It's now been 3 weeks since Puzzle Together launched. In that time, over 67,000 puzzles have been completed, and nearly 10,000 different custom puzzles have been created! I'm continuing to make improvements and bug fixes based on everyone's valuable feedback.
Today's update addresses some problems I've seen with puzzles that are open to all (meaning anyone can join them). Even when hundreds of players are online, usually there are just a dozen or so in open puzzles. When I would visit the open puzzles with players in them, I noticed two problems. The first is that trolls would frequently visit open puzzles, to throw around pieces, cover areas where other players are working with the box, yell into their mic, etc. The second problem, likely in response to the first, is that many hosts kick new players right out of their open puzzles, even though the new player hasn't done anything yet. With an open puzzle experience this rough, it's no wonder few players try it out more than once.
To solve these problems I've made several changes:
- You can now mute another player so that you don't hear their voice chat, or see their text chat. To do this, press on their name at the top of the screen and select "Mute" from the menu.
- You can now also "ignore" another player, so that you don't see any of their actions (unless they connect pieces or place pieces where they belong in the puzzle). To do this, press on their name at the top of the screen and select "Ignore" from the menu. This is especially useful for preventing players from bothering you by throwing around pieces, hiding the box, etc.
- Hosts can no longer remove (block) players from open puzzles that they host. Because of the above changes, there's really no need to remove even troublemaking players from an open puzzle, and abuse of the ability to remove players takes the "open" out of open puzzles. Players can still remove others from private puzzles that they host.
In addition, a few more changes have been made in the last few days:
- Improved ability to select pieces to move them as a group
- You can now pan the view using the W,A,S,D keys (rotating pieces has been moved to the Z,X keys)
- Improved antialiasing
- Fixed a bug that would cause the moving of large groups of pieces not to show up for other players of the puzzle
- Fixed a bug that could cause the voice chat to stay connected even after a player leaves a puzzle
- Fixed a bug that could cause the framerate to drop to 10 FPS, and removed the 40 FPS maximum limit
Happy puzzling!