We are thrilled to announce that Bare Butt Boxing has officially completed its Early Access development and launched v1.0! We can't wait for you to experience everything this chaotic multiplayer brawler has to offer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsI5aAZTwtM
1.0 Update Features
Returning players and newcomers alike will find that our v1.0 Launch Update is packed with exciting new features and improvements, including:
New Game Mode: Soccer Mode
Fight for the ball and score by pushing the ball through portals first.
New Game Mode: Super Glove
Only one player has the Super Gloves at a time, granting them stronger punches and the ability to score points. Score a player that has the Super Gloves to steal this power and rack up points.
New Maps:
Alien Bedroom
Mountain Pass
Alien Arcade
New Power-up: Super Frenzy
Super Frenzy gives stronger punches and make you invulnerable for a short duration. The perfect opportunity to make a huge comeback.
More Skins and Titles Added
Customise your alien with new skins and titles to stand out in the arena.
Join a Friend Feature
Join up with your friends online in 6 player lobbies!
Custom Matches
Adjust game rules and settings for both local and online matches to create your ideal brawling experience.
On top of these additions, we've made numerous enhancements and fixes to ensure Bare Butt Boxing is more fun than ever before.
Thank You!!
Thank you for joining us on this journey and making Bare Butt Boxing better than ever. We promise to continue creating amazing gaming experiences. See you in the arena!
Bare Butt Boxing 1.0 Release on August 1st
We're happy to announce that Bare Butt Boxing will receive a major 1.0 update and will be leaving early access on August 1st!!
We've been hard at work adding some new game modes, new levels, friend invites, custom Matches, various bug fixes and more!
Here's some stuff we've been sharing on social media.
1.0 Release Date Trailer
Check out the Release Date Trailer over here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sb3wLYwedg
New Maps and Game Modes and more
- New Game Mode : Soccer mode - New Game Mode : Super Glove - New Map : Alien Bedroom - New Map : Mountain Pass - New Map : Alien Arcade - New Power up : Super Frenzy
More Customization
- More skins and Titles Added
Friend Invite and Custom Matches
- Join a friend Feature - Custom Matches will allow you to adjust the game rules both locally or online
Thanks to everyone who's shown their support by playing our early access version, we really appreciate it and cannot wait for you to try out our 1.0 update!!
If you'd like to keep up to date check us out on Twitter https://x.com/Tuatara_Games Discord https://discord.gg/kgZ3RptvDE
Local & Online Mode Changes
Although we are still working on a new map and other changes, this month's update is a bit smaller.
Local Mode Update
We have been focusing more on the Local Multiplayer mode lately. From now on, each player can now customize their alien when playing in Local Multiplayer!
In Local Mode, you don't have to spend coins to unlock customization options, so feel free to pick your favorite skin and brawl with your friends.
Online Mode Update
Most people have been playing in Local mode rather Online. Sadly, this means that we cannot keep up with the cost of running servers for the game, so we are now switching our Online mode to Peer to Peer. You can still play online, but if the host leaves, it will close the server.
Another option if you want to play with friends is via the Remote Play Together function on Steam.
What Next?
Keep your eyes peeled for our next update, we are looking forward to share more with you! You can also join our Discord page to be notified when BBB's next patch will go live.
See you next time.
Local Multiplayer, New Map and More!
This is our biggest update since Bare Butt Boxing first launched in Early Access! Let's have a look at what you can expect in this patch.
Local Multiplayer
Up to 4 players can now play locally on the same machine.
This is our first iteration of this mode, and doesn't have all the features we want yet, but it will allow you to challenge your friends and look them in the eye as you punch them across the arena.
Here are some features we plan to add to Local Multiplayer as future updates : - Character selection, and the ability to use customization options - Customizable rules (bots on/off, items on/off, match duration, level select)
New Map : Space Bedroom
Introducing our brand new map! A sleepover is getting violent in the alien's bedroom. Players will always respawn on the second floor, giving you a chance to jump down and surprise the players fighting below.
Random Map Rotation
With this fifth map we are also adding Random Map Rotation, so you won't always play the levels in the exact same order over and over.
New Cosmetic Options
In this patch we are adding : - 3 new skins (one each for Fishy, Froggy and Maurice) - 5 new gloves - Introducing GOLDEN TITLES
The Golden Titles are expensive, perfect to flex on opponents in the Result Screen
New Music
Speaking of the Result Screen, you'll notice we now have 2 tracks that play at the end of every games. There is also one new track that plays during regular play!
More to Come!
These where the main changes for this patch, along with various bug fixes and other improvements. Stay tuned for our future updates, and thanks for playing our game!
As always, take care and see you in the arena.
Bots and Style points Update
It is time for our first BBB update since launching Early Access! Thanks to all of you that have been playing the game so far. We are working hard to address your biggest concerns while also working on more content. As always, you can reach us on our Steam forum and on our Discord page, so feel free to share what you want us to work on next.
Bots
Empty lobbies are always something online games want to avoid. We have multiple ideas to bring more people and more life to our game! But in the meantime, we wanted to add something so that joining an empty lobby will be less boring. Introducing : BOTS These AIs will populate servers with low player counts, so that you can at least practice your moves while waiting for more players. Scoring them will earn players 1 point instead of 3 like regular human players.
Here are the amount of bots that will appear based on player count in a lobby :
1 player - 4 bots spawn
2 players - 3 bots spawn
3 players - 1 bots spawn
4 players and up - 0 bots
We will expand on these bots over time, and make them better at playing the game. They are a bit incompetent right now, but it's a first step!
Style Points
Style Points are designed to reward players with extra points based on how they score goals, and are also used as a comeback mechanic. At launch, they were not functioning properly, but we have now addressed the issue and they are back!
Some examples :
Long Shot : Rewards you for scoring an opponent in a far away goal.
Lead Shot : Rewards you for scoring whoever is in the lead during the match.
Last Second : Rewards you for scoring someone in the final seconds of the match.
Style Points are stackable so it's possible to earn a ton of points with a single goal!
More Fixes
We have also fixed some bugs and issues. Here are some of the bigger ones :
Stats : Fixed issue with the Time Played stat was not tracking properly
Matchmaking : Improved stability related to unique crash after joining
Audio : Fixed a bug where the Frenzy sound effect would play forever
Maps : Adjusted some visuals and colliders
Future Updates
We have been paying attention to your feedback and have identified these requests as the most common ones :
Ability to matchmake with friends
Local Play
More Maps
More Power Ups from Item Boxes
These are our priorities for the moment. You can expect our next few updates to focus on the features above.
See you soon!
Server Performance Update
We published a small update that optimises some of our network communications and will reduce lag spikes that can happen during the start of new matches and when anyone new joins. Also improves an issue with server memory limits.
DEV LOG 03 - ACTIVE RAGDOLL
Bare Butt Boxing uses procedural animation to bring its characters to life. You have probably heard of the term "ragdoll" before, one of the most common use of procedural animation. It's a satisfying physical reaction that usually occurs when a character dies or gets knocked out. The character will switch from a normal "animated state" to a ragdoll state and fall down in a physical way, based on the position of their limbs and the force of the impact.
Bare Butt Boxing uses a different kind of procedural animation called "active ragdoll". This technique uses the same principle but keeps the character in this ragdoll state permanently, not just during death. Various forces and constraints are then used to keep the ragdoll upright and animated while still reacting to all physical forces.
Early active ragdoll prototype.
Constructing the Ragdoll
The ragdoll is constructed from primitive objects like cubes, capsules and spheres that approximate the dimensions of the body and limbs. These primitive objects are then linked together in a hierarchy so that motion of one can affect the other. For example, if the upper arm moves, the lower arm will follow.
Primitives are also constrained so they don't exceed certain rotation angles and maintain desirable properties like stiffness and bounciness.
Fishy's ragdoll setup, 13 main primitive shapes are used to construct it.
Active Ragdoll Benefits & Compromises
Compared to traditional animation, the active ragdoll approach provides some unique benefits. Animated characters require a wide variety of animations that blend between each other for a character to feel right. In contrast, characters in our game require no animation at all! All motion is derived procedurally and the physics engine of Unity takes care of the rest creating endless possibilities.
Such a degree of automation introduces unique challenges, however. A lot of careful consideration is required to create stable, relatively predictable behaviour because physics can produce unexpected results. Luckily, surprising behaviour is often part of the charm of physics based games like Bare Butt Boxing!
All characters and bodies in the example above are procedurally animated with physics and they all constantly react to each other. This kind of complex behaviour is impossible with traditional animation.
Physics and Multiplayer
Physical simulations add many unique challenges when creating a multiplayer game. For an enjoyable multiplayer experience, low latency is required. Any delay between a player pressing an input and seeing the effect of their action in the game can impact the experience negatively. This delay happens due to the players' computers (clients) requiring to "talk" with each other and exchange data. When player A presses the jump button, this data needs to travel to all other players to see player A perform the jump on all their screens.
Active Ragdoll characters exacerbate this problem by vastly increasing the amount of data that must travel between clients. Technically, all the rigid bodies (the primitive objects we've covered before) need to be shared between players. If we do some quick math, let's assume 13 rigid bodies per character, in a match between 6 players, that's almost 80 unique objects to track just for our characters!
In Bare Butt Boxing we solved this problem by only passing a limited number of key rigid bodies between clients and simulating the rest on each client locally.
Multiplayer is an incredibly deep and technical topic so this only scratches the surface. Under the hood, advanced techniques such as client-side prediction and server reconciliation enable very low latency multiplayer that keeps everyone happy!
One of the most common and frustrating examples of latency is players existing at different levels of delay between clients.
Hope you enjoyed this brief technical dive into the active ragdoll technology at the heart of Bare Butt Boxing!
Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more! Tuatara Team
DEV LOG 02 - LEVEL CREATION PROCESS
The different levels are a key factor for Bare Butt Boxing's gameplay to work. As such, we spend a lot of time and effort to make our maps as engaging and polished as we can. We want our levels to feel unique from each other, while still fitting within some general criteria.
They must have roughly the same size, which we feel is optimal for games with 4 to 6 players. We usually want different layers of heights to create interesting gameplay situations, a few areas where players can fall off the map, etc.
Layout & Playtesting
Making Bare Butt Boxing levels is time consuming, so we must ensure each level we create will be worth the effort we put into it. This is why we segment the level creation process into individual parts.
Everything starts with a crude layout of what the level will look like. At this stage, we figure out the placement of goals, define which areas should be more or less dangerous and ensure that every part of the map feels interesting.
Short timeline of typical changes we might make during playtesting iterations.
This rough process is fast, like building with lego blocks and allows us to start playtesting the level quickly. During and after each playtest we discuss what could be improved for the level to feel balanced and fun. We move walls around, we might add a barrier or readjust the position of a goal. We play again and find more ways to optimize the layout until we're confident it's a great new addition to our existing lineup.
Level Theme & Concept
We think about the theme of the level early during the layout phase. By the time the layout is done, we have made our mind on the theme and are ready to begin the concept art phase. Once again, we are aiming for variety. But we are also taking into consideration how long certain types of maps would take. For example, a jungle would take longer to model and texture than a urban environment.
At this stage we hand over the layout to our talented concept artist who uses it as a guide for required level dimensions.
Above you can see the completed concept stage of our Skatepark level.
Creating the 3D level
After the concept phase is complete we pass over the level to our amazing 3D artist who interprets the concept art and translates it into 3D. This final part takes the longest, but it's also one of the most exciting as we slowly see the level take it's final form. Creative solutions and tweaks are usually required on the way to make sure the level works in a three dimensional space and still holds true to the layout we validated. Modelling is followed by texturing and finally by lighting. Bare Butt Boxing uses a combination of baked lighting with global illumination, this creates a rich and believable feeling, and dynamic lighting for dynamic objects and shadows.
A near final look of the skatepark level with some polishing still remaining.
We can't wait to make many more levels once the game hits Early Access, and we look forward to involving you, the players in this process.
You can expect polls in which you've be able to vote for level themes.
So as always, stay tuned for more! Tuatara Team
DEV LOG 01 - PAX WEST
In September our team traveled to Seattle to present Bare Butt Boxing at PAX WEST 2022! It was the first time we've attended a game industry event as a team and it was an unforgetable experience! We loved meeting and playing the game with so many of you and returned home equipped with lots of new action items that will help us make the game even better.
Local Multiplayer
At PAX, we were showcasing the Local Multiplayer mode where players compete to punch each other into goals on the same screen, couch multiplayer style!
Local multiplayer feels a bit different from the main game mode, which is online with up to 6 players. The biggest difference between the 2 modes is how the camera follows your player. In local multiplayer, the camera is further back and encompasses all of the action so everyone can see their player properly. It's a simple change but it affects the experience quite a bit! We hope you'll enjoy playing both online and local multiplayer.
The Pax Experience
It's hard to put into words how electric and exciting Pax is so we made this montage of our experience for you to get an idea!
Swag
Besides handy informational leaflets we had pins available at our booth. There was one model available for each of our 6 aliens. The pins were made out of wood. Sturdy and eco-friendly!
The pins were super popular, we came to the event with 600 and left with just a handful! We'll make sure to produce and bring more to our next convention.
Hope you enjoyed our first dev log. We plan on sharing more about the game in the coming weeks, leading up to our Early Access launch in Q1 2023!