Streets of Rogue 2 News

[h2]Hi, Rogues,[/h2]
Antishyr here, the community manager of Streets of Rogue 2. It's about time we brought you some news on how the development is going. I sat down with the game's solo programmer/designer, Matt Dabrowski, to chat about what he's been up to lately, and here's the result: a miscellaneous bunch of developments that are either happening right now or have recently been completed. Expect this devblog to be slightly shorter than the two previous ones, as this one is less visually rich and is meant to give the community an idea of where SoR 2 is at currently.

Note from Matt: Please bear in mind that anything and everything you read here is subject to change. Some of the specific design elements you'll see here have been planned for a long time, but haven't gotten much (if any) implementation work until fairly recently. Good games are built on strong foundational systems, and it's taken a long time to get those foundations in place, but I think it was worth it! My intention has always been to make my game systems super flexible and easy to mess with. In fact, I'm planning to allow a large number of my "official" design decisions to be totally subverted with the mutators system. It's entirely possible that some of the design elements below just won't work out. But that's what pre-Early Access and Early Access is for!

[h3]🎮 DEMO UPDATE WHEN?[/h3]
First things first, I'm fully aware you've been expecting an update for the demo for some time now. I happen to have a quick update on this front for you: Matt's planning on delivering the next version as soon as the demo is, quoting him, "a much better representation of the core gameplay loop that I'm currently working toward for the Early Access release."

[h3]🎨 DESIGN IMPLEMENTATION & BALANCE[/h3]

❓ What is Design implementation?
Speaking of gameplay, you may've seen a section called "Design Implementation & Balance" on our Development Roadmap:



You probably understand what balance is, but might ask, "Just what the hell does 'Design Implementation' mean exactly?" In short, it's about writing code for elements of the game's design that are not yet in the game. Example: Matt has designed a whole system of Mayors controlling cities across the world, and the player must take those guys (or gals!) down to gain influence and eventually attempt to topple the President. In order for the whole process to play out, however, you need to have all the elements in place:

• The Mayor's dwelling must have several floors and function as a dungeon.
  
• Mayors will come in different varieties—e.g., a cultist mayor who has a massive following (and does podcasts every now and then) or a sewer-dwelling cannibal mayor whose primary source of protein is another NPC's body.
  
• Each of those city boss types must have their own unique dialogue, types of quests they dole out, etc.
  
• Methods of taking down the Mayor or gaining their favor (and the repercussions for these) are intended to be quite varied. SOR1 offered a glimpse at this, but SOR2 will take the system much further.
  

...and so on.

It sounds like a lot, but thankfully, the game's infrastructure was built to allow for gameplay systems like these to be implemented quickly and rapidly iterated upon.



⚰️ Death Penalty "What's the penalty for death?" has been on Matt's mind for a while as one of the most crucial design/balance dilemmas. The goal is to avoid making kicking the bucket too punishing (running halfway across the city to your corpse to retrieve lost items in a dangerous area is unlikely) while keeping the stakes high enough to maintain tension. There are always players who demand the difficulty to pack more of a punch, and those who just want to chill. Mutators that tweak the conditions will be meant to solve this.

💼 Professions
Another outstanding item on the dev agenda at the moment is profession specialization. In the first game, the Hacker, in addition to stealthily fiddling with computers, could actually put up a decent fight if the situation demanded it. With the sequel, the story will be different—picking a fight while playing as a weak character won't be as viable of an option. But, the game will offer more varied ways to improve your system breaching skills, as well as new skills you can acquire via augmentation booths. Essentially, it'll be more important to actually role-play!



[h3]🌎 WORLD TIER SYSTEM[/h3]
Another important aspect that's being fleshed out as we speak is region difficulty tiers. Think of these tiers like a typical RPG system that includes higher-level monsters, weapons and armor in higher-level regions, but applied broadly to a bunch of different types of skills and aspects of the game world that may not necessarily be combat-oriented. To give a general example, if you've picked a Hacker and your skills are currently around tier 2, cracking a tier 3 security system might be achievable but quite tough. Or, a tier 8 police station might flat-out refuse to assign missions to your tier 4 Cop character due to being underqualified.

So, how will region tiers be determined? That's still up in the air; Matt is leaning toward a ruleset similar to one Skyrim utilizes. Each region is given a range of tiers—for example, a region has a range of tiers from 5 to 10. If you enter for the first time when your character is below tier 5, the region locks its level to 5, and you'll probably have a tough time unless you improve your character first. If you enter for the first time when your character is tier 7, the region will lock itself to tier 7 or 8, giving you a tier-appropriate challenge. And if you enter when your character is above tier 10, the region would lock to tier 10, and you'd have an easy time. This is oversimplifying it a bit, and this approach to difficulty may not even pan out to Matt's liking, but we'll see how it goes!

It's worth adding that the game world is planned to be dynamic—as the player, you'll shape it by your actions. Random events occurring every now and then will impact factions and mayoral standings. All of this could potentially impact a region's difficulty regardless of its initially assigned difficulty tiers.

[h3]🖥️ OPTIMIZATION[/h3]
High RAM usage has been one of Matt's primary concerns when it comes to SoR 2's performance. The higher volume of art used in the sequel compared to the first game gradually resulted in the game using up to a crazy 11 GB of RAM (Thank you to all those who reported this issue). It needed to be addressed ASAP, and thankfully Matt has been able to reduce this to about half its previous size by improving asset handling in the Unity engine. Further improvements will likely come at a later point, but for now we think it's down to an acceptable level.

[h3]🎨 BUG FIXES[/h3]
Everpresent. Don't get us wrong here, we don't want to fix every single bug before shipping the Early Access version. But the most likely candidates for fixing will fall into two categories: It breaks the game in a not-fun way, or it's super noticeable and ridiculous. NPCs getting out of bed and immediately getting stuck between the bed and their wall would fall into this category. If that's ever happened to you in your personal life, you're probably aware that it's a terrible way to start your day. In addition to that, Matt's addressed a pesky problem where the game wouldn't start properly sometimes, but instead would load up one of your save files with dozens of MB of garbage data. Not a good call, video game.

[hr][/hr]
As always, we appreciate your support! Share your thoughts on the devblog below and wishlist/follow Streets of Rogue 2 to stay up to date with the news:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2165810/Streets_of_Rogue_2/
Read previous dev blogs: Devblog I: Vehicles Devblog II: Chunks

Watch video devlogs: Devlog 1: How I Approach World-Building? 🌎 Devlog 2: Creating an Open World Solo 🗺️ Devlog 3: Games That Inspired SoR 2 💡 Devlog 4: New Release ETA, Roadmap 🗺️
[hr][/hr]Join the community on Discord:
🔗DISCORD

Follow Streets of Rogue 2 on social media:
🔗TWITTER (X) 🔗TIKTOK 🔗BLUESKY 🔗YOUTUBE 🔗REDDIT

[h2]Heya, Rogues,[/h2]
Antishyr here, the community manager of Streets of Rogue 2. In this devblog, I'd like to offer you a peek at dungeons, show you how we handcraft interiors for the game, and talk about how Matt, the dev, hired a player to help him construct "chunks." Who is that guy? And wtf's a chunk? Let's find out.



[h3]BUILDING THE STREETS[/h3]

SoR 2 is an ambitious open-world game, which means everybody expects its environments to be immersive and diverse. Matt Dabrowski, the sole programmer/designer of the game, created a system that generates a whole island country with cities/towns, rivers, and forests when you start a new save. However, for every piece of the game world, large and small, there's always a looming question: "Is it worth spending time writing a system to generate this procedurally, or would the results be better (and, potentially, more efficient) if I just made this myself?" Generally, Streets of Rogue 2 follows a similar formula to the original game: Procedurally generate the maps, while handcrafting the individual pieces of those maps. Those "pieces" are classified as "chunks".

Chunk [tʃʌŋk], noun: a section of the Streets of Rogue 2's map in the form of a building interior, park, road intersection, you name it.

Here's an example of an interior office chunk:



In the open world of SoR 2, regions are the largest form of measurement. Then there are chunks, and the smallest form is a tile. The smallest regions are comprised of 4x4 normal-sized chunks, while the largest are 16x16. A normal-sized chunk has 16x16 tiles, while the smallest has 8x8 tiles, and the largest has 64x64 tiles, making it the size of the smallest region. A greatly expanded version of the level editor from SoR 1 is used to create chunks.



By the way, if you want to learn even more about how chunks are developed, check out this video devlog by Matt.

Compared to Streets 1, SoR 2 will have a much bigger variety of chunk sizes. The inclusion of smaller chunks comes in handy when Matt fills the world with small filler locations:


[h3]🖥️ FROM PLAYER TO DEV[/h3]
Initially, Matt wanted to create all the chunks by hand before realizing it was an enormous amount of work that would, before long, drive him crazy if added to an already extensive solodev list of various tasks.

Enter Cyan_Light, real name: Clay—a SoR player and a prominent modder who has contributed countless incredible workshop items to the first game's community. He and Matt decided to join forces, and the rest is history: Clay has already crafted thousands (!) of chunks for the sequel. I'm not kidding. Here are some of the examples of his most recent works:


To make Cyan_Light's work less time-consuming, Matt designed the editor in such a way that it attempts to improve efficiency and minimize human errors as much as possible without limiting creativity. For example, if you place a locked door on a wall, the game will determine which direction the door should be facing to ensure that it's locked from the correct side. Or, if you place a generic chair, the game will determine if chair variants exist for the specific type of chunk you're creating (i.e., Police Station or Suburban Home), and display one of those variants. On top of that, you can now randomize other elements like the amount of damage on objects—a table in the President's office would be in mint condition, while one in a drug den... maybe not so much?

When it comes to deciding where to put quest objects in a chunk, Clay drops a marker that the game obediently populates with a randomized item—a chest, a safe, a kidnapped person. It all depends on the requirements of the quest. Some pieces, like vending machines, may be thrown in randomly, but others, like, say, augmentation booths, will abide by common sense: You'll see an aug booth near a hospital. You can also tweak the spawn chance of objects for more variety:



Quality-of-life features like those I listed above help with the pace of pumping out chunks: One takes 10-15 minutes to cook, larger ones—up to an hour.

[h3]👣 LEVEL DESIGN[/h3]
When putting chunks together for missions, Clay makes sure there are always multiple ways to approach a quest. Here's a vent to put syringes into, and there's a PC to hack, and a bunch of windows to crack and climb through. Maybe a conveniently placed 1500-lb overheated generator in one of the backrooms.

When it comes to choosing how to complete a quest, the material a building is made of is important. You can blast through wood and brick to get inside a building (or even ride through it if your vehicle is souped-up enough). Steel buildings might prove to be more of a challenge. Naturally, you'll see more structures made of sturdier materials in high-level game areas.

A lot of attention is paid to designing dungeons. E.g., mayor's offices are huge chunks that require a meticulous approach from the design standpoint.

[h3]🦇 SPEAKING OF DUNGEONS...[/h3]
...I know you've been waiting for more details on this feature. Work is being put into it as we speak; in addition to wild caves and office dungeons we talked about above, cannibal hideouts and house basements are in the works, as well as other types of dungeon biomes we'll reveal later.

One thing to note: While dungeon levels like the ones you see here are entirely handcrafted, procedurally generated dungeon maps comprised of smaller chunks are also planned. Much of the programming for these has been completed, but Matt has opted to hold off on further development of these until after the Early Access launch because, in Matt's words, "the game should probably ship at some point... yeah, that would be ideal".

Having a swimming pool in your basement is some luxury sh*t, ngl.☝️


Here's a look at a mostly-completed cave dungeon chunk. I say "mostly" because diagonal walls are currently getting an overhaul and thus are missing from this revision of the chunk. It's also missing some extra cave flourishes that were just recently added, notably cave lakes.



[h3]🛠️ LEVEL EDITOR & WORKSHOP SUPPORT[/h3]
"Do I get to do all these fun things in the level editor, too?", you may ask. The short and definitive answer is "Yes." All tools that Cyan_Light has at his disposal should become accessible to the community in the future with the release of the level editor—that one is planned to be rolled out at some time after the early access launch. Players will be able to create new chunks and entire levels for the game, as was possible in the original game.

The level editor is already packed with tiles, wall types, animals, melee weapons, and firearms to play around with, with more coming in the future. Interestingly, adding abundant content to a game is not the biggest grind an indie dev can undertake:



As you can see from this tweet, Matt's currently focused on better floor tile mixing and sorting out diagonal wall issues. As soon as that's in the books, he'll be working primarily on design Implementation and balance tasks. Following that, he'll be completing the local co-op mode. For more info, check out the game's Roadmap. I'll share more details when I have them!

[hr][/hr]
As always, thanks for your support, all. Comment your thoughts on the devblog below and wishlist/follow Streets of Rogue 2 to stay updated:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2165810/Streets_of_Rogue_2/
Read previous dev blogs:
Devblog I: Vehicles

Watch video devlogs: Devlog 1: How I Approach World-Building? 🌎 Devlog 2: Creating an Open World Solo 🗺️ Devlog 3: Games That Inspired SoR 2 💡 Devlog 4: New Release ETA, Roadmap 🗺️
[hr][/hr]Join the community on Discord:
🔗DISCORD

Follow Streets of Rogue 2 on social media:
🔗TWITTER (X) 🔗TIKTOK 🔗YOUTUBE 🔗REDDIT

[h2]Hey there, Rogues![/h2]
Antishyr here, the game's community manager. Now, you might be wondering: "Where's the next devlog?" Well, I agree it's about time we released one, so Matt Dabrowski, the game's dev, and I decided to bring you a behind-the-scenes in the form of this dev blog.

This article will focus on motor vehicles—one of the main open-world features of Streets of Rogue 2. We sat down with Matt to outline the main aspects of motor driving we wanted to highlight for you guys, and here's the result. Hope you enjoy it!



[h3]DESIGNING CHAOS ON FOUR WHEELS[/h3]

Since the early days of the GTA series, it's been hard to imagine open-world games without cruising the streets in a cool-looking whip. Streets of Rogue 2 is no different, allowing you to explore the procedurally generated island nation on four wheels—or on the waves, for that matter. Just like any video game mechanic, allowing the player to drive vehicles comes with its fair share of challenges. Let's dive into some of them.

[h3]🧭 NAVIGATION[/h3]In an open world, getting from point A to point B has to be practical, prompt, and, most of all, entertaining. Introducing vehicles was a no-brainer at the concept stage—I mean, it's a modern-day city, and the days of using horses are kinda behind us (though the game does have rideable horses!) Overall, you'll be doing a lot of driving in SoR 2.

In addition to that, phone booths will be installed across the world, meant for teleportation. The balance between driving and teleportation is still being determined, which will take some time. In the Alpha Demo currently available on Steam, you barely have any teleport options, which may lead to too much driving at times, and ultimately too much downtime between activities. Matt's plan? Fix that by letting you grab missions over the phone rather than returning to questgivers, and adding a “town portal”-style teleport mechanic in the future.

[h3]🎮 CONTROLS & PHYSICS[/h3]It takes Matt a lot of messing around with different values to nail the feel of a car. "If I make things 10 times more slippery, how will it feel?"; "What is the right amount of bounciness?" The answers to these questions lie in spending time in the engine and adjusting the physics. Check out this short video that demonstrates that process:
[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]
[h3]⛐ DRIVER AI[/h3]Perhaps more than any other system in the game, AI is a constant, never-ending work-in-progress. Driver AI is particularly tricky, largely due to the fact that vehicles are essentially giant hitboxes-of-death that move quickly and aren't capable of turning on a dime.

As you may have noticed, there are no traffic lights in the game. To (partially) avoid complete chaos on those rogue streets, cars obey a "first-come, first-served" law at intersections. According to this internal queue system, autos drive through one at a time to avoid collisions.

While NPCs typically stick to fixed paths and simple driving rules, Matt has set up special behaviors for things like turning onto other roads, so that drivers don’t crash into each other or stop unnecessarily when there’s no real danger. If something unusual happens—like, say, the player is standing in the middle of the road—a car switches to a more flexible driving mode that allows it to deviate from its normal road behavior, reach its intended destination, and ultimately, get back to the standard path. During these periods, the car may "cheat" a little, perhaps turning a bit more quickly than the player would be able to if they were driving the vehicle, or coming to a stop more quickly when need be. This is all in the service of avoiding too many collisions and, of course, ridiculous traffic jams.



[h3]🚗 DESIGN[/h3]Most automobile designs are based on real-life car types, such as minivans, sports cars, trucks, and some decrepit rides. A basic 3D car model usually takes around 3-5 hours to create, and then the model is saved at 24 different angles. Next, pixel artists essentially "paint over" each of these angles, to bring model into line with the game's aesthetic. Finally, subtle 8-frame animations are created for each angle to express motion -- wheels turning, the car bobbing slightly up and down, etc.

The chassis created for each vehicle are stored as separate art assets, allowing us to enhance visual variety by re-coloring different pieces of the car.



Police Car: Base & Chassis ↑

Cheap Sedan (Damaged): Base & Chassis ↑


Cheap Sedan (Damaged): Final 3D Model ↑


The headlight sprites are also stored separately so that they can appear bright at night while the rest of the car does not. Water overlays are necessary to keep the car looking correct at all angles when submerged in water.



[h3]🚤 BOATS[/h3]Navigating the waters is also a part of Streets of Rogue 2. Boats are primarily useful for reaching islands that would be otherwise inaccessible to the player. In future development, boats may also become useful as a means of traversing rivers to reach locations that would be dangerous to attempt by land. On top of that, Matt is thinking of implementing an "underwater dungeon" and incorporating cargo transport sometime after the early access launch. This stuff is, according to him, inspired by Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004). Believe it or not, the creator of SoR 2 has an idea of a mutator for a water-based world, composed primarily of islands, for greater use of boats. If you've been to/lived in the Philippines or watched Waterworld, you'll understand.


Military boats? Perhaps. Kind of early to talk about it. Police boats will be there, though, rest assured.👮




[h3]🗺️ FUTURE PLANS FOR VEHICLES[/h3]

• 💨 More variation in turning, speed, and acceleration for different types of vehicles. Making some vehicles go faster (e.g., sports cars) is in the plans.
  
• 🚧 If you remember a viral video about destructible environments that we posted on social media the other day, you might be wondering if you'll be allowed to crash through buildings like a madman. This will depend on factors such as the type of vehicle, the strength of the wall, and modifications added to the vehicle. Most cars will make short work of a small wooden fence or even the walls of makeshift housing found in shanty towns. However, modifications to the strength of a car's exterior might be necessary to bust down a brick wall. Besides that, a "destruction" mutator is set to be added at some point, modifying the overall fragility of environments. For those not in the know, "mutators" are game modifiers that can change the gameplay conditions of a run.
  
• 🎨 An option to respray cars for cosmetic purposes. (Of course, that's in addition to all of the other gameplay-oriented car modifications!)
  
• ⚖️ Bug fixing & balancing. For instance, car health and how much damage a vehicle takes when you bump it into objects. The end goal is to allow players to drive with a healthy dose of carelessness while still ensuring you face consequences if you act like a headless chicken on wheels.

QUICK NOTE: To be upfront about the plans above: while we have a roadmap, not everything you see there is guaranteed or meant to arrive all at once. Think of it as a peek at what we want to do.
[hr][/hr]

Just as usual, let me say a huge "Thank you" for the support you provide. Share your feedback on how intuitive you find the car controls to be, offer any suggestions you see fit, and comment away about what you think of this devblog, and, of course, wishlist & follow Streets of Rogue 2 to stay up to date on the game:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2165810/Streets_of_Rogue_2/Watch video devlogs: Devlog 1: How I Approach World-Building? 🌎 Devlog 2: Creating an Open World Solo 🗺️ Devlog 3: Games That Inspired SoR 2 💡 Devlog 4: New Release ETA, Roadmap 🗺️
[hr][/hr]Join the community on Discord:
🔗DISCORD

Follow Streets of Rogue 2 on social media:
🔗TWITTER (X) 🔗TIKTOK 🔗YOUTUBE 🔗REDDIT

[p][/p][p][/p][h3]A new trailer has dropped at the tinyBuild Connect 2025 publisher showcase.[/h3][p][/p][p]The vid shows the progress Streets of Rogue 2 has made in the past couple of months. Check it out:[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]The trailer offers a quick look at:[/p][p]- The worldbuilding progress (new biomes, chunks)[/p][p]- New animals[/p][p]- Improved UI[/p][p]- More crazy-ass situations that will be possible in the game[/p][p]...and more.[/p][p][/p][p]Regarding the release date, we know you want it; however, we're still putting the pieces together. As soon as we're ready, you'll know when the game will drop. Meanwhile, you can follow the development here on Steam and take a peek at the Roadmap.[/p][p][/p][p]------------[/p][p][/p][p]I’ve updated the Streets of Rogue 2 Alpha Demo with a pretty sizable number of changes. As with the previous couple of updates, these mostly fall under polish and bug fixes. The series of major design and balance improvements that I’ve been planning for a while are still in the works. Plenty of work has been done on this internally, but I want to hold off on adding these changes to the demo until my work on this design pass is more or less finished.[/p][p][/p][p]I had hoped to update the demo every month or so until the Early Access release, but I ended up not sticking to that schedule for this update because… well frankly I couldn’t stop working on this thing for long enough to actually create and properly test a new demo build. So anyways, enjoy, but be aware that the demo is still by and large a sandbox where balance is in short supply.[/p][p][/p][p]- Matt D[/p][hr][/hr][p]Patch Notes | v31a
[/p]

• [p]New Features
  [/p]
  • [p]Object button prompts - When standing near usable objects, NPCs etc., you’ll see text and a button prompt indicating how you can interact with the object. This feature can be turned off in the Gameplay Settings menu.[/p]
  [p]
  [/p]
• [p]Graphics
  [/p]
  • [p]All instances of fire now use animation frames instead of particle effects[/p]
  • [p]Particle effects appear when people, items and cars fall into water[/p]
  • [p]Alleviated shimmering at the edges of indoor lighting[/p]
  • [p]Fix for floor decals not appearing on the ground after blood explosions[/p]
  • [p]Fix for wreckage sprites not conforming to pixel grid[/p]
  • [p]Fix for wreckage sprites appearing above NPCs and objects after restoring saved game[/p]
  • [p]Fix for NPCs in certain non-standing positions not conforming to pixel grid[/p]
  • [p]Fixed occasional z-sorting issues on headwear defined as Masks[/p]
  • [p]Fix for vehicles’ shadow and alignment circles appearing above the floor layer[/p]
  • [p]Electricity animations on damaged objects are now fulbright when playing in dark areas[/p]
  • [p]Stoves light up when used[/p]
  • [p]Certain animations will ignore slow motion affecting the rest of the world[/p]
  • [p]Toned down the intensity of the lights that appear on objects, items and NPCs to avoid them feeling too bright or washed-out[/p]
  • [p]Light on doors disappears when door is opened[/p]
  • [p]Car headlights shine properly on objects, NPCs and items[/p]
  • [p]Fix for item held on NPCs’ backs not having an outline[/p]
  • [p]Fix for depth mask issues with certain animals[/p]
  • [p]Adjusted attack animation positioning for a number of animals[/p]
  • [p]Alignment circles underneath animals are properly sized[/p]
  • [p]Short grass sprites are now considered part of the floor layer[/p]
  [p]
  [/p]
• [p]Objects[/p][p][/p]
  • [p]Player can sit on chairs, benches etc.[/p]
  • [p]Added a bunch of new objects[/p]
  • [p]Improved/fixed a number of object sprites and animations[/p]
  • [p]Added a bunch of new wreckage sprites[/p]
  • [p]Small fixes to object placement[/p]
  • [p]Changes to collision in a bunch of objects to prevent pathfinding issues[/p]
  • [p]Fix for instances of Flaming Barrels not displaying their fire animation when indoors, and also playing at wrong frame rate[/p]
  • [p]Fix for objects that are intended to be lit on fire (such as torches) not saving their “on fire” status correctly all the time[/p]
  • [p]Fix for some doors appearing locked when they are not and vice versa[/p]
  • [p]Fix for certain tall doors having incorrect lighting at the top[/p]
  • [p]Interior locked doors can be made from materials other than Steel (previously any locked door would get marked as being impenetrable)[/p]
  • [p]Do Not Enter doors are consistently made of Steel[/p]
  • [p]Prisons have Do Not Enter doors on them consistently[/p]
  • [p]Fix for instances of single doors appearing as double doors or garage doors[/p]
  • [p]Fix for locked Glass and “No Entry” doors being impenetrable despite not bearing that appearance[/p]
  • [p]Crates are destroyed when opening with Crowbar rather than becoming invisible[/p]
  • [p]Fix for objects with fires not displaying Damaged frames after their fire is extinguished[/p]
  • [p]Fix for issues lighting fires in Fireplaces[/p]
  • [p]All environmental objects that are intended to be lit on fire (such as torches) can be lit on fire using any means the player has[/p]
  • [p]Small fences have more appropriately sized colliders[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Items
  [/p]
  • [p]Fix for inventory items not being able to be combined using the mouse[/p]
  • [p]Fix for quick-use health item button from SOR1 still working on gamepad (this is removed from the game in SOR2)[/p]
  • [p]Fix for cases of items on the ground being highlighted when the player is interacting with other objects[/p]
  • [p]Fix for Shopkeepers outside of towns in strip malls sometimes not having appropriate inventories for their shops[/p]
  • [p]Fix for thrown weapons being interactable for a split second after the player throws them[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Buildings/Environments
  [/p]
  • [p]Added a bunch of new floor textures[/p]
  • [p]Added a bunch of new chunks[/p]
  • [p]Added a new type of fence[/p]
  • [p]Added a number of new rugs[/p]
  • [p]Rain particle direction during heavy wind is consistent with object animations[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Non-Playable Characters
  [/p]
  • [p]Added new NPC type: Ranger[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Animals
  [/p]
  • [p]Added new animals: Raccoon, Crocodile[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Vehicles
  [/p]
  • [p]Added new cars: Minivan, Vintage Car[/p]
  • [p]Added wreckage sprites for all vehicles[/p]
  • [p]Vehicles now have properly sized colliders, whereas previously all cars were using the same size collider[/p]
  • [p]Fix for car colliders being much too high when the car entered water[/p]
  • [p]Fix for being able to squeeze a car through some 1-tile-wide spaces[/p]
  • [p]Art fixes for a number of vehicles[/p]
  • [p]Car headlight sprites appear lit when headlights turn on[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Interface / Controls
  [/p]
  • [p]Interface now resembles a phone[/p]
  • [p]Loads of fixes and improvements to tooltips and in-game menus to help communicate information clearly and concisely. Many of these aren’t covered here, but there’s a TON of them.[/p]
  • [p]All right-side menus have been altered to not include multiple scrollbars, so that they can be operated properly via gamepad in all circumstances[/p]
  • [p]Context menus can be scrolled up and down if the number of choices available gets too long to fit on the screen[/p]
  • [p]Map marker filters are functional, though not in-game yet (just waiting on art assets to enable them)[/p]
  • [p]Icons added to tooltips, and general tooltip rework. Still work in progress.[/p]
  • [p]Build Mode is now accessed on gamepad by holding the inventory button, since the right stick button is now dedicated to responding to NPCs[/p]
  • [p]Object sprites in Shop interface appear properly sized[/p]
  • [p]Speech bubbles contain the name of the NPC who is talking[/p]
  • [p]Dirt roads now appear on close-up map[/p]
  • [p]Menu scrollbar handle size is clamped so they can’t become too small[/p]
  • [p]When certain NPCs’ names are displayed, the name of the location at which they work is also displayed. Currently happens for Clerk, Shopkeeper, Bouncer, and Goons.[/p]
  • [p]Fix for Consumables tab in Personal Chest not working properly[/p]
  • [p]Fix for item details remaining in the menu when the last item is removed from the player’s personal chest[/p]
  • [p]Fix for cases of durability bars on item slots being mismatched to their item or nonexistent[/p]
  • [p]Fix for mouse target highlighting objects when the player is using the gamepad[/p]
  • [p]Fix for gamepad target and quest-related icons appearing beneath some tall objects[/p]
  • [p]Fix for NPC map icons often appearing at the NPC’s home location rather than their current location[/p]
  • [p]Speech bubbles and other similar elements are sorted properly on the z-axis[/p]
  • [p]Key/button references within tutorials now reference the correct mappings, and may display images in place of text[/p]
  • [p]Mousewheel is now used to change the direction of objects in Build Mode, since F is now used as the “Respond to NPCs” button[/p]
  • [p]Support for animated instruction text glyphs[/p]
  • [p]Spacing fixes for instruction text button glyphs[/p]
  • [p]Fix for incorrect instruction text appearing when viewing certain inventory filters[/p]
  • [p]Fix for specific cases of white outlines around NPCs and objects not disappearing as the player walks past[/p]
  • [p]Fix for white outline sometimes remaining on animals after the player mouses over them[/p]
  • [p]All buildable objects are now capable of being viewed in the crafting and shop interfaces[/p]
  • [p]Buildable objects with multiple variants are properly sorted in various menu lists[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Menus
  [/p]
  • [p]Updated title screen art[/p]
  • [p]When using gamepad, initial selections will default to your most recent character and world[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Special Abilities
  [/p]
  • [p]Fix for hacking (and other times player attempts to target far-away objects) sometimes causing errors on gamepad[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Sound[/p]
  • [p]Various new sound effects[/p]
  • [p]Alleviation of some sounds taking a short time to load the first time they play[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Artificial Intelligence
  [/p]
  • [p]Water-based animals such as Sharks will jump repeatedly when they are on land[/p]
  • [p]Water-based animals do not move more slowly in the water, as humans do[/p]
  • [p]Fix for NPCs sometimes not being able to walk through closed unlocked doors to visit venues[/p]
  • [p]Fix for NPCs getting stuck between objects and the wall to their south[/p]
  • [p]Fix for NPCs sometimes not being able to leave their beds to go to work[/p]
  • [p]NPC leashing is defined much better than it was previously[/p]
  • [p]Fix for NPCs sometimes facing the wrong direction while sitting[/p]
  • [p]Fix for cases of NPCs attempting to path to tiny cramped locations that they couldn’t actually get to[/p]
  • [p]Fix for instances of NPCs sometimes not having a vocal response when they don't want to speak with you due to being Annoyed with you[/p]
  • [p]Fix for NPCs sometimes standing next to chairs, benches etc. instead of sitting down[/p]
  • [p]Fix for chairs not always being properly associated with the table or desk next to them, resulting in more difficulties for NPCs trying to sit[/p]
  • [p]Fix for home base not being marked as an area that wandering NPCs should avoid (note that at least for the time being, you’ll need to place a floor for NPCs to avoid)[/p]
  • [p]NPCs are better about not attempting to path through homes and businesses that they do not own[/p]
  • [p]Further fixes for NPCs taking jobs at locations they were not meant to[/p]
  • [p]Fix for object/floor placement issue that could cause NPCs to receive an incorrect ownership ID and not treat property as their own[/p]
  • [p]Fix for certain cases of cars getting stuck on the road[/p]
  • [p]Fix for NPCs not being able to path through Fence doors[/p]
  • [p]Fix for NPCs often having difficulty pathing to larger objects[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]World Generation
  [/p]
  • [p]Objects are capable of spawning only on certain days of the week[/p]
  • [p]Fix for instances of pavement edges appearing in the middle of grass[/p]
  • [p]Fix for NPCs being placed in Prisons when they were not meant to if the prison was in the direct center of the building[/p]
  • [p]Dirt walking paths now properly connect to concrete roads[/p]
  • [p]Dirt walking paths within unique chunks now properly connect to standard dirt walking paths[/p]
  • [p]Fix for world generation crash involving building placement[/p]
  • [p]Fix for error introduced in previous build that caused NPCs to appear at incorrect locations after the player sleeps to advance time[/p]
  • [p]Unimportant wanderer NPCs are prevented from spawning in a chunk when there is no viable spot for them, and have improved checking for potential spots to appear[/p]
  • [p]Fix for cases of NPCs being assigned “job positions” in tiny cramped spaces that they couldn’t get out from, between their assigned object and a wall[/p]
  • [p]Wall width is taken into account when environmental objects are shifted slightly after being placed near walls[/p]
  • [p]Fix for floating point errors when determining whether or not to shift an object toward a nearby wall[/p]
  • [p]Fix for NPCs occupying nonexistent beds if the bed was not spawned due to its randomized spawn chance not being met[/p]
  • [p]Fix for cases of city border walls appearing in the middle of buildings[/p]
  • [p]Fix for instances of windows not being considered part of a wall within certain game systems, leading to issues with nearby objects and NPCs[/p]
  • [p]Fix for building placed directly outside of cities not displaying pavement when appropriate[/p]
  • [p]Fix for player being able to slip behind counters when directly next to the wall in certain cases[/p]
  • [p]Fix for walking path transition issues going into Forest biome[/p]
  • [p]Fix for some biome transition tiling issues[/p]
  • [p]Forest grass appears properly when beneath the edges of city pavement[/p]
  • [p]Fix for pavement corners at the very edge of cities sometimes not appearing[/p]
  • [p]Fixed an issue with the sand texture’s noise patterns not generating as intended[/p]
  • [p]Fix for entrances in city wall borders not appearing[/p]
  • [p]Fix for cases of city wall border corners not appearing[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Engine
  [/p]
  • [p]Updated Unity to version 2022.3.60[/p]
  • [p]Updated Astar Pathfinding plugin to newest version[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Optimization
  [/p]
  • [p]Better performance updating minimap[/p]
  • [p]Minimap is less likely to display black “unloaded” squares[/p]
  [p]
  
  [/p]
• [p]Internal (❗NOT VISIBLE IN THE DEMO❗)
  [/p]
  • [p]Added level editor support for “light” off-limits areas, such as the player walking behind a counter, where the penalties may not be as harsh as entering a strictly-off-limits area[/p]
  • [p]Added ability to randomize the biome texture of individual objects within the level editor[/p]
  • [p]Various small level editor improvements and fixes[/p]
  • [p]Work on Disguises system[/p]
  • [p]Work on Rat Ocarina and rat swarm functionality[/p]
  • [p]Hats and Masks can be worn at the same time, rather than both filling the “headwear” slot[/p]
  • [p]Free Items debug UI now uses the new menu system rather than the SOR1 menu system[/p]
  • [p]New Feature: Respond to NPC - Previously, in order to interact with an NPC, the player would need to walk up to the NPC and press the Interact button. Now, NPCs (and potentially objects) have the capability to ask the player for a response through a UI prompt. At this point, the player can press the “Respond to NPC” button (F on keyboard, Right Stick Button on gamepad) to directly respond to the NPC regardless of their location.[/p]

[p]
[/p][p]Until next time![/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][p][/p][p]🔗REDDIT[/p][p]🔗TWITTER (X)[/p][p]🔗TIKTOK[/p]

In the previous update, I wrote the following about my intentions for the current update:

“The focus is intended to be design and balance changes with in-game UI updates sprinkled in. Unless I get sidetracked again!”

Want to take a wild guess what happened??

What started as an earnest attempt to do the “big design/balance pass” ended with me going down some truly gnarly bug-fix rabbit holes. After a painful few weeks, I’m happy to say that a whole bunch of the major remaining bugs that I’d categorize as “very important” have been fixed, and the game is feeling a lot more stable for it.

While I did actually manage to do a decent amount of work on gameplay and balance changes, I’ve decided to disable these additions for the time being, as they're not exactly in a shippable state yet. I'd rather save the new changes for a big gameplay revision update, rather than trickling them out. So if you played an earlier iteration of the demo and were waiting for big gameplay changes to happen, this probably isn’t the right time to jump back in. But, lots of necessary progress was indeed made, and I'm very happy to put a lot of this work behind me!

As always, you can keep an eye on SOR2's progress as we inch closer to the Early Access release by checking out the roadmap.

- Matt D
[hr][/hr]
Patch Notes | v30a

Vehicles
• New Car: Cheap Sedan (I may rename this)
  
• Cars now have a proper acceleration rate, which will eventually vary based on the type of car and the player’s modifications. Currently, it will take a bit more time to reach top speed than before.
  
• Change to how cars handle drifting that should make them feel a bit less floaty
  
• Projectiles shot from vehicles will gradually lose any added momentum that the vehicle has provided, fixing issues like rockets moving extremely slowly when shot out the back of a fast-moving car
  
• Camera zoom-in while driving has been made much less aggressive
  
• Interactions between cars and walls/objects have been adjusted such that more objects and walls are destructible when traveling at appropriate speeds
  
• Cars react realistically when hit with banana peels
  
• Positions of abandoned cars are saved under more specific circumstances to reduce old car clutter
  
• Fix for cases where the player could randomly drive faster than they previously could due to the game determining the player was a panicked NPC and allowing them to drive faster
  


Music
• Added two new “action” variants of existing music tracks
  
• Fix for music tracks ending early when the application was not in focus for a period of time
  


Art
• LOADS of new object animations added. Many of these are very subtle but should add a bit more movement and life to the game world.
  
• Foliage no longer plays its “windy” animations by default, as before. These animations will be reserved for certain periods of time such as during a storm, while a more subtle set of animations are now applied for the remainder of the time.
  


Graphics
• Fix for Bullets appearing under blades of grass, chest-high objects and bodies
  
• Fix for Water Explosion sprites rendering as completely black
  
• Fix for certain outfits that were meant to show skin (i.e. crop top) showing an invisible body
  
• Fix for certain instances of shadows not appearing next to small Fences
  
• Fix for Fence doors not having shadows to their bottom right
  
• Fix for shadows sometimes not appearing next to Counters
  
• Fix for certain hairstyles clipping through the top of hats
  
• Fix for players’ and NPCs’ tall hair and hats appearing underneath the top of walls
  
• Fix for car chassis not always appearing as the intended colors
  
• Fix for shadows not appearing on certain objects in the world
  
• Fix for objects not always appearing in a pixel-perfect position, which could result in the objects feeling just slightly unstable
  
• Fix for some objects not having outlines around them when highlighted
  


Objects
• Did a major pass on world objects, with a particular focus on how they are placed into the environment. Numerous fixes relating to the positioning of objects in the game world, fixing issues like objects clipping through walls, some pathing problems, etc.
  
• New Bush variants added
  
• All electronic objects now have proper “power on/off” mechanics
  
• Proper “Wall Strength” values added to all wall varieties
  
• Proper “flammability” values added to all wall varieties
  
• Players cannot sleep in beds when there is danger nearby
  
• Fixes for object lighting on tall objects that extend beyond the top of walls
  
• Fix for Double Doors and Garage Doors placed inside buildings sometimes having the collider of a single door.
  
• Objects used in quests (i.e. “Destroy” quests) are not replaced by Butler Bots
  
• Fix for certain objects that got damaged appearing pristine when the player quickly leaves the area and returns
  
• Fix for Doors sometimes appearing to be built with the incorrect material (i.e. Wood doors appearing as Steel doors)
  
• Business doors will be locked if the business is intended to be open, but there is no NPC to cover that shift
  
• Fix for certain objects not being spawned in the world when they should have been
  
• Fix for the player being able to attempt to make speeches at random Podiums throughout the world
  
• Fix for Sign object appearing invisible when facing certain angles
  
• Fix for Killer Plant head disappearing when hit while snapping
  
• Fix for Camera and Turret using incorrect sprites
  
• Fix for a number of types of chairs appearing too far away from their accompanying desk or table, sometimes resulting in NPCs not sitting down properly
  
• Fix for certain objects placed by the player in Build Mode appearing above the player on the Z axis when the player is in front of them on the Y axis
  
• Certain objects can be moused over that previously could not
  


Buildings/Environments
• Job Center door is always unlocked
  


Non-Playable Characters
• NPCs and the player no longer always carry weapons in their hands when they are not in a dangerous situation. The weapon may appear on their back instead, much like Keys. I may adjust how this looks visually in the future.
  


Animals
• Animals react realistically when hit with banana peels
  


UI / Controls
• Damage number text that appears in rapid succession is separated more to be more readable
  
• Fix for gamepad button images (glyphs) not appearing for certain gamepads, namely PS4
  
• Game auto-detects Xbox, PS4 and Switch gamepads when choosing “recommended” glyphs in settings
  
• Fix for cases where the player was not able to select anything using the gamepad on the main menu
  
• Fix for the game going in slow motion if the player pressed Cancel on the main menu while “focusing” on tutorial messages with the gamepad
  
• Input fields on the title menus are alphanumeric-only, preventing players from creating impossible filenames
  
• Brighter frames for input text on title menus, as they were extremely hard to see on certain screens
  
• Fix for large numbers of purchasable objects not having associated images in the Shop interface
  
• Blank spaces are trimmed from the beginning and end of filenames entered by the player to avoid errors
  
• Better error checking for Resume Game to avoid cases where games load with incorrect/buggy elements intact
  
• Fix for Resume button being selectable on the title screen when it should not be
  
• When mousing over Keys on the map, information about the building will appear
  
• Fix for map markers sometimes displaying incorrect text when viewed with a gamepad
  
• Fix for quest markers sometimes shifting positions frequently on the minimap
  
• Fix for certain important map icons (such as Mayor Building) disappearing from the map
  
• Fix for target going haywire when aiming a throwable object while driving your car in keyboard/mouse mode
  
• Various small title menu fixes
  


Items
• Shops are now capable of restocking their inventory. Currently, they do this at 5 AM every day and restore the entirety of their inventory, but this will vary a lot more once I give this a proper balance pass.
  
• Banana peels are no longer considered Lethal
  
• Land Mines no longer bounce off cars
  


Sound
• Fix for collision sound effect playing when the player hits small objects with their car, such as foliage
  


Missions
• Fix for internal quest-giver error that could manifest itself in various ways
  


Artificial Intelligence
• Fixed a major error that had been present in the last couple of releases that was causing many NPCs to not get assigned to the jobs they were meant to take. This resulted in businesses often being much less populated than they should have been.
  
• Fix for NPC homeowners who catch the player sleeping in their bed not immediately facing the player and telling them to leave.
  
• Adjustments to NPCs’ pathing locations when pathing to objects, preventing some instances of them getting stuck. Some instances still exist, currently looking into that.
  
• Fixed an error where NPCs assumed many objects were blocked by walls on the left or right sides, preventing proper pathing
  
• Fixed a pathing issue where NPCs would sometimes walk into walls when trying to reach a bed near the wall
  
• Fix for NPCs who move into homes to replace old NPCs moving in inconsistently in homes with more than one person
  
• Fix for NPCs who move into homes to replace old NPCs having very low health
  
• Fix for error in algorithm assigning NPCs to jobs in locations outside of cities
  
• Corrected some cases of NPCs working at buildings at which they were not meant to (i.e. Cop appearing at a military outpost)
  
• Fix for NPCs who live and work at the same location not going to their job properly if their bed was behind a locked door
  


World Streaming
• Chunks of the game world are now loaded more quickly when necessary to greatly alleviate black squares appearing due to not-yet-loaded sections of the game world.
  
• Adjusted the frequency of minimap updates to alleviate cases where not-yet-loaded parts of the map would appear
  
• Fix for minimap sometimes displaying incorrect pieces when the player moves quickly across the map. In cases where chunks have not yet loaded, black squares will appear.
  
• Cleanup and small fixes for new chunk sizes introduced in the previous build
  
• Fix for cases of player teleporting after resting in a bed or getting stuck in a black void
  
• Fix for weird issues stemming from the game sometimes getting data from the wrong “chunks” of the world when loading new chunks
  


Engine
• Updated Unity version to 2022.3.57
  


Internal (❗NOT VISIBLE IN THE DEMO❗)
• It is now possible to call quest-givers in the UI to receive new quests instead of physically visiting them.
  
• Major changes to the in-game menu UI: The number of tabs has been reduced to 3, with the less important menus being selectable from the first tab.
  
• Objects react differently to different weapons, i.e. your bare fists won't knock down a tree (unless you're remarkably strong), and while you can technically shoot down a tree with a shotgun, it's probably not worth the cost of the bullets.
  
• Dirt paths, roads, etc., can be extended from one chunk to another very easily, allowing more natural connections to roads.
  
• New vehicle added: Armored Boat
  
• New Animal: Hermit Crab
  
• A bunch of new wall varieties added
  
• Several new crops added
  
• 2 New “Disaster” music tracks
  
• Method for viewing every variant of every game object simultaneously from the level editor
  
• Female Gorillas!