Heartless & Dreadful : Return By 72 Hours News

[p]Overestimating my free time, it seems. Okay, this one is truly the last beta update before it's pushed to main.[/p][p]As per usual, if you're willing to try out the not fully finished update, you can do it by switching to the Beta options by right clicking the game on your steam library and going to its properties.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Anyway, what's left.[/p][p]
Just need to make some of Huntress's moves as unlockables so they are not available by default, make a few small adjustments, and fully playthrough co-op in order to make sure it works right...
[/p][p]Cause you know. You test one mission and it works, but what about the rest, huh? Exactly.
[/p][p]I'll make sure to update the soundtrack with the missing tracks once this is done also... and probably normalize the audio so it sounds right. If you want to, feel free to give updated Huntress a try and provide me with some feedback on how she feels. [/p][p]Also a lot of stuff changing in the background still... Takes a while. [/p][p][/p][p]Here's the changelog:
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• [p]Added a new battle track for Huntress CAG version - Tactical & Practical. You'll hear it if you pick Huntress (CAG) Version, or when starting a fight as her with character switcher.
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• [p]Added an extra check during Sinner unlock to ensure the sinner energy gets maxed out whenever it unlocks on multiple playthroughs.
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• [p]Added movelist for Huntress CAG that can be accessed through the pause menu or Upgrade Statue/Lovely's store.
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• [p]Auto sprint no longer triggers if you are just walking via gamepad stick.
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• [p]Boss Elegante's rockets no longer activate when the boss is stunned.
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• [p]Bosses can't be frozen anymore. (Sorry Kair.)
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• [p] Co-op - Both players now teleport into the arena correctly regardless of who triggered the fight.
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• [p]Co-op - Enemies now properly re-targed the other player, if the player they targeted previously is now dead.
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• [p] Co-op - Reduced health scaling by a little bit.
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• [p] Co-op - Revival text no longer gets obscured by other models.
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• [p]Co-op - Fixed projectiles not targetting Player 2's lock on.
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• [p] Co-op - Fixed an issue with enemy taking the direction of Player 1 when being damaged instead of Player 2's.
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• [p]Deprecation of Old gravity toggle : Old Gravity/Floatiness has been deprecated for good. There is no longer an option to turn the floatiness back on. It's generally accepted that the new gravity that has been around for a while is superior to the one on release.
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• [p]Deprecation of Soft Lock On: Soft Lock On (The running when locked on toggle) has been deprecated also. It frankly was a stupid idea to even make it a toggle as it was not how the game was designed at all. It shouldn't be an option anymore to be selected when starting the new game either.
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• [p] Enerith (NPC) will no longer spam footstep sounds.
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• [p]Engine upgraded to 6000.3.9f1 because the game engine said "nuh-huh there's an error here and you gotta upgrade" so I did. Meh. (There's already issues I've encountered in the update of the engine. Stable my ass.)
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• [p] Fixed Knight boss getting stuck in an attack state after teleporting towards the player mid air.
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• [p] Fixed Mission stats showing up in new world. (Why were they there anyway...)
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• [p]Fixed a stutter related to one of Kair's ice moves.
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• [p] Fixed an issue where an enemy's gravity would sometimes get messed up when they get stunned with a ranged weapon mid-air.
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• [p] Fixed an issue where some of the enemy's weapons would be the wrong color. (bright red as if the enemy was just hit)
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• [p] Fixed character switcher UI overlapping the credits scene.
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• [p] Fixed combat outro music not playing properly for other playable characters.
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• [p] Fixed coop audio issues.
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• [p] Fixed enemy stamina bar not being visible because after moving it co-op the colors were reset to pure black.
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• [p]Fixed new smoother rotation ignoring free lock input.
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• [p] Fixed one of Shamir's fingers on one of the skins not moving right.
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• [p] Fixed projectiles getting stuck in some places.
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• [p] Fixed some issues related to the secret boss.
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• [p] Fixed the Sinner UI not showing up after it got unlocked the first time.
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• [p] Further general game optimizations to reduce Garbage Collection and CPU usage. (bla bla, easier to run.)
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• [p] Further minor directional input feeling improvements to work better with the new smoother character rotation.
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• [p] Further multi-hit/rapid hit optimizations.
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• [p] Input buffer now gets reset when CharacterReset function is called, thus preventing an issue of the character possibly attacking nonstop, that could happen when the player is spamming melee attack nonstop.
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• [p] Made sure that remove/reduce flashling lights option now covers microckets.
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• [p] Minor camera rework to make it feel and look nicer and more dynamic, this includes auto camera rotation, now its not locked behind the character's back constantly and smoothly follows the target as expected.
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• [p] Other minor fixes.
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• [p] SDK sample updated to the latest Engine version. 6000.3.9f1, the older uploaded missions to the workshop should still work.
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• [p] Updated LDJ's lines, because I had some time to scream.
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[p]If you find any other issues or have some feedback, please report them to me either on Steam Forum, E-mail ([email protected]), or on the stinky Discord server. [/p][p]
Known issues:[/p][p]
1) Some of Huntress's animations are not fully finished. (Death for example.)[/p][p]
2) I noticed that Mission 1's music transition is not right when restarting from checkpoint. [/p][p][/p][p]3) ...And yes, first switch to Enerith via character switcher is still a one time stutter. I'll get to it.

For Discord, it may take time to approve new people due to someone having to sleep.
https://discord.gg/2ZyurUSbeE[/p]

[p]As per usual, if you want to try out these new changes on the beta channel, I recommend backing up your save files just in case.[/p][p][/p][p]You can access the beta_unstable branch in the game's properties on Steam.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]*Patch. Patch. Patch. Patch.* Feel better, Feel better, Feel better, Feel better.[/p][p]This update really is taking a while to release, huh.[/p][p]Sorry... there's a lot. [/p][p]Hey, did you know that the game's source project file is like 200gb of hard drive space? now you know. It's mostly the game engine's cache. Pain.[/p][p]Anyway. Now that I have a better way to work with inverse kinematics, I can animate better. (idk why blender's default way of doing it is kinda ass, but its whatever. Maybe its a me problem. It's probably a me problem.)[/p][p]So I went through a few anims that were quite bad. And I also backported the way Huntress's legs move to other characters so it feels much nicer.[/p][p]I want it to be as good as it possibly can be because it'll likely when this update releases it'll be the final content update before I move onto my neglected for many months other project. [/p][p]Or it'll still get neglected as I try to work on something that could make me rich enough to work on those things indefinitely.[/p][p][/p][p]Friendslop gamblecore games are all the rage now, eh? Meh.[/p][p][/p][p]Regardless of what happens after this update will be fully finished, I'll still fix bugs here. [/p][p]Here's the things left to do before this can be released for good.[/p]

• [p]1) Add a movelist UI for huntress and make her selectable in the main menu.[/p]
• [p]2) Finish the rest of huntress's moves, polish and balance. (she has quite a lot of moves to be honest...) 4 weapons are mostly complete. needs more polish and a few extra moves. but overall she's already in a pretty good state. Although, some input priorities are not the best right now. Directional are a tad delayed. I'm looking into it.[/p]
• [p]3) Test co-op playthrough properly with someone.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Patch v1.131 (Beta4) - I swear, this is the last beta before its done..[/p]

• [p]Added the ability to disable most quick/flashing lights as an option in the extras menu.[/p]

• [p]Added support for extra skins for other playable characters. (Enerith and Huntress (CAG) got an extra skin. If they are selected in the menu, they will be also visible with the character switcher.)[/p]

• [p]Animation and minor move adjustments for all playable characters. Enerith got quite a bit of polish.[/p]

• [p]Auto rotation smoothness improvements.[/p]

• [p]Fixed Kair's "Melee" only style not showing on the UI when using Character Switcher.[/p]

• [p] Fixed an issue with Kair being able to instakill bosses. (I just added a cooldown, I wanted to initially but i forgot. lol. lmao.)[/p]

• [p]Fixed Enerith Boss fight being broken in beta due to coop reference being broken lol lmao.[/p]

• [p]Fixed that stupid delayed rotation that only started to work near the end of the attack when doing an attack while not facing the enemy.[/p]

• [p]Fixed the freecam cheat. oops.[/p]

• [p]Fixed gamepad pointer not picking level start. (That was caused by Character Switcher's radial menu. Whoops.)[/p]

• [p]Fixed jukebox skipping a track in the practice mode.[/p]

• [p]Further visual adjustments. You may notice em, you may not.[/p]

• [p]Greatly improved CPU performance for moves that hit a lot of enemies at once, this got especially bad with Huntress V2 as a lot of her moves hit many targets at the same time. I didn't pool them before. Shoutouts to garbage collector. Might use a bit more memory now though. But I doubt it'll be that noticable.[/p]

• [p]Huntress (CAG) got a lot of new moves.[/p]
• [p]Huntress (CAG) is now selectable without Character Switcher enabled.[/p]
• [p]Improved everything that results in character landing.[/p]
• [p] Improved the shadow system under the playable character. (Wow! PS2 Technology!)[/p]
• [p]Minor FSR improvements to those who use it.[/p]
• [p]Minor Physics changes.[/p]
• [p]Minor improvements to the way movement works after doing an attack motion of any kind. It's a quite bit smoother now.[/p]
• [p]Textures in the distance should be less shimemry now.[/p]

[p]Known issues. I'll get to them. I'm just focusing hard on actually finishing Huntress V2. This update is taking long enough as is. :([/p]

• [p]First swap to Enerith via Divergence will cause a stutter. Sorry, I didn't fix the precaching for that yet.[/p]
• [p]SDK sample is still a little outdated. With sudden engine upgrades to fix some dumb issues, it wouldn't surprise me if I'll have to redo the setup for it entirely. Oh well.[/p]
• [p]Shamir's dodge visual effect is missing.[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]If you find any other issues or have some feedback, please report them to me either on Steam Forum, E-mail ([email protected]), or on the stinky Discord server.

For Discord, it may take time to approve new people due to someone having to sleep.
https://discord.gg/2ZyurUSbeE
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[p]Not this TGA, eh? Take your Hopium shot, it'll come eventually.[/p][p][/p][p]As per usual, if you want to try out these new changes on the beta channel, I recommend backing up your save files just in case.[/p][p][/p][p]You can access the beta_unstable branch in the game's properties on Steam.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Getting close to finally pushing out this update to the live channel. Just a few more bugs left + finishing up Huntress CAG ver.[/p][p][/p][p]Changes:[/p]

• [p] Added the ability to revive each other in Co-Op.[/p]
• [p]Additional moves for Huntress CAG ver (shotgun, general dodge move.) all still in progress... Yes, slow, I know. Sorry, my real job is unfortunately higher priority. (All work and no play.)[/p]
• [p]Another engine upgrade because Animator related things broke. (now on 6000.2.14f1... so sorry to anyone who mods the game.)[/p]
• [p]Co-op Lock On now has an additional icon to show whose target it is.[/p]
• [p]Each Player can now check their Movelist and do Upgrades properly when playing in co-op.[/p]
• [p] Enemy Health now also scales up in co-op.[/p]
• [p] Fixed CPU performance issues related to input implementation.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a chance of being soft locked when entering a new location/using doors, as Teleporting didn't set the last memorized position for teleportation to be Teleporter's destination, causing some bad issues when walking into a deadly pit right after teleporting instead of jumping.[/p]
• [p] Changed Fixed Camera's Trigger in Mission 02 as it was too large.[/p]
• [p] Fixed an issue where using Microckets would cause strange behavior on Shamir if another move was active during its activation.[/p]
• [p] Fixed Gamepad cursor not showing up after the engine upgrades. Because its VERY COOL and NICE to change the way Time works between engine versions :)[/p]
• [p] Fixed previously mentioned bugs and other issues on the previous update page.[/p]
• [p] Improved co-op compatibility with the main campaign.[/p]
• [p] Minor graphical changes to most missions. Should look a bit more... lively, and the lighting might look nicer in some places. Sorry for the heavier game size now. Does that count as a mini remaster? Eh. Maybe. Just touch-ups.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Special thanks to Moni in Discord for reporting many bugs for this release.[/p][p][/p][p]Note: Right now you can pick any character in coop mode, but that's not intended. [/p][p]I intend to make Kair and Dominika unlocked by default for co-op, but also unlock Enerith and Huntress after beating the game.[/p][p][/p][p]Known issues:[/p]

• [p] Kair instant kill. If you know you know.[/p]

• [p] First swap to Enerith via Divergence will cause a stutter. Sorry I broke the startup caching.[/p]

• [p] Jumping off a Pulley with Huntress V2 doesn't work right.[/p]

• [p] SDK sample is now a little outdated.[/p]

• [p]Huntress V2 is still unfinished, but likely now with most issues related to co-op and divergence being fixed I can fully focus on her.[/p]

[p][/p][p]If you find any other issues or have some feedback, please report them to me either on Steam Forum, E-mail ([email protected]), or on the stinky Discord server.

For Discord, it may take time to approve new people due to someone having to sleep.
https://discord.gg/2ZyurUSbeE
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[p]spaghetti.[/p][p]
As per usual, if you want to give it a try, switch to the Beta channel in the game's properties.[/p][p]

This update brings a more feature complete version of character switcher. It's very much done and very usable. And now it has gamepad support. Yay.

In addition to that, this update brings (experimental) LOCAL co-op. [/p][p]You can toggle it when starting a mission, or any other thing where you can play the game.[/p][p][/p][p]Sorry, converting the game to support online coop is extremely unlikely due to how the game is structured. [/p][p]Online play kind of requires spawning things in realtime and synchronizing it, but in my game a lot of stuff is already pre-spawned. And there's a lot of references to already spawned objects. So... Yeah.[/p][p]
Though if you do want to play it online, you can probably use Steam Remote Play. It has been enabled on the unstable/beta channel.[/p][p]
I've yet to decide whether or not it should be using a shared screen, or split screen... Shared screen feels cooler. But split screen makes a lot of things easier to do. Maybe a hybrid. Maybe not. [/p][p]
We'll see. For now I'd reccomend using it in Tower Of Blood and Practice Mode only, if you want to do campaign, make sure to enter the arenas together at the same time for now. I've not synchronized that part yet.[/p][p]
I'll teleport player 2 into the beginning of the arena next time, once this is more tested.[/p][p]
I'm pushing out unstable stuff to beta channel mostly as a reminder that yes, i am still working on it. Just these features require a lot of testing before they can be pushed to the main update channel.

As per usual, if you want to try out these new changes on the beta channel, I recommend backing up your save files just in case.

Patch v1.131 (Beta2) - Local Co-op, Character Switcher support for gamepad.

- Added a voice volume slider in audio settings.
- Experimental Local Co-Op has been added. Not compatible with Character Switcher. Player 1 is mouse and Keyboard, Player 2 is gamepad. When Co-op is disabled, Player 1 can use either gamepad or mouse and keyboard.
- Switching to Enerith via Divergence no longer causes a stutter.[/p][p][/p][p]- Character Switcher can now be used on gamepad with a radial menu for character switching. (The button for this is switch target, aka Right Trigger)
- Fixed various bugs related to Character Switcher.
- Huntress - The Third Person Shooter version one is now named Huntress (TPS), the new version is named Huntress (CAG), but Huntress CAG can not be selected in the main menu yet, sorry she's not finished.
- Huntress V2 is properly usable on the gamepad now.
- Prevented Character Switcher from working when Huntress (TPS) is selected as that playstyle is not supported for this mode.
- Somewhat improved directional input detection on gamepad. At least it feels a bit more consistent.
- Unified the way the playable characters check for if the game is paused, resolving some issues where you could do some inputs while paused.
- Updated it so the Upgrades menu accepts it when you are using character switcher, so now it'll show proper upgrades menu/movelist when you switch a character using character switcher.
- Updated character switcher to prevent it from being used on rails/vehicles.

Known issues in the Beta 2 build.
1) Huntress (CAG Version) may be stuck in a weird rotation when some of the moves are used without enemies on screen. (i'm working on her, just needed to take care of other things first.)
2) In coop; Some visual effects, combat elements and UI elements are applied to player 1 even when created by player 2.
3) In coop, if player 1 dies, it's game over. I haven't tested or implemented separate deaths yet. There's a lot of changes on the back end. So this is experimental stuff.
4) Lock on currently doesn't have any special differences between player 1 and 2. As in, it is separated, yes, you can also lock onto the same target, but visually it is not distinct onto whose lock on is whose right now. This will be addressed later.
5) Player 2's lock on doesn't display enemy health correctly.
6) Enerith's gravity push (When locked on an enemy) is currently not working due to the recent changes to the doppelganger system to work for local co-op. This is something that will be fixed next patch.
7) When the enemy is not locked onto player 2 and player 2 stands in the way of the attack when its targetting player 1, it'll damage player one. Yeah. Magic...

All of it will be fixed once the update will be stable enough to be put on main.

If you find any other issues or have some feedback, please report them to me either on Steam Forum, E-mail ([email protected]), or on the stinky Discord server.

For Discord, it may take time to approve new people due to someone having to sleep.
https://discord.gg/2ZyurUSbeE[/p]

[p]Hello gamers, it's me. John Indieslop.

I'm busy :([/p][p]I've got a few more things I want to implement, but I can not release those features yet as a full update onto the main update branch yet, especially since the main build is currently very stable, and this... this is not. If you want to test this out, or try the new feature feel free to switch to the beta branch by right clicking on the game, going to Betas and picking beta_unstable in the Beta Participation tab in order for this update to download.[/p][p]Anyway, here's a changelog. for Patch v1.131 [/p][p]- Engine updated to 6000.2.6f2.[/p][p]Because a certain company broke the inspector in the 2022 LTS and are not fixing it, because they dropped support for it :) Plus, there's a security issue on top of it, so upgrade is even more of a requirement right now. This shouldn't affect you as a player much. But if you're a mod creator for example, be aware of this upgrade.[/p][p]
- SDKSample has been updated to the same version. [/p][p]Now you should use 6000.2.6f2 if you want to create custom levels/mission. The level loader should still be compatible with levels created with the older version of the engine. At least from what I tested.[/p][p][/p][p]- Fixed an issue where in some cases the bottom half of the lock on animation would play incorrectly.[/p][p][/p][p]- Fixed an issue where Shamir's disabled weapons would disable weapons of other playable characters.[/p][p][/p][p]- Fixed a problem where if you pressed F5, your UI would get screwed. A left over from an ancient experiment, it was a debug command. Don't worry about it.[/p][p][/p][p]- Console command toggle has been moved from F1 to F10, if you cheat....... use F10..... stinky......[/p][p][/p][p]- Back end stuff: Shamir has been moved into his own package now.[/p][p]Initially, the game was just made with him in mind, so his combat stuff was coded directly in the script that handled the entire combat system. While it was not that bad, it made it difficult to include him in the next feature described below. [/p][p][/p][p]- Character switcher has been added into the game - Use F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 to change characters in realtime. [/p][p]Unlocked in Extras menu after defeating 100+ enemies in the credits. This should be retroactively available if you had done so in the past. [/p][p]Currently, there's no gamepad support for this feature. But it will be added with the full release of this feature. [/p][p][/p][p]- Huntress V2 has been added, but she's in early development. [/p][p]Initially Huntress was created as a test to see if my code was reusable enough to make extra characters and is flexible enough for other things I could do with my codebase. And it was a neat bonus. But since then, I wanted to create a fully gun based character with the normal playstyle, so... yeah?[/p][p]At the moment, Huntress V2 is only available via Character Switcher, she has a very basic moveset for her pistols and no gamepad support at the moment. It's a very early WIP, you may even hear some placeholder sounds from Shamir when using her, because it is that early.[/p][p]Later she'll be added as a selectable character in the main menu like the rest. [/p][p]As for why she's in the Character Switcher, well. It's because: [/p][p]1) It's easier to test this way. [/p][p]2) She's gonna be there on release anyway. so why not, it'd be a waste of time to develop this feature without her and then update her into it later. Might as well do it now. [/p][p][/p][p]- Added missing locale on Steam for the achievements.[/p][p][/p][p]- Two new achievements added. [/p][p]One for enabling the character switcher, another one for beating TOB as Kair. Because I forgot to add it. [/p][p]
Known issues in the Beta build.
1) Switching to Enerith via Character Switcher can cause a microstutter.
2) Switching a character when using a pulley/rail can cause unintended effects... I kinda forgot to test that.
3) Enerith's Style Image is not correct when switching to him via Character Switcher.
4) Weapons are always drawn when switching to a character via Character Switcher.
5) Upgrades list is currently not reflecting the currently picked character, it only gets set up on level start via divergence.
6) Huntress (TPS Version) is not compatible with the Character Switcher, so using her and switching to another character WILL cause issues.
7) Huntress (CAG Version) may be stuck in a weird rotation when some of the moves are used without enemies on screen.
8) Shamir might be slightly bugged after being ported to function like other playable characters, but I am not sure about it yet. I'm testing.
[/p][p]Also, you know while I'm on topic, I've noticed that the extra playable characters don't have the best animations. I think I'll adjust them. I'm just basically doing this on my free time so please bear with me.[/p][p]As for the issues, they will be fixed once the update will be stable enough to be put on main. [/p][p]If you find any other issues or have some feedback, please report them to me either on Steam Forum, E-mail ([email protected]), or on the stinky Discord server. [/p][p]For Discord, it may take time to approve new people due to someone(me) having to sleep. https://discord.gg/2ZyurUSbeE[/p]