Ape Apps

My Colony 2 v0.21.0 is now available on the Web, Windows and the Ape Apps Launcher and should be hitting Android and iOS over the coming days. This update fixes a couple of bugs introduced in the last release and makes some pretty big changes that could alter the course of how you play MC2 over the coming months, so let's jump in and take a look!

The first big change in this update is a new feature called Universe, which will allow you to "join" your game to other players' games to create a sort of peer-to-peer network of global My Colony 2 servers.


To join or create a Universe, you simply open the Statistics window on your colony, and enter a public and (optionally) a private key. Every online game using the same Public/Private key combination (and the same game version/mods) will be automatically joined into the same Universe network.

At this time, there is no default or "official" MC2 Universe, and the feature is 100% opt-in. If the community ends up creating/pushing/rallying behind a common Universe, that's great. It can also be used to set up a private Universe between you and your friends/family.

So what does a Universe get you? As of this release, it simply unlocks a global Chat similar to what is available on My Colony 1, but this is going to expand pretty quick once this update is released and I can see if the underlying connection is actually working right. Universe is going to enable interplanetary trade/governments/war, etc., so eventually having a large Universe community with a lot of players will be beneficial. So stay tuned and keep an eye on this feature, because it's going to get exciting over the next few updates!

Beyond the Universe feature, a big change is being made to game saving. Right now (prior to this update), all MC2 game data was saved to a single large library file that synced to the Ape Apps Cloud (for signed-in players). This was causing issues with both slow loading times, and data corruption when multiple instances of MC2 were open at once. This is being completely changed in this release. Starting now, game data is no longer saved to the overall player library file, and Cloud Sync is disabled by default for all colonies. It can be turned back on (if wanted) in the World section of the Statistics window.

The next big feature in v0.21.0 is the new Stat Reporting functionality. If you've used Coloniae with My Colony 1, then you know what the general idea is here. With My Colony 2 though, Stat Reporting is a bit more decentralized, and open to any developer who wishes to take advantage of it.

Stat Reporting can be accessed/enabled in the World tab of the Statistics window.


In order to use it, you simply input one or more (separated by commas) stat reporting endpoint URL's, and the game will take care of the rest. If you are a developer and would like to build your own Stat Reporting endpoint, you can see this thread which should contain all of the information you need to get started.

The final big change in v0.21.0 is engine support for separating .vpp model data out of the individual game data objects in order to (hopefully) allow for faster initial game loading times. Right now My Colony 2 is starting to take an awful long time to load on mobile devices, and if this new functionality works as I hope it should, then My Colony v0.22.0 (the next release) should see a drastic improvement in mobile load times. The new model loading scheme is currently being tested out on the Tree Farm, Galactic Stock Exchange, and the Uranium Enrichment Facility, so please keep an eye on those three structures, and let me know if you notice any issues/problems with how they are loaded and rendered. If everything is fine, then I will be moving all larger game data objects over to the new loading scheme in the next release.

So other than a few bug fixes that are not worth mentioning in the release notes, that is about it for v0.21.0. Please test out the new features and let me know what works, doesn't work, what needs improved, etc.! There's going to be a lot of exciting new features coming over the next few updates, so stay tuned for more, thanks for playing, and I hope you enjoy the update!

#mycolony2

If you've ever played My Colony 2 and popped open the Statistics window, you may have noticed this mysterious section:


So what is "soon" and what is "universe?" Well soon is v0.21.0, and Universe is the new, more decentralized way that different worlds can interact with each other in My Colony 2.

The original My Colony had a centralized multiplayer server, but Multiplayer was limited to chat and online trades. My Colony 2 features real time online multiplayer, but is limited to players playing on the same world. Universes allow individual worlds (aka servers) to expand by connecting to each other, extending in-game chat, resource trades, and other features across servers.

This is a decentralized approach, and not every game will be in the same Universe. Anybody can create a new Universe, and anyone can join an existing Universe, provided they have the credentials.

To create or join a Universe, all you will need to do is go to the Universe tab on the Statistics window and enter a public key and private passcode. The key and passcode can be anything you want, you can make them up out of thin air. The passcode is optional. You will then be connected to any online servers who are using the same key and passcode combination. That's it. You can share your key and passcode with anyone you want, or just keep it private between friends.

In addition to the public and private keys, there is a third key that is hidden from the player, but is built from a hash of all of the game data objects in your MC2 install (aka mods), ensuring that only games using the same game data files will be a part of the same Universe (imagine the problems if games with different data items could conduct trades).

There will be no public directory of Universe keys, so the only way to give out your Universe information is to do it yourself. Of course, if you are wanting to build a large and inclusive Universe, you can post the information publicly on the forum or elsewhere, but that is up to you.

Universe will be the headline feature for the upcoming v0.21.0 release, and there will be more information as development progresses, but if you have any questions/ideas/suggestions for this new feature, you can reply to this thread.

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

I have mentioned on here before how I have recently purchased an Oculus (aka Meta) Quest 2 VR headset, and with it created my first (free) WebXR game Barrel River 2. Now, as work begins on the v0.20.0 update to My Colony 2, I have begun adding initial WebXR immersive virtual reality support to Scroll3D, my custom game engine that powers not only My Colony 2, but other titles such as My Empire and the 3D modeling tool Voxel Paint. Support is still in it's infancy and will not be complete by the time v0.20.0 ships, but I have included a video below that demonstrated walking through a MC2 settlement in VR mode.


Obviously on the headset it is full 3D and you can look all around yourself. So far, it's not perfect. I had to turn the graphics quality in the engine settings all the way low to get this fairly large colony to run properly (on a small settlement, I was able to keep all settings on high). What is demonstrated above is the game being played using the "man on the street" view mode that was introduced in v0.19.0, but the player on an Oculus, Google Cardboard, Windows Mixed Reality, or other VR headset will be able to play the regular city-building mode of My Colony 2 in VR as well. It's actually pretty neat to be hovering "up in the sky" and looking down upon your settlement, using the VR controls to fly around the world and place structures!

Of course, VR is a cool feature, but not entirely necessary in a game like My Colony 2, but having the capabilities baked in to the Scroll3D engine will open opportunities to future projects. For instance, I am thinking about a Gone Rogue 2, where you can play the normal "classic" top down way, or you can actually explore the dungeons in first person immersive VR mode, fighting enemies up close and personal. A Scroll3D based remake of Epic Adventure could also basically become like a VR version of Minecraft. There are a lot of different possibilities, but I mostly want to make sure that Scroll3D titles can always be played on any device, whether it's PC, mobile, TV, or now VR.

VR support is basically a sideline addition to the forthcoming v0.20.0 update, which should be hitting all platforms next week. I am primarily focused on cleaning up and fixing some of the issues related to the massive changes to the modding system from the last update, along with a few UI improvements and the obligatory addition of new structures, etc. But little by little over the coming months, VR support will be refined and improved to the point where MC2 is 100% fully playable from an immersive VR mode on a supported headset, or even a cheapo Amazon headset + bluetooth gamepad in Google Cardboard mode.

So anyway, just wanted to share the VR future that will be fully hitting MC2 later this year, along with the possibilities it brings to other Scroll3D related projects. I will leave you with a few other screenshots I captured from within the Oculus headset of a MC2 water world. Enjoy!


#mycolony2 #barrelriver2 #scroll3d #vr #webxr

Oh boy! Today I am publishing the v0.19.0 patch for My Colony 2 which should be hitting all platforms over the coming days. This is by far the biggest update to My Colony 2 yet, featuring significant changes both under and... above(?) the hood. Given the scope of the changes, I would expect some issues to crop up, so please file those bug reports here in the forum. In the mean time, lets take a look at what's new in this release!


The first and biggest change to the game is the addition of the new Mod Shop, which you can access from the title screen if you are a Premium user and signed in using an Ape Apps Account. You can consider the Mod Shop to be very beta at this point, and there is still a lot of work to do. I do not yet have auto updating working for mods, and I still need to build out detailed Mod pages that let you leave feedback to the Mod developer. I also suspect that Total Conversion type mods might not work as planned from the Mod Shop yet, but the basic framework is now there and operational at least.


Mods can now be activated and deactivated from the Play Game menu. If you download a mod from the Mod Shop and want to add it to your game, click on the Settings gear icon next to your saved game, and select "Manage Mods" to add and remove mods to your file. If the Manage Mods option does not show up, then play your save, save it, and try again, because the option will not show for older saves that are not using the latest file format.


The next update is going to involve cleaning up, improving and fixing things wrong with the Mod Shop, so please let me know about all Mod Shop related issues that you discover, because I really think that the Mod Shop has the potential to be a great game changer for My Colony 2 going forward, unlocking access to way more content than could ever be added to the game by a single developer.

On the subject of mods, this update includes a complete and total rewrite to the way in which mods are saved and loaded, and there is a strong potential that Modded games created before v0.19.0 may now be broken, so if that is the case for you, then I apologize. Sadly, the massive changes were necessary though. I suspect that Total Conversion mods might currently be broken, although I have not verified that as of yet.

There is a big change that Mod authors need to be aware of in this update as well. If you mod makes changes to the Metadata object in the game, there is a new Game Identifier field. Saved game files are now associated to this identifier, and unless your mod is a Total Conversion mod, it's Meta object should have the same Game Identifier id as the base My Colony 2 game. Otherwise, save files using your Mod will no longer show up in the saved game list. So if you have a mod that makes changes to the Meta object, and it's not a Total Conversion, make sure it uses the same Game Identifier as the base game ( which is: a999fe76-ff1c-5935-e365-755089ba8982 ). Likewise, if you are making a Total Conversion mod, your mod should NOT use the base game identifier.

This update also introduces a significant rewrite to the way games are saved and loaded. It turns out, that if you were signed in using an Ape Apps Account, almost all of your saved games have been synced to the Ape Apps Cloud since the first release of My Colony 2. You may therefore see a bunch of old saves in your game listing the first time you load up v0.19.0 that you might not have known still existed. You should now be able to delete those old saves, and they will also be removed from the cloud. The game was actually loading all of this old saved data each time it opened, so if you delete old games that are no longer being used, your My Colony 2 startup times should be greatly improved.

Moving on, the internal game server has also undergone a massive overhaul, removing all web browser specific functions and logic from the code. This was done so that I could create a command line based dedicated server application, which had previously not been possible since some of the code in the game server itself could only be run in a web browser context. This change will not be very noticeable to the end user, but was a pretty big effort on my part, and will enable the creation of a separate dedicated server application, which will allow 24/7 cloud based My Colony 2 servers in the (hopefully not too distant) future.

Next up, units in the game can now be scaled. Modders will see the new scaling option in the Unit editor. This change also applies to colonists, which are now scaled to a more realistic size for the first time ever in My Colony history! And speaking of colonists, worlds that theoretically have a breathable atmosphere will now be able to use My Tokens characters as colonists models, which can now be seen on the Water World and the Desert World, giving a nice variety to the game.


And speaking of Colonists, you can now take control of them and walk around your settlement! Click on a colonist to enter the new Player mode, to get up close and personal to your base. There isn't much to this feature yet, but in my opinion it comes with huge potential, especially for modders to create totally different types of games on the back of the My Colony 2 engine. Try it out, let me know what you think, and throw out some suggestions of ways this cool new mode can be expanded!


You may notice that the graphics in My Colony 2 are a bit "cleaner" than they were prior to v0.19.0. I didn't even realize it until working on this update, but the anti-aliasing engine was completely broken in Scroll3d. Anyway, it works now and you should be able to notice a subtle difference in the visuals of the game.

I have started to add more detailed building-level statistics to the game. Now when you select a building, there is a stats button that you can click on to expand additional information about the structure, including items like workers and production levels. More will be coming to this expanded interface in the future.


Speaking of statistics, both the World and Settlement level statistics screen have been updated. And there are now settlement level penalties for not having enough Food, Medical, Entertainment, Security, and Education. Settlements now also have a separate "Overall Health" stat, not to be confused with the Medical stat. The Medical tells you what your settlement's medical coverage is, but the Overall Health also takes into effect things like food/water shortages, homelessness, etc. When the overall health gets to low, people will now start to die, so make sure to stay on top of that. You also now have an approval rating for each settlement, which is derived from all statistical factors.

Staying on the topic of statistics, the GDP calculation has now been fixed, as it was previously borked and often showing negative numbers. If you have an already existing colony, it will take a few cycles for your GDP to fix itself, as the game does not go back in time and fix the historical numbers that were calculated using the old, broken calculation.

Moving on, Gifting has now been added to the game! Gifting is done from settlement to settlement, and your gift capacity is determined by the number of Trading Depots you have in your settlement. To gift, make sure your camera is in a settlement that you want to gift from. Then open statistics, and choose the settlement you wish to gift to. After that, the process is fairly straightforward. This should be a big help to multiplayer games.


I have begun expanding the Encyclopedia to include information on Units and Game Contributors. There isn't much there on those sections yet, although I did add an in-game way to send a donation of Ape Coins to the various game contributors who have helped make My Colony 2 what it is today, if you wish to say "thank you" for their efforts.

Some of the existing structures have been modified in this release. The Greenhouse Park will now slowly generate trace amounts of Wood, making Wood available to all map types now. The Warehouse storage capacities have been expanded. The Expansion Barge can no longer be built at the Watercraft Station (there is a new larger water construction yard now for the barge). The Internet Relay Booth now generates a small amount of Research, giving a research head start before players are able to build the Small Research Lab. The output of the Ore Fraking Operation and the Gold Synthesis lab have been increased. The existing Landing Field has been replaced by the smaller Landing Pad, using updated models provided by @GeneralWadaling . I think there were more changes too, but I don't recall them all at the moment.

There are some new Ancient ruins to be found on the Abandoned World, which you will see if you scroll around the map, remnants of a time when the Ancients once controlled the galaxy. There are even some "H Blocks" inspired from the ruins of Pumapunku!


Let's move on to the new content added to the game. Model contributors for this release (besides myself, of course) I believe include @GeneralWadaling , @DoYouHaveAnyOats , and @spamdude . If there are others and I forgot to mention you, then I'm sorry! It's not personal! 😳

Firstly, the new technologies of Advanced Chemical Synthesis, Low Gravity Oil Production, and Advanced Charcoal Production have been added to the game. With these additions bring two new resources into the fold, which are Oil and Plastic (as you might have guessed).

Many of the new structures in this update directly benefit the Water World, although all planet types are benefited to some degree. The new Micro Nursery allows you to get more Trees early game, before you are able to move off of your initial island. That is complimented by the Gold Extractor, which is a slow but easy way to get Gold in the game early on, which was also traditionally difficult on the Water World. Once you advance, there is a new Tree Farm for producing trees at a faster rate, without needing to continually expand and harvest. The new Construction Quay is a larger off-shore ship yard for building larger sea craft, and the new Small Offshore Drill will allow you to extract different minerals, including Oil, from the bottom of the sea. On the Military side of things, there is a new Patrol Boat which is basically like a water based version of the current Infantry unit.


The Landing Field has been moved further down the tech tree, and is replaced by the smaller early game Landing Pad. There is a new Wood Grower for generating more wood, an Oil Tank for storing Oil, and a Synthetic Oil Lab for creating Oil out of Food. Once you have Oil, you can convert it into Plastic using the new Plastic Factory. You can also get a small amount of Plastic from the new Recycling Center.

I think that is all of the new content, although I might have missed something. Looking forward though, now that we have Oil and Plastic in the game, it might be time to introduce Robotics in to the mix, and start going down that branch of the tech tree, so stay tuned for all of that.

At the end of the day, there were so many under the hood changes to this update, that something is bound to be broken. Please be on the lookout and let me know what issues you find. I have been working on this update for the better part of two months, so it is entire possible that I started working on a mechanic weeks ago, and forgot to finish it up. All in all though, I think this is a fair update to the game, and I hope you guys like it!

My Colony 2 v0.19.0 is available now on the Web, Launcher, and Windows Store, and will hopefully be hitting Google Play and the App Store within the next few days, depending on app store review times (even Android requires review now too). So stay tuned for that, let me know what you think, and stay tuned for more in the weeks and months ahead!

https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/

#mycolony2