Hello everyone!
Today marks the release of Baldi's Basics Plus version 0.12! This isn't a huge update, but it adds some cool new content! Two new activities, Balloon Buster and the Match Machine, have been added. You'll need to complete these alongside Math Machines to get notebooks. Two new random events, Student Shuffle and Balder Dash, have also been added! These events will add a bit more chaos to the game, so stay prepared!
Alongside these additions there are also a handful of QOL improvements and bug fixes, which will be detailed in the changelog below.
Just a reminder that this update is relatively small due to the fact that I've begun focusing much of my development time on future development, which is stuff that won't really be seen until version 1.0 is released. I still intend to finish a "horizontal slice" version of the game by the end of the year, which is what I'm now calling the build that will represent the structure of the finished game, which I've referred to in previous status updates. Again, this is going to be for internal use only, but it will be a big milestone and really help my team get an understanding for what will be needed to wrap up the project.
With that in mind 0.13 is likely to be very small as well, as I want to put extra focus on future development to ensure the horizontal slice is completed before the end of the year. I am very excited to get the horizontal slice completed. There's a lot of cool stuff I've had planned for a long time that I can't wait to implement, even if it will still be a while before everyone gets to see it all!
In other news, Makeship and I have teamed up yet again to do another run of the Angry Baldi plushie!
This is nearly identical to the first run (although it has a 2nd edition badge on the bottom) and will be available to purchase until the morning of September 27, so if you want one be sure to get it soon! You can check it out here!
Changelog
Changes marked with (Pre-release 2) primarily pertain to changes made between pre-release 2 and the public release.
Additions
Added two new activities
Added Balloon Buster. This activity requires players to pop the balloons in the room until only the amount displayed on the device remains. Once this is done, the player must pull the pulley to submit their answer. The remaining balloons will be popped and counted and if the total matches the solution, the player will successfully complete the activity. If there are too many balloons when submitting an answer, or too many balloons are popped, the activity will be failed.
Added the Match Machine. This activity requires the player to match pairs of object balloons. The balloons all start as question mark balloons. When clicked, they will be revealed as a specific object. When two balloons are revealed and they don't match, this pair will revert to exclamation point balloons after a moment. If a revealed pair of balloons matches, they remain revealed and the player earns some stamina and YTPs and Baldi will pause to praise the player. Once all four pairs are matches, the activity will be completed successfully. If a revealed pair does not match, and at least one of the balloons had already become an exclamation point, the activity will be failed.
Each new activity comes with its own set of classrooms.
Added chalk boards to classrooms that explain how to solve its activity.
(Pre-release 2) Added textures, animations and missing sounds for new activities. The Balloon Buster device now has a hologram sprite on it which turns off when not powered and which turns red when the activity is failed.
Added two new random events.
Added Balder Dash. This event causes several "balders" to spawn at the elevators. These randomly roll around the level and crush any entities they collide with for a few seconds. They can also break through windows and open locked doors. When two balders collide, one of them will crumble. After enough time has passed, all balders will crumble.
Added Student Shuffle. This event causes several crowds of students to spawn from the elevators. These students randomly rush through the levels and push around any entities they collide with. If groups get separated, the separated group will become independent. If two separate groups collider, one will begin following the other. After a certain amount of time has passed, all groups will exit the level through the elevator.
Added an animated popping effect for when balloons pop.
(Pre-release 2) Added captions for new sound effects.
Changes
Pressing the pause button while the level results animation plays will skip the animation to show the results immediately. Pressing pause again after the results are fully displayed will skip the remaining time and the TV screen will immediately retract.
Updated the Bully's poster text.
Updated the name of a Kickstarter backer in the credits at their request.
Dr. Reflex's hammer check now checks for collision validity between his entity and the targeted entity to determine if he can actually squish the other one. This prevents him from squishing entities with opposite orientation, for example.
Mrs. Pomp can no longer drag players when she is squished, in an opposite orientation, or any other collision invalidating scenario.
Principal of the Thing will now attempt to send the player to detention when colliding with the player, even if the collision is invalid. If the collision is invalid, he will be teleported to the principal's office and the player will receive the detention status effect, but the player will not be teleported.
Playtime now becomes sad if she has an invalid collision with the player while chasing them.
Mrs. Pomp can now invite the player to her class regardless of if the collision is valid or not.
Dr. Reflex will wander away if he has an invalid collision with the player after chasing them.
Arts and Crafters now disappears if colliding with a player with invalid collision while chasing them.
Beans gum will copy any of Beans' status effects when he spits it out.
Balloons now slightly bob up and down.
In endless mode, bonus questions now only become available for the previously completed activity when collecting a notebook.
Game lock collision now goes away immediately after unlocking them instead of after the animation is completed.
If the doors in the room are locked, solving its activity will unlock the doors.
When making activity progress (Such as popping a balloon in Balloon Buster), Chalkles will lose some charge. Chalkles will reset entirely when completing an activity, and will not respawn until the player enters another room with a Chalkles chalk board.
Notebooks no longer reward a stamina boost. Instead, a stamina boost is earned when successfully completing activities.
(Pre-release 2) Updated sprites for regular balloons, now with new colors!
(Pre-release 2) Updated sprites for matching balloons.
(Pre-release 2) Updated new event intro voicelines with finalized versions.
Technical
Changed the way Unity scenes are managed to better handle loading multiple scenes at once.
Changed collision between entities so that, instead of not calling collision functions when entities are in states that should prevent collision (Squished, of the opposite orientation, etc.), the functions are called with a boolean passed into them representing whether or not the collision is valid. This enables for alternate behaviors when collisions fail, which is used to fix many issues and annoying behaviors from before.
Entities can now copy the status effects of other entities.
Optimized entity collisions by utilizing a layer mask system before trying to find an entity with GetComponent.
Added renderer culling to some entities to improve performance.
Bug Fixes
Fixed Dr. Reflex continuing to say "thiii..." when colliding with the player with invalid collision.
Fixed a bug that caused NPCs to occasionally not use a detour to flip themselves into the player's orientation when targeting them.
Fixed entities continuing to move even when set inactive.
Fixed Gotta Sweep and First Prize not adjusting their push speeds based on the NPC time scale.
(Pre-release 2) Fixed bug that caused notebooks to not disappear in endless small.
Fixed a bug where Mrs. Pomp would encounter an error when seeing the player while their faculty nametag expires.
Known Issues
Arts and Crafters can get stuck with pushing forces from Student Shuffle (And possibly other entity collisions, such as BSODA).
BSODAs may phase through entities under certain circumstances.
There is a Balloon Buster classroom with misplaced item spawn points.
Bonus Question signs for new activities are not placed properly.
Baldi's audio source is not higher priority than others, which can cause his sounds to be overridden when there is a high amount of active audio sources, such as during Student Shuffle.
Crumbled balders can still move around on their own in certain circumstances, such as when the tape is played.
That's all for now, I hope you all enjoy Baldi's Basics Plus version 0.12!