I've spent the last several weeks catching up on this project because I've been away from it for so long.  But I'm determined to get it on itch, downloadable, and playable.  

Map Editor

The map editor is working reasonably well.  I'll just need to write some documentation on how to use it correctly for the game.  

It'll be a separate downloadable app via itch.io.  You'll point it destination of the installation of the main game and it'll pick up all the necessary assets needed to start building a map.  From that point on you can click, drag & drop, rotate, and snap items into place.  This includes spawn points and flag placeholders.

Networking

I finally switched from TCP to UDP and the gameplay is noticeably smoother over the network.  I'm very happy with it so far.

Unity 2021

Most of the game was written in Unity 2018.  I slowly moved things to 2019 last year and somewhat dreaded upgrading to 2021 for fear of everything that would break.  But now both the map editor and primary game are in Unity 2021 LTS.  And I plan on staying up to date going forward.

Holding Pens

Holding pens were a pain.  And I was never too clear on the purpose of them.  After some thought, I decided to scrap them and just let the player enter a "spectating" view mode while they're waiting to respawn.  Other games implement this concept.

Play Test

Here's a clip of a recent play test using the awesome bouncies.  The quality on this video don't do the game justice.  I titled it "Meatballz" because the predecessor to this game had a map/game mode where an endless stream of bouncy lasers filled the screen.