Author: Doctor Jellyface

The fun starts now

Oh, not for you, for me. Duh.

You get another boring version, I get to work on the awesome stuff.

So yeah, this is what’s coming up for Gamma:

  • Bots – that’s right, if you don’t have friends you will able to play alone
  • New GUI – have you heard of Unity’s new GUI? Well, it’s getting into Gamma with all it’s beauty
  • Mobile – Android, and hopefully iOS. Maybe Ubuntu Phone
  • Physics based shaders – they came with Unity 5, and look wonderful. I didn’t have time to get them into Beta, but I surely will for Gamma
  • Allow playing while hosting the server – to play on your own server right now you have to open a new instance, which isn’t exactly fun. Hopefully I’ll be able to get this working for Gamma

Sounds interesting? It is. I am so glad I got Beta 1 out so I can work on this. It’s just so cool.

I already started laying out foundations for the new AI on a local branch, but I doubt I’ll be able to get to it again until the school year ends, which should be in about two weeks.

Also, if you’ve got ANY sort of screenshots of Tunnelers somewhere, anywhere, chuck them here. It’ll be great help while making the GUI. Thanks.

And again, if you’re not already subscribed to the mailing list, please do. You would not believe how hard it is to reach all you.

 

I told you I wouldn’t leave Tunnelers alone.

Tunnelers Beta 1 released to little fanfare

This is a bug-fix release, and I hate bug-fixing. Argh. There were like a ton of them. But they are gone. Well, mostly.

If you want, you can play or download it on itch.io. Or you will, when I upload the packages. I’ve been delaying this for three weeks now, and I don’t want to delay it anymore by not having time to build packages (EDIT: all done and uploaded).

Just to be clear, this is a MINOR RELEASE. I won’t even bother doing a gameplay session, since the most visible change is probably the main menu tweaking.

I know, I know, half a year from the open-sourcing of Tunnelers, and I give you this, and say it’s almost no different.

But actually it is different, but most of the changes are internal. For example the tank controller is completely new, and the syncing is much more reliable. The code is cleaner. I’ve started to implement interfaces for better modularity. I started commenting the code, so it’s easier to understand. The whole project is ported to Unity 5. A whole bunch of GUI bugs were fixed, and settings were introduced. Also, the main menu was redesigned a little.

And don’t forget that I was doing this all through school, so I had limited time for it.

But don’t worry. The next release will be much more interesting. Details in the next post.

You might have noticed I changed the site theme. Hope it looks nice. Font is a bit too big, but meh. It’s cleaner than the last one.

Also, itch.io added support for paying with Bitcoins. So, if you have some microbitcoins to spare and you have no idea what to do with them, chuck them this way, it’ll be really appreciated. Cheers.

Tunnelers: Unified has turned open-source

Tried to keep it quiet so the it would be a big BOOM.

OK, so with the important stuff first: have a look at the source code HERE.

People new to code, feel free to browse it with awe.
Pro’s, feel free to look at that crap jibberish some noob wrote up, and give him a lesson.

If your somewhat familiarized with Git and Github, feel free to fork it, just make a pull request when you think that you made some good change.

Reasons

  1. The school year started. That’s right. And you know what’s even worse? I’m on a new school (I don’t know how you call it in English. High school? Probably. Gymnasium to be accurate). That means: less time to code. Open-sourcing Tunnelers prevents it from dying out.
    NOTE: This does NOT mean I’m leaving Tunnelers alone!
  2. I love open-source. I would probably open-source it even if I wasn’t going to school.
  3. I like the Github interface much more than Bitbucket’s, but Github doesn’t host private repos for free.
  4. I was tired working on it alone. Now people can at least see that I’m actually doing something on it, file issues, create pull-requests, etc.

Pretty good reasons, huh? If you don’t like them, well, bad luck. There’s no way back.

Want to help? Sure! Just mail me, we’ll have a chat.

Now to the other things:

Newsletter

Please please please subscribe to the newsletter you see on the left, if you want to continue getting news on Tunnelers. I never ever use those emails for something different than sending mails when there’s a new announcement, and, as you see, that doesn’t happen often. The process of sending the newsletter is automated, so you will always get the news first.

Chances are you’re reading this only because I’ve personally told you. Please do subscribe.

Thanks.

Roadmap
Beta:

  • fix bugs
  • add mute button
  • optimize network usage and client-side prediction
  • make a little graphics (but only a little)
  • bots. AIs. Call them what you want, but you will be able to play and have fun playing alone when they will be.

Gamma:

  • Mobile ports. Android and iOS. Maybe Ubuntu phone with some tinkering.
  • fix bugs
  • maybe add some tanks

Delta:

  • public vote on what future roadmap. This is where all the fun starts. Just to be quick, you will be able to choose from: digging, new tanks, new game modes, new maps, better graphics, new GUI (see note), text and voice chat, controller support, new platforms and so on.

Note: I will completely recreate the GUI when the new GUI system arrives in Unity, and that will probably be later this year.

The gaming session

Thanks to everyone who was there. If you captured a video or something, mail me. Hope everyone had fun. I sure did. See you next time!

And a very important thing for the end:

Thanks

To everyone who made this happen:

  • Shadowcrush, for the music and coding support, and for being cool.
  • @damagefilter, or Chris, or whatever you want to call him, for the excellent Unity networking tutorials. Without it, I don’t know how I would code all of it. You can still see snaps of his code in the source.
  • and, of course, everyone else, who I am not going to name because I’m not going to risk I will forget somebody. I you ever asked when will Tunnelers be released, played it with me, criticized me or chat with me about it, you should be here. Great thanks. You make this happen. And to those thinking I should write you all down, I don’t think it would fit here.

Thanks again. You helped Tunnelers: Unified be a reality, if only a fable one.

(Little edit) Dates corrected

Yes, I know, probably not that a big thing to have it’s seperate post, but it’ll sent to FB, Twitter & G+ automatically, and as I’m too lazy to do that, posting this’ll do it for me.

I accidentally wrote the wrong dates in the previous post. It’s fixed, so please correct your votes accordingly. Just for the info, it’s the week 23.07.2014-29.07.2014, so a week from now.

Also, a bit more info on the matches (since I’m writing this anyway), there will be one+ matches (according how many players will be), one will be Teamspeaked & streamed/recorded, and the others will be just for random people who don’t know much about the game or don’t have much experience with it and don’t want to be on a sort of “comeback” match.

So that’s that, be sure to invite everyone you know.

When shall we play? VOTE!

The Tunnelers: Unified Beta will be opened by a series of matches, so it would be great if you can all come. That’s why this poll exists. You can see days from Wednesday to Tuesday (16.07.2014-22.07.2014 23.07.2014-29.07.2014 (mega apologies for this, I won’t be here that week, sorry)). All times are CET (Central Europe Time, GMT+1). Please vote on all the times you will be available. The matches will take place on the day that receives most votes. TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS.

trembles with excitement

You can also preload the game data:

These builds however won’t work online until the master server is launched, which will be a little before the start of the matches. Be sure to use the standalone builds rather than the web player, since the performance will be much bigger. The “universal” builds (Mac, Linux) can be run from both 32 bit & 64 bit, however, on Windows you have to download a specific version. See you on the battlefield.

Tunnelers: Unified Beta is finally finished

I mean it. Done and ready, built and uploaded.

Gentlemen, it is time for me to announce that you can play Tunnelers online again.

It’s not as good as the original, but hey, I made it myself.

I am so sorry for the gigantic delay. It has been a very hard year for me and I had very little to none time to code.

But the important thing is that it is finished.

AND NOW THE IMPORTANT THING I AM WRITING THIS FOR:

WHEN SHALL WE PLAY?!

Write in the comments! Will you play and when will you play.

Now that Tunnelers: Unified is multiplayer, we need a party of people to play with. Idealy 8v8 or more. So if you can, come!

What you can look forward to in Beta:

  • multi-player
  • capture the flag
  • lasers
  • explosions
  • two new maps
  • a brand new UI (with a Quit button!)
  • and of course, the rejoicing of old comrades

All the features should be fully functional*.

So what are you waiting for?! Comment!

The site is now looking… cooler

Yep. I worked on the site yesterday a bit, and it’s now better than ever.

The biggest changes:

  • should load faster
  • the site should now be found by search engines
  • a new FAQ section
  • THE AWESOME TUNNELERS WALLPAPER!
  • a new way of auto-posting to social networks
  • a subscribe by email button
  • a new contact form
  • better sidebars
  • a slightly new comment system
  • WordPress.com sign in
  • and some other thing

Warning: this site is still not perfect, and there are many things that could be better.

Don’t worry, Tunnelers is just around the corner! (I know I say that every time)

Shortly after this I’ll make a post with some snapshots from the first map. See ya on the battlefield.