June Progress Update

Published by

Jon

on June 29, 2024

Credits for preview image:

• Toon Link - https://www.smashbros.com/wiiu-3ds/us/characters/toon_link.html

As June comes to a close we'd like to take this time to welcome some new team members and give some updates on what work we've been doing, including beta testing for some brand new games!

New Teammates

To kick things off I'd like to welcome 2 of our latest teammates MatthewL246 and wolfendale! Together they have been doing some fantastic work, some of which is still yet to be seen.

MatthewL246 has been hard at work introducing Docker configurations to our servers, as well as working with SuperMarioDaBom and 2 non-Pretendo developers Jelle van Snik (mrjvs) and William Oldham (BinaryOverload), to prepare our services for their eventual move to our new infrastructure! While much of this work has not been deployed yet, it is vital for Pretendo moving forward as we transition to a containerized deployment on real hardware. These changes will make managing and deploying servers much simpler in the future.

wolfendale has been working tirelessly with DaniElectra and myself on nex-go, and some related services. This library is the heart of our game servers, implementing the lower level transport protocols and tools/features needed to build all of our game servers, and is one of the more difficult areas to work in. The work done on this library is priceless, and will have positive effects on all games across the board.

General Server Updates

Before talking about the new games joining our beta testing, we'd like to touch on some more general updates which apply to all games. As mentioned, wolfendale has been working almost exclusively on nex-go since joining the team. He, along with DaniElectra and myself, has been doing fantastic work on debugging some long-standing issues, providing bug fixes and optimizations, introducing new unit testing, and implementing some key missing features. This work not only drastically improves stability, but brings our implementation closer to the original with more accurate emulation.

He has also been tackling the task of optimizing our database queries on the friends server. The friends server is one of the most important services of Nintendo Network. Without a stable connection to the friends server, the console will not attempt to connect to any individual game server, and is the cause of the common X01-0502 error. Optimizations and bug fixes like these to the friends server will ensure connections to game servers also remain stable.

While most of these updates have not yet been deployed yet (a select few have been hot-patched into existing deployments), and some have not yet been merged at all, the changes that have been made recently should show very positive results once deployed (including tackling the common X01-0502 error). We hope to get all of these new updates out relatively soon, so that all games may benefit from the added stability.

DaniElectra has also been spending quite some time reworking our matchmaking logic from scratch. These updates should bring more stability when it comes to matchmaking, as well as better tooling for developers to work on new games.

Similarly to Dani's matchmaking rework, I have been reworking our entire type system from scratch. These changes should provide a much better development experience for us moving forward, streamlining many previously difficult to do tasks such as data storage and storing type data in databases. This should result in faster, and more reliable, server development moving forward.

New Games and Updates

Now into what most of you came here for; new games and updates in beta testing! This blog post will cover a whopping ten games. Some games are receiving general updates, while others are joining us for the first time. We will also be aiming to release some smaller, simpler, games on a more frequent basis. Some games share much of their internals with existing games, making it trivial to get the basics up and running. We do not have an official release schedule, but we expect to release more simple games more often.

Most of the games mentioned here are only available for beta testers at the time of writing.

All games begin their life in beta testing, only available to testers. Once more features have been added, and pending the evaluation of each game's stability, they will each become available to the general public on a game-by-game basis. Until then, consider supporting the project to gain early beta access

BETA SERVERS ARE NOT CONSIDERED STABLE, AND OFTEN LACK MANY FEATURES. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK

🥄

Thanks to work done by wolfendale, DaniElectra and myself on nex-go, as well as work down by Ash and shutterbug on our Splatoon netcode specifically, Splatoon has officially begun its migration to our newest library versions. These changes have, so far, resulted in much more stable and reliable matchmaking across the board. These changes are available TODAY, for everyone!

If you experience any issues with Splatoon still, feel free to reach out for support on our support forum and file bug reports on the Splatoon GitHub repository.

A New Title Appears

Thanks to work done by SuperMarioDaBom, Super Smash Bros. 4 Wii U is now officially available for beta testers! The 3DS version is not currently supported, though the controller app should work. Not everything is implemented, however matchmaking is working as expected. Spectating and sharing do not work, nor has Miiverse integration been tested. Attempting to share anything in game may cause the game to stop responding due to unimplemented methods.

Gotta Catch 'em All!

Thanks to work done by shutterbug, Pokémon Generation 6 (X & Y, Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire) is now officially available for beta testers! Not all features have been implemented. While still early in development, and missing some recent stability fixes, wonder trades have been fully implemented, and PSS is in active development!

Puyo!

Thanks to work done by Ash, Puyo Puyo Tetris is now being worked on. Matchmaking and rankings are both working as expected. This game is not yet available for beta testing, as it relies on unreleased library changes, however it will be released for beta testers soon!

An Apple a Day

Thanks to work done by shutterbug, both Dr. Luigi (Wii U) and Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure (3DS) are now officially available for beta testers! Both games feature fully implemented matchmaking and rankings.

Minecraft

Minecraft has been available for beta testers for some time now, and is now receiving some new updates! Thanks to work done by Ash, Minecraft is being updated to the latest version of our libraries which should bring with it more stability and feature support!

Conclusion