M.A.S.S. Builder, A Fully Customizable Mecha Action Game

WIP: New close combat weapon stance
over 4 years ago – Sat, Dec 28, 2019 at 01:19:28 AM

Greetings to you all in this holiday season, we do hope you have a great time whether you're sitting back at home with your family or traveling anywhere to have fun. On our side, we're happy that you all had a good time playing M.A.S.S. Builder, and that you'll continue to be along for the ride in the next year with us.

Now, we also have something to show you for the next update that will be coming in February. As we're working towards upgrading close combat, we'd like to show some new weapon stances that are coming. Hope you are as excited as us!

WIP: Small update on Tuning System
over 4 years ago – Sat, Dec 21, 2019 at 11:23:40 PM

Hello everyone! Today we're showing a part of a system we're working on. With how we are adding new development nodes into the game for newer systems, we will include techs that will transform how your shields and close combat works! 

We're also working on a sorting system that could help players easily look through all the development nodes they have and select ones that they wanted. We hope this will improve the Quality of Life for everyone.

Join early access now: https://bit.ly/2vcipiZ

Post 0.2.0 Update Manifesto
over 4 years ago – Sat, Dec 14, 2019 at 01:00:07 AM

So, how was the 0.2.0 patch, and the hotfixes until 0.2.4 where we finally added a timer skip button? We'd like to apologize for all the troubles this new version has caused, and we'll be trying to improve further on things like scheduling out a patch with more time to test things out. Now, to get into what's coming next for the game, we'd like to discuss with you all on the development plans we are thinking about.

First, getting it out here, from our expectations, it'll be a February patch instead of a January patch. With the last patch breaking more things than expected, we would like to ask for more time to develop and flesh out some bugs before we release. This is why we're telling you straight here that we'll delay the January Patch towards February instead, but we'll try to make it FEBRUARY. We do hope you can understand our decision to do this.

Well, all bad news aside, what can you expect from 0.3.0?

- MORE BUG FIXES: Of course there are still bugs in the game that we'd like to see fixed. However, we do think they can wait until version 0.3.0 as to not hamper our development plan and make us delay the patch further, thus there will not be a 0.2.4 unless a critical bug appears.

- MORE BALANCE UPDATES: We're looking through feedbacks to see how are the tuning nodes as well as weapons being used, and how some of the things don't seem appealing to use (even though some of them are extremely potent) and to how we can have our players "try" using them in various circumstances and get a feel of how beneficial something is in a specific situation.

- MORE Stories and Hunting Grounds mission: We're continuing our story line and adding more missions into the game. The feedback for both Logistics Obstacles and Wrath of the Wastelands was great, and we'll try to keep the momentum going on our level design!

- Close Combat Animations and Mechanics Rework: We'll be introducing new animations and more dynamic combos into the game alongside some mechanics and buttons rework. While we're not ready to show them now, we'd like to ask you to wait a few weeks and you'll get to see them in action with further details!

To further explain on this, we are experimenting on some functionalities and control schemes that might bring us closer to something that was much requested by our players. However, they are still experimental and we do not know if we can weave the functionalities into our core gameplay without making our controls too confusing. This also ties to the next thing topic which is...

- Dual Wielding Close Combat Weapons and Shield System: Dual wielding is coming at last, and we're also slapping an active shield system alongside the thing. Now One-Handed close combat weapons will be able to utilize a shield to defend as well as gain more utility benefits when using one.

This will be the first phase of the shields update and we'll be experimenting a lot with how they're used and adjust accordingly in order to bring out an active shield system that can fit in many use cases.

- Player Decals set 1: We are almost ready to show your creations to everyone else playing M.A.S.S. Builder. There's nothing much to say here except thank you for your contribution!

New Update 0.2.0 Release!
over 4 years ago – Thu, Dec 05, 2019 at 07:03:40 PM

Finally, the new updates 0.2.0 has arrived, later by a few days than expected. We've added some new things to the patch notes released a few weeks before so please check out this new and summarized patch notes down here!

Thank you for waiting and having faith in us. Please have fun in this new updates!

Patch Notes

New features
- New Firing type: Spread Bullet Shooter
- New Firing type: Ray Energy Shooter
- New Armor set: Kaiser armor set (3 Variants)
- New Feature Photography Mode
- Two new story missions
- New Boss
- Unlocked Tier 3 Nodes
- Added FPS limitation options (Default at Unlimited)
- Quarks will have a more dynamic behavior and attack patterns as well

Improvement
- Added 3 new transition patterns for Close Combat to smoothen gameplay
- Players can now boost away easier from enemies to dodge attacks
- New main hangar
- When exiting from armor menu, camera will not reset anymore
- New level design concepts
- Improvement of some NPC sprites
- Improvement of Boss Quarks visual effects
- Every boss fight will now have a magazine/energy cell spawn point

Change
- Added a small delay to jumps
- Changed droplist of some stages to accomodate new armors
- Reworked the tutorial stage
- Adjustments on All nodes for Shields, Shields Recovery, and Armor Values
- Adjustments on Tech nodes for POWER-focused techs
- Adjustments on WEIGHT effects on Fuel Burn Rate and Attack Speed
- Adjustments on names and wordings to lower confusion
- Adjustments on default materials for development tutorial
- Adjustments on a lot of Sound Effects
- Higher difficulties will now result in better drops
- Higher difficulties will now be more difficult as well
- Changed fuel consumption, players can now boost for longer duration

Bug Fix
- Fixed icon to correctly show M.A.S.S. Builder Icon
- Fixed lots of minor bugs
- Fixed game crashing by GPU due to uncapped FPS
- Fixed item drops floating in mid-air
- Fixed unable to shoot after interacting with an object

Patch updates announcement
over 4 years ago – Sat, Nov 30, 2019 at 01:28:15 AM

Hello everyone, today, we're sorry to announce that the November patch has been postponed. We know that this might disappoint you who're waiting for the patch to come in November, but to speak frankly, we were not able to finish every feature up to our standard. We do not want to release an incomplete build and have you be disappointed with them so forgive us when we have chosen to delay the patch by a few days.

To talk about it, one main thing that we need another week to work on is the two variants of the Kaiser armor set. We first thought we'll release a patch with one variant in November if we're not able to finish it, but we felt it would not be satisfying for our players. M.A.S.S. Builder thrives on the armor sets and customization so we'd like it to be as complete as possible here.

We also would like to at least complete our vision of the new level designs and the new boss. This is something that was explored late into the patch development, but from discussions with you in the discord and through our social media presence, we learned that you liked them and there were some suggestions we immediately added into the feature since we just started working on it. You can see some things we've added for combat, level designs, environmental effects, and etc. in the images below.

One final thing that we decided to change is our hangar. We wanted to give it more camera controls so players can look at their creation from all angles. Please have a look at this screenshot, it should be able to explain more than our texts.

It was a hard decision to make but we hope you can all understand that we'd like you all to have the best experience in both parts of our creation, the customization and the gameplay itself. If we are able to finish the update early, we will notify everyone and release it ASAP but for now, please expect the patch to be updated on December 5th.