colored
  
• Added tool primary/secondary descriptions on condo tool HUDs
  
• Added a new appearance slot: Face. This slot is currently only used for the upcoming red nose item and existing the cig item
  
• Added currency tag (for Ghoul Coin, Sea Dollar, etc.) and added currency filter under redeemables in inventory
  

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• Plaza: Fixed Beach House and Project 12 TV's from being in the center of the world
  
• Plaza: Fixed a collision issue
  
• Plaza: Fixed some sound issues
  
• Plaza: Moved store item viewer to its correct position and improved lighting
  
• Plaza: Fixed misplaced seat in Theatre
  
• Condo: Fixed button items not playing their animation
  
• Condo: Fixed weather sounds in Smooth Autumn
  
• Condo: Fixed some holes in Condo
  
• Condo: Fixed Moon Theatre screen in Resort being in the incorrect spot
  
• Condo: Fixed some collision issues in Highrise
  
• Condo: Workshop physics items no longer seemingly disappear in Highrise
  
• Virus: Fixed players getting to places they shouldn't in Solar
  
• Fixed an issue where voice could still be enabled in certain circumstances
  
• Fixed "Display warning when opening items" setting being reversed
  
• Fixed typo in Zombie Massacre menu
  
• Fixed Plaza and Condo scoreboard condo browser not loading results
  
• Fixed footsteps not being recognized when using tiny potions
  
• Fixed ice not working properly when using potions or when crouching
  
• Milestones: Fixed Laser Tag Symbol milestone not replicating properly
  
• Milestones: Fixed Double Barrel milestone running out of ammo
  
• Fixed weapon scope stretching for monitors that aren't 16:9
  
• Fixed a long standing bug when a host drags an item, it spawned a copy of it in the origin of the map for other players until it's finished dragging
  
• Fixed view finders not moving anymore due to an optimization update in previous patch
  

We're still very hard at work on the Arcade. We're eager to share and announce some really exciting developments in January. Arcade now has around 23 working machines and around 15 more in the works!


As 2019 is coming to a close we'd like to say thanks to everyone in our community. 2019 has been a big, challenging year for us and it 2020 is shaping up to be too - so thank you all for sticking by us!

We're taking a break from December 24th to January 2nd. We'll still be around on the forums occasionally.


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

Hey everyone! 2019 has been a big year for PixelTail Games and Tower Unite - so we’ve decided to release a Year In Review - a look back on everything that’s happened this year, and what we can expect to see in 2020.

The 2010s have been a massive decade for us. We went from just a small group of friends making games together to a whole company - and there were some massive hurdles along the way. It's crazy to look back and see how much Tower Unite has evolved since its first preview on Indiegogo back in 2015. We appreciate your continued support during our Early Access journey.

We wouldn’t have been able to make Tower Unite what it is today without our community’s feedback and suggestions (over 4,900 of them!) in every step of development.

The world of Tower Unite continues to evolve, as we’ve been releasing updates all year adding new things to do:


Our biggest update so far came out in March - Lobby 3 - introducing a redesigned Plaza and faster loading times. The update (0.7.0.0) also included Achievements, EXP, Badges, Milestones, Leaderboards and RC Cars and Boats. We remember joining the final version of Lobby 3 for the first time and exploring where everything was, hearing “Sunshine Day!” once again. It was a huge moment for all of us.


In early April, we released version 0.7.1.0, featuring Event Horizon, a new map for Ball Race. We also added a bait shop and boat rental area in preparation for the Fishing update, which would come out in late May.


We released the Easter Event 2019 Update (0.7.2.0) in mid April, introducing a new Easter Egg Hunt event, as well as several Easter-themed items such as Bunny Ears, Plush Rabbit and Throwable Eggs. Update 0.7.2.0 also introduced PAK, a faster way to load the game (with a few tradeoffs).


Fishing was another big feature we released this year! With over 100 different fish and weird items, this update kept players trying to catch ‘em all. The 0.8.0.0 update also included a new Inventory UI, new Stores UI, a shared Wheel of Money jackpot and… the ability to become a dolphin?!


In July we released a… *ahem* TUbular Summer Update to celebrate the season. This update included 53 pool tubes, Chainsaw Deathmatch, Booze Bash and many summer related items, such as the pool noodle!


The Ball Race map, Grass World from GMod Tower was remastered and added to Tower Unite as Woodlands. Altitude was completed remastered.


Texas Hold’em/Poker got a total rework in update 0.8.3.0 - as the update’s name would suggest, you can now endlessly play Poker, and the UI was completely reworked to better show player actions. Also in this update, we scaled down the plaza by 15% to keep players closer together, added new jetpacks, added event teleporters, added a map and fast travel, updated the scoreboards, and updated the Condo settings menu.


Once again, we released a Halloween update including new and returning Halloween items. The Cauldron and the Remains came back, along with a new event currency system called Ghoul Coins. Update 0.8.4.0 also included a new Zombie Massacre Map: Village, as well as new monsters - Ghosts, Skeletons, Exploding Pumpkins and Werewolves were all new additions to Zombie Massacre. A user-requested Condo Map called Smooth Autumn also made its debut in this update.


Last month we released the Winter Plaza, where snow has settled in Lobby 3. This update also included optimizations, bug fixes and improvements, such as shiny new “Ready / Go”, “Fail” and “Bonus” HUD animations for Ball Race.


During all these updates, we've also been hard at work on the Arcade behind the scenes. We're excited to share and announce some really exciting developments in January. Arcade now has around 23 working machines and around 15 more in the works.



As always, we’re committed to delivering fun gaming experiences to our players, having transparency between developers and players, and regularly adding new content to the evolving world of Tower Unite.

We've also got some new developers on board this year that have been working hard on Tower Unite.

Maddie joined us in June and has been creating wonderful art and characters for the Arcade ever since. We're eager to show off her work in the upcoming Arcade update. Her favorite thing to work on so far for Tower Unite is the artwork for the Galaxy Police arcade machine.

Our Community Manager, Nath, joined us in August and has been honored to work with such an inclusive, wholesome and interactive community ever since. He’s made some great friends and memories in-game - so far, his personal favorite memory is The Board, a massive montage of our community’s avatars. We even had people join in-game, and this was the final screenshot:



Thank you to everyone that’s played, streamed, recorded and shared our game. We’re honored to have such a closely bonded community, seriously.


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