(Showcase of the current state of the game)
Hi and welcome to the 20th development blog post for Unleash!
First off, I was sick on Friday and therefore the development blog was a bit delayed. Sorry about that. The past two weeks has seen a substantial amount of work. We have continued our improvements of the very hard “Mr. Think” AI bot. The first batch of achievements have been implemented in the game. Scoreboards and in-game overviews have been updated to match the new UI. Finally, the Workshop, Tesla Coil and Lightning Tower have received substantial VFX updates. Oh, and naturally a myriad of bugs have been fixed during this period of polishing - but I won’t go into details on that.
AI Spawning
Work on improving the very hard “Mr. Think” AI has continued. After spending the previous weeks on improving the build strategy and logic, so that the AI is much harder to kill now, the time has come for the AI to send monsters more intelligently. There were two main goals that we identified for this topic: Spawning combinations of monsters and pooling resources to spawn larger hordes. The monster combinations are, for now, hardcoded by us, and the amount of combinations is relatively low for now but will be expanded upon gradually. The AI will spawn as often as possible while it is low in income, compared to other players. If it achieves a better income it will start pooling resources to be able to pose a more significant challenge by spawning larger amounts of monsters simultaneously.
(AIs spawn combinations of monsters more intelligently)
Achievements
The first 20 achievements have now been implemented in the game. While they all use the same icons for now, we do plan to make a variety of icons for achievements eventually. However, for now we deemed it more important to simply have achievements, rather than them necessarily requiring unique icons each. The achievements are implemented as normal Steam achievements and they generally pertain to in-game actions, such as winning games or playing several days in a row. We plan to expand on the list of achievements gradually as time permits.
(Screenshot of Steam achievements)
Scoreboards & Overviews UI
Since updating all the out-of-game menu UI, the in-game UI has seemed comparatively out of style. Therefore, we have started work on overhauling all in-game UI to make the visual style consistent across out-game and in-game UI. The first steps in this process was to replace the game overviews and scoreboards in-game with new UI elements. The layout is the same for now, but that will need an update as well.
In the process of revisiting overviews and scoreboards we found the time to make a few other changes. The ‘losses’ column has been removed from Line Tower Wars game mode, since we received feedback that it could be perceived as demotivating due to the 8-player 1-winner nature of the game mode.
(In-game overviews and scoreboards updated to new UI and showing score change post-game)
Additionally, the in-game scoreboards will now show a player’s score change, making it easier and more clear for players to understand how well they performed in a game. The score is calculated based on: How many players you defeated, how long you survived in the game and whether you actually won the game. Thus, you can achieve a score increase without actually winning the game, if you for an example defeat other human players. Scores are not awarded for beating AI bot players.
Workshop VFX
The Workshop tower has seen a substantial upgrade of its visuals. It has new idle VFX, based on the idea that it sends out small autonomous drones to repair nearby structures. This concept is also applied to the structures being repaired: Small drones will fly around them, scanning them and applying fixes to the structure.
(The Workshop tower with its new VFX)
Lightning Bolts
The lightning bolts VFX used by the Tesla Coil (ground) and Lightning Tower (AA) have been updated to make them look more like actual electrical lightning. Additionally, the towers themselves have received an added VFX to make them look more vibrant, as well as impact VFX to the location where they hit a monster.
(Tesla Coil and Lightning Tower tesla coils have been updated)
Closing Remarks
Our “Mr. Think” bot will soon start spawning monsters more intelligently: In combinations and in larger quantities. The first 20 Steam achievements have been added to the game, although - for now - using the same icons. In-game scoreboards and overviews have been updated to match the new UI. Several towers have seen their VFX being updated to make them more interesting to look at, including the Workshop, Lightning Tower AA and Tesla Coil.
Get in contact with us through Discord, or any of our other social media channels. You can find all of them through our website. Also, you can watch our internal gameplay sessions over at Twitch.
And remember… Monsters never come alone.