Category Archives: Mayhem Intergalactic

Mayhem Intergalactic v1.2.2 released

Posted on by

Version 1.2.2 is a minor bug-fix release. It is compatible with savefiles from version 1.2.1 (but not from version 1.2.0 or earlier). Similarly, version 1.2.2 clients can play on version 1.2.1 servers and vice versa.

New/changed features

  • Increased maximum length of player name from 15 to 50. (Name will be truncated back to 15 on v1.2.1 servers.)
  • Font size of chat text and battle messages reduced by 20%.

Bugs fixed (all editions)

  • Fixed: Numlock capability was permanently disabled regardless of actual numlock state after a window focus change (alt-tab out and then in).
  • Fixed: When someone in a multiplayer server obtained one of the “kill X enemy ships” achievements, everyone else in the server would too, even observers.
  • Fixed: Typing a ^ character as the first character in a textbox would crash the game.
  • Attempted to handle some networking errors more gracefully
  • Accessing the Options screen during a multiplayer game would crash under certain circumstances.
  • Observers joining multiplayer games could cause the server to forget that players had ended their turn, and hence not progress to the next round (until the turn timer expired).

Bugs fixed (Steam edition)

  • Significantly reduced achievement progress spam
  • Fixed dodgy game timer (was displaying additional hours when set to upwards of 6 minutes).
  • Fixed: The game would crash under certain circumstances when Steam was in offline mode.

Steam customers will receive the update automatically. All other customers are encouraged to upgrade for free.

Late-breaking release note: The Steam edition mistakenly still reports itself to be v1.2.1. If you think you haven’t received the update, try restarting your Steam client and running the game again.

Mayhem Intergalactic v1.2.1 released (+ on Steam!)

Posted on by

Mayhem Intergalactic v1.2.1 is now available, for your enhanced galaxy-smashing experience! Conquer and enjoy.

Those of you who use it will be happy to hear that Mayhem Intergalactic is also now available on Steam, the leading digital distribution service for PC. It’s also 50% off, for one week only, so get it while it’s hot and Steamy!

Despite the fact that this release is numbered 1.2.1 rather than 1.3, it constitutes a sizeable update on top of version 1.2. This version features the new achievements feature, and also includes a wealth of bug fixes and usability enhancements:

New/changed features

  • Achievements! In exchange for completing certain tasks in-game, you will now receive small digital trophies to commemorate those achievements. (Details…)
  • In timed games, a clock of time remaining is now shown.
  • Minor improvements to text rendering.
  • Widescreen rendering improvements to in-game background, ship sending dialogs, and help bubbles.
  • Players now have the ability to surrender in multiplayer games.
  • The game waits and attempts to retry for a short period of time after receiving “Could not bind to port” errors when attempting to host a multiplayer game.
  • Some network errors now quit the game when the loading/connecting screens are displayed.
  • Saved games are now deselected when you type in the saved game name box, to avoid accidentally overwriting old saved games. So that you can prevent your saved game list from getting cluttered, however, there is now also a ‘Delete’ button.
  • Note that v1.2.1 clients are not able to participate in multiplayer with older clients, so everyone is encouraged to upgrade promptly. However, be aware that your old savefiles will no longer work once you upgrade.

Bugs fixed

  • Fixed: When building up a very large convoy (over 4 million ships), the number of ships in the convoy could “wrap around” to 0, causing the loss of 4 million ships. Now, convoy sizes are capped and cannot grow past ~4 million, which is still imperfect but definitely an improvement. (Fix prompted by Danial B.)
  • Fixed: View drags with the right mouse button were also counted as clicks with the right mouse button, which could cause “send ships” dialogs to pop up a lot when you didn’t want them to. Now, the game makes an attempt to differentiate drags from clicks to preven this. View drags with the middle mouse button were not affected. (Reported by Danial B.)
  • Fixed: Music sometimes wouldn’t restart properly when restarting a game.
  • Fixed: Could click through the background fade of the Options screen when in-game.
  • Fixed: Saved games didn’t remember whether the game was a Quick Start game or not.
  • Fixed: Moving the slider on the “set rally point” dialog could cause a crash under certain circumstances.
  • Fixed: Selecting items on lists now works more reliably when lists are scrolled.
  • Fixed: A few rare network errors are now caught and displayed instead of snowballing.
  • Fixed: When a multiplayer game ended and returned to the lobby / setup screen, the chat box would closes and any text in it was erased. This was a usability annoyance. (Reported by Danial B.)
  • Fixed: Modifier keys (ctrl, alt) would sometimes get “stuck on” upon task-switches, causing an inability to type. (Reported by Sinfall.)
  • Fixed: Support for graphics cards which can’t handle textures larger than 1024×1024 has been reinstated.
  • Fixed: The list of saved games is now sorted correctly, even when very old and very new savefiles are present together.

Owners of previous versions are encouraged to upgrade for free. New customers always receive the latest version, and the demo download has also been updated.

Enjoy!

21 Achievements Unlocked: Final achievements line-up for Mayhem Intergalactic 1.2.1

Posted on by

Mayhem Intergalactic 1.2.1 will be released tomorrow (fingers crossed). Before it hits the virtual stands, I thought I’d post a list of the achievements which it will feature, to follow up on the earlier achievements post.

Let me know if there’s a particular achievement you were hoping for that didn’t make the cut, and I’ll see about adding to the list in a future update!

Without further ado, here they are:

Screenshot of the achievements screen.

The achievements screen, displaying an example set of achieved achievements. Achieved achievements are colourful, and unachieved achievements are grey. And yes, fitting this many occurrences of the word achievement into one caption is quite an achievement.

  • First Blood: Win a Quick Start singleplayer game.
  • Natural Intelligence: Win a Quick Start singleplayer game with the AI difficulty set to Highest.
  • Perfect!: Same as Natural Intelligence, but additionally don’t lose any battles.
  • Things Fall Apart: Destroy 1000 enemy ships in a single game.
  • The Center Cannot Hold: Destroy 2500 enemy ships in a single game.
  • The Blood-Dimmed Tide is Loosed: Destroy 5000 enemy ships in a single game.
  • Maker of Multiplayer Mayhem: Win a multiplayer game.
  • Master of Multiplayer Mayhem: Win 10 multiplayer games.
  • Maestro of Multiplayer Mayhem: Win 100 multiplayer games.
  • Vindictive: Destroy 1000 native ships, over multiple games.
  • Bully: Destroy 2500 native ships, over multiple games.
  • Slaver: Destroy 5000 native ships, over multiple games.
  • Freebie: Conquer an undefended enemy planet.
  • Mechanized Intelligence: Use rally points to connect all planets in a Quick Start game into a single network.
  • Prime Directive: Win a game without destroying any native ships.
  • Red Ones Go Faster: Win a game as the red player, taking no more turns than there are planets.
  • There’s No Place Like Home: Keep control of your home world for an entire multiplayer game.
  • Swapsies: Conquer an opponent’s home world, but lose your own home world to that opponent.
  • Famous Last Stand: Defend your last planet from an invader.
  • Am I talking to Miranda now?: Conquer a planet named Miranda.
  • Avalanche: Conquer 5 planets in a single turn.

Check out the awesome icons by Fernando Yi in the screenshot! My personal favourite is the alien wearing a monocle. Fittingly, it’s also the most difficult achievement of the lot.

An alien wearing a monocle. Yes, really.

"I say! Could you spare a moment to direct me to your leader, old chap?"

15 ways to over-achieve in Mayhem Intergalactic 1.2.1

Posted on by

Achievements. If you’re a regular gamer you’ve undoubtedly heard of them, and have probably already earned some. Sometimes they go under a different name, like trophies or badges or accomplishments; but whatever they’re called, they’re essentially the same thing. You complete some specified task in a particular game, and then you get bragging rights in the form of a shiny little graphic with a catchy title.

Well, now that Mayhem Intergalactic is coming to Steam, and since achievements are the Done Thing for Steam games, it’s expected that I add achievements to the game. So I have!

Those of you who didn’t buy the game via Steam will still get the achievements feature. You just won’t be able to show it off on a Steam profile page. But you can still invite your real-life friends over to your house to show them your achievements list and gloat.

Photographic evidence follows:

The title screen now has an Achievements button. Clicking it takes you to...

The title screen now has an Achievements button. Clicking it takes you to...

...the Achievements screen, which lists all of the available achievements and indicates whether you've completed them or not.

...the Achievements screen, which lists all of the available achievements and indicates whether you've completed them or not. (Work-in-progress screenshot.)

The Achievements screen as seen above is still a work in progress. I’ll need to hire an artist soon so that the achievements all have spiffy icons next to them instead of boring coloured squares, and – more importantly – I haven’t yet finalised the list of achievements.

This is where you come in!

I’d like your ideas and feedback on what achievements should be available in the next version of Mayhem Intergalactic.

Here are my current 15 ideas, as seen in the above screenshot:

  • First Blood: Win a Quick Start singleplayer game.
  • Natural Intelligence: Win a Quick Start singleplayer game with the AI difficulty set to Highest.
  • Perfect!: Win a Quick Start singleplayer game with the AI difficulty set to Highest, and without losing any battles. [Editor's note: Yes, this is possible; I've done it. It merely requires patience and a little luck. Or patience plus abuse of the saved game feature.]
  • Things Fall Apart: Destroy 1000 enemy ships in a single game.
  • The Center Cannot Hold: Destroy 2500 enemy ships in a single game.
  • The Blood-Dimmed Tide is Loosed: Destroy 5000 enemy ships in a single game.
  • Maker of Multiplayer Mayhem: Win a multiplayer game.
  • Master of Multiplayer Mayhem: Win 10 multiplayer games.
  • Maestro of Multiplayer Mayhem: Win 25 multiplayer games.
  • Vindictive: Destroy 500 native ships. Cumulative over multiple games.
  • Bully: Destroy 1000 native ships. Cumulative over multiple games.
  • Slaver: Destroy 2000 native ships. Cumulative over multiple games.
  • Freebie: Conquer an undefended enemy planet. Then win the game.
  • Mechanized Intelligence: Use rally points to connect all planets in a Quick Start game into a single network.
  • Prime Directive: Win a game without conquering any native planets.

I’m not especially attached to keeping these the way they are, and some of them are admittedly a little bit boring. I’m sure that if we all put our heads together, we can come up with some much more interesting ones.

Feedback? Suggestions? Please feel free to leave a comment. I take all suggestions seriously, and if your idea is good then it has a better-than-even chance of making it into the game. There’s no limit on how many achievements there can be, so the more the merrier!

Mayhem Intergalactic: Coming soon to a Steam client near you

Posted on by

I am very pleased to announce that Mayhem Intergalactic will soon* be coming to Steam, Valve’s leading digital distribution platform. Hooray!

'Inventive Dingo loves Steam!'

... Get a room, you two.

What does this mean for you?

  • The game will get more exposure, boosting the size of the Mayhem Intergalactic community and hopefully breathing more life into the multiplayer scene.
  • Wider distribution means more sales, which means more money, which will help to fund further Mayhem Intergalactic improvements and the development of Inventive Dingo’s next game.
  • The release of the Steam version will see the addition of new features, such as “achievements”. I’ll make another post about achievements in a couple of days.
  • The new Steam version and the current non-Steam version will be equally supported. All new features and bug fixes will be made available in both versions simultaneously. Existing customers will continue to receive all features and bug fixes in free updates.
  • Remember that beta call from waaaay back? This is why it happened!
    • If you signed up for the beta earlier, you’re probably wondering what happened to it. Never fear; it’s not dead, just resting. I will contact you about it very soon.
    • If you didn’t sign up earlier, it’s still not too late.

* As always, “soon” means “when it’s done”!