We just submitted a new version of Party Panic with some small content updates! Mainly, there are two additional board games to play now with a few new features!!! Frogbert's Farm On Frogberts farm, there's a new "?" space! Landing on the space opens and closes access to certain parts of the map! You also buy trophies from one of three frogs, but only one or two will be active at any time. Buying a trophy makes the next trophy appear at at different frog!
Spooky's Spook Yard Spooky's Spook Yard is a race to the ghosts! There's four ghosts who sell you trophies, but only ONE ghost will be active. Race to this ghost, as when someone buys his trophy a he'll disappear and a new ghost will appear elsewhereo n the map!
This new content is available on Steam RIGHT NOW (as well as on Xbox One and PS4!) Happy fall, y'all! // Dylan Meville

[ 2020-10-19 18:59:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's been a long time coming and you all have been so patient after all the ups and downs and delays, but I'm so so so happy to announce that console versions are done, and will be available worldwide on XBOX ONE and PS4 in A FEW HOURS! (4 hours from the time of this post). I don't know how many Steam users are interested in this but it's finally happening! Things go live on both platforms at Midnight UTC 0, on August 21st. That's so soon!!! New trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSP5ueIvbok Xbox One: http://partypanicgame.com/xbox PS4: (link coming as soon as the store page is public!) If you do grab the game on consoles, be sure to leave a review! It would help me a lot, trying to stand out on consoles is going to be tough as an indie developer with no marketing team or anything...so every review means so much!
// Dylan

[ 2020-08-20 20:01:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

As part of the Steam Winter Sale, Party Panic will be on sale for 50% off until January 3rd! This is the largest discount Party Panic has ever had, so it's a great time to pick it up and play! On a different note, the PS4 and Xbox One versions are coming along! I'm working with the great guys at Do-Games (https://do-games.com) to help make it happen as doing both all by myself I decided was a little too much pressure! This will make the process go faster, and having some experts working on it will ensure that everything works great on consoles. There will be more news along with release dates in the near future, so if you've been waiting to play Party Panic on PS4 or Xbox One keep your eyes peeled! Thanks for all the support so far! Making Party Panic has been a wild wild ride, and I can't wait to see what happens in 2019! // Dylan

[ 2018-12-21 17:03:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

That's right! Party Panic now has a board game mode, and you can download and play it RIGHT NOW! There are two board game maps currently: 1) The Temple of Goob. This is the "starter" map, and is simple and straightforward, recommended to be played first! Trap items are very useful on this map, so buy them whenever you can! 2) Willy's Pizza Party. Willy loves pizza (more than his children, as we learned in the Trophy Island update). Your goal in this map is to buy pizza from one of the three pizza shops scattered around the map and then return to Willy. He will trade you a trophy for some pizza. The pizza shops will run out of pizza so plan your route carefully! Check out the update trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_referrer=watch&video_id=8dhNrQwCAz4 A board game mode has been the most requested feature since Party Panic hit Steam in Early Access over a year ago, so I hope this satisfies everyones hunger for a board game and everyone has fun with this new game mode. There are still some translations that are not yet complete for the Board Game mode, but they will bet hot-patched into the game as soon as they're completed (over the next few days or so). Currently the board game is 100% translated to the following languages: English, German, Turkish, Dutch, Italian, Russian. If you have any suggestions or comments for the current boards, or if you have ideas for new boards let me know! I'm always open to suggestions to make the game even better however I can! These two boards have gone through some pretty substantial testing, but putting a game mode update of this size live to the world some bugs will inevitablypop up... I'll try and squash them as soon as they appear! What's next? I'm not sure exactly yet. I'd like to make another board game still, and some updates to the Gauntlet are still long overdue, and maybe a few more minigames in early 2018. I'm still looking at porting to consoles too, (xbo, ps4, switch) but that's something that's still a little while away (early 2018 hopefully, though!)

Patch Notes

• The board game mode is now playable for everyone! There are two board game maps: "The Temple of Goob", and "Willy's Pizza Party". Roll dice, win minigames, collect trophies! Whoever collects the most trophies before time is up wins!
• Added a "game start timer" while playing online. If the host readies every other player will be forced to ready when the timer runs out.
• Added missing winner vfx for "Candy Brawl"
• Fixed a bug causing the wrong game mode to be played after starting a game, exiting, and then starting a new game.
• Fixed a bug that would prevent players from opening up the "Game Setup" settings menu on the main menu/online waiting room. Once you set the game settings and closed the menu you could not re-open it to change settings. Now you can!
• Fixed a bug that would cause the waiting room music to play twice.
• Fixed a bug that would cause a crash when showing the russian text for one of the quality settings in the options menu.
• Water sounds in "Bubble Bumper" were turned down.
• Cleaned up the "player disconnect" code, to allow AI to take over leavers when playing the board game.
• Fixed a bug that caused the black-screen-fade in/out before and after a minigame to not play
• Fixed a bug that would allow the score to go past 1000 in some minigames (Hot Hurdles, Spike Scramble, Lava Blocks)
• Fixed a bug that would show +100 score when punching someone on "Whale Washers", but not award points.
• Fixed a bug that would show the wrong game rules to a non-host player while playing online.
• Fixed a bug on "Treasure Trove", while playing online, if you were not the host the "score points" sfx would play repeatedly while you were close to your goal instead of just once.
• Misc performance optimizations

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here Have fun! // Dylan

[ 2017-12-12 03:23:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

That's right! Party Panic now has a board game mode, and you can download and play it RIGHT NOW! There are two board game maps currently: 1) The Temple of Goob. This is the "starter" map, and is simple and straightforward, recommended to be played first! Trap items are very useful on this map, so buy them whenever you can! 2) Willy's Pizza Party. Willy loves pizza (more than his children, as we learned in the Trophy Island update). Your goal in this map is to buy pizza from one of the three pizza shops scattered around the map and then return to Willy. He will trade you a trophy for some pizza. The pizza shops will run out of pizza so plan your route carefully! Check out the update trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dhNrQwCAz4 A board game mode has been the most requested feature since Party Panic hit Steam in Early Access over a year ago, so I hope this satisfies everyones hunger for a board game and everyone has fun with this new game mode. There are still some translations that are not yet complete for the Board Game mode, but they will bet hot-patched into the game as soon as they're completed (over the next few days or so). Currently the board game is 100% translated to the following languages: English, German, Turkish, Dutch, Italian, Russian. If you have any suggestions or comments for the current boards, or if you have ideas for new boards let me know! I'm always open to suggestions to make the game even better however I can! These two boards have gone through some pretty substantial testing, but putting a game mode update of this size live to the world some bugs will inevitablypop up... I'll try and squash them as soon as they appear! EDIT: Patch 1.3.1 is available now, that *should* fix this issue. [strike]Edit: As expected, seems like there's a major bug while playing board games online that somehow didn't show up in internal testing. Seems like it's a desync issue, where each player thinks it's a different players turn, spawns the dice block above the wrong player and then causes the game to get stuck because no one can hit the dice block (because it's not above them). If this has happened to you, please let me know. If this hasn't happened to you and you played an online board game all the way to the end without issue, please let me know too, so I can gauge how many people this is affecting, and hopefully narrow it down somehow. So very sorry if you're experiencing this![/strike] What's next? I'm not sure exactly yet. I'd like to make another board game still, and some updates to the Gauntlet are still long overdue, and maybe a few more minigames in early 2018. I'm still looking at porting to consoles too, (xbo, ps4, switch) but that's something that's still a little while away (early 2018 hopefully, though!)

Patch Notes

• The board game mode is now playable for everyone! There are two board game maps: "The Temple of Goob", and "Willy's Pizza Party". Roll dice, win minigames, collect trophies! Whoever collects the most trophies before time is up wins!
• Added a "game start timer" while playing online. If the host readies every other player will be forced to ready when the timer runs out.
• Added missing winner vfx for "Candy Brawl"
• Fixed a bug causing the wrong game mode to be played after starting a game, exiting, and then starting a new game.
• Fixed a bug that would prevent players from opening up the "Game Setup" settings menu on the main menu/online waiting room. Once you set the game settings and closed the menu you could not re-open it to change settings. Now you can!
• Fixed a bug that would cause the waiting room music to play twice.
• Fixed a bug that would cause a crash when showing the russian text for one of the quality settings in the options menu.
• Water sounds in "Bubble Bumper" were turned down.
• Cleaned up the "player disconnect" code, to allow AI to take over leavers when playing the board game.
• Fixed a bug that caused the black-screen-fade in/out before and after a minigame to not play
• Fixed a bug that would allow the score to go past 1000 in some minigames (Hot Hurdles, Spike Scramble, Lava Blocks)
• Fixed a bug that would show +100 score when punching someone on "Whale Washers", but not award points.
• Fixed a bug that would show the wrong game rules to a non-host player while playing online.
• Fixed a bug on "Treasure Trove", while playing online, if you were not the host the "score points" sfx would play repeatedly while you were close to your goal instead of just once.
• Misc performance optimizations

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here Have fun! // Dylan

[ 2017-12-12 03:23:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's been a while since the last update, but progress is still happening! Since Party Panic launched I've been working on a bunch of bug fixes and trying to fix stray issues, as well as new content and some changes at the request of the players.

Minigames

There's two new minigames in this update. I spent a good couple of weeks trying to prototype new minigames, but I was having trouble coming up with new ideas that felt different enough from the current games. I decided there needed to be a new "action" rather than just move/attack/jump so I decided on making some swimming minigames. I think they turned out pretty stupid.

Ink or Swim

The first minigame is called Ink or Swim, the goal of the game is simple -- don't fall behind the Octo-goober. If you do, you'll die. There's also some obstacles to avoid that you can get trapped behind!

Treasure Trove

The second minigame is called Treasure Trove. In this game you have to collect treasure on the sea floor and bring it back to your goal safely. If you hit a zappy-fish your treasure explodes and you get stunned.

Equipment Slots

One of the biggest requests I was getting was players asking to have equipment slots to have more options when customizing their Goober. Instead of having dedicated slots per equipment type (head, face, shirt, legs, feet, etc) I decided to give each player three equipment slots, where they can equip any three costumes they want. This allows for some neat combiniations, and while lots of the combinations don't "work" (they overlap and look weird), I'm leaving it up to the players to decide - if you want to wear costumes like that I'm not going to stop you!
Here's some more pictures of some combinations - https://imgur.com/a/ZLCDK

Custom Party

The game mode "Single Minigame" has been changed to "Custom Party". When you now select this game mode you're shown a game select UI, where you can disable or enable any of the minigames. If you want to play a specific 5 minigames you can now, or if you want to play all of them but a few you really don't like, you can do that now too!

What's next?

I haven't looked at consoles yet, but that was next on my todo list, however, there's been a change of plans and I'll be pushing back consoles for a bit while I work on a BOARD GAME mode. This is definitely the most requested game mode, so I'm going to start prototyping this week and see what I can do. I've been thinking about it for a few weeks now and I don't see anything that would be too hard to get working. It's going to be a little bit different from Mario Party, with some small mechanically different things. For example, instead of rolling a dice and moving automatically you will have control of your goober like you do in minigames when you're moving along the board. This will allow you to punch and kick players that you meet along the way, as it wouldn't be Party Panic if you couldn't mericilessly punch other players! The idea for the board game will be centered around the whale, and will most likely be called "Willy's Pizza Party". This board will revolve around collecting pieces of pizza for Willy in exchange for Trophies (the equlivent of Mario Party stars). I'm still thinking up ideas for interesting events on the board game. If you have suggestions, head over to the suggestion thread here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/506500/discussions/0/1333474229060032719/ I'm thinking this board game mode won't take too long, (famous last words) as most of the hard work is already done (minigames), I think it should be pretty easy to get up and running, and then it's just adding stuff to make it interesting. I'm aiming for the end of this month to be done, and December at the latest. Anywho, for a full list of changes in this update check out the patch notes here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/506500/discussions/0/276237094308992996/?ctp=3#c1519260397796307997 //Dylan Meville

[ 2017-10-02 23:23:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's been a while since the last update, but progress is still happening! Since Party Panic launched I've been working on a bunch of bug fixes and trying to fix stray issues, as well as new content and some changes at the request of the players.

Minigames

There's two new minigames in this update. I spent a good couple of weeks trying to prototype new minigames, but I was having trouble coming up with new ideas that felt different enough from the current games. I decided there needed to be a new "action" rather than just move/attack/jump so I decided on making some swimming minigames. I think they turned out pretty stupid.

Ink or Swim

The first minigame is called Ink or Swim, the goal of the game is simple -- don't fall behind the Octo-goober. If you do, you'll die. There's also some obstacles to avoid that you can get trapped behind!

Treasure Trove

The second minigame is called Treasure Trove. In this game you have to collect treasure on the sea floor and bring it back to your goal safely. If you hit a zappy-fish your treasure explodes and you get stunned.

Equipment Slots

One of the biggest requests I was getting was players asking to have equipment slots to have more options when customizing their Goober. Instead of having dedicated slots per equipment type (head, face, shirt, legs, feet, etc) I decided to give each player three equipment slots, where they can equip any three costumes they want. This allows for some neat combiniations, and while lots of the combinations don't "work" (they overlap and look weird), I'm leaving it up to the players to decide - if you want to wear costumes like that I'm not going to stop you!
Here's some more pictures of some combinations - https://imgur.com/a/ZLCDK

Custom Party

The game mode "Single Minigame" has been changed to "Custom Party". When you now select this game mode you're shown a game select UI, where you can disable or enable any of the minigames. If you want to play a specific 5 minigames you can now, or if you want to play all of them but a few you really don't like, you can do that now too!

What's next?

I haven't looked at consoles yet, but that was next on my todo list, however, there's been a change of plans and I'll be pushing back consoles for a bit while I work on a BOARD GAME mode. This is definitely the most requested game mode, so I'm going to start prototyping this week and see what I can do. I've been thinking about it for a few weeks now and I don't see anything that would be too hard to get working. It's going to be a little bit different from Mario Party, with some small mechanically different things. For example, instead of rolling a dice and moving automatically you will have control of your goober like you do in minigames when you're moving along the board. This will allow you to punch and kick players that you meet along the way, as it wouldn't be Party Panic if you couldn't mericilessly punch other players! The idea for the board game will be centered around the whale, and will most likely be called "Willy's Pizza Party". This board will revolve around collecting pieces of pizza for Willy in exchange for Trophies (the equlivent of Mario Party stars). I'm still thinking up ideas for interesting events on the board game. If you have suggestions, head over to the suggestion thread here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/506500/discussions/0/1333474229060032719/ I'm thinking this board game mode won't take too long, (famous last words) as most of the hard work is already done (minigames), I think it should be pretty easy to get up and running, and then it's just adding stuff to make it interesting. I'm aiming for the end of this month to be done, and December at the latest. Anywho, for a full list of changes in this update check out the patch notes here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/506500/discussions/0/276237094308992996/?ctp=3#c1519260397796307997 //Dylan Meville

[ 2017-10-02 23:20:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's been a wild ride. I'm beyond thrilled of how Party Panic has been received so far, and I'm excited to see what everyone thinks of all the new content. It's crazy to think that just over a year ago Party Panic first entered early access. At that time the game had 10 minigames, the gauntlet, and no online multiplayer, and now it's come so far, with so much more to do.. Let's take a look at what's been added in that year.. -Online Multiplayer (!!!!) -20 minigames were added (totalling 30 now!) -Trophy Island -50+ hats and costumes -Keyboard and mouse support -Progression/leveling system with loot-boxes -25+ Achievements -Post-game Winner highlights I'm honestly surprised I managed to get all that done as a solo dev, it was hard work, but it's beyond satisfying to finally see it all come together today as we launch out of Early Access. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYgfY5eDsxI

Moving forward

You might be wondering what will happen with Party Panic moving forward. I am absolutely still working on more content. Right now the plan is to take a short break from dev (I've been working on Party Panic 7 days a week for the past 18 months..) but in a few weeks I'll start working on new minigames to start. Let me know what you'd like to see added to Party Panic. Want more minigames? More Costumes? New game modes? Anything is possible! I'll most likely be devoting some time in the near future to start looking at what it would take to get Party Panic on the Switch, Xbox One, and PS4. Thanks for all the love you all gave to Party Panic while it was in Early Access. Without your support, Party Panic would not be what it is today!

Patch Notes

• Trophy Island is now playable for everyone! Can you complete the challenges and collect all the trophies?
• Added 13 new achievements for Trophy Island
• Players earn XP now when completing the gauntlet or unlocking a trophy
• Streamlined controller remapping screen with an 'auto-setup' that will walk you through how to remap
• Added two new gauntlet obstacles
• Added new hat - SpaceX
• Added new hat - Hula
• Added new hat - Triclops
• Party Panic has support for English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Turkish, and Russian.
• Fixed a bug that caused some graphical glitches when the next minigame was Spiral Speedway (no rules, all podiums the same colour)
• Fixed a bug where custom player names would not save properly
• Fixed a bug where player hats would not tint properly when using a non-standard controller (bumpercars, etc)
• Added a splash screen showing the Trophy Island post-card when you first launch the new update
• Moved the "winner" text higher on the gauntlet
• Fixed some issues with fake 3d audio in splitscreen
• Fixed a bug where when leaving the online menu you could get stuck on a black screen
• Added goobers floating in the water on Slipper Sprint in the background. Like in the titanic
• Fixed a bug where you could fall off a gauntlet obstacle and get stuck without dying
• Hid chat when playing the gauntlet offline
• Fixed a bug where you could lose focus on the chat box, making it so you couldn't type anything in until the next minigame started
• Fixed an issue where the "Saiyan" hat wouldn't tint properly
• Added new default name - "Tayne"
• Misc performance optimizations

// Dylan

[ 2017-08-07 15:43:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's been a wild ride. I'm beyond thrilled of how Party Panic has been received so far, and I'm excited to see what everyone thinks of all the new content. It's crazy to think that just over a year ago Party Panic first entered early access. At that time the game had 10 minigames, the gauntlet, and no online multiplayer, and now it's come so far, with so much more to do.. Let's take a look at what's been added in that year.. -Online Multiplayer (!!!!) -20 minigames were added (totalling 30 now!) -Trophy Island -50+ hats and costumes -Keyboard and mouse support -Progression/leveling system with loot-boxes -25+ Achievements -Post-game Winner highlights I'm honestly surprised I managed to get all that done as a solo dev, it was hard work, but it's beyond satisfying to finally see it all come together today as we launch out of Early Access. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYgfY5eDsxI

Moving forward

You might be wondering what will happen with Party Panic moving forward. I am absolutely still working on more content. Right now the plan is to take a short break from dev (I've been working on Party Panic 7 days a week for the past 18 months..) but in a few weeks I'll start working on new minigames to start. Let me know what you'd like to see added to Party Panic. Want more minigames? More Costumes? New game modes? Anything is possible! I'll most likely be devoting some time in the near future to start looking at what it would take to get Party Panic on the Switch, Xbox One, and PS4. Thanks for all the love you all gave to Party Panic while it was in Early Access. Without your support, Party Panic would not be what it is today!

Patch Notes

• Trophy Island is now playable for everyone! Can you complete the challenges and collect all the trophies?
• Added 13 new achievements for Trophy Island
• Players earn XP now when completing the gauntlet or unlocking a trophy
• Streamlined controller remapping screen with an 'auto-setup' that will walk you through how to remap
• Added two new gauntlet obstacles
• Added new hat - SpaceX
• Added new hat - Hula
• Added new hat - Triclops
• Party Panic has support for English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Turkish, and Russian.
• Fixed a bug that caused some graphical glitches when the next minigame was Spiral Speedway (no rules, all podiums the same colour)
• Fixed a bug where custom player names would not save properly
• Fixed a bug where player hats would not tint properly when using a non-standard controller (bumpercars, etc)
• Added a splash screen showing the Trophy Island post-card when you first launch the new update
• Moved the "winner" text higher on the gauntlet
• Fixed some issues with fake 3d audio in splitscreen
• Fixed a bug where when leaving the online menu you could get stuck on a black screen
• Added goobers floating in the water on Slipper Sprint in the background. Like in the titanic
• Fixed a bug where you could fall off a gauntlet obstacle and get stuck without dying
• Hid chat when playing the gauntlet offline
• Fixed a bug where you could lose focus on the chat box, making it so you couldn't type anything in until the next minigame started
• Fixed an issue where the "Saiyan" hat wouldn't tint properly
• Added new default name - "Tayne"
• Misc performance optimizations

// Dylan

[ 2017-08-07 15:03:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

August 7th is the day!!! Mark your calendars, add Party Panic to your wishlist!!! A few months ago I posted in the forums a "Roadmap to Release" thread, outlining the path towards leaving early access and launching Party Panic. During the past year of being in Early Access Party Panic has gone through some major changes, not to mention all the new content added to the game. Can you believe we started with 10 minigames, and now we're up to 30? Or all the hats and costumes, loot boxes, and other things that have been added to the game? There's still a bit left to do, but it's mostly just polishing at this point. Pretty soon (next weekish) I'm going to start sending out pre-release copies of the game for reviewers and lets players. Check out the new trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=628cGzjg758 Party Panic wouldn't have made it this far if it wasn't for all the support and suggestions from all the players. Party Panic has already exceeded my expectations, and I've very grateful to all of you!! I've been working as hard as I can over the last year and a half, and I'm proud of what Party Panic has become so far. I hope you're all as excited as I am! I want to note that after the game launches August 7th I am still going to be working on Party Panic. It is not the end. More content will be coming in regular updates, but some of that time will be spent working on figuring out how to get Party Panic on consoles and some other things! Only a few more weeks to go!! //Dylan

[ 2017-07-17 12:22:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

August 7th is the day!!! Mark your calendars, add Party Panic to your wishlist!!! A few months ago I posted in the forums a "Roadmap to Release" thread, outlining the path towards leaving early access and launching Party Panic. During the past year of being in Early Access Party Panic has gone through some major changes, not to mention all the new content added to the game. Can you believe we started with 10 minigames, and now we're up to 30? Or all the hats and costumes, loot boxes, and other things that have been added to the game? There's still a bit left to do, but it's mostly just polishing at this point. Pretty soon (next weekish) I'm going to start sending out pre-release copies of the game for reviewers and lets players. (If that's you, check out the post here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/506500/discussions/0/1326718197217434117/) Check out the new trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYgfY5eDsxI Party Panic wouldn't have made it this far if it wasn't for all the support and suggestions from all the players. Party Panic has already exceeded my expectations, and I've very grateful to all of you!! I've been working as hard as I can over the last year and a half, and I'm proud of what Party Panic has become so far. I hope you're all as excited as I am! I want to note that after the game launches August 7th I am still going to be working on Party Panic. It is not the end. More content will be coming in regular updates, but some of that time will be spent working on figuring out how to get Party Panic on consoles and some other things! Only a few more weeks to go!! //Dylan

[ 2017-07-17 12:21:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

There's been some really great discussion in the forums this last week about some ideas to make the game feel better as a whole, as well as lots of ideas on how to make the game feel a little more polished and fun! I spent some time fixing some bugs, and had some time to work on adding these suggestions!

Post-Game Victory

One of the first ideas stems from the fact that once a minigame's time is up, the screen just faded to black and went to the score screen. This kind of felt anti-climactic, as you just finished winning and then all of a sudden it's over and you're left feeling like "that's it". To improve this a short post-game sequence was added, where it zooms in on the winner, shows his name and plays a short victory tune. During this time you can ALSO still run around and punch eachother, which is fun! Some minigames there is 'permadeath', but you can still win if you've died..in these cases it zooms in on your body laying in lava and I think it's super funny! I think this is a great addition to the game, it adds a lot of polish and just makes winning games feel better!

New Minigame - Picture Perfect

In Picture Perfect you have to jump on the tiles to change them, matching them up to complete the picture. The more tiles you match up, the more points you get. You can also go and mess up other players' pictures! (but that would just be mean, right?). There's three variations to this minigame, chicken, whale, and toasted goober!

Refinements

I added two 'traps' to the boxing ring game, Kickpuncher. Now there are two boxing gloves that hover over the right and left sides of the ring that move, and punch randomlly! If you stand to close and get punched you'll go flying
There was also some 'moving' walls added to the minigame Ghost Chasers that should make the game a little more difficult and add a bit of uncertainty to the game! There's a few more small changes like this I want to make to some other minigames, but for now I wanted to get these new changes and new minigame out! This update also fixes the "Connection Timeout" bug that was happening last week. Instead of direct connection being tried and failing (silently), now relay will be used in these situations.

Patch Notes

• Post minigame victory screen
• New Minigame - Picture Perfect
• Minigame Changes - Kickpuncher traps
• Minigame Changes - Ghost Chasers moving walls
• Fixed a bug preventing achievements to unlock
• Matchmaking - Connect timeout bug fixed. (confirmed by users who were having this issue, and helped me debug it)

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here //Dylan

[ 2017-07-01 02:12:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

There's been some really great discussion in the forums this last week about some ideas to make the game feel better as a whole, as well as lots of ideas on how to make the game feel a little more polished and fun! I spent some time fixing some bugs, and had some time to work on adding these suggestions!

Post-Game Victory

One of the first ideas stems from the fact that once a minigame's time is up, the screen just faded to black and went to the score screen. This kind of felt anti-climactic, as you just finished winning and then all of a sudden it's over and you're left feeling like "that's it". To improve this a short post-game sequence was added, where it zooms in on the winner, shows his name and plays a short victory tune. During this time you can ALSO still run around and punch eachother, which is fun! Some minigames there is 'permadeath', but you can still win if you've died..in these cases it zooms in on your body laying in lava and I think it's super funny! I think this is a great addition to the game, it adds a lot of polish and just makes winning games feel better!

New Minigame - Picture Perfect

In Picture Perfect you have to jump on the tiles to change them, matching them up to complete the picture. The more tiles you match up, the more points you get. You can also go and mess up other players' pictures! (but that would just be mean, right?). There's three variations to this minigame, chicken, whale, and toasted goober!

Refinements

I added two 'traps' to the boxing ring game, Kickpuncher. Now there are two boxing gloves that hover over the right and left sides of the ring that move, and punch randomlly! If you stand to close and get punched you'll go flying
There was also some 'moving' walls added to the minigame Ghost Chasers that should make the game a little more difficult and add a bit of uncertainty to the game! There's a few more small changes like this I want to make to some other minigames, but for now I wanted to get these new changes and new minigame out! This update also fixes the "Connection Timeout" bug that was happening last week. Instead of direct connection being tried and failing (silently), now relay will be used in these situations.

Patch Notes

• Post minigame victory screen
• New Minigame - Picture Perfect
• Minigame Changes - Kickpuncher traps
• Minigame Changes - Ghost Chasers moving walls
• Fixed a bug preventing achievements to unlock
• Matchmaking - Connect timeout bug fixed. (confirmed by users who were having this issue, and helped me debug it)

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here //Dylan

[ 2017-07-01 02:12:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Today's update introduces two new minigames - Plinko Panic, and Tile Bangers, along with refinements to Candy Brawl, Bubble Bumpers, Sumo Balls, Balloon Busters, Faceball, and other misc fixes. Party Panic is now translated to Turkish!

First up, the new minigames!

In Plinko Panic you fight against your friends and collect goober heads falling from above!
Tile Bangers (great name right?) is a mix of two other minigames. In this one you're in a bubble and have to roll over the tiles to active them as your colour, gaining you points, while banging into your opponents!

Refinements

Candy brawl always stood out to me as one of the less interesting games, so in an attempt to make it more intense I added BOMBS!
The refinements for the other games (Bubble Bumpers, Sumo Balls, Balloon Busters, and Faceball) are all redone with a new, and in my opinion improved, networking model. While it still has issues all these games play much better online as you no longer have to wait for the server to receive your inputs before you see your player move, now you move and it feels responsive. However, there was a tradeoff that had to be made for this responsivenese and that's sometimes you'll see your players 'pop' or jitter a little bit when the server disagrees with where you should be and corrects your position. I'm still working to improve these games more, but having: Responsive controls, minimal lag, responsive collisions, and physics that stay in sync on every players screen is a very hard problem to solve. I'm not sure I can solve all 4 of those things without giving up one. This is a problem every networked physics game has, and these minigames have given me a lot of problems to get working well online, but I'm not giving up! Anyways, I think these physics-based ball minigames play a lot better now online. This version of Party Panic is built on Unity 2017.1b7, and while it's a beta version of unity, it was the first version to expose the physics things I needed to try and improve the game. This beta is very stable, and the only minor issue I've found with it is _sometimes_ one sound effect will randomly play a bit louder than others, but it's infrequent and not really an issue for now. In addition to the minigames, there's also a few other minor things. See the update notes for a full list of changes

Patch Notes

• New Minigame - Tile Bangers
• New Minigame - Plinko Panic
• Minigame Changes - Candy Brawl bombs
• Minigame Changes - Faceball online physics
• Minigame Changes - Faceball online physics
• Minigame Changes - Sumoballs online physics
• Minigame Changes - Bubble Bumper online physics
• Minigame Changes - Balloon Busters online physics
• Matchmaking - Connect timeout increased from 15 seconds to 60 seconds
• Matchmaking - While attempting to join a game, the time left until timeout is displayed to the player
• Decreased the frequency in which the goobers would make random sounds from ~25s to ~40s
• New Language - Turkish

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here //Dylan

[ 2017-06-22 14:30:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Today's update introduces two new minigames - Plinko Panic, and Tile Bangers, along with refinements to Candy Brawl, Bubble Bumpers, Sumo Balls, Balloon Busters, Faceball, and other misc fixes. Party Panic is now translated to Turkish!

First up, the new minigames!

In Plinko Panic you fight against your friends and collect goober heads falling from above!
Tile Bangers (great name right?) is a mix of two other minigames. In this one you're in a bubble and have to roll over the tiles to active them as your colour, gaining you points, while banging into your opponents!

Refinements

Candy brawl always stood out to me as one of the less interesting games, so in an attempt to make it more intense I added BOMBS!
The refinements for the other games (Bubble Bumpers, Sumo Balls, Balloon Busters, and Faceball) are all redone with a new, and in my opinion improved, networking model. While it still has issues all these games play much better online as you no longer have to wait for the server to receive your inputs before you see your player move, now you move and it feels responsive. However, there was a tradeoff that had to be made for this responsivenese and that's sometimes you'll see your players 'pop' or jitter a little bit when the server disagrees with where you should be and corrects your position. I'm still working to improve these games more, but having: Responsive controls, minimal lag, responsive collisions, and physics that stay in sync on every players screen is a very hard problem to solve. I'm not sure I can solve all 4 of those things without giving up one. This is a problem every networked physics game has, and these minigames have given me a lot of problems to get working well online, but I'm not giving up! Anyways, I think these physics-based ball minigames play a lot better now online. This version of Party Panic is built on Unity 2017.1b7, and while it's a beta version of unity, it was the first version to expose the physics things I needed to try and improve the game. This beta is very stable, and the only minor issue I've found with it is _sometimes_ one sound effect will randomly play a bit louder than others, but it's infrequent and not really an issue for now. In addition to the minigames, there's also a few other minor things. See the update notes for a full list of changes

Patch Notes

• New Minigame - Tile Bangers
• New Minigame - Plinko Panic
• Minigame Changes - Candy Brawl bombs
• Minigame Changes - Faceball online physics
• Minigame Changes - Faceball online physics
• Minigame Changes - Sumoballs online physics
• Minigame Changes - Bubble Bumper online physics
• Minigame Changes - Balloon Busters online physics
• Matchmaking - Connect timeout increased from 15 seconds to 60 seconds
• Matchmaking - While attempting to join a game, the time left until timeout is displayed to the player
• Decreased the frequency in which the goobers would make random sounds from ~25s to ~40s
• New Language - Turkish

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here //Dylan

[ 2017-06-22 14:04:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Yes, that's right, people can now disconnect/ragequit mid-game and it won't affect you. So long as the host keeps the game running and doesn't leave, any leavers will be replaced by a bot and the game keeps going like normal! Previously if a player (non-host) left a game while it was still in progress, the entire match would shut down and everyone would have to start over. This was dumb, and frustrating for everyone who just wanted to play. With the changes added in this update this will no longer happen, instead when a player leaves mid-game they are replaced by a bot. If it wasn't for a message in the chat box saying a player left, you probably wouldn't even realize someone left! Hopefully this will make finding, and playing a game a little less frustrating, as now (losers) can rage-quit mid game and it won't affect you! I also found a few bugs with the server browser, specifically if you tried to join a game with the wrong password you would be told the password was wrong, but the server would still accept your connection, causing a ghost player in the room.

NEW HATS AND COSTUMES

With this update the total hats count is up to 50. This update also introduces COSTUMES, which are more than just things that go on your head. Here are some of my favorites!
And here's a full video showing them all! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW_IX5jVLIk&feature=youtu.be Nothing else major with this update worth talking about, lots of little fixes. It's highly recommended to always stay on the latest version!

Patch Notes

• Leavers are not replaced with bots instead of disconnecting all players.
• After completing one Party or Gauntlet and returning to the online character setup, the game opens allowing for players to join again.
• Fixed a bug causing ghost players in rooms when someone tries to join with the wrong password.
• Fixing a bug causing players to get stuck on "Joining..." when they try to join a game with a wrong password
• Hat Changes - Headband
• Hat Changes - Mohawk
• Hat Changes - Pirate
• Hat Changes - Speedster
• Hat Changes - Turtle
• Hat Changes - Ninja
• New Hat - Tiger
• New Hat - Hero
• New Hat - Beanie
• New Hat - Dino
• New Hat - GoobVR
• New Hat - Disguise
• New Hat - Saiyan
• New Hat - Arrow'd
• New Hat - Fez
• New Hat - Weiner Head
• New Hat - Shades
• New Hat - Master
• New Hat - Srs Business
• New Hat - Princess
• Fixed a bug where AI in chicken chase would stand still after picking up a chicken
• Changed the quit game/pause menu so that it blocks input to other UI while it's active
• Fixed an issue where costumes with custom colour settings (speedster, etc) would not load the right colours when a game with any non-standard character controller was being used (ball, shooting, eating, etc)
• Fixed a bug where players could not start a game after the first one was complete, without closing the game and starting a new one.

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here //Dylan

[ 2017-06-03 00:07:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Yes, that's right, people can now disconnect/ragequit mid-game and it won't affect you. So long as the host keeps the game running and doesn't leave, any leavers will be replaced by a bot and the game keeps going like normal! Previously if a player (non-host) left a game while it was still in progress, the entire match would shut down and everyone would have to start over. This was dumb, and frustrating for everyone who just wanted to play. With the changes added in this update this will no longer happen, instead when a player leaves mid-game they are replaced by a bot. If it wasn't for a message in the chat box saying a player left, you probably wouldn't even realize someone left! Hopefully this will make finding, and playing a game a little less frustrating, as now (losers) can rage-quit mid game and it won't affect you! I also found a few bugs with the server browser, specifically if you tried to join a game with the wrong password you would be told the password was wrong, but the server would still accept your connection, causing a ghost player in the room. This could also cause players to get stuck on "Joining...", instead now you'll get an error message and things will clean up without getting stuck.

NEW HATS AND COSTUMES

With this update the total hats count is up to 50. This update also introduces COSTUMES, which are more than just things that go on your head. Here are some of my favorites!
And here's a full video showing them all! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW_IX5jVLIk&feature=youtu.be Nothing else major with this update worth talking about, lots of little fixes. It's highly recommended to always stay on the latest version!

Patch Notes

• Leavers are now replaced with bots instead of disconnecting all players.
• After completing one Party or Gauntlet and returning to the online character setup, the game opens allowing for players to join again.
• Fixed a bug causing ghost players in rooms when someone tries to join with the wrong password.
• Fixing a bug causing players to get stuck on "Joining..." when they try to join a game with a wrong password
• Hat Changes - Headband
• Hat Changes - Mohawk
• Hat Changes - Pirate
• Hat Changes - Speedster
• Hat Changes - Turtle
• Hat Changes - Ninja
• New Hat - Tiger
• New Hat - Hero
• New Hat - Beanie
• New Hat - Dino
• New Hat - GoobVR
• New Hat - Disguise
• New Hat - Saiyan
• New Hat - Arrow'd
• New Hat - Fez
• New Hat - Weiner Head
• New Hat - Shades
• New Hat - Master
• New Hat - Srs Business
• New Hat - Princess
• Fixed a bug where AI in chicken chase would stand still after picking up a chicken
• Changed the quit game/pause menu so that it blocks input to other UI while it's active
• Fixed an issue where costumes with custom colour settings (speedster, etc) would not load the right colours when a game with any non-standard character controller was being used (ball, shooting, eating, etc)
• Fixed a bug where players could not start a game after the first one was complete, without closing the game and starting a new one.

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here //Dylan

[ 2017-06-03 00:07:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

This update should address a major connection bug that players were experiencing that would not allow them to join online games, or allow their friends to join their hosted games. If this sort of error is still occurring for you, please get in contact with me either on the forums or at support@everglowinteractive.com Now onto the cool stuff.

Progression System, Loot Boxes, and new hats

A few weeks ago someone on the forums suggested that Party Panic should have a leveling/progression system to give you something to work towards, and I thought it was a great idea so I spent a week and made it real!
How it works is every time you (or another local player) earns points in a minigame those points are converted into XP, and once you earn enough XP you level up. Every time you level up you are awarded a loot box. When you open a loot box you are shown TWO hats and you get the choice of choosing the one you like to unlock and keep! The XP curve is pretty generous especially at the beginning. The XP requirements per level caps off at 9000, so even once you're a higher level you should unlock one loot box most every time you play a 10,000pts game. There's also 35 hats in the game now! I made a few modifications to some old hats (headband, mohawk) and added 4 new hats; Lootbox, Ninja, Firestorm, Fireman. I will be spending the next few days bringing that number up to 50 and also making the first few full body costumes you will be able to unlock! If you have any suggestions for hats you'd like to see in Party Panic, head over to the discussions thread and give me your suggestions! Additionally Party Panic now has Steam Cloud support. This means that every time you press "ready" your characters name, colour, and hat are saved to the cloud, Along with your loot boxes. XP, and unlocked hats. If you download Party Panic on a different computer all this saved data will transfer!

New Minigame - Fire Fighters

This is a minigame I actually prototyped a few months ago but couldn't get it exactly as I wanted it then, spend a little bit more time on it the last few weeks and came up with this. You're on fire, and you need to stay under the water to put yourself out but also have to fight off your friends who are trying to do the same! Also the whales are firefighters.

Patch Notes

• New Minigame - Fire Fighters! You're on fire, put yourself out while fighting your friends.
• Progression system. Hats will be unlocked via loot box, which are granted every time you level up. XP is shown in the bottom right corner of the screen, and XP is awarded for every point each local player earns in minigames. This means if you're playing with 4 players local multiplayer you will earn XP four times as fast!
• Loot boxes!
• Steam Cloud Support! Your character (name, colour, hat) will be saved every time you press ready. These settings will be loaded even if you download Party Panic on a different computer!
• New hat - Lootbox
• New hat - Ninja
• New hat - Firestrike
• New hat - Fireman
• Graphical updates to hat - Mohawk
• Graphical updates to hat - Headband
• Fixed(?) a major bug that would prevent connections from being established when trying to join a game. As this bug is dependent on your network configuration it is difficult for me to test (as the game always works in my test setups). If you are still experiencing issues please let me know.
• Fixed a bug where after playing one online game you could not start a second game even though everyone was "ready"
• Fixed a few bugs relating to online character customizations. During certain cases you could end up the same colour as another player, which should not be allowed.
• Hat colours no longer "pop" when changing character colour.

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here //Dylan

[ 2017-05-25 05:24:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

This update should address some major connection bugs that players were experiencing that would not allow them to join online games, or allow their friends to join their hosted games. Please make sure you're playing the latest version of Party Panic to ensure you can connect! If this sort of error is still occurring for you, please get in contact with me either on the forums or at support@everglowinteractive.com Now onto the cool stuff.

Progression System, Loot Boxes, and new hats

A few weeks ago someone on the forums suggested that Party Panic should have a leveling/progression system to give you something to work towards, and I thought it was a great idea so I spent a week and made it real!
How it works is every time you (or another local player) earns points in a minigame those points are converted into XP, and once you earn enough XP you level up. Every time you level up you are awarded a loot box. When you open a loot box you are shown TWO hats and you get the choice of choosing the one you like to unlock and keep! The XP curve is pretty generous especially at the beginning. The XP requirements per level caps off at 9000, so even once you're a higher level you should unlock one loot box most every time you play a 10,000pts game. There's also 35 hats in the game now! I made a few modifications to some old hats (headband, mohawk) and added 4 new hats; Lootbox, Ninja, Firestorm, Fireman. I will be spending the next few days bringing that number up to 50 and also making the first few full body costumes you will be able to unlock! If you have any suggestions for hats you'd like to see in Party Panic, head over to the discussions thread and give me your suggestions! Additionally Party Panic now has Steam Cloud support. This means that every time you press "ready" your characters name, colour, and hat are saved to the cloud, Along with your loot boxes. XP, and unlocked hats. If you download Party Panic on a different computer all this saved data will transfer!

New Minigame - Fire Fighters

This is a minigame I actually prototyped a few months ago but couldn't get it exactly as I wanted it then, spend a little bit more time on it the last few weeks and came up with this. You're on fire, and you need to stay under the water to put yourself out but also have to fight off your friends who are trying to do the same! Also the whales are firefighters.

Patch Notes

• New Minigame - Fire Fighters! You're on fire, put yourself out while fighting your friends.
• Progression system. Hats will be unlocked via loot box, which are granted every time you level up. XP is shown in the bottom right corner of the screen, and XP is awarded for every point each local player earns in minigames. This means if you're playing with 4 players local multiplayer you will earn XP four times as fast!
• Loot boxes!
• Steam Cloud Support! Your character (name, colour, hat) will be saved every time you press ready. These settings will be loaded even if you download Party Panic on a different computer!
• New hat - Lootbox
• New hat - Ninja
• New hat - Firestrike
• New hat - Fireman
• Graphical updates to hat - Mohawk
• Graphical updates to hat - Headband
• Fixed(?) a major bug that would prevent connections from being established when trying to join a game. As this bug is dependent on your network configuration it is difficult for me to test (as the game always works in my test setups). If you are still experiencing issues please let me know.
• Fixed a bug where after playing one online game you could not start a second game even though everyone was "ready"
• Fixed a few bugs relating to online character customizations. During certain cases you could end up the same colour as another player, which should not be allowed.
• Hat colours no longer "pop" when changing character colour.

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here //Dylan

[ 2017-05-25 05:24:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

This update is the "Quality of life" update mentioned in the last announcement. This update brings improvements, changes, and bug fixes to non-gameplay related things like a new server browser, in game chat, better keyboard controls and UI, and optimizations all over.

New Server Browser!

This is the biggest change to come with 0.9.9, the server browser has been rebuilt from the ground up so that it is easier to use, easier to see what's going on in all the open (or closed) rooms. The idea is that I want to show players the most info I can regarding games, so that they can either create a game themselves or see that a game might be ending soon and wait to join a game. At the top is the "region selector". Your region is determined automatically when you enter the online menu by pinging the four regions (Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia), and whichever responds fastest is set as your region. You can change your region manually if you want to see if there are open games in other regions for you to join. When you join a game a direct connection is attempted first, but if it fails you will connect through a relay server in the region you're looking for games in and may result in higher pings. Next is the server list, which shows 10 games at a time, split into pages where it shows the number of players in the game, how long the game has been going, if it's public or password protected and whether or not it's waiting for more players. Select a server by pressing A and then press the "Join Game" button, remember to enter a password if you're trying to join a private game! Bottom middle is the "Find game" button, pressing this will look through ALL of the games in the list and try and place you in an open game (if there are any available), so you don't have to sort through the list if there's lots of games. Bottom right is the "Create Game" button, click this to create a new game and go into the waiting room where you can set up the game, and your character while waiting for other players. If you enter a password in the box below before creating a game the game will be password protected, and only those with the password will be able to join!

Controls UI Improvements

One of the big issues while playing with the keyboard was that you couldn't see what buttons you are supposed to use, and you were forced to remember what keyboard button you mapped to each action. When you start the game it autodetects all the connected input devices and sets the best guess of what labels to use (which you can manually override in the Options menu). In the example above XBOX & Keyboard is set, so every 5 seconds it swaps which button labels to show. Hopefully this will make it easier for playing with a keyboard and a controller. I actually prefer using a keyboard now! The default keyboard controls were modified again, so any saved mappings have been reset (sorry!) Keyboard labels begin to break down while having multiple players use the same keyboard, so that setup isn't really recommended, or supported unless you're good at remembering your controls.

In game chat!

This is pretty straightforward. When playing online the chat box will be enabled. Press and start typing, or press to hide the chat and all messages. With great power comes great responsibility. Be excellent to eachother, and have fun!

Optimizations for everyone!

Every single minigame has been optimized anywhere from 10%-50% faster. The quality presets have also been modified to run a bit better on lower end systems and the changes between presets is more linear now.

Other stuff

There's a bunch of other small miscellaneous things all over the place. Here's the full list of changes

• New server browser
• In-game chat
• Button labels UI change depending on inputs devices being used
• Default keyboard controls changed
• Graphics presets modified to scale linearly better
• Framerate optimizations everywhere
• Default graphics preset changed to 'high'
• Picking up objects is now locally predicted, which means more responsive when under lag.
• Some minigames were missing AA and other camera effects
• Screenshake was toned down in some minigames
• Screenshake now scales properly with window resolution
• Fingerguns minigame has new ghost sfx, and vfx
• Fixed missing UI buttons
• Fixed a bug where goobers would stare straight up when no look at target was found
• Fixed a bug where goobers expressions were not synced over the network properly
• Network bandwidth optimizations

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here //Dylan

[ 2017-05-11 13:23:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

This update is the "Quality of life" update mentioned in the last announcement. This update brings improvements, changes, and bug fixes to non-gameplay related things like a new server browser, in game chat, better keyboard controls and UI, and optimizations all over.

New Server Browser!

This is the biggest change to come with 0.9.9, the server browser has been rebuilt from the ground up so that it is easier to use, easier to see what's going on in all the open (or closed) rooms. The idea is that I want to show players the most info I can regarding games, so that they can either create a game themselves or see that a game might be ending soon and wait to join a game. At the top is the "region selector". Your region is determined automatically when you enter the online menu by pinging the four regions (Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia), and whichever responds fastest is set as your region. You can change your region manually if you want to see if there are open games in other regions for you to join. When you join a game a direct connection is attempted first, but if it fails you will connect through a relay server in the region you're looking for games in and may result in higher pings. Next is the server list, which shows 10 games at a time, split into pages where it shows the number of players in the game, how long the game has been going, if it's public or password protected and whether or not it's waiting for more players. Select a server by pressing A and then press the "Join Game" button, remember to enter a password if you're trying to join a private game! Bottom middle is the "Find game" button, pressing this will look through ALL of the games in the list and try and place you in an open game (if there are any available), so you don't have to sort through the list if there's lots of games. Bottom right is the "Create Game" button, click this to create a new game and go into the waiting room where you can set up the game, and your character while waiting for other players. If you enter a password in the box below before creating a game the game will be password protected, and only those with the password will be able to join!

Controls UI Improvements

One of the big issues while playing with the keyboard was that you couldn't see what buttons you are supposed to use, and you were forced to remember what keyboard button you mapped to each action. When you start the game it autodetects all the connected input devices and sets the best guess of what labels to use (which you can manually override in the Options menu). In the example above XBOX & Keyboard is set, so every 5 seconds it swaps which button labels to show. Hopefully this will make it easier for playing with a keyboard and a controller. I actually prefer using a keyboard now! The default keyboard controls were modified again, so any saved mappings have been reset (sorry!) Keyboard labels begin to break down while having multiple players use the same keyboard, so that setup isn't really recommended, or supported unless you're good at remembering your controls.

In game chat!

This is pretty straightforward. When playing online the chat box will be enabled. Press and start typing, or press to hide the chat and all messages. With great power comes great responsibility. Be excellent to eachother, and have fun!

Optimizations for everyone!

Every single minigame has been optimized anywhere from 10%-50% faster. The quality presets have also been modified to run a bit better on lower end systems and the changes between presets is more linear now.

Other stuff

There's a bunch of other small miscellaneous things all over the place. Here's the full list of changes

• New server browser
• In-game chat
• Button labels UI change depending on inputs devices being used
• Default keyboard controls changed
• Graphics presets modified to scale linearly better
• Framerate optimizations everywhere
• Default graphics preset changed to 'high'
• Picking up objects is now locally predicted, which means more responsive when under lag.
• Some minigames were missing AA and other camera effects
• Screenshake was toned down in some minigames
• Screenshake now scales properly with window resolution
• Fingerguns minigame has new ghost sfx, and vfx
• Fixed missing UI buttons
• Fixed a bug where goobers would stare straight up when no look at target was found
• Fixed a bug where goobers expressions were not synced over the network properly
• Network bandwidth optimizations

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here //Dylan

[ 2017-05-11 13:23:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

For the sake of transparency, I want to explain what's going on with Party Panic and the plan for moving forward out of Early Access and into Release. I want to make Party Panic the best game I possibly can, and I'm still working as hard as I can. It's hard work and some days it feels like there's a lot of weight on my shoulders to deliver, but I have some big things prepared for the full Release, and the time leading up to it. Currently, the live version of Party Panic is from Feb 11th, nearly 3 months have gone by without any updates to main version. This is because I shifted gears to work on a new game mode for Party Panic that got bigger and bigger as I worked on it, but in that process of creating something that (I think) is really cool, I kind of neglected the rest of the game. This new game mode is very close to being done. May was set to be the "Pre-Release planning" month for Party Panic, where I would nail down dates, get in contact with marketing/promotional people and prepare for a big launch June 1st the best I can. I was right on track to meet that date, but as I was nailing down the details there was an issue that I (somehow) overlooked. Everyone knows that every Summer Steam has a huge sale, and we're quickly coming up to this sale. Last year the Summer Sale was the last week in June, and went until the first week of July. There are some complications with releasing Party Panic any time in June for a few reasons. 1) Developers must wait 30 days between sale/discounts. This is part of the problem. If I want to release Party Panic AND be included in the Summer Sale Party Panic needs to be released 37 days BEFORE the Summer Sale, or 30 days after. 37 days before would mean that I would need to release the in less than 14 days, which is absolutely impossible as that's not enough time to get release promo/marketing ready, and finalize the remaining things in the game. 30 days after the the Summer Sale brings us to the end of July.. Which means unless I do something there will have been no updates to Party Panic for 6 months. This is unacceptable. 2) There is the option to release a few days before the Summer Sale, but this seems like suicide for Party Panic's visibility, as Party Panic would get completely lost in the chaos, and can in no way complete with last years AAA GOTY on sale for 90% off or whatever other crazy deals there will be. So all in all, there's some really unfortunate timing that I wasn't aware about that means I can't/shouldn't release Party Panic June 1st, when I had hoped. After thinking about this problem for all of last week, I think I've come up with a solution I'm happy (mostly) with, and hopefully you guys will be happy with as well. Here's a breakdown of the roadmap as I see it, as I work towards the release of Party Panic. ---------- [May] [7th-14th] Prepare an update for Party Panic, with all the "quality of life" fixes and improvements I've made over the last few months. This will NOT include any new content, but will have things like a new server browser, matchmaking/find me a game, in game chat, UI improvements, Controller/keyboard improvements. All these things are already complete, I just need to clean up a few things. [14th-31st] Work on new minigames and content. There have not been any new minigames for the entirety of the time I've been working on the new game mode. I'm not happy with this, and I know a lot of people were looking forward to new minigames. During this time I'm going to come up with at least two new minigames that will be added to the game. Along with new hats, and an exclusive hat that will ONLY be UNLOCKED if you played the game while in Early Access. [June] [1st-14th] One more minigame, and revisions to old minigames to try and improve the networked physics in the ball games and bumper cars. [End of June] Steam Summer Sale. Party Panic will be available at a discounted price. This will be the current version of the game PLUS the Quality of Life changes mentioned earlier PLUS a few new minigames and some new hats and gauntlet things. I will also begin planning marketing/promotional things. [July] [Beginning of July] Steam Summer Sale. Probably going to have to use this time for tech support/bug fixes from the (hopefully) huge influx of new players coming from the Sale. [7th-21st] Release Prep. New trailer, finalizing content, localization, achievements, etc. [July 29th] One year anniversary of Party Panic being on Steam. Launch window, and launch discount. The game will launch with two new minigames bringing the total up to 30, and the new game mode 'Adventure Island'. That is the plan, some things may change slightly as unexpected things do come up. I want to make Party Panic the best game I can and I think this plan is the best course of action moving forward and gives me a few more weeks to add more content and polish to the current minigames, the new minigames, and the new game mode. Thanks for understanding the situation and all the support so far! If you have any questions, comments, ideas or anything head over to the discussions post about this here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/506500/discussions/0/1333474229060032719/ //Dylan

[ 2017-05-10 00:27:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's been about 2 months since the last announcement, and I've been busy! Lots of stuff has been slowly added to Party Panic but I want to outline a few of the big things. Party Panic has a newly designed website - http://partypanicgame.com/ Party Panic also now has 15 achievements! Keyboard controls were reworked with better defaults, and proper mouse mapping. This makes Party Panic really easy to play with a keyboard and mouse now. See this thread for more info: http://steamcommunity.com/app/506500/discussions/0/343787920134109178/ There are now 25 minigames in Party Panic. The new minigames are:

• Jump Scare
• Totem Brawl

Networked physics have been stabilized and redone with better client-side simulation, making it MUCH easier to mess around props in the waiting room if you're not the host, no longer does it take a second before you start moving the couch out the front door! Super smooth and responsive now. In some cases props may spaz out or wobble in place or have odd behaviour when more than one player is interacting with them, but this should be minimal. This also makes picking up and dropping objects much nicer too when you're not the host. As such the games Quality Control and Chicken Chase are MUCH better to play with any kind of lag. There's also some new hats, and some new obstacles in the gauntlet (and some new randomization for the obstacles) The fixes to physics and keyboard controls was the first step towards something pretty cool coming in the next update, a new game mode. I don't want to spoil much just yet, but here's a teaser...
See below for a full list of notes since the last announcement.

Update notes

• Stablized better client-side prediction for clients
• Client-side prediction for holdable objects
• Fixed a bug where if you ran backwards in the gauntlet and died, the platform you'd spawn back onto would no longer exist
• Adjusted some sfx that were too loud
• Added a info graphic about keyboard controls on the splash screen
• Added better keyboard defaults. WASD/LSHIFT/Space/Mouse L/R click
• Fixed a bug where you could not assign mouse buttons to keyboard actions
• Added mouse orbit on the gauntlet when using keyboard controls
• Added new Sombrero hat
• Added new Doggo hat
• Fixed some objects not using light probes in the waiting scene
• Added new Squid hat
• Added new Turtle hat
• Added punching/kicking to Jump Scare
• Added new minigame - Totem Brawl
• Added confetti when you win the gauntlet, or a minigame party.
• Added d-pad controls on recognized controllers, allow you to navigate the menus (or play the game) with the d-pad.
• Lobbies now have a "version" property. You can only join other games if you are playing on the same version of Party Panic. This will ensure all players are on the same version and prevent crashing from trying to load minigames only one player has. It is recommended to always keep Party Panic up to date.
• Fixed an issue of Ruined Ruins showing first player 4 times.
• Updated Rewired (input library). New version plays nicer with Steam PS4 Controller
• Fixed(?) a bug that would prevent a single player from accumulating scores on Tile Brawl
• Added (delirious) hockey mask
• Added Bear hat
• Added Panda hat
• Fixed Chicken Chase scores. As soon as the game ended everyone's score was set to 0, regardless of how many chickens they caught, resulting in no scores on the score screen. This is fixed now.
• Feeding Frenzy now uses Up/Down/Left/Right on the left joystick (or keyboard) instead of A/B/X/Y. Feeding Frenzy was the one game that was impossible to play with a keyboard, and with these changes it can be played with the arrow keys (or wasd) much much easier.
• Moved the pre-game "GO!!" text that slide across the screen before a minigame starts so it ends further to the left. On some longer localized strings the text would still be shown on the left edge of the screen because it wasn't moving far enough offscreen.
• Added a note about how to reset the game data in the Options > Controls screen
• Added another layer of keyboard controls so that the arrow keys and space can ALWAYS be used to navigate back to the controls menu if you need to fix "broken" controls. This will even work if you (somehow manage to) clear all keyboard controls in the controls screen.
• New minigame - Jump Scare! Jump on the zombies heads to get points!
• Added 9 new gauntlet chunks (random variations) bringing the total chunk count to 17.
• Removed the spinner from the moving platforms chunk (it was waaay too hard)
• Added invisible walls to the Chicken Chase minigame, should prevent people from flying outside of camera, and force chickens to stay closer to the center of the pens (so they will count towards score)
• Increased the ghost AI speed for the starting ghost in Ghost Chasers, this ghost now speeds up as the game goes on.
• Added 15 achievements!
• Hotfix - Fixing some achievements unlocking at the wrong time.
• Fixed an issue that was preventing custom controller remappings from saving/loading. More info about it here
• Fixed a bug where when joining one room you would be placed into a different room (sometimes a started game)
• Fixed a bug where toggling between public and private lobbies would not refresh the list properly
• Fixed a bug where lobbies would be shown but not be valid, and trying to join them would fail causing you to be stuck behind the door.
• Fixed a bug with the lobby browser where when a room was removed from the list (because of being full) it would block all other rooms for being shown.
• Fixed the missing invisible wall in Avalanche. Players could move towards the camera and fall off screen.
• Adjusted the Ai for Chicken Chase so they should not overjump past their cages.

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here //Dylan

[ 2017-02-11 06:45:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

With this update Party Panic now has true online multiplayer! You can now join any public games and play against random people on the internet! Rooms are sorted automatically, so the first rooms to show up will have the best connection. Party Panic still has a quite small playerbase, so oftentimes there may not be anyone else looking for a game, but at least you can now try :) NOTE: Party Panic uses direct connections between players for online multiplayer, limited only by their individual speeds. Your experience playing online may vary depending on the hosts and all connected players internet speeds. There's also a few new minigames bringing the total up to 23. The new minigames are:

• Spike Scramble
• Present Panic
• Ruined Ruins
• Spooky Shootout

See below for a full list of notes since the last announcement.

Update notes

• Modified the online room browser. There is now a toggle (X) between Public games waiting to start (anyone can join these games) or Private games (only people on your friends list).
• Fixed some bugs with joining public games.
• Added some simple communication options in the "Waiting for players" menu, allowing you to communicate with everyone else in the lobby.
• New Minigame (#23) - Spooky Shootout! Ghosts are haunting the house, shoot as many of them as you can to get points!
• Fixed a bug where Ruined Ruins totems were spawned in at the wrong locations
• Fixed a bug where AI crosshairs (Crumbling Tiles, Lava Blocks) were not finding a valid target and would not move.
• Fixed a bug where AI crosshairs would only spawn in head hazards at the center of the screen.
• Adjusted the AI for Chicken Chase.
• New Minigame (#22) - Ruined Ruins! Mash the attack button as fast as you can to smash ancient goober totems. RIP your fingers.
• New Minigame (#21) - Present Panic! Get in the holiday spirit by throwing presents at houses! Aim carefully as you only get points for hitting the front door, and lose points for hitting cars!
• Added a santa hat.
• New Minigame - Spike Scramble! Don't get squished by the falling spikes. Use the shadows to find safety!
• Added a 'Screenshake' setting in the options menu. Turn this off to disable all screenshake effects (was requested by a player)

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here //Dylan

[ 2016-12-21 00:07:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Party Panic now has 20 minigames!! Check out all the recent updates below!

Update notes for [11/23/2016]

• All minigames now last 45 seconds (previously 30 seconds) - This was the most common feedback I was receiving about the game. Lots of people enjoyed the 30 second minigames, but a lot of people also felt like the games were over just a little bit too soon. 15 seconds doesn't seem like a lot, but surprisingly it does make the minigames feel like they have a lot more substance to them. After testing internally for the last few weeks I'm really happy with how 45 second games feel. All minigames have been adjusted (scores, difficulties, etc) accordingly.
• New Minigame - Hot Hurdles! Jump over the spinning spikes and stay alive. Time your jumps just right and you might not die!
• New Minigame - Slippery Sprint! Run to the finish in this slippery race. If you're not careful you'll go sliding off the edge!
• Modified the AI in Minigame - Chicken Chase. Modified the game so there are more chickens, they are a little easier to grab. You can also steal chickens from other players goals now!
• Fixed a bug where Whacky Whale would spawn crates while waiting for a player to connect (when playing online). This would cause an wall of crates to pile up which you could not get past.
• Added level bounds in Minigame - Candy Brawl
• Modified Balloon Busters so that not all walls have spikes.
• Fixed missing fence colliders in Minigame - Ghost Chasers
• Fixed a bug in online play where if you start a second party after playing through the first, players would see bots with different colours/hats
• Fixed a bug in local play where players (2,3,4) would be assigned the incorrect colour. (Would show "blue", player would not be "blue", etc)
• Fixed a bug where joining an online game would sometimes fail leaving you stuck at the "waiting for players" screen

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here

[ 2016-11-23 09:34:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey guys, just an update of what's been happening the last two weeks. It's pretty crazy the exposure Party Panic has seen on youtube already, with some HUGE channels uploading let's plays and having lots of fun with the game. I still can't believe it. Absolutely crazy!! After the online update quite a few bugs were found and patched, along with a few other things. Here's a full list.

• New Minigame - Candy Brawl! Punch your friends, fight for candy!
• Controller remapper - Should allow ANY controller to work after a little setup in-game. More info here (http://steamcommunity.com/app/506500/discussions/0/343787920134109178/)
• Optimized the amount of data sent to the server for player inputs. From 1.32kbps to 0.09kbps. This should reduce input lag on minigames (Balloon Busters, Sumo Balls, Ball Bangers, Skeeball, Faceball) by a large amount.
• Fixed a bug where scores would be added twice when playing online.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes you would join a room but not be added on the waiting screen.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes Feeding Frenzy would get stuck on the loading screen
• Added performance optimizations to the gauntlet, now runs 300% faster.
• Fixed a bug where if you could not see the winner of the gauntlet (unless you were the winner). Instead you'd just see a nice scenic view of a lake.
• Synced the moving platform sections of the gauntlet so every player sees them in the same place (no more floating players on platforms you could not see)
• Added spike spinners on two of the gauntlet sections
• Added missing characters in some localizations
• Fixed door #3 not opening in the room browser if there was an available game behind it.
• Fixed players in the minigame Avalanche getting stuck (invisible players, their model model being detached from their actual position, resulting in only seeing smoke on the ground where they were)
• Fixed players in the gauntlet getting stuck (invisible players)
• Fixed crosshairs moving slowly when FPS is high
• Fixed the quit game menu from disconnecting players and quitting the game when a player tried to quit the game without disbanding the group.
• Fixed menus to use system input in some places (keyboard will always work)

There's still one more (large-ish) bug happening that causes freezing (black screen) while loading some minigames for some players. The minigames affected are Balloon Busters, Bubble Bumper, Sumo Balls, Skeeball and Faceball. For some reason some users can't load the physics library used in this. Will try to get this fixed ASAP, things should hopefully be fixed by this time tomorrow. //Dylan

[ 2016-10-25 16:18:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

THE BIGGEST REQUEST FROM PLAYERS IS HERE - ONLINE MULTIPLAYER IS DONE! If you own Party Panic already you should be seeing an update now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAA0KsvouZ0 After three long months it's finally here, go get it, grab some friends and punch them in the face! (In the game of course). Like always throw feedback my way, or if you have any issues. I've tested it pretty thoroughly, but bugs do tend to slip through

So what exactly changed?

The short answer is a lot. The long answer: Party Panic was (almost) completely rewritten from the ground up over the last three months. Online isn't something that can be added on after the fact, so most everything needed to be changed to work online. It was hard, but I'm 100% positive it's what Party Panic needed to make the game the best it could be. Lots of things have been reworked, balanced, and streamlined. A few things did have to be removed due to some technical challenges, but for the most part the game plays the same.

So what's new:

1) Online option from the main menu takes you to a room browser. Once here it prompts you to enter how many players will be playing on your computer locally. Once that's entered you can create a room, or join a friends room so long as there is space for your players. This is cool because it means you can mix the number of players local and online. If you have one friend that can't make it to your games night IRL, you can play with three players locally, and have your one friend join online. (or you can do 2-2, 1-1-2, 1-1-1-1, etc...) 2) Once in a room (when playing locally or online) you're just about ready to party. You're now prompted to decide _what_ kind of party you'll be playing. There's a handy popup that asks you which game mode (Minigame Party, Single Minigame, or The Gauntlet), along with how long to play the game, and configuration options for Bots (OFF, Easy, Normal, Hard) and the drinking game 3) Next you set up your players and you're ready to go, the rest works 99% the same as it used to. 4) Because of some complications with networking physics interactions (it's stupid hard to get working really nicely), a few games (Sumoballs, Ball Bangers, Bumpercars, Skeeball, Faceball) work a bit differently than the other games. They send inputs to the "host" computer, and applies them and sends back the players their positions, as this was the only reasonable way I could have physics interactions (players pushing/bumping eachother) Because of this the higher ping you have the more delayed controls will be in these games. (related to this issue is why the "ball" sections of the gauntlet have been removed) When I started working on the online mode I nearly scrapped these games entirely because of this, but I got them working well enough for me to decide to keep them in. Just be warned, if these games feel sluggish it is 99% because of your connection speed. This goes into what I discussed in the last update and on the forums, and the reason why there is no public matchmaking in Party Panic - If you're just playing against random people on the internet you might as well just play against the bots. That way you'll have a 100% lag free experience, rather than being at the mercy of your/your opponents connection speeds. I will continue to work to make it as fast and as lag free as possible. 5) The Gauntlet had some changes; The ball sections were removed and replaced with similar sections that you navigate as a normal character, along with counters to the UI to count how many times each player has died.

What was removed?

1) The Deathmatch - This was shown to be the least favorite game mode, and was difficult to maintain (as all the logic and controllers were separate from the rest of the game code). This may return in the future. 2) Minigame - Midnight Snack. There were complications with networking with this game, and due to the fast paced nature of this game (lots of punching, grabbing, and fighting over the same objects) it's been removed. This will be replaced with a new minigame over the next week. (regarding the online launch goes relatively problem free)

Where do we go from here?

I'm going to continue to refine things a bit, but for the most part it's just bugfixes. I'm hoping to start creating some new minigames starting next week as I continue to work up towards the target minigame count of 25 (there are currently 16) After that there is an idea I've been playing around with on paper for a while - something akin to the "board game" part of Mario party. It's something like a longer form game, with minigames thrown in every few minutes, with a hint of RPG elements ;) Anyways, that's all for now. I hope you guys have a blast with the new online mode. Let me know what you think!!! //Dylan September Update - http://steamcommunity.com/app/506500/discussions/0/343785574519325884/

[ 2016-10-15 09:10:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Just a quick announcement: I can't believe it. Online is complete!! It's currently going through the final stages of testing to make sure it's as bug free as possible. In approximately 12 hours from the time of this announcement you will be able to download the update and play online! There will be a more complete announcement at that time, with a complete log of everything that has changed, along with updates to the store page and video to reflect these changes. GET HYPED. SOON YOU WILL BE ABLE TO PUNCH YOUR FRIENDS IN THE FACE FROM ACROSS THE WORLD, THANKS TO THE MAGIC OF THE INTERNET!!!! // Dylan

[ 2016-10-14 16:00:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch #2! There were some issues with the difficulty of the Ai, this patch introduces a fix to this. There are now three difficulty levels which can be set in the Options menu to control the AI difficulty. Easy, Normal, and Hard. The "old" AI would fall somewhere between Normal and Hard. There are still some lingering strings that need to be translated, that should come in an update in a few days. Here's a complete list of changes

• Two new difficulty levels in the options menu under "AI Settings", Easy and Hard.
• AI difficulty is now set on the start of a game, and randomized within a small range.
• All minigames work with the new AI levels.

//Dylan

[ 2016-07-31 23:00:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

After a long night of additions, fixes and tweaking, The first patch is out! There is now an "AI Settings" option in the Options menu. It is recommended to leave this set to "NORMAL", but if you wish to play without bots filling the empty player slots for whatever reason, now you can! In the (near) future options will be added to this setting, specifically an "EASY" and "HARD" AI difficulty and refined AI across all the minigames using these settings. Here's a complete list of changes

• AI Settings in the options mode, allowing you to disable bots completely.
• Chicken Chase AI and Chicken avoid logic refined
• Quality Control now has additional barriers on the left and rightmost goals, this makes it a bit easier to accurately drop your heads into your goal.
• Midnight Snack AI refinements, ai can no longer punch and then instantly pick up a brain.
• Decreased the frequency of random screaming outbursts
• Decreased the size of "droppable head hazards" on Lava Blocks and Crumbling Tiles, also made it so AI couldn't all drop their heads at once, creating a super op mountain of heads.
• Adjusted scoring rules in some games to scale better when not playing with any combination of 4 players (Players + AI).
• Mouse cursor is now hidden while playing

Hope you guys are having fun! //Dylan

[ 2016-07-30 16:55:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's happening! Party Panic is set to be available in Early access July 29th, at 12:00am PDT. I hope everyone is as excited as I am to finally get Party Panic in the hands of players. I've been working on this game as hard as I can for nearly 8 months straight, and there's lots left to do, but the game has already come so far! I'm looking forward to hearing feedback from everyone, good and bad. The more feedback I get from you guys, the better I can try and make the game! Soon everyone will be able to Party, Panic, and punch each other in the face. GOOD OLD FASHIONED FUN! SOOOOON!! // Dylan

[ 2016-07-26 04:52:23 CET ] [ Original post ]