Catacomb Kids News

Hey! You!

Oof, I was hoping to have this update out a while ago - it being mostly bugfixes and all - but fixing bugs is, as it turns out, sometimes difficult.

In particular there is one crash that I know I still haven't fixed yet but which I can't seem to reproduce and it's rare and severe and absolutely infuriating. after addressing some of the more common crashes I got so carried away trying to fix that one that time flew by and before I know it an apocalypse has happened and I still haven't pushed out the original fixes! Whoops!!

Well, I hope some of the new features help to make up for the tardiness of this one at least. I think the changes to the tinker-bot are particularly neat, personally.

Changes

• Lanterns' "use" range no longer decreases as the lantern loses fuel
  
• Changed color of mushroom cloud gas
  
• Added additional visualization to better indicate drowning/breathing gas
  
• Gave Tinker-bot "Extra Tough" and "Shake it Off" to make them less squishy
  
• Reworked Soups so they can now hold more than one ingredient
  
• Tinker shopkeepers get mad if you mess with their robots now
  
• Throw full mana batteries at tinkerbots for various effects based on the battery's charge types
  
• Added a couple new portrait hairstyles
  
• Moved thermometer in UI
  
• Changes to Vampirism Plague multi-cast

Fixes

• Crash: Blocking attacks with a cracked shield
  
• Crash: Flipping switches sometimes crashes, especially after a player has died in co-op
  
• Crash: fx_text does not have 'hp' as a variable
  
• Crash: Maps and spellbooks burning away while held by rats
  
• Crash: Selling a burning book to a shopkeeper
  
• Bug: Sometimes switches become unflippable after flipping them a couple times.
  
• Bug: Amulets identify incorrectly in co-op
  
• Bug: Standing at the intersection of elevators and jump-thru platforms causes you to fall through both of them
  
• Bug: Music doesn't update sometimes when moving between floor - I swear to heck I fixed it this time for real
  
• Bug: Tinkerbot sometimes picks up blacklisted items by accident
  
• Bug: Bow-wielding tinker-bots still try to pick up arrows even when they're full
  
• Bug: Can still talk to shopkeepers even when they're hostile
  
• Bug: Some enemies never stop flashing red after being hit with chain lightning
  
• Bug: Tinkerbot still sometimes attacks enemies even when commanded not to

Here's another bugfix patch -- a small but important one, that includes the fixes from 0.2.3a being brought up to speed for Mac and Linux, as well as the following:

Changes

• Extendo-arms automatically become your main weapon hand when they're acquired
  
• Slightly changed animation of daggers' second attack
  
• View now scrolls to focus on breaking ice barriers

Fixes

• Crash: Tinkerer shopkeeper crashes
  
• Bug: Can get softlocked by holding down when bouncing off of springs
  
• Bug: Weapon offsets were wrong - expecially noticeable for extend-o arms
  
• Bug: Two player input is broken in versus mode
  
• Bug: Moving blocks in the AC can kill you if they move into you while you're in a fairy barrel
  
• Bug: Wrong controller vibrates

Quick fix is up for Windows - Mac and Linux soon to follow in the next few days, but it might have to wait til after Christmas, sorry!

Changes

• Tinkerbot no longer auto-returns to you when left in idle mode outside of the view
  
• Springs now retain the direction they were facing when picked up and dropped, unless thrown downward
  
• Springs thrown downward now always have a vertical orientation
  
• There's now a slight pause when bouncing off of springs, letting you grab them more easily

Fixes

• Crash: Crash when quitting out of the tutorial
  
• Crash: Nonexistent surface in "food_meal"
  
• Crash: undefined object in "AI_path_follow"
  
• Crash: Crash in "draw_hud_messages"
  
• Bug: Walls in the tutorial are invisible
  
• Bug: Ice passages don't freeze humanoids that get caught in them when they regrow
  
• Bug: Flipping switches with the 'use' button doesn't trigger cutscenes
  
• Bug: Spring item highlight was working incorrectly
  
• Bug: Gas traps not drawing the bottom tile
  
• Bug: Mirror mazes sometimes not spawning properly
  
• Bug: Tinkerbot class skill doesn't work properly in split-screen co-op
  
• Bug: Being "saved" from crushing by vertical shifting blocks in the AC turns them into broken crush traps
  

Hey, remember me? Have an update!

I'm hard at work on the Deep Dark, and it's coming along quite nicely but isn't quite ready for public consumption yet, so I wanted to push out some bugfixes and tweaks that I think will make the game a bit smoother and more fun.

In this update are mirror-and-laser puzzles that now spawn in the Anticropolis, acting as the AC's version of switch barriers. There are also frozen passages that must be broken through in order to traverse, and which slowly close up behind you, as well as a number of fixes for major crashes and long-standing bugs.

Also by popular request an option has been added for splitscreen-only mode in Co-op, which you can enable in Options > Gameplay.

New

• Laser-and-Mirror locks in the Anticropolis
  
• Frozen passages in the Anticropolis
  
• Option to force constant splitscreen in co-op under Options > Gameplay

Changes

• Changed the way Amulet of Force works a bit
  
• Redesigned class select menu
  
• Last played class is now remembered and selected by default even after closing the game
  
• Plague flies are now reflected by armor of reflection and mirrored shields
  
• Cracked shields now only let damage through with frequency based on the defender's DEF
  
• Successfully blocking an attack with a cracked shield can no longer kill the defender
  
• Shield-bashing enemies now reduces shield durability
  
• Swinging blade traps should no longer spawn where they will instantly kill grumbuls
  
• Significantly boosted use of Wanderer's farsight

Fixes

• Crash: Crash when trying to leave to shopkeeper "sell" menu without any sellable items
  
• Crash: Wielding a bear arm with a missing joint
  
• Crash: Related to byat thralls
  
• Crash: When bear-trapping a shopkeeper
  
• Crash: When loading saved custom kid templates
  
• Crash: "draw_hud_messages"
  
• Crash: When dumping out corpses from bottles
  
• Bug: Rolling/bashing weapon attacks (rolling blade, uppersmash) can be initiated in mid-air
  
• Bug: Stove traps still tick and gas clouds still expand xduring gate cutscenes
  
• Bug: Can still drown during gate cutscenes
  
• Bug: Fixed behavior of byat thralls
  
• Bug: Amulets of Force would still affect objects when the world should be paused
  
• Bug: Can get stuck in solid lava blocks that have covered up shifting lava bridges
  
• Bug: Amulet of Force changes the alliance of plague flies
  
• Bug: Pipes in the background of the Grumbul Tank fight are scaled weirdly
  
• Bug: Beam Trap sound effect sometimes plays for way too long
  
• Bug: Slopes/stairs are sometimes drawn oddly/incorrectly
  
• Bug: Potatoes can become hot by fires even when carried in hand or pocket
  
• Bug: Creatures wielding bows can't be hurt by arrows
  
• Bug: Can't dump out balls of goo from bottles; can only fail to drink them
  
• Bug: You can lose both arms simultaneously using bear traps
  
• Bug: Sprinting up stairs with footwear of the glacier freezes the sprinter
  
• Performance: Optimized death review, so it should no longer affect performance much when enabled
  
• Typo: "Lighting" instead of "Lightning" in the chain lightning description

Happy Holidays and Merry New Year, y'all! As always, I appreciate your patience.

If you ever have any questions about how the game is coming along feel free to pop in to one of my dev-streams over on my Twitch channel every Monday and Friday!

Not a whole lot of changes - mostly bug fixes and such. I did add a post-death preview thing that you can enable in Options > Gameplay, however! It's off by default, because I'm unsure of the impact it might have on performance, but I think it's pretty neat!

New

• Added a "death replay," if you press up/down to hide the results screen after dying. It may have an significant impact on performance, so it's disabled by default. It can be enabled in options > gameplay.
  

Changes

• Added 5-frame invincibility period after being hit
  

Fixes

• Crash: DoAdd:2:Undefined Value in "obj_chest_normal_Other_13"
  
• Crash: Changing from windowed/fullscreen on the kid select menu
  
• Crash: floor argument 1 incorrect type (undefined) in "gen_map_features_details"
  
• Crash: When the tank dies from acid damage
  
• Crash: "unit_pickup" crash when disarmed enemies attempt to pick up weapons
  
• Crash: "voice_play" and "voice_init" crashes...I think. I hope.
  
• Bug: Spellbooks as starting items for custom kids have the wrong graphic color in the spell learning menu when used
  
• Bug: Standing on boulders on top of elevators causes clipping and strange behaviour
  
• Bug: Shopkeepers sometimes sell "[Burning]" equipment
  
• Bug: Ogos sometimes spawn with "[Burning]" weapons
  
• Bug: Grumbuls spawned in during the tank fight are sometimes stuck in the ground
  
• Bug: Spellbooks appear as the wrong color when spawned on custom kids
  
• Bug: Springs still bounce things away even when held and stown away