Last Train Outta' Wormtown News

[h3]Howdy, Pardners![/h3]

I'm super excited to announce the 1.0 release date for Last Train Outta' Wormtown - [h3]January 17th 2025![/h3]
I've been working on this game for the last 2 and a half years, so it's wild that it's finally leaving Early Access.

[h2]What to expect for 1.0?[/h2]
- New gameplay changes: including new environmental landmarks, and a late-round event that delivers more loot for Pardners!
- A new Kit item for Pardners
- A new map theme
- New cosmetics
- and a bunch of bug fixes, requested QOL features, and polish!

[h2]Price Increase[/h2]
As with most Early-Access games, the price of Wormtown will be increasing as it moves to 1.0, and I wanted to give everyone a heads-up on that! The price will be increasing to $11.99 USD - with The Friend's Pass (ALWAYS) remaining completely FREE!

The price change doesn't go into effect until Jan 17th, so if you want to pick up the game for the current EA price, now's your chance! Not to mention, you'll gain access to an exclusive "Early Access supporter hat" for both Pardner and Worm when 1.0 drops! (Anyone who has played during the Early Access period will unlock the hat)

The store page has also had a (much needed) revamp with a brand new trailer and feature information!

[h2]THANK YOU!![/h2]
Other than that, I wanted to give a huge thank you to everyone for the tremendous support they've given this game and myself over the years. It's been a wild ride! I can't wait to celebrate 1.0 with the community.

Stay safe out there, Pardners!

Howdy!

[h2]Balance Changes:[/h2]

[h3]Sandstorm:[/h3]
- Normalized Sandstorm Tornado's pushing and effects. Basically, Pardners and Items should behave more consistently when being affected by the tornado. Previously you may have been thrown halfway across the map OR just a few feet depending on how the physics calculated.
- Fixed the Tornado not affecting Pardners who entered the AOE while it was still growing.

[h3]Tar Wall:[/h3]
- Tar Wall duration reduced to 12 seconds (was 18)
Design Insight: Tar Wall has always been a lesser picked ability, so I was basically buffing it until it was actually picked - but I may have overdone it recently. Slowly over the development of Wormtown I've removed a handful of what I refer to as "stalling abilities" (old Sandstorm and Scorching Sands, as examples). They seem to be the biggest point of frustration for Parders as *waiting isn't very much fun*, despite the clear strategic advantages it has for the Worm. Tar Wall will still remain as the only stalling focused ability, but with that said the previous 18 second timer *was* a bit harsh.

[h3]Gilbert's Safe/Puzzle Map:[/h3]
- Puzzle Maps now share their recorded symbols/numbers with all other maps.
While I originally thought this would trivialize the objective, it's clearly a divisive objective and wasn't much of a "team" objective, as one Pardner would usually take it on by themselves. This should make it easier and less daunting overall!
- Removed the red diamond symbols from the playing cards, since it was needlessly confusing

[h3]Misc Balance Changes:[/h3]
- Worms can no longer push Heart Jars with their body. (because EMPIREVSREBLES was mad about it :p) Heart Jars can still be affected by AOE abilities like Body Slam, but can no longer be pushed across the map by Worms easily.
- Necronomicon self-burn on use now does 35 damage over 1 seconds (previously was 3.5 damage over 10 seconds). The total damage remains the same, but this should fix Pardners at low health reviving multiple Pardners in the 10 second window before dying.
- Drastically reduced the fuel values required for "Worm Food" difficulty. They were pretty ridiculous before, my bad!
- Added a "Recent" panel to the Lobby Browser that has clickable buttons to rejoin lobbies you were in recently. There's currently a bug where if you leave a lobby it will no longer show that lobby on the Lobby Browser (until the lobby is remade). We're working on a fix for that currently, but until then, this should be a decent work around!

[h3]Tutorializing and Player Onboarding[/h3]
Design Insight: One of the biggest struggles with designing Wormtown has been teaching players the various, and sometimes, complex mechanics well. Recently I've discovered many players weren't even aware there were tutorials, and the guidebook information wasn't as straight forward as I thought. Because of this, I've taken a few steps to hopefully put the relevant information front and center to players.
- Rewrote multiple Objective pages in the Guidebook with step-by-step instructions to complete them
- Added "Hold H for Help" prompt next to the Objectives on the HUD. Doing so will bring you directly to the Guidebook page for the various objectives
- Added a first-launch pop up that will direct players to the Tutorial page (playing them is still optional!)
- Renamed "How to Play" button to "Tutorials" for more clarity

[h3]Bug Fixes:[/h3]
- Fixed Health Gain at Sundown display text showing a bunch of decimal places
- Fixed Public Lobbies saying they were Private when restarting a match. (This was just a visual bug, the Lobbies were still Public)
- Modified the chat filter to not include some accidental cencoring
- Fixed the "Remaining Objectives" Spectator UI not updating during a match as intended

Stay safe out there Pardners!

The issues involving the new version of the Friend's Pass has been resolved and the "Full Steam Ahead!" update has been reinstated.

You can see all of the changes in the previous announcement here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/2318480/announcements/detail/4551542855324139740

Hope you enjoy!

Howdy again!

As we get closer and closer to Wormtown's 1.0 release, there was a big laundry list of bugs, polish, and QOL features that needed addressing first. This update is a big "spring cleaning" patch, but with a handful of exciting changes and new features, too!

[h2]Steam Servers:[/h2]
We have now swapped over to using Steam servers for the network traffic. What does this mean for you?
+ Lag has been noticeably reduced
+ Joining/Inviting directly through the Steam Friend's list
+ Player panels in game are now associated with the Steam user, and clicking their name will show their profile

NOTE FOR FRIEND'S PASS PLAYERS: This required some changes to how the Friend's Pass was implemented, and as such, there is an updated version of the Friend's Pass available from the Store Page you'll need to download to play on this patch!

[h2]Gameplay Changes:[/h2]

[h3]Worm Ability: Armored Carapace Changes:[/h3]
Armored Carapace, while very effective in certain situations, didn't have many general use cases aside from that. Which has lead to the following changes:
+ Surfacing with Armor active now creates a Sand Blast at the Worms location. Pardners hit with Sand Blast will lose 30 Stamina and will be debuffed with 30% additional stamina consumption and bonus 30% damage taken (from all sources) for 15 seconds.
+ Armor has had a complete visual rework with new art, SFX, and shattering effects!

[h3]General Gameplay Changes/Balancing:[/h3]
+ Worm grab initial damage increased to 7 (was 5)
+ The Train Key, after being dug up, now has a large arrow indicator (similar to Heart Jars) when in inspection mode.

[h2]Lobby and Match Setting Changes:[/h2]

[h3]New Match Settings:[/h3]
+ Added Heart Jar Digestion Time to match settings
+ Added Digestion Time Per Fruit to match settings
+ Removed "Vanilla Mode". It was very rarely used and felt irrelevant now
Note: With these new settings, players can make games with the OG Wormtown respawn rules.

[h3]Team Management[/h3]
+ Hosts can now lock the teams in the lobby and manually move players to specific sides. Simply press Esc and use the new UI buttons to lock/swap players

[h2]New Cosmetics and Challenges:[/h2]

+ Added 11 new Halloween related cosmetics! (Had some delays getting this patch ready - whoops! better late than never, I suppose)
+ Added 5 new Challenges (and Achievements) related to the Mysterious Concoction and Coffee Kit items

[h3]Spectator Mode Improvements[/h3]
Spectator mode has always been notorious for it's bugs and desync issues, but the majority of those issues have been fixed! While it's still not perfect, objectives now sync properly, and spectators can see which objectives remain.

[h2]Misc. Changes and Bug Fixes:[/h2]
+ Pardners no longer briefly ping their location when they spawn in
+ Changed Dandylions colliders so they don’t roll endlessly
+ The copy lobby code button now also works when in a LAN game
+ Fixed the ghost push challenge not updating
+ Increased score gained from depositing scrap to 10, was 6
+ Spectated games no longer count as a “game played” for challenges
+ Players kicked from a lobby can no longer rejoin the lobby (The kicked players list gets reset when a new lobby is created)
+ After digestion, if a Heart Jar is directly spawned inside of the revive zone, it will be placed just outside the revive zone instead. Prevents Worms from reviving a Pardner and grabbing them immediately
+ Fixed some UI issues on cosmetic unlock grid
+ Fixed issue with unburrowing sand particles not being placed correctly
+ Increased the size of the signal fire igniting trigger, should be a bit easier to light them now
+ Can no longer join games that are building the map or in post-game (this caused the lobby to completely break). Players attempting to join during these phases can wait a few seconds and join again
+ Fixed the exploit where you could instantly Bodyslam without the upward leap first
+ Fixed players able to switch teams right as the game started, ignoring Worm limits
+ Zipline posts can now be moved by Worms (just slightly). This should help with players using the posts to block off the Train doors
+ Occasionally, Pardners can get stuck in an airborne state with very specific terrain under them (like in holes). I’ve added a system to hopefully detect when this happens and after a certain amount of time, will replaced the Pardner in a grounded location
+ Fixed Worm tutorial not showing the tutorial text, and also choosing all of the objectives to spawn
+ Added a symbol to the UI when the Snake Oil buff is active
+ Fixed Worm cosmetic eyes not spawning correctly in game
+ Added an Ace Pride flag cosmetic
+ Refactored Worm camera logic, should fix issues with non-stop spinning camera as Worm (Note: due to this change, the Worm camera sensitivity has been reset!)
+ Well water no longer visible to Worm underground (it looked weird)
+ Added a series of “Did you know?” game tips that appear at the bottom of the lobby
+ Updated the Worm Ability picker pop-up panels for each Ability
+ Fixed a few challenges/achievements that were unlocking at incorrect times
+ Increased the ambient brightness at Sundown during the Halloworm theme
+ Fixed visibility issues of the inspection mode “compass directions” for the different map themes
+ Unburnable objects, such as crates and Kit, are now pushed out of the Train furnace. This should help with players barricading themselves next to the furnace with crates
+ Added a slight wait before the “play again” button appears, hopefully fixing some lobby breaking timing issues
+ Can now press enter after typing a lobby code to join, instead of clicking the join button
+ Added a system to check for desynced objects, should fix the bug with floating objects on map spawn
+ Added particle effects for Worms impacting buildings, Worms eating Pardners, and Bilebomb spit
+ Added additional SFX and polish for various game elements and UI
+ Fixed the second hat not being “ghosted” in end game dioramas
+ When disabling a worm ability slot in the match settings, it no longer locks that ability from being chosen for another slot
+ increased the range of the hat tilt sliders, allowing for more placement options
+ modified the chances for [ Redacted ] to spawn


I hope you enjoy the update!

Stay safe out there, Pardner

[h3]Howdy![/h3]

The recent changes to Cactus Fruits in the Seismic Shift update had very split opinions on it. The ones who liked it simply *liked* it, while the players who disliked it *really disliked it*.

With that in mind, I wanted to try out a more middle-ground approach that still interacts with new digestion system, while also trying to minimize some of the original frustrations I was trying to solve.

[h3]A new balance patch is live on Steam with the following changes:[/h3]

⭐ Cactus Fruit Changes:
- Removed the 3 stacks and +move speed bonus for Cactus Fruits
- Cactus Fruit now heals for 15 health
- Each Cactus Fruit eaten adds +20 seconds to the digestion time of your next Heart Jar.
The additional digestion time ONLY resets when eaten by a Worm (and not from dying by any other means)
- Cactus Fruit spawns reduced back to 8 per game on normal settings. (they were doubled for the previous patch)

Note: One of the design issues was that a Worm could grab a Pardner many many times without them getting a kill, because the Pardner would escape and then heal off all the damage with Cactus Fruits. It felt very unsatisfying for the Worm player. These changes not only slightly reduce the healing, but also mean if a Pardner is healing over and over they'll at least be out of the game for longer once the Worm does eventually kill them off. It also adds another layer of strategy for more experienced players who want to weigh the pros and cons of healing vs taking a shorter death cycle and reviving, saving the cactus fruit healing for a later time.

Balancing Changes:
🌵 Base digestion time reduced to 60 seconds (was 90)
🌵 Coffee moved speed buff increased to 45% (was 35%)
🌵 Concoction health gain values reduced slightly

Note: with bringing consistent healing back and removing the move speed bonus with Cactus Fruit, it felt right to buff the coffee move speed up to a similar level as before and reduce the potency of the Concoction, especially considering the Concoction buffs can heal you past full health. While you're still slightly more likely for a worse outcome with Concoction, the benefits are worth the risk.


Thanks for all the feedback and support on the new update! If you feel like I missed the mark with these changes, please let me know in the Discord (Discord.gg/Wormtown)