Ape Apps

This page is the one-stop guide to everything you need to know about Ape Chat. Ape Chat is a free standalone chat service from Ape Apps. It is available in your web browser, it is embedded into many Ape Apps games (such as My Colony), it is included in the Ape Apps Launcher, and is even embedded into the footer of this website. All of these applications and services are linked to the same Ape Chat server behind the scenes. The service allows for virtually unlimited free public chat rooms, private group chats, and even group voice chat. With this guide, you will learn all of the tricks and capabilities of the service. This guide will be updated as changes and improvements to the service are implemented.

Account Authentication
Ape Chat is tied to your Ape Apps Account, and if you do not have one, you will need to get one in order to log into the service. Your Ape Apps Account is the same account used for this website and for games such as My Colony. If you do not have one, you can sign up for free at https://accounts.ape-apps.com.

Channels
Ape Chat is organized by Channels. A channel is essentially it's own separate chat room. There are a few default channels already created, and you can also easily create your own. Channels fall into three categories - Public, Private, and Voice.

Global Channels
A Global chat channel is a basic channel that anybody can join. Examples include the general Ape Apps Chat, or the My Colony global chat. Anybody can create a global channel, and they are moderated by the developer ( @bastecklein ) and global moderator ( @cry8wolf9 ). With only a few exceptions (allowed by the developer only), Global channels are text only.

Private Channels
A Private channel can only be joined by invitation. Anybody may create a private channel, and when a user creates a new private channel, they are automatically assigned as a moderator for that channel. Private channel moderators may then invite other users to join the channel. Keep in mind that the developer and global moderators also have access to all private channels.

Voice Channels
A Voice channel retains all of the capabilities of a regular text channel, but also supports peer-to-peer voice communications. The voice chat runs in a decentralized mesh network, where each peer connects to each other without having to go through the server. This reduces server load, but it can also restrict the size of the voice chat, particularly on slow clients. For this reason, users are only allowed to enable voice chat on private channels that they are the moderator of.

Creating or Joining a Channel
Both creating and joining a chat channel are done in the same way, using the /join command. For instance, if you wanted to join the cows channel, you would type the following into the chat box:

/join cows

If the channel already exists, you will join the existing channel. Otherwise, the new cows channel will be automatically created. Channel names do not support spaces.

Creating a new private channel is similar. Suppose you wanted to create the new cows channel as private channel. The command would look like this:

/join %cows

The % symbol tells the server to create the channel in private mode. So the actual channel name would still just be cows, as the % sign only tells the server how to create the channel, and it is then discarded. If the channel already exists, nothing special will happen. If it doesn't, the new private channel cows will be created, and you will be the moderator.

If you want to leave a channel and remove it from your channel listing, you can do so with the /leave command.

/leave cows

Sharing a Channel
It is easy to share a link to your channel with others. Suppose, as in the example above, we created the cows channel. You can send anybody a direct link to your chat channel using the following URL scheme:
https://chat.ape-apps.com/?channel=cows

Simply change the word cows to whatever the name of your channel is. Even easier, you can create an automatic launcher for your chatroom here on the Ape Apps forum using the chat BBCode tag. So entering this...

[chat]cows[/chat]

...would create a chat application launcher button like this:

#cows


Private Channel Administration
Continuing the example above with our new theoretical cows private channel. Suppose you are the moderator of cows. Here are some options you can do to administer your new private channel.

Inviting Users
The command to invite a user to your private channel is /invite username to channelname. For example, to invite user nezkeys to the cows channel, you would enter the following:

/invite nezkeys to cows

In the above example, the cows channel will be then be added to nezkey's channel listing. If he is currently online, he will also get a notice that he has been added to the channel.

Channel Name
You can give your channel a display name, which can contain uppercase letters and spaces, using the /setname command. A display name makes it easier to identify a channel in a user's channel listing, and just looks nicer than the plain channel hashtag name. Suppose we wanted to call our cows channel Cow Chat. We would do this:

/setname cows Cow Chat

Technically the channel name is still cows, and to join, users would still need to type /join cows, but in the channel listing, it will now be refereed to as Cow Chat. You can use this function to give users a clearer understanding of what the channel is all about.

Enabling Voicechat
Converting your private channel into a voice-enabled channel can be easily done using the /envoice command. Below, we turn our Cow Chat channel into a fully featured voice-enabled room.

/envoice cows

Client Management
You can print an in-chat listing of commands that are available to you using the /help command.

/help

You can also use /? which does the same thing.

Ape Chat supports both a light and a dark theme mode, and you can use the /theme command to pick between the two.

/theme dark

/theme light

You can also set the default color of your messages using the /color command. The color command accepts hex color code values. For example, red is defined as #ff0000. For example:

/color #ff0000

The above example will make your text red. You can also clear out your color customization and return to the client theme default using /color null. In addition, you can set your message text color on a per-message basis using standard BBCode markup.

User Management
At times you may wish to send a private message to a particular user. You can accomplish this using the @ command. For example, suppose you want to send a private message to nezkeys. You would do so like this:

@nezkeys How are you?

Note that the message will only be delivered if the target user is currently online. If they are not, you are better off sending them a private message through the forum.

Ignoring and Muting
You have the ability to either ignore or mute a user. When you ignore somebody, their messages will be completely hidden from you, including their voice stream. When you mute them, only their voice stream will be disabled, so you will still be able to read their text messages. These actions are taken with the /ignore and /mute commands.

/ignore nezkeys

/mute nezkeys

Similarly, you can undo the above actions with the /unignore and /unmute commands.

/unignore nezkeys

/unmute nezkeys

Lastly, you can completely clear out your ignore and mute lists using the all parameter.

/unignore all

/unmute all

Ape Chat has just been updated to v2.3.0, and this update brings a ton of improvements, including bug fixes and exciting/long overdue new features. Let's take a look!


To get started, Ape Chat now finally supports push notifications. Prior to this update, you could get a notification if the Ape Chat window was minimized and you got a private message, but what if you didn't have Ape Chat open? Well now when you open the Ape Chat application (https://chat.ape-apps.com/) you will get a pop up notice asking if you want to enable push notifications (if you say no, you can show the popup again by finding it in the main slide-out menu). Once you activate push notifications for your client, you will get a notification whenever another user sends you a private message through Ape Chat.

This feature isn't just for private messages though. Now if you right-click on one of your channels on the left sidebar, you will see a new Subscribe option.


Subscribing to a channel will allow you to get notified when new chat messages are posted to that channel, even if Ape Chat is closed. If you grow tired of being notified, you can unsubscribe in the same manner.

The Push Notification options will only be available if your device/browser supports the Web Push API, which as of this writing is pretty much everything except for browsers on iOS (which will supposedly be coming soon).

Speaking of mobile devices though, one of the biggest issues with Ape Chat has finally been rectified with the all new mobile interface.

Running Ape Chat on mobile will now give you a bottom toolbar, finally allowing you to access the Chanels and Users listings, which were previously unavailable on mobile. This new interface upgrade now makes Ape Chat fully usable from a mobile device.

In addition, the PWA/Add to Homescreen support for Ape Chat has been greatly improved, on both Desktop and Mobile. Installing Ape Chat as a PWA on Desktop (you should see an install icon in the address bar on supported browsers) gives you a clean user interface, making Ape Chat look and feel like a native app on your device. On mobile, the installed PWA interface (on iOS, you have to do the "Add to Homescreen" feature) now detects devices that have a Notch (like most modern phones do) and updates the layout to work around the notch cutouts.

Other than the new feature additions, a whole host of bugs have been corrected in this release, including a lot of the bugs that would cause the chat server itself to crash and restart (thus filling the chat roll with "Server Disconnected, will try again soon" messages). And speaking of the "Server Disconnected" message, it no longer prints a message to your standard chat roll, but will now just give a small notice at the bottom of your screen, which will go away once the server connects again.

All in all, today's Ape Chat update is probably the most significant one in the last two years. If you use any of the Ape Chat channels, or want to be notified when new chats are posted in the My Colony or Ape Apps forum channel, consider installing the Ape Chat PWA or adding Ape Chat to your Homescreen, and enabling Push Notifications. It's a great way to keep up on what is happening in chat, and also finally makes the private messaging feature in Ape Chat useful!

Ape Chat can be used on all platforms right from the web browser at the link below. The Website/PWA is now far superior to any of the older "stand alone" Ape Chat clients released to the various app stores, and should now be considered the primary/definitive version of the service.

https://chat.ape-apps.com

#apechat

The Ape Chat server has just been updated with some new content which you can now take advantage if you are using the Ape Chat web app (https://chat.ape-apps.com/) or the client that is built into the Ape Apps Launcher. Here is an overview of the new features.

Firstly, on the left chat sidebar that has the channel listing, you will now see two new sections for your Private Channels and your Private Conversations.


This helps you keep things grouped together nicely. And speaking of Private Conversations, there are private conversations now! Previously, you could send somebody a direct message using the @username switch, but the message would only be delivered if the user was currently in chat. Now, private conversations are persisted on the server as a personal one-on-one chat room. Private conversation chats can only be accessed by the two users involved, and are also voice-enabled channels for one on one voice chat.

In addition, if you right-click on a username from your private conversations list, you will see a new Private Window option. Clicking on it will open a new mini-chat window for your one-on-one conversation, so you can have multiple one-on-ones going separate from the main chat.


Eventually, if you install Ape Chat as a PWA on your system (which, by the way, you can now do in Chrome and new MS Edge), you will also receive desktop or mobile notifications when you get a new private chat message, even if you don't have Ape Chat open. This will also work by having the Ape Apps Launcher installed.

I have expanded Ape Apps Account friends list capabilities. If you open your Friends List from either the Ape Apps Launcher or clicking on the new 'Friends' icon at the top of the base Ape Web Apps website (https://www.apewebapps.com/), you will get the updated Friends List popup window, which will allow you to accept or reject friend requests, see who is online, view friends' profile, or open the private one-on-one chat window right from the friends list:


I plan on expanding Friend List management further, and also making the friends window accessible from the individual apps and games, but for now the best way to access it is by going to https://www.apewebapps.com/ and clicking on the Friends List icon.

So that's it for this Ape Chat update. I still need to push the changes out to the Ape Chat Android application, but I plan to keep improving the Ape Chat service as time goes on, integrating it further into the Friends service and into the individual apps and games!

This application is for advanced users only.

What is it?

The Ape Web Apps Desktop Bridge adds extra functionality to apps and games hosted on apewebapps.com and those downloaded from the Windows Store, giving them additional features and capabilities normally only available in the native client versions of the apps and games. These features include things like offline file-system storage access and peer-to-peer connectivity over local area networks (think offline LAN multiplayer). These features are generally unavailable to web and store apps due to web browser security standards.

Who is it for?
The Desktop Bridge was created by @bastecklein to allow for testing native cross-platform features while doing development on the web. It was previously too archaic and technical for distribution. However, with upcoming online and offline multiplayer features for games such as My Colony, Antiquitas, Colony Wars, and Death 3d, it would be impossible for web-only users of these games to use their full feature-sets.

Do you need it?
It is important to keep in mind that using the Ape Web Apps Desktop Bridge is still somewhat technical, and in most cases it is preferable to just install a native client version of the app or game you are wanting to use. Setup requires installing a security certificate authority to your operating system or browser of choice, a step which some users may be uncomfortable with. But for some circumstances where you either cannot use a native version of the app or you just prefer the web or store version, the Ape Web Apps Desktop Bridge is available to unlock full desktop-class functionality for software hosted on apewebapps.com.

Installation
The Ape Web Apps Desktop Bridge is available for free to download from the Ape Market at this url: https://market.ape-apps.com/ape-web-apps-desktop-bridge.html . It runs on most recent 64bit editions of Windows, macOS, and Linux.

The installer is not digitally signed with any certificates, so you have to allow installation manually if you get a security warning. On Windows, it will look something like this:

On macOS, after extracting the app to your Applications folder, you will have to right-click (or command click) on the app and select 'Open' the first time you run it. There are generally no special instructions required on Linux. When installation is complete, you will be greeted with the standard console screen:

At this point everything is ready to go on the bridge-side of things. On Windows only, if you are using the standard Windows Firewall, you will be asked to allow port access to the Desktop Bridge. You must allow access, or the bridge will not work properly. Once the app window is up and running, closing or minimizing the window will simply minimize it to your system tray. To quit the application completely, you must right-click on the tray icon and select 'Quit.'

Certificate Installation
In order to actually use the Desktop Bridge, you must install a security certificate onto your PC. Why? Ape Web Apps is hosted on a secure (https) domain, and as such can only interact with resources which contain a valid security certificate. A similar restriction applies to Windows Store apps. With the Ape Web Apps Desktop Bridge, you are essentially hosting a secure server on your own desktop that acts as a middle man between the game and your PC. Most home users don't have to install certificates on their own machines, although it is a lot more common in corporate network environments. The bridge will not work properly without the certificate, so if you are not comfortable with this step, then you might as well not continue.

Certificate installation will be different depending on your operating system and environment, but below are some common installation scenarios. You can probably get enough information here to make it work on any platform.

The first thing you have to do on all platforms though, is download the certificate authority used to validate the Desktop Bridge application:


The next step will depend on your environment.

Windows
To install the certificate on Windows, you will need to open the Control Panel and go to the Internet Options application. In the window that comes up, select the Certificates button in the Content tab.

Next, go to the Trusted Root Certificate Authorities tab and select Import.

On the next screen, you will need to browse to the file you downloaded. You will have to change the file type filter to 'All Files', as the file extension is different (.pem) than the one that is automatically selected. After you selected the downloaded certificate, press the 'Next' button. On the next screen, make sure your options match what is below and hit next.

Certificate installation should now be complete on Windows.

macOS
Installation on a Mac is quite a bit less involved. You generally just have to double click on the certificate file you downloaded. It should open up the Keychain Access application and ask which keychain you want to install the certificate to. You will use the login keychain.

Then in the Keychain Access window, select login on the left side, find the new localhost key, and double click on it. In the window that opens, expand the Trust section and change the setting to 'Always Trust.'

Certificate installation should now be complete on macOS.


Linux
On Linux, installation will differ based on distro. On some distros, you may be able to just double click on the downloaded certificate and import it to your keychain and be done with it. Whether or not the web browser will accept the certificate is another matter. For Chrome on Ubuntu, I had to actually install the certificate into Chrome itself, which was a simple matter. On Chrome, navigate to the chrome://settings/ page. From there, scroll to the very bottom and expand the Advanced section. Scroll down further to the Privacy and Security section and click on Manage certificates. From there, go to the Authorities section and click on Import.

On the popup window, check the following boxes and say OK.

That should be all you need to do on Chrome. The setup for Firefox is very similar.

Filesystem
When the Desktop Bridge is running, applications on Ape Web Apps (not Windows Store apps) will save all files and game data into the Documents folder for your desktop user. Files are also stored internally into the browser just in case, and may also be synced to the Ape Apps Cloud depending on the application.

Questions/Comments/Suggestions
Use this thread for all discussion related to the bridge. If it gets enough activity I can make a dedicated forum section for it, but right now for the benefit of all, keep all discussion in the same place.

Final Note
Remember that the Ape Web Apps Desktop Bridge minimizes and closes to the system tray. You should consider closing it when it is not in use, both to free up system resources and for security. You should get a system notification whenever a client connects to the bridge, although the notifications may not work properly on all systems.


Update History

• v3.6.0 - 20180129: First public release

This post is about My Colony downloaded from the Windows Store. It does not impact the desktop Native Client downloaded from the Ape Market.

This spring when Microsoft releases the "Redstone 4" update to Windows 10, My Colony will switch from being a completely packaged 'Universal Windows' app to a 'Hosted Web App,' or Progressive Web App. Most end users should notice very little difference, other than the slide-out menu and popup dialogs looking a bit different than before.

This change reduces the Windows 10 app package from over 200mb to about 1.5mb. It also speeds up development time, as repackaging the app for Windows 10 will no longer have to be done for every release, and end users will receive the latest updates without even having to download an app update.

Most users of the Windows 10 app probably do not even realize that the app had been a Hosted Web App from its first release all the way up to v0.40.0 which was released just a few months ago (in August). For those who do not know, a Hosted Web App is essentially just a web browser window linked to the Web version of My Colony. What makes it different than just using the web browser is that Hosted Web Apps also have access to native Windows API's, such as the ability to save games to the local file-system, making them a bit more capable than just playing the game through a normal browser. The Hosted Web App container also theoretically has less overhead than a full web browser.

The reason I switched away from using the Hosted Web App model last fall was because I wanted the Windows client to be more stable than the Web client during updates. As many players on the Web know, things can get messed up during the few days that an update is taking place. In addition, the Hosted Web App would not always work properly when the user did not have a good internet connection.

So why switch back? The next major release of Windows (Redstone 4) brings support for Service Workers, one of the key components of Progressive Web Apps. Service Workers, among other things, allow a website to cache data in a way that makes them 100% usable whether there is an internet connection or not, just like an app downloaded from the store. Chrome already supports Service Workers which are active on the Web version of My Colony (which is why Web users need to do a 'Hard Reload' any time changes are made during development cycles). Also, I have recently made changes to Ape Web Apps which will allow me to keep the Hosted Windows version of the app back on the current stable version until the in-development update is ready for release.

Finally, a major factor in the decision comes down to the future of the "Universal Windows Platform" (UWP) itself. Truthfully, not too many people download My Colony from the Windows Store. Many organizations have been ditching their Windows Store apps recently, and it is easy to see why. Now that Microsoft has totally abandoned the Windows Phone, the UWP platform really doesn't make much sense any longer, particularly considering how gimped the UWP API is compared to traditional Windows Desktop applications. The difference in capabilities between a UWP app and a Web App are minor, and a game like My Colony really does not benefit much from being packaged as a full UWP app anyway. Given this and just the time and effort it takes to package, compile, and submit a new UWP release of My Colony every week, it just makes more sense to convert this game back to a Hosted Web App like it was before.

I actually think that Progressive Web Apps are going to be the future for a lot of things anyway. I am also looking into turning the iPhone version of My Colony into a Hosted Web App at some point, as the game's usage on iPhone is also fairly low. Android will probably not be switched over though, since it accounts for about 90% of My Colony players and I don't want to nuke the server. The Native Client desktop versions will also not be converted at any time. I feel like those are the versions that will still be around in 20 years when all of the app stores and mobile platforms are history.

Now maybe someday when My Colony is a mature game and I am not making such frequent updates, I will convert it back to a full packaged UWP app. But right now when I am updating the game every week, it just takes a lot of time to be constantly updating the game on every platform.

I have just released a new feature update to the Ape Apps Launcher which should now be available for download. This release brings in a few new features which will be further fleshed out in the months ahead. Let's take a look.

The first thing you will notice is that the positioning and lineup of the icons at the top-right of the window have changed a bit. The current layout looks like this:

From left to right, the first button brings you back to the normal "all apps" view that the launcher normally starts out in. The next button brings you to the settings screen. The third button opens up the new integrated Ape Chat window, the fourth button brings you to the new revamped inbox. To the right of that you will see the achievements you have unlocked on your Ape Apps account. To the right of that, you will see your default Token (from the My Tokens app, if you have set one), and finally your signed-in username.

As alluded to before, the Ape Chat service is now built right in to the launcher, and opens in it's own window. Opening chat this way will let you connect to all the channels you have participated in, including your commonwealth channels for My Colony. If the chat window is open but minimized, you will receive system notifications when you get new private messages or when a new message is posted in one of your connected chat channels. This is a handy way to know when somebody in your My Colony commonwealth is asking for something in chat, without even having the game loaded. A lot more features are going to be coming to Ape Chat in the coming months, so stay tuned for more on that!

The next new feature is the revamped mail icon. Before, I just showed you a little popup with all of the Conversations that you were a part of on the Ape Apps website (this website). Now it no longer shows Conversations, but the newer Inbox messages. It also shows private messages you have got in games that use the messaging feature, such as My Colony. The messages are also opened right from within the app now. Right now you can only read the messages, but I plan on adding full mailbox controls, including replies, deleting, composing, and implementing the "Sent Messages" folder.

The next new feature pertains only to Windows and Linux users. Now when you click on the window X button to close the launcher, it will minimize to the system tray instead of quitting completely.

You can still quit the launcher completely by simply right-clicking on the tray icon and selecting Exit. This is for people who keep the app open at all times for the auto-updating features, but don't like to have the launcher icon open in there taskbar the whole time.

On top of these changes, this update rolls up a whole host of bugs that had been identified since the last release and adds a new option to the Settings screen to turn off chat notifications.

Over the next several months, more improvements will be coming to the launcher. The inbox and mail management will be fully implemented. Clicking on the achievements will bring up a list of all of the games you have played, their high scores, and other information. I might have a way to close the chat window to the system tray as well. Also, right now when you click on your username you just get a sign out option. This will be changing to open up a new account management page similar to the options you get at accounts.ape-apps.com, so you can manager your entire Ape Apps account right from within the launcher instead of having to go to a separate website.

Finally, there is another change coming not just to the launcher, but to my apps on all platforms. With the coming full release of Colony Wars and other multiplayer games I am currently working on such as Epic Adventure and Death 3D (as well as Multiplayer Regions in My Colony), I think it is time to get Friends Lists added to the Ape Apps Account system so that you can easily see when other people are playing the games that you have. This will be coming to Ape Apps across the board, but will be fully baked into the launcher as well.

So anyway, that is it for today's Ape Apps Launcher update. I really hadn't made a ton of changes to it lately beyond simple bug fixes, so I thought I would post an update today on what is new, and what is coming down the pipe. Enjoy, and if you don't have the launcher yet, get it from the Ape Market here:

https://market.ape-apps.com/ape-apps-launcher.html

This is the new support forum section dedicated to the Ape Apps Launcher, a new desktop application for managing and launching all Ape Apps desktop applications.

The Ape Apps Launcher is available for free on the Ape Market for Windows (7/8/10 32 or 64 bit), macOS, and Linux. You can find the download page here:
https://market.ape-apps.com/ape-apps-launcher.html

What is the Ape Apps Launcher?

The Ape Apps Launcher serves several purposes. First, it makes it easier to download and install all Ape Apps desktop applications. Everything is contained and can be launched from a single application, and there is only one main program to download from the Ape Market website. After the initial download, everything is automatically managed and updated from the Launcher, so basically once you download the Ape Apps Launcher, it should be the last manual download from the Ape Market that you need to make.

The Ape Apps Launcher also keeps all Ape Apps desktop programs up to date on the latest "core" code base. More popular stand-alone desktop applications like My Colony and Antiquitas are usually manually updated fairly often, but this is often not the case for the less popular programs. Using the Ape Apps Launcher shares the core code base between all apps, keeping everything automatically up to date.

Since resources are shared between apps, individual game download sizes are greatly reduced. As an example, My Colony downloaded from the Ape Market by itself clocks in at about 180mb. Through the Ape Launcher, the download is only 10mb. That is a massive reduction, and makes updating faster for the user and less bandwidth intensive for the Ape Apps server.

Finally, from my perspective, the Ape Apps Launcher is infinitely easier to maintain and support. Packaging and distributing desktop applications for all of my apps and games is a time intensive process. Because of this, I often don't keep the Desktop versions of my games up to date with the Web and Mobile versions, especially on titles with lower usage. The Ape Apps Launcher solves this by automatically packaging and installing each app based on the latest stable Web code (not in-development code). Your desktop apps will always be up to date, even if an individual package has not been distributed on the Ape Market.

The Ape Apps Launcher is still new, and more features will be added along the way. Please use this new forum section for questions and feedback, and to give suggestions on how the launcher can be expanded and improved. Ideally, I would like the launcher to replace all of the stand-alone Desktop applications, as they really do take quite a bit of time to prepare, package, and distribute. Time which can be better served working on the actual games themselves! But that will all depend on user feedback and adoption. I'm not going to force people to use something they do not like, so give it a try and let me know how I can make it better and what direction the development should take!

My Colony v1.10.0 has started going out recently and is hitting various platforms at different times and in different iterations. This is a bit of a different update, as there is nothing new to My Colony itself.

Over the last few weeks, I have been busy doing a total rewrite of Web App Core, the cross-platform app wrapper that hosts most of my apps and games, including My Colony. This rewrite cleans out years of outdated/unused code, is more efficient, and should bring more consistency between all of the various platforms. The problem though, is that this project is massive and is taking me longer than I anticipated.

Since the rewrite is quite massive and touches every single function available to Web App Core, I went ahead and published it on my two biggest cross-platform applications, My Colony and PDF Document Scanner, so I could collect crash reports and see what is and isn't working. I know that this isn't something a "professional" company would necessarily do, but I did (mostly) test everything beforehand 🤐

Anyway, you may see several iterations and releases of the 1.10.x branch on each platform over the coming weeks as I work everything out, so you can report all issues you find in this thread.

While I am talking about Web App Core, I might as well give an overview of what I am changing on that product, since it is a large part of My Colony as well. My Colony is currently running on v3.7.6, and after I have all of the bugs worked out on all platforms, Web App Core will be bumping up to v4.0.0 and getting a ton of cool new features that will help My Colony and other products as well.

If you are not aware, Web App Core is basically an abstraction wrapper I wrote starting in 2013 or so that allows my apps and games to use device-specific native functions while sharing the same code base. It's basically what allows me to release updates to all platforms in a fairly short amount of time. It's not a third party library or anything, so I have total control over it's features and capabilities.

One of the new features coming to Web App Core v4 is the ability to fully customize the theme/look of the wrapper. For example, on all of my current apps, the default left-hand slide-out menu looks the same for every app on a specific platform. So all of my Android apps have the exact same looking slide-out menu, same looking title screen, same looking dialog popups, etc. They are all very generic and the same across the board. A productivity app like PDF Document Scanner uses the exact same looking menus and dialogs as a game like My Colony. With Web App Core v4, My Colony (and other games) will be able to have their own customized UI and look more "game" like.

Web App Core v4 will also bring full local filesystem access to My Colony on the Web. This means that on the My Colony web app, you will be able to choose a local folder on your PC or Android device that you want My Colony to use, and all game data will be saved there, instead of on the cloud or in the browser's internal database. Since saves will no longer be limited to using the database, game compression should be unnecessary, and this change should virtually eliminate file save corruption on the web edition of the game. This will also make backing up your data trivial, as you can just copy/paste your save files any time you want.

Web App Core v4 will also start making way for upcoming web technologies that are not yet available in stable channel browsers, but will be coming in the months ahead. For example, installed Progressive Web Apps (PWA's) will soon be gaining the ability to become the default application for certain file types. For example, if you had the My Colony PWA installed on your device, you will eventually be able to simply double click on a game file on your desktop, and it would automatically launch the game (and your colony). Same thing with apps like Voxel Paint, simply double clicking on a .vpp file would launch the app and the voxel model.

Anyway, there are a lot more capabilities coming soon that have nothing to do with My Colony, so I wont bother polluting these release notes any further. If you've been following my work for any length of time, you may know that I really dislike the various App Stores, their draconian content rules and restrictions, their 30%+ cuts on all transactions, etc. My ultimate goal is to have the web editions of all of my products just as capable (or more) than their native counterparts. I am a big fan of Progressive Web Apps, and as time goes on I believe they are going to become more and more indistinguishable from native applications. I am going to continue to be on the bleeding edge of the PWA side of things!

So the Ape Apps Launcher has again been updated, this time to v1.6.5. This release fixes some bugs and also adds some new features.

Firstly, the previous release of Ape Apps Launcher has a bug related to auto-updating on Windows. If you are using Windows and you download the update, only to have the app restart to the same version you were on before, then you are impacted by the bug. To fix it, you can either re-download the app from the Ape Market, or you can navigate to the following directory on your PC:

C:\Users\YOUR USERNAME HERE\AppData\Roaming\Ape Apps Launcher\apps

and delete the folder named updatetmp. After that, the in-app auto-update will work again as intended, and this issue will no longer be present in future releases of the Launcher. Linux and macOS are not impacted by this bug.

This release also fixes a couple of bugs related to desktop launcher icons on Linux systems.

The launcher has been upgraded to a new base-release of the Electron framework, which I hope will help with come of the CPU issues @Ansom mentioned in a prior thread.

Finally, in-launcher Live Stream viewing has been added. There is a new video camera icon at the top of the launcher, and clicking on it will show all users who are currently live-streaming their gameplay.


As of now, game clients require a patch before they will show up in the Currently Streaming list, so no games will appear until the next cross-platform updates of the 4 games that currently support the Live Streaming feature (My Colony, Antiquitas, Gone Rogue, and Hell and Back). But the viewing functionality is now there in the launcher, and more exciting live-streaming related features will be coming across the entire Ape Apps ecosystem in the coming weeks.

Also over the coming weeks, and this will be important information for some people, I am going to discontinue packaging stand-alone desktop applications for distribution through the Ape Market, and instead be directing users to use either the Ape Apps Launcher or the Progressive Web Apps available on Ape Web Apps. At this point, both the Launcher and the PWA's are becoming mature to the point where either now allows you to install and launch an app as a stand-alone window straight from the OS without having to open the Launcher or navigate to Ape Web Apps first. Standalone desktop apps are also available for most apps on the Windows Store, and some are on Steam, for those who do not like the Launcher or the PWA's.

The reason for the change is because I am running out of storage space on my server to continue packaging and hosting stand alone desktop downloads for everything, and it also takes a lot of time and bandwidth to maintain. With the Launcher and the PWA's, I am still able to serve an extremely wide range of users with a lot less time and effort. In addition, the Launcher and PWA apps allow me to make across the board updates to every application in my library and push them out immediately to users, rather than having to go back and make a ton of updates to individual packaged applications.

There might be concern for those who wish to archive certain versions of games for posterity or so that they can install them in the future without an internet connection (or so they can still install the games after I get hit by a bus or something). I am working on a solution for those scenarios, where the Ape Apps Launcher will give you the option to extract an archive of any of my apps. You will then be able to double-click on that archive and the Launcher will open and run that game independently of the latest version on the market. For example, you could archive the current version of My Colony (1.12.0 I believe) to a file called something like my-colony-1-2-0.aal (theoretical extension), and you would then be able to double click on that file at any point in the future to launch that version of My Colony, even if the current version on the launcher is 1.50.0. Even if my server is long gone and dead, as long as you still have the archive file and the Ape Apps Launcher download, you would be able to run the application without issue.

So anyway, I reccomend that users of various stand-alone Ape Apps desktop apps to migrate over to either the Ape Apps Launcher or the Ape Web App edition (all of which can be installed to your system as a PWA). Doing so will ensure that you continue to receive fast automatic updates. Keep in mind that this change applies to apps downloaded through the Ape Market. Windows Store and Steam apps will continue to be updated as usual.

@bastecklein

[Update] 2020.2.13 00:00 GMT 00

Steam Win10X64 Client
===================
OK

Native Win10x64 Client
===================
Not test yet

Chrome Web
===================
OK, but somehow still unstable, maybe is my network issue

Chrome App
===================
OK, BTW, According to my understanding, Chrome App is mostly same as Chrome Web, but the overall stability and performance is much better than Chrome Web version and I still dunno why :P

Firefox Web
===================
Freeze at Login in Server, and a pop-out tell me This web-page slow down the browser, asking me if I what to stop it. Log is as follow.

08:40:31.955 Failed to load ‘https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js’. A ServiceWorker passed a promise to FetchEvent.respondWith() that rejected with ‘TypeError: NetworkError when attempting to fetch resource.’.

08:40:32.554 Loading failed for the <script> with source “https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js”. my-colony:210:1

08:40:32.555 Failed to load ‘https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js’. A ServiceWorker passed a promise to FetchEvent.respondWith() that rejected with ‘TypeError: NetworkError when attempting to fetch resource.’.

08:40:33.415 Use of the motion sensor is deprecated. frame-script.js:384:23

08:40:33.415 Web App Core Platform Init: web platform.js:93:17

08:40:33.436 set visibility frame-script.js:4927:17

08:40:33.437 no defered frame-script.js:4940:21

08:40:33.454 DOMException: "Permission denied to add a protocol handler for web+my-colony" frame-script.js:474:33

08:40:33.606 Use of the orientation sensor is deprecated. webappcore.js:29:15

08:40:33.833 register /appworker-351-1.3.0-sw.js webappcore.js:4315:21

08:40:33.841 app worker registered webappcore.js:4318:25

08:40:34.874 got ip: 210.66.73.76 webappcore.js:1398:21

08:40:36.625 Storage access automatically granted for tracker “https://twitter.com” on “https://www.apewebapps.com”. my-colony:265:19

08:40:40.086 Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://localhost:12598/runcheck.html. (Reason: CORS request did not succeed).

2

08:40:40.086 Failed to load ‘https://localhost:12598/runcheck.html’. A ServiceWorker passed a promise to FetchEvent.respondWith() that rejected with ‘TypeError: NetworkError when attempting to fetch resource.’.

08:40:41.201 Storage access automatically granted for tracker “https://twitter.com” on “https://www.apewebapps.com”. my-colony:265:19

08:41:03.490 using pointers webappcore.js:716:21

08:42:20.589 pre-main prep time: 10 ms libtimidity.js:217:15

08:42:22.257 Ape Chat v2.2.1 script.js:21:13

08:42:22.719 The Notification permission may only be requested in a top-level document or same-origin iframe. chat.ape-apps.com

08:42:23.085 registration success script.js:353:25

08:42:23.086

ServiceWorkerRegistration

​

active: null

​

installing: null

​

onupdatefound: null

​

pushManager: PushManager {  }

​

scope: "https://chat.ape-apps.com/"

​

updateViaCache: "imports"

​

waiting: null

​

<get active()>: function active()

​

<get installing()>: function installing()

​

<get waiting()>: function waiting()

​

<prototype>: ServiceWorkerRegistrationPrototype { update: update(), unregister: unregister(), showNotification: showNotification(), … }

script.js:354:25

08:42:23.085 sw install sw.js:18:13

08:42:23.085 [object ExtendableEvent] sw.js:19:13

08:42:23.086 Opened cache sw.js:24:21

08:42:23.222

{…}

​

data: {…}

​​

channels: Array(6) [ {…}, {…}, {…}, … ]

​​

current: Object { name: "Showhow", sessiona: "2788494", sessionb: "C47F8D48-5603-3F74-5AA7-CA5C98CB5BAE" }

​​

full: Object { timesIgnored: 0, timesMuted: 0, userLevel: "N", … }

​​

<prototype>: Object { … }

​

success: true

​

<prototype>: Object { … }

script.js:712:21

08:42:23.231 autojoin my-colony script.js:1809:25

08:42:24.112 Service worker event waitUntil() was passed a promise that rejected with 'TypeError: Cache got basic response with bad status 206 while trying to add request https://chat.ape-apps.com/pop.mp3'. sw.js:21:10

So I am just now putting the finishing touches on My Colony v0.91.0, and the update should be going out to all platforms throughout the weekend. I had originally planned on a bit larger of an update, but since it's already Friday evening and I don't want to spend the weekend working on My Colony, I decided to just go ahead and release what I have now and save the rest for next time! Hope you can forgive me 🤔!!

So this update adds a handful of new features and some more IT related content, mostly for Zolarg and Alpha Draconians, but there is some new human stuff too. There is also a "balancing" change that will probably get me a few "you broke the game" 1 star reviews in the app store, but It will be ok in the long run. I'll explain later, until then let's see what's new!

The first new engine change I made is something that has been requested for quite some time now - a variable volume slider for the in-game sound effects, which you can find in the Engine Settings menu:

So now instead of just on or off, you can set the in-game volume to whatever you want. People have been asking for this since I first added sound effects, so I hope you guys get some use out of it!

Next up, if you look at the statistics window for a specific resource, you will see a new "Trade" icon in the top-right corner, if you are playing an online game and you have the GBT.

This is just a simple shortcut that goes straight to the GBT trading screen for the particular resource you are looking at. I will probably be assigning a keyboard shortcut to this soon also, like press T to open the trading window.

Next, as requested in this thread, the global My Colony chat room is now accessible from within the game. This is the chat channel that is embedded on the my-colony.com website, and can also be accessed by clicking on the below button.

The chat channel is available whether you are playing an online or offline game, as long as you are signed into the game using an Ape Apps Account. And speaking of chat, as requested in this thread, I will probably take a couple of days off early next week to create a dedicated Ape Chat app for Android and iPhone. It's probably not necessary on Windows since the detached chat window is pretty easy to use on Desktop, and the Ape Apps Launcher also has chat built in now.

Moving on, the first time you open your colony in v0.91.0, if you had a bunch of embassies from colonies that are no longer active on the server, you will notice a few moments of explosions, as those embassies are all leveled to the ground. Moving forward, the game now verifies all of your embassies to see if they are attached to working colonies. This change is necessary because I plan on adding a couple of embassy interactions to the game over the next few updates, and they need to be attached to real colonies on the server.

Next up, as of this version, the game now keeps track of a couple of extra stats, including the total amount of hours you have played a specific colony. This stat will appear on your stats screen in the next couple of updates, but for existing colonies, the time is relative to the release of v0.91.0, since this data was not tracked beforehand.

Moving right along, you will now notice that Software is available in the GBT now for trading, so have at it!

Ok, now for the change that some people may get upset about. In the last release notes, I said that I would be going back and adding Software requirements to several existing buildings. Well, I decided to start with the biggest one first. The Robotics Factory and the Advanced Robotics Inc. now require Software to build, but more importantly, Robots now require Software as a building material. For a colony with a lot of Advanced Robotics Inc., this can be a major development, since that particular building pumps out Robots so fast, it will really suck up the Software in order to stay running. There is a new building available to help mitigate this change, but I know a lot of people are going to log in to their colony on v0.91.0 and wonder why all of their Robot production has suddenly ground to a halt. I am prepared for the hate though!

So those are the major changes in v0.91.0, let's move on to what is new. This update mainly brought a bit more Information Technology content to the Zolarg and Alpha Draconian races, but there is one new Human structure and even a brand new Premium bot, since it's been a few months since I've added anything new for the loyal paying customers.

As last time, here is a color coded list of the new structures added with this release, with Black representing Human content, Orange for Zolarg content, and Purple for Alpha Draconian content.

• Center for Automation Coding
• Tower of Thoughts
• Hall of Elders
• Mound of Online Business
• Automated Art Display
• Integrated Antanium Impactor
• Coders Den
• I.T. Studio Complex

In addition, Humans have a new technology, Advanced Networking Infrastructure, which is required for the new I.T. Studio Complex, and humans also have a new Premium-Only bot, the Megabot Deluxe, which is a snazzy gold-plated Megabot with 30x the build speed of the normal Megabot.

So the new I.T. Studio Complex pretty much makes the existing Small Software Studio look like a dumpster fire, as it really spits out the Software like nobody's business. Which is good, because you're going to need it to keep those Advanced Robotics, Inc. up and running. I did a rough(ish) calculation, and it takes about 0.75 I.T. Studio Complex structures to supply 1 Advanced Robotics, Inc., which is a pretty intense ratio. I'm sure at some point there will be an even bigger Software studio, but this is what is available at the moment. If you are not building a ton of Robots though, you will be able to keep the GBT well stocked using this new Software studio.

With the rest of the new structures, all races should now be able to produce at least a modest amount of Software. For the Reptilians, I added an earlier game Automated Art Display for producing a few paintings, as it was otherwise difficult early on to build structures like the Potter's Den and the Galactic Fine Arts Exposition.

All of that said, I still have quite a bit to do in terms of adding Information Technology content, but it is coming along somewhat. It's probably going to take at least a couple of more updates, and then moving forward, Software and Bandwidth will probably be important inputs for new content. I am thinking of adding Ether requirements to some of the later-game I.T. stuff too, but not too much since on most games Ether is only going to be available for online players.

So that is all for today's update. As I mentioned at the beginning, I plan on taking the weekend off here (although I might do a new My Colony Podcast episode if I get bored) and then spending the early part of next week on a new chat client for mobile, then I will be back to work, so keep those helpful bug reports and suggestions coming! And as always, thanks for playing My Colony, and stay tuned for more!

I mentioned in this post here a few minutes ago that the forum now supports a 'chat' tag for creating chat-rooms easily:

https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=13159

One thing I thought I would also mention is how this ties to the upcoming in-game chat for My Colony. Every Commonwealth is having an in-game chatroom auto-generated, and the chatroom name takes the following format:

mc-cw-chartercode

where you will replace the chartercode part with the actual charter code of the commonwealth leader. For instance, if your charter code is jGTKNfWT, your chat room name would be mc-cw-jGTKNfWT. In order to link to in-game chatroom from outside of the game, you would create a code in a forum post like this:

[chat]mc-cw-jGTKNfWT[/chat] which would create this following:

#mc-cw-jGTKNfWT

Now obviously this means that the in-game chats are not private, they are public. This is how it is meant to be, you can still use the in-game mail system for private messaging. This method is better for chat because it allows commonwealth members or even friends of the commonwealth to chat both inside and out of the game.

If you have problems with unwanted people spamming your commonwealth chat room, let myself or Patchdaddy know and we will ban them from the entire Ape Apps ecosystem, including My Colony online play (after proper warning of course).

A couple of months ago, I announced that I would begin phasing out Web App Core, the cross-platform app wrapper I have been developing and using since around 2012. I have been making this change due to the fact that Progressive Web Apps (PWA) have now become the primary development target for Ape Apps, and their capabilities have reached the point to where using a big, heavy and bloated app wrapper like Web App Core is no longer a necessity. In addition, many of the features of PWA's work better when each app is hosted on its own domain or subdomain, as opposed to having every single app hosted on the same address like Ape Web Apps currently does. So this migration away from Web App Core/Ape Web Apps and towards individual domains has been a slow one and has taken up a lot of my time over the last couple of months, but progress is being made, and the next title on the migration list is none other than the long-in development game Colony Wars!


As of today, Colony Wars can now be accessed from it's new URL on the main My Colony Universe website: https://wars.my-colony.com. I think it is now almost up to fully functional from its previous release on Ape Web Apps, minus the Map Editor which I am still converting off of Web App Core. Out of all of the titles I have already moved off of Web App Core, Colony Wars has been the most difficult, as it utilized nearly the entire suite of Web App Core provided functions. I hope to have the conversion fully completed by the end of the week.

This conversion will bring Colony Wars up to v0.8.0. The primary changes in this release will be (obviously) the migration off of Web App Core, but also some new features as well. I have added a new Skirmish option, which will allow you to more quickly launch an offline battle VS the AI players without first going through the online multiplayer lobby. I am also adding an even faster Quick Match option, which will immediately put you into an offline Skirmish match on a random map with AI players already set up. There are also some bugs/UI issues that will be cleaned up that have been on the to-do list for ages now.

Beyond v0.8.0, I am planning to bring Colony Wars back to life off of the back-burner. Spending some time playing old school Command and Conquer with my son as convinced me that Colony Wars needs to be completed. Beyond new units, buildings, and maps which are all needed, I also need to start working on the single player Campaign. I want to have cheesy cut scene videos like in old Command and Conquer games, although I am not going to be hiring actors and doing any filming. I think I am going to render all of the cutscenes using Death 3D, creating characters using My Tokens and scenes with the Death 3D map editor. I have begun scripting out the story, which takes place in the year 2083 and begins with the LIS declaring independence and ambushing the United Earth Space Marines detachment on Terra Nova. Chronologically, the Colony Wars story takes place about a year before the events of Death 3D, and about a decade or so after the events of the Deimos trilogy.

So anyway, that is a look at what is coming down the pike for Colony Wars. If you want to check it out at it's new domain while it is still being worked on, you can access the site using the beta URL parameter to prevent it from activating it's service worker and caching the in-development code: https://wars.my-colony.com/?beta=1

#colonywars

A couple of weeks ago, I announced that I was considering discontinuing the Ape Apps Launcher and most of my native desktop applications in favor of directing users towards the Progressive Web App (PWA) edition of my apps and games.

The Ape Apps Launcher was first released in early 2018 using Electron, and was initially created because there were a lot of capabilities required by my apps that I was just not able to deliver through the web browser. In the last 3 1/2 years though, a lot has changed. Both Microsoft and Google have gone all-in on PWA's, and between the two of them, they make PWA's installable, offline capable, with almost the entire native all feature set on nearly every platform. Because of this, it no longer makes sense to put in all of the hours and effort required to maintain the Ape Apps Launcher and the native Desktop host platform, when their entire purpose is now integrated natively into every major platform.

That said, the Launcher does offer a few things not found on my website, and also provides a nice place to access everything Ape Apps from one single desktop application. I do recognize how handy it can be for some people, so going forward I plan to "sort of" keep the launcher going, but with a bit of a twist.

The Ape Apps Launcher itself is going to become a Progressive Web App, which you will be able to install on any device, even mobile. I will still maintain the native download edition of the application, but it will basically be a wrapper for the PWA. This will allow me to continue providing the capabilities of the launcher, but without having to maintain the separate Web App Core codebase for Electron. It also means I will be able to make updates to the Launcher itself without having to upload new binaries whenever I want to publish a change.

Similar to the new PWA launcher, I will also be releasing another PWA called Ape Web Apps TV Mode, which is sort of like the launcher except built with a 10 foot interface and can be controlled entirely using a gamepad. This is designed for computers connected to a TV (like home theater PC's) and gives a console-like interface and access to all of your Ape Apps games and applications. You will even be able to use the Ape Web Apps TV Mode launcher on gaming devices like the Xbox One/Series S/X, which will be getting the new Chromium based Edge soon, along with full PWA capabilities, or on Android TV devices. Below is an early-build screenshot of the TV Mode launcher.


You can think of the TV mode launcher as basically an Ape Apps gaming console that runs as an app within existing devices/consoles, and should give you access to the entire Ape Apps library on any television (you can also just use it on a PC or Phone if you have a bluetooth gamepad connected and prefer the interface).

So that it was is in store for the Launcher. There will not be any more work going in to the current Electron build of the application, as I move all important code directly to my server. If you are currently using the Ape Apps Launcher, it will automatically be upgraded to the new PWA-hosted edition once it is ready, so there is nothing you need to do. And I will make a separate post/announcement when the TV launcher is complete and ready for use.

#apeappslauncher

The online chat software that is embedded into this website (among others) and in many of my games has just gotten a large update. If you are using the embedded version of chat, you will not notice much of a difference, but if you detach the chat or go to the chat server directly at https://chat.ape-apps.com you will notice some welcome changes.

There is a new sidebar on the left side of the chat window that will show all of the chat channels you have joined, and you can now connect to as many channels at the same time as you wish. You can create or join new channels by typing their channel name into the add channel bar above the channel listing area. If you are connected to multiple channels, the hashtag indicator will light up green if new messages come through on a channel that is currently running in the background.

There are a few more features that I will be adding soon that are pretty much ready to go on the server, but the client needs updated yet. Each channel can now have an owner and multiple moderators, can set privacy settings, and can be made invite-only. When a user creates a new channel and they are the first user in that channel, they will become the moderator and have control over it. This feature is not yet live, so if you have a channel name in mind that you want to be in control of, you should probably keep it to yourself for now, since they are first come/first serve. At some point I can retroactively add channel moderators to existing channels if there is a need.

Each channel also now has its own private settings, ban lists, etc. I will have more to say on that stuff when the client code is finished.

When that functionality is done, some of the auto-generated channels (like the My Colony channels) will automatically have their proper owners assigned to them.

Anyway, that is today's update for the chat. This new setup should make it easy for users who are in multiple chats, for instance, if you run multiple My Colony commonwealths. Let me know what issues you have or what suggestions and ideas you have to make chat better in the updates to come!

Today I am putting the finishing touches on the v0.95.0 patch for My Colony, and it should be hitting all platforms within the coming days. I've actually got a fairly big update in store for you guys today, so I hope you enjoy it. Let's take a look at what's new!

First let's start with the small stuff. In this release I have added 40 new flag logos that you can add to your colony flags, including all letters of the alphabet. I have also fixed issues on a couple of the logos that did not let you adjust their color properly.

Next up, I have made stat adjustments/tweaks to a few of the maps and buildings in the game. The Star Gate, Star Port, and Medium Range Star Gate can now all import and export Software. The Antaura production has been increased on the Interstellar Pad of Thought. Newly created Water World maps will no longer contain the Fresh Water deposits on the map, as they making getting Water way too easy. The Crudebot can now be constructed on Water World and Desert World maps, and the Diamond Miner can now be build on the Water World. Finally, the Center for Artificial Learning has been slightly nerfed, and the Research Converter now requires a little more research to operate.

A number of UI tweaks have been made in this update. Now when you are in building mode (as in, you have a new building for construction selected), the Chat Notification area will disappear. Before the chat log was in the way when you were trying to build things, so now it should no longer be a problem.

I have also added a new, faster way to reply to chat messages without having to open up the actual chat window, although you do need to be using a keyboard in order to use it. But now if you are connected to a chat server, you can simply press the Tab key (customizable in Engine Settings) to open up the new chat reply input box.

This makes it a lot faster and easier to reply to chats in-game.

There are also a couple of chat text color changes. When a Developer posts in chat (I'm the only one), they will have Gold text color. When a Moderator posts in chat ( @cry8wolf9 is the only one), their text will appear Blue. When somebody playing an offline colony posts, they will have a Teal text color. This is helpful because a lot of times new players ask for resources in chat, and they do not even know they are playing offline.

I believe that these interface changes make the in-game chat a whole lot better.

Next, the Desktop Build Confirm costs area now shows Power and Bandwidth requirements when queuing up multiple buildings.

Obviously this is good information to have, and probably should have been there to begin with!

Next, you will probably notice that the resource amount numbers in the Resources display are now colored.

The colors gradiate from red to orange to green, and allow you to see at a glance how full your storage is. Green means you have full storage, orange is half way, red is empty. This should be especially helpful on mobile, since you can't hover over the readout to see the little bar graphs.

In addition, the Resource view that only shows down-trending resources will now only show resources that are both down-trending and under 95% storage capacity.

Also, a new feature has been added for Federations. The Federation president can now kick member colonies out of the Federation for whatever reason.

Now on to the new content. In this update I have added one new resource (Salt Water) and 11 new structures. Mixing things up a bit, a lot of the new content in this update relates to the Water World map. Here is a list of the new stuff, and then I will discuss some of the structures afterwards.

New Structures

• Fine Arts Warehouse
• Counterfeit Market
• Integrated Aluminum Generator
• Advanced Ship Yard
• Department of Advanced Fish Mating Studies
• Mesh Platform
• Salt Water Pump
• Salt Water Tank
• Desalination Factility
• Fishery
• Fish Cannery

The Fine Arts Warehouse and Counterfeit Market provide additional storage for Paintings, Pottery, and Cloth, and are for United Earth and L.I.S., respectively. The L.I.S. version has less storage and also exchanges some of the goods for money.

The Integrated Aluminum Generator brings a long awaited upgrade to the old Aluminum Generator, costing more and utilizing Software and Bandwidth.

I have also added the new upgraded double decker Advanced Ship Yard for faster Human Star Ship production, also requiring Software and Bandwidth.

Next, United Earth players get a new wasteful government building in the form of the Department of Advanced Fish Mating Studies. This building creates research but, more importantly, offers over 5000 useless jobs, for larger colonies with a lot of unemployment.

The remainder of the new content is for the Water World map.

The Mesh Platform is a new bridge structure with no particular orientation, so you can connect them together without issue. You can now also harvest ocean Salt Water with the new Salt Water Pump, which is built directly onto Salt Water tiles. The water is stored using the Salt Water Tank, and can be converted into massive amounts of fresh Water using the new Desalination Factility.

For island Food production, I have added the Fishery, which is built directly onto water and harvests large amounts of Fish, and the Fish Cannery, which turns said fish into large amounts of Food. Fish will soon be making it's way to the GBT and, like Ether on the Ether map, will only be harvestable on the Water World map, since I said that I would be adding more unique map-specific resources to the game.

There is still more I.T. stuff to add, but I was playing my Water World map the other day and wanted to add some content to it, and I saw a post about Water World in the suggestions forum, and decided to go for it. I also want to add additional structures that can be built over water tiles, like tourist stuff, some unique housing, and an offshore drilling platform. I want to add boats or a water based bot, but I don't know if I will, since I will have to create a whole additional collision map for water tiles, which will take up a lot of runtime memory. We will see.

So that about sums it up for today's update. Like I said, it will be making it's way to all platforms in the coming days, so be on the lookout for the update. And as always, keep those suggestions coming, and thanks for playing My Colony!

Today I am publishing a long awaited update to the original My Colony, v1.20.0, which is live now on Ape Web Apps and the Ape Apps Launcher, and should be hitting everywhere else sometime next week (might have delayed app reviews due to labor day weekend). People have been asking for fixes and content, so it's time to give MC1 some love, so let's take a look at what is new, as well as what's to come!


First off, one of the longest awaited bug fixes is here in this release, regarding colony health statistics. There was a bug in MC1 where, if your colony ever ran out of food or water, it would completely bork the health reporting stats, even after food and water was restored. This has been corrected, and health stat reporting should be back to normal. If yours was borked, it might take up to ten minutes in-game for the issue to correct itself.

There was a request by @josip0101v to overhaul the building color codes in the "Building Colors Only" view mode, and this has now been done. I don't remember the new color coding off the top of my head, but its something like Yellow for resource production, Green for residential, blue and purple are in there too. I think they correspond to the graph colors when you click on a building. Anyway, it's better than showing everything in Red.


If you are one of those people who hate kids, then you are in luck because the long broken Deport Children function has been fixed. Deporting children will remove all kids 10 years of age and younger. The cutoff is 10, because MC1 considers kids over 10 to be working age, and they are available to work in the labor market.

There have been several issues raised related to inappropriate language and behavior in the in-game chat, so some basic automatic chat moderation has been added. These changes only apply to the green letter chat that shows up in the game window, and the slide-out chat sidebar will still show everything, for those who do not want moderation.

The game will filter out a variety of common profanity words. By filter them out, I mean if a message contains one, the message just wont show up in the game at all (it will still be in the chat sidebar though).

The chat overlay will now no longer show messages over 400 characters long. There have been complaints about people either typing a bunch of nonsense or just copy/pasting stuff into chat. This will no longer show up.

There have also been complaints about non-stop spam posting. The game will now no longer allow more than three messages from a user within a 10 (I think 10) second time span. This should be well enough time to allow for normal conversation to go uniterrupted.

Again, none of this moderation happens in the slideout chat, it's mainly to keep things from showing up for people who are just trying to play the game.

By request from @Shadowdoom286 , more information has been added to the popup window when you mouse-over the population of your colony. It will now show the number of children, the number of working age adults, and the number of retired people.


Moving on. The Quantum Warehouse and the Gravity Compression Warehouse now have storage for Cobalt. Cobalt will now also be generated by the Research Converter.

I have included three new buildings in this update that were submitted by the community. The new Nuclear Water Synthesis Plant (submitted by @itsLiseczeq ) is a great new structure for water generation (mid game, but its probably one of the best structures for late game as well). The Department of Paradoxical Studies and Nanite Server Building (submitted by @Electrogamer1943 ) have also been added. The Department of Paradoxical Studies is roughly the LIS version of the Department of Fish Mating Studies, and the Nanite Server Building is an upgrade to the Large Server Building, providing more bandwidth, but costing nanites and cobalt.

Next, I decided people might want me to start adding more late game content, and so I am starting down a new tech path which I will expand on over the coming updates. The new Advanced Simulation Theory research has been added to the game, which unlocks the new Advanced Simulations Unlimited structure, which is an OP generator for money, research and civics but costs huge amounts of power and bandwidth, and really chews through the nanites.

Moving forward, I think the game needs (at a minimum) better production facilities for Software, Nanites, and Bricks, so you can expect those in the coming update. I am also open to continued community submissions, so keep them coming and I will keep adding them. While I have been focused on MC2, there seems to be a larger desire for me to keep adding content to MC1, so I might as well, so stay tuned for more content to both games as the weeks progress!

So that's it for today, check out the update on the web now, idk when it will hit other platforms but it should be this coming week (maybe longer for Android). Enjoy!

#mycolony

I still have a bit of polish to add, but group voice chat channels are now available on Ape Chat (the web version)!

See the following for a very short demo:


I think I will probably be using this for the upcoming My Colony Podcast instead of Discord, even though I appreciate the NOZ Discord offer, I do always like using my own stuff when I can 🙂

If you want to test it for yourself, head to https://chat.ape-apps.com on your desktop computer and where it says "add channel" on the side, add the Qwerty channel (with a capital Q). This is a designated voice channel. I have also added the channel globalvoice (all lowercase).

I still have some improvements to make, so you might have to do some hard-reloads on your browser to get the latest code, but stay tuned, because Ape Chat is only going to get better and better!

Sorry you had a bad experience with chat @Vas , I don't know what to tell you. It seemed like the only resolution you would accept was for me to start banning people, and I'm not just going to do that after one complaint. I went in and told everybody to keep it PG-13 or else I would add a moderator, and I told everybody how to use the blocking features in the chat. After that everybody was pretty much done and went on with their business, but you kept it going and started posting a bunch of giant screenshots in the chat, after complaining that other people were moving the chat off-topic. You then finished it up by posting this:


Leading me to believe that there is at least a possibility that you had a hand in instigating some of the issues to begin with, if this is your manner of interaction. Which is fine, really. As I said in chat, I am not picking favorites with long-time players or new guys who don't get along with others, everybody is free to use the chat. And if it continues to be an issue, then a moderator can be added. But in all honesty the chat has been there for a long time and there have been no major issues before this. And I'm not just going to start banning people on the first complaint that comes in. If it's an ongoing issue it can be dealt with.

Sorry you think I wronged you somehow, you are certainly free to go tell everybody you know about how bad Ape Apps is. But given what I saw in the chat and the other responses posted to this thread, I think it's possible that you had a hand in this situation that you are not owning up to. I have never once seen the chat community just start trashing somebody out of the blue and for no reason.

Prepare for the idle adventure of a lifetime, because Idle Token Quest is now complete and available for download for free on Android, iOS, and Windows 10!

Idle Token Quest is an idle role playing adventure game where you will fight your way through different worlds, going up against powerful enemies, collecting valuable loot, and purchasing awesome weapons and power-ups! You can use the two default characters, or create your own using the free My Tokens app. Tokens you create using your Ape Apps Account are linked to the game, and will adventure while you are away. The more Tokens you create, the more money you make!

Idle Token Quest is the ultimate companion game for My Tokens. Your virtual token avatars will become powerful heroes as they battle through the entire lineup of worlds and enemies from the game Level Up. You are also able to increase their power by equipping them with powerful Weapons, super fast Boots, and magical lucky Amulets!

In addition, all of your game progress is automatically synced to your Ape Apps Account, so you can take your token adventure with you on the go, or keep it open in a window hidden under your e-mail client while you are at work! The boss will never know that you just slayed an evil t-rex, which is way more important than filing another TPS report!

Idle Token Quest is a title that you definately do not want to miss. You can download it right now for free on Android, iOS, and Windows 10. It is also available on the Ape Apps Launcher, and even in your browser at Ape Web Apps. So what are you waiting for? Your poor My Tokens characters are just sitting there waiting for you to let them go outside and play! You don't want to make them cry, do you? Of course not, so download Idle Token Quest today!

https://apps.ape-apps.com/idle-token-quest/

#idletokenquest #levelup #mytokens

Happy Friday to everyone here, and it's time for another My Colony patch, v0.82.0! This update continues the bug fix series that I have been doing while I work on Colony Wars, but I've also added a couple of features that you will hopefully find helpful. Let's dive in and take a look.

Firstly on the bug fix front, every issue that had been tracked to the automatic bug tracker from both My Colony v0.81.0 and Antiquitas v1.22.0 has been resolved, along with a few other issues that I noticed while digging through the code.

One of the biggest issues in My Colony deals with corrupt save files. While working on this update, I noticed that ever since I implemented Regions way back in September, the game was no longer saving backup copies properly for single city maps or region overview maps. This means that besides for sub-city files, no backup saves (the *.mcb files) were being done properly.

For those who are not aware, when you save a game in My Colony, it creates the compressed (if compression is turned on) *.mcz save (that also syncs to the cloud if you have cloud sync turned on), and also an uncompressed *.mcb file that saves only to the local device. When you go to load your colony, it first tries to load the *.mcz cloud save, then the *.mcz local save, and if those do not work, it tries for the uncompressed *.mcb backup save.

What was happening in the code is that first it was saving the uncompressed backup save as a *.mcz file, and then saving over it with the final compressed *.mcz file. So there was no backup. This means if that there was an error in the compression for some reason, there was no uncompressed backup to fall back on.

It also means that if there is an old backup *.mcb file saved somewhere on your device from before the error occurred, opening a file could potentially restore that old backup and override everything you had done in the meantime.

I also noticed that a majority of the save corruptions seemed to be happening on Windows 10, Android, and Desktop. These also happen to be the three platforms where save compression was turned off by default. I had it turned off because compression can cause memory issues when saving cities that have been expanded multiple times and have millions of citizens. Since I am more moving towards Regions being the default play mode though, I decided to turn the compression on by default on all platforms to see if it helps. You can still turn it off on a per-colony basis if you want to.

Next up, I made it so that importing and exporting goods through the Mass Driver/Star Gate (etc) type buildings no longer has to be done in fixed lot sizes. Now when you go to make a trade using these buildings, you will be presented with a slider dialog that lets you make trades up to the max that the structure supports.

I still need to make improvements to the dialog, but it should make some of the buildings with the ultra-large capacities a little more useful.

Next, I have also made changes to the in-game notifications and especially that chat, which should hopefully make them more useful. First, if you are using the "Desktop" style interface (the one with all of the build options appearing in the right-side sidebar), in-game notifications will now show up in a notification area at the bottom right of the screen, instead of popping up in the bottom middle. When you have notifications there, there will be a new red x icon in the bottom right corner that lets you clear all notification messages at once.

The other change is that all chat messages now show up in the notification area. This only works when you are signed in to the chat server, but now once you sign into the chat server for a colony at least once manually, you will automatically be signed in each subsequent time that you open your colony. That way, if you are playing your colony and somebody is trying to talk to you on chat, you will know it without actually having the chat window open. You will also get livestream chat notifications, and notifications when somebody decides to watch your livestream.

On mobile (or if you are not using the "Desktop" interface), you will still get new chat notifications, but they will pop up in the same way notifications currently work, in the bottom-middle of the screen. As always, you can turn off all notifications in the engine settings menu.

Finally, the Russian language translations by Anton zlo have been expanded in this release, and a full set of French translations has now been provided by @Sobeirannovaocc and @Freedmoon ! This is great news for players using Russian and French, so please be sure to show your appreciation for their hard work and efforts.

Just a few final words before I go here. I plan on doing another episode of the My Colony Podcast soon, probably at the beginning of next week. People seem to be enjoying the show, so I will be making it a regular thing again. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do! Next, I plan to have a multiplayer beta for Colony Wars soon(ish). I wanted it to be done by the end of this month, but coding the AI is taking a bit longer than I had planned. I've got it now to where the AI will build their base, but they are still a bit too stupid at it. The beta will be coming before long though, and it is going to include the map editor, as well as multiplayer, supporting LAN/Online/ and AI skirmish. I hope to have the multiplayer matchmaking server running by the end of next week, so that I can get some people online to test the multiplayer out.

Anyway, that is all for today's My Colony update. It should be hitting all platforms throughout the weekend here. I plan on starting the next My Colony update (v0.83.0) on March 1 (I am actually half way planning things now), so get those bug reports filed before then. I know a lot of people think I do not read the reports since I do not post replies, but that is not the case. I just do not see the need to post "Ok" or "Thanks" at the end of each bug report.

Stay tuned for more, and thanks for playing the game!!

I mentioned before that changes were on the way for the Ape Apps Launcher, and today the online beta is available so that you can check out what those changes are.

Ape Apps Launcher v2.0.0 is going to be released for both Desktop (as it is today) and as an installable Progressive Web App. Behind the scenes though, both editions of the Launcher are going to be based on the Progressive Web App code, which means that I will be able to make updates to the Launcher without having to rebuild and upload binaries for the actual Desktop host applications.

To check out the beta and keep up on the progress, head here:

https://www.apewebapps.com/launcher.html

The Launcher is not yet installable as a PWA, but it will be soon. This URL will be the permanent home of the Ape Apps Launcher going forward.

In addition to the standard Launcher, I am developing another launcher called Ape Web Apps TV Mode. This is designed to be used with a gamepad and on devices that are connected to a television, such as an entertainment P, an Android TV/Fire TV device or through a console web browser. Ape Web Apps TV Mode is still a ways off, but it will give you quick and easy to control access to every Ape Apps that offers full gamepad support. It is sort of like the Ape Apps Launcher version of Steam Big Picture mode. You can see the early development work here, just make sure you have a gamepad set up.

https://www.apewebapps.com/tv.html

That is all for today. I am a bit stalled on My Colony 2 updates until I can get the new version of the Launcher finished, because there is some new code coming to the next My Colony 2 release that will break the current version of the Ape Apps Launcher, so I need to get the new one done ASAP. So I hope to get the native desktop edition of the new launcher done next week some time.

Until then, enjoy!

#apeappslauncher

Beginning in mid January with the next update to My Colony and rolling out to several other apps in the coming months, My Tokens are an upcoming part of the Ape Apps accounts system that will add a bit of (optional) variety to several different games.

So, what are Tokens? Basically they are little avatars you can customize and make and save to your account. You can store however many you want to your account, but you can only set one as your primary Token. If you don't care about Tokens, you can have none.

Tokens can be used as your avatar/profile picture on the Ape Apps site and within the different apps, but their real feature comes with how they tie into different games. Take My Colony for instance. Right now when you have tourists come to your colony, they all look like the same dopey guy walking around with a camera in his face. Sort of boring. With the addition of Tokens though, there will now be thousands of unique user-created tourists showing up to your colony from all across the galaxy. Note that this feature will be optional, and you can turn it on or off at any time. In a similar way, the visitors to your farm in My Land will also be replaced with user-generated Tokens.

One of the coolest implementations though will be in the upcoming game Death 3d. As I alluded to in this blog post, people will be able to play online multiplayer deathmatch games using their own custom Tokens as their characters. This game is essentially the reason I created the entire Token system, so that I would not have to manually create a bunch of deathmatch characters. You will also be able to play against global Token characters during offline single-player skirmish deathmatch games. There will be so many possibilities that you may never have to kill the same AI bot twice!

The Forum chat will also be getting some Token love. In addition to the regular text based chat, there will also be a new option to switch into "token chat" mode, which lets you chat like normal, but also walk your little token guy around a virtual room. It might evolve into a basic RPG type game at some point. Might be totally pointless on the main Ape Apps chat channel, but could have some cool uses on the RP Forums channel.

My classic game Level Up will also get it's own token upgrade in the form of an all new multiplayer arena mode, where you can go head to head and fight other players online, earning coins and experience to upgrade your online-only character. Also, I was playing the classic NES game Punch Out over the Christmas weekend and was thinking of making an over-the-top boxing arcade type game using Tokens as the characters. It would have both offline and online multiplayer and I could probably make it in just a couple of weeks or less, since Tokens would take care of most of the visuals. We will see.

Anyway, these are just some of the initial features coming with Tokens next month. If people like them I might add more stuff. I was thinking of adding a way to somehow send 'gifts' of some sort to other players through the token system. Like if somebody's Token visits your farm in My Land, you can click on them and give them a pumpkin or something which in turn can be used in My Colony or Level Up somehow. But I haven't totally thought it out yet. Like I said before though, everything Token related will be completely optional, since I know there are many people who don't like this sort of nonsense. But for the people who do, it will be just one small thing to sort of tie the different Ape Apps games together in a fun little way!

Ape Chat now supports private, invite-only invite channels. To create a new private channel, you open the Ape Chat desktop interface ( https://chat.ape-apps.com ), and on the "add channel" input box, you type in your new channel name with a % sign in front of it, like so:

Note that the % sign is only used to tell the server that you are creating a private channel. Afterwards, the sign is not used in the channel name.

If the channel does not already exist, it will be created in private invite-only mode, with you as the channel moderator. Note that other than myself and @cry8wolf9 who are global chat moderators, only private channels can have an individual moderator.

Once you have created a channel, you can invite users with the command:

/invite [username] to [channelname]

In addition, if the user you want to invite is in the username listing in another channel, you can right-click on their name and select "Invite to Channel' to invite them they easy way.

Once somebody is added to your private channel, they will gain the ability to invite other users as well.

The moderator of the private channel will soon (but not quite yet) be able to add additional moderators, set the display name and description for the channel, add an icon to the channel, set channel member ranks, kick/ban people from their channel, etc. Keep in mind that the global moderators can access any private channel without invitation.

This is one of the new features I am getting ready for the upcoming Ape Chat stand alone mobile app, which I plan to release to at least Android, and hopefully iOS, within the week here.

Enjoy, and let me know what other chat suggestions you have!

Well, it's late at night as I type this, and I've just put the finishing touches on the v0.93.0 update for My Colony. I'm going to try to get it pushed out to all platforms tonight, but if I end up getting too tired (likely) I will finish the work tomorrow. v0.93.0 is a mix update between content and features, so let's go ahead and take a look at what's new!

First of all, I made some minor interface adjustments on mobile. As some of you may know, I was busy with family most of this week and was unable to use my PC, and I took some time to spin up a new colony on mobile (an iPhone 7). It has literally been forever since I played my own game on mobile, and I noticed some annoyances right off the bat, particularly with the new chat notifications, since in-game chat has started to become a lot more active.

To address this, I moved things around a bit. Now, the build menu icon appears in the bottom right of the screen, above the standard bottom right buttons. The chat notifications are now aligned to the bottom-right corner of the screen, and no longer have a darkened background. Also, their rendering order has been adjusted so that they no longer appear on top of other menus.

In addition, when not using resource "marquee" mode, the top-right resource display no longer has a darkened background, and the text has gotten a bit of extra black border around it to make up for the difference. Also, all of the remaining UI elements with a simi-transparent black background have been adjusted to have the same opacity level, since I thought it looked strange having some UI elements being less transparent and some being more. For the most part, these UI changes are minor, but I think they will make the game a bit more enjoyable on mobile, particularly the issue with the chat notifications covering up important UI dialogs.

Next, I made another change regarding the chat notifications. Previously, clicking on one of the notifications would open up the in-game chat slideout. This is no longer the case. Now when you click on an in-game chat notification, it opens up the brand new User dialog window, showing you all of the online colonies for the Ape Apps user who is chatting.

Clicking on one of their colonies opens up the standard colony info window, allowing you to send gifts and messages. I realized that with so many requests for resources coming in over chat, it was cumbersome to have to go to the communications hub and put in a charter code. Now you can just click on their name and send them some resources.

And speaking of the colony info window, it too has been slightly revamped. It now shows the colony owners username (clicking on it brings up their list of colonies), and the action buttons have been moved to the bottom right corner of the screenshot.

Sorry for picking on you here @Westy266 , but your beautiful colony screenshot just had to make it to the release notes. Oh, and that rectangle in the top-right corner of the screenshot area is the flag of the colony, which leads to the next new feature, colonial flags, along with built-in flag maker.

The Stats screen has a new Flag section, which takes you to the flag maker. I need to clean up the interface a bit, but it's mainly functional. Basically, a flag consists of three primary sections, the overall background color, the "parts" section, and the "logos" section. The background color is pretty self explanatory (I hope).

The "parts" section consists of things like stripes, bars, circles etc, of various shapes, sizes, and positions. You can add as many parts as you want, there is no limit, and you can set different colors for each.

Likewise, the "logos" section lets you add little symbols to the flag. Like parts, you can also add as many logos as you want. You can set their placement, and the slider let's you adjust their size. Most of them allow you to set their color, but some do not. Most of the logos come from in-game UI assets right now.

I plan on expanding the "parts" and "logos" selection in the coming updates, so let me know what kind of things you want to see added, so that you can make the best colonial flag for your awesome colony!

Next up, a couple of important changes have been made to Regions.

• Now, all region colonies should share a common gifting capacity, so that you do not need to build huge capacity buildings in every map.
• Regional natural resource deposits (ore/gold/aluminum/etc) will now actually deplete when the colony is not active

So that second one is pretty important, since it is a departure to the way regions had been working, and some colonies might be built depending on the old behavior. However, the old behavior was obviously flawed, so I think that the adjustment was necessary.

Moving on, I raised the costs a bit on the Tech Office Building. That building is sort of powerful, and I didn't nerf it any, but I did make it slightly more expensive.

Also in this update, I made further changes to how colonists handle Work, Medical, Entertainment, and Protesting. These all have long standing irregularities that aren't so easy to fix, so I hope these new adjustments help.

Finally, I went ahead and added a bit more content as well, mostly more I.T. stuff, but also a couple of other things.

New Techs Added

• Multimedia Infrastructure
• Proxy Servers
• Insectoid Mind Network

New Structures Added

• Ether Tree Farm
• Quantum Nuclear Reactor
• Official News Station
• Imperial Propaganda Office
• Online Black Market Office
• Hacker Camp

It's a little late and I'm a little tired to explain all of the new content, but you can mostly look at the names and see what's going on. You can check out the IT industries ideas Vol.3! thread to see what I was pulling from for the I.T. stuff (and to give you an idea of what is coming next). I also added upgraded structures for the old Nuclear Reactor and the Tree Farm.

So that about wraps it up for this update. I think the pace and scale of updates has been pretty good lately, so I will probably be keeping it like this for a while. There will probably be a few more I.T. related updates, plus a ton of other stuff currently sitting in the suggestions box, so keep the ideas and bug reports flowing!

I hope you enjoy the update, and as always, thanks for playing My Colony!

Introducing another new tag today, the chat tag!

#off-topic

[chat]off-topic[/chat]

The chat tag allows you to quickly and easily create and link to new custom chat rooms. This is helpful if you wanted to do something like set up a quick and easy chat room for your My Colony commonwealth or something. If you have been on the forums for a while, it may require a hard-reload to work properly.

This is an important My Colony 2 update that all players of the game will need to be aware of, so please read up and share with others you know who enjoy playing My Colony 2.

Over ten years ago now, I created my own cross-platform app host called Web App Core, sort of my own in-house version of something like Phone Gap, which allowed me to easily distribute javascript based games across web, android, iOS, Windows and Steam, all using the same shared code base. Over time, Web App Core had become bloated and largely unnecessary, and so over the past year and a half, I have been slowly moving a lot of my apps and games off of the platform, and the time has come to do the same for My Colony 2.

This code migration will be taking place with the next release of My Colony 2 (v0.37.0). This will require extensive refactoring of the base game code in order to remove/replace all of the existing Web App Core related hooks. Luckily I have already largely begun to do this over the past few updates, so it should make the migration a bit easier. Once it is done though, there will be a few implications that players need to be aware of.

New URL

My Colony 2 will be moving off of the Ape Web Apps website and to it's own URL at https://mycolony2.com/. Anybody using the Web version of the game (which is most players right now) will need to update their bookmarks. If you have MC2 installed on your system as a PWA (which is the preferred way to go), the app will not automatically update. You will need to uninstall the old version and reinstall the new.

Game Saves

This is the big one. If you are currently using Cloud Sync or if you have migrated to the new method of exporting your save out of the game and onto your device, no changes will be necessary on your end. However, if your game data is saved into the internal app storage (storage sandbox), your saved data will not transfer over to the new update. Therefore, it is vital that before the next update, you either turn on Cloud Sync, or export your game file to your system by using the Move to Filesystem feature.


I can't stress the importance of this, even if you are using one of the mobile apps. Do not get caught with a game file loss in the next update.

This change will be big "under the hood" but if you take care of the points mentioned above, it should be fairly seamless from a player standpoint. Removing the legacy Web App Core code and decoupling MC2 from the Ape Web Apps domain will help the engine improve and grow, so this is an important move. It is also pretty much necessary if I ever want to spin the MC2 engine off into other games, for instance, an Antiquitas 2 perhaps. I have been wanting to make the change for a while now, and the time has finally arrived.

Please help spread the word to other players!! I will wait a few weeks before I start migrating things so that people have time to get their game saves in order. But don't put it off or delay! If you have any questions regarding this, please reply here to this thread. Thank you!

I hope everybody had a good new year. I am now ready to get back into the full swing of My Colony development, and what better way to start things out then with the Reptilians Update Part 1! There are actually several new changes in this release too, so let's take a look:

My Colony v0.53.0 Changelog

New Stuff

• New Race/Civilization: Alpha Draconians (the Reptilians)
• New Map: Desert World
• New Unit: Construction Probe
• New Structures: Microreactor, Powered Materials Silo, Slave Gate, Antanium Impactor, Microcondenser, Automated Hydroponics Lab, Basic Den, Medium Range Star Gate
• New ad-free Content: Draconian Pavement, Fair Warning, Family Den
• Offline (local) multiplayer (on select devices, see more below)
• In-game commonwealth chat (requires Ape Apps account)

Changes

• Facebook has been removed from the game. R.I.P. Facebook.
• Starting a new online game now requires an Ape Apps Account. Existing games do not need one yet, but they will on the next update, so this is a fair heads up.
• Increased the rate that colonists age, so they are not 24 forever.
• The Galactic Emperor rewarded videos should now only give "good" resources.
• Offline mode renamed to Local mode to reflect the fact that it can have it's own multiplayer now too
• Slight UI changes on the iPhone X to account for the 'notch' and rounded corners.

The biggest outward-facing change in this update is the new civ, the Alpha Draconians. They are in the early stages, but expect them to ramp up alot faster than the Insectoids (because of the art style, it takes me way longer to make Insectoid graphics).

So the Reptilians are a very high-tech species, and start off the game with many of the things that the other civs can only dream about at the beginning. They are also a brutal, evil, and warlike people. Their homeworld is near Zolarg Prime, and they regularly abduct and enslave poor Insectoids to work their colonies for them. That is nothing compared to what they do to the humans though, but that is for another update!

Unlike Insectoid colonies, the Reptilians require very few civilians, so expect the colonies to have very high GDP/Capita ratios. There isn't a whole lot to do with the Reptilians yet, and the Lava World isn't completely playable with them, but go ahead and check it out. There is a whole lot more coming soon.

Now for the other new feature, Local Multiplayer.

Local Multiplayer is currently very experimental, and as of right now it is only available on Android, iOS, and Native Client. Ironically, it works the best on the Windows Store app, but Windows Store security policies would not allow me to submit the app using both a webview and private networking, so I had to remove it after it got rejected and the feature may never come to Windows Store.

For Web users, I am currently working on a Desktop application called the Ape Web Apps Desktop Bridge which will allow Web clients to use both LAN play and saving your files directly to the local file system, but it's not ready for release yet. Possibly next week.

So in theory, to use the Local Multiplayer, you don't have to do anything special. If you are playing on your Android and another Android, iPhone, or Native Client user opens one of their colonies, you should just get a notification that another colony has come online, like the current Commonwealth notifications for online play. You can then send messages/resources back and forth the normal way, using the Consulate, Capitol, or the little Communications buildings. Keep in mind this is for Local (offline) games only.

I say 'in theory' because I have only tested it out on my own home network, and I only have so many devices to test it on. So your mileage may vary. Let me know how it goes!

For online games, the in-game commonwealth chat is there, and is accessed by a orange chat icon on the bottom right of the screen. It's pretty self-explanatory. Requires an Ape Apps Account.

Speaking of Ape Apps Account, if you sign in, it should now sync your in-app purchases across all platforms now, but this is also experimental, it might take me a couple of updates to get it working right. 🙂

So that's about it for this update, unless I forgot something. The next few updates will be bug fixes, performance improvements, and Reptilians. As I said the Reptilians will fill out a lot faster than the Zolarg, as I am still not even done with the Zolarg (but I'll get there someday)! Let me know what you think of the update, and stay tuned for more!

I have created a new forum section dedicated to Ape Chat ( https://chat.ape-apps.com ), which is the chat server that is embedded into this forum and several Ape Apps games, such as My Colony. The reason is that I plan on expanding the capabilities of the service, and I want a place where I can post an easy reference to all of the chat command line arguments and options that are available.

So if you have any problems, suggestions, or anything else related to the chat server, use this forum section!

The time has come for yet another My Colony update, the v0.99.0 patch, aka the Reptilian Content patch! This is a very special release, as it is the very last beta version of My Colony! It's going to be sad to see beta go, but there is a lot in store for you guys with this update. Because of some of the core changes, this update is going to take several days to push out to all platforms, with Web coming today. I actually can't even push it out to the Ape Apps Launcher yet, as the Launcher will require an update itself before this patch should go live, so please stick with me as the v0.99.0 roll-out will be a bit slower than most releases. So what's new in this patch? Let's go over it right now!

This is at it's core a Reptilian update, but there is a ton of other stuff thrown in as well. First off, and the reason for the delayed rollout, is I have taken the game-streaming option out of the core My Colony code, and transferred it to the "Web App Core" wrapper, which is the in-house wrapper I created to be able to port my games to all platforms easily. This changes the behavior by streaming your gameplay straight to your profile on the Ape Apps website, instead of to my-colony.com. I will be updating my-colony.com shortly though that will embed the stream in the same place it used to be, so for the most part it should still look the same.


I made this change for long-term planning, so that I can add streaming capabilities to my other games. The stream viewer on ape-apps.com is improved from what was available on the My Colony website. It now shows how many people are watching and lets you record the stream. It has other capabilities as well that aren't worth mentioning here, but will be implemented in other games in the future. To access your livestream page, go to your profile here on Ape Apps and click on the little video camera button on the left sidebar.

To go along with this change, the in-game streaming interface has been updated, with a new livestream control bar now appearing when you have streaming turned on.


This bar shows you how many people are watching the stream, and lets you turn either microphone or webcam on or off (previously, webcam wasn't even supported). Streaming is currently supported on Chrome, the new version of Edge, on the Desktop version, the Ape Apps Launcher, and on Android. I can't get it working right yet on iOS or Windows Store.

Moving on. Last update was the big Zolarg release, but I had accidentally forgot to make the dazzling hot-pink Etherbug buildable. This is now fixed, and you can now create the Etherbug on your Zolarg maps. Sorry about that!

A lot of people had complained about the massive gold cost on the Zolarg Unholy Pit and Unholy Tower of Stuff. I have reduced theses costs in this update to make them more reasonable. In addition, these two structures have gained storage capabilities for Charcoal, Oil, and Software.

In addition, the Zolarg Customs Processing building can now import and export Diamonds and Software.

I have made a small change to the in-game encyclopedia. Before, under each category (buildings, vehicles, etc) it said Everything you need to know... Now, it shows the number of items that are in each category (number of buildings, vehicles, etc).

I have loosened the building requirements for the Reptilian Brewmasters Den, as it was too difficult to build at the beginning, and is an essential building. I removed Helium-3 and Crystalline from the build requirements. In addition, the building now uses Ant Paste during production, instead of Helium 3.

The Powered Materials Silo has gained Software Storage, and also now acts as a drop-off point for Diamond harvesting.

I don't know if anybody had noticed, but I had inadvertently allowed Ether importing from the Reptilian Medium Range Star Gate. This has been removed. In exchange, this structure can now export Fish and Salt Water.

Speaking of Fish and Salt Water, they have both been added to the Galactic Board of Trade, and will eventually be used in other non-Water World processes. They are the two map-specific resources for the Water World.

While we are on the subject of resources, a brand new one was added to the game this update, Cobalt. Cobalt is a super-rare, because 1) it's only available on the dreaded Lava World, and 2) it only appears after a volcanic eruption.


Why Cobalt? Well, originally Obsidian was going to be the map-exclusive resource for Lava World, but I forgot and ended up adding it to everything, so that wasn't going to work. So now we have Cobalt. It's all good. Anyway, right now only the Reptilians can harvest it, but other civs will be able to after v1.0. It will be coming to the GBT on the next update as well, and will be used for new super-high-end structures on all civs. Being tied to the Lava World, I suspect it will command a pretty good price on the GBT once trading opens up.

Moving on. Since probably v0.1.0 of My Colony way back in 2016, people have been requesting to be able to move buildings once built. I haven't counted, but it's probably the top request in the game, or a close second to Mass Transit. I understand why it's been wanted. Most My Colony players are on Android, and most mobile builder games allow you to move structures. Of course, most mobile builder games are also IAP filled "diamond" (or gems or special coins) festivals that nickel and dime players by making buildings take 5 days to build unless you pay real money. My Colony isn't like that, and I never thought a move building option was realistic enough for the game, but nonetheless people still request it all the time, so for this update, I have now added an option to move buildings, with caveats.


You can now move any structure in the game, unless it is a harvest drop-off location or has it's own move function, like the Lander, Queen/Mound, or the deployed Construction Mech.

I do want to give people the option to configure and organize their base as they see fit, and I understand that as a colony grows from a small settlement to a major city, you might want to rethink the way you placed buildings at the beginning, so that is why I am allowing the move option. The reason I do not allow it on harvest drop-off spots though, should be obvious. I'm not going to let players just, for example, keep moving their Ore Refinery right next to the Ore every time a deposit is dried up. That would be lame.

Next, I have made an interface change to the mobile version of the game. Now when you are building a structure on mobile, you get the same (well, a minified) "new construction" bar that desktop players have.


This makes it easy to see what you are building will cost, and to flip structures before placing them.

So now let's talk about the meat of the update, the new Reptilian content. There are two new vehicles, the Diamond Extractor and the Cobalt Extractor (I think you can figure out what each does), and 19 new buildings, which I will list below and then talk about some of them in detail afterwards.

• Galactic Star Gate
• Radiated Crystal Farm
• Advanced Materials Silo
• Subterranean Slum
• Raw Fish Diner
• Deep Sea Drilling Platform
• Coral Radiator
• Offshore Slum
• Dracarus Mint
• Turbo Microreactor
• Diamond Cobalt Microreactor
• Basic Crystal Furnace
• Suppertime Arena
• Primitive Robotics Lab
• Advanced Chip Transporter
• Automated Software Node
• Antanium Radiator
• Ultra High Frequency Node
• Near-Infinite Materials Silo

My core of thinking with this update was to make the Reptilians more playable, or rather enjoyable to play, and reduce the sheer idling time required to play a Reptilian colony. Starting with Reptilians was so slow before, that a new colony would have to idle for hours just to get anywhere, which isn't really feasible on mobile. So a lot of this content is geared towards early to early-mid game, but there are a few later-stage items as well. Structures like the Basic Crystal Furnace, the Coral Radiator, and the Dracarus Mint should help speed along early-game a bit.

Reptilians also get a couple of new housing units, both slums (of course). The Subterranean Slum is a high-density building for all maps, and the Offshore Slum is a way to gain more space on the traditionally space-limited Water World islands.


I added a couple of new Tourism related structures for Reptilians, in the form of the new Raw Fish Diner and the Audrey II inspired Suppertime Arena, where Reptilians and tourists alike can watch an evil plant eat Insectoids.


There are new much-needed upgrades to Reptilian Storage, Power generation, increased import/export capacity, Microchip production, Software production, and Bandwidth generation. Reptilians also gain the ability to build robots with the new Primitive Robotics Lab, and the ability to build Triantanium with the Antanium Radiator.

All in all, this is a fairly large update that adds some nice QOL improvements to the game, and adds much needed content and improvements to the Reptilian race (a bit for Zolarg too).

Now, to talk a bit about the future. If you missed it, I published a new episode of the My Colony Podcast last night about the coming end of beta for My Colony. v0.99.0 is in fact the 99th feature release of My Colony (which was originally published on May 16, 2016), which will make the next update the 100th feature update of My Colony, in which it will finally be bumped up to v1.0.0.

Now to me it's just a number, but since 100 of anything is generally seen as special, I think something special should happen for the next update to the game. To help kick off the v1.0.0 release, I would like to do another classic episode of the My Colony Podcast with a community group voice chat, the way the old episodes were done a couple of years ago. I would like to host the episode on one of the federation Discord channels, possibly the NOZ channel if they will allow it, and have anybody and everybody from the community be able to participate if they want to. We will just be talking about the growth and changes of the game over the last few years and bumping suggestions and ideas off of each other for the coming updates. You can also ask me anything you want about My Colony or otherwise. I think it will be a fun episode for everybody, and I hope a lot of people participate. I just need to nail down a location, time, date, and re-figure out how to record the thing. So be looking out for more information about that.

As for the update itself, I plan on adding something of an online leader-board to the game, featuring multiple in-game challenges and awards that people can participate in if they choose to. It will be optional, so you can still play as normal without doing the leader-boards, but the purpose is to have something to do in the game after you have a million people in your colony and all buildings unlocked, but it's also going to be set up in a tiered way so that new players can also participate. I still have some things to work out with it, and so you have some time to make suggestions in the forum if you want your ideas implemented!

As for a timeframe, the next release is going to take longer than normal. I go over the reasons in the latest podcast, but basically we have Thanksgiving in the U.S. coming up soon with holiday travels, and I also need to take some time away from My Colony to get work done on my other projects before the holiday season, since December is the biggest month of the year for the app business, and with my schedule I am going to be pressed for time to get much work done later in this month. So I would shoot for early-mid December for the v1.0.0 release, although there might be a couple of platform-specific bug patches between now and then, should the need arise.

Further out, v1.1.0 and v1.2.0 will probably be performance tweak related updates, since I am getting a lot of requests for those, particularly on the Android side of things, so I will have to try to see if I can squeeze more juice out of the engine. So they will still have new content, but not like 10-20+ new items like the last few updates have had. After that, I want to add crime and law enforcement to the game, and even further out, I want to add the ability to have a map with an AI controlled faction, as I want to add a new map type that is inhabited with primitive ewok-type creatures that you have to either coexist with or... something else. So stay tuned for that...

Anyway, that's all for v0.99.0. I hope you guys enjoyed it, let me know if you did (or didn't)! Like I said at the beginning, the roll-out will take several days here, but it's live and final on the Web now. Launcher will probably be next, then Steam, then Android, then Windows, and lastly iOS. I expect to have it published to all stores by Wednesday, so stay tuned!

This are the current planetary and racial ideas that I have. The purpose of this list is to make it easy to find my ideas without having to go to each topic.

Toxic/trash Planet: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=29285
The Bog: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=28960
Space Platform/Dyson sphere: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=28843
Desert/arid : https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=14302
Twilight planet/ twilight idea for abandoned planet: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=25865
Blast furnace/mercury planet: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=15239
Blast furnace revamped: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=30528
Planet Terraformation ideas and venus planet: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=3932
lava world ideas: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=12913
Ice World Ideas: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=14299
Race ideas: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=5389
water body and sea level ideas: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=14672
Living Planet: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=30021
Jungle Planet: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=33448

Ideas regarding all of the existing planets, and some ideas that apply to all planets, both in existence and those in idea form: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=29587

I'll continue to add more as I find my older topics or when I create new ones.

Ape Apps Launcher v1.6.3 is now available for all platforms and includes continued improvements to the platform. This thread takes a look at some of the new features added to a launcher, and a glimpse at what's to come.

Firstly, the context menu for your installed apps has been revamped. Now when you right-click on one of your installed apps, you have new options available, including a shortcut to all of your apps saved data. On Windows, you can add a launcher shortcut to the desktop or start menu, and on Linux you can now create application launchers for your individual apps which should work in Gnome, KDE, XFCE, and probably others.


New settings have also been added to the Windows and Linux clients to better tie the launcher in with your operating system. You might remember a few months ago that changes were made to the Launcher and other Ape Apps desktop applications that removed the self-installer package which automatically created desktop and start menu links for the launcher. Now if you go into settings, you can manually recreate those links.


Windows users also have the option to automatically start the Ape Apps Launcher in minimized-to-tray mode when booting their PC.

Deleting an app from the launcher now gives you an additional option to clean up all app saved data from your PC.

Other changes are going to be coming to the Launcher in the months ahead, leading up to the important release of My Colony 2. When you are logged in to your Ape Apps Account, instead of being taken to the all-available apps listing screen, there will be a new personalized home screen giving you information about your entire Ape Apps account and let you see what games your friends are currently playing, with one-click join game access on supported games (such as the upcoming My Colony 2, and current multiplayer games like Epic Advanture, Colony Wars, and Death 3d).

Another feature that will be making it's way to the Launcher is the ability to view live streams. Several Ape Apps games include streaming capabilities, such as My Colony, Antiquitas, Gone Rogue, and Hell and Back, but it is difficult to know who is streaming and when. A new streaming section will be added to the Launcher showing all players who are currently live-streaming their gameplay (unless they opt out of public listing). Players will also have the option to customize their streaming channel and even add a PayPal or Bitcoin address so that people can "tip" their stream (Ape Apps will not be a "middle man" or take a cut from any tips, it will be direct from user to user).

The Launcher is also getting a new TV mode with gamepad support. Many Ape Apps games already support gamepad, but the launcher itself does not. This mode is intended for users who have PC's hooked up to their TV, so that they can easily play games like My Colony (and MC2) on the big screen. Along with the new Launcher support for Linux on ARM, this can also be used with Raspberry Pi devices. I am also looking at adding a way to link local video folders to the launcher so that you can easily view and play your personal movie collection while in TV mode. This is a feature that I personally want, which is the main reason for it's development... 🙂

Anyway, those are the plans for now. Users for the Ape Apps Launcher have probably noticed an increase in update frequency over the last few weeks, and this is probably going to continue as the Launcher continues to improve and serve as the best way to enjoy Ape Apps software on your desktop. You can find download links for Windows, Mac, and Linux below:

https://market.ape-apps.com/ape-apps-launcher.html

#apeappslauncher

On the Web version of My Colony, the Facebook login button has now been replaced by an Ape Apps Account login button. Logging in gives you something like this:

Keep in mind you may have to do a hard-reload for everything to work correctly.

As of this moment, the only thing it does for you is unlock your premium upgrade if you have already added your .amk file to your Ape Apps Account. So if you have uploaded it, you will no longer need to use your key file when playing on the Web version any more. Soon, if you are logged in on both Web and Android (for instance), it will automatically carry your premium upgrade from one device to the other, so I will no longer have to deal with all of the daily "i need my amk file" emails anymore!

The account integration will be expanded over the coming weeks, leading up to v0.53.0 where it will be coming to all platforms. v0.53.0 will also tie all online colonies to your account, and introduce a revamped my-colony.com website where you can log into your Ape Apps account and do some management of your linked colonies and commonwealths right from within your browser.

Additionally, v0.53.0 is bringing in-game commonwealth chat to the game. Each commonwealth will be getting it's own chat room. It will be powered by the same chat that the website uses and will be coming to all platforms. I am also adding optional email notifications and perhaps push notifications for events like new colonies joining your commonwealth or when you get an in-game message.

There is also a brand new achievements and ranking system coming, also tied to your account. I am also looking into ways to tie the game more closely into the forum here, letting you display achievements or things you got in-game onto your profile.

Anyway, these are just the first things coming along with the new unified account system. There will be more goodies added based on feedback. So stay tuned!

The title says it all, I am considering discontinuing development on the Ape Apps Launcher.

I originally created the launcher in order to fill in the missing capabilities that were not available to my apps on Ape Web Apps when run from within a browser. Since then though, the situation has changed considerably. Every app on Ape Web Apps is now fully and easily installable as a Progressive Web App (PWA) on Windows, Linux, MacOS, and even Android through either Chrome or Edge. Once installed, the apps all have native file system access for saving, and can even automatically launch by double-clicking on their associated file types (such as .vpp files) when the #file-handling-api feature is enabled in about://flags (soon to be enabled as standard). Installed PWA's also work without a live internet connection.

The only real remaining benefit on the Launcher is the system try access to friends notifications, but I do not think that by itself is enough of a reason to continue to develop the thing, and I do have an idea to replace that as well.

The bottom line is that there is a lot of work required to maintain the Ape Apps Launcher, and at the end of the day it only has about 300 active users during a given week. In addition, both Windows and macOS give out security warnings and require users to jump through extra hoops just to run the thing after downloading, since I am not paying for a signing certificate for the thing.

At the end of the day, Web Apps are becoming far more capable, and I think that the Launcher is largely obsolete at this point. My proposal is to discontinue the product, and in its place, offer a small Ape Apps browser extension for both Chrome and Edge that will help fill in the last remaining pieces, such as friends list management/notifications, account management, etc.

So anyway, I wanted to through the idea out there to make sure there wasn't going to be a public outcry over the loss of the Launcher. If everybody really loves it, then I can keep it around. But it does save me a ton of time to not have to keep the Launcher up to date, and I think installed web apps are the way of the future anyway. Basically, it's the same thing that the Launcher does anyway, and as I mentioned earlier, I think I can close the remaining functionality gap with a simple browser extension.

#apeappslauncher

My Colony 2 v0.20.0 is out now on Web, Windows, and the Ape Apps Launcher, and should be hitting Android and iOS sometime later this week. I don't have any new structures in this release, and instead focused on cleaning up some of the issues from v0.19.0, and started laying the groundwork for future greatness! So what's new? Let's take a look!

To start off, many of the video settings in the Engine Settings menu no longer require an app restart in order to take effect. Realtime Shadows, Antialiasing, and DOF effect can now all be toggled on/off while in-game. I am working on making it so that all engine settings can be toggled on and off while the game is running, so stay tuned for that.

I started adding initial gamepad support to the game. Right now the gamepad only controls the camera and the Player Mode controls, but eventually I intend to have the game 100% playable with the controller. This will allow be to publish the game to Android/Fire TV devices, as well as the new Steam Deck device for when I finally port the game over to Steam.

The top-right toolbar has been expanded, and I might have to start adding UI toggle switches to let players turn more items on/off as they see fit.


The new buttons (starting at the left) are the Player Mode toggle, and the VR Mode toggle, both of which I will expand on in a bit. The VR Mode button will only appear on the Windows 10 or the Web version of the game, and will only be there if you have supporting hardware (like Google Cardboard viewer on an Android phone, or Windows Mixed Reality headset, or if you are playing the game on an Oculus stand-alone device).

You will also notice on the bottom-right mini toolbar next to the Clear Chat button is a new microphone button:


My Colony 2 now comes with built-in voice chat support. This is not a global voice chat, just a group chat for the people online in the current world. This was added as a way to communicate in the new VR Mode, but also works in all modes of play for players who just want to talk to each-other instead of type. The icon will turn green if your microphone is active, and red if your microphone is muted. Click on the microphone icon to mute/unmute. You will also see an indication that tells you which player is talking while they are speaking.

In v0.19.0, I added a rudimentary "Player Mode" that allowed you to click on a colonist and walk around the city from their point of view. This feature has been expanded in this release, and will continue to be expanded as time goes on. In v0.20.0, you no longer have to try clicking on a tiny colonist, there is a new Player Mode icon on the top toolbar. The first time you click on the Player Mode toggle, you will be asked to place your token. Now instead of assuming the body of an existing colonist, you actually join the world as yourself. You can pick any starting location you want, but after your token is places, you will have to physically walk to wherever you want to go.

Right now your token just looks like a standard colonists, except whose space suit is matched to your player color in-server. I plan to allow players to also customize their guy buy picking one of their Tokens from the My Tokens app.

Your Player Mode player location and movements are now synced to the server, and all players can see each other's guys walking around the world. In the coming updates, each player will have a personal inventory attached to their Player Mode character, as well as stats, equipment, etc, and Player Mode characters will be able to interact with each other, and maybe even do joint quests, depending on how far I take this. I also think it will be cool to let Player Mode characters enter vehicles, whether land, sea or air vehicles, and travel around the world in that manner.

Eventually there can be a whole Player Mode game within a game associated to MC2, but I also want the modding tools to have the ability to create a game that is 100% based on the Player Mode, so there is going to be a lot more coming to this feature in the coming updates. As always, suggestions are welcome!

Somewhat related to Player Mode, a new Virtual Reality Mode has been added to the game! This one is an even earlier and more experimental state than Player Mode, but players with supporting hardware can test it out today and leave feedback.


Eventually, the entire My Colony 2 game, both regular build mode and Player Mode, will be 100% playable from both the Gamepad and the VR interface. Right now it's basically a tech demo, although Player Mode in VR is pretty much equivalent to the non-VR player mode at this time.

To test out VR Mode today, you will need some hardware. The cheapest way to get into it is to get a Google Cardboard viewer, or one of the many Android VR headsets that are cheaply available on Amazon (you would need the Google Cardboard app installed as well). You will also have to use the PWA version of My Colony 2 (https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/) as it does not work on the installed .apk. Playing on Android will also require you to have a bluetooth gamepad paired to your phone.

You can also try it from a stand alone VR Headset like the Oculus (meta) Quest 2. Just fire up the headset browser and navigate to the My Colony 2 web app. You will not need an extra controller on the Oculus, as the devices controllers work just fine.

There is nothing you can do in the standard build mode while in VR except scroll around, so you are best off switching your game into Player Mode before activating VR (as you can't do it while in VR yet). Once in VR Player Mode though, you can walk around the entire world as your Player Mode character. Even though you can't do anything yet, it's a pretty cool experience. With multiple players in a game with VR Player Mode and microphones activated, it can be a cool VR social experience. Especially in the future, if you can group up and go on a quest.

Keep in mind that more computing horsepower is required for VR Mode. On the Quest 2, I had to turn all engine settings down before starting up the game, as the Water World map in VR completely lagged my headset out, which was kind of disorienting. So if you are going to try VR Mode, please turn down graphics settings before entering the game!

If you have a VR Headset or Cardboard type viewer, give it a try and let me know! I think there is a lot of future potential for VR Mode in MC2.

Moving on, there are a few quality of life improvements in this update. Now when you click on the scrolling resources counter, it will switch to a static, non-scrolling list like in MC1.


I have also implemented one of the most long-standing feature requests to the game (besides pavement bulldozing), building progress bars!


Progress Bars were actually a lot harder than they seem like they should be, since MC2 is rendered in 3D unlike MC1, each resource bar has to be an object in the 3D world. To save performance, there is only 1 resource bar object that gets reused as you mouse around the world, and a new texture is redrawn with every tick update.

There are some modding improvements too. Mod Shop downloads are now checked for updates automatically on game launch and are automatically kept updated in the background. Also, support for Total Conversion mods has been unbroken, and these types of mods should be working again, both through manual import and from the Mod Shop.

So these are the major changes in this update. There is also a laundry list of bug fixes that I will not bore you with.

The next update will have to focus on content again since I did a non-content update this time. Moving ahead, I am going to expand Gamepad support to cover the full game, and get full building mode working in the VR mode. I also want to add new play experiences to the Player Mode, so if you have suggestions, feel free to let me know. Other than that, thank you for playing the game, let me know what you want to see next, and stay tuned for more!

#mycolony2