Fri, 16 Feb 2007
Bountiful Bounties
Howdy pardners! We've been a bit quiet since the start of the New Year because we've been hard at work on fun fancy new features for y'all to enjoy. We shuffled up the schedule a bit and we're happy to report that we've released Bounties today.

What are bounties, ya might be wonderin'. Well, bounties are a single player campaign mode where an intrepid Deputy (that's you) is pitted against an Outlaw (and sometimes their henchmen) in a series of games. Except that in bounty games the goal isn't always to come in first place. Games can define additional criteria like finishin' the game without losing more than five units or gunnin' down more than ten of the opponent's units in the process.

When the Outlaw is finally brung in, the Deputy gets the bounty reward. That's a healthy helpin' o' scrip and for especially tough outlaws, it might include special Badges or even fancy Duds that can't be bought by regular folks in the General Store.

We've also released full-length versions of our in-game music, written and produced by them crazy cowpokes over at SomaTone Interactive Audio. If ya reckon ya like the music in Bang! Howdy then yer in luck because now you can get full length versions of the tracks fer listenin' to on yer iPod or other fancy portable music playin' device. No need to go to your local record store, you can download it directly from the General Store in the game.

There are of course a small raft of minor tweaks, bug fixes and other little twiddlin's that we are constantly doin' as a matter of course. For the detail oriented among ye, we'll enumerate those more specifically:

• Removed Saloon chat and added "social parlors" where folks can hang out and chat. We also sort the list of parlors based on how many people are in 'em to make it easy to find the popular spots.
• We redid the tutorial interface and created a helpful display to get new folks right into the fun.
• Fixed a problem where units were gettin' pushed through fences. Ouch!
• Redid the in-game interfaces to make player colors clearer. You'll notice that some of the Outlaws in bounties are teamed up against ya. Could it be that we might be adding team play some time soon?
• Taught the AI how to be fooled by Fool's Gold.
• Various other little bug fixes and small adjustments.

Astute pardners will also notice the Hideout perched upon the hill there in Frontier Town. We've been making good progress on Gangs and it won't be long before those will be makin' their way out of the nest and into the wide world as well.

On top of that, we've got Boom Town development going in full swing and we're dreamin' up all sorts of crazy steam-powered robot antics and beaverin' away to make them a reality. It's going to be a fair while before Boom Town is ready for public consumption but we promise to keep ya entertained between now and then with all sorts of good stuff.

In the meanwhile, good luck bringin' in them Outlaws and we'll see ya 'round the Sheriff's Office,

- Sheriff Mike

Fri, 22 Dec 2006
Year End Roundup
Howdy pardners! The end of the year is fast approachin' and we here at the Triple-O Ranch are gettin' ready to take a short breather fer the holidays. Before we head off, I wanted to give y'all a quick update on the state of development and let ya know what you can look forward to in the New Year.

We done got the game launched a few weeks back and we're durn happy about that. Since then we've been ironing out a few wrinkles that poked their head up after beta and we've been workin' on a bunch of excitin' new features.

Upcoming New Features

I want to talk about Gangs which have been mentioned around these parts once er twice before. I reckon I can give you a few details on what that's going to invole at least to start.

• Once a player has been playin' the game fer a while (exact criterion will be explained later), they'll be able to form their own Gang.
• Other players can join an existing Gang whenever they like, and indeed the whole idea to have a bunch of people in a Gang, so lots of little Gangs won't be as much fun as fewer larger Gangs.
• Players in a Gang can hang out and chat in their Gang's Hideout. There they'll be able to browse their Gang's info, see who's in their Gang, if they're online and where, when they last logged on, that sort of thing.
• In the Hideout, Gang members will be able to check out their Gang's private Top Ranked lists. So they can see who's the best in their Gang in each of the different gameplay scenarios and overall.
• In the Hideout they'll also be able to play Gang Matches. In a Gang Match, players from different Gangs battle it out and the winner of the game earns Gang Points for their Gang. Gang Points can later be spent by the Gang Leaders to buy cool stuff for the Gang.
• Based on the accumulation of Gang Points during Gang Matches, Gangs will also be ranked on a Gang Leaderboard so that you can see how your Gang stacks up against the rest.
• Players in a Gang will also be able to pool their resources to buy fancy Gang Outfits. There may even be special duds that are only available to high ranking Gangs.

In addition to Gangs, we've been doing some work on Tournaments and an exciting new feature we're calling Bounties. You'll just have to wait until after the holidays to hear more details about those 'cause old Sheriff Mike is only good for details on one major new feature at a time and I just done finished tellin' ya about Gangs.

Patch Notes

We also shipped a little patch today to fix a few bugs and tidy up some other bits. Here are the details on that:

• We added a "Waiting for players to connect" window during the very beginning of a game where before ya sometimes had to stare at a black screen.
• We fixed some problems with picking up and dropping nuggets.
• We added a few new badges (play more games to figger out how to get 'em).
• We fixed the matchmaking code: it should now properly compare rankings and not put you in a game with a player that's ranked much higher or lower than you if you have "Near my rank" selected.
• If you are logged off due to being idle, or because your connection to our server failed, or because the server rebooted, we now pop up a little window telling you want happened and allowing you to easily restart the game and log back on.
• We fixed a problem where Pardners could sneak into locked Back Parlors by watchin' games and then clickin' Back to Parlor.
• We fixed some problems with Trains and the Engineer card. We also made the Trains move a random number of spaces between 1 and 4 every tick instead of just one. Watch out if yer standin' on them tracks!
• We now inform the players if tie breaker points were awarded at the end of a game. Ties are normally broken by checking to see who did more damage during the game, but if that's a tie too, we randomly assign an extra point to determine the winner.
• We tweaked the Bonus point handling a bit. If you drop a Bonus to pick up another one, you don't get any more points. We also lowerwed the points for the Bonus Star to 25 from 50 because we reckoned 50 was too dang much. Ya also don't get any points fer picking up a bonus that grants an influence to yer unit (like Lucky Horseshoe) if yer unit already has an influence.
• We added the ability to register a complaint about another player if they're being a dang pest. You can click on a player's avatar picture during chat and select "Register complaint..." from the menu.
• There are no doubt various other bug fixes and tweaks that I'm fergettin' so if there was somethin' buggin' ya before this release, give it another shot and see if we ain't done fixed it.

Some of ya may have also noticed that we started doin' some advertisin' on Penny Arcade. If yer a Penny Arcade reader, then a fine Howdy to ya. We'll be doin' more advertisin' in the New Year and hopefully you'll start seein' a heck of a lot more cowpokes turnin' up in town.

That's about all I got to say to ya fer now pardners. It's late and even the Sheriff has to sleep from time to time. Y'all be sure to enjoy yerselves durin' the holidays and we'll do the same. Expect to see us back refreshed and excited come the New Year.

Merry solstice to you and yours,

- Sheriff Mike

Tue, 28 Nov 2006
Last Hurrah
Howdy pardners! I've got a few bits to jaw at ya, and some details on a bug fix patch that we put up today. Firstly the patch notes:

• If your computer gets too far behind in animating the moves (which happens on computers with less powerful graphics accelerators), the game will stop doing animations for a bit and just jump pieces into place to help you catch up.
• We changed a few of the Badges, mostly name changes and image tweaks.
• We modified the Pardner Chat tabs so that they'll maintain the history of your chat with yer pardner seamlessly if you move between the Saloon and other places where the tabs are shown in a popup window.
• We added fancy new visual effects to Wendigo Attack and dropped the number of Wendigo that are shown during an attack to one to hopefully make things work better for computers with less powerful graphics accelerators.
• We now ignore players that have not played a scenario in the last two weeks when computing the Top Ranked lists. You got to keep playin' to hold onto yer title.
• We fixed a bunch of bugs: the coloring of the Battered Fox Skull Hat, a problem with changing your Handle, a problem with the Thunderbird AI, a problem with matchmaking with "Include previous towns" checked, a problem with the Lightning Card and various others that would require a heap o' technical jargon to explain.

The next thing I want to jabber about is the end of Beta. We're going to be declaring Beta to be ended this Friday, December 1st at High Noon (Pacific Standard Time).

What does this mean exactly? Well the main thing is that players are no longer going to get a free ride to the Indian Trading Post. They'll have to buy a ticket. But it also means that we're going to be givin' out our Beta Tester Rewards, which I reckon yer all going to enjoy. You'll be gettin':

• One free ticket to Indian Trading Post.
• One official Beta Tester Badge.

One thing to note is that everyone who registered and logged on during the Beta will receive the Beta Tester Badge, but only those players that played at least 20 Ranked Games will receive the free ticket to Indian Trading Post. We reckon that ya aught to have done yer job if yer gonna get paid fer it.

So if ya got friends that ya think might like Bang! Howdy, tell 'em to get their hide on over here and sign up fer the Beta because it's their last chance to get a free ticket to ITP.

- Sheriff Mike

Thu, 02 Nov 2006
Welcome to the Indian Trading Post
Pardners, we're pleased as punch to announce that Indian Trading Post is now available on the public beta server. It's been a long road, but we're mighty happy with how it all came together. We've introduced a pile of new stuff to the game.

There are three new Big Shot units:

• The Storm Caller attacks his opponents with a bolt of lightning that chains to anyone unlucky enough to be standin' next to his target.
• The Trickster Raven transforms from human to raven form to fly from place to place around the board.
• The Revolutionary is an inspiration to his team. He gives a 10% attack bonus to all allied ground units, and when he is killed, all currently dead units on his team are immediately respawned to avenge him.

There are four new stock units:

• The Dream Catcher attacks by flinging nightmares at her target which cause them to run in terror, reset their initiative and drain some of their health into the Dream Catcher.
• The Buffalo Rider rams her target with a mighty buffalo. If she starts her attack from far enough away, she'll knock them back into the next board space.
• The Thunderbird is our first Spirit unit and has the ability to attack its target on the way to its destination instead of moving first and then attacking.
• The Dog Soldier is a tank of a unit that stakes himself into the ground to avoid being moved when attacked by the Buffalo Rider or the Dream Catcher. He also gets a small additional attack on every tick which damages all enemy units that are standing next to him.

There are three new gameplay scenarios:

• In Wendigo Attack the players battle it out while trying to survive the onslaught of the deadly Wendigo. Only by carrying a Sacred Talisman or standing on a Petroglyph of Protection can they avoid an icy doom.
• In Totem Building players work to build the most and the biggest Totem Poles using different kinds of Totems that they pick up around the board.
• In Forest Guardians players cooperate rather than compete and do battle against the dastardly Logging Robots who wish to decimate the forests to further the expansion of their Furniture Empire.

There are over a dozen new cards and bonuses and even more new badges to be discovered.

We'll be workin' away to fix all the bugs that will no doubt be uncovered now that all this new code is getting some serious use. In the meanwhile, enjoy and we'll see ya down at the Big Bear Saloon,

- Sheriff Mike

Wed, 18 Oct 2006
Ridin' 'em In
We been out roundin' up them dogies for quite a while now and we reckon it's just about time to ride 'em on in. We been fixin' bugs and polishin' up both Frontier Town and the old Indian Trading Post and we got some changes to report:

• We added a Character page to the Barber where you 'kin pick which avatar poses should be used in which situations (like yer Victory pose and yer Wanted Poster pose). You 'kin also use it to change yer Handle if ya done picked a dud when ya first signed up.
• We redesigned the Saloon user interface to make things a bit simpler and clearer.
• We finished up the Friendly Folks system so now at the end of a game, you 'kin give yer opponents a thumbs up if ya like 'em real good and want to be matched with 'em again, or a thumbs down if they bugged ya and ya don't ever want to be stuck in a game with 'em again.
• We fancied up the Badge display a bit so that now it shows ya a shadow of Badges that ya ain't yet earned. But let it be known that it don't show ya all the unearned Badges, just Badges from a series that ya have at least one of already. There's plenty of surprises lurkin' in there.
• We also wired up some of the Card Packs in the General Store to be unlocked by certain Badges. Most of y'all will probably already have 'em all unlocked already but for a new player it'll add some fun and excitement when they earn them Badges.
• We now display influence icons next to units in the game when they have an influence (like Ramblin' or Hustle). We already had 'em in the Unit Status display in the corner, but sometimes it's hard to tear yer eyes away from the action long enough to look up there.
• We also now display a question mark over the head of a Unit when their Advance Order is canceled because it is no longer valid. We'll also be adding a question mark that lingers on their Unit Status display until the next time you select the unit, but that didn't make it into this here release.
• We wired up the Ranking Levels, so now you can see in yer Wanted Poster how well ya stack up against the other cowpokes. The ranking order is: tenderfoot, cowpoke, Scofflaw, Rebel, Law Breaker, BANDIT, OUTLAW, RENEGADE. We'll stick that list somewhere that folks can easily find at some point.
• You 'kin click on the Cowpokes in the High Score lists now and check out their Wanted Posters.
• We also added a bunch of fancy new particle effects and more great sound effects.

On top of that, we done fixed so dang many bugs that I can hardly keep count. A great big thanks to Sheriff Mark for his hard work on that front.

As I mentioned at the start of this here ramble, we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel and we're dang close to lettin' y'all head on over to the Indian Trading Post. Here's a screenshot of a new gameplay mode called Wendigo Attack:

Keep yer ears peeled and if all goes according to plan, the next thing ya hear from me will be "Welcome to the Indian Tradin' Post!"

- Sheriff Mike