Selaco v0.86 Patchnotes - Special Campaign, Future Plans & Chapter 2 teases

Six-Month Selaco Anniversary

Hey everyone,

Yikes, we've accidentally prepared a gigantic update... Again. It took forever to put these Patch Notes together so get comfortable. No, really, it's long! Maybe prepare a nice cold Arachnocola and listen to the Selaco Trailer Mix to elevate the reading experience. We've added some Chapter 2 teases all the way at the bottom so it's worth the time!

First, let's celebrate a milestone: Selaco's Early Access release has already been six months ago, which is still quite hard to believe. Not only will we celebrate with a major patch, we are also putting the game on a 25% discount during the upcoming Autumn Sale, our biggest discount yet!

If you purchased the game within the past week, you might be eligible for a refund of the difference. Contact Valve, and feel free to share this post as confirmation that we’re on board with it.

Alright, onto the patch notes!

V0.86 Patch Notes

This patch once again adds and improves lots of different things. Here is a brief summary of what to expect before we go into more detail!

• Added Special Campaign - A mix between New Game Plus and Randomizer Mode. Here are some of the highlights:
  • A fully customizable campaign experience
  • ARPG-style rarity system for both enemies and weapons
  • Weapon Trait system where weapons can have new effects and behaviors
  • Random Encounter system where new enemies can spawn into the level in real-time
  • New unique enemy variants of existing enemies
  • Randomization options including shuffled pickup locations, randomized weapon spawns, mystery boxes, and more

• Added support for Steam Cloud and GeForce NOW
  
• Added Nextfest Demo for those who want to experience what Selaco was like 2.5 years ago
  
• Added new achievement
  
• Reworked Headshots
  
• Smart Tutorial Prompts
  
• Added behavior for shooting enemies in the legs
  
• Drastically improved Sound Design
  
• Added option to customize individual Mutators
  
• Added two new Mutators - 'Defensive Enemies' and 'Burger Flipper Tester'
  
• Improvements to Game Balance
  
• Improved numerous weapons
  
• Improved gun sounds
  
• Improved visual effects
  
• Added two new upgrades
  
• Added 'Custom Ammo' feature for the Shotgun
  
• Level reworks for improved flow, navigation, and immersion
  
• More stat tracking on your Wrist Codex
  
• Gore improvements
  
• Improved enemy behavior and added new abilities
  
• Melee Improvements
  
• Some art revisions
  
• Reworked upgrades
  
• Tons of bug fixes and optimization efforts
  

That's the summary. Now for the detailed notes!

Added Special Campaign (A fusion between New Game Plus and Randomizer Mode)

• New Game Special allows players to replay the campaign but with unique Endgame Content and Randomization
• Requires Chapter 1 to be completed
• The following options are available in New Game Special:
  • Random Encounters
  • Add Random Encounters
  • Weaken Random Encounter Enemies
  • Random Spawns The following options have 6 settings: 'None', 'Less', 'Normal', 'More', 'Way More', and 'Ridiculous'
  • Spawn Additional Enemies
  • Spawn Additional Traps
  • Spawn Additional VAC-Bots
  • Spawn Additional Item Crates
  • Spawn Additional Hazards
  • Spawn Additional Ammo and Items
  • Spawn Additional Health and Armor
  • Spawn Additional Clutter Objects
  • Spawn Mystery Boxes
  • Spawn Allied NPCs (Locked until Chapter 2)
  • Additional Spawns
  • Allow Squad Leader Spawns
  • Allow Zombie Spawns
  • Allow Robot Spawns
  • (Exclusive) Allow Nailgunners
  • (Exclusive) Allow Stinger Soldiers
  • (Exclusive) Allow Burst Rifle Soldiers
  • (Exclusive) Allow Crawler Queen
  • Weapons
  • Weapon Spawn Style [Vanilla, Swapped, Full Random]
  • Allow Heavy Weapons (Locked until Chapter 2)
  • Events
  • Allow Zombie Invasions
  • Allow Crawler Mine Ambushes
  • Allow Saw Drone Ambushes
  • Tier-Based Spawns Adds Action-RPG Style Rarity Colors to both Enemies and Weapons. Higher rarity types are less frequent but are more powerful.
  • Enabled Tiered Weapons
  • Enable Tiered Enemies
  • Tiered Progression
  • Additional Settings
  • Randomize Food Items
  • Randomize Enemy Types
  • Randomize Enemy Locations
  • Randomize Pickup Amounts
  • Shuffle Item Pickup Locations
  • Start with all Tech Modules
  • Earthquakes
  • Skip Opening Scene

Cloud Gaming

• Added support for GeForce NOW and Steam Cloud

Achievements

• Added 'Embrace The Chaos' achievement

Nextfest Demo

• The original Nextfest Demo can now be played by selecting `Nextfest 2022` as a Steam Beta.
• Important: This demo is outdated. It will work on Steam Deck, but has not been Steam Deck verified. Please do not report any bugs regarding the demo.

Save Protection

• Loading a Saved Game created by a Checkpoint will now give players two seconds of immunity against enemy attacks.
• This is exclusively applied to Checkpoints. Quick Saves will not offer Save Protection.

Selaco aims for dynamic encounters where danger can occur in an unscripted fashion. While we always try to add checkpoints in safe locations, there is often no telling what the AI is up to. In order to avoid softlocks from bad checkpoints, we've decided to give a short period of spawn protection to allow players to evade if needed.

Smart Tutorial Prompts

• Tutorial Prompts now only appear once. After starting a new Campaign, you will no longer get tutorials you've already seen before.
• Added option to reset Tutorial Progress in Options -> Interface. Use this if you prefer to get all tutorials again.

Improved Headshots

• Added unique visual and sound effects when hitting enemy soldiers.
• Hitmarker tweaks to make headshots easier to read.
• Headshots no longer cause enemies to enter their sideways Stumble animation.
• Added 'Enable Headshot Sounds' setting in the Sound Menu.

Melee Attacks

• The camera no longer sloppily snaps onto the target in a single frame. Instead, there is now a clean transition to make it more similar to the HALO series.
• Increased Melee Lunge Distance and Lunge Speed.
• Melee detection has been rewritten to be more reliable.

Frozen enemies

• Frozen enemies take increased damage from all sources.
• Added additional ice particles around frozen enemies.
• Added 'frost smoke' effects around frozen enemies
• Frozen enemies will now display an icon above their head to indicate that they are frozen. This is a temporary solution to make them easier to spot.

In the future, enemy sprites will instead be recolored to appear frozen. Due to one of our optimization efforts, the engine does not support Color Translations at this time.

Load Game Menu

• Added 'Campaign Type' information to the Save Game Description. This will show whether the save is for a Standard Campaign or a Special Campaign.
• Added Mutator List information to Save Game description.

Weapon Wheel

• The Weapon Wheel now always shows 10 Weapon Slots regardless of whether the player owns the weapon.
• SPECIAL CAMPAIGN: Weapon Wheel now shows Weapon Stats when selecting a weapon. DEV NOTE: A common critique was how weapons switched positions on the Weapon Wheel whenever a new weapon had been acquired, messing with the player's muscle memory. This change should solve that and make it faster to switch weapons from memory.

Leg Shots

• Enemies now react to being shot in the leg.
• Shooting an enemy in the leg while they are moving has a very high chance to cause them to stumble. This is a pain animation that lasts longer than other pain animations.
• Leg Shots deal 25% less damage compared to bodyshots.
• Enemies are now less likely to trigger a stumble animation from body shots, but it's still possible.

Accessibility

• Added 'Reduced Explosion Volume' option

Sound Design

Continued trying to give Selaco the richest soundscape in an indie shooter, ever.
• Aforementioned Headshot improvements
• Improved door sounds
• Went nuts on the audio design for bullet impacts and whizzes
• All guns now have a unique dry fire sound effect
• Added sound effect when loading a saved game
• Added mechanical sound effect when shooting at Crawler Mines
• Added new sound effects for bouncing pieces of debris and metal
• Added additional delayed sound effects when walking over glass shards
• Improved oomph for Fire Extinguisher explosions
• Improved sound effect when walking over glass
• Some props have increased sound variants when shot
• Some weapons have their firing sound improved
• ...And so much more

Enemy callouts / AI

• Enemies now call out your flashlight usage.
• Enemies will now request status updates after losing sight of their target.
• Enemies now respond to sound when unalerted

Interaction

• Drawings can now be torn down with the Use key
• The portrait in Dawn's HQ can now be downloaded to your datapad in a higher resolution
• Brooms can now be pulled from walls with the Use key
• Dinner Plates are now thrown like a frisbee, knocking enemies over when hit

Effects & Details

• Added squeaky sound and effects when enemies stumble sideways
• Improved particle effects when destroying glass objects
• Some spark effects now shrink as they fade out
• Added maggot particle effects that some of the later enemies can spawn when hit or gibbed
• Maggots can crawl across the floor
• Bullets and projectiles now pass through Kids Doodles
• Ceiling Fans are now interpolated to appear smoother
• Added cork voxel when destroying wine bottles
• Added Perfume Sprayer voxel for destroyed Perfume Bottles
• Reworked explosions further
• Spark Effects have improved visuals

Other

• Items spawned from Wooden Crates are more scattered and no longer face the crate
• Items spawned from Wooden Crates are less slippery after hitting the floor
• Improved effects when firing Heavy Metal container-type decorations
• Pickupable prompts now fade out when holding an object for a couple of seconds
• Tweaked one of our book cover illustrations to look less like some disrespectful doctor.

Mutator Menu

• Reworked some UI elements on the Mutator Menu
• Added support for configurable mutators. This will be further expanded upon in the future

New Mutator: Defensive Enemies

• All Enemy Soldiers are more defensive than usual. They are more likely to keep their distance and surround the player, and less likely to push and be aggressive.
• This makes Selaco slightly slower-paced while still maintaining a similar level of difficulty.

New Mutator: Burger Flipper Tester

• Dawn starts the campaign with the Burger Flipper Test Build installed on her Wrist Computer
• Locked by default. Unlocked by finding Burger Flipper in level 3-2

Hard-Boiled Mode

• Added Customization Option: Decreased stagger chances on enemies is now optional (Default: ON)
• Now requires completing Chapter 1 on Captain difficulty or above. Players who already unlocked it in an older version do not have to unlock it again.

Hardcore Mode

• Added Customization Option: Hardcore Reloading has returned!
  • If you preferred the original approach where reloads would discard the remaining ammo of a magazine, it can now be enabled again. (Default: OFF)

Game Balance

Upgrading

• Most Weapon Upgrades now require 50 Selver Credits on top of their respective Weapon Parts. Chapter 2 will introduce more credit sinks and may see this change reverted

Slidings

• Increased Dodge Chance from 50% to 75%
• Added sound and visual effects when evading bullets while sliding
• Increased enemy knockback by slide kicks by 33%

Weapon Melee Attacks

• Reduced melee knockback by 25%.

Shock Damage

• Enemies hit by Chain Lightning have a much shorter Shock Duration. The initial enemy hit by Shock Damage remains the same as before
• Enemies in a Shocked state now have their hitboxes updated. Before, projectiles had a tendency to pass through their head and not connect

Weapon Balance & Improvements

Roaring Cricket

• Reworked Elephant Rounds upgrade
  • Damage increased 40 -> 50
  • Headshot Damage Increased (5% -> 110%)
  • Increased Recoil (2.5 -> 4.5)
  • Requires 500 Selver Credits on top of 350 Weapon Parts
  • Upon hitting the fire button, it takes 0.3 seconds until the shot is fired

Elephant Rounds can now kill most enemies with a single shot to the head, but it comes at a cost; This is a hard weapon to use now! The recoil has increased and due to the added delay, players will have to track their target for a brief period before an actual shot is fired.

Apply a Cranial Rounds upgrade on top and you can start eliminating higher tiers, like Enforcers, with a headshot too

ESG-24 Shotgun

• Improved weapon sounds
• Reworked Recall Upgrade: Killing an enemy at Point Blank range with a Shotgun will now disable Slide Cooldowns for 2.5 seconds, allowing for more slides.
• Added chance to spawn a cosmetic bullet tracer effect
• Re-rendered most of the sprite work to make them more appealing to look at.
• New Weapon Kit: High-Velocity Slug - You can find this upgrade in Level 2-1

Shotguns now have full support for Special Ammo types. We will explore this further in Chapter 2!

UC-36 Assault Rifle

• Added chance to spawn a cosmetic bullet tracer effect

24MM HW-Penetrator

Needed a bit more oomph to become more than just a mobile turret launcher

• Reworked gun sounds
• Increased Base Spread (395 -> 425)
• Increased Stabilization Speed by (0.6 -> 1.0)
• Increased Damage (32 -> 33)
• ZOOMING: Spread has been greatly reduced when zooming (0.75x -> 0.4x)
• ZOOMING: Fire Rate is now reduced when zooming, but nails traverse much faster.
• SHOTGUN MODULE: Increased spread by 25% to encourage taking a bit more risk when utilizing its power
• SHOTGUN MODULE: Added Knockback when firing, pushing you slightly backwards (firing while running backwards will speed you up)
• New Upgrade: Twin Barrels - While firing from the hip, an additional nail is fired. However, Rate of Fire is slightly reduced and the second nail does not inherit any of the Penetrator upgrades

Grav-VI Plasma Rifle

• Raised weapon sound volume
• Added Area of Effect damage when gibbing Enemy Soldiers. Dawn is not affected by this damage
• New Upgrade: Overblown - Plasma Bolt kills have 25% increased Damage and Area of Effect

Landmines

It felt like landmines were a bit too powerful, so we've decided to make a few tiny tweaks.

• Explosion Radius upgrade has its radius reduced (110 -> 60)
• Landmine Capacity reduced (3 -> 2). You can still get a capacity of 3 by finding a Grenade Bandolier

Levels

• Navigation in numerous areas have been reworked, especially Water Treatment
• Improved Courtyard encounter zone in Level 2-2
• Added path nodes to Level 3-2 to allow for combat during a Special Campaign
• A full resolution sample of the 'Dawn&Mom' portrait can now be downloaded to the Datapad

Statistics & Milestones

• Added 'Legs shot' statistic
• Added 'Target Dummies destroyed' statistic
• Added 'Heads kicked' statistic
• Added 'Walls humped' statistic
• Added 'Weapon Kits Collected' statistic
• Added 'Melee Hits' statistic
• Added 'Slide Kick Hits' statistic
• Added 'Enemies Shocked' statistic
• Added 'Junction Boxes Destroyed' statistics
• Added Jump Counter - Yes, you can now keep track of how often you jump.
• Added Milestone for collecting Weapon Kits
• Added Milestone for eliminating Snipers

Steam Deck

• Added option to reduce FOV all the way to 60. Due to the smaller screen, higher FOV's ended up making the game harder to read
• Numerous improvements to performance and stability

UI / Interface

• Weapon Kit prompts now show a label informing the player what their current Alt Fire is
• Added icons to the Settings menu
• Added brand new menu where players can select their Campaign Style (Standard Campaign, Special Campaign. In the future this will also include Incursion Mode)
• Fully redrawn Dawn's intermission illustrations
• 'Credits' and 'News & Updates' are no longer visible in the menu when playing a campaign
• Extended Bullet Casings is no longer considered 'Experimental'. It has proven to be very stable and not impact the framerate as much as we had thought
• Level and Chapter completion screens now have to icon to show the current game mode (Standard Campaign / Special Campaign)
• Added support for UI shake in intermission screens
• Fixed menu stuttering when switching graphical presets

Dinner plates

• Improved destruction effects
• Dinner Plates are now thrown faster and spin around like a frisbee, knocking over any enemy it hits.

Enemy Damage

• Added new bone pieces that spawn when gibbing enemies
• Added bounce effects for bone sprites
• Added more Bone Pieces when killing enemy soldiers with Acid
• Improved visual effects when shooting at Red Blooded enemies
• Improved visual effects when shooting at Robotic enemies

Linux

• Updated Linux Workshop Downloader binary

Source Code

• To reduce the file size, the Source Files are no longer included in the Steam Download. Instead, there is a text file that takes you to the download page.

All Enemies

• Improved patrol system.
• When the enemy no longer sees the player at their last known position, enemies will now enter Patrol Mode
• Enemies in Patrol Mode have a slightly reduced Field of View and wander around the encounter zone looking for the player
• Chapter 2 will further improve upon this system.
• Enemy Soldiers can now crouch
• Enemy Soldiers can now throw grenades at Player Allies (Turrets, allied NPC's, Nail Turrets and more)

Juggernaut

• Added Headshot Hitbox

Siegers

• Added Nailgun Death animation for Siegers

Engineers

• Now have more accurate shotgun reloading where they must insert the shells one by one (before they were inserted in pairs of two). Interrupting the reload after an engineer inserted two shots allows him to fire two shots.
• Audio changes

Crawler Mine

• Crawler Mines now flash a red dynamic light when they are about to explode

Squad Leaders

• Increased Damage Reduction for enemies buffed by a Squad Leader (25% -> 35%)
• Squad Leaders now prefer to fight from long range and will no longer rush to the player.

Plasma Troopers

• No longer have Frag Grenades
• Now have a Crawler Bomb. A grenade that spawns 2 mini-crawlers upon detonation.

New Enemy Type: Mini-Crawler Mines

• Spawned by Crawler Bombs from Plasma Troopers
• Mini-Crawler Mines are smaller and have less health

[Level 6 spoilers]

All Zombies

• Increased hitbox height

Ranged Zombie

• Color Corrected their attacks

• Railgun Wallcrack in Starlight now has a correct hitbox, no longer requiring players to shoot slightly under it.
• Improved Wall Detection for brooms
• Fixed an error where Gwyn Machines could crash the game due to an out of bounds array reference
• Fixed a large number of errors where Juggernauts would trigger animations they did not have
• Fixed invisible screwdrivers
• Fixed an inconsistency where the DMR Extended Magazine upgrade description mentioned '6' instead of '4'
• Fixed Wall Paintings being far too slippery after being destroyed
• Fixed a floating rain sprite in Level 3-2. Thank you for reporting this at least 5 times a day! <3
• Fixed a bug where Red Blooded enemies would gib with purple fog
• Fixed Plant Debris always showing an incorrect sprite
• Fixed an error where enemies lost their headshot hitbox during their Taser animation
• Fixed a rare crash when shocking Crawler Mines
• Removed numerous debugs that were never meant to be shown in the console
• Fixed a rare bug where enemies killed by electricity would instead become invincible
• Chair feet no longer spawn smoke puffs when picked up
• Fixed a rare bug where Burrowed Crawlermines would become invisible during a chase
• Fixed a bug where picking up Weapon Parts at the same time as they were spawned would not despawn the gear decorations around it
• Fixed Whiteboard hitbox not matching the height of the voxel
• Fixed a crash caused by pressing START on Gamepad/Steam Deck before the game had time to properly initialize
• Fixed an error where left-sided lists were partially unclickable when the Interface Setting was set to 'Small'
• Enemy Speech Systems can now re-initialize when new voice lines are added, making older save files more stable.
• (Steam Deck) fixed missing symbols in On Screen Keyboard
• Fixed an error where Soldiers would consider a Pathnode as an enemy when failing to find a path
• Corrected more Keyboard positions to no longer appear under desks. If you find any more, let us know!
• Fixed a configuration error where the Steam download size was double in size of what it was meant to be
• Opening the Weapon Station for the first time with a UC-36 equipped no longer plays the Zoom/Unzoom sound
• Throwing toilets against enemies no longer crashes the game
• Fixed a bug where hitting Alt Fire during a Door Kick animation would result in an infinitely looping kick sound
• Fixed a bug where Starlight Purple's lipstick drawing could be torn by pressing USE
• Fixed an error where saves were improperly ordered
• Fixed Trashbins being more slippery than intended when pushed
• Fixed an error where enemies would be able to fire a shot when out of ammo. This would not spawn a projectile, but would spawn muzzle flash effects
• Corrected some questionable word choices for the Plasma Rifle AOE Invasion Tier
• Fixed an error where multiple Weapon Kits can be enabled at once on repeat playthroughs
• Juggernauts no longer turn into gigantic Riflemen when electrocuted by a Junction Box
• Removed lots and lots of Spawn calls towards actors that do not exist
• Dry firing while zooming with the Roaring Cricket will no longer unzoom the player
• Light Poles can no longer be picked up by the Gravity Manipulator
• Fixed a bug where the Shotgun Module would not spawn in the Safe Room Extension after beating the Tychus challenge
• Fixed a sound error where both 'Remove window' and 'Switch tab' sound effects were played when switching tabs on the Wrist Codex
• Fixed numerous z-fighting issues involving floor decals
• Fixed Water Bottle collision box being much smaller than intended
• Fixed an error where Paint Buckets crushed by a door became invincible
• Fixed an error where there was a very brief 1-tick delay before Paint Buckets got destroyed
• Fixed an error where Computer Monitor pieces had a spawn offset that was far too high
• Fixed Level 1-3 having an impassable desk that blocked objects.
• Fixed an error where picking up transparent voxels would be made fully opaque when dropped
• Fixed an error where Yellow Reagent barrels would be invisible when far away
• Fixed overlapping UI elements on Steam Deck
• Fixed yet another instance of a Brick Duplication glitch
• Walking over a large number of Paper Decals will no longer flood the audio channels with paper noises
• Fixed bug in Level 2-1 where the Yellow Crate would not spawn Yellow Paint Cans - ruining our joke!
• Fixed an error where ignition sounds would stack when an enemy kept getting burned
• Attempted fix for Plant Factory Elevator Panels moving out of position (We have been unable to reproduce this, but did find a quirk in the code. Let us know if it happens again!)
• Fixed a bug where two or more options at once would show up as selected in the Main Menu
• Fixed a crash caused by Paper Dispensers trying to reference a Toilet Roll that no longer exists
• Fixed a rare crash caused by walking on glass shards
• Fixed oversight where Slide Jump hits would register as a regular melee hit, eliminating the Slide Kick benefits
• Rephrased 'Bullets Evaded' to 'Shots Evaded'
• Fixed an error where Slide Jump Attacks were considered "Weapon Melee Attacks" and not "Slide Attacks"

Development Status

Early Access development remains right on schedule, but changes have been made in the order of which we approach things.

We originally intended for New Game Plus-like modes to be explored somewhere between Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. But due to popular demand, we had to rethink this approach and decided to do it a little earlier. As such, development remains right on track but priorities have been shifted.

What has changed?

This new version was meant to be solely about the Randomizer Mode, but has now evolved into the aforementioned Special Campaign - something much bigger. As a result of this, the following has been changed:

• Story Content has moved from December 2024 to January/February 2025
• Special Campaign has been moved from Late 2025 / Early 2026 to Today - Although, in a beta state.
• Chapter 2 development continues to progress rapidly

I'm aware many of you were eager for the Story Content, and I apologize for having to push that back a little. Rest assured, it'll be worth the wait!

While it's still early, there are a few things I can share about Chapter 2!

• One of the levels takes place in a mansion
• New defensive items, including a deployable Mini-Turret which comes with its own upgrade tree
• Heavy Weapons. These weapons are extremely powerful, but cannot be stored in your inventory and are thrown away once depleted.
• Enemy Miniguns can be picked up
• Drop Pods that can result in unexpected encounters when venturing outside
• Friendly NPC's

Here is a tease for one of the new tools you get to play with:

We often post development blogs on Patreon where we talk about ideas we are exploring, Chapter 2, scrapped content and more. Consider supporting us there!

https://www.patreon.com/PlaySelaco/

If you ran into any issues or simply prefer the old version, you can go back to an older version by rolling back using the Steam Beta features

1. Go to your Steam Library
2. Right Click on 'Selaco'
3. Click on 'Properties'
4. On the right side of the screen, press 'beta'
5. Click on the Dropdown Menu
6. Select 'v0.85'
7. Wait for the download to finish

You are now back to the old version of the game!

Phew, that’s quite the list, isn’t it? It took a lot of doing but it resulted in arguably our most significant patch yet. Which is saying a lot, given the scope of every patch we've launched so far!

While it’s unfortunate that the Story Content had to be pushed back by two months, we hope the early launch of the Special Campaign makes up for it. This mode offers endless potential for long-term expansion, which we’re excited to explore further in our Early Access period. We might even dedicate an entire update to Special Campaign additions further down the line.

Thank you all so much for continuously giving us your feedback, and a double thanks for everyone who participated in the Public Beta where we could test this update a little earlier.

Let us know what you think of the changes. Either in the comments below, or through a Steam Review. If the update fixed any of the issues you've had, consider giving your review an update!

Have fun, captains!