Cloudbuilt News

Fixing reliability of leaderboards.

This is a small one, but important. There were some issues with the reliability of leaderboards, especially in the custom levels. This update has overhauled some aspects of the leaderboards, making steps retry if they failed, and such things. I also added a bunch of thorough logging to quickly find issues if there were to be any in the future, and a leaderboard ID is displayed in the leaderboards at all times to verify its state.

One issue was discovered in the level restart logic as well, where it for custom levels would reuse some logic used for the main game levels, and limit an index range incorrectly. Leading to leaderboards being disabled for custom levels after restart if you had more than 50 custom levels downloaded, and were unlucky. (Thanks ESin for the help identifying this!)

If you have any issues with the game, don’t hesitate to let us know!

Thanks for playing!

Some smaller patches to just improve quality.

Achievement for clearing all fog levels were patched to also work on other modes than the competitive “regular” mode. If you have cleared the level in the non competitive mode, it should now also count towards the achievement completion.

Another achievement for managing to avoid damage on the top of the tower in the level “escape” was patched to also work in the 2020 mode, and the non competitive mode. Before it required the competitive regular mode to work.

Various texts/tool tips were updated to fix typos or bad spelling.

The options menu popup descriptions are fixed to not be pushed under the bottom border of the screen, which could happen in some really wide resolutions when the text was long. (If you still find issues with this in your setup, please let me know what resolution you are using, and what text it happens on)

That is all for this time, and I’m sorry some of you have had to wait a bit for fixes here. Things were/are quite busy, but I’ll do what I can.

If you have any issues, don’t hesitate to let us know!

Thanks for playing!

Nothing big to see here, the biggest change is that the controller support has been slightly patched in order to adhere to new Steam standards. Now, if you run the game in a level, and disconnect the controller in use, the game should open the pause menu.

One tweak to the level select menu was also done to look better in wider resolutions.

Finally, one the blood moon defiance level had some balance tweaks and some added hints. Nothing that should affect any leader boars, but it should help to teach the level and the mechanics in use just a bit better, and make two sections a tad bit less punishing.
Also fixed lighting slightly on the fire level.

EDIT: Uploaded a build again, as there were a miss in the level select fix.
EDIT AGAIN: Fixed some scaling issues with the options menu in ultra wide, where the menu would stretch in strange ways, and get hard to read text. It's not perfect now either, but a lot better.

Based on watching a few player streams, and having seen an issue with one particular level for some time now, I finally decided to do a small update on just this level.
There are no real new code changes in this update, it is just level updates on two defiance levels, and some updates to effect visualizations.


[h2]Visualization[/h2]
Visual updates were mostly focused on draw order of some transparent effects, to make some things draw through and sort with clouds better, but the pulse gates also saw a bit of a larger change, where the particles used to indicate their push direction and strength got an overhaul, to better and clearer show the direction, and to render better with other transparencies. To me the new version here on the screenshot is a lot clearer, but it is even more so when in motion.

[h2]Levels[/h2]
The level with the largest edit is the level "Desire", which has seen the first pulse gates edited to introduce the concept of different trajectories before it's a life and death situation.

Then two checkpoint pickups have been moved on to new small challenges using the energy plated walls, so there are safer environments to learn some aspects of them before the larger section at the end of the level. As none of this affects anything that is used in top speed runs, these edits should be fine.

I also adjusted the lighting slightly and filled out the background a bit. Though, the background is not custom made, so it's not the strongest background by any means, but I think it feels a bit less empty at least.


The other level that got a minor edit is the level "Desperation", which just got the first life pack moved on to a minor challenge using the pulse cores, before they are used in a scenario that could kill you. Just letting players learn them in a safe environment.

EDIT: Did a small update to lighting in Chains, and fixed clarity in a section, as well as two hints. Nothing big, but should improve things a bit.
Also added a pulse filed and energy wall in the Nostalgia level, before they are used in an actual challenge, but still in a way that makes it likely for players to interact with them.

I know, I said in the last patch that it would be the final patch for now, but I was wrong. ːcbhunterː
This patch however is a bit more limited in scope, mostly addressing bugs and stability of the level editor.

This patch started as I was working on a community level, noticing a few small issues. It then grew a bit from these initial issues and includes some fixes for the main game as well. Mostly becauseI was watching a few Cloudbuilt streams as I was working on the patch, and just found some new bugs or things to address. (Special thanks to everyone who streams or shares videos of the game!)

Also, with this patch I am also patching the Metroidvania custom level I made way back. It is now significantly updated, and also works to demonstrate a lot of the more recent features in the editor. It's now longer, more decorated, and has more proper bosses, multi stage boss fights, monster closets and other more “scripted events” like things.
The Level Workshop Page

One more thing, before going into the patch list. The unlock criteria for some extra levels in the main game, like the remix and battle challenge levels have been adjusted again. These levels will now unlock even later in the progression, as it seems they easily created distractions from the main game before. They are intended as extra content, so when they unlock early on, players are still not 100% sure on the game's progression, it ends up being confusing. Along with this change some levels' difficulty rating was also adjusted to more properly indicate what to expect.

Now, without further ado, here is the patch list:
[h3]Visuals & Audio[/h3]

• Triplanar projected material now has better hatching. The precision error resulting in pixelated artifacts when at large scale is removed.
  
• Water effects are tweaked to not disappear as much with distance, and move a bit better and maintain visibility.
  
• Damage gates have tweaked material, to be more visually distinct from the shield doors, to not just rely on the colors. (Easier to see the difference in motion)
  
• Generators now have an impact sound from bullets, and a sound when they are destroyed which they didn’t have at all before.
  
• When you try to grab onto a wall but fall too fast to get a grip, there is now dust being thrown out from the wall, to make that state a little more impactful.
  

[h3]Bugs[/h3]

• Checkpoint UI could in some cases be visible when it should not, which should happen less often now.
  
• Subtitles could still desync when in the room and listening to story, and accessing the skin menu.
  
• The audio channel used for story clips is now forced to be the VO channel, as there was a bug where it could end up on an undefined channel before. Making the audio settings not take effect as it should.
  
• Picking up a checkpoint had a new bug where it could be picked up multiple times. That recently introduced bug is now fixed.
  
• Fixed a bug with the story screen in the room, where it would not play the audio as expected.
  

[h3]Editor & Custom Levels[/h3]

• New variations of assets were added. Including a bunch of new colored light flares that can be placed in levels for communicating info, or just look interesting. New shield door assets that are using a concrete block like appearance has been added, so if someone wants to create a breakable door that looks like a regular wall or floor, it is now possible.
  
• Weapon init order fix. Bullet types defined in weapons are now initiated before anything else, making it more reliable to define bullets in weapons and then use them in enemies. Before, the enemy might not have been able to find the bullet depending on the order of initiation.
  
• Various enemies have new generator related settings exposed.
  
• Lobbers can now be set to be killable and you can assign a new bullet type to them.
  
• Bomb lobbers can now also be set to be killable.
  
• Generators can now turn on doors, not just off. They can also hide enemies, not just reveal them.
  
• Generators can be set to a different team ID, making them damageable by bombs and other enemies.
  
• Enemies controlled by generators can now be controlled by multiple generators easier, as the generators do not interfere with each other's overlap tests.
  
• Most enemies now have an option to make them save their death state in checkpoints.
  
• Energy and health packs now have settings to control their respawns as well, and enable them to save it in checkpoints.
  
• Watch cameras can be set to see through walls.
  
• Generators have a few more settings and can now in the editor more clearly display what objects they are notifying and being guarded by.
  
• There is now a new menu option to import an old level that you have made, so you can edit and upload it again. It will try to restore the full levels, its settings and the thumbnail from the data uploaded to Steam.
  
• A fix was made for a serious bug where if you were editing a level, then selecting a new level from the menu and saving that new level, you would overwrite the previous level you were editing. Potentially losing a lot of data (it happened to me, but luckily due to the automatic backup system I only lost a bit for work).
  
• Various crash bugs in the editor.
  

I might have missed some smaller stuff, but this is at least most of it ːcbturretː

Hope you enjoy the update, and the updated level! ːdeboostː

PS. For anyone wondering, yes, I am also working on Super Cloudbuilt, but as these Cloudbuilt updates can be finished in a much shorter time, and I have been a bit short on time, it has felt rewarding and refreshing to work on these, but with this done now, I really do expect to spend almost all my efforts on Super Cloudbuilt. ːHappyDemiː