Hope everyone has been enjoying Canvas Hockey, it's hard to believe we are coming up on the 1 year anniversary pretty soon! Since we have had a large influx of new players, I wanted to make a quick update based on a recent player request: bots only tournaments!

In this new tournament mode, you become a human spectator as you watch 12 bots fight to the death (not literally) for the CHL cup. You can either simulate games by clicking 'Next Game', or watch the games by clicking 'Watch' from the list of available games. When spectating games, you can control the speed of time to go slo-mo on intense moments, or skip past the boring stuff (like back checking).


In addition, I've added a few new rink canvases, which include:

Upload any image, preferably 1920x1080
I know, kinda late...



Make Canvas Hockey History!

In fact, the first player to reach 2000 goals will win free copies of Canvas Hockey Pro on iPhone/Android, as well as 5 copies on Steam to give away to friends, trade, etc!

I've also made some small changes to the way Fullscreen works, so if you have any issues with the fullscreen mode on your screens or monitors, please let me know.

As always, post in the community forums, join the discord, or email the dev directly to ask for new game modes. I'm always happy to give the players what they want!

- Brandon

brandon@synvoyity.com

Discord: https://discord.gg/b5AN7H2

Happy Holidays Arcade Hockey fanatics!

In the new Version 1.2 update of Canvas Hockey, you'll find some new fresh tunes (which you can also listen to on Spotify and Apple Music), a new Holiday themed rink canvas, and you can now download Canvas Hockey on the App Store and Google Play Store!

As always, please email the dev (brandon@synvoyity.com) with any game suggestions or requests. I wish you the best of times this season playing some puck!

Get it on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/canvas-hockey/id1543521216

Get it on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Synvoyity.CanvasHockey

Hey folks, thanks again for those of you who are enjoying Canvas Hockey! It's awesome to see the game growing and hear all of the helpful feedback. The Portfolio update has been beta tested and is now officially releasing today, September 23rd. In honor of this update, the game will be 25% off for one week! As always, make sure to reach out to me with any suggestions or feedback!

Cheers,
Brandon
brandon@synvoyity.com

Version 1.2 Announcement - Beta testing (V1.1+) open! Sept. 25th release

The exciting new Portfolio update is coming September 25th, and beta testing is now open! The portfolio option can now be found on the far right button on the main menu. You can unlock rink canvases with goals, assists, and hits, and a few special achievements. There is even a very special, coveted canvas you earn by winning the championship in the Canvas Hockey League (CHL) elite. The portfolio will be a continually growing collection of rink canvases that will match real world events and seasons. Keep playing Canvas Hockey to collect them all!

There are also some other fun changes, like a new custom Canvas Hockey mouse pointer, a full-screen option on the main menu, and a chipper organ tune that plays between goals. There will be even more features added between now and the public launch (V1.2), so be sure to give me your honest feedback! If you have any ideas, email me at brandon@synvoyity.com.

Accessing the Beta - Instructions

Now, here are some instructions on how to opt-in to the beta. DISCLAIMER: By opting into the beta, you are using a version of Canvas Hockey that is still under active development, so keep an open mind about bugs and issues. You can switch back to the public version at any time by using this same process.

1. Click Settings (gear), then select “Properties”

2. Go to the “Betas” tab on the far right

3. Enter the beta access code “canvasThrashers” and click “CHECK CODE”

4. Click the drop down menu and you should now see the option “beta - For beta testers”. You can switch back to the default version at any time using this same drop down menu.

Thank you to everyone who bought Canvas Hockey during launch week - I poured my heart into this project so it means the world to me that each and every one of you will enjoy playing. I've already gotten a lot of great feedback from players on some improvements I can make to the game. Here I'll summarize some of the quick changes I could make in a week, which you'll find in Version 1.0.1 of the game. If the game didn't update, try restarting Steam.

Quick tip: In game, you can always find the latest patch notes by hovering your mouse over the Version number in the top left screen of the Main Menu ːsteamhappyː

What's new:
- Improved formula for simulations in career mode.
- Added arrow-key controls to keyboard and mouse control scheme.
- Championship, OT, and Tutorial achievements were not updating.
- Show playoff bracket before semifinals start.
- If a player is inside the net with the puck, it's a goal (duh!)
- Fixed lighting issues during championship game.
- Improvements to the tutorial (e.g., during passing, resetting stats, etc.)
- Fixed layering of +10xp animation in career mode.
- Fixed issue where 0.1 skill points wouldn't be spent.

A little more detail for those who are curious:
1) On the first point, many players noticed that trading your player becomes very difficult or impossible in the higher leagues. I originally intended this challenge to be solved with trading your self to another team, but this is not always ideal and may require some grinding. The core issue behind this problem was that the formula for simulated games scaled linearly with each players skill, without considering who they were matched up against. In other words, in the old simulation, if player 1 (skill = 100) plays a game, they may score 4 goals, regardless of whether their opponent's skill is 50 or 100. To address this, I updated the formula to be normalized to the opponents skill. Further, the each player's team mate has a 10% contribution to the number of points that player will earn, while the player themselves contributes 90%. There is still a scalar fLeague that scales with the league you are in, so it still is more difficult to trade for better players in higher leagues. You can see a snapshot of some of my notes for the formula here:

The "mean" calculated by this formula represents the average number of points that player would earn in a matchup of those four players. During the simulation, the game uses that mean to calculate a standard deviation and normal distribution for point values for that player, and this distribution is used to sample one value for the simulated game. There are more details on how the simulation calculates goalie save percentage, and likelihood of winning in overtime, which I won't go into detail here. These have also been updated to reflect the changes in this update.

2) Per player request, I added arrow key movement controls to the keyboard and moues control scheme. I originally didn't add these because arrow keys only allow for digital 8-directional movements, whereas the mouse allows for analog movement in any direction. I still don't recommend using this control scheme, but at the end of the day I want the players to enjoy the game how they see fit, so enjoy!

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always please reach out to me if you have any suggestions or problems. I will fix them as soon as I can. As a sneak peek, in the next bigger update you can look forward to the added function of changing the rink canvas, where you can collect a nifty library of rink designs. You can also look forward to a new YouTube video soon! ːsteamhappyː

Thank you for playing Canvas Hockey!
Email the dev with suggestions: brandon@synvoyity.com
Or you can join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/b5AN7H2
And most definitely watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmVhh2f5KKbNFC403H4tKUw

P.S. If you want your name to be featured in the game as a playable character, email me and I can make it happen!

Canvas Hockey has officially finished the alpha phase of development, and has been approved for release on Steam!

Canvas Hockey currently comes with a Quick Play mode, where you can jump into a game with some friends, or if you're lonely, some trusty bots. If you're looking for a party mode, you can set up a round robin tournament for up to 12 players. Tournaments will keep track of all of your stats, rankings, and you can trade players between any team (as long as the trade is approved by the committee).

If you're looking for a single player campaign, you can start on your own Career Mode, where you start on a team with a low level player and goalie, in the Bronze league. Work your way up the leagues by slamming home some Ginos and trading your way to victory.

We've also integrated a few nifty Steam features, including Achievements, Leaderboards, and Cloud Saves.

In the next month, we'll open the game to Beta testing to make further improvements to the game. If you are interested in beta testing, please send us an email! (brandon@synvoyity.com)

Also, if you are interested in getting involved with the community, join our Discord[discord.gg] server, and visit our website[synvoyity.com] for more information!