Hi everybody,
As you may have experienced, Avatar Farm! has a freezing issue that can occur anytime while you’re playing. First things first, our apologies for releasing a game with a bug as that one on it.
Now our excuses:
As some of you may know, the XBLIG platform doesn’t support official leaderboards, or setting up our own servers to store gamer data or provide services to gamers. For that reason, we use a custom P2P sharing scoreboard. This system works as follows: While you’re playing, network sessions are created from time to time, and other players playing the game at the same time join that session. Once joined, scoreboard data is shared between both players, and data is stored on both computers. After that, they disconnect and start over again.
Although quite dirty (too many connections, lots of repeated entries sent…), the system works, which is better than nothing.
Sadly, this environment is hard to test while developing the game: At most we can test with only a handful of consoles/computers sharing data. In this controlled situation, the system works fine and everything goes smoothly. But, once the game was made available on the Marketplace, literally hundreds of people are playing the game at the same time, connecting and sending data each other.
In this situation, some issue in our code arises and causes a total freeze: The only option when this happen is to reboot the console with the power button.
We’ve tried our best to reproduce the issue in our limited environment, to no avail: We’ve let a handful of systems running and sharing at an increased rate (around 100x the rate on the released version), and no freezes are found. So we’ve had to look for the issue “by intuition”, looking carefully at the source code and trying to guess what could be happening (since there’s no way to determine where is exactly the game freezing).
We’ve found some things that could be causing the issue, and fixed/improved them, but there’s no way to be 100% sure that we’ve fixed the freezings. So, to ensure you can keep playing even if we haven’t fixed it, we’re going to add an option to disable P2P score sharing.
Meanwhile, we have some workarounds you can do to avoid the freezings:
- (Only if you are using a wired connection) If you just unplug the network cable once the game has started (Xbox Indies need you to be online to start the game, but once started you should be fine), you won’t share scores with anyone so no freezing should happen.
- If you disable online play in parental control settings, you won’t be able to share scores as well and you should be safe (remember to enable it again to play other games!).
Since XBLIG doesn’t allow to submit an update until 7 days after a game is released, we won’t be able to submit the update until next Thursday. And once the update is submitted, there’s the usual approval process, which can take a week. So we expect the update to be available around Tuesday 23th.
Other issues:
We’ve been also notified of other issues, such as red screens or sound issues. Many of them are related with a bug in the loading process, which will be addressed in the update as well. This isn’t as usual as the freezings and in most cases you can keep playing.
Gameplay issues:
We’ve received some complaints about plants rotting if you don’t attend to them. Although this is a game design decision, it seems that many players are upset with this mechanic, so we’ll be reducing its effect:
Currently, once a plant is ready to be harvested, it waits 100-150% (randomly selected) of its growth time until it dies.
We’re going to change it in the following way:
- A plant will take 150%-200% of its growth time until it dies.
- The minimum time until a plant dies will be of 12 hours.
So, for example an Aloe Vera now takes 10-15 minutes to die, it will take 12 hours. A pumpkin takes 2-3 days to die, now it will take 3-4 days.
We’re going to add a message when you’re quitting the game where you will be told when do you have to come back if you don’t want any of your plants to die.
We’ve seen as well that many people has leveled up way faster than we intended, there was some people at level 15 in just 7 hours of gameplay. We’re going to increase a bit the experience needed to level up on higher levels (around 25-50%), and more importantly, we’re going to lower the experience bonuses from fast-growing plants (such as aloe vera, cotton…) to 50% of their current value.
We’ll also increase the walk speed of your avatar, we don’t know yet the exact value, but expect an increase of 10-20%.
These are the main things we’re going to change in the next update. We’re going to add some new items as well, and maybe increase the level cap a bit, but we’re not sure yet.
Our intention with this game is to keep updating the game, adding new items and features to add more variation and gameplay elements to it, but we’re only doing it if it proves successful (we hope you understand).
Regards,
The Milkstone Studios Team
Tags: Avatar Farm!, status, update
After having gathered the feedback by users, we’ve been working on an update for Infinity Danger that fixes the most common issues found.
- Increased area size by 30% approximatedly
- Decreased player ship collision box size by 50%
- Added a red border so players can clearly see the arena limits
- Decreased a bit the needle and ballistic weapons effectiveness.
- Decreased laser beam opacity when it’s still charging.
- Increased a bit game performance on higher levels.
- If a slow frame rate is detected, the game speed is reduced a bit.
- Piece destructions don’t push the enemy to the borders as much as before.
- When the enemy is in the border of the arena, it will try to move to the center.
It will take some time for the patch to be available, expect at least one week from now.
Tags: Infinity Danger, status, update
The second update for Zombie Football Carnage has been approved. You’ll receive a notification when you start playing the game.
This is mainly a bugfix release that addresses the following main issues:
- Fixed P2P score sharing issues (yet again 🙂 ), now everything works as expected. If you have your local scores filled with people you don’t know (due to the error present in the last update), you’ll have to delete your saved game data to clean the list. Be warned you’ll also lose the improvements you could have bought on the shop. Sorry but there’s no other way to fix this.
- Now the game doesn’t periodically pauses on some consoles due to ingame data saving.
Tags: update, Zombie Football Carnage
During the last week, we’ve been gathering feedback and suggestions from users, in order to finish the first update and make a better game.
The things we’ve planned so far are the following:
BUGFIXES:
- Fixed many P2P score issues, such as not properly loading data from disk or not sorting data on the high score list.
- Some people have experienced random lockups during play. We can’t tell for sure, but we’ve suffered from these as well and we’ve been trying our hardest to find the issue. Since it can happen on the game menu as well, we think it’s related to P2P score sharing, so it should be fixed as well.
- Fixed some minor graphical glitches
GAMEPLAY CHANGES:
- Reduced difficulty of all the 1st quarter waves (So it’s easier for absolute beginners, and a way to rest after a sudden death)
- Increased “The Plague” wave difficulty (It was too easy to be a Sudden Death)
- Reduced enemies movement speed and projectile speed, in order to reduce the game difficulty a bit.
- Increased “Rinosaur Rex” wave difficulty a bit (Rather easy to be a Sudden Death)
- Reduced “Dinobikers Attack” wave difficulty a lot (Too hard to be a 1st quarter)
NEW FEATURES:
- Ask for a confirmation before exiting a game from the Pause menu.
- Added a new background, the Junkyard
- Added some basic instructions when the game starts, so people can learn the basic controls faster
- Added new wave configurations, one per quarter, to increase a bit more the variety.
We expect to finish the patch someday next week. Until then, we’re still open to suggestions and feedback.
Tags: status, update, Zombie Football Carnage
This update includes the following changes:
- UI: Added a delay on some screens (Score boards, Versus game configuration, Mode instructions) to ensure they are read before any player accidentaly presses A.
- UI: Added a Purchase button on the game pause menu.
- UI: Changed the way the user selects a custom pot. Instead of using the two axis of the Left stick, all the variations can be selected with left-right.
- BUGFIX: The Earthquake power up pushes in all directions instead of only to the upper right corner
- BUGFIX: Fixed a grammar error in the Trial mode message
- GRAPHICS: Made power ups a bit brighter to ensure the icon can be seen on dark backgrounds
- GRAPHICS: Made darker backgrounds a bit brighter, also reduced a bit the tint effect.
- GRAPHICS: Added 10+ customization variations.
- GRAPHICS: On Bomb mode, a marker is shown to make it easier to check who has the bomb.
- GAMEPLAY: Reduced a bit Arcade mode difficulty, AI pots agressiveness increases 50% slower, and they don’t do power dashes on the instant the player gets back to the arena after dying.
- GAMEPLAY: Changed spawn positions of players and power ups, so players are on the corners and power ups on the sides. This way, each player start position will coincide with the corner shown on his gamepad.
- GAMEPLAY: On Catcher mode, reduced the penalization for falling (You lose now 1 point instead of halven the score)
- NEW VERSUS MODE: Rambo
- NEW VERSUS MODE: Loot
Tags: Avatar Bump!, update
Now the game has just hit the virtual shelves, we have some things planned for a future update, along with some bugfixes that were reported.
- UI: Add a delay on some screens (Score boards, Versus game configuration, Mode instructions) to ensure they are read before any player accidentaly presses A.
- UI: Show the instructions on the pause screen too.
- BUGFIX: The Earthquake Power up only pushes players to the top right, it should be totally random
- GRAPHICS: Make power ups a bit brighter to ensure the icon can be seen on dark backgrounds
- GAMEPLAY: Change spawn positions of players and power ups, so players are on the corners and power ups on the sides. This way, each player start position will coincide with the corner shown on his gamepad.
- GAMEPLAY: On Catcher mode, lessen the penalization for falling (now you lose 50% of your points)
- NEW VERSUS MODE: Yet to be disclosed…
- NEW VERSUS MODE: Yet to be disclosed…
- GRAPHICS: Some extra customization variations.
- NEW POT MODEL: Yet to be disclosed…
That’s the current list of changes we have in the works. If you have any suggestion or bug you want to report, just let us know by posting a comment here!
Tags: Avatar Bump!, update
An update for Avatar Ninja is now available for the game. It features the following changes:
- FIXED: Max Level reached wasn’t being shown on the High scores section.
- FIXED: Gamepad vibration option on settings wasn’t working properly.
- FIXED: There were some issues with the colored aura that shows when the player crashes while a powerup was active.
- FIXED: In some rare cases, players could use voice chat while P2P exchange was being performed.
- FIXED: The P2P High score warning was mentioning “MotorHEAT” instead of “Avatar Ninja!”
- IMPROVED: Improved a bit in-game performance
- IMPROVED: Improved a bit P2P score sharing performance
- IMPROVED: Increased max P2P score entries from 5,000 to 10,000.
- IMPROVED: More detailed trees in the background.
Tags: update
Now that the P2P Scoreboard is working flawlessly, we’re starting the contest we promised some time ago. We’ve decided to try an idea we had some time ago, if it ends successfully we’ll probably repeat it in the future.
Prizes
Since we don’t have much to offer from start, we’re doing the following: Almost all of our winnings during the period the contest is on will be given back as prizes, mostly in the form of MS Points cards. So, the more people taking part in the contest, the more chances you’ll win something.
*UPDATED* The current prizes are:
- THE LAST Free Little Racers redeem token (we’ve almost ran out of codes), valued in 240MP.
- 4 x Free Wool Redeem tokens, valued in 240MP each one.
- 2 x Free MotorHEAT tokens for your friends, valued in 240MP each one.
- 19 x 1600 US Microsoft Points card, valued in 1600 MP each one 😉
As we said, we’ll add extra MP cards each day, depending on the number of sales (we’ll make them public).
When?
The contest starts NOW, at the same time the patch comes out, and will have a length of 15 days, so it will end on April 1st.
How to take part
There are only two things needed for you to take part in the contest:
- You need to appear in our World Rankings chart. We’ll update the ranking daily on a spreadsheet and make it public, so you can know if you’re appearing and the score we have registered.
- You need to have an active Gold LIVE Subscription. This is necessary to ensure you’re not creating Silver profiles just to increase your chances of winning something.
We’ll set up a server running almost 24hrs a day, so you shouldn’t have any problems to get your score synchronized to our list. Anyway, if you can’t synchronize your score, feel free to send us a picture with the ingame highscore table and we’ll add it manually.
How are winners chosen
We want everyone to have a chance of winning something, but also to reward players who have invested more time playing the game, so we’ve come up with the following rules:
- You get as participations as the level you’ve gotten to in your best score. For instance, if you made it to level 23, you’ll have 23 times more chances of winning something than somebody that didn’t pass Level 1.
- You’ll get additional chances if you tweet (+5) or make a blog post (+10) about the contest. Please let us know if you’re doing it.
- The winners will be selected once the contest is over, we don’t have the exact date yet. They will receive a message via the LIVE messaging system, to confirm their identity. Once they reply, we’ll send them the code for the item they’ve won.
- If they don’t reply in a week, another winner will be chosen.
- The player with the top score will get a 1600 MP Card directly.
- One prize per winner at max.
- Milkstone members (WaaghMan/Soy1Bonus) won’t be eligible for any prize.
Good luck!
The contest starts NOW, so feel free to download the game (or the update) and start racking up your score!
The spreadsheet with the current scores is available on Google Docs
Tags: contest, MotorHEAT, update
In a few hours, the 2nd MotorHEAT patch will be put into peer review.
This patch features some minor bugfixes, and the P2P World rankings fix. This time for sure!
Full changelog:
- Fixed P2P score synchronization when more than one hosting game is found.
- Fixed P2P score synchronization when the first gamepad doesn’t have online permissions, but another one has.
- Now the same song won’t be played twice in a row. Also the performance when starting a song should improve a bit (although there’re still some hiccups).
- Fixed big road signs not being shown.
Tags: MotorHEAT, status, update
As many of you already know, the first patch for MotorHEAT came out yesterday. The changes are the ones featured in a previous post, and 3 new achievements (2 of them are secret, go find out!).
Sadly, the P2P World rankings system isn’t working flawlessly yet, but it now works a bit at least. We already have 525 scores synchronized from other users, and the number is increasing at a steady rate.
Once we noticed that they weren’t working allright yet, we kept working on it until we found the issue/s.
So, what is/were wrong with it? Many things:
- (Already fixed)Clients didn’t wait until all the scores were received before disconnecting. That’s the reason because they worked sometimes, but when they reached a point where data needed more time to be sent (about 200 scores), they just stopped receiving anymore.
- (Already fixed)If something bad happened while connecting or sending data, the P2P score system would stop working during all the game session (although all the other features of the game would keep working all right).
- If you don’t have a valid Gold profile signed in on the first controller, the P2P Score system will never be able to find or create sessions. This is not an extremely rare case, specially if you have some music game instruments always connected.
- (The worst one)If after a search, the game finds more than one active sharing session, it will try to join both at the same time, which causes the P2P Score system to crash and stop working until the next time you run the game.
We’ve already fixed issues 3 and 4, but we won’t be able to submit a new patch until next Monday.
Our apologies about these problems, these two cases are hard to test with a small development team and we didn’t find them until now.
The current version of Wool (which uses the same World Rankings system) is also suffering from the 4 aforemented issues, so maybe we’ll release a patch which fixes them.
Tags: MotorHEAT, update, Wool