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Hot Lava News

Update #23 - Back To Basics



Detailed Patch Notes
  • Expanded Gym Class overworld
  • Two new courses added to Gym Class
  • New art added to Playground, the upper field is set dressed for a Sports Day
  • Courses with a continue now have their portal display green in the overworld
  • Players can now look down and jump to gracefully dismount from ledge grabs
  • Add partial Simplified Chinese translation
  • Support translating World names (LevelName)
  • Support translating tutorial tips
  • Support translating Mastery Gym’s tutorial whiteboards
  • Fixed tutorial tips not showing input button name
  • Fixed incorrect world name strings on some unlock descriptions
  • Fixed replay top panel not filling top of screen on non 16:9 displays
  • Fixed exploit with respawn at checkpoint in bouncy land course
  • Fixed bug where players would sometimes respawn at their last position when leaving trials
  • Fixed visual holes in sand area of Playground
  • Fixed out of world bug on retaining wall in Playground
  • Bouncy balls in Playground now bounce the player away more accurately
  • Cleaned up camera pops when crouching and climbing
  • Fixed issue with replays not recording stopped movement
  • Fixed issue where the leaderboard screen showed leaderboards for invalid courses
  • Various memory usage optimizations
  • Fixed issue with buddy mode not working in Wholesale
  • Implemented reflection probe occlusion culling optimization
  • Fixed issue with camera placement during spectated replay deaths
  • Dragging the replay slider to the beginning no longer ends the replay
  • Fixed issue with checkpoint xray visuals
  • Dramatically optimized GPU performance
  • Points of interest now fade slowly when the object is visible on screen
  • Swap default gamepad bindings for Crouch and AlternateAction to allow crouch jumping
  • Fixed an issue where the user loses mouse control if spectating or replay during intro anim
  • Fixed wheel and XOXO blocks to start spinning from a single click
  • Fixed an issue with continuing a course where previous deaths would not be counted toward the total for that run
  • Visual improvements to the character models


Modkit Update

Update #22 - Bouncy Castle



Detailed Patch Notes
  • Added “Bouncy Castle” course to Playground
  • Added “Back To Class” course to Playground
  • Expanded the accessible overworld in Playground to encompass the track and field area
  • Three new “Joker” themed items added
  • Implemented system to continue playing your last course after leaving or quitting the application. An option appears in the main menu when a continue is available. If you want to start over simply select retry from the pause menu.
  • Show refresh rate as well as resolution in Settings
  • Localize input bindings in Tutorial popups
  • Reflection probe performance improvements
  • UI performance improvements
  • Animation IK improvements
  • Fixed issue with gift box camera not resetting when unlocking a new box after just opening one
  • Fixed issue with end of course score screen when offline
  • Fixed lobster trap inside Wholesale freezer
  • Added experimental Vulkan rendering support. To enable add -force-vulkan to the command line options.
  • Improved the performance of Ambient Occlusion on Ultra graphics
  • Added new rattle sounds for various objects across the game
  • Made vending machines touchable
  • Other people can see you touching vending machines
  • Add translation support for tutorial messages
  • Fix massive particles when watching a replay while holding tinytoy grabbable
  • Fixed issue with triggers being broken on existing custom maps

Hot Lava + Apple Announcement


Hey everyone,

Today we are announcing that Hot Lava will be coming to Apple Arcade on iOS, tvOS and macOS. We’ve been blown away with how much fun the mobile version of the game is turning out to be. We’re happy to say that it will be the full PC experience with no graphical reductions, and a really great control scheme. I can't wait to show everyone what we came up with!

For those of you who have been following us on Steam, rest assured that our launch schedule remains the same, and the core design of Hot Lava remains unchanged. This news means we’ve expanded the team, and we will be able to welcome many new players to the Hot Lava community.

If you have any questions at all, please let us know, and thank you to everyone who has been following, participating, and giving feedback to us all this time, I really (really) appreciate it.

Development Update



Development Update

Some time ago Hot Lava closed sales to new players, and we began work on responding to the issues we saw in the game. We are working incredibly hard to finish Hot Lava and your continued feedback is a huge part of this. We are addressing issues in the new player experience, daily challenges, content fatigue, and enriching the Hot Lava world with more detailed and interactable environments. I wanted to take a moment to reassure everyone that we are working on tons of new and exciting content for future updates.

Coming soon: Playground: Bouncy Land course


We have also been hard at work on a new wave of characters with unique locomotion mechanics. These mechanics share similarities with the base character, but change some aspect to allow you to re-experience the game with a unique twist. They will also allow us to explore other fun movement mechanics missing from the base game, building on the foundation we have created with our GAT 'boosting' characters.

Tons of other content is in the works, and we will release more information as things solidify. Thank you for being here with us -- I can't wait to show you what we are up to next!

Community Content Bounty Program

I've been totally blown away by the content our community has produced for Hot Lava since our Closed Beta launched. Today I'm pleased to announce that we are starting a "Bounty" program to help reward outstanding community content.
Content that is selected for the bounty program will be embedded directly in the game for launch, the creators will be listed in the credits, and financial compensation will be provided.
I'll be discussing the details and constraints more over the following weeks on our official Hot Lava discord channel. If you are interested in joining in, stop by and say hi!
We are planning to update Mod Kit to the latest engine version tomorrow.

Update #21 - Detailed Patch Notes
  • Upgraded engine to 2018.3.6f1
  • Added new introductory tiny toy and pogo trials to playground and gym class along with new rewards
  • Released 6 new items: Birdcage, Parrot, Polynesian, Raccoon Tail, and Log
  • Playground x’s and o’s are now interactable
  • Playground steering wheel is now interactable
  • School water fountains are now interactable
  • Course changes to playground pogo trial. This leaderboard has been reset
  • Added chess pieces to Playground
  • Implemented Lex Splorer facial animations, other characters coming soon
  • Fix for vertical surf flick when using low mouse sensitivity
  • Fixed potential cause of player’s camera being locked at 0,0,0
  • Fix Buddy occasionally not held correctly after intro or restart
  • Fixed lobster trap on top of molasses barrels in Wholesale
  • Prevent binding inputs on French computers from breaking the game
  • Make playing teeter totter with other players more “realistic”
  • Fixed issue with replays disappearing early
  • Fixed bloom missing in Menu
  • Revert to default when input bindings are corrupted
  • Added more ambient sound to Intermediate area of Playground’s Overworld to match the soundscape of the Recess area
  • Added path to jump back over from Intermediate area of Playground Overworld if you get over without unlocking that section
  • Added variation to sand in Intermediate section of Playground
  • Optimized terrain in Playground
  • Prevent tree rustle audio from invisible trees (potato mode)
  • Fix intro animations playing sfx at double volume
  • Added impact sfx to throwable Pizza Slice
  • Make AFK plane sfx more realistic
  • New Decal UI sfx
  • Improve teeter totter sounds
  • Fix Pinny glass texture
  • Fixed a couple cases of null reference output log spam


Modkit Update
  • Upgraded modkit to use Unity 2018.3.6f1. You will need to download this version of Unity
  • Divided up the art packages even more to help improve download size and import time
  • Setup your own things that spin, move, or swap with TouchableButton (use Layer Pickable)
  • water_fountain_01 may show as missing swap it with a new water_fountain_01
  • Pickable layer no longer has collision

Update #20 - Big Kids Side*



Detailed Patch Notes
  • Second course called “Intermediate” added to Playground
  • “Explore mode” added to Playground
  • Added 3d-glasses and bicycle helmet cosmetic items
  • Don't allow push to talk during text chat
  • Fixed Trampoline bounce consistency. Trampolines should be more responsive when landing on them at shallow angles.
  • Tuning to surf flick exit requirements, surf flicks should now be more accurate to where you are facing after a flick.
  • Removed superfluous and annoying Boost deceleration audio feedback
  • Re-work of Player Foley sounds to be active only on Local Player
  • Optimized lighting Tutorial for better framerate
  • Optimized lighting in Mastery for better framerate
  • Updated lighting in Playground
  • Add AFK car and airplane animation sounds
  • Minor gameplay tweaks to Wholesale course #1
  • Improve Potato detection for default graphics settings
  • Unity upgraded to 2018.3, including a new version of PhysX, to improve performance
  • Upgraded to .NET 4.0 runtime to improve performance
  • Reduced memory used by dynamic lava
  • New IK system to constrain arms when reaching
  • Disabled dynamic batching
  • Optimized VFX


Hot Fix #1
  • Fixed killer meat in Wholesale
  • Fixed Wholesale railing collision
  • Fixed missing oak tree in potato mode of Intermediate course
  • New art for tube slide
  • Flipped helper arrow in Intermediate course
  • Fixed broken triggers in custom levels
  • Fixed some pink materials in custom levels
  • Removed posts in Intermediate course that were too easy of a skip
  • Added missing collision along retaining wall in Intermediate course
  • Filled in holes of jersey barrier models that allowed you to see through the world
  • Filled in hole in lava play plane kill triggers
  • Reset times on Intermediate course of Playground after removing exploits
  • Fixed missing collision on oak tree in Intermediate area
  • Upgraded fmod versions
  • Integrated a more performant Ambient Occlusion shader


Hot Fix #2
  • Fixed startup crash on system with multiple languages
  • Added new command line options to clear key bindings at startup "-restore_default_input" and "-save_default_input"