Turnover was released nearly a year ago on Dec. 15th, 2015.
Boy, time flies.
When I was preparing to release Turnover a year ago, I made a commitment to regularly update Turnover with fixes and features. Looking back, I have pushed about 10 notable updates to the game since it has been released. Considering I’m one guy, that’s not too bad.
I have been committed to updating Turnover and wanted to go back and take a look at some of the updates over the year.
01/07/2016 (First Post Release Update, v1.0.691)
http://steamcommunity.com/games/372250/announcements/detail/85932744224247060
This first update started addressing some controller issues, such as aim sensitivity. Admittedly, I’m not much of a controller player (at this point, at least), so over the course of the year, Turnover ended up seeing a lot of controller improvement updates.
v1.0.691: An alert desaturation effect was added to give an additional visual hint to the enemy alert status.
02/22/2016 (First Major Update, v1.0.740)
http://steamcommunity.com/games/372250/announcements/detail/666901094067672576
This was Turnover’s first major update and marked a large, progressive improvement to the game.
Highlights:
- Difficulty Modes: Easy, Normal, and Hard. This was to help address the difficulty for a number of players. Some players found the game a little too difficult and wanted a more forgiving experience. This was a very reasonable request.
- Improved AI. I ended up rewriting a number of AI routines to fix issues and improve their actions.
- Added the Security Server hacking mechanic.
- Snap pickup throwing. Aiming to throw was no longer required, but snap throwing was less accurate.
- New player collision, which allowed player to easily glide off walls.
- Major aesthetic changes to the HUD, menus.
I think this was Turnover’s most important update, since it added and improved so much. At this point, I felt that the core game was finished and I could move onto fixing issues and building on top of the game.
If something came up and I was unable to work on Turnover any longer, I would have been proud with how it turned out.
v1.0.740: New difficulty modes were added to Turnover to address concerns about how challenging the game was. The difficulty modes ended up being renamed in a later update.
04/19/2016 015 (v1.0.755)
http://steamcommunity.com/games/372250/announcements/detail/622996262209550282
This update in April addressed important refund and review feedback. A significant addition was the extra health given to the player for easy mode. This update also fixed some concerns regarding followers, making them a little easier to work with.
v1.0.755: One extra health was given to the player for easy mode, balancing it further.
06/14/2016 (Second Major Update, v1.0.784)
http://steamcommunity.com/games/372250/announcements/detail/611740042620218450
I might hesitate to call this update “major”, but I will because it added a requested feature: an in-game tutorial.
I developed Turnover to introduce new features, new enemies, and new gameplay situations slowly over the course of the entire game, so you are always experiencing something new and are eased slowly into the game. You don’t really get to do everything in the game until you are about half way through. By that time, you’ll be more equipped to handle the more challenging second half of the game.
I always felt that Turnover was paced well. You are introduced to a new feature of the game in a level, then that feature becomes integrated throughout the rest of the game. I didn’t want to throw players into the deep end. Regardless, a tutorial was implemented, just to get the players’ feet wet before they dove in.
This update also brought a rewrite of the enemy hearing system. This was a major backend improvement. The original version “worked”, but was prone to quirkiness. This rewrite busted every outstanding enemy alert bug I had logged.
v1.0.784: An in game tutorial was added to give new players a hand at the fundamentals of the game.
07/26/2016 (Custom Level Support Update, v1.0.795)
http://steamcommunity.com/games/372250/announcements/detail/609493948031680013
This update added a feature that was requested in Turnover’s Steam discussion forum: custom level support. When I started making it work, I had thought it would be difficult to implement, but it ended up being relatively easy.
This update was just a fun update. It also gave me an excuse to get some bug fixes live.
v1.0.795: Custom level support was added, allowing users to create levels using Tiled Map Editor. Documentation was also included.
09/20/2016 (Controller Improvement Update, v1.0.804)
http://steamcommunity.com/games/372250/announcements/detail/597114129690756956
I started working on this update after taking a month off from Turnover, and then playing through it again with a new controller. So, this update revolves around controller improvements and fixing things I encountered during the new play through.
For the controller, I pushed a change where aiming makes better use of analog values, so aiming with analog sticks is far more precise. Also, I added the ability to select which controller you would like to use in the Option Menu if you have multiple controllers plugged in.
Outside of that, I addressed a number of things I ran into during my new play session. I improved Security Cameras, balanced a few levels, fixed some art quirks, and took care of other misc. issues.
v1.0.804: Analog stick aiming was improved, taking analog values more appropriately into account.
11/22/2016 (Save Slots, Steam Cloud and XInput Support, v1.0.832)
http://steamcommunity.com/games/372250/announcements/detail/522809610148221589
This update came from things I just felt should be added to the game. I wanted to create a big update to cap off Turnover’s first year of release. So, this update addressed many outstanding bugs in my issue tracker, and also added some features purely just to please me and to build upon the game.
One major addition in this update is save slots. For full disclosure, this was suggested to me by my lead tester very early in development. It had remained in my todo list until I had run through everything else that was of higher priority.
Since I was messing with saves, it felt like the right time to add Steam Cloud support. With cloud saves, I was able to check off the last of Valve’s recommended Steamworks features.
This update also added XInput support in Windows. Having recently been playing with an XBox One controller, I felt that the controller setup in Turnover was not tuned well for these. Turnover didn’t have any of the input contexts or vibration niceties that many players come to expect with robust Xbox controller support. Since XBox controllers are very popular, I felt that fully supporting them through XInput (with force feedback) was ultimately the right thing to do. Taking care of this basically put Turnover controller support into a finished state.
While adding XInput in, I realized the existing text-based input context hints were not cutting it any longer, so I changed all input contexts to graphic icons. Now KB/M and Xbox controllers have their own custom icons. Generic controllers are using generic controller icons.
v1.0.832: XInput was utilized to give proper, full Xbox controller support (with rumble) in Windows. In addition, new input context icons were added.
In 2017
So, what’s the status of Turnover right now? Well, it’s at a state where I am very proud of it. My todo list, issue tracker, everything related to it, is empty. For all intents and purposes, it’s done.
Looking back on the game put me in a weird place. The amount of man hours I have put into it is pretty staggering, but I don’t regret one second of the work. I have learned so much and have developed a tremendous amount of skills during Turnover’s development. Personally, to me, the game is a resounding success and a landmark in my personal development.
So, what’s in store for Turnover in 2017? If people are still interested, and I find new and creative things to add to the game, and I have no major disruptions in my life, then I’ll continue to update it.
Until then, I’m off to work on my next game.