19 Dec 2019Developer post

We Happy Few - The Cost of Joy Documentary

When you go from a handful of indies to the world stage, it's not all Joy. In The Cost of Joy, Compulsion Games takes you on the studio’s origins, the development of We Happy Few, and their introduction as a Microsoft studio through archival footage and new in-depth interviews.

08 Nov 2019Developer post

Update 1.9 dropping on Monday, November 11.

Hi all, On Monday, November 11th at 11am ET, update 1.9 of We Happy Few will drop on all platforms along with a little something else! We Happy Few 1.9 Release Notes Patch Summary This patch addresses general gameplay issues, and a few bugs that were happening in some encounters.

Hi all,

On Monday, November 11th at 11am ET, update 1.9 of We Happy Few will drop on all platforms along with a little something else!

We Happy Few 1.9 Release Notes

Patch Summary

This patch addresses general gameplay issues, and a few bugs that were happening in some encounters.

General Bugs/Stability

• When crafting with weapons as reagents, they no longer appear as fractions. Partial items can now be used to craft.

• Fixed the bug that caused systemic NPC conversations and POI interactions to not trigger properly, not play audio or loop repeatedly.

• NPCs no longer instantly stand-up and clip through their beds when startled by noise.

• Female Wellies/Wastrels and Criers no longer lack lip sync when talking to them.

• Dead NPCs don’t spawn alive anymore after loading into area.

• Encounter-specific Bobbies no longer create a temporary loss of functionality when bribed.

• Epilogue Cutscene: Performance issues no longer cause the final cutscene to hang and the audio to not be synchronized with the visuals.

• Fixed the bug that caused fast travelling to the Shelter in the "Secondary St. George's Holm Hatch" to prevent the creation of a "Last Shelter Visited" save file.

• Fire and smoke no longer clip through the wall on the second floor of the House of Doctors.

• Hopscotch POI can no longer spawn under multiple assets on the sidewalks, fixing the bug where Wellies can clip through them as they hop across them.

• Intro loading captions at the start of each character’s story no longer appear only in English.

• DLC Specific: Custom difficulty no longer includes survival needs difficulty which is not present in the DLCs.

• Missing SFX when navigating and selecting slots in the Load Game Menu are now in the game.

• Placeholder textures for the Frying Pan, the Rolling Pin, Mother's Little Helper and The Double Plus Wood are no longer showing when they break.

• Collision issues (sticky/stuck spots) are no longer present around the small fences along the 2 sides of the Thomasina House.

• The Histoplasma hallucination music now plays without the Lightbearer DLC installed.

• TNT no longer goes through floor when dropped.

• HUD will no longer take between 5-30 seconds to update after a change in Status Effects or Health when a PC/console is starved of resources.

• Uncle Jack (Wakey Wakey) collectible videos are no longer unlocked even when the radios are turned off.

• Fixed the bug where video in pre-rendered cinematics could be delayed but not their audio, making them out of sync.

• White Tree Park: NPCs no longer sit on top of each other on the benches.

• Infinite loading when entering Act 2 after completing Arthur's playthrough is no longer happening..

Arcade Mode

• All modes: NPCs no longer clutter in areas such as Cozy Tea Park.

• All modes: Player does not see footprints of most NPCs while sneaking

• All modes: Some NPC Wellies don't sit properly on the benches (clipping, floating and misaligned).

• All modes: Honey can now be harvested from all Honey Bee Nests.

• All modes: Encampment terrain now fits the terrain around it.

• All modes: Last Shelter Visited is now saved in Village Hatches.

• All modes: All Fast Travel Hatches now have their proper name.

• Freeform: The street park is no longer floating a little above the ground.

• Freeform: The 'Reset Skills' cheat is now functional.

• Freeform: Old Fountain Park level no longer floats above the island

• Freeform: Terrain is no longer floating in the Garden District.

• Survival: Fixed stuck spots.

• Survival: Performing a Save/Load inside the hidden room of Abbott Estate no longer causes the player to load back into a swarm of bees.

• Survival: When 2 NPCs try to interact with the same object, one NPC no longer circles around the one that interacting with the object.

• Survival: A Custom Waypoint is no longer present during the loading screen when starting a game in Survival Mode.

• Survival: Water beside the bomb no longer cuts off abruptly.

• Wellie: Items that cure certain status no longer have the bad ailments written twice under the item's description.

• Wellie: No longer possible to have a negative number for the "Money Earned" at the end screen.

• Wellie: A 'You Are Bleeding' message no longer appears on the intro screen.

• Wellie: The string "Weapon Of Choice" at the Death screen no longer appears only in English.

• Wellie: Infection no longer persists into the next round (now behaves like other status ailments).

• Wellie: Money Earned stat is now accurate on the end game screen.

• Wellie: The "Recent" sorting option now also apply to Wellie mode.

Encounter Fixes

• Arthur: No longer possible to get trapped inside the Mystery House grounds as the gate will only open when the histoplasma mushroom status effect is active.

• Arthur: Office Workers in “Start Spreading the News” are no longer upstairs attempting to sit on the same couch.

• Arthur: After Nick's bathroom electrocution cutscene, there is no longer a random assortment of items floating where player was standing.

• Arthur: In the Faraday Cage, James no longer falls through the floor when startled.

• Arthur: In the Still of the Night, Andy Alim will no longer teleport to or fall through the outhouse floor when getting up to attack Arthur.

• Arthur: In A Malpractice of Doctors, performing a save/load inside any building separated by a loading (DSIR, Haworth Labs), and then progressing continuously to the Coconut Joy cutscene, without doing any other save/load no longer causes a blocker.

• Ollie: Performing a Save/Load during the Jericho mission, at the Check out the Alarm objective, no longer causes Ollie and Margaret VO to stutter and repeat itself.

• Ollie: The Uncle Jack video that plays in the lobby of the tower's subtitles no longer gets cut off in Japanese.

• Sally: Small animation corruption after lowering the boat on the water is fixed.

• Sally: Stuck spot between debris on the second floor to the left of the bed.

PC Only

• Game no longer becomes unresponsive when minimizing and re-opening the game multiple times during loading while on Fullscreen and without the pause in background option.

• Game no longer becomes unresponsive when minimizing during the booting screen while on Fullscreen.

Xbox Only

• Suspending the title for an hour or longer will no longer kick the user back to the main menu with no in-game functionality on the gamepad.

Original post

30 Jul 2019Developer post

Lightbearer, available now!

Hi everyone, We are excited to announce that Lightbearer, our second DLC is now live on Xbox One, PS4, Steam and GOG! In this second piece of handcrafted Season Pass content, you play as Wellington Wells’ most beloved rock star, Nick Lightbearer, in a brand-new story! Heartthrob,

03 Apr 2019Developer post

They Came from Below will drop tomorrow at 9am ET

They Came from Below, our first DLC for We Happy Few, will drop tomorrow at 9am ET on all platforms! This DLC is included in the Season Pass and the Deluxe Edition of We Happy Few and can also be purchased as a standalone. Stay tuned for the trailer tomorrow!

28 Mar 2019Developer post

They Came from Below. Available April 4th!

In case you missed it on the Gearbox panel at PAX East. They Came from Below, our first DLC and newest hand-crafted story for We Happy Few will be available on April 4th! More info:

25 Mar 2019Developer post

Arcade Mode and update 1.7 now live!

Hi all, Patch 1.7 which contains our free game update, Arcade Mode is now live on Steam, UWP, PS4 and Xbox One. You can read the patch notes below! PS4: 1.7.80097 UWP: 1.7.80002 GOG: 1.7.79954 Windows: 1.7.79954 Xbox One: 1.7.79954 We Happy Few 1.7 Release Notes Patch Summary Thi

Hi all,

Patch 1.7 which contains our free game update, Arcade Mode is now live on Steam, UWP, PS4 and Xbox One. You can read the patch notes below!

PS4: 1.7.80097

UWP: 1.7.80002

GOG: 1.7.79954

Windows: 1.7.79954

Xbox One: 1.7.79954

We Happy Few 1.7 Release Notes

Patch Summary

This patch contains Arcade Mode, including three separate new ways to play We Happy Few. It also includes infrastructure to handle the upcoming DLC, and general performance optimizations, crash fixes, fixes for progression blockers, fixes for gameplay bugs, and localization fixes.

New Features

• Survival mode Added. Survival mode is a return to the Early Access survival experience. It has had all story elements removed, and is a mostly systemic mode. The mode includes tiles from the story mode that have had story elements removed, new areas and tiles, new onboarding, and a scoring system added.

• Night’s Watch mode Added. Night’s Watch is the opportunity to play as one of the wellies - or in this case, Constable Constable. You’ll have to hunt Downers throughout the night to make sure the streets are safe for the citizens of Wellington Wells in the morning, and includes a new enemy to fight.

• Sandbox mode Added. Sandbox mode allows you to tweak and change the procedural general system We Happy Few uses, with sometimes unpredictable results. Options that might result in unusual visual features or weird AI issues are marked with warnings, so use those settings at your own discretion. Basically, this is a mode to mess around in, and cheat/have fun as you’d like.

• Added game type indication to save game info when loading games.

• Added DLC menu.

General Bugs/Stability

• Fixed a crash on consoles when loading a save game inside the Doctor HQ in Arthur’s playthrough. This should unblock progression for anyone whose saved games were consistently crashing in this location.

• Fixed rare crash/infinite loading issues.

• UI fixes.

• Fixed issues with patrols/navmesh failing, causing NPCs to be in unusual places.

• Fixed issues with NPCs teleporting/attaching directly to you during combat.

• You can now equip a single gas mask when multiple are owned.

• Rarely, Doctors' saw weapons had collision and could make characters bounce erratically when both come in contact.

• Bobbies wearing gas mask are no longer immune to caltrops. That was quite silly.

• Added missing prompt to unlock a water pump if character has a lockpick already crafted in their inventory.

• Climbing onto the televisions in the streets no longer causes the camera to spin wildly.

• Opening the map no longer causes the current quest map marker to persist after the quest is completed.

• Player can no longer slip into areas when metal shutters open for NPCs (could break quests).

• Rain should no longer show up in the interior of the joy factory.

• Reloading the initial auto save will now correctly unlock the recipes for the Jolliest Brolly and Not So Jolly Brolly.

• Entering a shop at the same time as night comes causes no longer causes the player to be trapped inside.

• Spankers inside Wellie houses can no longer hit the player through walls and closed doors (tiny collision missing in the door frame).

• Bodies you are carrying will no longer disappear if there are too many corpses nearby.

• The term "non-lethal kills" in the statistics menu was dumb and now is less dumb (“takedowns”).

• Subtitle/language fixes (including several Britishims fixed).

• Localization fixes (including Arthur’s final cutscene - now translated correctly).

• Fixed various stuck spots/locations where you could access areas inappropriately (causing issues).

• Many small fixes, like animation skips, clipping art, etc.

Collectibles/Achievements

• Collecting a memory mask while the player character is talking will no longer result in the VO of the mask not playing.

• Broadcasts: Uncle Jack shows will now unlock in all cases when listening and looking at wall protruding screens in the Village.

• Fixed an issue with the “Gimme Shelter” achievement caused by failing the "A Model Citizen" quest.

• Fixed an issue with the “Cat Burglar” achievement, where getting hit while picking up a fake cat statue could cause it to disappear.

• Fixed an issue with the “Arthur Haste-ings achievement” caused by consuming a random obsolete phlash pill that could be found in an obscure location. Using any phlash pill should now unlock this achievement.

Encounter Fixes

• NPCs should no longer clip into the ground near the Rubble Pile at the Water Pumps.

• Removed unobtainable chest in the middle of a watch tower in the military camp.

• Fixed some save incompatibility issues and other blockers for players using saves from version 1.5 or earlier.

• Fixed rare/obscure/conditional quest blocking issues with the Church of Simon Says, the Cult of Jack, Hallucinogenic Salad, Haworth Labs, Plough Boy's Lunch, Possibly Heinous Package / Superb Meat Boy, Really Bad Gas, Speaker’s Corner, Cathouse, Rorke’s Drift Bridge, Home Cooking/Connect the Dots, Duck Soup, Plassey Bridge, Military Camp, Manned Flight, So Foul and Faraday.

• Ed Macmillan can no longer be lost. If you drop him, and he despawns, he’ll reappear at the point where you picked him up.

• Arthur - Alabaster Bobby in Haworth Labs will no longer find an adjacent room more interesting that the room he should be in (allowing him to be fought in all cases).

• Arthur - Edie Goes Downer: Loading in a game with the encounter/quest completed, no longer causes Arthur to repeat his quest completion dialog.

• Arthur - English Vice: Reform Club NPC barks are no longer persistent after leaving the level.

• Arthur - Future Perfect: Fixed incomplete video during "The House Of The Future" video with Jack.

• Arthur - Letter Of Transit: Fixed narrative inconsistency with Arthur mentioning cod liver oil before he knows he needs it.

• Arthur - Ravensholm - The Scottish Play: Ollie's model now behaves correctly with lighting during the cutscene.

• Arthur - The English Vice: Using the shock baton "Tickler" no longer causes the NPCs in the Reform Club to teleport.

• Arthur - The Great Stink: Fixed issue that could cause the worker keycard not to be available when needed. Any players stuck at this point should find a worker keycard either in their inventory or on the ground near the entrance to the underground.

• Arthur - The Scottish Play - Military Camp: Turning the subtitle option on, at the military base entrance, no longer displays a full page of dialogue obstructing the player's view.

• Ollie - Lud's Holm: Jumping under the Salamanca Bridge no longer causes the player to respawn stuck under the bridge.

• Ollie - Manned Flight: No more auto-saves after triggering Manned Flight and can't manually save after completing the first objective. Fixes progression blocker in this area.

• Ollie - No Place Like Home: The second Bobby no longer notices Victoria immediately.

• Ollie - The Gung Hoster: The objective marker in this quest is now a location marker, and will show the location of where to find the explosives and Private Baden-Powell properly.

• Ollie - The Truth Shall Set You Free - Uncle Jack's broadcast video will now pause appropriately during the cinematic for his last broadcast

• Ollie - Jericho: During the intro cutscene, the items Ollie takes out of his bag no longer have a duplicated version of them already on the table.

• Physics - Corporal Cheeseman and other NPCs on patrol should no longer fall out of world when hit by Ollie with an enhanced cricket bat.

• Sally - Hope Chest - Worldgen: A large patch of grass surrounding the chest no longer has a kill volume.

• Sally - Train Station now has a POI marker on the map.

Xbox Only

• Fixed several issues related to dashboard use when saving/loading.

UWP Only

• Fixed rare save game corruption issue. Save games could become larger than the UWP allowance, preventing them from being registered. Resolves issues encountered by Xbox Game Pass players who use the Play Anywhere feature.

Playstation 4 Only

• Fixed multiple Playstation 4-specific crash issues, some black textures and more minor PS4 graphical issues.

• Arthur - Hostile Takeover – Disable Motilene Pumps: The electric beam blocking the way is no longer invisible.

• Note that as Playstation 4 players did not receive update 1.6, their 1.7 update includes all fixes from the 1.6 update as well. Over 1000 bug fixes and optimization improvements in total.

Thansk for tuning in!

Original post

22 Mar 2019Developer post

Arcade Mode and Update 1.7!

Hi everyone, We Happy Few 1.7, including the new Arcade Mode, will be coming to all platforms on Monday March 25th! In the distant past, during our Kickstarter campaign in 2015, we promised that we would build additional modes for We Happy Few - at the time, loosely titled Sandbo

Hi everyone,

We Happy Few 1.7, including the new Arcade Mode, will be coming to all platforms on Monday March 25th!

In the distant past, during our Kickstarter campaign in 2015, we promised that we would build additional modes for We Happy Few - at the time, loosely titled Sandbox and Wellie Mode - and we have been working on what this would look like since launch. Today we are excited to finally present you: Arcade Mode!

Arcade Mode is a free game update for We Happy Few which contains not two, but three new modes that will showcase a different part of the We Happy Few experience: Survival, Night’s Watch and Sandbox.

Survival

Survival is a return to the Early Access survival experience. As its name suggests, Survival mode is all about surviving in a harsh and unforgiving world, and is designed for those of you who enjoyed the survival experience in the past. You will need to hunt for food, water and shelter, and you’ll need to use all of the stealth, crafting, and combat skills at your disposal to last as long as you can in Wellington Wells. Scoring is based on survival time but to keep things mysterious and exciting, there is also a way to escape the island.

Night’s Watch

Have you ever wondered how it would feel to give a jolly good thrashing to those pesky Downers? In Night’s Watch (formally called Wellie Mode), we bring to life one of the most requested characters by the community, allowing you to play as the most notorious Bobby, Constable Constable. As a constable, and a man of high duty, you’ll need to keep all the filthy Downers out of town through fast paced combat while making sure you do not run out of Joy. Each night will become increasingly harder as hordes of Downers start pouring around town. Upgrade your weapons, take your Joy and keep the streets Downer free! All with a great big smile on your face.

Sandbox

Sandbox is a non-narrative/non-goal based game mode, which allows you to experiment with our world generation systems and gameplay options. This isn’t a skill based mode rather than a calmer experience, designed for players who want the freedom to create their own version Wellington Wells. So, if you’d like to pile 50 corpses in a bathtub, or see a very unusual procedurally generated world, this might be for you. With a whole arsenal of cheats at your disposal, chaos in this mode knows no bounds.

Update 1.7 and other stuff

Update 1.7 will drop on Monday March 25th for Steam, UWP, PS4 and Xbox One.

Along with Arcade Mode, Update 1.7 will contain an array of bug fixes and improvements for We Happy Few.

Along with these additions and fixes, Update 1.7 also includes the infrastructure (eg the menu option) that we need to deliver the Season Pass DLC. We're very close now to talking more about the first DLC. Stay tuned for more info soon!

Finally, we have just about fulfilled the last of our Kickstarter requirements. With Arcade Mode coming out, we’ve completed all our project stretch goals! We’re just about finished with the final physical rewards, including the final parts of the collector’s box. Thank you all for your patience.

Patch notes to come.

Compulsion Games

Original post

11 Jan 2019Developer post

New year update, Xbox One patch announcement and DLC news!

Hi everyone, After a much needed holiday break, we are officially back in the studio and ready to start a brand new chapter! From all of us at the studio, we wish you a happy new year. Big things are coming this year, including the DLCs. We are happy to say that things are going

Hi everyone,

After a much needed holiday break, we are officially back in the studio and ready to start a brand new chapter! From all of us at the studio, we wish you a happy new year.

Big things are coming this year, including the DLCs. We are happy to say that things are going well and that we’ll start sharing specific news very soon. Let’s say that we hope you enjoyed the wacky side of We Happy Few.

However, in more immediate news, the team has also been working on patches and updates for the main game. Console and PC versions of We Happy Few operate differently, each with their own set of specific bugs to address. Lately we have been working on Xbox One specific issues, as we received a great deal of feedback about it specifically. Today we are releasing update 1.6 on Xbox One!

These fixes will be coming for other platforms as soon as they are ready, along with their own platform specific fixes (including linux).

If you are curious about what the update will be, this patch contains a new save game system (so you have more than 3 save slots available), some small combat improvements, performance optimizations, crash fixes, fixes for progression blockers, fixes for gameplay bugs, and localization fixes. Here are the patch notes for update1.6.

Otherwise, many of you have asked about the progress on the DLCs. We’re still a small team and are doing these DLCs ourselves. What this means is that we proceed through pre production on each update with a small team, then go into production with the full team when it’s ready - and this can take time. We want to get these right, and we very much appreciate everyone’s patience. This is where each update is currently at:

Sandbox is in the final stages of tweaking and QA, and will be the next major patch after 1.6 (1.7, probably). We’ll be talking about these game modes shortly, as they will provide different experiences to what you currently see in Wellington Wells.
They Came From Below is mostly content complete, and we’re currently reviewing/polishing up what we’ve built in production.
Lightbearer is full steam ahead in production.
We All Fall Down is in pre-production.

As usual, if you have any questions about anything, let us know and we’ll be more than happy to respond.

Thank you,

Compulsion Games

Original post

We Happy Few

Updates & announcements

We Happy Few - The Cost of Joy Documentary

We All Fall Down, available now!

We All Fall Down - Launch Trailer

Update 1.9 dropping on Monday, November 11.

We All Fall Down - Teaser Trailer

Lightbearer, available now!

Update 1.8 is live!

Lightbearer - We Happy Few’s second DLC out July 30th!

They Came from Below, available now!

They Came from Below will drop tomorrow at 9am ET

They Came from Below. Available April 4th!

Arcade Mode and update 1.7 now live!

We Happy Few 1.7 Release Notes

Arcade Mode and Update 1.7!

We Happy Few 1.6 is live!

New year update, Xbox One patch announcement and DLC news!

End of year 2018

We Happy Few 1.5 is live!

Patch Summary

General Bugs/Stability

Quests

Collision and Stuck Spots

Localization/Subtitles

Playstation 4 only

UWP only

We Happy Few 1.4 now live

We Happy Few 1.3 Hotfix now live

We Happy Few 1.3 - Hotfix (Live on Beta branch)