New flexible and customizable PvP experience
This update introduces Custom Clash, a new casual PvP experience for Squirmish: The Videogame.
Online Multiplayer is not new to Squirmish, and indeed, battling against other worthy human opponents is likely the most challenging and fun way to play. However, we've found that our existing PvP offerings, Matchmaking and Fight a Friend, are not yet creating enough opportunities for players to find timely PvP matchups.
In practice, a skill-based pairing system like Matchmaking needs a sizable community to function effectively and during Early Access ramp up, our player base is not yet big enough to reliably fuel the Matchmaking queue. Also, Matchmaking necessarily limits play to a minimal set of play formats at any one time.
In contrast, Fight a Friend, our other PvP experience, does support all available play formats, from Standard to Classic 70 to 2 Group Monte, but challenges are limited to a player's set of Steam Friends.
This brings us to Custom Clash, our new more flexible and customizable PvP experience which we hope will create many more opportunities for PvP play.
In Squirmish, when you enter the Custom Clash area, the first thing you'll see is a list of games, hosted by other players, actively looking for an opponent. Each brief listing shows who is hosting the game, the game's configured play format, additional options settings, and whether the game is locked with a passcode.
Selecting any of these game listings takes you to a new page focused specifically on the selected game. There you can see more about the configured format, set player options, and if you wish, join the game.
Back at the Custom Clash main page, if no games are available or you don't see any games configured to your liking, you may want to host a game yourself.
There are two primary approaches to hosting a Custom Clash.
In the first case, you simply configure a Squirmish game in your favorite play format and host it without passcode protection. While you wait for an opponent, a listing for your game (which anyone can join), will appear in other players' Available PvP Games list. Additionally, other players will see red circle badges on the FIGHT! PvP screen and other places to alert them to the immediate availability of Custom Clash PvP games.
Alternatively, if you have an opponent lined up who is not one of your Steam Friends, you can host a password protected Custom Clash and share the generated passcode via other communication channels, (text messaging, social media, etc.).
This is an excellent way to utilize the # looking-for-game channel at the Squirmish Discord server. Post a message there that you're looking for a game, and when someone responds, give them the passcode so they can meet you in Squirmish for a game.
Have fun everyone and thanks for playing!