As Streets of Rogue inches closer to its planned “late 2018” 1.0 release, this update finds me attempting to jam in a whole bunch of mostly minor new features that have been on my to-do list forever, while also squashing a crapload of bugs. Seriously, read over these patch notes, there’s some pretty cool new stuff buried in here!
This week’s Fortnight Discussion: Your thoughts on a possible “supporter’s edition” of the game, which would be a set of non-essential “DVD Extras” style content for fans.
Alpha 55
Playfield Objects
- ATM can be used to store a single item between runs (at a cost)
- ATM can be hacked to spit out money
- ATM usually has at least 1 Cop guarding it
- Investment money can be withdrawn at ATM
- Barbecue can now be used to grill Fud and make Hot Fud. Barbecue must be lit first by either a Cigarette Lighter or Flamethrower.
- Characters with Diminutive can flush themselves down Toilets, which teleports them randomly to another toilet
- Characters can “purge” their current status effects at a Toilet - especially useful if Investment
- Banker needs to take some lousy drugs to avoid Withdrawal
- Sign added to Office Building to explain how investments work
- Player can toss more money down a Well to receive Feelin’ Lucky
- If player destroys a Well, they receive Feelin’ Unlucky
- Only 1 Well may spawn per level
- Satellite can now broadcast Happy Waves, which causes nearby NPCs to become Friendly, provided your character has Tech Expert
- Gravestone sometimes spawns money
- Fountains removed from the game until I can find a use for them
- Turning off security system from Computer will turn off Flame Grates
- Quest Switches will attract the player’s auto-aim when they have not yet been pressed
NPC Abilities
- Player can talk to Clerk to invest money into “The Company” at the Office Building
- Investment money can be withdrawn at Bank Clerk or Office Building Clerk
- Player can give blood (health) in exchange for money to Clerks in the Hospital
- Clerks at Movie Theater sell hideously overpriced food
- Clerks at Hotel will sell anyone a room key
- Office Drone can be offered food, drinks and cigarettes as “motivation”, which affects the stock price of The Company in a positive way
- If Office Drones are killed, the stock price is affected negatively
- Ghosts have somewhat more Strength than previously
Items
- Necronomicon added to game - Spawns Zombie followers when near a Graveyard
- Hot Fud added, a more nourishing variant of Fud created on the Barbecue
- Projectile weapons that don’t do damage such as Tranquilizer Gun will not auto-aim at objects like Explosive Barrels
- Projectile weapons will not auto-aim at Ghosts, Holograms, or Invisible NPCs
- Four-Leaf Clover affects a lot of things that it didn’t before, basically everything that the new Feelin’ Lucky and Feelin’ Unlucky traits affect
- Hotel Clerks now start with Key
- Shovel no longer appears in game, at least for the time being
- Water Pistol can no longer be stolen by Thief from the player’s inventory
- Water Pistol can be used when the No Guns mutator is active, in part because not having it makes it much harder to carry out the Scientist’s Big Quest
- Fix (again) for workers in gas-spewing buildings not initially starting with Gas Masks on
Graphics
- Shrinker bullets and Freeze Ray bullets no longer look exactly the same
- Adjusted brightness in Uptown levels for an easier-to-read look
- Fix for bullets not always having correct lighting
- Fix for lights not always appearing properly on lamps
- Slime Puddles are a bit brighter
UI / Controls
- Fix for player being able to shift+click on and drop un-droppable items within certain interfaces
- Attempted fix for NPC Info displays appearing when they should not
- Fix for incorrect floor number sometimes appearing when loading a saved game while using the Quick Game mutator
- Fix for interface not pausing after players 2-4 in local coop complete an optional mission
Status Effects / Traits / Special Abilities
- Feelin’ Lucky - Affects your luck in all sorts of endeavors, but you get less lucky as time runs down
- Feelin’ Unlucky - The opposite of Feelin’ Lucky
- Status text indicates that the Drug Dealer has taken a Syringe
- Fix for Shapeshifter becoming a normal-sized creepy naked person after being Zombified, rather than remaining Diminutive
- Fix for Slaves who had been freed sometimes exploding after being Depossessed by Shapeshifter
- Nimble Fingers and Poor Hand-Eye Coordination will mostly cancel each other out
Missions
- On Rescue missions, NPC may ask to be escorted to the Exit instead of the Entrance
- Created “flip switches” variant where flipping the first switch activates a timer that causes the quest to fail if the player doesn’t finish quickly enough
- Exploding Barrels may appear in buildings as objects to destroy for missions
- Optional missions always appear on floor “x-2” of each district
- Fix for optional missions not being offered on a number of levels where they were supposed to be
- Fix for optional missions not being offered in local 3- and 4-player modes
- Fix for incorrect player sometimes getting credit on optional Retrieve missions in local and online coop modes
- Optional missions may now be offered by Clerks and Bartenders, in addition to Drug Dealers and Shopkeepers
Big Quests
- Fix for issues in Assassin, Vampire, and Gangster Big Quests where Zombified targets would not count as having been Neutralized
- Fix for various traits like No In-Fighting affecting the player’s ability to complete certain Big Quests
- Fix for Gorilla quest map markers not disappearing after a Gorilla had been rescued
Mutators
- Fix for Random Level Districts giving player incorrect districts when they had also chosen mutators to remove certain districts
- Changed the name of “Remove Levels” mutators to “Remove District”
Level Generation
- Fix for too many Clerks sometimes appearing in one of the Broadcasting Station layouts, and also added armed guards to this layout
- Fix for one of the bathrooms in the Uptown gated houses being considered “outdoors” by the game
- Fix for the bathroom of one of the City Parks being counted as an considered “outdoors”
- Fix for Conveyor Belt not appearing in Mall on Uptown levels
- Fix for Saw Blade track not drawing properly in one of the buildings
- Fixed instance in one of the buildings where Fire Spewer was placed in such a way that the AI would almost always suck at avoiding it
- Fix for instance where a Tube would attempt to spit objects onto a Conveyor Belt, but would be blocked by a Switch
- Slightly fewer Vampires and Firefighters are placed into levels than before
- Fix for instances where certain walls would appear different on the client than on the host
- Some changes to the placement of Office Drones in the world to account for the new Investments system
Artificial Intelligence
- Zombie NPCs can no longer pick up weapons
- When lunging, Gorilla lunges at the angle at which he began charging up, rather than lunging directly toward his opponent
- Cops are more protective of ATMs
- If Thief NPC is having too much difficulty stealing from someone, he will give up
- Fix for Slum Dweller having difficulty picking up money in certain spots like water
- Fix for imprisoned Slum Dweller attempting to grab money that is outside the prison
- Fix for Slum Dwellers, Vampires, Cannibals, and Thieves not returning to their previous goal properly after performing actions added in the last update
- Fix for Vampire and Cannibal being able to Bite/Cannibalize from far away
- Fix for NPCs like Gorilla and Jock attempting to use special attacks after being Zombified
- Fix for NPCs sometimes having difficulty pathing to an elevator when the player asks or threatens them
- Fix for Jock paying out fight to player when they had no money and no inventory space for a new money item, and other similar circumstances where the player receives money
- Fix for NPCs in Movie Theaters sometimes walking around the theater instead of sitting
- NPCs in gangs are better at avoiding Trains and Mine Carts. Previously, the one of them would stop for the Train, and then the others would bump into him and accidentally knock him into the train’s path
- Drug Dealer can no longer receive Electro Touch when taking a Syringe during combat
- Fix for NPCs yelling at online multiplayer clients with Malodorous and other similar traits as soon as they joined the game
- Fix for Hacker and Thief being able to complete their “assist me” tasks immediately if they stopped doing them and then started again
- Hacker and Thief who are in the player’s party as a result of Friend Phone, Loneliness Killer, etc. cannot be told to do their primary tasks multiple times
Performance
- Hefty performance improvements during big fights
- Cleared up some garbage collection performance issues
- Pathfinding optimizations
Multiplayer
- Fix for errors occurring if the player switched from keyboard to gamepad or back and then began an online multiplayer game
Internal
- Work on final level
Alpha 55b
- Fix for bullet weirdness in online multiplayer games
Alpha 55c (July 13)
- Fix for level transition crash on multiplayer client
- Fix for Butler Bot errors on multiplayer client
- Fix for client side bullets sometimes appearing with just a light and no texture
- Fix for infinite money exploit with new Investment system, and general reworking of how the system functions
- Fix for certain Office Building sometimes being completely empty
- Fix for ATM Machine button for “Spit Out Money” having incorrect text
- Fix for Wrestler being assigned to challenge Shapeshifter to a fight
- Fix for issues moving from level to level when using saved game from Alpha 54
- Fix for Gorilla who was lunging sometimes continuing to shake after being Zombified
- Fix for Hospital Clerk only taking 10 health instead of 20 when you give blood
- Fix for certain percentage chance buttons (“Threaten - xx%”, etc.) potentially being above 100 or less than 0
- Fix for one of the Bank vaults having a weird floor texture
- Fix for player losing the game if they died with Resurrection and their body then fell down a hole
- Fix for Water Pistol being able to be stored in ATM for free
- Fix for item stack doing weird things when giving motivation items to Office Drone
- Fix for mouse cursor picking up invisible icons on the Missions screen
- Fix for Shapeshifter occasionally making an appearance during the tutorial
- Water Pistol is worth a lot more money
- Shrunk players can fit in Toilet, much like Diminutive
- Player receives 2 Necronomicons as a reward instead of 1
- Necronomicon is worth a bit less money, costs less to unlock, costs less in character creation and loadouts
- Fix for some buttons appearing out of alphabetical order in the Mutators list
- Fix for game not ending properly and potentially causing an “un-endable” game if the player tries to end the game while on their back, teleporting, falling into a hole, etc. Actually, you just get a message telling you to wait a second and do it again due to programmer incompetence
- Fix for password entry background not always covering the entire screen
- Player can invest money when talking to Bank Clerk, in addition to the Office Building clerk
- ATM Machine can no longer store items in Sandbox mode
- Syringes can no longer be stored in ATM machines
- Zombie and Werewolf Drug Dealers can no longer take drugs
- Ooze does less damage during Low Health for All mutator
- Cops no longer spawn near Vending Machines in the park
Alpha 55d (July 14)
- Fix for game not starting properly if the player’s saved game had somehow become corrupt
- Fix for Fund Research option being available to Investment Banker, despite his Big Quest being changed so this is no longer necessary
- Using the Barbecue no longer causes Cops to become hostile
- Fix for person being arrested sometimes shaking if they were electrocuted first
- Fix for AI running from Gas danger and other similar dangers due to them being positioned incorrectly
- Fix for potential circumstances where the player could gain XP for Pickpocketing another player
- Thief cannot pickpocket invisible people
- Fix for Jock’s Charge sound effect sometimes continuing after their death
- Shapeshifter can no longer pop out of War Zone fighters
- Fix for person enslaved for Slavemaster Big Quest exploding after having exited through an elevator
- Fix for cases where light from explosion would stick around too long
Alpha 55e (July 15)
- Fix for not being able to hit people of opposing factions sometimes, like Werewolves and Gangsters
- Fix for stock purchase prices being affected by the Clerk’s opinion of you
- Stock investments no longer count toward “total money spent” in the game’s stats
- Fix for Barbecue not working properly
- Proper “picking up” text appears above the player when creating Hot Fud
- Shapeshifter possessing someone can no longer give blood at Hospital
- Cops no longer get angry if you attack a Vampire who is running to suck your blood
- Fix for Jock Big Quest sometimes stating the wrong total number of objects that needed to be destroyed on the Missions Screen
- Added “Countdown Started!” message when hitting first button in button missions that have a countdown
- Fix for NPCs sometimes incorrectly being marked as having witnessed the Assassin’s assault on their target during Big Quest when the player was using Tranquilizer Gun, or when the NPC was in a Manhole