Catacomb Kids News

Ahoy, you!

It's been a while (as ever) since last we spoke, but I have news aplenty.

Firstly:
Many of you may know that I've spent a decent chunk of the past few years working on UFO 50. Which is finished now! Hooray! You should definitely go play it if you haven't yet: It's a wonderful game and I'm very proud of the work that I and the rest of the UFO 50 Recovery Team did on it.

So, now that I'm finished with my work on UFO 50, what does the future hold for Catacomb Kids?

Well that brings me to the second and more relevant bit of news:

I started a game company!

Catacomb Kids composer Stevie and I have teamed up to form Odd Object. I'm super stoked! But more than just stoked, this move opens up a number of opportunities for me to grow and evolve as a game dev.

This has a couple implications for the future of Catacomb Kids:

1. We're working on our studio's first game, which will result in another lull in CK updates as we put together something new. We have an ambitiously short development time for this new project though, so my attention will only be turned away for a short while. I can't talk much about it just yet but I'm excited to share more details soon.
   
2. Once that project is launched I plan to return my focus to Catacomb Kids along with a wealth of new resources and an intensity of attention that I haven't had the ability to muster in many long years. The intention then will be to push the game - finally - to 1.0.

Part of the decision to start this company has been to ensure that I have a stable plan for myself and my work that allows me to properly support CK's development long-term.

In the meantime, this most recent 0.2.4 update is intended to iron out many of the most egregious outstanding bugs and crashes with the game so that you all can continue to enjoy it until I can once more give the game my full attention as it deserves.

I thank you all for your trust and time thus far, and truly appreciate your support and what you've invested in Catacomb Kids.

We shall speak again erelong!
- Tyriq (aka. FourbitFriday)

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Blood crystals are now worth more based on their quality.

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Crash: Crash upon dying while the corpse loot menu is open
  
• Crash: "obj_passage_barrier .loops" crash
  
• Crash: When eating or tracking gorhound or burrah-boi corpses
  
• Crash: Crash upon non-player characters getting "lucky!"
  
• Crash: Crash when melting a bottled ice bolt
  
• Crash: "Unable to find instance for object index -4 at gml_Object_sys_view_Step_0" while playing co-op¹
  
• Bug: Frozen allies reanimated with Raise Dead still follow the player while frozen as though they were walking normally
  
• Bug: Examining undead warriors focuses on their boots instead
  
• Bug: Exiting the floor while carrying another player in co-op softlocks the game
  
• Bug: Cannot quit game without saving, when presented with the option
  
• Bug: Cannot charge tomes when using gamepad
  
• Bug: Rapidly using booksmack on keyboard causes the attack to self-interrupt
  
• Bug: Anticropolis moving platforms can kill the player unexpected
  
• Bug: The frozen door in the anticropolis stage 5 can still be walked through as if it weren't frozen
  
• Bug: Meal queue sometimes takes more than 5 food items to progress
  
• Bug: Rapidly pressing confirm during co-op level-up can level the same stat twice
  
• Bug: Low hp music plays even when you're at full hp, if your max hp is 3 or less
  
• Bug: Tracking armor shows its mask sprite instead of the sprite
  
• Bug: Accidentally left a debug key enabled that swapped the jump and roll inputs
  
• Bug: Gust propeller has wrong sprite origin
  
• Bug: Furnace-slime premade rooms generate with only a single furnace tile
  
• Bug: Game does not properly save after loading from an existing run
  
• Bug: Narrow passage transitions are led to with the text for grumbul encampments
  
• Bug: Game softlocks upon returning to character select after dying in a loaded co-op game
  
• Bug: Meal queue does not display in co-op
  
• Bug: Frozen door in transition stage to anticropolis can still be traversed without melting it first
  
• Bug: Anticropolis shortcut passage frequently generates as an inaccessible space
  
• Bug: Addressed several issues with level gen that frequently made incompletable levels²
  
• Bug: Cleaned up some collision issues with geyser elevators
  
• Typo: Potion of Vanishing still named Potion of Invisibility

¹ I'm pretty sure I've fixed this one but I haven't been able to replicate it.
² Impossible levels will still happen from time to time but they should be much less frequent now

Just a quick fix!
[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Crash: Loading a game or retrying a floor in the Continues or Generous modes.
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Can now enter previous dates as seeds with the format DD-MM-YYYY
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Crash: Crash upon casting chain lightning as an overload, multi-cast, or from a blessing of thunder
  
• Crash: Switching between screen-scales or fullscreen and windowed mode while tracking objects as a wanderer
  
• Crash: Giving bow to tinkerbot
  
• Crash: '_LANG_DEATH_BY_SKELETON_POPvar' crash when plague causes a skeleton to explode
  
• Crash: "obj_tinker_bot_broken.truename" crash
  
• Crash: ".blend" in fx_flash
  
• Crash: '_LANG_TINKERBOT_MESSAGE_NODOUBLE' when trying to repair a tinkerbot while one already exists
  
• Crash: Crash when casting Teleport
  
• Crash: When an equipped item is destroyed by acid damage
  
• Bug: Entering tunnel while idle tinkerbot is in the same spot causes issues
  
• Bug: Fog color immediately changes to Anticropolis blue upon defeating the Tank
  
• Bug: Regen while holding a severed limb does not properly attach the held limb
  
• Bug: Seeds repeat often
  
• Bug: Text wrapping in Chinese should actually finally for real work this time
  
• Typo: "Rase" instead of "Raise" in description of Luck stat level-up
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Re-added generous mode to Co-op options
  
• Snow blocks now also block light in the Anticropolis. The exit door can no longer spawn with snow blocks around it
  
• "Backspace" now resets controls in the control rebinding menus
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• CRASH: The obj_break alarm0 crash is fixed FOR REAL THIS TIME
  
• CRASH: When triggering laser traps in the Anticropolis
  
• BUG: D-pad in Versus Mode menu moves too quickly
  
• BUG: Crush traps in Versus Mode "Temple" level do not trigger
  
• BUG: Mushrooms don't spawn any more(!)
  
• BUG: Title menu doesn't prompt loading crashed saves unless the cursor is moved to another option first
  
• BUG: Strange behavior upon employing the third combo attack with a hammer, and turning around mid-strike
  
• BUG: Can earn catacoins in all Daily Runs, and in Seeded Runs
  
• BUG: Errors with the new seed generation resulting in excessively common repeated floors and runs
  
• BUG: Several text formatting errors, especially in Chinese
  
• BUG: Repeatedly continuing and then quitting out of a saved co-op game caused many issues, including player duplication
  
• BUG: Cannot reset "sprint" on keyboard back to its default double-tap input once changed
  
• BUG: Daily run time always shows as 00 : 00 : 00
  
• BUG: Item descriptions in the "equipment" pause submenu use the wrong text and do not show their stats properly
  
• BUG: Hammer skill 1 (Heavy Bat) can no longer bat items away
  
• BUG: Quit to Desktop doesn't actually exit to desktop if you're prompted to save before quitting
  
• TEXT: Unformatted "use" text when lighting lanterns using other flame sources
  
• TEXT: Removed obsolete STR description text from tutorial ghost's dialogue