That's right, it's Gentoosday! This is a huge patch that contains over a month of small updates, as well as some exciting new features like Steam Workshop and MacOS Support. I am incredibly grateful for all of your support that has allowed me to continue work on the game post-release.
Steam workshop
- There are already several levelpacks on the workshop now, and I look forward for more to come!
- There is a new main menu button "Custom". The first time you select this, you'll directed to the Steam workshop page for Gentoo Rescue. There you can subscribe to custom levelpacks, which can can be played through the "Custom" menu.
- One can also bypass Steam workshop by manually installing a custom levelpack into the directory: `/GentooRescue/Custom/`. Note that custom levelpacks installed this way will use the name of their hub level as the name of the levelpack, and that this name should not clash with any other manually installed custom levelpacks. Steam workshop levelpacks have a unique ID independent of its title.
- Your time played and progress on each levelpack is stored by profile, and the levelpack saves are separate from the main save (and each other). They are also tracked by Steam Cloud, so your progress will stay when switching devices. You can find these saves in the Custom subdirectory of your player directory.
- Solutions are now saved in the same file as the rest of your progress instead of a separate file. This affects the main save (`progress.sav`), but it was mostly done for custom levelpack support.
- Added button in the puzzle editor to upload to Steam workshop. You can (and should) specify a title/description through this interface, not Steam's.
- Steam workshop uploads will automatically generate a preview image based on your currently loaded puzzle, but you can manually specify an image by placing it at:
/GentooRescue/Images/.pngI recommend a resolution of 800x800. - Subscribed Steam workshop levels will be copied to `/GentooRescue/Workshop` upon entering the "Custom" menu. This allows for offline support.
- The guide should cover all of the essentials.
MacOS support
- I'm excited that more people can now play Gentoo Rescue!
- Any serious MacOS specific bugs will get the highest priority for the next small patch. Please report any to the discord!
Puzzle changes
- I've refined some hints in various levels. I've been doing this every patch without noting details, and will continue to do so. Keep the feedback coming!
- Removed unintended solution from Quasar in Pickpocket. Maybe the first cheese found? Not sure it qualifies a cheese because it was more difficult than the intended solution.
- Swapped the positions of Vantage and Jailbreak in Path of Plain.
- Changed Transpositions (in Exfiltration.Temporary) to make all swap imports clearly impossible, which allowed for the removal of the blue colored wall from Temporary.
- Removed the blue colored wall from Foreboding.Flutter because it wasn't important. Same for Liftoff.Balance.
- Added fog to a tile in Sustain to make an aspect of the meta puzzle of reaching the bottom left puzzle easier. More specifically, a bomb import is now clearly useless.
- Renamed Sustain to Herrings, Implant to Transplant, and swapped the names of Y and V. Bonus points to anyone that can figure out why these changes were done!
Puzzle editor
- Added a button to record journal entries to the puzzle editor. Click "Journal" in the editor, then confirm "Record". This will load the current puzzle in test mode. Upon exiting test mode, all journal entries that you performed during testing will be written to the current puzzle's list of 'Required for current level' journal entries. This replaces the old method of entering the IDs by hand.
- Added icon for normal/plain walls with the keyword PWALL. This can be used in your hints.
- Fixed puzzle test bug where exiting the puzzle under test in the puzzle editor could cause the puzzle to be modified.
Performance improvements
- The goal was just to reduce loading times for custom levelpacks. However these optimizations will also benefit the main game, particularly for those on lower-end machines.
- Optimized walls and tile objects.
- Animals and items are now pooled instead of being allocated/destroyed on the fly.
- Moved some important work from scripting to C++: tile generation/arrangement, animal organization, and loading static puzzle state.
Settings
- Gridlines are enabled by default at the smallest nonzero thickness.
- Added more ticks to the low end of the "Base speed" Gameplay slider.
Misc
- Reworded some journal entries to remove slight spoilers. This comes at the cost of making a few entries less descriptive, but I think the tradeoff is worth it.
- End popup on the hub puzzle now includes the total time played.
- Mouse autohide is now disabled while in the Create submenu.
- Increased size of some small text in various places. This was mainly done to help visibility on Steam Deck.
- The music track will not be restarted upon changing biomes if the old and new biome use the same track.
- Increased teleport animation speed to better match internal logic. This may be relevant for some cursed custom levels.
What's next?
- General bugfixes.
- Continued minor improvements to hints/puzzles, as needed. Watching your gameplay videos/streams really helps me spot tweaks that I can make, so keep sending those my way!
- Puzzle editor improvements and polish.
- I'll be streaming playthroughs of workshop levelpacks soon at https://www.twitch.tv/jagriff/.
- I may also start making YouTube videos with some puzzle design examples / challenges, or other general dev commentary. Please let me know if there's any interest for this.
Dream goals. Ordered by insanity (ascending). Don't count on these happening unless Gentoo Rescue becomes so popular that I can afford to quit my real job.
- Localization support. This would have limited use on its own. Maybe community language packs?
- Official support for Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and maybe other languages?
- A DLC secret area with new or expanded mechanics? I intentionally left a place for this in the hub.
- Mobile port? Switch port?
- Challenge mode. Maybe this would have to be a separate game? I originally planned to ship with a score-based "roguelike" mode with leaderboards, but it was over-scoped and there were some design challenges that I couldn't address in time for launch.
- Multiplayer. This would certainly have to be an entirely separate game. If you've played Ricochet Robots, then you might have an idea for how this would work.