Posts — Gang Beasts

We are running a competition to win a set of our new Gang Beasts toys and merchandise!

To enter, find all details over on our TikTok page: tiktok.com/@gangbeastsgame.

All terms and conditions can be found here: gangbeasts.game/tiktokcompetition

We are running a competition to win a set of our new Gang Beasts toys and merchandise!

To enter, find all details over on our TikTok page: tiktok.com/@gangbeastsgame.

All terms and conditions can be found here: gangbeasts.game/tiktokcompetition

It’s been difficult to give much information on Gang Beasts in the last 8 months (since the Trawler stage came out) as we build Boneloaf’s development and operations teams with support from Robot Teddy. Here’s a quick update on everything we’ve been working on at Boneloaf over the last few months, plus some future sneak peeks at what’s coming next.

We are happy to announce we have fixed the notorious loading screen bug, that has been plaguing some people, and we wanted to explain a few things to help shed some light on why it took so long for us t o fix it.

The bug initially was just incredibly hard to reproduce internally, which is the first step towards finding out what was actually happening. To find it we had to create a new debugging tool for the server and client builds to help us track it down. With this new tool we managed to reproduce the issue consistently, and in a way that we could generate logs to help guide us to a solution. This highlighted to us that in fact, it was several bugs manifesting as one! All of which we have fixed and should never rear their ugly heads again.

You may be wondering why we released the previous update with such a glaring bug? Well, to put it simply, it hasn’t turned up before. The trigger case is very hardware and connection dependent. Although we have found out that some of the bugs have been there all along, they were very rarely triggered, at least on tests we did with the hardware we have.

It also appears that the more recent optimisations and fixes, which made certain aspects of the game quicker, inflamed the issue, making it more prominent for these users. In addition, there was a significant engine upgrade (Unity 2017 to 2020), which made unnoticed changes to the networking library we use, adding many more avenues for the issue to manifest.

It is annoying that these things happen from time to time (especially for us!), but we are always working to improve Gang Beasts, which has been evolving for 6+ years now. So thank you for being patient with us, and hopefully, we will not have anything as problematic in the future.

Another bug people have been experiencing lately is the characters not getting eliminated when thrown out of stages. This issue was a weird one, that seems to have manifested itself since the engine upgrade. Gang Beasts being such a physics heavy game, any changes to the engine’s physics can have knock-on effects with the gameplay.

We have tried to fix this a few times and, although each attempt reduced its frequency, it was still being triggered. In this update, we have added two more solutions: one that should stop it from happening, and another that will guarantee that if it happens the players get eliminated anyway. The first measure is adding a few more checks to the characters when they enter an Elimination Volume, so it is more likely to be detected, and expanding these volumes further to increase the chance of detection. The second measure bypasses the physics system entirely, and will always eliminate players regardless of velocities or any other issues inherent to physics that can prevent the first method from working.

General

All stages

Aquarium

Boneloaf

It has been a turbulent year for many reasons, but we are starting to climb above the pile, with help and support from our partners at Coatsink, SuperGenius, Robot Teddy, and Unity. Because of this we wanted to update you on what has been going on at Boneloaf, why updates have been slow, and our plans for the next year.

First of all, we wanted to just say thank you to all of our amazing community. You really make it worthwhile. Watching the community grow with us, all of the videos and responses have honestly made some of the more tougher times bearable. We’ve even received fan letters, which we never thought would have been a thing – we’ve proudly framed and put them all on our office walls! Oh, and we want to give a special acknowledgement to the community run Discord which means we get to communicate on a more personal level with fans and even play Gang Beasts with them from time to time.

In order to be able to release the update, we needed to fix certain things. And to start fixing things, we needed to review systems that touch on a multitude of parts of the game, including Online, how we build stages, and how we build costumes. Some of these fixes are in this update, such as the new glass fracture and buoyancy system, which not only look substantially better, but also are more optimal (aside from a few bugs we are still working on).

Other systems will take a bit more time to implement into the game, such as an update to the costume system [we have been working on] with SuperGenius. Once it’s done, it will significantly improve performance and also give us better flexibility and control over the way costumes look.

Coatsink has also been making many fixes, improvements, and optimisations to the online portion of the game. Some of these are in this update, which is why it now plays a lot more like local play, but there are many more improvements to come!

We have also partnered with Robot Teddy to help us with the game production and business decisions. It has been an invaluable aid to us throughout 2020 and one of the main players to make it possible for us to release this new update while self-publishing Gang Beasts.

Finally, we’d like to mention we also brought Unity onboard early this year to help us with improving our internal tools, pipeline and workflows, optimising, and just in general future-proofing the game. We’re incredibly excited to be able to show the outcomes of this work.

Well, as some of you who are reading this probably already know, we finally got update 1.13 out this year and although we feel there’s still quite a lot we need to improve with the game, it’s been great to be able to get updates out again. We feel like this update should address a lot of the issues people had with the game (other than the bugs that went out with it that we’re still working on), especially with the online portion of the game which made it play significantly different to local games. Hopefully, updates should be a lot more frequent from here on out, as we’ve improved our build pipelines a bit [as well as] a few other things that were making it difficult to get updates out.

We have a multitude of things we’re working on to improve Gang Beasts. We plan to completely overhaul our UI, which is really in need of some TLC. We’ll also be improving the game’s visuals now we’ve moved to Unity 2020.

Our costume system update is getting very close to being finished, which will give us better flexibility and control over the way costumes look (as in better use of tints and textures), and let us bring back some of the legacy costumes, like the “Christmas baubles”! This should also help us improve turnaround times on creating new costumes as it’s significantly easier to work with.

We’ve also got several stages, plus escalations for existing stages, that we’ve been working on too and we look forward to sharing them with you as they become a bit more finished. As part of the stage work, we’ve also started rebuilding the city background to give a better sense of where things are positioned in the world, with the idea of being able to spot one stage from another. If you look below at the WIP blockout of the new city, you may even be able to spot one or two of the concept locations for new stages…

With all this being said, it is by no means a definitive list of what we’ve been working on and what’s to come. There’s a lot more planned and hopefully we can share more next year!

Let us know @gangbeasts if you’ve figured out how to escape the tentacle deathgrip yet.

Boneloaf

Something is lurking in the Beef City Aquarium, the Gang Beasts Aquarium Update (build 1.13) will be available tomorrow (Dec 9th, 2020) as a free download for XboxOne, PS4, Windows, macOS, and Steam supported Linux platforms (SteamOS and Ubuntu). The update has a new Aquarium stage, an updated Wheel stage that works online, a series of super hero/villain costume sets, and numerous fixes for stages, online, and gameplay issues.

Updated the game engine to Unity 2020 (from Unity 2017). This was a significant upgrade and although we’ve fixed a massive amount, there may be a few bugs we haven’t caught yet with the transition.

Unity 2019 dropped support for 32-bit Linux operating systems, as such Gang Beasts can now only support 64-bit Linux operating systems.

Fixed an issue preventing bloom from working.

Updated the project to be able to build and test on consoles again.

Updated graphics settings to fix a few issues with the transition from 2017 to 2020.

Mac builds now use Metal as its primary graphics API, as such there should be some performance gains for Mac users.

Fixed some issues involving camera tracking.

Updated splash and loading screens. This is a temporary measure until we can overhaul the entire UI of the game.

Completely rebuilt the way we fracture glass. This new system should both look and perform significantly better on all systems.

Completely rebuilt the way we do buoyancy. This new system should perform significantly better on all systems and allows us to do multiple types of liquid (such as meat paste).

Bear and Rhino kigurumi no longer make Elevators explode.

The “Yogscast Charity Drive 2015 DLC” has been added to the game as a default option, this was done as we found far too many people trying to exploit our users on grey markets by trying to charge exorbitant amounts of money for legacy codes. Since the DLC has achieved its purpose of raising money for charity and it has been several years since its release we figured this was the best way to protect our players.

Added 8 “Supers” costumes to the game for a total of 24 new parts.

Rebaked the lighting on all stages to fix legacy lighting issues so shadows should no longer be dark and stages should be more visually appealing now.

Adjusted any emissive materials across all stages now that bloom works again to look better.

Updated the visuals of water on Buoy, Containers, and Wheel but there’s still more improvements to be made.

Fixed the objects that didn’t interpolate online.

Aquarium:

Added a new stage called Aquarium, please don’t feed the fish.

Billboard:

Adjusted the physics properties of the billboard panels to be more realistic.

Adjusted the catwalk of the billboard to be flatter and added assistive colliders to help players stay on for longer.

Blimp:

Adjusted the physics properties of the balloon section of the blimp to have more grip and assist players’ movement over the surface.

Adjusted the ribbing on the balloon section of the blimp to no longer collide with the players’ ball collider, which should help with navigating the blimp.

Adjusted the blimp to be more affected by player movement.

Added a wind effect to the blimp to help visualize the movement.

Buoy:

Added more ice to the stage.

Fixed a bug preventing the ice from breaking.

Broken ice will now melt over time.

The buoy is now significantly less stable.

Chutes:

Adjusted the lights to remove light artifacts from falling sausages.

Adjusted sausage distribution.

Adjusted the chute doors to be able to hold more weight and slower to move, this should, hopefully, incentivise players to fight on them more due to the reduced danger.

Elevators:

Replaced the glass to use the new fracture system.

Elevators now escalate consistently.

Applied a temporary fix for a significant stability issue on Elevators, this fix currently does cause some visual peculiarities when played online but we felt it shouldn’t hold back the update.

Gondola:

Fixed the grating using the wrong shader, it should look more crisp now.

Grind:

Adjusted the lights to improve baked quality.

Added buoyancy to the meat paste at the front of the stage.

Incinerator:

Replaced the glass to use the new fracture system.

Updated the fire particle system.

Adjusted the lights to make the stage brighter and fix some lighting artifacts.

Fixed an issue with boxes and barrels passing through the front wall.

Lighthouse:

Replaced the glass to use the new fracture system.

Updated the background water shader, which is a temporary solution until we upgrade the project to Unity, Universal Render Pipeline (URP).

Updated the glass materials to prevent a weird lighting issue.

Adjusted the joints on the Lighthouse to be stronger, so they should no longer break at the slightest touch.

Ring:

Adjusted lights and materials to brighten the stage slightly.

Adjusted the rope height to make it slightly easier to eliminate players.

Roof:

Adjusted the joints on the Roof stage to be stronger, so they should no longer break at the slightest touch.

Lowered the lip of the Roof slightly to make the stage slightly riskier when fighting on the edge.

Added assistive geometry to help characters navigate.

Wheel:

The stage has been completely rebuilt to play better and work online.

The lights on Wheel now sync to the music.

Wheel now has better escalations.

Added a dwell timer to the insides of the wheels burger gondola that will make them fall if players stay there too long.

Subway:

Fixed an issue that made the front train push players away instead of pulling players towards it.

Hopefully fixed the issue that was making some sounds on subway play too loud.

Trucks:

Slight adjustments to the materials and textures;

Added a slight tilt to the trucks when they move to make their movement more apparent;

Fixed an issue where the trucks would occasionally mount the curb and collide with oncoming signs;

Reduced an issue where signs could pass through players instead of colliding with them, this is not perfect though and we will continue to try and fix it.

Towers:

Added a pink smoke effect rising from the cooling towers.

Vents:

Fixed an issue with Vents

Fixed a significant stability issue on Vents that appeared in the update from 2017 that caused the bridges to instantly collapse.

Fixed a significant stability issue on Vents that appeared in the update from 2017 where as soon as the main fan activated the stage would explode and characters would find themselves embedded in the walls or ceiling.

Updated some physics settings to take advantage of some of Unity 2020’s improvements. This will be an ongoing process to fully take advantage of all the changes. These changes should provide some small performance and stability improvements.

All physics objects in the game should now interpolate, this should reduce an appearance of lag locally and online.

Fixed a bug that was causing arms to no longer reach when holding grab.

Adjusted character drag to 1.6 (from 2).

Increased punch velocity for close targets.

Adjusted how grab and punch’s resolve target vectors for the physics animation, this should significantly improve how often they reach the intended target.

Fixed a bug that would sometimes make a character float when grabbing something above them with both hands after their stamina drained fully

Fixed a bug with kicking that would generate incorrect target vectors for the physics animation.

Adjusted force and attraction distances when grabbing to help reaching close targets and reduce weird behaviours under certain situations when targets are just out of range

Added slightly more force to the arms in the stage just before punch and grabs to help reach better position. This should make punches and grab’s more consistent.

Adjusted targeting to be slightly more weighted to the players input direction.

Increased the strength of throws slightly

Slightly increased grip break threshold.

Added a slight alignment force to the body when climbing, the character should be more likely to face input direction while climbing now.

Slightly increased self lift strength on characters when climbing. This should make it easier to climb.

Stamina now always drains when grabbing, even if feet are touching the floor. Most players will not notice any change with this. This is to try and prevent people from getting into exploitable positions where they can hang on forever. Additionally this should help reduce stalemates where someone can hang on to another player indefinitely.

Fixed a long standing issue with the character that made it difficult to go up slopes greater than 30 degrees. Players should find it significantly easier to go up slopes and stairs now.

Added the ability to swim for a short period to the character they will gradually sink over time after this.

Added a temporary diminishing damage reduction when a player revives from a knockout (100% damage reduction on revival reducing to 0% over 10 seconds) to prevent knockout camping.

Fixed an issue that would prevent players from controlling their movement when lifting themselves, additionally this should now perform better then it did prior to the bug.

Adjusted arm direction when cheering to be relative to the character’s up instead of world up.

Increased reaction forces of all moves, they should feel more satisfying now.

Adjusted damage of all moves to better balance them.

Adjusted damage received when in certain situations or attempting certain attacks to help balance combat.

Adjusted character collision to hopefully improve stability during combat.

Added code to dynamically adjust characters collision mode based on context to help reduce likelihood of limbs getting embedded in objects, this helps reduce the frequency of a bug that appeared in the transition to Unity 2020 but more work is needed to fix it completely.

Fixed a bug that was making the characters hips get stuck in certain geometry since the transition.

Added a new way we manage audio to improve the consistency of sounds across the game.

Changed all audio to use the new systems and did a pass on every sound in the game to be better balanced and more pleasing to the ear.

Swapped a menu sound to be less intrusive.

Added engine noises to Train

Added engine noises to Trucks

Added better audio cues to indicate oncoming road signs on Trucks

Added an audio cue to indicate an oncoming train on Subway

Fixed a bug that would mean some scripts would not reset correctly on the second round in an online match.

Fixed a few bugs with PhysicAudioEmitter not emitting online

Fixed a long standing bug with knockouts not working as intended online. Locally it would increment by 1 second each time your KO’d to a potential maximum of 20. Online this would always be set to 4. This should significantly improve the feel of combat online.

Fixed an issue where some physics objects were moved using an incorrect method. This should help improve some stability issues when characters are pushed into strange positions or somehow move faster than usual (such as getting hit by a moving vehicle).

Fixed a long standing issue preventing boxes on Incinerator from rendering online.

Fixed a long standing issue preventing the vehicles on Trucks from moving correctly online.

Several optimisations and fixes to the character system to improve online performance.

Several optimisations and changes to the way we sync objects online. This should improve online performance and stability.

Fixed an issue with the join screen that meant player names wouldn’t show up.

Fixed an issue on Elevators that made the hatches start in the wrong position on level load.

Fixed an issue that prevented Containers mechanics that move the containers from triggering correctly online.

Hey everyone!

So, we wanted to let you know what’s going on here at Boneloaf. We have some information regarding Double Fine and us, and when the next Gang Beasts update is coming.

As some of you know, Boneloaf has been working with Double Fine Presents for some time. They’ve given us advice, they’ve given us splendiferous support, and most importantly, they’ve become friends and mentors to us.

We love Double Fine and they have been really fantastic to us. What Tim and his company built is pretty wonderful, but with Double Fine Presents winding down due to Double Fine’s acquisition by Xbox Game Studios last year, we think it is a good time for Boneloaf to stand on its own… legs and publish Gang Beasts ourselves.

Anyway, that’s the news about Boneloaf and Double Fine. What about Gang Beasts? Currently we’re testing build 1.13, the next release. Build 1.13 is made with Unity 2019.3 and includes a modified version of the wheel stage with support for online game modes and a series of optimisations and fixes for UI, audio, costumes, gameplay, and achievements.

We plan to make this build available for testing as a Steam beta next month. The 1.13 build will be released for supported platforms (Steam, Humble Bundle, PS4, Xbox One, and Oculus Rift and Oculus Rift S) when testing ends. We are also working on new stages and costumes, more information coming soon.

Thank you for supporting Gang Beasts, stay Safe and Keep on Truckin’ o/

Boneloaf

Choo, Choo, the Gang Beasts Train update (build 1.0.5) is available now as a free download for PS4, Windows, macOS, and Steam supported Linux platforms (SteamOS and Ubuntu), the update has a new train stage (an industrial freight train transporting shipping containers on a precarious cliffside track), a series of miscellaneous costume sets (beef mascot, fire fighter, frogman, pirate, and rail worker), and numerous fixes for game issues and exploits.

Concurrently with the work on the 1.0.5 build we have also worked to standardise, optimise, and modularise the game structure to support making new content and systems for a series of planned game modes, specifically we have made a full review of the processes and systems for prototyping and testing new costume parts and stage geometry for the game, the work on standardising content and systems was necessary to configure the game for the playset and story game modes, to support more frequent content releases and bug fix patches, and to support other platforms and markets without negatively impacting work on other game modes and game content.
We expect to release examples of this work in the next significant content release later this year with a series of updated hazard escalations, stage variations, and new costume sets.

Currently we’re making a full review of support and documentation processes to identify and patch game and server issues more efficiently and to make more information on supported platforms and planned content available through http://gangbeasts.game and the Boneloaf YouTube channel.
Please email [email protected] if you have game issues or questions not currently addressed on the game FAQ page; please see the @MeatTelecom page on Twitter for server status and server maintenance announcements for the Gang Beasts Online Multiplayer Servers.

If you like Piña Coladas and getting caught in hazardous industrial machinery you should try the new and improved MeatTel. Online Matching Services 2.0 (MOMS 2.0), let MOMS optimised algorithms sort through the offal and offcuts to find you some prime international beefs on Valentine’s Day.

Come to Beef City, the City of Eternal Beef this Valentine’s and visit the coast lighthouse for a romantic break and fall head over heels into panes of broken glass and collapsing safety railings wearing an fashionable selection of sentimental heart and love influenced costume parts.

The Gang Beasts Valentine’s update (build 1.0.4) is available now as a free download for PS4, Windows, macOS, and Steam supported Linux platforms (SteamOS and Ubuntu), the update has a new lighthouse stage, a series of Valentine’s themed costume parts (a small gift to the Gang Beasts community for their patience and support on the anniversary of the release of the 0.0.0 public pre-alpha builds of the game).

The key feature of the Valentine’s update is a significantly revised matching service built to optimise and scale the capacity of official game servers and host a high number of concurrent online game sessions than previous iterations but the update also has a number of other modifications, optimisations, and fixes made to menus, stages, costumes, messaging (see the list of key modifications and fixes at the end of this post for information).

Some inconsistencies with the stability of matching services is expected in the next hour as Coatsink transitions the game to use the revised online matching services and scale server capacity.

Since Gang Beasts left Steam Early Access and was released for PS4 in mid-December we have been working with Double Fine and Coatsink to monitor, optimise, and patch online matching services, address limitations with the current online session matching scheme[1], and identify and fix stubborn release issues.

We’re are also working to make more documentation, development, support, and FAQ information available on the Gang Beasts site but please email [email protected] if you have game issues or questions not currently addressed on the game FAQ page; please see the @MeatTelecom page on Twitter for server status and server maintenance announcements for the Gang Beasts Online Multiplayer Servers.

Currently we are working on game content for a series of planned updates, information on specific post-launch content (stages, game modes, costumes, VR support, and other features) will be published in subsequent posts in the coming months as the work and testing on specific post launch content ends.

[1] the previous matching implementation has some architectural limitations that compromised some matching services at peak times (when contention for slots in online game sessions is high).

For those asking where to buy the Gang Beasts Soundtrack, there is a Gang Beasts Soundtrack page on the iam8bit store have a opened store page for taking pre-orders for the Gang Beasts 2xLP, Classic Black Vinyl by doseone & Bob Larder (with Album by Fat Knack).

We have written this post to summarise current and recent development work and to give more information on launch content for the game as we are still a number of weeks from publishing the next Steam build.

We plan to start testing the next build (build 0.7.0) from next week and have scheduled support from Babel, Coatsink, and Double Fine to help with the identification, documentation, and fixing of a small number of persisting issues preventing the release of the next Steam build (and to facilitate and optimise testing cycles).

The 0.7.0 build has a glut of fixes and modifications made to optimise, standardise, and refine gameplay, menus, messaging, networking, matchmaking, menus and other UI, interstitial game screens (hint screens, loading screens, and score screens etc.), the following is a summary of key game content modifications in the coming 0.7.0 beta build with information on the work left to finish before the full launch of the game.

We’re working through PS4 certification currently and expect to have to make at least one more submission before passing, we can then schedule a meeting with Double Fine, Sony, and other partners to set a date for the PS4 release. We are currently on schedule to set a release date in late 2017.

The minimum limit for private online sessions was set at 4 players for testing when support for private online sessions was published in late September (concurrently with the move to Multiplay’s server architecture), a limited number of issues surfaced with the matchmaking process during the Steam Free Weekend stress test and also in October but Coatsink have been aggressively addressing these issues and we expect to lower the minimum concurrent player limit for private sessions from a minimum of 4 to a minimum of 2 in the 0.7.0 beta build.

We expect to talk with Double Fine, Coatsink, Multiplay, and other partners later this month to make a full review of current server provision and capacity, please email [email protected] if you frequently have issues connecting to online servers in the 0.7.0 beta build (for reference support for private online sessions replaced the private server tool in September as the private server tool is not compatible with current client builds, support for the private server tool will be reviewed later this year).

The game has been localised for 7 languages, the supported languages in the full release build are Brazilian Portuguese, English (UK), US English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, (the UK English and US English localisations share most strings) with a small number exceptions that we expect to have localisations for soon, support for other languages will be added post launch. For reference we currently expect localisation support to be the 0.7.0 beta build and we will post information on other planned localisations to the FAQ section of the gangbeasts.game site as we confirm support.

We’re currently working on localisations for input references (for keyboard, mouse, and officially supported game controllers) but still need to standardise the UI for input mapping sequences with the rest of the game. The lack of support for mapping mouse button inputs is a temporary issue and we current expect this to be fixed in the next 0.7.0 beta build.

For reference support for VR touch controls is planned to come with full VR support next year.

We have made multiple passes on the climbing implementation and supporting geometry to make climbing less difficult and more immediate in recent builds in preparation for a last pass on stages to add specific support for complex structures (examples of complex structures are the small billboard structures on roof, the buoy structure on buoy, the truck body work on trucks, and the turbine on vents), for reference some section of complex will have a lower targeting priority than expected until this work is finished.

We need to set explicit spawn patterns for game mode configurations to balance gameplay and modify patterns to fit the selected game logic, specifically we need to implement set spawn patterns, for example gangs spawn patterns need to be on opposing sides of the selected stage (in 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, or 4 vs 4 gang mode games).

We have finished work on the geometry for launch stages (excluding a small number of superficial modifications and props), stages identified as launch stages have had passes to optimise performance, standardise colour schemes, and address gameplay issues, the stages with significant modifications made to geometry are billboard (new billboard sign and catwalk structure), chutes (lowered catwalk and modified pipe works), grind (new meat slurry implementation, new pipework, new articulated grinder implementation, and new catwalk), subway (new scene with modified hanging lights, staircase, prop, and platform geometry) and trucks (new truck geometry and some minor cosmetic modifications).

We have transitioned to Cinemachine procedural camera framework and are currently working to improve support for user modification of the single player camera, group tracking, geometry clipping, camera bias, lerping, and dampening etc. but are seeing significant improvements over the previous camera system. We are also working to standardise the presentation of player information and the post stack implementation (specifically the default parameters for graphics setting).

For reference the issues with settings and resetting inputs, graphics, and other menu settings is being addressed and is expected to be fixed in the 0.7.0 build.

We are working on minimising the steps and time it takes to configure and start game modes and game sessions, and on exposing more support for game mode customisation, we are also experimenting with a longer window for identifying draw states. We are also working on making character, costume, and gang / team selection less confusing in the game mode configurations screens.

We have been working on exposing more costume customisation parts and the UI and flow of the costume customisation screen, we have also been working to fix physics stability issues and gameplay exploits associated with specific costume parts. We have also exposed an additional four character colours and made multiple passes to improve colour and colour tints (and minimise clashes with the colours for non-character geometry).

Thank you for staying with us we push to get to the full launch of the game, we’re working on some fun holiday content for next month, and are excited that the full game will be out soon.

If you have questions please email [email protected] or Tweet @boneloaf. We plan to make a post with information on testing for the 0.7.0 build later this month with any additional information we can give on the next builds and full release content.

Since the Gang Beasts online beta in August 2016, Boneloaf have been working with a small team at Coatsink to finish the content and systems for the full game, a significant part of this work has been to transition to Multiplay’s dedicated game hosting solution and Hybrid Cloud Orchestration technology to give official Gang Beasts servers a scalable, low-latency, managed hosting platform maintained by a specialist team of game server experts.

We have published the Gang Beasts 0.6.1 Early Access beta to Steam in the last hour and have made the game temporarily free on Early Access as a Steam Free Weekend game from 10am PDT / 6pm BST on Thursday 21 September to 1pm PDT / 9pm BST on Sunday 24 September to stress test the new server architecture and networking scheme and support for private sessions on official servers.
Please see the post at beef.city/060 for information and a changlog listing the key modifications and fixes in the 0.6.0 unstable build. For more information on Multiplay please see the Press press release at beef.city/multiplay
For reference we expect to have some inconsistencies with server availability and stability in the next hours as we transition to Multiplay’s servers and scale server capacity.

Since the last Gang Beasts build was published in July we have been working with Coatsink to migrate the official Gang Beasts servers to a scalable low latency hosting solution, we have also made a series of significant optimisations and modifications to progress the performance and stability of the matchmaking , UI, and character systems. We have been testing potential 0.6.0 builds with Coatsink, Double Fine, and support from a QA team at Babel since the start of September, the matchmaking system, new server architecture, networking scheme, and costume fixes are at a stage where we need to test at scale to identify issues that are difficult to find when testing in the office.

Currently we are working on standardising the optimised UI, localisations for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese (support for other languages is planned), costume fixes, post processing, achievements, a modified implementation of the current camera system (built on Unity Cinemachine procedural camera system), and additional game modes (the 0.6.0 unstable build has the first public implementation of the local gang game mode, the gang mode is not supported online currently).

The 0.6.0 build as an unstable beta with this post for testing and patching before it can replace the current default Steam build (build 0.5.7a), to test the 0.6.0 build right-click on the game name on the Steam library page and select ‘Properties’ from the dialogue window that opens, from this window select the ‘BETAS’ tab then the “unstable” option from the dropdown menu (the menu labelled ‘Select the beta you would like to opt into:’).

Please note the 0.6.0 unstable build has been explicitly made for stress testing servers and only has support for the melee (local and online) and gang game modes (local only) and has some UI settings and other content disabled.

We are testing stage wins in preference to stage rounds in the 0.6.0, the implementation is similar to the previous implementation but a new stage is loaded after each stage win (currently the win parameter is set to 2 wins for public online games and limited to 1-4 wins in local and private online games.

The key modifications and fixes made in the 0.6.0 unstable Early Access beta build are:

2nd March 2017

Patch notes for the Gang Beasts 0.5.4 betas 2 MARCH – BONELOAF Patch notes for the Gang Beasts 0.5.4p2 beta

We have finished testing on the 0.5.4p2 build (published with this post), the list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.4p2 beta build are:

Please note the 0.5.4p2 beta build has the full set of modifications and fixes listed in the Fixed 0.5.4p1 patch notes and has full support for two new server geographies in Canada (Montreal) and the UK (London).

Current issues identified with the 0.5.4p2 beta build are:

Information on the Gang Beasts 0.5.4p1 beta and 0.5.4p2 beta

We have identified an issue with the 0.5.4p1 distribution that made it inaccessible, we are working on a second patch build (0.5.4p2) with some additional fixes and improvements and currently expect to publish this build later this week.

We have pushed a patch release in the last hour to address issues identified with the 0.5.4 build (published yesterday), the list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.4p1 beta build are:

Patch notes for the Gang Beasts 0.5.4 beta (published Thursday 2 March 2017)

The Gang Beasts 0.5.4 beta build published with this post has a number of fixes, optimisations, and other modifications including improvements to the input mapping system, the gondola and trucks stages, the SFX and the orbit camera systems.

We are still working on other stability fixes and minimising in-game exploits and other annoyances and expect to have more examples of this work in coming builds.

Following the 0.5.4 build Coatsink will be pushing out support for two new server geographies in Canada (Montreal) and the UK (London) with full support coming from next week.

Please note the 0.5.4 beta build replaces the default 0.5.3 and ”unstable” 0.5.3 beta builds for server compatibilty (moving between the default and “unstable” builds on Steam will download the same 0.5.4 beta build)

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.4 beta builds are:

Current issues identified with the 0.5.4 beta build are:

15th February 2017

We have pushed a patch release in the last hour to address issues identified with the 0.5.3 build (published yesterday), the list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.3p1 beta build are:

patched an issue that stopped local games from ending on the vents stage if the game is set for more than 1 win fixed an issue that made the waves game inaccessible fixed an issue that stopped the forces on the vents stage from pushing or pulling characters when the fan blades are spinning Patch notes for the Gang Beasts 0.5.3 beta (published Wednesday 15 February 2017) Since the 0.5.2 build was published last month we have been working with Coatsink to patch keys issues introduced in recent builds and recent versions of Unity and are publishing the first batch of optimisations, fixes, and other modifications in the 0.5.3 beta.

The 0.5.3 build has numerous bug and stability fixes but we are still working to fix issues with the multiplayer camera, vents glitches, costume exploits and conflicts, inconsistencies with lift forces and concussion times and expect to push these fixes to Steam for testing in coming builds.

We have also started work on a full rebuild of the UI, localising for multiple languages, and a more standardised testing process (with additional resources working with us to identify and fix issues).

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.3 beta builds are:

added online support for the vents stage

Please note the 0.5.3 beta build replaces the default 0.5.2 and ”unstable” 0.5.2 beta builds for server compatibilty (moving between the default and “unstable” builds on Steam will download the same 0.5.3 beta build)

10th January 2017

We have pushed a server fix for the glue hand issue and patched 0.5.2 build that addresses a keyboard mapping issue. Please tell us if you still have issue with the 0.5.2 build as we continue to identify and patch issues in preparation for the next build.

Patch notes for the Gang Beasts 0.5.2 beta

Since the 0.5.1 build was published on 30 December 2016 we have been working with Coatsink to standardise character movement, optimise and fix input issues, and to scale server capacity and stability as the Gang Beasts Early Access community has increased significantly since the 0.5.0 beta build was published (on the 23 December 2016).

Quick Join

The 0.5.2 beta build has had numerous modifications to improve the Quick Join implementation, specifically to optimise the management of server connections and make disconnections less frequent; if you have issues connecting to servers with Quick Join in the 0.5.2 beta build please test connecting to servers with low pings from the server browser.

Gang Beasts Server Tool

We are working on making a number of guides to give more instructive information on using and customising the Gang Beasts Server Tool and will be adding a specific sub-forum for the server tool (the previous Server Tool forum was made inaccessible when the tool was associated with Gang Beasts on Steam).

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.2 beta builds are:

Information on switching to and from “stable” and “unstable” branches

To download the ‘unstable’ branch on Steam right-click on the ‘Gang Beasts’ game name on the Steam library page and select ‘Properties’ from the window that opens, from this window select the ‘BETAS’ tab and then the ‘unstable’ option from the dropdown menu (the menu labelled ‘Select the beta you would like to opt into:’. To revert back to the last ‘stable’ branch select ‘NONE- Opt out of all beta programs’ from the same menu.

For reference switching between ‘unstable’ and ‘stable’ branches of the game forces the selected build to download to the Steam client (replacing the previously selected build).

Please note the 0.5.0 release replaced the previous default 0.3.4 and 0.4.4 “unstable” Steam Early Access builds, moving between the default and “unstable” builds on Steam will download the 0.5.2 stable build until the “unstable” build is updated to 0.5.3

30 DECEMBER 2016

A number of issues have impacted online multiplayer gameplay since the 0.5.0 beta release on 21 December some of which were patched in a recent server update, the key issues were that have compromised online and physics stability are:

Concurrent Players

There servers had a significant escalation in the volume of concurrent players (peaking at ~160% or 2.6 times more players than the previous record high), to address this we have added additional server capacity and will continue to monitor contention for servers and scale capacity if the number of online players continues to escalate.

Player Hosted Servers

A high number of player hosted servers registered (or attempted to register) with the master server in the days immediately following the release of the Gang Beasts server tool (on 23 December 2016), this negatively impacted on the performance of the Master Server. A significant percentage of player hosted servers that successfully registered with the master server (player hosted servers that were shown in the server browser list) did not have port forwarding configured or were otherwise inaccessible stopping other players from joining them.

To address these issues we have temporarily stopped player hosted servers from registering as public servers until the implementation can be modified (remote players can still connect to player hosted servers with the Direct Connection option in the online menu).

For discussion and support for the Gang Beasts Server Tool please use the forum at http://steamcommunity.com/app/497110/discussions/

Physics Instability

We have been testing to identify the source of the physics inconsistencies introduced in the 0.5.0 builds and have identified the issue is with frame rate independence (making the game physics fluctuate significantly when running on different hardware specifications). We have been testing a potential fix for this issue and are publishing this as the 0.5.1 beta build concurrently with this post.

The modifications to the characters physics (which are listed in the change log in the 0.5.0 posts are not the source of the issues with physics inconsistencies), the issue is with the game physics not calculating independently of frame rate which manifests as lower (weak) forces for systems with lower frame rates and compromises character stability for systems with exceptionally high frame rates.

Quick Join

We are working on the Quick Join implementation to improve the management of contention for server slots with less frequent disconnections; if you have frequent issues connecting to servers with Quick Join please connect with the Server List with geographical filters (to index servers in proximate geographies) until improvements to the Quick Join implementation are published.

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.1 beta builds are:

fixed an issue with the character system to make the character physics work independently of frame rate

Information on switching to / from “stable” and “unstable” branches

To download the ‘unstable’ branch on Steam right-click on the ‘Gang Beasts’ game name on the Steam library page and select ‘Properties’ from the window that opens, from this window select the ‘BETAS’ tab and then the ‘unstable’ option from the dropdown menu (the menu labelled ‘Select the beta you would like to opt into:’. To revert back to the last ‘stable’ branch select ‘NONE- Opt out of all beta programs’ from the same menu.

For reference switching between ‘unstable’ and ‘stable’ branches of the game forces the selected build to download to the Steam client (replacing the previously selected build).

Please note the 0.5.0 release replaced the previous default 0.3.4 and 0.4.4 “unstable” Steam Early Access builds, moving between the default and “unstable” builds on Steam will download the 0.5.1 stable build until the “unstable” build is updated to 0.5.2

21 DECEMBER 2016

A number of issues have impacted online multiplayer gameplay in the last 2-3 days, the following paragraph summarises the issues with information on what work has been done to address the issues until full solutions are tested and published summarised in the next paragraph.

The volume of player hosted servers trying to register with the master server since the server tool was approved on 23 December 2016 has been impacting the performance of the Master Server. A significant percentage of these registered servers that were shown in the server list did not have port forwarding configured (preventing them from being joined by other players).

To address these issues we have temporarily stopped player hosted servers from registering as public servers (players can still connect to player hosted servers with the Direct Connection option in the online menu).

For discussion and support for the Gang Beasts Server Tool please use the forum at http://steamcommunity.com/app/497110/discussions/

Patch notes for the Gang Beasts 0.5.0 beta

Since the last Steam Early Access post was published at the start of December we’ve been working with Coatsink to test significant modifications and fixes to the character, costume, game mode and networking systems (the 0.5.0 build replaces the 0.3.4 and 0.4.4 Steam Early Access builds).

Servers will be intermittently unavailable for the next hour as servers are modified (the 0.5.0 build is needed to play online as pre-0.5.0 builds are not supported by the modified server scheme)

Thank you to everyone that nominated Gang Beasts for the “Better With Friends” Steam Award.

Online / Servers

Online multiplayer support in Gang Beasts has had numerous iterations since the online beta started in May and is now sufficiently stable and scalable to release in the default Early Access builds on Steam.

Currently the Gang Beasts online multiplayer supports the following server geographies:

following the publishing of the 0.5.0 beta build we plan to add support for servers in US East (Ohio), and will then assess supporting server geographies in Canada (Montreal), China (Ningxia), China (Beijing), UK (London), and France (Paris) as and when Amazon Web Services, the server hosting solution we lease server capacity from, make these server geographies available.

For reference latency will be lower if you are can connect to servers close to your location (you can use the server filter to show proximate servers), if there are no servers in close proximity to your location please email [email protected] with information on your location. If you are playing from a location that is not close to the currently supported servers please test the dedicated server tool (published with this post) as a temporary solution until the server infrastructure is expanded to support your locality (the server tool should be available through the Steam tools section and support Windows and Linux currently, please read the readme.txt file distributed with the build for more information on the server tool).

The list of modifications and fixes made to the online and server implementation in the 0.5.0 beta build are:

*the default mapping for PTT VoIP is right trigger on game controllers and the “C” key on keyboards Please note the 0.5.0 build will replace the current builds on both the default and unstable branches

Please note the 0.1.0 Dedicated Server Tool will only have support for Windows and Linux operating systems initially (please read the readme.txt file distributed with the tool for more information

Local

Local multiplayer support in Gang Beasts has seen a number of improvements and fixes including, an provisional support for in game camera modification (single player only), support for playing online with multiple local players, provisional support for debug spawning (we plan to expand debug spawning support to form the template for sandbox modes in later builds), and a basic version of the revised waves game mode (currently limited to the grind stage).

The list of modifications and fixes made to the local game in the 0.5.0 beta build are:

*the name of the fans stage has been modified to vents (the original name for the fans stage) debug spawning is disabled for online for official servers

Stages

We are still working to finish modified geometry for stages but are close to having final geometry on most stages (excluding colour grading and post effects), the list of stages modified for the 0.5.0 build are:

Menu / UI / messaging

We’re still working to standardise the game menus, UI, and messaging to remove annoyances and make key content more accessible, the 0.5.0 beta build fixes a number of issues with game menus and a modified score screen (with star shaped balloons for points), the key modification to menus, UI, and messaging:

Character

Character movement, force parameters, concussion system, and targeting hierarchies have been modified to improve game play and the character customisation system has been exposed for testing, the full list of modifications to the character and character costume systems are:

added a grab delay to the jump implementation to stop characters from targeting posterior objects and enemies when jumping added the costume customisation system **

** saved costume customisations could be lost or corrupted on subsequent updates while the system is in development

Information on switching to / from “stable” and “unstable” branches

To download the “unstable” branch on Steam right-click on the “Gang Beasts” game name on the Steam library page and select “Properties” from the window that opens, from this window select the “BETAS” tab and then the “unstable” option from the dropdown menu (the menu labelled “Select the beta you would like to opt into:”. To revert back to the last ‘stable’ branch select “NONE- Opt out of all beta programs” from the same menu.

For reference switching between unstable and stable branches of the game forces the selected build to download to the Steam client (replacing the previously selected build).

Please note the 0.5.0 build replaces the 0.3.4 and 0.4.4 Steam Early Access builds, moving between the default and “unstable” builds on Steam will both download the 0.5.0 build until the “unstable” build is updated to 0.5.1

Please post issues you identify with the 0.5.0 build in the comments for the pinned post at http://steamcommunity.com/app/285900/discussions/0/152392549356421433/

3 DECEMBER 2016

Since the 0.4.4 build was published at the end of September we have been working closely with partners to iterate on the character, game mode, and networking systems for Gang Beasts and are now testing release builds for the Gang Beasts 0.5.0 beta.

We plan to publish the 0.5.0 beta when testing ends, this should be in December but we can’t set a specific date in December currently (as critical issues could still be found in testing).

To force server compatibility we need to publish the 0.5.0 build concurrently with the Gang Beasts Dedicated Server tool and significant updates to servers.

Please note the 0.5.0 build will replace the 0.3.4 and 0.4.4 Steam Early Access builds and game servers will be intermittently unavailable for an hour following the release of the 0.5.0 build (as servers are modified and restarted)

Please note the Dedicated Server Tool will only support Windows operating systems initially

Other Information

Currently we’re working with Coatsink and SuperGenius to fix some stability issues with character costume parts and part combinations, other work has also been done to optimise the audio system, fix missing SFX, music and other audio, and fix issues with the character system. We have also been working to standardise game menus and in game messaging.

We have also been working with Coatsink to test Steam achievements and localisations, and to make the online multiplayer more stable and accessible (including key work on server automation, polyinstancing, local and online lobbies, VoIP, and support for concurrent local and online multiplayer game sessions).

We will make a post with specific information on modifications and content in the 0.5.0 beta build (including which stages have online multiplayer support) when the build is published later this month.

Costumes

The character costume system has been populated with the 179 costume parts (109 examples are shown in the image) made for the game to date, it is still missing some older costumes that need geometry modifying to make them compatible with the new costume system.

Please note some costume parts have been made specifically for enemy AI gangs (we plan to make these parts unlock-able in AI game modes)

VR

We have setup a Steam sub-forum named Oculus Keys for Gang Beasts Early Access owners to request Oculus keys for Gang Beasts.

Support for VIVE, Oculus, and PSVR head mounted displays is planned but only Oculus Rift support has been published to date (Oculus support is at a later stage as Oculus made extensive technical and hardware support available for implementing and testing VR support).

Online Support on Steam Early Access

Online gameplay in Gang Beasts is only supported in the “unstable” alpha builds on Steam Early Access, online support will be added to the default Steam builds when the 0.5.0 build is released later this month.

Information on switching to / from “stable” and “unstable” branches

To download the “unstable” branch on Steam right-click on the “Gang Beasts” game name on the Steam library page and select “Properties” from the window that opens, from this window select the “BETAS” tab and then the “unstable” option from the dropdown menu (the menu labelled “Select the beta you would like to opt into:”. To revert back to the last ‘stable’ branch select “NONE- Opt out of all beta programs” from the same menu.

For reference switching between unstable and stable branches of the game forces the selected build to download to the Steam client (replacing the previously selected build).

22 SEPTEMBER 2016

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.4.4 “unstable” alpha build are:

Online gameplay in Gang Beasts is currently supported in the “unstable” alpha builds on Steam Early Access (online support will be added to the default Steam builds when the local multiplayer versions of the ‘buoy’ and ‘fans’ stages have been restored to the game).

Character Movement and Concussion Times

There are currently a number of discrepancies / issues that make the recent “unstable” builds differently with older builds, we will be working to standardise the control scheme and concussion system in the “unstable” builds soon when online support is added to the default Early Access builds.

Information on switching to / from “stable” and “unstable” branches

To download the ‘unstable’ branch on Steam right-click on the ‘Gang Beasts’ game name on the Steam library page and select ‘Properties’ from the window that opens, from this window select the ‘BETAS’ tab and then the ‘unstable’ option from the dropdown menu (the menu labelled ‘Select the beta you would like to opt into:’. To revert back to the last ‘stable’ branch select ‘NONE- Opt out of all beta programs’ from the same menu.

For reference switching between ‘unstable’ and ‘stable’ branches of the game forces the selected build to download to the Steam client (replacing the previously selected build).

7 SEPTEMBER 2016

The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.4.3 “unstable” alpha build are:

Please note there is no “stable” alpha build release with this post, the next stable release will be published soon (when the ‘buoy’ and ‘fans’ stages have been restored to the default local game mode).

Online Support on Steam Early Access

Online gameplay in Gang Beasts is currently supported in the “unstable” alpha builds on Steam Early Access (support for online gameplay in the default Gang Beasts Early Access builds is scheduled for a later stage of development).

Information on switching to / from “stable” and “unstable” branches

To download the ‘unstable’ branch on Steam right-click on the ‘Gang Beasts’ game name on the Steam library page and select ‘Properties’ from the window that opens, from this window select the ‘BETAS’ tab and then the ‘unstable’ option from the dropdown menu (the menu labelled ‘Select the beta you would like to opt into:’. To revert back to the last ‘stable’ branch select ‘NONE- Opt out of all beta programs’ from the same menu.

For reference switching between ‘unstable’ and ‘stable’ branches of the game forces the selected build to download to the Steam client (replacing the previously selected build).