- 16th JUNE PROGRESS - 16 June 2026
16TH JUNE NEWS It's been a little while, so I just wanted to fill you all in on what is going on with development. The last progress post I made showed of bot support progress. The bot support has been far more challenging than I had imagined, for the reasons explained in previous news posts, and I found myself getting stuck. I tried to work on one mini-game, then ran into dead ends, so tried something I thought would be easier, only to discover it was harder, then I have repeated the process again and again, only to get to a point where I realised I need to put the bot support on hold for now and work on something I CAN do, otherwise I think I might just go insane if I haven't already done so. SO WHAT HAVE I BEEN WORKING ON? Character creation! It's looooooong overdue, like most things in Metal Heads development, but what I'm creating is a very robust, very fluid Metal Head creator, an…
- 60% OFF! Steam Winter Sale and development news. - 21 December 2025
60% OFF STEAM WINTER SALE! For the first time ever, Metal Heads is 60% off as part of the Steam Winter Sale until January 5th, 2026 at 10am Pacific time. If you're on the fence about supporting the development, now is going to be the cheapest it'll be for a while. NEWS/DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS For those who have been following development, you'll know that I have been working hard on creating bots for the board game and mini-games. So far, the board game is mostly functional with bots, and in the last news update, roughly half of the mini-games had bot support added to a point where it was "playable". Since the last update, I'll admit, I haven't made the progress I had hoped to achieve. I have been stuck with creating bots for certain mini-games that are very complex, that have a lot of moving hazards and platforms in them. Additionally, whilst working on bot support, I have been improving…
- 25TH OCTOBER PROGRESS - 25 October 2025
25th OCTOBER NEWSIt's time to fill you all in on the progress! BOARD GAMEBOT SUPPORT PROGRESS As stated in the last posts, I have been working on adding bot support, and I'm happy to say that this is progressing steadily given the minimal hours I have to work on the game, but it's also as confusing and chaotic as the GIF above (NOTE: All GIF's here are bot controlled players) Currently I have now got the board game mode on it's own without mini-games functions with bots. The bots aren't super smart though and still require work, mainly in regards to the avoidance of hazards that shoot projectiles, but also in regards to bots placing hazards in sensible locations that "make sense". The idea is for bots to look at the same things a player would when deciding firstly IF a hazard should be placed, and then WHERE it should be placed, rather than randomly deciding these things, there needs to…
- ANZ IndieFest 2025 sale and news! - 10 September 2025
I'm very proud for Metal Heads to be part of the ANZ (Australian and New Zealand) IndieFest 2025! I have been so busy that I only JUST found out about it a few days ago and was late to the party (pun intended), but thankfully the awesome folks over at The Indie Brew were kind enough to take the time to add Metal Heads to the event at the last minute. I can't begin to express how amazing the feeling is as a game developer to see my work posted/advertised as part of a sale or event, especially being part of an event where there's so many other awesome games that I play (Dredge especially). BOT SUPPORT PROGRESS I've been pretty quiet, as you all know it's because I work a full time job and outside of that, I don't get a lot of time to do much else, so in the last 2 months, I've only managed to get maybe 0-2hrs of game dev squeezed in maybe 3-5 days a week. It's not much. On top of that, ma…
- DICE!!! - 7 July 2025
There's something so satisfying about rolling various dice types (die) in a video game, or real life, or maybe I'm just a bit weird? Now, the host can customise the board game mode to have a d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 or d20 die! This doesn't seem like a lot, and frankly...it's not a lot, but it's a lot of little things like this, that eventually make the game feel fleshed out and complete. This is just the foundation for the newer dice, I definitely would love to expand upon this in the future with new items, new ways to customise the board game (perhaps choosing the dice type when selecting the move type?...or perhaps even having the ability for players to find smaller and larger dice on the board that they can choose from when it's their turn to roll?). I'd even love to later add the ability to customise the appearance of your die, along with your custom character preset (when I add that t…
- 50% OFF FOR STEAM SUMMER SALE! AND DEV PROGRESS. - 30 June 2025
Hello my fellow Metal Heads! It's time for one of the biggest Steam sales of the year, the Steam Summer Sale! And as part of this sale, Metal Heads will be 50% off for the duration of the sale. Aside from a nice discount, I do have some development progress to share with you all. CURRENTLY WORKING ON If the artwork for this news post didn't give it away already, I am currently working on implementing various dice (die) types to the game. There is a board game customization setting that allows players to choose the number range on the Move Wheel, but the option for Dice Type is not accessible currently. Aside from various bug fixes, I have been working on these new dice by modelling, texturing and implementing them to the game. I am still in the process of setting up the numbers correctly on each dice type to standardized die formula's or layouts, and then just need to figure out how to…
- (Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.076 - Better navigation men & QoL changes. - 9 June 2025
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.076 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) It's been a fair bit of work for something that would seem so simple, but I've implemented a quick navigation menu into the main lobby. This will allow the host to quickly navigate to the various stages of the main menu quickly without navigating the hub world. This will also allow players to change settings at any time in the lobby. Depending on if the game is OFFLINE or ONLINE, different buttons will appear, and if it's ONLINE, the clients will only see RESUME, OPTIONS, DISCONNECT and QUIT. On top of that, during ONLINE play, both server and clients can bring up the "Pause" menu at any time. Previously it only worked for the host, which was a bit annoying if you were a client player and wanted to leave the game, or disconnect for whatever reason. Along with these changes, I have updated the multiplayer menu in the main menu to…
- (Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.075 - Exchange Fixes - 3 May 2025
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.075 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) Fixed issues related to the GIFT item. Fixed issue where gifting an item would cause the camera to look at the world 0,0,0 coordinates rather than the player you are gifting to. Fixed issue where gifting Plectrum Points would actually say "You gifted NONE to ", it now actually gifts the number of plectrums. A visual effect for this is being worked. Fixed some other issues related to the GIFT and THEFT items (Exchange wheel), these aren't necessarily obvious, but should help smooth things out, typically there were issues with clients not knowing who the target player was, therefore this would break the gameplay logic. I haven't had a huge amount of time, but I'm just happy to iron out these little annoying issues that make the game feel broken and janky. I hope you all have a great weekend! ROCK ON!
- (Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.074 - Jump Boots - 24 April 2025
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.074 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) Super quick little update, I've changed Double Jump to be called Jump Boots (more like Jump Anklets). I've also added an untextured 3d model for these jump boots to the character model once they are equipped, and they no longer jump infinitely. When using the jump boots (double jumping), there is a placeholder sound and particle FX. For those in Australia who have a long weekend, enjoy! It's my birthday tomorrow on ANZAC day so I'll be putting my feet up and actually letting myself relax for a change and doing some testing of Metal Heads locally with some friends and family over the weekend which will be great :D ROCK ON!
- (Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.073 - Quality of Life - 21 April 2025
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.073 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) Just a real quick one, it's not a lot, I've been very busy with my day job and some of the bugs I've tried to resolve took way more effort than I thought, for such minor online mp fixes. You likely won't even really notice a major difference, but there should now be better network replication for items and item usage. The Curse item should now actually show a particle effect for clients, and a placeholder sound. Fixed up camera movement when cursing a player, it should no longer flip behind them and behave strangely. I've tried to fix up teleportation a bit further as well, when attempting to teleport to a location that another player has just teleported to. Put in place further measures to prevent Swoopy Boi from hitting players who have reached their destination, but also are not the current player. This caused some visual glit…
- (Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.072 - UI and Quality of Life - 8 April 2025
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.072 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) I hope you are all having an amazing day! And hopefully this little experimental build update helps make it better. (FIX) When attempting to gift an item or steal an item and there were no valid player targets to be able to give to or steal from, the exchange Denial message would appear, and players other than the host could not press A to skip this. This is now fixed. (FIX) When teleporting to a destination that another player is already on, there was an issue where players would bounce off the other player's head, sometimes resulting in falling off the map, this would break the game. This is now fixed. (IMPROVEMENT) The board game user interface now replicates for clients, so clients can see what the host is selecting. The clients do not see buttons on the board game UI either, and cannot interact with this UI. (IMPROVEMENT) Cu…
- (Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.071 - Gift, Theft and Inventory fixes - 31 March 2025
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.071 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) This is a small experimental build update that: The exchange device used for THEFT and GIFT items now works properly both online and offline. This took a while to get working due to a few reasons, but mostly because I'm a bit of a durp sometimes! There may be still some bugs and possibly crashes with the exchange device, but it SHOULD be working fine now. NOTE: I have only tested this on 2 PC's (Server and Client, so there may be some bugs related to other clients not receiving information as well. Detector now works on clients. There are some performance issues with the detector which may slow down performance, I am looking into why this occurs currently, as it can cause some pretty bad server lag due to poor general (non-network) performance on the host PC. Fixed issues with player inventory not updating correctly on the client…
- (Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.069 - Minor Fixes and Board Game Access - 22 March 2025
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.069 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) This is a small experimental build update that: The Board Game mode is unlocked for online play, however it is still incredibly buggy, most online features are not implemented yet, and some crashes may occur. If you play the board game mode in the experimental build online, do not report bugs as I am still working hard to transition all the new customization features to online play. Fixes some minor bugs within the server browser and server hosting. To do this, hold CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+0 (zero) key, but please don't report bugs for the board game at this stage. Fixed Pause Menu navigation. Previously, players could not navigate properly using a controller. This was due to a circular dependency that I had set up, which nullified the navigation from one button to another, and nearly always seemed random. Made some improvements to BLASTE…
- (Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.068 - Online functionality - 12 March 2025
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.068 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) This is a small experimental build update that: Adds online functionality back to the game, this is only for mini-games at this stage until I convert the board game completely over to function online. If you wish to try out the board game online right now, know that it is very buggy. To do this, hold CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+0 (zero) key, but please don't report bugs for the board game at this stage. New multiplayer/online menu for server creation and server browsing. This is way more intuitive than previously and controller friendly. There's still a few minor bugs to iron out, but for the most part, it functions properly. One big benefit of the server browser is that it shows the current game mode, whether it be the lobby, mini-game, boss fight or board game mode, but it also shows the current map, along with some other server information…
- (Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.066 - Quality of Life update - 3 March 2025
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.066 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) This is a small experimental build update that: Fixed not being able to hit B to go back in the options menu while in a mini-game or the board game mode. Number Bots (Numbots) now have some visual changes and will light up the colour of the player once hit. Let me know if you like this change, I understand it may not be for everyone. PLAYER PLACED HAZARDS NOW AWARD POINTS That's right, whenever a player places down a hazard on the map, and another player interacts with that hazard, they will receive a point at the end of the turn. This means that even if a sticky surface hazard is placed and a player walks through it, the player who placed that sticky surface will receive a point. This is only a rough implementation, so visually it needs improvement and perhaps the tutorial needs to reflect this too, however this is a very import…
- (Experimental build) MYSTICAL BOG #1.065 - Quality of Life update - 26 February 2025
UPDATE: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.065 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) This is a small experimental build update that: adds the ability for players to vote READY before doing the turn order mini-game. the host player (or player 1 when playing locally), will have the ability to force start the game too). added a tutorial to the Wheel turn order mini-game which hopefully helps new players understand it better. I understand it's still a bit confusing for some people and would really love some feedback from everyone who finds it confusing, or has any suggestions for improvement. I am considering darkening the wheel until players can choose a number too, this may help, but is not implemented yet. There is also now a button prompt that appears on the turn order wheel when players are allowed to press a button to pick their number. added an audible "GO!" scream when the turn order mini-game starts. There h…
- HOTFIX: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.064 (Experimental build) - 20 February 2025
HOTFIX: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.064 (EXPERIMENTAL BUILD) The item wheel and tile modification wheels have now been fixed up again. Now they shouldn't spin erratically after another player has modified a tile or gone into their inventory. Please let me know if the issue persists where you will be about to rotate the inventory or the tile mod wheel one space to the right, but it does a fully 360 or the currently selected item or tile is not at the top of the wheel. There is also now a purple particle effect that will fall onto any players that are cursed as part of a BAD LUCK or SURPRISE tile, but also when a player is cursed from the curse item itself, this is to make it more obvious that the player is being cursed. I know there isn't really any documentation on the curse item either, but know that the more cursed your character is, the crazier and more unlucky they are. If random purpl…
- HOTFIX: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.063 (Experimental Build) - 18 February 2025
HOTFIX: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.063 Restored Item wheel and tile wheel to how they were previously until I fix them prroperly
- Board Game Tutorial, Bugfixes and last chance for 50% off. [Experimental build] - 17 February 2025
VERSION: MYSTICAL BOG #1.062 Sorry to keep you all waiting on the next update, but here it is. This is still for the OFFLINE ONLY EXPERIMENTAL BUILD, so you'll need to switch to that build if you want to see these changes. If you want to download the experimental build, you need to do the following: 1. Right Click Metal Heads in your Steam library. 2. Go to properties. 3. Go to "Betas". 4. Next to "Beta Participation", select "Experimental" from the drop down box. 5. Metal Heads will automatically update to this version. THERE'S A NEW TUTORIAL! For new players, and existing players who aren't too clear on the gameplay loop, there is now a more in depth tutorial available with videos and the ability to navigate back and forward, plus view the board's points of interest. This took a bit of time to get working properly due to the ability for players to create their own custom gameplay mode…
- HOTFIX (Experimental Build 1.061) - 19 January 2025
VERSION: Version: MYSTICAL BOG #1.061 (public) I've been a busy bee, trying to get the GIFT and THIEF items working in the experimental build, along with some other quality of life changes to the experimental build. 4 sided dice for DOUBLE OR NOTHING item, and the 8 sided dice block for the dice movement method now no longer fall through slime. There's still room for improvement (I want the dice to slowly rotate to the selected side, and/or for ONLY that number to light up, rather than the whole dice block). New items, THIEF and GIFT should now work. I have noticed some bugs in the minimal testing with friends, but for the most part, it holds up. You will now be able to give and steal items, plectrums, and golden gears. I intend to create a feature to incentivise giving items, for example, when a player is cursed, if they give something, they reduce their curse value. And if players giv…
