The Endless Mission 
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Patch Notes 6/16/21Jun 16, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsHi everyone! It's been a little while. We're happy you're here and we hope this update finds you well! We have some exciting things coming in The Endless Mission - starting with a brand new update today featuring a fully revamped Editor! Complete details are below. Account Login Changes The first thing you may notice when you go to log in is that the login process has changed (no, you're not imagining things). We’ve moved away from a Steam login into an independent account system that's platform-agnostic. Super-duper important note: you will no longer be able to log in with your Steam account. Going forward, you have a couple of options -- you can either create a new account or email us to recover your existing account. Send an email to [email protected] from the email address you associated with your initial signup and we will send you a temporary password that will allow you to sign in and choose a new password. Editor Revamp We’ve also massively overhauled the visual components of the Editor. From a brand new "Simple Hierarchy View" that allows you to specify different groups of objects to edit at once, to improving the resizing and collapsing functionality for columns -- every little nook and cranny of the Editor saw some love as part of this update. We've also removed the Lens system in the Editor since it wasn't accomplishing what we wanted it to. That said, it may return in a future update, so stay tuned! This is just scratching the surface for the update, so be sure to dive in and see for yourself! As always, if you have any questions, come find us on our official Discord (discord.theendlessmission.com) or drop us an email. See you in the Terminal! ~The Endless Mission Team Behind the Design: Weasel Raceway (Part 2)Jul 28, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsWelcome back, designers! When we last left off, I had just finished laying down the groundwork for Weasel Raceway, both metaphorically (giving the weasels racing AI) and literally (the track). Of course, I still had a lot to do, so the only question now was… what’s next? Make or Break Time The track may have been done, and the player could run laps on it well enough, but it was still missing a few key components before it could be considered fully functional. These included: A.) Some sort of “checkpoint” system to make sure the player is actually making full laps and not taking unintended shortcuts. B.) A way for the AI racers to successfully navigate the course. C.) Something that puts the racers back on the racetrack if they happen to fall off in any way. The good news? All of these features are already part of the racer template game! The checkpoints are trigger volumes that span entire portions of track and are stored in a list - you have to drive through all the trigger volumes in order before crossing the finish line in order for it to register as a full lap. Meanwhile, AI racers navigate using a list of waypoints, already programmed to try and get as close to one waypoint as they can (with random variance built in so they don’t all follow the same exact line every time) before moving towards the next one in the list. Finally, more trigger volumes can be set up alongside the track or inside pits that, when entered, automatically teleport the player or AI back to a specific point, making sure no one gets too far off-road. All that said, while the systems were all already in place, it was still my job to customize them specifically for my racetrack. How did I make sure all my adjustments worked? By doing the single most important thing one can do when creating games… Testing. Lots and lots of testing. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/def4ac9eb91465089604b6bd151635a2d02155dc.png Sorry kids, you’ll still be doing a lot of tests even after you leave school. Once I had finished my initial pass on placing down checkpoints, waypoints, and teleporters, I spent a lot of time playing through the game over and over, seeing where I needed to fine-tune things further. The checkpoints worked without a hitch, but it was the waypoints that proved to be a challenge. If you have too many, there’s little room for variance in how the AI moves through the course (not to mention bog down the game trying to keep track of them all). Too few, and you have the AI hitting walls and clipping corners due to trying to take too direct a path between waypoints. Plus, the position of the waypoints on the course itself is important: It may seem like the easiest solution is to always place them in the middle of the track, but that can result in the AI overshooting certain turns and slamming into walls (you generally want to put the waypoint on the inside of turns to prevent this). The only real way to see if you’ve placed the waypoints correctly is to play it over and over, stay a...Behind the Design: Weasel Raceway (Part 1)Jul 22, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsGreetings, designers! Recently we saw the release of a new game to the Endless Mission Content Portal: Weasel Raceway. This game takes the gameplay seen in the Racer, but swaps out the cars for weasels racing on foot and sets the action on a whole new track themed around a tropical temple. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/cf068ae6de18b723994e7dabc649fc38691b3fa1.jpg Oh, and did I mention it’s a foot race? Those little buggers can run fast. Now, what if I told you that I was the one who created this game? Totally awesome, right (don’t answer that)? With the game out now, I decided it’d be cool to write up a little postmortem about this project. Where did the idea come from? What is my design process like? What challenges did I face while making this game, and how did I overcome them? How much of my blood was replaced with caffeine by the time I was done with this project? All these questions and more will be answered in this article! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/50a6519e7736715aca2c7b79fbea8707f56c205c.gif It’s fine, I can stop at any time. Honest. Humble Beginnings Every game begins with an idea. They can be a specific game mechanic you want to work around or a thematic element or message you want to express or even just “hey, wouldn’t it look really goofy if we did this?” The main thing to remember with ideas, though, is that they can come from anywhere. Legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has spoken at great length about this, citing how even the most random parts of everyday life have served as inspiration when creating games. Forging through the woods in his backyard as a kid? The kind of open-world exploration he wanted to capture when creating the original Legend of Zelda. A nasty encounter with an angry dog that was tied to a post? The inspiration for the behavior and attack patterns of the Chain Chomp enemies in the Mario games. Watching ants work together to move stuff around while gardening? The origin of Pikmin. Miyamoto has always had a knack for finding game ideas in the most unlikely places, and it’s a skill that any budding designer should take the time to develop. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/18ca1f77ee8a1407bcd2f7a12b1161272d7c1e46.png Still no word on what kind of horrific childhood trauma led to him creating this, however. That’s not to say that every game idea has to have some sort of esoteric origin story, however. Sometimes, the inspiration for a game can simply come from another game. This was the case for Weasel Raceway, as the idea for this game came from… watching a livestream my coworkers did for The Endless Mission. How meta. Wait a sec… That punk on the right owes me five bucks! The stream is very informative and worth a full viewing, of course, but for the sake of this article, the highlight is at the two hour, ten minute mark: While experimenting with putting different visuals on the race car AI, they decide to plop in the weasel enemy from the platformer game. The end result? Absolutely friggin’ hilarious. A cartoony...Patch Notes 5/13/20May 13, 2020 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/ad35dc497860ddd22af55bafa59785749667bd47.png We're back with a brand new update featuring some quality of life improvements throughout the game. Let us know in the comments or on Discord if you have any questions! ~ The Endlesss Mission Team NEW! User experience: Redid the main menu to transition directly into the Global menu after login. We now have a First Time Editor Scene (only for new users) that covers the basics of editor camera navigation the first time you open the editor. We have swapped over to using asset bundles, which results in a smaller build size! Editor: Clicking on an entity or component reference will now highlight the referenced entity in the hierarchy! Added tool for object snapping. Added tool to customize the editor camera speed. This is especially useful when working on larger levels! Introducing the tag system! This is a massively improved way of browsing the library, designed to help you find the content you are looking for! Tags are searchable and combinable. Code tabs! You can now open and edit multiple tabs at once! Added SimpleHealthEventHelper to set up damage and healing via events without scripting. 3D text support! You can now quickly and easily drag in the "3D Text" object to your scene to add custom 3D text to your game. Choose font size, spacing options, etc! IMPROVED! Editor: Cleaned up the inspector for Hackable Transform to take up less space depending on which options you are using. Exposed several functions on Health controller for more accessibility to the event system. Endless events now show the parameter name of the function you are calling, rather than a generic type name. Endless event listeners can now be reordered properly and the remove button will always remove the last entry in the list. Huge particle effect overhaul. Particle effects can now be previewed in the editor properly, including start, stop, and looping behaviors. As a result, we redid all the particles in the game, which may mean previous UGC games are now missing their effects, and need to be replaced. Check your games! Updated editor tooltips for clarity, and added more tooltips to buttons that still needed them. Optimization: Massive optimizations to the Terminal scene, and the Platformer game assets. You should see increased performance in both areas! Rework of the Adventure Mode camera system to allow for smoother Lens Mode target locking and de-locking! Updated the hacking outline to be much more efficient resulting in large performance gains across the board! Other: Miscellaneous cleanup for asset consistency. The intro can now be skipped immediately. FIXED! Fixed components sometimes not showing the enabled toggle when they should have been. Fixed Racer avatar now respects "PlayerControlEnabled" correctly. Fixed ALT + LMB will no longer deselect objects. Fixed Sword Power Attack no longer gets stuck mid-swing. Fixed an edge case with Ctrl + Z not always working. Fixed the API calls for unfollowing...Patch Notes 3/3/20Mar 3, 2020 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/05c401c77f1d31eb86e4d597e48ecb8d91b9e6b1.jpg We've got an exciting update for The Endless Mission heading your way right now! In addition to adding a HUGE amount of new props for you to use in your own games as well as adding a few games made by our development team, we also fixed a number of little things throughout the game. Major Changes Added 100 new RTS props to the editor Unified the start menu and global menu into a single consistent experience by making all menu options consistent, accessible, and intuitive so that it's easier to navigate throughout the game. Added support for World Space UI via the “SmartCanvasUi” script. Note: This reset existing font sizes in user games. If you have any custom UI in your games, you may need to set your font size again. Reach out to us if you have any questions! New Games From the Development Team Coin Pusher Parkour Playground Other Improvements Fixed: Event Callbacks sometimes being deleted incorrectly when deleting a referenced object Fixed: “Explosion with Damage” was not properly shutting off the damage after the explosion finished Fixed: An issue with changing manipulation modes while dragging a gizmo Fixed: An issue with instantiating Hierarchy references with a null parent Updated: Editor now respects right control, right shift, and right alt Updated: Timer Smart Condition to show proper value when not started yet Fixed: Objects in the hierarchy will now properly grey out if a parent is disabled Fixed: Alpha value now updates properly in the color picker. Fixed: Lenses were mistakenly manipulating objects in local, instead of world position. Fixed: Improper tooltip with on translation button Fixed: Fixed objects being unable to be selected via the scene view after changing their transform in the hierarchy view Improved: Controls for zooming, orbiting, and panning in the editor. Also added new cursors to indicate these states. Fixed: Racer stats now properly set the health value on the racer. Fixed: Hand jitter in adventure mode character! Fixed: Issue causing some of the RTS unit visuals not showing up properly in levels Fixed: Alt + RMB zooming on the Y-axis was unintentionally inverted Fixed: An issue where dragging out an item while hierarchy had a search string entered could break the editor, requiring a reload. Patch Notes 2/3/20Feb 3, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsFor this update, in addition to a ton of quality of life improvements to game creation, we've also improved the console to help with debugging. Editor ADDED: Undo/Redo capabilities to the Editor (Handles updates to individual properties, transform manipulation, selection, and creation/deletion of new Entities) ADDED: "HealthChangeVolume" script, and several prebuilt examples including "Lava Damage Volume", "Smart Healing Volume", and "Explosion with Damage." Check the wiki for additional details. ADDED: SimpleHealthBarUI - An example of SmartFillImageUI that automatically updates the bar to the health value of any HealthController ADDED: "SimpleInputListener" script allows you to listen a keyboard or mouse input and fire events, without any coding! Check the wiki for additional details. ADDED: SmartFillImageUI - allows you to do progress bar style images, where it fills from one side to another ADDED: 'Code Prompting' (auto-complete) to the code editor ADDED: Gameplay console (use F1 key to toggle between full view overlay and single line overlay). ADDED: Console in Escape Menu for interacting with the console during UGC gameplay. IMPROVED Editor console now has single-line output with details panel for full view. Icons for info / warning / error. IMPROVED : Library search to be 100% fuzzier (it will guess what you're searching for) IMPROVED : First-person avatar was rebalanced -- it now has better control and uses the new health bar. The "Basic" template was also updated to use the updated avatar. IMPROVED : Auto-complete to be more reliable IMPROVED : Library Preview Images will now be properly lit IMPROVED : Updated a number of existing particle systems to properly reflect scale changes. IMPROVED : Overall performance in the Editor and UGC. FIXED: Lag when dragging a CapitanBlackClaw object in the hierarchy. FIXED: An issue with Smart Condition UI being unable to hide. FIXED: Issue where a saved Entity with a missing event call could not be dragged into the scene FIXED: Issues with certain text fields not accepting input within the Editor. FIXED: The transform gizmo not updating properly when moving a particle effect in the Editor. FIXED: Bug with Copy/Pasting Entities creating extra copies. IMPORTANT NOTES: We fixed an issue with scripts that were disabled still running their functions. Since games may have relied this improper functionality, we have upgraded existing scripts within games to be active that you may have intentionally turned off. This should not change behavior directly, but if you notice anything going wrong, let us know! We changed the interface for pausing and unpausing the game. If you had custom scripts interacting with GameStateManager.SetPauseState, they will need to be updated with GameStateManager.RequestPause and GameStateManager.DismissPause. Without the upgrade your games may not play correctly, as your code will NOT compile. --- Got a feature request or need to report a bug? Use the pause menu's Send Feedback butto...Patch Notes 1/14/20Jan 14, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsFor this update, we've done some quality of life updates for the Editor and improved the publishing process in the Content Portal. The complete details are below! Global Improved: Clarity of the login flow, added retry button should login fail. Editor Improved: Disabled objects will now show as grayed out in the hierarchy view. Added: Added: Error reporting popup to help diagnose issues. Added: Camera Preview (Shows when a camera is selected). Fixed: Bug where you had to hit enter after each position/rotation/scale change. Fixed: Sliders for Int and Float property drawers. Fixed: Issue where asset/game downloads sometimes hang indefinitely. Fixed: Adding new script recompile logic now only happens if needed. Fixed: Localization warning that appeared in the editor console when opening the editor. ---------- Got a feature request or need to report a bug? Use the pause menu's Send Feedback button and include as much detail as possible. Join the conversation on our official Discord: http://discord.theendlessmission.comDesign Challenge #2: Off to the Races!Jan 7, 2020 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/dc407242d78eb3e966d7776e2954cfe2d173add6.jpg We recently released the Racer in Dawn City as a free content update, so for our second design challenge, we thought: what better way to start the new year than to blow it all apart? In this challenge, you’re going to be taking the racer and mashing it up to make it your own! THE RULES ARE SIMPLE: Load up the Racer template in the Editor Replace the track itself with any of the other custom track shapes we’ve provided (tip: search for TRACK in the Library) — this will retain the racing gameplay mechanics and logic Redecorate the track with assets from other genres and art styles — the crazier the better! You can even asset swap the racers themselves (watch our recent livestream if you want to see how we did this to create a mascot racer) Use the Save As feature to name your game something original, then publish your game to the Content Portal using the Publish button so it's visible to everyone. Be sure to mention this Design Challenge and your Discord handle in the description. Got a question about building your game? Our super friendly team of devs is standing by to answer your questions right here in Discord, so fire away! TO ENTER: Post a link to your submission in the #Design-Challenge channel of our official Discord. All entries must be submitted by Monday, January 13th @ 11:59pm PST. The winner will receive a custom emblem for their avatar! The Endless Mission Community team will judge submissions based on two criteria: creativity and originality. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, January 14th. EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS: Since we will be heading to PAX South next week, the winning game will be playable for PAX attendees! Ready... GO! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/8aa61bf57c45e6a2fa9bc636c2e09e582633c7a9.gif https://store.steampowered.com/app/827880/The_Endless_Mission/The Endless Mission and the History of Racing Games, Part 3Dec 20, 2019 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/dc4e7d8ede2ba08a5df427b8ccff1954a6edf81d.png Okay folks, this is it! The final lap in our series on the history of racing games! Are you ready? {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/cab22dcc657e8f2d899dfb68fbbbefcab06ddde6.png That question was rhetorical, of course. I’m flooring it either way. We’ve already gone over the basic history of the genre, but now it’s time to shine a light on a very specific kind of racing game. The Endless Mission is a game all about User Generated Content, and it’ll be no different when we introduce the Racer update. Thus, what better way to end this series than to spend some time looking at racing games that have made use of UGC in the past? A quick disclaimer before we begin, however: There are a lot of racing games that let you customize your vehicle, usually by picking out car body, tires, paint job, etc. In some games, these customization options are purely cosmetic, but in others - racing sims in particular - these changes can have a huge impact on your vehicle’s performance. All that said, you’re still ultimately just choosing parts from a specific list to put on a predefined frame; it’s rarely as granular or in-depth as what most people picture when they think of games with a huge UGC element to them. As such, we won’t be highlighting games that “only” have vehicle customization of this kind in our list unless they do something particularly unique with it. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/bf95f80003ec0ddaec5dd711c94af60d12886b01.png Besides, we need at least ONE article where we don’t bring up Mario Kart… Uh… Not counting this pic and caption, anyway. Excitebike (1984) {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/0cba195589e5b8fea6a915cea36a2ce5de24c4d6.png Fun Fact: This game was actually a launch title for the NES. It just got overshadowed a bit by Super Mario Bros. We’ve talked about this game a little bit in our previous series, but it’s worth looping back around to one more time. Coming out just one year after the release of Pinball Construction Set (the first game with UGC period, if you recall), Excitebike was the first racing game to contain UGC, in addition to being the first game to bring UGC to consoles. In addition to two side-scrolling racing modes (Time Trial and Vs. AI), players could create their own dirt bike tracks by placing down different track pieces in whatever order they saw fit. The track they created could then be used in either of the other two modes. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/9690ffddbcf08adce75ca805a63bffae2460816a.png … Anyone else getting a hankering for some chocolate now? No? Just me? Okay, then… Sadly, the NES had no way to save the tracks you created, so they were lost as soon as you powered it down. Still, this game was a huge first step in introducing UGC to the world of racing games. Excitebike’s legacy would not be forgotten either: Nintendo would bring back the franchise and it’s track editing features (this time with a save function) several times, most recently in cardbo...Start your engines: the Racer’s here!Dec 19, 2019 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/143b2a0edd96bae59399dccf63f148de70bff5ae.png We’re excited to announce that today we’ve released the first major update to The Endless Mission and it’s one you’ve been asking for: The Racer! And to celebrate, we’re offering 33% discount on The Endless Mission for a limited time. If you’ve played The Endless Mission at shows like EGX, Rezzed, or PAX you’ve likely encountered an early version of the Racer. We’ve since made improvements to the game and made it fully ready for you to make your very own race tracks in the Editor as well! Here’s a video to give you a peek at what’s waiting for you in Dawn City: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6sBjgdMlwk We’ll also be live on Twitch and Steam today at 2-3:30pm PST building a racer together with viewers, so don’t miss it! We've also included a number of fixes and other new features: Patch Notes Global Added: The Racer Academy Game, available now for playing, hacking, and editing Fixed: Disabled Avatar during Platformer intro cutscene Fixed: Implemented a unit cap per faction in the RTS Fixed: Optimized Blue Mage particle effects Fixed: Updated LOD range in the Platformer and RTS games to be more appropriate to the LOD Bias setting Fixed: Low framerate when many archers attack at once in the RTS Editor Added: Top Down Adventure and Racer Templates Added: New assets from our partners at Terminal Two Added: Updated Health Controller tech -- important note: there are updates needed if you have custom scripts using HealthController (click here for details) Added: New scripts to help you deal and modify damage/healing (DamageVolume will continuously damage things that enter it, while HealthChangeModifier will allow for damage immunities or resistances) Added: New Megastructure buildings and their individual pieces to the Library. Fixed: Updated the Distance which props change LODs and cull out. Fixed: Dropboxes now collapse properly in the Hierarchy The Endless Mission and the History of Racing Games, Part 2Dec 10, 2019 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/7f91c4fcac219a3e93a63a126e749e9ca56c233c.png Welcome back, racers! When we last left off in our overview of racing games, Nintendo had just released Super Mario Kart, changing the landscape of racing games forever. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/3ae490522a577530c97d77c799ab169320cacbcf.png And seascape. And skyscape. And… Racing games had been finding ways to vary themselves to stand out from the crowd long before Mario Kart came onto the scene, whether it was via unique vehicles (spaceships, snowboarding, roller skating) or gameplay elements (vehicle combat, non-linear tracks, platformer mechanics), but they were all generally content to just share the label of “racing game”. After Super Mario Kart, however, it became abundantly clear that the racing genre was splitting up into several distinct sub-genres, each starting to be championed by franchises rather than single games. For this article, we’ll be looking at each sub-genre independently, explaining what makes them unique and what games best exemplify their playstyles. Let’s ride! Racing Simulators: Everything Except the Traffic Jams and Gas Prices By the early 90s, video game technology had gotten advanced enough that developers could focus on not just making racing games, but realistic racing games. These games will take factors like friction, aerodynamics, and weather into consideration to make sure the vehicles behave as realistically as possible. They can even require you to keep track of things such as fuel levels or tire condition, with dire consequences if you don’t pull over to the pit stop to tend to these in time. As a general rule of thumb: In most other racing games, it’s usually assumed that you’ll keep your foot on the gas at all times and rarely, if ever, use the brakes. Try that in a racing sim, and expect to see your car flip over five seconds in and slam into a barrier in lovingly-rendered detail. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/ef67340ea553dc23e294c81a42f0d00800f05724.png Which, to be fair, probably IS the appeal to some people. These games, far more than the other racing sub-genres, also take pride in how how realistic they look as well, taking great pains to create photorealistic recreations of real world racetracks and working with automotive manufacturers directly to make sure that their cars are portrayed accurately in game. Because the focus on realism usually results in a notoriously high difficulty curve (and you often need quite a beefy PC to even run these kinds of games to begin with), racing sims tend to have a pretty niche audience compared to the other two major sub-genres, with one notable exception that we’ll get to in a moment. We already discussed the first true racing simulation game last week with Geoff Crammond’s REVS, released in 1984. The first game to popularize it, however, was 1989’s Indianapolis 500: The Simulation, created by Papyrus Design Group. This game strived to be as accurate a recreation of the 1989 Indianapolis 500...The Endless Mission and the History of Racing Games, Part 1Dec 3, 2019 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/ae72ce3709a4109f49f9ab69e9c22e9d12d3a4f6.png Hello, everyone! Guess who’s back! Did you all miss me? {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/4718a21e8239fa1dd9159c9e5b21e46e3a2cf600.gif … Eh, I’m used to it. I get the same response when I go home for the holidays. With the Early Access release of The Endless Mission out in the wild, we’ve been hard at work getting ready for the first major content update we’re bringing to the game later this month: The Racer! To that end, your favorite video game historian, responsible for the award-winning (citation needed) series on the history of UGC, has returned to provide another blog series, this time focused on the history of racing games! When did they start? What kinds of racing games exist? Have any racing games taken advantage of UGC in the past? Well, get in, buckle up, and plug in the AUX cord so you can start blasting the soundtrack from your favorite Mario Kart course at full volume, ‘cuz we’re about to rev up and find out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMyFkraDzyY Hot Take: This is the best Mario Kart song. Miss me with that Coconut Mall nonsense. Space Race: The First Racing Game {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/3a453360c1a40f485540c7871f30fa95ade1ceab.png This advertising flyer for the game is so 70s, my cargo pants turned into bellbottoms just looking at it. So, just how much of a cornerstone are racing games to gaming as a whole? Try this fact on for size: Racing games are almost as old as the Video Game Industry itself. The very first racing game was Atari’s Space Race, released in 1973. This was only one year after their first release - and the first commercial video game, period - Pong. The gameplay was very simple: Two players raced to get from the bottom of the screen to the top first, all while avoiding asteroids along the way. Still, all the elements needed to constitute a racing game were there. Now, what with this being a brand new genre from the company that basically invented commercial video games, it was totally a smash hit, right? Well… Er… No, actually. It bombed. It bombed hard. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/18d7a678e477204c06f7d3373727179d0006480a.gif Artist’s Rendition As it turns out, people were still perfectly happy with just Pong. In addition to the original Pong, the market at the time was dominated by other companies just making Pong clones. No one felt the need to move onto the next big thing quite yet. Still, even with things not going quite according to plan, Space Race’s impact on gaming cannot be denied - any and all racing games can trace their lineage back to this game. And for Atari’s part, they didn’t let this failure deter them from the genre at all: A year later, they would release Gran Trak 10, which was the first car racing game, along with being the first game to use a steering wheel controller. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32524713/1f7a9d9f738ef2fbd85095d00904b6d46a5f3336.png The ad was still hilariously 70s, though. Don’t worry about that. A Marathon o...Patch Notes 12/2/19Dec 2, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsFor our first update in Early Access, we've included fixes and additions for Adventure Mode, the Editor and more. Adventure Mode Fixed: Bug with player not dying after failing a side mission Fixed: Bug where action/hacking toggle being present before it is unlocked Fixed: Fearn should no longer disappear during wall destruction cutscene Editor Fixed: Objects lose references when duplicating an object Fixed: Window fails to scroll when using the arrow keys with Auto-Complete Fixed: Game light fails to update until playing the game Added: Smart UI feature upgrades, including button transition support for smart buttons, mask support for images, and improvements to the display of nested classes in the inspector Fixed/Added: Quality of Life updates to address small issues in Editor Auto-versioning incrementing and smart UI for smart conditions Added simple sequence script to allow players to more easily make their own starting UI Removed "Reset" function from several objects keeping legacy support) Improvements to Smart UI and Simple Inventory Global Fixed: Video Quality Menu's Confirm and Revert buttons are now outside scrollable window Fixed: Notification of invalid email upon account creation ---------- Got a feature request or need to report a bug? Use the pause menu's Send Feedback button and include as much detail as possible. Join the conversation on our official Discord: http://discord.theendlessmission.comPremature Evaluation: The Endless MissionNov 19, 2019 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunPremature Evaluation is the weekly column in which Steve Hogarty explores the wilds of early access. This week, he’s interning as a level designer for a game about making games about games. Developer: E-Line Media Publisher: E-Line Media Release: Out now (early access) On: Windows From: Steam For: 11.39, $15, 13.50 Few things fill me with dread more than a blank canvas, especially one that s aching with untold potential, or even worse, infinite possibility. I’m talking about Little Big Planet, Super Mario Maker, and now this, The Endless Mission; games in which you are thrust into the role of the world s omnipotent architect, an unpaid and underqualified level designer shackled with the burdensome responsibility of creation. It takes a real level designer many decades and hundreds of thousands of pounds to learn their craft, probably. That this genre expects me a man regularly pushed to the cusp of a mental break when building IKEA furniture to design anything worth actually playing, is frankly insulting to everybody involved. (more…) We're In Early Access!Nov 6, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsGood news, everyone: The Endless Mission is available now on Steam Early Access. Now, how about a Launch Trailer? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vq-CSXDZLg Thank you for your continued support and we'll see you in-game! ~ Batcat and The Endless Mission Team p.s. If you haven't already, be sure to join our official Discord: http://discord.theendlessmission.comIntroducing the Voice Cast of The Endless Mission!Jul 11, 2019 - Community Announcementshttps://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/3592b7337d38f45d5f1d301d7f041801e2f2db02.png We're excited to introduce the voice actors for The Endless Mission, a sandbox style creation game where a rich narrative leads players through a world unlike any other. Having previously made their mark on iconic franchises like Mass Effect, Halo, Dragon Age, Assassin’s Creed, Diablo, and Fallout, the talents of Laura Bailey, Jennifer Hale, Alix Wilton Regan, Sara Amini, and Courtenay Taylor will all now be setting off on The Endless Mission later this year. See them in action and get a glimpse of the story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVNZ4s38Awg&feature=youtu.be https://store.steampowered.com/app/827880/The_Endless_Mission/The Endless Mission and the History of UGC, Part 7Jul 10, 2019 - Community Announcementshttps://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/23d91a2cfb8c07869a63feb21f417abe87940297.png Well, here we are. The final article of this series. It’s been quite a journey - we laughed, we cried, we had a heartfelt montage set to a song by Phil Collins. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at the history of User Generated Content and all the myriad ways that it presents itself in video games, from level editors to full-blown game creation kits. UGC has come a long way since 1983’s Pinball Construction Set, with each game and piece of software building on everything that came before it. For our final article in this series, however, we will be looking forward instead of back. It’s time to see what kind of changes and innovations are in store for UGC in the future. … And by “the future” we, of course, mean “The Endless Mission”. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/0c63e1fd74b165219807dbcf40c17e9f0b3f9a16.gif Pictured: Our Marketing Team, excited that we’re finally talking about OUR game for a change You Gotta Walk Before You Can Run (And The Endless Mission Lets You Do Both) A lot of games with UGC features in the past came with limitations: In Super Mario Maker, you’re making levels specifically in the Super Mario template. Whatever you create in Halo 3’s Forge will always be used in the context of a multiplayer FPS. This is great for folks who are just starting out, as all the framework has been laid out for them, so they can focus solely on one or two aspects. You don’t have to know how to code up a fighting game just to make stages in Super Smash Bros. However, this also means that you can never expand beyond these limitations - no amount of creativity or ingenuity will let you make a racing game in Rollercoaster Tycoon (no, the go-kart track doesn’t count). Meanwhile, other UGC-heavy software goes in the complete opposite direction, tossing you into the deep end with no way to scale back. Sure, RPG Maker will let you build an RPG from the ground-up, but you always start with a blank canvas. Want to just add an extra dungeon onto a preexisting RPG, with all the pre-established mechanics in place? Sorry, no can do. Better start learning code. And math. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/a8e6c2563d4a1500eecee41af660257c8586a92a.gif The only appropriate reaction to realizing you’ll have to use math One of the goals of The Endless Mission is to break down these barriers and have every level of UGC complexity available in one game. You can start out loading up prebuilt games and making minor changes - adjusting some variables here, placing an extra power-up there, and so forth. Or maybe you start by doing a simple find-and-replace mod where you take out all of Enemy A and replace them with Enemy B. One you’ve mastered that, you can move onto crafting entire levels from scratch. All the behind-the-scenes code necessary for the game to b...The Endless Mission and the History of UGC, Part 6Jul 1, 2019 - Community Announcementshttps://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/b309f2124505d057655027f8eaef8023f40b7464.png Hey there, folks! We’re in the home stretch now! Yes, sadly it’s true: While we’ve all been having fun these past few weeks getting our learn on, next week’s article will be the last in this series. We know, we’re inconsolable, too. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/e0f3be8040cfc252fb9b509e82787cd270ca7467.png We haven’t been this upset since paying full price for a game right before the Steam Summer Sale We’ve covered a lot of ground these past weeks looking at the history of UGC. We’ve seen games about making games (and more!). Software that lets you make fully-featured games from the code on up. Fans taking matters into their own hands and modding games that otherwise had no UGC to speak of. What could possibly be left to go over in this penultimate article? Literally Everything Else … Oh. Uh… Yeah, there’s that. To be a bit more specific about it: We’ve been spending most of our time discussing games and software where UGC - specifically, the kind of UGC that involves game making - is the “main” objective. However, there are many, many games out there that have other kinds of UGC as well. Character creators, level editors, simulation games with a “sandbox mode”... Any game with any sort of editor or creation system in place totally counts as UGC! This is especially true in the modern era, where platforms like Steam Workshop allow users to share their creations with players the world over. Now, it probably goes without saying that we can’t cover every single game with UGC elements like this, and even trimming it down to a “Greatest Hits” selection would still be quite large. Thus, we’ll be going through examples much more quickly here than in previous articles, highlighting what high quality or unique UGC each game brought to the table before moving on. Now hold on tight - the UGC Train has no brakes! https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/e054234a741b7a315e062afc7a76f85c8924498b.gif Though maybe it should Utopia (1982) Simulation and construction games fill a weird niche in UGC-focused titles: sure, you have a lot of freedom to build stuff, but only if you have the resources to do so and follow the rules. Does this make them “real” UGC games, since you can’t just build whatever you want? If we assume they at least get an honorable mention, then the first game in this genre would be Utopia, released on the Intellivision back in 1982 (yes, even before the first “true” UGC title, Pinball Construction Set). This multiplayer game had two players build up cities on adjacent islands to see who can be more successful. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/daaba0c0f202bd757d161302f933b1fb2f7d6cd3.jpg What do you do when you literally run out of room on the cartridge before implementing any sort of opponent AI? Just cl...Join Our Closed Beta!Jun 26, 2019 - Community Announcementshttps://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/48336aa4b14ffd92ac7d05c89e27ea1de2d70a52.png Hi! We're back at it again and this time...it's for real. We're happy to announce The Endless Mission will soon be entering into a closed beta and we'd like you to be a part of it. SIGN UP HERE We want to connect with you and begin testing the various features, tools, stories, and elements throughout the game. Some times we'll ask what you think about certain sections, while other times we'll be looking at the entire game from top to bottom. We'll explain more about that as the process goes on. For right now, we need to learn a bit more about you so our testing can be as complete as possible. If you've been selected for the first round, you'll be getting more updates from us soon! If you're not, don't worry! We're going to be steadily increasing the size of the closed beta as we get closer and closer to our Early Access Launch (the number of beta participants will be determined by the number of eligible respondents). Thanks again and we can't wait to share what we've been working on with you! ~ The Endless Mission Team p.s. We encourage you to share this survey with friends that might be interested as well. You can do so with this link. To request a spot in the Closed Beta, please complete the following steps: Follow this link to Sign Up Fill out the Sign Up Form completely and accurately by Thursday, June 27th @ 11:59p PST If accepted, you'll hear from us with further instructions at the email address you provided during the sign up process The Endless Mission and the History of UGC, Part 5Jun 20, 2019 - Community Announcementshttps://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/bd86d9be88181b1a0a2867800aea52693c53ce6f.png Hey there, creators! Who’s hungry for some Mods? https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/0d19d29dce759d5945ae023c25bda8141d1da782.jpg Our investors didn’t appreciate it when we told them our plan to “get more dough” was to start a pizza business Wait… That’s not the kind of Mod we’re talking about today? Uh… hold on a sec… Mod Pizza MOD Pizza is a fast casual pizza restaurant chain based in the United States. Founded in Seattle, Washington, in 2008, MOD has more than 400 locations in the United States and United Kingdom. MOD is a company that is claimed by its owners to be "more about the people than the pizza" and to focus on paying living wages and providing employees with opportunities to give back to the community. Game Mods We’ve been looking at a lot of games (and software) that are entirely focused on letting users create new content, but not every game is like that, of course. Many games are all about playing through a perfectly crafted experience, and thus don’t have room to allow users to create whatever absurd things they can think of. There’s nothing wrong with this approach, but it can lead to players wanting… more. And thus mods are born. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/a4d82b7f233763b432508509f33d69063c908a0b.jpg As the old saying goes: Lack of Thomas the Tank Engine in Skyrim is the Mother of Invention Game mods are any sort of alteration created by users that change how a game plays. As such, game mods can easily be seen as a variation on the more traditional styles of UGC we’ve been discussing in previous weeks. There are many, many different kinds of mods out there, and to try and cover them all would be an exercise in futility. Some merely exist to patch bugs or make gameplay fixes that the original developers did not do. Others add new content to preexisting games, from new weapons and items to entire campaigns. Others still simply replace assets in the game with different ones, either to upgrade the graphics of the game piece by piece or to allow for completely absurd scenarios, like the infamous “Really Useful Dragons” mod pictured above. There are even mods that dig into the game’s code to find and restore content that was removed by the original developers… sometimes for good reason. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32524713/496d3fe6ecff974aa9ca924ff29b846e322553df.jpg Pic Unrelated Some companies don’t like it when users mod their games - adding a new overpowered weapon that only you have to an online multiplayer game, for instance, is generally frowned upon - but many others, such as Valve and Bethesda, embrace the modding community with open arms. Needless to say, this has resulted in mods becoming an indisputable and massively influential part of the gaming community. For the purposes of...
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