Hello again, all you sTUnning people out there!
Developer note: The Casino is a massive undertaking and is under heavy, constant development. We hear you and understand your concerns, but we can't afford to rush it out. We will be announcing a date of the Casino's release very soon. Thank you for your patience!
Here's a small update about the Casino developments, while we're here:
- We have working slots as shown on our latest Twitch stream
- We have 3 different types of slot machines shipping with the Casino update (with more coming in future updates)
- What's left to do is:
- Payouts for Casino games (very close to being done)
- Betting for Casino games (very close to being done)
- Persistent/progressive jackpots (very close to being done)
- Spin to Win
- Texas Hold'em
- Why is the Casino taking so long?
- We've gone to monumental lengths to ensure security of the Casino games. The Casino uses a piece of proprietary backend software we’ve been developing internally. This software took months to develop and was absolutely necessary to complete the Casino. Development was stalled on some Casino games until the necessary framework on the backend was completed.
- The Plaza needed to be optimized before we put the Casino in. This took up a sizable chunk of development time. If a developer wasn't working on Casino, they were doing optimization work. Without these optimizations, the Casino would run at unplayable framerates.
- Casino games are written in two parts. The gameplay part runs in the game, the game-logic part runs securely on a backend server to prevent fraudulent behavior. Because of this, Casino games take longer to create than most other games in Tower.
Don’t forget to follow Casino development on our Trello: https://trello.com/c/3Kd7gd9o/101-casino
Optimizations:
- Disabled distance field shadows in all maps, not just Plaza
Developer note: This was causing the performance issues in the Condo and other levels. Players should now see better performance when on the “TURBO” Shadow setting on those levels.
- Optimized seats a bit, which should help performance in the Plaza more
Linux Dedicated Server Changes:
- Fixed an issue where Linux dedicated servers wouldn’t stream certain levels
Planet Panic Changes:
- Pressing T no longer respawns all players in Planet Panic
UI Changes:
- Updated menu pictures
You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap