Content Creator Update! (0.18.1.0)
Ball Race Map Maker!
The Ball Race Map Maker is now available! Play with tons of tools and options to make your very own Ball Race maps! With tools for obstacles, course creation options, and a world of possibilities with the Editor system, you can make the map of your dreams!
The new map maker includes built-in Ball Race music support, leaderboard support (when unit approved), and more level design and editing features.
Ball Race itself also received various improvements.
You can get started making your own Ball Race maps by heading to the guide here: https://towerunite.com/guides/wk_ballrace.html
Zombie Massacre Map Maker!
The Zombie Massacre Map Maker is also now available! This map maker includes features such as customizable escapes, sub-objectives, and plenty of options for making the ultimate standoff against the zombie hordes!
With this update, Zombie Massacre has new gameplay elements exclusively for Map Makers (and for official maps very soon): sub-objectives, keycards, and custom escapes.
Zombie Massacre itself also received various improvements, including a new boss!
You can get started making your own Zombie Massacre maps by heading to the guide here: https://towerunite.com/guides/wk_zombiemassacre.html
ZM: New Boss - T-Rex!
The king of Dinosaurs, resurrected! He’s locked and loaded with missiles and dual wielding miniguns. Field raptors are deployed to assist alongside. Face off against this intimidating boss as you fight to survive your final night!
New Workshop Player Model Rig/SDK!
The 3.0 Workshop Player Model Rig is now implemented! This rig offers more fluid animations, IKs, and easier options for modifying proportions of a model, and massive improvements to the process of rigging player models. This has been a lot of work!
We have made a new guide for workshop creators to get started here: https://towerunite.com/guides/wk_creatingcharacters_v3.html
We’ve retargeted the old rig to work with the new rig (and existing player models) without any changes needed. That means that legacy Workshop player models will be compatible immediately. The animations have all been overhauled and improved in many ways.
Workshop creators will be required to use this new SDK to create player models. Existing models can be updated by following the guide.
Co-op Condo Fixes
Co-op Condos have received some much-needed love in this update! We’ve made fixes for Canvas editing issues, NPC/dialogue editing issues, IO timer and Damage Volume editing issues for those who try to edit the hosts Condo!
Fall 2024 Plaza Update
This update includes some changes to the Plaza as well! The Bowling Alley and Laser Tag buildings have had an art pass that includes new entryway details and layout as well as a new “party room” for the Bowling alley, a little reminder of Lobby 2! There were also various fixes to holes and seams around the Plaza, quality of life tweaks, and more!
Quality of Life Changes
There have been many changes to improve the quality of gameplay in general, so here are those areas that included changes:
- Plaza - various Plaza changes, optimizations, restart notification is more noticeable, removed a teleporter on the beach
- Minigames - combo time adjustment, weapon changes
- Game World Ports - fixes to scenery and collision, change to the height of screens for legibility
- Virus: Horde Mode - non-collision item avoidance, push/damage heal volume fixes, horde mode flame effects fixes, players no longer infect on touch in horde mode
General Bug Fixes
- Plaza - hole fixes, fixed duplicated media screens, z-fighting, lilypads, optimizations
- Minigolf: Collision Mutator - Emission fix, collision is now disabled when you pocket, HUD now shows when its active
- Minigolf Map Maker - fixes to water volume hazards, canvas images clearing on walls, par networking issues, cannon issues, 1x1-dipped missing textures, base height settings, non-global sky volumes, no OOB in tubes
- Virus - Catzek exploit fixes, horde AI spawning, horde movement & interaction fixes
VR Alpha
VR has had a lot of development as well! VR is still in alpha, but this update includes massive improvements to the VR experience, including a working VR menu and more VR interactions.
We're still heavily developing VR, so there will be issues such as the camera not positioning properly. You can fix the VR camera by pressing R on your keyboard, but this will not be a requirement in later updates.
- VR Menus - the menu now draws through the 3D world and no longer gets blocked by objects, new floating HUD for VR to allow toggling voice, menu for Plazas now shows all active Plazas
- VR Interactions - basic pickup support (you can pickup and throw items, but it’s currently just tap), basic weapon support, basic libretro lightgun support, improved use beam
- VR Fixes - left hand trace no longer overrides right hand trace on menus, VR menu no longer displays a black screen, fixed loading menus not working well in VR
- VR Animations - hand IK is now setup and starting development
New Items
Various new items are also now available!
These include various destructible scenery items like crates, pots, and explosive barrels; the Physics-al Media Shelf to store media and Libretro cartridges; mirrors; new nature items like lily pads and variations of the Ceiba tree seen in Catzek; and the 3D text item, to make more diverse floating signs and notes.
Mirrors
Reflect on your reflection! The new mirror item reflects the world and players, and uses the mirror settings in graphics settings. You can toggle the mirror on/off by using it.
Media Shelves
These new media shelf items will let you organize and store Physical Media and Libretro cartridges on a shelf! Just toss a physical media at a shelf to shelf it! You can also place down a Media Shelf Volume from the IO section of the Condo Inventory to create your own custom shelves.
Tons of Bug Fixes and Improvements!
We've been addressing a lot of the reported bugs and there's a ton of fixes, optimizations in this update that range from Plaza, Game Worlds, Map Makers, VR, Condos, and Co-op Condos.
Upcoming Halloween Events
Halloween is right around the corner, so keep an eye out for the usual events, ghoul coins, and some new items next month!
Changes
- Ball Race Map Maker!
- Zombie Massacre Map Maker!
- New Workshop Player Model Rig 3.0!
- Fall 2024 Plaza Update!
- ZM: Added new boss - T-Rex!
New Items
- Added Physical Media Shelf to Sweet Suites Furnishings store. This new item will let you organize and store Physical Media and Libretro cartridges on a shelf
- Added Rental Shelf to Central Circuit store
- Added Mirror to Sweet Suites Furnishings store. The mirror item reflects the world and players, and uses the mirror settings in graphics settings. You can also toggle the mirror on/off by using it
- Added 3D Text to D.I.Y store. 3D text is an item, similar to Floating Text, that lets you type text and it'll generate 3D text!
- Added Explosive Barrel to Rob's Imports store. An exploding/destructible Condo item that has respawn features
- Added Lillypads, Ceiba Tree to Seasons nature store
- Added Destructible Crate, Destructible Crate Long, Destructible Pot, Military Crate, and Shipping Container to Rob's Imports store
Plaza Changes
- Redesigned Plaza server list. Player counts are a lot more visible
- Casino: Ace now can be low for Straights and Straight Flush
- Bowling Alley: Added the side "party room" back to the bowling alley (from lobby 2)
- Bowling Alley: Art pass on the exterior building
- Bowling Alley: Added fake interior for the bowling alley so you can "see" into the bowling alley before entering
- Casino: Swapped some of the tables around in the Casino, so there is now one of every type of table game in the main room (including Texas Hold 'Em and Five Card Draw). The other large room is now purely an overflow room
- Laser Tag: Removed the redundant queueing room and converted the first entry room into the new queueing room, so players wanting to play the game will be easily visible from the main plaza area and not hidden away
- Laser Tag: the entry/queue room has had an art pass
- Arcade: Art & Optimization pass on the arcade interior
- Vehicle Store: Vroomspeed now appears closed and the lights are turned off (in the meantime)
- Game Ports: Removed extra flags from entrance walls
- Minigames: Removed distracting reload animations from crossbow in Balloon Shoot
- Minigames: Improved teleporter visual effects
- Minigames: Adjusted combo time on minigames (1.25 > 1.45) to compensate for crossbow reload time
- Plaza restart notification is now more noticable
- Appearance Store: Reduced the volume and pitch of the electricity effects of the player character changing machines in the back room of Tower Threads
- Removed Minigame Teleporter on Beach to prevent it disrupting beach activities
- Game World Ports: Reduced height of the large Game World Port screens so it's easier to reach/read
Game World Changes
- Minigolf
- Minigolf: Collision is now immediately disabled when you pocket (player collision mutator)
- Minigolf: Added camera collision to flag camera (will help with SDK maps where the camera would clip through walls)
- Minigolf: Added "Retry Mode" mutator which enables a new respawn feature (default off). Respawn has a 1 stroke penalty (hold K to respawn your ball back to the start pad)
- Minigolf: Added a "Collisions Enabled" HUD element when the server has collisions enabled
- Minigolf: Collision is now immediately disabled when you pocket (player collision mutator)
- Zombie Massacre
- ZM: Clearing all the zombies during "Kill All Zombies Before Helicopter Lands" will now award all players 500 points
- ZM: "Kill All Zombies Before Helicopter Lands" will now timeout after 30 seconds, to prevent the game from soft locking
- ZM: Readying up from upgrades game timer reduced from 10 seconds to 1 second in singleplayer mode, getting you into the action faster
- ZM: Clearing all the zombies during "Kill All Zombies Before Helicopter Lands" will now award all players 500 points
- Virus
- Virus - Horde Mode: Infected players now deal damage the same as the horde, but have slightly more health. They no longer infect on touch
- Virus - Horde Mode: Infected players now deal damage the same as the horde, but have slightly more health. They no longer infect on touch
- Ball Race
- Ball Race - Memories: Gave a little more buffer time to the laser bridge on level 2 to make it slightly easier
- Ball Race - Memories: Increased return speed of the first rotating platform on Level 8 so you don't need to wait for it as long
- Ball Race - Woodlands: Improved water effects on level 4
- Ball Race - Woodlands: Added toxic waste barrels on level 4 in the toxic waste to make it clear it's dangerous
- Ball Race - Woodlands: Added toxic waste barrels on level 8 and 10
- Ball Race - Nimbus: Increased reflection effects a bit
- Ball Race - Memories: Gave a little more buffer time to the laser bridge on level 2 to make it slightly easier
Accessibility Changes
- Added arachnophobia setting which turns all spiders into blobs (ZM, Dark Voyage, and the plushy)
SDK Changes
- SDK: Added built-in Ball Race music support to Game World Music Manager
- Minigolf SDK: Upped Friction Volume limit to 100 (was 5)
- Minigolf SDK: Added leave key prompt on testing Minigolf ball
- Minigolf SDK: Added flat base and base height support to Loop piece
- Minigolf SDK: Added OnBoost IO output to Boost Volume
- Minigolf SDK: Added OnStart IO output to Minigolf Hole Start Pad
- Minigolf SDK: Added OnPocket and OnHIO IO outputs to Minigolf Hole
- Minigolf SDK: Added OnEnter and OnLeave IO outputs to Minigolf Pipe
- SDK: Added IO outputs OnLastSurvivor, IsVirus Normal, IsVirus Horde, ZM OnDay1, ZM OnDay2, ZM OnDay3, ZM OnDay4, ZM OnDay5, ZM OnDay6, ZM OnFailed, ZM OnSurvived to Game World Events module
Condo Changes
- Canvas Statue stand now displays when you have inventory open, if you have stand disabled (for easier editing of the canvas statue)
- Improved load times when loading workshop sound packs when selecting a sound
VR Alpha Changes
- VR: VR menu now draws through the 3D world and no longer gets blocked by objects
- VR: Added basic pickup support (you can pickup and throw items, but it's currently just tap)
- VR: Added basic weapon support
- VR: Added basic libretro lightgun support
- VR: Added a floating HUD for VR to allow toggling voice
- VR: VR menu for Plazas now show all active Plazas
- VR: Improved use beam
- VR: Added dominant hand feature, which will allow players to change their dominant hand for interactions (defaults to right hand)
- VR: Fixed left hand trace overriding right hand trace on menus
- VR: Fixed VR menu displaying a black screen
- VR: Fixed loading menus not working well in VR
Optimizations
- Optimized minigame teleport pads
- Optimized game port screens
- Optimized Arcade interior artwork
- Optimized bowling alley artwork
- Optimized Laser Tag artwork
- Reduced hitches in Plaza
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a long-standing bug where workshop player models would not save for new players who have not selected a built-in character
- Game World Ports: Fixed friends only servers showing up on the active game lists
- Arcade: Fixed physics-based arcade games not networking physics for other players who are watching
- Fixed flashlight being offset on spawn and not updating when crouching
- Fishing: Fixed reel in music still playing under certain circumstances
- Plaza - Minigames: Fixed targets still having collision after you have just shot them
- Arcade - Whack-A-Mole and Bug Bytes: Fixed moles/bugs swapping to different types (ex. mole to cat) while currently popped up
- Game World Ports: Optimized active game list screens
- Game World Ports: Fixed weird collision in front of every port
- Game World Ports Server: Filled in holes in fake scenery
- Fixed Plaza scoreboard closing when you are selected on the settings or map tabs
- Fixed emotes blocking scroll wheel third person camera adjustment if you hold CTRL while ending an emote
- Fixed Monster Potion milestone ghost being crushed and crimson missing materials
- Fixed Bowling Ball milestone creating two balls in Plaza/Dedicated servers
- Fixed Ball Race Orb milestone not playing its pop effects
- Fixed Catsacks not having shocked face when opening them
Plaza Bug Fixes
- Plaza: Fixed minigame teleporter pads not syncing for players who joined the Plaza while a minigame is active
- Plaza: Optimized & improved minigame teleporter pad animations
- Subway Station: Fixed cracks that were in the ceiling of the subway station
- Subway Station: Fixed the water caustics effect of the subway's main escalator area from going through the floor above
- Subway Station: Fixed an incorrect material assignment on part of the subway station that cause a bamboo texture to appear on part of the ceiling
- Bowling Alley: Fixed an issue that was causing weird collisions inside of the bowling alley interior
- Bowling Alley: Fixed the bad scaling of the bowling alley exterior entrance (it is larger now)
- Bowling Alley: Fixed the bowling alley exterior entrance's ceiling lights (they were not working properly), and they now light the area up during the day as well
- Bowling Alley: Fixed the reflective floor effect of the bowling alley lanes un-rendering while walking around the interior of the bowling alley
- Furniture Store: Fixed a hole in the entrance area of the furniture store's floor
- Laser Tag: Fixed an issue that would cause the laser tag arena to stream/unstream rapidly when dying in the arena
- Theater: Fixed an incorrect material assignment on the ceiling of the theater lobby interior
- Surf Shop: Fixed weird lightmap artifacts/shadows behind Sharon.
- Surf Shop: Fixed the pool chairs floating in the air.
- Roller Coaster: Fixed bad lightmaps on some of the trim elements of the greek architecture
- Roller Coaster: Fixed broken materials on the greek columns
- Boardwalk: Fixed the LOD for the boardwalk's ticket eater machine incorrectly using the arcade's ticket eater machine
- Plaza: Fixed hole in front of tower
- Plaza: Fixed doubled up screens in Project 12
- Plaza: Fixed z-fighting on minigame teleports on the boardwalk
- Plaza: Fixed lilypads looking a bit strange in ponds
Game World Bug Fixes
- Zombie Massacre
- ZM: Fixed & improved crawl in animation for Ghosts, Pumpkin Heads, and Skeletons. Now will work properly for clients as well
- ZM: Fixed ghost projectiles not networking properly for clients
- ZM: Fixed helicopter animating strangely for clients
- ZM: Fixed helicopter not always spawning for clients
- ZM: Fixed & smoothed rotation movement of bosses. Bosses no longer turn on a dime or rotate around like crazy. Now everything is smooth and bulky like it should be
- ZM: Fixed helicopter end camera not following the helicopter and only being static
- ZM: Fixed weapon pickup notice not showing up properly
- ZM: Fixed ghost projectiles not being easy to spot
- ZM: Fixed chainsaw not animating
- ZM: Fixed boss health HUD elements colliding with other HUD elements
- ZM - Trainyard: Added more level detail and geometry to areas where the camera points to such as intermission and helicopter exit
- ZM: Fixed & improved crawl in animation for Ghosts, Pumpkin Heads, and Skeletons. Now will work properly for clients as well
- Virus
- Virus: Fixed HUD game messages stacking over top of each other
- Virus: Fixed "player is enraged" HUD message showing up after the round is over
- Virus - Horde Mode: Fixed horde infected flame effects staying on for a little bit after they have already been killed
- Virus - Horde Mode: Fixed NPC infected not being able to go up 45 degree angled surfaces
- Virus - Horde Mode: Fixed no collide items still being avoided by NPC infected
- Virus: Fixed horde AI spawning on non-horde mode
- Virus: Fixed various collision exploits in Catzek
- Virus - Horde Mode: Fixed horde NPCs being able to grab ammo pickup
- Fixed Push Volume and Damage/Heal Volume not working with horde infected (or ZM zombies)
- Virus: Fixed HUD game messages stacking over top of each other
- Ball Race
- Ball Race: Fixed melon pickup effects not playing
- Ball Race: Fixed customization menu closing each time you click on something
- Ball Race - Memories: Fixed attractors/repulsors not drawing when on near distance setting
- Ball Race - Memories: Fixed various draw distance issues with platforms on near distance setting
- Ball Race - Memories: Fixed being able to get stuck on top of the last boosters on Level 8
- Ball Race - Memories: Cleaned up floating platform artwork
- Ball Race - Khromidro: Fixed water on level 12 flickering
- Ball Race - Nimbus: Fixed many visual bugs with curved platforms
- Ball Race - Nimbus: Fixed stretched textures on some platforms
- Ball Race - Eruption: Fixed being able to get stuck between rocks on level 3
- Ball Race: Fixed melon pickup effects not playing
- Minigolf
- Minigolf - Waterhole Hole 7: Ball will no longer attempt to save position while on the bridges
- Minigolf - Waterhole Hole 18: Ball will no longer attempt to save position at the bottom of the lift
- Minigolf - Kingdom: Fixed issue where you'd respawn incorrectly on Hole 10
- Minigolf - Kingdom: Fixed issue where you could get semi-stuck on Hole 12
- Minigolf - Kingdom: Fixed issue where in rare circumstances you could go through a wall on Hole 12
- Minigolf - Kingdom: Fixed issue where you'd get launched incorrectly on Hole 14
- Minigolf - Kingdom: Fixed issue where you'd fall through lava on Hole 17 and fall for a very long time
- Minigolf: Fixed 1x1 hole dipped missing textures on load in
- Minigolf: Fixed Emission putting players out of bounds when you bounce off them (collision mutator only)
- Minigolf - Waterhole Hole 7: Ball will no longer attempt to save position while on the bridges
Condo Bug Fixes
- Condo: Fixed spawn points (built-in or custom) that are blocked by objects causing the game to soft lock because the player couldn't be spawned
- Co-op Condos: Fixed canvas URLs and aspect ratio data clearing when a client edits a canvas item
- Co-op Condos: Fixed IO Timer settings clearing when a client edits it
- Co-op Condos: Fixed clients not being able to edit NPC or dialogue sentences and also fixed clients clearing its data when a client edits them
- Co-op Condo: Fixed clients clearing Damage Volume settings when editing it
- Fixed NPC player model scale being too small compared to normal players
- Fixed NPC workshop model setting not always displaying in the NPC edit menu
- Fixed NPCs that don't have workshop models set being T posed or trying to load a workshop model
- Condo: Doors should no longer show a prompt when set to Auto-Open
- Condo: Fixed bug on doors which caused frames to not be colourable
- Condo: Surface editor now shows the thumbnail for the canvas if there is a canvas URL set
- Condo: Surface editor now shows invalid surface instead of showing always loading thumbnail
- Fixed delete key accidentally stashing items while you are typing/editing item name in the gizmo transform menu
- Fixed Camera Volumes entering you into the camera while in noclip
- Fixed Tower Glove drawing twice in first person
- Fixed condo scoreboard not staying locked when settings tab is closed and reopened
- Fixed greek pillar collision
- Fixed noclip toggle (when you don't have permission) causing movement to lock when you look down
- Fixed physics spawned by the Physics Spawner still colliding with items that have no collision disabled
Minigolf SDK Bug Fixes
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed straight piece base height not applying on load (it was saving though)
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed Trigger Volumes and Camera IO events not working with golf ball
- Condo IO: Fixed Physics Spawner Lifespan setting not saving
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed Ramp piece not mirroring base properly with mirror setting
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed Side Shift piece not mirroring base properly with mirror setting
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed Outer Corner piece not mirroring base properly with mirror setting
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed canvas images clearing when changing styles or loading in a map for the minigolf wall pieces
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed pars not always networking to clients
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed cannons saving position on clients while they are in a cannon
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed cannons duplicating for clients
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed Inner Corner piece not updating base height
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed Outer Corner piece not updating grass when set to a specific setting
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed non-global Sky Volumes not working in Minigolf
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed 4x4 Half-Circular Flag Hole missing the hole
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed mirror mode causing base height to be inverted on map load or on copy
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed a specific S Bend Piece collision (length high, steepness low)
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed a crash with 3x Hole Piece
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed Straight Piece settings not loading properly for clients
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed Ramp Piece base height displaying incorrectly for clients under certain settings
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed canvas textures on sides not doing world align properly, causing the textures to look stretched and horrible
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed side texture thumbnail always loading in the surface editor
- Minigolf SDK: Golf balls no longer can go out of bounds if they are currently traveling within a tube
- Minigolf SDK: Fixed water volume hazard happening multiple times in Minigolf for SDK maps
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Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2792910/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!
https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/announcements/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
