The first major update to Splody releases today, combining a couple major features and a lot of little tweaks, as well as, of course, including all of the small improvements that were released rapid-fire since launch.

Ranking and Leaderboards

The feature I'm most excited about in this update is the addition of ranking and leaderboards. Most online games of Splody played will affect your Rating, and the people with the highest Rating are ranked at the top of the leaderboards, both on the web and inside the game (accessible from the Play Online menu). This feature has been added retroactively, so all games since sometime during the beta have been taken into account to determine players' current ratings! How do you stack up to the competition?
As well as an all-time Rating and leaderboard, there is a rating which resets each month that ranks you on the Monthly Leaderboard. The in-game Rating change display at the end of each round and series always refers to the all-time Rating, but you can still view someone's Monthly Rating and Monthly Rank in-game from the Stats button in the scores screen. If you want to know more details and specifics on how the rating system works, checkout relevant section in the documentation.

Ghost Bombers and New Level Themes

Mechanically similar to the old "orbital bombers", the new Ghost Bombers look like, well, ghosts, and give a lot more feedback to both the ghost and other players as to what is going on - you'll see a clearer animation when you're summoning a bomb from beyond the grave. Along with making the cute ghosts, the artists over at Buko Studios have also added two new level themes, the Forest and the Caves, which I think turned out pretty fantastic!

Bomb Tells

There is a new option for changing the animation style of bombs right before they go off. The new default adds a pre-explosion blink that gives you a little warning when a bomb is half a second away from exploding. New and experienced players alike seem to really like this, however the old, much more subtle, option is still available for people who want that classic "I had no idea that bomb was about to explode" kind of feel (set on a server and applies to all players). Also, on the topic of graphics options, there's a new option, oft requested by users, for making the characters appear 33% smaller.

Team Mode: Humans vs Bots

The regular team mode will balance the bots to keep equal numbers of players on each team, but this new team mode will put all of the bots on one team. Go ahead, grab some friends, add 32 bots, and see how you do against them! Note that team settings must be configured on the server for online games, and the Official Public Servers are set to Free for all mode, so you'll need to do a local multiplayer game or launch your own server for this.

A Million Little Things

As well as the big things, there have also been a lot of little changes since release. If you've not been paying attention to the ChangeLog, here are some of the most significant improvements in this update and added since launch:

• NEW! On the series results screen, show all players that participated at some point in the series, not just those still connected
• NEW! Steam Music Player integration, see docs for details
• NEW! Add an additional 30-second countdown to start matches when the majority of players are ready, even if some are still outside the ready zone, or intentionally resetting the regular 5-second countdown
• NEW! On the Choose Player screen, allow the Room Leader to kick players (either set them as a spectator if they appear to be AFK, or boot them from the server)
• NEW! Add music track: Facemelter
• NEW! Chat: Add timestamps, clickable URLs, copying to clipboard, server history
• NEW! Audio: Replace Speed Up powerup sound that numerous people complained about
• NEW! Bot suicide prevention fixes
• Reduce load time and eliminate run-time stalls
• Show recently placed and blocking bombs more clearly so you're never confused as to why you're stuck when trying to walk past a bomb
• Add longevity to destroyed blocks for a more classic feel
• Allow the audio/controls/graphics menus to be accessed during a game in progress
• Work around various programs stomping on Splody's textures while recording/streaming
• Lots of fixes for players with ridiculously long Steam profile names
• Mount Control game mode balances
• Tons of other minor bug fixes

Hope you have a blast!

• Jimbly

[ 2017-05-25 22:15:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

The first major update to Splody releases today, combining a couple major features and a lot of little tweaks, as well as, of course, including all of the small improvements that were released rapid-fire since launch.

Ranking and Leaderboards

The feature I'm most excited about in this update is the addition of ranking and leaderboards. Most online games of Splody played will affect your Rating, and the people with the highest Rating are ranked at the top of the leaderboards, both on the web and inside the game (accessible from the Play Online menu). This feature has been added retroactively, so all games since sometime during the beta have been taken into account to determine players' current ratings! How do you stack up to the competition?
As well as an all-time Rating and leaderboard, there is a rating which resets each month that ranks you on the Monthly Leaderboard. The in-game Rating change display at the end of each round and series always refers to the all-time Rating, but you can still view someone's Monthly Rating and Monthly Rank in-game from the Stats button in the scores screen. If you want to know more details and specifics on how the rating system works, checkout relevant section in the documentation.

Ghost Bombers and New Level Themes

Mechanically similar to the old "orbital bombers", the new Ghost Bombers look like, well, ghosts, and give a lot more feedback to both the ghost and other players as to what is going on - you'll see a clearer animation when you're summoning a bomb from beyond the grave. Along with making the cute ghosts, the artists over at Buko Studios have also added two new level themes, the Forest and the Caves, which I think turned out pretty fantastic!

Bomb Tells

There is a new option for changing the animation style of bombs right before they go off. The new default adds a pre-explosion blink that gives you a little warning when a bomb is half a second away from exploding. New and experienced players alike seem to really like this, however the old, much more subtle, option is still available for people who want that classic "I had no idea that bomb was about to explode" kind of feel (set on a server and applies to all players). Also, on the topic of graphics options, there's a new option, oft requested by users, for making the characters appear 33% smaller.

Team Mode: Humans vs Bots

The regular team mode will balance the bots to keep equal numbers of players on each team, but this new team mode will put all of the bots on one team. Go ahead, grab some friends, add 32 bots, and see how you do against them! Note that team settings must be configured on the server for online games, and the Official Public Servers are set to Free for all mode, so you'll need to do a local multiplayer game or launch your own server for this.

A Million Little Things

As well as the big things, there have also been a lot of little changes since release. If you've not been paying attention to the ChangeLog, here are some of the most significant improvements in this update and added since launch:

• NEW! On the series results screen, show all players that participated at some point in the series, not just those still connected
• NEW! Steam Music Player integration, see docs for details
• NEW! Add an additional 30-second countdown to start matches when the majority of players are ready, even if some are still outside the ready zone, or intentionally resetting the regular 5-second countdown
• NEW! On the Choose Player screen, allow the Room Leader to kick players (either set them as a spectator if they appear to be AFK, or boot them from the server)
• NEW! Add music track: Facemelter
• NEW! Chat: Add timestamps, clickable URLs, copying to clipboard, server history
• NEW! Audio: Replace Speed Up powerup sound that numerous people complained about
• NEW! Bot suicide prevention fixes
• Reduce load time and eliminate run-time stalls
• Show recently placed and blocking bombs more clearly so you're never confused as to why you're stuck when trying to walk past a bomb
• Add longevity to destroyed blocks for a more classic feel
• Allow the audio/controls/graphics menus to be accessed during a game in progress
• Work around various programs stomping on Splody's textures while recording/streaming
• Lots of fixes for players with ridiculously long Steam profile names
• Mount Control game mode balances
• Tons of other minor bug fixes

Hope you have a blast!

• Jimbly

[ 2017-05-25 22:15:44 CET ] [ Original post ]