Hi all,

We've put together another nightly build with some cool improvements.

Survival
1) The ways that spawns would show up at night was annoying. They would show up behind you sometimes, and seemed too random and unexpected. Now meteors come from mysterious location, and crash near you. These create portals from which a limited number of croakers spawn. This should also take care of the frame rate issues you get when you have too many monster spawns on scene. (Also added a really cool screenshake effect here for the impact)
2) Increased the amount of life mana you start with. It seemed too difficult prior to this.
3) Removed night-time monster spawning from Sandbox.
4) Monsters now may target your towers with spells, or attacks. This currently doesn't mean much, since the spells cast aren't physically disruptive, and towers have to be "toppled" to be destroyed.

Misc UX
1) Made some of the tutorial chats from the staff less frequent. They were too much.
2) Added in healthbars to monsters, so it's more plain to see their life mana.
3) Made spells be able to "spawn" prefabs.

Hi All!

We've been working hard on a fun and challenging single-player experience, and we ended up settling on a survival-game-meets-tower-defense sort of experience, where towers can cast spells. A big question we've gotten is if towers can be made to cast any spell. Currently, the answer is "no", but we are planning on making that happen at some point.

Here are the build's changes:

Gameplay:
-Survival mode (currently it's "roguelike", but the plan is to make the experience more like survival sim where you can save your world)
-Limited-shot spells (for placing towers, and studying spells on scannable things)
-NPC chat system (your staff talks to you and gives you advice)
-Made more environment things destructible

Audio:
-Footstep/attacking sounds for Croakers and Rock Beasts.
-Ambience sounds
-NPC chat sounds


Performance:
-We got rid of dynamic water. It was slowing things down at certain times quite a bit.
-Fixed a performance bug having to do with the death "nether"

This version rebases both the nightly, or default branches of CodeSpells. At this version they are on in the same.

In this version we are taking a step back with multiplayer. One of the things we did was changing out the ui engine to make development easier in the long run. In doing so, we chose to regress multiplayer since the veins of multiplayer were intertwined with the old ui system. We want to rebuild multiplayer to be peer-to-peer rather than peer-to-server anyhow. Therefore, we opted to remove multiplayer features at this point rather than rebuilding them within the new ui framework. In addition to that change, we made the following:

More interesting creature interaction:
-Creatures can be slammed into the ground, and will be dealt damage based on collisions (Before, certain like the ground would not cause damage to creatures)
-New rocky giant creature, which has a ragdoll

Bugs:
-Optimizations making the sandbox run faster
-Staffs not seeming to be equipped properly bug fixed
-Lost spells bug fixed

Server Changes:
-The server for logging in/out rebuilt to talk with the new UI framework
-The server no longer hosts multiplayer, as we are moving toward peer-to-peer connection

To use this version you must go to CodeSpells > Properties > Betas and select 'nightly'. This is an unstable release and contains features that are not yet complete. You can switch back to the released stable version of CodeSpells by going through the same process and selecting 'NONE'.

• New Creature System (ALPHA)
  
  • New creatures roaming in the world with rewritten AI system
    
  • Creatures will now interact with each other and perform more interesting behaviors
    
  • Creatures can now cast spells
    
  • Next Steps: Add more creatures + better pathfinding + more interesting interactions, player altering creature behavior

• New areas generated in Sandbox
  
  • Sandbox contains more interesting regions now with different structures

• Arena Creation (ALPHA)
  
  • Players can now create their own arenas with the rebuilt system and level editor
    
  • This is in an early state
    
  • Next Steps: Triggers, Documentation, Placing Creatures

• Multiplayer Hosting
  
  • Players can now have their games hosted using our new system

We were so excited to hold our first ever 1v1 Wizard Tournament earlier this month! In case you missed it, here are the results:

1st Place: @HalfBloodPrince
2nd Place: @egpimp
3rd Place: @fdervb

As winner of the tournament, HalfBloodPrince has chosen a spell to be included in the official release of CodeSpells. Keep an eye out for "Elemental Globe by HalfBloodPrince" in the release!

HalfBloodPrince was also awesome enough to share some words with us about his CodeSpells experience so far:

Originally posted by HalfBloodPrince:

For a while now I could not find any game that would instantly interest me. I am a big fan of games that allow wide range of customisation, either to the character, abilities, play style, etc. Besides I love games where the character has wacky abilities and always wished I could customise them and/or make my own. And that is where CodeSpells comes in - a game that combined my (basic) knowledge of coding and fun aspect seeing your code in action is a pure joy. Playing CodeSpells feels like a simulating strategy game that requires thought and problem solving skills, but is also a fun fast-paced third person action game. I think these two aspects combined make this game so great for me and many others who enjoy being challenged and stimulated by the games. It is an absolute keeper for me.

You can check out all the tournament footage on Youtube here!

And of course, BIG THANKS to the organizers, moderators, and judges for making this tournament happen!
@7Leven
@Burgy
@Amulgagar

Keep an eye out for future Wizard Tournaments! This definitely will not be the last!

Hello players! This is just a friendly reminder that the Official CodeSpells Wizard Cup registration closes tonight @ 11:59 PM CDT.

• 1 v 1 Entry Form[docs.google.com]
  
• 2 v 2 Entry Form[docs.google.com]
  
• 3 v 3 Entry Form[docs.google.com]
  
• Spell Submission Form[docs.google.com] Required for all participants

The Spell Submission Form MUST be completed prior to your match. If not, you will not be able to compete with your team.

I hope to see many of you there! Comment on this post for any questions or concerns.

Also, for those looking to enter the CodeSpells tournament as a team, feel free to use our Community Discord server to help find teammates. A lot of people have been using this to find teammates and we're a very friendly community =)

Download Discord[discordapp.com]
CodeSpells Community Discord Server Invite [discord.gg]

Hello my fellow wizards and witches!

I just wanted to inform everyone planning on entering the CodeSpells Wizard Cup that there are only 2 days left to enter the tournament.

Entry officially closes this Thursday (7/7/16) @ 11:59 PM CDT.

• 1 v 1 Entry Form[docs.google.com]
  
• 2 v 2 Entry Form[docs.google.com]
  
• 3 v 3 Entry Form[docs.google.com]
  
• Spell Submission Form[docs.google.com] Required for all participants

The Spell Submission Form MUST be completed prior to your match. If not, you will not be able to compete with your team.

Likewise, if you want more information about the tournament, here is a previous post that outlines everything you need to know.

Good luck to everyone entering. And happy spell-crafting! =)

Hello felow wizards and witches! I would like to personally invite you all to participate in the first official
This is a Player vs Player tournament that will take place on the StoneStrike Arena map. Participants may enter into the following brackets:

• 1 v 1
  
• 2 v 2
  
• 3 v 3

You are more than welcome to enter into multiple brackets. However, brackets with not enough entries will be canceled.
The map or setting of the match will be determined the day of.

The tournament will be start on July 8th. You will have until July 7th @ 11:59 PM to enter your team and submit your spells. The tournament could span span into another weekend depending on how many entries we get. Our goal is to get all the matches done in the first weekend.

1. Each player will be allowed a maximum of 2 Spell-Wheels.
   
2. Eval spells (Black Magic) is strictly prohibited. A team caught using these spells will be disqualified.
   
3. Each spell within your 2 respective spell-wheels must be submitted prior to the match and moderators of the matches will check your spells again right before the match starts. This is to prevent anyone from sneaking in prohibited spells.
   
4. Each Spell within your Spell-Wheel(s) MUST have a descriptive name. This is to easily identify which spell you are using in your match. By identifying which spells you are using easily, it allows us to prevent people from cheating an using spells not presented in their 2 spell-wheels.
   
5. Any kind of spell that can crash the server, or crash players, is prohibited. An example of this is an infinite loop. If we find any of this in your spells you will be asked to resubmit/modify your spell(s).
   
6. After entering into the tournament, you MUST submit another form containing your Spell-Wheels. These links will be provided in this thread.
   
7. Currently, we are deciding on how many lives each wizard should have in a match. I will update this thread with the judges and I select. Currently, we are thinking 2 or 3 lives per wizard. The amount of lives will be determined prior to your match.

First Place:

• Choose one spell that you or your team created, and it will be added into the CodeSpells game as a default spell that comes with the game!
  
• CodeSpells key(s) to give to your friends.
  
• Send us your picture and bio for us to include in the newsletter.

Second Place:

• CodeSpells key(s) to give to your friends!

The prizes are the same across all brackets. If you are on a team, each player gets the prizes.

We are hoping to livestream and record these events. If you guys are interested in helping moderate these matches, or livestream, please contact me and we can work something out.
I also need some people who are very skilled with Eval, if this is you PLEASE contact me!

• 1 v 1 Entry Form[docs.google.com]
  
• 2 v 2 Entry Form[docs.google.com]
  
• 3 v 3 Entry Form[docs.google.com]
  
• Spell Submission Form[docs.google.com] Required for all participants

The Spell Submission Form MUST be completed prior to your match. If not, you will not be able to compete with your team.

We're SUPER excited to see all of you fight it out with your creativity and cleverness with code! Feel free to invite people who aren't in the community already to join the tournament. You will have a little over two weeks to prepare which should be a good enough time for some people!

For faster updates and more information about this tournament, check out this forum post here.[the-codespells-forum.herokuapp.com]

Happy spell-crafting and good luck to all of those who enter!

Early Access 0.815 is a minor update mainly with fixes to temples and menu items. Also, players can now jump much higher and temporarily hover by holding Space.

• Players can now hold jump (Space) for higher jumps and minor hovering ability
  
• Temple Fixes:
  
  • Collider fixes
    
  • Lights for activated temple teleporters
    
  • Rocks and trees will no longer be placed inside of temples
• Fixed visual issues before starting levels
  
• Miscellaneous visual fixes