Quick fix for a rare error that occurred if the AI opponent needed to scatter starving units, but only had one neighboring region. Should be all good now!

[ 2024-04-08 06:06:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey folks! We just pushed an update to the demo that includes a whole bunch of stability and bug fixes, as well as our latest pass on the AI opponent! Updating the demo will reset your game limits, so even if you had previously maxed out the available matches you can try out the new build with another round of games. A fresh start for everyone!

UPDATED AI OPPONENT

We've been working hard on the AI and it is now much more dynamic and puts up a proper challenge. We fixed a bunch of issues that could sometimes cause it to hang, added some new features (it should now be able to handle most actions in the game), and tuned it's responses to be more varied so it shouldn't be as easy to bait or get stuck in loops. But the most exciting thing is that the AI now runs on it's own background thread - this means that it calculates it's turn at the same time as you, instead of waiting for your orders to be submitted. The turns are MUCH faster now, with the AI often putting in it's orders before you even finish yours!

RANDOM PLAYER COLORS

We've added a palette system that allows us to have random player colors, adding variety to each match. No more being stuck with just red and blue!

MAP TWEAKS

We've done a bit of an overhaul on how the map generator works under the hood (ask Ben about 'Poisson Disc sampling' over on our discord if you want the deep dive details), which has improved the look of the coastlines a lot. We've also changed how region control is indicated, it's now a colored border instead of flat shading, which allows the maps to shine through a little more. There's a few other cosmetic tweaks such as roads etc., with more still to come...

BUGS & STABILITY

We've significantly overhauled the Windows build, which should be MUCH more stable and less system-hungry than before. We've also stomped a lot of bugs, huge shout out to our Discord community for all their help reporting them.

MAP VERSIONS & GAME RESET

Due to the changes to the map generation system, we've had to version the games. This means you won't be able to load into any old matches - sorry! You can clear them one at a time, but if you'd like to remove all your old games (handy if you've had some broken games), you can hit F7 to reset the game and delete all local games.

LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

If you take the new build for a spin, come by the Discord to let us know what you think of the new AI! Is it challenging? To easy? We'd love to hear your feedback. See you on the server!

[ 2024-04-05 00:40:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

We're honored to have Spies & Soldiers included in the Melbourne International Games Week Steam showcase! Jim and Luis will be streaming the game, so come and see what it's all about. We'll also be hanging out in our community Discord, so swing by and say hello! JOIN THE SPIES & SOLDIERS DISCORD! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1094450/Spies__Soldiers/

[ 2023-09-25 18:44:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

We're honored to have Spies & Soldiers included in the Melbourne International Games Week Steam showcase! Jim and Luis will be streaming the game, so come and see what it's all about. We'll also be hanging out in our community Discord, so swing by and say hello! JOIN THE SPIES & SOLDIERS DISCORD! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1094450/Spies__Soldiers/

[ 2023-09-25 17:53:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Things have been quiet lately, while we have had our heads down working hard on building out the single-player side of the game. We've been busy with a couple of big features - prototyping a single player campaign mode (more on that at a future date!) and overhauling our entire AI system. While it's still going to be a while before we have anything from the campaigns to show, we're excited to have the first version of AI 2.0 ready to share! Initially we intended to simply update the existing AI prototype, but it turned out that we had to rebuild it from the ground up to get the features we wanted. It's still using our original utility system, but has been extended and made more modular so now it can consider much more complex actions, and most importantly - be tuned and extended further in the future.
We still have another whole phase of AI development on our roadmap, but this version is already leagues ahead of what was previously in the game. Fire up a solo practice game and take it for a spin. We'd love to hear your feedback on how it holds up! Let us know if you find any weird behavior or bugs. Best place to share your thoughts is over on our Discord server, we're always happy to chat about the AI if you have questions or thoughts

[ 2023-03-24 04:37:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Come listen to the developers talk about the new features we've been working on for Spies & Soldiers, as well as a sneak peek at some future plans...

[ 2022-10-02 23:09:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Interested in AI? Come and listen to Luis Van Slageren and Liam Houston, two of the coders from the Spies & Soldiers team, as they dig into the details of how our new AI opponent works. We are doing regular dev streams for Melbourne International Games Week over the next few days, including a design chat about new features and a sneak peek at our upcoming plans, as well as the devs playing the latest build. Swing by and say hello!

[ 2022-09-30 22:12:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixed a minor bug that sometimes caused in-game turn notifications to stop working.

[ 2021-10-17 13:20:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

The flood of new players following our Melbourne International Games Week showcase has helped us flush out a few sneaky bugs, so we've pushed a new build with a handful of fixes. === BUILD NOTES: VERSION 0.24.3 === - Fixed a bug that would cause errors the first time a player joined an online game, if they disabled email notifications. - Fixed an issue that occasionally caused the game to hang on the claimant screen, making it impossible to submit the first turn. - Demo end info text now pops up automatically when returning to home screen after the game limit has been reached. - Selecting an empty slot when keeping a title now disables all buttons while loading the title into that slot. - Formatting tweaks to the title screen while the title is being generated. KNOWN ISSUES - Copying match codes from the Play Friend window doesn't work. Paste works fine though. - City and castle portraits still show the old generic portraits during turn resolution. - Uncommitted Muster and Train orders aren't currently being saved if you exit the game before submitting your turn.

[ 2021-10-05 04:36:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

We're excited to announce that Spies & Soldiers has been invited to be part of the Melbourne International Games Week Steam showcase! We'll be featured from Sept 1 to Oct 4, with our fresh new demo build and regular livestreams of the developers playing the game. We'll also be hanging out in our community Discord, so swing by and say hello! JOIN THE SPIES & SOLDIERS DISCORD! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1094450/Spies__Soldiers/

[ 2021-09-30 17:01:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

High time we had a new build! Not a huge update, but it does include some cool new features, including being able to collect more than one title, and new procedural portrait art for castles and cities. We've also tweaked the endgame conditions slightly, to allow for losing players a better chance at a comeback.

=== BUILD NOTES: VERSION 0.24.1 ===

• You now need to hold five castles for two turns to win, instead of one.
• Added the ability to save more than one title.
• Can now select your displayed title from any you have stored.
• Added claimant names to title reward screen.
• Procedurally generated castle and city portraits.
• Added mouse click sounds back to the home screen.
• Minor clarifications to Guidance text.

KNOWN ISSUES

• City and castle portraits still show the old generic portraits during turn resolution.
• Slim chance of issues migrating old titles to the new system. Let us know if you lose a favorite title, and we'll restore it.

[ 2021-09-30 11:50:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

The influx of new players from Next Fest gave us lots of great data, so we focused this build on bug fixes and stability improvements. Resolved some very quirky crash bugs, UI glitches, and a missing spymaster claimant who deftly hid themselves in the code... Thanks to all our players who have been reporting issues in both the bugs channel on our Discord server and the in-game feedback form, it's been a huge help. So good to see our community of players growing and enjoying the game!

=== BUILD NOTES: VERSION 0.23.7 ===

• Spymaster revealed! Fixed bug that was causing the rank 3 spy claimant to be hidden, appearing only under rare conditions.
• Fixed bug that caused the game to hang if you played three practice games in a row.
• General stability improvements to help reduce situations where the game becomes unresponsive.
• Fixed memory leak in the name generator (thanks @Garbage#8809 for catching that one!).
• Display names now have to include at least 3 characters.
• Claimant screen no longer displays if the opponent has already yielded the game.
• Fixed issues causing the game to get stuck on claimant selection screen, after you had made a selection.
• Game should now remember orders you have cancelled, if you leave without committing.
• Fixed bugs that were causing the 'one turn away from victory' popup to persist across multiple turns and games.
• Fixed bug where the 'one turn away from victory' popup only triggered if you had exactly five castles.
• Text box on turn resolution events no longer clips on complex events.
• Fixed the 'Moving to [region name]' text on units, so it no longer clips.
• When selecting the 3 soldier claimant, soldiers will now correctly show as starving on your first turn.
• Fixed an issue on the home screen where games were shown as ready for new orders while still waiting for an opponent to join.
• Yield timer now starts as soon as the second player joins the game.
• Steam notifications will now only notify you of someone joining your game, if you haven't submitted orders yet.
• Red spy master starting retinue icon adjusted to match the others.
• Regions now deselect when the Guidance is opened, to stop portraits displaying on top of the help text.
• Updated help file text to correct Forest Retreat and City Capture sections.
• City ownership now displayed correctly on portrait cards, instead of using region control.
• Forest effect icon will only appear on soldier banners when they control the region, and can use forest retreat.

KNOWN ISSUES

• There is still an elusive memory leak that can cause the game to crash if it runs for too long.
• Steam overlay doesn't currently work on Mac.
• Game client sometimes doesn't re-connect automatically if the connection to the server is interrupted.
• Some islands are too small to accurately show their terrain type.
• Map generation needs a balance pass.
• The inexplicable persistence of Camelica The Honourable.

[ 2021-07-10 22:00:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

A quick patch to correct the welcome text so that it no longer refers to the old home screen.

[ 2021-06-20 06:26:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Ghostbat Games team will do a live play through of our nifty new demo! Weve been practicing our streaming technique, so you can watch both sides of the battle as the developers demonstrate their strategic skills in a head-to-head match. Well run through the basic mechanics of the game, as well as more advanced strategies required to build a victorious empire! The stream will start Monday 21st of June 8pm EST. You can set a reminder to get an alert when we kick off. In the meantime, come say hello in our Discord, or follow our progress on Twitter!

[ 2021-06-19 23:36:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

There's been quite a bit going on since our last post. Unfortunately, a sudden covid lockdown in Melbourne means that everyone has been stuck at home for the past two weeks, and sadly we had to cancel our local event at Pixel Bar. Its been a tough year for everyone and after months of relative freedom here in Australia, this was a reminder that the world is still in middle of a major crisis. But our wonderful team is very supportive of one another, so we are able to keep morale up and stay focused on our big push toward a demo build for the upcoming Steam Next Fest. We're very much looking forward to taking the game for it's first big public outing! So, what's everyone been up to?

LUIS

Continuing on from the last dev update, Luis and Ben teamed up to tackle re-configuring the map system to support our new single player campaigns. This is a major overhaul, and one of the biggest bits of content still to be added to game. While Luis is enjoying working on these new systems (and making an inadvertent cyberpunk glitch art prototype), he has deferred to Bens map generation expertise for now so he can focus on getting support for Steam notifications into the game.
Which brings us to the exciting fact that, thanks to Luis spending long hours wrestling with the Steam backend across multiple app ids, STEAM NOTIFICATIONS ARE WORKING and we no longer rely solely on email to let you know when there's a turn waiting. Currently they are only switched on for our dev builds, but we will be rolling them out across all versions of the game soon.
With the notifications out of the way, Luis has been configuring the demo in preparation for Steam Next Fest. The build integrates a lot of cool new things which we are excited to share in the next week or so. The main restriction on the demo build is a limit on the number of online and practice games you can play, although the 'play with friends' will be unlimited. Always happy to encourage players to bring new friends to the game!

JIM

Jim has been hard at work shepherding the demo build toward release, making sure we get to include all the new features we've been hoping for. Alongside handling the design work for these new features, Jim has been keeping a firm hand on the tiller, constantly managing scope and so that we can ensure we're putting our best possible build out for Next Fest. One of the new aspects of the game we're most excited for has some broad implications, re-framing the narrative of the game, and touching a lot of core systems. So we've had to tread very carefully so as not to trip up as we assemble all the pieces. As maintainer of the Steam services, Jim has also been getting everything organized on the back end in preparation for Next Fest, making sure our developer livestreams are locked in, hooking up the demo package, updating the store page, and more endless fiddling about. Somehow, finding time for art is always hard, but the soldier portrait generator is now done! Jim shared it in a couple of subreddits, and got a great response. The procedural art has been really getting people excited, which goes a long way toward making us feel like it was the right call to put our efforts in that direction.
The current need to keep his focus on design and production, means Jims list of art he needs to make is getting longer by the day, but even what's in there now already adds new life to the game.

BEN

Family life has been keeping Ben busy lately, especially during the challenges of lockdown, but over the past few weeks hes found the time to knock out some key features for the demo. Hes been putting the finishing touches on the fancy new homescreen, adding animations and extra UI tweaks. He's also converted all the location portraits in the game over to the procedural art system, so that in the future they can be generated like the spy and soldier portraits.

MADDY

After some sulking about the postponement of our eagerly anticipated Pixel Bar event, Maddy got back to work alongside the team, sharing the game with some new online communities. We brought in some new fans from strategy discords, a few of which are very quickly mastering the game, and continued reaching out to livestreamers. Maddy has also been working on a list of journalists who love strategy games, so we can loop them in on future Spies & Soldiers announcements. When not busy with outreach, Maddy has been hitting buttons behind the scenes in the livestreams, making sure they go as smoothly as possible.

STREAMING AND OUTREACH

In the lead up to Next Fest, Luis and Jim have been practicing their livestreaming, to make sure our setup works smoothly. We've been using a fun 'diary room' format, that allows the viewers to experience both sides of the strategic masterminding, then laugh as they watch everyone's best laid plans crumble. You can check out our streams up on our twitch channel. Give us a quick follow to be alerted when we next go live!
Keen to find more players while the playtest is live, we've been doing a bit more community outreach. So far Reddit has been one of the places we've got the most interest, resulting in a steady trickle of new players and some lovely feedback on the game. Weekly play sessions are still happening on Discord every Sunday at 8pm, both AEST and EST, so feel free to drop by for a match or just say hello. They've been very relaxed affairs, and a lot of fun.

NEXT FEST!

Steam Next Fest kicks off next week, so join us on Wednesday June 16th for our first livestream at 8pm EST. We will show off the new demo, play a game or two, and talk through the new features. To keep up with the latest updates, follow Ghostbat Games on Twitter or join the Spies & Soldiers Discord server. And as always those Steam wishlists are truly appreciated!

[ 2021-06-11 16:17:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Ghostbat Games team will stream a live play through of our nifty new demo! Weve been practicing our streaming technique, so you can watch both sides of the battle as the developers demonstrate their strategic skills in a head-to-head match. Well run through the basic mechanics of the game, as well as more advanced strategies required to build a victorious empire! The stream will start Wednesday 16th June 8pm EST. Set a reminder to get an alert when we kick off. In the meantime, come say hello in our Discord, or follow our progress on Twitter!

[ 2021-06-07 18:05:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Were back with another dev update, but first some exciting news. Spies & Soldiers is going to be part of

STEAM NEXT FEST!

Well have a shiny new demo available to play, some fancy live streams throughout the event, and Spies & Soldiers will be featured alongside many other amazing new games. The festival runs from June 16 22, so were currently hard at work polishing the game and implementing a few new features in time for the launch. Meanwhile, a new update to the Steam build went live last week, featuring the ability to save practice games, a few bug fixes, and a big overhaul of the screen display system that means the game is looking crisper than ever. You can try it out over on the playtest on Steam. Lastly, we have an upcoming event at Pixel Bar in Melbourne which is looking super cool. Come along for a beverage and a chance to go head-to-head against local opponents. Details can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/PixelbarAus/posts/1908340306008475
And now lets check in on what the team has been up to

JIM

Now that the generated art for spy portraits is working, Jim has been hammering away at getting the portrait generator working for soldiers as well. This turns out to be much more fiddly as the soldier portraits feature groups of figures, so they need to look good as both a generated figure and an overall unit. Its been rewarding though, as it utilizes some of the more complex features of the generator to give the soldiers a unified feel, while still having variety.
Jim is also mocking up concept art and UX designs for the new home screen, but therell be more on that in a future post! Aside from art duties, Jim has been keeping us on track, working towards the demo build for the Steam Next Fest. Its been great for us to have a concrete deadline to work towards, but its always tough balancing which features will make the cut, as we want to fit in as many awesome new things as possible.

BEN

Ben has primarily been developing a new home screen from the ground up, with a much more dynamic and visually engaging design that will hopefully catch peoples attention from the first moments of the game. This involves a lot of iteration, creating prototype layouts with different types of interactivity to see which styles are the most responsive. When Ben has a spare moment, its spent working alongside the other team members, helping support their work with the systems he developed, such as Jims art generator and Luiss work on the new campaign map system.

LUIS

During the week we stumbled across the previously unnoticed Steam notification system, and as such we pivoted to implementing this alongside the current email notification system. Luis has been getting the feature working in game which means any turn/match notifications will be available in Steam. He has also continued work on the maps for the new single player campaign, but a small roadblock requires Ben, master of the map generator, to jump in so they can puzzle it out together. Meanwhile, in preparation for the Pixel Bar event, Luis produced some physical spy tokens, laser cut from wood! These are unbelievably cool, each featuring a unique generated spy on the front and a game key on the back. There is currently only a limited number as they take quite a while to etch. Come along to the event, and maybe you can score one!

MADDY

Maddy has mostly been getting the store page ready for the Next Festival, as well as organizing the Pixel Bar event. Theyve also been looking into strategy game streamers so we can get some cool collaborations going in the future. Let us know if you have any fave streamers we should get in touch with!

COMMUNITY

In amongst the development work weve been interacting with other dev communities and found some really lovely corners of the internet. Were keen to engage with our own community a bit more, so after a few wobbly test streams we are now ready to try some regular dev twitch streams starting next Monday morning. The weekly play sessions have also taken off and it is wonderful to have a bunch of people playing the game and chatting in Discord. They happen every Sunday at 8pm, both AEST and EST. Well have one more update before the Steam Next Fest starts on June 16, in the meantime its full STEAM ahead To keep up with the latest updates you can follow Ghostbat Games on Twitter or join the Spies & Soldiers Discord server. And as always wishlists are super appreciated!

[ 2021-05-25 19:56:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Been a while since we pushed a new build! There's been a few big changes behind the scenes, the most significant of which is the new unified display system. The game should now scale across all screen sizes consistently, maintaining crisp visuals and UI layout. Getting this resolved was a big task we needed to sort out before moving forward with more art updates. Feels great to have it done! Please let us know if you see any screen size related oddness... We also added save games for practice mode, so now you can return to AI matches easily. The rest of the update is mostly bug fixes or UI tweaks here and there. With this build out of the way, we've been free to work on some really cool new features for the future. Procedurally generated unit portraits and a proper solo campaign mode are both on the horizon!

=== BUILD NOTES: VERSION 0.22.0 ===

- Added support for saving practice games. - Switched the game over to a new standardized display system. - Added higher resolution assets in numerous areas. - Removed the unsupported yield button from tutorial games. - Made tutorial pop-ups behave consistently across all screen sizes. - Increased font size on tutorial pop-ups. - Optimized turn resolution response time by sending turn log data with turn resolved notification. - Tweaked the 'play with friends' menu style and wording. - Fixed issue where practice games would sometimes stop the 'play online' button working. - Resolved a bug where practice games could throw an error and require a game restart. - Fixed a memory problem with garbage collection that caused a crash on Windows after playing multiple practice games in a row. KNOWN ISSUES - Some people are having trouble running the Linux version. - Visibility issues relating to inferred spies obscuring lower rank spies.

[ 2021-05-13 04:08:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Maddy here! Were trying a new format for our dev updates, something a bit more conversational, chatting with the team about their recent work. Ill start. Over the past few weeks Ive been looking into cool things for our discord (tournaments are in the works), as well as a fun physical event that could happen soon! If youre based in Melbourne keep an eye out for that one. Were also preparing for something big in June that will be announced shortly, so Ive had my hands full getting ready for that. And now onto the important dev updates! It was a super busy week for everyone, as we prepare to push a small playtest update to Steam, while wrangling a couple of other big design additions. Lets check in with the rest of the team

BEN

Bens been doing awesome work getting the new procedural image generator implemented, creating random portrait art for units. Basically, its a system that references a template script and assembles art elements into a bigger image. Now all of the spies and soldiers will have their own unique portraits!
Bens test art for the soldier generator is a team favorite. Time to rethink the games style? The whole system has been designed to ensure that its fairly easy to spin up a new generator, and Ben is excited to see the system evolve and make more cool new art for different parts of the game. Character portraits are just the beginning

LUIS

Luis has been busy getting the new update ready for the Steam playtesters, with this next one rolling out some big changes to the core display system, which will allow the game to maintain better resolutions across a range of screen sizes. Hopefully everything will look just the same, just a bit sharper, and with way less UI layout bugs. The tutorial speech bubbles (Luis ancient enemy) have been notorious for these kinds of layout bugs, and with the latest changes hes been kept busy vanquishing them. But we hope with this new system, they have been conquered once and for all. The UI elements now all look, in Luis words, crisp and delightful.
Luis whipping the cursd speech bubbles into line. He also managed to find a hidden bug that had been lurking behind the scenes. The server database service happened to be a little slow this week (who knows why, something in the weather) which caused an occasional internal server error, resulting in looping turns. The error is normally incredibly rare, so getting the chance to reproduce and fix it was actually very lucky. Luis quick fix means we can avoid the crisis of finding it at a more dire time in the future. And the fix even gave us a performance boost, so turns now resolve quicker! It hasnt all been bug-hunts though! The cool single-player campaign mode that Luis has been hammering away at is coming together nicely. The big breakthrough this week was a fresh design that utilizes our current map generation system in new ways, allowing us to get the feel of an ongoing story line, without having to write a whole new process. Its still very much a work in progress, but even the early tests are looking promising. This has seen Luis digging deep into the map generation code, one of the very first things Ben wrote for the game.
Ben & Luis working out some map subdivision math.

JIM

Jims been busy masterminding the games progress during the recent sprint week, as well as creating art and template scripts for the new image generator.
Every spy is now a unique and beautiful (if a little grumpy) snowflake. Now that spies are working, its on to soldiers. A more complex challenge, due to the portraits being groups of figures, which requires planning out nested generators to assemble all the parts. The generated art is something Jims been looking forward to getting in the game for a long time, so hes excited to be implementing his original art concepts into the game at last! Jims working hard to keep ahead on the game design front as well, tackling a range of things including sea route mechanics, tuning the new AI, overhauling the campaign mode to fit the new map concept, and numerous UI bug fixes.
Tuning the AI can be a delicate process As he handles most of the design, art, and production responsibilities, Jim has had to juggle a lot of different aspects of development (a topic which frankly deserves its own blog). Balancing new features against the need to keep the project on track, especially with a lot of cool new things being added, means ensuring we stay focused on those tasks that are priorities for upcoming updates. It can be tough at times, but keeping an eye on scope is the only way to stay on track and get the game done.
The team in the middle of sprint week. Clockwise from top left: Ben, Jim, Maddy, and Luis! Well expand upon these exciting developments in the coming weeks, as well as dish out the big June announcement! Meanwhile, the playtest is still running! You can jump in and check out the new update by going to the Steam store page and clicking Request Access. As always wishlists are super appreciated! To keep up with the latest news follow Ghostbat Games on Twitter or join the Spies & Soldiers Discord server.

[ 2021-05-12 06:41:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Weve been posting regular game updates on here, but we wanted to get everyone up to speed on the big picture of where the project is at overall. So we sat down and wrote up a quick 'previously on...' post. Turns out a lot has happened over the past few years! Here's a (somewhat) brief look at what weve been up to since we got funded, and how the game has been progressing. After we received funding from Film Victoria in 2017 we brought on a couple of new part-time team members. Luis Van Slageren to help build out the multiplayer server side of things, and Matt Dodd to work on creating an AI opponent. Murray Lorden even joined us briefly as a project manager to help get things off the ground. We also started our own company! Welcome to Ghostbat Games. This was a prerequisite for receiving the funding, but also an important business step that was well worth getting sorted early on. Hot tip: do not underestimate how much paperwork is involved in achieving this! Meanwhile a lot of the core systems in the game were rebuilt, which took a bit longer than expected and was a lot of technical work. We basically took our hacked together prototype and made something that was functionally the same, but now worked reliably and could support further development. This is pretty normal in game dev, but doesnt really make for interesting updates. With the focus on getting development up to speed, this was when we really struggled to find time to keep posting dev blogs and fell into radio silence.
An old screenshot from the early prototype we submitted to Film Vic for funding. It was around this time that things changed up a bit, as Ben started a family with the exciting arrival of a baby girl. To make sure he had the time to enjoy life as a new dad we had to vary our usual work schedule. Subsequently, with everyone now working part time and juggling other commitments production slowed considerably. After working this way for a year or so, it became apparent that we would need more hands on deck to get the game done in a reasonable time frame. So Luis joined the team full time as the lead programmer, allowing Ben to step back and focus on a few core systems. With Luis now lending his formidable skills to the project full time, weve been able to expand nearly every aspect of the game in one way or another, and keep up momentum. But we had no idea that a global pandemic was about to turn the world upside down. Up until then, wed been doing regular hot desking at The Arcade, along with occasionally working from the Robot Circus office space, thanks to their wonderful generosity and support. With the world now living in lockdown, weve spent this last year working remotely; our work days revolving around a discord work channel and regular video meetings. The pandemic has been a rough time for everyone, and its a real testament to our team that weve kept up steady progress on the game throughout this hellish year.
The team during a morning kickoff meeting, adapting well to the new normal under covid. By this point we were really happy with how the core mechanics were working, so we turned our focus to the first-time player experience. We knew we had an engaging game once people got into it, but it took a fair bit of effort for new players to get to that stage. So we tackled the problem in two ways: rebuilding the tutorials to help teach the game in easy pieces, and adding more contextual information to the UI to help surface more of the games mechanics clearly. This has made the game much stronger overall, not just for new players. Its a long road though, and we still have a lot of work to do on that front. To help with this new focus, we were lucky enough to have a third Batt brother, Tom Batt, join the project part time! Tom initially joined us to help with some much needed QA, but has since stepped up to work on the design and scripting of the new tutorials, and on tuning the AI. With the game build in a stable place we ran a small beta test, and launched a discord server. Seeing the game through the eyes of new players really gave us a fresh perspective. Our main takeaway from these sessions, aside from the need to focus on engagement for starting players, was that while the core multiplayer game is solid, a lot of people still really want a single player experience. We had never planned on much more than a practice mode against the AI, but our biggest shift during the last year has been the decision to add a campaign experience. This single player mode utilizes the procedurally generated nature of our maps, and pulls together a series of games into unique generated campaigns, that can be played through repeatedly, each one different from the last.
First pass at the campaign system! At the end of 2020, the game was invited to take part in the beta for Steams new playtest feature. The game is currently still available to playtest, if you haven't already joined, you can just sign up on the Spies & Soldiers store page. Meanwhile, weve been slowly growing a community and compiling feedback to make the game better and better. So whats next? Were doing a big push on the game right now which means the team has expanded again. With single player now more of a priority, Matt Dodd is back with us part time, working on the already impressive looking AI 2.0. Maddy Rose has also joined the team, to help spread the word and ensure that we dont go radio silent again. Throughout all this, Film Victoria has been wonderful. They have supported our production decisions at every turn, offering excellent advice and much needed morale boosting. We couldnt be happier with our experience, they have been a staunch ally throughout. The games production grant as provided by Film Victoria is truly a unique and special thing, we feel very lucky to have had the chance to be a part of it. Were extremely proud of the team for holding it together through a very challenging year, and of this game weve been making. There are some big plans in the works, and we look forward to sharing more of it with you soon! In the meantime, join the playtest or tell your friends. And wishlists are always super appreciated! To keep up with the latest updates you can follow Ghostbat Games on Twitter or come hang out in the Spies & Soldiers Discord server. Stay safe, friends.

[ 2021-04-27 04:40:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

A quick hot fix for a rare issue some people encountered that would cause the game to hang when starting Practice or Tutorial sessions. Also, a couple of small menu tweaks for good measure.

[ 2021-02-19 04:47:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

We've added assassinations to the event system during turn resolution, so you won't miss seeing your sneaky spies do their handiwork! Cleaned up a few other issues with the new event text we put in last build, and squashed a couple of bugs. And to keep things fun, we've added a bit more variety to all the name generators!

=== BUILD NOTES: VERSION 0.21.00 ===

- Added turn resolution event for assassinations. - Added more variety to the name generators. - Updated the battle event text to include more scenarios. - Added a tutorial versions of the battle and assassination event texts. - Fixed a few bugs with the battle event text. - Fixed a bug where spies not involved in the battle would show balance icons. - Fixed an issue where sometimes the wrong spy would show as opening castle gates. Known Issues: - Dagger icon in assassinations doesn't always flip to point at the victim. - Returning to the main menu during turn resolution causes issues. Restart the game to fix.

[ 2021-02-12 05:38:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Quick fix to correct a logic error in the new battle event text.

• battles involving castles now only mention the castle defence if it was the deciding factor.
• ownership of castles is now correct when mentioned in battle event text.

[ 2021-01-31 04:30:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

A quick update to fix a few bugs, including one that was causing the game to hang if you went from a practice or tutorial game to an online match. We also have a new system for adding text descriptions to turn resolution events. It's fairly simple at this point, but we're planning to expand it more as we go. === BUILD NOTES: VERSION 0.20.22 === - Added descriptive text to battle animations. - Added confirmation when exiting from the main menu. - Fixed a bug where the game would hang if you joined an online game after playing practice or tutorials. KNOWN ISSUES - Balance icon is sometimes shown on spies that are not in the fight during battle resolution.

[ 2021-01-27 20:15:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy new year folks! Just a quick update to get things rolling, with a few bug fixes and some UI adjustments to help make things clearer. === BUILD NOTES: VERSION 0.20.21 === - Added 'Quit Game' option to the home screen menu. - Changed the wording on 'Play Now' to read 'Play Online'. - Changed the wording on 'Custom Game' to read 'Play Friends'. - Game now deletes older news items from the home screen 'News' feed. - Added outcome declaration text to battle resolution screen. - Disabled the 'Guidance' button during turn resolution. - Added player name and title to tutorial and practice games. - Changed AI title to 'Computer Opponent'. - Fixed rare bug where player name wasn't displayed after verifying email address. KNOWN ISSUES - Balance icon is sometimes shown on spies that are not in the fight during battle resolution. - Game doesn't ask you to confirm your choice when you exit game directly from the home screen.

[ 2021-01-12 06:05:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is a small but significant update! We've finished integrating Steam authentication into the game, so new players no longer have to manually create a Spies & Soldiers account, now they can simply choose a display name and start playing. Steam also automatically logs into the game on launch, so there's no more hassle with extra passwords. This update has been part of our current focus on reducing friction and streamlining the experience for new players. We're still working on improving the AI, but the majority of those changes will be in our next update. === BUILD NOTES: VERSION 0.20.20 === - Now uses Steam authentication to handle account creation and automatically log in at launch. - Added address verification step to email notifications. - The 'Main Menu' button now appears after the victory popup, fixing an issue where you could skip selecting your new title. - Removed the 'Guidance' button from the first tutorial, to avoid overwhelming new players. Known Issues: - Display name sometimes vanishes when first creating an account. Reloading the game fixes it. - There are scaling and resolution issues on 4k or high DPI monitors in Windows.

[ 2020-12-23 22:25:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

STEAM PLAYTEST We're excited to announce that we've been invited to participate in the new playtest feature that Steam is rolling out! No more game keys or signup forms, you can join by simply clicking the 'Request Access' button right on the store page, and the game will be added directly to your steam library. Feel free to spread the word, we're keen to open this up to as many people as possible. NEW TUTORIALS & BATTLE SEQUENCES For this latest update we have been focused on helping teach the game to fresh players. This includes developing an entirely new sequence of tutorials, designed to teach the core mechanics of the game in a more streamlined fashion. We have also been making improvements to turn resolution, including an expanded battle sequence that helps make it clearer exactly what is happening during combat.
SYSTEM OVERHAUL Lots of work being done behind the scenes as well, including a long overdue update of the Moai platform that the game is built on, and an overhaul of the accounts system. Unfortunately, this means you will have to create a new account for the game, as we have reconfigured the back end somewhat. Sorry about that! Please let us know if you have any trouble. COMING SOON... Right now, we are working on some significant improvements to the AI opponent, making it a much more challenging opponent in the practice matches. Look for that in the next update! === BUILD NOTES: VERSION 0.18.0 === - The store now has a shiny new Steam Playtest signup button! - Entirely new series of tutorials! - Expanded turn resolution with detailed battle breakdowns. - Updated the core Moai platform to the current version. - Overhauled the account system (you'll have to create fresh accounts, sorry about that). - Added a display name generator prompt to account creation. - Streamlined region control changes into the movement phase. - Some new button art and in-game UI polish. - Added copy and paste to the account creation fields. - Added support for high DPI Retina displays on Mac. - AI opponents now have generated names. - Added colored borders to portrait art to make ownership clearer. Known Issues: - In Windows there are scaling and resolution issues on 4k or high DPI monitors. - Old accounts no longer supported, all players have to create fresh ones.

[ 2020-12-06 23:56:15 CET ] [ Original post ]