Hide and Seek

Llama Software

Released: Aug 31, 2017
Platforms: Windows
Last updated: 04 Sep 2026, 07:56 GMT

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20 posts

15 Dec 2018Developer post
1.0.4.101 Patch Notes - NOW LIVE
Update 16 December Now LIVE! . Check for updates to play now! Overview New Level! Space Station is now available to play on! After much design, redesign, test, redesign, test some more, it's finally here! Some other notable changes are, the flashlight is more realistic, you can a
Update 16 December
Now LIVE!. Check for updates to play now!
Overview
New Level! Space Station is now available to play on! After much design, redesign, test, redesign, test some more, it's finally here!
Some other notable changes are, the flashlight is more realistic, you can actually see it and it's not just a light appearing from nowhere. You can see your own body, hands, and legs. Some network usage improvements, and a crash fix.
New Level - Space Station
It's been a long time coming and it's finally here! Play Hide and Seek on a Space Station filled with new unique gameplay elements.
The Space Station is the largest level yet, with teleporters, jumping obstacles, flying air, an elaborate ventilation system, and of course plenty of places to hide!
Check out some gameplay here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiEEoDpl1s4
And a level flytrhough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShpQ8t_6OMM
Map Overview
The Space Station is made up of 5 main areas:
Green Zone:
The green-tech side of the space station where research on plants is done.
Blue Zone:
The sleeping quarters and command center side.
The Bar:
Where the space station residents come to relax, have a drink, and dance.
Central Hangar:
Where base is.
The Lab
Where experiments are run, data is collected, and late nights doing work are spent.
New Features

"First Person View" is live - you can see your body
Flashlight and head rotation now respond with inverse kinematics
Game State is now also reflected by music. The more intense the music, the less time left in the match. Casual music when Counting that gets progressively more intense as the Hide For, and Timeleft states change.
Fixes

Prevent the game from crashing when clicking "Connect" on Server Browser when no server is selected
Greatly lower network traffic consumption due to a bug tied to "grounded" state
Update: 16 December: Improved performance due to screen space reflections by 120%. Removed Reflections on levels where they were unnoticeable in almost every circumstance, but still provided a (pretty high) performance cost. In my testing this boosted performance to, in most cases, the CPU fps at the resolution the GPU could support.
Haunted House

Made the books static since they didn't add much gameplay benefit and had a a not-insignificant network performance impact
Better occlusion for better performance
Update: 16 December:Removed Screen Space Reflections
Hedge Maze

Fixed the Leaf particle systems to fall with gravity
FPS counter no longer covers the minimap
Reduced draw calls by over 1500 - should be a good performance improvement on draw-call limited computers
Better Occlusion for much better performance
Update: 16 December:Removed Screen Space Reflections
Halloween Hedge Maze

FPS counter no longer covers the minimap
Reduced draw calls by over 1000- should be a good performance improvement on draw-call limited computers
Better Occlusion for much better performance
Update: 16 December:Removed Screen Space Reflections
Original post
06 Jan 2018Developer post
1.0.3.53 Patch Notes OUT NOW
Overview The UI has been almost completely rewritten from scratch. Every menu, every HUD element, and the logic behind it all. This was the main purpose of this patch. In addition to the new menu eye candy, the total size of Hide and Seek has shrunk by approximately 1.3gb. This s
Overview
The UI has been almost completely rewritten from scratch. Every menu, every HUD element, and the logic behind it all. This was the main purpose of this patch. In addition to the new menu eye candy, the total size of Hide and Seek has shrunk by approximately 1.3gb.
This should result in faster loading of levels and less stutter (loading from disk is actually what makes the game appear like it is crashing) especially on computers with slower hard disks.
There are also a lot of visual upgrades in game such as upgraded fog on the levels with fog, Screen Space Multiple Scattering, improved volumetric lighting, and more.
And, very importantly importantly, a bug fix where if you didn't adjust graphic settings, made the game default to max settings resulting in very bad performance on lower end machines.
UI Overhaul

The UI is totally new. You can see an early preview here, or just launch the game. :)

Main Menu, Settings, Server Administration Panel, Hats Gallery, End of Match Score Screen are all new, animated, and will always be consistent across all levels, and I won't have to update it on every level as I did before. :)
New and consistent audio (music, feedback, etc...)
In Game HUD has been reworked to also be consistent across levels, and also animated.
Escape will now work consistently and close any popup, go back to previous page, etc...
There is now more messaging, and more detailed messaging throughout the game explaining more clearly what is happening and what you should be doing.
On the End of Match Score Screen, players can chat while the next level is loading, at least until the server has fully loaded the level.
Controls Menu "Reset Defaults" no longer resets all of your settings, only the controls.
Graphics Menu bug fixed that, if you have not applied any custom graphics settings, made the game run at max settings on your native resolution resulting in very bad performance on low/mid range machines.
Haunted House

Particle System fog removed, replaced with a global fog, SSMS, & volumetric lighting. Enjoy.
Ivy and Moss growing on the house now sway in the wind.
Draw calls reduced resulting in lower CPU overhead - more work still to be done here.
The lake is now less murky and more bloody.
Fixed one of the patrolling spiders not being animated properly.
Fixed grass texture issue introduced in last patch
Halloween Hedge Maze

Improved global fog, SSMS, & volumetric lighting. Enjoy.
The lake is now less murky and more bloody.
Inside the maze there is now more grass, swaying more realistically, and is cheaper to render.
Birds are (again) no longer animated since they were eating a lot of CPU time (like up to 10fps) on older/slower processors.
Hedge Maze

Removed fake volumetric lighting and replaced with global realtime volumetric lighting, sun was moved too so it's brighter inside the maze.
Inside the maze there is now more grass, swaying more realistically, and is cheaper to render.
Birds are (again) no longer animated since they were eating a lot of CPU time (like up to 10fps) on older/slower processors.
General Improvements/Bugfixes

Auto Kick AFK will now only affect the Seeker, when they are not counting. Hiders and Spectators will never get this message.
Removed screen space sunshafts and enabled global volumetric lighting on all levels.
Flashlights of Hiders and the Seeker once more are volumetric lights.
Flashlights no longer go through walls unexpectedly.
Reduced application size by ~1.3gb resulting in much faster loading, and (on my test machines at least) resolved the "game looks like it crashed" issue. There's more work for me to do here to really make the loading smooth, but this is phase 1.
Fixed a bug that prevented proper light status when playing on non-dedicated servers
Original post
06 Jan 2018Developer post
1.0.3.53 Patch Notes OUT NOW
Overview The UI has been almost completely rewritten from scratch. Every menu, every HUD element, and the logic behind it all. This was the main purpose of this patch. In addition to the new menu eye candy, the total size of Hide and Seek has shrunk by approximately 1.3gb. This s
Overview
The UI has been almost completely rewritten from scratch. Every menu, every HUD element, and the logic behind it all. This was the main purpose of this patch. In addition to the new menu eye candy, the total size of Hide and Seek has shrunk by approximately 1.3gb.
This should result in faster loading of levels and less stutter (loading from disk is actually what makes the game appear like it is crashing) especially on computers with slower hard disks.
There are also a lot of visual upgrades in game such as upgraded fog on the levels with fog, Screen Space Multiple Scattering, improved volumetric lighting, and more.
And, very importantly importantly, a bug fix where if you didn't adjust graphic settings, made the game default to max settings resulting in very bad performance on lower end machines.
UI Overhaul

The UI is totally new. You can see an early preview here, or just launch the game. :)

Main Menu, Settings, Server Administration Panel, Hats Gallery, End of Match Score Screen are all new, animated, and will always be consistent across all levels, and I won't have to update it on every level as I did before. :)
New and consistent audio (music, feedback, etc...)
In Game HUD has been reworked to also be consistent across levels, and also animated.
Escape will now work consistently and close any popup, go back to previous page, etc...
There is now more messaging, and more detailed messaging throughout the game explaining more clearly what is happening and what you should be doing.
On the End of Match Score Screen, players can chat while the next level is loading, at least until the server has fully loaded the level.
Controls Menu "Reset Defaults" no longer resets all of your settings, only the controls.
Graphics Menu bug fixed that, if you have not applied any custom graphics settings, made the game run at max settings on your native resolution resulting in very bad performance on low/mid range machines.
Haunted House

Particle System fog removed, replaced with a global fog, SSMS, & volumetric lighting. Enjoy.
Ivy and Moss growing on the house now sway in the wind.
Draw calls reduced resulting in lower CPU overhead - more work still to be done here.
The lake is now less murky and more bloody.
Fixed one of the patrolling spiders not being animated properly.
Fixed grass texture issue introduced in last patch
Halloween Hedge Maze

Improved global fog, SSMS, & volumetric lighting. Enjoy.
The lake is now less murky and more bloody.
Inside the maze there is now more grass, swaying more realistically, and is cheaper to render.
Birds are (again) no longer animated since they were eating a lot of CPU time (like up to 10fps) on older/slower processors.
Hedge Maze

Removed fake volumetric lighting and replaced with global realtime volumetric lighting, sun was moved too so it's brighter inside the maze.
Inside the maze there is now more grass, swaying more realistically, and is cheaper to render.
Birds are (again) no longer animated since they were eating a lot of CPU time (like up to 10fps) on older/slower processors.
General Improvements/Bugfixes

Auto Kick AFK will now only affect the Seeker, when they are not counting. Hiders and Spectators will never get this message.
Removed screen space sunshafts and enabled global volumetric lighting on all levels.
Flashlights of Hiders and the Seeker once more are volumetric lights.
Flashlights no longer go through walls unexpectedly.
Reduced application size by ~1.3gb resulting in much faster loading, and (on my test machines at least) resolved the "game looks like it crashed" issue. There's more work for me to do here to really make the loading smooth, but this is phase 1.
Fixed a bug that prevented proper light status when playing on non-dedicated servers
Original post
02 Jan 2018Developer post
Devblog 6 - January 1 2018
Happy New Year! Reflection on December As you have noticed, there was no patch released in December :). I was hoping to release it some time between Christmas and New Years however there were a couple issues in testing that I haven't quite resolved yet so in the next week or so I
Happy New Year!
Reflection on December
As you have noticed, there was no patch released in December :). I was hoping to release it some time between Christmas and New Years however there were a couple issues in testing that I haven't quite resolved yet so in the next week or so I should be able to push that out.
I'm really excited for all the stuff in this patch and really want to get it out to you all.
Looking Forward
I want to change how I handle Devblogs and Patches. With the current paradigm I am "rewarded" for promising to do smaller tasks that can be released within a month so on the following devblog I can write "look at all these cool things I have delivered in the last month".
While this is cool and has been beneficial to the overall health of the game, since there was a need for all of these smaller tasks, it also prevents me from working on the longer term items, or what we call "technical investment" time.
With the next patch Hide and Seek will be in a much more stable state. At that time I will begin focusing on longer term items.
Of course, I will address any issues reported as quickly as possible. Please report any issues on the Community Hub bug report section, or send me an email at [email protected]
Longer Term Items
Here's the list of longer term items that I know I will be working on.

Space Station Level (click to see a preview) - This one is the most complete of the longer term items. My best guess on when it will be done is still several months out.
Skills - a different set of skills for both Hiders and the Seeker. I don't have anything at this moment finalized so I won't go into details.
Animation Updates - As stated in the last devblog, I see a lot of people being confused about the game saying "it's weird" or something like that. As far as I'm told it may be related to the animations.
First person view updates (click to see a preview) - I'd like to allow you to see yourself, and have the flashlight not just appear out of nothingness.
Sprays - Being able to spray a logo or decal onto objects is always fun and I'd like to add that. :)
Taunts/Emotes - These are fun so I'd like to allow you to do this on command.
Voice Lines - Having auditory feedback is always good for immersion
As always, I'd love to hear from you about what improvements or features you would like to see made. You can:

Send me a message on Llama Software's Facebook
Send me a message on Hide and Seek's Facebook
Start a thread on the Steam Community Hub Discussions
Send me an email at [email protected]
Original post
02 Jan 2018Developer post
Devblog 6 - January 1 2018
Happy New Year! Reflection on December As you have noticed, there was no patch released in December :). I was hoping to release it some time between Christmas and New Years however there were a couple issues in testing that I haven't quite resolved yet so in the next week or so I
Happy New Year!
Reflection on December
As you have noticed, there was no patch released in December :). I was hoping to release it some time between Christmas and New Years however there were a couple issues in testing that I haven't quite resolved yet so in the next week or so I should be able to push that out.
I'm really excited for all the stuff in this patch and really want to get it out to you all.
Looking Forward
I want to change how I handle Devblogs and Patches. With the current paradigm I am "rewarded" for promising to do smaller tasks that can be released within a month so on the following devblog I can write "look at all these cool things I have delivered in the last month".
While this is cool and has been beneficial to the overall health of the game, since there was a need for all of these smaller tasks, it also prevents me from working on the longer term items, or what we call "technical investment" time.
With the next patch Hide and Seek will be in a much more stable state. At that time I will begin focusing on longer term items.
Of course, I will address any issues reported as quickly as possible. Please report any issues on the Community Hub bug report section, or send me an email at [email protected]
Longer Term Items
Here's the list of longer term items that I know I will be working on.

Space Station Level (click to see a preview) - This one is the most complete of the longer term items. My best guess on when it will be done is still several months out.
Skills - a different set of skills for both Hiders and the Seeker. I don't have anything at this moment finalized so I won't go into details.
Animation Updates - As stated in the last devblog, I see a lot of people being confused about the game saying "it's weird" or something like that. As far as I'm told it may be related to the animations.
First person view updates (click to see a preview) - I'd like to allow you to see yourself, and have the flashlight not just appear out of nothingness.
Sprays - Being able to spray a logo or decal onto objects is always fun and I'd like to add that. :)
Taunts/Emotes - These are fun so I'd like to allow you to do this on command.
Voice Lines - Having auditory feedback is always good for immersion
As always, I'd love to hear from you about what improvements or features you would like to see made. You can:

Send me a message on Llama Software's Facebook
Send me a message on Hide and Seek's Facebook
Start a thread on the Steam Community Hub Discussions
Send me an email at [email protected]
Original post
05 Dec 2017Developer post
Devblog 5 - December 4 2017
Reflection on November November was an unsuccessful month for me. I said I was going to do the UI/Menu Updates, along with some other stuff that was mostly already done, and also work on the Space Station level. In reality I mostly worked on the Space Station level, released what
Reflection on November
November was an unsuccessful month for me. I said I was going to do the UI/Menu Updates, along with some other stuff that was mostly already done, and also work on the Space Station level. In reality I mostly worked on the Space Station level, released what I had (almost all) already completed, and pushed some impressive performance improvement on Haunted House.
So why was I unsuccessful? There's 2 major reasons.
The biggest one:
I allocated way too much time to the Space Station. While its progress is really awesome and I'm really excited about it, I did not deliver on the features that add value now that I said I would be doing.
The other big issue is I underestimated the UI update. After working on it I discovered parts of it I was hoping to defer to a future update need to be done now to provide the most compelling experience while playing Hide and Seek. And...unfortunately these changes are time consuming to implement. If you haven't seen it yet, here's a video showing an in-development preview of the new Menus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z45cbizoDGU . Keep in mind this is not the final product, and even as I'm writing this on Monday, it is very different in some places and some issues were resolved.
Also a feature that was requested, I implemented in a way that appears to cause more pain than it resolved. The Auto Kick AFK implementation I cannot count as a success since it really only makes sense to kick the Seeker, since a lot of the time as a Hider, or Spectator, you will not be providing input.
Looking Forward
Looking to December, I plan to work on things in the following order:
UI/Menu Updates (expanded)
I stated last time, the UI/Menu Updates is a 2 part task. After really looking at it, it's more like a 3 or 4 part task. The first 2 are the same as I presented last time. The others are new

The actual UI Changes that you will see and interact with - this includes the items on screen, animations, sprites, etc..
The way I manage the UI data - this is more a structure change in how I present and access the data on the UI
The way I display the UI - more technically - I had 1 canvas that was copy/pasted across every level, so each time I would have to make a change, I'd have to change it everywhere and sometimes that resulted in inconsistencies.
The experience when using the Menus - this is about the experience you have when using the game. Right now, especially on slower computers, the game may appear to crash at several stages, when in fact, it is just loading data off your hard drive, but it needs to load a ton of it. So this task is more about restructuring the data stored on the disk, and how and when I load that data to make the entire experience of playing Hide and Seek more fluid.
So #4 is really time consuming and #3 is a little time consuming now, but saves me time every future change I will make to the menus.
Auto Kick AFK Update
Along with the UI/Menu Updates ...update that I will push this month, this Auto Kick AFK feature will change to only affect Seekers so you can hide in peace and spectate in peace without worrying about getting kicked when you being gone doesn't affect anyone else in the game.
In-Game Feedback
This was not delievered last month either. It will also probably be a separate update from the main UI updates, but I really do want to add this so you can provide feedback directly from the game instead of having to go to the Community Hub.
Space Station
I'd really like to put a lot more time into the Space Station level. Depending on how long it takes to complete the UI changes here, I may or may not have a preview video of some of the level to show this month. We'll see how that pans out.
Longer Term
Skills
Yup. Still want to do those. Didn't get to work on them at all this last month. Probably after the Space Station is done I will get way more time on this.
Space Station Level
Yeah it's not going to be done this month so it's longer term.
Animation Updates
I see a lot of people being confused about the game saying "it's weird" or something like that, and really I don't know what this perception is about. So I asked around and the only feedback I got back was the animations are not 100% fluid and characters sometimes look wonky.
I'd like to address that so it doesn't feel weird and so I'm adding this Animations Update item here. I have no ETA, I have not started on it, and it probably won't be for a while since the current animation structure took quite some time to get set up and working as smoothly as it is now.
In the meantime, I'd love to hear from you about what improvements or features you would like to seem made. You can:

Send me a message on Llama Software's Facebook
Send me a message on Hide and Seek's Facebook
Start a thread on the Steam Community Hub Discussions
Send me an email at [email protected]
Original post
05 Dec 2017Developer post
Devblog 5 - December 4 2017
Reflection on November November was an unsuccessful month for me. I said I was going to do the UI/Menu Updates, along with some other stuff that was mostly already done, and also work on the Space Station level. In reality I mostly worked on the Space Station level, released what
Reflection on November
November was an unsuccessful month for me. I said I was going to do the UI/Menu Updates, along with some other stuff that was mostly already done, and also work on the Space Station level. In reality I mostly worked on the Space Station level, released what I had (almost all) already completed, and pushed some impressive performance improvement on Haunted House.
So why was I unsuccessful? There's 2 major reasons.
The biggest one:
I allocated way too much time to the Space Station. While its progress is really awesome and I'm really excited about it, I did not deliver on the features that add value now that I said I would be doing.
The other big issue is I underestimated the UI update. After working on it I discovered parts of it I was hoping to defer to a future update need to be done now to provide the most compelling experience while playing Hide and Seek. And...unfortunately these changes are time consuming to implement. If you haven't seen it yet, here's a video showing an in-development preview of the new Menus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z45cbizoDGU . Keep in mind this is not the final product, and even as I'm writing this on Monday, it is very different in some places and some issues were resolved.
Also a feature that was requested, I implemented in a way that appears to cause more pain than it resolved. The Auto Kick AFK implementation I cannot count as a success since it really only makes sense to kick the Seeker, since a lot of the time as a Hider, or Spectator, you will not be providing input.
Looking Forward
Looking to December, I plan to work on things in the following order:
UI/Menu Updates (expanded)
I stated last time, the UI/Menu Updates is a 2 part task. After really looking at it, it's more like a 3 or 4 part task. The first 2 are the same as I presented last time. The others are new

The actual UI Changes that you will see and interact with - this includes the items on screen, animations, sprites, etc..
The way I manage the UI data - this is more a structure change in how I present and access the data on the UI
The way I display the UI - more technically - I had 1 canvas that was copy/pasted across every level, so each time I would have to make a change, I'd have to change it everywhere and sometimes that resulted in inconsistencies.
The experience when using the Menus - this is about the experience you have when using the game. Right now, especially on slower computers, the game may appear to crash at several stages, when in fact, it is just loading data off your hard drive, but it needs to load a ton of it. So this task is more about restructuring the data stored on the disk, and how and when I load that data to make the entire experience of playing Hide and Seek more fluid.
So #4 is really time consuming and #3 is a little time consuming now, but saves me time every future change I will make to the menus.
Auto Kick AFK Update
Along with the UI/Menu Updates ...update that I will push this month, this Auto Kick AFK feature will change to only affect Seekers so you can hide in peace and spectate in peace without worrying about getting kicked when you being gone doesn't affect anyone else in the game.
In-Game Feedback
This was not delievered last month either. It will also probably be a separate update from the main UI updates, but I really do want to add this so you can provide feedback directly from the game instead of having to go to the Community Hub.
Space Station
I'd really like to put a lot more time into the Space Station level. Depending on how long it takes to complete the UI changes here, I may or may not have a preview video of some of the level to show this month. We'll see how that pans out.
Longer Term
Skills
Yup. Still want to do those. Didn't get to work on them at all this last month. Probably after the Space Station is done I will get way more time on this.
Space Station Level
Yeah it's not going to be done this month so it's longer term.
Animation Updates
I see a lot of people being confused about the game saying "it's weird" or something like that, and really I don't know what this perception is about. So I asked around and the only feedback I got back was the animations are not 100% fluid and characters sometimes look wonky.
I'd like to address that so it doesn't feel weird and so I'm adding this Animations Update item here. I have no ETA, I have not started on it, and it probably won't be for a while since the current animation structure took quite some time to get set up and working as smoothly as it is now.
In the meantime, I'd love to hear from you about what improvements or features you would like to seem made. You can:

Send me a message on Llama Software's Facebook
Send me a message on Hide and Seek's Facebook
Start a thread on the Steam Community Hub Discussions
Send me an email at [email protected]
Original post
21 Nov 2017Developer post
1.0.2.16 Patch Notes (21 November 2017)
Overview Here's the short list of updates, scroll down to read full details about each topic. Hedge Maze got a minor performance improvement. Haunted House got a giant performance improvement (like a factor of 3 or 4 in the previously-really-bad spots). AFK players will be automa
Overview
Here's the short list of updates, scroll down to read full details about each topic.

Hedge Maze got a minor performance improvement. Haunted House got a giant performance improvement (like a factor of 3 or 4 in the previously-really-bad spots).
AFK players will be automatically kicked, so don't go away in the middle of a round.
Chat Commands are here!
Chat Panel got a little UI rework.
Mature Language filter is here and enabled by default. Go to settings to turn it off.
There's now a way to bring back up the "How to play" popup.
Hedge Maze

You should see a relatively minor performance improvement on the Hedge Maze. this is attributable to some improperly configured trees, and also from what was done on the Haunted House which I'll talk about in that section.
The grass detail also extends farther out so you should see..grass farther away when looking outside the level.
Haunted House
Really a giant performance improvement. On my test machine the performance went up 3-4x. In the front yard, looking towards the house, previously I got around 50 cpu fps. With this patch I now get like 160 cpu fps.
Same story in the back yard, previously it was like 45, now 160.
2 factors influenced this.

The most impactful was smarter lighting control. All the realtime lights don't need to be casting perfect shadows if you can't even see them, so I have implemented a Dynamic LOD System for realtime lights which vastly improves performance as you can see here.
The second, you'll notice there are fewer leaves laying around. This was like a 20 cpu fps overhead for some reason so until I can figure out what's happening there, I removed them.
Also LODs for books have been adjusted so they pop in less.
Chat System Update
In chat, you can now type commands! Here's the list:

/help - displays help about what commands are available. Displays only to you.
/all [message] - send this text to all chat
/team [message] - send this text to your team chat
/timeleft - view time left in the match
/nextmap or /nextlevel - view the next map in the rotation
/disconnect - disconnect from the current server and return to the main menu
/quit - exit the application
Typing /anythingelse will still send that message.
Chat System now has a Mature Language Filter. This is enabled by default and can be turned off in the Settings menu.
The UI of the Chat Panel was tweaked to be a little cleaner.
General Improvements

Players who are AFK will now be automatically kicked from the server. This will ensure an AFK seeker doesn't waste a ton of your time. Players will be warned many times before they are actually kicked. thanks D-Train for the bug report :)
At the top right of the screen there is now an icon to bring back up the "How to Play" popup you are presented when you first launch the game. Previously if you asked to stop being presented with this popup there was no way to view it again.
Original post
21 Nov 2017Developer post
1.0.2.16 Patch Notes (21 November 2017)
Overview Here's the short list of updates, scroll down to read full details about each topic. Hedge Maze got a minor performance improvement. Haunted House got a giant performance improvement (like a factor of 3 or 4 in the previously-really-bad spots). AFK players will be automa
Overview
Here's the short list of updates, scroll down to read full details about each topic.

Hedge Maze got a minor performance improvement. Haunted House got a giant performance improvement (like a factor of 3 or 4 in the previously-really-bad spots).
AFK players will be automatically kicked, so don't go away in the middle of a round.
Chat Commands are here!
Chat Panel got a little UI rework.
Mature Language filter is here and enabled by default. Go to settings to turn it off.
There's now a way to bring back up the "How to play" popup.
Hedge Maze

You should see a relatively minor performance improvement on the Hedge Maze. this is attributable to some improperly configured trees, and also from what was done on the Haunted House which I'll talk about in that section.
The grass detail also extends farther out so you should see..grass farther away when looking outside the level.
Haunted House
Really a giant performance improvement. On my test machine the performance went up 3-4x. In the front yard, looking towards the house, previously I got around 50 cpu fps. With this patch I now get like 160 cpu fps.
Same story in the back yard, previously it was like 45, now 160.
2 factors influenced this.

The most impactful was smarter lighting control. All the realtime lights don't need to be casting perfect shadows if you can't even see them, so I have implemented a Dynamic LOD System for realtime lights which vastly improves performance as you can see here.
The second, you'll notice there are fewer leaves laying around. This was like a 20 cpu fps overhead for some reason so until I can figure out what's happening there, I removed them.
Also LODs for books have been adjusted so they pop in less.
Chat System Update
In chat, you can now type commands! Here's the list:

/help - displays help about what commands are available. Displays only to you.
/all [message] - send this text to all chat
/team [message] - send this text to your team chat
/timeleft - view time left in the match
/nextmap or /nextlevel - view the next map in the rotation
/disconnect - disconnect from the current server and return to the main menu
/quit - exit the application
Typing /anythingelse will still send that message.
Chat System now has a Mature Language Filter. This is enabled by default and can be turned off in the Settings menu.
The UI of the Chat Panel was tweaked to be a little cleaner.
General Improvements

Players who are AFK will now be automatically kicked from the server. This will ensure an AFK seeker doesn't waste a ton of your time. Players will be warned many times before they are actually kicked. thanks D-Train for the bug report :)
At the top right of the screen there is now an icon to bring back up the "How to Play" popup you are presented when you first launch the game. Previously if you asked to stop being presented with this popup there was no way to view it again.
Original post
08 Nov 2017Developer post
Devblog 4 - November 7 2017
Devblog 4 - November 7 2017 Reflection on October October was a relatively successful month in terms of feature commitment->delivery. However it was also a relatively small commitment, and I did not deliver the chat commands (though technically those weren't promised on a time
08 Nov 2017Developer post
Devblog 4 - November 7 2017
Devblog 4 - November 7 2017 Reflection on October October was a relatively successful month in terms of feature commitment->delivery. However it was also a relatively small commitment, and I did not deliver the chat commands (though technically those weren't promised on a time
25 Oct 2017Developer post
1.0.1.70 Patch Notes (25 October 2017)
Overview This is a hotfix to Halloween Update. Fixed some places on the Halloween Hedge Maze you could get stuck, or it was difficult to get out. Fixed overlapping text on UI of Filters that prevent you from toggling Hedge Maze, or Halloween Hedge Maze out of your filter.
Overview
This is a hotfix to Halloween Update.

Fixed some places on the Halloween Hedge Maze you could get stuck, or it was difficult to get out.
Fixed overlapping text on UI of Filters that prevent you from toggling Hedge Maze, or Halloween Hedge Maze out of your filter.
Original post
25 Oct 2017Developer post
1.0.1.70 Patch Notes (25 October 2017)
Overview This is a hotfix to Halloween Update. Fixed some places on the Halloween Hedge Maze you could get stuck, or it was difficult to get out. Fixed overlapping text on UI of Filters that prevent you from toggling Hedge Maze, or Halloween Hedge Maze out of your filter.
Overview
This is a hotfix to Halloween Update.

Fixed some places on the Halloween Hedge Maze you could get stuck, or it was difficult to get out.
Fixed overlapping text on UI of Filters that prevent you from toggling Hedge Maze, or Halloween Hedge Maze out of your filter.
Original post
25 Oct 2017Developer post
HALLOWEEN UPDATE - 1.0.1.68 Patch Notes (24 October 2017)
Overview Halloween Update! A reskinned version of the Hedge Maze is now available (and on rotation on the server I am hosting)! Watch the trailer here ! Some minor optmizations were made to the Haunted House. And, the new Post Processing Stack is now here, which includes motion b
Overview
Halloween Update! A reskinned version of the Hedge Maze is now available (and on rotation on the server I am hosting)! Watch the trailer here!
Some minor optmizations were made to the Haunted House. And, the new Post Processing Stack is now here, which includes motion blur so if you like, it's at the bottom of the Graphics Menu.
I will be hosting 2 servers for at least a couple of weeks - 1 for Halloween Hedge Maze only, and 1 with all 3 maps on rotation.
Halloween Hedge Maze
A dark and spooky version of the Hedge Maze! Filled with pumpkins, spider webs, spiders, and ghostly skeletons! And a flying Witch!

Totally reskinned the level with new textures, dark lighting, and lamps are on to provide targeted light
Atmopsheric fog
Smashable Pumpkins
Spider webs throughout the maze
Underground tunnels got a new look and more detail in general
Patrolling Spider - if it runs into you, you will be briefly frozen in fear!
2 Wandering Ghostly Skeletons - if they run into you, you will be briefly frozen in fear!
Improvements/Other Changes

Hedge Maze got some small graphical improvements from the Halloween Hedge Maze
Minor optimizations on Haunted House
New Post Processing stack - more effects, motion blur is available, and all existing (Bloom, AA, and SSAO) will look different, arguably nicer.
More logging improvements
Significant Performance improvements to Hats Gallery
More interesting grass setup on Hats Gallery
Original post
25 Oct 2017Developer post
HALLOWEEN UPDATE - 1.0.1.68 Patch Notes (24 October 2017)
Overview Halloween Update! A reskinned version of the Hedge Maze is now available (and on rotation on the server I am hosting)! Watch the trailer here ! Some minor optmizations were made to the Haunted House. And, the new Post Processing Stack is now here, which includes motion b
Overview
Halloween Update! A reskinned version of the Hedge Maze is now available (and on rotation on the server I am hosting)! Watch the trailer here!
Some minor optmizations were made to the Haunted House. And, the new Post Processing Stack is now here, which includes motion blur so if you like, it's at the bottom of the Graphics Menu.
I will be hosting 2 servers for at least a couple of weeks - 1 for Halloween Hedge Maze only, and 1 with all 3 maps on rotation.
Halloween Hedge Maze
A dark and spooky version of the Hedge Maze! Filled with pumpkins, spider webs, spiders, and ghostly skeletons! And a flying Witch!

Totally reskinned the level with new textures, dark lighting, and lamps are on to provide targeted light
Atmopsheric fog
Smashable Pumpkins
Spider webs throughout the maze
Underground tunnels got a new look and more detail in general
Patrolling Spider - if it runs into you, you will be briefly frozen in fear!
2 Wandering Ghostly Skeletons - if they run into you, you will be briefly frozen in fear!
Improvements/Other Changes

Hedge Maze got some small graphical improvements from the Halloween Hedge Maze
Minor optimizations on Haunted House
New Post Processing stack - more effects, motion blur is available, and all existing (Bloom, AA, and SSAO) will look different, arguably nicer.
More logging improvements
Significant Performance improvements to Hats Gallery
More interesting grass setup on Hats Gallery
Original post
01 Oct 2017Developer post
Devblog 3 - October 1 2017
Notice Hey all, I am going to Poland for the next week. I will be back on the 8th. Unfortunately that means until then I will not be able to be very responsive, will not be doing development on Hide and Seek, and will be much less attentive to the Dedicated Server I am hosting. R
Notice
Hey all, I am going to Poland for the next week. I will be back on the 8th. Unfortunately that means until then I will not be able to be very responsive, will not be doing development on Hide and Seek, and will be much less attentive to the Dedicated Server I am hosting.
Reflection on September
I think the patches in September were pretty successful. The only remaining item promised was the upgraded post processing stack (which includes motion blur). I think most players actually won't notice the difference unless provided a side-by-side comparison, but image quality enthusiasts should be happy with the new result.
The performance patch vastly improved the general case performance of Hide and Seek, and also vastly improved loading times & application responsiveness while loading.
The Halloween Hedge Maze map is mostly complete, I need to do some private testing to ensure everything works well, but for the most part I think it is complete.
Also some critical network-related bugs were squashed during this month.
There are still some outstanding issues that I would really like to fix. Most importantly, this "rounds don't start" bug is a pretty big one that requires some specific set of circumstances that appear to happen after the server has been up a while, but I cannot reproduce it so far on my own.
I have made targeted improvements to logging on dedicated servers to help me identify this and hopefully then eliminate it completely.
Looking Forward
Again, everything here is what I plan to be immediately working on. Depending on how long each one takes they may or may not all get done in October, especially with me being gone for a week and losing 2 weekends for travel. But we'll see how it goes.
Halloween Hedge Maze
In October I'm planning to release the Halloween Hedge Maze level. It's mostly a reskin with some additional fun things. Gameplay in general should be pretty similar to what you would expect from the Hedge Maze.
Post Processing Stack
As promised in September this is something I want to implement, just need to actually get time to do it. The advantages will be better performance from post processing effects, better image quality out of them, and also Motion Blur will be available in Video Options (though it will be turned off by default because I hate it)
Dedicated Server Improvements
As I started mentioning in the Reflection on September section, there are still some issues with the Dedicated Server, which is why I still am calling it "in Beta".
So I'm hoping to be able to resolve all of these issues and have really a rock solid Dedicated Server solution. This involves both improving the overall stability of the Dedicated Server, as well as functional/"Quality of Life" improvements to the Server Administration Panel.
Chat System Improvements
I see some people typing commands at some point into the Chat window. This is actually something I was hoping to bring kind of as a surprise so...SURPRISE! I do plan on adding some commands to the Chat System to allow you to query for some info about the game.
At the moment I'm considering:

/all and /team to change chat channels in addition to the Y & U you can do today
/disconnect to leave the current server
/help to display a list of commands
/nextmap to display what the next level will be. At this point it's probably not so helpful, but in the longer term probably it will be nice
/timeleft to display time remaining in the match (before level swap)
Feel free to leave a comment about what other commands you would like to see and I can see what it would take to implement those as well.
Longer Term
Skills
Yes I am still going to add Skills. I haven't actually had time to work on them since last devblog, but I really do want to add them. Both Hiders and Seekers should have some abilities that make it more interesting and maybe you're not totally screwed when the Seeker sees you in some circumstances ;).
Space Station Level
This is still in the works (yes I did actually work on this one recently). No ETA yet. There's still a lot to do, and even then... Once I think the level design is complete and all objects are correctly set up to work on the network, then I have to do a few rounds of testing/tweaking/fixing before it will be put in front of you all.
Na razie :)
Original post
01 Oct 2017Developer post
Devblog 3 - October 1 2017
Notice Hey all, I am going to Poland for the next week. I will be back on the 8th. Unfortunately that means until then I will not be able to be very responsive, will not be doing development on Hide and Seek, and will be much less attentive to the Dedicated Server I am hosting. R
Notice
Hey all, I am going to Poland for the next week. I will be back on the 8th. Unfortunately that means until then I will not be able to be very responsive, will not be doing development on Hide and Seek, and will be much less attentive to the Dedicated Server I am hosting.
Reflection on September
I think the patches in September were pretty successful. The only remaining item promised was the upgraded post processing stack (which includes motion blur). I think most players actually won't notice the difference unless provided a side-by-side comparison, but image quality enthusiasts should be happy with the new result.
The performance patch vastly improved the general case performance of Hide and Seek, and also vastly improved loading times & application responsiveness while loading.
The Halloween Hedge Maze map is mostly complete, I need to do some private testing to ensure everything works well, but for the most part I think it is complete.
Also some critical network-related bugs were squashed during this month.
There are still some outstanding issues that I would really like to fix. Most importantly, this "rounds don't start" bug is a pretty big one that requires some specific set of circumstances that appear to happen after the server has been up a while, but I cannot reproduce it so far on my own.
I have made targeted improvements to logging on dedicated servers to help me identify this and hopefully then eliminate it completely.
Looking Forward
Again, everything here is what I plan to be immediately working on. Depending on how long each one takes they may or may not all get done in October, especially with me being gone for a week and losing 2 weekends for travel. But we'll see how it goes.
Halloween Hedge Maze
In October I'm planning to release the Halloween Hedge Maze level. It's mostly a reskin with some additional fun things. Gameplay in general should be pretty similar to what you would expect from the Hedge Maze.
Post Processing Stack
As promised in September this is something I want to implement, just need to actually get time to do it. The advantages will be better performance from post processing effects, better image quality out of them, and also Motion Blur will be available in Video Options (though it will be turned off by default because I hate it)
Dedicated Server Improvements
As I started mentioning in the Reflection on September section, there are still some issues with the Dedicated Server, which is why I still am calling it "in Beta".
So I'm hoping to be able to resolve all of these issues and have really a rock solid Dedicated Server solution. This involves both improving the overall stability of the Dedicated Server, as well as functional/"Quality of Life" improvements to the Server Administration Panel.
Chat System Improvements
I see some people typing commands at some point into the Chat window. This is actually something I was hoping to bring kind of as a surprise so...SURPRISE! I do plan on adding some commands to the Chat System to allow you to query for some info about the game.
At the moment I'm considering:

/all and /team to change chat channels in addition to the Y & U you can do today
/disconnect to leave the current server
/help to display a list of commands
/nextmap to display what the next level will be. At this point it's probably not so helpful, but in the longer term probably it will be nice
/timeleft to display time remaining in the match (before level swap)
Feel free to leave a comment about what other commands you would like to see and I can see what it would take to implement those as well.
Longer Term
Skills
Yes I am still going to add Skills. I haven't actually had time to work on them since last devblog, but I really do want to add them. Both Hiders and Seekers should have some abilities that make it more interesting and maybe you're not totally screwed when the Seeker sees you in some circumstances ;).
Space Station Level
This is still in the works (yes I did actually work on this one recently). No ETA yet. There's still a lot to do, and even then... Once I think the level design is complete and all objects are correctly set up to work on the network, then I have to do a few rounds of testing/tweaking/fixing before it will be put in front of you all.
Na razie :)
Original post
30 Sep 2017Developer post
1.0.1.45 Patch Notes (30 September 2017)
Overview Not a lot to say here, it's all Dedicated Server stability & logging improvements so Dedicated server should misbehave less frequently and When it does misbehave I can much more easily identify what the actual cause of this is.
Overview
Not a lot to say here, it's all Dedicated Server stability & logging improvements so

Dedicated server should misbehave less frequently and
When it does misbehave I can much more easily identify what the actual cause of this is.
Original post
30 Sep 2017Developer post
1.0.1.45 Patch Notes (30 September 2017)
Overview Not a lot to say here, it's all Dedicated Server stability & logging improvements so Dedicated server should misbehave less frequently and When it does misbehave I can much more easily identify what the actual cause of this is.
Overview
Not a lot to say here, it's all Dedicated Server stability & logging improvements so

Dedicated server should misbehave less frequently and
When it does misbehave I can much more easily identify what the actual cause of this is.
Original post
26 Sep 2017Developer post
1.0.1.44 Patch Notes
Overview This is a small patch targeting some issues found with 1.0.1.41 upon release (mostly with dedicated server). Bug Fixes Fixed - Hedge Maze had some hedges with too big colliders that made some areas difficult to walk through normally Fixed - Server would not always update
Overview
This is a small patch targeting some issues found with 1.0.1.41 upon release (mostly with dedicated server).
Bug Fixes

Fixed - Hedge Maze had some hedges with too big colliders that made some areas difficult to walk through normally
Fixed - Server would not always update Steam Servers with the proper current map name
Fixed - Newly introduced a bug where player disconnects were not logged to chat.
Fixed/Improved - The game should get into an invalid Round state less frequently, and will now try to detect if Rounds are in an invalid state. If this is detected, it will try to correct this automatically.
Improvements

Clearer network logging, removed some data that was pointless
Server Administration Panel got some usability improvements, especially focused on Dedicated Server setup.
Original post

Updates & announcements

Update 16 December

Overview

New Level - Space Station

New Features

Fixes

Haunted House

Hedge Maze

Halloween Hedge Maze

Overview

UI Overhaul

Haunted House

Halloween Hedge Maze

Hedge Maze

General Improvements/Bugfixes

Overview

UI Overhaul

Haunted House

Halloween Hedge Maze

Hedge Maze

General Improvements/Bugfixes

Happy New Year!

Reflection on December

Looking Forward

Longer Term Items

Happy New Year!

Reflection on December

Looking Forward

Longer Term Items

Reflection on November

Looking Forward

Longer Term

Reflection on November

Looking Forward

Longer Term

Overview

Hedge Maze

Haunted House

Chat System Update

General Improvements

Overview

Hedge Maze

Haunted House

Chat System Update

General Improvements

Reflection on October

Looking Forward

Longer Term

Reflection on October

Looking Forward

Longer Term

Overview

Overview

Overview

Halloween Hedge Maze

Improvements/Other Changes

Overview

Halloween Hedge Maze

Improvements/Other Changes

Notice

Reflection on September

Looking Forward

Longer Term

Notice

Reflection on September

Looking Forward

Longer Term

Overview

Overview

Overview

Bug Fixes

Improvements