It’s time for a new major release of Masters of Puzzle designated as 2018.0.6856. This time we focus on performance and quality improvements rather than big new features. While the importance of new additions to the game cannot be denied, performance is also a very critical aspect and we plan to work on it on a regular basis. That being said, this release also prepares the way for our Halloween 2018 event which will start in the next few weeks.

We will talk in greater detail about the major improvements below, but before that let’s take a look at the summary of new features:

• Framework: Added support for Post-Processing effects to the game
• Framework: Added framework and GUI support for purchasable puzzle boxes
• Framework: Migrated to Unity 2018.3. This comes with a huge number of engine improvements so make sure to check the official Unity site for more information
• Gameplay: Changed the Physics engine settings in order to improve performance especially with a higher number of puzzle tiles. Note that this is still a very much work in progress and we will do further improvements in future releases
• Visuals: Added anti-aliasing and ambient occlusion post-processing effects with more to come in later releases
• Interface: Improved quite a lot the carousel widget in the game selection GUI. This is now used by both collections and their puzzle boxes as well as by the saved games selection
• Interface: Implemented functionality for dragging and resizing GUI panels. This is currently used by the image preview panels during the creation of a new game

You can find the full release notes on our website here.

New Artists & Purchasable Content

We are happy to share that recently we started work with several talented artists who are creating illustrations for brand new puzzle boxes in a variety of styles. You will see the first of these during the Halloween event but more will become available after that as well. These puzzle boxes will not be available for free though and you will have the option to acquire them for a modest amount both from within the game and the Steam store. The purchasable puzzle boxes also come with some additional benefits. While we are not ready to discuss all of them just yet, one of these will be the unlocked puzzle tilesets of 1500 and 2000 tiles.

Post-Processing Effects

Improving the visual quality of the game is currently a side task, but not without its own importance. Therefore we decided to spend some effort in that direction. In this release, provided you have the proper hardware for it, you will see the new anti-aliasing and ambient occlusion effects. Both of these are currently bound to the quality settings you pick at the start of the game and cannot be adjusted directly but in the next release, we will provide you with specialized video options where you will be able to customize your desired video quality. For now, this is the relationship chart of the new effects:

• Medium quality: anti-aliasing disabled, ambient occlusion disabled
• High quality: anti-aliasing set to FXAA, ambient occlusion disabled
• Very high quality: anti-aliasing set to SMAA, ambient occlusion enabled
• Ultra quality: anti-aliasing set to TAA, ambient occlusion enabled

Future work in this area includes the addition of more post-processing effects, improved and more realistic lighting, improved shaders using the new Unity Shader Graph, and more.

Known Issues

• The puzzle model inspections lens can get its parts detached if you move it too fast around the model. This should not prevent you from using it, but if you want to reassemble it simply save and load the current game.
• If you are loading a very old saved game (especially the Belfast puzzle) the puzzle tiles might “explode” in a shower. This is due to the changed size of the puzzle tiles in the recent builds which causes them to appear in overlapping positions when you load old saved games and thus forcing the physics engine to push them apart. This should happen only the first time you load such a game. Just wait for the tiles to get to rest then save and re-load the game. Any tiles that might have accidentally left the game board will be returned back into the puzzle box.