It's been a long time coming and you all have been so patient after all the ups and downs and delays, but I'm so so so happy to announce that console versions are done, and will be available worldwide on XBOX ONE and PS4 in A FEW HOURS! (4 hours from the time of this post). I don't know how many Steam users are interested in this but it's finally happening!

Things go live on both platforms at Midnight UTC 0, on August 21st. That's so soon!!!

New trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSP5ueIvbok

Xbox One: http://partypanicgame.com/xbox
PS4: (link coming as soon as the store page is public!)

If you do grab the game on consoles, be sure to leave a review! It would help me a lot, trying to stand out on consoles is going to be tough as an indie developer with no marketing team or anything...so every review means so much!

// Dylan

As part of the Steam Winter Sale, Party Panic will be on sale for 50% off until January 3rd! This is the largest discount Party Panic has ever had, so it's a great time to pick it up and play!

On a different note, the PS4 and Xbox One versions are coming along! I'm working with the great guys at Do-Games (https://do-games.com) to help make it happen as doing both all by myself I decided was a little too much pressure! This will make the process go faster, and having some experts working on it will ensure that everything works great on consoles. There will be more news along with release dates in the near future, so if you've been waiting to play Party Panic on PS4 or Xbox One keep your eyes peeled!

Thanks for all the support so far! Making Party Panic has been a wild wild ride, and I can't wait to see what happens in 2019!

// Dylan

That's right! Party Panic now has a board game mode, and you can download and play it RIGHT NOW!

There are two board game maps currently:

1) The Temple of Goob. This is the "starter" map, and is simple and straightforward, recommended to be played first! Trap items are very useful on this map, so buy them whenever you can!

2) Willy's Pizza Party. Willy loves pizza (more than his children, as we learned in the Trophy Island update). Your goal in this map is to buy pizza from one of the three pizza shops scattered around the map and then return to Willy. He will trade you a trophy for some pizza. The pizza shops will run out of pizza so plan your route carefully!

Check out the update trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dhNrQwCAz4

A board game mode has been the most requested feature since Party Panic hit Steam in Early Access over a year ago, so I hope this satisfies everyones hunger for a board game and everyone has fun with this new game mode.

There are still some translations that are not yet complete for the Board Game mode, but they will bet hot-patched into the game as soon as they're completed (over the next few days or so). Currently the board game is 100% translated to the following languages: English, German, Turkish, Dutch, Italian, Russian.

If you have any suggestions or comments for the current boards, or if you have ideas for new boards let me know! I'm always open to suggestions to make the game even better however I can! These two boards have gone through some pretty substantial testing, but putting a game mode update of this size live to the world some bugs will inevitablypop up... I'll try and squash them as soon as they appear!

EDIT: Patch 1.3.1 is available now, that *should* fix this issue.
Edit: As expected, seems like there's a major bug while playing board games online that somehow didn't show up in internal testing. Seems like it's a desync issue, where each player thinks it's a different players turn, spawns the dice block above the wrong player and then causes the game to get stuck because no one can hit the dice block (because it's not above them). If this has happened to you, please let me know. If this hasn't happened to you and you played an online board game all the way to the end without issue, please let me know too, so I can gauge how many people this is affecting, and hopefully narrow it down somehow. So very sorry if you're experiencing this!

What's next? I'm not sure exactly yet. I'd like to make another board game still, and some updates to the Gauntlet are still long overdue, and maybe a few more minigames in early 2018. I'm still looking at porting to consoles too, (xbo, ps4, switch) but that's something that's still a little while away (early 2018 hopefully, though!)

• The board game mode is now playable for everyone! There are two board game maps: "The Temple of Goob", and "Willy's Pizza Party". Roll dice, win minigames, collect trophies! Whoever collects the most trophies before time is up wins!
  
• Added a "game start timer" while playing online. If the host readies every other player will be forced to ready when the timer runs out.
  
• Added missing winner vfx for "Candy Brawl"
  
• Fixed a bug causing the wrong game mode to be played after starting a game, exiting, and then starting a new game.
  
• Fixed a bug that would prevent players from opening up the "Game Setup" settings menu on the main menu/online waiting room. Once you set the game settings and closed the menu you could not re-open it to change settings. Now you can!
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause the waiting room music to play twice.
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause a crash when showing the russian text for one of the quality settings in the options menu.
  
• Water sounds in "Bubble Bumper" were turned down.
  
• Cleaned up the "player disconnect" code, to allow AI to take over leavers when playing the board game.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the black-screen-fade in/out before and after a minigame to not play
  
• Fixed a bug that would allow the score to go past 1000 in some minigames (Hot Hurdles, Spike Scramble, Lava Blocks)
  
• Fixed a bug that would show +100 score when punching someone on "Whale Washers", but not award points.
  
• Fixed a bug that would show the wrong game rules to a non-host player while playing online.
  
• Fixed a bug on "Treasure Trove", while playing online, if you were not the host the "score points" sfx would play repeatedly while you were close to your goal instead of just once.
  
• Misc performance optimizations

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here

Have fun!
// Dylan

It's been a while since the last update, but progress is still happening! Since Party Panic launched I've been working on a bunch of bug fixes and trying to fix stray issues, as well as new content and some changes at the request of the players.


There's two new minigames in this update. I spent a good couple of weeks trying to prototype new minigames, but I was having trouble coming up with new ideas that felt different enough from the current games. I decided there needed to be a new "action" rather than just move/attack/jump so I decided on making some swimming minigames. I think they turned out pretty stupid.

The first minigame is called Ink or Swim, the goal of the game is simple -- don't fall behind the Octo-goober. If you do, you'll die. There's also some obstacles to avoid that you can get trapped behind!
The second minigame is called Treasure Trove. In this game you have to collect treasure on the sea floor and bring it back to your goal safely. If you hit a zappy-fish your treasure explodes and you get stunned.
One of the biggest requests I was getting was players asking to have equipment slots to have more options when customizing their Goober. Instead of having dedicated slots per equipment type (head, face, shirt, legs, feet, etc) I decided to give each player three equipment slots, where they can equip any three costumes they want. This allows for some neat combiniations, and while lots of the combinations don't "work" (they overlap and look weird), I'm leaving it up to the players to decide - if you want to wear costumes like that I'm not going to stop you!
Here's some more pictures of some combinations - https://imgur.com/a/ZLCDK

The game mode "Single Minigame" has been changed to "Custom Party". When you now select this game mode you're shown a game select UI, where you can disable or enable any of the minigames. If you want to play a specific 5 minigames you can now, or if you want to play all of them but a few you really don't like, you can do that now too!

I haven't looked at consoles yet, but that was next on my todo list, however, there's been a change of plans and I'll be pushing back consoles for a bit while I work on a BOARD GAME mode. This is definitely the most requested game mode, so I'm going to start prototyping this week and see what I can do. I've been thinking about it for a few weeks now and I don't see anything that would be too hard to get working.

It's going to be a little bit different from Mario Party, with some small mechanically different things. For example, instead of rolling a dice and moving automatically you will have control of your goober like you do in minigames when you're moving along the board. This will allow you to punch and kick players that you meet along the way, as it wouldn't be Party Panic if you couldn't mericilessly punch other players!

The idea for the board game will be centered around the whale, and will most likely be called "Willy's Pizza Party". This board will revolve around collecting pieces of pizza for Willy in exchange for Trophies (the equlivent of Mario Party stars). I'm still thinking up ideas for interesting events on the board game. If you have suggestions, head over to the suggestion thread here: http://gtm.you1.cn/app/506500/discussions/0/1333474229060032719/

I'm thinking this board game mode won't take too long, (famous last words) as most of the hard work is already done (minigames), I think it should be pretty easy to get up and running, and then it's just adding stuff to make it interesting. I'm aiming for the end of this month to be done, and December at the latest.
Anywho, for a full list of changes in this update check out the patch notes here: http://gtm.you1.cn/app/506500/discussions/0/276237094308992996/?ctp=3#c1519260397796307997

//Dylan Meville

It's been a wild ride. I'm beyond thrilled of how Party Panic has been received so far, and I'm excited to see what everyone thinks of all the new content.

It's crazy to think that just over a year ago Party Panic first entered early access. At that time the game had 10 minigames, the gauntlet, and no online multiplayer, and now it's come so far, with so much more to do..

Let's take a look at what's been added in that year..

-Online Multiplayer (!!!!)
-20 minigames were added (totalling 30 now!)
-Trophy Island
-50+ hats and costumes
-Keyboard and mouse support
-Progression/leveling system with loot-boxes
-25+ Achievements
-Post-game Winner highlights

I'm honestly surprised I managed to get all that done as a solo dev, it was hard work, but it's beyond satisfying to finally see it all come together today as we launch out of Early Access.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYgfY5eDsxI

You might be wondering what will happen with Party Panic moving forward. I am absolutely still working on more content. Right now the plan is to take a short break from dev (I've been working on Party Panic 7 days a week for the past 18 months..) but in a few weeks I'll start working on new minigames to start.

Let me know what you'd like to see added to Party Panic. Want more minigames? More Costumes? New game modes? Anything is possible!

I'll most likely be devoting some time in the near future to start looking at what it would take to get Party Panic on the Switch, Xbox One, and PS4.

Thanks for all the love you all gave to Party Panic while it was in Early Access. Without your support, Party Panic would not be what it is today!

• Trophy Island is now playable for everyone! Can you complete the challenges and collect all the trophies?
  
• Added 13 new achievements for Trophy Island
  
• Players earn XP now when completing the gauntlet or unlocking a trophy
  
• Streamlined controller remapping screen with an 'auto-setup' that will walk you through how to remap
  
• Added two new gauntlet obstacles
  
• Added new hat - SpaceX
  
• Added new hat - Hula
  
• Added new hat - Triclops
  
• Party Panic has support for English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Turkish, and Russian.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some graphical glitches when the next minigame was Spiral Speedway (no rules, all podiums the same colour)
  
• Fixed a bug where custom player names would not save properly
  
• Fixed a bug where player hats would not tint properly when using a non-standard controller (bumpercars, etc)
  
• Added a splash screen showing the Trophy Island post-card when you first launch the new update
  
• Moved the "winner" text higher on the gauntlet
  
• Fixed some issues with fake 3d audio in splitscreen
  
• Fixed a bug where when leaving the online menu you could get stuck on a black screen
  
• Added goobers floating in the water on Slipper Sprint in the background. Like in the titanic
  
• Fixed a bug where you could fall off a gauntlet obstacle and get stuck without dying
  
• Hid chat when playing the gauntlet offline
  
• Fixed a bug where you could lose focus on the chat box, making it so you couldn't type anything in until the next minigame started
  
• Fixed an issue where the "Saiyan" hat wouldn't tint properly
  
• Added new default name - "Tayne"
  
• Misc performance optimizations

// Dylan

August 7th is the day!!! Mark your calendars, add Party Panic to your wishlist!!!

A few months ago I posted in the forums a "Roadmap to Release" thread, outlining the path towards leaving early access and launching Party Panic. During the past year of being in Early Access Party Panic has gone through some major changes, not to mention all the new content added to the game. Can you believe we started with 10 minigames, and now we're up to 30? Or all the hats and costumes, loot boxes, and other things that have been added to the game?

There's still a bit left to do, but it's mostly just polishing at this point. Pretty soon (next weekish) I'm going to start sending out pre-release copies of the game for reviewers and lets players. (If that's you, check out the post here: http://gtm.you1.cn/app/506500/discussions/0/1326718197217434117/)

Check out the new trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYgfY5eDsxI

Party Panic wouldn't have made it this far if it wasn't for all the support and suggestions from all the players. Party Panic has already exceeded my expectations, and I've very grateful to all of you!! I've been working as hard as I can over the last year and a half, and I'm proud of what Party Panic has become so far. I hope you're all as excited as I am!

I want to note that after the game launches August 7th I am still going to be working on Party Panic. It is not the end. More content will be coming in regular updates, but some of that time will be spent working on figuring out how to get Party Panic on consoles and some other things!

Only a few more weeks to go!!

//Dylan

There's been some really great discussion in the forums this last week about some ideas to make the game feel better as a whole, as well as lots of ideas on how to make the game feel a little more polished and fun! I spent some time fixing some bugs, and had some time to work on adding these suggestions!


One of the first ideas stems from the fact that once a minigame's time is up, the screen just faded to black and went to the score screen. This kind of felt anti-climactic, as you just finished winning and then all of a sudden it's over and you're left feeling like "that's it". To improve this a short post-game sequence was added, where it zooms in on the winner, shows his name and plays a short victory tune. During this time you can ALSO still run around and punch eachother, which is fun! Some minigames there is 'permadeath', but you can still win if you've died..in these cases it zooms in on your body laying in lava and I think it's super funny! I think this is a great addition to the game, it adds a lot of polish and just makes winning games feel better!

In Picture Perfect you have to jump on the tiles to change them, matching them up to complete the picture. The more tiles you match up, the more points you get. You can also go and mess up other players' pictures! (but that would just be mean, right?). There's three variations to this minigame, chicken, whale, and toasted goober!

I added two 'traps' to the boxing ring game, Kickpuncher. Now there are two boxing gloves that hover over the right and left sides of the ring that move, and punch randomlly! If you stand to close and get punched you'll go flying
There was also some 'moving' walls added to the minigame Ghost Chasers that should make the game a little more difficult and add a bit of uncertainty to the game!

There's a few more small changes like this I want to make to some other minigames, but for now I wanted to get these new changes and new minigame out!

This update also fixes the "Connection Timeout" bug that was happening last week. Instead of direct connection being tried and failing (silently), now relay will be used in these situations.

• Post minigame victory screen
  
• New Minigame - Picture Perfect
  
• Minigame Changes - Kickpuncher traps
  
• Minigame Changes - Ghost Chasers moving walls
  
• Fixed a bug preventing achievements to unlock
  
• Matchmaking - Connect timeout bug fixed. (confirmed by users who were having this issue, and helped me debug it)

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here

//Dylan

Today's update introduces two new minigames - Plinko Panic, and Tile Bangers, along with refinements to Candy Brawl, Bubble Bumpers, Sumo Balls, Balloon Busters, Faceball, and other misc fixes. Party Panic is now translated to Turkish!


In Plinko Panic you fight against your friends and collect goober heads falling from above!
Tile Bangers (great name right?) is a mix of two other minigames. In this one you're in a bubble and have to roll over the tiles to active them as your colour, gaining you points, while banging into your opponents!
Candy brawl always stood out to me as one of the less interesting games, so in an attempt to make it more intense I added BOMBS!
The refinements for the other games (Bubble Bumpers, Sumo Balls, Balloon Busters, and Faceball) are all redone with a new, and in my opinion improved, networking model. While it still has issues all these games play much better online as you no longer have to wait for the server to receive your inputs before you see your player move, now you move and it feels responsive. However, there was a tradeoff that had to be made for this responsivenese and that's sometimes you'll see your players 'pop' or jitter a little bit when the server disagrees with where you should be and corrects your position.

I'm still working to improve these games more, but having: Responsive controls, minimal lag, responsive collisions, and physics that stay in sync on every players screen is a very hard problem to solve. I'm not sure I can solve all 4 of those things without giving up one. This is a problem every networked physics game has, and these minigames have given me a lot of problems to get working well online, but I'm not giving up!

Anyways, I think these physics-based ball minigames play a lot better now online. This version of Party Panic is built on Unity 2017.1b7, and while it's a beta version of unity, it was the first version to expose the physics things I needed to try and improve the game. This beta is very stable, and the only minor issue I've found with it is _sometimes_ one sound effect will randomly play a bit louder than others, but it's infrequent and not really an issue for now.

In addition to the minigames, there's also a few other minor things. See the update notes for a full list of changes

• New Minigame - Tile Bangers
  
• New Minigame - Plinko Panic
  
• Minigame Changes - Candy Brawl bombs
  
• Minigame Changes - Faceball online physics
  
• Minigame Changes - Faceball online physics
  
• Minigame Changes - Sumoballs online physics
  
• Minigame Changes - Bubble Bumper online physics
  
• Minigame Changes - Balloon Busters online physics
  
• Matchmaking - Connect timeout increased from 15 seconds to 60 seconds
  
• Matchmaking - While attempting to join a game, the time left until timeout is displayed to the player
  
• Decreased the frequency in which the goobers would make random sounds from ~25s to ~40s
  
• New Language - Turkish

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here

//Dylan

Yes, that's right, people can now disconnect/ragequit mid-game and it won't affect you. So long as the host keeps the game running and doesn't leave, any leavers will be replaced by a bot and the game keeps going like normal!

Previously if a player (non-host) left a game while it was still in progress, the entire match would shut down and everyone would have to start over. This was dumb, and frustrating for everyone who just wanted to play. With the changes added in this update this will no longer happen, instead when a player leaves mid-game they are replaced by a bot. If it wasn't for a message in the chat box saying a player left, you probably wouldn't even realize someone left! Hopefully this will make finding, and playing a game a little less frustrating, as now (losers) can rage-quit mid game and it won't affect you!

I also found a few bugs with the server browser, specifically if you tried to join a game with the wrong password you would be told the password was wrong, but the server would still accept your connection, causing a ghost player in the room. This could also cause players to get stuck on "Joining...", instead now you'll get an error message and things will clean up without getting stuck.

With this update the total hats count is up to 50. This update also introduces COSTUMES, which are more than just things that go on your head. Here are some of my favorites!
And here's a full video showing them all!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW_IX5jVLIk&feature=youtu.be

Nothing else major with this update worth talking about, lots of little fixes. It's highly recommended to always stay on the latest version!

• Leavers are now replaced with bots instead of disconnecting all players.
  
• After completing one Party or Gauntlet and returning to the online character setup, the game opens allowing for players to join again.
  
• Fixed a bug causing ghost players in rooms when someone tries to join with the wrong password.
  
• Fixing a bug causing players to get stuck on "Joining..." when they try to join a game with a wrong password
  
• Hat Changes - Headband
  
• Hat Changes - Mohawk
  
• Hat Changes - Pirate
  
• Hat Changes - Speedster
  
• Hat Changes - Turtle
  
• Hat Changes - Ninja
  
• New Hat - Tiger
  
• New Hat - Hero
  
• New Hat - Beanie
  
• New Hat - Dino
  
• New Hat - GoobVR
  
• New Hat - Disguise
  
• New Hat - Saiyan
  
• New Hat - Arrow'd
  
• New Hat - Fez
  
• New Hat - Weiner Head
  
• New Hat - Shades
  
• New Hat - Master
  
• New Hat - Srs Business
  
• New Hat - Princess
  
• Fixed a bug where AI in chicken chase would stand still after picking up a chicken
  
• Changed the quit game/pause menu so that it blocks input to other UI while it's active
  
• Fixed an issue where costumes with custom colour settings (speedster, etc) would not load the right colours when a game with any non-standard character controller was being used (ball, shooting, eating, etc)
  
• Fixed a bug where players could not start a game after the first one was complete, without closing the game and starting a new one.

For more info and previous patch notes see the forum thread here

//Dylan