It's a quick one!
Hey, Levelheads! As I noted last week in the patch notes blog post, we're shifting to a new patching philosophy where we'll just try to put out a patch on Wednesdays whenever the game is stable. So even if we don't have any HUGE new feature, we think it's still worth it to get bug fixes, general improvements, and optimizations deployed to our players.
This week we have just a few small updates coming down the pipe. Let's take a quick look!
Improved Eye Switches
Eye Switches are a fantastic tool for building level logic, but they always had a bit of a shortcoming in multiplayer -- they couldn't answer whether all players were present. So if you want it to be the case that a door will only open if every player approaches it, you couldn't. Until now, that is!
We've added the "All" setting to Eye Switches now, so you can beef up your multiplayer levels. Enjoy!
Campaign Level Updates
We're iterating on some of the earlier campaign levels to make them flashier, more engaging, and do a better job of teaching new players how the game works. We'll be continuing to refine these over the coming months, so by the time launch comes, many of these will have changed YET AGAIN!
But if you want a fun peek into the iterative side of development, we'd recommend popping into the campaign now and then and take a look at how those early levels are shaping up. It's pretty cool to see!
Hardlights... OFF!
You can give a hardlight a color, but you couldn't see that color when it was inactive. Well, NOW YOU CAN!
60 FPS Smoothing
Levelhead is set to run at a capped 60 fps (for a variety of reasons), but our players have been reporting that even when they are well above 60 fps, they are getting slightly variable outcomes in some physics operations. Usually these tiny variances don't matter, but in some cases, they matter a lot, like if an object hits a Bumper 1 pixel offset from normal, which causes a 45 degree change in direction from the normal.
This patch introduces smoothing to the physics engine when the game is running above 55fps. We'll be working on updating this concept to try to smooth out these variations over time at lower frame rates, too, but if you are running at a high frame rate, you should see much more consistent results in just about every game mechanic!
That's all!
That's all for our patch this week! If you want the full list of changes, check them out below. We'll see you next week, either with a patch or a developer blog!
v0.67.1 Patchnotes (since 0.65.3)
See the full patchnotes.
New Features
Editor
- You can now set Eye Switches to "All," which will require that all active players be at the Eye Switch.
Improvements
Training
- Deliver the Package, GR-18! has a little less zoom early on, a new sprint instruction card, an arrow to direct new players to drop between platforms at the beginning, and a speedbump.
- Be Sneaky GR-18 now has instructions for ceiling grappling, and a sprint available at the final jump.
- Brittle Rock Discovery's recent camera addition has been removed.
- Bop Jump no longer allows newbies to fall back through the entry drop and soft-lock themselves. Silly newbies.
- The path around Package Jump Temple is now properly fat.
- Players can no longer soft-lock themselves in Package Jump Temple by throwing their package incorrectly at the end.
- (In Development) Wait What!? has been updated based on feedback. Most importantly, the barrel shot should no longer be FPS-dependent.
- The word "Hold" on the Instruction cards should now be localized into all languages.
- Package Jump Challenge is now Package Jump Temple, and lives in the mainline of the campaign.
- The Sticker Pack VEND-R now has more unlocks in it, taken from the Handle With Care VEND-R.
- Be Sneaky GR-18 has been slightly updated to be friendlier.
- Deliver the Package GR-18 has been overhauled to better onboard newbies.
- Break, Grumble, and Grin's initial puzzle is now more enjoyable.
- Bop Jump has been updated slightly to be friendlier.
- Too Hot, Too Bad has an additional checkpoint.
- Mad Vacrat Nest now has spikeblocks instead of spikes under the final boss.
- Storm of Regret's big flapjack drop no longer lets the player jump into the ceiling.
- Brittle Rock Discovery now has a camera for extra focus during package jumping.
- Swoopadoop Gulch's upper bug piece has been brought down two tiles, and its upper checkpoint made repeatable.
- Bomb Traveler now has a piece of armor in it.
- An Unusual Time's coin trails should no longer be whacky.
- Dangerous Friend how has a checkpoint.
- Dune Doom Dream has an additional intro checkpoint, and one sawblade's distance has been reduced by a tile.
Web
- Audited and fixed up some issues in the Workshop Cloud Syncer that might result in duplicated levels under edge cases.
- Newly-created notifications from this version onward will expire after 2 weeks.
- Added instructions on where to go to unlink an account from Rumpus on the user management page.
Optimization
- If the game was running above 60fps, there could still be tiny fluctuations in how long a frame took (from 16.2 ms up to 17.5 ms). This would mean that even if the game should be running totally consistently, you may see slightly inconsistent results in certain physics operations. Now, as long as your frame time is under 18ms (about 55fps), the game will lock the frame rate at 60fps, so you should see much more consistent results at that threshold. If you drop below 55fps, consistency will remain unchanged from before.
Editor
- Editor Snapshot image filenames will now be named based on local time, not UTC.
- While dragging items around, the Ruler now shows how far you have dragged the item. While placing, it shows how many tiles you have placed. (thanks to TalkGibberish)
Gameplay
- Inactive Hardlights now have their nodes colored to match the active version. (thanks to TalkGibberish)
Fixes
UI
- Fixed some issues with the Editor having 1-pixel gaps in its borders, caused by a change in Game Maker's rectangle drawing functions.
Gameplay
- Baddie Eyeswitches were detecting in an area 1 pixel too wide, causing them to incorrectly detect enemies just beyond solid spaces. This has been fixed. (thanks to TalkGibberish)
- If you restored at a checkpoint and there was a camera anchor active at the time you touched the checkpoint, the camera would revert to its position at the time you activated the checkpoint. This could lead to scenarios where the camera would repeatedly "settle" to its final location every time you respawned at the checkpoint. Now, if you restore at a checkpoint to a time when there was a camera anchor active, the camera will first try to just immediately settle on its anchor destination, so you don't get whiplash every time. If the camera immediately going to its destination would kill the player (due to being offscreen), then it will default to the old behavior.
Editor
- Fixed a memory leak in the editor.
- Dragging an individual item underneath an item that requires solids will now properly destroy that item. (thanks to TimConceivable)
Localization
- Updated tagging of localized strings in campaign presentations so they appear sequentially to the translators.
Xbox
- Fixed an issue on Xbox where, if a level failed to load in the Notifications page, it may attempt to repeatedly reload nonstop until the heat death of the universe.