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 ]