28 Jul 2021Developer post

Canvas Hockey: World Champion!

Hey Canvas Hockey players! I'm happy to announce that I've added a brand new game mode to Canvas Hockey - World Champion! In this game mode, you'll represent a country and face off against 15 other countries in a 4-round, best-of-7 NHL-style playoff tournament. I made this mode t

06 May 2021Developer post

Bots Only Tournaments, Custom Rinks, and New Canvases!

Hey Canvas Hockey Players! Hope everyone has been enjoying Canvas Hockey, it's hard to believe we are coming up on the 1 year anniversary pretty soon! Since we have had a large influx of new players, I wanted to make a quick update based on a recent player request: bots only tour

14 Dec 2020Developer post

Canvas Hockey Holiday update & adds mobile support!

Happy Holidays Arcade Hockey fanatics! In the new Version 1.2 update of Canvas Hockey, you'll find some new fresh tunes (which you can also listen to on Spotify and Apple Music), a new Holiday themed rink canvas, and you can now download Canvas Hockey on the App Store and Google

18 Aug 2020Developer post

Beta Testing Open for "Portfolio Update" - Version 1.2

Version 1.2 Announcement - Beta testing (V1.1+) open! Sept. 25th release The exciting new Portfolio update is coming September 25th , and beta testing is now open! The portfolio option can now be found on the far right button on the main menu. You can unlock rink canvases with go

10 Aug 2020Developer post

Version 1.0.1 Update

Thank you to everyone who bought Canvas Hockey during launch week - I poured my heart into this project so it means the world to me that each and every one of you will enjoy playing. I've already gotten a lot of great feedback from players on some improvements I can make to the g

Thank you to everyone who bought Canvas Hockey during launch week - I poured my heart into this project so it means the world to me that each and every one of you will enjoy playing. I've already gotten a lot of great feedback from players on some improvements I can make to the game. Here I'll summarize some of the quick changes I could make in a week, which you'll find in Version 1.0.1 of the game. If the game didn't update, try restarting Steam.

Quick tip: In game, you can always find the latest patch notes by hovering your mouse over the Version number in the top left screen of the Main Menu ːsteamhappyː

What's new:
- Improved formula for simulations in career mode.
- Added arrow-key controls to keyboard and mouse control scheme.
- Championship, OT, and Tutorial achievements were not updating.
- Show playoff bracket before semifinals start.
- If a player is inside the net with the puck, it's a goal (duh!)
- Fixed lighting issues during championship game.
- Improvements to the tutorial (e.g., during passing, resetting stats, etc.)
- Fixed layering of +10xp animation in career mode.
- Fixed issue where 0.1 skill points wouldn't be spent.

A little more detail for those who are curious:
1) On the first point, many players noticed that trading your player becomes very difficult or impossible in the higher leagues. I originally intended this challenge to be solved with trading your self to another team, but this is not always ideal and may require some grinding. The core issue behind this problem was that the formula for simulated games scaled linearly with each players skill, without considering who they were matched up against. In other words, in the old simulation, if player 1 (skill = 100) plays a game, they may score 4 goals, regardless of whether their opponent's skill is 50 or 100. To address this, I updated the formula to be normalized to the opponents skill. Further, the each player's team mate has a 10% contribution to the number of points that player will earn, while the player themselves contributes 90%. There is still a scalar fLeague that scales with the league you are in, so it still is more difficult to trade for better players in higher leagues. You can see a snapshot of some of my notes for the formula here:

The "mean" calculated by this formula represents the average number of points that player would earn in a matchup of those four players. During the simulation, the game uses that mean to calculate a standard deviation and normal distribution for point values for that player, and this distribution is used to sample one value for the simulated game. There are more details on how the simulation calculates goalie save percentage, and likelihood of winning in overtime, which I won't go into detail here. These have also been updated to reflect the changes in this update.

2) Per player request, I added arrow key movement controls to the keyboard and moues control scheme. I originally didn't add these because arrow keys only allow for digital 8-directional movements, whereas the mouse allows for analog movement in any direction. I still don't recommend using this control scheme, but at the end of the day I want the players to enjoy the game how they see fit, so enjoy!

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always please reach out to me if you have any suggestions or problems. I will fix them as soon as I can. As a sneak peek, in the next bigger update you can look forward to the added function of changing the rink canvas, where you can collect a nifty library of rink designs. You can also look forward to a new YouTube video soon! ːsteamhappyː

Thank you for playing Canvas Hockey!
Email the dev with suggestions: [email protected]
Or you can join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/b5AN7H2
And most definitely watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmVhh2f5KKbNFC403H4tKUw

P.S. If you want your name to be featured in the game as a playable character, email me and I can make it happen!

Original post

30 Jun 2020Developer post

Canvas Hockey Release

Canvas Hockey has officially finished the alpha phase of development, and has been approved for release on Steam! Canvas Hockey currently comes with a Quick Play mode, where you can jump into a game with some friends, or if you're lonely, some trusty bots. If you're looking for a

Canvas Hockey

Updates & announcements

Canvas Hockey: World Champion!

NHL Playoff Style Bracket!

New and Improved Player AI!

Bots Only Tournaments, Custom Rinks, and New Canvases!

Hey Canvas Hockey Players!

Control time in Bots-only tournaments!

Your very own custom rinks!

St. Patty's Day 2021

Congrats, Class of 2021!

Bots only, bro

Be the first to reach 2000 goals!

Canvas Hockey Holiday update & adds mobile support!

Canvas Hockey Sale - Portfolio Update!

Beta Testing Open for "Portfolio Update" - Version 1.2

Version 1.0.1 Update

Canvas Hockey Release