Adam Snellgrove

The time limit is till the release of 1.0 so still quite some time left and even after that we can probably hand out a few more prizes for our loyal community ?

Hey there Ylanders! We have some exciting news today. So exciting in fact, that I couldn’t wait for the next Dev Diary to tell you ? So, we are in the process of making the mobile version (iOS only for now) of Ylands available to you through a closed beta via Testflight and with that, we are also starting a sort of competition. We’d really like to populate Ylands with some fun mobile mini-games and games and to encourage this, we decided, that whoever makes a mobile game in universal mode (playable on mobile devices) will have a chance at winning some Coyns. In fact, we’ll be reviewing every mobile game that comes out between now and release and if we feel it’s playable, fun a cool, we’ll give the creator some Coyns for it ? Now if you decide to make a protected (monetized or not) mobile game, you’ll be eligible to win a 3000 Coyns, while if you make an unprotected game (thus automatically not monetized), you’ll have a chance (to be honest a pretty big chance) at winning 10,000 Coyns! Unprotected games are more valuable for us, because for one they are not monetized and thus will give new mobile players a better first impression and secondly they don’t use up our servers, which could prove to be a problem in the first few weeks after release. And now here’s the kicker! There will be no limit to this! No 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, but anyone who makes a cool mobile game will get this prize AND YOU CAN GET IT MULTIPLE TIMES! So if you make 10 cool unprotected games for mobile, you’ll get a whopping 100,000 Coyns (and believe me, you’ll want to hoard those for the future ?). Every time you make a cool new game and are finished with it, just DM me and we’ll test it out. If it is good and fun, we’ll send over your winnings and if we feel, like something could go better, we’ll send you our suggestions and help you out with making it the best game out there ? To recap, hopefully, tomorrow we’ll have the mobile beta ready for you. Thus, you’ll be able to test out your games on mobile. Then for every cool game you make, you’ll get a reward in Coyns. And finally, when release comes, we’ll choose the best games to be featured and get played by all our new mobile players! So happy building Ylanders! P.S. To find out, how to make your scenario Universal, Protected or Unprotected, head here: https://ylands.com/community/topic/25764-scenario-compatibility-management/

Hey there Ylanders! The last couple of Dev Diaries were very Exploration-centric and I think it is time to look a bit at the Editor again ? And boy do we have a cool new feature for you Creators! Custom Camera Control! Very soon you’ll be able to set your camera in-game to a variety of different positions. This means you’ll have much more freedom as to what kind of game you would like to make. A side-scrolling platformer? A top-down battle arena? An up-close and personal RPG? The options are limitless! And the great thing is, you can also combine these cameras in different scenes. So, you might want to go for a third-person camera, but then when a player enters a labyrinth, the camera will swing up for a fixed top-down camera. In short, you’ll have full control of the camera in every situation. It can, but doesn’t have to be dependant on the player. You’ll be able to set it to any object and it can follow any object. You'll also be able to customise the player controls, so they make more sense for the player in his new camera view. Hopefully, we’ll also have presets ready in time of release, so you don’t have to programme the camera yourself, but just choose the preset you’d like to use and then just plop it in the game. And yes, you’ll be able to even implement a ‘fake’ 1st person camera. And I’ll use this as a Segway to the second part of this week’s Dev Diary. The 1st person camera. While you will be able to implement it in your custom games, it’ll still not a supported version of the 1st person camera. That will still have to wait some time as well for any 1st person camera in the Create and Exploration modes. With all the new editions to the game and the release approaching fast, there just hasn’t been enough time to concentrate properly on the ‘pure’ 1st person camera. It is surprisingly difficult to implement since it would also require a total overhaul of character movement and animation from this perspective and since we didn’t want to rush it, we decided to leave it for an update after 1.0. I can’t right now tell you, what update and how far in the future this will be, but it shouldn’t be in the far future. But we feel like Ylands isn’t dependant on 1st person though it definitely is a neat feature to have in the game. And one more change Ylanders. The next Dev Diary will be on Wednesday and Dev Diaries will continue to be published on Wednesdays. So a short wait for the next one ? Also, it will be our #100 Dev Diary, which in itself is quite special, but it'll also contain some pretty important and HUGE news, so don't miss it! And that’s it Ylanders and don’t forget to stay classy! P.S. If you want to check out, how the camera will actually look like in action, check out our Instagram ?

Hey there Ylanders! I am a bit indisposed this week, but why should you suffer?! In fact, you'll be better off, because I'm not going to blab too much and images will do the talking. There has been some talk in the past, that there aren't any new objects and blocks in the game. Well, we've been working on some new items for you and decided to show you some of these. Most of them are modern-day objects but we're also unveiling the new Alpha mutants! So beware of those ? Of course these aren't all the things we're adding in, there are many more, but just a little taste ? And that's all from me for now and you Ylanders enjoy the images and most importantly: stay classy Ylanders! First up we have some cool new threads Who can say no to a nice set of doors Some rails, windows and lights for the city dweller And some cozy indoor lights for the homey dweller And of course there'll be different kind of tiles and blocks added in too And the mighty Alphas enter the fray! That hyena looks especially worrying...

I have gotten some output_logs on this from @Fompster (thank you ?) and I'll get the team on it first thing Monday ?

And now for something completely different...or maybe not? Let's get back to some good old-fashioned screenshots. It has been too long and it's time to see, what you've been up to. Especially in the new Mobile Beta! That's why this week the screenshot contest will be Mobile themed. We want to see, what you're up to in the Mobile beta, what you managed to create or what experiences you had. So as long the screenshot has the two sexy joysticks, we're game. And as always, the deadline is Friday 10am CET and the top three will get some lovely Coyn Prizes. And if you're still not in the Mobile Beta, get in there! There is still a lot of spaces to fill, so don't hesitate to join and tell us, what you think of it. Can bears scale a wall?...I sure hope not... And that's it, so start screenshotting and stay classy Ylanders!

I'll ask about this on Monday ?

So far we're on schedule for a Q4 release.

Still doesn't really address the problem, that some people would start a 'marketplace' clan, where you'd join just to give that person Coyns. But we will be looking into other options in the future.

The trouble is, this would open doors to a 'black market' economy, where people could buy stuff in (or even out) the game by 'trading' Coyns. So no plans in that respect in the foreseeable future.

That is actually something we discussed internally, but it's surprisingly quite difficult to implement, but we're working on it ?

Hey there Ylanders! The release is creeping closer and with it more and more exciting news! We are fixing more and more issues and these will be implemented in the coming weeks. But we’re also improving a lot of features, and we’ll talk about these today. But first a small bit of news. Upon release, we’ll be changing the name of Explore to Exploration. This is because we feel this reflects more on the nature of the game mode. Also, we’ll be changing the name of ‘Create’ to Sandbox, because we’ve had feedback telling us, that people mistake Create for the Editor and thus miss out on a whole world of creativity. Sandbox also fits into the image we want this mode to have and we trust, that it will make the Menu more understandable and clearer. But that’s just an insignificant little titbit of info, that pales to the news that follows. Because we have some exciting stuff to share with you about Exploration! First of all, the Map. The map has been for long a staple of the game but we felt it needed a bit of love. That’s why we have put our heads together and came up with a few new features I think you’ll appreciate. For one, the map will not be an item anymore, but rather a basic function available to every player by simply pressing the M key. Furthermore, the player will finally not be lost on his map but will be able to see his own position on it. The map will also be highly customisable with the possibility of dropping markers of different colours and icons, so the player will be able to make the map his own. There will also be a clear edge to the map, so players don’t sail on into the abyss without ever finding Ylands. This doesn’t mean, that players won’t be able to sail to the blue void, but now it’ll be clear, that there is nothing to find there. This map will be available in Exploration and in the Sandbox, but not in Custom Games yet. This is because games made in the Editor are usually very unique and we don’t have a way of reflecting this in the map, but we are working on a way of putting a map into Editor games as well. As I have mentioned before, the number of Ylands will be smaller in Exploration, but that doesn’t mean, that there will be less to do. In fact, the exact opposite! That is why we’ll be applying Tiers to Ylands. Different Ylands will have different Tiers and to successfully thrive in a higher tiered Yland, a player should first master the lower-tiered Yland. This will make a greater sense of progression in Exploration while also differentiating Ylands from each other in difficulty and content. The Ylands will also be all unique and full of different things to do, enemies to fight and lairs to destroy and loot. Another new improvement a bit connected to the one mentioned above will be the change we’re bringing to spawn points in Exploration. While at the beginning of the game you will spawn at an easy-going and player-friendly Yland, you can, later on, build a bed. And this bed will become the players' new spawn point, so once the player logs out and returns, he’ll spawn in his comfy bed ? Now this will only work with beds and not with sleeping mats, so be careful of that. Also, a bed can be destroyed by another player, though you can protect it in a protective barrier. But if your bed gets destroyed while you are still in the game, you will get a notification of this and you’ll thus have time to make another bed. If your bed does get destroyed while you’re outside of the game, you will then spawn upon return back at the ‘beginners Yland’. And that’s it for now Ylanders. It is all exciting and we are really gearing up for the upcoming release. But let me stress, that we are also hard at work fixing all the issues, that have been posted here, and others that we found ourselves, so this is in no way the only items we’re concentrating on ? Look out for more news here and on our other platforms and most importantly, stay classy Ylanders!

Thanks ? Seems everyone is too tired from the building contest to participate, but that means, you'll (probably) win @RedEagle_P1.!!! Finally ?! And thanks for the screenshots ?

We are testing it, but it all seems pretty good so far ?

We are really hoping (and expecting) to have it ready by the next update, which should be soon ?

We're making progress on the second issue and this should hopefully fix yours as well, but I'm afraid it'll take some time.

Okay, should be it ? Again thank you very much ?

Every week we'll bring you an Ynterview with a member of our Ylands team. In this week's Ynterview we have approached our insanely creative designer: Tomáš Palát. First off, what do you do here at the Ylands team and what’d you do before you joined? I am one of the designers on the project and before Ylands I worked as a designer and QA technician on several other games in Bohemia Interactive and one other company. How long have you worked on Ylands? What was the 1st thing you worked on when you joined? It has been something like 5 years now. The team had only a few people back then and the very first thing I worked on was designing items that players can collect and use for crafting. Right after that, we started using generated voxel terrain and my focus shifted to working with terrain shapes, vegetation spawning and voxel colours. What do you find most exciting on Ylands in general? Definitely all the possibilities that our in-game editor offers. I understand that most players want to just play, not everyone aspires to create content for others, but those that do are getting really powerful tools to help them turn ideas into games. And players not interested in making games will benefit from that as well by having more content to play. What are you working on right now? Currently, I’m working on improvements for the Exploration mode, a lot of things will be redesigned and improved there in 0.15. We will add some progression and make the player experience more focused. What was the most difficult thing to implement to date? Definitely monetization related features. At first glance, it might not be obvious, but Ylands grew into a very complex project and integrating monetization into the already existing systems with all the possibilities and consequences wasn’t easy at all. What do you do in your free time? Lately I have been mostly changing diapers to my new-born son (and boy, do I need to do that a lot), but otherwise, I play games, watch TV-shows and do theatre-like performances with a medieval sword-fighting company. What Ice-cream flavour do you like most? Stracciatella, pistachio, strawberry, tuna, curry or hopes and dreams of millennials? This might sound weird, but I don’t really like ice-cream. Ask me about burgers instead

Hopefully yes ? This one is really making us run the rounds. Thank you so much! I'll try and find out as fast as possible if this is what we need ?

So it didn't happen to us no matter how much we tried ? Could you please send us the .yland file where this happens?

So it should be fixed, but we need to test it in our internal newer version of Ylands. Could you please DM me the Savegame of the Golf map itself, so we can test it?

Right, so it seems we know what's wrong in general, but to zero in on it, we could really use the savegame of the server, to which you can't get in. This should be called SessionSave.ylandsgame and should be next to your DsConfig.json if you haven't moved it manually @ApexReaper - Gaming and @Indian Chief

So QA spent an hour and something playing on here and everything worked tip top. Any ideas, what might trigger it? Or if it still happens on your end, could you send output_logs through our Feedback system with a note, that it connects to this? Or maybe now it works fine now and we inadvertently fixed it in the way? ?

And are you unbanned at the moment? Because that's why you might not be able to host the game...other than that, we are trying to figure out, what's going on. But it seems it might be this bug: We are working on this bug very intensely, but it is quite hard to fix, so it'll probably take some time, but I'll try and find out for you, what the status of this is.

You make a nuclear holocaust sound like a happy circumstance ? Who wouldn't want to live in such a lovely Vault!? I can't wait to try it out.