Tower Unite News

The Arcade Shooting Gallery and the Boardwalk Shooting Gallery are now open!




A double feature of shooting galleries!

Blast the evil corns that have taken over the garden in Corn of the Dead, the Arcade shooting gallery! This shooting gallery features multiple targets and 3 rounds.

Grab a rifle and precisely shoot the targets in the classic Western Shootout at the boardwalk! This shooting gallery is more simple and is more about precision than the other one.

Both shooting galleries feature their own achievements and leaderboards!





On top of the new shooting galleries, we have been focused on bug fixes and optimizations in this update, tackling bugs that players have reported in our feedback survey for the road to 1.0. There are over 50 bug fixes in this update and several quality of life changes, along with additional optimizations to the Plaza and the game itself.


Previously shown on our dev logs, we have replaced the stock player models with our own custom made ones. These player models have more color customization and various outfits to choose from.




D.I.Y.'s store interior was pretty lack-luster and something we didn't feel was up to the same standards of the other stores, so we redid its interior! Wonder what else will take up the real estate that opened up next door...?


The appearance editor has a couple of new quality of life improvements such as a search bar and categories, making it easier to find your accessories.



We also added new items, such as new food items, new lamps, vintage items, and some new gardening tools.


Changes

• Arcade: Corn of the Dead Shooting Gallery now open!
  
• Boardwalk: Western Shootout Shooting Gallery now open!
  
• New Standard Player Models
  
• Plaza: New D.I.Y. store interior
  
• Added categories for player profile backgrounds in appearance menu for easier finding
  
• Appearance menu now shows your current wearing accessory on the each tab
  
• Appearance menu now has a search bar for easily finding your accessories
  
• Stores now have a "Wear" button on wearable items for quickly wearing wearable items you have unlocked
  
• Added sub-categories for hats and other wearables in appearance menu
  
• Improved inventory item tags to make it more clear to new players. Added holdable, weapon, and equippable pet tags. Made equippable, wearable, milestone, unlockable tags larger than the other tags as they are more important
  
• Plaza: Condo inventory is now hidden while in Plaza to avoid confusion for new players. You can access your inventory from the pause menu
  
• Plaza: Added item currencies to HUD when you open the hot bar to quickly see your status on Sea Dollars, Anniversary Coins, Ghoul Coins, Holiday Coins, and Gold Catsacks
  
• Plaza: Added info markers for Dark Voyage, Vroomspeed, Bumper Cars, and She
  
• Plaza: Art pass on nature store
  
• Plaza: Art pass on nature store's greenhouse
  
• Plaza: Art pass and optimization on tower's chamfered corners
  
• Plaza: Improved LODs for theater exterior
  

New Items

• Rob's Imports: Brass Table Lamp, Brass Floor Lamp, Brass Wall Lamp, Fancy Candelabra, Metal Bucket, Rake, Pitchfork, Wheelbarrow, Watering Can, Shovel, Typewriter, Service Bell, Vintage Floodlight (lamp from Catzek)
  
• Central Circuit: Ceramic Table Lamp, Poseable Desk Lamp, Industrial Fluorescent Ceiling Lamp, Industrial Spotlight, Hanging Kitchen Lamp, Metal Shaded Wall Light
  
• Toy Stop: Oversized Chess Piece
  
• Fresh: Rice Bag, Box of Pasta, Egg Carton, Can of Peas, Bread Loaf, Canvas Tin Can
  
• Snackbar: Soft Pretzel (and Holdable)
  

Game World Changes

• Accelerate: Criss Cross Rapids laps reduced from 4 laps to 3
  
• Accelerate: Hallway Raceway laps reduced from 4 laps to 3
  
• Accelerate: Riptide Retreat laps reduced from 5 laps to 3
  
• Accelerate: Criss Cross Rapids, Hallway Raceway, Riptide Retreat are now separated in their own maps, improving load times for those maps
  
• Accelerate: Improved engine sounds to be more dynamic, now will adjust based on the speed of the kart, drifting, airborne
  
• SDNL: Adjusted gun game weapons (mixed some regular weapons with the super weapons) and removed camera from gun game
  
• SDNL: Increased payouts a bit (50>100 units per kill)
  
• ZM: Added new achievement for slaying the TRex boss
  

Libretro Changes

• Libretro: Updated cores to 2025 versions, except for Citra and Stella due to compatibility issues with Tower. Downgraded Flycast to a version that does not crash Tower. Downgraded DOS Box to a version that has input that is compatible with Tower
  
• Libretro: Added support for latest MAME core, labeled as MAME 2025. MAME 2010 is still supported as it has better lightgun support than the mainline MAME core at the moment. You will have to change your machines to use the latest MAME core manually, otherwise it'll still continue to use the 2010 version
  
• Libretro: Added DOSZ, EXE, BAT, ISO, CUE, IMG, IMA file support to DOSBox
  

Optimizations

• Fixed a common hitch in the game
  
• Plaza: Lots of various optimizations across the Plaza
  
• Optimized chat message system
  
• Optimizations to various game asset loading with a focus on improving load times
  
• Plaza: Translucency thread optimizations in Plaza
  
• Plaza: Numerous optimizations throughout plaza
  
• Plaza: DIY Store optimization
  
• Plaza: Optimization on nature store
  
• Plaza: Optimization on nature store's greenhouse
  
• Plaza: Optimized static mesh data in Toy Store, Arcade, Lighthouse, and Nightclub
  
• Enabled HZB Occlusion
  

Bug Fixes

• Plaza: Fixed various milestone weapons not reloading ammo properly after respawning/dying
  
• Plaza: Fixed hidden plushies not being interactable
  
• Plaza: Fixed hidden casino plushy being in the ground
  
• Plaza: Fixed Vroomspeed, Central Fountain, and new Casino Entrance missing location volumes
  
• Plaza: Fixed center fountain stairs not colliding with Ball Race Orb Milestone or physics properly
  
• Plaza: Fixed DIY store showing the wrong items in category view
  
• Plaza: Fixed an open hole in Dark Voyage stairway
  
• Plaza: Fixed collision holes in Vroomspeed, Monorail behind Bowling, Casino, and Tower Threads
  
• Arcade: Fixed issues with throwing games
  
• Arcade: Fixed coin pusher leaderboard screens placed in the reversed locations
  
• Arcade: Fixed pilot hat label
  
• Arcade: Fixed prince hat being missing from display
  
• Arcade: Fixed price of brain slug hat not matching label
  
• Plaza: Updated inventory refresh to help with appearance list not updating when buying new items sometimes
  
• Plaza: Fixed up info marker positions for boardwalk and new D.I.Y.
  
• Boardwalk: Fixed bumper car playtime not incrementing
  
• Boardwalk: Fixed bumper car bumps stats not incrementing
  
• Boardwalk: Fixed milk jug toss stats not incrementing
  
• Fixed scoreboard not updating properly after server traveling
  
• Fixed not being able to block workshop player models
  
• Fixed scoreboard server title and player join permission notice (the friends only tag) not updating properly
  
• Fixed selling appearance items not updating the list
  
• Workshop: Fixed several workshop wearable offsets not applying properly
  

Game World Bug Fixes

• Minigolf: Fixed spectating camera oftentimes clipping into the ground or railings when it should not
  
• Accelerate: Fixed Criss Cross Rapids, Hallway Raceway, Riptide Retreat intro cameras and titles not working properly
  
• SDNL: Fixed dino attack making multiple hit noises when a player is dead or is spawn protected
  
• SDNL: Fixed gib chunks colliding with players
  
• SDNL: Fixed pixel death not hiding the player properly
  
• Zombie Massacre: Fixed several issues with pausing in singleplayer
  
• Zombie Massacre: Fixed Arachnophobia boss achievement happening for TRex boss
  
• Little Crusaders: Fixed Dark Dragon skin glow blasting light
  
• Little Crusaders: Fixed lanterns not turning on in Mystic Grove and updated the lantern sounds and made the flashlights more lantern-like (also dragon now has a red evil light for their flashlight)
  

Workshop SDK Bug Fixes

• Workshop Level SDK: Fixed Movers not always activating on published maps
  
• Workshop Level SDK: Fixed Minigolf Splines being laggy when you toggle edit mode
  
• Workshop Player Model SDK: Fixed weapon metadata preview not updating
  
• Workshop Player Model SDK: Fixed vehicle animations not updating
  
• Workshop Player Model SDK: Fixed downloading workshop player model not enabling the correct animations
  
• Workshop Player Model SDK: Fixed mouth offset tab not auto closing
  

Condo Bug Fixes

• Condo: Fixed coloring on Mouse plushy, Mushroom plushy, Shark plushy, Office Table, Office Shelf, Beach Chairs, Pyramid, Funnel Planter
  
• Condo: Industrial Caged Light now properly multiplies its emissive value when toggled
  
• Condo: Fixed casual and ledge Seat Volume animations not looping
  
• Condo: Fixed color picker save button being really large
  
• Condo: Fixed Rental Shelves not having shelves for the opposite side of them
  
• Condo IO: Fixed OnLeaveTrigger not calling for trigger volumes, if it's set to trigger once
  
• Condo: Fixed Box Select not deselecting items properly if you have selected them with box select and moved them outside of the box select
  
• Condo: Fixed nightclub media player item having an extra screen
  

Libretro Bug Fixes

• Libretro: Fixed custom artwork getting overwritten by MAME when switching out games
  

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

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

If you love our game and want to support its development, please consider getting a Supporter Pack! We'd be so grateful!

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

Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s Tower Unite Dev Log!

[h2]Birb Plush Campaign Ongoing![/h2]



Birb's got it all: the power to stun dragons, an all-you-can-eat arcade game, a statue, the adoration of the people, and, now, a plushie! Bring home Birb and feel great safety if a dragon ever decides to try and start something. Birb has it handled. You just provide the birdseed. (And hugs.)

The campaign will be up for a limited time (7 days), so check out the store page to see how it all works and get one for yourself! These limited time plushies go directly towards supporting our developers and the development of Tower Unite!

We hope you enjoy the Birb plushie! Any support you give us means so much, and we hope to keep bringing you more fun in the future!

Get yours at https://www.makeship.com/products/birb-plushie

[h2]Winter 2024-25 Condo Contest[/h2]



Hey everyone,

The 2024-25 Winter Condo Contest has started!

As usual, we’re doing a Winter / Festivity theme.

So, your build should be either: winter-related, themed after winter holidays / holiday activities (including New Years), or generally wintry and festive!

The submission period ends on January 22nd, 2025 at 11:59 PM.

Click here for details!

[h2]Plaza[/h2]

Johanna finished working on a brand new interior for the DIY store.

macdguy worked on finishing both Shooting galleries, the one on the Boardwalk and the one in the Arcade.

[h3]Plaza: Shooting Gallery[/h3]



[h3]Plaza: DIY Interior[/h3]



[h2]Upcoming New Items[/h2]

Nuclearxpotato continued working on a bunch of new items, mostly food but also a new milk crate!

[h3]Upcoming New Items: Food[/h3]



[h2]Appearance Menu Improvements[/h2]

macdguy worked on various improvements and quality of life changes to the Appearance Menu.

[h3]Appearance Menu: Worn items appear as Tab icons[/h3]



[h3]Appearance Menu: Search Bar[/h3]



[h3]Appearance Menu: Categories[/h3]



[h2]Miscellany[/h2]

Sabrina finished adding support for having multiple Libretro core package versions installed.

Johanna continued working on the Plaza, getting it ready for 1.0.

Joshua worked on reworking some wearables, giving them art passes and optimizations.

Lifeless worked on some quality of life fixes.

macdguy fixed various issues with the Workshop SDK, bugs in the Plaza, with the UI and Menus, and in Accelerate maps. He also worked on implementing the SDNL voice lines

Sketchman continued working on optimizations and bug fixes.

[h2]That’s a Wrap![/h2]
Thank you for reading and we’ll see you all next week for more!

---

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.

---

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

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

If you like our game and want to support development, please consider getting a Supporter Pack:
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/65

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 this week’s Tower Unite Dev Log!

[h2]Birb Plush Campaign Ongoing![/h2]



Birb's got it all: the power to stun dragons, an all-you-can-eat arcade game, a statue, the adoration of the people, and, now, a plushie! Bring home Birb and feel great safety if a dragon ever decides to try and start something. Birb has it handled. You just provide the birdseed. (And hugs.)

The campaign will be up for a limited time (14 days), so check out the store page to see how it all works and get one for yourself! These limited time plushies go directly towards supporting our developers and the development of Tower Unite!

We hope you enjoy the Birb plushie! Any support you give us means so much, and we hope to keep bringing you more fun in the future!

Get yours at https://www.makeship.com/products/birb-plushie

[h2]Winter 2024-25 Condo Contest[/h2]



Hey everyone,

The 2024-25 Winter Condo Contest has started!

As usual, we’re doing a Winter / Festivity theme.

So, your build should be either: winter-related, themed after winter holidays / holiday activities (including New Years), or generally wintry and festive!

The submission period ends on January 22nd, 2025 at 11:59 PM.

Click here for details!

[h2]Upcoming New Items[/h2]

Nuclearxpotato continued working on a bunch of new items. He focused mainly on new food items, but also worked on a new typewriter item!

[h3]Upcoming New Items: Food[/h3]

We've got so much food: Onigiri, Soft Pretzel, Rice Bag, Raw Dough, Box of Pasta, Can of Peas, Canvas Tin can, Egg Carton, and Bread Loaf.



[h3]Upcoming New Items: Typewriter[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Miscellany[/h2]

Sabrina worked on adding support for having multiple Libretro core package versions installed.

Johanna continued working on the Plaza, getting it ready for 1.0.

Lifeless worked on some quality of life fixes, such as the ability to purchase items seen in shops by interacting with them physically.

macdguy worked on fixing various bugs, such as issues in the Workshop SDK concerning movers and editor. He also implemented the new player models, making it easier to add newer ones in the future.

Sketchman continued working on optimizations and bug fixes.

Will continued working on music in preparation for the 1.0 release.

[h2]That’s a Wrap![/h2]
Thank you for reading and we’ll see you all next week for more!

---

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.

---

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

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

If you like our game and want to support development, please consider getting a Supporter Pack:
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/65

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

This update fixes several bugs from the last update, along with addressing disconnect issues.


Last year we pushed a bug fix for issues with billiards, arcade, and other games where game objects would seemingly not spawn. We did this by correcting a race condition we found in Unreal's net driver. Due to the disconnects people are experiencing though we've decided to temporarily remove this fix, as it is possible the issues are related.

If the disconnects continue, then we'll know it's not related to our net driver changes and we can re-apply the fix. If the disconnect issues stop, then we at least have some idea of where they're likely coming from.

We appreciate everyone's patience while we get to the bottom of this issue, and will let everyone know as soon as we have a better understanding of what's happening. In the meantime this means that you may experience the previous bugs with billiards, arcade, and so on.


Changes

• Minigolf - Dino Drive: Removed all friction on HIO funnels, fixing players getting stuck on HIO funnels
  
• Adjusted materials on a bunch of wooden items to be more consistent
  
• Major art pass on Fireplace items and made them functional lights
  
• Updated Chessboard item to use new pieces and only have 3 draw calls, variants, and colouring
  
• Improved materials on Chandelier item
  
• Holdable Hot Dog now takes 4 bites to eat as opposed to 1
  
• End of Holiday events
  

Bug Fixes

• Possible fix for Game World/condo disconnections
  
• Minigolf - Dino Drive: Fixed OOB in ditch in Hole 8
  
• Minigolf - Dino Drive: Adjusted Hole 16 (Bone Vortex) to make the HIO more consistent
  
• Minigolf - Dino Drive: Fixed a stuck spot in Bone Pit HIO
  
• Fixed Canvas Doormat not applying rotation on load
  
• Fixed Hot Chocolate visual states being reverse (empty when full, filled when eaten)
  
• Fixed IES on various lights
  
• Fixed Bumper Post condo item not being colourable
  

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

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

If you love our game and want to support its development, please consider getting a Supporter Pack! We'd be so grateful!
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

We're back from our holiday break and excited to show today's developer log!

[h2]Birb Plush Campaign Started![/h2]



Birb's got it all: the power to stun dragons, an all-you-can-eat arcade game, a statue, the adoration of the people, and, now, a plushie! Bring home Birb and feel great safety if a dragon ever decides to try and start something. Birb has it handled. You just provide the birdseed. (And hugs.)

The campaign will be up for a limited time (21 days), so check out the store page to see how it all works and get one for yourself! These limited time plushies go directly towards supporting our developers and the development of Tower Unite!

We hope you enjoy the Birb plushie! Any support you give us means so much, and we hope to keep bringing you more fun in the future!

Get yours at https://www.makeship.com/products/birb-plushie

[h2]Winter 2024-25 Condo Contest[/h2]



Hey everyone,

The 2024-25 Winter Condo Contest has started!

As usual, we’re doing a Winter / Festivity theme.

So, your build should be either: winter-related, themed after winter holidays / holiday activities (including New Years), or generally wintry and festive!

The submission period ends on January 22nd, 2025 at 11:59 PM.

Click here for details!

[h2]Upcoming New Items[/h2]

Nuclearxpotato worked on a bunch of new items. He worked on Gardening Tools and Lamps. He also made an art pass on the Fireplace items.

[h3]Upcoming New Items: Gardening Tools[/h3]

Items: Shovel, Pitchfork, Rake, Metal Bucket, Watering Can, Wheelbarrow



[h3]Upcoming New Items: Lamps[/h3]

Items: Brass Wall Lamp, Brass Table Lamp, Brass Floor Lamp, Ceramic Table Lamp, Fireplace Mantle, Classic Desk Lamp

The Brass and Ceramic lamp items all have adjustable lampshades with two shapes, sharing the fabric patterns from the Curtain items.



[h3]Upcoming Art Pass: Fireplaces[/h3]



[h2]Upcoming New Player Models[/h2]

Joshua continued working the new Player Models.

[h3]Upcoming New Player Models[/h3]



[h2]Miscellany[/h2]

Johanna continued working on optimizations for the Plaza.

macdguy experimented with splitting up the .pak file, potentially allowing for quicker patching and smaller download sizes. The downside observed is the game takes up space on disk.

Sketchman continued working on optimizations and bug fixes.

Wheezwer worked on getting the Birb Makeship campaign underway.

[h2]That’s a Wrap![/h2]
Thank you for reading and we’ll see you all next week for more!

---

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.

---

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

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

If you like our game and want to support development, please consider getting a Supporter Pack:
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/65

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