Ape Apps

bastecklein's Recent Posts

RE:Death 3d Engine Gets Heightmap Support

2019-06-16 19:31:46

And just for good measure, one of the posters you will find on the Galactic Freight freighter.

by bastecklein

Death 3d Engine Gets Heightmap Support

2019-06-14 22:01:27

Previous to now, Death 3d maps have always been flat, as in all floors and ceilings were at the same height, and all walls were the same height. This made the levels basically flat, similar to Wolfenstein 3d. Today I am happy to announce that in the upcoming Death 3d v0.7.0 patch, the engine now supports map layouts with varying floor/ceiling/wall heights, more similar to Doom. This will allow for far more dynamic map layouts for the upcoming Episode 2 campaign.

Over the last couple of updates, the Death engine has gained floor damage, teleporter, and now height map support. Next on the agenda is support for elevators, as well as custom switches that do other things (lower/raise a floor, teleport in enemies, open or unlock a remote door, etc). These new engine features should make Episode 2 quite a bit more interesting than Ep1 (which is also great, of course).

If you haven't played Episode 1 yet, it's totally free, and you can check it out on Web, Android, Ape Apps Launcher, or Windows 10:
apps.ape-apps.com/death-3d/

Or you can watch the complete Episode 1 walkthrough here:
www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=30559

Much more greatness for Death 3d to come!

#death3d

by bastecklein

RE:Content Mods

2019-06-11 17:32:32

So all of the actual game content is in game.js, and script.js contains only the engine code, which is why script.js is identical in My Colony and Antiquitas.

The only barrier to allowing custom mods has to do with the graphics assets, I just have to build a way of making it work. Just altering script.js or game.js will not work because their checksums are verified with the server and altering them will flag your account, so I do not suggest it.

by bastecklein

RE:Multiple issues

2019-06-11 13:52:33

It sounds like the My Colony server is blocking him. I do not see any of his IP addresses on the blacklist though. @drejostwo have you updated to the latest v0.88.0 version of the game? The server does block access to clients that are 5 versions or more behind the latest release.

by bastecklein

RE:The IOS MC app is taking forever to start

2019-06-11 12:39:21

See if it still happens on the v0.88.0 release. I think it was related to trying to contact the My Colony server.

by bastecklein

RE:PREMIUM IS A SCAM

2019-06-11 12:36:49

@AlecMal iOS is the only platform where buying Premium does not automatically unlock it on all devices, because it violates the App Store terms, but if people ask me I pretty much always add it to their account for them. I looked at your account and it has never even signed in to My Colony. I would also be interested to know how many other developers you deal with that just carry your in-app purchases across all platforms for you. I know I have purchased Minecraft like 4 times now, lol.

by bastecklein

My Land v1.27.0 Released

2019-06-10 18:25:03

I am just putting the finishing touches on My Land v1.27.0 and it should be hitting all platforms within the coming days. There are a handful of exciting changes and updates in this release, so let's take a look at what's new!

Firstly, the Harvester has gotten a bit of a boost in this release. Now whenever the Harvester is just sitting there idle, it will automatically seek out crops that are ready to harvest, and then go do the work! It's not perfect, and the pathfinding is a little dumb compared to My Colony as I don't want to bog My Land down with some of the performance problems that pathfinding can cause on My Colony. That said, it does generally work. When you have the Harvester selected, it is automatically switched into manual mode, and goes back to automatic when you deselect it. That way the Harvester does not try to go and do it's own thing when you are trying to use it manually.

Two new storage resources were added in this update, Flour and Bread.

Flour is created at the brand new Flour Mill structure, which you can now also buy. The Flour Mill is a wind powered mill that converts stored Wheat into Flour. If I remember right, I made the ratio 6 Wheats = 1 bag of Flour. This is the first structure which can actually convert one resource into another, and the code added to the engine to make this possible is going to unlock a bunch of fun new stuff in the coming updates.

The other new resource Bread is both created and sold at the also new Bakery structure. The Bakery is a visitor destination structure like the Pizza Stand, except it is also a production facility like the Flour Mill, in that it creates Bread also. The Bakery turns 1 bag of Flour into 5 Breads. When a Visitor walks by your Bakery, they will also purchase a loaf of bread for higher than the price that you can sell it for straight up on the Storage screen (if they have the money). The Bakery also raises your land attraction rating.

In addition to the above mentioned content, there were a handful of minor tweaks and bug fixes added in this release.

The next few updates are going to continue to focus on adding new concepts and capabilities to the engine. Once I get everything how I want it, it will be all content from there on out. Next, I want to add a Shed type of structure that can store your Harvester and Lawn Mower, and maybe also a Barn that animals can go inside of. I also want to add extra options to the animals. For instance, right now you can click on a Cow and get the option to sell. Instead, I want to design a new popup window with options like Sell, Milk (to get a new Milk resource), Slaughter (to get Beef), etc. It will be different for different animals, like you can get Wool from the sheep. These new resources will in turn allow other types of structures. I also want to add a way to expand the size of the farm property, and a way to increase the Visitor limit of the property.

So that is it for today's update. It will be hitting all platforms within the coming days, so be on the lookout, and thanks for playing My Land!

by bastecklein

My Colony v0.88.0 Released

2019-06-08 00:48:32

Good evening to everybody! I was at a conference earlier this week and I didn't have a ton of time to work on My Colony, but there was a laundry list of bugs which needed to be addressed, so I wanted to get an update out tonight before I head out of town for another meeting this weekend. And while this update may be small in scale, it is none the less big at heart. So what's new with v0.88.0? Let's take a look!

Firstly, the bug fixes. Most of the bugs in this release were related to either Entertainment or Multiplayer Regions. Entertainment had a whole bunch of small issues, including one where a colonist visiting an entertainment facility would immediately be drained of the entire contents of their wallet! Good for your treasury, but not so good for your citizens.

In addition to the bug fixes, there is a new Guests readout chart on the Building Statistics screen (when you click on a building and then click on the graph icon). You can now see how much seating is available, and get a list of all of the colonists who are currently patronizing your business.

Another minor addition is at the top of the building statistics screen, where I have added a quick link to the in-game Encyclopedia article for that particular building. Also, I have added a "Fire All Workers" button to each building, in case you want to clear out a specific structure for whatever reason.

In this update, I have also more clearly defined the Poverty Line, which is now set at around 5% of the retirement savings cutoff, and you can see the stat on the Economy section of the main Stats window.

The Poverty stat has always been in the game, but previously you had no way of knowing what the level was, so that if people were complaining about Poverty, you did not know what exact adjustments to make. Now you know the amount of savings that they need in order to stop complaining about poverty.

I have slightly changed the rate that Entertainment structures provide happiness. It has been sped up from it's previous level, since I felt like colonists were spending way to many hours at the bar.

Next up is a handful of changes in fixes related to Regions. In particular Multiplayer Regions, but regular Regions are also impacted at some level.

Firstly, you can now properly delete one of your Multiplayer Region maps.

Next, on the main Region Overview map for a Multiplayer Region, there is a new menu option added to the main slide-out menu to view and share your regional charter code.

The next change applies to both regular and multiplayer Regions. Now when you are inside of a regional subcity, there is a new "Policy" option on the slide out menu that opens up the Government Policies window (like Fire Drill and money shower). This applies to cities that may not have a consulate or capitol, but are connected to another city that does. Now they have access to the policy menu as well.

Next up for Multiplayer Regions, cities by different players can now share in the same technology and resource pool. In the last update notes, I described how multiplayer regions are split up into "Metro Areas" that share technology and resources, while the overall planet as a whole shared Atmosphere. Metro Areas were previously made of adjacent cities from the same player, but now you have the option to make your metro area public on the general statistics window.

If your metro area is open, when another player starts a new city adjacent to your metro area, they will become a member of that area also, sharing in the same resources, power and technology. As you can see on the screenshot above, you can now also change the name of your metro area. The first player to create a city in a metro area is the "Owner" of that area, but being the owner only gives you the ability to change the name right now. I might expand this at some point, perhaps with some sort of voting rights for each member city.

When a metro area has multiple people online at once, resources are synced between the colonies every minute or so. I could not make them update in real time, because it just took too much bandwidth on the server. So every minute or so you may see your resource levels jump or shrink a bit. I realize that this may cause annoyances at the early stages of a city, for instance if somebody uses up all of the power or food early on, but it should not be too much of an issue on larger colonies.

Unlike resources though, when you unlock a new technology, it is immediately unlocked on all online colonies in the metro area.

I am sure that there will be some tweaking needing to be done on this, but I know with my work and your feedback, we will get it running smooth over the coming updates 🙂

Finally, I added a new building for Zolarg in this update, the Subterranean Sugar Farm.

When I was fixing a bug related to starting a non-human colony on a multiplayer region, I realized that it was basically impossible to get food as Zolarg on the Red Planet and probably other maps as well. So this new structure is a small bug mound where sugarcane is slowly grown underground. The process is slower than regular sugar harvesting and requires a constant inflow of water, but it does allow you to play Zolarg on more map types.

So anyway, there are probably more changes in this update, but I did half of it last weekend before I left town and I don't remember everything I changed, so you can let everybody know if you find something I forgot to write about. Next week I plan to work on Colony Wars and My Land, and if there are no major bugs in this My Colony release, I will be porting the engine changes over to Antiquitas as well, so be on the lookout for all of that. Then it will be back to My Colony again, so keep the feedback, suggestions and bug reports coming. And as always, thank you for playing My Colony!

by bastecklein

Network Browser v2.7.2 Released

2019-06-01 16:31:24

The Network Browser v2.7.2 patch is being finalized and should be available for download on all platforms within the coming days. This update fixes a handful of bugs, and also adds a new option to Settings, allowing you to deliberately choose whether or not to use either Network Browser's internal video player, or a 3rd party system player such as VLC.

With the 3rd party option turned on (default on non-TV devices), Network Browser will first attempt to use an external video player. If Android returns that it cannot find a suitable player, it will automatically fall back on the internal Network Browser player.

That's all for today's patch. Keep letting me know what issues you find, as your feedback has been helping catch bugs and improve the app! And if you haven't tried Network Browser on Android yet (what's wrong with you?), you can find download links for Google Play and the Amazon App Store at the following website:

apps.ape-apps.com/network-browser/

It works on Phone, Tablet and on TV devices. Enjoy!

#networkbrowser

by bastecklein

RE:additional tests

2019-06-01 14:53:43

yes its great

by bastecklein

additional tests

2019-06-01 14:53:37

i love it

by bastecklein

Ape Apps Launcher v1.2.3 Feature Update

2019-05-31 20:59:04

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.

2019-05-31 13:43:17

A great empty section to test on
discussions.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=758

by bastecklein