Alright, everyone, this is the last major release of Masters of Puzzle before we leave Early Access. A lot of polishing and bug-fixing were done in the last week and several new features were added to the game.
Let's check out the most important changes:
- Gameplay: Added Puzzle Model Stand item model that can be rotated around the game board with the interaction tool. Holding LMB and moving in either screen direction will cause the stand to move left or right along the edge of the game board
- Gameplay: Redesigned the functionality for Interactable Objects movement. It will now rely on advanced collision detection rather than raycasting which makes it more efficient and less CPU hungry
- Gameplay: Improved the mesh collision detection for puzzle tiles and puzzle tile groups. It will be more accurate now on the edges and puzzle links
- Gameplay: Increased the puzzle tile linking trigger area – both on top and to the sides – to allow easier linking
- Gameplay: Saved games will now remember if you put puzzle tile groups in containers
- Interface: Created a new menu for the player’s earned achievements overview
- Interface: Added Key Mapping system for all allowed actions (yes, finally!)
- Interface: Added puzzle box Difficulty Rating System and set preliminary ratings to all puzzle boxes. Puzzle difficulty rating will now be displayed in the Start Game menu for each puzzle box. More about this below
- Bugfix: Fixed a bug with the restoration of puzzle containers and the puzzle tiles within on game load that would sometimes cause the tiles to spawn in an offset position
- Bugfix: Fixed a bug that was causing orphaned puzzle tile groups to remain on the game board cluttering the scene with invisible colliders
- Bugfix: Fixed a bug that prevented puzzle tile groups in other than correct orientation from being linked to each other or standalone puzzle tiles
- Bugfix: Fixed a bug with puzzle tile containers where overflowing containers would not be able to identify all puzzle tiles put in them as actually being in them
- Bugfix: Fixed various issues with the movement of all interactable objects that caused unexpected collisions, leave the game board, scatter other objects, and etc.
You can find the full release notes on our website here.
Puzzle Box Difficulty Rating System
So, this is a feature that we wanted to add for a long time to the game, but could never find the right time. Right now the game has 28 puzzle boxes and they vary greatly in art and style, but also in difficulty. We wanted to be able to indicate how difficult a puzzle box is to assemble in order for our players to know the level of challenge they were facing before they started a new game. In addition, we also want to use this rating system as a social experiment and see if we can fine-tune these ratings based on your feedback. We plan to introduce in-game rating submission for completed puzzle boxes before we leave Early Access, but right now we need your help in adjusting the preliminary ratings outside the game. For this purpose, we've created a Google Forms survey that you can access here. We will appreciate it tremendously if you take a few minutes and rate the puzzle boxes you've completed so far based on the perceived difficulty you had with them. This will help us greatly in kick-starting this initiative.
A little insight into the rating system is also necessary or it might look overwhelming at first. Because we wanted a very robust and feedback-sensitive system, we've defined 9 levels of difficulty each with a key letter that links them to our Achievements system:
- N (Novice) - very easy
- I (Initiate)
- J (Journeyman)
- A (Adept)
- P (Proficient)
- E (Expert)
- M (Master)
- G (Grand Master)
- R (Guru) - super hard
The ratings are also color-coded for easy identification going in a gradient from soft blue (N) to soft red (R). We are very interested to see how the community will use this once the game enters full release. And if you're a new player, don't feel intimidated by this rather complex rating system. It's intended for informational purposes only and will not affect your gameplay in any way.
Next Steps
Now that this release is published, we intend to focus on the final round of polishing and bug-fixing. Once we're satisfied with the quality and stability of the game, we will leave Early Access and go live on Steam. We also appreciate very much the valuable feedback we've received from several of our fans in the last 2 weeks, which helped us identify and remove several gameplay issues. We hope to receive more feedback from you as we prepare for our official release.
So that's it for now. Stay tuned, keep playing, and don't forget to follow our social channels for regular news and some exclusive information about the game: