HorrorVale News

Hello!

The game has received another patch, so please take a look at all the changes.
Bit of a short one, but expect a big cool patch this Halloween!



-Fixed an issue where NPCs would wander into cutscenes during "For Great Justice" and look awkward
-Fixed an issue where Party Members would be temporarily invisible after defeating the Final Secret Boss
-Fixed an issue where you could get stuck on the stairs on the Third Floor of Dracula Manor
-Fixed an issue where Jackie's Ultimate would reset your BGM back to max no matter what your setting was
-Fixed an issue where opening the Puppet Checklist in the Woods of Mystery can crash the game
-Fixed an issue where Alice's Ultimate didn't work the described way
-Fixed an issue where the achievement for recruiting Raven didn't trigger if you find the item she requires beforehand. If you've already done the Quest, return to her house with her in your Party to get the achievement
-Fixed(?) the memory leak issue, so end game crashes should no longer happen. Please let us know if you still experience it because it's difficult to test on our end

Misc Changes

-Movement speed in the HVPD ventilation system has been increased
-The Shovel will now do an attack on the first turn like most Chaser enemies
-Expanded the range in which The Shovel can notice you and start pursuing you
-Added a slightly dark overlay (similar to later locations) to the vents to up the SPOOK factor
-Made the location of a Death's Door slightly more obvious
-Added a new teleport in "The Underside" that lets you skip the maze after defeating the Miniboss there
-After finding the Bunker in "Tale of Two Birds", you'll now be automatically warped back to Scary Town instead of having to make the trip again
-Added a new consumable item called "Magic Eyeball" to various Jiang stores everywhere. This will allow you to scan enemies without a Party Member with a scan skill (some of these can also be found in Act 0)
-Added an optional way of solving the Frog Note puzzle for people who are hard of hearing (Just tell the nearby Scarecrow you can't hear well)
-Added a new hint to the Blood Chalice puzzle
-Mask Guy will now give you some direction of where to go next after finding all the Pages in "See No Evil"
-Alice will now make note of the Symbols in the Ruined Lab so you pay attention to them earlier
-Added a new hint to the final Light Pillar puzzle in The Engine Sector
-Added a new hint to Dollop's final request




-Changing the SFX Slider completely ignores character voices
-Cheap Shot does not work on enemies in Act 4 at all




-Unique Cheap Shots for Bosses and special enemies from Scotty
-Additional Optional Party Member Dialogue during main story events
-Optional Dialogue for specific Party Members during fights in the Optional Dungeon
-Transformation aspect for Transmog Tongue and Gumball Gun
-Some way to keep track of what States do
-Enemy Bestiary
-Dream Colosseum allowing you to re-fight bosses with endgame stats

Hello!

The game has received another patch, so please take a look at all the changes.
We will be continuing to work on things throughout the month!

[h2]Bugs[/h2]

-Fixed an issue where you could collect a second Shrinkshroom in Ludwig's Lab
-Fixed an issue where viewing the secret ending would mute voice SFX temporarily
-Fixed an issue where the incorrect requirements were listed for the Quest "To Be Stronger"
-Fixed an issue where the Slimy Salesman will appear endlessly in Act 3 (You may need to buy another Thing from him to make him go away permanently in existing saves)
-Made the game credits less taxing on the game's memory
-Fixed a horrible typo in Dracula Manor
-Fixed an issue where character portraits were misasligned in an Act 3 segment
-Fixed an issue where the Quest "Friends Like These" could be started before it's supposed to be unlocked and mess with the Diary


[h2]Balancing[/h2]

-Spirit and Willpower rings have had their effectiveness lowered
-Nerfed Phantasmic Wind Slash
-Nerfed Million Candy
-Lowered the effectiveness of "Calming Cavort" from 40% of DP to 30%


[h2]Misc Changes[/h2]

-Lowered the amount of turns required to progress in the scripted fight at the end of "Slimy Business"
-Jackie and Mask Guy will now translate Pumplin dialogue for you
-Added more dialogue for Mr. Y via the Walkie Talkie, including one in act 4
-Painkiller will now sell Bean & Leaf drinks in Layla's Lane


[h2]Bugs To Be Fixed (In Progress)[/h2]

-Changing the SFX Slider completely ignores character voices
-Using Jackie's ultimate will knock the BGM volume back to 100 regardless of where you set it
-Extended play periods can cause the game to crash during the ending sequence due to a memory leak. Until this is fixed, simply taking breaks and closing the game and re-opening it will refresh the cache and avoid the issue


[h2]Features To Be Added (In Progress)[/h2]

-Additional Optional Party Member Dialogue during main story events
-Optional Dialogue for specific Party Members during fights in the Optional Dungeon
-Transformation aspect for Transmog Tongue and Gumball Gun


[h2]Features That May Be Added Later[/h2]

-Some way to keep track of what States do
-Enemy Bestiary
-Dream Colosseum allowing you to refight bosses with endgame stats








Now, we also wanted to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about The Future as well, since people are starting to make progress through the game with many actually beating it as well.
So let's go over some of the things we have lined up next, many of which are happening thanks to us reaching various Wishlist goals prior to launch!

[h2]
Webs Prequel Comic (Act W)[/h2]

Originally, we wanted to get this comic together and out BEFORE the game's launch to help hype it up, but unfortunately there was a lot more polishing necessary for launch, so it got put on the backburner. We still want to put it together, and I would even expect it before the end of the year, but don't expect a huge amount of "New Lore", this was just to hype up the game after all.



[h2]Digital Artbook[/h2]

Another Wishlist Goal we reached was a Digital Artbook! It will take some time to put this together, so I would expect it to come out AFTER the Prequel Comic, but BEFORE the next thing we're going to talk about. We're excited to share all of our little doodles and concept art that resulted in the game you can play today. Most of them are not very good. I am sorry.



Now for the big thing everyone is probably wondering around.

[h2]Act M[/h2]

First of all, what IS Act M?
Act M is going to be a short side story featuring none other than THE Mothman. We keep calling it DLC, but it's more like a small standalone game.
It will detail the story of HorrorVale from Mothman's perspective, not just the present but also before the events of HorrorVale AND directly after.
You'll be able to recruit a small gang of Cryptids to join you on your Mothy journey as Mothman is forced to face moral issues as well as his own demons.
This is a much shorter game with a much smaller scope than HorrorVale. At max, you can expect an 8 hour playthrough if you do everything. (Current Estimate)



As you can see from the patch notes, we're still currently working on polishing up HorrorVale, but once that's done, Development on Act M can begin. It's impossible to truly determine a time frame right now, because one factor affecting this is how "HorrorVale" itself does. Obviously, if I could work on Game Development full time, Act M will come out sooner rather than later. Sales for HorrorVale are somewhat promising currently, but we'll have to see how it's done at the end of the Year to really get a good scope of the game's performance. If things can pick up, perhaps Act M can come out mid next year! (That would be really cool.)


Oh yeah, about Launch...

[h2]HorrorVale Launch[/h2]

We also wanted to talk a little bit about Launch, because it was very crazy!
We didn't entirely know what to expect given this was our first game, but launch was overwhelming to say the least. I was reading comments and Discord messages for what felt like a week straight.

One thing I certainly did not expect were the amount of Bugs and Issues found in Launch Week. I expected some for sure, but not to the extent there was, and not of the outright soft locking variety.
I deeply apologize for this, and the patience that people had was extremely re-assuring. I was working to get patches out as soon as I possible could. These issues were especially frustrating because many of them were the direct result of things I added or fixed about the game the WEEK right before launch.
I just want to clarify that our Team of Testers is a handful of dedicated Volunteers, who have helped us out on this long journey for no reason other than the goodness of their heart and passion for the project. Because their work was entirely volunteer work, I specifically never set deadlines or strong instructions on how to test, what to test, etc. I told them to just play the game whenever they want and report stuff they find. I'm just explaining this because I don't want anyone to think these launch issues were the result of poor testing on their part.

Personally, finding out about these issues was deeply upsetting for me.
I care very deeply about the experience of playing HorrorVale...
That is to say, I don't really mind if someone has a bad experience because they don't like the combat or the puzzles or the story, but what DOES bother me is if somebody has a bad experience because the game doesn't work as it should. So once again I am deeply grateful for everybody's patience that first week. I'm very happy to see that for the most part everybody had a great time anyway!

Truthfully, there were more things I wanted to include at Launch, and I would've liked it if I had time to play the game more myself, but it wasn't to be, and it felt very silly to delay the launch over things I could easily add launch week.
...Little did I know.

[h2]Summary
[/h2]
We will continue working on getting all the issues in the game fixed (including the big ones mentioned earlier!). We want to more or less be finished with patches by the end of October or early November (Outside of future smaller patches if more bugs are found) so we can move onto other things (Such as Act M...).

We hope everybody is enjoying their time in HorrorVale, and stay tuned for more!


-Dustin
Batworks Software

Hello!

The game has received another patch, so please take a look at all the changes.
We will be continuing to work on things throughout the month!

Bugs

-Fixed an issue where Pumplin Farm would give no rewards
-Fixed an issue where generator noises would persist after destroying one
-Fixed an issue where the wrong background was used in a rare enemy encounter at Dracula Manor
-Fixed an issue where Femur Breaker lack their voices in a certain area late game
-Fixed an issue where cutscene versions of Webs, Bolt, and Beatrice weren't getting disposed of properly
-Fixed an issue where you could become trapped in a room upon revisitng a location in "Tale of Two Birds"
-Fixed an issue where the Ring of Resolve and Ring of Fate used the wrong percentage
-Fixed an issue where the Farmers of Greenur Pasturs could clone themselves
-Fixed an issue where Raven wouldn't be levelled properly if you start her quest with the Mushroom already in your inventory
-Fixed an issue where later bosses couldn't do anything when Enraged
-Fixed an issue where a certain Secret Boss minions wouldn't re-appear properly
-Fixed an issue where the Battle song wouldn't reset after fighting two optional bosses
-Fixed an issue where the Act 2 Secret Boss would mute battle music entirely after it
-Fixed an issue where the player's sprite wouldn't properly reset after the boat minigame
-Fixed an issue where you could get stuck on a table when running from The Killer
-Fixed an issue where the Dance Off could be re-done by talking to a Receptionist in "Dance Till You Die"
-Fixed an issue where Kris' moves are out of order when transformed
-Fixed an issue where the third encounter with the Slime Salesman could be permanently killed
-Took some steps to hopefully mitigate memory issues explained later




-Slightly nerfed the Nethergrizz
-Slightly nerfed the Nethermound
-Reduced the damage of "Cursed Stance" and the chance of inducing Rage
-Nerfed "Pumplin Pirouette" slightly
-Nerfed "Missile Volley"
-Increased the damage of "Burning Comet"
-Nerfed the Plush Backpack
-Also Nerfed the Ring of Resolve and Fate
-Nerfed "Sucrose Meltdown"
-Made the Annoying Clowns more Annoying
-Buffed "Hookshot"
-Buffed "Rifle Beam"




-Reduced the respawn timer for Rotten
-Moved the Orange coffin in the Underside to a better location
-Reworded a hint in DracCorp Blood Bank
-Added a "hint" to Dollops last request
-Marty will now tell you which locker is his to avoid confusion
-Marty will now appear in the Breaker Room if you interact with the Breaker Box at least
once to offer to solve the puzzle for you in exchange for 100 Candy
-Made the moveable blocks in Derelict Dungeon very slightly lighter than the rest
-Made farming for Candy via Hard Sell a lot more obnoxious and boring
-Made it more obvious how to start "Cat's Out of The Bog"
-Changed the solution for the puzzle in "The Dark Side" to something more reasonable
-Added a reward for finding all Scaries
-Changed some misleading dialogue from Edna




-Changing the SFX Slider completely ignores character voices
-Using Jackie's ultimate will knock the BGM volume back to 100 regardless of where you set it
-Extended play periods can cause the game to crash during the ending sequence due to a memory leak. Until this is fixed, simply taking breaks and closing the game and re-opening it will refresh the cache and avoid the issue

Hello!
We have updated the game with a hot fix patch to address some issues found in Version 1.0.0

Please see the following Patch notes:



-Fixed an issue where the Fog Overlay for the Woods of Mystery wouldn't disappear under certain conditions

-Fixed an issue where a party member could join the party prematurely if you interact with an invisible tile in The Bone Zone

-Fixed an issue where Nizar's first hint was misleading by correcting when the event is triggered

-Fixed an issue where the Sidequest "With Friends Like These" was not properly displaying in the Diary when it should be. If you've already started Act 3 before this patch, it won't show up in the Diary, but you can still complete the Quest by returning to the final dungeon of Act 2 after you meet Shelby in Act 3

-Fixed an issue where an enemy in the Quest "Tale of Two Birds" would softlock the game if interacted with

-Fixed an issue where starting the Quest "Let's Go To The Moon" before clearing out the Cursed Bell at Dracula Manor would prevent the player from leaving the Quest area

-Fixed an issue where interacting with Bubbles from the side would softlock the game

Balancing

-Nerfed the Spooktacular Ring

-Nerfed the Unstable Staff

-Buffed Kenneth's Evasion further

-Removed the DP cost for Kenneth's Glow Ability

-Nerfed the Enemies in the Quest "Underworld's Strongest"



Note there are still some other smaller issues we are aware of that will be rectified in the next patch that will likely happen next week, but as of now we wanted to ensure these got taken care of first since they were critical. The Balancing fixes are just a bonus.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The Full Version of HorrorVale is now LIVE on Steam!!!

Thank you for all your support after all these years, and we hope you have fun!!!