DevBlog #17 - Community Q&A and Weekly Developer Activity

Hello and welcome to another addition of the DevBlog!

Earlier this week, we created a post on the Atom Universe and Steam forums asking members of the community to share their burning questions about the development of Atom Universe. And posted you did.

Questions ranging from the value of Atomz, in-game clubs, avatar interaction and whether we preferred cookies or coffee (obviously cookies!). In return, our CEO Tanguy Dewavrin, jumped in front of the camera and answered all the questions he possibly could.

This resulted in a two part video series in which the first part was shared yesterday:

Ahh, you're probably asking yourself now, but I've seen the first part already...Where's the second part?! 

Well, the...Umm dog ate the tape...(Just kidding).

The second part of the Community Q&A is now live on our Official YouTube Channel. 

What's Happening Next? 

The Hub!?

Could it be? There's chatter around the Atom Republic Tower that the development teams attention has returned to The Hub, for more information on developments keep an eye out on our Blog (that's here) for more news over the course of next month.

Atom Republic's Block Party

Come by to dance, play games, and have fun with us during our very first Atom Universe Block Party. Beginning Saturday, May 7th at 12:00PM CST (10AM PST/1:00PM EST/ 6PM EU) Atom Republic will hold a bi-weekly Block Party in Atom Universe. With cross-play available both PC & PS4 players will be able to attend! We look forward to seeing you there, and we may even some surprises... Tanguy Dewavrin & Atom Universe Community Manager.

Weekly Developer Activity

Art;

• Creating art assets for the "Lost & Found" Minigame
• Created some more Teddybear masks

Design;

• Implementing functionality to retrieve all accessories from the accessories system.

Programming;

• Increased numbers players limit from 12 to 16 players

Community;

• Filmed Community Q&A video with our CEO Tanguy Dewavrin
• Drafting up the monthly Newsletter

DevBlog #16 - Weekly round up of Atom Republic news

Hello and welcome to another addition of the DevBlog. Today, we’ll be have a little catch up of the events that have happened over the course of this week around the Atom Republic Studio.

Patch 0.1.10.4104

It’s been quite week here so far, on Wednesday we saw the release of Patch 0.1.10.4104. This brought Atom Universe on PlayStation 4 and Steam to the same version, allowing PS4 and Steam Early Access players to cross play between platforms. For more details on Patch 0.1.10.4104 visit our blog post from earlier this week.

New Head Gear Work In Progress

Yesterday, a couple more Work in Progress surfaced on our social media channels. It seems like our art team have been working on a couple more head gear accessories for Adam and Eve. This they come in the form of Face Masks.

Is Eve starting to prepare for the apocalypse?

Is that Adam wearing a Guy Fawkes mask?

Rumour has it, there might be a couple more Work in Progress appearing at some point over the course of next week, best to keep an eye on our social media channels.

Tanguy Dewavrin’s Interview with VRTV

Earlier this week Zeena Al-Obaidi of VR Focus was joined by our very own Tanguy Dewavrin, during the course of the interview, Tanguy discusses Atom Universe and his perfect VR hangout! You’ll be able to catch the full interview here:

Weekly Developer Activity

Art;

• Working on some new head gear assets for the Avatars

Design;

• Implementing the Social User Interface and functionality in the Front End UI.
• Creating a system for attaching any generic object to a list of sockets.

Programming;

• Server Performance checks.
• Import friends list from Steam.

Community;

• More planning and plotting content to match up with the studios development plans.

Patch Notes 0.1.10.4104 - Steam and PS4 Early Access Update

Good Afternoon everyone.

Today, we'll be releasing a new patch for Atom Universe Early Access across Steam and PlayStation 4. This will bring each platform to the same version, allowing cross play between Steam and PlayStation 4 players.

Additional Steam Information 

Steam Players, you'll be able to access the latest version on our main branch. If you've been testing on our King Pin branch you will need to default back to the main branch. You'll be able to achieve this by doing the following:

• Open your Steam Client
• Right Click on Atom Universe
• Go to Properties
• Head over the 'BETAS' Tab
• Click on the drop-down menu
• Select 'NONE - Opt out of all beta programs'

Afterwards, the new update should download for you (depending on how you've got your Steam Client set-up). If not, you can always 'Verify Integrity of Game Cache' from the 'LOCAL FILES' tab within the properties menu (this will force Steam to download the latest version).

PATCH NOTES

• Added inspect player in the social menu
• Added player menu icon call out
• Fixed the offline time for recent players
• Fixed a bug of blocked players are not visible when they are offline
• Cross play for PS4 and Steam users
• Edit Text controls in chat allow copying/pasting with keyboard keys
• PS4: Scrolling chat messages with Left Analog Stick
• PS4: With virtual keyboard fixed a bug of swapped X and O buttons

DevBlog #15 – Improved Social Features and Updated Music Playlist

Greetings,

The weekend is officially here! That means it time for our weekly DevBlog. As always, the Atom Republic team are busy at work, developing features and improving various mechanics to make your experience better while playing Atom Universe. Right, let’s get to the juicy bits.

Joining Servers

When you first start Atom Universe up, you’ll now notice that you’re able to select a server from the main menu. Now you’ll be able to arrange your community meet-ups and join them flawlessly, or maybe you’ve got a bunch friends that you’d like to hang out with.

Friends List

A friends list you say? Yes, we've gone ahead and implemented our very own friends list. You’ll be able to add your fellow gamers as friends. Simply press ‘Tab’ and ‘Shift’ on over to the recent players tab to select who you’d like to add.

Now that you've made a new friend or two, should the event arise and you get separated from one and another you will now be able to re-join them. While in in-game, simply press ‘Tab’ and head over to the Social menu and visit your online friends section. Here you’ll be able to select your friends name and join them (no matter what server they’re on).

Private Message

Got something you want to tell your friend privately? Why not send them a private message? In the latest version of Atom Universe you will now have the ability to send your friends and other players private messages. Press ‘ALT’ to open your chatbox and ‘right click’ to send a private message.

At this point in time you’ll only be able to send PM’s to individual players, you won’t be able to create group chats just yet.

Updated Music Playlist

Someone has dropped the beat! We made some changes to the Arcade Plaza’s Playlist, your avatars will now be able to dance off to a blend of Hip-Hop and Trap music. The new Playlist follows as:

• Flawless Real Talk – Doctors
• Flawless Real Talk Feat. David Reyes – Watching Over Me
• Lazy Boyz – Falling
• Lexxmatiq – Sloth Syndrome
• LVX – Get Em Up
• MoonBeat – Lullaby
• Nostalgia – Get Dizzy
• Sky Jonez Feat. Flawless Real Talk – Dreamer
• Sky Jonez Feat . Issa Pointer – Found My Way
• XVII – Achilles

New Dance Moves and Poses

With all that new music we fought it might be a good idea to include some new dance animations and poses. Adam and Eve now have 7 additional dance animations and 1 new poses each. (Time for a dance off?)

When Can We Play This Update?

Steam members, you'll be able to access this latest update once you've finished reading this DevBlog. This update will be available on the Main Branch of Steam (if you've been testing on our King Pin branch, you'll need to opt-out of Beta to get access). 

Patch notes can be found here.

If you've got access to the PS4 version of Atom Universe, we're currently in the process of getting the update ready, keep an eye out on our social media channels as we'll be making a big splashy announcement when closer to the time of release. 

Weekly Developer Activity

Art

• Added an additional 16 dance moves and poses.
• Swapping the in-game music for a fresher sound.

Design

• Working with the programming team, fixing any bugs affecting the social features.

Programming

• Social features bug fixing and tweaking

Community

• Play testing the latest build
• Planning and preparing assets for community updates
• Eating Korean Sweets

Devblog #14 A Tribute To Our Community Of Musicians

Hello everyone,

This week we refined the social features and created more accessories to customise your avatars.

In terms of social features, we are adding functionalities in the chat to enable you to have private conversations with your friends. We also enable you to add friends, or block people: so you can chose to spend more time with the ones you like, without being harassed by unpleasant individuals.

As for accessories, we added a selection of masks you can wear to further express your personality.

We will share some visuals in the near future, so keep an eye on future dev-blogs and on our social media.

In the meantime, I wanted to pay a tribute to all the fantastic musicians and artists who accepted to provide music for our virtual world. We heard a lot of positive comments from our community about the music, and I can say confidently that it will only get bigger and better. It is just a beginning. If you visit the game now, you can still enjoy music from the likes of  Tobu, Daniel Di Marchi, Elysean Records, Clarx or Starkin.

In the next build we will update the playlist to share new music with you with a fresh playlist, featuring exciting new artists like Sky Jonez, Lazyboyz, XVII, Flawless Real Talk or Moonbeat.

The list goes on, and there are a lot more fresh talent to come, like Veela, SugarBeats, Beyond Recall....

I'd like to grab this opportunity to thank Neil from the JFC Virtual Community for his hard work on helping us bring so many incredibly talented artists on board.

Weekly Developer Activity

Art;

• 3 head masks for men and women
• GUI for the social features

Design;

• adding social features to the chat

Programming;

• Fixed bugs
• implementing chat and social features

DevBlog #13 - Social features and private space revamp

Greetings all,

Welcome to our weekly devblog! This week we updated the PS4 alpha for our Kickstarter backers: you'll find now that PS4 users can play cross-platform with PC users, on the same server!

We also added more social features and created more content for the avatar customisation, private and public spaces.

Progress on our private spaces

Our friends at SubD Studio updated the Mirage house to make it bigger, more polished. They added furniture and a day and night cycle. Find below some exclusive screenshots!

Weekly Developer Activity

Art;

• added scaffoldings and cranes in the hub
• created more headgear accessories

Design;

• adding social features to the avatar's actions menu

Programming;

• Fixed PS4 alpha
• improving chat and social features