Hey Islandvillers!

First off, I want to say thank you and welcome to all the new Islandvillers that have joined us this year. Without all of you NONE of this would be possible. So THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. Your support allows me to do this full time and I am very grateful. I am also very excited for the new year coming.... as I really feel that 2024 is going to be the best year yet for The Coin Game. For now lets get to the new update.

This update is a little thing I have been working on in the background for a few months along side of the regular stuff I have been working on (Mall, Optimizing and Multiplayer.. etc). I have always wanted to add some kind of water attraction to the island and I finally got it done enough to share with all of you.



WATERPARK:

New Lenny's Water Wonderland Waterpark. It's all new and located near the Beach on the East side of the island. The new waterpark is complete with Waterslides, Wave pools, Dunk Tanks and of course a lazy river to just relax at the end of a hard arcade bender. It is open 24 hours a day... Seven days a week and the best part is that it is FREE to all Islandville residents (yes that's you).



To ride the Lazy River just head into the entrance and click on the single yellow innertube that is at the edge of the Lazy River under the awning. You will be loaded automagically. You can rotate the tube by paddling with your hands left and right. Nice and lazy... Just like its supposed to be. Let the waterfalls splash off your forehead as you plan your next payday at the pawn shop. You will auto exit at about the same location after completing a full "lap". Its actually very relaxing. haha.



To ride the two waterslides just walk to the top of the stairs and you will see 4 tubes at the top. Two on the right and two on the left. Click on one of them to choose right or left side. Single or double tube. Single tube is just you alone on a tube and double is when you go plummeting with a bot friend in a two seat tube.





You can exit any "ride" at the waterpark by hitting the E Key (Or exit button with a controller).

Here's Lenny the Mascot.



The Wave pool has a simple physics system on it that will "surf" you up to the beach if you are in the waves "pocket". It is still a WIP and will change to be a little more advanced in the future. Currently the floating bots are animated but I really want to be able to interact more with them in the future but for now I wanted them in the mix bobbing around. They look pretty happy to me.



You will notice that there is a Dunk Tank at the front of Lenny's Waterpark. Barrys is currently collecting a donation for the kids. Its 3 bucks a shot to try to dunk him in a pool of Mineral Oil. (water will make him rust). If you dunk him... his helper will get you a "nice" prize for participating. So it could pay off or it couldnt. You never know with my man Barry. But its for the kids. Right?





CINEMA:

The mall theater is complete and ready to watch movies from your hard drive. You can also purchase food goodies from the concession stand located in the Islandville Cinema.



Loyd and Evan are great employees at the cinema and always keep the place looking sharp.





TO watch a movie from your hard drive. Place an .Mp4 video in your Documents\devotid\TCG_Videos folder. For now it will only play the first video in the folder. In the future you can watch back to back movies but for now one is the limit at a time. You may need to create the "TCG_Videos" folder if you have not already. Once the file is in place... you can just purchase one "indie film" spot from the theater kiosk and the countdown on the wall next to the pricing will start. Take your seat and the movie will start automatically.



To choose a seat just stand in front of it and click on it. Hit the Exit button (E Key) to stand up. Its pretty simple.



I am still making a short film for the "Feature Film" at the theater but it is not done yet. Turns out to be a 1000x harder than I thought to make a small short movie. I will add it to a future update. It will work about the same as the Indie films.

Note: The "fastest" output size for the Mp4 Videos is around 800x480 (Windows phone size) I did some HD ones... but it wasnt really needed in that high of resolution. I use the old Windows Movie Maker to convert old videos to Mp4 format.


NEW COIN DROP GAME at Jerrys in the Mall food court:



I just had to add one of theses... so I talked Jerry into getting a Coin Drop game. It was pretty tough to get it right with a lower frame rate of the mall. It took some grinding on optimizing of the mall to get it to work. I think I spent about 2 full weeks on just the "feel" of the game. Its such a simple thing in real life but can be so challenging to model in a game and make it feel right. I am glad I did it though as the game is really fun.

The idea of the drop game is to make the coin land on the lowest platform of the spinner and BOOM. One free Gourmat Tuna Sammich from Jerry (a $7.50 value). Limit of 3 per day. After you win 4 sammys, Jerry will make up some fake story about the thing being "dirty" and needed to be cleaned... but we all know thats just code for "you're winning too much kid". He will eventually turn it back on because its good for business.


That's about it for the update stuff. I will have more news after the new year.


KNOWN ISSUES:
- Clicking on the innertubes at the top of the waterslides can be tricky. Make sure to move the floating cursor off the tubes when choosing between the two options. Sometimes a click on the Blue double tubes will register as a click on the single Yellow tube.
- Swimming in the new Wave pool is not complete and WIP. I have a good plan for it but it will take more time. ;)
- There is no pallets next to the dumpster at the waterpark. I simply forgot them. So its almost impossible to jump in right now. So for now... its "Bring your own step" to the dumpster party for all the scavengers.

BUG FIXES:
- Updated all the maps with new locations around Islandville.
- fixed a small visual bug in the carnival Lilly pad water game and Pluck A Duck games.
- Made flashlight 2x the power draw. Now runs out of batteries faster.
- Fixed the spawning of wrong prizes and sides of UFO Claw machine at the Mall Arcade.
- Adjusted Culling Distance on Mall stores
- Took the flashing Lights out of the Pumpkin Pusher at Arcade Castle. They were a little too intense and had some users concerned about seizures. We need to be safe! Thanks to users for helping me with the friendly warning. :)
- Added a nudging tool to the Pumpkin Pusher Orange Balls on the winner ramps. They were getting stuck pretty bad.
- Christmas is on at the Mall and Jerrys Gas and Go. Go see Santa Bot!
- Added Popcorn Bucket for 5.00 bucks at the theater. (+10 Health and +25 Energy)
- Fixed the leaderboards on larger High Res monitors.
- Fixed the zombie Hands walking bug that would happen after using the Pause/ESC Menu button when in the golf cart.
- Removed the pinball machine from One Eyed Billies for performance reasons. You can still play it in the Islandville Market store.
- Movies at the Cinema are indie only for now. The fun short film I am working on is not completed yet but I wanted to test the system out before then. The current system will only play the "first" movie in the TCG_Videos folder. So name it accordingly, as the system will grab them alphabetically.
- Only supports 10 video "spots" total in the TCG_Videos Folder. WIP
- Only plays one video for now. The first one in the folder.
- Fixed Garys Water dish and the fish food level GUI bleeding through everything.
- Nerfed the return Pawn $ value of four food items from Jerrys. Apparently Berry has been buying back the food items that Jerrys is selling for 100% value. Dont know how Barry stayed in business for so long. What a man of the community though. Huh?
- 6 Pack of batteries is now $0.50 at the pawn shop.
- Gourmet Tuna Sandwich is now $0.50 at the pawn shop.
- Jerrys Jerky is now $0.50 at the pawn shop.
- Local Milk is now $0.50 at the pawn shop.



Thank you again for the support and dont forget to leave us a good review if you like the game. It makes a big difference for an indie dev.

Kevin