Great News, ComicCon, New Servers, Upcoming ALPHA 5
over 6 years ago – Fri, Dec 01, 2017 at 12:34:57 AM

Hi All!  

I know it’s been a while since the last update, so this update will be a bit longer than usual - but trust me - it’s worth it to read, because we have some great news to share:

Vienna Business Agency Grant 2018  

When we founded DUNGEONFOG in early summer this year, we figured, that as a start-up, we could at least try to apply for some of the grants that help founders to get through the first years of business.

So besides smaller grants that help you lay the groundwork for founding a company, we also applied for a big grant that is called creative_project by the Vienna Business Agency. To be honest, we didn’t have the highest hopes for success. There is a lot of competition from bigger and long-established companies from all over Austria.

You can imagine how surprised we were, that we got an invitation to pitch our idea to their jury of experts.

Now, when you think about it, it is kind of funny to picture a group of tabletop enthusiast standing in front of a jury of business and economy experts, trying to explain what tabletop RPGs are and why an authoring tool for game masters would be a huge improvement for their game preparations. But they were open minded and interested. It was still a pitch however and I had the same mixed feelings I used to have when I took a test in school: “Did we pass? Did I say something wrong? I’m sure, I messed up the last answer!”

Last week we received word from the Vienna Business Agency: We are funded!

This means, that we are now able to to move even further past the goals from our initial Kickstarter campaign. We now have the additional funds for 2018 to follow up on development and improvements without being fully dependent on the income of an early launch.

You made it possible to get this project going and I honestly believe that it was your support through Kickstarter that convinced the jury, that there is a need for such a new tool like DUNGEONFOG on the market. Thanks to you we have won this grant and can now grow beyond our idea that you have supported so generously!

ViennaComicCon 2017

Two weeks ago we attended the Vienna ComicCon - for the first time not as a visitor, but as an exhibitor. 

What can I say? It was a blast!

We had two great days of exchange with game masters, players and RPG enthusiasts who would love to start their own game. We got feedback, collected new ideas and learned that there is nothing more exhilarating, than watching people creating their battlemaps with DUNGEONFOG. 

Many thanks to all you awesome game masters who spent time with us! ViennaComicCon was our test balloon and it was a great success. Now, that we have gained some experience as exhibitors, we are going to do a roadshow next year, bringing DUNGEONFOG to conventions close to you. We are going to release a schedule, once we have decided where to go.

And here comes a question to you: 

• What conventions do you usually attend?
• What would be your recommendations?

New Servers

We have started to restructure our servers. Now that we have almost 1.000 users we figured that it is time to move from our ramshackle development server to a solid server architecture. This means that are going to be some downtimes, while we move DUNGEONFOG to the new servers. I will notify you ahead once we start.

Poster Shipment Next Week

In all the hassle about the grant pitch, the Vienna ComicCon and the servers, we ran out of time to package and send the posters and remaining dice. I am sorry! We will catch up on this next week!

Update To ALPHA 5 Before Christmas

Andreas is currently working on the GM-Notes as well as improvements to the editor. Bernhard, our new server guy is working on the new servers. Thomas and Herbert are working on the mechanics to publish and share maps and me and Toni are working on the SciFi props and textures. All of which should be part of the next update.

Our goal is to bring our ALPHA v0.5 before christmas.
Our internal deadline is December 15th, but there are still a lot of uncertainties so please don’t take this date for granted yet. I will keep you posted here and on the ALPHA forum.

Let the dice roll,
Till

DUNGEONFOG at the Vienna ComicCon, November 18.-19. 2017
over 6 years ago – Tue, Nov 14, 2017 at 08:34:32 AM

From November 18th to19th you can find us at the Vienna ComicCon, where you can test out our latest build, take part in our dungeonbuilder workshop and meet the crew.
So if you are planning on going there, come to our booth a say hello - we would love to meet you there!

Our booth is located at Hall D (D0209).
Our event schedule will be updated tomorrow, so you can find our events here:
http://www.viecc.com/en/Exhibitors/3702749/DUNGEONFOG-KG

Posters have arrived

Let the dice roll,
Till

ALPHA v4.0 Update
over 6 years ago – Fri, Nov 03, 2017 at 07:00:41 PM

Hey everyone! We have been pretty busy over the past couple of weeks to add some more cool features and get rid of those pesky bugs. Today we have released a new update to the current version v0.4.

New features:

• Open/Close Panels
  You can now open/close the panels using the "x" icon in the upper corner.
  With the key "Q" on your keyboard you can also hide/show the panels. 
  
•  Improved Brush strokes
  We have reworked our brush tool. You can now select, move and delete brush strokes just like regular props. You can now also change the opacity for each stroke.
  
•  Improved grid options
  We have updated the grid options. You can now change the grid color and opacity. 
  
• Improved rendering for Doors & Windows
  We applied some bugfixes to improve the rendering for doors and windows.
  
• Dungeon Levels
  We have started preparations for the dungeon levels. This also means, that we have changed some properties, that are handed over when a map is opened.
  So please make sure, that you clear your cache, or you might just see a blank page!

As always, make sure to check the complete patchnotes in our ALPHA forum.

Road ahead

We are now moving close to ALPHA v0.5
A lot of the previouse bugs are fixed and we are getting better and better results with the stability of the build. 

In the next two weeks, we will focus on the following things: 

• Levels & Layers
  Adding a panel to manage the layers for each maps (sorting props, select objects from the layers-list). It is basically going to be a layer management similar to Photoshop layers (but a little less complex). There will also be a basic management system to handle multiple levels of a map. 
  
• GM-Notes 
  Andreas has started working on a first version of the GM-Notes system. This is going to be an exciting new feature and I can't wait to make the first steps with that new tool. We will then also start to add the GM-Tools to the panels and toolbars, so you can pre-fill the notes from your map. 
  
• Platform update
  We are pretty close to the first major update to the plattform, that will include folders, cloning maps and sharing maps with the alpha community. 

Once we are done with those features, we will change the version to v0.5. The next weeks afterwards will then focus on adding more features, iron out the last wrinkles, befor we finally reach BETA v0.1!

Let the dice roll!
Till

Dice are shipped & New update to ALPHA v0.4
over 6 years ago – Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 01:08:29 PM

Dice are shipped!

Today we have shipped the dice, so they should reach you within the next 14 days (depending on where in the world you recide).

We have also added a little extra for you, to show you our gratitude for supporting us!
Here's what you will be receiving soon:

Next shipment will be to those who have ordered posters and those who have ordered posters and dice in combination. We are expecting to have this shipment ready by the end of October.

Update to ALPHA v0.4

Today we have updated to ALPHA v0.4 introducing brushes.
You can now use our brush-tool to draw brush-strokes with textures/colors.
One major advantage of using WebGL is, that we can now work with all sorts of options for the brush to make them look even more awesome!

You can:  

• Switch between texture/color  
• Adjust thickness
• Adjust softness
• Adjust transparency (coming soon).

As always, please check our patchnotes in the ALPHA forum and don't forget to clear your cache once, to prevent caching errors with older versions.

Let the dice roll (soon!)
Till

Update to ALPHA v0.3
over 6 years ago – Mon, Oct 09, 2017 at 04:35:56 PM

Today we have applied the patch to ALPHA v0.3

This update contains a lot of major changes:

• WebGL
  We have implemented WebGL as our new stage-renderer.
  This means, that you should experience a huge boost in performance.
• Zooming
  You can now zoom in/out of your map.
  
• Color adjustments
  We have adjusted colors for textures and props. The textures and props were too dark, so we brightened them. This definitely will need some time to get used to, so please test it for a few days before you let us know what you think!
  
• Export
  Our export tool got a major overhaul. It is not 100% finished yet and we are still in the process of ironing out the last inconveniences, but it gives a good impression of where we are heading.
  
• Doors & Windows
  We started implementing doors & windows but we had to leave it to fix some major issues with the export. You can test it, by aligning doors & windows, but you can’t place them yet. We will fix this asap.

For the other updates & known issues, please visit our ALPHA forum.

Let the dice roll!
Till