It’s been a few weeks in the works, but it’s finally here – the new release 2018.0.6752 of Masters of Puzzle is now live on Steam. You’ll have to restart the Steam client to get the update and start enjoying the new features. Speaking of which, there are a lot of new things available for you in this version. Take a look at the most important ones:

• Gameplay: A new player control for grabbing multiple puzzle tiles together is now available. To use it, hold the Shift key and click the Left Mouse Button on a tile as usual. This will result in all puzzle tiles in a certain radius around that central tile to be picked up together as if in a fist. You can then move them around in a group and drop them anywhere you like. All puzzle tiles will retain their original position and rotation during this operation
• Gameplay: New Audio Manager playback system has been added to the game. The playback list is currently limited to a single compilation of 9 tracks by the composer Konstantin Popov bringing you more than 30 minutes of wonderful music
• Gameplay: New Inspection Lens Connector Arm game item is now in the scene. It is attached to the puzzle model contraption and is fully animated. Its motion will now control the Inspection Lens game item and provide more realism to the game
• Gameplay: The Inspection Lens can now be safely moved even if the puzzle model is not currently in close inspection mode
• Interface: New audio options menu with 3 options – mute audio, music volume, and SFX volume – is now available. These are directly linked to the audio manager and playback system and will allow you to adjust it to your liking
• Interface: New standard GUI controls for the audio playback (play, stop, forward, rewind, repeat, shuffle) are also available. These are temporarily located inside the top action bar in the game scene and will allow you to control the music as any standard player. The entire component will be expanded with more functionality and most probably moved to its own location in the next release
• Interface: The game options can now be reset to their default values using the corresponding button now available in the Options GUI
• Framework: Implemented a new algorithm for packing the puzzle tiles into the puzzle box at the game start so that their mesh colliders don’t overlap. This should prevent some sporadic issues like exploding tiles or tiles being pushed outside the playing area
• Framework: Implemented a new detection algorithm that will sweep at game load time any puzzle tiles currently outside the playing area and put them back into the puzzle box. In case you’ve been missing puzzle tiles, load your game again and check for them in the box
• Framework: Implemented a collision check detection for puzzle tiles and groups while attempting to put them down. It will no longer be possible to put down a tile or a group of tiles if they intersect any other interactable object
• Bugfix: Fixed a bug where a puzzle tile group might get broken apart if moved inside the open puzzle box

This is now all, however, so make sure to check the full release notes here. We’ll be happy to hear what you think about it in the comments.

Upcoming Features

This release focused mainly on providing the first in-game music and many gameplay improvements. The next one will contain some very cool things like the fully functional puzzle tile containers, puzzle tile browsing controls, and a new game item we’ll reveal a bit later. Stay tuned for more and keep an eye on our public roadmap.

Hotfix Update 2018.0.6753

Unfortunately, few bugs managed to sneak into the last update, so we had to chase and destroy them. The hotfix addresses the following identified issues and even adds one new functionality you will enjoy:

• Gameplay: A new player control for detaching puzzle tiles from the puzzle mat or a puzzle tile group is now available. To use it, hold the Ctrl key and click the Left Mouse Button on the tile you want to detach. It will be removed from its location and picked up. If it was part of a group, that group will be dissolved and the game will attempt to link any remaining tiles that are still in contact with each other (thus resulting in 0 or more new puzzle tile groups).
• Bugfix: Fixed a bug where puzzle tiles might remain parented to the puzzle box even if previously taken out of it. This would, in turn, prevent linking them to other puzzle tiles or the puzzle mat.
• Bugfix: Fixed a bug where puzzle tiles placed already on the mat might be picked up together with free tiles with the new grab functionality.
• Bugfix: Fixed a bug where puzzle tiles positioned on the mat (free or already set) might be swept falsely by the new clean up process and put back into the puzzle box.
• Bugfix: Fixed a bug where puzzle tiles taken from the puzzle box will remain with disabled linkage triggers. This was preventing such tiles from being linked to other tiles or the puzzle mat until the game was saved and then loaded.

If you find anything else, we’ll appreciate it if you let us know. Enjoy playing!