Hello everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Dev Log for October 3rd, 2022, detailing all the changes that have happened since September 26th, 2022. 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.
Accessibility Suggestions
We've created a forum post asking the community for suggestions on how we can improve gameplay for players with certain conditions such as colorblindness, dyslexia, or anything else that might affect a players ability to use the standard presentation and controls of the game.
If you have any ideas or suggestions, and possible solutions on how to solve a particular issue, please check out the forum post here.
October 2022 Condo Contest NOW OPEN
Halloween is next month, so it's time to open up the submission period for the Halloween Condo Contest!
As usual, feel free to interpret that however you like! Whether you make a secret lab, grave yard, haunted mansion, or a fun Halloween party, anything goes as long as its related to the Halloween spirit! First prize is 2,000,000 units!
Learn how to participate here!
Halloween
Now that the second phase of the Casino has been released, our next focus is on Halloween. A bunch of work is happening behind the scenes getting the game ready for the Halloween events, the Halloween themed Plaza, the new shooting gallery ride, and of course new items!
Johanna worked on updating the loading platform for the shooting gallery ride.
JJosh continued working on new Halloween items.
macdguy continued working on the event system for the shooting gallery ride, spending time to plan out all the individual track events and timings.
Nuclearxpotato worked on integrating the new Halloween items.
Wheezwer worked on paintings for the shooting gallery ride.
Will worked on music and sounds for the shooting gallery ride.
Halloween: Shooting Gallery Ride Track Event Setup WIP
General Optimizations
Johanna has been spending a bunch of times on various optimizations.
The Casino - Phase 2 update included a wave of optimizations for the Arcade that made it much more performant on both the CPU and GPU. While not huge breakthroughs, they are significant optimizations.
In the upcoming Halloween update, there is slated to be even more optimizations, a second pass for the Arcade and one for the Casino that should hopefully help squeeze a few extra FPS here and there.
A big optimization she's been working on has been on "movables", specifically ambient moving objects like rotating signs and the gears on the ride building in the Plaza. This will dramatically increase the performance of the Pets system, and the effects of this optimization should be noticeable in Plazas or other areas with lots of players with pets.
Lastly, she's been working on optimizing condo items. As an example, placing 30 of a desk she just optimized will be just as performant as the same desk previously with only 10 of them placed.
So stay tuned for future updates coming soon that will include these optimizations.
Miscellany
Lifeless continued working on gameworld maps.
macdguy continued working on fixing bugs in the Casino, as well as working on a proper menu for VR.
Sketchman worked on new achievement icons for the Virus map, Corrosion.
Corrosion Achievement Icons
Wrap It Up
That about covers everything that happened since September 26th, 2022 at PixelTail Games.
Join our Discord for development updates and community fun!
https://discord.gg/pixeltail
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Follow our developments on our Trello in near real-time:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap
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
<3 PixelTail Games