Hello!  The new year approaches.  Here's a quick summary of recent updates.
Multiplayer is done and now includes matchmaking!  New Tower models are in!  Audio stuff added.  I also had to say good bye to a dear friend.  I'm getting ready for the Steam release of Mage Fort.  More details below.

Multiplayer & Matchmaking

Multiplayer is done and includes matchmaking support!  It was a pain in the ass but I learned a ton. 

It's a huge weight off my shoulders... I really feel great about Multiplayer being in a good place again.   For the last few months multiplayer was kind of a mess.  Long story short- I learned you really need to plan carefully for the fact that Lag exists, and people's machines load times will differ.  For example, if one client loads slower than the rest and start's a story sequence, it will cause issues and crazy behavior between all the clients. 

So I added some checks when players are loading into scenes to make sure they're all done loading before advancing on.  The master client (hosts the game) and synchronizes the beginning of story sequences.  So the effect is that everyone's client will be about at the same during important events.

Matchmaking Update

Online Matchmaking is in!  You can now hit one button and it will find a group to play with.  Those that want to host games can still create public or private rooms.  And of course  Offline mode let's you play ...offline :P

Audio
I finally got around to adding Audio mixers so the settings now include audio controls! Slowly I'm adding in music and sounds.  A lot of the spells, hits, explosions already have sound logic built into them.  I just need to find the right sounds and music which is harder than I thought originally!

Emotional State

I'm doing well overall, I feel so much better now that Multiplayer is working.  My anxiety comes and goes over launching a game on Steam.  Maybe it's not as big a deal now a days, but for me it'll be a major milestone for me personally.

Then something awful...

My eldest cat passed.  The cause was cancer.  I was devastated.  Part of me still is.  I don't want to say too much more because a lot of you can understand exactly that pain.  That said, I still feel her spirit and I'm resolved to keep moving forward.

This past weekend I picked up two new team members for Fuzzy Code Studio.  Introduced below :)  Productivity is down, but Fuzziness is up!  When they snuggle it's almost unbearably cute sometimes.

New Tower Model & Blender

I have been wanting to dive into blender for a long time.  I finally took the dive and after doing some great tutorials by 'Blender Guru' I finally was able to make new tower models!  Hurray, no more pole and ball model!

Blender is pretty neat.  And it's free!  It was definitely a bit overwhelming at first but now I have a little more confidence with something so useful.

Fuzzy Code Studio is officially an LLC!  In preparation for the steam release I need to register a bank account yet for the business.  (Steam actually requires a 30 day wait period after you do this before you may upload any games.)  It's all starting to feel more real now

Then it's on to finalizing the steam page with art and a trailer video.

Steam Early Access will begin Early 2018

Here's an update with what I've been working on, what's finished, and a little on the roller coaster that is my emotional state.

I finally finished the boss level!  I'm very happy with it and feel like I put a lot of "me" into it.  I think people will enjoy it!

I knew from the beginning that if I wanted this to be a multiplayer game I should incorporate multiplayer practices and design from the very onset of development.  At first I did, Unfortunately these past 6 months I didn't do much if any multiplayer testing and I created many new systems in that time.  Soo you can imagine there were a lot of new issues while in multiplayer. 

To share - this is the strongest feeling I've had of wanting to quit or drop Multiplayer altogether.  It makes sense, people don't really deal well with large amounts of issues all at once.   Plus my emotional state is directly coupled with the state or problems in this game!  It's been a roller coaster of incredible highs  and crushing uncertainty at times. 

I learned some valuable lessons and I think I'll be able to avoid putting myself into this kind of scenario again.

That said.   I don't think I could forgive myself if I abandoned multiplayer now.  Through the stress and anxiety I keep fighting and crushing the bugs/issues.  It's gotten a lot more playable now in MP!  There are some issues but I'm confident I'll be able to fix them all with time.  Even if it kills me I'll finish this game ;P

I don't know exactly long it will take me to get Multiplayer to a state where I feel comfortable letting people play it.

I'm still hoping to have it on Steam in 2017.  Although now I'm starting to think it may have a brief period in early access once the remaining MP issues are resolved. This way I could find more issues before release and still be able to finish the remaining cosmetic/audio things that remain.

Thank you for your patience!

Hello!  The good news is I'm on track to release Mage Fort later this year.  The bad news is Summer is officially over and Winter is not far off... bleh.

I haven't made any updates in a bit so I thought I'd try writing about what I've been working on, what is done, and what needs to be finished. 

I've spent the past month or two really hammering out the content of the game.  Before there was just one map.  That's simple to code for!  So I expanded things out and added stuff like Asynchronous loading and a nice loading Screen!  I learned a bunch and feel like my Unity skill leveled up a bit!

I think the most challenging thing with adding more scenes was learning how to manage and work with game objects that persisted through scenes.   Things are working well now and there are several maps (see some here) and a playable lobby that is the hub for starting new games and where new players join into.


I also added a new Title Screen and fixed any bugs with the Menu Stuff.  The Games UI elements now scale nicely to any resolution your computer/device uses.  Just now I'm starting to feel more confident with Unity's UI tools.  Some of their behavior is a little weird but I think I get it now

A big part of the last couple of months has been the idea of achievements, unlocks!

I added an achievement system so now as the players beat levels they'll unlock new mages/towers.  Upon entering the Lobby the unlock gets displayed:

Upgrades/Selling/Destroying:

Towers and walls now both may be sold/destroyed.  Towers may be upgraded for a cost, and there are 3 new strengths of walls to fortify your base with.

The main content of the game is now done.  Major components I need to finalize:

• Final Boss level
• Multiplayer Online debugging
• Balance
• Sound / Music
• Tower Models
  
• Trailer Video
  
• Store Page / Spell Art
  

Thanks for reading!  Please feel free to comment below if you liked this or have questions.

Hi all.  It's been several weeks since my last blog post.  I've been very busy learning Unity3D for this next project!

I don't know the name yet but It's going to be a 1-4 player action co-op in an isometric perspective like above.  The art is largely placeholders as I continue to learn Unity's systems so there may be many changes!

Basic player controls are in.

A basic enemy AI is sort of done (You can see above their AI states changing color from green to yellow to red ) .  The AI uses a state pattern which moves between patrol/seeking/attacking.   I love seeing  them move around and attack on their own although there's still ways to go to make them less dumb!

 A few attack abilities exist.  The core game is planned out now so I will get back to work and will post more updates soon!