Genre: Shooter, Real Time Strategy (RTS), Strategy, Indie
Tango Fiesta
UPDATE 24 - DEAD OR ALIVE YOU’RE POLISHING ME
“Stay out of trouble.” With those four words legendary part-man part-machine all-cop Murphy scared kids the world over into behaving better. We can’t claim the same level of authority, but this week we’ve been trying to scare some order into Tango’s progression!
Tools are what makes the world go round.
This pic, although admittedly grey and a bit dull, shows the newest tool we’ve created to make playing our game that much more fun.
No longer will every level have the same objectives, the same number of objectives, or the same swarm of enemies (even if they are all randomised). No. From now on we define the boundaries within which that randomisation works, and so we can ensure a sense of pace, progression and satisfying upping-of-the-stakes are you get further and further into Tang Fiesta.
TCP offices set up in ramshackle old factories!
But we’ve not just been rummaging around behind the scenes! Oh no! We’ve been making sure we get everyone’s favourite Android Law Enforcement Officer his very own set of levels! It’s still very much work in progress, but we’ve built a series of dilapidated factories and foundries, inside which the evil megacorp TCP has been up to no good. You’ll find out just what in the story, but in the meantime check out the screenshot above and look forward to our first pass release next week.
Every action hero has to rescue hostages at some point.
Finally, we’ve also been hard at work prepping a lot of content for the final push, wherein we’re hoping to add some more objectives, a few new systems and a butt ton of polish. Admittedly we don’t know how much of this stuff we’ll manage to cram in before the game’s ready to launch, but until then feast your eyes on the shots above and below for a few hints as to what we’re planning!
Every arcade action game should have its own powerups!
Every game should have a kick ass HUD too, and we’ve been polishing ours up to a sheen!
As for this week’s episode of our regular Dev Diary video series, check it out here: http://youtu.be/XUAPQqIO5CE
And here’s the text version of all our efforts over the past fortnight:
ADDED
- Added new world ‘Foundry’ - the home of Bionic Cop
- [Story Debug] Boss phase conversations are now triggering correctly
- Added 5 new Enemies, whom reside in the Foundry level
- Foundry Levels are now enabled in the Level Select
- Added Objective Complete slamdown when an objective is completed
- Added Mission Complete slamdown when mission is complete, played during slo-mo outro
- Added new Ammo and Weapon types for new enemies and environment
FIXED
- Let Off Some Steam mission-ending game-mode now spawns in the correct range of enemies, and quantities.
- Fixed rare bug with Chopper not always loading in correctly
- Fixed bug where Champion health was being set to 5% of their health value, instead of their higher health value
- Fixed bug with knockback pushing you in wrong direction vertically
UPDATED
- Big update of various SFX settings
- Dialogue System updated to be more flexible.
- Huge overhaul to the game progression system, major balancing to Objective presence, enemy presence in each level, and the NG+ version of each level.
- Updated enemy spawning manager to include a per-type spawn cap, as well as global cap
- Objective Handling system can now adapt to any number of objectives present in the map
Next week we’re hoping to release the playable version of our brand new Bionic Cop world, with three levels, a brand new boss, new bad guys, traps and weapons. We’re very excited as it’s the final chapter in our story, and after that we’re just going to keep making the game better and more fun every single day!
Until then, stay out of trouble - but maybe check out the progress on our twitter feed, what’s the worst that can happen?!
UPDATE 23 - GET TU DA CHOPPA!
“Run! Go! Get to the chopper!” With these words, Arnie fans the world over greet each other. Well, now you can scream it to each other while playing Tango Fiesta, cos we’ve got one hell of a Choppa for you in this week’s update!
Arnie getting impatient for the chopper.
So who is the Chopper and what does it do? Basically, it’s a new objective type - alongside the Hut Destruction and the Antenna Hack - and is part of the pool of objectives that each level chooses to populate the challenge from. The Chopper, however, is new and different from the others for several reasons.
First up it defends itself with a side-mounted cannon - very tasty - which can quickly rip through your health if you’re not careful. Not only that, but it won’t just sit and take a pounding from your guns, because the pilot frequently decides enough is enough and moves to a new safer location after sustained attack. Finally, it also deposits enemy troops underneath it to further thwart your attempts to destroy it.
All in all it’s quite the handful! Sadly, it’s currently switched off for online play - it’s kinda working but not how we want it to (in other words it doesn’t exactly match the offline play) so we’re holding off on that till we can fix it - which should be very soon!
Our Choppa!
A lot of time has also been spent behind the scenes making sure the story tech we’re using is up to scratch. You can see a glimpse at it below, but obviously until it’s all perfect - until the story’s all implemented and the character portraits are all done - we don’t want to show it off very much. It’d be a major spoiler, and it’s not exactly something as iterative as, say, the feel of one of the guns! In fact we’re probably going to wait until we hit the big V1.0 to switch it back on for you to enjoy. But rest assured it’s coming… and it is a blast.
He’s chatty, our hero!
But that’s not all! We’ve finally addressed a big complaint with the game. At the end of every level in previous versions you’d have to go on a Perp Hunt (geddit?) across the whole map to find one miserable soldier hiding away and shivering in the corner. Well no longer! Now at the end of each level, once you’ve beaten all the objectives, one of two things can happen. First up, that could be it - ‘Mission Complete’ as soon as the final objective is dealt with! But secondly, there might be an ambush! It’s fairly obvious when it happens so keep an eye out - and just try to shoot all the bad guys before they shoot you! We really hope you enjoy this fairly small change, it’s something that’s bugged us since day one and finally knocking it on the head means a lot to us. Each level should go out with a bang rather than a whimper now.
As for today’s episode of our regular dev diary video series, which this week is a bit of a bumper because it’s two weeks’ worth of content, including a trip to Gamecity in Nottingham… well that’s right here: http://youtu.be/X6zeJYhywzA
And here is the (admittedly not quite complete) text version of all our efforts over the past fortnight:
ADDED
- New Objective, The chopper, available in offline play
Replaces the hut or the tower when spawned
Roams the map
Defends itself
Spawns baddies
- New animation system for props added
- Added framework and implementation for story system
- Added new SFX for the chopper
FIXED
- Rare issue with bullets that damage bosses, fixed.
Next week we’ll be working on the introduction of our final World, one which has been overdue for a long time. One of our more… mechanical main characters will feel right at home there!
We’re also aiming to get more polish and some much more structured play into the game, systems that should allow us to make the game progress in a much more satisfying way and will make every level feel that little bit more magical. Of course we’re on a fortnightly update schedule so the week after that the drop should be … chunky to say the least! Watch this space (or twitter)!
For now, ruuuun! Goooo! Get to the chopper!
UPDATE 22 - SURPRISE, MELON FARMER!
How can the same update happen to the same game twice?
It can’t, but this week we’ve been so hard at work making sure the netcode gets fixed up and the online features match the single player that we just had to drop this for you guys! We’re not 100% there, but the game works so much more nicely than before online, there’s a lot less lag, and you can even fight (and beat!) all the bosses!
Yup, *shockingly* the new netcode includes all of the Killionaire Hunters!
But that’s pretty much been code-only work this week. What’ve the rest of us been doing? Well, the main progress has been towards the story mode - you heard me! - that’ we’re expecting for launch. The first pass script is done, the first pass of portraits is done, and we’re even moving on to work on the final world in John Strong’s story.
John Strong’s excited about telling you his story!
We’re going old school and classic videogame here. We don’t want the story getting in the way (although we do think it’ll be worth following along with) and we’re going to have the classic portraits chatting away with a few expressions to really hammer home the emotion/guns/explosions.
What on earth would the world’s greatest action hero get all embarrassed about?
For today’s episode of our regular dev diary video series click here: http://youtu.be/gXF8-dSXYBs
And here comes the text version:
FIXED
- Massive improvement to client lobby performance in online multiplayer
- Fixed issues with online multiplayer performance
- Fixed issues with client-side performance on-top of general performance while in gameplay, due to physics.
- General performance tweaks for the frontend UI.
- Fixed issue with bullets being fired by a boss not being created on client machines over the network.
- Fixed issues with boss specific objects not being spawned correctly over the network
- Fixed issue with the boss health bar going negative, if enough damage is dealt at low health values (grenades, basically)
- Bosses implemented online (finally)
Gordon
Yatcha Queen
Killionaires - all five of them
Old Ramishar
UPDATED
- SFX across the board
Next week should see the debut of some of this much-hyped story stuff! We’ll be adding a temporary intro using all the tech we’ve written, and teasing the main story for now… we don’t want to release it half-finished and spoil everything for you. Also we’re hoping to get some more features in and more fixes. Watch this space (or twitter)!
G’bye for now!
UPDATE 21 - INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY TO THE DANGER ZONE
If I was to tell you we switched online SDK as well as reworking our entire menu system this week, you’d no doubt be all like “Surely you can’t be serious” and I’d be all like “Don’t call me Shirley.”
But it’s the truth! the biggest thing you’ll notice is, of course, the new front end. We’ve redone the entire thing from top to bottom and it’s looking fantastic even if I do say so myself. Clean, clear, a bit 80’s, a touch arcadey, but above all very Tango Fiesta indeed.
Dat splash screen!
This kind of spit and polish extends all the way to the character and weapon select screens which we’ve gone for a bit of a Top Trumps/collectable cards vibe. Retro yes, but also damn nice looking. We’ve changed how the stats are shown too, so make sure you get studying the differences between all the guns.
Dat collectable-card-style character select screen!
But the biggest thing for us is getting over the hump with the online functionality. We’ve solved two of the biggest bugs that were preventing people a) join reliably and b) host more than one game without rebooting the game. These are problems no longer, but in the process we’ve had to knock the actual gameplay back a few steps in online. All the features are still there, but the way we handle the packets is different now and needs plenty of work. Work we will get done sooner rather than later, but fair warning - it’s a bit of a mess in there at the moment!
A bit of explosive action… we’ve done a LOT over the last 3 weeks to improve the fundamentals. We hope you enjoy them tweaks!
For today’s episode of our regular dev diary video series click here: http://youtu.be/D-brj5XJmug
For the usual big old list of work we’ve done this wee, lay your eyes right here...
ADDED
- Added new theme music
Thunder roll intro(!)
Let the game sit on the splash Title Screen for the full amazingness
Prepare yourselves for the album drop after launch!
- Added new Main Menu loop music
- Added new animated backgrounds for the menus
- Users can now choose any world or theme for online play.
FIXED
- Fixed hosting bug where you were unable to host a new game, if you had previously hosted a game with other players in it
- Fixed numerous collision issues with gameplay and objectives
- Fixed input manager context-key detection when using different input methods
- Attract mode now delays when detecting mouse movement
- Game Volume is now set and activated before the title music starts playing (no more blast-then-quiet if changed)
UPDATED
- Auto-refresh has now been disabled in lobby browser
It was redundant/borderline annoying with the new SDK
Still just hit ‘R’ to refresh manually
- SFX Settings and tweaks implemented
- SFX Files updated.
- Most music tracks in the game have been rebalanced, twaked and added to:
Island theme
Island Boss theme
Jungle theme
Jungle Boss theme
Killionaire theme
- Bionic Cop stats have been rebalanced a little
- Entire overhaul of all the front-end (non-gameplay) UI in the game
- Attract mode videos now only play when on the entry splash screen
- Improved collision and physics. You no longer get stuck on the level boundaries.
- Lobby authentication & verification when joining lobbies streamlined.
- Character select is now improved with new assets and streamlined.
- Removed old steam SDK integration, and replaced with Ludosity Steamworks SDK.
KNOWN ISSUES
- Keyboard and mouse gameplay is a bit tempermental at the moment, we're working on a fix.
- Mac build is struggling with inputs on the menus. If anyone has any insight please do let us know on the forums!
- Client gameplay in online matches is very laggy and lossy. We’re working on it though!
- Player parachute/drop in at level start is broken (you can still play obvs!)
The next thing we’re doing is… well there’s more than one thing obviously. We’re implementing some story tech (and hopefully in the next update you’ll get a taster!), we’re prepping the final world’s content (it's gonna be totally bionic!), and we’re fixing up the controls, Mac build and online functionality. It should be a very different game in a fortnight’s time! Of course if we get some serious progress made in enhancing the online gameplay we’ll drop the update early.
Wish us luck!
UPDATE 20 - Sorta Not Update
Dead or alive, you’re getting a patch next week!
I must apologise first, as we’re missing our promised fortnightly update today. That said, it’s for a very good reason, and we’re absolutely going to do our damndest to push the update early next week. Before Wednesday, for sure :D The reasons for this delay are twofold.
1 - We’ve taken the plunge and moved from our existing online SDK to what should turn out to be a much better one. This should fix the big bug we’ve all been having with hosting online games, plus make lots of things easier as we move towards release.
A closeup of the new Character and Weapon Select menu.
2 - We’ve been busy making sure we go over every asset in the game and polish it to a blinding sheen. We’ve started at the beginning, with the menus, and have got about 80% of the way in. Rather than spoil the effect by pushing a not-quite-finished new version of the menus, we thought we’d make sure it was all spot on and then blow you away.
Our shiny new menus!
More specifics on the work we’ve done this week is as follows:
Menu redux
Landing Page
Main Menu
Settings Menu
Character Select menu
Weapon Select menu
Online issues
Move to Ludosity framework from Community Express
Hopefully fixed the lobby re-hosting bug! Yay!
So next week you’ll get an update. We promise. If we don’t, you can tell our mums. We’re that serious.
Toodles!
NOT UPDATE 19 - SHORT WEEK
He wanted your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle. Well, soon enough, you’ll be able to create your own!
We’ve been hard at work as per usual but on a slight tangent. We had a couple of days where it made sense to fix issues we saw at EGX, and then we also had a random day or two to fill before Ewan comes back (this monday! Yay!) so we’ve partially implemented Steam Workshop support into Tango. We may not release it for a while yet, but you’ll eventually be able to edit and create your own playable characters to share with the world! You won’t be doing any stat tweaking - instead you’ll use our existing dudes and dudettes as a basis - but the look is entirely up to you!
This is Ewan. Isn’t he handsome.
Work we’ve done this week is as follows:
Menu & gameplay start (char select, level select) now accepts input from all 4 controllers
Fixed the revive bug where..
Bodies would start sliding off and flying everywhere when dead
Bodies would constantly flash
Attract Timer is now reset in level select when using thumbsticks
Camera tracking bugs when player dropping out are fixed
Level select tv screen appears on top of attract mode - FIXED
Bug where camera would not move in MP when player 2 dropped out and leaving P1 remaining
Is this the movie you most want to see us explore next?
So next week we kick off the final(?) phase of development. I think we’re aiming for three more actual updates between now and launch - one of them should include a new world to fight through, enemies to face, heroes to play as and weapons to play with. But that’s the thing - we don’t know which movie you most want to see the truth behind next. Let us know in the forums and on twitter!
G’bye for now!
UPDATE 18 - THE BIG SHOW
Wax on, wax off. Not only is that timeless advice from Mr Miyagi applicable to mastering martial arts, but is also how we buff Tango Fiesta into a wonderful polished sheen for you.
As mentioned last week, from tomorrow and all weekend long, we’re showing Tango Fiesta at the Eurogamer Expo at Earl’s Court in London. We’ve therefore chosen to shift some of our focus to polish and bugs in the game that aren’t directly associated with networking. Needless to say it’s been a lot of fun, and the game’s come on leaps and bounds in the last few days!
Bodies, blood and bullet casings now stick around! What a battlefield!
So we’re heading to Eurogamer Expo from tomorrow for four solid days of gaming goodness! We found out pretty late that we had a spot, so it’s been a last-minute adjustment to get things ready. I’ve checked the booths, installed the game, and we’re ready to go. This update is a pretty huge one, and just to share a bit of the EGX fun with anyone out there not able to come along to the show, we’ve left in a little nod to the event in the Killionaire levels.
Killionaire gets a temporary themed makeover!
ADDED
- Added new arena for Killionaire boss fights.
- Permanence. Bullet casings, blood, bodies and scorch marks all stick around long after you’ve finished dealing justice!
- New attract mode added, if no input detected, trailers start playing until input is detected
- 100+ new rooms added to the level generation system between Killionaire & Ghoul Squad
- New props added for Killionaire
- Pickups are now magnetised, and will attract to you when nearby
FIXED
- Fixed issue with the pathfinding system getting a bit confused and giving the same path to multiple enemies.
- Fixed issue with enemies not always responding, or moving, when they were supposed to.
- Fixed issue with getting stuck on rocks and the like.
- Fixed UI layering issues with interactions, reviving and progress bars
- Bullets no longer collide with dead, or downed, enemies
- Join in progress issues now fixed.
- Grenades now work against Bosses
- Fixed movement issues with Ghouls in Ghoul Squad.
- Ghoul deathsplosion now causes damage
- Fixed weapon positioning and layering
- Fixed aiming direction (again)
- Fixes to level generation bugs, which would cause levels to get stuck on 80-90% generation
- Fixed offset to objective markers and radio tower beacon
UPDATED
- The loading screen no-longer auto jumps to level. Now requires user input to go past that screen
- Banners updated in Killionaire for EGX
- Join in progress prompts now updated to use correct new assets.
- Updated objective room layout mapping, objectives no longer overlap each other
- Various enemy behaviours have been updated.
- Updated level generation configs
- Various prop settings updated
- Reduced the size of levels Jungle-2 and Jungle-3
KNOWN ISSUES
- Occasional overlap of generic rooms with Spawn Room in Killionaire.
- Removed General Payne from Killionaire Boss Pool as a short term fix to boss fights with him not ending.
The next fortnight will not be cut short, and will see us focusing once more on the online side of the game. Fingers crossed we can get to the root of the hosting issues… because once we have, we’re on the home stretch!
See you in a re-run...
NOT-UPDATE #17 - HARDWARE
You can’t stop progress.That’s why we’ve been focusing on polishing up Tango Fiesta in many smaller ways for the EGX (Eurogamer Expo) next week!
We’ve added the ability to pick up items from a distance (no more lost ammo!), we’ve been fixing the weapons and aiming, tweaking the AI, fixing pathfinding issues, adding tons of new rooms and content to the level generation for both Killionaire and Ghoul Squad, and plenty more! this week isn’t a public update week, though, so you’ll have to wait a little while longer.
Ghoul Squad has benefited from plenty of new rooms to generate levels from, with particular attention being paid to how they look as well as how they play.
That said, how much longer do you need to wait? Well because EGX is from next Thursday, we’re currently aiming to get next week’s build up early, on the Wednesday evening no less! It’s pretty exciting to be early, and even though it’s technically a short fortnight of development we’ve been trying to fix polish and add content fairly evenly across the whole game.
Who Wants To Be A Killionaire! New rooms, more grime, more fun, more Killionaires?!
Now I realise we said we’d be focusing on the online issues, but after bashing our skulls against a really stubborn bug for several days - combined with the late-confirmation of our appearance at EGX - meant that we had to be smart and use the days we had left to make sure Tango is as fun as possible for its public showing.
So, what’s next? Well, as soon as the Expo is over, we’re back into fixing that damn online lobby & hosting issue. We promise we will sort it out. Either that or it will kill us.
Until next time...
UPDATE 16 - WAR GAMES
Do you want to play a game? Well now you can with your friends because there are tons of online multiplayer bug fixes, and this combined with general multiplayer polish are the focus of this week’s update!
We’ve been making sure we spend some serious time on fixing things that have been affecting the online multiplayer for some weeks now - since we’re almost done with new content we thought it was the perfect time! but we’re not resting easy. We’ve been making sure we keep the content coming down the line (see below for more) and adding more and more rooms to the level generator for the newest addition to our world set - Ghoul Squad. They should be more varied, fun and better looking than ever before!
Because it’s a dry week for screenshots, here are some fun bits and bobs we’ve been working on for future updates…
Gordon’s terrified of something… but what on earth could scare a big burly manly man like him?!
This is The General. He’s a new character specifically for the story mode, and is very early indeed. In fact all of the art shown here will be redone by Ewan as soon as he gets a chance!
John Strong nattering away. It’s so exciting to see all our heroes and villains come to life!
That’s right! We’re planning a full on story mode for the game, one which will be full of action, betrayal, the world in peril and (original!) cheesy one liners. It’s going to be daft, it won’t get in the way of the action, and with any luck it’ll be chock full of not only references and cheeky nods, but some actual emotion. Story is only ever good when there’s some truth behind it. Tango Fiesta’s story is all about being a hero.
We can’t wait to see what people think - but suffice to say we’re not going to release it half-finished because that’d spoil it all. We may well drop in something to test the systems behind the storyline in the wild, but it won’t be spoilerific!
Enough with the talk about the future though, here’s the full changelog for this fortnight’s update…
ADDED
- Added 14 new rooms to level gen for Ghoul Squad
- Added explosive pumpkins to Ghoul Squad levels
- Added skulls on stakes to Ghoul Squad levels
- Added piles of skulls to Ghoul Squad levels
FIXED
- Enemies are now using the pathfinder again correctly and navigating around levels, providing more interesting gameplay and challenge.
- Fixed issue where the gun wasn't sitting in the correct location on the playercontroller (was over entire body)
- Fixed issue where guns weren't always aiming in the correct direction
- Fixed issue where lobby chat wouldn't appear/work for clients, if returning to the lobby from online gameplay.
- Fixed issue with incorrect weapon indexes being sent across the network in online weapon select
- Fixed issue where on confirmation of character, everyone elses character would be set to john strong
- Fixed arrow display issue with weapon select
- Fixed issue where lag, or potential crash, occurs in a rare case of killing enemies
- Fixed online pickup issue where clients would receive errors when a pickup is collected by anyone
- Fixed rare crash issue with the neutron napsack weaponry side effect (lightning chain)
- Fixed bug where game would potentially crash when joining an online game, and the lobby auto-refresh activates
- Fixed bug where the thrown weapon choice wasn't being sent over the network when setting up players online
- Fixed bug with weapon select where you couldn't re-confirm weaponry, if you back out of a choice and try to re-confirm
UPDATED
- Tweaked and polished the 40 or so existing rooms for Ghoul Squad
- Big performance and optimisation updates applied to the pathfinding system
- Updates to Enemy AI attack process
- Huge online performance and optimisation overhaul, specifically for pickups, enemies, bullets and objectives
- Updated the pipeline for hosting online games
- Increased interval duration for auto-refreshing the lobby browser
KNOWN ISSUES
- We’ve made big progress to resolving the big repro-able hosting bug, around 90% fixed while discovering remaining edge cases. If clients exit a game in progress, the the host follows and the same player tries to rehost, the game doesn’t get set up. A different host is a good solution. the perfect solution is to reboot the game at the moment. Sorry!
- Full Game Loop broken. Currently there’s a REALLY weird pathfinding bug that’s preventing the game from doing what we call a Full Loop. In other words, when you’ve beaten the Ghoul Squad boss, and the game tries to load Island-1 on New Game +, it will fail to load. We’ve getting a fix done, but right now the best thing to do is to just exit the weapon select menu after beating Old Ramishar.
So, what’s next? We're going to be focusing on multiplayer even more, squashing those last hideous bugs, introducing Bosses to the online co-op, making sure all the worlds and enemies work right too. And then... well that's a surprise isn't it!
Until next week, peace!
NOT UPDATE 15 - UNBEATABLE
Hello all! We're back, and it's not even a re-run! We've got some weird news for the update this week. There's some changes afoot at Spilt Milk Studios that are going to directly affect Tango Fiesta... but not in any detrimental way. Hell no. It's all good, it's just all slightly different.
Enough talk! It's time for... ok more talk, but this is long and detailed so hang on in there!
What’s the change?
Spilt Milk Studios are moving to a fortnightly update schedule for Tango Fiesta while we prepare for the game’s full launch. As of the start of this week we’ve moved to this new schedule, and are hard at work making the game everything we know it can be.
The current aim is to launch the game in - or just before - December of this year. Obviously this is prone to slippage but that’s what the team here and at Mastertronic are working towards right now.
Why are we moving to this new schedule?
When we started Tango Fiesta we projected features, timings and costs, and these things are inherently inaccurate. In their wonderful-ness, Mastertronic are some of the most sensible and understanding people working in games right now, and rather than beat us up about the fact that we ‘missed’ our promised end date, they recognise the game needs more work, and will benefit tremendously from an extension. Not only that, but they’re helping us out while we make Tango the best it can be, making our lives easier where they can and giving us the exposure the game needs when we judge it to be ready for that.
The initial scope was inaccurate because of unforeseen things like bugs, and systems that took longer to build than we thought (hello online multiplayer!). Also it’s down to some of our inexperience working together as a team. No doubt the fact that it’s our first game of this type had something to do with the inaccuracies in our estimates too, and despite being absolutely unashamedly proud o the progress we’ve made over the past 7 months, we just don’t feel Tango Fiesta as it stands is quite ready for sending out into the big wide world of v1.0.
It was always going to be a tight schedule, and the game (any game!) would benefit from a few more months of work, so we’re very fortunate to be getting that chance. Not to mention, some of the pressures of that weekly update schedule indirectly led to some of the slips that we’ve seen, so it’s going to be nice to have a little less stress and a little more time to think things through as we work towards the final release candidate.
How are we going to structure it?
We’re planning to spend a little less time every week on the game, because of various commitments (more on those below) but over the space of each fortnight we’ll be making the game better, les buggy, more fun and have more features - and hopefully you guys and gals will begin to see the result of all our hard work every second Friday.
This month we’re focusing on AI and online systems. We want to make sure everything working as intended in terms of enemy behaviour and design, and also to give the online stability and functionality issues our best shot. Part of this is down to team availability (again, see below) but mostly it’s because the online portion of the game has been ‘behind’ the offline for too long and we want to make a stand!
The following two months will be carrying on with other small systems we want to add (medals, storyline, that kind of thing), polishing up everything in the game so far (art tuning, audio balance, gameplay tweaking) and as mentioned earlier every second Friday dropping a really nice update on you guys. I hope you’re looking forward to it as much as we are!
So then, those commitments we were talking about…
Those Commitments
As we’re being funded and published by a publisher, we’re being paid to work for all the time we put in to Tango Fiesta. As you may have seen in the news, a month ago Mastertronic almost had to call it quits as a business, but thanks to their strong leadership and some smart decisions, they’re fine now.
What that did mean, however, is that during the period before this we were looking at the schedule for Tango and thinking “umm, we’re not quite going to get it all in by the end of august…” but the team at Mastertronic were understandably prioritising getting their business in order and so the fine details of scheduling were relegated temporarily. Obviously with hindsight it’s because they were going to be fine with giving us a little extra budget, but at the time we were getting a bit worried!
Anyway, that all had a knock-on effect. All of us on Tango have rent to pay. We’re normal human beings like everyone else, and life can be expensive. We needed to make sure that we were all ok assuming the worst - and that meant securing work for after the end of August. We all managed to successfully do that in different ways, but what it means is the following:
Andrew J Smith(Project Lead): on Tango Fiesta ¾ of the time per week than he was before, working the rest of the time on a second opportunity with Andrew Roper.
Andrew Roper(Code): on Tango Fiesta ½ the time he was before. He’s managed to pick up some part time work on two other projects, one with Andrew J Smith
Ewan Brock(Art): for September, he’s on client work elsewhere. From the second week in October and for all of November, he’s with Tango Fiesta full time.
Gavin Harrison(Audio): no change, all good!
This all means that each fortnight we should be able to get the same amount of work done as we were in a single week previous to this change, but without the insane pressure of a weekly update so we’ll (hopefully) make fewer mistakes, introduce fewer bugs and basically do a better job of it all. Which is something we’re very happy about! It also means that, as the other opportunities come and go, this time we dedicate will fluctuate - but again I’ve stated the worst case above so if there are ny changes to our time, it’ll be to put more on Tango than we initially thought.
Progress this week
So I should cover what we’ve done already since the start of September.
Well, we’ve entirely fixed the player weapon issues (aiming and drawing depth) so that they should all be hunky dory now, and we’ve also addressed some issues behind the scenes with our level editor which will allow us to create more content and new rooms for placement in each update we do.
First on the list is more Ghoul Squad stuff, then some extra Killionaire work. And finally we’ve also made some progress with a long-standing but not very obvious AI bug. Some people had noticed a lot of enemies had stopped roaming around… well now they do once more! We’re aware of an issue with pathfinding, and we’re half way to a fix.
What’s next?
We’re going to spend as much time as possible while Ewan’s away on the online, as I mentioned. We’re also keen to create new content for you and keep polishing with each fortnightly update though, so expect a few treats in each game update. We made sure Ewan had done a bit of extra work before he left so that we can implement some of that in his absence. We’ll see what happens!
Thanks for reading this really long and picture-less post. I’m sorry if you’re a bit disappointed that we’ve not got a weekly update this week, but I promise this is for the best. We’re working as hard as we can, and are not stopping until Tango Fiesta is the best co-op action game this side of Zelda Four Swords Adventures!
Yours devotedly,
the Tango Fiesta team
(Andrew, Andrew, Ewan & Gavin)
xoxo
