Hey everyone! This will be a some what short State of the Game as I need to ask you a favor! Please go to the Alienware Arena to vote in the Indie Developer Contest! If MAV wins the contest, Alienware will provide a computer that I will then giveaway to the community! They will also help promote MAV in a variety …

  This week I have been finishing up the conversion over to a more global UI system for the most frequently needed menus. This means the ‘ESC’ key will no longer auto quit what you are doing! Instead, a nice menu will pop up giving you a few options. Most exciting of those options is the actual options menu it’s …

Hey everyone! It’s been a fun week this week! So a few weeks ago I mentioned the phrase “Community comes first“, and I meant it. It’s time to start delivering on that promise! I have started hosting ‘Weekly Discussion‘ threads to help get the community active and participating in helping shape the future of the game. The social links in …

So, after a week long ‘break’  I am back at the development. I have been targeting some of the biggest issues the community has brought up and first up was the in game leaderboard. Currently there is no way to check your score mid-match without dying. That seems a bit silly, so I fixed it. While I was at that, …

I am sorry I have not been more visible this week. We had a death in the family and it has taken most of my time up. Short state of the game this week. Go give your loved ones a hug.

Another week down! Time sure does fly! If you haven’t noticed, MAV is on sale! This is the single biggest discount ever offered on MAV and likely won’t happen again for quite some time. So snap it up while you can! But, Cyber, didn’t you say MAV would never go on sale? Yes, I did say that. And I feel …

This week I worked on a new snapshot build that I was able to release on Monday! Version 0.6.5_1 contains these changes: -Fixed ghost players on siege mode -Implemented max player limit for servers. Default is 16. Controlled by adding the line MaxPlayers=16 to the ServerConfig.ini under the ServerSettings header. AI do not count against this limit. -Max team count for …

I am late. It finally happened. After 228 weeks, or 52 months, or over 4 years, or exactly 1,596 days, I missed a Wednesdays update. We all knew this day would come. Let us take a moment of silence for the lost streak. And done. 🙂   So this week has been a bit crazy week. I push a snapshot …

Short and sweet this week! I have been working on the biggest issues from the last snapshot, along with a few nice to have features. As soon as it’s done, it will go out as a new snapshot build. Currently fixed: -Top half of MAV’s can be left behind -Achievements don’t unlock [yes, someone hit level 100 already] -Rank is …

So, there have been quite a few performance patches that have gone out over the past few weeks and the gains have been really nice! As I played tonight I was seeing a fairly consistent frame rate of 30-45 fps, on Ultra. This would still dip down on some of the levels, or when lots of payers were in the …

This week I have been focused on making the performance optimizations from last week actually work in the context of the game! When you fundamentally change how the MAV’s are put together, you run into some strange issues. Most likely the funniest issue was me not accounting for rotation of the part you attach to the legs. Since I am …

Performance is a hell of a thing. Chasing it is as close to being addicted to drugs as I can imagine. Your always chasing that last tiny bit of it and it has you doing more and more crazy things with ever diminishing returns. Here is how I spent 96 hours chasing my last high. Preface: MAVs are expensive. MAVs on …

Short and sweet update! 0.6.1 is released! It’s a hot fix to address some issues that popped up in the Beta release. I am currently working hard on fighting fires as they pop up and continuing with the bug hunting, with my primary focus being on issues with profiles resetting. Once things die down a bit, I will work on …

What an exciting week! In case you missed the news, MAV entered into Beta on Monday! Also known as the ‘Great 0.6.0 release’. This release has been in the works for quite some time and introduces many of the main systems that were missing from the Alpha versions of the game. This includes big systems like better lag compensation, a …

The distant machine gun fire, the Earth shaking booms of howitzers, the roar of a flame thrower. It’s coming, it’s finally coming! On May 2nd, MAV will launch full force into Beta release! What does this mean? For starters, a truly MASSIVE content update! New part stats, new sounds, new VFX, new models, new performance increases, new progression system, new …

This was the logo I created when I first envisioned the game of MAV. A game about heavy robots, battling it out on the wastelands of [someplace to be determined] and doing [things to be determined] while also having to deal with [a cool thing. I will think of it later]. I had a very vague idea of what I …

Forgive me for the terrible title. So this week I have been hammering away at lots of small polish tasks and issues that are coming up during testing. The largest new feature is the unlocking and full XP system. Yep, that’s right, you will now have to EARN your parts! Don’t worry, there are plenty of parts to be had …

What a week! As stated in last weeks State of the Game, there is another closed beta test going on this week. So far, I would say it’s going pretty great! While lots of issues have been found, many of them have been fixed. I have been on pace, delivering a new test build nearly every day.  I have been …

What an exciting week! This past weekend MAV had it’s very first closed beta test. This is a bit different than the normal way things go, as in the past I have used snapshot builds for this type of testing. This was a very different type of testing though. MAV, for what I feel was the first time, underwent a …

Oh no, the AI are taking over! What shall we do? Don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world just yet! You can always retake control by joining the game again! Wait, what? That’s right, when you leave siege mode, mid battle, the AI will valiantly take control of your MAV and march it into battle for you. But …

Wow, what a week of development! According to my trello board I knocked out 12 major multiplayer blocking issues. These are big issues like “Players don’t respawn in multiplayer” and “Server doesn’t create AI” and the most fun, “Server is spammed to death with audio errors”. Nice to be able to stop those 3.5GB logs files from building up 😉 …

Wow, what a crazy week! First, a bit of marketing 🙂 M.A.V. is now available in 4-packs and you should go buy one now to spread the love around. You could be the Johnny Appleseed of M.A.V., spreading cheer and giant robots to all reaches of the internet. Go buy it now, I will wait.   Back? Ok then: The …

As you can tell by the delay of this post, it’s been quite the week! In the game I have been putting together the final touches to the loading screens, getting rid of all the last little hitches as you go from level to level. This was really important to me, as most unity games DON’T have this issue fixed …

Welcome back to this weeks State of the Game! I have been pounding away a sounds. Do you know how many sounds it takes to do a game like MAV? I know I sure didn’t estimate it right when I started this whole thing. I have now created close to 300 sounds, prioritized over 256 levels, organized them under 125 …

Welcome to this weeks State of the Game! If the title sounds similar, it might be because of this is not the first time I have dove into the new sound system. Last time it was about expanding the sounds. This week I have been focused on implementing final quality sounds, as well as a full sound LOD [Level of …

Wow, what a week of game development! This week started with me finally bending to the will of the masses and putting in an ejection screen to the game. This simple mechanic allows you to ‘eject’ and blow up your MAV in game. Very useful in arena mode when you are stripped. There is a 5 second delay on it …