Catacomb Kids News

Hey, remember me? Have an update!

I'm hard at work on the Deep Dark, and it's coming along quite nicely but isn't quite ready for public consumption yet, so I wanted to push out some bugfixes and tweaks that I think will make the game a bit smoother and more fun.

In this update are mirror-and-laser puzzles that now spawn in the Anticropolis, acting as the AC's version of switch barriers. There are also frozen passages that must be broken through in order to traverse, and which slowly close up behind you, as well as a number of fixes for major crashes and long-standing bugs.

Also by popular request an option has been added for splitscreen-only mode in Co-op, which you can enable in Options > Gameplay.

New

• Laser-and-Mirror locks in the Anticropolis
  
• Frozen passages in the Anticropolis
  
• Option to force constant splitscreen in co-op under Options > Gameplay

Changes

• Changed the way Amulet of Force works a bit
  
• Redesigned class select menu
  
• Last played class is now remembered and selected by default even after closing the game
  
• Plague flies are now reflected by armor of reflection and mirrored shields
  
• Cracked shields now only let damage through with frequency based on the defender's DEF
  
• Successfully blocking an attack with a cracked shield can no longer kill the defender
  
• Shield-bashing enemies now reduces shield durability
  
• Swinging blade traps should no longer spawn where they will instantly kill grumbuls
  
• Significantly boosted use of Wanderer's farsight

Fixes

• Crash: Crash when trying to leave to shopkeeper "sell" menu without any sellable items
  
• Crash: Wielding a bear arm with a missing joint
  
• Crash: Related to byat thralls
  
• Crash: When bear-trapping a shopkeeper
  
• Crash: When loading saved custom kid templates
  
• Crash: "draw_hud_messages"
  
• Crash: When dumping out corpses from bottles
  
• Bug: Rolling/bashing weapon attacks (rolling blade, uppersmash) can be initiated in mid-air
  
• Bug: Stove traps still tick and gas clouds still expand xduring gate cutscenes
  
• Bug: Can still drown during gate cutscenes
  
• Bug: Fixed behavior of byat thralls
  
• Bug: Amulets of Force would still affect objects when the world should be paused
  
• Bug: Can get stuck in solid lava blocks that have covered up shifting lava bridges
  
• Bug: Amulet of Force changes the alliance of plague flies
  
• Bug: Pipes in the background of the Grumbul Tank fight are scaled weirdly
  
• Bug: Beam Trap sound effect sometimes plays for way too long
  
• Bug: Slopes/stairs are sometimes drawn oddly/incorrectly
  
• Bug: Potatoes can become hot by fires even when carried in hand or pocket
  
• Bug: Creatures wielding bows can't be hurt by arrows
  
• Bug: Can't dump out balls of goo from bottles; can only fail to drink them
  
• Bug: You can lose both arms simultaneously using bear traps
  
• Bug: Sprinting up stairs with footwear of the glacier freezes the sprinter
  
• Performance: Optimized death review, so it should no longer affect performance much when enabled
  
• Typo: "Lighting" instead of "Lightning" in the chain lightning description

Happy Holidays and Merry New Year, y'all! As always, I appreciate your patience.

If you ever have any questions about how the game is coming along feel free to pop in to one of my dev-streams over on my Twitch channel every Monday and Friday!

Not a whole lot of changes - mostly bug fixes and such. I did add a post-death preview thing that you can enable in Options > Gameplay, however! It's off by default, because I'm unsure of the impact it might have on performance, but I think it's pretty neat!

New

• Added a "death replay," if you press up/down to hide the results screen after dying. It may have an significant impact on performance, so it's disabled by default. It can be enabled in options > gameplay.
  

Changes

• Added 5-frame invincibility period after being hit
  

Fixes

• Crash: DoAdd:2:Undefined Value in "obj_chest_normal_Other_13"
  
• Crash: Changing from windowed/fullscreen on the kid select menu
  
• Crash: floor argument 1 incorrect type (undefined) in "gen_map_features_details"
  
• Crash: When the tank dies from acid damage
  
• Crash: "unit_pickup" crash when disarmed enemies attempt to pick up weapons
  
• Crash: "voice_play" and "voice_init" crashes...I think. I hope.
  
• Bug: Spellbooks as starting items for custom kids have the wrong graphic color in the spell learning menu when used
  
• Bug: Standing on boulders on top of elevators causes clipping and strange behaviour
  
• Bug: Shopkeepers sometimes sell "[Burning]" equipment
  
• Bug: Ogos sometimes spawn with "[Burning]" weapons
  
• Bug: Grumbuls spawned in during the tank fight are sometimes stuck in the ground
  
• Bug: Spellbooks appear as the wrong color when spawned on custom kids
  
• Bug: Springs still bounce things away even when held and stown away
  

0.2.0d fixes some things, and also brings forward the changes from 0.2.0c to Linux and Mac

Changes

• Increased range of teleport spell
  
• Breakthrough busts locked doors and pushes moving blocks out of the way
  

Fixes

• Crash: "Trying to set a surface target that does not exist" when changing window size during level gen
  
• Crash: "obj_torch_Step_0"
  
• Bug: Repairing weapons above "good" quality reducees their quality to "good"
  
• Bug: Charge stars in walls no longer react to being hit
  
• Bug: Tiles that form the reaper room don't appear on the map in the pause screen
  
• Bug: Map information is lost upon alt+tabbing, window losing focus while fullscreened, switching between fullscreen/windowed mid-game, etc.
  As long as you pause before doing any of these things, that should no longer happen: Current "fog of war" information is now saved every time you pause.
  
• Bug: Can still get stuck in walls with Breakthrough
  

Changes

• All unique weapons (soul, wrench, etc) now effectively have the "durable" trait
  
• Removed durability cap from broken blade traps
  

Fixes

• Crash: "gen_map_features_start" when no start location is found
  
• Crash: "anim_bowshot2"
  
• Bug: Grumbuls adds don't properly spawn in the tank fight
  
• Crash: "obj_snow_deep_Alarm_0"
  
• Bug: Twins fight loops forever
  

Out on Windows only for now. Mac + Linux coming later in the week.

A quick bugfix build plus some changes!

The new rewards are much rarer in this build than in the last build - which is intentional - but they might be a little too rare now. I'm still tweaking the balance of their spawn frequency so just keep that in mind! I want them to be not littering the first floor but also not once-every-ten runs, and I haven't hit that sweet spot yet.

Anyway here's them notes:

Changes

• Heavenly weapons are no longer indestructible, now degrading to excellent after use
  
• Very slightly reduced quality of items from soul chests
  
• No longer alerted to lava by dangersense when immune to fire
  
• Changed appearance of stone platforms in the Upper Dungeon
  
• Reduced range of sound from killing humanoid enemies
  
• Soul chests combine their total soul count when they touch one another
  
• Slightly increased range of soul-gathering on soul-chests
  
• Soul-chests now must be touched before they start absorbing souls
  
• Made device more durable - no longer destroyed by fire or water
  
• Added unstable cold burst effect
  
• Can now pounce onto climbing ladders and ledges again
  

Fixes

• Reward type items spawn far too frequently, too numerously, and in the wrong places
  
• Certain premade rooms that disallow verticality spawning break level progression
  
• Disappearing blocks disallow nearby ladders even when they're behind walls
  
• Shifting barriers can spawn in places that block off adjacent passages when flipped
  
• Shifting barriers in premade rooms spawn in the wrong place when the room is mirrored
  
• Unaligned text in death summary screen
  
• Crash when selling or piping potions partially identified with square bracketed tag items in their name
  
• Powered arm spams messages when carrying a full battery while still having charges left in the arm
  
• Crash with obj_goo_bottle_Destroy_0
  
• 1-height corridors sometimes force humanoids to crouch when climbing down from a ladder
  
• Climbing down into spikes as a pathfinder or cartographer deals damage as though falling into them
  
• Can use Breakthrough to jump outside of the level's bounds
  
• Prosthetic arms don't draw as the correct color on the in-game sprite
  
• Slimes kinda spaz out on corpses in spikes
  
• Lava drips can spawn on death blades, freezing them
  
• Blessings and certain amulet abilities block energy when active like trances
  
• Stowing an item while a hated dagger is already stown makes the dagger stop existing
  
• Crash when eating things while the statistic for number of things eaten is uninitialized
  
• Gills from fishanha meal do nothing
  
• Horizontal moving blocks get stuck over solid tiles
  
• CPU players in vs mode spawn in weeeeird places
  
• Going directly from one transition stage to another from shops still increments the floor count
  
• Cold descent transition stage doesn't have its frozen door or fog of war style transition
  
• Empty bottles have no name when being sold
  
• Crash when blinking in versus mode