The game is getting cleaner, tighter, and better. And that’s because of the hard work the team is putting in. And it’s not just hard work but a lot of work. This patch includes the following:
Updated Character Models, Skins and Animations,
Updated Particle Effects,
Reworked Magic Projectiles,
Numerous Bug Fixes, and
Further UI Improvements.
Updated Characters
Every character has now had a full face lift! The gnomes are prettier, the hedgehogs spikier, trolls scarier, goblins greener. You get the idea. With the new models came new skins, smoothing out all those early aspects that are best not remembered. It wouldn’t be enough if we stopped there. We’ve also added a slew of new animations to every character to really bring out their personalities. On top of that, there’s a hive a new dragons waiting to be discovered.
Updated Particle Effects
Fire! Let there be fire! And along with it plenty of smoke. We’ve updated the look of fire magic and all its components. Goblins and warriors have also had their particle effects updated. The other magic and character effects are also in the works, so come version 1.0 everything will be sparkling. It may require some extra special effects to truly make everything sparkle… and isn’t it oh so pretty when everything glitters!
Reworked Magic Projectiles
Dragons, mages and even you the player have had the magic reworked. This improves the base functionality of magic and makes sure everything is more cohesive in its appearance. Overall magic just works better for everyone, like it’s… magic?
Bug Fixes
Even after all this time things don’t always work. Yeah it’s awkward, but it’s also a normal part of game development. Which is part of the reason why we’re in Early Access - not so we can ship bugs, but so we can show you that we’re working on them. And working on them we are. This patch pushes numerous solutions to some of the most common problems. Magic wasn’t affecting characters or the player properly, it does now. Spawner buttons are no longer troublesome. You can’t teleport through the terrain. We’ve sorted most if not all rendering issues. Animations aren’t weird any longer. It’s been a good thorough clearing of the bug backlist and the game is better for it.
Further UI Improvements
Once more we’ve been working on the UI in an effort to improve its efficiency, readability and in order to prepare it for localization. Currently we’re planning on launching with Japanese support, though that’s only for the UI. We don’t have any plans to localize the little voice over we currently have. Who knows, maybe that and more languages will be supported in the future. We’re always open to that, as we are a multilingual team - we speak English, Finnish, Swedish, Japanese, and Spanish.
That’s it for this update, but stay tuned cause there’s more on the way for A Giant Problem! But for that we need your feedback. Please be sure to reach out to us on the Steam Forums, on our Discord or via our support email.
Patch 0.09.00
Polish, polish and more polish.
The game is getting cleaner, tighter, and better. And that’s because of the hard work the team is putting in. And it’s not just hard work but a lot of work. This patch includes the following:
Reworked Physics Layer,
Repair Fixes,
Reworked Shadow Magic,
Additional End Conditions and Updated Level End Conditions,
Updated Characters,
Map Polishes,
Polished Magic, and
Further UI Improvements.
Physics Layers
This is all about optimization, bug hunting, and polish. By making sure that everything is a distinct layer and the correct layer, we ensure that every action has the appropriate reaction. The things we want to trigger when you throw a goblin are exactly those - and not say the UI. No one would enjoy it if you ended up changing the game settings because an errant troll collided with a button. Hence why we took the time to rework all of this and smooth everything out. And if we missed anything we’ll sort it in a future patch.
Repairs
Part of the physics rework was sorting the repair system. Making sure all the correct things were being hit when that hammer was swung. Now it should work without issue. All you need to do is swing that giant hammer at the remains of a wall or house to build it back up.
Shadow Magic
For a while now dragons have been spitting at the players. It’s something we initially just called goop. But… well… no one likes being vomited on. So we changed it to shadow magic. And with time we’ve developed it further. Not just so it has an all new look, but so you the player can make use of its powers as well. What it does is a surprise.
End Conditions
It was all well and good for Early Access to have some basic end conditions in the campaign - like kill 500 goblins, or survive for 12 minutes, or score 800000000 points. But for a campaign not so much. As much as we love numbers going up it, it makes for a very boring campaign. That’s why we’ve created a slew of additional end conditions to bring much need variation to the missions, and these have been implemented to the already released levels.
Characters
Good or bad our characters are the life of this game. They’re practically everything you interact with. So of course they needed a good polish. In this case it means we’ve got new models, rigs, art, and animations for the Gnomes, Hedgehog and Warriors. With more characters coming soon. Their AI is not quite final as some bugs still need to be worked out, but for the most part it’s all there.
Maps
Every map has had a once over. There’s more life and pop to all of them. Now the lava on The Cauldron is dangerous. In all the maps just look phenomenal. So much so that if you don’t believe us then you’ll just have to see them for yourselves.
Magic Polish
All of the magic is getting visual improvements. Some has been mentioned in the bit about Shadow Magic, but just to reassure you we aren’t forgetting Fire and Ice. They’ve got updated looks, with additional particle effects and shader work coming in the next update beyond what we’ve done in this one.
Further UI Improvements
Like always we’re making changes big and small to our UI. Which is surprising given it’s a game that was meant to have as little as possible. Either way, we’ve streamlined the Credits, taken out the progression system for the moment (more on that in a future post), added some additional features like resetting your save and in general just tried to make for a smoother experience.
All in all there’s a lot that went into this update - things big and small. Just the campaign itself and all the systems involved in that is worth dev diary of its own. But we won’t burden you with that for now. So that’s it for this update. And as always, we have more in store for A Giant Problem. But for that we need your feedback. Please be sure to reach out to us on the Steam Forums, on our Discord or via our support email.
Quick UI Flow Fix - Next Level Buttons!
This is just a small but vital fix to our UI and UX. Instead of going back to Level Select, you can now press the "Next Level" button and the game will automatically load the next level. It quite literally does what it says it does.
Enjoy.
Patch 0.08.00
Another Step Closer To Release And It’s A Big One Too
Well that was a lot of work. It’s been a while since our last patch, but we know it was worth the wait. Why? Cause this one has so much in it, including:
Campaign and Campaign Systems,
Overhauled Wave System,
Updated Character AI,
Ally Spawners,
Level Polish,
More Shaders,
Updated Club Sounds,
UI Improvements, and
Unity updated to version 2019.4 LTS.
Campaign and Campaign Systems
The beginning of A Giant Problems’ campaign is in. The first four maps are available. But the levels aren’t fully tuned. Nor is the story complete. This being early access this should be no surprise. To get more feedback on this we are planning on launching special playtests later this month. More on that in a future blog post.
Overhauled Wave System
To build out the campaign and even to enable an Endless mode in the future we’ve changed how we call and deploy enemies. This gives us more control to fine tune the levels of the campaign, adjust the difficulty, and create variation to the encounters.
Characters With More Character
Everyone is getting smarter. Or at least more reactive. The enemies and allies all have new behaviors, and those they already did have been fine tuned. This is in part to create additional reactions between them, as well as with you. They are by no means complete as playtesting and your feedback will inevitably show us changes that need to be made.
Ally Spawners
What’s the point of having gnomes and hedgehogs if there isn’t a way to create them in-game. That’s why we have our lovely little ally spawners. With a press of a button, a new ally arises ready to fight. There is a cost of course - mana. The introduction of these adds to your arsenal to make holding off the invaders all the easier.
Level Polish
We wouldn’t be going for gold if it didn’t also mean making sure everything looks the best. This is more than just visual improvements. It includes functional ones for things like the water making items sink, the lava does the same, out-of-bounds setting limits to the player teleport. But it’s also a lot of pretting up of each map through more props, more particle effects, more decals, new textures. Just more.
Shaders
Speaking of more, we’re making much greater use of shaders to awesome effect. They’re helping spruce up levels, mechanics and more. Where we can we’re using them to make the game really pop.
The Club
Swinging a giant baseball bat really should sound impactful. And now it does. So go out and hit something… like a goblin. But be careful when waving your arms about in VR, you could damage something or someone in the real world - even yourself.
UI Improvements
We say it every time cause it’s true, but we’re always working on improving the user experience - especially when it comes to pressing buttons. Something we don’t want you spending too much time on anyways. But when you are we want that to be the best, most informative time pressing buttons possible. We’ve also got the UI rendering in front of everything else so it’ll no longer appear inside terrain or objects. This development is courtesy of the next change.
Unity Update
We updated the version of Unity we’re using to 2019.4 LTS. This brought changes to the render pipelines which have enabled more shaders on our part and the aforementioned UI improvements with rendering. It provides us some additional benefits as developers and will help in porting the game to other platforms.
All in all there’s a lot that went into this update - things big and small. Just the campaign itself and all the systems involved in that is worth dev diary of its own. But we won’t burden you with that for now. So that’s it for this update. And as always, we have more in store for A Giant Problem. But for that we need your feedback. Please be sure to reach out to us on the Steam Forums, on our Discord or via our support email.
Our 2021 Roadmap
We’re looking forward to 2021 and here’s why!
We made it through, and we launched it into Early Access on April Fool’s Day in the midst of the pandemic and the restrictions they put here in place in Finland. For us that meant no movement outside of the capital region, closing of schools, and other limits. It sucked, but we got through it alive and with a game going out.
We’ve been dedicated to improving what we’ve made and adding to it to the point we’ve put out 8 patches of various sizes. Those patches have steadily improved the game, added content and increased the features that make you feel like a giant. So overall the team is quite happy with the progress we’ve made on A Giant Problem. That is of course because we know what’s coming. And we’re happy to finally tell you all about it.
The New Roadmap
As you can see from the updated map what we’re planning on delivering has changed. Most notably, there will be a campaign! And we’re excited about that, cause who doesn’t love a good story and want some reasoning behind what’s happening. We’re still delivering eight maps, more magic, more enemies and varieties, allies, upgrades, and the repair hammer.
To date the game has been more of a rogue-lite, in that each play session is a run and upon losing you have to start all over. The addition of a campaign changes this. Namely the game no longer becomes about staving off loss, rather you’re trying to achieve goals which generally feels a lot better. At the same time we will be refining the rogue-lite aspects and putting them out as a new Endless Mode. It also means we get to provide a story and lore, explanations for why you are doing what you’re doing. A vital thing for us as a company because all involved want to be making games with a story
Together the campaign and endless mode will offer a lot, and to players with different likes. And we want this game to be both appealing and fun. Fun is different for different people, which is why both modes will be available from the start once we reach 1.0. Our major focus in this updated roadmap and for version 1.0 is about making a fun and playable game. That’s why certain features are currently out of scope - they’re nice, but not necessities to achieving the goal of a fun and playable game.
Change of Scope
If you compare our roadmap for 2020 with that for 2021 you’ll see some features or plans have changed. That’s an inevitable part of game development. We’ve had a lot of ideas for this game. Many we’ve tested and found them simply not fun, or too complex to implement successfully. Others didn’t fit with the pillars of the game, which have always been:
Make the Player Feel Powerful,
Family Friendly,
Keep It Simple.
We’re going to deliver all of this and more. That’s our plan for what we will accomplish this year, so we hope you’re with us for the rest of the journey as we continue to add to and improve A Giant Problem, and grow our community.
Vote For Us!
In The Steam Awards and help make this year at least a little bit okay.
2020 sure has been something. So we thought why not make it a little more amusing. And what’s more amusing than a game called A Giant Problem? You can do that by going to Steam and voting for A Giant Problem for VR Game of the Year!
This game has been the literal embodiment of the year, hence why we think we deserve such an illustrious award! It launched into Early Access on April Fools. It’s got a name that’s not just figurative. We as a company nearly went under, but we’re still here and kicking. And there’s nothing like smashing things when you’re annoyed. 2020 keeps throwing things at you and so does this game. But you’ll be knocking them out, back and into nothingness until 2021 and beyond!
It also helps that our game is currently on sale for 20% off! Meaning it’s now 6,55€ ($7.99 USD). Making it the perfect time for you to get A Giant Problem. So head over to Steam - pick up a copy and vote!
Patch 0.07.02
Key to this game is the ability to throw. That’s affected by a number of factors, namely the hardware you the player are using. Long story short, we’ve accounted for most of those differences so the game should feel better! We’ve also made a slew of other improvements, changes and fixes including:
Throwing Improvements,
More Stuff Causes Damage
Dragons Preventing Game Ending Bug Fixed,
Dragons Can be Picked Up Now,
Holstered Hammer Doesn't Fix Things Anymore,
Warrior's Health Fixed,
Goblins from Warriors Fixed in Multiple Ways,
Lost Ziggurat Improvements,
Stele Oasis Houses Fixed,
Destroyed Houses No Longer Generate Mana, and
Objects in Water Now Sink
Throwing Improvements
Each VR controller model behaves differently. That means throwing and other interactions can vary widely. Which isn’t great in terms of consistency nor making players feel like giants. So we’ve done another round of improvements to account for the differences. Not all controllers have been accounted for, just the most common. But we will get to the rest soon.
Barrels, Hay Bales, Wagons and Rubber Ducks Cause Damage
We talk about this game as being about using anything you get your hands on to be a weapon. And then we littered the maps with barrels - a classic bit of video game design. Except the barrels did nothing. Now they do. Enjoy. And so does every other little thing you can pick up. So seriously, enjoy some death by duck.
Dragons
Dragons are pesky creatures especially when you’re a giant. For one thing they didn’t want to get picked up, yet they also didn’t want the game to end. Both of those have changed. So throw them to your hearts’ content, pick them up and pet them, do what you will. And all in the confidence that once your gold is gone, the game is over.
The Repair Hammer
When all you’ve got is a hammer everything looks like a nail, even when that hammer is resting comfortably in your belt. The hammer was knocking around and hitting things and if they needed to be fixed then they were getting fixed. Well no more! Now things only get repaired when you decide to fix them with a mighty swing.
Warriors and Goblins
With Warrior 2.0 we introduced a minor issue related to the amount of health a warrior has. That’s been fixed. Along with some issues that occur with the goblins that spew forth from the warriors under the right conditions. The goblins will no longer slide upon spawning and they can now stand up if thrown.
Lost Ziggurat
Tossing things into holes can be fun. It’s one of the joys of playing on Lost Ziggurat. You can just pile up boulders and trees till the cows come home. That doesn’t make for great gameplay though if you’re able to block all the enemies from making their way out. So we’ve implemented something we call quicksand on the path up, so objects sink and disappear, allowing the enemies to keep coming unhindered. We’ve also fixed some movement issues related to the map and better spaced out the houses and magic spawners.
House Fixes
There were a number of issues affecting houses, some only on particular maps. Needless to say they’ve all been resolved. So now the houses on Stele Oasis have a hit and destruction animation as well as health bars. And all houses no longer generate mana when destroyed. It just didn’t seem fair for them to do so, especially for lore reasons.
Water Is Wet, Lava Is Hot
Okay it’s not wet in the traditional sense, but does act more like water in that anything in it doesn’t display it so much as it sinks and disappears. Just like quicksand, only faster. Trees, rocks, barrels, anything tossed into the sea on Ragged Shore will now up and sink. Same goes for all the other maps and their water. And on The Cauldron lava does much the same. Both of these features will be improved further in the future, with splashes and particle effects, but for the moment we thought we’d add some more realism.
That’s it for this update. And as always, we have more in store for A Giant Problem. But for that we need your feedback. Please be sure to reach out to us on the Steam Forums, on our Discord or via our support email.
Patch 0.07.00
2020 continues and so does the development of A Giant Problem. We hope this update finds you well. If not, hopefully this will be a bright moment in the day. And boy do we have a lot for you to be excited about. So much so, it’s almost too much for a single patch.
We’ve been quiet for a couple of months in part because of the summer holidays and then our intense focus on implementing all of these new features and changes. But enough faffing, you want to know what we’ve done!
This update includes the following:
AI & Animation Overhaul,
Repair Hammer
Mana System,
Destructible Gates,
Stele Oasis,
Warrior 2.0,
Main Menu Scene Update,
Holster Overhaul & UI Updates,
Sound Updates & Fixes,
Troll Hitting Walls Fix,
Dragon Flight Rework, and
Other Bug Fixes.
AI & Animations
The two are intricately connected in games. So we of course had to improve them. What does that mean? Well the game should be buttery smooth now in terms of all of the characters running around and causing chaos. Not that there won’t be issues or bugs, this game is still in EA after all. It’s just that we’ve improved the flow of information within the game and you should see that very directly in how characters behave.
Repair Hammer
You’re big so you need some big tools. Thus we have given you a hammer that repairs things. Don’t ask how, just accept that it does. Why? Well because you’ll need to be rebuilding your defenses and villages. The pesky invaders aren’t just after your gold, they’re destroying your home. So it’s time to put your muscle to work.
Mana
Magic requires a cost. That cost is mana. But it’s not on you to generate the mana, it’s on your village. They’ve transformed you into your current fighting form using magic, and now they’re providing more support. In turn fireballs and iceballs now cost mana, but you’ll be able to easily transfer everything during the game and ensure you’re at peak destruction.
Gates
We call them gates cause they’re kind of like walls that you can shut at any time. Though it is on the enemy to open them again. While you can’t repair them, they do have the added benefit of being able to destroy anyone unfortunate enough to be standing in their way. They’re not being introduced on every map as they’ve been designed to take into account the particularities of our newer maps.
Stele Oasis
Speaking of. Your wait for more has been worth it because we have it for you. We now take you to the desert locale that we call Stele Oasis. This map has been lovingly designed to take into account all of the new features we’ve been adding. So it highlights the destructible gates and the repair hammer, as well as mana.
Warrior 2.0
A new contender has entered the ring. Well it’s dressed like the old contender because it is. It’s still the Warrior, but it has some surprises for you. These changes stem from how similar the Warrior was to the Goblin. This was in part because of features which have not yet been implemented. So the Warrior isn’t operating to its full potential, added to that is the complicating factor of that behavior being dependent on the players actions. Ultimately, if you don’t play a certain way then you don’t get to experience everything there is to about the warrior. And we didn’t want that. Which means it’s time to get to grips with the new warrior.
Main Menu
We’re setting a scene with our main menu. Our Art Director has been lovingly decorating the scene so when you first start the game it’s more than a menu. It’s a bit of an amuse bouch, a taster if you will, of what’s to come.
Holsters
Thanks to your feedback and that of our dedicated team we have improved the holsters and how you interact with them. This isn’t just a UI improvement, it’s an overall user experience change. It was a long time coming and we think you’ll welcome it especially with the introduction of the repair hammer.
New Sounds
New features mean new sounds, and boy do are they audible. Didn’t want to say the sound good cause that would just be a bit too much use of the word sound. Not that they aren’t. We think they add nicely to the atmosphere of A Giant Problem and help with the overall user experience.
Troublesome Trolls
Look trolls are big and lumbering. They’re not known for their grace and poise. So to some degree having trolls hit multiple targets at the same time made sense. But not from a game balance perspective. They were just too strong, so we changed the attack model for them so they no longer hit multiple buildings or enemies in a single swipe. It makes the game easier for us to balance and just a bit easier for you to play. But it’s all for the better.
Flying Lizards
Dragons have wings. That’s how they fly. They’re not some simple gasbags. All the same they weren’t doing so well on some of our maps. So we’ve worked to get them flying straight… or at least to hit fewer things in their pursuit of you. You should see the biggest changes on Lost Ziggurat.
Bugs
The introduction of new systems and features, changes, new content all inevitably introduced new bugs. So we’ve squashed many if not most of those. We’ve also been hard at work getting some of those older, peskier bugs too. When the world is affected as much as it is by a bug, we don’t need anymore.
That’s it for this update. And as always, we have more in store for A Giant Problem. But for that we need your feedback. Please be sure to reach out to us on the Steam Forums, on our Discord or via our support email.
Patch 0.06.02
We’re relaxing… seriously we are. We just thought we’d put out a small patch at the same time.
As you can see from the beautiful artwork Minna, our Art Director, has created, even our characters are having a nice, relaxing summer break. Though they do occasionally try to sneak in and steal some gold. But we hope you’re getting to relax, remaining safe, and stopping the hordes now and then.
This is smaller patch to just add a few things including:
Tuned the Difficulty and Rewards,
Additional Particle Effects, and
Updated NavMeshes.
Difficulty & Rewards
We’re constantly tuning the difficulty to make the game as fun as possible, while being welcoming to new players. It’s not an easy task. But it’s one we know we’re up for. So in this leaks tweak we’ve tried to soften the start and ramp up more gradually. We’ve also doubled the amount of credits you receive at the end of a session, in the hopes of enabling unlocks sooner.
Throwing Trails
The game is generally better, and now it also looks better. We’ve been adding particle effects to more things that you interact with. Seriously, who doesn’t like more sparkles, explosions and lights everywhere! The addition of these particle effects should help you track your throws better and make for better streaming and screenshots.
NavMeshes
This is a minor thing and you may not notice any differences, but we’ve updated the NavMeshes following some small changes to things we’ve done on the maps. Nothing has moved or changed beyond what’s included in the NavMesh. This is a long way of saying the characters should move about the maps better.
That’s it for this update. We expect the next to be in August. And as always, we have more in store for A Giant Problem. But for that we need your feedback. Please be sure to reach out to us on the Steam Forums, on our Discord or via our support email.
Summertime Update
Summertime in the city! Summertime is a pity. Cause you should be outside... but then you won’t be playing our game.
Hell it’s nice here in Helsinki which we sometimes call Hel. That said we certainly want to be outside. And we will be soon. Just after we make another update to A Giant Problem for you!
To entice you in we’ve got a summertime treat for you. A big tasty update! And this update has lots of goodies. Such as:
A Progression System,
Game Save System,
A New Level,
New Music and some Additional Sounds,
A Rebalanced Difficulty, and
Some minor bug fixes.
Progression
Being a giant is great. You’re big. You’re powerful. You’re good looking. Because of the first two no one is going to say otherwise on the third. But we recognize that you want more, you want to work towards something. So we’ve introduced our progression system, and as a requirement for that a game save system.
In terms of progression, we’re only starting with three aspects to upgrade across two abilities. Those are the amount of time magical effects remain, how quickly the club recharges, and how many hits the club can deal before it breaks. Because this is early access, don’t get too tied to these upgrades. They may change in terms of effectiveness or price. They may even be replaced.
If you’re concerned about your progress that’s fair. But we do plan on resetting everyone’s progress upon launch. We want to be clear with you about this from the start. You’re helping us develop this game, and we’re taking all your feedback into account. Resetting is something that we’re firm on, given the changes and developments we have planned for the rest of early access.
Game Save System
With the launch of the progression system we’ve had to add a game save system. It’s purely a background thing, and you don’t need to do anything. But as part of this we’ve enabled Steam Cloud saves. This is in part to make sure all your upgrades are stored correctly.
Lost Ziggurat
It’s hot, it’s muggy, mosquitoes are buzzing, and the sun is streaming down. And that’s just in the real world. And so it is too in the world of A Giant Problem, especially on the new map, Lost Ziggurat. It’s the first map that you can move vertically on, and we will be refining this feature in future updates to make it more apparent where you can and cannot move. If you’re using smooth locomotion then you need to use Stomp to climb to higher levels of the ziggurat.
New Music and Sounds
Lost Ziggurat means new music! We’ve got a lovely new track from our composer Jonathan. It’s very in keeping with the other music already in-game, while being fantastical and moody that’s perfect for this new map. In addition, we’ve fixed the crystals on The Cauldron so they now sound appropriate when they shatter.
Rebalance
We’ve been playing A Giant Problem for a while… so we’re kinda good at it. Which means we fail to see the difficulty or flaws in the game. It’s part of the reason we entered early access. And that’s why the feedback we’ve gotten from you has been great. We’ve seen that play sessions are quite short, and people are losing quite quickly. So we’ve set out to remedy that.
It’s not that we’ve made the game easier. We’ve made it a more gradual curve, so the beginning is smoother and helps you get into the flow of things. But like all things, this too could change based on feedback. And of course it’ll change as we add more features and content to the game that change the balance by their very inclusion.
Bug Fixes and Known Issues
We’ve dealt with some other minor issues related to the characters’ navigation. We wanted to ship something significant to you this month so here are some known issues, that we’ll work as quickly as possible to resolve, none of them are game breaking so don’t worry. Those issues include - decals not always conforming to terrain, and some other minor UI problems.
As always, we have more in store for A Giant Problem. But for that we need your feedback. Please be sure to reach out to us on the Steam Forums, on our Discord or via our support email.
