Open BETA has started
almost 6 years ago – Mon, May 07, 2018 at 09:35:49 PM

Today we have opened the gates for free users.

So if you have friends, who are still undecided whether to join DUNGEONFOG  - now is their chance to test it for free!

Let's get things rolling!

For every startup it is most important to broaden its audience. So as we are going to promote DUNGEONFOG more extensively in the next weeks, we would be honored if you would assist us.

How? Every little gesture helps! Maybe you can:

• Share your best maps by putting them public,
• Tell your friends about the Open BETA,
• Post about us in your favorite forum,
• Use the share feature to post a map on social media,
• And as always: Give us feedback and help us improve the tools!

I thank you very much in advance!

Next update after RPC Germany

There are some cool news waiting to released, once we return from the RPC Germany this weekend, so stay tuned!

Let the dice roll!
Till

Update Wall Segments, Hide Walls & New Tool: Shapes
about 6 years ago – Thu, May 03, 2018 at 12:02:27 AM

We asked you, what features we should focus on next and your answer was clear:
More stuff for the map editor!

Today we have applied a new update to the editor, that covers the first draft of the features, that you have requested.

Select and edit wall segments

You can now select wall segments and edit them:

• Split wall segments
  When you select a wall segment you can split it and thus create new anchor points
• Select, move and delete anchor points
  By clicking on an anchor point, you can select, move and delete that point.
• Hide wall segment
  You can select wall-segments and hide them to connect rooms or create passages.

This brings the editor to a complete new level of flexibility and we can't wait to see what you are going to create with those new options! 

Now that we have the technical means to address wall segments, we are going to continue with the other requested features that are related to that. So stay tuned for the next update.

Shapes

There is also another new feature, that we have implemented: Shapes.

To give you some insight:

We were extremely unhappy with the things that you can/can't do with the walls tool when it comes down to all the different variations of room types and their effects on the GM-Notes or Viewer. 

So we revisited the tool and started to apply some core changes with the hopes to be more flexible in the end. Being able to edit the inner and outer walls, as well as the advanced room mode were part of that workover.

But there was still one room mode that was just not performing as we wanted it to be: "Room without walls". 

No matter how we adjusted this mode, it always lead to an extremely high number of problems. Just to name a few:

• A room without a wall does not work well with adjacent walls. 
• A room without a wall does not fit "into" another room properly. 
• A room without a wall causes a lot of problems when used as an element of decoration once you start the viewer. 

Here is a good example of how a room without a wall looks, opposed to how it SHOULD look:

Now, here is the question we asked ourselves:

What IS a room without a wall? 
Or to ask a highly philosophical question: If a room has no walls - is it still a room?

We looked at some examples, where rooms without walls were used in DUNGEONFOG:

• They were used as patios. 
• They were used as raised or lowered platforms. 
• They were used as bases/pedestals. 
• They were even used to create stairs. 

All those use-cases are PART of a room somehow, but not a room itself.
A patio could be part of the STAGE. A platform or pedestal is most likely part of a room. And so on. But all those "rooms" were basically used as props.

So we came up with the following answer:

• A room is a space that is contained by walls or the remnants of such.
• A space that has intentionally no walls at all, should not be classified as a room, but as a decoration element.

Adding shapes, should gives you even more flexibility when it comes down to the variety of different spaces and objects. Having the possibility to hide wall segments deepens this flexibility too. And both new options work a lot better with the GM-Notes and the Viewer.

I am excited to see how you are going to work with this new tool in the future and we will see if we were finally able to tame that beast once and for all, or if we will need more adjustments in the future.

Open BETA & RPC Germany 2018

From May 12th to 13th we will be at the RPC Germany in Cologne and we want to use this occasion to celebrate the launch of the upcoming Open BETA. So right now, we are spending every minute on the final preparations for this event.

This means, that all of us are currently juggling a lot of things simultaneously and other things are coming short. So please excuse if there are going to be unannounced content patches, hot fixes or server downtime in the next few days and that support requests might be answered with a delay, while we shape everything up for the convention. I am also aware, that I am behind on patchnotes in the forum and I ask for your patience. Everything will get back in order, once we return from Cologne.

What does Open BETA mean? We are going to open the gates for Free Accounts soon.
Everybody will be able to create a free account by by signing up on our website and will be able to test DUNGEONFOG for free.

There are going to be some restrictions to free accounts:

• You can only create 3 maps
• You only have access to a selection of 20 Props and Textures 
• You only have 25MB of Cloud Storage
• Maps can only exported without Grid and with a watermark 
• We are currently evaluating, if we want to add ads for free accounts

For more information, you can visit https://www.dungeonfog.com/pricing/ to see a comparison of the different account types.

Let the dice roll!
Till

New Update is now live
about 6 years ago – Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 07:25:23 PM

I just wanted to let you know that the new interface is now live!

Watch the video below to get a first impression:

New Features

We have implemented many new features, but there are some, I think that deserve to be pointed out:

Advanced Room-Mode

The advance room mode allows you to adjust every element of a room, starting from the outlines down to the inner and outer wall textures. If you want to play around with the advanced room mode, you can find it under "wall types" once you select a room.

Render props above walls

We have implemented an option that allows you to render props above walls.

1 Gigabyte Cloud Storage

We have updated your cloud storage, so you will now have 1GB of storage space.

More to be announced soon

We have also updated a many of our core functionalities and fixed some bugs that were long overdue. A detailed list of all updates, bugfixes and features will be released as always in our forum, once we have finished our work.

Victorian Horror Setting

We have also released the first part of our third setting: Victorian Gothic Horror!

 You can find them in the asset library in the settings, labeld as "Victorian".

Website updates

We are now in the process of updating the public areas of our website, so please bear with us, if not all pages are available in the next couple of hours – until we have finished the overhaul.

As always: Don't forget to clear you cache and let uns know if you come across any bugs!

Let the dice roll!
Till

New Interface Coming On Monday 19:00 CET
about 6 years ago – Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 12:47:56 PM

I apologize for the late update!
We have been pushing hard on new features and collected a ton of them for the upcoming week - but some of them still need to be reviewed by me and I sincerely wish I could clone myself to be faster.

The first patch is coming on Monday 19:00 CET and will bring the new interface as well as other cool new stuff (see below).

I also wanted to show you, how the survey is performing so far:

We have collected 183 votes so far and it looks like it is going to be the Advanced Editor Features - Rooms.

Here's how you have voted on the priorities in this package:

1) Add curves to walls
2) Select & move rooms
3) Select, move, add & delete room points
4) Change wall-style to straight wall, cave wall or battlements
5) Connect rooms into one room
6) Divide room into separated rooms
7) Hide wall segments
8) Transparency and Hide room floor
9) Advanced room-floor option: Hide floor and show level below

Keep in mind, this vote only helps us to indentify what you are needing the most - so we can address it FIRST. The other packages will follow as well.

If you haven't voted yet, you can still do so until May 1st by visiting the survey once you have logged in.

Upcoming Patches next week

We are in the final preparations for the OPEN BETA and there is a cartload of new stuff waiting to be deployed. To be on the safe side, we will not deploy everything at once, but step by step over the next week, so I can review things properly.

What does this mean for you?

There will be several bigger and smaller updates all over the coming week, including:  

• The new interface (Monday)
• A new advanced room option to make dungeonmode more intuitive (Monday)
  
• The new design styles for the website (Monday & Tuesday)
• German version (Tuesday & Wednesday)
• The first wave of our Victorian asset setting (Tuesday & Wednesday)

And stuff that will be added later that week:

• We will switch to our new cloud storage servers and raise your upload limit to 1GB
  
• We have reworked the "browse" section (still looking for a better name here..) and will open it to public, so everyone can see the cool maps you have created.
• There is going to be a new dashboard for you once you log in
• We will add discord-chat and can't wait to chat with you there!
• We will add a ton of stuff to be prepared for the upcoming GPDR

Once we are finished, we will open the BETA to public so that everyone can create free accounts with limited features (more on that once we are ready for it).

Website updates
Since we have to adjust some of the new website designs on the live servers, we are expecting to break some of our web pages over the update phase on Monday. So please bare with us, if the website is missing some menu items and may look broken in some cases. This should be fixed over the evening and will only affect the public page and not your personal MyDungeonfog areas.

Have a great weekend and let the dice roll!
Till

Improved Editor Interface; We need your input; Meet us at the RPC Germany in May
about 6 years ago – Fri, Apr 06, 2018 at 09:46:07 PM

In the past weeks we have been busy collecting feedback, working on bug fixes and improving the viewer. But we have also secretly been working on something that I want to reveal today:

The new improved editor interface

I spent the past couple of months collecting feedback, analyzing workflows and watching closely to how you use the tools.

We identified several different types of users, with two types standing out:

• Casual map creators who just want to quickly draw a map and tend to have less need for complex features (or are easily scared or confused by such).
• Advanced editors, who thrive for complex options and in depth adjustments for each part of the map and the notes.

So we wanted to create an interface that serves both types without confusing users with less technical experience. 

Today I want to give you a first glance on what is going to be our new interface:

The basic interface for casual map creators:

The advanced interface for those of you who want to go insane on their maps: 

 
But since there is huge range between those two types and you are most likely somewhere in between those two extremes, we made the interface "fluid". 
You can decide yourself how much complexity you need!

Here's a quick animation showing the handling of the interface:

This is a prototype mockup made in Adobe Experience Design that helped us understand the mechanics - so there are definitely going to be adjustments before we put this live, but it should give you a good understanding of where we are heading.

The first thing you might notice is, that we have shifted the toolbar to the right. 
It always bugged me, that the tools and their settings are divided over the full screen. Whenever you wanted to switch a tool and adjust the settings, you had to move the curser all over the place. Now, with the new interface, everything is kept in one place and it saves a lot of time to select the tool and adjust the settings.

We have also took a step back from the "close and move" windows for every toolbar, since one of the most popular feedback from you was, that the toolbars are always covering something on the map. So we decided to change that drastically. With the new interface, everything is kept to the right side of the screen and depending on the tool you can expand that area to go into more advanced options.

We re-evaluated how the layers, levels and notes are used and changed their position and behavior in a way, that you have a lot more control, which panels you need and which panels should be prioritized at the given time.

The asset library is now on a global button, so you can reach it a lot faster.

There are tons of other improvements too, that I will showcase in a video, once the interface has been fully developed. 

We are currently implementing the new interface so that we can collect your feedback with the next upcoming update, which is coming up around April 20th.

We need your input: What would you like to see next?

We are about to finish our work on the viewer-focus week and with the new interface in place will we have reached a point, where we have several options for what to do next.
So I think this would be a good opportunity to ask you directly: What would like to see prioritized in terms of our next development step?

To do so, you can log into your DUNGEONFOG account and go to "Surveys" where this new survey is now live.

RPC Germany 

We are going to be at the RPC Germany in Cologne from May 12 - 13 and we are looking forward to meet you there!

Let the dice roll!
Till