Hello, Happy Co-op Fest! I bet there's going to be some great games. I set out on this project in 2016, in part, beacuse I was mad there weren't more co-op games. Now there's a bunch, which...maybe means my game in particular hasn't done as well, but..I'm looking to forward to Co-Op Fest nonetheless. While the title claims this is a "Major Update", I must confess this it isn't very spectacular. I've added a "flight report card" after every flight (aka run) and there's now a poster in the treehouse that displays your top 10 "highest flights" (aka high scores). There's a few bug fixes (but plenty of bugs left), aaand you can now name the whale. While I was hoping to do more in anticipation for Steam's Co-op Fest that starts tomorrow (the 10th), I've really lost motivation the last few weeks after I traveled to attended my grandma's funeral. Very strange the perspective death provides. It's also very strange how, whether I had sold 2 million copies of Flock of Dogs or 2, my family and my cousins would treat me and love me just the same. I think my loss of motivation was impending, regardless of the traveling. A pretty good chance this is the last FoD update. Anyway, not that anyone's asked, and all my friends and game dev buddies have heard me drone on and on about this, but I thought I'd just like to post a long, boring public documentation of some of my bad business decisions with this game.......... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you weren't following the development of Flock of Dogs for the last few years, then maybe you're not aware that it was in Early Access and it was free for almost 2 years. My plan was for the base game to provide the Minigame Park and the Friend Pass for free and then charge a "premium" amount (like $10) for the campaign in the form of a DLC. In other words, FoD was never a typical F2P game (you know, with lots of microtransactions). In Early Access over the last 2 years, about 60,000 people did claim a free copy of Flock of Dogs. Of those, about 15,000 actually ever installed the game. Of course, they weren't able to actually play the roguelike portion and if you think the tutorial is confusing now, it was much less clear then. If I could do it over again, I would never have done free Early Access. It may sound obvious, but one of the few metrics Valve has openly stated they use to determine a game's early viability is how much revenue it is generating. Since I didn't want to do microtransactions and the game was free, I generated no revenue. Not only that, but since the game was free, I figure some of those 60,000 people maybe would have wishlisted the game, then maybe bought it launch, rather than "add to library" and forget about it. Who knows. When I launched, I only had 2.5k wishlists after having a Steam page up for 4+ years, so I pretty much already knew the game wasn't going to do well. Some might say the problem was the game. Hard to disagree. I have learned from reading different resources about marketing on Steam that really your best bet for success is to have at least 10k wishlists from within 6 months or a year of putting your page up. Then you have a chance of a lot of people, all at once, buying your game. Then you have a chance of Steam featuring your game on its New & Trending list and then, if it catches on with the wider Steam audience, you can do quite well. Anyway, I got scared that my sales model with a free base game + paid DLC for the campaign would be confusing and ineffective. I switched to a paid product. The Valve team warned me this would reset my 97 reviews with a Mostly Positive rating to 0 reviews. They also said those 60,000 people would immediately be granted a full icense of the game. I bit the bullet and converted to paid product. At this point in my journey, I don't know if that was a bad choice, but pretty much the game couldn't have had a much worse launch, so maybe it was. I also released in the middle of the holiday season, just 2 days before Winter Fest. I knew this was all ill-advised, but I had promised myself I'd get the game out in 2024. I'm proud that I've released a game on Steam and I think it the game does offer something special. It came as a surprise that the 60,000 people who suddenly now own a free copy of the game didn't get a notification email when I released into 1.0, and that really upset me. Like, I know those people are unlikey to just donate me money or something, and I know that any reviews they write now won't show up, because they "received the product for free", but damn man. If they thought Flock of Dogs looked interesting, I'd love for them to actually see how it ended up. I worked very hard on the Festival at the end of the game and it does bum me out that a lot of people who were interested in the game will probably never see it. Maybe this message will reach some of them/you, but maybe this message is too long. Also, the decision to add network multiplayer was bad. It's a great feature, but it cost me probably 2+ years of development time and then after working on it for a year, Valve released "Remote Play Together" as a free feature. I remember when I read about that, I just laid down on the floor for like half an hour. TL; DR READ IT. Hehehe. Yours truly, -Max P.S. I will be applying for jobs, priotizing game dev and I will be working on some other game ideas, and I will be continuing my Georgist and sortition activism. You know, to save the world. If you don't know what either Georgism or sortition is and you're curious, or you do know what they are and you think they're seriously flawed, send me a message!

[ 2025-02-10 08:03:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Was busy this week with a little clay sculpting commission, but hey, it's nice to make a little money. If you got all your friends to buy Flock of Dogs, maybe I'd have gotten more work done this week :) Anyway, hope you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. - Fixed the submission feedback form losing focus, if you're playing with a controller - Fixed playing with multiple controllers on the Steam Deck Please submit logs or message me whenever you have map desyncs! (Or any bugs at all, ofc) One of the things I didn't realize when I decided to add online multiplayer when making this game was how hard it is to recreate network bugs, even if you know they exist. -Max

[ 2025-01-01 01:42:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welp, I love my little game, but alas, the world does not. So Flop of Dogs it is. Can't say I didn't see it coming, but it doesn't feel great. I don't know how much more time I can justify working on Flock of Dogs, but I'll be making at least some efforts up until February's Co-Op Fest on Steam. Fixed some pretty serious bugs this week and was able to add in a fun "Flight Report Card", as I call it. Your "Flight" now gets a rank. I wonder if anyone will ever get the top rank... Anyway, here's a list of stuff I did. - Added "Flight Report" score card, so each run now gets a score, i don't track your high scores yet tho - Ramed 'Carnivore' to 'Monstervore', bc it's more funner - Fixed several issues with final boss! - Put sundial and ffwd button at festival to make it clearer how to fast forward time - Fixed dogs leveling up every time they eat a bone after getting 1 Big Bone - Fixed ui issue on treehouse ladder - Fixed visual issue with nighttime emotes - Fixed issue with collecting coins during level transitions - Tweaked generatoin amounts of flowers, hitchhikers, puppies - Added "dirty whale" warning to help people understand why they move slow on whale - Increased bosses' hps - Fixed faucet-pups interaction - Fixed mop-pup interaction - Fixed mop-water bowl interaction - Fixed duplicating returning small flowers to pool in final stage - Fixed typos "Deliverty" and "Busness" - Fixed day counter regression - Fixed network issue with disbanding group - Fixed network loading issue with photonnetworktime wrappinrg weirdly - Fixed network bug with "Cancel Flight" aka "Return to Treehouse" Note: many other known issues, but if you have any kind of desync or get errors, please press F9 and submit feedback. If you crash, it's more effort, but you can access your previous log through the menus and send that to me, but...just press F9 and tell me what you were last doing :) Yours truly, Max

[ 2024-12-26 20:47:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

This update really only fixes the inability to actually fight the final boss, which I screwed up. More fixes coming someday maybe. -Max

[ 2024-12-23 03:55:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, It's a Tuesday afternoon. Look up and you might see a flying dog or three. -Max

[ 2024-12-17 22:08:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, You can now play through the game, reach the Festival, and experience something very much close to what I envisioned. And it's all available to anyone who owns the games or buys it now in Early Access. So you can go play now! You can reach the Festival! However, the frequency of bugs is just too high for me to feel comfortable releasing into 1.0. Just this morning I ran into a bug that would just end the game very early on. I fixed (I think, people have tested it and it hasn't reocurred). I've been working a long time on this game many years and it's very close, but I hate how inconsistent the experience is and it seems like I could get a lot done in the next few days or a week. If you're interested in group playtests, please join the Discord. Thanks for your understanding. -Max

[ 2024-12-11 00:52:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixed some things, did a good amount of work on the Festival. I've defined some new flower powers. The prettiest one is probably the Narwhal's Favor (pictured below).
The narwhal horn let's you blow up moons. Spoiler alert. I made a bunch of icons for them. My favorite is the "fat and happy" whale. I've said that if anyone wants to get a tattoo of it, I'd pay.

-Max

[ 2024-11-28 00:27:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

I swore I would release Flock of Dogs by the end of this year. So.

DECEMBER 10TH....probably maybe most likely will be release day.

I've been in quiet crunch mode for weeks.

I've decided to convert the game to $9.99 with no DLC.

This means all of you who had the free game in your librabry, you now own the full game!

Please consider either gifting a friend a copy, buying the hat DLC, or buying some Flock of Dogs soap.

https://shopofflockofdogs.bigcartel.com/product/floral-hand-body-wash-for-the-flock So, new build is now live and the demo is synced to it. You should be able to play with a friend who doesn't own the game, if they download the friend version (the demo) from the Steam page. Please please let me know if you try this and it doesn't work. I didn't mention this last time, but I shrunk the game install size down from 4 gb to just over 2 gb. Hurray. If I knew what I was doing, I'm sure the game could be 1 gb. Although, more music and art will be added soon. The day/night cycle is back in the game. Took some inspiration from Majora's Mask for the clock UI elements. This did involve a bunch of tweaks to the game for lighting purposes. I made it quite visible at night on easy and normal, but on hard you're going to have to make sure you have items/equipment that provides lighting. Sadly, camping and dream world won't make it in the 1.0 release. The whale now fires fruit as cannonballs, instead of iron balls. And so the whale is now healed by pluckable flowers, rather than eating fruit. This was a systems change I had long been thinking about. Players had repeatedly asked if they can pick the flowers and this was a fitting purpose fdor them. The whale already sleeps in flower beds, or in the giant flower cocoons. And getting players to recognize the crates of cannonballs was next to impossible! So now the trees are filled with fruit and the whale can be readily supplied with ammo. Can't remember if dwarfs are even in the current main branch of Flock of Dogs? Idk, but dwarfs are a big deal. They now make little squeaks. They're the little critters you're mostly trying to help get to the festival. They now give you a purple star when you pick 'em up. This is used to unlock the minigames in the park. A bunch of minor visual updates that maybe all togteher will have a positive effect. Wrote some goofy poems that I put in the game. Not going to bother listing all the fixes, in the hundreds since I last updated you. It's remarkable to me how easily I've become the low communication developer I never thought I would be. I think, in part, it's because I'm embarrassed by how long this whole shebang has taken, the feeling that no one really cares that much, and then feeling judgmental about devs who talk about their interpersonal struggles in public a lot. Welp, there you go. My hypocrisy is laid bare. Anyway, it really would like for this game to do well so I can justify spending more time working on it. Yours truly, Max

[ 2024-11-19 05:42:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Oh, hello there. So this is both a "Major Update" and a "DLC Release"! That's because I consider the Flight to the Festival DLC to really be the main game in Flock of Dogs. It is the co-op, roguelike experience I've been working for 7 years. The Minigame Park and the (all new) beginning area are still free. I did this whole Steam thing in a weird way, I know. Also, the game is still in Early Access, so the DLC is still basically also Early Access. What's new/mostly new/mostly finished are:

• New biomes
• New dog tricks
• New tool upgrades
• New bosses
• New clouds
• New beginning area/tutorial (I don't like calling it a "tutorial")
• New difficulty levels
• New poems

It Comes With 1 Friend Slot

Purchase of the Flight to the Festival DLC includes 1 Friend Slot. With it, you can have 1 friend join you at any time. They just need to download the free base game. For additional Friend Slots, my plan had been to create another DLC called "Friend Slot" and then you could buy up to 6 copies of it, but Valve said that's not feasible. So I guess I'd have to create 6 DLCs titled Friend Slot 1, 2, 3...6. Or setup in-app purchases? Idk. On the to do list.

Situation Report (Er..."Flight Status?")

It's kinda embarrassing that it's taking me so long to get here, and I'm still not done, but...oh well. I have also just about finished a launch trailer, but I'm not launching, so you don't get to see it now. Heheh. I have spent a lot of time fixing bugs and working on the netcode, so, as always, if you find any bugs or have any feedback, please let me know. -Max P.S. Just want to say I'm very happy with the new clouds. I'm happy about the other things too, but I just didn't think the background clouds would add that much, but boy oh boy, I love 'em.

[ 2024-07-26 06:28:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, So, sure enough, although I never promised anything, my weekly build update streak ended. This is partly due to the fact Ive been working on a new trailer and partly my failure as a human being. Also, this update isnt terribly exciting either. Ive shown my game at a few, small more in-person events in the last couple weeks and still felt like I needed to make some changes the beginning sequence to help players understand. I refuse to just put giant text chunks and instead, each time I see someone struggle in a way I dont want them to struggle, I make inch by inch concessions in my tutorial. Anyway, build 0.4.155 is now available. - Minimap now flashes the first time you get on the whales saddle - New approach for dog damage that I may revert: when they lose their last heart, they buck their riders and auto fly back to whale and cannot be shot down out of the sky and are invincible, unless the red ring count down to 0 and there was no nest available/they couldnt reach it in time. - "no hearts" and "no kiting yet" better layout - New saddle wording on prep list - Summon whale hint added at fork - Initializing reticle aim upon equipping tool properly - Increased item mass and drag on ground - Increased stick trigger size to large circle - A bunch of custom behaviors for making_trailer purposes, but should be quarantined behind the making_trailer check - Solar panel absorption visuals - Fixed ladder facing direction bug - Summoned dogs try to pick nest right away now - Battery visuals made - Suns at the treehouse finally - Buried key - Whale parking added at fork

[ 2023-10-30 19:00:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, I'm working on a new trailer for the campaign for Flock of Dogs, so that doesn't fit into a feature/bug list, but here's the other stuff I did: - Pumpkin patch started - Melon made - spig bug wings and improved line work - thinner slide - Regression grabbing double mops fixed - ForkTetro0 removed when coming back from fork to the grove - Level design redo at the fork (again again!) - Fixed lingering Show Hints cc for whale pilot - DashedLines permanently on now - Fixed no null check for nest dog - Pit always tries to summon old Flock - Better arrow nocking - Put balloon ring on festival - Preventing CATboxes from appearing when block buffet ends - Fixed "Injured" appearing on touch and also changed wording to "No Hearts" - "No Kiting Allowed" pops up at grove now midweek build (I introduced some pretty silly issues and pushed a build a few days after last Friday to fix them): - Improved Flock Manual layout/visuals - Fixed getting on ladder from dogback - Regression with collision turned off on Fork - Adjusted area transitioners around Rossmoor levels - Preventing landing inside tree colliders with dogs - Can now grab multiple copies of walking mops on Fork I hope that the next week I can have my trailer done, but the music will be delayed, so not sure when they will be finished. -Max P.S. It's 10 pm. I'm dangerously close to missing my Friday deadline for new builds, but I have succeeded! See you next week.

[ 2023-10-14 04:59:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixed collision on the stones at the Fork and getting on/off the ladder from dogback at the treehouse. Fixed the loading screen overlay staying on after loading into game failures or timeouts. Some other reported issues about the black screen or transitioning out of bounds I couldn't reproduce yet, so those aren't fixed.

[ 2023-10-09 08:49:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Alright, so, you'd be surprised, but people have, at times, been confused about how to play Flock of Dogs. So I created a Flock Manual and made it accessible from the menu at any time. I like it. Fun to draw. I also played a lot of StarCraft: BW and the alpha for Stormgate this week. Sorry not sorry. - New Flock Manual in menu - Restructured the Fork area yet again - Fixed some Build-A-Pup 3000 sounds playing at wrong time - Whale parking lot at Rossmoor Park - Plank Bridges are back! - Fixed issue with dead BlobWebs - Fixed leaky faucet - Fixed BlueBirther animation - Fixed BlueBirther loot spread - Fixed an issue with SwitchPro controller, but maybe there's still an issue? - Fixed issue with SkyTrack editing tools throwing a million warnings -Max

[ 2023-10-07 02:23:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Build 0.4.143 is now available on the public branch. Kinda a boring week. - Fixed generalization of birther, rockden, thornyden hp - Fixed synincg DogHearts count animation state - Fixed joining players not disabling floaties of already playing players - Fixed jetengine CAT preventing whale lift off (sooo ironic hahaha) - Fixed backing out of gavel menu with mouse - Fixed faucet blocking input and droplets turning on when spouting - Fixed null ref error in solarstation topdown/profile view - Fixed EarEel dying RPC - Warnings and errors will now toss damage nums of "!!!" - Wrapped some other warnings - Hiding whale shadow when landing in cocoon - Slightly better whale HUD visuals - Fixed overriding cached preset keyboard maps - Fixed clouds around treehouse with too much water - Workaround for dogs dashing into giants at treehouse and breaking them - Fixed popup controls menu highlighting not sticking on options highlighted - Fixed resetting custom bindings at title menu - Fixed remapping aiming with keyboard input visual bug - Fixed regression with faucet - Increased cloud fluff value - Fixed indicator canvas player sprite stretching - Fixed peachland dirt color - Fixed rejoining after retreating not remembering player prefs - Fixed some visibility with slides/whale in general when landing/lifting - Improved vacuum particle lines to blue when its suctioning water - Fixed some sorting issues with trove pile and some CATs - Fixed vacuumed clouds still being visible - Implemented grabbing items out of trove and spouting - Made basic peach vines trap Yeah, not much to say. I'm probably going to be recording more footage for a new trailer soon. As always, join the Discord (https://discord.com/invite/fYZFNTB) if you'd like to help playtest or have any feedback. -Max

[ 2023-09-30 00:51:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version 0.4.137 (really should be perfectly compatible with ver 136) I didn't update the trader to sell the new (C)etacean (AT)tachments like the turbine, pencils, vacuum, faucet. Also fixed an issue with the "Retreat to Fork" option where everyone but the host would get dropped. Fixed a text wrapping issue. Defined a previously undefined color palette.

[ 2023-09-23 19:40:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello. The (C)etacean (AT)tachment (S)ystem (hereafter referred to as CATS) allows you to affix a (C)arrier (AT)tachment (hereafter referred to as a CAT) to your whale. It's existed for a long time, but now been much more fully fleshed out, including the abliity to swap them around, install duplicate CATs, and also some super cool new CATs. - Cannons save and load correctly with CAT system - ToolRack tools no longer lost - FestivalFlyer improved - JetEngineCATBox improved - Maybe fixed prep list - Some levelloading issues maybe fixed, but untested - Better treehouse island fencing - Made CloudVacuum CAT that eats clouds for water - Made Faucet CAT that lets you turn on/off water flow - Water numbers pop up in specific locations not just the middle of the whale - Made Pencils CAT that acts barbed defenses mounted on the whale - Made Turbine CAT that, you know, straps a jet engine to the whale's back - Fixed some visual issues with the the flower cocoon, but still needs help - Replaced treehouse fence! - Made more peach islands - Some better dev console stuff - Wild whale generatrion - HoppingOff forces player to abandon stat - Solar panel integrated as SolarStationCAT - Changed tail saddle behavior slightly as a CAT - Fixed whale inertia problem (whale physics was changing when certain CATs were installed) - Created some generic CAT ropes - Fixed flower cocoon withering animation - Fixed lawnmower shadow - Better flipper ropes - Floaties preference saved So, yes, Flock of Dogs now has CATs. Ahahah. :) -Max

[ 2023-09-22 22:20:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Flock, Updates! Version 0.4.130:

• Floaties animations done!
• Difficulty menu option added, with limited capacity
• Minimap icons added in Blue Blobs Land
• Wont get stuck using ToolRack from dogback anymore
• CarrierAttachment(CAT) boxes replacing the old attachment system
• Cannons now attached to whale through CAT box system
• Fixed whale reins flailing when transitioning levels
• Cloud colors are now biome specific
• New idle animations on players (very subtle, probably not worth the time heh)
• Restructured Minigame Park (brought minigames closer together, shrunk LazyRiver)
• Fixed pup null ref on Build-A-Pup 3000
• Fixed BlueBirther pulsing animation
• Improved how to fire cannons tips
• Shelves can now be installed on either flipper
• Whale sinking now brings the group back to the Fork instead of forcing everyone back to title screen
• Can build nests midair now
• Can swipe the water bowl with your mop now

Beta:

• Created placeholder Festival with locked gate
• Defined a purple biome
• Created placeholder DesertOasis

Very happy to finally put floaties in the game. It's always been painful to me when Ive watched kids play and their little 3 yo sibling was just kinda dragging them down. Now, the question is how easily will players figure out how to use floaties? I think I need to smooth that process. I appreciate those who have submitted feedback with F9 (or clicking the little box). And, as always, if you want to playtest the beta or find people to play with, join the Discord: https://discord.com/invite/fYZFNTB -Max

[ 2023-09-15 19:18:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, Its been a while, so Im pretty excited/nervous to finally update the public build and share all the things Ive been working on. As for other interesting news, I went to GDC and saw someone wearing a Flock of Dogs shirt! Then I came home and got COVID, then I broke my ankle playing soccer and had to have surgery. I would say those things delayed me a bit, but only slightly. (As I type this, Im headed to physical therapy, got new running shoes, and am expected to return to soccer in about a month, so Im in a good mood.) Heres a recap of the features added since February 15th:

• Moonbones
• Reworked the tutorial/treehouse area/fork area
• Dog breeds have different starting stats now
• Holding down input no longer required on menu, if only 1 local player
• Support for controllers without triggers
• And a simple aim option, if you dont have two thumbsticks
• Minigame Park has some picnic tables (they kinda act like maps)
• Minigame Park has some new minimap icons
• Warp pipes in the Open Skies
• Blue Blobs Land (unofficial name) now comes after Rossmoor (unofficial name)
• Constructable/repairable nests (highly controversial!)
• Boxing arm attachment
• Bow and silverwarrow
• Hatman now wears many hats
• Hotdogs!
• Better shadows!
• Better mopping!
• Slightly better caves
• The Bolf (unofficial name)
• Purple goo
• The Seblobba (unofficial name)
• The Foot Blob (unofficial name)
• The Blob Web (unofficial name)
• The Bullet Grid (unofficial name)
• Spike rain, geyser, fan bullet obstacles made (unofficial names)
• Sockman kinda works (unofficial name)
• Better summoning stone ritual visuals
• Better menu visuals
• A graphics menu!!!
• Reworked the photobooth minigame
• Redid whale controls and created whale dashboard UI
• UI numbers pop up to show damage, gaining/losing water, healing whale etc
• ToolRack with grabby hand
• Saving your hat preference
• Villages (very basic area that are between biomes along the Air River)
• LootPot to eat up your loot and spit back money at villages
• Dogs ascension (still havent finished Dog Heaven yet)
• Much improved whale-getting-dirty visuals
• A ton of redone lineart to more to have more consistent/higher resolution

Also, a monstrous amount of my time has been fixing network bugs. I know youre all clamoring to see the 300+ commit logs from the past 7 months detailing this work, but thats a lot of copy/pasting. Youll just have to go without. Anyway! Today we go from version 0.4.3 to 0.4.125. Pretty exciting stuff. Thanks for sticking around. The dogs continue to fly higher and higher. And a huge thanks to Scrubbles, my chief playtester and #1 Twitch fan. -Max P.S. If you want to ask questions about all those bug fixes, playtest on the beta branch, or talk about Georgism, please join the Talk of Flock of Dogs Discord: https://discord.com/invite/fYZFNTB

[ 2023-09-08 20:30:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Feb 15, 2023 Many fixes. Network stuff, UI stuff, gameplay, etc. Added a controls menu and an in-game platform I call the "input switcheroo" to view controls and rebind controls, if you're using a keyboard. You can now start straight away at the Minigame Park, the Fork, or the Treehouse, which is cool. The big news is that you can now also go beyond the gate, into the Air River, and play a demo of the first two biomes. And the Flight to the Festival DLC page is now up on Steam. -Max P.S. Alright, so of course, many things are unfinished, so I wont even bother listing those. I plan to release an official FoD Development Sky Map (aka road map) in my next update. I will mention some significant known issues though:

• If you venture beyond the gate, sometimes, after completing the two demo stages, some clients will freeze at a black screen. Sometimes, everyone freeze. Sometimes, the game recovers if one person force quits the game.
• If a dog is flying back to the whale, it can go through walls and a player that joins might spawn on that dog and thus be out of bounds. You can drop out from your PopUp menu.
• Coins are not synced for joining players
• When the whale is landing, other players position might flicker a bit
• Sometimes, small tetris pieces are unbreakable/only appear for some clients
• Wingless dogs dont take off when reaching an island border
• Kites destroy frame rate
• Moons spawn on top of each other
• Mop lady does nothing
• Long neck man does very little, its a semi secret, but theres hardly anyway for you to figure it out atm
• Lawn mower is out of control
• (Throwing items is now done with mouse click or right trigger, not exactly an issue)
• And many more!

Some of the fixes in the past 7 weeks:

• Showing cursor when game menu opened when 0 players and hiding cursor when
• SpigQueen won't spawn key if gate is open
• Fixed Build-A-Pup being used by mouseless keyboard player glyphs
• Fixed BAP allowing you to make see-through dog
• Fixed BAP t9 clickableness
• Fixed searching for room name T9 input
• Adjusted menu options fill speed
• Added more instructions near treehouse
• Added controls display pressure plate in-game (with keyboard rebinding access)
• Added controls display in menu
• Fixed drifting gamepad input
• Fixed issues with treehouse bedroom
• Improved latency compensation for dogs, monsters, items
• Fixed a sandstorm issue
• You can now kick players out of your room
• Fixed unbreakable giant tetris blocks (but still tiny ones sometimes spawn)
• A few dog behaviors added, like follow the leader, meander, sniff & poop
• Networked the Flower Powers menu, but most Flower Powers not yet implemented
• Fixed some network race conditions in level transitions
• Regression fixed with dogs circling
• Regression fixed with Flower Cocoons
• Fixed saving/loading preferred/customized dogs
• Regression fixed for climbing ladders
• Fixed issues with whales belly
• Regression fixed for items disappearing on flipper shelf
• Fixed handling dog landing when transitioning between levels
• Fixed Zzz lingering by where whale was sleeping
• Fixed rebinding keys to already bound keys
• Fixed regression for dog starting to follow another dog when its the pup in the BAP
• Fixed visuals for UI during night
• Fixed regression with the summoning pedestal and the rocks not being activateable sometimes
• Thorny vines on islands no longer affect flying dogs
• Improved UI flow for players who move with arrows
• Fixed whale summoning chess pieces and not just flock
• Removed System.Diagnostics.Process.Start calls and replaced where possible with Application.OpenURL
• Fixed Sternhalma (aka Chinese Checkers) array error
• Fixed a 2-players-1-keyboard issue
• Stopped every cloud being a rain cloud at the Fork
• Replaced treehouse island fencing

Alright, listen, these are only some of the commits going back to Jan 11. Theres about 3 more weeks to go through and Im not sure this is interesting to anybody. If you want to hear about more things that I fixed/messed up and then fixed, ask and I will tell ya. I never intended to go this long between updates. Sorry. This was a significant one, because it involved updating Photon and Rewired, as well as letting players spawn directly at the minigames or at the Fork, which meant letting them spawn without the whale, which meant tons of things that just assumed the whale was there were no longer valid. Then also letting players past the gate and through two levels also meant a lot more work. If this proves pretty stable though, fundamentally, everything added should be fairly incremental. I make no promises about the timing of the next update, however.

[ 2023-02-15 23:00:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Merry Christmas! Santa's brought me only bugs, which I love, because I eat them alive. Also, you can now consistently, successfully kick people out of your game. The menus are prepped for future Friend Slotting. I've done away with the thorny brambles blocking the air layer. This always seemed weird to me, but I wanted some method of trapping the dogs in the treehouse area until they meet the whale. So I've reworked the giant tetris blocks a bit so they're damageable even by slow whale rammings. You can access emotes with 1 or with the DPad now. They're somewhat limited, but lemme know if there's some emotion you just must convey. Man, UI tweaking is so fiddly and takes so long. I'll just mention though that it's so nice that I no longer really clench up in fear that my game will break when I'm playing online with a friend and we're transitioning from are to area. So that's some progress. Keep submitting feedback from the in-game form and considering joining the Discord to really tell me about all your troubles. -Max Build Version 0.3.61 Patch notes: - Cleared up some todo's - Workaround for dead tiny tetro - Fixed menu discord link - Fixed menu dev note link from in-game - Fixed double joining keyboard players - Fixed persona rpc argument mismatch - Fixed some photoner info menu stuff - Got rid of the space key to submit feedback - Friend Slot menu options added - Menu UI improved overall - Fixed editor logic for starting with better level settings - Sped up camera - Fill to click cornerui - Fixed players not quitting teams when leaving dogpark - Fixed emotes - Fixed matching summoning rocks color to player colro change - Fixed grasslands LMNO being assigned to wrong letter - Fixed dark gavel menu - Fixed rad on emote - Fixed emote input toggling it - Lance can hit kiting players again - Mailbox will receive letter if visible for anyone - Secret Debug menu works from main menu now - Fixed unassigned air river audio group - Fixed ring selector hand rotation - Fixed syncing null collectibles meh - Added a null quiver arrow check - Raised ramming threshold - Reworded TODO list hints - Defaulting unknown glyphs to ps3+ - Thorny vines effector only affects carrier layer - Added controls menu explanation for sharing keyboard - Fixed another bug with sky racing syncing - Forcing car warp to move transform not just rb - Fixed inactive items not loading their position - Fixed attackable dead dens - Fixed dashed line at dog park - Fixed some calling dogs issue with whale cries - Added emoting - Made thinking bubble menu ellpsising - Fixed not syncing chess board when showing up at dogpark together - Moving mouse's dots on the main menu - Fixed whale crying when summoning dogs by treehouse only if there are dogs to summon - Redid dogpark entrance

[ 2022-12-22 21:05:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dec 18th, 2022 Build Version 0.3.51 So are you ready to here about the new feature that I'm most excited about in Flock of Dogs? Hmm? Ok. Here goes... There's a new, in-game form to submit feedback to me! Hot dog! You can press F9 and create a bug report/feedback message at any time. So yeah, do that. I'm now allowing players on the beta branch to fly beyond the gate. If you're unsatisfied with the amount of bugs in the current experience, I apologize. I can provide many, many, many more on the beta branch when you fly beyond the gate ahahaha. Seriously though, let me know if you (and your friend(s)) would like a beta key and promise to give me feedback. Join the Discord. -Max P.S. MESSI MESSI MESSI MESSI MESSI!!!!!!!!!!! P.P.S. Just realized I didn't include this message in the new, in-game "developer note" menu option. I guess I'll have to publish build 0.3.51 in like 5 minutes from now. Whoops. Patch notes: - Fixed properly killing items in whale belly (fixed issue with end of Block Buffet) - Fixed properly killing items selected by player in belly at end of block buffet - Fixed network issue with potting items while being chewed in block buffet - Fixed trove hints to show controls not destroying properly - Fixed regression balloon gallery not finding subclasses of living tool, failing to take away the popguns - Fixed giant pot overbooming - Fixed regression battlezone not finding all subtypes of mario kart items - Fixed dogpark not registering magic bouncers in time - Wrapped whale swallow item in null check - Easter egg room names added - Reduced servers used to consolidate player population - Better UX flow for changing servers in menus - Fixed double popping question boxes - Fixed SkyTrack desync by initializing race tracks for client by having master share tracks in level load - Fixed the colors of the sky track - Fixed sync/loading player instantiation data with new numbering - Can call whale even when piloted (just won't obey right away) - Fixed bug with trying to launch from nest from dog that is still scrambling in - Fixed syncing dead units by landing them - FlyingDog on rossmoor will fly to whale if rider quits and whale has available nests, otherwise will fly to tree - Fixed mop non owner sending swipes - Fixed player numbering byte code issue - Fixed thorny dens endlessly scanning (when synced dead was the problem realaly)(might have introduced new bug) - Fixed mailbox interacted with vs delivery done - Fixed summoning pit regression - Fixed picking random color only trying once - Redid summoning rocks save/load - Fixed joining while waiting for game state - Inverting LS and RS in - Fixed unlocking gate on beta and sound - Fixed gavel menu aiming - Fixed profile menu renaming - Fixed arrowKeysMap drop out button - Increased moon onscreen range - Fixed clicking on usemouse - Fixed some race office desyncs when mashing the open track lever - Fixed numbering players (it wasn't the handles that were messing up to begin with!) - Added arrow key input check at start - Fixed parade credits disappearing asyou lerp away - Fixed easy feebdack input not working while on title screen with menu dot - Fixed sky track cover offset and color - Fixed loading tracks, highlightig, unhighlighting, syncing tracks - Fixed regression for mop swiping - Fixed No Registrants syncing - Better battle zone camera - Reduced cover tarp life - Fixed some other issues with treehouse residency - Fixed chennai! - Addeed etting vsync in title - Fixed airwalking - Fixed getting into bed and getting on ladder breaking treehouse - Fixed items instant death not destroying them, preventing lost and found to work - Fixed extra filling on button station UIs

[ 2022-12-18 20:15:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ok, so. Fixed big issue withi joining via entering a room name! And some other big issues, like trying to put on a hat freezing your character. Anyway, there's plenty more bugs where those came from :) This is what Early Access is all about woo hoo. If you have you more bugs to report or would like to participate in play testing, join the Discord. It's crazy to me that there's people finally playing my game. It messed up some of my debugging routines that auto-joined rooms, because I never thought to check for more than 1 room existing! Anyway, I've been working long hours, but I'm like more into it than ever, which is sorta surprising, sorta not. I figured I'd be motivated by having actual players. I'm hoping that after another week of really hammering on network code bugs, I will be able to pour my full attention to the Flight to the Festival. Patch notes: - Better trove visuals - No more petting while on car back (so tool rack and trove are more easily accessed) - Better trove controls and instructions - Fixed sliding key/items thru gate via whale by putting gate top blocker on tilemap layer - Teaching how to trove - Better local menuers handling, separating off network menuing (flower powering, should use different icons) - Better UX for hosting/joining rooms that are still at main menu - Added radiance to other UI elements - Improved trove instructions canvases - Fixed regression from dogs launching on blocked side of whale (able to bridge oob) - Fixing menu dots to be all local players (unless flower powers menu) - Ensuring treehouse tree bares fruit upon return - Fixed sliding key/items thru gate via whale by putting gate top blocker on tilemap layer - Teaching how to trove - Better local menuers handling, separating off network menuing (flower powering, should use different icons) - Better UX for hosting/joining rooms that are still at main menu - Added radiance to other UI elements - Improved trove instructions canvases - Fixed regression from dogs launching on blocked side of whale (able to bridge oob) - Fixing menu dots to be all local players (unless flower powers menu) - Ensuring treehouse tree bares fruit upon return - Debug joining will use persona name now - Hinting how to open trove better - Reworking syncing player handles - Fixed making goldfish clickable - improved naming on BAP - zooming if all locals on island - pods release near dogs - Better mailbox button prompt - Players start with no names - Dynamic zooming at rossmoor - Fixed some flower sorting on rossmoor - Reset flock also resets player names - Made sure stage cleanups return to stretch follow locals - Redid thorny vine munching - Redid thorny den munching - Fork synamic stretching - Dogs eat bones unless you're holding dog food bag - Removed whale nose - Fixed some rossmoor camera behavior - Fixed landing on destroyed thorny dens - Better loading screen - Fixed clicking letting people try to lerp away to join unstarted room - Fixed CornerUI correctly displays version on title screen when not online - Fixed joining room by entering room name!!!!!!! - Fixed turning invisible when climbing in/out of treehouse windows - Better loading screen image - Fixed corner ui ver - hat null ref fixed - DogFoodBag auto shelving issue fixed - Fixed syncing vines hp as float not int - Fixed player manning nest while there was still a launcher!!! - Fixed feeding from whaleback (item matching holder layer) - Spawning players better place - Twaeked whale cam pos - Added dead check in all item droppedrpc - Masterclient can override blockbuffet game length - Fixed kite syncing, fixed kites not dying (items not dying) - Saving/loading preferred whale position - Added UI element on browse rooms list for when waiting for rooms to update - Fixed not clearning dead items between areas - Lowered target frame rate to 60 - Removed auto opening popup menu for plyers with unknown glyphs

[ 2022-12-07 07:53:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Build 0.3.29, it's like the same but there's a loading screen! And fixed some other bugs. But there's plenty more where that came from.

[ 2022-12-03 09:13:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Music doesn't stop if you meet the hat man. Fixed some issues with the belly trove. Other fixes. 0.3.27 build!

[ 2022-12-03 02:24:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Put a check for directory exists for loading SkyTrack and BattleZone .jsons in the streaming folder to fix an issue on some Macs with missing paths or something. Also, disabled the "Sync" button, bc they didn't work anyway right now.

[ 2022-12-01 02:33:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugs for breakfast, bugs for dinner, bugs for lunch. Alright, perhaps, this is the beginning of a nice, new habit of posting updates on Steam! November 30th approaches! Hello, Steam community. In preparation for launching my game in Early Access on November 30th, I've...you know..been debugging. I'm fairly happy with how it's going. Today, nothing has caused me more than a few minutes puzzlement. Yesterday there were a couple tricky ones that scared me. Anytime I have what seems to be a Photon Unity Networking issue, I get scared. Usually, it's not Photon messing up. Yesterday, it was like...kinda my fault, but really, I think Photon should created some warnings somewhere that clearing Unity's player prefs also resets the Photon Server Settings. Anyway. The other reason, I think, that I'm feeling good is because of rearranging my little world a bit. I've added The Fork (in the Island). A central location that branches off to the Minigame Park, the Air River, the Treehouse, and connects to a little loop for an introduction to the combat and exploration of Flock of Dogs. I really like my giant Fork. It's a homage to the Muppet Movie when Fozzie and Kermit see a fork in the road. It has nothing to do with Elon Musk's memo about a fork in the road. I have to confess tho, that I don't think the Flight to the Festival DLC will be ready enough on November 30th. I mean. Maybe. If things go as well as they did today, perhaps the 3 biomes can be ready in a simple, not-fleshed-out version and be fairly stable. Doubt it though. I still need to integrate Steam's API with my game. That would help letting players quickly join your game and also the only way I can verify if you have bought the DLC! Or also to buy anything. Dune Buggy, by Presidents of the United State of America is a great song and inspired the title of this "Announcement". See ya, -Max

[ 2022-11-19 07:44:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Announcing Park of Flock of Dogs (working title I guess)

This is a behind-the-scenes look. Unedited, no audio, extensive placeholder art. This is a behind-the-scenes look. Unedited, no audio, extensive placeholder art. This is a behind-the-scenes look. Unedited, no audio, extensive placeholder art. This is a behind-the-scenes look. Unedited, no audio, extensive placeholder art. :) [previewyoutube=PjlRsBmpe44;full][/previewyoutube] The Flock of Dogs Sky Park will be included in the "Free Friend Version" of Flock of Dogs (WISHLIST NOW!) as well. As in, people who don't buy the game can still play all these minigames both online and locally and will not have to rely on someone else having a Friend Slot for them to join in with. The idea is this will be done...soon. And I'm super into it. And I'm sorry I haven't finished my video game yet. I was into this idea for several reasons. 1. I love minigames 2. I have already built this platform for playing an online game together with friends where you can get on and off dogs/whales/islands and pick up items and fall into the sky and stuff. So making a space to just mess around in and maybe engage in some friend competition would be pretty quick to implement. 3. Let's me stress test my game with a larger audience. 4. Exposure. Specifically to a younger audience. You know, "free" sells. So let's see what we got right now...

For some hungry, hungry whale action, go to the Block Buffet.

Each team starts with a whale and their own flock of dogs. They compete to fill their pots with as many blocks as possible before time runs out. You can stuff your whale for more efficient hoarding, you board enemy whales and purge them, you can punch opponents off their dogs, and more.

For the speedsters there's the Air Track.

Race dogs or whales or maybe even just balloon racing through tracks, gate by gate, with zippers, blocks, weird obstacle thingies, and powerups (watermelon missiles, pus balls, ring shield). YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN TRACKS WITH YOUR FRIENDS ONLINE AND SAVE/LOAD THEM AND SHARE THEM.

And then for the old school, we have The Game Board.

Play chess, checkers, Chinese checkers, or make up your own rules. And maybe other minigames one day who even knows. I probably shouldn't make any promises about future games, but I can't help sharing my ideas! They get me so excited! Maybe one day: (1) Umbrella Ball (2) Take the Mario-Kart style powerups from the racing minigame and do arena racing combat (3) Flock of Dogs Pac Man, where players can choose to be the ghosts or the pac-dog. (4) Hide-n-seek with the daylight/nighttime mechanic already in the game as well as hiding behind clouds and stuff that also already exists. (5) Dogback archery competition (6) A cooperative sky-trail-drawing game where you're shown an example picture and then you have to work together to draw it the flight trails of each your dogs. (7) Bring back bomberman (which some of you might remember was my first minigame I made in FOD shortly after I first started doing netcode) (8) Bring back Shady Ripkins (at the start of the pandemic, I implemented an item that was like a sheet of paper that you could type a secret message on and then others wouldn't be able to read it unless they were the one whose turn it was or whatever, which was going to be a way for my friends and me to recreate the passing of notes required for our game of Shady Ripkins via Zoom. Some of you mihgt know Shady Ripkins by another name, which is Telestrations) (9) And more!!! Alright, listen, I promsied myself that I wasn't going to spend forever writing this email/creating the video. So the other stuff I've been working on like auotmating converitng sprite sheets into animations and drawing more dog breeds and stuff I'm just not going to talk about. And you'll have to ask me personally for an update on my soccer career and my Starcraft career. Peace -Max

[ 2022-05-17 23:19:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

HEY BIG ANNOUNCMENT

I realize I promised I would be releasing in Early Access about this time. And I apologize for not doing that. I offer any Kickstarter backer access to the game's beta builds on Steam. Join the Discord and send me a message. I'm happy about my decision to make the Dog Park (a land inside of Flock of Dogs where you can play minigames). Block Buffet and Whale/Dog are just about done and I've been working out a bunch of networking issues through this. I plan on an archery minigame and sky trail drawing minigame.

Schedule

Streaming: now (Monday, 3:30 - 6 pm PDT) Open Playtest Tuesday: 10 pm PDT Open Playtest Thursday: 3 pm PDT

Some Exciting Code

Alright. On Friday, I realized an issue with how I've been using the Photon Unity Networking plug-in. I needed to reorder the network messages for when a new player joins. I got pretty scared. Didn't really do any more work the rest of Friday and instead prepared for my Starcraft match (see below). After my match, I ate cereal and thought my issue, but didn't write any code and felt some fear creeping in. The fear is mostly because (a) I do not have access to all of the code from Photon and what if the good/performant/proper solution has to be implemented at a level I do not control? (b) What if I just can't even figure out what Photon is doing with the code I can access? (c) What if my game is bad? (d) What if I'm wasting my life? (e) What if no one loves? (f) What if we're out of milk when I go down stairs for another bowl of cereal? On Saturday, I didn't write any code either and thought about my problem. (I did go to a small celebratory dinner with Patrick of Patrick's Parabox fame and that was great). (Go play the demo, if you like it, buy it). On Sunday, after my first 11v11 soccer game in about 4 months (see below), I dug into Photon's code and found a clear point of intercepting the data I was sending to Photon and how I could stash that temporarily, let some of my other data process first, and then go back to the stashed data and operate on that and felt great relief. After all, it ended up being quite simple. And while I could show you some fun new gifs of the racing minigame, I'm just going to show you these lines of code that aren't that complicated, but I'm very happy about.
This is inside Photon's ExecuteRpc function, where I catch and cache the data of RPCs sent to a newly joined client if they've not yet received the GameStateRPC.
This is my helper class for making a holding the RPCs data as well as some public variables that I can access from my Flock of Dogs code, and finally the public function I can call from my code to execute the cached RPCs after the joining client has processed the GameStateRPC

Some Technical Details (this ended up being way longer that I Imagined, and you might think more details would mean even boringer Writing, but It's filled with drama)

When you play Flock of Dogs with a friend I use Photon's relay servers to connect you together, because figuring out to properly do that and all is fiddly. When you choose a server city, like San Jose, or Washington DC, that's the location of Photon's relay server. What I mean by relay server is that it's a computer that just relays all our network messages to each other. Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) are one of the most common types of network messages. What that server doesn't do is run a copy of Flock of Dogs. Photon doesn't know a flying dog is. Doesn't know what a flying whale is. Doesn't remember the color or hat you put on your player character. Almost all it does it receive messages from one player and sends it to the other. Got it? Relay server relays RPCs sent by one player to the others. So what happens when someone joins the game? Well, the relay server sends a special message that "hey, someone new is here! let's party!" But that server can't tell the joining player where the whale should be, how many dogs should be on the whale or in flight, etc. So the thing to do is to have a player who's already in the room and playing Flock of Dogs to send a message to the newly joined player what's up. I default this to the player who creates the room and is designated, in Photon's terms, the "Master-Client". So the problem is that immediately after joining the room, the newly joined player will start receiving network messagse. Messages that were sent by other players before they even knew that someone new had joined. And some of those messages might arrive before the Master-Client's message with the state of the game arrives. So let's say you're the new player. And you join the game. And we're playing with my buddy Ted. And Ted just climbed into the belly of the whale the moment after you joined. So Ted and I receive the message that you've joined the party. And we're super happy to have you here. So I pack up the state of the game and send you all this exciting into a giant byte array to tell you about the wonderings goings-on of the game. And immediately after it, I get a message from Ted, "Hey, Max, I just climbed in to the belly of this awesome sky whale!" and I'm like...oh...oh shit. I didn't tell the new guy about that. And you, new guy, you're eagerly awaiting the game state RPC, the invitation to the ball, because you've heard all these amazing things aboud Flock of Dogs, and you've gotten everything prepared, you have all these cool lines of code that tell you what to do, if you receive certain data from the network. Then sure enough, the network mailman knocks on your door and passes you this network message, but it's not the one you've been waiting for! It's from some guy, Theodore, who says I just hopped off my blue Dalmation midflight into the belly of our whale, while holding a key. And you're like "what's a Dalmation?" And you get scared. And you freak out. And you start crying. And then the network mailman says "oh, yeah, this other message came for you right after that" and yes, it's the whole game state and it tells you where the whale is and the color and breeds of the dogs and the colors and names of the players, and where the islands are and the trees and the stone steppes and the tetris pieces...but you try to read it, but with all those tears in your eyes, you get confused, it's all blurry. And it's a big mess. And maybe you're able to live with this mess for a little while, but probably not. And then the game crashes or you disconnect, or more likely, you just see a blue Dalmation stuck in the air, not flapping her wings, not part of the Flock. It's all very sad. Anyway, I think i've fixed this with a little interception method.

Miscellaneous Soccer Update

Yesterday, I played my first 11v11 soccer game since Dec 5th. I played very badly and then I played very goodly. I did miss my one shot after a nice couple of passes I was free about 16 yards out, the keeper had come out a little and cut down my angle, but I should have put it away. I hit it off the post though. We won 4-1. This was actually a play off game, but we're the 1 seed maybe? We're all very confused about the competition, because there's the league cup, the Master's Cup, and one of our season games got rained out and some people thought this was a make up game for that. Anyway, I mostly played forward and one of the long balls I was contesting, I stepped on the defender's foot. I turned to apologize and he was pretty pissed off and said that I hadn't been looking at the ball at all and had done it intentionally. I remembered what Tony told me about a month ago when I showed up to our little pickup game with my knee brace on for the first time. As I was lacing up, he touched my knee brace and said "This? This is no good. You can play with it here, because maybe we like you. But guys will come straight for this." Idk, in most of my years playing, I never felt that targetted or that players ever really went after someone with a knee brace on. But still, I was scared that that defender was going to come at me and sure enough another ball over the top and I hesitate, but it didn't matter. The ball was over hit and flew well over both of us, but he did a little lunge at me and hissed or kinda went "boo", and I flinched, but I also kinda giggled. We were winning 4-1 at that point anyway and the other team was pretty deflated. I'm very happy to be back.

Miscellaneous Starcraft Update

On Friday rnight I had my first match of the Coach-Pupil League (CPL) for foreigner Starcrat Brood War players. This is the first week of season play, and I had said I would only play if we were short on players. We were short on players. Since I struggle with balancing playing video games with the rest of my life, my Starcraft rule generally has been to only play during the CPL seasons, when I can play within a community and not just endlessly, and lonely-ly, grind for a high rank on the anonymous ranked ladder. And I had stuck to my rule and hadn't been playing. This also means that I am, as they say, rusty. It was a pvz against viletomato (Protoss vs Zerg, I play Protoss) (best of 3) (note: Viletomato beat me during pre-season with a "9-7-3", a variant of 3 hatch hdyra timing attack) The modern way of playing against zerg as the protoss is to "gateway expand". The older way is to "forge expand". In the case of a gateway expand, you can immediately build zealots and attack, but you risk being counter attacked. In the cowardly forge first method, you build cannons to defend and cower behind your cannons. I had been able to get in two practice sessions, one with the assistant coach, ModeratelyChill, and another session with Lightswarm, the team coach. They recommended I play forge first. I played forge forge first. Okay, listen, with forge first, if you're not super duper cowardly, you only build 1 cannon. So I'm only a small coward and so I built 1 cannon. This is kinda safe, but still would fall to any number of lings greater than 4. In order to know what's coming, you send your probe (basic, worker unit) to go scout and hope you find their base fast and see any zerlings they make. My scout probe was brave and smart and found Viletomato right away and caught sight of the 6 putrid zerglings he had rushed out. I swiftly pulled probes from my main base and sent them to my natural. Now, there's many things to consider when using your fragile probes to protect your photon cannon. (1) Probes are not great at fighting and die fast (2) If you pull extra probes to make the fight easier, that means fewer probes mining (3) If he sees a lot of probes, he may not attack in and your probes sit there like dumbasses (4) If you surround your cannon, he may run his lings right by and into your main base! I first held them in a line blocking the path from my natural to my expansion, waiting to see what he would do and hoping to react fast enough to save the cannon if he want for the cannon. He went for the cannon. I sent my probes in to the rescue, he got thru the cannon's shield and most of its hit points and you could see blue flames all over it, but it remained standing and the vile zerglings of Viletomato all were squashed like squishy tomatoes and I cried "Ketch-Up!" as their red blood blotted the terrain. My scout probe had remained alive, ignored, in his base, so I now could easily see that I was way ahead, and while later he tried a sneaky quick tech to mutalisk, he had 0 ground army and was crushed. In game 2, I also opened forge first and this time he did not try a ling rush, but went back to his 9-7-3 build and while I lost my 1st scout probe, and my 2nd, my 3rd scout probe was able to sneak in (posthumously, I named my 3rd probe Paul "the probe" Revere) and witness the hydralisk den, before meeting his demise. I was able to get up defenses and stop the hydra timing attack. I was way ahead after that, played safe and secured the win. maaaaxaxa 2-0 viletomato My team's name this season is United Emu Directorate. I did not vote for that name.

[ 2022-04-04 22:46:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fest Upon Fest

The Steam Next Fest has come and gone. There's a bunch of numbers I've spent a lot of time analyzing, but at the end of the day, I'd say it all was a moderate success. I had peak viewership of about 800, which sounds amazing, but I think a lot of my stream's viewrships numbers were heavily bloated or rather hollow viewers. Just people who were browsing Steam's event page getting counted as a viewer or something. That's ok. I did have a some people join the Discord and say very nice things about the game. Also, the livestream was a lot of fun. If you didn't see it, you really missed out some amazing wardrobe changes and prop design. Truly.

Behold, the Block Buffet!

A Flock of Dogs Minigame

You can play 1v1, 2v2, 1v1v2v3v1. Race to feed your team's whale the most blocks. Defend and attack other teams with the beloved Flock of Dogs arsenal of mops, umbrellas, balloons, and boxing-glove lances!

Block Buffet Features:

- A cornucopia of gigantic tetrominos* - Dogback jousting - Hijacking (in the Halo sense) your enemies' flying dogs - Umbrella defense - Aggressive ballooning - A diegetic lever and roster UI system that...like, it's cool - And plenty of bugs to discover...........! *Note that tetrominos are just the 2d, 4-square instantiation of the generlizable polyomino structure. For those interested in math lore, look it up on Wikipedia. Flock of Dogs blocks aren't really tetrominos because of a few attributes actually. See if you can figure out why! Tell me in the Discord!

Today. Thursday.

4 pm - 6 pm PST 7 pm - 9 pm EST Come alone, come with team, time to MINIGAME!!!

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/maaaaxaxa Discord: https://discord.com/invite/fYZFNTB

(I will start the steam at 10:30 am PST, fixing bugs from last night playtests) I've known I really wanted to add minigames to Flock of Dogs and I know I put that as a Kickstarter stretch goal, which I didn't hit. However, the idea of making a (few) minigames now and then putting it on the Steam store for free would provide (1) martketing and (2) more people to network test the game. Also, I thought I could get it working in a week. While, I kinda did, I also have just discovered all these ways to improve my network code that I've been dealing with. I feel like I've been cleaning the gutters of my netcode for a month now, scooping out gunk. I don't love it, but it's so satisfying. And only now is it beginning to start to shine. No one reported any crashes during the Steam Next Fest, but there were definitely desyncs and clunkiness. Anyway, I AM SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THIS MINIGAME. Anyway. don't you love all the colors!!!!?

[ 2022-03-10 19:03:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

The demo of Flock of Dogs will be livestreamed! Come watch the Flock take flight and pray that it doesn't crash and burn :) I'm happy to answer any questions or talk about design or whatever. Who knows! I'm super excited to finally be almost nearly approaching the time when I might release my game. So please come tell me that you love dogs and flying. -Max

[ 2022-02-21 20:47:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Ok, it's been like almost 6 years of development. Which like, kinda embarrasses me. Anyway, the beta branch is now live! In the last week, I've been uploading fresh builds to the Steam beta branch. I plan on continuing to do that and posting here weekly. Probably not on Saturdays. Maybe on like Mondays. But probably not this monday. The Steam Fest starts on Tuesday. I will be scheduling streams during that time and I guess maybe whenever I stream on Twitch I can connect it to my game page? Idk how appealing it is to my general audience to watch programming, however. Anyway, I've really worked hard on getting the demo area ready for new players and trying to teach all the controls and things without frustrating players in the wrong way. -Max

[ 2022-02-19 23:25:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Currently sitting at $11,392 after hitting the goal of $10,000 a few weeks ago! My first stretch goal is to release my game on the Switch (yes, I realize this is a Steam event), but after reaching the Switch stretch goal, maybe we can get to the minigame goal(s)?! Seems like that would be a lot of fun.... In the meanwhile, The first version of Build-A-Pup 3000 is live. Check it out! Make a pup and share it with the world. I'm super grateful for the support. Flock of Dogs has all been featured on in two Kickstarer roundup videos, the Indie Pod podcast, Gaming on Linux website, and indiegamesplus.com. So that's all fantastic. I'm going to be investigating Steam's new playtest feature for future playtesting. So if you're a backer from Kickstarter, look out for some more updates here or on the Flock of Dogs Discord.

[ 2021-05-07 05:59:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

April 13th - May 13th. Flock of Dogs is live on KICKSTARTER with a goal of $10,000 USD. Backers will receive rewards such as hand-made, clay sculptures of dogs and whales, canvas paintings of dogs and whales, and get to design their own dogs (but not whales...hey, not a bad idea?). During the 30-day campaign, I will do some livestreams of programming and art. Maybe collaborate with content creators, who knows. If you know anyone who loves video games or loves dogs or has kids who love video games or kids who love dogs, please share it with them!
<3 -Max

[ 2021-04-13 12:08:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

I've been working very hard on the video, rewards, and gifs for this campaign. It should be fun and I think there's some cool stuff for backers. If you're reading this, you likely know how infrequently I post on Steam and generally how infrequently I promote my game. This is my way of forcing myself to share my game with the world.
I'm still finishing up the video and other details, so I can't say for certain what date I'm launching the campaign on, but it's gonna be amaaaazzing.

[ 2021-03-19 20:12:35 CET ] [ Original post ]