TaleSpire
Pushing short-term workaround patch for ongoing Photon Network issues.
This will be available to you on Steam shortly.
This first patch is a short-term workaround, but we will follow this up with more robust solutions as soon as we can.
Once again, thank you for your patience.
Server connectivity update
If you are still experiencing connection issues that began with the outages over the last two days, then please reach out to us at Discord or support@bouncyrock.com
Thank you for our patience through this, and let's hope we didn't just jinx it.
Server connectivity issue report
Due to "DDoS related issues" against a 3rd party service, TaleSpire has been experiencing connectivity issues across several regions.
These areas include Russia, India, South Africa, South Korea, Canada, and intermitantly across the EU.
So luckily, it's only affecting people in *checks map*... the world.
We use their service for real-time connectivity, so this is hitting TaleSpire pretty hard. Also, thanks to some very early-access coding, TaleSpire often isn't handling this loss of connectivity in a graceful way.
Our apologies for this. We are already looking into what we can do to improve this.
You can see the current status of the service we use here: https://www.photonengine.com/status
We'll keep you posted
TaleSpire Dev Log : An update on Cyberpunk
TLDR: While we are still more than a couple of months away from being ready to release the Cyberpunk content, we really wanted to show you what's coming!
Some time has passed since our previous Asset update. Although we do have another couple of Medieval Fantasy packs in the works, today, I'd like to talk a bit about our Cyberpunk Stretchgoal.
Although it might not yet be entirely self-evident, TaleSpire is returning to the screens with Dimenion20's next full-length season. We had a blast working with the crew on "The Seven" and eagerly jumped at the opportunity to work with them again. There were some initial considerations, however: "Dimension20: A Starstruck Odyssey" is (not surprisingly) set in the Starstruck comic universe, which has plenty of "Punk" but falls more on the "classic sci-fi" end of the spectrum.
We didn't have plans to lean into pure sci-fi for a while, but in fact, their project helped us outline our initial approach to Modern, Sci-Fi, and CyberPunk. There are many different versions of Cyberpunk out there, and quite a few could easily fit into the world of Starstruck. The approach became, start with some Space stuff, then bring it down to modern Earth. Sprinkle in some grit and body mods to bring it together, and if our calculations are correct, the junction of all this should be something Cyberpunk'y.
The new season differs a bit from "The Seven" in that Dimension20 created a lot of custom art, things more unique to the setting of Starstruck. They then tailored the rest of the season based on the more general cyberpunk/sci-fi assets we wanted to create.
The result was quite a few Tiles and Props:
(some of these will change, some will be added, and some might be removed for official releases)
Even if we have a good amount of content already done for our Cyberpunk release, there are still a lot of sets that need to be fleshed out. We also need to create a basic set of miniatures and ready the client to more easily sort assets based on the type of setting.
Again, we're more than a couple of months out before we're ready to release the Cyberpunk content, but we are delighted to finally show you how it's all taking shape.
Thanks for checking out the update!
PS: We still have a LOT of packs we want to make for Medieval Fantasy. More on that later
A couple of bugfixes
Yesterday’s update, unfortunately included a lighting bug we just had to fix before the weekend.
We had also received reports about the fog slider being accessible to players. It turned out to be an easy fix, so we’ve slipped that one in too.
Have a good one folks!
Early Access Content Pack 8: Halloween Special
It's all treats and no tricks in this pack of spooky offerings!
This pack contains the following:
- Wrought Iron Gate Set
- Cobwebs Set
- Zombie Dwarf mini
- Zombie Elf mini
- Flesh Golem mini
- Grave Robber mini
- Shovel props
Other changes/fixes:
- Changed the builder version of the vertical fog to be toggled along with the water display toggle button.
- Significant performance boost to shadow culling
- Fix for case where disconnects during uploads could cause portions of the board to stop syncing
Thanks again for all your support - Happy Halloween!
BUILD-ID: 7620015 - Download Size 57.9 MB
"Dimension 20 - The Seven" Boards Released! also featuring Vertical Fog
Dimension 20 - The Seven came to a glorious conclusion this week, and even as the dust and mortarboards settle, we are finding ourselves drawn to revisit the lands of Spyre once more.
Well, great news! The lovely folks at Dropout gave permission for all of TaleSpire boards from the series to be shared with everyone for free.
Two of the key builders from this series, BrotherHanan and Istallri have released the boards and slabs on the two big community-run sharing sites, and you can find all of the links right below.
Mountain Pillars (Board) - BrotherHanan
https://talesbazaar.com/board/516
https://talestavern.com/slab/d20mountain/
AirShip(Full) (Board) - BrotherHanan
https://talestavern.com/slab/d20airship2/
https://talesbazaar.com/board/517
AirShip(TOP HALF) (Board) - BrotherHanan
https://talesbazaar.com/board/518
https://talestavern.com/slab/d20airship1/
The Sewers (Slab) - Istallri
https://talestavern.com/slab/necropolis-the-sewers-dimension-20-the-seven/
https://talesbazaar.com/prefab/2353
The Wind Tower (Slab) - Istallri
https://talesbazaar.com/prefab/2352
https://talestavern.com/slab/necropolis-the-wind-tower-dimension-20-the-seven/
The Volcano Arena (Board) - BrotherHanan
https://talestavern.com/slab/d20volcanoarena/
https://talesbazaar.com/board/520
The Earth Arena (Board) - BrotherHanan
https://talesbazaar.com/board/519
https://talestavern.com/slab/d20eartharena/
The Dead City(City Only) (Slab) - Istallri
https://talestavern.com/slab/necropolis-the-dead-city-city-only-dimension-20-the-seven/
https://talesbazaar.com/prefab/2357
The Dead City(Add On) (Slab) - Istallri
https://talesbazaar.com/prefab/2358
https://talestavern.com/slab/necropolis-the-dead-city-add-on-dimension-20-the-seven/
Necropolis, The Chapel (Slab) - Istallri
https://talestavern.com/slab/necropolis-the-sewers-dimension-20-the-seven-2/
https://talesbazaar.com/prefab/2360
To make sure the boards look just right, we updated TaleSpire to support vertical fog today via Early Access Patch 18. Once enabled in the "Campaign & Board Settings", GMs can find the fog controls alongside the water slider on the right. We hope you like it!
[previewyoutube="y2FjQP_nUr4;full"]
If you haven't had a chance to check out Dimension 20: The Seven, here is the trailer:
[previewyoutube="0bJfIZyEP98;full"]
The first episode is available on Youtube, while the rest of the series can be found on the Dropout.tv Streaming Service.
We have been honored to collaborate with Dropout, a team that has been entertaining us all for so long. It's a joy to have played a little part in their latest creation.
Till next time!
BUILD-ID: 7582903- Download Size: 7.8 MB
The road to multiplatform
First off some main points before we dive in:
- We are changing macOS and Linux support from a long-term goal to something we are starting now.
- For Linux, we will be using Proton
- For macOS, our initial support goal is M1 Macs
We always knew we wanted to support more platforms eventually, but we've decided to move it up the roadmap. The reason for this is that we want to get modding to you asap, and we don't want multiplatform to throw a spanner in the works after the community has already made a bunch of stuff.
This doesn't mean that multiplatform will necessarily ship before modding, but instead that we are spending time getting dev builds working so that we can see what kinds of issues will show up when handling Mac and Linux.
Linux
As a long-time Linux user, I feel like I'm in a bizarro timeline saying this, but the Linux port of our game looks like it's going to be relatively easy.
Thanks to the decades of work from the Wine community and the recent work by Valve, TaleSpire runs pretty great out of the box on Proton. There definitely is a performance difference compared to Windows, but it's already very playable considering that we have done nothing to support this. [0]
The one notable Linux-specific issue we are currently aware of is that the custom URL integration doesn't work. However, Doskious from the community has already documented a fix, so we just need to generalize it and make the installer do it for you.
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, though, we still need to work out some other things.
Firstly, we need to find out how to make a 'proper' Linux release for Steam. The documentation seems rather light on these details.
For the sake of sanity, we'd usually want to pin the version of things like Proton. This ensures that what we are testing reflects what will be running on players' machines. Speaking of testing, see the 'Practicalities' section below.
Given that we are looking to ship for Linux, I'm sure the question of the Steam Deck will arise. Supporting a handheld well requires a lot of user experience work (amongst other things) and is well outside what we have time for right now. We only feel comfortable pursuing the multiplatform goal so soon because it fits within our Kickstarter's long-term goals. We have a duty to our backers, and we are intent on keeping our promises.
macOS
So for Mac users, I expect the big question is probably "Why start with the M1 Macs?".
The short answer is that we only have two programmers, and each new configuration is a lot of extra work. Focusing on one architecture first makes this process feasible for us.
As mentioned in previous posts, TaleSpire isn't optimized for integrated GPUs yet. This means if we started with pre-M1 Macs, we'd still only be able to support the ones with dedicated cards, and we'd be ensuring that if you upgraded your Mac to M1, the game would stop working.
As for the ugly practicalities of the market, we know that in the time it takes us to ship macOS support, the percentage of the Mac ecosystem that is M1 based is growing. Apple has made it very clear where they are heading hardware-wise and that the base M1 is their new entry-level for their machines[1].
Online we often run into people suggesting that when using an engine like Unity or Unreal, porting to a new platform is as simple as rebuilding your game for that platform. In reality, though, this is rarely the whole story. [2]
Even when using an engine, you often end up with custom or platform-specific parts to your game to do something technically interesting. Switching platform often means that you will need to research and write new approaches for those game components. [3]
In fact, we have already installed the Unity 2021.2 beta with M1 support and got the game 'running', but it's very broken and not even close to being shippable!
Let's list just six of the many things that need resolving:
- Performance is poor, even on small boards
- Release builds are currently significantly more broken than in the editor
- Our pixel-perfect picking approach has DirectX specific code to allow performant read-back from the GPU. We will need a version for Metal.
- Unity with M1 support is still in beta, so there are bugs.
- Login doesn't work. For this are waiting on the next release of Steamworks.Net which adds M1 support.
- Myriad graphical glitches.
I want to stress that this is not unexpected or unusual. This is just part of porting. Different architectures are going to have different places where they excel and struggle.
Practicalities
Great, so let's get into what to expect next.
We know that this is a lot of work, and we need to ensure this doesn't keep us from our other goals.
Our primary focus for this endeavor has to get modding working, and usable ports are a secondary benefit.
We are not giving estimates on any dates for this process. Not doing so keeps us free to react to discoveries as we make them. This fact is what allowed us to consider doing this at all!
When we make Linux and macOS versions available, they will be considered experimental and will be treated as such for a while. This is especially relevant for testing.
When we start, we will only have the bandwidth for minimal testing in order to keep releases frequent. We will limit ourselves to things as simple as making sure the game starts and that we can get to a board.
Linux provides its own hurdles here as there are so many potential OS/DE/Drivers/Hardware configurations, etc. We do not intend to even try to do comprehensive testing for now. We will perform simple tests on a relatively stock Ubuntu machine and leave it at that [4]. It's far from ideal, but we know we have to be realistic with you about what we can achieve in the near term.
Good news for modding
So much of this post has been us trying not to oversell this change or mislead people. So reading back on it, some of it feels like a bit of a downer. Given that, I'd like to leave on some good news that has already come from this.
We've already been able to show that the asset packs that we built for Windows worked out of the box on Linux and Mac. This is excellent news as it means that when you release mods, they don't need to have versions for every platform[5]. This keeps mods smaller and less likely to cause rifts between different platforms of what content is available.
We, of course, need to test this more and make sure it would work in the opposite direction too. However, it's all very promising.
Signing off
This has been quite the info dump, so let's wrap up for now.
We're very aware that we have had to skim over many details, and there will undoubtedly be some seeds of confusion amongst this post. If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to us, and we'll do our best to help.
Have a great one folks.
[0] We will eventually explore using Vulkan, as Proton documentation suggests it gives performance improvements over using DXVK. However, we are not doing this yet as it affects other systems and would add *significantly* more work before we can ship.
[1] We are already seeing M1-Pro and M1-Max coming down the line for MacBooks, and it feels inevitable that the Mac Pro towers will go the same way in time.
[2] Although it is undeniably awesome how much does 'just work'.
[3] As just one example, the pixel picking in TaleSpire requires the use of `D3D11_USAGE_STAGING` with a compute buffer to read the picking result back from the GPU without stalling the pipeline. As this isn't exposed in Unity, we made a C++ plugin to do that. This is supported perfectly via Proton, but we'll need to write a Metal equivalent for macOS.
[4] We'll release the specs of the Linux test machine we use closer to the time. For macOS we are using the 24" 8-Core CPU, 8-Core GPU, M1 iMac
[5] This is down to TaleSpire only using particular things from Unity asset bundles which are the same for all platforms (e.g. meshes).
Early Access Content Pack 7: Community Requests
Hello once again!
While we've been busy working on some larger upcoming packs, we wanted to release something as it has been a while. This release is the first in a series of Content Packs entitled Community Requests.
This pack contains the following:
- Levers (animated)
- Misc weapons and food props from the merchant tables
- Inner Corner tile for the Sewer set
- Wall variants of the spike traps
- Flying Dragon mini
- Shark mini
There are also some game Fixes/Changes:
- Fixed a UI bug where the gm-request accept/decline dialog would appear next to the portraits in dice results
- We now allow players to open the radial menus of their creatures in Turn-Base Mode when not their turn
- Fixed a case where we showed the incorrect gm name in the history of gm requests
If you'd like to submit your own requests, please visit the following site where you can create or vote on things you'd like to see get made for TaleSpire!
https://talespire.hellonext.co/
Thanks again for all your support - we'll see you at the next Content Pack Release!
BUILD-ID: 7510409- Download Size 713.8 MB
Demiplane brings matchmaking to TaleSpire
Finding and organizing a party for your adventures can be surprisingly complicated, and common solutions often fall short. Up until now we have been curating a Looking For Group channel in our Discord server, but to improve this experience for our community, we wanted to turn to the experts.
It’s a match made in heaven!
At Demiplane, we found a passionate team dedicated to bringing people together and enhancing every step of the gameplay experience. Through matchmaking, journaling, and chat, they elevate not just the play session itself but those moments before and after.
To bring this alliance to life, Demiplane have not only added TaleSpire as a supported platform, but have given users the option to use TaleSpire artwork in the adventure portal. They have also provided us with the tools to make a TaleSpire-focused view into the Demiplane service.
A big thanks also goes to the members of our Discord community who have been helping us test out the portal and giving us feedback over the last month. We’re proud to say that now, that portal is ready for you to take your first steps through.
This, of course, is just the beginning
Both TaleSpire and Demiplane are constantly striving towards improvement, and this makes us excited for the future. We can’t wait to see how this partnership evolves over the coming years, and we look forward to seeing how your stories flourish.
Until then, whichever plane you find yourself in, happy adventuring!
Would you like to know more?
If you'd like guides to accompany your explorations, the Demiplane folks have written thorough guides. If you prefer a quick-start video guide, they have you covered.