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My Colony 2 v0.50.0 Released
Today I have finally published the v0.50.0 update to My Colony 2. This is a technical update, brining in a complete refactoring of the engine code in order to make it work with all of the new "modular" Ape Apps libraries.
Aside from the technical changes in this release, I also tried to make some improvements to the mobile experience of the game, which has always been more of an afterthought in My Colony 2. I made improvements to the map scrolling/zooming which has always been complete jank with touch screen on MC2. I also made some minor UI adjustments and improvements to the pending building queue on touch screen. Touch-screen controls for the person mode have also been improved.
I also restored the Depth of Field/Bokeh post processing effect, that had been removed some versions back because I didn't have it working properly.
Moving forward, I am not sure what the future direction for MC2 should be. I have come to the conclusion that voxel art was a stupid design decision for the game as it is completely inefficient, and in all honesty I don't think there will ever be a way to make the game more performant than it currently is when there are a lot of models on the screen, especially big models.
I am thinking for the long term, my time might be better spent just finishing up locking down the UI/controls of the game, getting it as good as it can be on mobile, getting music/sound effects added to the game, and then start planning a new My Colony game with actual 3D models instead of voxel art models.
The issue is with how 3d graphics work. Basically everything is rendered in triangles. If you draw a scene with a single 2d plane on it, like a plain square, it is generally made by connecting two triangles together. A 3d cube would be 6 squares put together, aka 12 triangles. So suppose you want to make a skyscraper model. Theoretically, you could do it using one long cube (rectangle) with a texture mapped to it, aka 12 triangles. However with the voxel model, it is made up of thousands of small cubes which each have their own 12 triangles, so on one tall rectangular skyscraper with 12 triangles could end up having 500,000 triangles on a voxel model.
Anyway, that is a gross oversimplification of how it works, and in the real world even the true 3d models would be more detailed than what I am describing, but you can imagine how over a large colony with thousands of structures on screen at a time, the voxel art setup is not very performant. I have done a lot to get it running as good as it is, but I don't think it would ever be as great as it could be.
I also don't think that the real-time same-world multiplayer is as good of a feature as it seemed like in my head. People seem to prefer the more limited multiplayer of the original My Colony, which is actually probably better for a city building type game anyway.
But you all can let me know what you think on the matter. Until then , enjoy the latest MC2 build and stay tuned for more!
#MyColony2
Aside from the technical changes in this release, I also tried to make some improvements to the mobile experience of the game, which has always been more of an afterthought in My Colony 2. I made improvements to the map scrolling/zooming which has always been complete jank with touch screen on MC2. I also made some minor UI adjustments and improvements to the pending building queue on touch screen. Touch-screen controls for the person mode have also been improved.
I also restored the Depth of Field/Bokeh post processing effect, that had been removed some versions back because I didn't have it working properly.
Moving forward, I am not sure what the future direction for MC2 should be. I have come to the conclusion that voxel art was a stupid design decision for the game as it is completely inefficient, and in all honesty I don't think there will ever be a way to make the game more performant than it currently is when there are a lot of models on the screen, especially big models.
I am thinking for the long term, my time might be better spent just finishing up locking down the UI/controls of the game, getting it as good as it can be on mobile, getting music/sound effects added to the game, and then start planning a new My Colony game with actual 3D models instead of voxel art models.
The issue is with how 3d graphics work. Basically everything is rendered in triangles. If you draw a scene with a single 2d plane on it, like a plain square, it is generally made by connecting two triangles together. A 3d cube would be 6 squares put together, aka 12 triangles. So suppose you want to make a skyscraper model. Theoretically, you could do it using one long cube (rectangle) with a texture mapped to it, aka 12 triangles. However with the voxel model, it is made up of thousands of small cubes which each have their own 12 triangles, so on one tall rectangular skyscraper with 12 triangles could end up having 500,000 triangles on a voxel model.
Anyway, that is a gross oversimplification of how it works, and in the real world even the true 3d models would be more detailed than what I am describing, but you can imagine how over a large colony with thousands of structures on screen at a time, the voxel art setup is not very performant. I have done a lot to get it running as good as it is, but I don't think it would ever be as great as it could be.
I also don't think that the real-time same-world multiplayer is as good of a feature as it seemed like in my head. People seem to prefer the more limited multiplayer of the original My Colony, which is actually probably better for a city building type game anyway.
But you all can let me know what you think on the matter. Until then , enjoy the latest MC2 build and stay tuned for more!
#MyColony2
My Colony v2.0.0 Released
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
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My Colony v1.37.0 Released
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!
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My Colony 2 v0.49.0 Released
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
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My Colony v1.36.0 Released
Today I am posting the v1.36.0 patch for the original My Colony, which should be hitting all platforms in the coming days.
A recent update to Android seems to have been causing memory issues when compressing/decompressing game files. Although there is nothing I can do about how the Android system works, this update does add a change where compressed data is now split up into chunks and worked on piece by piece. The hope is that working on smaller data chunks will help prevent memory errors, but let me know how it works for you, as mileage my vary depending on device.
#mycolony
A recent update to Android seems to have been causing memory issues when compressing/decompressing game files. Although there is nothing I can do about how the Android system works, this update does add a change where compressed data is now split up into chunks and worked on piece by piece. The hope is that working on smaller data chunks will help prevent memory errors, but let me know how it works for you, as mileage my vary depending on device.
#mycolony
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