For the first time ever, Metal Heads is 60% off as part of the Steam Winter Sale until January 5th, 2026 at 10am Pacific time. If you're on the fence about supporting the development, now is going to be the cheapest it'll be for a while.
NEWS/DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS
For those who have been following development, you'll know that I have been working hard on creating bots for the board game and mini-games.
So far, the board game is mostly functional with bots, and in the last news update, roughly half of the mini-games had bot support added to a point where it was "playable".
Since the last update, I'll admit, I haven't made the progress I had hoped to achieve. I have been stuck with creating bots for certain mini-games that are very complex, that have a lot of moving hazards and platforms in them.
Additionally, whilst working on bot support, I have been improving my knowledge of how to program the AI, which means updating mini-games that already have "monster" AI in them such as Creeping Creepers, Dark Dangers and the Boss Fight mini-games.
Currently, I am working on making AI for the Knock-Off mini-game, this is proving to be a significant challenge, but I am making progress, and that's the most important thing.
Here's a colourful GIF showing some of some handy "Safety Nodes" that bots are able to use to determine how safe an area on the level is, and to help them navigate to safety. (Looks in right in the theme of Christmas). For the most part, the AI does a DECENT job avoiding certain types of danger, but they just don't navigate correctly across those colourful nodes you see just yet, they will make a B-Line straight across danger currently, which results in their demise. Effectively, I need to play a game of "join the dots" for the bots to know what is a safe path and what isn't. The AI that is built into Unreal Engine 4 isn't really designed for this complexity so I effectively need to make my own system.
I have also started adding AI to Dark Dangers, Falling Apart, Creeping Creepers, Tap Out, Pipemare and Cognitive Collection, each presentive significant challenges in creating smart bots for, but I am determined and I am more and more excited with every step forward towards completing bot support.
I wish that this news post would be an actual game update post, but such is the way of game development. Rest assured, progress IS being made, even if it's slow, and I feel like bot support will breathe new life into the game. I love bot support in pretty much ALL games, so I think it's absolutely critical for a game like Metal Heads.
What I am most excited about is what comes AFTER the bot support. NEW BOARDS! (NOTE: GIF's show a VERY work in progress version of 2 more board game maps) I have wanted to work on new boards for years now, and I even started working on them a few years ago, but due to the board game being terrible at the time, there wasn't much point in making new boards for a game mode that wasn't fun. With the board game customization and overhaul, I am confident to move forward with the new boards once preliminary bot support is added.
THANK YOU ALL
For now though, one step at a time, no matter how slow, progress is progress, and I thank you all for being patient and supporting the development. Ideally, one day Metal Heads is making enough money that I survive off it financially and then I can work full time on it, but for now, I'll keep plodding along while working my day job in the hopes that one day....one day I'll get there.
I have quite a few days off during the holiday period, so I'll be spending a lot of time doing my best to ensure that Metal Heads has the bot support it desperately needs.
I wish you all the best for Christmas and the holiday season, and I look forward to moving into the new year with you all.
ROCK ON!
25TH OCTOBER PROGRESS
25th OCTOBER NEWS
[p][/p][p]It's time to fill you all in on the progress!
BOARD GAMEBOT SUPPORT PROGRESS As stated in the last posts, I have been working on adding bot support, and I'm happy to say that this is progressing steadily given the minimal hours I have to work on the game, but it's also as confusing and chaotic as the GIF above (NOTE: All GIF's here are bot controlled players)
Currently I have now got the board game mode on it's own without mini-games functions with bots. The bots aren't super smart though and still require work, mainly in regards to the avoidance of hazards that shoot projectiles, but also in regards to bots placing hazards in sensible locations that "make sense". The idea is for bots to look at the same things a player would when deciding firstly IF a hazard should be placed, and then WHERE it should be placed, rather than randomly deciding these things, there needs to be logic behind the decision. For now though, the board game AI is "passable". The bots also can navigate obstacles that players can, as previously seen, however more variety in their pathing needs to be added, and deviations from their path need to be added to more accurately reflect what players may do, for example, taking shortcuts or a safer route if there's a lot of hazards detected along the path and there is a better, safer route.
Additionally, getting bots to work with drop in/drop out style of gameplay has been a bit of a nightmare and still isn't quite working just yet, but it's almost fully functional so far.
I am yet to do any online testing with bots too, however my bot support has been factoring in the online functionality too, so fingers crossed there's not too much to iron out when I do online testing. [/p]
MINI-GAME BOT SUPPORT PROGRESS
[p] Regarding bot support for mini-games. This has been very difficult due to platformer style and skill based nature of all of the mini-games (so far), but when the bots work, it's an incredible feeling, it's progress. The intention is to get each mini-game to a playable/passable stage so that the experimental build can be updated and you can all play with bots sooner rather than later, but when that occurs, this doesn't mean every mini-game will have smart bots, they are potentially doing the bare minimum.
Here is a list showing the progress of bot support for each mini-game in alphabetical order. (NOTE: Anything over 65% is considered "passable/playable")
Blasted - 65% (Bots run around randomly, drop bombs and kick bombs, however they don't jump blocks, don't go for pickups, don't try to lead bomb kicks or bounce bomb kicks yet) Blue Ballin - 80% (Bots against the rotation direction of the ball, and jump when they are far from their destination, much like players would, they also try to jump sweepers and sawblades, but don't avoid the bounce/hex pads, they really may not need to though) Coallateral - 95% (Bots run to the other side, jump over gaps, and grab coal, then return it, stopping when a bridge is retracted, and trying to move away when coal is shooting from a pipe, they currently aren't grabbing nearby dropped coal though, and the drop-off can be a bit of a cluster with AI navigation, but I've put in measures to reduce AI effectively lining up and waiting to drop the coal off). Cognitive Collection - 0% Creeping Creepers - 0% Dead Still - 0% Dark Dangers - 0% Deadly Disco - 95% (Bots currently don't avoid falling tiles, however everything else is fine) Dodgy - 60% (CURRENTLY WORKING ON) (Bots try to find the safest location on the stage, however I'm currently working on bots avoiding nearby balls and trying to predict nearby safe locations when lots of balls are close to them, they is a lot to factor in) Falling Apart - 0% Get Pucked - 95% (Bots try to move the ball towards their goal, they know where they need to hit the puck, they know how to boost, they try to go around the puck to the side they need to hit, but it's not quite where I want the AI to be yet). Knock Off - 0% Laser Lunacy - 60% (This is a tough one, like Dodgy, AI check the closest location on the laser and get it's predicted movement to try and determine if it should jump or run away, it's not working as intended and needs more work. AI will try to avoid open hatches etc too, but will often just jump on the spot over and over again when detecting danger, which leads to them being eliminated far too easily). Melting Memory - 95% (Bots behave like players, I've implemented a memory system for bots that is based on a number of factors, such as what round the mini-game is up to, how many players there are (visual confusion), has a rotation just occurred (creates a higher percentage of failure that cools down over the rounds), has a player just been eliminated (distraction), has a player just run onto the bots location (self gas-lighting/2nd guessing), etc....the bots feel like players, but I just need to add some aesthetic things such as bots spinning around and jumping around on their safe location while they wait for a new round, this is purely aesthetic though). Oh Balls - 85% (Bots move randomly around the stage, but have a high chance to move towards another player, players generate target scores that the bot selects from. These scores factor in distance from the bot, obstacles between other players and the bot such as pillars or other players, distance from the edge, velocity of the target and/or other players. They also attempt to jump incoming players, avoid them, or roll straight back at other players.) Roasted - 80% (Bots run around at random, they look for the most lucrative locations, so they tend to prioritize clusters of plectrums over single plectrums on their own, and they avoid flaming vents) Tap Out - 0% Termination Trail - 0% Wheely - 0%
I have been trying to complete support for at least 2 mini-games a week, however some of these mini-games are a bit of a nightmare to program the bots for, especially mini-games where there's a lot of platforming, or a lot of hazards... (oh wait..that's...almost every single mini-game), and with day to day life thrown into the mix, I sometimes have only gotten only 1 mini-game done. But it is fun learning, and as I learn, things will get better, I may re-do previous bot AI if I learn something new so that I can make the bots smarter for example. I also intend for bots to behave as much like a human player as possible as mentioned in a previous update, they should have "personalities" as such, which would influence behaviours. For now though, the goal is to get the minimum viable product out to you all so you can enjoy playing with bots.
[/p]
MINI-GAME CHANGES AND POSSIBLE FUTURE CHANGES/IDEAS
[p] Since I have been working with mini-games again, rather than being stuck working on the board game 100% of the time, I have been reminded of some of the mini-game changes that I've been wanting to make for a while. Some ideas have already been implemented as part of working on bot support., some have been noted down or considered for the future.
Cognitive Collection - will likely be updated so that player goal locations shuffle every so often. Alternatively the secondary mode may include a randomly lit up cog that triggers the shuffle when a player runs over it, which allows more player interaction. Get Pucked - Instead of players getting 1 point whenever a puck goes over their goal, the player now continuously get points every 0.5 seconds until the puck goes over another goal. The puck will now push players out of the way when bouncing out from the edge of the arena if all the players are clumped up. And when a player boosts, they have more push force to knock other players out of the way or bounce the puck. Additionally the boost function now creates particle effects, but it does need a SFX to further emphasize that they are boosting. I may make it so the goals shuffle every so often, or perhaps there will be a floor section that will rotate the goals around, however I'd rather reduce moving parts due to online movement sync issues. Blue Ballin - I've done some aesthetic changes by adding fog so that it's easier to see the silhouette of the ball now, however at a later stage I intend to update the background. It's not super important at this stage however. Laser Lunacy - I may introduce plectrums again, or introduce this as a secondary mode, the plectrums would serve as a balance against the time alive. So if there were 2 players left in the round, but one of them have 50 plectrums and the other has 20 plectrums, but the one with 20 plectrums is the last player alive by 0.5sec, then player 2's plectrum count would factor in, perhaps each plectrum would increase the alive time by 0.05sec each, effectively giving player 2 another 2.5sec alive, and allowing them to win by 1 sec (30 plectrums difference = 1.5, and player 1 was alive 0.5 sec longer, therefore player 2 wins by 1sec). This was previously in the mini-game, but it caused a lot of confusion, so we'll see what happens...it just adds more incentive for players to run around. Alternatively, I could add power-ups like shields, double jump etc. Melting Memory - The arena will likely change so it doesn't look like Roasted, but green. This is yet to be determined what will be done, but I have a few different ideas, I just need to make sure they are fool proof. Additionally, I have idea's for eliminated players which would allow them to still participate to reduce boredom while waiting for a winner as this mini-game can be a bit slow. Oh Balls - I'd like to add power-ups to this at some point, effectively these would be kind of rare to spawn, they would spawn in the place of lowered pillars, and players would need to keep the ball on the power up location for 2sec to collect it. These power ups may be "Lead Ball" (heavier ball, no bounce), "Time Bomb" (after a period of time, the ball releases a pulse that knocks nearby balls away), "Double Jump" (self explanatory), "Air-Ball" (Allows greaters air control when jumping), "Ghost Ball" (Can pass through players and pillars upon activation), "Teleport" (Allows the player to teleport to a random location on the stage upon activation). Roasted - Various pickups could be added to Roasted, such as immunity to fire, weapons to knock players off etc, or I could add fighting mechanics to this mini-game. Tap Out - More variety of obstacles and environment. Creeping Creepers - Various Pickups that allow invisibility to the creepers, faster movement, random teleport etc, and of course fighting mechanics could be implemented to mess up other players.
FIGHTING MECHANICS I do want to add some "fighting" mechanics to a lot of the mini-games, as I think player to player interaction is paramount, but this would be a feature that should be able to be toggled on/off as some people don't like it at all. The fighting mechnics would be super simple, there would be a head bounce, a telegraphed slap, and a jump kick if the player were to run at another player, jump and press the slap button.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
I'll continue to update you all on the progress as much as I can during one of the busiest times of the year, I want you all to see where things are at, and I encourage everyone to provide their feedback and suggestions, I listen to everything, a game like Metal Heads NEEDS that feedback from you all in order to succeed.
Please also let me know what you would like to see once bot support is added? Do you want more mini-games? Improved mini-games? more boards? character customization? etc
THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR CONTINUOUS SUPPORT, YOU ROCK!
DISCLAIMER FOR NEW METAL HEADS SUPPORTERS
For those who are new to Metal Heads, I am just one solo dev, working on this in what little spare time I have between my full time job, relationship and life in general, but eventually if Metal Heads does become financially successful, this will enable me to work on the game again full time like I used to. But I have to re-iterate this as to not create false expectations that the progress will be super fast like a fully funded indie game, or an indie game where the developers live in a situation where they are funded by family etc. [/p]
ANZ IndieFest 2025 sale and news!
[p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35549911/7ad36b246c5dcb95e1c10073fb9186f7c6178784.png"]I'm very proud for Metal Heads to be part of the ANZ (Australian and New Zealand) IndieFest 2025!
I have been so busy that I only JUST found out about it a few days ago and was late to the party (pun intended), but thankfully the awesome folks over at The Indie Brew were kind enough to take the time to add Metal Heads to the event at the last minute. I can't begin to express how amazing the feeling is as a game developer to see my work posted/advertised as part of a sale or event, especially being part of an event where there's so many other awesome games that I play (Dredge especially).
BOT SUPPORT PROGRESS I've been pretty quiet, as you all know it's because I work a full time job and outside of that, I don't get a lot of time to do much else, so in the last 2 months, I've only managed to get maybe 0-2hrs of game dev squeezed in maybe 3-5 days a week. It's not much.
On top of that, making bots behave like players in the board game has been both very frustrating, but also very rewarding. The bots are in the classroom, getting smarter every day though, and now, having showed people footage of 8 players (1 player, 7 bots), the question asked was "How did you get so many people together to play?", to which I answered "Oh, they aren't people, they are bots"...to see their surprised look, especially as gamers, especially gamers who are also AI enthusiasts, other game developers or programmers, that was a nice feeling, they could not differentiate bot from player, which is exactly what I'm aiming for!
Before I continue, I'd love to show something that took 3 weeks to resolve. The hardest part of the Slime Factory board game map so far, is the jumping section at the very top of the map, it's difficult for players....and just as difficult to program bots for this section too.
Sometimes, the AI would just...stop....this was due to navmesh area's that had too high a cost to go through, that was my lack of knowledge of navmeshes in Unreal Engine 4. [img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35549911/356f8da1219be62d9b189f0fa7d1f9638a6fff3c.gif"]Then the bots would try to long jump this section of the board, rather than landing on the safe spot in between...as you can see by the little coloured sphere's, there wasn't one in the safe spot. This was due to not understanding my own programming... [img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35549911/1dcfbba21d8ef9df0944e816c6a321d1e6c520c1.gif"]Then there is a nice colourful sphere in the right place, the green sphere's represent an AI navigation point before a gap is detected, but as you can see, the sphere is a long way away from the edge, so the AI would jump too early. The cause of this? The plectrums....I won't begin to explain this one, but thankfully I fixed this yesterday after a long day at work at my day job and figured I'd try something random....it worked. [img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35549911/fbaad5538a45a00dfeb193043f8681cabca9349e.gif"]Now as you can see, after the fix, our little Metal Heads can now traverse this gap very majestically! [img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35549911/583c9862b52ae2003716756b7817930818fdcb20.gif"]Aside from these problems, there were a bunch of other problems too, such as the AI continuously jumping like a maniac once they got across the gap, or sometimes they'd get half way across, then float backwards and fall into the slime (this took about 2.5 weeks to fix), there was also the issue of frame rates dropping significantly, the AI only making it across the first 2 gaps, then failing 9/10 at the 2nd gap, and that one bot that made it past, would somehow fall into the slime at the 3rd gap or 4th gap.... This was an exercise in frustration to say the least. WHY ARE BOTS SO DIFFICULT TO ADD? OTHER GAMES ADDED BOT SUPPORT SUPER QUICK! The bot support for Metal Heads is far more complex. The reason being that the board game has player controlled movement.
For comparison, games that automate movement (every other party game), the AI programming is simple, they need to stop the dice block, select a the location that takes them to the objective, maybe with a slight chance of choosing another route, choose the route and then the movement is pre-defined/on rails. AI actually controls player movement in other party games, you roll, you select a destination, and the AI does the rest. I'd even say that AI has no part in the movement, it's a simple sequence of events; the player needs to move 4 spaces, they picked a particular route, the game figured out what tiles to traverse, plays a run animation on the player whilst moving them from one tile to the next, and if there's a jump point, animate the player to jump, if there's an event, bring up the UI or play a camera sequence and let the player hit the A button...simple.
To clarify, I'm not hating on bots in other games, this is purely a comparison to clarify the difficulties.
In Metal Heads, it's all manually controlled, so that means AI MUST be programmed, and it should be programmed in a way that behaves like a player, otherwise it feels empty, it feels like you are playing against dumb bots. There simply is no way for me to make player movement like every other party game unless I add a customization option for movement mode that automates it, but then that breaks so many other features of the Metal Heads board game mode (in particular, placing hazards to stop/slow other players).
WHAT IS PLANNED FOR THE BOTS? For the board game, the idea behind bot movement and behaviour is that they can figure out their own path and routes, navigate complex obstacles on their own without me needing to put down pre-defined jump locations like every other game out there. Bots should be able to detect where gaps are, where hazards are, where pickups are, and should be able to plan a route based on a wide variety of factors.
The bot programming is done with the human brain in mind of course.
What do we do before we walk somewhere? We create a goal in our minds. What do we do once we have a goal? We try to figure out what we need to do to achieve that goal. But what if there are things stopping us? We figure out ways through, or around those obstacles. What if there are things we'd like to do along the way? We allow the freedom to deviate from our goal, and plan to come back to that goal. What if the goal changes or the plan needs to change? We re-evaluate the situation, create a new goal, start again.
These are just a few things to factor in when creating AI.
The plan eventually is to create AI personalities, and to allow customization of these bot personalities and behaviours to tailor the bots to your needs, maybe you want to play with AI that are purely random, there is no reasoning behind their actions, or maybe you want to play with AI that target the winning player, or the losing player, or a random player... Perhaps you want AI that is easy going, they aren't trying to pick on other players or do things to annoy other players, but they are still difficult to beat... That is the future plan, so that you can make a custom experience that doesn't make you want to throw your controller at the screen.
There are even more plans beyond that to really fine tune the bot behaviour, but this will be revealed at a later date.
WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATUS OF BOT IMPLEMENTATION? AND WHEN CAN WE PLAY WITH BOTS? Right now, the first priority is getting bots to be able to play the board game, on their own without any intervention. Once they can play the board game from start to finish, I will continue implementing bot AI for all of the mini-games. I have already got bots working for some mini-games, but other mini-games have no bot AI just yet. Once bots are working in all of the mini-games, I need to add an easy to use method of adding bots to the game at any point; In the lobby, for controller users, this will be done more than likely by using LB and RB (for xbox controllers), for keyboard users, there will simply by a + and - button for adding or removing bots. Additionally, there will be a "BOT CONTROL" option added to either the pause menu itself, or the options menu. This will allow customization of the bots. At first, the customization will simply be the bot names, colours and heads. But later on, the plan is to add an "Advanced" button to allow personality customization and other options.
There is also the issue of allowing bots to take control of players who disconnect, or allowing players to take over bot player slots. The adding/removing of players has always been problematic in Metal Heads, mainly due to my lack of knowledge of using Unreal Engine 4 for this type of game. I am confident that I will resolve this issue however, and have mostly already resolved it.
Once there is a sufficient way to add/remove bots, allow bot/player slot overriding, and bots can play the board game with random choices, and they can play all of the mini-games, I will release an experimental build with bot support.
How far away is this? I really don't know, it rests heavily on how much time I get to work on Metal Heads, and rests heavily on the obstacles I face along the way.
But rest assured, this is the plan.
WHAT ABOUT AFTER THE BOTS ARE RELEASED, WILL YOU MAKE THEM MORE ADVANCED, OR WORK ON OTHER THINGS FIRST? This is yet to be determined. I may burn out from working on the bots, and want to change my priority to something else at the time. I think so long as the minimum functionality of bots is implemented into the game, I would like to create some pre-defined personalities and behaviours, I think this will be fairly quick and simple to do, as it would just change the weight of decisions based on a personality type, goal, sub-goals etc. But beyond that, I really want to bring you all the long awaited Deadly Dunes, and Trembling Tropics board game maps, and perhaps some other board game maps after that. [img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35549911/1f6a8125b8a4c26202ac8aae3742705772f76e11.gif"] After I have added 1 or 2 more board game maps, I'll decide if I keep adding more, or if I add more mini-games that I started long ago, but never finished, such as Metal Ball Z, Roller Raceway, Buzz Kill, Colourful Chaos, Make A Move and many more.
THANK YOU! Thank you all for your patience, and thank you to the newest players who have purchased Metal Heads. All of your wishlists, demo downloads, purchases and positive reviews go towards helping shape Metal Heads into the "go to" party game on PC. It's not quite there yet, and it's slow going, as I work a full time job and the game makes almost no revenue, minimum wage employee's make more money in 1 week than Metal Heads has made in the last 12 months to put things into perspective.
Your support is what keeps this game going, so thank you all.
YOU ROCK![/p]
DICE!!!
There's something so satisfying about rolling various dice types (die) in a video game, or real life, or maybe I'm just a bit weird? [img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35549911/1aa4f10ac37ad29ea1bff7909850198d2885e954.gif"] Now, the host can customise the board game mode to have a d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 or d20 die!
This doesn't seem like a lot, and frankly...it's not a lot, but it's a lot of little things like this, that eventually make the game feel fleshed out and complete.
This is just the foundation for the newer dice, I definitely would love to expand upon this in the future with new items, new ways to customise the board game (perhaps choosing the dice type when selecting the move type?...or perhaps even having the ability for players to find smaller and larger dice on the board that they can choose from when it's their turn to roll?). I'd even love to later add the ability to customise the appearance of your die, along with your custom character preset (when I add that too). But I don't want to get too lost in feature creep just yet....or am I already lost in it?
That aside, you will notice the dice are rather silent, there's no audio for dice rolling and bouncing etc This is something that will likely be added either over time randomly, or when I do a dedicated sound pass on the whole game.
And there's no ability to throw dice at one another and knock one another over for some silly ragdolls....worst game developer ever for not including this....yet.
Along with this update, I have also included some minor bug fixes, but because I am silly, I didn't write down those bug fixes yet. (Lets face it, I probably created some new ones without even knowing anyway).
The next focus, as explained in the last update, will likely be board game bot AI, and also new boards, with some more features and fixes along the way.
For those of you who are on the fence and haven't yet purchased Metal Heads, as you can see, it's 50% off for only a few more days, so if you want to support development, every single purchase counts, every demo download counts and every wishlist counts.
Now, the host can customise the board game mode to have a d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 or d20 die!
This doesn't seem like a lot, and frankly...it's not a lot, but it's a lot of little things like this, that eventually make the game feel fleshed out and complete.
This is just the foundation for the newer dice, I definitely would love to expand upon this in the future with new items, new ways to customise the board game (perhaps choosing the dice type when selecting the move type?...or perhaps even having the ability for players to find smaller and larger dice on the board that they can choose from when it's their turn to roll?). I'd even love to later add the ability to customise the appearance of your die, along with your custom character preset (when I add that too). But I don't want to get too lost in feature creep just yet....or am I already lost in it?
That aside, you will notice the dice are rather silent, there's no audio for dice rolling and bouncing etc This is something that will likely be added either over time randomly, or when I do a dedicated sound pass on the whole game.
And there's no ability to throw dice at one another and knock one another over for some silly ragdolls....worst game developer ever for not including this....yet.
Along with this update, I have also included some minor bug fixes, but because I am silly, I didn't write down those bug fixes yet. (Lets face it, I probably created some new ones without even knowing anyway).
The next focus, as explained in the last update, will likely be board game bot AI, and also new boards, with some more features and fixes along the way.
For those of you who are on the fence and haven't yet purchased Metal Heads, as you can see, it's 50% off for only a few more days, so if you want to support development, every single purchase counts, every demo download counts and every wishlist counts. https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35549911/a4576fddf6af2c3faabe12625a04a844d0a5fed8.png
Until next time everyone, ROCK ON!
50% OFF FOR STEAM SUMMER SALE! AND DEV PROGRESS.
[p]Hello my fellow Metal Heads!
It's time for one of the biggest Steam sales of the year, the Steam Summer Sale!
And as part of this sale, Metal Heads will be 50% off for the duration of the sale. [img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35549911/2a0017f471d3057b92fe1c9711af004ebf37bedc.png"]Aside from a nice discount, I do have some development progress to share with you all.
CURRENTLY WORKING ON If the artwork for this news post didn't give it away already, I am currently working on implementing various dice (die) types to the game.
There is a board game customization setting that allows players to choose the number range on the Move Wheel, but the option for Dice Type is not accessible currently. Aside from various bug fixes, I have been working on these new dice by modelling, texturing and implementing them to the game. I am still in the process of setting up the numbers correctly on each dice type to standardized die formula's or layouts, and then just need to figure out how to dice flip (cycle through the sides of the die in numerical order on player command) to the correct angle for each number on the die (which has proved strangely difficult and not behaving correctly). Then I need to ensure that the customization option is active for choosing the dice type, and that it actually works across server and clients, then I'll release this as a small update, hopefully
WHATS NEXT AFTER THE DICE? I'll always be bug fixing, especially some bugs that are from years ago that I still cannot figure out to this day. However new content is necessary for the game to progress, so the next major thing I will be working on is a new board game map (or two).
I have teased these maps a few years ago (It pains me to say that), and I really want to be able to finish them off and get them into your hands so that you have something new to play around with, so these will likely be my biggest focus.
WHAT ABOUT OTHER STUFF? I'd love to start working on board game bot AI soon. This would actually help me with testing the flow of the board game maps, and the general gameplay loop without versing myself or trying to organise players.
I've also slowly been doing foley recording here and there to help make the game SOUND more alive and fun, so you may start hearing more and more of this over time if you're paying attention, but I expect this will be less obvious.
You all may have noticed that the default/main build of the game is updated now, if you are on the experimental build however, don't worry, it shares the same version number currently, and unless there is an update that requires extensive work that is functional, I'll update the main branch and the experimental branch with the same versions. If I do release an experimental build, patch notes will be provided for this individually.
Aside from that, I need to get back to doing some work in the minimal free time I have, so enjoy the Steam Summer Sale, and I hope that both the new and old Metal Heads supporters enjoy these updates as they come.
ROCK ON! [/p]
(Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.076 - Better navigation men & QoL changes.
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.076 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD)
[p] [img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/35549911/4f1a2310378448a6bfa758c79c1577dd30d007a0.gif"] It's been a fair bit of work for something that would seem so simple, but I've implemented a quick navigation menu into the main lobby. This will allow the host to quickly navigate to the various stages of the main menu quickly without navigating the hub world. This will also allow players to change settings at any time in the lobby.
Depending on if the game is OFFLINE or ONLINE, different buttons will appear, and if it's ONLINE, the clients will only see RESUME, OPTIONS, DISCONNECT and QUIT.
On top of that, during ONLINE play, both server and clients can bring up the "Pause" menu at any time. Previously it only worked for the host, which was a bit annoying if you were a client player and wanted to leave the game, or disconnect for whatever reason. Along with these changes, I have updated the multiplayer menu in the main menu to include quick buttons, for example, in the SERVER BROWSER, players using an Xbox controller can press the X button to quickly refresh the list, and in the CREATE SERVER window, the host can press the START button on their controller to start the server without manually navigating down to the CREATE SERVER button. It's only minor, but helps for players who like to get things set up quickly.
The board game mode menu user interface should behave better on clients now. Previously clients were able to interact with the board game menu, which was causing a mismatch between information saved on the client's version of the game mode, and the servers version. This should be resolved now.
There's also some other quality of life fixes for the lobby, in particular in regards to not being able to navigate certain screens, or press LB/RB or click on buttons. For example, the OPTIONS menu was very buggy, as was the MULTIPLAYER MENU.
Aside from User Interface stuff, I have also made improvements to the mini-game tutorial screen, it should now show the correct number of players, and players ready for those who have joined in late or rejoined the game. Previously, if there was for example 3 of 6 players ready, the client would rejoin the server, and the tutorial screen would show 0 of 0 players ready. There are still some other issues to iron out on the tutorial screen, but nothing game breaking.
The board game also should now show the correct round number. It was adding 2 rounds after a round would finish, this has been fixed now.
When bringing up the pause menu in the board game, it should also behave a lot better. There are still some minor bugs however, mostly to do with multiple local players on a PC while also playing online (couch vs couch).
There are still issues when players disconnect mid-turn, but I am meticulously noting every single bug I come across during testing and crushing them one by one. It's feeling much less janky now, which is a damn good feeling.
I hate that this update still doesn't have anything that gives you the "WOW THATS AWESOME" factor, it's just boring menu stuff, but rest assured that this is important in the lead up to working on the super cool pretty things, like new items, new customization settings, new maps, new mini-games etc. These things shape the foundation on which the rest of the game is built on. These things are what give players a good or bad first impression, and we all know how much a gameplay experience can be dampened when simple things, bare minimum features are an exercise in frustration or disappointment, I hate it, and I know you all do too, so I aim to continue to make it feel smooth, polished and as trouble free as possible before making it "pretty".
Metal Heads is under the radar for now, I'm happy to keep it that way until such a day that it feels smooth, it feels polished, and I can watch content creators play the game without face palming every 2 seconds from silly nuasance bugs, but it's getting closer my fellow metal heads, the day draws nearer and nearer to when you get the really juicy exciting stuff in the Metal Heads news feed.
Thank you all once again for your incredible patience.
Also, check out Lego Party if you haven't! Fellow Australian game developers SMG Studios (Moving Out) are behind it, and it looks absolutely amazing! As much as it makes my stomach do a bit of a twist due to the monumental competition (Lego...), I love party games as much as you do, and I want to see more of them on PC. It's fantastic that LEGO are the ones to bring it, and with such a fantastic development team behind it too!
ROCK ON![/p]
(Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.075 - Exchange Fixes
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.075 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD)
Fixed issues related to the GIFT item. Fixed issue where gifting an item would cause the camera to look at the world 0,0,0 coordinates rather than the player you are gifting to. Fixed issue where gifting Plectrum Points would actually say "You gifted NONE to ", it now actually gifts the number of plectrums. A visual effect for this is being worked.
Fixed some other issues related to the GIFT and THEFT items (Exchange wheel), these aren't necessarily obvious, but should help smooth things out, typically there were issues with clients not knowing who the target player was, therefore this would break the gameplay logic.
I haven't had a huge amount of time, but I'm just happy to iron out these little annoying issues that make the game feel broken and janky.
I hope you all have a great weekend!
ROCK ON!
(Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.074 - Jump Boots
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.074 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD)
Super quick little update, I've changed Double Jump to be called Jump Boots (more like Jump Anklets). I've also added an untextured 3d model for these jump boots to the character model once they are equipped, and they no longer jump infinitely. When using the jump boots (double jumping), there is a placeholder sound and particle FX.
For those in Australia who have a long weekend, enjoy!
It's my birthday tomorrow on ANZAC day so I'll be putting my feet up and actually letting myself relax for a change and doing some testing of Metal Heads locally with some friends and family over the weekend which will be great :D
ROCK ON!
(Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.073 - Quality of Life
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.073 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD)
Just a real quick one, it's not a lot, I've been very busy with my day job and some of the bugs I've tried to resolve took way more effort than I thought, for such minor online mp fixes.
You likely won't even really notice a major difference, but there should now be better network replication for items and item usage. The Curse item should now actually show a particle effect for clients, and a placeholder sound.
Fixed up camera movement when cursing a player, it should no longer flip behind them and behave strangely.
I've tried to fix up teleportation a bit further as well, when attempting to teleport to a location that another player has just teleported to.
Put in place further measures to prevent Swoopy Boi from hitting players who have reached their destination, but also are not the current player. This caused some visual glitches for clients.
OTHER NOTES: I am continuing to work on bug fixes, the list is getting smaller and smaller, which feels great, but there's still a lot more work to do before I do a public release build and finally remove that annoying warning on the game page that says it hasn't been updated in 20 months.
I have also worked out some major plans for the next board game map, which has been briefly shown before, called Deadly Dunes.
I was stuck with how to deal with a major feature in the map, a metal pyramid where players can enter. I didn't really know what to do with it, but now I do....but this won't be revealed until a later date. Rest assured though, it will make the map even more interesting than I plan it to be.
For now though, I just have to keep on squishing these online bugs in the board game mode, and polish off some of the gameplay features for the board game customisation, for example, adding more Dice Types (D6, D10, D12 etc) and ensuring that all of the settings are actually working.
Until next time!
ROCK ON!
(Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.072 - UI and Quality of Life
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.072 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD)
I hope you are all having an amazing day! And hopefully this little experimental build update helps make it better.
(FIX) When attempting to gift an item or steal an item and there were no valid player targets to be able to give to or steal from, the exchange Denial message would appear, and players other than the host could not press A to skip this. This is now fixed.
(FIX) When teleporting to a destination that another player is already on, there was an issue where players would bounce off the other player's head, sometimes resulting in falling off the map, this would break the game. This is now fixed.
(IMPROVEMENT) The board game user interface now replicates for clients, so clients can see what the host is selecting. The clients do not see buttons on the board game UI either, and cannot interact with this UI.
(IMPROVEMENT) Custom mode icon no longer shows a big green A Button, a custom mode icon has been created. Later on, players will be able to create their own custom mode icons, button colour etc.
(FIX) Fixed an issue where multiple board game UI's were being created, resulting in strange behaviour for the host player, for example, no mode buttons would appear and they seemingly could not interact with the UI in online play.
(FIX) Can now navigate back from the Board Game Custom Mode settings back to the Board Game Mode Select menu.
These things were really annoying me and I felt were reducing the overall quality of online play for the board game mode, so it was important to fix these things up and improve them. There are still plenty of bugs in the online board game mode, but it's getting better with each little update, which is making me more and more excited! The next focus for me now is to minimize board game bugs, issues with items etc now and smooth out the jank! Thankfully in April, I had a few more days off from my day job than normal, which means I will hopefully get more done. I'd love to be able to get this board game overhaul update released in the public build by the end of April...at least that's the dream, but with a full time job and very minimal time to work on Metal Heads, we shall see...I can't make any promises.
Also, if you hear fart noises, or other sounds like a "ONE", "TWO", or "THREE", it's just debug sounds that I used to help figure out where faults were occurring. I believe I got rid of most of them, but who knows, there may be a mysterious fart sound that awaits you all!
