Tower Unite News

We've completely redid Texas Hold'em/Poker in Casino. Now players can play endlessly. On top of that, the UI was completely reworked to better show player actions such as pot changes and folding. We also added a log to help keep track of everything to make better choices when betting. Players can join in mid-game and spectate and wait for the next hand.

You can also watch poker games ongoing without being in the table/poker game using the new 3D cards and table UI. You'll be able to see in real time what players are doing and how big the stakes are.



We reduced the Plazas scale by 15%, which makes it smaller, tightens up areas, and keeps players closer together.

There's new jetpacks at Rob's Imports. We've added different colored jetpacks and also the original GMT jetpack. There's also a super power jetpack (which is a jetpack that has no visuals). We'll be adding more jetpack types in the future.



In this update, we updated the map select to show more information about each map.



The outer bounds of the default Condo have been extended, allowing a greater degree of creative freedom.

The workshop player model system was refactored to improve stability and solve many bugs with workshop player models. It's also faster now.

Tired of having to run all the way to the other side of the Plaza to take part in the event that just started? Fear no more, now these nifty teleporters will rise out of the ground, providing players a quick way to teleport over to the Event Arena.



Don’t know where your friends are in the plaza? We’ve got you covered with the brand new Plaza map. Not only will this give you a nice directory of activities you can participate in the Plaza, but you can also see where everyone is. Want to join your friend in the casino? Simply just click on the Casino on the map and you’ll magically teleport over there. Cool huh?



The scoreboards have been massively updated. For Game Worlds, these scoreboards now better match the aesthetic of the Game World and can display to the player all of the possible payouts they can obtain. In the Plaza, these scoreboards now have quick access panels to your appearance, collection book, the Plaza map, and settings that pertain to your Plaza experience. In the condo, all of the condo options have been moved onto the scoreboard, with a quick access link to Tower Express.



As a Condo owner, all your settings are now in the new scoreboard. You can also now change your Condo server title while being in the Condo. We've made things more accessible and cleaned up the item finder (though we plan to make another update in the future to the item finder).




Changes

• Endless Poker
  • You can now stay seated in the poker tables and continue playing new hands over and over
  • Players can now sit in active poker games and spectate/wait for the next hand
  • Added spectating support - 3D cards, chips, and player hand values are now displayed for players who are not currently in the table
  • Completely new poker game UI
  • Pot changes, folds, and other player actions are now much more noticable
  • Added a poker game log that keeps record of every action players have done
  • Poker HUD is no longer full screen
  • Increased the antes on each table
  • Resolved various bugs regarding poker
• Plaza scaled down by 15%
  • Reduced the entire Plaza by 15% to fix scaling issues and to make the Plaza feel less massive
  • Added a small tunnel to the roller coaster
  • Improved grass
• Improved Game World map select
  • Added home/landing page with description of the Game World
  • Separated find/create servers
  • Improved map select with more information about each map
  • You can now sort maps by name, difficulty, and version added (default)
  • Overall visual improvements
• New Scoreboards
  • Complete overhaul of scoreboards for each Game World
  • Virus scoreboard now separates survivors and infected for better readability
  • Added payout lists for each Game World on the scoreboards
• New Plaza Scoreboard
  • Added player filters - find players in your location or just friends easier
  • Added 2D map of Plaza with fast travel & info on each area of the Plaza
  • You can now see where other players are using the new map
  • Added condo browser on scoreboard for easier access to hosted condos from the Plaza
  • Added news and settings tabs on the scoreboard
• New Condo Scoreboard
  • Moved condo settings to the scoreboard for easier access
  • Added a shortcut to Tower Express store on the scoreboard for easier access
• Condo changes
  • Condo: Separated ceiling and roof meshes (you can finally have different roof and interior ceiling materials)
  • Condo: Increased light brightness inside some places
  • Condo: Removed barrier rocks/walls
  • Condo: Made it easier to get out of the pool using stairs
• Workshop internal rewrite - completely rewrote the player model system for Workshop to improve performance, reliability, and networking
• Workshop player models should now load in more reliably
• Casino optimization - rewrote various parts of the casino slots to improve performance and networking
• Added spin to win odds in the spin to win room
• Slight settings UI clean up. Separated canvas/workshop/parental controls
• Changed Woodlands difficulty from Very Easy to Easy
• Added the ability to change your HUD to various original GMT HUDs
• New jetpack items: Classic Jetpack, Rocket Jetpack, Classic Jetpack Weird Cat, Classic Jetpack Orange, Classic Jetpack Pink, Super Power Jetpack (invisible jetpack), Jetpack White, Jetpack Blue, Jetpack Green, Jetpack Orange
• You can now move towards a direction with your jetpack by holding down the crouch button mid-air
• Plaza: New event teleporters were added to help get to the event area easier
• You can now sleep in the beds
• Minigolf: HUD tweaks - power text is now aligned with the hole text, small color changes/improvements
• Minigolf: New font for player names on golf balls
• Virus: New HUD elements for game events
• Virus: New weapon selection HUD
• Virus: Silencer no longer shares ammo with Handgun
• Virus: Infected slash attack delay has been reduced
• Virus: Improved infected skin
• Balloon Shoot: Gold balloons are now worth 30 points, but get multiplied by your combo
• Removed condo setting menu from the C menu and moved the condo settings to the scoreboard with finer controls
• Added a shortcut to Tower Express to the new condo scoreboard
• Added condo server browser to the new condo scoreboard
• You can now change your condo server title while hosting your condo
• You can now place fish in your Condo pools (including Highrise pool)
• Improved fish AI movement just a bit (removed fish tilting upwards)
• Added chatting animation
• Changing the Condo join permission now properly updates the scoreboard (so if you change to friends only, friends only tag will show up)
• Jetpacks now show up in game worlds (but don't function)
• Vomit effects have been improved (you can disable them in the settings)
• Added vomit decals (you can disable them in the settings)
• Moved Kitchen items from Rob's Imports to Sweet Suite Furnishings

Bug Fixes

• Fixed sea store requiring an incorrect amount of sea dollars to make a purchase
• Fixed fish in Resort aquarium clipping out of it
• Fixed several issues with Workshop player models
• Fixed an issue with all Condos where outside lighting was sometimes a little dim
• Fixed an issue with all Condos being incredibly dark on some settings
• Fixed the pool noodle colliding with inventory dragging

You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap

You can follow our weekly developer logs here: http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/devupdates/weekly-dev-logs

You can report bugs on our forums: http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report

Or you may also report bugs on our Steam community, but please expect slow response time.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for October 7th, 2019, detailing all the changes that have happened since September 30th, 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 0.8.3.0 wrapped up and ready to ship. We hope to get this update out very soon, and you can read about all the upcoming features and fixes here.

Gloves created some animations for the "Gears of Coin" arcade machines.

wheezwer continued working on art for the "House of the Zombies" cabinet, pretty much finishing the art. She also started working on art for "Gears of Coin".

madmijk continued working on the gameplay code for "Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano". He is currently selecting musical compositions for the machine to play over the player's input, as is demonstrated in the videos below.

Will continued working on sounds and music for "Ring God".

macdguy finished up most of the gameplay for "Meteoroid Mania".

Planetary Piano: Für Elise Gameplay Demo WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Planetary Piano: Melody System Demo WIP Disclaimer: Song featured in the first video isn't ours, and will not be in the final game. It was used solely for testing purposes.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Meteoroid Mania: Gameplay WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Meteoroid Mania: Gameplay in Arcade WIP Meteoroid Mania sounds haven't been mastered into the ambience yet, so take the background audio as WIP.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Gears of Coin: Art WIP

macdguy worked on showing the player positions on the Map, so that players can see where other players are in the Plaza.

Scoreboard Plaza Map: Player Positions WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Work has begun on the Halloween Update for Tower Unite, which is slated to be the next update after 0.8.3.0. Lobby 3 will be decorated for Halloween, and there are new items and events planned for this year's event.

JJosh and macdguy started working on items for Halloween.

Halloween Items WIP

Angel Wing Jetpack WIP


Several tests were conducted with performing server travel in the Gameworlds. This would allow us to reach our goal of allowing players to vote on the next map, without having to end the server and start a new one. While this isn't ready for primetime yet, these tests are very promising.

Server Travel Test WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

macdguy spent some time implementing animations that will play when the player is chatting in text chat.

Player Chat Animations

krionikal started working on an updated model of Kalleira.

Sketchman started working on more Condo Advertisements for the Plaza.

Kalleira Model Update WIP

Condo Advertisements WIP

Lifeless continued working on Acrophobia.

Sketchman continued working on fixing the networking issues regarding Workshop models.


That about covers everything that happened since September 30th, 2019 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for September 30th, 2019, detailing all the changes that have happened since September 23rd, 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.

Gloves continued creating Zombie Animations for the "House of the Zombies" arcade game. He also started working on idle animations for the untitled Wheel Maze game.

wheezwer continued working on art for the "House of the Zombies" cabinet.

madmijk continued working on the gameplay code for "Captain Calypso’s Planetary Piano". He made a system which can play melodies based off of notes, and started writing a program that can convert midis to these notes.

JJosh continued working on new prizes for the Arcade.

Will continued working on music for "Ring God", "Little Birde Feeders", and "Whack-A-Mole" as well as adding debug queues for working on the general ambience.

New Prize for Arcade: Plasma Ball
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

macdguy started finishing up improvements to the scoreboards and UI for Plaza, Game Worlds, and the Condos. Scoreboards have been improved for each game world and now display types of payouts (and eventually more information on each map). In the Plaza, the scoreboard now provides quick links to the appearance editor & collection book, a map of the Plaza with fast travel, Condo server browser, Plaza settings, and news. In Condos, condo settings have been moved from the "C menu" to the scoreboard, as well as a link to Tower Express. The unit counter UI has also been updated and there is a setting to allow players to select various GMT unit counters.

Virus also has new UI in various areas of its gameplay.

You can also now set your condo name while still hosting your condo.

ThisIsntNath started working on little info-graphic brochures for the scoreboard "About" pages to teach players a bit about the map and the Game World.

Virus Scoreboard and UI Improvements WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Minigolf Scoreboard Improvements WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Zombie Massacre Scoreboard and UI Improvements WIP

Condo Scoreboard Improvements WIP

New Unit Counter / GMT Unit Count WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Infographic Brochure for Plaza WIP

Plaza Map Player Location WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

macdguy worked on a fast travel system for the Plaza, using the new Plaza map in the new scoreboard. Players can now locate all of the activities inside of the Plaza, and click on them to quickly teleport.

Plaza Fast Travel WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Lifeless continued working on Acrophobia.

Sketchman continued working on fixing the networking issues regarding Workshop models. He got workshop model loading to work and network properly using the new system. He's also working on fixing up other loose ends like Workshop settings and Gameworld specific features, and factoring out duplicate code for handling the various Gameworld pawns.


That about covers everything that happened since September 23rd, 2019 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for September 23rd, 2019, detailing all the changes that have happened since September 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.

macdguy worked on gameplay code for "Ring God", the unnamed maze wheel game, and the unnamed wheel spinner game.

Gloves continued working on button press animations for "Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano", as well as creating Zombie Animations for the "House of the Zombies" arcade game.

wheezwer worked on art for the "House of the Zombies" cabinet.

madmijk is working on "Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano", currently working on the scoring and figuring out multiplayer, including how to divide the scoring between the two players during the new time trial game mode.

JJosh continued working on new plushies for the Arcade, as well as some props for the Shooting Gallery.

"House of the Zombies" Cabinet Art WIP

"House of the Zombies" Zombie Animations WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Shooting Gallery Props WIP

macdguy finished the poker rewrite, and updated the poker HUD so that it's no longer completely full screen.

Updated Poker HUD WIP

macdguy continued working on the plaza map for the new scoreboard that will show players where people are in the plaza, provide information about the area, as well as allowing the player to fast travel to locations.

Scoreboard Plaza Map WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

macdguy worked on a flame effect for the minigolf ball when the ball is hit at full speed, as well as updating the Minigolf HUD and improving the player name font

Minigolf Flame Effects WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Minigolf Updated Font WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Minigolf Updated HUD OLD vs NEW WIP

macdguy improved the Virus infected skin.

Virus Updated Skin WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

macdguy added vomit decals.

Vomit System WIP
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Johanna spent time last week down-scaling the Plaza by 15%. There were several reasons this was done.

1. The plaza will feel a bit less intimidating, and more cozy.
   
2. Distances between objects have been slightly decreased. For example, the lighthouse and roller coaster are the same size as before, but the distance between them is 15% smaller.
   
3. Some areas and doorways around the main plaza are no longer cartoonishly large in comparison to the player. The world no longer feels like a world for giants.
   
4. These changes only affect the plaza. No other part of the game is affected.
   
5. Not all areas of the plaza have been downsized. The main areas have been, but several interiors, such as the theater, laser tag, bowling, and casino, have not.
   
6. The smaller main areas will increase the ratio of players to empty space, making the plaza more fitting for the current number of players.
   

Johanna also started preparing Lobby 3 for the holiday events, setting up the event system to allow for Halloween and Winter props to be spawned, as well as fog and snow.

Lifeless continued working on Acrophobia.

Sketch continued working on fixing the networking issues regarding Workshop models. He also fixed a bug where new players would have their unit count listed as -1, and started setting up the new in-house server browser.

Caboose700 finished working on the in-house server browser (which provides for easier server look up and matchmaking) solution.


That about covers everything that happened since September 16th, 2019 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for September 16th, 2019, detailing all the changes that have happened since September 9th, 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.

Johanna continued working on the Shooting Gallery for Arcade.

wheezwer worked on cabinet art for the "Destroy" cabinet, and started working on the art for the "House of the Zombies" cabinet.

madmijk continued working on the gameplay code for "Captain Calypso's Planetary Piano", along with implementing the animations.

Gloves continued working on animations for "Lonely Gun".

Sketchman continued working on achievement icons for the Arcade.

JJosh continued working on new plushies for the Arcade, as well as some props for the Shooting Gallery.

macdguy worked on improving Ring God gameplay, finishing off Newton's Apples, and reworking the physics pickup system to allow for multiple arcade physics items to be held at once (so you can throw 5 rings at once for Ring God).


"Destroy" Cabinet Art WIP



Arcade Plushies and Shooting Gallery Props WIP



macdguy started work on a 2D map of Lobby 3, which will be used in-game for a fast travel system.
Chris continued working on boats for the boat rental system.

2D Plaza Map



Boat Rental Boats WIP



macdguy spent a little time updating the logos on the Tower Unite Steam store page.

Updated Tower Unite Store Page Logos

macdguy finished refactoring the poker UI system, which will allow for non-poker specific card games (such as blackjack); as well as decoupling the betting system to allow for non-card based betting games. Work on endless Texas Hold'em is now complete.

Lifeless continued working on Acrophobia.

Sketchman continued working on fixing the networking issues regarding workshop models.
Caboose700 continued working on the in-house server browser solution.


That about covers everything that happened since September 9th, 2019 at PixelTail Games. See you all next week!