Fireworks Mania - An Explosive Simulator
by Laumania ApS · 17 Dec, 2020
469 downloads
About the Game
Play by yourself or play with others in community hosted games.
The built-in Workshop gives you access to thousands of items created by the community, like fireworks, props, maps and characters.
Eventhough the game is created to be a casual game where players have fun for a short while, the game can easily entertain creative players for hours, as they setup a firework show or explore the environments in the hunt for things to blow up.
Not two play-sessions are the same, as the game is heavily physics based, resulting a different outcome every time. This often leads to fun moments, when things are not going as planned.
- Enjoy!
Screenshots
10 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
NOTE: This version is only available on the EXPERIMENTAL game version/beta. You manually need to switch to it in Steam. Right Click on Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".
Please note that this is work-in-progress stuff. There might be bugs, features might never end up in the real version of the game and things might be a little odd.
However, I share this version as I am asking for your feedback to help me shape the game - thanks for taking your time helping out 🤓
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/9d4a500a9f99b314212c55f2aae11bd5387c30c3.png"]
Added
You can now see who placed something by looking at it in multiplayer. Don't want it? Turn it off under Settings > Game
Changed
Fireworks far away look like they did before the last update again. The extra glow at a distance made them look odd, so it's gone for now
Hosting a big show with other players in it runs smoother now. Working out what each player should see takes a fraction of the time it used to
Settings > Controls now has a Mouse heading and a Controller heading, each over its own Invert Y-axis and Sensitivity
Town at night is easier on your graphics card. The street lamps look the same, but the busiest streets get about 10% more FPS on my machine when the graphics card is what holds it back
Fixed
The seizure warning on the startup screen no longer slides behind the Skip button in some languages or at a high UI Scale
Rockets fly as high as they used to again. Since the last update, frozen rockets and rockets in a single shot rack climbed far too high. Now every rocket reaches the same height however you place it, so rockets you don't freeze fly lower than they did
Loading a blueprint while fireworks are going off no longer leaves some of its racks and fuses unconnected
- Happy testing, enjoy! 🤓🕺
YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/"]
NOTE: This version is only available on the EXPERIMENTAL game version/beta. You manually need to switch to it in Steam. Right Click on Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".
Please note that this is work-in-progress stuff. There might be bugs, features might never end up in the real version of the game and things might be a little odd.
However, I share this version as I am asking for your feedback to help me shape the game - thanks for taking your time helping out 🤓
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/9d75ae7be2348d8396ab6f04ee4bf35d73377b2a.png"]
Added
The hints on the right side of the screen now always match what your buttons do right now, and there are new ones for jumping, running, crouching, flying, changing view, getting up and push-to-talk. Know them by heart? Turn movement hints or interaction hints off under Settings > Game
You can now see who's talking on voice chat: their profile picture and name pop up on the left side of the screen while you can hear them, and the Players list shows who's talking too. You can turn it off under Settings > Audio > Show who's talking
New UI volume setting under Settings > Audio, for menu clicks, notifications and the Shop's unlock sounds
You can now report a player from the Players tab if they misbehave. Pick what happened, and the report goes straight to the Fireworks Mania team. We review every report within 7 days. Do know that misusing this can get yourself banned from online play, so use it when its really needed
Controllers now have their own look sensitivity and Invert Y under Settings > Controls. Invert Mouse Y only flips the mouse now, and if you had it on, your controller starts out inverted too
Items that have a description in the Shop now show it in the Inventory too
New "How the Shop works" button under the Shop's search box. It shows how you earn PyroPoints and what you can unlock with them
The Home tab now gives a quick tour of the game: playing with fireworks, building your own shows, playing together and the Shop
You can now hold D-pad left to talk on voice chat with a controller
The Field of view slider under Settings > Game now says what it does, and that a higher value makes fireworks look smaller and less bright
Changed
Tap V (D-pad right on a controller) to cycle through First Person, 3rd Person, 3rd Person Reversed and the Far Away View like before, or hold it to pick one from a wheel. M is no longer used, which frees up a button on the controller
The Tools Menu now shows a gold ring around the tool you're holding, and on the emote page around the emote you're pointing at
On a controller, the Tools Menu now tells you what Quick Save and Quick Load do as soon as you press the stick to use them, and keeps showing it until you point at another tool. Let go before the ring fills and nothing happens
In fly mode, Crouch (Ctrl, or pressing in the right stick on a controller) now flies you straight down, the way Jump takes you up. It used to make you fly slower instead
Names above players' heads now show as far away as you can hear them talk, about 36 meters instead of 20
Long names above players' heads now stay on one line instead of being split in two
The glow on new items now goes away as soon as you hover over them, not only when you click them. On the Avatar tab, moving onto a character with a controller clears it too, without switching to that character
The flashlight now points at whatever you're looking at, so it lights up things right in front of you, other players too. Your hand turns to aim it
The Multiplayer tab now tells you when it can't reach online services, with a Try again button, instead of just showing an empty list
The Shop's unlock sounds and the unlock whoosh are a lot quieter now, and the menu clicks a bit louder, so the menu sounds fit together instead of jumping out at you
Max Players when hosting is now picked with the arrows instead of typed in, and goes up to 24
Blueprints you save now take up about 40% less space. They are still plain text you can open and share, and your older blueprints load just like before
The volume sliders now turn the sound down evenly across the whole slider. Before, going from 100 to 30 barely did anything and it all happened at the very bottom. Your volumes sound the same as before, so the numbers you see will be higher
"SFX Volume" under Settings > Audio is now called "Game Volume", which says better what it does. It starts back at 100, so set it again if you had turned it down
"Output Volume" is now "Voice volume", next to the other volume sliders under Settings > Audio, and works just like them. Voice still sits a little above the rest of the game, and loud and quiet talkers now sound more alike. It starts back at 100
The volume for each player in the Players tab now turns down evenly across the whole slider, like the other volume sliders, instead of hardly changing at the top
Going back to the main menu freezes about half as long as before, and the menu no longer locks up for a moment right after the loading screen goes away
Spawning and launching fireworks no longer makes the game stutter: big cakes spawn about 5 times faster and launch instantly, and loading a big show takes half as long. Mod fireworks get faster too
Loading the game's own shells into mortars is about 4 times faster now, so loading a blueprint full of loaded racks hitches a lot less
Connecting fuses and lighting long chains of them no longer makes the game stutter: connecting one is about 5 times faster, and a chain catching fire all at once doesn't hitch anymore. Joining a game with a big show already built hitches less too
Losing the connection to someone's game now shows a clear message instead of a technical error. That message, and the ones for being kicked, banned or the host leaving, now show in your own language too
The chat lines about players joining and leaving, and the warnings when you hit the spawn limit, now show in your own language instead of always in English
A lot more of the game now shows in your own language: the loading screen, Settings, hosting, Blueprints, joining a game, the Credits and the Workshop's filters. The Shop, the cards on the Home page and the emote names were still in English in most languages and are now translated too
In multiplayer, only the host sees the Blueprints tab now. Everyone else used to get a tab that just said it wasn't supported yet
The first time you start a game, the map picker now starts on Town, the first map in the list, instead of Flat. After that it still remembers the map you played last
With keyboard and mouse, the key icons in the hints on the right and on buttons like Start are smaller now, the same size as the controller buttons
The performance readout in the top left corner is now off for everyone. If you want to see what the game turns down to keep your framerate, switch on Show performance indicator under Settings > Advanced
Fireworks now always look the way they were made, instead of the game quietly turning effects down in big shows. If you'd rather keep your framerate up, set Prioritize to Performance under Settings > Advanced. It replaces the Dynamic Performance Scaling checkbox, and everyone starts on Quality
The performance indicator now also shows whether your CPU or your graphics card is what holds your framerate back, and how many milliseconds each one takes per frame
Big shows run smoother. On my machine, the busiest moment of my test show now gets about 18% more FPS, the end of it about 38% more, and a 5,000-firework show waiting to be lit about 25% more
Fireworks far away keep much more of their glow now, instead of thinning out into dull little dots
Flying fast now tilts your character toward where you're flying, superman style: dive and you point down, climb and you point up, and you lean/rotate into turns and when flying to the side. Flying normally and hovering look just like before
Updated loading backgrounds and menu background video to match recent updates
Fixed
In multiplayer, things you shoot out of a mortar or throw far away no longer vanish mid-air once they get about 50 meters from you. You now see them fly all the way and land, and they disappear a few seconds after they stop moving
Joining a friend's game that uses mods right as the game starts, like from an invite, no longer fails with "Unable to load map"
Joining a friend from an invite no longer sometimes fails with "Unable to join" when the online services are busy
On a controller, picking an emote no longer sometimes does nothing when you let go of the stick and the button at the same time
The tool, emote and view wheels now always fit on the screen, on ultrawide screens and at a high UI Scale too. Before, the bottom of the tool wheel could be cut off
Fixed the frame rate sometimes running above your monitor's refresh rate with VSync on, on PCs where the graphics driver overrides VSync. It happened if you went into a map quickly after the game started
Lady Fingers, strobes and zippers no longer go quiet when the game runs slowly. At 20 FPS a Lady Finger string used to play only about one crackle in five. Now it crackles just like it does when the game runs smoothly
Rockets with a big head no longer bounce off single shot racks their stick easily fits into. Only the part that actually goes down the tube has to fit now
Rockets launched from a single shot rack no longer get held back. They used to burn part of their thrust before leaving the rack, so they now climb about a quarter higher, and every rocket in a row flies the same
Mortars no longer jump, or tip over, when you spawn a shell straight into them, even when you click quickly down a row
Loading a blueprint no longer makes things placed close together push each other around, or over. Things no longer do a little size pop as they load, which is what pushed them
New items in the Shop that you can't afford yet were almost hidden behind their spinning glow. Now you can see what they are
The Shop's unlock sounds ignored every volume setting, even Master. They follow Master and the new UI volume now
Some mods could never be downloaded, Gibbons Fireworks collection among them. They failed every time with a "Data descriptor signature not found" error. They install fine now
Turning something you're carrying with a controller no longer walks you around at the same time. You stand still while you turn it, just like with the Physics and Spawn tools
In German, the Teleport, Tools Menu and Hotbar 1-4 rows under Settings > Controls showed garbled names like "Einstellungen_Controls_Hotbar01". They read properly now
The join code in the game menu shows as dots again instead of question marks. "Hold to show" and "Copy" are now proper buttons, and holding to show the code works on a controller too
Nobody could join your game if you'd picked a mod that was later deleted or hidden on mod.io. Deleted mods are now removed from your mods, and mods other players can't download no longer show up when you host a multiplayer game
If a game turned you away as you joined, because it was full or you were banned from it, you could end up stuck in an empty map behind the message. Now you go back to the main menu
The Developer Console, Show/Hide UI and performance stats rows under Settings > Controls were always in English. They now show in your own language
The numbers over the tools at the bottom of the screen only show when you play with keyboard and mouse now. They are the keys that pick each tool, so on a controller they only got in the way
In Hungarian, Ukrainian and Hindi, some loading screen lines, the messages about loading lots of mods and the "too many mods" message when hosting online were empty. They show properly now
The Fuse connection visibility distance under Settings > Game now works for every fuse, also the ones you build or load after changing it. At 0, fuse lines only show while you hold the Fuse Connection Tool
Exploded propane tanks no longer leave an invisible tank behind that you could bump into, that later blasts threw around with landing sounds out of thin air, and that a save brought back. Tanks that are part of the map even stayed until you left it
Blowing up a building, a gas pump, a propane tank or anything else full of fuel went off twice at once, so it hit everything around it twice as hard and its boom played twice. It only goes off once now
Big blasts, like a building going down or a propane tank, threw fireworks and other light things next to them at hundreds of meters per second, often straight under the map. An explosion now throws things at 50 meters per second at most: in my test, 4 of 82 fireworks next to a building ended up under the map instead of 26
Fireworks and other things sliding fast into a building in City could get pushed down through the sidewalk and fall under the map. City's buildings now reach into the ground, so things bounce off them instead
The Clear Fireworks and Clear Props buttons in the Inventory couldn't be reached with a controller. They now sit at the bottom of the category list on the left, so you can move down to them
Clear Fireworks often left behind fireworks that had already gone off, so a few cakes from a show would still be standing afterwards. It clears all of them now
With the Eraser or the Fuse Connection Tool, looking from a firework straight up at the sky kept it picked, so a click still erased it or started a fuse from it. Looking away lets go of it now
After you throw or drop a firework, the Ignite Tool no longer keeps aiming at it, so pressing the button won't light it while you look somewhere else
You could use things from any distance by looking at them while walking away. Now they stop being usable, and their Use hint goes away, once you're out of reach
Using things works again straight after the Physics Tool. Before, it only came back once you looked somewhere else, or, if what you held was erased or blew up, once you switched tools
A checkbox in Settings that you can't change right now is greyed out all the way, box and tick included, instead of only its name
If you opened chat while holding push-to-talk, your mic stayed on while you typed and after you closed chat, until you pressed push-to-talk again. Opening chat now turns it off
Your character's head no longer jumps back every few seconds while flying fast. You'd see it as the item in your hand jumping back and forth
Fixed issues with 5" mortars doing funny stuff
- Happy testing, enjoy! 🤓🕺
YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/"]
NOTE: This version is only available on the EXPERIMENTAL game version/beta. You manually need to switch to it in Steam. Right Click on Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".
Please note that this is work-in-progress stuff. There might be bugs, features might never end up in the real version of the game and things might be a little odd.
However, I share this version as I am asking for your feedback to help me shape the game - thanks for taking your time helping out 🤓
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/f655b2b40730750cb2bdd23ad2d1222106a9b180.png"]
Added
You now get a notification when a mod replaces some of the game's own items, sounds or characters. Players without that mod get the game's own instead, and can't see the replaced items at all
Changed
Things you pick up stay their own size now instead of shrinking down in your hand. Most of you told me you preferred it that way
Crates are too heavy to pick up and carry now
The Shop works like the inventory now: just point at an item to see its details, and hold on it to unlock it. The yellow "Unlock" button is gone
The Physics Tool has a purple glow on your fingertip now, like the Erase Tool's red one. Both glows are a bit bigger too
Fixed
Some shells went silent, and some mortars and racks couldn't be seen by other players, after you'd been in a game with items from a mod with same ids
Mortars from the Workshop showed up as locked in the Shop because they had the same ids as the new base game mortars. The game's own mortars and sounds have new ids now, so they no longer clash with mods. Shells have also gotten renamed internally. NOTE: This means you will have to unlock mortars, racks and shells again, sorry, but its Experimental - just so you know 🤓
The Physics Tool's beam now ends right where you're aiming, even on things you can't pick up like walls, the ground or a light pole. Up close it used to miss the spot you were pointing at
Fixed a rare crash in voice chat
Loading a blueprint no longer leaves some single shot racks turned a bit, or tipped over under a load of Roman candles. They stay exactly where you saved them
- Happy testing, enjoy! 🤓🕺
YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/"]
NOTE: This version is only available on the EXPERIMENTAL game version/beta. You manually need to switch to it in Steam. Right Click on Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".
Please note that this is work-in-progress stuff. There might be bugs, features might never end up in the real version of the game and things might be a little odd.
However, I share this version as I am asking for your feedback to help me shape the game - thanks for taking your time helping out 🤓
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/93eee1dd94ca5cda25b869314c3d492b064df739.png"]
As this is a bigger update in terms of new things, I want to add a few words here, instead of only the changelog as normally.
I will write more details in the upcoming Developer News, but here are some highlights.
Shop
Many players have through the years asked for "something to play for". That can be addressed in many ways, but here is the first change in that direction - a Shop.
So what does that mean?
Well, you get points for playing now, igniting fireworks, unlocking achievements and simple being active in a game session will give you points. There might be more ways to earn in the future, but it depends on your feedback.
These points you can use to unlock fireworks, props, characters and more in this new Shop.
Its a way to try and make some form of progress in an open sandbox game with no real start or end.
You can keep playing with mods exactly as you use to, so really the Shop is an optional feature for the ones who want the stuff in it.
More content
Another thing that players have been asking for, is more base game content and that's exactly what you find in this Shop.
More than 300 new items of various kinds have been added to the Shop - so have a look when you get into the game :)
For instance, there are new refreshed versions of all the legacy fireworks I originally made back in 2020!
These new versions are much more realistic than the original ones. Here are some samples.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/bffc670d7b437f1b1ea5eaed9b2e731424293bbd.jpg"]
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/57a4b2e9140926cca1471ac844a9598e73b30302.jpg"]
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/bd3006aab1e618c29bc5d8aa7305adbbb524294c.jpg"]
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/126396838b9b072de2587673a3e154eda14685ba.jpg"]
Over the years its been very clear that mod creators are much better at making realistic fireworks than me. My time is better spend on optimizing, adding features etc. So for this big content push, it made sense to try and get some help. Therefore I reached out to Amnestey, asking if he would be interested in some contracting work, creating new unique content for the base game. Luckily, he was up for it. This freed up my time to work on other stuff, so you can now enjoy both new content and new features in this update. 🤓
Player character improvements
Another huge change is improvements to how your character works. First of all you now hold the tool you select in your physical hand and some tool models have been replaced by just your hands and fingers. Furthermore the way your character move have been improved a lot, so it feels more immersive and looks much better when you play with others.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/c301c119ef86b57ea7ea62f29a3016e359cfb6da.png"]
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/ab6c345fccc00fe1c5bc3d7c069f42fb9cbbdd24.jpg"]
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/26e32e7c71424b55d26ffc0e9c02da93560d0101.jpg"]
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/6788c53ecc6c7d5bdc256ba4cdb24e758fbcbc80.jpg"]
Also, in you are exposed to enough explosions forces, your character will go into ragdoll mode, simply for the fun of it - he/she might even scream a bit if its too much.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/6680817ede34440bb815a817b5fdf08270e0eb19.jpg"][img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/582a0748d645b2b115f657e8deaf81f702cce46d.jpg"]
This was just the tip of the iceberg, so I really encourage you to jump into the Experimental version and give it a try. There might be some things you need to get use to, but give it a little time and see if it's not really better after all.
Please share your feedback with me as it helps shapes the game to make it perfect 🤓
That's all for now, as said I will describe some more details in the upcoming Developer News, but for now, here is the full change log.
Added
The Shop is open! For a long time, a lot of you have asked for something to play for and more content in the base game, so here it is. As you play the game you earn "PyroPoints" in various ways. These points can be used to unlock various items in the new Shop. It's completely optional: no fireworks have been taken away, and you can carry on playing with mods as much as you like, exactly like before. However for the ones that like the feeling of progress by earning more and more things you can use in the game, this is exactly for you. This is the first draft of it, so I still haven't figured out exactly how the points should be earned etc. But thats part of where your feedback comes in, so we can make it even better
The Shop has 149 brand new fireworks to unlock in there to start with - cakes, rockets, tubes, roman candles, firecrackers, smoke balls and more. Plenty more coming as we go
On top of that there's 92 new shells from 3 to 6 inch, and 71 new mortars and racks to fire them from
The Shop has 64 new characters in there too, a load of civilians and a set of police, so there's a lot more choice in who you play as
27 Christmas decorations in the Shop too - neon signs, a snowman, a reindeer, light-up trees, presents and more, in case you wanna do some decorations during the holidays
There's a new Fuse Node in the Shop too - a little box to split and join your fuses. When one fuse burns in, all the others light at once
There's a Sound Track Player in the Shop as well - a speaker with a fuse that plays a song when lit, so you can put music under your shows. 11 songs to pick from, and there's a new Music volume slider under Settings > Audio
PyroPoints stop adding up if nobody touches the controls for an hour. You're earning again the moment you're back
The Home tab in the main menu isn't empty anymore - it explains how the Shop works, what earns PyroPoints, and why the game is best with headphones
Emoji show up properly now, in full color - in chat, in player names, on mod titles, everywhere. They used to be empty boxes
You can see which mods a host is running before you join now. Click the mod count in the Multiplayer host details and the whole list opens up, with names and thumbnails
Emotes have a wheel now. Hold the Tools Menu button and press E (X or Square on a controller) to flip the wheel over to your emotes, then point at one and let go to play it
Four new emotes to fill the wheel: Dab, Air Guitar, Facepalm and Thumbs Up. Air Guitar keeps going until you walk off, like the dances (Some of these might get removed again to be unlockable in the shop - just here for testing right now)
The inventory now shows roughly how long a firework lasts, right under its name in the item details - and that is exactly how long it counts against the host's spawn limit
The Shop shows how long a firework lasts, and which brand and collection it's from, so you know what you're getting before you unlock it
The Workshop has a "Recently added" row again, sitting right above "Recently updated". Turns out a brand new mod in some cases doesn't turn up under "Recently updated", so now there's a row that only shows what's new
Anything you unlock now gets a little marker showing where it is, from the tab all the way down to the item itself, so you can actually find the thing you just got. It goes away once you have clicked it
D-pad up and down on controller now do what the scroll wheel does on a mouse: hold one to move a held or spawning item nearer or further, and tap to step the fuse type or the day/night speed. Far Away View and switching perspective moved over to D-pad left and right to make room
Advanced Settings can now delete all your temp mods - the ones that get installed automatically so you can join someone's game. The button tells you how much space they're taking up. Handy if you want that space back, you will download them again anyway next time you need them
Explosions can now knock your character over! A big enough blast sends you flying as a ragdoll - jump or move to get back up once you've landed
Your character might scream if the blast was big enough (unless you're already talking in voice chat)
Don't want to be thrown around? Turn off "Ragdoll" under Settings > Game - or just "Ragdoll scream" under Settings > Audio if it's only the screaming
The Players list now shows how many fireworks and props each player has out - in red once they hit the host's limit
The host now has a little gold crown on their picture in the Players list and in front of their name tag, so everyone can see who's hosting
Changed
Your character now holds the flashlight in their left hand, pointing where you look, and other players can see it too. It's tucked away while you carry something
The Spawn, Physics and Erase tools no longer hover in front of your face. Your character gestures instead: the Physics Tool is a pointing finger with the laser shooting from the fingertip, the Erase Tool the same finger with a red glow at the tip, and while spawning you hold a little glowing model of what you're about to spawn, and the Day/Night Time tool is a pocket watch lying in your palm, turned so you can read it. All of it follows what you look at, other players see it too, and it works on (most) modded characters too
Your character now turns and leans their upper body a bit with where you look, not just the head. It keeps whatever you're holding in view when you glance sideways, and it looks a lot more natural to other players, plus it makes you feel more part of the world
Your character now steps their feet round when you turn on the spot, instead of spinning with their shoes glued to the ground. The faster you turn, the bigger the step
The Spawn Tool now holds items by their middle, so your crosshair is on the thing you're placing. Big items like the Christmas tree also start a bit further away
Things you pick up by hand now shrink to a little palm-sized version held between your character's left thumb and index finger, the same size whatever you picked up, and pop back to full size the moment you throw or drop them. Holding the throw button winds the arm back the harder you charge - other players see all of it, so they know what's coming. The current throwing animation is a bit "meh" though, so might change that. The reason object shrinks to fit your hand, is because as I started making this logic for actually holding stuff in the physical hands of the character, it looked super weird picking up a box as its way too large. So came up with the idea of shrinking it down, so everything always fit between two fingers. Only "downside"/odd thing, is that fireworks shooting off as miniature too...which both looks weird and funny. I dunno if its a feature or a bug :D
Redesigned the Fireworks inventory: the category tabs across the top are now a list on the left, with one big item grid next to it - making room for more categories down the road. Shell and mortar sizes fold out right under their category
The menu tabs have icons next to their names now - in the main menu, in the inventory and in the in-game menu. Its an attempt to make it easier to spot stuff and avoid just a block of text up there
The tabs at the top of the menus wrap around now, so going past the last one takes you back to the first when navigating the UI with a gamepad
The inventory grid now groups items by collection - each collection gets its own header line with its logo, name and brand, and everything that isn't part of one sits together under "Others" at the bottom. Should make it a lot easier to find your way around as the list keeps growing. In the future modders will be able to create these collections too to group their things in the Inventory too
The Avatar tab groups characters into collections the same way, and now scrolls straight to the character you're using instead of just highlighting it wherever it happens to be
Gave the in-game chat a refresh - everyone's profile picture sits next to what they said, the text is bigger but the heavy black box behind it is gone, so you can still watch your show while people are chatting
Secret unlockable items no longer show up as locked "?" slots in the inventory - they now stay hidden until you find them out in the world
The chat window now starts out of sight, instead of sitting there for the first ten seconds of every game. It comes back the moment somebody says something, or when you open it yourself
Scrollbars are easier to grab with the mouse, and the one in chat is less in your face
Moving a held or spawning item nearer and further is far easier to control. One scroll moves it the same distance wherever it is, instead of a small nudge up close and a huge jump out at range - and on a fast machine it was quietly ignoring most of your scrolling
Standing on something that's moving - riding a rocket, for instance - is smooth now instead of jittery, both for you and for everyone watching you do it. And if it turns, you turn with it
If you can't join a game because the host has a mod that's been removed from mod.io, the error now tells you the id of that mod, so you can let the host know
The Players tab is tidier: teleport, mute, volume, kick and ban are now in a small menu on each player - right-click a player, hit their ⋯ button, or use your controller
Improved the logic around how the player voice works and sound. Its more narrow now, so it sounds more like it coming from their mouth - you can hear where they are, they fade out more naturally over distance, and someone facing away from you sounds muffled
Removed emission from base game firework material, meaning they no longer light up in the dark. It was originally made like this to make them easier to see, however, it makes it more immersive now as they actually behave as expected when in the dark
Saving a blueprint now leaves out anything someone is holding, instead of saving it floating in mid-air
The Blueprints tab is hidden when you're in someone else's game as clients currently cannot use blueprints anyway
When you've hit the host's spawn limit, the item in your hand turns red and nothing spawns, so it's obvious. You're told once in chat, instead of in chat and a popup
The spawn ghost now flies out already facing the right way, instead of turning on the way
Shells now snap into a mortar that already has a shell in it, so you can stuff extra shells in with the Spawn Tool
When a mortar or rack won't take something, it now tosses it clearly away instead of making it hop on the spot
The dances and Air Guitar no longer bring their own rock loop with them. Now that there's actual music in the game, it got annoying fast
Fixed
Fixed the inventory opening on the first item instead of the one you last picked
Fixed rockets going nowhere when you stand on them, and objects being nearly impossible to lift with the Physics Tool while someone stands on them
Fixed the Tools Menu quick saving or quick loading out of nowhere
Fixed the Tools Menu missing your controller stick when you opened the wheel and aimed at a tool in one quick motion, so swapping tools took two or three goes. It now picks up whatever you're pointing at the moment the wheel is open
Fixed the camera swinging off on its own every time you let go of the Tools Menu on a controller. You aimed at a tool with the right stick, so the camera grabbed whatever was left of that push - it now waits for your thumb, and moves the moment you actually steer
Fixed the Fireworks inventory stuttering when you drag the scrollbar or jump a long way down a category - the more mods you have, the worse it was. It keeps up now
Fixed menu clicks and other interface sounds going missing every now and then
Fixed a shell keeping its owner's spawn slot for fifteen seconds after it had gone off, and a couple of rockets doing the same. They let go a moment after the bang now, like the rest
Fixed the Slow Clap emote clapping the instant it started, before the hands had even met. The claps now land where the animation actually claps
Fixed the chat telling you that you joined the server when you start a singleplayer game - as it makes no sense with that announcement in a singleplayer session :D
Fixed the "Players list"'s teleport button doing nothing the first time you opened the list after joining a game - you had to close it and open it again before it would listen
Fixed the join code box letting you press Join with nothing typed in, which just threw an error at you. Join stays greyed out until there's a code, and you can now back out of the box with Escape or your controller's back button
Fixed Singleplayer sometimes opening with only the built-in maps, and your mods listed out of order
Fixed things stacked on top of something staying up in the air when you erased what they were resting on. They fall down now, like you'd expect
Fixed the Physics Tool beam latching onto the wrong spot on whatever another player was carrying. On your screen it hung off the bottom of the thing instead of where they had actually grabbed it
Fixed "Most popular" in the Workshop being a different list to Most Popular on the mod.io website. It was ranking mods by today's downloads instead of all-time
Fixed getting stuck for the rest of the game if you opened your inventory while holding the Tools Menu button (Thanks to Truxtyx for figuring out how to reproduce this)
Fixed everyone in a multiplayer game freezing for a moment whenever somebody joined. The longer you had been playing, the worse it got - especially with auto despawn turned off, where all your spent fireworks pile up. It can still lag a bit if auto despawn is turned off
Fixed the game still reacting to your controller while you were tabbed out of it. It now ignores the controller until you come back, the same as it already did with your mouse and keyboard
Fixed the menus falling apart at a high UI Scale. At 150% the server browser ran off both sides of the screen, and Join and Refresh were pushed off the bottom - everything fits at every scale now
Fixed some players ending up on an old version of a mod, because the game didn't always wait for mod updates to finish before loading. And if you have two copies of the same mod installed, a popup now tells you which one is used
Fixed a small hitch when the speaker in the fireworks store was switched on or a smoke ball started hissing
Fixed the voice volume and mute you set for another player not sticking - they kept resetting
Fixed the D-pad in menus ignoring a press every now and then - the slightest touch on the thumbstick at the same moment was cancelling it out
Fixed some modded items dropping into mortar tubes far too small for them - an 80 cm cat went straight down a 2-inch tube
Fixed the inventory item details showing the previous mod's logo while the next one was still loading
Fixed the green rings that show where an item will go floating in the air beside curved and angled racks, instead of sitting on each slot
Fixed spawning quickly in some multiplayer games skipping every other item - the spawn animation played, but nothing appeared
Fixed a firework you lit in your hand staying stuck there after it was done. Your hand lets go once it's finished now
Fixed the flashlight prompt not showing up until you had opened a menu once, and sometimes showing the wrong On/Off
Fixed the throw and rotate hints disappearing when you picked something up
Fixed mortars kicking away other mortars and racks set down right next to them
Fixed players still showing up in a server's player count after they left, when a lot of people left at the same time
Fixed the spawn preview being the wrong size for some items - the cool flamingo showed up as a small one and then spawned full size
Fixed the spawn marker's line pointing up into the sky when you stand in the water in City
YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord
- Happy testing, enjoy! 🤓🕺
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/"]
NOTE: This version is only available on the EXPERIMENTAL game version/beta. You manually need to switch to it in Steam. Right Click on Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".
Please note that this is work-in-progress stuff. There might be bugs, features might never end up in the real version of the game and things might be a little odd.
However, I share this version as I need your feedback to help me shape the game - thanks for taking your time helping shape the game 🤓
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/8799b1c78ea87f7e3cf8e63a4e8316ce96919ca4.png"]
Added
A host's description in the Multiplayer list gets cut off when it's long. There's a "Read more" line under it now - click it and the whole thing opens in a window you can scroll
Changed
When the game is working to hold your framerate, firework lights now drop their shadows before it starts thinning out the sparks. The lights themselves stay - it's only the shadows they cast that go, and that is hard to spot in the middle of a burst
Dropped the ID number in front of every name on the Players list - it meant nothing to you and just took up space
Buttons that show a controller prompt now look like a proper prompt on a controller - no yellow plate, just the white glyph and text, with the hold filling a ring around the glyph instead of a bar
The highlight that follows your mouse or controller through the menus is the same everywhere now. It used to be a different shade in nearly every list, and in a few places it was drawn on top of the very thing it was highlighting
Turned the ambience sound down, the daytime one especially - it was way louder than it had any business being (have annoyed me for a long time, just never took the time to lower it)
The main menu blurs and dims the background once you step into one of the tabs, so everything you are reading stays easy to read whatever the fireworks are doing. The front page leaves it alone, so you can still just watch
"Got Join Code?" is no longer a tab of its own. It's a button next to Refresh on the Hosts list, or △/Y on a controller, and it opens a little box to type the code into. Get the code wrong and it's still there when you open it again, so you only have to fix the typo
Fixed
Fixed the Multiplayer list answering a failed refresh with a line of raw English error code. You get a proper message in your own language now, and hammering Refresh no longer causes the error in the first place
Fixed trying to join games one after the other throwing computer-speak at you, instead of just telling you to wait a moment and try again
Fixed the Players list only showing profile pictures for the people on your friends list. Everyone in the game gets their picture now
Fixed the sounds of things banging into each other going quiet in multiplayer unless you were standing about where the host was. You hear them around you again, wherever you are on the map
Fixed a burning fuse connection coming back unlit and at full length when you walk away from it and back again in someone else's game. It now picks up where the burn actually is
Fixed the fuse connecting sound going off again for every fuse around you when you walked back to a show, and when a blueprint loaded. It now only plays when somebody actually connects a fuse
YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord
- Happy testing, enjoy! 🤓🕺
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/"]
NOTE: This version is only available on the EXPERIMENTAL game version/beta. You manually need to switch to it in Steam. Right Click on Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".
Please note that this is work-in-progress stuff. There might be bugs, features might never end up in the real version of the game and things might be a little odd.
However, I share this version as I need your feedback to help me shape the game - thanks for taking your time helping shape the game 🤓
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/8ddb4408f3b7c36798bf2d7374bb1d19562354da.png"]
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/23d43b176558f2d8daf2a7a5deb9a577aa205e97.jpg"]
Added
Inventory items now have a small menu - right-click an item, hit its ⋯ button, or press ⬜/X on a controller. For now it holds the host's lock/unlock of items, which used to be hidden away on right-click and didn't work on a controller at all
The Friends list in the inventory now has an "Invite friends" button, so you can bring up the invite list without leaving the game to go find it
A new character, Maurice
There's a new prop hidden away somewhere for you to find and unlock. That's all you're getting
Changed
Fireworks stop counting against the host's spawn limit as soon as they are done firing, instead of when the last bit of smoke has drifted away. Fire off a rocket and you can spawn the next one the moment it has burst
Mortars now count against the props limit rather than the fireworks limit. They are stands, and whatever you put in them is counted on its own
The Hosts list in Multiplayer got a redesign. You can filter and sort it now, every host shows its map, players and uptime on one line, and picking one shows a picture of the map it runs
The Hosts list no longer hides games that are full or running a different version of the game. They show up grayed out with the reason instead, so you can at least see they are there
When you host, you now pick who can join - Anyone, Friends or Invite only - instead of just Public or Private. "Private" didn't always mean quite what you'd expect, so now it says exactly what it does
The friends list now refreshes itself while you have it open, so friends you added since you started playing turn up without a restart
The Players list now shows everyone's profile picture, the same way the Friends list does, and its rows got a bit taller to fit (Some UI issues with the volume, buttons etc. will be fixed)
The Avatar tab in the inventory now opens with your current character selected, instead of just starting at the top of the list
The inventory now remembers which item you had selected in each category, so when you come back to a tab you land right back on that item instead of at the top of the list
You can place fireworks twice as fast in multiplayer now, with the wait between each down from 0.2 to 0.1 seconds. If you have hosted before, your host.config still holds the old wait - set MinTimeBetweenPlayerSpawnInSeconds to 0.1, or just delete host.config and let the game make a fresh one
Max Players when you host now tops out at 32, and never goes below 1 - leaving the field blank used to give you a game nobody could join
Fixed
Fixed shells dropping out of the spawn limit the moment they went into a mortar, which let you load up a rack and get around the limit entirely. A loaded shell counts until it has been fired
Fixed not being able to join a game you were invited to when the host had set it to private. An invite now gets you in whichever setting the host picked
Fixed the broken pieces of blown-up props offering a "Pick up" prompt that never actually did anything. Wreckage is moved with the Physics Tool, not by hand
Fixed scenery like fire hydrants shaking and trying to fall through the ground in someone else's game, once an explosion had gone off near them
Fixed the chat saying you have more fireworks in the game than the host's limit even allows, and sometimes saying it twice. It now counts the same way the limit does
Fixed an error showing up in the log when something you were pointing the Physics Tool at in someone else's game disappeared at that very moment
Fixed respawn and teleport not actually moving you when you were stuck on or in physics stuff like props or debris - they now always get you out
Fixed a warning being spammed behind the scenes for every firecracker that was already going off when it came into view in someone else's game, adding overhead right in the busiest moments
Fixed the Physics Tool pushing things you grab up close out to arm's length. They now stay where they are, so you can rotate something in place again
Fixed the Physics Tool not being able to move the broken pieces of destroyed buildings and props when you play in someone else's game - and its purple glow lighting up the whole ruin instead of the piece you grabbed
Fixed the Physics Tool refusing to pick up scenery an explosion had knocked loose, like fire hydrants, when you play in someone else's game
Fixed the smoke on the Bee Hive not lining up with it
Fixed the Weather and Season in Game Settings always showing the same defaults instead of what the map you are playing actually runs with
Fixed the game sometimes getting stuck looking low-quality and sluggish after a heavy moment - like joining a busy game or a big explosion - until Dynamic Performance Scaling was toggled off. It now recovers on its own
Fixed the "Snow" weather doing nothing when you picked it in Game Settings - it now actually snows again
Fixed notifications landing on top of each other when several showed up at once, like when your mods announce themselves as the game loads. They now stack neatly under one another
Fixed blowing up buildings in the City not counting towards the buildings-destroyed achievement. The smallest fireworks no longer chip away at them, so it takes something with a bit more punch
Fixed the button prompt on the startup warning screen doing nothing - holding it on keyboard or controller now skips past the warning, the way it says it should
YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord
- Happy testing, enjoy! 🤓🕺
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/"]
NOTE: This version is only available on the EXPERIMENTAL game version/beta. You manually need to switch to it in Steam. Right Click on Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".
Please note that this is work-in-progress stuff. There might be bugs, features might never end up in the real version of the game and things might be a little odd.
However, I share this version as I need your feedback to help me shape the game - thanks for taking your time helping shape the game 🤓
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/e99d25d5f41257cab09cd47cacf74645e5dd20d7.png"]
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/e0e0fd96dbd53a9bafc682bf98ca1ae59edcd749.png"]
### Added
- Achievements! From lighting your first firework with the torch to blowing up 500 buildings - and a few hidden ones for you to find. Progress counts from this version on, so everyone starts from scratch together
- A new character, Guanaco
- Characters blink now, so they feel a lot less intense when you stand face to face with someone
### Changed
- The green ghosts showing where a shell will sit got a makeover. They are now a ring around the opening of each tube slot instead of a green copy of the shell and the one you are aiming at is drawn bigger. They also fade in and out instead of blinking, are fainter, and show up further out so you no longer catch them popping in at the edge of your screen
- The ghosts now also show up when you carry a shell with the Physics Tool, not just the Spawn Tool. Aim at a slot and it is pulled into place
- Stuff you throw now with the Physics Tool tumbles through the air instead of sailing off dead flat
- The firework limit in a hosted game now only counts fireworks that haven't gone off yet. With Auto Despawn turned off, everything you had ever lit still counted, so once you hit the limit you could never spawn again
- The year cakes now have their own "New Years Collection" with its own icon, instead of hiding in the "2020 Collection" where they never belonged
- The flashlight beam is wider now, with softer edges, to avoid the odd hard black line on the ground when looking down
- Turned down the glow on the Serious Sam fountain - it was way too shiny with the new look of the game
- The Messenger cake got a smoke trail on its shots, just because
- The list of games to join now scrolls with the right stick, and got the same slim scrollbar as the rest of the game
### Fixed
- Fixed text fields not bringing up the on-screen keyboard when you play without a keyboard, on a controller or a handheld. Searching the inventory, naming a blueprint, typing a join code and so on now all pop it up, like the Workshop already did
- Fixed the button prompts not following the controller you actually have in your hands. Swapping between an Xbox and a PlayStation controller, or picking up a controller after using the mouse, now switches them straight away instead of waiting for you to press a button
- Fixed popups like Save As or Ban Player letting you arrow off them with the keyboard onto things behind them. A controller kept you inside them, the keyboard didn't
- Fixed a popup waiting its turn stealing the selection from the one you are looking at, so pressing Enter could hit a button on a popup you couldn't even see
- Fixed the stuff you drop into a mortar tube alongside the shell being stuck in the world for good once you fire it. Clear All couldn't remove it, and it went missing from saved blueprints
- Fixed player names showing up as a row of question marks in the player list when they aren't spelled with plain English letters
- Fixed shells still turning over on their way down a mortar tube when you feed them in with the Physics Tool. Last time only covered dropping them in
- Fixed the left stick walking you around while you were using it to navigate the inventory. On keyboard you can still walk with WASD with the inventory open, same as before
- Fixed things jittering and sagging in mid-air when you carry them with the Physics Tool in someone else's game. They now sit as steady as they do for the host
- Fixed a join that gets turned away, say because of a version mismatch, still taking up a spot in the host's game for a minute afterwards, so games looked fuller than they were and could keep you from getting back in
- Fixed the main menu flashing the background picture and cutting to black before fading in, if you have the background video turned off
- Fixed a handful of places where a controller could get stuck or lose the selection in the menus - the list of games to join, the shell and mortar size filters in the inventory, the list of saved blueprints, the scrollbar inside a dropdown, and the inventory grid hopping out to the search field after you closed and reopened it
- Fixed the details of a game in the join list sometimes not opening when it got selected for you, leaving you with no Join button - and staying open after a refresh, still offering Join for a game that might not be there any more
- Fixed the "Looping" particle system warnings from base game fireworks
YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord
- Happy testing, enjoy! 🤓🕺
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/"]
NOTE: This version is only available on the EXPERIMENTAL game version/beta. You manually need to switch to it in Steam. Right Click on Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".
Please note that this is work-in-progress stuff. There might be bugs, features might never end up in the real version of the game and things might be a little odd.
However, I share this version as I need your feedback to help me shape the game - thanks for taking your time helping shape the game 🤓
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/130f2fcfe1e7387cb2413ba3858927c6102653d8.png"]
### Added
- Sounds are now muffled when something is between you and them, and it tells the difference between being inside and outside. Stand behind a house out in the street and the show mostly just gets quieter while keeping its thump; step indoors and it goes dull, like it is coming through the wall. Both can be turned off under Settings -> Audio
- The Workshop has a new "Recently updated" row, so you can spot mods that just got a new version. It replaces the old "Recent" row, and brand new mods still turn up there
### Changed
- Other players' voices now muffle through that same system, so a wall between you finally sounds like it, and a lamp post no longer muffles someone the way a house does
- Voice chat is a bit louder across the board, as it was easy to lose under a show
- On a controller, the menu actions moved off the sticks and onto the face buttons - starting a game is now a button you hold for a moment, and the prompt on it shows you which one. The button row along the bottom is centered now too
- The Dynamic Performance Scaling indicator in the top left corner is now a readable list instead of an icon nobody could read. It names each thing the game can turn down, and what it is turning down right now goes red, so you can see exactly what is being given up to keep your framerate
- The mod list when you create a game has rows twice as tall, so the mod pictures are big enough to actually tell the mods apart
- Mods you have turned on in that list now get a gold marker down the side of the row, so you can see what is on while scrolling instead of hunting for the little checkmark
- That gold marker is now used all over the menus - the character you are using, the blueprint you picked, the server you selected - and everything you can pick out of a list lights up as you move over it, which most of it simply did not do before
- The mod list when you create a game also performs a lot better, especially if you have a lot of mods
- The featured mods at the top of the Workshop take up a lot less room now, so you get to the rest of the mod list without scrolling past them first
- The Workshop is better at getting mod pictures loaded if your connection is shaky, or if something like antivirus or a school or work network sits in between
### Fixed
- Fixed the game slowly losing framerate the longer you play with mods installed. Every modded firework you set off left a little of itself behind and it piled up over a session - this is the one a lot of you have been reporting for years
- Fixed crouching in first person leaving your view up at standing height instead of dropping with you. Holding a tool happened to make it work, which is why it came and went
- Fixed your character's head lying over on its side while flying fast or crouching. There are still some issues with the head when flying, but flying is gonna be replaced by a drone mode, so I'm not gonna spend more time on it
- Fixed your character craning its head right back with its chin buried in its chest while crouching. Your head now only looks as far up as a neck actually goes, and still tilts up to meet someone standing over you
- Fixed characters from mods bumping into things at completely the wrong size - a 0.9m character walked around in a 2.5m collision shape, so it couldn't get under things it obviously fits under
- Fixed a lit fuse getting dragged up into the sky with the rocket it was burning towards. The burning end now stays where it was lit
- Fixed fuse connections burning through way faster than the fuse type you picked whenever the two fireworks moved about - a rocking rack could take a slow fuse down to a fraction of its time, so the timing you built was not the timing you got
- Fixed a firework now and then sitting out its whole fuse time when a fuse connection reached it, instead of going off right away. It only happened when you play with others
- Fixed shells spinning round and round on their way down a mortar tube when you dropped them in turned to one side. They now just straighten up and slide in, easiest to spot on the long ones
- Fixed the green ghost and the shell snapping going away on a mortar tube once you had fired it, so every tube you used went dead for the rest of the map
- Fixed what you are holding - the see-through preview of a firework, or anything picked up with the Physics Tool - not turning with you when you glance to the side without walking
- Fixed a small stutter the first time each firework sound plays in a map, most likely to notice once a big modded show gets going
- Fixed sounds jumping to somewhere else mid-way through during a busy show - a fountain or a whistle could suddenly sound like it came from across the map
- Fixed chat and voice dropping out at the start of a game you host and having to reconnect themselves. That usually covered the first player turning up, so whatever they said on arrival went nowhere
- Fixed the Workshop leaving mod pictures stuck loading forever and mods stuck on "Downloading". A download that fails now gives up straight away and gets another go, instead of that mod staying broken until you restart the game
- Fixed the main menu flashing the still background picture for half a second every time you start the game, before the video cut in over the top of it. It now fades up instead
- Fixed more of the memory the game held onto as you played - going between the menu and a map left about 47 MB behind every single time, and the friends list kept a fresh copy of every friend's picture each time it updated
YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord
- Happy testing, enjoy! 🤓🕺
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/"]
NOTE: This version is only available on the EXPERIMENTAL game version/beta. You manually need to switch to it in Steam. Right Click on Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".
Please note that this is work-in-progress stuff. There might be bugs, features might never end up in the real version of the game and things might be a little odd.
However, I share this version as I need your feedback to help me shape the game - thanks for taking your time helping shape the game 🤓
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/9231c0d01acdc2abe252f065814269040809828f.png"]
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/8b247142608cd6e3b5b587e0f41efcb347309360.jpg"]
This update is HUGE, mainly internally to try and fix some of the performance issues, especially the ones happening in longer sessions. Still haven't found the smoking gun, but have found a lot of minor things, that might when added up is the smoking gun - we will see. At least I have tried to fix as many as I could.
Its not all internal stuff as you can see below, there are visual and game feel things too 🤓 For instance, I'm much happier with how the player feels to control now, give it a try.
### Changed
- Your character can now glance around without spinning on the spot - look to either side and only the head turns, until you look further round or start moving. It mostly matters for everyone else in the game: you can see which way other players are actually looking, instead of them always facing whatever they look at
- Crouching finally looks like crouching! Your character used to just get squashed down to half height, which was always meant to be a placeholder - now there is a real crouch, and crouch walking in every direction has its own animation, for you and for everyone else in the game. What you can duck under also matches what you see much better. One thing worth knowing: crouching no longer shrinks you quite as much as it used to, so a few very tight gaps you could slip under before may not let you through anymore
### Fixed
- Fixed your character sliding along the ground with its feet standing still after you stop running - it was even easier to spot on the other players. You still slow down with a bit of weight to it, but your feet now keep up with you the whole way down to a stop
- Fixed your character's feet skating along the ground while you walk and run, in every direction - forwards, backwards and sideways. Like the sliding above, it is mostly something you notice on the other players
- Fixed the game freezing up when a player joins - for both of you, and the bigger the show you had built, the longer it lasted. Your setup now fills in around the joining player in the background while you both keep playing, so a huge or heavily modded one takes a while to arrive completely, but it stays smooth the whole way. It should also fix really big setups where joining could silently fail
- Fixed fireworks quietly ending up out of sync when you play with others. When a lot happened at once - loading a big blueprint, a busy show, or somebody joining - things could go missing on the other player's screen and stay wrong for the rest of the game
- Placing mortar racks is faster, so the little freeze when you drop a big rack down, or load a blueprint full of them, should now be noticeably shorter
- Placing fireworks from mods is a bit faster too, so the little hitch when you drop a big modded rack or cake down is shorter than before
- Fixed the game slowly claiming more and more memory the longer you play, as every mod sound you set off stayed loaded for the rest of the time the game was running. Sounds you have not used for a while are now cleaned up while you play, and sounds used in a map are let go when you leave it
- Fixed the see-through preview of a mortar rack twitching and jumping back and forth on its own while you look around before placing it. Holding a mortar or a mortar rack no longer tries to drop it into another rack's tubes either, so placing racks next to each other doesn't fight you anymore
- Fixed the number keys and the flashlight key not reacting properly once you had played more than one game without restarting
- Fixed a fuse left hanging in mid air when you have the Fuse Connection Tool in your hands. If the firework you started a fuse from disappeared before you connected it to something, the half finished fuse just stayed there floating, and putting the tool away and taking it out again didn't help
- Turning off Dynamic Performance Scaling in Settings -> Advanced now really does turn it off. Fireworks further away than about 130 meters still had their spark collision taken away, so sparks fell through the ground instead of bouncing off it. Fireworks now play exactly as they were made when the setting is off, and switching it off during a show puts everything back right away
- The flashlight beam no longer looks like a solid cone with the end chopped off. It now trails off gently towards the far end and its edges are soft, so it reads as light hanging in the air instead of a shape, and it is just as bright as before
- A mod that asks for a sound which doesn't exist no longer costs you performance every single time that sound should have played
- Fixed a handful of memory leaks where each game you played without restarting left a little of itself behind. This kind of leftover buildup is one of the suspects for the game slowly losing performance over long play sessions, and this is a first batch - the hunt continues
- Fixed fireworks quietly eating framerate while doing nothing at all - fuses just standing there before they were ever lit, rockets and whistlers, and mortar racks worst of all, especially loaded ones. In a long session with lots of fireworks placed this could eat a third of your framerate or more, so big builds and long shows should now run noticeably smoother
- Fixed being told a game was full when it wasn't, with a cryptic error code on top, after sitting through the whole mod loading first. Accepting an invite no longer takes a spot in the host's game before you actually join, so a host stops losing slots that nobody is using
- The messages you get when you can't join someone's game now show up in your own language, and say what actually happened - that the game is full, that it has already ended, that the code doesn't match a game, or that the two of you are on different versions
- Fixed rockets, whistlers and firecrackers vanishing into thin air the moment they were supposed to explode when you play with others. If you weren't the host you never saw the explosion at all - strobe rockets got it every single time, normal rockets now and then. Everybody sees the whole explosion now
- The Christmas lights now actually look like the colour they are supposed to be after dark. The blue one glowed a washed out purple, the red one came out orange and the green one went pale towards white - all four read properly now, and they glow just as much as before
- Fixed pulling the fuses off a firework only working for yourself when you have joined somebody else's game. They disappeared on your screen while everybody else still had them attached, so lighting one of the other fireworks still set it off. Removing fuses now works the same for everyone, no matter who does it
- Fixed the other players you fly around with dropping out of the flying pose and standing upright in mid air, while they were in fact still flying. It happened whenever anybody picked a new character in the Inventory, and to everyone already in the game when a new player joined. The same thing also cut short an emote somebody was playing, so both stay put now
- Fixed used up fireworks still costing you framerate when you play with "Auto Despawn Used Fireworks" turned off. They go quiet once they are finished now, and still stand where you left them like they should
- Fixed some modded fireworks leaving an invisible piece of themselves behind in the world when fired. It couldn't be removed with Clear All and kept costing framerate until you left the map, so a show full of those got heavier and heavier. The game now sorts them out as they load
- Fixed some fireworks never finishing, so they stayed where they were after the show was over and kept costing you framerate for the rest of the time you were on that map. Mostly a modded thing, and every single one you lit added another to the pile - they now play out once and disappear like everything else
YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord
- Happy testing, enjoy! 🤓🕺
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/"]
NOTE: This version is only available on the EXPERIMENTAL game version/beta. You manually need to switch to it in Steam. Right Click on Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".
Please note that this is work-in-progress stuff. There might be bugs, features might never end up in the real version of the game and things might be a little odd.
However, I share this version as I need your feedback to help me shape the game - thanks for taking your time helping shape the game 🤓
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/631a9bad7e3ec06ace8ccef3c15cada192dd4b27.png"]
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/5268af8897f69107624c4ebb4ed8816194339ecf.jpg"]
### Added
- First batch of the new characters is in - 21 brand new ones have replaced the old character list in the Inventory, so the ones you know are gone for now. More will follow in the coming versions, and if you had one of the old characters picked, you'll start out as the new default one
- The chat window now shows if voice and text chat is actually connected: green when you are connected, amber while it is connecting or trying again (with a countdown), and red if it gave up. It is only there when you play with others
- New indicator in the top left corner that shows up when the game turns down effect quality to keep the framerate up during a heavy show, and fades away once you are back at full quality - so you can tell the difference between the game helping out and the game just looking off. You can turn it off under Settings -> Advanced. This Dynamic Performance Scaling have been changed a bit, which right now means it's not really helping that much, but I'm trying to see if I can make it do more, that are more effective, at the cost of some visuals - however you can always disable it in Settings, if you rather have sporadic low fps. Anyway, work in progress
### Changed
- The "Players" tab in the inventory now has its own two tabs, "Players" and "Friends", instead of squeezing both lists next to each other. Each one gets the narrow width in the middle of the screen like the rest of the game to make it easier on the eye
- Renamed the "Host" tab in the inventory to "Game Settings", as that describes much better what you actually find in there
- The automatic quality scaling no longer takes away firework lights and trails when a lot is going on. They were the most visible thing it removed and gained almost no framerate, so now they stay no matter how busy it gets
- Toned down the bright flash when a propane tank explodes, as it was a bit too intense with the new look of the game
- Updated the engine and networking packages the game is built on. Nothing you should notice while playing, it just picks up a bunch of under the hood fixes
### Fixed
- Big explosions and big shows run a lot smoother. The freeze when something like the KarlsSon rocket tears down a whole street had several different causes, and this version goes after all of them: the wreckage now appears spread over a few frames instead of all in the same one, fireworks and debris no longer do a pile of hidden work the moment they spawn, impact sounds are only kept track of for things close enough that you could actually hear them, and one heavy frame no longer snowballs into a real freeze by making the game catch up on all the missed physics at once. A big chain reaction now stutters briefly instead of locking up, and the slower your machine, the bigger the difference
- Fixed the game freezing for a moment when many mod sounds played for the first time at the same time, like when a big show or chain reaction goes off. This was especially noticeable on slower machines
- Fixed rockets flying much higher than they should when the game turns down physics quality to keep the framerate up during a busy show. Rockets now reach the same height no matter what is going on around them, and explosions push things around with the same strength too
- Fixed a hiccup when you load a blueprint into a map where things are already exploding - fireworks and propane tanks that appear right next to an explosion now catch fire properly, and loading a big blueprint into the middle of a chain reaction no longer upsets the game
- Fixed burned out fireworks blinking out of existence in an instant when you play with others. Everybody now sees the same little shake and shrink when a firework disappears, instead of only the host
- Objects removed with the Eraser Tool now shrink away with that same little animation instead of blinking out, and everybody playing sees it
- If a mod contains a firework that is missing its size setting, loading the map still stops - the firework would misbehave in all sorts of ways otherwise - but the error message now tells you exactly which items are at fault and which mod they came from, so you can let the mod's author know what to fix
- Fixed voice and text chat staying dead after the connection to the chat service dropped. It gave up after about 30 seconds, so you were left without chat until you noticed and typed '/reconnect' yourself. Now the game keeps trying on its own for around 10 minutes, and the chat window tells you what is going on - '/reconnect' is of course still there if you want to force it
- The "Players" and "Friends" headings in the inventory were stuck in English no matter what language you played in. They now show up in your own language like the rest of the game
YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord
- Happy testing, enjoy! 🤓🕺
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/"]
NOTE: This version is only available on the EXPERIMENTAL game version/beta. You manually need to switch to it in Steam. Right Click on Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/669e221cc8f71a3d1716f45fb6b4c37dad213923.png"]
Please note that this is work-in-progress stuff. There might be bugs, features might never end up in the real version of the game and things might be a little odd.
However, I share this version as I need your feedback to help me shape the game - thanks for taking your time helping shape the game 🤓
### Changed
- Inventory items are now grouped: base game items first, then each mod's items together, with the mods sorted by name - so it's easier to find things and see what each mod adds
- Updated Japanese and Ukrainian translations
### Fixed
- Fixed items from some mods (typically mortars and shells) being invisible to other players in multiplayer - the player spawning them saw everything working fine, but for everyone else nothing appeared. Now everybody sees the same fireworks again
- A single broken asset in a mod can no longer silently break multiplayer spawning for everything else in that mod
YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord
- Happy testing, enjoy! 🤓🕺
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/"]
NOTE: This version is only available on the EXPERIMENTAL game version/beta. You manually need to switch to it in Steam. Right Click on Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/36145520/73899ef5e50d0fd679fa73598e1dd7428ba83d35.png"]
Please note that this is work-in-progress stuff. There might be bugs, features might never end up in the real version of the game and things might be a little odd.
However, I share this version as I need your feedback to help me shape the game - thanks for taking your time helping shape the game 🤓
### Changed
- Loading the game with a lot of mods is now much faster. In my test with almost 400 mods enabled, loading went from about 5½ minutes to just under 3 minutes. Closing the game with many mods also no longer takes forever - it now closes right away
- Unlock notifications now show the icon of the item you unlocked next to the text, so you can see what you got at a glance
- Inventory items are now always sorted alphabetically, so things are easier to find
- The Flashlight Intensity slider now goes from -15 to +15, with 0 in the middle being the new default. The flashlight itself got a new default brightness that fits the new look of the game better, so most of you probably don't need to touch this setting at all
- Toned down the glow on the spotlight prop, the fuse tool text and player names, as they were a bit too glowy - part of the ongoing polish after the new postprocessing look
- Updated Danish, Korean and Vietnamese translations
### Fixed
- Fixed the game freezing for several seconds when opening the Inventory or switching tabs, and the framerate dropping while it was open, if you play with a lot of mods. The Inventory should now be fast and smooth no matter how many mods you have installed
- Fixed the framerate dropping a lot in the main menu when you have many mods
- Fixed impact sounds (things hitting the ground and such) only playing for the host in multiplayer - now everybody hears them
YouTube | Twitch | Twitter | Discord
- Happy testing, enjoy! 🤓🕺
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1079260/Fireworks_Mania__An_Explosive_Simulator/"]
Current Release
Build 24891849
Uploaded Aug 24, 2026
System Requirements
How to Install
Fireworks Mania.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
Needed when extracting (WinRAR / 7-Zip) — not a site login.
7E04B9ED
6d5b6d2a7010355c79ba84971277ba8e185d4c0fc8fb5962da724ca41c4be22d
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Download Fireworks Mania - An Explosive Simulator for PC with a direct link or via torrent. Get the full version of Fireworks Mania - An Explosive Simulator for free. Fireworks Mania - An Explosive Simulator is a Action released by Laumania ApS.