Tower Unite News

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for June 11th, 2024, detailing all the changes that have happened since June 3rd, 2024. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

[h2]May/June 2024 Condo Contest - RESULTS ARE IN[/h2]

Hey everyone, voting is over and the results are in. There were 222 responses this time!

The winners are:

1st Place (2,000,000 Units) - Castle Garden by @GateTheCat
2nd Place (1,000,000 Units) - King Xanthos' Tourney by @Baby_In_A_Pipe
3rd Place (750,000 Units) - Prometheus by @mexxorz
4th Place (500,000 Units) - MedievaLand! by @TheGreenKing
5th place (300,000 Units) - Sketch Caverns by @ThurDoDinok

Everyone else will get 150,000 Units for their participation this time! Thanks again so much for participating in the contest and the vote.

You can see all the submissions to this contest here, and stay tuned for future contests!

[h2]Improved Emotes Menu[/h2]

We are hoping this will help give emotes more life and make them easier to use. The menu now has icons for each emote and bindable hot keys. To assign a hot key just hover over the emote and press the number key you want to bind it to. You can remove a keybind with delete key. To perform an emote shortcut use Context + the number key you bound (ie. C+1, C+3, etc.)

[h3]Improved Emotes Menu[/h3]



[h2]Condo I/O[/h2]

[h3]Relay to All[/h3]

Tired of connecting 8 things and having to setup 8 different events to set their property (such as color)? With the new "Relay To All Module", you can wire multiple items to the module and the module will replicate all inputs to it to all the items it is connected to. It'll automatically populate the IO inputs available based on the items connected to it. Basically, tell the module to SetColor and it'll SetColor on all 8 buttons at once in one go.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Logic Gates[/h3]

Finishing up logic gates, got them stringing together now.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Misc Improvements[/h3]

Floating Text now supports special key words just like Global Messages does.



You can also now connect Counters to Floating Text.



Logic Comparison for Counters.



[h2]Minigolf SDK: Spline Tubes[/h2]

Not that pretty looking yet, but Minigolf SDK now has spline tubes you can setup for your custom maps. Spline meshes for ball race platforms coming next.

[h3]Minigolf SDK: Spline Tubes[/h3]



[h2]Miscellany[/h2]

Johanna continued working on the subway station overhaul, while also finishing up the Minigolf SDK.

Joshua continued working on animations for the new rig.

Lifeless continued working on the Ball Race map, Eruption, while also working on other quality of life features.

macdguy worked on getting the update ready for release. Retooled some boardwalk games, specifically Balloon Pop so it doesn't use physics anymore. Worked on I/O Logic gates, pipes for the Minigolf SDK, and other misc SDK related tasks.

Nuclearxpotato continued working on a new Minigolf map.

Sketchman worked on various optimizations and bug fixes, along with getting the update ready for release.

Wheezwer worked on an art pass of the arcade cabinets, along with other art related tasks.

Will continued working on music.

[h3]Zombie Massacre: HUD Changes[/h3]

Small but really helpful change in ZM. Weapon pickup info now follows the physical location of the weapon so you can actually tell what you are about to pickup through all the chaos.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Improved Aiming Animations[/h3]

Thanks to all the hard work on the new player model rig, animations are smoother and we now have better full range movement for players aiming.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Wrap It Up[/h2]
That about covers everything that happened since June 3rd, 2024 at PixelTail 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 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

Hey everyone, we’re here again for our Monthly Dev Update! This is a big one!


In the last dev update, we were wrapping up the Bumper Cars update, and we gave an overview of what we were working on, such as Minigolf & Ball Race SDK and other projects. Since then, our plans were to release an update with the new Workshop rig, Workshop sound packs, some Arcade optimizations, and accessibility changes.

However, this update’s been having some technical challenges that are both complicated to resolve and to complete. And, as you all probably know, we’re a small team, so it’s taken a lot of work to resolve these issues.

Basically, we’ve been having a very busy month, and this update is jam-packed with stuff, so let’s just get into what we have going on!


So, sometimes when you fix something, something else breaks, or you find another issue or a flaw in the system. With many interconnected parts and a long development history, it’s easy for this to happen with Tower development. This has been happening a lot with this update. We’ve had to reorganize and refactor a lot this month. The issues have not been ones we can just let slide, either.

So, as you read through all of the following tasks we’ve been working on, know that it was probably juggled with fixing a frustrating regression. But we’ve been getting it done and working on ways to not cause these issues in the future.


Workshop sound packs are a highlight of this update, adding the ability for players to upload custom sounds! We’ve also introduced new options for playlists, sound volumes, Game World Music override Manager, and “SetSound”, “Fade”, and general improvements to the sound emitter. You’ll be able to upload sound packs to Workshop, and we’ve made an easy to use editor in the Workshop editor for these. These tie into other I/O changes that will be explained more later on.


A major issue we’ve been trying to resolve is a bug with Workshop models not appearing on Linux machines. This is notable as it affects Steam Deck users as well as any PC Linux users. Since work is being done on various areas of the Workshop, and this is a big issue, we have been tackling this and have resolved this issue after weeks of work. The change needed required us to rework how Workshop models are installed, and, with the added sound packs, the pipeline had to be gutted and refitted. We’re very happy that Workshop will be working again for Linux.


Implementing the new Workshop rig has been an arduous task, but it’s been having great payoff. This new rig has allowed for more fluid animation of player models, IKs, and easier options for modifying proportions of a model, and massive improvements to the process of rigging player models. 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 be overhauled and improved in many ways.

We’ll have more information on the new SDK 3.0 very soon. But first, we’ll be releasing the updated animations and new rig support next update.


We’ve been hard at work implementing accessibility suggestions requested by players.

These include various changes to improve general visual and audio experience, changes to reduce eye strain and nausea, changes to controls for easier interactions, and improvements to existing accessibility settings, among other changes.

Plaza Minigames, Arcade, Minigolf, Drunk Effects, Condos, Stores, Controls, and other parts of the game all had accessibility changes, and you’ll get a full overview of the changes in the update change log (or on Trello).


Arcade physics server optimizations have been in progress for a few months now, and we’ve been working hard at getting the Arcade into a better state. These optimizations involve arcade physics which are a very finicky thing to work with due to the amount of machines that have unique physics to each game.

We had to refactor our code so the physics simulations would run as a system instead of independently on each machine. This required us to take the existing code and port the majority of it to C++. Server-side optimizations were made and a massive cleanup of the code was done. We improved the networking and reduced the amount of work the simulation has to do so it’ll execute it faster.


We’ve made some updates to how items are categorized in the inventory. This has allowed for some previously hidden items to come out of the woodwork, as well as improving the search experience.

Speaking of searching, you can now see quick results as you type in the inventory search bar. This will allow you to get to your intended items quicker and to have a better view of your inventory as a whole.

Some items have been moved around to the appropriate stores or categories, and some items have had their names adjusted to better reflect their purpose.

Internally, we also optimized how items are queried in the system to make improvements to the inventory UI and you’ll see an FPS boost for large inventories.

Lastly, our item editor was bogging down development time and making it harder for us to continue to add new items. So, we improved our own item creation tools, which has already immensely helped us create items faster than before.


Big features in this update have had a connection to Condos, so other work has been done on our building tools as well. There are some accessibility additions such as a 3D grid visual and more editor options such as Noclip Speed Adjustment.

There’s also a new Replace Canvas URL tool and Find Canvas tool that will help out with quickly fixing dead image links in a Condo, as well as updating URLs quickly.

Changes have been made to the inventory system, grid snapping, organization, I/O options, and much more.

And that’s not all! We also massively improved the time it takes to reset your Condo and load Condo snapshots. For builders, you’ll see immediate improvements to these systems.


There’ve been quite a few updates to Condo I/O, but some of the highlights are that we’ve added Cylinder and Sphere shape types for Volumes!

We also moved some items to be I/O items; Sound Emitter, Floating Text, Floating Dialogue, Hidden Seat, Aquarium Volume, and Sound Emitter are now I/O items (no unit cost).


We’ve also implemented some fixes for bugs with co-op Condo building. These include fixes for Copycat, Connection Tool, and editing Notebooks. We also fixed drag-copy for I/O and grouped items.


We’ve made some improvements to Libretro support, too. These improvements include automatically positioning the camera for Arcade cabinets (allowing for easier play with controllers) and Fullscreen support. Fullscreen also comes with lightgun and touchscreen support!

You can also disable automatic save states and we’ve added hot keys for save states (F3, F4 keys).

[h2]God, this update is inconceivable! When’s it coming out?![/h2]
We are in the late stages of testing the update! We are resolving more issues with the Arcade physics rewrite but the majority of the other features mentioned are ready to go! So, as soon as possible. We’re really working as hard as we can to get this out to you all.


In any downtime we’ve had while working on the next update, we’ve been making progress on various features that will be implemented in future updates.

These include:


A lot of exciting progress has been made on the Minigolf Map editor. We’ve set up the settings menu and customization options for course pieces. We’ve finished up work on the loop size setting, base settings, wall variation and height settings, corner shape and magnitude settings, fill settings, the corner tool, path-curve tool, ramp settings, the half-pipe tool, and intersection tool.

Additionally, there have been some updates to I/O for Minigolf. These include the course pieces being considered I/O items, an Out of Bounds Volume, In Bounds Volume, a Friction Override Volume, Boost Volume, and a Putt Zone Override Volume.

We also have made progress on Pipes, Cannons, Launchers, and Camera Volumes.

The testing tools have also been completed and you can quickly test Minigolf courses by interacting with the start pad and it’ll automatically put you into a golfball.


For Ball Race SDK, progress has been made on Finish Goals, Finish Volume, Attractors/Repulsors, Bumpers, Boost Volume, and of course Melon pickups.

The testing tools have also been completed and the editor now can run custom Ball Race maps.

We plan to roll out both the Minigolf SDK and Ball Race SDK out at the same time after the 0.17.12.0 update.


Along with Arcade Server Side Optimization, we’ve been working on optimizing the Plaza Train Station area as we found through profiling that it was impacting performance across the entire Plaza. Doing this required aggressive modeling work, which led to… a complete overhaul of the artwork of the transit station! Fans of Lobby 2 will be happy to know that the overhaul takes notes of the best parts of the transit station and the escalators actually work this time!

If you want to follow along with the update, check out the “Next Releases” section on our Trello.



Here is the Tower Unite calendar for June! If you’d like to give feedback on bonus events, please do so here!
That’s gonna do it for this Dev Update! Thanks for reading.

---

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 the Weekly Dev Log for June 3rd, 2024, detailing all the changes that have happened since May 28th, 2024. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

[h2]May/June 2024 Condo Contest[/h2]



Hey everyone, this time the contest is about custom Game World Maps!

Your entry can be for any of the Game Worlds that have Workshop Map SDK support (so Virus, SDNL, or Little Crusaders), and there's no time requirement for when the map was made!

Unlike previous contests, your entry must be uploaded to the Workshop and playable in TU! (We want maps to be judged on their gameplay and art!)

The submission period ends on June 6th, 2024 at 11:59 PM.

Be sure to look at the prizes and follow the rules here!

[h2]Miscellany[/h2]

Johanna continued working on the Minigolf editor, and the optimization / art pass of the plaza transit station.

Joshua continued working on animations for the arcade machines in preparation for the new workshop rig.

Lifeless worked on some minigame and various other small quality of life changes.

macdguy worked on all the animation changes needed for the new workshop rig. He also worked on the Ball Race and Minigolf SDKs, getting the items on par with those used in our official maps (such as cannons and bumpers). Finished the music system so custom maps can have custom music, and worked on finishing up Sound Packs.

Nuclearxpotato continued working on a new Minigolf map.

Sketchman worked on fixing the workshop issues on Linux. He also worked on various optimizations and bug fixes.

Wheezwer worked on the boardwalk token machine art, and other assorted art tasks.

Will continued working on music.

[h3]Ball Race SDK: Bumper Settings[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Ball Race SDK: Pickup Settings[/h3]



[h3]Ball Race SDK: Repulser Settings[/h3]



[h2]Wrap It Up[/h2]
That about covers everything that happened since May 28th, 2024 at PixelTail 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 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 the Weekly Dev Log for May 28th, 2024, detailing all the changes that have happened since May 21st, 2024. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

[h2]May/June 2024 Condo Contest[/h2]



Hey everyone, this time the contest is about custom Game World Maps!

Your entry can be for any of the Game Worlds that have Workshop Map SDK support (so Virus, SDNL, or Little Crusaders), and there's no time requirement for when the map was made!

Unlike previous contests, your entry must be uploaded to the Workshop and playable in TU! (We want maps to be judged on their gameplay and art!)

The submission period ends on June 6th, 2024 at 11:59 PM.

Be sure to look at the prizes and follow the rules here!

[h2]Miscellany[/h2]

Johanna worked on finishing up the minigolf editor, making sure all the tools are consistent.

Joshua worked on getting the new workshop rig ready for release.

Lifeless worked on new accessibility options.

macdguy worked on the Minigolf and Ball Race SDKs.

Sketchman worked on fixing some outstanding issues and bug fixes.

Wheezwer worked on art for the boardwalk.

Will continued working on music.

[h3]Accessibility: New Store UI[/h3]

Convenience buttons for adding multiple of an item to cart. Also, a delete all button.



[h3]Accessibility: Different Icon Sizes (Very Large / Small)[/h3]



[h3]Condo I/O: Working AND/OR Logic[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h3]Condo I/O: IO Volumes now have shapes[/h3]



[h2]Wrap It Up[/h2]
That about covers everything that happened since May 21st, 2024 at PixelTail 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 like our game and want to support development, please consider getting a Supporter Pack:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2792910/Tower_Unite__Supporter_Pack/?snr=1_2108_9__2107

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 the Weekly Dev Log for May 21st, 2024, detailing all the changes that have happened since May 6th, 2024. Note: Devs that don't appear in the weekly log are not necessarily away or not doing work, but may be working on things currently not announced or backend work that doesn't need to be detailed.

[h2]May/June 2024 Condo Contest[/h2]



Hey everyone, this time the contest is about custom Game World Maps!

Your entry can be for any of the Game Worlds that have Workshop Map SDK support (so Virus, SDNL, or Little Crusaders), and there's no time requirement for when the map was made!

Unlike previous contests, your entry must be uploaded to the Workshop and playable in TU! (We want maps to be judged on their gameplay and art!)

The submission period ends on June 6th, 2024 at 11:59 PM.

Be sure to look at the prizes and follow the rules here!

[h2]Minigolf SDK[/h2]

The Minigolf SDK tools are nearing completion. The tool icons are now setup, along with the tools themselves and their settings.

All the different variants and selectable models for the Minigolf Editor makes for around 5,243 models. These models are all under the hood, as you tell the editor what the tile should be and it'll select the correct one for you.

Also, we did a lot of work both behind the scenes and in the editor UI to make working with the Minigolf tiles much easier, such as bug fixes and improvements to the grid snapping tools.

[h3]Minigolf SDK: Current Progress[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Minigolf SDK: Piece Editing[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Minigolf SDK: Tool Icons[/h3]



[h2]New Accessibility Settings[/h2]

We've added a new settings section - Accessibility, which has various settings suggested by the community.

[h3]Accessibility Settings[/h3]



[h2]Canvas URL Replacer Tool[/h2]

Easily replace URLs with new URLs across all canvas items that use the same URL in one click. Very useful to replace old/broken links.

There is also a new "Find" feature that will visually show all canvas items that are using the same URL so you can find where the canvas is in your Condo.

[h3]Canvas URL Replacer Tool[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Sound Volumes[/h2]

Sound Volumes are new IO volumes that handle playback of sound emitters (clientside) based on if you are inside the volume or not.

Also comes with settings for fading sounds and muting outside sounds.

To use Sound Volumes you will have to click on "Collect" to collect all the sound emitters in the volume after placing the sound emitters inside the volume.

[h3]Sound Volume Demo[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Sound Volume Settings[/h3]



[h2]Workshop Soundpacks and Custom Game World SDK music[/h2]

With Workshop Soundpacks wrapping up for release, we are now working on defining how you'll be able to set custom music for your game world levels. There will be a new IO module called Game World Music Manager. You can set custom music for each type of stage of the game world, if you don't set any sound it'll use the default game world music.

[h3]Workshop Game World Music Manager[/h3]



[h2]Sound Playlists[/h2]

We also added playlist support to sound emitters. While enabled, you can add multiple sounds that will play one after another and can be used for Workshop Sound Emitters

[h2]Miscellany[/h2]

Joshua worked on getting the new workshop rig ready for release.

Lifeless worked on new accessibility options.

macdguy worked on the sound emitter playlists, important libretro fixes, and various SDK things.

Nuclearxpotato continue working on a new Minigolf map.

Sketchman worked on fixing some outstanding issues and bug fixes.

Will continued working on music.

[h2]Wrap It Up[/h2]
That about covers everything that happened since May 6th, 2024 at PixelTail 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 like our game and want to support development, please consider getting a Supporter Pack: 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/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