Update 1.2

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Hello everyone! Curtis here with DBS to give all of you an update on what we have been up to. Last weekend we had a great time at the Palmetto Regional. We wanted to thank everyone that came by our booth to play Catalyst 2013 and talk with us! This weekend we will be hanging out with those of you attending the New York City Regional at the Javits Center! We will have our booth setup tomorrow and Saturday for everyone to come by and play a “special” version of Catalyst 2013. (More on the “special” version later!) Next weekend we will be down at the Peachtree Regional but we won’t have a booth (sorry!). Instead, we will be there to enjoy the competition and brainstorm about future versions of Catalyst ;-)

 

An update to Catalyst is coming! We have been working hard to make several changes to the gameplay to make it more fun including better driving controls, better performance, and fixed several bugs. We have also updated the game to reflect recent changes in Ultimate Ascent’s real rules. One really exciting change that we have been working on is the addition of a brand new robot that some of you might have seen before:

Ri3D

That’s right! We have been working closely with iR3 to make their Robot in Three Days robot and add it as a drivable robot in the game! We are very excited about this collaboration and look forward to seeing what you guys think about our addition of real robots in Catalyst 2013. Now, I know the first question is going to be, “can you put our robot in the game too?!” so let me go ahead and address it. For us to add a real robot into our game, we have to go through a bit of a process with the owners of that robot. This is a process that we do not mind doing, but would simply be impossible for us to do with every team in FRC. We do want to add more of team’s robots in our game for everyone in the FIRST community to drive, but we will need to limit it. When we are ready to announce how this selection process will work, we will let you guys know. Until then, please let us know what you think about adding real robots in Catalyst by posting here at our blog, or by emailing us at Support@DBSgames.net!

 

All of these changes will be available this weekend at our booth at the NYC Regional. If everything goes smoothly, we will roll out these changes in an official update for everyone to enjoy. Be sure to follow us on twitter @DBS_Games and on Facebook to see how this weekend goes.

 

Thanks for reading and good luck to the teams competing this weekend!

Curtis Todd

CEO/Lead Programmer

Diamond Bullet Studios

Update 1.01

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Hey teams,

I am very happy to announce that our first update is FINALLY available. All you have to do to get the update is run the game while connected to the internet and the game will prompt you to download and install it.

I also want to apologize for the delay. Days after Kickoff, two of our key developers felt they needed to leave the project. Their decision to leave was mainly because of their time management. Of course, we wish both of them the best of luck with their future projects. Unfortunately, transitioning them out, rebalancing work loads, and then starting the process to look for new people, took a bit more out of us than we would have liked. Enough of this, let’s move on to the update!

You can find the full list of changes on here   on our forums. I just want to elaborate on some of the changes and give you a sense of where we are headed.

  1. Walking Tall – Knowing the game early has its benefits and its drawbacks. Throughout the course of Catalyst 2013′s development we received several iterations of the Ultimate Ascent rules. Somewhere along the way, we overlooked the new height requirements that made it into the final rules before kickoff. We have adjusted Walking Tall slightly so that it is now legal but still plays almost exactly the same as it did before; pick discs up, drive right in front of your goals, lift up the elevator, and shoot the discs. Walking Tall can still score in every goal with relative ease.
  2. Controls – I apologize for the mass confusion on the controls for the game. We will continue to improve the quality of the menus and the controls explanation as we work towards the game’s commercial release. For this update, we revamped the controls menu to decrease confusion for all players and made it easy to access when you most need it. We have also ensured that all of our controls work as described in the controls menu including Driver/Operator and Tank controls, Walking Tall’s keyboard lower elevator button, etc.
  3. Fouls – We have enabled some fouls. More fouls will be added as updates come out. Again, check the official list of changes to see which fouls made it in this update.
  4. Robots start with discs! – For anyone who posted their high scores on the forums, it is time to get back to work! Robots now start with the highest number of discs that they can hold (max at 3).

If you have any questions or comments feel free to email us or post on our forums.

Thank you for your continued support and good luck, teams!

Curtis Todd

BETA Progress!

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Hey teams!

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has so far downloaded Catalyst 2013 and supplied us with feedback! We are just a few days in and we have received some great feedback for us to begin improving the game.

We want to take a minute to let everyone know the details behind how we will be handing our updates for the BETA. You can expect most updates to arrive on Sundays. The majority of us at DBS are in college, and we are returning to class this week. Sunday updates will allow us to be able to thoroughly test updates on the weekends to insure that the changes we made will alleviate problems and not cause new ones.

Thanks to everyone on our forums and on Chief Delphi, we know a good number of the issues with the current build of the game. Here is just a few of the fixes and improvements that you can expect in the first update due for release this Sunday, the 18th (EDIT: 20th)

-More obvious control directions (on menu and in game)

-Scoring fixes

-Adding penalties

-Tank drive and driver/operator fix for joysticks

-Match sound effects

-Make “Walking Tall” meet the legal height requirements

-Other Misc. bug fixes

Another thing that we wanted to address is the topic of when, where, and how will we be releasing 2013′s commercial version. We do have a plan, but are not quite ready to announce it publicly. We are looking into other development opportunities with other platforms but it is simply too early for us to announce anything as of yet. One thing that teams should keep in mind, is that Catalyst 2013 is in BETA, and all BETAs come to an end. Last year, we released Catalyst 2012 with very strict DRM so that only one copy of the game could be played per team. We received a lot of feedback on this and we wanted to do something different this year. We released Catalyst 2013 to teams in BETA form so that we could get constant feedback as we work on the game and to make it more convent for teams during the build season. We will announce ahead of time when teams can expect for the BETA to end and when they can expect Catalyst 2013′s final release date. We will do our very best to schedule the end of the BETA at a time that is most convenient for teams, and you can rest assured that it will not be anytime in the next few weeks. If you have any comments or questions about this, please do not hesitate to leave a message here on the blog or mention it in our forums.

Thank you for your continued feedback and patience as we work through these problems. We are working hard to provide you with the most fun and useful game that we can!

Happy build season everyone!

-Chris Zeigler

It’s Official!

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The hard work is about to pay off! Everything is in motion for Catalyst 2012 to be released on December 20 of this year! We have worked long and hard to make sure that we provide a quality product that positively reflects FIRST.

As a company, we are passionate about spreading the name of FIRST, and making FIRST more mainstreamed. We believe that this product has the potential to revolutionize how people outside of the FIRST community view FIRST.

However, we cannot do it alone, we need your help!

When Catalyst 2012 is released on the Xbox 360 Indie Games Marketplace, we need everyone to download, rate positively, and spread the word about the availability of the game.

We want this game to be in the top downloads on Christmas day in order to maximize the spotlight on FIRST. We also hope that this product becomes a great recruiting tool for teams. Use this game, and future versions of Catalyst, in creative ways that promote the message of FIRST, maximize the effectiveness of teams, or even create brand new robotics teams.

For a look at our trailer for Catalyst 2012, follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBg8QlAP2Eo. Be sure to share it on Facebook and Twitter!

We really do believe in this product’s potential, and we cannot wait to see how you all use this game to promote FIRST!

Continue looking on this site for more information!

Much love to our fans,

-Chris Zeigler

From PC to Console

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Hello all! I hope that everyone has had an incredibly fun season, and is gearing up for Championships!

Diamond Bullet Studios is excited to announce that we are currently in talks with FIRST to bring Catalyst 2012 to the Xbox 360! We are very excited about the potential this game has make FIRST more mainstream and how it can expose FIRST to next generation team members. Development is well underway and we will have a playable demo of the game running on the Xbox 360 at Championships, so come by our booth in the supplier showcase to check it out! We will also have information at our booth about how you can help give FIRST and us an awesome presence on Xbox Live for millions to see. If you can’t make it, but want to know how things are going and get a heads up on any further developments/announcements, feel free to follow us on Twitter (@DBS_Games) and on Facebook (www.facebook.com/DiamondBulletStudios). We will have more information about Catalyst 2012 for the Xbox 360, including new features, soon so stay tuned!

We look forward to seeing you in St. Louis!
Chris Zeigler

“Empire State of Mind”

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Hello all!

We are hoping that each team has had a very successful build season, and first two weeks of competition. We have been hard at work on TWO different games (and business taxes…)!

This year, we were not set up to be able to get this out to many events, but we wish to be able to be represented at more regional events in the future!

We did want to let the FIRST community know that we are excited to announce that Diamond Bullet Studios will be represented at the New York City Regional this weekend! We will have a booth in between the FRC and FLL fields just inside the door! Curtis Todd and I are planning on arriving early afternoon on Friday. So late in the day tomorrow, come and check us out if you are planning to attend this weekend!

Also, we would like to gauge interest for a tournament this weekend for Catalyst 2012. If we have enough people, we would be happy to set up a tournament of some sort!

Please keep looking to us for updates! We are working on a few different products that we think the FIRST community will really enjoy! Unfortunately, we are not allow to disclose this quite yet!

Good luck to everyone in competition!
-Chris Zeigler

P.S. We discovered that there was a problem with posting comments on the blog. Since our first two blog posts, we have found a way to make them work, so feel free to post comments!

We Really Do Listen!

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Since kickoff less than a week ago, teams have worked hard analyzing ideas for how to play the game. We at DBS have also been working hard as we have been perusing your comments and questions about our game. We are doing our best to improve our game and its distribution, and we appreciate all of the feedback we have received so far that has helped improve our game.

Looking back, it appears the majority of the issues we have been facing have been with teams who are unable to download and install the game. In response to this, we are moving the download server, and we are offering an all in one installer. With this installation method, teams will download a zip folder that contains all of the game’s installation files. Teams will unzip the download and then run the Setup.exe to install the game. We still advise teams to be connected to the internet when installing so that the installer can download any other prerequisites needed to run the game. These should help streamline the downloading process and reduce the number of errors when installing. For the hundreds of teams that have already downloaded and installed the game, the update will be detected automatically. All you have to do is start up the game and it will inform you that the update is available. Only the files changed since the last version will be downloaded, so it should be a very quick update.

We have fixed several bugs and added a few features with this update as well. Typing capital P’s and Q’s has been fixed you can now use the Caps Lock when typing on the login screen of the game. Per request, full screen is enabled. When the game is first installed, the game will default to full screen. You can toggle full screen by pressing escape on the keyboard or start on the controller once you have logged in as a guest or as a team. Once the pause menu is showing, click on the full screen check box to change the state. The changes, as it explains on the menu, will go into effect the next time you open the game. The music and sound can now be turned on and off independently.

The next part of the update concerns fixing scoring bugs. These resulted as a miscommunication between FIRST and us during the game’s development. Three balanced robots on your alliance’s bridge are now worth 40 points, and autonomous scoring is now +3 instead of x2.

Next, we have fixed a number of issues with the game crashing unexpectedly. The game no longer crashes when the window loses focus. This means you can be playing the game in full screen and then alt-tab to switch programs and then return to the game without issues. Note: When the game loses focus in windowed mode (not full screen), and then focus is returned to the game, the game window will begin to “twitch” periodically. This is a Microsoft XNA issue that has yet to be resolved and there is nothing we can do at the moment to fix the problem. Again, this is not a problem when playing in full screen.

We have made some adjustments to how we digitally sign the software. Hopefully, this will make the difference for those who are having issues with Norton Antivirus thinking that the game is harmful. As a reminder to anyone still having these issues after the update goes live, you can also manually add Catalyst 2012 to Norton’s trusted software list and this should also solve the problem. Please let us know if you are still having antivirus issues with running the game and we will continue to find a solution.

These effects will go into effect later tonight! We appreciate all of your feedback thus far as we have been working hard to provide a useful tool for teams to use.

-Chris Zeigler