Hi everyone! We hope you had a great Summer and you could enjoy some well-deserved vacation. Here at Toopan Games we’ve been hard at work in Multiverse Designer (we did take a few days off to charge our batteries, but we did it in turns to ensure our work would not stop!) It’s time for an update to let you know how the project is going – but first, we want to tell you something very important…
Backers, please redeem your Steam keys!
We have already sent the key to the Multiverse Designer beta to all of you, but roughly only 60% of our backers have redeemed it. We kindly ask you to redeem it on Steam the sooner the better! It’s not just so that you can start unleashing your creativity: for technical reasons due to some limitations on Steam, once Multiverse Designer releases to the general public it would be more complicated to give you access to everything that you are entitled to as a backer. Of course we will honor our part of the deal no matter what and all backers will get their rewards, but there will be less headaches for everyone involved if you redeem your keys asap. We did send keys to all backers, but if you haven’t seen yours it might have gone to your Spam folder – just send us a DM through Kickstarter, or email us to [email protected] from the same email of your Kickstarter login, and we’ll send you your key again.
Assets! Give me more assets!
That said, let’s see how work in Multiverse Designer is advancing. We’ve been tirelessly implementing more and more assets into Multiverse Designer (which, as explained here, is not as straightforward as it might seem – we have to make sure they are optimized to Nanite). We are actively working to incorporate assets from as many different settings as possible, not just heroic fantasy: it’s really important for us that Multiverse Designer can be used for any RPG you can think of, or to create scenarios for any story you can devise. With that in mind, over the last couple of months we have implemented a lot of modern-world assets: from city streets and highways to diners, cars, and other vehicles, as well as military outposts and warzones. Here you have a few screenshots as an example, for stories set in the 20th century or even in the present: a good ole’ American diner, like straight from a painting by Edward Hopper.
We're still increasing our collection of fantasy assets, though, with fantasy city elements and enchanted vehicles. See the bottom of this post for a full list of the latest asset collections we've implemented.
Getting there with Criteria
But let’s be real here: the next major step for Multiverse Designer is implementing what we call the gaming module, i.e. the ability to play within the setpieces you create in Multiverse Designer. And for that, Criteria is essential: the multiplayer side of things (just being able to connect to a shared map, with each player having the ability to move their models) is relatively simple; the point is to have Multiverse Designer helping with the bookkeeping, rule-tracking, dice-rolling and all that. Criteria is the script language we use to implement game rules; the whole point of it is to give users the ability to create and implement their own rules, so it’s possible for you to add not just your players’ sheets, but also your own house rules and even whole rulesets from scratch.
During this August we have worked on several new features for Criteria, but the most important one is string parsing: now it can parse (that is, read and interpret) strings from RPG tables, using them to create virtual fields in XLS tables. If you’re not into coding yourself, this probably sounds like Greek to you (it surely did to me!), so let’s see an example. A string can be something relatively simple, like Hit points = 20d8 + 25; now Criteria can read this and understand that it means that a certain creature has 20 8-sided hit dice plus 25, and make that calculation to get to its total hit points. It can be something more complex, like "Longsword +2 melee (1d8+1/19-20) or light crossbow +1 ranged (1d8/19-20)”. Then it can use that information to create its own tables for internal use.
This sounds trivial, but it’s actually very important: pen-and-paper RPG usually have a lot of tables with unformatted written text that needs understanding before using it in rules; with this string parsing feature, Criteria will be able to interpret these tables and convert it into rules it can use, without you having to manually introduce all of them. The next step will be creating action buttons for players and GMs based on these rules.
That’s all for today’s update, but next week we’ll dive deeper into Criteria, how it’s growing and evolving, and the next steps we’re taking for the gaming module. Just before our goodbyes, a final reminder: please redeem your Steam keys, and if you haven’t seen yours in your inbox, send us a DM through Kickstarter so we can send it to you. Have a nice day!
Full list of the latest assets
From Kitbash3D
"Modern" assets (cities, roads, military, buildings, etc)
https://kitbash3d.com/products/city-cars-commercial
https://kitbash3d.com/products/city-cars-essentials
https://kitbash3d.com/products/city-cars-municipal
https://kitbash3d.com/products/americana
https://kitbash3d.com/products/every-city
https://kitbash3d.com/products/props-highways
https://kitbash3d.com/products/city-streets
https://kitbash3d.com/products/props-military-outpost
https://kitbash3d.com/products/warzone-transport-vehicles
https://kitbash3d.com/products/warfare
Fantasy assets
https://kitbash3d.com/products/enchanted-vehicles
https://kitbash3d.com/products/enchanted
From Unreal Marketplace
Vigilante assets (military - vehicles, weapons, etc)
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/profile/Vigilante?count=20&sortBy=effectiveDate&sortDir=DESC&start=0