April has officially passed us, meaning its time to look back at our road map and deliver a status update! After that first build we were very excited to be finally working on gameplay, and thanks to everyones feedback, we quickly identified what needed to be fixed and which new features we wanted to tackle.

In our most recent vlog you can see some of the progress in action (notably on block mechanics, the matching algorithm, control schemes, and a text overhaul):

And while much more progress on our goals continued off-camera, a few major complications arose as well. To walk through one example: we always do mock-ups of new features and UI before committing things to code. Here are a few of those low-detail black and white menu drafts focused around “Arcade” mode:

In this case, as we were deciding on how best to approach player lobbies and party functionality, we found that accommodating multiple cursors in these multiplayer menus wouldn’t be possible with the way inputs were programmed for last month’s build. Looking further into the issue revealed that a full rewrite of input code would be needed to support this (something that wasn’t originally part of our roadmap). While multiplayer isn’t planned to be finished for the next build, it’s risky to put off such a fundamental system for later, especially when building new gameplay and UI on top of it.

And in case you’re curious what some of those mock-ups looks like with semi-finished assets, here’s a sneak peak! (very much still subject to change):

So while there was substantial time spent attending to these unexpected-but-important overhauls (not even mentioning the content and text renderers which required similar rewrites), progress continued and items were checked off our list. Some items were also bumped to lower priority so that we can get to that second build release faster (even if it means less polish in some areas that aren’t vital to gameplay). With that said, here’s the items from the roadmap finished last last month:

✓ Animated blocks

✓ Animated match explosions

✓ New control schemes

✓ Early stages of local multiplayer

✓ Arcade interface designs

✓ Block Art Refresh (added new “break” frame)

✓ Grab-and-drag single cursor rework to support touch and mouse input

✓ Detect when a player switches inputs

In addition to these completed items that weren’t initially part of the roadmap:

✓ Polished in-game mechanics related to block timings and pop order

✓ Fixed matching algorithm bug related to certain “T” configurations

✓ Content renderer overhaul

✓ Switching all in-game text to bitmap

✓ Designed new fonts, both for basic system text and textured header fonts.

Which just leaves the remaining items, re-ordered by importance with a few omissions:

Chain combos (this applies to all game modes)
Garbage blocks start to arrive after a certain level (garbage blocks apply to most game modes)
Health bar and damage systems
Game Mode Selection
Systems and architecture that allow players to enter and exit games smoothly
Support for multiple game modes (necessary before working on VS mode)
Client side prediction and server side correction
All handled over TCP / IP
Animated lift
UI and gameplay sound effects
Local storage of user preferences
Audio settings interface
Video settings interface
Polish Background Art
Converting Music
Board shake tests
Controller / keyboard settings interface (not accessible if touch enabled)
Keyboard / mouse settings interface (not accessible if touch enabled)
Battle setup, countdown, health bars, and end-game interfaces
Beginnings of the game replay system

And lastly some new goals that will be necessary sooner than we expected:

Friend / Lobby System
Matchmaking Servers

That about wraps it up! And the list above you could now consider our updated roadmap for the month of May. While it represents everything we want to have finished, there’s no telling what could pop up along the way, so we’ll resist the urge to set any release date estimates just yet. Despite the extra time needed for this, our goal is to get the next release as stable as possible with all foundations locked (for sure this time!) so we can finally start releasing the regular gameplay updates we’d all love to see. Thanks again for everyone’s patience!

As always, you can find us over at our Super Plexis discord here: https://discord.gg/cJXzN4z to stay up to date on the latest info!

Hey everyone! Welcome to the first of many "roadmap" blog posts that outline our goals for the month. This series will give you an in-depth look at our current priorities and what we plan to have released for Super Plexis each month. Let's jump in:

Battle

Endless mode and battle engine

Polish the implementation for the first animated battle background
Chain combos (this applies to all game modes)
Garbage blocks start to arrive after a certain level (garbage blocks apply to most game modes)
Animated match explosions and garbage block explosions
Health bar and damage systems
Board shake tests
Animated lift
Animated blocks
Beginning development of AI systems / local multiplayer

Andrew's Notes: "These are basic necessities for finishing the bare minimum battle engine and making Endless mode really feel like a real challenge. Remember that Endless mode also comes paired with an “Endless (CLASSIC)” mode which is almost identical to puzzle league style endless / marathon modes."

Design

Music and sound

Login screen music, title screen music, and battle music
UI and gameplay sound effects

Andrew's Notes: "I’m hopeful that the major build for April will include music, and if we’re lucky I could even have sound effects implemented."

User interface / experience

Animated title screen

Local storage of user preferences
Audio settings interface
Video settings interface
Controller / keyboard settings interface (not accessible if touch enabled)
Keyboard / mouse settings interface (not accessible if touch enabled)
Arcade games interface
Battle setup, countdown, health bars, and end-game interfaces
In-game notifications

Andrew's Notes: "Most of this won’t be animated, and once it’s all put together we can implement animations very soon after (like notification bounce or achievement glimmers / shines, etc). Please note that achievements and other unlockables will not be implemented in this build because they require online game servers."

Updated UI Designs

Game Mode Selection
Misc

Gabe’s Notes: “As you may have seen in the preview build already, the menus will be quite different than the original iOS prototype. The new designs will allow us to build the same version of the game to all devices, and all elements will automatically scale / re-arrange themselves to fit. Expect to see more examples of this UI as we add new modes to the game (along with more “under development” placeholder buttons!)”

Background Art

Polish Title Screen background
Polish Loftwood Battle
Reformat Azure Background

Gabe’s Notes: “The new 16:9 format means all our old mobile backgrounds will need to be updated accordingly. Just like the Title Screen and Loftwood backgrounds (currently in the preview build), this means drawing in a much wider field of view with new details. And animation too!”

Converting / Updating Music and SFX

Title Screen
Loftwood Battle

Gabe’s Notes: “Now that the game is running on more than just mobile devices, its time to get the audio more stereo-ready for PC! The existing songs were written at wildly different times with different sounds/instruments over the past couple years and ill be doing a fresh pass on all of them to unite their styles (and maybe add some new stuff too!)”

New Block Details

Block art refresh / new frames

Gabe’s Notes: “We’ll be experimenting with different resolutions of blocks depending on the current screen size, but we’ve also been playing with a fresh new idea related to how “expressive” the blocks are in their different states of gameplay. Won’t say any more than that for now!”

Technical

Mouse / touch input

Grab-and-drag single cursor rework to support touch and mouse input
Detect when the player switches from mouse to keyboard and back again

Andrew's Notes: "When players use the mouse the grab-and-drag cursor should activate, and then if the player goes back to using keyboard or controller than whichever cursor they were using for that will reactivate (single cursor or boomerang cursor)."

Local game server testing

Systems and architecture that allow players to enter and exit games smoothly
Support for multiple game modes (necessary before working on VS mode)
Client side prediction and server side correction
Beginnings of the game replay system
All handled over TCP / IP

Andrew's Notes: "This is my primary task for April. If I can deliver a successful build by the end of the month with local game servers, we will be extremely close to the first online multiplayer build. The local game server tests simulate what it would be like to play online with extremely low ping. Local game servers are also the backup in case no online game servers are accessible."

That's everything for April! We'll be checking in with smaller updates throughout the month, but to stay up to date with the latest progress join us over on discord: https://discord.gg/cJXzN4z

Dev Blog #5 - Roadmap Progress Update

Dev Blog #4 - The April Roadmap

Battle

Design

Technical