v0.19.1 Patch, Solo & AI improvements, community hub updates
Quick update here! I've released a new patch that includes some minor AI improvements and updates to Solo modes. Additionally, I've added some new guides and a new Bug & Support forum I'd like to highlight.
v0.19.1 Patch Notes
Decrease AI difficulty
Add more variety in AI actions and strategy
Add random palette swaps to AI characters
Double time between wrestler spawns in Battle Royal solo mode
Show controls before every Solo match
Hopefully the AI is a little easier to fight, less aggressive and the response times aren't inhumanly fast. Like mentioned in the last update, this won't be the final AI, just some small tweaks to make the AI less difficult but also less repetitive. Battle Royal is still pretty difficult to survive all 20 opponents (it's a marathon of a challenge mode), but it should be much more doable to get further into the fight and even beat. I made no changes to Gauntlet structure since it's regular matches just back-to-back, the AI behavior changes alone should be enough!
Bug & Support forum
I've added a separate discussion board in the Steam forums dedicated to bug reporting and support. Please post there if you have any issues! I've also added a pinned post for controller support where I've linked to a testing tool that will help track down device compatibility issues.
Official Guides
I also added some guides to the community hub as well. Hopefully that'll help get people started with the basics and setup until a proper training or tutorial mode is ready!
Future updates
Hopefully this patch as well as the guides help getting started!
For this next update I will be doing a lot of combat balancing on various different aspects of the game. I feel like it makes sense to put it out in drips as I rebalance each area, but since I may experiment and rollback changes I don't want to do that all on the main store version. If you'd like to keep up-to-date with all those changes you can subscribe to the public "next" beta branch (you can find a guide for that in the community hub)! I'll make small patch notes as I go but fair warning these will be rougher updates and probably not heavily bug tested.
A final note: Outside of bug fixes, the next update will be the last one for Early Access, as I will focus the rest of my development efforts on prepping the game for launch and will be introducing all those launch features with a big 1.0 update.
Profiles and Palettes
At long last, I'm happy to finally say that we have alternate character palettes! Version 0.19 aka "Olympic Slam" brings palette swaps, player profiles, and a whole pile of UI and UX improvements in the menus and controls customizations.
Version v0.19: Patch Notes
Alternate character palettes
Player profiles
Keyboard images in menu UI
Simplified controller customization menu
Various menu UI bugfixes
Alternate character palettes
Alternative character palettes was something that was requested by many, and I'm glad to finally have it in the game. With a small cast of four characters, I hope having a bit of flair and variety to the alternative palettes will add some fun personality to each match played. Each character has 8 palettes: the standard palette, 3 basic color swaps, 3 entirely new palettes, and a "Ruin Crew" palette.
For those curious, Ruin Crew is an old story idea I dug up from the depths of Double Turn's early design history. In the world of GCPW, it's a rebellious heel faction that has many members and wears black shirts with white logo. A truly revolutionary idea to bring to a wrestling promotion! The Ruin Crew palette is a simple all black or black/white color change for all characters' clothing but I think it adds a great look to them all.
To swap palettes, you can press X on gamepads or P on keyboard. This is also the first time I've included character names in the game! While each of the characters normally go by their archetype name "Brawler", "Striker", etc, the default palette for each character are those characters actual names in GCPW! Another story nugget I dug out of my design bag :)
Player profiles
The new Player Profiles allows you to save a profile with a name up to 8 characters. Each profile can save a custom binding for gamepad and a custom binding for keyboard. This allows for each player that plays on your game locally and on Remote Play Together to have their own settings saved, making it easy to jump back into games with the same people.
Note that old custom controls bindings will no longer be usable, so if you already have custom bindings, you'll have to redo them with a profile! And you'll need to make a profile to save custom controls, if not they will be lost when the game is closed.
UI Improvements
As part of the work to get profiles and palettes into the game I also took it as an opportunity to improve the menu UI and controller customization, as I needed to rework many parts of the character select screen to accommodate the new features. Not only was I able to tackle a lot of bugs (full list on trello) but I also got brand new keyboard button images in the UI, started showing the correct button mappings depending on the device in a lot more places, and completely rethought and simplified how you edit custom controls.
Coming Soon
I'm coming down to the last few things I want to complete to hit that v1.0 milestone.
First, I'm working on a small patch to fix some AI issues, as the current state of single player is far too difficult, while also being far too repetitive once you learn the AI patterns. The AI difficulty has been a complaint since the first early access build was launched. This won't be a huge lift and I plan to do a bit more work on the AI before launch, but I just want to prevent players from jumping into single player and immediately jobbing to the AI. Hopefully a small patch with some tweaks will fix alleviate that poor experience. You can already find a first version of that build on the "next" beta branch in Steam (macOS and Windows only) and I hope to clean that up and release it very soon.
After that I have a series of combat improvements regarding signatures, gimmick matches, and character-specific traits I want to try out. I'm not sure if those will be quick small updates in succession or one larger rebalance like I did in June's core combat update. I'll have that figured out and communicate my plan in the next patch with the AI improvements.
Beyond that, all I have left are planned 1.0 launch features! For a full list you can check out the Trello roadmap.
Core Combat update and Scramble mode
Really excited about this new update that includes some core combat rebalancing, QOL improvements, and a new Versus mode called Scramble! This is v0.18!
Version v0.18: Patch Notes
A quick rundown of this update:
Core Combat rebalance including more heat for strikes and blocks, reduce strike distance, and a double/combo strike bugfix
VFX text effects when gaining heat to show how much you've gained
Increased arena size outside of the ring
Skippable entrances
New Versus mode: Scramble
Versus: Scramble
Under Versus, there is now a new mode called "Scramble"! This is the first new mode since launching on early access, so I'm excited to finally share something new.
Here's how it works:
Players start with 50% heat
First player to signature another player gets the championship belt
Any player that signatures the title holder steals the belt
Last player with the belt when the time is up wins!
You can play it with 2-4 players. Try it locally or with Remote Play Together and let me know what you think!
What's coming next
I've been able to really nail down what I want to get done before a full launch, but also what isn't in scope. As I mentioned in the last update, one of the things I wanted to do is really focus on what I want to see in the final game and stick to that, so I don't get wildly out of scope and can't deliver on an experience that I'm happy with.
Here's the hits of what's to come:
Player profiles and alternative character palettes
New character-specific traits and specials and a reworking of signatures
A training mode and improvements to the AI opponents
It's been far too long since my last update! Let's start with a quick rundown of the newly released update, v0.17 aka "Moonsault".
Version v0.17: Patch Notes
A quick rundown of this update:
Removal of online mode (more on that below)
Better PS4 controller support
Audio settings menu controllable by gamepads
Fix missing gamepad button images
Fix high-DPI scaling issues on macOS
Two years in Early Access
Double Turn launched on Early Access two years ago, and it was honestly more than I could handle at the time. I took some time to develop Double Turn full time and bring it to Early Access. After some bug fix patches and one minor update, I had to go back to freelancing full time, and later to getting a new full time job. I thought I'd be able to put our more regular updates working on it part time, but ultimately I failed to actually do Early Access the right way.
While disappointing in terms of falling short of my promises to myself and those who were interested in the game, I've had a lot of time to re-evaluate the scope and why I made Double Turn to begin with. Part of why I wasn't able to keep up with updates was because I bit off more than I could chew with the features of the game. Going forward, I plan on honing the focus on what I really want this game to be and actually finishing it. A fun, fast-paced local multiplayer wrestling game. That means cutting features and narrowing scope to what really matters.
Shutting down online
Originally I never planned to include online. A few months before launching the Early Access, I spent a week or so hacking on getting it to work. Miraculously it did... mostly. While it wasn't perfect, it was further than I thought I could take it, and I decided to take the risk and invest on improving that online prototype. By the time I got to Early Access, I also tried implementing Steam P2P, and that failed so poorly I had to rollback to my slower but reliable original online code a few days after launching Early Access.
Trying to support online without previous online networking experience - but more specifically, in a game that wasn't built to support online from the ground up - was a stressful effort. Every time I wanted to work on the game, I ended up not doing it because I needed to fix online bugs or had to think about how combat changes would effect online. Working on local multiplayer meant also working on online multiplayer.
Embracing Remote Play Together
Even though I have shut down online as a core experience in Double Turn, I believe that Remote Play Together is a superior alternative. Since Remote Play Together came out, it's become clear to me that the best way to provide some sort of online experience in Double Turn is to focus on the local experience and let Steam take care of being the online "couch".
While "native" online has the potential to be better, Remote Play Together is honestly faster and more reliable than my original online implementation. Not only that, but it means you can play Double Turn gimmick matches that I couldn't originally support in online, as well as 3-4 player matches. It also means only one player needs to own the game to host, meaning you can share the game with friends without them needing to buy it. To me, this is the best case scenario for Double Turn. I can focus on making a good local experience, and Remote Play Together handles the rest for those who want to play online.
The future
I have a list of feedback I've gone through from the lovely people who played Double Turn since it came out as well as my own list of improvements. I want to focus on exploring those improvements and making the game as good as I can. And hopefully, to a followup update that's weeks away not months!
The Controls Update (v0.16.0 Release)
Finally at long last, v0.16.0 aka The Controls Update, the first decent sized update has arrived! This update is loving dubbed "Leaping Lariat" internally (yes, every minor release is named after different wrestling maneuver). The Controls Update includes Steam Controller support and in-game control bindings for keyboards and non-Steam gamepads.
First off I'd like to apologize for the lack up updates up to this point. After getting out a ton of bug fix patches right after launch, I wanted to focus on getting this bigger update finished. In the process I ran into some unforeseen issues, some scheduling problems due to some of my freelance work, topped off with a general burnout from the tedious nature of this update. This update is not flashy, and most players might not even touch the Steam Controller support or customize their controls at all! But it was desperately needed.
One of the major reasons it took so long was that it's a ground up rewrite of the input code. This was useful to make custom bindings go more smoothly and necessary for Steam Controller support. Since player input touches everything from the menus to the online play, it meant careful work with lots and lots of testing and re-testing.
The other reason was because during my work on this update, the game development tools I built the game with (HaxeFlixel and OpenFL) had some significant releases so I took some time to upgrade those. This means I'll be able to take advantage of much more up to date features I wasn't able to before as well as day one get some nice bug fixes.
v0.16.0 Patch Notes
Features:
Steam Controller support
In-game controls customization
Improvements:
"Dodge" is now it's own re-bindable action; No longer Jump+Block, and defaults to Right Bumper on Gamepad or "F" on Keyboard)
Keyboard and Gamepad configs can be edited by going to "Options" menu then "Controls" and joining with a device. You can also hit pause in a match and edit them from "View Controls" in the pause overlay. Currently only Player 1 will save and load when you close/open the game. Players 2-4 will be saved until the player leaves or the game is shut down. Steam Controller bindings need to be managed in Steam's input manager, and cannot be edited in-game.
What's Next
My immediate focus is bug fixes, I have a few minor bugs related to the controller customization things I want to iron out that didn't make it into this release. After that all of my effort will be into a really fun update for combat. I've compiled a ton of feedback and have a few areas of focus to improve combat. In general this means: more environmental effects for non-standard stages, character-specific special moves, some general combat balancing, and improved hit feedback and vfx. I'll keep this update fairly streamlined to make sure I can ship it much quicker than I could v0.16.0!
Also, given that this update took way longer than I had planned and I lagged behind some bug fixes, I pushed back my plans to do Player Profiles until a bit later. The groundwork is there for them with this update, so once I get a few more features in, I'll tackle that. That will include saving controller configs that you can reload at any time and profiles for local players, allowing your friends to make a profile and have their configs ready to go the next time they play with you in those Player 2-4 slots.
April Update (EA Monthly #1)
Hey everyone!
The first few weeks of Double Turn's Early Access have wrapped up, and I'm starting to switch gears from mostly fixing issues and putting out fires to starting to build new stuff! Obviously there will continue to be issues to fix and feedback to gather but all the high priority post-launch hotfixes have gone out.
New Patch: v0.15.5
The latest patch went out, and includes some solo/AI balance issues and crash fixes. You can these, other issues, and previous patches on our roadmap.
- Prevent strikes from hitting multiple AI opponents at once
- Fix AI getting stuck at ropes
- Reduce Battle Royal difficulty by increasing all timers by 5 seconds
- Fix memory bloat problems related to the hit vfx causing crashes for some users
- Fix periodic crash when leaving online menu state
Custom Controls Progress
I'm making good progress on the custom controller bindings and better controller support overall. Right now I have a mostly complete build supporting Steam Controller, and in-game binding configs coming shortly after that. The goal is to have a live build with this update in the next 2-3 weeks in mid-May. I will also likely put this on a beta branch so people can try it before its done, later this week or early next week.
Combat balancing
The other update that's planned is some balancing of combat and a few experiments in character-specific "specials" and "passives". Basically the idea is to break the current "all characters play the same" mold with minor differences in play and heat bonuses for certain characters when they do certain things. I had planned on doing something like this, and we've had some discussion on the Discord. Test version of this will also come out on a beta branch in May. This will involve some ongoing testing and balancing so I'll likely stay on a beta branch for a bit, and go live after custom controls comes out.
Double Turn in the Wild!
In case you missed it, Chris Denker aka DenkOps made a video playing Double Turn! Even through all the "Day 1" bugs and early access roughness, it was very fun to watch, so I'm super psyched he played it. If you see any other videos or streams, please let us know! And if you want anyone to cover Double Turn also let us know.
Thats it for now. If you haven't yet, please join the Discord! As we grow I'd like to organize some tournaments, and for now at least get people doing some ad-hoc matchmaking. The more we grow the community the better the game gets!
Double Turn - Early Access Available Now!
Excited to share that we pressed the big green launch button and Double Turn is now available on Steam Early Access! We're really excited to have people jump on board, play, and start gathering feedback and ideas from the community.
As an early access release and with a team as small as ours, there will likely be bugs, issues, and problems. We're going to try to address issues as soon as possible and we hope you can keep in mind that we'll do the best we can as soon as we can! If you're not ready to buy into the game until its finished and fully released, thats totally fine. Just wishlist and you'll get an update when we get out of early access, hopefully in a few months. For those of you that do want to get involved now and help us out: Thank you so much! And welcome!
Discord Community
We recommend everyone join our Discord! There we'll be hanging out and you can ask questions, talk to other players, pitch ideas, and hook up for online matches. Given the small size of our player base currently, this is the best place to make sure you have people to play against if you want to play online. Just jump into the "#matchmaking" channel and send a message! We'll also organize tournaments and other community events you can take part in.
Plans & Roadmap
Our ongoing goal throughout early access is to polish the game and fine tune the combat with the help and feedback from all our players. We also have some larger goals and features we plan to add, so we'll keep that information up on our Roadmap Trello Board.
We plan to do smaller weekly patches every week on Mondays to fix bugs and make minor tweaks, although I'm sure we'll miss one here and there. We'll post details about those updates on the steam announcements page. Larger updates will happen every few weeks. You can read more about our plans in the info cards on the roadmap!
