Cloudbuilt News

This patch addressed three bugs, added one minor feature, and one tweak to a level.

First of all, the bugs.

• A bug when switching or using different sound devices was fixed.
  
• It appears there were some oversights when optimizing audio playback before. The sound device was not changed properly for all threads, and some sound resources also got buffered and reused, but did not get their device changed properly either. Making some sounds disappear completely when changing audio devices. There were many cases like this, but some examples include the voice lines played when returning to the room, some UI sounds especially in the result screen, and the player boost and weapon sounds.
  
• One more similar bug, is that the 3D audio device settings only got set up for the default device, so all 3D sounds would disappear or get low volumes when another device was used. I am surprised this was not noticed and fixed before now, as it must have left some of the players with very empty sound space. However, the main player character sounds are not actually 3D, so it would not have been quite that obvious.
  
• There was another bug with the level select menu when using gamepads, where the preview hover view of a level would not activate at times. Leading to some strange visuals when using gamepad controls in that menu.
  

[h3]Feature[/h3]
As for the minor new feature, it is a dark theme of the in game UI. As I was looking at the UI code for one of the bugs, and had considered selectable UI themes for SCB, I figured I wanted to give it a quick test here. By default it is turned off, but can be selected in the game options.


[h3]Level Tweak[/h3]
Finally, the level tweak was to improve readability in Redeployment. One of the jumps down was easy to miss, as it didn’t really look like something was in that direction. Especially since there were other blocks looking more enticing to the side. We added some panels and two pickups to more clearly signal that there is a path here.


Some further logging was also added, so if bugs were to occur, we can get some more data on it.

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

Enjoy the patch and thanks for playing!

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.