bastecklein's Recent Posts
Since I have been giving my other Steam released titles an asset and title screen facelift, I decided, "why not My Empire too?" So here we are My Empire v2.1.0, available now!
The new title screen is interesting on this release. I basically tool the old feature image for My Empire, which consisted of the title logo, the Legion and Frigate units, just superimposed on a brown parchment texture, and asked Chat GPT to spruce them up a bit. I think the result turned out pretty cool!
The new builds of My Empire should be hitting all platforms over the coming days. As with the new My Colony and Antiquitas builds, macOS on Steam has returned to the lineup, so the few mac users out there can rejoice and be glad!
Thanks for playing!
https://myempire.ape-apps.com/
#myempire
The new title screen is interesting on this release. I basically tool the old feature image for My Empire, which consisted of the title logo, the Legion and Frigate units, just superimposed on a brown parchment texture, and asked Chat GPT to spruce them up a bit. I think the result turned out pretty cool!
The new builds of My Empire should be hitting all platforms over the coming days. As with the new My Colony and Antiquitas builds, macOS on Steam has returned to the lineup, so the few mac users out there can rejoice and be glad!
Thanks for playing!
https://myempire.ape-apps.com/
#myempire
There is no built in limit. It must be running into a parse error with a filename it does not like.
How many did you purchase and from which app store (google, iphone, paypal, etc) and I will get it fixed for you @DarkPhoenix
Following the recent My Colony v2.0.0 release, all engine updates and features from that update have now been ported over to it's sister game Anitquitas, and v2.0.0 is now rolling out to all supported platforms!
Of course, since My Colony received a minor promotional graphics overhaul, I did not want Antiquitas to feel left out of the fun. The game now sports a new title screen and updated icon, as well as minor UI refreshes throughout.
In addition, and as with My Colony, the macOS release has returned to both Steam and the stand-alone Desktop installer (available on the Ape Market).
https://play.antiquitas.app/
#antiquitas
Of course, since My Colony received a minor promotional graphics overhaul, I did not want Antiquitas to feel left out of the fun. The game now sports a new title screen and updated icon, as well as minor UI refreshes throughout.
In addition, and as with My Colony, the macOS release has returned to both Steam and the stand-alone Desktop installer (available on the Ape Market).
https://play.antiquitas.app/
#antiquitas
Today I am announcing the release of My Colony v2.0.0, which should be rolling out to all platforms and devices over the coming days. There isn't anything in the way of new content, but under the hood the game has undergone major changes, so let's see what happened!
Firstly, since the sheer scale of the technical changes was so great, I decided to bump the game up to v2.0.0, and to help celebrate the version bump, I decided to spruce up the game's icon and title screen a little bit. Nothing major, just a little coat of paint. Hope nobody is too offended by the change!
Moving on to more technical stuff, many of you noticed I have not been very active in the community over the last few months. I have nonetheless been quite busy with Ape Apps, as I have been under taking the massive task of updating and modernizing all of my code and libraries across the entire business. I have been converting all of my code into modules so that I can reuse things easier, and I have been moving things to version control to better keep track of everything that I have. This has been a massive undertaking, especially getting all of my old apps and games onboard with the new changes, and My Colony was one of the larger projects that I have, so it required a ton of changes.
One of the main challenges was updating the game to work with the new version of my Scroll2d Engine, which itself has also been converted into a module, and even open sourced. For those curious about the Scroll2d engine that powers My Colony and a handful of my other games and apps, you can now find the Scroll2d code on GitHub (although I have not had time to document anything yet):
https://github.com/bastecklein/scroll2d
My new process for app building that I am rolling out, My Colony included, is going to make it a lot easier and faster for me to update and fix things. For other developers and tinkerers out there though, there is one downside to my new process. Since the game is now completely module based and packaged together with a bundler, it's not quite as easy as it once was to pull open the source code and see how things work (which is how tools like Coloniae came about). I think the tradeoff it ok though, since the game will be alot easier for me to maintain going forward.
On the Desktop side of things, all desktop packages (except for Windows on ARM) are now digitally signed, so you should no longer get security warnings and popups when trying to play the games after downloading. In addition, My Colony for macOS has returned to both Steam and as a standalone desktop app, since I know there are a handful of Mac players out there who were not happy when I discontinued the macOS builds.
Looking ahead, although most work in the My Colony Universe will be focused towards My Colony 2, I have been toying around with the idea of using AI to remaster all of the building graphics for the original My Colony. I have done a few tests and I think it is doable, but I don't trust it enough yet to do it properly full-scale. Potentially though, I might be able to make the game look pretty good, but we will see.
Anyway, a lot technically has changed in this update, so if you find issues, post them here and let me know. I want to be sure that the MC1 update is solid before porting it over to Antiquitas.
Thanks for playing My Colony!
https://mycolony.online/
#mycolony
Firstly, since the sheer scale of the technical changes was so great, I decided to bump the game up to v2.0.0, and to help celebrate the version bump, I decided to spruce up the game's icon and title screen a little bit. Nothing major, just a little coat of paint. Hope nobody is too offended by the change!
Moving on to more technical stuff, many of you noticed I have not been very active in the community over the last few months. I have nonetheless been quite busy with Ape Apps, as I have been under taking the massive task of updating and modernizing all of my code and libraries across the entire business. I have been converting all of my code into modules so that I can reuse things easier, and I have been moving things to version control to better keep track of everything that I have. This has been a massive undertaking, especially getting all of my old apps and games onboard with the new changes, and My Colony was one of the larger projects that I have, so it required a ton of changes.
One of the main challenges was updating the game to work with the new version of my Scroll2d Engine, which itself has also been converted into a module, and even open sourced. For those curious about the Scroll2d engine that powers My Colony and a handful of my other games and apps, you can now find the Scroll2d code on GitHub (although I have not had time to document anything yet):
https://github.com/bastecklein/scroll2d
My new process for app building that I am rolling out, My Colony included, is going to make it a lot easier and faster for me to update and fix things. For other developers and tinkerers out there though, there is one downside to my new process. Since the game is now completely module based and packaged together with a bundler, it's not quite as easy as it once was to pull open the source code and see how things work (which is how tools like Coloniae came about). I think the tradeoff it ok though, since the game will be alot easier for me to maintain going forward.
On the Desktop side of things, all desktop packages (except for Windows on ARM) are now digitally signed, so you should no longer get security warnings and popups when trying to play the games after downloading. In addition, My Colony for macOS has returned to both Steam and as a standalone desktop app, since I know there are a handful of Mac players out there who were not happy when I discontinued the macOS builds.
Looking ahead, although most work in the My Colony Universe will be focused towards My Colony 2, I have been toying around with the idea of using AI to remaster all of the building graphics for the original My Colony. I have done a few tests and I think it is doable, but I don't trust it enough yet to do it properly full-scale. Potentially though, I might be able to make the game look pretty good, but we will see.
Anyway, a lot technically has changed in this update, so if you find issues, post them here and let me know. I want to be sure that the MC1 update is solid before porting it over to Antiquitas.
Thanks for playing My Colony!
https://mycolony.online/
#mycolony
Going forward, all discussion related to the Level Up Player, various Level Up games, the Level Up Builder, or the Tiny Level Up Builder will be redirected to the new Level Up Player section on Discussions:
https://discussions.social/?server=https://chat.ape-apps.com&channel=levelupplayer
If you already have the Discussions app or PWA installed on your system, you can use the following link to quickly join the new channel:
web+discussions://channel/levelupplayer
https://discussions.social/?server=https://chat.ape-apps.com&channel=levelupplayer
If you already have the Discussions app or PWA installed on your system, you can use the following link to quickly join the new channel:
web+discussions://channel/levelupplayer
Today I am releasing the v2.6.0 update to Voxel Paint which includes a handful of bug fixes, as well as the new glTF exporter for premium users.
Voxel Paint has had the .obj exporter for a long time, but the issue is that the .obj spec does not allow for adding color data to the object models. This was fine for 3D printing uses (which is what I had originally added the function in for), but for importing models into programs like Blender, it was less than optimal.
The new glTF exporter uses the open glTF standard which is supported my many different applications and includes all color data with the exported models.
There have also been some minor theme changes to the app. Let me know if you find any issues, and have fun voxeling!
#voxelpaint
https://voxelpaint.online/
Voxel Paint has had the .obj exporter for a long time, but the issue is that the .obj spec does not allow for adding color data to the object models. This was fine for 3D printing uses (which is what I had originally added the function in for), but for importing models into programs like Blender, it was less than optimal.
The new glTF exporter uses the open glTF standard which is supported my many different applications and includes all color data with the exported models.
There have also been some minor theme changes to the app. Let me know if you find any issues, and have fun voxeling!
#voxelpaint
https://voxelpaint.online/
Antiquitas has been updated to v1.33.0 and the release should be hitting all platforms over the coming days. This update includes a roll-up of all engine fixes and improvements from My Colony v1.34-v1.37. This includes a new music rendering engine that reduces CPU usage, bug fixes for saving very large game saves, a redesign of the in-game menus and more!
https://play.antiquitas.app/
#antiquitas
https://play.antiquitas.app/
#antiquitas
Small quick update for the original My Colony today. Should fix a bug that would allow a player to edit the costs of units and buildings during gameplay. Enjoy!
Thank you @mikethe3dguy I will continue to investigate. Do you mind telling me what model of device you are running the app on?
Today I am releasing the v0.49.0 update to My Colony 2 which should be landing on all platforms over the coming days. Special thanks to @therealchromedino and @RekEm1999 for contributing content to this release, so let's take a look at what is new!
There are a handful of fixes in this update to MC2. Firstly, you should now see colonists walking around your settlements again (if you have it enabled in engine settings). This feature died when the game was switched over to simulated structure updates (since the colonists were placed based on where people lived/worked/etc). I still need to work out how and where it places colonists for a cleaner and more evenly distributed look, but right now it's better than it was before!
Next up, I think I have defensive structures finally working again. This is another thing that died with the simulated structures update, but I think I have it working now. I have not actually tested this out, so you can let me know, but I think it's back up and running again.
I have added the Dusk Fruit related content to the game, submitted by @therealchromedino several months ago. This includes the Umbral Genetics tech, Dusk Fruit resource, and Dusk Fruit Lab structure.
There are also a handful of new structures submitted by @RekEm1999 which include the Hacker Camp, Pottery Works, Medium Server Farm Operation, Data Interceptor and the Integrated Sugar Factory. A big thank you to both contributors for adding new content to the base game!
That is all for this update. Let me know what issues you find, what I broke, or what you would like to see added. Thanks for playing My Colony 2, and stay tuned for more!
https://mycolony2.com/
#mycolony2
There are a handful of fixes in this update to MC2. Firstly, you should now see colonists walking around your settlements again (if you have it enabled in engine settings). This feature died when the game was switched over to simulated structure updates (since the colonists were placed based on where people lived/worked/etc). I still need to work out how and where it places colonists for a cleaner and more evenly distributed look, but right now it's better than it was before!
Next up, I think I have defensive structures finally working again. This is another thing that died with the simulated structures update, but I think I have it working now. I have not actually tested this out, so you can let me know, but I think it's back up and running again.
I have added the Dusk Fruit related content to the game, submitted by @therealchromedino several months ago. This includes the Umbral Genetics tech, Dusk Fruit resource, and Dusk Fruit Lab structure.
There are also a handful of new structures submitted by @RekEm1999 which include the Hacker Camp, Pottery Works, Medium Server Farm Operation, Data Interceptor and the Integrated Sugar Factory. A big thank you to both contributors for adding new content to the base game!
That is all for this update. Let me know what issues you find, what I broke, or what you would like to see added. Thanks for playing My Colony 2, and stay tuned for more!
https://mycolony2.com/
#mycolony2
bastecklein
Developer
Member Since
September 2nd, 2017