Hammer

The new Hammer weapon is now playable on Potato (and soon Primary if Potato remains stable during testing).

hammerGIF

The Hammer is a strong weapon — it causes 10 damage in an area of effect around you.  However, you have to stand still for 3/4ths of a second before the weapon causes damage — just enough time to escape if your opponent is quick.

Other changes currently being tested on Potato:

  • If you trade your homestone to another player, you can buy a new one
  • Dialogue window properly uses the keybinding setting instead of always using ‘E’
  • Client/server time synchronization system (current being used in the Hammer)

Buy-Ammo System

A popular request has been ammo purchasable separately from weapons.  I am now testing this change on Potato, and if it’s stable, expect to see it on Primary tomorrow.

  • Ammo can be bought separately
  • Weapons no longer self-delete on reaching zero ammo
  • Prevent purchasing another weapon when that weapon already exists in the inventory (this simplifies weapon management, since each weapon item can have its own unique ammo count, and it’d be easy to get mixed up)
  • Weapon’s ammo level now properly saves/loads
  • x10 buttons removed for weapon folder
  • Pixel Pistol now does 3 damage – combined with low ammo cost, hopefully this makes it more appealing for use

 

CalcMMO

calcmmo-boxart

Introducing CalcMMO!  The world’s first (and hopefully last) TI-83 Graphing Calculator themed massively multiplayer game!

Features:

Our Datacenter
Our Datacenter
  • Finally, learning math is fun!  Attack EVIL POLYNOMIAL FUNCTIONS with your KNOWLEDGE STICK.
  • Upgrade your graphs with POWERful new variables (MATH PUN! SEE YOU ARE ALREADY LEARNING!)
  • Experience the power and mystique of cutting edge calculator gameplay on your home personal computer.
  • Manually retype BASIC programs during homeroom since your Trig teacher resets all the calculators ever since Jake cheated on the midterm!
  • Become a Linear Function and hunger after delicious human meatflesh.
  • Amazing two color graphics!  Oh wait, that looks grayscale.  Is this actually TI-84 graphics?  Radical!  (ANOTHER MATH PUN!)
  • That was the last math pun.

ti-logo

Press Quotes:

‘I mathed three times, and by the third time, I lost most feeling to my left leg.’   -Jim
‘a^2 + b^2 = c^2’   – Pythagoras
‘This has no educational value whatsoever’   -Teachers Everywhere
‘I have no idea what is happening right now’   -All 8BitMMO Players

calc-linearfunction calc-quest calc-quest1 calc-town calc-town2

You can play CalcMMO today on 8BitMMO.net.

We also updated our Steam page for this event – you can see a saved copy of it here.
—
CalcMMO has no association with and is not endorsed by Texas Instruments.  This is a joke.  TI please don’t bomb us.
Special thanks to our crack team of MIT engineer for the datacenter photo!

Laser Rifles are live!

laserRifleToday’s update brings a number of nice things:

  • Laser Rifles — charge them up and fire… but don’t charge them too long 😉
  • Active item window sizes around the active item (wide item support)
  • Muted players can no longer whisper to anyone
  • If you /ignore a player, you will no longer see whispers from them
  • Use /nearby or /n to chat to players near you without the entire server seeing your text.  IRC will still see it though.
  • Fixed bug where players would respawn in the same place if there was only one place to respawn
  • Pixel Pistol is half the cost

GDC Pics

Here’s a couple pics of me at GDC last week:

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View from rooftop of our AirBnb place
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One of my gamedev heroes, Ragnar Tørnquist, played the game at the Humble party. His work inspired me to get into the industry many years ago, so it was really cool to get to watch him play.
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Unity party

 

Off to GDC

Well, I’m off to the Game Developer’s Conference all next week to do Business.  Before I go, I’ll leave you with two teasers.

1) Autocap v2 is the new map system.  Unlike autocap v1, now it will be fully automated, and with any luck, the map should update by itself roughly once a week (instead of once per six months :P).  Kartud has been working hard on this, and we hope to have something running by the end of next next week.

laserRifle

2) I’ve been working on a new weapon, the Laser Rifle.  It will have a range and hit effect like the laser turret (and I may be balancing upwards the laser turret’s damage too). To balance out its range and firepower, it will have a reload sequence between shots — so make each one count.

 

2k Expansion Block Delivered to Backers

Expansion Block
Expansion Block

The 2k Expansion Block has been delivered to backers of the Mega fundraiser from a couple months ago — check your inboxes if I haven’t already caught you online.

The block increases the maximum number of objects of a region from 1,000 blocks to 2,000 blocks.  I didn’t want to release this previously due to performance concerns, but after the recent performance improvements, I’m looking forward to seeing how the engine handles such demands.  If it performs well, then this might be available in the store one day.

 

PS – Tarkus, if you’re reading this, I don’t have an e-mail for you, so please get in touch and I’ll trade the blocks to your account. 🙂