Major 2023 Update Now Live!

Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2024

Genre: Action, Adventure, Indie
Developer: Coilworks
Release Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014

It is finally here! The update is live! ːdeheadː

Keep us posted if you find any issues! 🙂

Worst case there might be another minor tweak in an update here soon, but rest assured, it will not be anything major. It might just be something like adjusting a font size or something else we get feedback about.

We have made a bunch of blog posts highlighting the major features of the update already, so this is mostly for posting the full patch note list. But in case anyone missed it, I’ll also list all the blog posts here:

Release Date and Custom Levels Overhaul!

https://coilworks.se/blog/2023/1/5/update-release-date

Camera FOV & Distance

https://coilworks.se/blog/2023/1/5/camera-distance

New Gamepad Controls

https://coilworks.se/blog/2023/1/5/new-gamepad-controls

Improved Gamepad Aiming

https://coilworks.se/blog/2023/1/2/improved-gamepad-aiming

Update Blogs + Steam Deck

https://coilworks.se/blog/blogs-steam-deck

We sincerely hope you enjoy the patch and join us in playing some custom levels! :)

So with that out of the way, let’s get on with the list!

Steam Deck Support: With these updates we hope to be fully Steam Deck compatible now, and support good input with the steam deck and comfortable viewing on its screen. If you have feedback on this, please let us know!We have submitted the game for re-evaluation by Valve about 3 weeks ago, but it is unclear when we can get our official Steam Deck compatibility status updated.
Improved gamepad support:
- More thoroughly tweaked camera sensitivity response.
- Aim acceleration support with settings.
- Aim assist support with settings.
- Automatic recognition of gamepad type and support for Xbox, Playstation and Switch controller icons.
- Additional alternative icon sets are also supported
- Menu navigation is now supported with the D-pad
- Improved options screen
- Gamepad control presets: We now have various config presets available, making it easier to get a setup that suits you and is tested by us to work well with the game.
- New jump input option, enabling a much more comfortable and powerful control over jumps when mapped to a gamepad face button (where if held, you normally would not be able to access the camera control stick).
- Camera assist option added. Where the camera can be set to automatically turn during some actions and inputs. Making it less demanding to always adjust the camera manually, or let the game correct unintentional inputs. Great for beginners and if you are only going for A or S ranks, but might be best to turn off if you want to go for the most advanced tricks and shortcuts.
- Tweaked dead zone for movement input.
- Enabled simultaneous mouse and gamepad support.
New language support:
- Added Japanese language support.
- Improved Fonts. Some fonts in the game now have higher resolutions, and will be displayed with more proper spacing.
- Some languages got some updates and added translations in menus
- Further translations for menus can be added with this new system. If you feel up for it and want to help translate some menu texts, just let us know. Write on Steam, in discord, at twitter, or email us at info@coilworks.se.
- We have now included a tool in the game to extract localization files for specific languages and then also patch them back into the game. For more details please ask us, or look for a guide in the Steam Community hub.
Community/Custom levels features and updates:
- Total overhaul of the menus and integration of systems into the game
  - In the level select menu, more levels are now displayed at once and each with various useful information as well as a thumbnail of the level.
  - Finding, subscribing to, and downloading new levels has now been greatly improved and can be handled from within the game. Including curated lists of our top recommended community levels for beginners and more.
  - Viewing stats and voting is now supported directly from within the game.
  - Added a big selection of tags to describe levels and the content. Usable both in the game and steam website, and editable directly from the level editor.
  - We now store and track stats for custom levels in your save file, so it’s easy to see what levels you have viewed, played and/or cleared, as well as if levels have received updates since last time you viewed them.
  - Robust filtering and sorting support has been added. Not only on tags, but also on your voting, completion and so on.
  - Ease of access to any specific levels steam workshop pages from within the game menus or even mid gameplay.
  - Feedback options have been improved, you can now copy and paste game views and position as text that can be used in chat or forum posts and used in the level editor as well. Enabling players to easily communicate things to a creator and for creators to find and address issues easily. Use it along with the menu option to leave a comment on the level with feedback in just a few simple steps.
  - Changed menu flow enabling you to play a level and directly return to the level select menu. Making it easier and faster to sample around and test levels you are curious about.
- New editor and level features:
  - Some enemies now have more options and settings. Most notably the generator can now interact with more enemy types, do some light filtering, and interact with other generators. This with new additions to the watch cam can make for almost script-like behavior if used in creative ways.
  - Added distance and time based respawn features to a number of enemies. Enabling levels that run back on themselves to potentially be less empty. (Similar respawning can be achieved with the new generators too, but this enables continuous respawning).
  - Better custom tag support. Enabling levels to define custom tags that can be enabled during level loading. Letting you alter levels for different modes, but also enable special settings. Like the Survival features added for the special Halloween event last year is now available to use in custom levels.
  - You can paste positions as text to move the camera into specific positions and angles.
  - Some stability fixes.
New Content:
- We have added 15 new smaller custom levels to the workshop exploring various ideas we had and developed as a part of a level design challenge we did. They are now public and available to everyone to test out!
- We added 5 new skin unlocks tied into playing and creating custom levels.
Photo mode:
- We have now added a photo mode, accessible from the pause menu.
- It will pause the game, and enable you to play it forward in slow motion or small time steps. But if this is done in a game mode with a timer, please be aware that the timer will progress a bit faster than the time that passes in the photo mode. This is in order to avoid potential cheese. So please be aware to not use the photo mode when you play competitively.
Minor features:
- Enemies
  - Some enemies' visual model has been scaled up a bit, to make them easier to see, but also feel more appropriately dangerous.
  - Death effect on the enemies has been scaled up to be easier and clearer to see from a distance.
  - Some enemies' remains now explode and disappear some time after death, to make it clearer that they are dead.
- More game settings are now adjustable when starting a new game.
- A new way to turn off tutorial prompt pausing before a new game is started has been added. Speed runners will no longer have to fiddle in the menu every time. (Sorry, all previous runs just lost a second on new attempts, but this should be worth it in the long run). Pay attention to the discrete text in the bottom section of the screen when starting a new game.
- New camera distance feature and setting has been added to support moving the camera closer or further away without affecting the game FOV.
- Options Menu:
  - Options menu text are now scaled to fit inside the menu if too long.
  - A bunch of elements were moved around.
  - Some more rare options were moved into a sub page called “legacy settings”.
  - Various new settings have been added.
  - Subtitles and text language selection has been moved to the game settings page instead of the sound page.
  - More descriptions have been added for settings.
  - Some settings have changed names.
  - We now have controller button mapping presets, and not just one customizable binding.
  - Resolutions now show their aspect ratio as well, to make it easier to select something that suits your monitor.
  - Gamepad controls in the options menu now just have a close and apply button, as we noticed all too many players accidentally canceled and didn’t apply their intended settings.
  - New UI sound channel has been added and is adjustable in the options menu.
- Other UI fixes & additions:
  - Leader boards now display the number of total entries in the lower left.
  - “New” markers on the level select screen are now translated, and scales better with resolution and text length.
  - Adjusted gamepad button icon scaling in texts.
  - Made various menu elements scale better with non 16:9 resolutions.
  - Made the font in menus scale a bit better with really high and really low resolutions.
  - Made some frames and art work in the UI clearer to display better at low resolutions and just be easier to read in general.
  - Highlighted and selected menu elements can now show the orange and the blue frame at the same time. Making it clear that something is selected even when highlighted.
  - Adjusted the death restart message to scale better and be centered. Also made the restart button an explicit button input instead of “any key”, as it helps to teach about the restart button and makes restarts less accidental.
  - Instruction prompts in the room are now made to hide during the camera animation/transition.
  - Sound on menu selection and closing is added in some places and made more consistent.
- Voice lines played in the room are now moved to the proper sound channel and are not loaded multiple times like before. Also normalizing the volume between the workstation playback and the room.
- Slowmotion effects in the tutorial messages are now adjusted to transition a bit faster, and some disturbing sound loops that could occur have been fixed.
- Unified the wall jump, by making the jumps from the wall slide state also jump off on releasing the jump button. Just like the other wall jump states.
- Fixed a jump input buffering that didn’t trigger correctly when going from a wall run into a slide on the few few frames after hitting a wall.
- Fixed a frame perfect bug where input could be eaten when trying to start a boost from a vertical wall run.
- Adjusted the popup messages that appear when an old save file is detected that collides with the cloud save file. Hopefully making it clearer what your options are doing. We also now print the date of the save files so it will be easier to make the correct decision.
- Fixed so that the raw mouse speed sensitivity setting is multiplied by a factor derived from the operating system mouse speed settings, to get a better estimate for the mouse DPI, and thus being able to have a better default sensitivity for all players.
- Made the game recognize the Steam Deck and apply some default settings on startup.
- Designated texture loading memory:
  - We have now dedicated some memory to be used for just texture loading, which improves speed a bit, but also helps with memory fragmentation. Enabling the game to use more of the available memory before it runs out.This was especially an issue when loading multiple levels in the level editor. It’s still not perfect, but it’s greatly improved.
  - Memory can eventually run out due to fragmentation still, but it is more robust than before. Fixing this completely in this old engine is not an option at this point. (Notice, as the game is x86, the available memory to the game mich be much less than your system memory due to 32 bit memory address limitations)
Bug fixes:
- Achievement Stat tracking bug fixed
- Fixed an issue where the default mode’s subtitles drifted and didn’t stay in sync with the audio.
- Fixed some strange artifacts on the hatching in shadows on the practice level blocks.
- Leader boards sync issues fixed
  - When viewing center on player mode, it could stop the game from displaying the 1st palace player at times. That is now fixed.
  - Leader boards in custom levels could sometimes not display correctly and submit garbage data to the system.
- Sound channels for some sound effects have been fixed to be in the proper channel.
- Fixed some text prompts that didn’t hide properly when game states changed in the room and level select.
- Fixed level select camera transitions to not do too sudden uncomfortable turns as often, and connect more smoothly.
- The level select menu now has a small camera movement upon opening it for the first time, and when you open it after that, the zoom out animation will be placed correctly on the last active level. Making it faster to navigate and feel more connected.
- Repeated the save games to be able to store and load save game data on the local machine even if Steam is not used. This worked a long time ago but broke. It’s now restored.
- Faster startup loading: More of the game is now loaded during the display of the splash screen logos at startup. This makes that portion of the logo display non skippable, but the rest is still skippable.
- Enabled gamepads to be able to skip the splash screens shown at the game’s start.
- Made the escape/menu key respond when dead.
- Changed the timer to use a standard one : instead of two, which it had been using for a long time for no good reason.
- Fixed the looping tutorial text messages change display time depending on the length of the string. Making it a little more possible to read them in time without being too slow for the short ones.
- Made the camera quick turn button binding into its own binding. Enabling it to be rebound separate from the Aim button. Also made the Aim button have a secondary function with a gamepad on wall runs. Letting you enter the jump preparation state as a toggle instead of a hold state like the regular jump preparation.
- Fixed a bug where a player collision scale change could be buffered on restarting a checkpoint, and cause strange pops and loss of jump height on one jump after restarting.
- Fixed a bug where if you have no audio device and go into the sound settings menu, you would get gibberish in the device settings field.
- Made the game recognize and change input if the main controls have been unplugged and another controller is connected.
Level Changes and Tweaks:
- Did minor tweaks to the intro level. We adjusted some voice triggers and cleaned up some collisions in areas that do not affect the fastest path through the level. Making it clearer what interactions are needed for beginners. We also adjusted a checkpoint which caused buggy behavior when restarting from it.
- Adjusted “Best Intentions” 2020 version. Changing colors on some gates to make it clearer that these doors are of a different type. Requiring less damage to shut off, and that they will turn back on after a set time. Also adjusted spacing on some gates, to make it less likely to get stuck in a buggy state.
- Changed gate color on the level “Underneath” and “Best Intentions” in 2020 mode to more clearly signal that it’s a respawning gate and not a regular blue gate.
- Adjusted some floor collisions that could lead to strange animations and staggers in the building on “Emptiness”.
- Added a 2020 mode version of “Defiance: Expectations”. As this was one of the harder levels to get, and it introduced multiple new mechanics quickly, and had areas that were hard to “read” in advance. Some adjustments were made to make it teach things better, and sign posts and draw a bit more attention to some areas. Only so much can be done with reasonable time investment here, but it should make it a lot better for new players at least. We also took the opportunity to adjust some of the areas that could feel random, and we removed some of the large shortcuts. Hopefully making it interesting for expert players to play and rethink this version of the level too.
- Adjusted some walls in a section in “My Inspiration” level 2020 mode, to let the player run across them and transition between as expected. Added a small turret in one place on this level as well, to grab attention a bit. Encouraging players to look around a little in a place. Nothing that should affect any speed runs though. Also made the drone hive towards the end of the level have a more restricted view cone, so it does not trigger when players are on the floor above it.
- Adjusted the difficulty rating on “Fog Remix 1”, as it was misleadingly low.
- Unlock criteria for some remix levels has been adjusted, so that it’s more likely that levels they use content from has been seen already. Sadly it’s not completely fixable, as the levels were not made with this consideration in mind. But some adjustments have been made.
- Adjusted unlock criteria for “UC1” level, to not appear before players have been taught the mechanics used in the level.
Visuals:
- Added some red glowing markings on concrete themed spike assets, and added a general red spark effect when hit by any spike. Making it clearer what just happened.
- Gates that turn off from a generator now flashes slightly to make it clearer that something happened.
- Added a bit larger spark effect when the generators are killed to make it clearer.
- Added a small visual offset feature on the player character, that can react to sudden small offsets caused by small floor geometry, and smooth out the transition over a few frames. Making it feels significantly smoother to run over uneven ground, but it does not affect gameplay or actual collision at all.
- Use the offset mentioned above to add a new setting that lets the player character offset a bit to un-clip visual geometry that does not have collision affecting gameplay. This makes it seem like these objects actually have collision, and make us correctly stand on or run on these surfaces, instead of having the character penetrating them halfway. Again, this is purely a visual effect, and does not actually affect the game logic or collision. This feature can also be turned off in the options menu.
- Made the aim camera angle track the player character head position a bit, to not cause as much clipping when aiming and running around.

(PS: The mentioned 15 levels we made will be live within the hour. So don’t be alarmed if you don’t find them straight away. I will just try to figure out some silly names for them, assign tags and upload them from now.)

Thanks for checking out the update!ːdeboostː

Write your comment!