A Hat in Time News

We are happy to announce that a fix for the Online Party outage is going live today!

The team at Valve provided us details on their recent changes, allowing us to implement a fix that restores all functionality and improves performance!

We look forward to seeing you all back in Online Party!

Note: during the outage, Vanessa’s Curse was removed from sale temporarily. We have requested Valve to release it again and expect it to be live soon!

UPDATE: This issue is now resolved.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/253230/view/3215015328427149675

The outage of Online Party due to a Steam Client update is ongoing. This outage impacts both standard online party as well as Vanessa’s Curse.

We are continuing to work on a solution, but anticipate this outage to continue for several weeks as we identify and implement a solution. Playing Online Party and Vanessa’s Curse is not recommended at current, as your experience will vary.

Given the great collaborative effort put forth to achieve Online Party, our hopes were to resolve this with the team at Valve. However, as the weeks have progressed, many of our communications have gone unanswered.

As a result we are actively looking into external solutions that we'll be prototyping on the 'experimental' Steam beta starting Wednesday, April 6th.

We apologize for the impact this has had, and want to thank you for your continued patience.

UPDATE: This issue is now resolved.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/253230/view/3215015328427149675

We're currently experiencing an outage in the Steam backend for Online Party after a Steam Client update on March 4th. As a result, Online Party is currently unavailable.

We've engaged in discussions with Valve on the issue and hope to have a fix available with their assistance. However, given that this issue may be related to the Steam Client, we expect a fix to take some time to deliver.

We'll post an update here once the issue is resolved.

Players are now able to select the way their Online Party works by using specific prefixes in their online party lobby name.

• “NOMOD” - PURE TAG using this prefix will require all mods to be disabled for your online party (example: NOMODTAG1, NOMODTAG2)
  
• “ALLMOD” - ULTIMATE MOD FREEDOM! Using this prefix enables all mods, including mods not supported in standard Vanessa’s Curse lobbies. Be warned, these lobbies may be full of abnormal movement and unfair play.(example: ALLMODTAG1, ALLMODTAG2)
  
• No prefix- CUSTOMIZABLE FUN by not using a prefix in your online party name, mods that aren’t considered to contain exploits or competitive advantage will be allowed. (Example: TAG1, TAG2)
  

If you encounter unfair play in no prefix and "NOMOD" lobbies please be sure to file a report. To learn how to report please see our FAQ Here!

• Mafia Boss playable mod can now use his "spin" ability, EX version still disabled.
  
• If there is only 1 default cursed player, the points earned for indirect tags is doubled (30)
  

• Fixed last player alive music playing at 0 players alive instead of 1 alive
  
• Improved UI performances
  

[h3]Vanessa's Curse[/h3]
Changes:

• playable character mods are now allowed in Vanessa's Curse! Try out Mafia Boss or Mustache Girl for different gameplay! (Note: Some playable character mods are still blacklisted for providing an unfair advantage.)
  
• Adjusted points gained for collecting crowns.
  
• Invisibility duration lowered from 60s to 30s!
  
• Starting game timer now syncs for spectators!
  
• Roulette event now happens at 150s instead of 140s.
  
• Default cursed players now get 15 points every time another cursed player tags a kiddo.
  
• Players are now able to spectate starting after a player joins the waiting room.
  

Bug fixes:

• Fixed not being able to pick up crowns when experiencing low framerate
  
• Fixed Snatcher/Vanessa lines that didn't play correctly after collecting crowns
  
• Fixed Vanessa lines that never played after kiddos winning.
  

Modding Support:

• Vanessa's Curse assets are now available for modders on the experimental beta of the modding tools.
  
• Added a "PreTime" sound cue that can be replaced by remixes for even more customization!
  

[h3]A Hat in Time[/h3]

• Fixed minor localization issue in the mod menu
  
• Fixed FXAA being trippy when entering doors in The Arctic Cruise and Battle of the Birds
  
• Updated the upvote / downvote icons for mods
  
• Fixed the teleport to The Arctic Cruise in HUB being unusable in rare circumstances