0.9.7 is out now! This patch brings with it a couple of new trap types, more UI improvements, and a few new game options.
I would also like to remind everyone that if you want to meet fellow trappers, try our new Discord channel! If you haven’t used it, Discord is a great free app for chatting with your friends and fellow gamers. So if you want to find more people to play Trapper’s Delight with and chat about the game, then please join the community over on our Discord Channel here:
https://discord.gg/Z6TBmDS
Full patch notes are below:
Features
Added freeze trap - a hidden floor trap which, when triggered, instantly freezes anyone stepping onto it, preventing them from moving for a few seconds
Added grabber trap - a projectile based trap which instead of taking people out, grabs people and brings them back to the launcher
Added in-game score markers on player profiles at the bottom of the screen
Added the ability to customise which traps are super traps and which are not
Added the option to change build time and character play time in advanced game options
Added end of game stats screen
Gameplay Tweaks
Non-hidden traps are now coloured based on who placed them, using their character colour.
Hammers are now set as normal traps in the normal trap configuration
Ghost bridges are now set as super traps in the normal trap configuration
Bug Fixes
Fixed some level editor errors including stuck camera
Fixed the server being able to briefly see hidden traps being placed
Few other minor fixes fixes...
0.9.7 Coming soon and Official Discord Server
Hello Trappers! Firstly, I just want to mention that there is now an Official Discord Server for Trapper’s Delight. If you haven’t used it, Discord is a great free app for chatting with your friends and fellow gamers. So if you want to find more people to play Trapper’s Delight with and chat about the game, then please join the community over on our Discord Channel.
Click here to join the Official Trapper's Delight Discord Server: https://discord.gg/Z6TBmDS
The next version of Trapper’s Delight is coming soon! I have been working on the follow up to 0.9.6, unsurprisingly named 0.9.7 and the plan is to have it in your hands in the next few weeks. Progress has been a bit slower than I would have liked, but some boring life stuff has slowed things down recently. But the good news is that going forward I will be able to dedicate a lot more time to development, which should mean more and faster updates going forward.
In 0.9.7 the plan is to bring in a couple of new traps into the fray. The first is a projectile based trap which instead of taking people out, grabs people and brings them back to the launcher.
The aptly named grabber trap can be used to create sneaky shortcuts or drag people into their doom.
Secondly, the freeze trap is a hidden floor trap which, when triggered, instantly freezes anyone stepping onto it, preventing them from moving for a few seconds.
This can be used to stop people getting out of harm’s way, or just delay them enough to get ahead. It could even be combined with the grabber trap in fun ways.
Other new features planned for 0.9.7 include an updated end of game stats screen along with more game configuration options, including the option to select which traps are classified as super traps. This will include a variety of in-built game variants, such as “No Flippers” or “Pits and Jumps”.
Thanks everyone!
Version 0.9.6 Released
It's here! As mentioned last week, I have been working on a new update over the past few months. In this patch comes two major improvements! The first big new change in this patch is a completely overhauled online multiplayer including which now runs on cloud servers providing a much more consistent and stable online experience. Secondly comes a shiny new user interface, both for the main menu and the in-game interface, including adorable character portraits which appear in game!
The full patch notes can be found below.
Networking Overhaul
Games now run on an external cloud servers which are located in several regions across the globe
Completely revamped networking platform which now means games should be much more stable and provide a more consistent experience between players
UI Overhaul
Continuing on from the previous patch, the game has received further large scale UI revamps through.
Main Menu has been reworked and is now a lot easier to use (especially with a gamepad) and is better laid out
In-game has also received a lick of polish, including new in-game character portraits, updated ready button design, better looking help panels and more!
New scene transition screen wipe
New character customisation screens
Trap selection panel improvements
And so much more!
Gameplay Changes
Floor Traps with a cooldown timer (e.g. jump and flipper traps) now work on with a per character cooldown. This means that you are no longer able to follow another player and avoid a trap triggering on you by following them.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug where the camera wouldn't correctly focus on the right character at the start of a new round
Fixed end game victory particles not appearing correctly
Fixed trap spawning audio error when joining an online game in progress
Fixed controllers vibrating when other players die
New Networking and UI Update coming this week!
Good day fellow Trappers! At some point in the next week or so I will be looking to release a major update to Trapper's Delight! This update includes a major revamp of the look and feel of the entire UI for the game along with a complete overhaul of the online networking backend. As part of this update, Trapper's Delight will have a shiny new logo:
Interface Updates
This UI overhaul covers pretty much all aspects of the game. Everything has been updated to have a much better style throughout, with a more consistent look. The main menu has been completely revamped with better controller support and generally is much nicer to look at and more user friendly.
The in-game UI has received updates as well, including new animated character portraits which show off your character in all of their low-poly glory!
New Networking Engine
I am acutely aware that one of the game's main issues currently is the online support can often be temperamental at best. To improve this I have been spending time completely replacing the networking engine running the game.
Online games will now run on a new server-based networking engine which will result in a much more stable online connection. A lot of the game's networking logic has been improved so there should be a lot less moments where player's actions aren't quite in sync.
Along with these major changes, this update will include a tonne of general bug fixes. I will post a more complete change list when the update goes live, hopefully near the end of this week once I have finished wrapping a few niggling bugs that still remain.
Going forward after this update I would like to look into getting more content into the game, especially more trap types. If you feel like you have a great idea for new traps in the game, I would love to hear your suggestions in the comments!
Thanks everyone!
New UI Update is Live!
It's taken a bit longer than expected but the next major update for Trapper's Delight is out!
The main change in this update is a rework of the gameflow which should result in the game feeling a lot faster with a lot less time waiting inbetween rounds. The scoreboard and replay are now shown at the same time which, along with some other tweaks, means that you can now get back into the action almost instantly!
The UI has also received an overhaul, which should really help new players understand the game a lot faster.
The full patch notes are below:
Updated to Unity 5.5
Revamped gameflow for scoreboard and replay
Replay and Scoreboard are now one gameplay state where the scoreboard is overlayed on top of the replay. Scoreboard can be hidden to watch the replay.
Hammer traps now actually crush players when killed, squashing them into the ground
UI Updates
Complete revamp of the scoreboard interface. Should help players understand concepts such as super traps as well as working with the new replay game flow.
Greatly increased the speed of game-state transitions, which will make the game feel a lot faster to play. E.g. going from the main game to watching a replay.
Improved visuals and readability of trap selection, especially in local multiplayer
There is now a line drawn from a player's trap selection to the trap positioner to help players identify which trap is theirs, especially in local multiplayer
Added a player identification line at the beginning of the round to help players see which player they are. This is a line which goes from the player name to the actual character at the start of the round.
Added text showing you how many traps you gained per round, and warns you when you are at the maximum trap limit.
General UI improvements in local multiplayer lobby to help with profile selection
Minor main menu visual changes
Added new Trap Tutorial panel which better instructs players on how traps work. This is per player and helps with local multiplayer.
Updated the position of the countdown timer to better fit within the new UI
Bug Fixes
Fixed characters dying at the beginning on the build state sometimes
Fixed Hammer Traps hitting ghost bridges
Fixed Hammer Traps hitting walls
Updates Coming Soon to Trapper's Delight
I wanted you all to know what is currently happening with Trapper's Delight. The past few weeks have been an exciting time with the game being shown at EGX in Birmingham as part of the Leftfield Collection and it was a great experience! A lot of new people got a chance to play the game and had a lot of fun with it. Also I learned a lot by getting to see new players jump into the game for the first time. This let me see what people were struggling with when starting out, as well as what people's general impressions were with what worked and what didn't. So with that in mind I have been spending a lot of the time in the past few weeks working on improving the general game flow, making it flow faster with less down time between rounds, as well as improving the general user experience for new players. The main change has been combine the scoreboard and the replay game states and allowing players to skip past both much faster. So now the scoreboard is shown with the replay happening behind it and both can be skipped instantly. Along with this is general decluttering of the user interface and some more useful visual cues when placing traps, especially in local multiplayer for player identificaiton.
The end result is that the game is in general a more well rounded, faster and smoother experience for players. I'm hoping to push out an update with these changes in the coming weeks. After that I would like to spend some time focusing on improving the online experience (I know it has a lot issues!) then look into more features, traps etc. for the game after that. So look forward for that in the coming months!
Once again thanks to everyone that has played this little quirky game of mine so far, it has great having you all play it and a final shoutout to everyone that played the game at EGX.
Trapper's Delight will be part of the EGX Leftfield Collection 22nd-25th September!
I am very excited to annoucne that Trapper's Delight was picked to be part of the Leftfield Collection at EGX this year! EGX is the UK's biggest gaming exhibitions so it is very exciting to have Trapper's Delight take part.
The game will be shown alongside many other indie games as part of the Leftfield Collection, an eclectic selection of games. The event starts next week on Thursday 22nd September, until Sunday 25th.
See the EGX website for more information about EGX. Hope to see you there!
Level Editor and Steam Workshop Support is Here!
It's been a while but that's because I have been working on a big new update for Trapper's Delight!
This update is out now and brings it with the fully featured level editor that is used to create all of the games levels along with the ability to upload your creations to the Steam Workshop.
I hope you get chance to check it out and I look forward to seeing all of your creations on the Trapper's Delight Steam Workshop!
Here are the full patch notes for this release:
Gameplay
Level Editor is here! This is an updated level editor that is used to create all of the levels in the game. It is a powerful easy to use editor which lets you create your own environments as well as with place traps into your levels. Levels can then be uploaded to the Steam Workshop. When playing online, only the host needs to have the level. All other clients will receive any required custom levels when joining a game.
There is now a secondary Snow tileset that is used for levels. Many existing levels are now using this tileset
Levels have been updated and some now contain traps at the start.
Levels now have more descriptive names, these appear when a level is first loaded along with a level author if applicable
Traps are now less likely to be given to players when there is less space to place them. This applies to Bridge trap types and Wall trap types.
Levels can now have an empty space tile. This acts just like water and lava tiles except that bridges cannot be placed on top of them, so they will always be empty.
Added Hammer Trap kills achievement
Added achievement for uploading level to Steam Workshop
Bug Fixes
Improvements which should help fix some scene transition errors in online games
Fixed visuals on hammer trap particles not always being correct
Fixed timed pit traps being stuck open if a corpse gets stuck on them
Fixed inconsinstencies where a grass tile would be replaced with a normal tile after having multiple hidden traps placed on top of it
Interface
Added help info for Hammer Trap
Progress Update - Level Editor is coming!
I just wanted to post a quick update on progress as there has been a lot of progress in the back end. The most recent major update introduced level selection as part of the on-going work to introduce more level variety and Steam Workshop support!
Work is going well in this regard with the level editor mostly done!
Also a fun new change is coming in the form of tilesets! Now when playing levels you will get a random tileset every level, such as the snow tileset as seen above. The details of exactly what this will change and what tilesets will be available is still to be figured out but the system is in and working.
I am hoping to push out the Steam Workshop update in the coming weeks so keep your eyes peeled for that!
New Update - Level Playlists and more!
Level Select Update is Live!
I've been working on getting in more customisation and variety when it comes to levels and as part of that comes the need to select what levels people want to play.
This is the first step which will eventually lead to custom levels appearing in this list along with Steam Workshop support.
As for the rest of of the patch notes:
Features
When creating a game, it is now possible to select which levels you want to appear in a playlist.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug which meant players joining a game in progress wouldn't receive the traps that were present in the level.
Improved validation/fallbacks when trying to read in invalid data. Should fix some issues where players were getting stuck trying to load into the game.
