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Fantastic Contraption News

Now supporting Seated and Standing modes

The version 1.5.0 update, aka Kaiju Update, is so big, it’s Godzilla big. Because now you are the monstrous, lazer-breathing beast that hovers over Fantastic Contraption levels, the contraptions and wee Neko so tiny and innocent down there on the ground. Yes we do love room scale, but there are times and places where you just want to reach over your entire contraption without walking across the room.

And so we present: Kaiju Scale.



You can scale from 50% of regular room scale size, which can be comfortably played while standing in one place, way down to 10% roomscale which feels like playing with a miniature set of contraption pieces about the size of Lego. The controller flowers shrink down to smaller precision buds so you can more easily see what you’re doing in this tiny, detailed little world.

If your VR hardware is configured for a small space, the Room Setup menu will appear automatically the first time you play. You can force Fantastic Contraption into Kaiju Scale and reconfigure your space via the companion menu on your monitor:



We've also added Steam Workshop modding support, contraption favoriting, new avatars and a ton of other features. Visit our dev blog for more about it.

Changelog


  • Kaiju Scale: full support for playing in smaller spaces including seated. (Re)configure world size and orientation via the companion menu on your monitor (settings > standing scale > configure standing). Config will automatically run once if SteamVR is set to “Standing Only”.
  • Steam Workshop support for modding Neko skins. See http://steamcommunity.com/app/386690/workshop/ and http://northwaygames.com/contraption-modding/
  • Workshop support for other languages. See http://steamcommunity.com/app/386690/workshop/ and http://northwaygames.com/contraption-modding/
  • Japanese language support. Change language via the companion menu on your monitor. Other languages coming eventually and/or create your own using Steam Workshop.
  • Rate and fave saved contraptions by giving them a smooch
  • Throw level from maquette to frog to delete autosave and revert
  • New avatars and improved avatar model physics
  • Change avatar by using the touchpad while grabbing maquette
  • New avatar hats and improved existing hat models
  • Twitch chat voting on avatars and hats with "!avatar wolf" or "!hat 5", defaults to 60 second rounds. Twitch mods can disable, trigger rounds, or force a change immediately.
  • Avatar shadows
  • Command-line arguments to run in demo mode, eg "-demo". Contact us for full list.
  • Rearranged things in dark world
  • Combined level and contraption save tables into one
  • New look for Neko
  • Highlight Neko's parts when you're close enough to grab them
  • Improve Neko animation performance
  • New look and animation for victory spheres
  • Improve stereo shader rendering
  • Tweaks to tutorial messages
  • Hourglass loading indicator
  • Fade out effects
  • Selection highlighting on camera bug and some other things
  • Sound tweaks
  • Tweak and tune all haptic responses
  • Added arrows to tutorial umbilicals
  • Minor tweaks to several levels (must delete autosaves to see)
  • Hide online contraptions made with newer incompatible game versions
  • Fix helmet obstructing first person companion view
  • Fix error on loading corrupt save files
  • Fix Twitch panel error and bloat
  • Fix SteamVR init crash
  • Fix physics issues caused by variable framerate
  • Fix respawn delay after taking items from Neko
  • Fix hitting start/stop while loading
  • Fix several levels so they'll break less
  • Fix snaps disappearing or being where they shouldn't
  • Fix and tweaks to camera bug
  • Fix Neko's missing eyes on blink with helmet
  • Fix spelling "comfortably"


Experimental: Version 1.4.9 "Kaiju Update" Standing Scale test

Hi everyone! We're getting ready to release a pretty big update and could use your help testing it!

The main feature we'd like to test is the new StandingScale, which let you play as a big person in a smaller contraption world and fits Vive Standing Scale room setups eg standing in place or sitting at a desk / even on the floor!

To force the game into Standing Scale mode in version 1.4.9, Open the companion menu on your monitor (eyeball icon at bottom-left), then pick Settings > Standing Scale > Configure Standing. Please let us know what you think!

To switch to the experimental branch:
  1. Right-click the game in your Steam client Library view and pick Properties.
  2. Switch to the BETAS tab
  3. Select experimental from the dropdown list (no code/password required)
  4. The game will say [experimental] beside it once you are using the experimental branch. If the game doesn't update right away, you can exit and restart the Steam client to force it to look for the update.
  5. If you find any bugs, please report them from inside the game in the feedback box on your monitor


Full changelog:

  • Kaiju Scale: full support for playing in smaller spaces including seated. (Re)configure world size and orientation via the companion menu on your monitor (settings > standing scale > configure standing). Config will automatically run once if SteamVR is set to “Standing Only”.
  • Steam Workshop support for modding Neko skins. See http://steamcommunity.com/app/386690/workshop/ and http://northwaygames.com/contraption-modding/
  • Workshop support for other languages. See http://steamcommunity.com/app/386690/workshop/ and http://northwaygames.com/contraption-modding/
  • Japanese language support. Change language via the companion menu on your monitor. Other languages coming eventually and/or create your own using Steam Workshop.
  • Rate and fave saved contraptions by giving them a smooch
  • Throw level from maquette to frog to delete autosave and revert
  • New avatars and improved avatar model physics
  • Change avatar by squeezing grip while grabbing maquette
  • New avatar hats and improved existing hat models
  • Twitch chat voting on avatars and hats with "!avatar wolf" or "!hat 5", defaults to 60 second rounds. Twitch mods can disable, trigger rounds, or force a change immediately.
  • Avatar shadows
  • Command-line arguments to run in demo mode, eg "-demo". Contact us for full list.
  • Rearranged things in dark world
  • Combined level and contraption save tables into one
  • New look for Neko
  • Highlight Neko's parts when you're close enough to grab them
  • Improve Neko animation performance
  • New look and animation for victory spheres
  • Improve stereo shader rendering
  • Tweaks to tutorial messages
  • Hourglass loading indicator
  • Fade out effects
  • Selection highlighting on camera bug and some other things
  • Sound tweaks
  • Tweak and tune all haptic responses
  • Added arrows to tutorial umbilicals
  • Minor tweaks to several levels (must delete autosaves to see)
  • Hide online contraptions made with newer incompatible game versions
  • Fix helmet obstructing first person companion view
  • Fix error on loading corrupt save files
  • Fix Twitch panel error and bloat
  • Fix SteamVR init crash
  • Fix physics issues caused by variable framerate
  • Fix respawn delay after taking items from Neko
  • Fix hitting start/stop while loading
  • Fix several levels so they'll break less
  • Fix snaps disappearing or being where they shouldn't
  • Fix and tweaks to camera bug
  • Fix Neko's missing eyes on blink with helmet
  • Fix spelling "comfortably"

Experimental: Version 1.4.9 "Kaiju Update" Standing Scale test

Hi everyone! We're getting ready to release a pretty big update and could use your help testing it!

The main feature we'd like to test is the new StandingScale, which let you play as a big person in a smaller contraption world and fits Vive Standing Scale room setups eg standing in place or sitting at a desk / even on the floor!

To force the game into Standing Scale mode in version 1.4.9, Open the companion menu on your monitor (eyeball icon at bottom-left), then pick Settings > Standing Scale > Configure Standing. Please let us know what you think!

To switch to the experimental branch:
  1. Right-click the game in your Steam client Library view and pick Properties.
  2. Switch to the BETAS tab
  3. Select experimental from the dropdown list (no code/password required)
  4. The game will say [experimental] beside it once you are using the experimental branch. If the game doesn't update right away, you can exit and restart the Steam client to force it to look for the update.
  5. If you find any bugs, please report them from inside the game in the feedback box on your monitor


Full changelog:

  • Kaiju Scale: full support for playing in smaller spaces including seated. (Re)configure world size and orientation via the companion menu on your monitor (settings > standing scale > configure standing). Config will automatically run once if SteamVR is set to “Standing Only”.
  • Steam Workshop support for modding Neko skins. See http://steamcommunity.com/app/386690/workshop/ and http://northwaygames.com/contraption-modding/
  • Workshop support for other languages. See http://steamcommunity.com/app/386690/workshop/ and http://northwaygames.com/contraption-modding/
  • Japanese language support. Change language via the companion menu on your monitor. Other languages coming eventually and/or create your own using Steam Workshop.
  • Rate and fave saved contraptions by giving them a smooch
  • Throw level from maquette to frog to delete autosave and revert
  • New avatars and improved avatar model physics
  • Change avatar by squeezing grip while grabbing maquette
  • New avatar hats and improved existing hat models
  • Twitch chat voting on avatars and hats with "!avatar wolf" or "!hat 5", defaults to 60 second rounds. Twitch mods can disable, trigger rounds, or force a change immediately.
  • Avatar shadows
  • Command-line arguments to run in demo mode, eg "-demo". Contact us for full list.
  • Rearranged things in dark world
  • Combined level and contraption save tables into one
  • New look for Neko
  • Highlight Neko's parts when you're close enough to grab them
  • Improve Neko animation performance
  • New look and animation for victory spheres
  • Improve stereo shader rendering
  • Tweaks to tutorial messages
  • Hourglass loading indicator
  • Fade out effects
  • Selection highlighting on camera bug and some other things
  • Sound tweaks
  • Tweak and tune all haptic responses
  • Added arrows to tutorial umbilicals
  • Minor tweaks to several levels (must delete autosaves to see)
  • Hide online contraptions made with newer incompatible game versions
  • Fix helmet obstructing first person companion view
  • Fix error on loading corrupt save files
  • Fix Twitch panel error and bloat
  • Fix SteamVR init crash
  • Fix physics issues caused by variable framerate
  • Fix respawn delay after taking items from Neko
  • Fix hitting start/stop while loading
  • Fix several levels so they'll break less
  • Fix snaps disappearing or being where they shouldn't
  • Fix and tweaks to camera bug
  • Fix Neko's missing eyes on blink with helmet
  • Fix spelling "comfortably"

V1.1.4 now available

We've fixed a bug that has been plaguing the game since it's very inception - the occasional and rare "joints break apart on their own" bug!

Special thanks to Spike for spotting that we hadn't fixed it (for the third time) and his efforts in helping us narrow things down. We couldn't figure out how to reproduce it, though, and we thought we were back at square one...

Until we happened to find and reproduce the bug during a live stream! If you've ever wanted to know what it looks like to hunt down a mind-bending bug, we've stored a copy of the video in the youtube archives. It's not our best production work but it's an accurate representation of game programming in general - hours of hunting down a single line of code that sometimes, maybe, produces bad results.

For the curious, it all had to do with how long you held on to a snap on the end of a stick combined with a weird engine glitch. We never reproduced it because we never held onto the sticks long enough! Contraptions were more likely to break apart the more thoughtful and pondering your playstyle was.

v1.1.4 should now be available for everyone on the default branch. Happy contraptioning!

V1.1.4 now available

We've fixed a bug that has been plaguing the game since it's very inception - the occasional and rare "joints break apart on their own" bug!

Special thanks to Spike for spotting that we hadn't fixed it (for the third time) and his efforts in helping us narrow things down. We couldn't figure out how to reproduce it, though, and we thought we were back at square one...

Until we happened to find and reproduce the bug during a live stream! If you've ever wanted to know what it looks like to hunt down a mind-bending bug, we've stored a copy of the video in the youtube archives. It's not our best production work but it's an accurate representation of game programming in general - hours of hunting down a single line of code that sometimes, maybe, produces bad results.

For the curious, it all had to do with how long you held on to a snap on the end of a stick combined with a weird engine glitch. We never reproduced it because we never held onto the sticks long enough! Contraptions were more likely to break apart the more thoughtful and pondering your playstyle was.

v1.1.4 should now be available for everyone on the default branch. Happy contraptioning!