Time to get to work - our new stage, Crane releases today! Crane is a brand new stage included in todays 1.25 update. Located on the docks of Beef City, this stage will see players attempting to not fall off a large static Crane. This stage includes the first implementation of our new driveables system, with players being able to jump into the Crane cockpit to take the controls.
Dont stay there too long though - the skies of Beef City are now filled with aggressive birds ready to take you for a quick flight. Survive long enough on Crane and these avian menaces will begin to target you with aerial divebombs to pull you into the skies. The birds are relentless too, so much so that they may even follow you over to another particular stage.
In order to celebrate the successful integration of our feathered friends into the Beef City natural ecosystem, we have also included some new bird Kigurumis as costume pieces. You will be able to dress up as pigeons, bluejays, seagulls and ravens. Weve also included some more safety costume pieces for you whilst youre at work high above the Beef City docks. Update 1.25 also comes with numerous bug fixes and optimisations across all platforms. Please see the changelog below. We are now continuing our work on the next stage for Gang Beasts, which we are expecting to release for all players, when it is ready. We will share more on this stage when we have more information. Thank you for continuing to play Gang Beasts in its tenth year of release. Boneloaf Added content in the 1.25 build:

• New Stage: Crane
• New Escalation: Birds
• New Costumes

• Fixed player targeting breaking in some situations
• Fixed an issue where some thrown objects caused no damage to players
• Fixed an issue where the camera tracked the incorrect Gang in certain circumstances
• Fixed various issues with red door interactions in Waves
• Fixed confetti not appearing after winning in Waves
• Fixed numerous unintended physics interactions
• Added the ability to spawn AI characters with the keyboard
• Fixed an issue causing the Main Menu UI to become unnavigable

• Fixed an issue where the Owl Cap costume piece had unintentionally excessive force when headbutting
• Fixed an issue where the Scientist Hair and Goggles had unintentionally excessive force when headbutting
• Optimised various headpiece costume items to reduce the chance of getting stuck in other objects

• Fixed an issue with players being unable to spawn when playing Waves on Subway
• Fixed Billboard missing section randomisation
• Fixed building texture on Girders
• Fixed a number of exploits found in the Aquarium stage
• Added missing audio assets from some stages
• Removed shadows sometimes randomly appearing on the rock wall on Train

• Fixed an issue where disconnecting a controller caused players to be unable to join online games
• Fixed players inadvertently being able to match with more than 4 players in Waves
• Fixed disconnection message image being displayed as a white box

Gang Beasts Update 1.24 is releasing today for all currently supported platforms. This update is primarily focussed on bug fixes, and there is no new content. The key modification to Gang Beasts in this update is the implementation of a new Interactables System that will allow us to streamline how in-game objects are managed and interacted with in the game engine. This system improves performance by organising interactable objects into optimised lists, therefore making Gang Beasts interacting with the stages faster and more efficient. This change should fix a longstanding issue where Gang Beasts would target the air, instead of the intended target, when too many colliders were in target range. The introduction of this improved Interactables System should help the game feel more responsive and intuitive. It has also been introduced to allow us to experiment with more interesting interactions between new and existing game mechanics, for example the upcoming Birds escalation that will be introduced in our next update. We are now exclusively working on Update 1.25, which will introduce new costumes and a new stage to Gang Beasts - Crane. Here is some gameplay from a recent playtest: [previewyoutube=jFXLDDc4Opc;full][/previewyoutube] See you soon. The key modifications and fixes made in the 1.24 build are: Default

• Fixed an issue where the Space Suit made players invisible
• Fixed an issue with the Long Haul achievement not triggering correctly
• Fixed an issue with the Roast Beef achievement not triggering correctly
• Fixed an issue with player names not showing correctly in game
• Fixed an issue where saved costumes could not be deleted
• Fixed an issue where confetti didnt trigger when blue team won in Football
• Fixed an issue where Player Language settings didnt save
• Fixed an issue with the Camera clipping through some stages
• Fixed numerous backend issues to improve consistency
• Modified the Billboard stage to include an alternative iteration of the Billboard panels than can trigger upon starting a new round
• Optimised the Fez costume piece to be less erratic when grabbed
• Optimised the Rhino Kigu costume to be less erratic when grabbed
• Standardised the ramp weights on Wheel

Gang Beasts patch 1.23 is releasing today for all currently supported platforms.
There are a number of bug fixes in the 1.23 release but no new stages or costumes. The key modification to the game in this build is the implementation of Unitys Addressables Asset System, the adoption of this system standardises and optimises the process for testing and releasing game content. The Addressables implementation is a significant modification to the game and we expect the 1.23 build to trigger some limited stability issues on Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms. The instructions for fixing this issue are: Windows:

• Open File Explorer
• Go to this path replacing 'YourUser' with the users name on the computer you are playing on - C:\Users\YourUser\AppData\LocalLow\Boneloaf\Gang Beasts
• Delete the folder called com.unity.addressables

• Open Finder
• Go to path replacing YourUser with the users name on the mac you are playing on - /Users/YourUser/Library/Application Support/com.Boneloaf.GangBeasts
• Delete the folder called com.unity.addressables

• Open Dolphin
• Go to this path - /home/deck/.config/unity3d/Boneloaf/Gang Beasts/
• Delete the folder called com.unity.addressables

• fixed an issue that could make the Input menu unresponsive
• fixed an issue that could stop the trawler from sinking on the trawler stage
• fixed an issue that left costume parts on screen after a player has left and online game session
• fixed an issue that stopped removed players from respawning in waves
• fixed an issue where AI enemies could spawn without rendering
• fixed an issue with the train geometry spawning above the tracks on the train stage
• fixed some issues that allowed invalid numbers of players in some online game sessions
• fixed some issues that could leave players stuck loading into online game sessions
• fixed an issue that stopped players starting a new Waves session without manipulating the menu settings
• fixed some issues with AI enemies spawning inconsistently
• modified the cephalopod tentacles on the aquarium stage to make the targeting of players more aggressive
• modified the configuration of spawn volumes on the gondola stage
• optimised the length of game loading times with the Addressables Asset System
• standardised the listing of game modes in the mode selection menu

Is It a Crane? (Update 1.21.1)

Posts

1.21.1 (stability)

Other Builds

Crane

• fixed an issue that made the cephalopod tentacles fail to pass the surface of the water on aquarium
• fixed an issue with the sand text on the fish helmet costume part
• fixed an issue with game cameras not blurring when pause menus are invoked
• fixed some issues that stall loading for some online game modes
• fixed an issue that stalls loading for online game modes if moving to a second account on hardware with multiple account support
• fixed an issue that stalls loading for online game modes if an internet connection is not available
• fixed an issue that triggers duplicates of the "2124-3001 Account error" message in some contexts
• fixed an issue that made loading a second stage longer in some game modes
• fixed an error that compromised the remapping of the x/y axis on game controllers
• fixed an error that conflated the pooling systems for the gang and football online game modes
• fixed an issue that made the default game menu fail to show in some contexts
• fixed an issue that made particle systems render erroneously on towers
• fixed some issues that compromise frame rate in some contexts
• added Rocket Science ident to the splash sequence
• removed the Coatsink ident from the splash sequence
• standardised water shaders on trawler
• optimised matchmaking scheme to stabilise online game modes

Gang Beasts patch 1.21 is releasing today for all currently supported platforms! The 1.21 patch addresses a number of miscellaneous issues which will allow us to focus on new content in subsequent updates. The 1.21 build does not include new stages or costumes and is focused on these fixes (see below for more information). A new stage and new costumes will be released soon, once were confident it is ready and subject to it passing quality assurance. The key modifications and fixes made in the 1.21 build:

General

Costumes

Stages

Online

Issues

Boneloaf

Coatsink

Rocket Science

More Beef

It's Quiet...Too Quiet

Escape from Beef City

Pretty in P-618, Schauss Pink

Streets of Beige

Fancy Language, Fancy Dress

Online Health Check Up

Final Cut

Welcome, everyone! You may notice that theres a brand new update to Gang Beasts, and we know its something youve all been waiting for, so we wont keep you in suspense. Trawler has arrived! A brand new stage, filled with a deteriorating fishing trawler in an isolated sea and a whole shiver of sharks. Thats right, the lifeless black eyed creatures themselves will hop aboard and try to take you for a swim.
By deteriorating fishing trawler, we mean the stage will become just that. Survive long enough from either the assaults of your friends or the deadly sea swimmers, and the stage will begin to sink (quite literally). Remember to not let go for as long as you can, we all know what's awaiting in the murky depths.
On top of the deterioration of the stage, youll also have two interactive crane systems with fully functioning mechanical levers to get yourselves familiar with. On top of this, theres a large shark cage suspended from a hook which can be detached, perfect for some accidents involving your friends and the deep blue, right?
And now on to some patch notes for v1.18: Added content: - New stage: Trawler - New costumes: - Sideburns - Lifejacket - Beard - Moustache - Sailor hat and outfit - Shark kigurumi - Deep Sea Diver helmet and outfit - Captain hat and outfit - Fishing gilet and hat - Sailor jumper and beanie - Air Rescue helmet and outfit Graphics update with the move to URP Fixed costumes appearing darker Thats all for now, but head over to our Discord or Twitter channels for more updates and information as they go live. Thanks! Boneloaf.

Released on 16 June and updated on 25 June, 2021

• Known Issue: the XInput toggle in Settings has been temporarily removed. This will return soon! The game will only support a maximum of 4 Xbox controllers locally until this is back, but any other controllers will still support up to 8 players!

• Switched to a new matchmaking system.
• General optimisation pass over various stages, including Wheel, Aquarium and Tower.
• Made a general pass over most stages with eliminated player issues.
• Fixed various infinite loading screen bugs when playing online.
• Loading screen changed to correctly show loading progress.
• Changed online loading system to reduce chances of missing objects when playing online.
• Reduced loading times.
• Fixed issue where objects or players would not load on various levels online.
• Fixed an issue on Train that could make matches incorrectly result in a draw.
• Camera on Wheel no longer goes through the water when a player is sinking.
• Water rendering issue on aquarium fixed.
• Online players are now correctly eliminated on Blimp now, no more infinitely falling.
• Fixed issue where certain Waves AI would not be eliminated correctly and keep the round going.
• Characters no longer jerk upwards when resuming after being paused and resuming.
• Fixed Gondola appearing invisible occasionally.
• Fixed Vents railings moving erratically over time.
• Fixed the fishbowl hat flashing for a frame when being switched too.
• Fixed Wheel lamp posts from being so erratic online.
• Fixed issue where restarting a round from countdown 0 would cause a softlock.
• Updated credits.

If you would like to find people to test the new Matchmaker or to just talk about Gang Beasts, join the community run Discord server here: https://discordapp.com/invite/gXh2HRH

We are aware of the issue with the M1 Macs. They are supported in a later version of Unity and we are going to upgrade our Unity version later in Q2 /Q3. We will have support available for Gang Beasts then.

The Loading Screen Bug

The Elimination Bug

1.16 changes

General

• Fixed the pesky infinite loading screen
• Adjusted the damage reduction timer from 10 seconds to 4
• Fixed server ping checks not properly connecting to Sydney
• Corrected PS4 online age rating check
• Corrected PS4 lobby nameplate UI not showing

All stages

• Increased the size of Elimination Zones to better catch escaping players
• Added an Out of Bounds check that should stop anyone who does manage to escape!

Aquarium

• Optimised the bubble particles
• Fixed bubbles crashing the game (!)
• Added blockers to prevent players from getting stuck in doors
• Moved pool knockout volume up
• Small physics optimisations

Some of you may already know this but the Aquarium Update (build 1.13) has now been released! This update has a new Aquarium stage, an updated Wheel stage that works online, a series of super hero/villain costume sets, and numerous fixes for stages, online, and gameplay issues.

General:

• Updated the game engine to Unity 2020 (from Unity 2017). This was a significant upgrade and although we've fixed a massive amount, there may be a few bugs we haven't caught yet with the transition.
• Unity 2019 dropped support for 32-bit Linux operating systems, as such Gang Beasts can now only support 64-bit Linux operating systems.
• Fixed an issue preventing bloom from working.
• Updated the project to be able to build and test on consoles again.
• Updated graphics settings to fix a few issues with the transition from 2017 to 2020.
• Mac builds now use Metal as its primary graphics API, as such there should be some performance gains for Mac users.
• Fixed some issues involving camera tracking.
• Updated splash and loading screens. This is a temporary measure until we can overhaul the entire UI of the game.
• Completely rebuilt the way we fracture glass. This new system should both look and perform significantly better on all systems.
• Completely rebuilt the way we do buoyancy. This new system should perform significantly better on all systems and allows us to do multiple types of liquid (such as meat paste).

Costumes:

• Bear and Rhino kigurumi no longer make Elevators explode.
• The "Yogscast Charity Drive 2015 DLC" has been added to the game as a default option, this was done as we found far too many people trying to exploit our users on grey markets by trying to charge exorbitant amounts of money for legacy codes. Since the DLC has achieved its purpose of raising money for charity and it has been several years since its release we figured this was the best way to protect our players.
• Added 8 "Supers" costumes to the game for a total of 24 new parts.

Stages (General):

• Rebaked the lighting on all stages to fix legacy lighting issues so shadows should no longer be dark and stages should be more visually appealing now.
• Adjusted any emissive materials across all stages now that bloom works again to look better.
• Updated the visuals of water on Buoy, Containers, and Wheel but there's still more improvements to be made.
• Fixed the objects that didn't interpolate online.

Stages (Aquarium):

• Added a new stage called Aquarium, please don't feed the fish.

Stages (Billboard):

• Adjusted the physics properties of the billboard panels to be more realistic.
• Adjusted the catwalk of the billboard to be flatter and added assistive colliders to help players stay on for longer.

Stages (Blimp):

• Adjusted the physics properties of the balloon section of the blimp to have more grip and assist players' movement over the surface.
• Adjusted the ribbing on the balloon section of the blimp to no longer collide with the players' ball collider, which should help with navigating the blimp.
• Adjusted the blimp to be more affected by player movement.
• Added a wind effect to the blimp to help visualize the movement.

Stages (Buoy):

• Added more ice to the stage.
• Fixed a bug preventing the ice from breaking.
• Broken ice will now melt over time.
• The buoy is now significantly less stable.

Stages (Chutes):

• Adjusted the lights to remove light artifacts from falling sausages.
• Adjusted sausage distribution.
• Adjusted the chute doors to be able to hold more weight and slower to move, this should, hopefully, incentivise players to fight on them more due to the reduced danger.

Stages (Elevators):

• Replaced the glass to use the new fracture system.
• Elevators now escalate consistently.
• Applied a temporary fix for a significant stability issue on Elevators, this fix currently does cause some visual peculiarities when played online but we felt it shouldn't hold back the update.

Stages (Gondola):

• Fixed the grating using the wrong shader, it should look more crisp now.

Stages (Grind):

• Adjusted the lights to improve baked quality.
• Added buoyancy to the meat paste at the front of the stage.

Stages (Incinerator):

• Replaced the glass to use the new fracture system.
• Updated the fire particle system.
• Adjusted the lights to make the stage brighter and fix some lighting artifacts.
• Fixed an issue with boxes and barrels passing through the front wall.

Stages (Lighthouse):

• Replaced the glass to use the new fracture system.
• Updated the background water shader, which is a temporary solution until we upgrade the project to Unity, Universal Render Pipeline (URP).
• Updated the glass materials to prevent a weird lighting issue.
• Adjusted the joints on the Lighthouse to be stronger, so they should no longer break at the slightest touch.

Stages (Ring):

• Adjusted lights and materials to brighten the stage slightly.
• Adjusted the rope height to make it slightly easier to eliminate players.

Stages (Roof):

• Adjusted the joints on the Roof stage to be stronger, so they should no longer break at the slightest touch.
• Lowered the lip of the Roof slightly to make the stage slightly riskier when fighting on the edge.
• Added assistive geometry to help characters navigate.

Stages (Wheel):

• The stage has been completely rebuilt to play better and work online.
• The lights on Wheel now sync to the music.
• Wheel now has better escalations.
• Added a dwell timer to the insides of the wheels burger gondola that will make them fall if players stay there too long.

Stages (Subway):

• Fixed an issue that made the front train push players away instead of pulling players towards it.
• Hopefully fixed the issue that was making some sounds on subway play too loud.

Stages (Trucks):

• Slight adjustments to the materials and textures;
• Added a slight tilt to the trucks when they move to make their movement more apparent;
• Fixed an issue where the trucks would occasionally mount the curb and collide with oncoming signs;
• Reduced an issue where signs could pass through players instead of colliding with them, this is not perfect though and we will continue to try and fix it.

Stages (Towers):

• Added a pink smoke effect rising from the cooling towers.

Stages (Vents):

• Fixed an issue with Vents
• Fixed a significant stability issue on Vents that appeared in the update from 2017 that caused the bridges to instantly collapse.
• Fixed a significant stability issue on Vents that appeared in the update from 2017 where as soon as the main fan activated the stage would explode and characters would find themselves embedded in the walls or ceiling.

Physics:

• Updated some physics settings to take advantage of some of Unity 2020's improvements. This will be an ongoing process to fully take advantage of all the changes. These changes should provide some small performance and stability improvements.
• All physics objects in the game should now interpolate, this should reduce an appearance of lag locally and online.

Character Movement & Combat:

• Fixed a bug that was causing arms to no longer reach when holding grab.
• Adjusted character drag to 1.6 (from 2).
• Increased punch velocity for close targets.
• Adjusted how grab and punch's resolve target vectors for the physics animation, this should significantly improve how often they reach the intended target.
• Fixed a bug that would sometimes make a character float when grabbing something above them with both hands after their stamina drained fully.
• Fixed a bug with kicking that would generate incorrect target vectors for the physics animation.
• Adjusted force and attraction distances when grabbing to help reaching close targets and reduce weird behaviours under certain situations when targets are just out of range
• Added slightly more force to the arms in the stage just before punch and grabs to help reach a better position. This should make punches and grab's more consistent.
• Adjusted targeting to be slightly more weighted to the players input direction.
• Increased the strength of throws slightly
• Slightly increased grip break threshold.
• Added a slight alignment force to the body when climbing, the character should be more likely to face input direction while climbing now.
• Slightly increased self lift strength on characters when climbing. This should make it easier to climb.
• Stamina now always drains when grabbing, even if feet are touching the floor. Most players will not notice any change with this. This is to try and prevent people from getting into exploitable positions where they can hang on forever. Additionally this should help reduce stalemates where someone can hang on to another player indefinitely.
• Fixed a long standing issue with the character that made it difficult to go up slopes greater than 30 degrees. Players should find it significantly easier to go up slopes and stairs now.
• Added the ability to swim for a short period to the character they will gradually sink over time after this.
• Added a temporary diminishing damage reduction when a player revives from a knockout (100% damage reduction on revival reducing to 0% over 10 seconds) to prevent knockout camping.
• Fixed an issue that would prevent players from controlling their movement when lifting themselves, additionally this should now perform better then it did prior to the bug.
• Adjusted arm direction when cheering to be relative to the character's up instead of world up.
• Increased reaction forces of all moves, they should feel more satisfying now.
• Adjusted damage of all moves to better balance them.
• Adjusted damage received when in certain situations or attempting certain attacks to help balance combat.
• Adjusted character collision to hopefully improve stability during combat.
• Added code to dynamically adjust characters collision mode based on context to help reduce likelihood of limbs getting embedded in objects, this helps reduce the frequency of a bug that appeared in the transition to Unity 2020 but more work is needed to fix it completely.
• Fixed a bug that was making the characters hips get stuck in certain geometry since the transition.

Audio:

• Added a new way we manage audio to improve the consistency of sounds across the game.
• Changed all audio to use the new systems and did a pass on every sound in the game to be better balanced and more pleasing to the ear.
• Swapped a menu sound to be less intrusive.
• Added engine noises to Train
• Added engine noises to Trucks
• Added better audio cues to indicate oncoming road signs on Trucks
• Added an audio cue to indicate an oncoming train on Subway

Online:

• Fixed a bug that would mean some scripts would not reset correctly on the second round in an online match.
• Fixed a few bugs with PhysicAudioEmitter not emitting online
• Fixed a long standing bug with knockouts not working as intended online. Locally it would increment by 1 second each time your KO'd to a potential maximum of 20. Online this would always be set to 4. This should significantly improve the feel of combat online.
• Fixed an issue where some physics objects were moved using an incorrect method. This should help improve some stability issues when characters are pushed into strange positions or somehow move faster than usual (such as getting hit by a moving vehicle).
• Fixed a long standing issue preventing boxes on Incinerator from rendering online.
• Fixed a long standing issue preventing the vehicles on Trucks from moving correctly online.
• Several optimisations and fixes to the character system to improve online performance.
• Several optimisations and changes to the way we sync objects online. This should improve online performance and stability.
• Fixed an issue with the join screen that meant player names wouldn't show up.
• Fixed an issue on Elevators that made the hatches start in the wrong position on level load.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Containers mechanics that move the containers from triggering correctly online.

To access and download the beta branch, go to your Steam Library and right click on 'Gang Beasts' to select 'Properties'. From there, navigate to the 'BETAS' tab, then select 'public_testing'. You may need to restart steam before 'public_testing' will show up for you. The patch notes can be found below. General:

• Fixed an issue preventing bloom from working.
• Updated the project to be able to build and test on consoles again.
• Updated graphics settings to fix a few issues with the transition from 2017 to 2019.
• Mac now uses Metal as its primary graphics API, there should be performance gains, but there may also be a few graphical glitches we need to fix.
• Fixed some issues involving camera tracking.
• Fixed the costume editor issue preventing legs from rotating with the body.
• Fixed the objects that didnt interpolate online.

• Rebaked the lighting on all stages to fix legacy lighting issues so shadows should no longer be dark and stages should be more visually appealing now.
• Adjusted bloom across all stages.

• Adjusted the physics properties of the billboard panels to be more realistic;
• Adjusted the catwalk of the billboard to be flatter and added assistive colliders to help players stay on for longer.

• Adjusted the physics properties of the balloon section of the blimp to have more grip and assist players movement over the surface;
• Adjusted the ribbing on the balloon section of the blimp to no longer collide with the players ball collider, which should help with navigating the blimp;
• Adjusted the blimp to be more affected by player movement;
• Added a wind effect to the blimp to help visualize the movement.

• Adjusted the lights to remove light artifacts from falling sausages;
• Adjusted sausage distribution;
• Adjusted the chute doors to be able to hold more weight and slower to move, this should, hopefully, incentivise players to fight on them more due to the reduced danger.

• Replaced the glass to use the new fracture system;
• Elevators now escalate consistently.

• Fixed the grating using the wrong shader, it should look more crisp now.

• Adjusted the lights to improve baked quality.

• Replaced the glass to use the new fracture system;
• Updated the fire particle system;
• Adjusted the lights to make the stage brighter and fix some lighting artifacts;
• Fixed an issue with boxes and barrels passing through the front wall.

• Replaced the glass to use the new fracture system;
• Updated the background water shader, which is a temporary solution until we upgrade the project to Unity, Universal Render Pipeline (URP);
• Updated the glass materials to prevent a weird lighting issue;
• Adjusted the joints on the Lighthouse to be stronger, so they should no longer break at the slightest touch.

• Adjusted lights and materials to brighten the stage slightly;
• Adjusted the rope height to make it slightly easier to eliminate players.

• Adjusted the joints on roof to be stronger, so they should no longer break at the slightest touch.

• Added a delay to the pier escalations to prevent them triggering on stage load;
• Fixed an issue that would usually eliminate an unlucky player on load;
• Adjusted the escalation timings slightly, which will be an ongoing process until were happy with the way the stage is playing;
• Reduced the dwell timers on the burgers.

• Fixed an issue that made the front train push players away instead of pulling players towards it.

• Slight adjustments to the materials and textures;
• Added a slight tilt to the trucks when they move to make their movement more apparent;
• Fixed an issue where the trucks would occasionally mount the curb and collide with oncoming signs;
• Fixed an issue where signs could pass through players instead of colliding with them.

• Added a pink smoke effect rising from the cooling towers.

• Added security cameras to the stage.

• Added a temporary diminishing damage reduction when a player revives from a knockout (100% damage reduction on revival reducing to 0% over 10 seconds) to prevent knockout camping.
• Fixed an issue that would prevent players from controlling their movement when lifting themselves, additionally this should now perform better then it did prior to the bug.
• Added the swimming ability to the character (although this wont be enabled until we add in the new buoyancy in all stages).
• Adjusted arm direction when cheering to be relative to the characters up instead of world up.
• Increased reaction forces of all moves, they should feel more satisfying now.
• Adjusted damage of all moves to better balance them.
• Adjusted damage received when in certain situations or attempting certain attacks to help balance combat.
• Adjusted character collision to hopefully improve stability during combat.
• Added code to dynamically adjust characters collision mode based on context to help reduce likelihood of limbs getting embedded in objects.

• Weve found that, in the upgrade to Unity 2019, the strength of joints that can break are seemingly weak. We have fixed the main issues with this, such as the bridges in Vents collapsing on stage load, but there will likely be some we missed.
• There was an issue that was causing people to disconnect when a stage became too processor intensive (lots of physics). We should hopefully have fixed this, but we will be keeping an eye on the server logs. Please inform us if you see a pattern to any disconnects, e.g. do they usually happen on the same stage and after the same set of actions?
• The guide wheels on Elevators will often desync and move independently of the elevator cars online.
• Occasionally there seems to be a desync on level load that can have some strange effects, such as grey or invisible players, cameras tracking the wrong player, or some physics objects in the wrong position.
• There may be some occasional visual sync issues especially when hats detach. This is entirely visual and is something were working on.
• Theres some unintended side effects to the combat changes that may occasionally manifest itself on waves with larger characters, good luck.
• Joints on Vents are somewhat unstable.
• Nametags are sometimes occluded by geometry.
• There are some occasional issues with players not being updated in parties after a disconnect.
• Theres some odd camera behaviour on waves.
• The wheels motor sound doesnt play correctly on Wheel.
• The ping indicator always shows. This is intentional to help with testing during beta.
• There are some strange effects on Elevators online to do with syncing, this will be fixed in a later beta build.
• We have noticed a few crashes on Mac with the new glass, we hope to have fixed this but its something we will be keeping an eye on.
• We have noticed occasionally eliminated beasts are formed into meatball like shapes and appear in strange locations, this is not intended and we would like players to know this has nothing to do with the meat processing factory in Beef City.

• [PENDING] Update loading screens and game splash

• [PENDING] Standardised all buoyancy in the game to use our new buoyancy system (there was a last minute bug we found with this that made players entering liquids extremely strong).
• [PENDING] Adjust Elevators escalation to trigger more consistently.
• [PENDING] Update Buoy mechanics to escalate.
• [PENDING] Update Chutes mechanics to escalate.
• [PENDING] Add more audio and effects to indicate Wheel escalations.
• [PENDING] Add a better indication to when players will be eliminated on Trains when the carriage detaches.

• [EXPLORE] We plan to explore a potential solution that should reduce the success rate of players who like to walk into hazards while holding you by linking grip strength to stamina, which should make it easier to escape prolonged grabs. If this solution seems effective and doesnt create any other issues, we will try to include it in the next update.

• [PENDING] Fix a long standing issue with ropes that makes their movements look strange online.
• [PENDING] Fix an issue on Elevators where the roller starts in the wrong position on level load.
• [PENDING] Fix an issue on Elevators where the background does not move online when the stage escalates.
• [PENDING] Fix an issue that makes some things fail to sync correctly on load.

FAQ

This is the latest preview version of the next Gang Beasts update, which we would like to do a lot of testing with the community. This was a significant update to the engine as it is a transition from Unity 2017 to Unity 2019. Although weve managed to catch and fix most bugs so far, it is likely that there will still be some more bugs to fix as this beta is a work in progress and does not represent the final update yet. Additionally, Unity 2019 no longer supports 32-bit Linux distributions, therefore Gang Beasts now only supports 64-bit Linux distributions. This does not affect Windows or Mac users. To access and download the beta branch, go to your Steam Library and right click on 'Gang Beasts' to select 'Properties'. From there, navigate to the 'BETAS' tab, then select 'public_testing'. You may need to restart steam before 'public_testing' will show up for you. The patch notes can be found below. General:

• Updated the game engine to Unity 2019 (from Unity 2017). This was a significant upgrade and although weve fixed a massive amount of bugs, there may be a left.
• Unity 2019 dropped support for 32-bit Linux operating systems, as such Gang Beasts can now only support 64-bit Linux operating systems.
• Several fixes and improvements to our internal tools. This will be an ongoing process, but should help us speed up development time and hopefully reduce chances for bugs to creep into the game.

• Updated Wheel to work online.
• The lights on Wheel now sync to the music
• Wheel now has better escalations
• Fixed a bug on Trucks that would make the horns trigger incorrectly
• Fixed the TV antenna on Roof not being connected correctly
• Lowered the lip of Roof slightly to make the stage slightly riskier when fighting on the edge.
• Added assistive geometry to help characters navigate on Roof.
• Updated the visuals of water on Buoy, Containers, and Wheel but theres still more improvements to be made.
• Fixed a significant stability issue on Elevators that appeared in Unity 2019, and if this proves successful we may apply it to other dynamic stages that involve ropes.
• Fixed a significant stability issue on Vents causing the bridges to instantly collapse.
• Fixed a bug on Vents where, as soon as the main fan activated, the stage would explode and characters would find themselves embedded in the walls or ceiling.

• Fixed a bug that was causing arms to no longer reach when holding grab.
• Slightly reduced character drag.
• Increased punch velocity for close targets.
• Adjusted how grab and punch resolve target vectors for the physics animation, this should significantly improve how often they reach the intended target.
• Fixed a bug that would sometimes make a character float when grabbing something above them with both hands after their stamina has fully drained.
• Fixed a bug with kicking that would generate incorrect target vectors for the physics animation.
• Adjusted force and attraction distances when grabbing, this is to help reaching close targets and reduce weird behaviors under certain situations, where targets are just out of range.
• Added slightly more force to the arms in the pose, just before a punch or a grab, in order to help reaching a better start position. This should make punch and grab more consistent.
• Adjusted targeting to be slightly more weighted to the players input direction.
• Slightly increased the strength of throws.
• Slightly increased grip break threshold.
• Added a slight alignment force to the body when climbing, the character should be more likely to face the direction of input while climbing.
• Slightly increased self lift strength on characters when climbing. This should make it easier to climb.
• Stamina now always drains when grabbing, even if the player's feet are touching the floor. Most players will not notice any change with this. This is to try to prevent people from getting into exploitable positions, where they can hang on forever. Additionally this should help reduce stalemates where someone can hang on to another player indefinitely.
• Fixed a long standing issue with the character system that made it difficult to go up slopes greater than 30 degrees. Players should find it significantly easier to go up slopes and stairs now.
• Fixed a bug that was making the characters hands often get stuck in geometry since the transition to Unity 2019.

• Added a new way we manage audio to improve the consistency of sounds across the game.
• Changed all audio to use the new system and did a pass on every sound in the game to be better balanced and more pleasing to the ear.
• Swapped a menu sound to be less intrusive.
• Added engine noises to Train.
• Added engine noises to Trucks.
• Added better audio cues to indicate oncoming road signs on Trucks.
• Fixed a bug where road signs would trigger impact audio incorrectly.
• Added an audio cue to indicate an oncoming train on Subway.

• Updated the ping readout to be more consistent and always show.
• Fixed a bug that would mean some scripts would not reset correctly on the second round in an online match.
• Fixed a few bugs with PhysicAudioEmitter not emitting online.
• Fixed a long standing bug where knockouts were not working as intended online. Locally, it would increment by 1 second each time you're KOd to a potential maximum of 20. When playing Online this would always be incorrectly set to 4. This should significantly improve the feel of combat online.
• Fixed an issue where some physics objects were moved using an incorrect method. This should help improve some stability issues, such as when characters are pushed into strange positions or somehow move faster than usual (such as getting hit by a moving vehicle).
• Fixed a long standing issue preventing boxes on Incinerator from rendering online.
• Fixed a long standing issue preventing the vehicles on Trucks from moving correctly online.
• Several optimisations and fixes to the character system to improve online performance.
• Several optimisations and changes to the way we sync objects online, which should improve online performance and stability.
• Fixed an issue with the join screen that meant player names wouldnt show up.
• Fixed an issue on Elevators that made the hatches start in the wrong position when the level loaded.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Containers mechanics that move the containers from triggering correctly online.

• Weve found that in the upgrade to Unity 2019 the strength of breakable joints are seemingly weak. We have fixed most breakable joints, such as the bridges in Vents collapsing on stage load, but there will likely be some we missed.
• There was an issue that was causing people to disconnect when a stage became too processor intensive (lots of physics). We should hopefully have fixed this, but will be keeping an eye on the server logs. Please inform us if you see a pattern to any disconnects, e.g. do they usually happen on the same stage?
• The guide wheels on Elevators stage will often desync and move independently of the elevator cars online.
• Occasionally there seems to be an occasional desync on level load that can have some strange effects, such as grey or invisible players, camera tracking the wrong player, or some physics objects in the wrong position.
• There may be some occasional visual sync issues online, especially when hats detach. This is entirely visual and is something were working on.
• Theres some unintended side effects to the combat changes that may occasionally manifest itself on waves with larger characters. Good luck! ;)
• The costume editor has a slight issue where the chest doesnt rotate with the body.
• Lower buns of the burgers, on the Wheel stage, have a bit of jitter when interacting with them online. This is entirely visual and doesn't affect gameplay.
• The sound on the Subway stage plays louder than intended.
• Joints on Vents are somewhat unstable, this will be fixed in a later update.
• Name tags are sometimes occluded by geometry.
• Some objects don't interpolate online.
• There are some occasional issues with players not being updated in parties after a disconnect.
• Theres some odd camera behavior on waves.
• The Wheel stage motor sound doesnt play correctly.
• The ping indicator always shows. This is intentional to help with testing during beta.
• Some parts of the Gondola stage break off on load.

• [PENDING] Update loading screens and game splash.

• [ADDED] Standardise all breakable glass in the game to use our new fracture system.
• [ADDED] Standardise all buoyancy in the game to use our new buoyancy system.
• [ADDED] Re-bake all stages and make several small graphical improvements that should hopefully fix lighting issues some players have reported.
• [PENDING] Adjust Elevators escalation to trigger more consistently.
• [PENDING] Update Buoys visuals slightly.
• [PENDING] Update Buoys mechanics to escalate.
• [PENDING] Update Chutes mechanics to escalate.

• [ADDED] Add the ability to swim for a short time to the character system.

• [PENDING] Fix a long standing issue with ropes that make their movements look strange online.
• [PENDING] Fix an issue on Elevators where the rollers would start in the wrong position on level load.
• [PENDING] Fix an issue on Elevators where the background would not move online when the stage escalates.
• [PENDING] Fix an issue that makes some things fail to sync correctly on load.

Hey everyone! So, we wanted to let you know whats going on here at Boneloaf. We have some information regarding Double Fine and us, and when the next Gang Beasts update is coming. As some of you know, Boneloaf has been working with Double Fine Presents for some time. Theyve given us advice, theyve given us splendiferous support, and most importantly, theyve become friends and mentors to us. We love Double Fine and they have been really fantastic to us. What Tim and his company built is pretty wonderful, but with Double Fine Presents winding down due to Double Fine's acquisition by Xbox Game Studios last year, we think it is a good time for Boneloaf to stand on its own... legs and publish Gang Beasts ourselves. Anyway, thats the news about Boneloaf and Double Fine. What about Gang Beasts? Currently we're testing build 1.13, the next release. Build 1.13 is made with Unity 2019.3 and includes a modified version of the wheel stage with support for online game modes and a series of optimisations and fixes for UI, audio, costumes, gameplay, and achievements. We plan to make this build available for testing as a Steam beta next month. The 1.13 build will be released for supported platforms (Steam, Humble Bundle, PS4, Xbox One, and Oculus Rift and Oculus Rift S) when testing ends. We are also working on new stages and costumes, more information coming soon. Thank you for supporting Gang Beasts, stay Safe and Keep on Truckin \\o/ Boneloaf

The 1.0.11/1.011 builds have a number of fixes that give parity between public builds for currently supported platforms and a number of gameplay, costume, UI, online, and input fixes. Please see Gang Beasts FAQ page or email support@boneloaf.co if you have specific feedback on this build or other questions about the game. The list of key modifications and fixes made in the 1.0.11/1.011 builds are:

• added a player list to the online pause menu
• added build numbering to the settings menu (to help with support issues)
• fixed an audio issue that stopped the puddle drip SFX from playing back
• fixed an issue that allowed dropkicks to be exploited
• fixed an issue that allowed goals to be scored when the game has ended in the football game mode
• fixed an issue that could attribute "Big Head" and "Drop Kick" achievements to the wrong character
• fixed an issue that could make the game unresponsive if a user disconnected when starting an online game session
• fixed an issue that sent players to the online menu screen if the input for back is pressed multiple times when an online game session is loading
• fixed an issue that still showed characters that have left an online game session on the session hosts online menu screen
• fixed an issue that stopped the Ground Floor' achievement from unlocking in online game sessions
• fixed an issue where AI characters could unlock the "Safety warning" achievement
• fixed an issue where characters could be removed outside stage geometry when grabbing falling meat on chutes
• fixed an issue where players are kicked from online game sessions if the associated game controller is disconnected when joining servers
• fixed an issue where the input label text for the gang and colour parameters now showing as expected for online game session clients
• fixed an issue with controller disconnection messages conflicting with server disconnection messages
• fixed an issue with objects/props sticking on puddles on "subway"
• fixed an issue with some audio setting not being modified by user settings
• fixed an issue with the "Ground Floor" achievement unlocking in error (achievement should no unlock if the character is in a concussion or fall state)
• fixed an issue with the game credits sequence not scrolling from the start of the credit roll
• fixed an issue with the game score screen not showing in some contexts
• fixed an issue with the game score screen reordering the current game statistics on screen
• fixed an issue with UI information conflicting with disconnection messages
• fixed multiple issues with costume parts not rendering as expected
• fixed numerous issues with costume geometry
• fixed syncing issues with some parts
• modified "elevator" to stabilise elevator cables when broken
• modified audio settings to make them fade in after the attract mode screen
• modified audio settings to make them fade in after the attract mode screen
• modified costume system geometry and database to support more combinations of costume parts
• modified football to use a golden ball if the game enters extra time
• modified the implementations for triggering the "Big Head", "Drop Kick", and "Self Storage" to limit the potential for accidental unlocks
• modified the local game session screen to force characters into the set/join state (to stop late costume, colour, or gang/team modifications)
• modified the maximum concussion length
• modified the parameters for kicking inactive players to not kick absent players in private online game sessions
• modified the public kick timer window from 30 to 60 seconds
• modified the rendering of usernames for offscreen characters
• modified the stage loading sequence to avoid exposing characters to the game camera before their costumes/colours are set
• modified UI button references to not show in contexts where not needed
• modified UK and US text label localisations for the ambient sound parameter from "Ambiance" to "Ambience"
• modified waves mode to support the re-spawning of eliminated players between waves
• optimised loading times for some contexts
• removed the score screen from the "football" game mode
• updated the input system to Rewired 1.1.19.6

We have been working to address a series of issues with the character costume system (the system that builds and renders character and costume geometry), the 1.0.8 build (released with this post) includes fixes for the bull mascot costume and other complex costume parts that have compromised gameplay in recent builds. The 1.0.8 build also addresses issues Russian players have had connecting to online sessions without a VPN. Please see Gang Beasts FAQ page or email support@boneloaf.co if you have specific feedback on this build or questions about the game. The list of key modifications and fixes made in the 1.0.8 build are:

• added a confirmation screen that shows if input settings are modified
• fixed a graphical issue that showed as a flickering at the front of the incinerator stage
• fixed an issue where characters could sink into stairs on the towers stage
• fixed an issue with the satellite dish supports on the roof stage
• fixed issue where character geometry could pass though the fence on the alley stage
• modified English language translation for left grab to left punch (to standardise with other languages)
• modified font used for UI button references (for legibility)
• modified geometry for a number of costume parts (for stability)
• modified IP addresses used by the game session matchmaker from addresses block by Roskomnadzor/Federal Service for Supervision of Communication in Russia
• modified opening logo sequence to support skipping of current logo
• modified the bull mascot head to balance with other costumes
• modified scheme for unlocking the Safety Warning trophy
• modified the long hair part to standardise with other costume parts
• modified the camera tracking trigger volume on the containers stage to stop the camera from moving below the water
• modified the costume customisation UI to only show currently available inputs
• removed obstructions to the camera on the chutes stage
• replaced baked lighting to fix issues with the arena stairs on the ring stage

We published the Gang Beasts 1.0.7 patch build in the last hour to address an issue with the Bull Mascot costume, we're also remaking our costume testing and debug processes to minimise and limit the scope for potential costume inconsistencies in subsequent builds. If there are other issues that you want to flag with Boneloaf, please email support@boneloaf.co. The only modification made in the 1.0.7 build is:

• modified the bull mascot head to balance with other costumes

The list of key modifications and fixes made in the 1.0.6 build are:

• fixed a series of audio issues that stop music and SFX sources from playing in some contexts
• fixed a series of online syncing issues that could compromise the stability of the physics simulations on numerous stages and some costume parts
• fixed an issue that calculated the forces from headbutts and punches concurrently
• modified the draw window to load the next stage in the stage sequence if the stage ends in a draw

Information on Gang Beasts Train Update

Information on support and planned content

The list of key modifications and fixes made in the Train build are:

• added multiple costume sets (beef mascot, fire fighter, frogman, pirate, and rail worker)
• added train stage
• fixed a camera stability issue when characters climb specific wall sections on the incinerator stage
• fixed an issue making some ambient game SFX audible with the pause menu invoked
• fixed an issue making the velocity of the subway train dissimilar in online game modes to local game modes (on the subway stage)
• fixed an issue making the velocity of the turbine column dissimilar in online game modes to local game modes (on the vents stage)
• fixed an issue that exposed the restart instruction in the pause menu for some game modes in error
• fixed an issue that made jumping from a climbing posture fail to register in some contexts
• fixed an issue that made the velocity of vertical wall jumps excessive in some contexts
• fixed an issue when exiting from the local game menu in some contexts
• fixed an issue with ambient occlusion on Nvidia GPUs
• fixed an issue with character colour selection in local game modes
• fixed an issue with the blur filter when invoking the pause menu from the score screen
• fixed an issue with the costume parts tinting in error on the character customisation screen
• fixed an issue with the implementation of the bridge structure collapse on the vents stage
• fixed an issue with the syncing of light fixtures on the subway stage
• modified climbing scheme to limit scope for wall exploits
• modified collision detection performance
• modified concussion timings
• modified game camera to track ball movement in the football game mode
• modified input references to support mouse input (press the left mouse button with the mouse cursor over a specific input reference to invoke the associated instruction)
• modified menu implementation to apply image effect settings on the attract mode screen
• modified menu implementation to explicitly lock input and disable UI SFX on loading and interstitial screens
• modified online networking scheme to prevent exploits in online game modes
• modified targeting hierarchies to target susceptible body parts when punching, kicking, butting, and grabbing
• modified the costume saving implementation
• modified triggers for contextual and random character emotes
• optimised and stabilised miscellaneous costume parts and stage geometry

The full list of key modifications and fixes made in the Valentines’ build are:

• fixed an issue that made costumes draw irregularly (when scrolling through multiple custom costumes in succession
• added a button reference / instruction for setting character or gang controller in online and local game menus
• added haptic feedback support (compatible controllers trigger force feedback when taking punches, kicks, headbutts, and other blunt force injuries or when grip stamina is close to spent
• added lighthouse stage
• added support for restarting the current local game from the in-game pause menu (restarting from the pause menu in a random game session with load a new stage, not the current stage)
• added Valentine’s themed costume parts
• fixed an issue that could force UI text and other information off screening some context
• fixed an issue that could make the wrong networking message show in error in some contexts
• fixed an issue that erroneously rendered sections of the exterior negative space on incinerator as white
• fixed an issue that erroneously set the menu context to the costumes menu if the game start timer is cancelled and the back instruction is submitted from the local or online menu
• fixed an issue that made the game stall or exit if a client running on an Ubuntu OS is in the game session
• fixed an issue that malformed the rendering of the disconnection error character graphic
• fixed an issue that prematurely exposed menu input from the opening logo screens
• fixed an issue that stopped the selection of head costume parts in some contexts on the costumes menu
• fixed an issue that triggered the associated character to headbutt when the input for duck / slump is used to exit from the in-game pause menu
• fixed an issue where members of the same gang can be separated in error in the gang game mode
• fixed an issue with football game scores incrementing when the ball collides with a goal (if the game ended in a draw)
• fixed an issue with SFX samples triggered on the last stage persisting to the menu when a game session ends)
• fixed an issue with the balloon screen showing rows for players not in the current game session in some contexts)
• fixed an issue with the decrementing numbers starting on a low value (in the local and online game menus)
• fixed an issue with the fire implementation on incinerator rendering over in-game messaging
• fixed an issue with the railing colliders not syncing erroneously on chutes
• fixed an issue with UI information for the current menu or screen failing to dismiss when transitioning to a new menu or screen
• fixed online syncing issues with some costume parts
• modified balloon screen to give more contextual information (balloons won in past stages fade onto screen concurrently with the screen blur transition, balloons won on the current stage inflate in place)
• modified football UI size for legibility to standardise with other UI sizes
• modified menu camera parameters, menu UI, and transition timings to make standardise immediacy of menu transitions
• modified messaging colours to standardise in-game messaging
• modified session win confetti to pass through character and stage geometry
• modified the character colour palette to support 12 colours (blue, brown, green, lime, magenta, orange, pink, purple, tan, teal, and yellow)
• modified the football game mode to add a golden goal mode if the game timer ends without a winning side
• modified the glass implementation on elevators to optimise for concurrent glass breaks
• modified the local and online menus to disable costume and colour selection when a game session request has been submitted to the game session matching service
• modified the number of voice sets associated with NPC enemies on waves (to standardise voice sets for NPC enemies
• modified the tolerances for left analogue stick input on menus to improve menu item selection
• removed modal from input mapping menu to standardise menus

The full list of key modifications and fixes made in the Valentines build are:

• fixed an issue that made costumes draw irregularly (when scrolling through multiple custom costumes in succession
• added a button reference / instruction for setting character or gang controller in online and local game menus
• added haptic feedback support (compatible controllers trigger force feedback when taking punches, kicks, headbutts, and other blunt force injuries or when grip stamina is close to spent
• added lighthouse stage
• added support for restarting the current local game from the in-game pause menu (restarting from the pause menu in a random game session with load a new stage, not the current stage)
• added Valentines themed costume parts
• fixed an issue that could force UI text and other information off screening some context
• fixed an issue that could make the wrong networking message show in error in some contexts
• fixed an issue that erroneously rendered sections of the exterior negative space on incinerator as white
• fixed an issue that erroneously set the menu context to the costumes menu if the game start timer is cancelled and the back instruction is submitted from the local or online menu
• fixed an issue that made the game stall or exit if a client running on an Ubuntu OS is in the game session
• fixed an issue that malformed the rendering of the disconnection error character graphic
• fixed an issue that prematurely exposed menu input from the opening logo screens
• fixed an issue that stopped the selection of head costume parts in some contexts on the costumes menu
• fixed an issue that triggered the associated character to headbutt when the input for duck / slump is used to exit from the in-game pause menu
• fixed an issue where members of the same gang can be separated in error in the gang game mode
• fixed an issue with football game scores incrementing when the ball collides with a goal (if the game ended in a draw)
• fixed an issue with SFX samples triggered on the last stage persisting to the menu when a game session ends)
• fixed an issue with the balloon screen showing rows for players not in the current game session in some contexts)
• fixed an issue with the decrementing numbers starting on a low value (in the local and online game menus)
• fixed an issue with the fire implementation on incinerator rendering over in-game messaging
• fixed an issue with the railing colliders not syncing erroneously on chutes
• fixed an issue with UI information for the current menu or screen failing to dismiss when transitioning to a new menu or screen
• fixed online syncing issues with some costume parts
• modified balloon screen to give more contextual information (balloons won in past stages fade onto screen concurrently with the screen blur transition, balloons won on the current stage inflate in place)
• modified football UI size for legibility to standardise with other UI sizes
• modified menu camera parameters, menu UI, and transition timings to make standardise immediacy of menu transitions
• modified messaging colours to standardise in-game messaging
• modified session win confetti to pass through character and stage geometry
• modified the character colour palette to support 12 colours (blue, brown, green, lime, magenta, orange, pink, purple, tan, teal, and yellow)
• modified the football game mode to add a golden goal mode if the game timer ends without a winning side
• modified the glass implementation on elevators to optimise for concurrent glass breaks
• modified the local and online menus to disable costume and colour selection when a game session request has been submitted to the game session matching service
• modified the number of voice sets associated with NPC enemies on waves (to standardise voice sets for NPC enemies
• modified the tolerances for left analogue stick input on menus to improve menu item selection
• removed modal from input mapping menu to standardise menus

Gang Beasts is Now Available on Steam and is 20% off!*

After a successful Early Access, Gang Beasts is now fully released! Gang Beasts is a silly multiplayer party game with surly gelatinous characters, brutal slapstick fight sequences, and absurd hazardous environments, set in the mean streets of Beef City.

*Offer ends December 19 at 10AM Pacific Time

We have written this post to summarise current and recent development work and to give more information on launch content for the game as we are still a number of weeks from publishing the next Steam build.
We plan to start testing the next build (build 0.7.0) from next week and have scheduled support from Babel, Coatsink, and Double Fine to help with the identification, documentation, and fixing of a small number of persisting issues preventing the release of the next Steam build (and to facilitate and optimise testing cycles). The 0.7.0 build has a glut of fixes and modifications made to optimise, standardise, and refine gameplay, menus, messaging, networking, matchmaking, menus and other UI, interstitial game screens (hint screens, loading screens, and score screens etc.), the following is a summary of key game content modifications in the coming 0.7.0 beta build with information on the work left to finish before the full launch of the game.
Online The minimum limit for private online sessions was set at 4 players for testing when support for private online sessions was published in late September (concurrently with the move to Multiplay's server architecture), a limited number of issues surfaced with the matchmaking process during the Steam Free Weekend stress test and also in October but Coatsink have been aggressively addressing these issues and we expect to lower the minimum concurrent player limit for private sessions from a minimum of 4 to a minimum of 2 in the 0.7.0 beta build. We expect to talk with Double Fine, Coatsink, Multiplay, and other partners later this month to make a full review of current server provision and capacity, please email support@boneloaf.co if you frequently have issues connecting to online servers in the 0.7.0 beta build (for reference support for private online sessions replaced the private server tool in September as the private server tool is not compatible with current client builds, support for the private server tool will be reviewed later this year).
Localisation The game has been localised for 7 languages, the supported languages in the full release build are Brazilian Portuguese, English (UK), US English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, (the UK English and US English localisations share most strings) with a small number exceptions that we expect to have localisations for soon, support for other languages will be added post launch. For reference we currently expect localisation support to be the 0.7.0 beta build and we will post information on other planned localisations to the FAQ section of the gangbeasts.game site as we confirm support. Input We're currently working on localisations for input references (for keyboard, mouse, and officially supported game controllers) but still need to standardise the UI for input mapping sequences with the rest of the game. The lack of support for mapping mouse button inputs is a temporary issue and we current expect this to be fixed in the next 0.7.0 beta build. For reference support for VR touch controls is planned to come with full VR support next year. Climbing We have made multiple passes on the climbing implementation and supporting geometry to make climbing less difficult and more immediate in recent builds in preparation for a last pass on stages to add specific support for complex structures (examples of complex structures are the small billboard structures on roof, the buoy structure on buoy, the truck body work on trucks, and the turbine on vents), for reference some section of complex will have a lower targeting priority than expected until this work is finished.
Spawning We need to set explicit spawn patterns for game mode configurations to balance gameplay and modify patterns to fit the selected game logic, specifically we need to implement set spawn patterns, for example gangs spawn patterns need to be on opposing sides of the selected stage (in 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, or 4 vs 4 gang mode games). Stages We have finished work on the geometry for launch stages (excluding a small number of superficial modifications and props), stages identified as launch stages have had passes to optimise performance, standardise colour schemes, and address gameplay issues, the stages with significant modifications made to geometry are billboard (new billboard sign and catwalk structure), chutes (lowered catwalk and modified pipe works), grind (new meat slurry implementation, new pipework, new articulated grinder implementation, and new catwalk), subway (new scene with modified hanging lights, staircase, prop, and platform geometry) and trucks (new truck geometry and some minor cosmetic modifications).
Camera We have transitioned to Cinemachine procedural camera framework and are currently working to improve support for user modification of the single player camera, group tracking, geometry clipping, camera bias, lerping, and dampening etc. but are seeing significant improvements over the previous camera system. We are also working to standardise the presentation of player information and the post stack implementation (specifically the default parameters for graphics setting). For reference the issues with settings and resetting inputs, graphics, and other menu settings is being addressed and is expected to be fixed in the 0.7.0 build. Modes We are working on minimising the steps and time it takes to configure and start game modes and game sessions, and on exposing more support for game mode customisation, we are also experimenting with a longer window for identifying draw states. We are also working on making character, costume, and gang / team selection less confusing in the game mode configurations screens.
Costumes We have been working on exposing more costume customisation parts and the UI and flow of the costume customisation screen, we have also been working to fix physics stability issues and gameplay exploits associated with specific costume parts. We have also exposed an additional four character colours and made multiple passes to improve colour and colour tints (and minimise clashes with the colours for non-character geometry). Thank you Thank you for staying with us we push to get to the full launch of the game, we're working on some fun holiday content for next month, and are excited that the full game will be out soon. If you have questions, please comment on this post or Tweet @boneloaf. We plan to make a post with information on testing for the 0.7.0 build later this month with any additional information we can give on the next builds and full release content.

Update at 3:20 BST on Thursday 21 September Coatsink have identified the issue as a deadlock in one of the client threads when it receives a high volume of requests; the issue has been isolated to an authentication process. The matchmaker is available currently but it will continue to ignore some request until Coatsink can finishing patching in the morning (the time in the UK is approx. 3.20am), apologies for the interruption, this is an issue we didn't identify in internal testing or testing in the "unstable" build as we could not manufacture the volume of concurrent users. We will post an update to this post as soon as we have an estimated time for the second stress test (we currently expect the second stress test to require downloading a new client build, Steam should prompt you to download when this build is available). Update at 23:30 BST on Thursday 21 September Coatsink have identified a single issue to fix before we can push the matchmaking update, we will post more information soon. Update at 20:25 BST on Thursday 21 September Coatsink have temporarily taken the matchmaking server offline to patch some issues identified in the first batch of tests, will post an ETA for when they are back online soon. Patch notes for the Gang Beasts 0.6.1 beta build and Steam Free Weekend Since the Gang Beasts online beta in August 2016, Boneloaf have been working with a small team at Coatsink to finish the content and systems for the full game, a significant part of this work has been to transition to Multiplay’s dedicated game hosting solution and Hybrid Cloud Orchestration technology to give official Gang Beasts servers a scalable, low-latency, managed hosting platform maintained by a specialist team of game server experts.
We have published the Gang Beasts 0.6.1 Early Access beta to Steam in the last hour and have made the game temporarily free on Early Access as a Steam Free Weekend game from 10am PDT / 6pm BST on Thursday 21 September to 1pm PDT / 9pm BST on Sunday 24 September to stress test the new server architecture and networking scheme and support for private sessions on official servers. Please see the post at beef.city/060 for information and a changlog listing the key modifications and fixes in the 0.6.0 unstable build. For more information on Multiplay please see the Press press release at beef.city/multiplay For reference we expect to have some inconsistencies with server availability and stability in the next hours as we transition to Multiplay's servers and scale server capacity.

Since the last Gang Beasts build was published in July we have been working with Coatsink to migrate the official Gang Beasts servers to a scalable low latency hosting solution, we have also made a series of significant optimisations and modifications to progress the performance and stability of the matchmaking , UI, and character systems. We have been testing potential 0.6.0 builds with Coatsink, Double Fine, and support from a QA team at Babel since the start of September, the matchmaking system, new server architecture, networking scheme, and costume fixes are at a stage where we need to test at scale to identify issues that are difficult to find when testing in the office.
Currently we are working on standardising the optimised UI, localisations for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese (support for other languages is planned), costume fixes, post processing, achievements, a modified implementation of the current camera system (built on Unity Cinemachine procedural camera system), and additional game modes (the 0.6.0 unstable build has the first public implementation of the local gang game mode, the gang mode is not supported online currently). The 0.6.0 build as an unstable beta with this post for testing and patching before it can replace the current default Steam build (build 0.5.7a), to test the 0.6.0 build right-click on the game name on the Steam library page and select 'Properties' from the dialogue window that opens, from this window select the 'BETAS' tab then the "unstable" option from the dropdown menu (the menu labelled 'Select the beta you would like to opt into:’). Please note the 0.6.0 unstable build has been explicitly made for stress testing servers and only has support for the melee (local and online) and gang game modes (local only) and has some UI settings and other content disabled. We are testing stage wins in preference to stage rounds in the 0.6.0, the implementation is similar to the previous implementation but a new stage is loaded after each stage win (currently the win parameter is set to 2 wins for public online games and limited to 1-4 wins in local and private online games. The key modifications and fixes made in the 0.6.0 unstable Early Access beta build are:

• added a force that applies when releasing grabbed characters and objects (the force is applied in the same velocity vector as the released character or object (making throws more forceful)
• added an limited input deadzone to mouse input (to ignore small mouse movements and minimise conflicts with other input sources)
• added contextual support scripts to dynamic objects to improve stability, and character and object interactions (dragging, lifting, hanging etc.)
• configured stages to use the modified targeting system (significantly lowering the number of hidden colliders in each scene)
• fixed an exploit where devices with support for rapid-fire buttons gamed the concussion system
• fixed an issue that erratically applied movement forces when jumping from climbing states
• fixed an issue where the grab system could fail to reset temporary joints in some contexts
• fixed an issue with character sliding movement that could lock the character in an endless sliding state in some contexts
• fixed an issue with concussion length scaling
• fixed an issue with force and direction calculations (to make glancing blows less frequent and increase the number of successful blows)
• fixed an issue with the character system that gave NaN and INF errors (triggering a fatal exception)
• modified force parameters for the character support geometry increased physics stability
• modified inertia tensor properties for character body parts to stabilise character on character interactions (and other interactions)
• modified physics calculations for damage to account for optimisations to the character movement system
• modified score sequence to render on stage end with background blurring (currently implementation disables input soon after the win state is met, this will be reviewed in a coming build)
• modified secondary character moves (diving headbutts, dropkicks, and sliding kicks) to carry more damage, failing to land a more forceful move can concuss the assailant temporarily
• modified the character costume colour cycle sequence from yellow, green, blue, red etc. to red, blue, green, yellow etc.
• modified the character movement system to optimise performance and standardise mass, drag, and force parameters
• modified the character systems to remove tags use and string comparisons (to reduce the number of game object in scenes and improve scene loading times)
• modified the characters arms configurations to minimise contexts where arms can get stuck behind characters heads
• modified the hoisting implementation for climbing to inherit the direction of character movement
• modified the pause menu to limit input to the device the menu is invoked from
• modified ropes on the ring stage to stabilise interactions with characters and objects
• modified the targeting system to remove the need for assistive geometry and set hierarchical priorities for body parts, objects and surfaces (assistive geometry is still used for specific contexts)

• camera rotation in game menus can over rotate in some contexts
• message strings can clip stage and character geometry
• parameters for rope break tolerances need modifying to make breaking less difficult
• escalation patterns for some stage need modifying to improve gameplay

In the hours immediately following the distribution of the 0.5.7 Gang Beasts Early Access build (publish on Thursday 29 June) we identified some performance issues on the Gang Beasts public servers, these issues escalated on over the subsequent days on populated servers triggering administration scripts to force server instances to restart and abruptly end game sessions on servers with the issue (the administration scripts are necessary to stop servers from terminally failing). On Monday 3 July at approx 8pm BST we made the decision to take down the servers to address and patch for stability issues (and some matchmaking and connection issues) and have subsequently made multiple tests with a series of client and server builds. We have publicised the 0.5.7p1 build concurrently with this post and have provisions number of public servers at for testing. Sorry for the protracted unavailability of public servers this week, together with Coatsink we have tried to maintain a high level of availability for public servers for the Early Access community by aggressively patching servers but were unfortunately not able to avoid taking public servers offline in this instance. Other Information For reference the key issue compromising the headless Linux server builds (that run on AWS architecture) was a severe memory leak that made disconnections, stage loading failures, and other stability issues more frequent until server administration scripts triggered the server to restart. We were not able to reproduce the memory leak in testing before publishing the 0.5.7 Early Access build and the associated public server builds last Monday (the issue was only identified when public servers were populated with a high volume of concurrent players). For reference the 0.5.7p1 builds is a separate branch to the coming 0.5.8 build and has no modifications from the 0.5.7 Early Access build (other than being built from Unity 0.5.6p1 not 5.6.2f1 and having online support for the incinerator stage temporarily disabled for this build).

In June we have continued working with Coatsink to address performance and stability issues and other annoyances, part of this work can be tested in the 0.5.7 Early Access build and associated server configurations (published with this post). The key patches and optimisations in the 0.5.7 build are specific fixes for the character distortion and freezing glitches introduced in the transition to Unity 5.6 (and other physics stability issues), a significant decreases in CPU use, numerous networking and matchmaking stability fixes, and reduced build sizes.
Other work included in the 0.5.7 build includes modified and optimised city geometry for the background of exterior stages (only in the blimp and girders stages currently), modified and optimised geometry for the girders, incinerator, and wheel stages, Rick and Morty character costumes and multiple new character costume parts [1], large enemy AI body types for enemy AI (in the current waves stages), an improved AI for the waves game mode (AI aggression and throwing still need additional work but can be tested in the grind and incinerator stages), and a modified colour tinting system to support more variation for costume customisations. https://youtu.be/2T26tXGRhCY
Other work that is partially exposed in the 0.5.7 build includes the implementation of a custom atlasing system for scene optimisation (this is the last stage in the stage optimisation workflow, only the gondola and wheel stages use this system in the 0.5.7 build but the other stages are being moved to the atlas system currently), a custom buoyancy system (only exposed on the wheel stage in the 0.5.7 build for testing but will be moved to the other stages that have water or meat paste volumes when the current buoyancy parameters have been modified and standardised). Other work not exposed in the 0.5.7 build includes modified and optimised geometry for the alley, grind, towers, and roof stages, optimisations to the character and prop physics implementations to significantly lower the frequency of physics calculations made per frame and stabilise collisions. https://youtu.be/RuIpfufwZEM 14 of the 16 public stages support online in 0.5.7 build, the key priorities for July are to execute the current QA schedule, finish the last modifications and optimisations and add online support for the chutes and towers stages, finish the last modifications and optimisations for the alley and roof stages, make a last pass to standardise character, prop physics optimisations and climbing, fixes and improvements to matchmaking, game modes, UI, localisations, and post processing. The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.7 Early Access beta build are:

• added modified and optimised city geometry to the blimp and girders stages
• added 17 new costume customisation parts and cat, panda, penguin, and rhinoceros kigurumi costumes
• added food production worker 1, food production worker 2, boiler suit, and security guard costume presets for enemy AI on the grind and incinerator stages
• added large character body types for enemy AI in waves mode
• added modified and optimised geometry for the girders stage (with local and online support)
• added modified and optimised geometry for the incinerator (with local and online support)
• added modified and optimised geometry for the wheel stage (with local and online support)
• added multiple stage escalations to the wheel stage
• fixed a significant physics issue that made character geometry distort and freeze
• fixed an issue that stops clients from joining servers if they had previously disconnected from a server in the same game session
• fixed an issue where characters could pass into the grinders on the grind stage without entering the concussive state
• fixed an issue with trains SFX ignoring the game SFX volume settings
• modified and optimised city geometry to blimp and girders stage
• modified concussion SFX to only trigger if characters are subjected to a concussive blow (concussion SFX should not trigger for falling and sinking hazards)
• modified the colour system to support tinting (to support costume customisations variations)
• modified gondola and wheel stages to use a custom atlasing system for performance (this work is the last batch of planned optimisations for the stage geometry)
• modified server configuration to automatically restart less frequently (restarts is necessary for clearing memory)
• modified some trigger volume tests to optimise performance and make detect specific character interactions and events (for the achievement implementation)
• modified the climbing implementations for online and local games to standardise
• modified and optimised UI for the character selection and character customisations screens
• reduced memory usage
• reduced the game file size by approximately 40% / 1.25GB
• removed some redundant code from the client for optimisation
• replaced buoyancy with optimised custom implementation (objects float before sinking. characters float but lose stamina, concussed characters sink)
• temporarily removed the game over messaging for local single melee player games
• temporarily removed support for the waves mode for the grind stage

• issues with camera on wheel stage (we are working on implementing support for the new Unity Cinemachine 2.0 CinemachineTargetGroup to improve the tracking of multiple characters)
• issues with colliders on the pier on the wheel stage (online only)
• costume parts can show through other costume parts in some context with some costume configurations
• the implementation for the bridge deformation in vents needs modifications to stabilise the bridge
• water implementation is not standardised
• modified and optimised Beef City geometry is not standardised for external stages
• large enemy AI characters can get stuck in doors on the grind and incinerator stages

In the last month we have been finishing work on optimising the current public stages and testing fixes for issues introduced in the transition from Unity 5.4 to Unity 5.6, we have identified a potential solution for the current character distorting / freezing and other physics stability issues and have made successful tests with a patched server configuration. We plan to patch public servers over the next hour. Please post information if you still see distorting / freezing issues or missing geometry when playing online following the server update to help us identify if the patch is not working as expected. [1] Server availability and stability will fluctuate for the next hour as servers are patched Other than work on optimising the current local and online stages (this work is necessary for improving physics stability and standardising collision detections), we have also been working on games modes, a full replacement for the current UI implementation, physics and server stability, standardisation of costume and prop parameters (for existing and new objects), configuring the Unity post processing stack, localisations, and improvements to matchmaking and networking. We expect to publish multiple builds demonstrating this work in June and July with a series of posts giving specific information on the full release content for the game and current plans for post launch content. [1] For reference there is no build published with this post; in tests we have recorded a small number of distorting / freezing issues in local games but instances were significantly less frequent than online games, we will monitor server stability and prioritise publishing modified client builds (with additional optimisations and fixes) when the solution for the distorting / freezing issue has been demonstrated as working.

For the last month we have been working with Coatsink to move Gang Beasts to Unity 5.6 [1] to exploit performance improvements and make use of the expanded NavMesh, lighting, text rendering (TextMesh Pro), particle, post, camera, and debugging tools. The work to move to Unity 5.6 is done and most stability and rendering issues associated with moving to the current Unity 5.6 release have been identified and fixed. Testing for the 0.5.6 beta build (published with this post) has ended, please flag any issues with Boneloaf support (support@boneloaf.co). The 0.5.6 Early Access beta build has online support for the elevators stage, modified and optimised geometry for the subway and elevators stages, and a series of other optimisations, fixes, and modifications to UI, networking, and character and costume stability. The 0.5.6 beta also has a modified win state for the melee game mode and a provisional scheme for removing idle players from official servers (see the changelog section of this post for information). In the last month we have also been working with partners to finish the optimisation of stage geometry and physics simulations, expand enemy AI abilities and pathfinding, setup game modes, debug new costume parts, fix camera issues, and rebuild and optimise menu and in-game UI (some of the optimisation work is exposed in the 0.5.6 beta but work on game modes, AI enemies, costume parts, menus and UI, and camera and post effects can’t be exposed for playtesting until a later build). [2]

The list of modifications and fixes made in this beta build are:

• fixed an issue with character postures on the costume customisation screen
• fixed stage specific issues with baking lights and re-baked light maps for some stages
• implemented a scheme for removing idle players from official servers (the current server session will end and show the message “You were kicked due to inactivity” if inputs are not frequently sent to each player) [3]
• implemented online support for elevators stage
• modified formatting for UI text and modals for legibility
• modified server disconnection messaging to give more information
• modified the default win state for the melee games on official servers to two round wins per stage (to give players that lose the first round a round to fight in before the stage can cycle (spectating players can join from the next round or the next stage if the stage has ended) [4]
• modified Steam API authentication messaging (Failed Platform Entitlement) with summary information and instructions
• modified Steam ID names to not scale with distance in non-VR games
• modified the stair light fixture on subway to support swinging from it
• optimised the geometry for subway and elevators stages (made less significant optimisations to geometry for other stages)
• renamed “survival” game mode to “melee” [5]

We have finished testing on the 0.5.5 beta build (published with this post), the list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.5 beta build are:

• added provisional AI enemy costume sets waves gang members for testing
• fixed an input issue that made character input(s) submitted when invoking the pause menu to span the menu (sending the same set of character inputs as the pause menu is exited)
• fixed an issue that stopped the audible playback of concussion SFX when characters are rendered unconscious
• fixed an issue with the server filters implementation that ignored Canada (Montreal) and UK (London) geographies when selecting / deselecting all geographies
• fixed an issue with calling the pause menu that could stall the game if the menu is invoked immediately before joining a server
• modified colliders on the chute stage to optimise and stabilise physics simulations
• modified colliders on the subways stage to optimise and stabilise physics simulations
• modified the attachment trigger volume for the UID 23 Hobo_woollyHat (HEAD) costume part
• modified the billboard panels on the billboard stage to make them removable
• modified the hat attachment implementation to limit the scope for rotation
• modified the server filters UI implementation to support the selection / deselection of the Canada (Montreal) and UK (London) filters with keyboard and controller input
• replaced the loading screen and interstitial screen system with placeholder hint content and rasterised compositions of stage geometry (to show the next stage loading)

• 4th wall is still climbable on the subway and vents stages
• dynamic and static friction parameters need modifying for falling meat paste sacks (to modify and stabilise the velocity of falling meat)
• missing colliders on the open rucksack model (UID 173 costume_rucksack)
• missing section of building geometry at left of gondola and elevators stages
• the screens masking stage loading can fail to dismiss in some context
• enemy AI are persistently aggressive

The Gang Beasts 0.5.4 beta build published with this post has a number of fixes, optimisations, and other modifications including improvements to the input mapping system, the gondola and trucks stages, the SFX and the orbit camera systems. We are still working on other stability fixes and minimising in-game exploits and other annoyances and expect to have more examples of this work in coming builds. Following the 0.5.4 build Coatsink will be pushing out support for two new server geographies in Canada (Montreal) and the UK (London) with full support coming from next week. Please note the 0.5.4 beta build replaces the default 0.5.3 and ”unstable" 0.5.3 beta builds for server compatibilty (moving between the default and “unstable” builds on Steam will download the same 0.5.4 beta build)

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.4 beta builds are:

• added VOIP indicators for spectating players
• added a second speed to orbit cameras (two camera inputs in the same direction of travel accelerates the camera orbit, camera inputs in the opposite direction of travel slow or stop the current camera orbit)
• added per player support for resetting custom input bindings
• fixed an issue that made the game unresponsive if launched in the Steam Client offline mode
• fixed an issue that stopped playback of the warp SFX when music is muted
• fixed an issue with kigurumi tails clipping other geometry on the costume customisation screen
• fixed an issue with leg costume parts that made characters show irregular visual artefacts
• fixed an issue with the current truck colliders on the trucks stage
• fixed horn SFX on the trucks stage
• modified VOIP and name labels to lock them to the bounds of the screen (to indicate when an offscreen player is talking)
• modified the suspended platforms on the gondola stage with hinged side gates
• modified the horizontal and vertical building geometry in the gondola stage (to mask the scale of the building)
• modified the volume of menu and UI SFX
• optimised SFX performance

Current issues identified with the 0.5.4 beta build are:

• concussion SFX is missing or not audible

Since the 0.5.2 build was published last month we have been working with Coatsink to patch keys issues introduced in recent builds and recent versions of Unity and are publishing the first batch of optimisations, fixes, and other modifications in the 0.5.3 beta. The 0.5.3 build has numerous bug and stability fixes but we are still working to fix issues with the multiplayer camera, vents glitches, costume exploits and conflicts, inconsistencies with lift forces and concussion times and expect to push these fixes to Steam for testing in coming builds. We have also started work on a full rebuild of the UI, localising for multiple languages, and a more standardised testing process (with additional resources working with us to identify and fix issues).

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.3 beta builds are:

• added online support for the vents stage
• fixed a number of controller input issues on the pause menu
• optimised / modified the vents stage to stabilise fan animations and standardise timings
• fixed a server issue that erroneously shows the “you took too long to load” message
• fixed a server issue that made loading screens dismiss prematurely
• fixed a server issue that made the server connection process repeat if many players connect to an empty server concurrently
• fixed an issue with the localisation parser that would crash the client if a stage is won by a player with a less than (<) character before a greater than (>) character in their SteamID
• added a setting for finding the currently available microphone to the audio menu
• fixed an issue that shows the failed entitlement messaging in error
• fixed an issue that stops the scores from increment on the incinerator stage
• fixed some railing issues on vents
• modified the camera for the trucks stage (stop or cycle orbit direction with the inputs mapped to left and right camera input)
• modified the ordering scheme for selecting from saved costumes
• modified the saved costume implementation to not save non-customised characters (to stop duplicate copies of non-customised characters from saving)
• modified the game sound to fade out when the stage ends
• modified the character preview implementation on the costume customisation screen to stabilise character physics when replacement costume parts are cycled
• modified the coin screen animations to reduce the time it is shown on screen
• modified the default volume level for SFX
• modified the music and other audio for the containers, elevators, ring, towers, and wheel
• modified the quick join debug messaging to reduce the number of text strings on screen
• modified the server and client processes for monitoring scene loading (to avoid contexts that stall connecting clients at the stage loading screen)
• temporarily added an online timer to force rounds to end after 5 minutes have passed (the timer will be replaced with stage escalations at a later stage of development)

Since the 0.5.1 build was published on 30 December 2016 we have been working with Coatsink to standardise character movement, optimise and fix input issues, and to scale server capacity and stability as the Gang Beasts Early Access community has increased significantly since the 0.5.0 beta build was published (on the 23 December 2016).

Quick Join

Gang Beasts Server Tool

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.2 beta builds are:

• added support for clearing custom input mappings for a single player (previous implementation only supported the clearing of all custom mapping)
• fixed a an issue that truncated some server listings at the end of the server browser
• fixed an issue where failures to connect to the master server showed the string “MENU_ONLINE_CONNECT_ERROR” and not the associated error message for the issue
• fixed an issue with the default server filter settings that only populated the server browser with servers for the US West (N. California) and Asia Pacific (Sydney) geographies by default, the default filter now populates from “All” geographies to show all currently available servers
• fixed an issue with the punch implementation that made the character punch when exiting a grab state in some contexts
• fixed an issue with the quick join ping implementation
• fixed support for mapping custom mouse inputs (for reference mouse inputs can only be mapped to a single player)
• modified character lifting implementation (to make lifting objects and characters less erratic)
• modified damage parameters (to make concussions less immediate)
• modified drag parameters on characters to make character movement less erratic (this modification lowers the maximum potential length of throws *)
• modified maximum angular velocity parameters for characters (to make character movement less erratic)
• modified quick join implementation to make subsequent connection attempts if the current connection fails
• modified quick join implementation to prioritise low ping, part-populated servers
• modified the custom input mapping implementation to make input more stable
• modified the ping implementation for server browser stored listings
• modified the quick join implementation to give more instructive messaging

Information on switching to and from "stable" and “unstable” branches

Save 33% on Gang Beasts as part of this week's Weekend Deal*!

Gang Beasts is a silly multiplayer party game with surly gelatinous characters, brutal m lée fight sequences, and absurdly hazardous environments.

Watch in horror and amusement as gangs of gummy miscreants fight to grab, push, pull, and force their enemies from suspended window cleaning scaffolds, neglected funfair attractions, and commercial haulage trucks.

*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time

A number of issues have impacted online multiplayer gameplay since the 0.5.0 beta release on 21 December some of which were patched in a recent server update, the key issues were that have compromised online and physics stability are:

Concurrent Players

Player Hosted Servers

Physics Instability

Quick Join

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.1 beta builds are:

• fixed an issue with the character system to make the character physics work independently of frame rate
• fixed missing collider on subway
• modified amplitude of RingDing SFX to lower volume by approx. half
• modified amplitude of warp SFX sample to lower volume by approx. half
• modified the master server to manage higher CCUs (Concurrent Users)
• modified the master server to make the server list populate faster

Information on switching to / from "stable" and “unstable” branches

Since the last Steam Early Access post was published at the start of December we’ve been working with Coatsink to test significant modifications and fixes to the character, costume, game mode and networking systems (the 0.5.0 build replaces the 0.3.4 and 0.4.4 Steam Early Access builds). Servers will be intermittently unavailable for the next hour as servers are modified (the 0.5.0 build is needed to play online as pre-0.5.0 builds are not supported by the modified server scheme)

Online / Servers

• US East (N.Virginia)
• US West (N. California)
• EU (Ireland)
• Asia Pacific (Sydney)
• EU (Frankfurt)
• South America (São Paulo)
• Asia Pacific (Tokyo)
• Asia Pacific (Singapore)
• Asia Pacific (Seoul)
• India (Mumbai)

• added support for modifying the camera Y axis with the single player camera (mapped to left and right D-pad and left and right cursors keys by default)
• added an lobby to invite friends to before connecting to a server
• added support for playing with multiple local players online
• added online support for the blimp, billboard, buoy, and container stages
• added PTT VoIP (Push-to-talk Voice over Internet Protocol) support *
• fixed an issue that could make input mappings fail online
• fixed an issue that made servers ignore input held at round start (held inputs now trigger on round start)
• fixed an input issue with servers
• modified the scheme for storing and retrieving servers in the central server and refactored some backend server systems
• overhauled the master server scheme (to improve stability and implement support for polyinstancing)

Local

• added modified scenes and geometry for blimp, billboard, buoy, subway, vents**, and containers
• added provisional support for single player camera adjustments (with D-pad or cursor keys)
• added support for playing with multiple local players online
• exposed the debug spawning system in local (currently does not have support player-controlled characters and some nav meshes are missing) ***
• fixed an issue in local game modes (with more than 4 players) giving false server disconnection errors
• fixed an issue that could make playing a local game with more than 4 players fail
• setup the waves game mode for local games (currently only the grind stage with default grey AI is available for the waves game mode)

Stages

• blimp (optimisations, blimp geometry and colouring, beef city geometry, fog sphere)
• billboard (optimisations, billboard and scene geometry, beef city geometry, fog sphere)
• buoy (optimisations, water implementation, beef city geometry, fog sphere)
• chutes (optimisations, scene geometry, escalation geometry)
• containers (optimisations, container geometry, beef city geometry, fog sphere)
• elevators (optimisations, provisional glass break particle system)
• incinerator (optimisations, scene geometry, fire particles)
• subway (optimisations, scene geometry)
• vents (optimisations, scene geometry)

Menu / UI / messaging

• added support for saving menu and character costume settings
• added support for storing some settings (last character selection and other game settings)
• fixed an issue with the Steam overlay triggering the in-game pause menu
• fixed an issues that stoped local game modes from pausing when the pause menu is invoked
• modified input mapping screen to show keyboard and game controller mappings concurrently
• modified online menu UI to work with the new lobby system
• modified server browser to show more server entries per screen
• modified the score screen shown at the end of each round to prioritise score information (we are working on solutions to show other key information and metrics contextually in game)
• modified the temporary main menu background to improve legibility
• modified the loading and interstitial screens to only show a new stage is loading
• modified when loading and interstitial screens show should now only appear when a new level is loaded

Character

• added a grab delay to the jump implementation to stop characters from targeting posterior objects and enemies when jumping
• added the costume customisation system ****
• fixed a field of view issue that stopped elbows from triggering
• fixed a targeting issue to make characters prioritise anterior grab targets (over posterior grab targets)
• fixed an issue in the character hierarchy that triggered inconsistent leg behaviour
• fixed an issue that made characters slide vertically on walls when grip fails
• fixed an issue that made kicking forces and movement inconsistent
• fixed an issue where melee attacks would apply forces incorrectly (should be less prone to physics explosions)
• fixed an issue that limited grip parameters when climbing from a jump state
• modified and optimised character movement forces and timings
• modified colliders on character feet for stability
• modified concussion parameters (to reduce length for long concussions)
• modified damage parameters for body parts to make them take more damage to the chest, waist, hips, arms, and legs on collisions (head, stomach, crotch, hands and feet parameters have not been modified)
• modified drag forces on characters (to make lifting and throwing characters less difficult)
• modified force parameters for climbing to make climbing less difficult (some surfaces will still be difficult to climb until grab targets are fully populated to all stages)
• modified force scaling in damage calculations (to inflict more violence than other collisions)
• modified force parameters for punches, head-butts, and kicks to standardise character movement
• modified front and rear sliding to make characters elevate their legs immediately before sliding
• modified kick parameters to limit spamming
• modified targeting hierarchies to contextually prioritise anterior targets when jumping or falling
• modified the character breathing simulation to improve character stability
• modified the character’s vertical field of view (to reduce the frequency that characters target objects below their feet)
• modified the climbing implementation to contextually offset targeting per arm
• optimised the object targeting system for stability and performance
• restored contextual elbowing (for contexts where enemies are immediately behind the character)

Since the 0.4.4 build was published at the end of September we have been working closely with partners to iterate on the character, game mode, and networking systems for Gang Beasts and are now testing release builds for the Gang Beasts 0.5.0 beta. We plan to publish the 0.5.0 beta when testing ends, this should be in December but we can't set a specific date in December currently (as critical issues could still be found in testing). To force server compatibility we need to publish the 0.5.0 build concurrently with the Gang Beasts Dedicated Server tool and significant updates to servers. Please note the 0.5.0 build will replace the 0.3.4 and 0.4.4 Steam Early Access builds and game servers will be intermittently unavailable for an hour following the release of the 0.5.0 build (as servers are modified and restarted) Please note the Dedicated Server Tool will only support Windows operating systems initially

Other Information

Costumes

VR

Online Support on Steam Early Access

Information on switching to / from "stable" and “unstable” branches

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.4.4 "unstable" alpha build are:

• added infrastructure for VOIP to be enabled in a coming build (when initial testing on the the push to talk system has finished)
• added the framework for supporting additional multiplayer game modes (some additional work is needed before the first examples of other game modes can be made available for play testing)
• added server modifications to support cross play between Steam Early Access and Oculus Early Access builds
• added messaging to the root menu (for contexts when no connection to the central server can be established)
• fixed an issue with the quick join setting that could potentially make multiple connections to a server (making the loading / interstitial screens hang)
• modified the quick join setting to address an issue where scenes could load with missing geometry

Online Support on Steam Early Access

Character Movement and Concussion Times

Information on switching to / from "stable" and “unstable” branches

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.4.3 "unstable" alpha build are:

• baked lighting in the ‘elevators’ stage
• fixed a gaze targeting issue on the character select screen
• modified Steam IDs to only show when triggered (with the input mapped to show Steam IDs)
• modified the scrolling implementation in the server browser screen
• temporarily added a round timeout to end rounds at 5 minutes (we plan to review the timeout implementation / length when stage escalations are fully implemented)
• temporarily modified the default game logic to a single win per stage (to reduce spectating), we plan to support the previous logic and modified logic concurrently in a coming build

Online Support on Steam Early Access

Information on switching to / from "stable" and “unstable” branches

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.4.2 "unstable" alpha build are:

• added a countdown timer to the local multiplayer character select screen to support canceling the session if other players did not submit to join the session (press the input mapped for ’duck/crawl’ to stop the countdown)
• added geography filters for new servers in Frankfurt (EU), São Paulo (South America), Tokyo (Asia Pacific), Singapore (Asia Pacific), Seoul (Asia Pacific), and Mumbai (India)
• modified geometry for 'gondola' for stage
• modified Steam ID labels to use the selected character colour
• modified the default online game mode to not despawn the characters of players that leave the server (neglected characters will idle but not decrement / increment score metrics if removed from the stage by other players)
• modified the game camera to frame the last player on stage end
• modified the input mapping screen to support the mapping of single inputs
• modified the input reference screens with revised information
• modified train tracks on ‘subway’ stage to render in front of the Steam ID labels
• removed ‘Draw’ messaging on stage end for single player local games
• removed background plane and Steam Avatars from Steam ID labels
• removed debug input for immediately loading the next stage in the current sequence (in the current default game mode)
• restored 8 player support for the current default local games mode (
• restored menu setting to enable / disable Xinput support
• restored the ‘containers’ and ‘chute’ stages for the current default local game mode
• temporarily disabled invoking the input mapping screen from the in game menu

Online Support on Steam Early Access

Information on switching to / from "stable" and “unstable” branches

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.4.1 "unstable" alpha build are:

• fixed Yogscast Charity DLC costumes
• fixed an issue with characters not spawning randomly
• fixed an issue with the placeholder loading screen not dismissing when joining a game as a spectator
• modified the default game mode to 3 round wins (to win the stage)
• modified the game architecture to improve stability
• modified the placeholder loading screen to show the keyboard input reference if mouse inputs are used to start the game
• modified the spectating system to spectate until the the current stage ends (spectating players join the game when the current stage ends)
• modified the master server to prepare support for additional server geographies (in Asia Pacific, Europe, India, and South America)

Information on switching to / from "stable" and “unstable” branches

For the last month we have been working with Coatsink to implement online support in the 0.4.0 ‘unstable’ alpha build (published with this post). The information in this post summarise a number of the key differences between the 0.3.4 'unstable' and the 0.4.0 'unstable' builds. The structure of the 0.4.0 ‘unstable’ alpha build has been significantly modified from the previous 0.3.4 'unstable' alpha build to include placeholder information screens and other planned content and some content is temporarily disabled, specifically the debug spawning commands, the ‘waves’ game mode, and the 'buoy', ‘chute’, ’containers’, and ’fans’ stages (this content needs additional work before it is restored). In the 0.4.0 ‘unstable’ alpha build there are 4 online stages playable and 12 local stages, the online stages are:

• grind
• ring
• trucks
• subway

• billboards
• blimp
• elevators
• girders
• gondola
• grind
• incinerator
• ring
• subway
• towers
• trucks
• wheel

• right-click on the Gang Beasts game name on the Steam library page
• select “Properties” from the window that opens
• from the Properties window select the “BETAS” tab and then the 'unstable' option from the dropdown menu

• US East (N.Virginia)
• US West (N. California)
• US West (Oregon)
• EU (Ireland)
• Asia Pacific (Sydney)

• EU (Frankfurt)
• South America (São Paulo)
• Asia Pacific (Tokyo)
• Asia Pacific (Singapore)
• Asia Pacific (Seoul)

For the past two months we have been working with Coatsink to iterate on the networking scheme and game content for the Gang Beasts online beta, in parallel to this work we have been collaborating with SuperGenius to scope and implement the game mode and character customisation systems for the game. The next stage is to merge the online support and stage optimisations from the online beta with the ‘unstable’ branch and then integrate the Character Customisation, Character Colour, and Game Mode systems. The rest of this post is a series of paragraphs with current information and summaries on what progress has been made to date on content for the game.

Online Beta

0.4.0 ‘unstable’

Online Beta Keys

Key Issues

Entitlement Issues

Character System

Game and Gang modes

Stages

Private Servers

Information on participating in the Gang Beasts Online Multiplayer Beta

Patch notes for the Gang Beasts 0.3.4 “unstable” build

• fixed a number of missing/corrupt navMeshes
• fixed an issue that could prevent front and rear sliding states from triggering
• fixed an issue that made characters stay in the ‘headbutt’ state when headbutting
• fixed an issue relating to AI not identifying a navMesh agent
• fixed an issue with spawned AI entering kill volumes
• fixed an issue with the water system that rendered water with zero polygons on specific systems
• modified enemy / object targeting hierarchies to prioritise objects in front of targeted characters
• modified stamina to reduce at a slower rate when characters are moving
• modified the climbing system to make climbing less difficult
• modified the colour palette on the ‘trucks’ stage
• modified the dropkick and diving states to use a minimal assistive targeting (to make targeting enemies / objects with dropkicks and diving less erratic)

Information on switching to / from "stable" and “unstable” branches

[img=http://boneloaf.co/Gang_Beasts/images/033/buoy.png][/img] Since the last Early Access build was published in January we have been working with Coatsink to prepare the infrastructure for a public beta of online multiplayer support for Gang Beasts and are now at a stage of development where we can make a selection of the most optimised stages available to play in an online multiplayer beta for play testing and stress testing. The online multiplayer beta will be made available through Steam as a separate build from the current ‘stable’ and ‘unstable’ alpha builds, this is necessary to preserve access to the current ‘unstable’ and ‘stable’ alpha builds (while the stages not currently included in the online beta are optimised for online multiplayer) and to give the Early Access community a specific forum for posting online specific questions, bug reports and feedback to. Information on the three stages that are playable in the initial online beta will be posted on Steam this month (as a Steam announcement) with specific instructions on the process for participating in the online beta and information on the next batch of stages that are currently being optimised for online multiplayer. The first batches of online beta keys will be sent out by email this month with subsequent batches of keys being sent out frequently as server capacity is scaled. The online multiplayer beta will be merged with the ’unstable’ alpha branch at a later date (when the key work on stress testing and bug fixing the networking implementation has ended and server capacity is scaled to support the full Gang Beasts Early Access community). Whilst testing and scaling the capacity of the online beta over the next 3-4 months we will continue to push new content, optimisations, and polish to the ‘unstable’ branch, starting with the 0.3.3 ‘unstable’ alpha build published with the post. Please post feedback and information on game bugs on the 0.3.3 "unstable" alpha build thread if you have issues specific to this build. Please note there is no "stable" alpha build released with this post The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.3.3 "unstable" alpha build are:

• added four AI character voice sets
• added four character voice sets
• added setting to the Input menu for enabling / disabling XInput on Windows systems (the game has to be restarted before the XInput setting is executed) *
• added additional VO to current voice sets
• added additional wooden foot fall SFX on ‘wheel’ stage
• added ambience to ‘towers’ stage
• added B side music on ‘billboard’ stage
• added box burning SFX on ‘incinerator’ stage
• added collision triggers and SFX for doors, railings, and pipes on ‘chutes’ stage
• added collision triggers and SFX for girders on ‘girders’ stage
• added collision triggers and SFX for metal structures and railings on ‘subway’ stage
• added collision triggers and SFX for metal structures on ‘billboard’ stage
• added collision triggers and SFX for metal structures on ‘gondola’ stage
• added collision triggers and SFX for metal structures on ‘wheel’ stage
• added collision triggers and SFX for railings and doors on ‘grind’ stage
• added collision triggers and SFX for railings and stairs on ’towers’ stage
• added collision triggers and SFX for shutters, stairs, ducts, and railings on ‘incinerator’
• added collision triggers and SFX for stairs, floors, and railings on ‘fans’ stage
• added conveyor SFX on ‘incinerator’ stage
• added grind mechanism SFX volume modifier when characters are in close proximity to grind wheels on ‘grind’ stage
• added large fan mechanism SFX on ‘fans’ stage
• added rope SFX on ‘ring’ stage
• added script to nullify collision triggers on ropes on ‘ring’ stage
• added small fan mechanism and evacuation SFX on ‘fans’ stage
• added soft foot fall and metal foot fall SFX on ‘blimp’ stage
• added subway train SFX on ‘subway’ stage
• added wheel mechanism SFX on ‘wheel’ stage
• added wooden foot fall and wood break SFX on ‘girders’ stage
• fixed significant memory leak from the buoyancy simulation used on characters (and the buoy and ice fragments on the ‘buoy’ stage)
• fixed an issue that could stop music from playing on the ‘buoy’ stage
• fixed an issue that stopped menu items from being selectable with the cursor keys on the volume settings screen
• fixed an issue where the character system could spam errors if a navmesh is not found
• fixed an issue with volume settings not modifying the volume on the menu screens
• modified / increased cable collision SFX levels on ‘gondola’ stage
• modified / increased character concussion sound levels
• modified / lowered floor board SFX levels on ‘wheel’ stage
• modified / lowered foot fall SFX on ‘ring’ stage
• modified / lowered individual grinder wheel SFX levels
• modified / lowered warp sound levels
• modified / lowered wood SFX levels on ‘gondola’ stage
• modified ambience on ‘billboard’ stage
• modified and optimised geometry, textures, and scripts in the ‘trucks’ stage
• modified and optimised geometry, textures, and scripts in the ’subway’ stage
• modified and optimised geometry, textures, water, and buoyancy simulations in the ‘buoy’ stage
• modified debug spawning to include a larger character body and other functions **
• modified enemy AI to jump obstacles in some contexts
• modified fan blade SFX on ‘fans’ stage
• modified fan particle effects on ‘fans’ stage
• modified kill volumes and fog height in ‘chutes’ stage
• modified lighting / bloom parameters in the ‘ring’ stage
• modified spatial distance of cooling tower SFX on ’towers’ stage
• modified the current ‘join’ screen to make the UI less complex
• modified the local multiplayer camera settings on the ‘wheel’ stage to track player characters more consistently
• modified triggering sequence for water splash SFX on ‘wheel’ stage
• replaced character feet scraping SFX on ‘trucks’
• replaced wood foot fall SFX with metal foot fall SFX on ‘elevators’
• restored timestep modified keys ’-‘ (deincrement timestep) and ‘=‘ (increment timestep)

• keys 1-8 spawn objects
• keys 1-8 with the shift modifier key pressed spawns the default character body and binds control to the corresponding player number
• key 9 with the shift modifier key pressed spawns the default character as an enemy AI
• keys 1-8 with the control modifier key pressed spawns a larger character body and binds control to the corresponding player number
• key 9 with the control modifier key pressed spawns the default character as an enemy AI

Information on switching to / from "stable" and “unstable” branches

The modifications and fixes made in the 0.3.1 "stable" build are:

• added specific tests for removing characters forced into tunnels on the ‘subway’ stage
• modified SSAO settings for each stage
• modified specific post effects parameters on game menu (to limit the scope of post effects)
• modified Colour grading for all scenes
• modified character SFX volumes on the game menu
• modified the minimum and maximum distance parameters for the game cameras in each scene
• modified the Unity launch dialogue to not open on OS X by default
• modified trigger volume detections
• modified character system to remove characters that become unstable on the 'subway' stage
• modified train colliders to reduce the potential for erratic physics on the ’subway' stage
• fixed an issue that could stop character’s from exiting the grab state
• fixed an issue that could stop character’s from exiting the slump / standing states (if the character enters a concussive state when slumped)
• fixed an issue that stopped modifications to the graphics settings menu from writing / saving
• fixed an issue that made the drop kick damage modifier not apply
• fixed an issue with the AI spawning system in the ‘waves’ mode (which stopped AI enemies from spawning if the game mode is played multiple times)
• removed the Xinput menu setting (as the menu setting for enabling / disabling Xinput support needs more testing to stop the disabling Xinput process from triggering an exception)

• added numerous punch SFX
• added spatialisation to character falling SFX
• modified / increased brake threshold for grab state
• modified / lowered character jump height
• modified / lowered head-butt damage
• modified / lowered the length of character concussions
• modified / replaced shaders that demonstrated conflicts with Unity 5.3 / Open GL 4.1
• modified / replaced the A side and B side music on the “ring” stage
• modified build number text to ignore image effects on menu
• modified “incinerator” scene to remove / recycle objects that fall in to fire pit
• modified character system to limit the number of wall jumps that can be executed in sequence
• modified the climbing and targeting systems to make executing the rope climbing mechanic easier
• modified the fire simulation on the “incinerator” stage to ignore collisions (to optimise game performance)
• modified the lighting in specific scenes to work with the Unity 5.3 lighting system
• fixed an issue with character idle states not triggering
• fixed numerous Unity 5.3 stability issues with the fan implementation
• fixed Unity 5.3 UI scaling issues
• updated game project to Unity 5.3 (to use OpenGL 4.1 or Metal on systems with OpenGL 4.1 or Metal support)

[img=http://boneloaf.co/Gang_Beasts/images/wrestlers.jpg][/img] It has taken significant resources to prototype and implement the character customisation system as significant game functionality needed to be rewritten to work with configurable character parts, the 0.3.0 alpha build released with this post, has a functioning character selection screen with a set of sample character costumes for testing (including the existing Kigurumi characters, and a selection from the new Wrestler / Luchador and other miscellaneous outfits). The 0.3.0 alpha build replaces the 0.1.5a "stable" alpha build as the default build on Steam Early Access (the 0.1.5a build is available for download through the Steam "BETAS" tab as a legacy build for the Early Access community to compare the gameplay, performance, stability, and other game content of the last Unity 4.x build with the Unity 5.x builds). The 0.3.0 alpha build also replaces the 0.2.6c “unstable” build until the logic for the prototype “break” and “race” game modes is rewritten to work with the character customisation system (the “break”, “race”, “king of the hill”, and “capture the flag” game modes will be exposed for testing in a coming “unstable” alpha build). The 0.3.0 alpha build also has an improved camera system, a new particle effect system (for the fire on the ‘incinerator’ stage), new post processing and colour grading effects, the first versions of the significantly revised UI and menu systems, numerous modifications to stages (a rebuilt ‘incinerator’ stage, and modified ‘buoy’, ‘girders’, and ‘fans’ stages), and new running, standing headbutt, front slide, rear slide, and sitting character moves. For reference the full character customisation screen is disabled in the 0.3.0 “stable” alpha build as the UI does not currently protect against conflicts between costume parts, a version of the full character customisation system (with support for saving customisations) will be exposed with other prototype game stages and content in the coming “unstable” builds. The modifications and fixes made in this build are:

• added character selection / join game screen
• added a standing headbutt move (tap the button mapped for ‘duck’ to headbutt)
• added a running move (hold the button mapped to ‘jump’ to run)
• added a front sliding move (hold the button mapped to ‘duck’ when running to front slide)
• added a rear sliding move (hold the button mapped to ‘kick’ when running to rear slide)
• added a sitting move (hold the button mapped to ‘jump’ when stationary to sit)
• added a setting for enabling / disabling Xinput (to support more than four Xinput devices to be used concurrently) - this setting has been disabled as more testing is needed
• added preset Wrestling / Luchador clothing and mask selections (for testing)
• added preset miscellaneous clothing selections (for testing)
• added post processing and colour grading to game stages
• added rebuilt ‘incinerator’ stage
• added new menu music
• added basic Steam API support
• added setting to enable / disable exiting the game with game controllers (if enabled press the ESCAPE key to exit to the game menu when in game)
• modified climbing implementation (to make characters feet contact with surfaces when climbing)
• modified fullscreen implementation (to test support for Nvidia Game Stream service)
• modified object and enemy targeting systems
• modified character system to more accurately identify kill volumes
• modified B side music for the ’chute’ and ’girders’ stages
• modified audio levels and triggers
• replaced previous fire particle effect with an improved fire particle effect
• replaced the previous game manger systems with rewritten game manager systems
• replaced the prototype game camera system with an improved game camera system
• replaced music for ‘incinerator’ stage
• replaced fade transition implement with a rewritten solution (to fix the transition failure issue)
• fixed character explosion issues in some contexts
• fixed music warping transitions
• removed status bars
• removed the rear and front railings from the ‘fans’ stage
• removed stairs from platform ends on ‘subway’ stage
• temporarily replaced previous water and buoyancy system with a placeholder system (while compatibility issues with the new water and buoyancy system are fixed)
• temporarily removed the ‘cat’ kigurumi due to an issue with skinned meshes
  
  [ 2015-12-17 15:17:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

The 0.2.6 build released with this post is a content release with three new stages (‘billboard’, ‘blimp’, and ‘girders’) and four modified stages (‘buoy’, ‘fans’, ‘ring’, and ’subway’), the build also includes expanded AI behaviours that give AI enemies lifting and throwing abilities.
The modifications and fixes made in this build are:

• fixed an issue that could stop characters entering the climbing state when colliding with walls
• added the ‘billboard’ stage
• added the ‘blimp’ stage
• added the ‘girders’ stage
• modified the water shader on the ‘buoy’ stage
• modified the geometry for the ‘vents’ stage (now called ‘fans’)
• modified the geometry for the ‘ring’ stage
• modified the geometry for the ’subway’ stage
• modified climbing implementation to support climbing on grabbed surfaces (including other enemy and player characters)
• modified climbing implementation to limit / minimise stabilise the accumulation of forces when multiple characters are climbing / lifting each other
• modified grip limitations (grip will abruptly fail when hanging from the same surface / object for a protracted length of time)
• modified the force characters have on the wave simulation in the ’buoys’ stage (to limit / minimise the frequency of sudden or erratic high waves)
• modified the potential delay between AI enemy punches (to increase punch frequency)
• modified spawn points on some stages to work better with the current game camera
• modified XInput support to be disabled by default to support 5-8 players with Xbox 360 controllers and variants (XInput limits the number of concurrent Xbox 360 controllers to four, see the 'XInput Support' section of this post for more information)
• added centripetal forces to subway trains on ‘subway’ stage (trains can pull characters and objects in close proximity towards them)
• added throwing behaviour for AI enemies (specific throw actions need calibrating to be effective on complex stages)
• added grabbing behaviour for AI enemies (enemies will attempt to grab surfaces, objects, and other characters when falling)
• modified (rebuilt) AI enemy nav meshes for all stages (excluding the ‘break’ and ’race’ prototypes)
• added throw triggers to stages to support the AI enemy throwing behaviour (excluding ‘blimp’, ‘break’, ’buoy’, and ’race’)

Stages

Customisations

XInput Support

Information on switching to / from "stable" and “unstable” branches

We are close to finishing the various modifications and prototype content for the 0.2.6 "unstable" build and expect to publish this work within the next two weeks, we currently expect this to be the last "unstable" build before we can make the Unity 5 port of the game the default version of Gang Beasts on Early Access (the 0.1.5a Unity 4 alpha build will be made available for download through the Steam client "BETAS" tab as a legacy build for making comparisons of gameplay, performance, stability and content with the Unity 5 builds). http://youtube.com/watch?v=c8xwXkrNfEM In the last two months we have continued to work on optimisations, new game modes, the character customisation system, character customisations, modifications to current stages, and prototypes for a number of new stages. http://youtube.com/watch?v=lJ833OuAlKw Work on the character customisation system is at a stage that supports making functional examples of the UI and customisation process and the work on new characters, games modes, modified stages, and stage prototypes is now sufficient to give information on the specific functionality and content we expect to make available in the builds coming in September and October. http://youtube.com/watch?v=uSnqSTm7ecs The information in this post will summarise the work that has been done on some of the new character customisations, the character customisation system, modified stages, and the new stage prototypes (“billboard”, “blimp”, and “girders”). Specific information about the current stages, new stage prototypes, and the planned escalations for specific stages will be posted as a series of individual threads in the Early Access forums closer to the release of the next build.

Character Customisations

Customisations

Game Modes

Modified Stages

Prototype Stages

Unstable Builds

The 0.2.5b build released with this post is a bug fix patch for the recent 0.2.5 "unstable" alpha build, and the audio issue introduced in the 0.2.5a build. The list of modifications and fixes made in this build is:

• fixed an issue that made audio play +20db louder that maximum if volume was set to 100%
• fixed stability issue when objects are spawned inside or collide with the support cables on the "elevator" stage (cables now snap instead of becoming erratic)
• modified colliders on the handles of the elevator roof hatch to allow players to pass them (without stopping)
• fixed audio samples on the "buoy", "elevators", "grind", "subway", "trucks", and "wheel" stage that could play when audio is muted
• modified the doors of the "chute" stage to stop characters from passing through them

Information on switching to / from "stable" and 'unstable' branches

The 0.2.5a build released with this post is a bug fix patch for the recent 0.2.5 "unstable" alpha build, the list of modifications and fixes made in this build is:

The 0.2.5 build released with this post has working versions of the "buoy", "trucks", and "wheel" stages (three of the four stages that were omitted from past “unstable” builds due to significant issues relating to the stability of their custom physics parameters when ported to Unity 5 and PhysX 3.3 ) and the three prototype stages, "chutes", "elevators", and "towers" that were demonstrated at E3. The 0.2.5 “unstable” build also has experimental implementations of two new character attack moves, head-butts and dropkicks, head butts are triggered by pressing the jump button immediately before holding the duck button, dropkicks are triggered by pressing the jump button immediately before holding the kick button (the specific forces and other parameters for the moves are currently provisional and granular modifications will need to made is subsequent builds).
The 0.2.5 build also has significantly modified music and sound content (implemented in a series of sessions with Adam “Doseone” Drucker and Robert "Dirty Bob" Larder in the week leading up to E3), the new audio with multiple new or revised music tracks for most stages, 4 additional character voice sets, and numerous additional contextual audio events (that trigger sound effects when specific situations occur). The playable stages in the “unstable” build are still experimental but are now sufficiently performant for testing and for us to collate suggestions and feedback on gameplay and performance issues through the Early Access forums (there will be additional optimisations and modifications made in subsequent builds). To start the feedback process we plan to make a series of monitored forum posts (in the next few hours and over the coming weekend) with information on planned revisions, current issues, potential optimisations, and other identified modifications we expect to make to specific stages, game modes, and gameplay mechanics. Specific Information re: head-butts and dropkicks will be posted as individual threads in the Early Access forums in the next few hours.
Information on the new "chutes", "elevators", and "towers" stages and the completed and planned work done on modifying (or remaking) the "buoy", "incinerator", "subway", "trucks", "vents", and "wheel" stages will be posted as a series of individual threads in the Early Access forums this weekend (and in the coming weeks).

List of additions, modifications, and fixes made in the 0.2.5 “unstable" build

In the last month we have been working on porting the "buoy, "trucks", "vents", and "wheel" stages to Unity 5, we have also been working a number of new prototype stages and a number of significant modifications to the "buoy", "subway" and "incinerator" stages for the next "unstable" alpha build. The work is close to finished and we plan to release the 0.2.5 "unstable" build with working versions of the "buoy", "containers", "gondolas", "grind", "incinerator", "ring", "subway", "trucks", "vents", and "wheel" stages and the new "chutes", "elevators", and "towers" stages next week (the new stages coming in the 0.2.5 "unstable" build are shown in the Gang Beasts E3 trailer and in the images with this post).


The 0.2.5 "unstable" build also has significantly updated audio content and experimental implementations of head-butts and dropkicks. The head-butt and dropkick moves have been added to avoid situations where head or feet collide with an enemy or object without taking sufficient damage (head-butts and dropkicks can concuss an enemy but landing them with enough force to be concussive is sufficiently difficult in normal gameplay to not happen frequently). We plan to make a series of specific forum threads for the new stages, the head-butt and dropkick moves, and other content to collate and discuss feedback and give tutorial information when the build is released next week (a full list of the changes and additions made in the 0.2.5 "unstable" build included with the release post).

We have made a number of significant modifications and fixes for the 0.2.4 build over the last three weeks, specifically fixing the joint instability (that made character, wire, and rope physics erratic or rigid, and stages built with configurable joints that break without the fixes to joint stability). There is still a small number of modifications that need to be made to the 'trucks', 'wheel', 'buoy', and 'vents' stages to make them playable but expect to restore some or all of the 0.1.5a stages omitted from the 0.1.5a build in the next 'unstable' build later this month (build 0.2.5). The 0.2.4 build has a new 'random' mode, restores the 'endless' mode from previous builds, and a glut of new audio and music including new music for the 'ring', 'gondola', 'incinerator', and 'subway stages. We are continuing to work on new stages and character costumes, we posted some tests on the Boneloaf and Gang Beasts Vine, Twitter, and YouTube accounts in the last hour (see Vine, Twitter, and YouTube).

List of additions, modifications, and fixes made in the 0.2.4 'unstable' build.

• added an 'endless' mode to the 'versus' game mode
• added a 'random' stage selection mode to the 'versus' game mode (stages can now be set to load in random sequence)
• added audio samples that trigger when characters lose i.e. characters vocalise their malcontent when removed from the mêlée
• added laughter audio sample sets that trigger when a character (or characters) are expelled from the mêlée
• added a basic animation to make characters jiggle when laughing
• added contextual concussion audio sample sets (that trigger when a character is concussed)
• added a contextual impact sound (that triggers when a character takes a concussive blow)
• added contextual object and rope breaking sound sets
• added contextual character vocalisations (that trigger when characters are in close proximity to breaking objects)
• added individual volume settings for 'music', 'interface', 'vocals', 'physics', 'ambience', and the 'master' volume level (removed the music on/off setting from the settings menu)
• added per character footfall audio sample sets
• added a Cat Kigurumi costume
• modified head and body samples to make them more impactful
• modified the music playback system to transitions music tracks when a character (or characters) are removed from the mêlée (currently only implemented for the 'containers','subway' and 'incinerator' stages)
• modified the 'prototype' prefix in the 'prototypes' menu to explicitly reference the specific prototype category (e.g. 'game mode', 'stage' etc.) in preparation for adding new game modes, stages, and game mechanics
• modified the wires in the 'gondola' stage to make them breakable and more supple
• modified the wires on the 'containers' stage joint type to make them more stable
• modified the the tie and fez character assets to make them less erratic
• modified the forces acting on characters to make specific character movement less rigid
• modified the thresholds for damage and concussions to make immediate concussions less frequent
• fixed an issue that triggered playback of incorrect collision sounds for specific body parts (for example a characters head colliding with an object or surface could trigger sets of sound recordings made for body part collisions)
• fixed an issue that incorrectly played 3D sounds in 2D space
• fixed an issue that triggered cascades of infectious laughter between characters
• fixed an issue with joint axes that could make character ropes and physics simulations erratic
• fixed a series of issues that could stop game modes from processing stage transitions
• fixed an issue that could make set costumes to have the invalid colour sets

Summary of pending modifications / fixes immediately planned for the next 'unstable' build (build 0.2.5)

Information on switching to / from 'stable' and 'unstable' branches

List of fixes / modifications in the 0.2.3 build

• fixed camera smoothing issue when camera starts / stops tracking specific characters (or objects)
• add Early Access / 'unstable' build warning and build number to game menu
• modified sun direction to remove shadow acne on some levels
• moved trains closer to platform to force train path to collide with players on or in proximity to train tracks
• built navmeshes for 'containers', 'gondola', 'grind', 'incinerator', 'ring', and 'subway' stages
• modified fourth wall in 'containers', 'gondola', 'grind', 'incinerator', 'ring', and 'subway' stages to ignore raycasts (to avoid conflicts with spawning objects / characters)
• modified in-game UI to ignore raycasts (to avoid conflicts with spawning objects / characters)
• moved the environment debug mode key from the ‘F12’ key to the 'backspace' key (to avoid conflicts with the Steam screenshot key)

List of fixes / modifications in the 0.2.2 build

• fixed a mouse input mapping issue*
• added a transparent layer behind the custom input mapping modal window (to make it clear that the 'back' button is temporarily disabled during the current input mapping sequence)
• lowered the kill volume in the ‘grind’ stage to make escaping less difficult
• add height fog in 'grind’ stage
• added grab targets to the side of the roof building and roof access structure in the ‘waves’ mode prototype (to support climbing on the structure and climbing back to the roof surface from a hanging posture)
• renamed the label string for the game settings from ‘options’ to ‘settings’
• modified the menu to return focus to the ’start’ menu item of the ‘prototype’ menu screen when exiting from the ‘prototype’ game mode
• postponed smoothing function until after opening frame of stages passes (to track randomness of character spawning positions without irregular camera transitions)

Information on switching to / from 'stable' and 'unstable' branches

List of fixes in the 0.2.1 build

• fixed an input issue that stops custom input maps from loading in game stages
• fixed an issue that reloads the menu when remapping the menu key
• rebaked lightmaps for the ‘gondola’ stage
• fixed an issue that could stop Player 1 from targeting AI enemies
• fixed an issue that made enemy AI fight with other AI (to force them to exclusively target players)

List of modifications in the 0.2.1 build

• testing a variation on the conveyor roller implementation in the ‘incinerator’ stage (restores hazard functionality but need to play test with slower rates of rotation)
• modified starting camera positions to make camera movement less erratic when stages start
• modified the AI enemies random punch function on the ‘waves’ mode (to make punches less frequent)
• moved the day / night cycle demo mode key from the ‘O’ key to the F10 function key (to avoid conflicts with custom player inputs)
• moved the player collider debug mode from the TAB key to the F11 function key (to avoid conflicts with custom player inputs)

Information on switching to / from 'stable' and 'unstable' branches

We are sorry for not meeting the 31st GMT (UTC+00:00) estimate for publishing the 0.2.0 build of Gang Beasts to Steam yesterday (there were a number of significant version control merging issues that forced us to have to repeat some of the work collating game scenes made in different branches of the project) but we have now published the first playable build of the Unity 5 version of Gang Beasts to Steam. We also want to apologise to those expecting the 0.2.0 Unity 5 alpha build to be a feature complete updated version of the previous 0.1.5a Unity 4.x alpha build as the 0.2.0 build still has numerous issues that need a series of bug fixes, and gameplay modifications over the coming weeks before the Unity 5 build will pass the gameplay content and aesthetic of previous builds. This confusion is our mistake for not explicitly sharing information about the complexity of porting Gang Beasts to Unity 5 and the current development status of the game in recent months. For reference the 0.2.0 Early Access alpha build is the first public version of the Unity 5 build of Gang Beasts, we have published the 0.2.0 build to Steam as an unstable opt-in 'Beta' for play testing and taking feedback (on the new character animation system and game mode prototypes). For the next 4-6 weeks the previous 0.1.5a alpha build will continue to be downloadable on Steam until Unity 5 builds have full parity (of content and features) with previous Unity 4.x builds. How to download the 0.2.0 alpha build on Steam To download the 0.2.0 alpha build right-click on the game name on the Steam library page and select 'Properties' from the dialogue window that opens, from this window select the 'BETAS' tab then select the 'unstable' option from the dropdown menu (the menu labelled 'Select the beta you would like to opt into:' (to revert back to the 'stable' 0.1.5a Unity 4.x build select 'stable' from the same menu). For reference switching between 'unstable' and 'stable' branches of the game can force the selected build to download to the Steam client (the size of the 0.1.5a 'stable' alpha is approximately 100MB / 50MB compressed, the 0.2.0 'unstable' alpha build is 500MB / 260MB compressed). Gang Beasts is an Early Access game that is currently in uninterrupted development, the 0.1.5a build and the 0.2.0 builds have bugs and partially implemented gameplay content and mechanics. (please see the Steam Early Access FAQ at http://store.steampowered.com/earlyaccessfaq for more information). 0.2.0 Issues Porting the Gang Beasts character and rope physics to the Unity 5 implementation of PhysX 3.3 has triggered a number of open issues (information on currently identified issue in the 0.2.0 build is listed at the end of this post) that compromise specific categories of stage hazards, these issues are associated with the modified collision tolerances and higher level of exactness of PhysX 3.3 simulations. The immediately priority for development is to fix this list of current issues, the full list of issues (sorted by stage name is: Game no game launch sequence fade to / from black transition sequence (for stage transitions) is missing inputs mapped to SLUMP / CRAWL do not currently work for de-incrementing menu item selection scene cameras script need modifying to adapt to aspect ratios menu attract mode is missing score UI scales incorrect on large resolution screens endless playlist mod is currently disabled random playlist mode is currently disabled Ring meshes need UVs modifying to remove light baking artefacts (for scene to be illuminated as expected) ring out sound is missing Grind meshes need UVs modifying to remove light baking artefacts (for scene to be illuminated as expected) configurable joints on railings need modifying to make breakable Gondola meshes need UVs modifying to remove light baking artefacts (for scene to be illuminated as expected) current priority of rope targets is set too high configurable joints on cables need modifying to make breakable Trucks (excluded from 0.2.0 build) meshes need UVs modifying to remove light baking artefacts (for scene to illuminate as expected) truck model needs configurable joints and weights modifying to make stable Incinerator meshes need UVs modifying to remove light baking artefacts (for scene to illuminate as expected) configurable joints on railings need modifying to make breakable glass model need configuring to make breakable Wheel (excluded from 0.2.0 build) meshes need UVs modifying to remove light baking artefacts (for scene to illuminate as expected) pier model needs configurable joints and weights modifying to make stable Subway meshes need UVs modifying to remove light baking artefacts (for scene to illuminate as expected) elevators are disabled escalators are missing from scene Vents (excluded from 0.2.0 build) meshes need UVs modifying to remove light baking artefacts (for scene to illuminate as expected) circular gravity simulation is not current compatible with Unity 5 (simulation needs replacing or updating to work with Unity 5) Containers configurable joints on cables need modifying to make breakable Race mode prototype weights for apparatus need modifying to be heavier session fails to end when competitor falls from apparatus contextual win condition information not shown in text overlay Waves mode prototype stairs enclosure needs grab targets stairs enclosure needs enemy spawn behaviour when players enter Break mode prototype win scenario not currently implemented weights and configurable joints need modifying to make stable contextual win condition information not shown in text overlay car colliders need remaking to approximate car geometry Race protype meshes need UVs modifying to remove light baking artefacts (for the Incinerator scene to be illuminated as expected) contextual win condition information not shown in text overlay weights and configurable joints need modifying to make stable

Today's Deal: Save 33% on Gang Beasts!*

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

*Offer ends Thursday at 10AM Pacific Time

[img=http://gangbeasts.com/posts/gb_montage.jpg] It has taken several months and a significant amount of work to finish porting Gang Beasts to Unity 5 with PhysX 3.3 but we are now in a position to announce 31st March as the release date for the public build of the Unity 5 version of Gang Beasts (for reference the build number will be 0.2.0). The 0.2.0 build has fully rebuilt character animation (see 1,2,3 and 4 for some short video examples), game audio, and game management systems with a number of Unity 5 specific implementations including Global Illumination, Physically Based Shading, procedural Audio Mixing, multithreaded physics simulations, High Dynamic Range Skyboxes and Reflection Probes. The 0.2.0 build also replaces the current game input framework with the Rewired framework (an advanced input system for Unity) with improved support for keyboard and game controllers (see the Supported Controller page for a platform specific list of currently supported controllers). We will make additional posts with more specific information about the new game modes, stages, character moves, and other improvements coming in the 0.2.0 build before the March 31st release date. The summary of key improvements coming in 0.2.0 build are:

• a rebuilt character animation system (with significantly optimised performance and stability)
• a new procedural game audio playback system (with 6 reworked music tracks from Doseone and Robert Larder)
• a series of new voice and effect samples (for leg, thigh, hip, crotch, waist, stomach, chest, upper arm, forearm, fist, and head collisions)
• a rebuit GUI (Graphical User Interface) using Unity's new UI system
• numerous rebuilt stages (made from modular environment assets)
• a waves mode with AI enemies (and an associated Rooftop stage)
• improved enemy AI (AI characters can differentiate between enemies and non-enemies, AI enemies are less aggressive)
• an exposed debbuging mode (for identifying issues with game environments, objects, and characters)
• a prototype Day to Night cycle
• a prototype single and co-op enemy waves game mode
• a prototype competitive obstacle race stage
• a prototype object destruction mode (with associated garage workshop stage)