Hey Super Animals, I hope you’re ready for some spooks because we have a big clucking update for you this Howloween! Watch the developer overview for the highlights, but if you want all the details make sure to keep reading below.
Highlights
Howloween Event: October 19 to November 9
- New Limited-time Mode: The Bwoking Dead (Infection)
- Howloween Cosmetics: collect candy corn to unlock 8 new event items and 19 returning legacy items
- Howloween Decorations: the island is dressed up for Howloween including limited-time Howloween fountain music
More Game Updates
- New Map Point of Interest: Pixile Port
- New Super Animal Breeds: Super Night Mare and Super Calavera Skullcat
- Quality of life updates and game balancing
The Bwoking Dead (Infection) Mode
Something has gone terribly wrong in Dr. Dogna’s Lab Lab, and animals infected with The Cluckles are turning into zombie-like Joe Clucks. Survivors must try to avoid getting infected and stay alive long enough to escape the island on a Giant Eagle. Zombies Joes continuously respawn and try to infect all survivors before they can escape.
The basics:
- The mode supports 40 players, and 4 players are infected at the beginning of the match. Their goal is to infect all survivors before they can escape.
- Zombie Joes are faster than normal players and do 33 melee damage with 10% armor penetration, but cannot use items (except for collecting Candy Corn).
- Every melee attack from a Zombie Joe’s chicken scratchers has a 10% chance of infecting a survivor. A kill will guarantee that the survivor comes back as a Zombie Joe.
- If a survivor is infected, they’ll see a 10-20 second countdown to when they’re going to turn, and Zombie Joes will see them tinted green. Other survivors won’t know the player is infected, so they can use the element of surprise to try to infect them!
- The first 4 Zombie Joes are red and have 130 health rather than the regular 100 health.
- Zombie Joes respawn in waves along the edges of the skunk gas, and do not take damage from the gas. They also automatically recover 5 health per second while out of combat.
- Up to 4 friends can squad up to queue into the mode together, and will see each other on the map while on the same side, and spawn together as Zombie Joes if they die at similar times.
- After the final skunk gas circle closes, an evacuation zone will appear and a countdown will begin. Survivors must make it into the evacuation zone before the countdown hits zero to escape and win.
Advanced details:
- Zombie Joes have excellent hearing and will see gunfire indicators on the map, directing them towards survivors. They’ll also see radial indicators when gunfire is close. Note that quiet weapons including the Bow & Sparrow, Sparrow Launcher and Silenced Pistol avoid these revealing effects.
- Survivor footsteps are also visible to Zombie Joes through line of sight. However, survivors can hide their footsteps by creeping or wearing Ninja Booties.
- Weapons that have armor penetration can pierce through multiple Zombie Joes. The number of Zombie Joes they hit in a single shot is tied to their typical armor penetration amount: for example, a Magnum bullet will pierce through one zombie (to hit up to two total), and a Sniper bullet can hit up to 3 targets. Sparrow weapons and Dogna's Dart Gun also have piercing through 1 zombie, similar to the magnum.
- There are three delivery moles every game, and each crate has more loot than in regular game modes.
- Hamster Balls and Giant Emus have reduced spawn rates.
- Explosive barrels do not damage teammates in this game mode.
- The number of human players infected at the start (vs bots) is dependent on the number of players in the match.
- Any disconnected players will become bots, and if they were survivors they’ll be infected with The Cluckles and become a Zombie Joe within 10-20s.
- New mode-specific stats tracked in the “YOUR STATS” screen.
- XP earned is calculated slightly differently for survivors and zombies to reflect the different goals of each team and difficulty of certain accomplishments. Zombies earn more XP per kill, but survivors earn more XP for a win.
- Kill/win related Milestones and Super Challenges don't apply in this mode, and NPCs are not present.
- Private matches can use /infect # to infect a specific survivor (only works after lobby).
The mode also features custom music tracks, new animations for zombies, and noise/desaturation screen effects!
Super Howloween Event
Candy corn is back to collect and redeem for new & legacy event-specific cosmetics! Find candy corn around the map and also earn it based on your survival time until the event ends on November 9th at 11:59pm PDT.
Earn 8 new event cosmetic items:
- Jack-O-Cap
- Pumpkin Glasses
- Pumpkin Shotgun
- Bones Gravestone
- Haunted Hat
- Spiderweb Sweater
- Candy Corn Dress
- Candlestick
19 legacy cosmetics (from 2019 and 2020) also return for the event, and some additional legacy Howloween items will appear Carl's Cart during the event.
Several new S.A.W Shop items will also be debuting during the event:
- Spooky Clown Bundle (3 cosmetics)
- Zombie Professional Attire
- Zombie School Uniform
- Spidery Witch Hat
- Grim Reaper Scythe
- Bones Umbrella
- Coffin Gravestone
Lastly, there’s a new Super Horse and Super Skullcat breed to create in the Research Lab:
- Super Night Mare
- Super Calavera Skullcat
Unlike the rest of the Howloween items, the animals are permanent additions to the game!
Map Updates: Pixile Port & More
The old S.A.W. Shipyards have been replaced by the new “Pixile Port” point of interest on the island. Explore and fight between large cranes, warehouses, offices, and shipping containers. There’s also a new lighthouse to visit to the south of the port.
In addition to Pixile Port, SMOMA has been updated to feature the artwork of the winners of the most recent art contest! You can view all the art on our website as well right here.
A few minor edits have also been made around the island to help improve collisions. Some openings in the garden to the left of the Super Animal Super Stage have been widened, some stumps/crates have been added along some swamp water edges, and crates have also been added alongside the shallow water near Giant Eagle Landing.
Quality of Life Improvements
- Mole icon now displays for up to 60 seconds, or until it has been looted.
- Improved the vibrance/contrast of the safe zone map circle to help make it easier to see.
- Animal Pass now displays the selected item’s name.
- In battle royale game modes, the final gas circle warning time increased to 12s (from 10s), and final circle close time from 8s to 12s. This gives a bit more time for fights to play out and have less gas deaths / heal-offs.
- Controller users can press the play/ready button more easily, using a controller button (Y for Xbox-type controllers) rather than having to manually navigate to it.
- Each gun now has an inset distance for where its bullets spawn, so shooting targets who are standing close to you is easier. Some guns have more than others based on muzzle distance (ie sniper bullet spawns 3 distance units in, but pistol only 1).
- Minor changes made to reduce the advantages of having a non-16:9 resolution screen: gravestones (and sleeping pets) are now only visible within the 16:9 vision area, and the sleeping pet has line of sight checks on it. Teammates and campfire state (active/used) will also only become visible once they’re within the 16:9 vision box. These changes only apply during a match (not in the pre-game lobby).
- High-ping mode now activates faster for ping spikes, triggering after 2 spikes rather than 3.
Game Balance
- Bow & Sparrow charge time lowered from 0.633s to 0.5s. As well, projectile speed has been increased from 175 to 178 for uncommon bows and from 180 to 182 for rare bows. These changes help make the bow easier to use and provide more reliable damage.
- Sparrow tracking time has also been increased: from 5.5s to 6s for uncommon bows, from 6s to 7s rare bows. Sparrow Launcher tracking has also been boosted from 7s to 10s for epic rarity and from 10s to 12s for legendary versions. This improves the utility of both weapons, but further differentiates the Sparrow Launcher with superior tracking.
- Dogna's Dart Gun projectile speed has been increased from 136 to 140 for uncommon rarity, and 139 to 143 for rare, to help with hitting targets.
- AK’s recoil pattern has slightly changed so that there’s more variation between the 3rd and 4th shot (from +4 degrees down to -1 degrees now).
- AK's spawn weight was reduced in non-solo game modes from 33 to 27, and spawn weight in Rebel Caches from 10 to 8. This makes it a little more difficult to stack AKs in team games.
- S.A.W. Impossible Tape now only repairs a maximum of 1 tick of armor rather than 2.
- Claw boots now provide 2.5x loot from cutting grass (up from 2x), and creeping can be used to avoid cutting grass while wearing them.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed gravestones appearing a bit squished horizontally in game.
- Added a check that should fix the bug where the game put the “new item” exclamation mark on all items when signing in and playing on a different device with an existing account.
- Fixed a bug where pets would appear incorrectly over top of objects sometimes.
- Fixed compression issues on certain items: Donk/Howl t-shirts, Gray Jeweled Glasses, Military Helmet, SAW Helmet, Medic Helmet, Police Hat, Skunk Hat, and the Variety Tophat.
- Players can no longer be pushed by other players or emus while capturing a flag in S.A.W. vs Rebellion.
- Fixed a controller bug where pressing buttons (aside from joysticks) wouldn't activate controller mode.
- Reduced stuttering for bots that occurred when they changed targets or paths.
- Fixed a bug where the beach balls were sometimes not kickable.
- Fixed a bug where a player at 0 health could survive if healing from campfire or health juice occurred on the same tick.
- Translation fixes.