The Flipwip
Since our launch into Early Access 2 weeks ago, our players have died over a million times in Levelhead. We saw this number and thought, "We need to do something about this. This isn't even two million deaths." Well, NEVER FEAR! We've got a new baddie coming that will cause substantially more chaos: The Flipwip!
We've introduced a few new levels to the campaign that introduce the Flipwip and allow players to unlock the Flipwip for their workshops, so you'll start seeing this baddie appear in player-made levels, too!
No more limited-life checkpoints!
All right, we gotta own this one.
When we first started working on Levelhead, we thought it'd be interesting to tweak the concept of Checkpoints to add some tension to certain encounters. We made it so that level creators could set how many "uses" a checkpoint would get. So you could declare that a player gets 3 tries to beat a boss (for example), and if they run out of checkpoint respawns, they have to start the level over.
On paper this is interesting, because it means more is at stake when you are respawning at a limited-life checkpoint. But in reality, it just makes things frustrating. Because when you have to start a whole level over even though you had previously gotten to a checkpoint, now you have to beat a whole bunch of stuff that you've already beaten. It doesnt' really add to the challenge of a level in terms of difficulty -- it just makes it more work. That's no fun!
So we thought, "Are limited life checkpoints just a universal... negative?" We dug into our telemetry to see if the data backs this up. We tracked the number of complaints we got about which levels were "frustrating" or caused people to rage quit, and it turns out, the difficulty of the level wasn't the thing that caused people to quit. In fact, we got the most complaints and the most quits out of some of the easier levels in the campaign, in terms of clear rates. The one thing that all the "rage quit" levels shared in common: limited life checkpoints. We couldn't find a single scenario where limited-life checkpoints didn't cause a spike in "quits" on a given level.
So now, all checkpoints in Levelhead have infinite respawns. This retroactively applies to all levels in the game. So if there was a particular campaign level or player-made level that was causing you grief due to the limited checkpoints, now is the time to get back in there!
Share Code Bookmarking
When you publish a level in Levelhead, the level gets a unique string called a "Share Code." You can send these codes to other players, and they can then paste the code in-game to go directly to your level.
We've had a lot of folks in our community discord and subreddit posting share codes all over the place, but we noticed something really important. If you send someone your share code and they aren't playing levelhead right now, then they'll have to remember the share code for later. So you might send someone your share code, and they have the full intent to play your level, but then... they just forget!
We saw this, and we thought, "Too many great levels are falling through the cracks!" So we whipped out our INTERNET-POWERED HOT GLUE GUN and sealed those cracks right up!
Now, when you copy a level sharecode in-game, a Share Code URL gets dropped into your clipboard, which you can share with other people. If someone visits your Share Code URL in their web browser, they can bookmark your level, and the level will be delivered to them the next time they boot up Levelhead.
You can also turn any sharecode link into a web URLyourself, like this!
- p5zj01c (Normal share code)
- https://lvlhd.co/+p5zj01c (Share code turned into a URL)
This even works for people who don't yet own Levelhead. They can bookmark levels while logged into Rumpus, and when they finally get around to purchasing a copy of Levelhead, any bookmarked levels will be there waiting for them. BY THE MAGIC POWER OF THE INTERNET!
Paint With All the Colors of the Rift
Rifts! We love them. You love them. They let you get instantly from one place in your level to another. You can kick stuff through them. Sometimes, bad things come out of them. But you know what's not great about Rifts? If you have a lot of Rifts in your level, your players might get confused about which rift leads where.
So we took a step toward fixing that usability problem, by allowing level creators to color-code their rifts. We now have four unique Rift colors, and you can set them however you like!
All the rest!
We've got a hefty dose of bug fixes and general improvements this week. Check out the patch notes below!
0.3.3 Patchnotes (since 0.2.3)
See the full patchnotes.
New Features
Campaign
- A new set of levels have been added to the end of the campaign to introduce and unlock a new enemy: the Flipwip!
Editor
- You can now choose the colors of Rifts.
Gameplay
- When in multiplayer, the base model of GR18 (without powerups) will have a different colored face glow depending on which player you are. (thanks to jajdp)
Web
- Level ShareCodes copied to the clipboard now come with a second line that includes a web URL. Visiting this URL takes you to a web page with information about the level, and you have the option to "Bookmark" the level. Bookmarked levels will automatically appear in the newly-added "Bookmarks" tab in your profile in-game. With this system, if someone shares a level code with you but you are away from the game, you will still easily be able to play the level whenever you get around to logging in to the game, without needing to memorize or write down the share code. You can store up to 50 bookmarks in your profile at a time.
Improvements
Campaign
- GR-18, Meet the Flipwhip - The boss flipwip should no longer get stuck on the burny whirlers. Additional coins added to draw player to wall jumping, and a few blocks removed to make waylay charge jump less frustrating to execute. (thanks to Retro Banana Man NL)
- An Unusual Time's checkpoints have been moved to act as a quicksave point.
- Leap Through Time's first bomb jump has been made more clear, and its second barrel-shot has been given extra guidance to assist with accuracy. (thanks to Inept)
- Go Go Rumble's GR17 is hinted at harder, and the checkpoint before the autocam should no longer create a soft-lock for the player. (thanks to cprice)
- Chamber of Magic now has a spooky entrance and a package cam to assist with level flow. (thanks to cprice)
- Do Not Open now does some more fun stuff with prize blocks. (thanks to cprice)
- Clockswitch Tower has an additional checkpoint prior to the final trap-run. (thanks to Beekie Boppaboop)
- Vacrat Country - Secret changes that I can't even mention, and the first checkpoint will no longer let you be spawned onto an enemy and enter the cycle of death infinitely. (thanks to Boilylump Hoppygreat)
- Be Sneaky, GR-18 - all side objectives have been untangled from one another, so getting each one is its own challenge rather than one mega challenge.
- Hollow Mountain Hike - redesigned to be more about handling stationary burnywhirlers while riding spinning platforms. should induce less rage.
Editor
- You can now set sign icons to be an image of a Jem.
- New words added to the name combobulator: Mechanical, Code, Memory, Castle, Fort, Fortress.
- Added new words to the level name combobulator: quest, mission, objective, victory, impossible, possible, probable, improbable, boolean, gadget, machine, imaginary, navigate, need, want, observe, see. These words are not yet localized, but they are still available to other languages regardless.
- You can now put Arrow Holograms on paths.
- You can now put an icon on signs that shows a picture of BUDD-E. (thanks to Retro Banana Man NL)
- It is now much easier to click on the little ball to move a slider if the ball is at the very edge of the slider's limits.
- Added words to the Name Combobulator: Arena, With, Endless, Runner, Jogger, Diver, Sprinter, Zoom, Pal, Instant, Sudden, and Stadium.
Gameplay
- In multiplayer, when one player enters a rift, all players now get teleported to the destination rift. (thanks to jajdp)
- If a Jem is chasing you because you passed right next to it, the Jem will auto-collect when you touch the goal. (thanks to bamhm182)
- All checkpoints now have infinite respawns. Limited-life checkpoints have all been retroactively converted into unlimited-life checkpoints.
UI
- Buttons on the profile page now change color when you hover over them with your cursor.
- Your most-recently-played level will now have a glowing border when you see it in various UIs. This should make it easier to identify where to drop your exposure bucks if you want to tip the level's creator after you leave.
- Updated the Buddy List icon to look like buddies, instead of an eyeball.
Fixes
Web
- Fixed an issue with sharecode links generating an incorrect URL.
- Retrieval and sending of String Sets (such as your bookmarks) will no longer be attempted unless you are logged in and online.
- Retrieval of String Sets (such as bookmarks) will no longer be attempted unless you are online.
Gameplay
- Checkpoints were sometimes restoring projectiles with an incorrect collision mask, causing them to explode randomly. This should now be fixed.
- If the package is sitting on a Flippy Longswitch when you touch a checkpoint, the package won't re-flip the Flippy Longswitch when you respawn at the checkpoint. (thanks to challosis)
- Spike traps that are not attached to switches should no longer start extended when you first begin a level, and they should now restore themselves properly when you respawn at a checkpoint. (thanks to Loudypop Powturn)
- Doors will now restore their states properly upon checkpoint respawns, instead of replaying their open or close animation every time you respawn them.
- Dense Fog now properly remembers its state when you recover at a checkpoint.
- Swoopadoops and Blopfush should now much more reliably have their states restored via checkpoints, including Blopfush and Swoopadoops that are on paths. (thanks to Popdonk Baggycool)
- Bumpers now cancel your powerup active state (stealth or punching) but no longer reset the cooldowns for those abilities.
- Cromblers are no longer affected by rifts. (thanks to Retro Banana Man NL)
- Instant-blast Blasters no longer turn invisible if you enter them via teleporting with the Zipper. (thanks to Bupajie Impycloud)
- If you have a temporary buff (like the D-bot), it will get purged when you beat a level, to prevent graphical weirdness during the victory screen.
- Batteries and keys on paths will not activate things unless they are active (not invisible).
- Fixed some final issues with ground detection that would cause odd sound resets while running in slow motion, and would cause sprint to take longer to activate during slurb juice.
- Fixed some issues with detecting whether you were on the edge of a platform.
- You can no longer indefinitely hang on ceilings with the Tiptow by exploiting a bug. (thanks to RetrophileTV)
- Fixed an issue caused by a change to ground detection that would cause Flapjacks to get stuck on the ground.
Editor
- The package will no longer pick up coins that are immediately below it inside the editor.
- The Golden Key and Batteries should now properly display their "faded" state in the editor when attached to switches.
Campaign
- Rain as a weather option should no longer be unlocked by default.
UI
- Subscribing/Unsubscribing and Buddy Listing/Delisting users should now display the correct icon in your popup message.