06 Nov 2019Developer postOriginal post (opens in a new tab)

Levelhead Patch 0.42: Weather the Weather!

Patch Highlights

Hey, Levelheads! Welcome to our LARGEST PATCH EVER. Our focus these past four weeks has been on bug fixes, optimizations, and overall improvements to what's already in the game. But just for good measure, we squeezed a couple new toys in there, because WHY NOT? Let's take a look!

Reusable BUDD-E's!

Many of our level builders have been making levels with a sort of "check-in" spot, where the player could re-save their progress each time they returned to the same location. But previously, the only way to do this was to place two BUDD-Es (checkpoints) side by side, which took up a lot of space and made a lot of noise. So we fixed that, by introducing a new style of BUDD-E!

Now, you can toggle whether your BUDD-E is reusable. Reusable BUDD-Es gain a blue tint and have round protuberances on their heads, so you can tell them apart. If a BUDD-E is reusable, every time you re-touch it, it will save the level state at that moment -- even if that BUDD-E was already active!

Plus, we changed the color of the BUDD-E's face from green to cyan, which so far has worked out great, and we haven't gotten any pushback at all from our players on that one. Nope. Not even a little bit! It's just been... Just smooth. Smoooooooth sailing.

Rain Rain Windy Windy!

As soon as we added weather to Levelhead, we knew we wanted to add some way to control the weather. Thanks to Levelhead's switch system, we had an easy way to do it, so we just needed to find the time! AND THIS PATCH, WE DID!

Now, you can drop a Weatherbox into your level, which will allow you to control the weather via switches! Want to start a sandstorm when the player leaves a cave? Or have the sun come out when the player clears out all the enemies? Weatherboxes give you control over that FLOOOOW.

Jingle jangle!

Speaking of having cool things happen when the player achieves something... What about MUSIC?

We now have JINGLEBOXES, which are little one-tile, invisible items that you can connect to switches to have little jingles -- short songs -- play when events occur. Want to celebrate the player finding a secret room? Or perhaps celebrate the player making a huge mistake by taunting them with a sad song? Now you can!

Switches got me in Stitches

Key Doors and Key Chests have always kind of lived in their own little key world, doing key stuff and generally not participating with the rest of society. But we reached out to the Key Embassy and sat down with some of their Key Diplomats and Key Personnel. We talked about Key Performance Indicators and brought up some key talking points, and eventually we found the key issue.

Now, Key Doors and Key Chests can send a signal when opened! That means you can directly tie level events to the usage of a Key Card, without needing some kind of elaborate Key Switch contraption. In conjunction with the Jingles, this little feature opens up a lot of fun "secret reveal" and celebratory opportunities.

Japanese and Korean!

Just yesterday we got our first translations for Levelhead in Japanese and Korean, so we added it to the game!

This is a FRESH translation, so we want to hear from our players about things we can do to improve it. We've already heard that our Name Combobulator needs a lot of work with Japanese, so we'll be figuring that one out. But we want your feedback! FEED US YOUR FEEDBACK!

Mostly because we can't read this stuff. What even is this? WHAT AM I LOOKING AT?

Tons of fixes!

Fully half of the changes that have gone in to this patch are fixes to existing systems, and most of the other changes were general improvements or rebuilds of game systems that were misbehaving. We scoured the whole thing from top to bottom and put time into some of the more elusive bugs that have been causing our players (and us) headaches. Some of the greatest hits from this patch include:

Proximity switches should now actually work properly in the first frame of a level. No more Jems appearing and then instantly disappearing!
If you liked a level, you would sometimes later return to find that your "Like" hadn't actually been applied. Now they actually stick to levels!
The Wiki exporter is a lot smoother and no longer causes the game to hang forever.
When you log into the game or change users, you now go to a loading screen that makes sure everything is square. Previously, the loading would happen on the main menu, which meant you could go into the campaign or do other stuff before the loading was actually finished. WHOOPS!
If you were falling super fast, you would sometimes slide past a 1-tile gap that you were trying to horizontally move into. The physics have been updated so that if you're moving at higher speeds, it becomes easier to slide into these gaps. NICE!
You can now hold buttons on the controller while inputting text into the on-screen keyboard. No more carpal tunnel for you!
Some items had hitboxes that were 2 pixels too wide, which allowed you to, for example, go through a Rift even if it was inside a wall. These have all been fixed. NO MORE CHEATING!
Tons of items, like cannons and some enemies, weren't fully restoring their states at checkpoints. This made for inconsistencies that shouldn't have existed. We've fixed all of these that we've found, but if you find more, let us know!

Aside from all the fixes, we also put time into optimizing the game by profiling which items were using unnecessary CPU, and we trimmed the fat on all of those items. Overall, you should notice frame rate increases in just about every scenario. So... that's nice!

What's Next?

The next patch will come December 18, since Adam (the web programmer) and I (the game programmer) will be out for two weeks around Thanksgiving. We'll have a developer blog for the next two weeks, and then we'll have a couple weeks of silence while we're on our Thanksgiving break, although we'll still have community spotlights during that time.

The focus of this next patch will be making the campaign more robust and interesting, and making it an overall better experience for new players to get introduced to the game. I don't want to spoil the surprise, so I'll just LEAVE IT AT THAT!

If you want to know more about patch 0.42, read on!

v0.42.0 Patchnotes (since 0.27.0)

See the full patchnotes.

New Features

Localization

Levelhead now features Japanese and Korean translations.
Added Japanese and Korean language support.

Editor

Added seven new jingles to the Jinglebox.
You can now rearrange the words in the Name Combobulator using left/right arrows underneath the words.
BUDD-Es (Checkpoints) now have a "Reusable" toggle. Reusable BUDD-Es are blue and have round protuberances on their heads, instead of pointy.
A new item is available in the Editor: The WEATHERBOX! The Weatherbox is an invisible item that controls the weather by listening to signals. When a Weatherbox is changing the weather, the level's current weather will fade in or out over 1/3 of a second, which is fast enough that you can make it feel like the player is exiting a building into a storm, but slow enough that it isn't jarring. If your level has a Weatherbox in it, the level's default weather settings will be ignored.
Key Chests now have an optional Sending Channel, and an optional starting state for that signal. Getting hit by a matching key will cause the chest to toggle its Sending Channel signal. (thanks to Brainmop Wippabumble)
Key Doors now have an optional Sending Channel, and an optional starting state for that signal. Getting hit by a matching key will cause the door to toggle its Sending Channel signal.
A new item is available in the Editor: The JINGLEBOX! The Jinglebox is an invisible item that can play short tunes when activated with a switch. These can be used to emphasize certain moments in your level, such as surprises, secret reveals, or the player acquiring a special item. Jingleboxes will play once per switch activation, with an internal 0.5 second cooldown (so they can't be played every frame). Normally, Jingleboxes are Global, which means their sounds can be heard from anywhere in the level. Global Jingleboxes will dampen the game's music temporarily while they play their tune. Alternatively, they can be set to "Positional," which allows you to play a tune from a location (if the player is close enough). Positional Jingleboxes do not dampen the normal game music.

Audio

When enemies are roasted by Wildfire, it now makes a unique sound.

File Management

When you first open the game and when you log into or out of a Rumpus account, you will now see a loading screen. Previously, all loading and syncing was done on the main menu, but this could lead to problems, such as your save file not being fully synced or loaded by the time you clicked on the campaign ship. Now, everythign will be loaded first, and then you will go to the main menu.

Web

Levelhead now uses compression for sending files to Rumpus over 256 bytes. This should result in faster web functions and less data usage, especially for syncing player saves and large levels.

Improvements

Audio

Updated the sound of the Tense Success jingle.

Editor

Added to the Name Combobulator: Once, Twice, Thrice (thanks to cprice)
Added to the Name Combobulator: Unknown (thanks to WaddlesTNT)
Added to the Name Combobulator: Currency
If you place a Weatherbox but have weather effects disabled, you will get a warning popup message. (thanks to msmiley)
Added Pressure Plate and Lookswitch to the Daily Build defaults. (thanks to TimConceivable)
The Sign now features a Key Chest icon.
Added words to the name combobulator: Height, Heights, System, Systemic, Draft. (thanks to Spekio)
Rifts can now have their Rift ID and Destination Rift ID set to "None" (which can be accessed by setting their IDs to -1). This allows you to make true one-way Rifts that can only send or only receive, without needing to do weird workarounds.
Jingleboxes now have a "Repeatable" setting, which lets you decide whether they play only once, or can play each time they are switched back on. By default, Jingleboxes are set to non-repeating.
All of the Enclosure tiles had the same flavor text. Now they each have unique flavor text!
Added to the name combobulator: Beep (thanks to Johnny0798)
The name combobulator now supports hyphens as a punctuation mark. (thanks to Johnny0798)
Added "Lost" to the name combobulator. (thanks to Spekio)
When GR-18 is being dragged in the Editor, it will pose as if it is falling.
Added a "Sprint" icon to the Sign. (thanks to Steek Hutsy)
Added to the Name Combobulator: Generator, Juice, Power, Energy, Electricity, Energize, Repeat, Loop, Actually, Actual.
Added to the Name Combobulator: Color, Gallery, Channel, Raid, Aurora, Chump, Destroyer, Colorful, Wondrous, Fragile, Cube, Symphony, Paradise, Workshop, Caution, Case, Sewer, Conveyor, Family, Dome Structure, Torrent, Poison, Palace, Magical, Underground, Parallel, Wide, Warm, Enchanted, Automatic, Heavy, Narrow, Limited, Celestial, Cosmic. (thanks to Johnny0798)
Added unique Editor selection sounds to all enemies, not just the Scrubb and Ocula!
By default, new levels created from this version forward will have their camera side boundaries defaulted to "On." You can still disable the horizontal camera boundaries in the level details.

The first loading screen into the game is now the spinning Rumpus logo (as before), while the user swapping loading screen is the new GR-18 box art loading screen.
Updated the "Tip Amount" icon to be a coin going into a slot, instead of that weird hand thing.
Added an icon to the "Language" setting in the Settings page, so you can tell which setting to change if the game is in the wrong language and you therefore can't read it.
There is now a confirmation window for resetting all your settings via the Settings menu.
Language selection is now the very first thing in the Settings menu.
Updated the Rumpus login page to use icons instead of text. This will also allow us to fit more login buttons on the screen at once without it feeling cluttered or needing to add scrolling.

Web

If your Rumpus credentials expire, the game will now handle this more gracefully. It will load up the Guest account, and then prompt you with a message that your credentials have expired, and it will ask you whether you want to log back in.
Levels now carry metadata for which platform they were published on. This will later allow us to give players the option to only play levels published on the same kind of device they are currently using.
Rumpus now features internet pits filled with internet sticks to e-impale any e-intruders.
Levelhead now uses "Just in Time" level delivery! When playing a playlist, the game would previously download all of the playlist's levels at once. This was pretty wasteful for bandwidth and file writing, because you might only play the first level and then decide to go do something else. Now, each level is downloaded when you first enter its loading screen right before you play it. If you want to download levels in bulk, you can still do so via just clicking on their "Download" buttons without playing them.

Optimization

Textures are now prefetched during the level loading screen instead of during the first frame of the level. This should reduce hitching that might occur on the first play-through of a level after loading.
Optimized Hardlights to use less CPU in general, and to use quite a bit less CPU while in the Editor.
Found numerous optimizations in Flippy Longswitches, dramatically reducing their impact on frame rates.
Levels with a large number of switches should now load dramatically faster.
Found several optimizations in Battle Switches, reducing their impact on frame rates.
Optimized several aspects of Jem Switches, so they should now have less of an impact on frame rates.
Found several optimizations in placeable Fireballs, lessening their effect on the game's frame rates.
Found several optimizations in Spiketrons and Whizblades, giving them a dramatically reduced impact on frame rates.
Optimized Wait Switches, so their effect on fps is substantially reduced.
Boomboxes have had much of their code optimized, causing their effect on the frame rate of a level to be generally halved.
Tempswitches no longer run any rendering code while offscreen, which should result in a mild frame rate boost for levels that have a large number of Tempswitches.
Optimized many of the game's texture pages, which should increase performance in devices with weak GPUs.
Purged a number of old, unused sprites.
Found some heavy optimizations in the rendering of pickups such as Jems and Powerups. These items will no longer run any draw code when offscreen, and they have had some other unnecessary calculations removed. Levels with large numbers of Jems and Pickups should see a performance boost.
The game should no longer iterate over input channels that aren't associated with active players. Monitoring those input channels was using unnecessary CPU.
Dense Fog no longer renders if it is off-screen. This should lead to a performance boost on levels with a lot of Dense Fog.
Optimized some of the rendering of text in the Gameplay Interface.
If something were to ordinarily spawn the "whiteflash smoke cloud" animation (as when enemies are defeated), that animation will now only spawn if it would be visible on-screen.

Gameplay

You can now hit the "Retry" button during a powerup acquisition animation. (thanks to RetrophileTV)
The top camera boundary is now the actual top edge of the level, instead of a half grid space above the level. This will make it easier to create a feeling of enclosed spaces. Note that the player can still go up there; they will just have to navigate using the on-screen arrow that indicates their location.
Sped up the acceleration of Scrubbs and Oculas so if they get knocked back, they don't slide away for 10,000 years.

Wiki

The in-game Wiki export function no longer freezes the game while it is exporting.
The in-game Wiki export function now includes information about campaign levels. (thanks to Spekio)
The in-game Wiki export function now includes all of the words in the Name Combobulator. (thanks to Spekio)

Workshop

Workshop cloud level downloads are now force-saved to disk, ignoring normal file write limits.

Console

For consoles with rate limits on file saving, it was possible to have your downloaded levels fail to get "locked in" to the device's storage if they were stuck waiting in queue to save to disk. Now, when the level downloader is done downloading all the levels you have queued up, it will guarantee that those downloaded levels ignore the normal file write limits so they don't get lost.

Campaign

"Storm of Regret" has been updated.
"Deliver the Package, GR-18!" has been updated.
"Fly, GR-18!" has been updated.
"Sting Like a Bee" has been updated.
"Grand Theft Grotto" has been updated.
"Spike Pop Experiment" has been updated.
"Pow Pow Magic" has been updated.
"Under Pressure" has been updated.
"Hollow Mountain Hike" has been updated.
"Go Go Rumble" has been updated.
"Chamber of Magic" has been updated.
"The Heist" has been updated.
"Sacrifice the Box" has been updated.
"Bop Jump" has been updated.
"Temple Gauntlet" has been updated.
"Bomb Traveler" has been updated.
"An Unusual Time" has been updated.
"Four Point Plunge" has been updated.
"Hollow Mountain Hike" has been updated.
"Only Air" has been updated.
"Battery Gauntlet" has been updated.
"Sproing time" has been updated.
"Fire Jungle" has been updated.
Think Dangerously has had cheese removed from its third puzzle.
Home Run is now called Triple Trouble and is better.
Ouch Cart has been slightly updated.
Temple Gauntlet has been updated.
Under Pressure has been updated.
Blopfush Trap has been updated.
Hide and Sneak - Proximity switches updated to not misfire and softlock players when the multiplayer camera zooms out.
Uh Oh - level updated to include music all the way through and be slightly spookier.
Jem Jazz Ordeal has been overhauled and is now Turn It On!
Switch Karma now has music.
The Heist now has music and a few updates.
Home Run now has music.
Now That's a Rift has been updated and now has a few coins.
Package Jump Challenge has been updated and now has secrets and a GR17
Be Sneaky GR18 has been updated, now has a blopfush flock
Thorncloud Delivery has been updated to reinforce package jump mechanics.
Dense Fog Ridge has been updated to include blopfush tantalizers.
Bop Jump has been updated to include blopfush, fire, and golden key/doors
Deliver the Package, GR-18! Has been updated to include blopfush and fire, among other things.
Regret Gate Compilation has been updated to include a keychest, fireballs, tile variety, weather, and better design.

Visuals

BUDD-Es no longer show an exclamation mark on their chest when active. Instead, they show the "Replay" icon that matches the Replay button in the top-left corner. Also, you now get a "Ring Pop" visual when you activate a BUDD-E, making it easier to tell that you activated it.
Sky Wigglers are now much darker when "Off," making them easier to identify.
3x3 Fireballs have been made more circular, so their tails don't extend 1.5 grid spaces beyond their hitbox. They need to be hot, but not THAT hot!

Developer

Hiding the interface with the developer override will now remove hotkey overlays on buttons.

Rumpus

Updated the Rumpus login flow to be more clear about what is happening when you are linking a Steam, Nintendo, or Xbox account to an existing Rumpus account.
Updated Rumpus placeholder email text to use "example.com" instead of weird made-up domains, in case those domains actually come into existence at some point.
If Rumpus only has one login method available on a given platform, the "Login Method Selection" page will no longer appear.
Updated the account creation screen for when you log in to a new account via a non-email method (like Steam, Xbox, etc).
The "User Manager" Rumpus screen no longer appears on Xbox, since your profiles will be managed via the Xbox interface.

Nintendo Switch

The Switch should now automatically adjust graphical settings depending on whether it is in Boost Mode or Normal Mode.
Added "Tabletop Mode" support to the Switch, so one user can play in Handheld mode while another user plays with a separate controller.
Updated saving on the Switch so level saving in the workshop is always forced, to minimize data loss that could be caused by file write speed limits.

Saving

Your campaign progress will be saved when you trigger a GR-17.
Player campaign data is always force-saved without timers on all platforms, to ensure campaign progress isn't lost due to file write speed limits.

Xbox

Updated visual display for the "Menu" and "View" buttons on-screen when playing on Xbox, to match the icons shown on the controller.

Fixes

Gameplay

Squished Scrubbs and Oculas should now reliably trigger pressure plates if they hit the pressure plate as their last bounce before they explode.
Wildfire should now properly destroy enemeies offscreen. (thanks to TimConceivable)
Squished Oculas and Scrubbs will now trigger pressure plates in the frame that they explode from hitting a wall for the final time. (thanks to Intuition?!)
If a Burny Whirler, Fireball, Spinny Platform, or other rotating or swinging object is set to "All Inactive" or "Any Inactive" and it has no associated switches, it should now always be on. (thanks to TalkGibberish)
If a Blopfush got knocked off a track, it would retain a tiny amount of residual movespeed when it returned to the track, causing it to vibrate slightly. This has been fixed.
It is now far easier to squeeze into horizontal gaps while falling.
Flipwips should now properly maintain their attack and leap directions when restored from a checkpoint.
Previously, if you hit the "Jump" button while Waylay punching, your jump would attempt to trigger, but nothing would happen, since you were mid-punch. Now, the jump input will be stored and will trigger at the end of your punch via input buffering. This fixes the "lost jump" bug and also introduces some new movement techniques. (thanks to TheViralMelon)
If you were ceiling-hanging with the Tiptow and bumping up against a wall, your animation would stop and then get all twitchy. Now it will play smoothly.
If you were invincible and standing inside something that would harm you, your "Retry" button wouldn't work. Now it does!
If you hit the "Retry" button right when GR-18 respawned, no retry would occur, and your next death would count as a retry instead of a death. This has been fixed. (thanks to TheViralMelon)
If "Players Share Powerups" is active in a level, players in Respawn Bubbles will now properly have their visuals updated when their living friends acquire powerups.
The package now properly restores its facing direction at checkpoints.
For levels made in version 0.40 or higher, Rifts will have their hitboxes tucked in by 1 pixel on each side, so you should no longer be able to enter them through walls or corners. (thanks to Johnny0798)
Weather machines now start with weather in the correct state when the level first boots up.
Dying in multiplayer will now clear the timer on your Dbot, Lectroshield, and Armor, so you won't have them when you respawn.
GR-18's grappler now passes through invisible Prize Blocks.
Blasters and Trigblasters now use a 1x1 hitbox, so you should no longer be able to enter them diagonally through corners. This change is not retroactive, so it should only apply to levels made in Version 0.39 or higher. (thanks to TimConceivable)
Blasters and Trigblasters had slightly differently-sized hitboxes. This should no longer be the case for levels made in version 0.39 or higher.
Dbot no longer protects you from being crushed to death by doors. (thanks to Impflake Grinnyfunk)
Cannons and Lookannons now properly restore their rotation and timing at checkpoints. (thanks to TalkGibberish)
Fixed an issue with placed throwable items not receiving signals from proximity sensors in the first frame of the level.
Fixed more issues with proximity sensors interacting with certain items at first spawn on a level. Affected items fixed: Boombox, Lookcannon, ZOOM-R, Sign, Arrow Hologram, and Secret Eye.
If a proximity sensor (battle switch, eyeswitch, or package cam) is within range of something in the first frame of the level, the following items now handle receiving that signal properly: Hardlights, Regret Gates, Burny Whirlers, Fireballs, all Pickups, Spike Blocks, Spike Chainers, Cannons.
Package Cams now properly detect the package in the first frame of the level's existence.
Baddie Eyeswitches now properly detect enemies in the first frame of the level's existence.
Eyeswitches now properly detect GR-18 in the first frame of the level's existence.
Fixed a legacy issue that was causing the game clock to run twice as fast.
Your powerup refresh animation will no longer show up if you don't have an active powerup.
Flipwips now properly restore their attack states at checkpoints.
Throwable items on paths should now properly detach from the path and gain physics when blown up by a bomb.
Keys should no longer fail to trigger Keydoors or Keyswitches if they hit them vertically (up or down), even if they just roll across them. (thanks to BlueSheep3, msmiley)
Popjaws now have their attack states properly recorded and restored at Checkpoints. (thanks to WaddlesTNT)
Projectiles being shot from cannons would break on deactivated fireballs. Now they don't! (thanks to TheViralMelon)
If you placed a path node exactly on top of the same path but earlier in the path, the item on the node would latch onto the earlier path point instead of the intended node. This has been fixed for all levels made in this version and later. (thanks to TalkGibberish)
Enemies now store their "grounded" state in checkpoints, which should eliminate scenarios where, for example, Scrubbs or Oculas would slide backwards momentarily if respawned from a checkpoint onto a Toe Slider. (thanks to Dappalol Abember)
If you are currently touching a Purge Gate, you can no longer grab items -- they will just flash with the red effect of the purge gate, and they won't move.
If a Purge Gate knocked a Sproing off your back into a tight corridor, the Sproing could get stuck in walls. This is because Sproings have a full Grid Space-sized hitbox, so they had to fit perfectly into a grid space. The "find an open spot" algorithm wasn't taking this into account, so the Sproing would instead just get stuck. The open-spot-finding algorithm has been updated, so this should no longer be occurring.
Springs that emerged from enemies or prize blocks would disappear after a checkpoint respawn. Now they persist! (thanks to Brainmop Wippabumble)
When GR-18 kicked something while also firing Ripcord jets, the "Kick" animation would play but the fire would continue to shoot, even though the jet-arms were no longer present. This should now be fixed.
Enemies now award points when defeated by being CRUSHED BY A DOOR. (thanks to TimConceivable)
Punching or exploding a Scrubb/Ocula with an item inside it would result in the Scrubb/Ocula not spawning their "flying away off screen" animation. Now they do!
The last Ocula or Scrubb to emerge from a Robo Factory would have odd behaviors when being restored at checkpoints, such as turning into the other type of enemy. This was due to an item lookup error relating to the Robo Factory being destroyed, which has been resolved.
In certain rare cases, the game would get confused and think you were playing a published level when you were in the campaign. This should no longer occur.
Wildfire projectiles no longer revert into Hot Fire projeciles after a checkpoint reload. (thanks to WaddlesTNT)
Key Chests now properly store (and restore) their states at checkpoints. (thanks to msmiley)
Throwing a Scrubb or Ocula at Jems would pick up the Jems even if they were deactivated with a switch. Now it doesn't! (thanks to Crushnoil Varkzapee)

The rest of the patch notes are too long to be included in this announcement.
See the full patchnotes.