Posts on Oct 2013

Build 911 – Fixes, Optimisations, and Heads

This build is another quick one with a lot of incremental improvements – nothing groundbreaking but some more smoothness.

I should note that the owl head was super difficult to transfer faithfully to pixels – while I’m not quite happy with it yet I figured I shouldn’t spend too much time on it when there are other, more pressing things. A roundup of the new heads available:

• Dovahkiin Helmet – tribute to Bethesda’s great game Skyrim, unleash your inner Nord, or whatever :^)
• Owl head – If you really like being an uppity bird that eats rodents, this is for you!
• Ninja Headwraps – partly via JTG, these two heads (male and female) are for those interested in poisons, murdering, and saturday morning cartoons.
• Ushanka – Pay homage to russian heritage, or just keep your ears warm.
• Dragon Skull Helm – left over from the old whiter bear helm, this gives the player a fearsome look, with team colour trim!

Game modifications:

• Doors fixes
  Hitting the tiles behind doors shouldn’t happen any more.
  Doors also show persistent damage after being opened and closed (note that this had no affect on their actual health!)
• Fake techs in CTF cleared properly
  No more bomb bolts for free on nextmap!
• No coins on restart
  Should help the game “scale up” a little better – as it was it’s a little spammy, right out the gate.
• Anti-Siege and Sapping Bomb arrows
  Bomb arrows will now 1 hit kill a catapult, and take large chunks out of walls, allowing archers to carve pathways for their team and defend effectively against siege engines if they have the coin.
• Particle optimisations
  More on their way, as well as the much needed optimisations to catapult rocks!

Full changelog:

[modified] snatchmark map
[fixed] JTG_NewGetisburgMines map not loading properly
[fixed] fake techs in CTF not cleared on next map (note: requires adding UseFakeTechs.as to gamemodes where fake techs are used)
[added] updated monsteri ctf 2 map
[fixed] opening and closing door visually hiding the damage
[added] builder cant break door  backwall before breaking the door
[added] Verrazano unique head (congrats)
[added] owl head, dovahkiin helmet, animu ninja head, ushanka, and dragon skull helmet
[modified] heads settings box has 6 heads per row instead of 5
[modified] catapult cost increased to 80c
[modified] bomb arrow one hit kills catapult
[modified] no coins on map restart/join game of CTF
[modified] particle iterations drastically reduced
[modified] maximum particle count reduced
[modified] tweak in tutorial
[modified] performance optimizations to lighting
[modified] some optimizations in scripts

Have fun!

Max/Geti

Steam Delay – Don’t Despair!

Hey, big apologies to all the people who were hanging on the edge of their seats all weekend and have been let down by no steam release yet!

Reality of the matter is that steam integration isn’t done yet, the trailer isn’t quite finished, and there are a few big optimisations that need to be made before we can comfortably pull the game out of beta.

As hopefully some consolation, here’s the video MM uploaded today about CTF and Challenges, so you have something to show your friends. We’re still here and working tirelessly on the game! It’s just taking a little longer than we anticipated.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D_0ab58GbY?feature=player_detailpage]

Current ‘realistic’ timeline is slated for next week – if it’s shorter then we’ll go ahead, but we don’t want to give false expectations (we never do! promise!).

On the game: a new build will be out tomorrow fixing the tech bug in CTF, bringing some map balance to CTF (still not perfect though) and giving a little more omph to bomb arrows. It’ll also contain more optimisations and some tutorial tweaks. Most importantly, it’ll have 5 new hats!

Max/Geti

B909 – Balancing, Fixes, Upgrades, Optimisation

This build is mostly small things, but some of them will make a difference for modders, and most of them will make a difference for players. Small bits of polish go a long way, and all that :^)

• Chickens don’t breed infinitely
  They’re limited to 4 chickens at most in one area (and 2 eggs at most in one area) – this means you’ll have to spread your chicken coops out to breed a larger number of them. We’re going to add some way to buy new eggs to start flocks of them, but that’ll come later
• Fake Rolling Optimised
  This is particularly important for the rocks flung from the catapult, but will also make a little bit of a difference with bombs, mines, and boulders – modders that have applicable objects can use CheapFakeRolling.as instead of FakeRolling.as.
• Less Particle Spam from Catapult Rocks
  This should help a little with the lag from them as well
• Upgrade Ballista to Bomb Bolts at siege shop
  This is built on top of a way to add “fake techs” to a team.
  There might be some bugs with this, particularly with techs “persisting” between rounds, keep a look out for anything skew so it can be fixed asap. EDIT: confirmed – the tech hangs over between rounds. This will be fixed as soon as we can, probably tomorrow.
  The terrain erosion caused by Ballistae will be looked into soon too, but wasn’t able to be worked into this release.
• Can purchase bolts for Ballista at siege shop
  which is pretty important for ensuring it remains useful.
• Chat colours come from the team config files
  This is very important for modders making >2 team games – the chat colours are no longer hard coded.
• Price changes
  Particularly with arrows, some of the prices have shifted a little. Kegs are also a bit cheaper, and tunnels no longer cost gold (pending that this doesn’t lead to them being spammed mindlessly).
• Anti-Siege and Anti-Structure bomb arrows
  Bomb arrows now simply detonate on impact, with a weak explosion. However, the explosion does extra damage to structures and vehicles, so it can be used for quickly disabling catapults and blowing holes in walls or breaching doors – as well as for sapping workshops quickly. This should give archers slightly more to do after they get into the enemy base.
• Some changes to building
  Building should be more tolerant, and breaking blocks requires less exact aiming.
  Ladders are team only and have a sprite that shows it – no more breaking your own ladders by accident as knight!
  Spikes have team colour layer so they’re easier to spot and you know the team in advance.

I think that’s about it for now, though there are some other miscellaneous changes and fixes. Here’s the full changelog:

[added] bomb arrow is rocket launcher - low damage vs actor (2.5 hearts on direct hit),
    	high damage on buildings and vehicles, and explodes on impact - can be used to bomb jump!
[fixed] double hitting from bomb arrow explosion
[added] drill is much more effective against constructed blocks (heats much slower for castle and wood)
[added] ladder has team (and sprite that shows it)
[fixed] runner can jump higher off ladders than ground
[fixed] scroll of midas (thanks norill)
[modified] scroll of midas affects thick stone too
[modified] tunnel costs 100 stone 50 wood (no gold)
[modified] 3 builder hits to break ladder
[modified] block placement is more tolerant
[modified] builder aim hitting tiles is "no bullshit" - will be ported to block placement soon
[fixed] chickens breeding infinitely in one space
[added] spikes have team coloured layer so now you can tell what team they are on
[fixed] first sign in the tutorial not below the player
[added] water arrows are 20 coins, fire arrows are 30
[modified] water arrows come in stack of 2
[added] wip "fake tech" system - allows techs in rules without any research system in place
[modified] pickup radius is a bit smaller
[removed] restartmap_onlastplayer_disconnect cause it causes crashed (will return once issue is resolved)
[added] requirements support "not tech" so that you can prevent double-buying upgrades at different shops
[modified] rock spams fewer particles
[added] JTG_NewGetisburgMines map
[removed] monsteri map 2 from the cycle til it's fixed
[added] 3 new maps from community - Fellere_newValleyMap, Skinney_Crypt, Skinney_Typhoon
[added] cheaper fake rolling script for applicable objects (only rotates one sprite, does no matrix multiplication)
[added] cheaper fake rolling to boulder
[added] more expensive fake rolling script only runs on server (rotation deltas are synced anyway)
[added] chat colour is from team .cfg file
[added] team chat gets asterixes around it  * team chat *
[modified] keg is 120 coins

Max/Geti

A Few Notes on B907

The chickens breeding exponentially is an issue – we’ll be releasing a patch over the weekend to address this asap; please farm chickens responsibly in the meantime (cull as needed, ideally flying birds contributing to overpopulation towards the enemy) :^)

The patch over the weekend will also include some balance changes to builder and archer – archer’s bomb arrow getting an overhaul, and builder block placement and destruction being more tolerant.

A summary of inbound changes:

• Fixed chicken breeding (accounting for overcrowding)
• Bomb arrow explodes on impact.
• Bomb arrow does 1.5 health explosion, 1 health arrow impact
• Bomb arrow explosion does very large damage to structures and vehicles.
• Bomb arrow only breaks 1 tile “radius” like bombs.
• Bomb arrow explosion hurts user.
• Builder aiming of placement and destruction is more lenient
• Ladder has team (and team colour) – no more cutting them accidentally as knight.
• Ladder easier to smash for builder (3 hits).
• Tunnel costs 100 stone, 50 wood
• Scroll of Midas fixed
• Drill much more effective against constructed tiles (heats at 1/3 speed)

Note that this should allow archers with bomb arrows to take on a sapper role – sinking boats, killing catapults and sapping workshops. It should also help “battle builders” a little – they’ll spend less time aiming exactly at the tile they want to break and more time breaking it – and their ladders won’t be smashed by team-mates every single time they put one down :^)

Should be out tomorrow, sorry for the delay on it.

Max/Geti

B907 – Chicken update!

First of all we gathered feedback after the last update about tutorials and improved them a lot. So this update is mainly about better tutorials. If you have a friend that just couldn’t get into KAG have him play the new tutorials, we can see if we can get him on to the KAG side now :).

Second, we added these lovely creatures into the tutorials as target practice (I think it’s cruel and I regret doing it). 

You can also find them on regular maps. Chicken can be farmed because they lay eggs. You can eat eggs for health. Also you can use chicken to create your own chickenwaffe or luftchickens or in other words your very own:

FLYING CHICKEN DEATH SQUADRON

Because by holding a chicken you can float and jump much farther especially combined with shield gliding. Imagine a team of knights floating knights attacking from air!

Third, some very useful changes and tweaks, please read the changelog.

Have fun,
MM

Changes b904-b907:

[added] zoom to cheat sheet

[removed] motion in fixed camera

[modified] keg doesn't take action 2 any more - allows shielding when holding keg.

[modified] only 50 coins and no carry over (by default) in CTF - see CTF_Trading.as for config options (should be moved to .cfg file tbh)

[added] both "rock" and "stone" are the same predefined gib

[added] warning for unknown "predefined" gibs
[added] dummy target practice to tutorials
[added] added chicken

[modified] tweaked parallax backgrounds

[modified] double slash is a bit easier to execute

[fixed] sign and fireplace in front of player

[added] mapcycle can use just directory instead of .cfg (sv_mapcycle = Maps/Challenge/Tutorials)

[added] new princess

[modified] archer cursor has one more frame (smoother animation) and a better indication of legolas shot ready

[modified] esc key icon is more legible (no overlapping glyphs)

[fixed] archer aiming cursor-arrow discrepancies

[modified] arrow launches slightly higher allowing to shoot easily over 1 block when standing next to it

[fixed] various fixes and improvements to tutorials

[fixed] typo in turtorials

Last day of Not On Steam sale

It’s the last chance to buy indie games with big discounts. Including 25% off for King Arthur’s Gold. So if you want it, get it for $7.49. Just follow one of these links!

Not On Steam Sale -> http://notonsteam.com/

KAG -> http://kag2d.com/en/buy

(if you buy KAG now you will get a Steam key once it’s released there)

B904 – Basics tutorial added

I’m generally not a fan of tutorials but since we’re pressed on time and we don’t have better options I decided to add a very simple, no bs. tutorial where you can learn the very basics of KAG. I hope this will make new players have a smoother experience from the start.

Be sure to help new players online! Let them see we have an awesome community :).

Also, the charge cursor for archer is back! I felt we really need it, especially since I can’t fix the charging sound bug yet.

Tutorials are available in the Solo menu.

MM

Changes 899-904:

[fixed] not loading mod downloaded scripts (still some issues)

[modified] tweaks to princess mode

[modified] improved bot difficulty

[added] shinier title

[added] 3 level basics tutorial

[fixed] research being in hall in Challenges

[added] archer charge cursor

B899 – Fixes and Eased Frustrations

(As a quick side note – Remember that KAG is on sale for $7.49 at the moment before Steam launch!)

This is obviously a fairly minor build, but it eases a few major frustrations people have had, mostly with building and digging.

• Builder can build on top of arrows, corpses and materials
  There may be unexpected side effects to this, but it should be nothing major in normal building, and removes some of the pressure when frontline building – no more clearing arrows or materials out of the way.
• Knights can dig through gold nuggets
  Like all materials though, they mats will be lost for good if dug by a knight – it just means they aren’t stuck if theres some nuggets in the way under a frontline wall.
• Sky less glaring, night less dark
  This is a somewhat minor one, but the sky is a little less glaring white, and night time isn’t completely pitch black. In light of this, a 15 minute day/night cycle has been re-added to vanilla Take the Halls mode. Note that you can change this per-server and per-gamemode in the standard gamemode.cfg, server hosts.

Full changelog:

[fixed] can build on open doors
[fixed] cant build on materials
[fixed] cant build on fired arrows
[modified] knight can dig gold
[modified] knight digging dirt stone takes same hits as digging constructed wood
[added] 6 stone from digging thick stone
[script][added] bind for CMap::isTileThickStone
[added] new sky gradient code - along with darker skyline overall for a little less "neon" and eye strain, and lighter night
[added] 15 minute day night cycle to default tth again
[fixed] archer rope sometimes renders off "to infinity"

Have Fun

Max/Geti

Not (yet) on Steam Sale!

To celebrate the time before we hit the Steam store we are making a 25% off sale for King Arthur’s Gold. This means you can play the new beta version for only 7.49$.

We are also part of a larger sale called Not On Steam Sale.
This is only until next Wednesday so hurry!

This is done by the guys that made recently the excellent racer Race to the Sun.

You can buy a variety of other indie games on that site that aren’t on Steam (yet) which you might not have heard of. So if it’s KAG or some other game spend a few bucks today to support indie devs :).

MM

Build 898 – Fixes, Changes, Balance

This is partly a “hotfix” type build, but also adds a few changes and balance tweaks. There are a few things that probably still need better testing, if there’s anything awry it’ll be patched again tomorrow.

The main changes are

• Kegs are more expensive in CTF but tear through structures doors, blocks, etc very effectively due to a few bugfixes there.
• Fire spreads from doors and platform tiles. This means door cases around the flag are quite a bit less effective, at least with normal wood doors. Kegs are still the ultimate breaching solution though.
• Knights take 3 hits to break wood tiles instead of 2.
  We’ll probably allow breaking other “natural” tiles as well, like gold and maybe thick stone, but with more hits and more feedback for each.
• Archer bow rotates visually to give better indication of charge state. This should help with some of the difficulties people were/are having with the archer.
• Fixed some camera bugs. There are still a few in, they’ll be fixed as soon as we can manage.
• Added a ding when hitting something that cant be damaged. This still needs some more filtering added, there are a couple of outliers like seeds and hearts which still ding cheerfully with every hit. This will of course be patched soon.

Understand that this build is a bit of a work in progress, but we figured that the gains of the fixes and balance tweaks outweighed the rough edges around a few of the changes. That said, there’ll likely be a build 899 tomorrow smoothing the majority of those rough edges.

Max/Geti