Blogs - UnleashGame

Unleash is ready for its full release. After about two years of development on Unleash, the game has reached the maturity needed to be ‘unleashed’ as a full release! Unleash has been in Steam Early Access since the 8th of May 2018, and since then countless hours have been spent playing, competing, modding and having fun in the Unleash universe. We have received bunches of feedback through our social platforms, including Discord, the Steam forums, Twitter and Reddit. We have listened to all the feedback and addressed as much of it as possible. Unleash will be out of Early Access on the 16th of October 2018.

The full release build will for the first time feature a new exhilarating competitive game mode: A 3v3 game mode inspired by Warcraft 3’s classic “Wintermaul Wars” custom map. Form a team with one or two friends and engage in all-out Tower Wars extravaganza against another team on a new map with subtle differences that makes for a new tactical experience within the Unleash game. The new game mode is accompanied by a number of changes, including an allied-only “team” chat, a new minimap and a number of navigation differences for the monsters to fit with the new map.

Take charge of all the well known monsters and towers in Unleash and immerse yourself in all-out tower-tastic wars; alone, against others and now in teams.

Get the game now on the Steam and Discord Stores!

Youtube release trailer: Youtu.be
Steam Store: Store.steampowered.com
Discord Store: Discordapp.com

Get Creative with Modding in Unleash!

A new major feature update has been released today, including the ‘TD Scenario Editor’ - which allows players to design, create and share their own Tower Defense scenarios, using Steam Workshop.

This marks a major feature on the current roadmap version (Reddit.com), and represents the first step towards rich modding capabilities in Unleash. We’re looking forward to seeing all the amazing, creative and challenging TD scenarios that will start showing up on Steam Workshop.

To see the full changelog for the latest update, read more here (Steamcommunity.com). You can also read more about this and other new features in the latest development blog post (Steamcommunity.com).

Join the FIRST UNLEASH TOURNAMENT Sunday the 24th of June, starting at 18:00/6 PM (CEST)! Play against others in the first official Unleash tournament, in a 1v1 knockout tournament where winner takes glory, fame, an honorable mention forever AND a free Unleash Steam key!

Date: 24th of June, 2018
Start time: 18:00/6 PM (CEST)
End time: Estimated 22:00~23:00 (CEST) - May vary depending on the number of players signing up

Tournament Format Description:
All players play a designated Tower Defense Scenario, and submit their scores after playing (sending us screenshots). The lowest scoring players will then play a qualification game versus each other, depending on the total number of players signed up for the tournament (e.g. in case of an odd-number of players).

After the qualification games, players are matched randomly in a 1v1 knockout tournament, playing one match against each opponent, until the finale. Players must submit screenshots to us of the end-game scores screen after each match.

The losing semi-finalists play a game against each other for the 3rd place.

Winner, second and third place are announced after the final match.

Rewards:
The winner of the tournament receives a free key to Unleash on Steam, as well as an ‘honorable mention’ forever, viewable through the Unleash subreddit and maybe elsewhere as well.

The second and third places receive an ‘honorable mention’ forever.

Sign Up:
Join the Unleash Discord server (Discord.gg) if you haven’t already, then let us know you want to sign up for the tournament in the #tournament channel.

Deadline for the sign-up is the 23rd of June at midnight (CEST).

Tentative Program (all times in CEST):
18.00: Welcome - Sign in on Discord #tournament
18.15: TD Scenario qualification games
18.45: Submit TD scenario scores
19.00: First round
20.00: Quarter-finals
21.00: Semi-finals
22.00: Third-place & Finale

Please note, this program may be adjusted depending on how many players sign up for the tournament.

(Showcase of the current state of the game)

Dev Blog 26 :: June 1st, 2018

Hi and welcome to the 26th development blog post for Unleash!

The TD Scenario Editor has now reached the technical implementation phase, but there is still a ways to go. Work on the 3v3 game mode has gradually started, but it’s still very early days for that. New concept art has arrived by Monster-Mail from the art team, rethinking the spawn portal area and the life gate. The Skyhook no longer has a hook, after a visual level-up. Finally, we are gearing up for the first Unleash competitive event!

TD Scenario Editor: Mission Report June 1, 2018

The TD Scenario Editor is underway, as also mentioned in the previous development blog post. It is now in the process of actually being implemented in code, based on the previously shown concept art. While there is still much more work to be done, we’re aiming for a version 1 release before the Steam Summer Sale begins.

(The current work in progress state of the TD Scenario Editor)

As explained before, the TD Scenario Editor will enable players to design and share their own TD scenarios - thus virtually enabling the community to get involved with the first steps for Unleash in a ‘modding’ direction. We’re hoping that our community will provide us with plenty of feedback when they get their hands on the editor, and that a myriad of wonderful, quirky, fun and challenging scenarios will arise on Steam Workshop.

3v3 Game Mode: The Work has Begun

Currently, Unleash features two game modes supporting multiplayer: Tower Defense and Line Tower Wars. We have now begun working on a third, inspired by the classic “Wintermaul Wars” in Warcraft 3 (WC3). The new 3v3, 2v2 or 1v1 game mode will be the first game mode in Unleash to include teamplay (co-op). Two teams can fight each other, it can also be used for one versus one, or one player can fight a team of two or three. The map that this will take place on will also be different, somewhat resembling the classic one from the WC3 days.

We are very far from done with it, and even after the implementation itself has reached a certain state, there will most likely be a lengthy testing phase. Currently, we are estimating that the first release with the 3v3 game mode may happen within two months from now - but don’t spawn monsters at us if it ends up taking longer! We are committed to delivering a stable game mode that is fully playable, rather than a half-broken one that hasn’t been tested sufficiently.

We are super excited for this new phase in the competitive play options within Unleash, and we can’t wait to see how our players will come up with new ways to play Unleash on this new map and in this new game mode. Stay tuned for more news on this in the coming weeks!

Monster Birth and Death - But Prettier!

For new players starting up with Unleash, it can be confusing what the spawn portal (at the top of the lane) and the life gate (at the bottom) mean. We have heard a few times from first-time players that they do not know what direction monsters will move in, before they actually spawn and move. While the tutorials do show and explain this, many players seem to opt for going straight into a real game - skipping the tutorial completely.

(The new spawn portal area concept art features more or less the same portal as today, but with new visuals around it making it more clear that this is where monsters will appear)

Therefore, the art team have been working hard on making it more intuitively clear where monsters will appear and move to. This has resulted in new concept art for the spawn area and the life gate. The concept art displays several ideas, staying in theme with the overall graphical style, while deepening the level of detail.

(The new life gate concept art shows a humanoid - maybe a ‘Dreamer’ - in an energy bubble, and the gate itself looks more alive - with tentacles tying it together)

Skyhook - Rehooked

The Skyhook tower is no more - R.I.P. All hail the new… Yeah, we don’t actually have a new name for it yet. The art team has completely reworked the look of the (previously named) Skyhook Tower. Instead of shooting a hook or harpoon, which felt a bit too analogue and old-school, it is now much more sci-fi - shooting an “energy bola” at flying monsters, temporarily tying them down.

(The (previously named) Skyhook Tower has seen a considerable upgrade of its visual representation)

While its functionality is more or less the same as previously, this completely new look feels more in-theme with the rest of the game and the other towers. Additionally, its cooldown can be seen visually on the tower through a “charging up” particle system on its top plate.

First Competitive Event: For Glory and Fame!

We have long thought of Unleash as a competitive Tower Wars game - with the potential to become an esports game in the future. Thus, we want to start a tradition and culture surrounding tournaments, competitions and other competitive events. To that end, we have been discussing how the first tournament could run.

Since we are a small indie team, our resources are very limited - this means that if we wait for an actual technical implementation to support a ‘real’ tournament, it may take a while, since we are tied down to other tasks (such as the above mentioned). Instead of postponing the possibility to run a tournament, we want to start up softly with low-tech simple tournaments.

To this end, we are running a poll on our Discord server and on our Subreddit. You can let us know what type of tournament you think we should run and you can share any relevant feedback on the topic with us there!

Closing Remarks

The two major topics for the coming weeks are the TD Scenario Editor and the 3v3 Game mode. However, the art team is also busy (and not just feeding our Monsters), so new concept art has been made for the spawn portal area and the life gate and the no-longer-so-called Skyhook Tower has seen a considerable rework of its visuals. Furthermore, the first competitive event in Unleash is currently the topic of a poll on Discord and Reddit.

Get in contact with us through Discord, Reddit, or any of our other social media channels. You can find all of them through our website. Also, you can watch our gameplay sessions over at Twitch.

And remember… Monsters never come alone.

(Showcase of the current state of the game)

Dev Blog 25 :: May 18th, 2018

Unleash has been released for 10 days - at the point of writing this. Thus, we are still in the very early days, and every day is exciting and brings its own new challenges and joys. The Unleash community is growing every single day, new players are always arriving and we are receiving tons of incredible feedback from our players. You are all awesome!

In order to communicate to our players where we think Unleash should be heading, we have released a proposed roadmap with the major topic points for the next months of development of Unleash. One of the next points on the roadmap is the TD Scenario Editor, which we have begun working on. Another point is localization, which our awesome community is helping us with. We are very grateful for that! Based on feedback from the community, we are introducing some different rules regarding the ‘Unleash’ button for the TD game mode, and we have improved some aspects of the TD UI. Additionally, the game should now run for players experiencing a high ping. Finally, to avoid fragmenting the player base when we release a new game update, the game will now prompt the player to update when relevant.

The Road(Map) Ahead

In the name of open communication with our community we have released a proposed roadmap for the major development points of Unleash moving forward. The roadmap does not cover every small detail, but it mentions the larger topics that we are planning to look into as things stand right now.

(The first public proposed roadmap for the development of Unleash)

The purpose of sharing this roadmap publically is to start a discussion about which features you - the community - want to see in Unleash. We are developing this game for and with our community. By sharing the roadmap, anyone can see what we have currently planned and bring us their feedback on which points they agree with or disagree with, which may ultimately shape the next version of the roadmap.

So bring your feedback to the Steam community forums, Discord and our Subreddit and let’s have a discussion about where Unleash is heading!

TD Scenario Editor … Coming soon(ish)

As has been mentioned multiple times across our Internet presences - as well as in the abovementioned proposed roadmap - we have a ‘TD Scenario Editor’ planned for Unleash. The purpose of the editor is to enable players to create their own Tower Defense scenarios, which may then be shared globally through Steam Workshop. By releasing this in-game tool for TD Scenario creation, we are hoping that the creative minds of our players will come up with new fantastic, challenging, clever TD scenarios which in turn may add to the replayability of Unleash.

(A work in progress screenshot for the UI design of the upcoming ‘TD Scenario Editor’)

We have scoped the first version of the editor and work has begun on the UI design for it. We have not started the actual implementation yet though, so there is still time to provide us ideas and feedback for the implementation of it. Even if we cannot include some suggestions or ideas for the first version of it, there will undoubtedly be updates to it later as well (assuming it is actually being utilized). Thus, this constitutes the first real steps towards (limited) moddability for Unleash!

TD ‘Unleash’ Democratized

In the Tower Defense game mode, there is an option for players to ‘Unleash’ the next wave - in multiplayer, this meant that anyone could ask for the next wave to be unleashed - against everyone! While we think this is fun and potentially very challenging for experienced players, we realize now that it can completely overwhelm new players. Therefore, we have decided to introduce a few different ‘Unleash modes’ for a more democratic approach. Internally, we call these ‘Expedite Rules’.

(The three different ‘TD Expedite Rules’ - different rules for what happens when ‘Unleash’ is pressed in the Tower Defense game mode)

We have identified three different expedite rules, which the game creator can choose between. The new default is ‘Unanimous Vote’ - meaning that all players still alive must click ‘Unleash’ before the wave is actually spawned. This should make it easier for new players to get started, even in multiplayer TD, as they are not overwhelmed through quick unleashing, unless they participate in it themselves. The second mode ‘Majority Vote’ just means that if the majority of players have chosen to Unleash, the wave spawns. The final mode ‘Wild West’ is basically what has been the only option up until now - Any player clicking ‘Unleash’ will spawn the wave. Obviously, these modes only have an impact on multiplayer TD.

The TD wave display UI has also been updated to what we hope will be more intuitive and clear to players. Instead of only showing a counter in seconds, a progressbar is shown to fill up before a wave spawns after pressing ‘Unleash’. Additionally, the UI boxes move smoothly downwards - making it more aesthetically pleasing and hopefully also making it more noticeable than before.

(The UI rework features smoothly animated UI elements and a nifty progressbar)

A final note in regards to the TD game mode is that we are now enforcing a monster cap per lane. The Line Tower Wars game mode has always had a monster cap at 200 monsters per lane, but this was not actually enforced in the TD game mode, which resulted in some unexpected errors occurring - and even if they were handled, it could potentially crash the players’ PC due to too many monsters moving and animating at the same time.

No English? No problem

As can also be seen from the abovementioned proposed roadmap, we had a plan to provide Unleash in localized (translated) versions, at least for the major languages in the world. Thanks to our wonderful community, a number of our players have stepped up to the task of translating the Steam Store page and the game itself into a number of languages.

This means that the work has begun on translating to: German, Russian, French, Spanish, Polish, Turkish, Dutch, Czech and Indonesian! We are still looking for more players to help us with translating into more languages, or assisting on some of the above languages. We are currently especially interested in Asian languages, such as Chinese (Simplified), Hindu, Japanese and Korean, as these are languages that have not seen any translation yet.

The only restriction is that currently the game can only support left-to-right written languages, so e.g. Arabic and Traditional Chinese would be problematic for us technically.

(The language can be selected in the options menu. Currently, we have English, Turkish and the hardcore-mode “Groot” languages available - no copyright infringement intended!)

The first fully translated language, Turkish, is already available in-game. Thanks to ‘Umut’ for providing it! Players can choose their preferred language in the options, and the game should automatically attempt to follow the system language when set, unless another language has explicitly been set in the options.

Slow Internet is Okay… Probably

We have received feedback from some of our players that playing with a high ping (above 200-250ms approximately) would make it more or less impossible to play the game. We have listened, and then discussed how to support higher pings.

First, the reason for why a high ping can effectively prevent playing is due to the network architecture that Unleash is based on. The game runs deterministically on each client’s machine with the lock-step model, which requires all players to be at the same relative point in time in-game. Thus, if one player is too slow to keep up, the player’s input is unfortunately dropped. This results in “rollbacks” being executed - so placed towers never turn from the green silhouette outline to the actual, real structure that other players can see. Obviously, this is only an issue for multiplayer.

The solution we have now introduced is a so-called ‘Dynamic Sync-Window’. At the start of each multiplayer game, the player with the worst ping dictates how far behind the simulation is, which should provide the lowest-ping player with the possibility to keep up. Thus, we are expecting that it should be possible with pings up to 500ms now.

We will soon start experimenting with a slightly different solution technically, although the same conceptually, so it may be that we can improve upon this solution in the near-future.

Game Updates Up-To-Date

Whenever we send out a game update to Unleash, the players already in-game were not notified in-game that there was a new game version ready. Since we don’t allow players to play with each other in multiplayer cross different versions of the game, this could result in fragmenting the player base across two or potentially more versions of the game (e.g. in cases where we need to do a quick hotfix after an update, there could be three versions of the game played simultaneously).

(A version check prompts the player to update the game when a new version of the game is released)

Since Steam does not automatically handle this scenario in any way that we could find, we have chosen to implement our own relatively simple version check in-game so that players receive an in-game notification for the new game version, prompting them to restart and update. This happens when entering the game, not while playing a match, to minimize the intrusion to players.

Closing Remarks

Over the past two weeks we have released a proposed roadmap, which includes the major planned features for development, including the TD Scenario editor and localizations of the game. Several improvements have been implemented for the TD game mode, especially in multiplayer. The game should be better at supporting high ping due to slow internet, and finally the game will automatically check for a new version and prompt the player to update when relevant.

Get in contact with us through Discord, or any of our other social media channels. You can find all of them through our website. Also, you can watch our internal gameplay sessions over at Twitch.

And remember… Monsters never come alone.

(Showcase of the current state of the game)

Dev Blog 24 :: May 7th, 2018

Hi and welcome to the 24th development blog post for Unleash!

Unleash is coming out in Early Access tomorrow, on the 8th of May 2018. After almost two years of development, we are ready! A few smaller tasks still remain, but we have spent this weekend and today (Monday) on wrapping up as much as we can. This includes fixing a few things with the new global chat, testing the new Tower Defense end screen with ‘play next’ functionality, refining the ‘no armor’ balancing model, simplifying the ‘play now’ flow by removing the ‘create’ step, and animating the main menu buttons - additionally a horde of bugs were slain and smaller improvements were introduced. Furthermore, this dev blog reflects upon the ‘Marathon Day’ held on the 4th of May.

Unleash the Release

Tomorrow, on the 8th of May at 19.00 CEST / 10.00 AM PDT, Unleash will be released on Steam Early Access. It has been a super exciting journey, and we are very pleased with what Unleash has become, especially considering that it is our first game production together as a team.

We have had other release dates, both public and private, but something has always come in the way. We were missing the right trailer. We had desynchronization issues with the game. We changed our Art Director, which prompted a major overhaul of almost all graphics. This time we are finally confident that the game will be released as planned!

Immediately following the early access release, we are planning to have at least one or two Unleash devs available as often as possible (during our CEST timezone daytime mostly) for gaming, chatting and providing help to any new players who may arrive with questions or have feedback.

Global Chat

A ‘global’ chat has been added to the main menu start page. The global chat is accessed by anyone starting Unleash (unless in offline mode), and thus facilitates communicating with other players currently running Unleash, but not in a room or match currently. Additionally, the global chat can show the current count of players and rooms.

(The global chat facilitates communicating with other players in Unleash)

We are planning a range of improvements for the global chat, soon after the release. We want the global chat to be accessible from elsewhere than just the intro page, and it should offer more functionality. Stay tuned for more! And do not hesitate to bring on the ideas and suggestions to how we can improve.

Keep Playing Tower Defense

The Tower Defense game mode in Unleash has been improved with new overview and end-game screens. The new overview screen was done mainly to stay consistent with the end game screen. The end game screen has seen an overhaul making it possible to play the next TD scenario directly, as opposed to having to go back to the menu first - as previously. The next TD scenario to play can be chosen freely from the end-game screen directly.

(The new TD end screen enables players to continue on to the next TD scenario directly, without having to go back to the menus first)

No More Armor… For real

As mentioned previously in Dev Blog 22 (6th of April), we have been experimenting and testing with a ‘no armor’ balancing model. Previously, monsters would have an armor value of 0 / 2 / 4 / 8 for levels 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. This ensured that level 1 towers could not damage level 4 monsters, except for a few cases (e.g. Mortar and Flak 88). This new balancing model ends that tradition, in order to simplify what happens in-game when monsters receive damage.

Previously, players would sometimes see their towers not being able to damage the monsters, due to armor. With this reworked balancing model, towers will always deal some damage (barring high resistances), but monsters gain a lot more health points as they increase in level.

As the ‘no armor’ balancing model has matured over the past weeks, we feel that it is ready for the Early Access release. It will be simpler and easier to understand for players, hopefully making it more straightforward for new players to get started with Unleash.

Play Now Faster

As anyone who have opened up Unleash will have seen, we have a ‘Play Now’ button in the main menu that is meant to simplify the process of matching with someone and playing. Previously, it would send players either to a game room (if one was available) or to the ‘Create’ menu. This resulted in confusion for some, especially new players, as the Create menu has settings and options open for tweaking the match. Now, ‘Play Now’ will immediately send players to a game room, regardless of whether they create one themselves or join an existing, open one.

(Play now will send players directly into a game room now, making it faster and simpler)

Prettier Buttons

The buttons in the intro page of the main menu are now animated. Although the effect is quite subtle, the animation makes the buttons feel more alive and vibrant. Currently, only the intro page of the main menu has animated buttons, but the plan is to roll them out everywhere in Unleash if both the players and we are happy with how it looks and feels.

(The intro page of the main menu now has subtly animated buttons)

Reflections on Marathon Day

On Friday the 4th of May, as one of the last acts in the beta phase of Unleash, we held a so-called ‘Marathon day’. During this day, almost all Unleash developers were available at some point during the day for matches and chatting. We had countless games played during the day and a heap of feedback being reported back to us. It was fun and enriching to meet our community in online battle and we want to thank all participants wholeheartedly for playing, chatting, watching our streams and reporting feedback!

Closing Remarks

Unleash is being released on the 8th of May, 2018 in Steam Early Access! Thus, the past two weeks have been all about wrapping up, including the implementation of a global chat, improving the Tower Defense game flow, polishing the ‘no armor’ balancing model, making it easier to ‘Play Now’ and animating main menu buttons - among a slew of bug fixes and other smaller improvements. Also, we want to thank all participants of our ‘Marathon Day’ for helping to test Unleash and provide feedback!

Get in contact with us through Discord, or any of our other social media channels. You can find all of them through our website. Also, you can watch our internal gameplay sessions over at Twitch.

And remember… Monsters never come alone.

(Showcase of the current state of the game)

Dev Blog 23 :: April 20, 2018

Hi and welcome to the 23rd development blog post for Unleash!

The past two weeks have been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for the Unleash development team. At the beginning of last week, we were optimistic and excited looking forward to the release. Then, the discovery of a desynchronization issue gave us a bunch of extra gray hairs and resulted in several extraordinarily long days hunting down that hard-to-squash bug. By Friday last week we realized that we had no choice but to postpone the release of Unleash. The upside of that was an extra chance to build up more of a beta community, as well as finishing our list of ‘polishing’ tasks, including visual improvements and bug fixes.

Multiplayer Desynchronization

Exactly one week before our intended Early Access release date (17th of April), we discovered a critical desynchronization issue. It broke all our hearts. Unleash is based on a deterministic network architecture. This means that all computers running the game in a multiplayer setting must always come up with the exact same calculations - not a single decimal may be off. Errors accumulate fast and thus result in players seeing things on their screens differently, essentially breaking the multiplayer experience completely. Throughout the process of developing Unleash we have learned that maintaining determinism between players’ machines is hard. An otherwise simple bug can suddenly become crucial.

That is why we couldn’t in good conscience release Unleash when we were aware of a desynchronization bug, which is why our collective hearts broke as we discovered the bug merely one week prior to release. The rest of the week we fought fiercely against the many-headed demon-monster that is desynchronization. Our lead programmer was out with illness the first couple of days, and we have so many other tasks that needed completing before release. As we reached Friday we took a long hard look at each other and agreed that it did not make sense to release the game under these circumstances. Even if it shattered our hearts and brought tears to our sleep-deprived eyes.

This week we managed to find and fix two separate issues, which could each lead to desynchronization. Since then we haven’t seen any desynchronization in our game tests and we are thus confident enough that there are no more bugs that may lead to desynchronization.

Discord Community

One of the positives from postponing the release of Unleash is that it gave us one more chance to try to drum up attention and hype for the game. As a part of this process we are giving out 1,000 Steam keys which are valid immediately, and will roll-over to the Early Access and beyond. Anyone can write us an email (to hi@unleashgame.com) with a short motivation for why they should be given one of these keys and become a beta tester for Unleash. The best motivations are rewarded with a key. The key is redeemed through our official Discord bot, which requires aspiring beta testers to join our Discord server.

As a result, it feels like the Unleash community is growing - players are chiming in with feedback and helping each other getting started. We love and appreciate all our beta testers and we are so thankful for their willingness to help us achieve the best possible Unleash game. If you would like to join our growing community and help with the development of Unleash, don’t hesitate to send us an email.

Eventually, we are hoping that our community will move most of the longer discussions to our subreddit, which we feel is a more appropriate place for longer discussions. We appreciate any and all feedback and welcome anyone to the Unleash community!

New Spawn Portals

For our latest Early Access trailer we included a new spawn portal, visually inspired by black holes. It took us a few weeks, but the spawn portals have now been optimized sufficiently to be included in-game. This work also included making new spawn particle systems for monsters spawning and ensuring that spawn portals can be color tinted by player colors. The new spawn portals will start their animation shortly before the ‘grace period’ runs out, which marks the time where players may begin spawning monsters.

(The new spawn portals are visually inspired by mystical black holes)

Wardworm VFX

Wardworms have recently new aura visual effects inspired by the Fatquack’s effects. While the Fatquack heals other monsters, shown with green colors, the Wardworm shields other monsters - we decided on a blue color for that. The depiction of shield in the UI is also blue, so the color is consistent and hopefully intuitive. The size of the effect matches the actual effect’s radius.

(The Wardworms have received a new shield aura VFX in blue colors)

Closing Remarks

Even though we were absolutely devastated that we had to postpone the release of Unleash, it may in the end turn out to be a good thing for the game. Releasing a game with a desynchronization issue would obviously have been a problem, and the extra time has enabled us to build up a bit more community, especially on Discord. Additionally, we now have time to implement small visual improvements and fix more bugs.

Get in contact with us through Discord, or any of our other social media channels. You can find all of them through our website. Also, you can watch our internal gameplay sessions over at Twitch.

And remember… Monsters never come alone.

Unleash is almost here...

We have to postpone the release of Unleash on Steam Early Access as we have encountered situations where the networking code would break the multiplayer game. It sucks - but as we are committed to give you the absolute best experience, we'd rather postpone the release than ship an inferior game.

However, until the Early Access release is ready, we are giving away 1,000 pre-release Steam keys for Unleash to beta testers. The pre-release version is available on Steam, but there is a desynchronization issue currently that may occur in online games with more than one human player.

To claim your key, send us an email on hi@unleashgame.com, with a one- or two-line motivation for why you are the crack-best beta-tester. If the motivation rocks we will send you back a pre-release key as soon as possible.

We will roll over the beta keys to Early Access, so Unleash will be yours forever.

(Showcase of the current state of the game)

Dev Blog 22 :: April 6, 2018

Hi and welcome to the 22nd development blog post for Unleash!

Over the course of the past two weeks, we took a few days’ vacation in conjunction with the Easter holidays here in Denmark. However, there has still been plenty of developments on the game. Of the larger topics, we have been testing a new balancing model without any armor, we have been working on trading card assets, implemented real offline gameplay as a possibility and added new visual effects for selling structures in Unleash.

No More Armor… Maybe?

We are currently testing yet another new balancing model for structures and monsters. Up until now, all structures and monsters have had: Shield, armor, resistance/vulnerability and health. When an entity received damage, first its shield would absorb as much damage as possible. Afterwards, the armor would soak a flat amount of damage. Armor penetration would effectively reduce the armor of the damage receiver. Afterwards, damage is multiplied by a resistance/vulnerability factor - either increasing or decreasing the damage. Finally, the damage was subtracted from the entity’s health.

Currently, we are testing a new balancing model which does not include armor and therefore no armor penetration either. This makes for a simpler damage and balancing model. Shield will still absorb whatever damage it can, afterwards resistance/vulnerability multiplies the damage and then health is decreased by the resulting amount of damage. This should be simpler to understand, easier to convey in the UI and simpler to balance moving forward.

We have not decided yet whether we want to keep this new balancing model, but the first playtests have been encouraging.

Trading Cards, Badges, Emoticons and Profile Backgrounds

When Unleash is released in Early Access on April 17th, the game will include Steam trading cards. This means that we have made artwork not only for the trading cards themselves, but also for the badges, emoticons and profile backgrounds that players can get through collecting the cards.

(The badges feature the ‘Dreamer helmets’ in different progression variants)

(The emoticons feature monsters and towers from the game, as well as the ‘Dreamer helmet’ - these are just a few examples)

(The profile backgrounds feature monsters, champions and Dreamers - these are two examples overlayed)

(The trading cards feature monsters, a champion and a Dreamer - here are two examples)

Real Offline Singleplayer

While Unleash has been playable in singleplayer for a long time, we have recently made it possible to play while offline - without any Internet connection. Previously, players were required to be connected to the Internet to be able to play any Unleash, even if playing alone or versus bots. Now, it will be possible to play Tower Defense, Line Tower Wars against bots and the tutorials and sandbox modes without any Internet connection. Only actual multiplayer gaming will require players to be online. Thus, you will be able to play Unleash on airplanes, trains, remote cabins in the woods or anywhere else where Internet is poor or non-existent. You will however still need an Internet connection and a Steam account to actually download Unleash.

Sell Structure VFX

Selling structures has become more visually pleasing to look at. Previously we had a very simple ‘gold coins’ effect on the structure, and it would use the same ‘smoke cloud’ as when destroyed. Now, structures sold will be dissolved nicely together with a floating VFX above the structure. The sell icon is shown instantly, while the rest of the sell VFX happens when the sell is confirmed over the network.

(Selling structures in Unleash has never been prettier)

Closing Remarks

The past two weeks has seen several improvements to the game and the features it offers, including a possible new balancing model without any armor, which may prove to be easier to understand and simpler to balance. We have drawn, tweaked and discussed trading cards and their associated assets. Unleash can now be played under ‘real’ offline conditions - without any Internet connection at all, and last but not least, a new selling visual effect has been implemented for all structures in the game.

Get in contact with us through Discord, or any of our other social media channels. You can find all of them through our website. Also, you can watch our internal gameplay sessions over at Twitch.

And remember… Monsters never come alone.

(Showcase of the current state of the game)

Dev Blog 21 :: March 23, 2018

Hi and welcome to the 21st development blog post for Unleash!

Over the past two weeks we have carried out a number of tasks, the most noteworthy of which include a drastic rebalancing of the attacking behaviour of a number of damaging towers in the game. A lot of graphical changes and improvements have been happening and are happening in these weeks, including a completely new map design, recoil animations for some towers and new structure icons. Finally, the Top-X scoreboard achievements are no longer based on absolute numbers, but the probably more achievable Top-X percentages.

Damage Towers Balancing Model

Previously, the majority of damage towers (Quadmount AA, Machine Gun, Tesla Coil AA, Electric Tower, Flamethrower and the Frost Cannon) have seen their attack speed decrease as they upgrade, while their damage increases. Coupled with the fact that the armor of monsters doubles for each upgrade level (0 / 2 / 4 / 8), this balancing model ensured that non-upgraded towers generally did not deal damage to level 3 monsters or above. Therefore requiring the player to upgrade towers.

However, the decrease in attack speed meant that visually rapidly firing towers, such as the Machine Gun, Flamethrower and Frost Cannon, in reality ended up attacking relatively slowly (once per second) on the last upgrade level. This resulted in healthbars slowly decreasing in chunks, rather than smoothly ramping down as one would probably expect based on the visual appearance of the attacking VFX.

Therefore, these towers now deal a fixed amount of damage across levels (6 for single target, 5 for splash damage ), while increasing their attack speed (5 / 5 / 6) and armor penetration (0 / 3 / 5 or 6). This new balancing model results in almost the same damage-to-cost ratio for the affected towers, but means that damage is applied much more smoothly and the visual effects seem to match the behaviour of the tower better.

New Map Design… again

Once again we have revamped our map design drastically. While the current version is still a work in progress, it features a dramatically different look and atmosphere compared to the previous ‘arena-style’ map design. The new maps are set in an industrial setting, where each lane is a type of platform elevated high above the ground. The arena-style maps tended to steal attention from the towers and monsters - the actual action - with too many details and moving parts in the stands. This new design places all the focus on the battle, while providing a simple and somewhat ominous backdrop.

(The new industrial map design helps bring focus to what matters: the war)

Top-X Scoreboard Achievements in Percentages

Based on feedback from some of our players, as well as reflection and discussions in our team, we have decided to change the Top-X scoreboard achievements (Top-1, Top-10 and the new Top-20) to be in percentages, rather than absolute numbers. The feedback was that a “Achieve Top-1 on Scoreboard” achievement is basically unachievable for most players, and thus could be a nightmare for completionists. A Top 1 % achievement should be easier to reach, and the threshold for it will naturally increase as the player base grows.

Tower Recoil Animations

Some of our towers have barrels that were meant to recoil when firing - and now they finally do! The recoil animations help make the towers look more powerful, providing an elegant visual feedback to accompany the existing muzzle flashes. Also, moving parts on the towers help make the base feel more alive and responsive, when the hordes of monsters come running, flying, walking, hovering, jumping and digging.

(Tower recoil animations make towers look more impactful and provides visual feedback)

UI Structure Icons

We have reworked all structure icons in the HUD to make them more easily recognizable. The new icons use the structure’s damage type as their outline color, which should aid in easier recognition and a more intuitive understand of the role of different towers. The new structure icons are slightly more caricatured than the old ones, hopefully making them easier to learn and remember. We are currently working on replacing the monster icons too, although that work has only just begun today.

(New structure icons with damage type outline colors should hopefully be easier to learn and recognize)

Closing Remarks

A rebalancing of a number of central damaging towers have resulted in a more smooth application of damage. A new map design in an industrial style affords a more clean battlefield and a more ominous setting. Top-X scoreboard achievements should be more achieveable as percentage-based, rather than absolute ranks. Tower recoil animations provide feedback and make the towers seem more impactful. A new set of structure icons for the HUD hopefully aids in visual recognition and intuitive understanding of the icons.

Get in contact with us through Discord, or any of our other social media channels. You can find all of them through our website. Also, you can watch our internal gameplay sessions over at Twitch.

And remember… Monsters never come alone.